The botched hanging of Saddam has elevated him to the pantheon of Muslim mythology. Taunted by his enemies, refused a last cigarette, prohibited from finishing his prayers, old Saddam won his last battle by appearing and then disappearing as a heroic victim. To the Arabs and most of the World the state execution of Saddam looked more like a lynch mob. He will be forever the iconic picture of Arab victim-hood. A World-Class martyrdom operation.It would have been hard to imagine and predict how the "Butcher of Baghdad" could have been made to look tough and noble while being hanged for murder. Another mission accomplished.
And another good idea from the psyops masters in Washington was the setting up of the prison in Guantanamo Bay. The theory appears to be that we would take prisoners in Afghanistan and spend one hundred million dollars each to have American Military Police hand them Qurans with white gloved hands, provide them with ethnically appropriate food and arrange for Islamic prayer times. Rather than shooting illegal combatants on the spot, the Administration had a better idea. I have yet to decipher what it was.
This gets better and better all the time. Let me stay with the short version. It is a FUBAR decision from an Administration that has been exquisite in never missing an opportunity to screw up an opportunity. Here is the latest on this PR fiasco. It seems the Administration is bored with handing out Qurans so in a change of tactics they are now handing out prisoners.
On 19 May 2006,the BBC reported that fifteen Guantanamo Saudis were freed and returned to Saudi Arabia. That left about 460 detainees left at Guantanamo, 100 of which were Saudis.
At the time, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said an understanding had been reached with the Saudi government over their release.
Mr McCormack said: "We were able to assure ourselves that if these people were returned to Saudi Arabia that they wouldn't be tortured and they would be treated humanely."
Mr, McCormack got his wish. Sean need not have frayed his worry towel. The State Department prevailed in the mission of begging for Saudi understanding for the prisoners.
Saudi Arabia Frees 18 Former Guantanamo Detainees
By VOA News VOA News
26 December 2006
Saudi Arabia's interior ministry says the government has freed 18 people who were serving jail terms in the kingdom after being released from a U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The official Saudi Press Agency quoted interior ministry spokesman Mansour bin Sultan Al-Turki as saying the men were freed "after meeting necessary legal conditions."
The spokesman said Saudi Arabia will continue efforts to gain the release of all its nationals held at the U.S. detention center. He did not say how many Saudis are still held at Guantanamo.
The men freed Tuesday were among 29 people (28 Saudi nationals and one resident) the United States handed over to Saudi Arabia this year. The Gulf state had released 11 of the men earlier this month.
Most of the detainees at the U.S. facility are designated "enemy combatants," captured in Afghanistan in the U.S.-led war to oust the Taleban, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Well I have to continue my morning mourning for Gerry Ford and my interrupted cash flow.
Ford only had 60 times as many vetos as the decider in Chief, so I guess he's due.
ReplyDelete---
Meghan O'Sullivan
New Evidence of Her Hotness
(and then there's the young Barbie Doll daughter of the General in charge of Border Security and such.)
Sleep well, "adults" are at the controls.
Sesame Street Goes to Washington
ReplyDeleteThey headed off to college as the Berlin Wall was coming down, were inspired by globalization and came of age with international terrorism. Freed from a constant nuclear standoff as a dominant fact of international life, members of Generation X no longer fear war or upheaval in the global status quo.
Understand them -- and where they came from -- and suddenly President Bush's Middle East forays, grand democratic experiments and go-it-alone strategies take on a different look.
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A new generation, a new outlook: Members of the National Security Council include, from left, Michelle Davis, John Simon, Michael Allen, Frederick Jones (kneeling), William Inboden, John Rood, Juan Zarate, Michelle Malvesti and Meghan O'Sullivan. "We all built careers in the post-Cold War world," explains 36-year-old O'Sullivan. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
Related Story
Look Who's Running the World Now
The Dick Cheney era in foreign policy is over, but it's unclear whether Condoleezza Rice and her staff will be able to pick up the pieces.
That's because nearly a dozen thirtysomething aides, breastfed on "Sesame Street" and babysat by "The Brady Bunch," are now shaping those strategies in unexpected ways as senior advisers at the National Security Council, the White House's powerful inner chamber of foreign policy aides with routine access to Bush. This small group of conservative Gen Xers -- members of an age cohort once all but written off as stand-for-nothing underachievers -- is the first set of American policymakers truly at home in a unipolar world.
Their adulthood has never included a fellow superpower or the need to reach accommodation with an enemy -- a Cold War concept none of the NSC's Gen-X crowd can get their heads around. Instead, their history begins with Sept. 11, 2001.
The Vietnam war was waning just as O'Sullivan was becoming cognizant of the world, a kid in suburban Boston.
ReplyDeleteToday, she is charged with guiding President Bush's strategy on Iraq after already having served as a senior adviser in Baghdad shaping the interim Iraqi government.
O'Sullivan, a striking redhead who once interned for the late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (N.Y.), spent her twenties devising radical new tools for dealing with "rogue states" and is widely credited with helping to develop the concept of "smart sanctions" -- a twist on economic pressures that aimed at hobbling regimes, rather than the people they rule over.
We would have had a better chance if he had thrown those magic sticks for advice.
ReplyDeleteChance beats determined naivte.
"Ultimately, democracy in Iraq will help the United States and the international community defeat terrorism and extremism. Democracy and self-government are powerful – and peaceful – weapons in the effort to undermine the discontent and alienation that so many people in the Middle East now feel. A successful democracy in Iraq will demolish the argument of the al-Qaedas of the world, who believe that only violence and destruction can bring salvation in the eyes of God.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy in Iraq – and potentially in the Middle East more broadly
– will show the full compatibility of Islam with human rights and good government. "
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20050628.html
Meghan O'Sullivan
ReplyDeleteAlthough the President and Prime Minister Ja’afari had spoken on the phone in the past, they met for the first time on Friday.
They immediately established a good relationship, and spent a good deal of time talking about the things that matter to them most:
family, a personal commitment to religion, and importance of democracy and freedom.
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The Teacher gave them five stars and a Grahmcracker and Milk Break.
Our Propaganda war needs a Willy Wonka of the Victim-Making Martyr Factory.
ReplyDeleteImagine the imam whose burqa wearing daughter found a golden ticket. How would they meet their demise?
I bet they'd never make it past the Israeli roadblock, even the psychedelic ones that imprison their subconscious.
Oompa Loompa Doopity Doo...
"I just wanted to fantasize about Angelina Jolie but Israel bombed by imagination cloud."
ReplyDeletebecurled jew, pin in hand, popping Pali dreams, thoughts and wonder bubbles before they can conjure up the next smallest nm die process.
Muslim male, master of rhetorical beards asks, "Where is the Justice?"
"Israel shits upon us while confiscating out proud bidets," their second most profitable export item next to Olive & Date medley.
Spritz the Medley Bits w/Waters of Bidet.
ReplyDelete(comments on the "Hottie" Pic)
ReplyDeleteIs she staring directly into a fan? Or was an unhealthy amount of hairspray applied to get the cobra hood thing going?
She's definitely cute, but I have to say that in all the pics of her posted here, she never smiles which kind of creeps me out.
06/22/06 01:32 PM
Barnacle says:
I dunno if she'd win, that David Copley sure is purty.
06/22/06 01:51 PM
papalovesmambo says:
having dated a redhead (and almost losing both of our lives and sanity in the process) i sleep better knowing she's deputy nsa.
Can't get enough of your love, babe:
ReplyDelete---
Just ten days after the attacks -- and less than 24 hours after Mr. Bush's famous address -- Miss O'Sullivan forcefully argued against the president's moral clarity.
At a panel discussion, she claimed that the "state sponsors of terrorism" label is counterproductive for fighting terrorism. She reasoned that some states' support "involves simply letting groups come in and out of their territory to operate."
Though she did not mention him at all by name, it was a clear swipe at Mr. Bush, who the previous night famously stated, "Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
Most striking about Miss O'Sullivan's comments that day is that September 11 actually strengthened her "nuanced" view of terrorism. She remarked, "I would say that this new environment provides an opportunity to unlump this category of countries."
Why people don't regard W's obsession w/kissing up to those that kick him in the balls as a pathological condition is beyond me.
ReplyDelete---
Maybe SHE'LL get a Medal of Freedom too?
She reasoned that some states' support "involves simply letting groups come in and out of their territory to operate."
ReplyDelete---
Babs Bodine would like that.
Good thing she got rid of John Oneill.
...so to speak.
Aspergers said, "Imagine the imam whose burqa wearing daughter found a golden ticket. How would they meet their demise?"
ReplyDeleteThey'd fall into a machine and be turned into matzoh-covered pork rinds.
Woman Catholic said...
ReplyDeleteTrish said, "I'll stick with the Incomparably Grumpy Old Men and One Pithy Lesbian. And Rufus..."
It's like Mark Twain said, "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
Tue Jan 02, 09:06:51 AM EST
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rufus said...
Ye Gads, I think it IS a Freak'in Train!
SHIT!
I realized to my shocked and awed dismayment that I posted draft 1 instead of draft 2. Those of you who do not read the posts will have been spared. Those that do will hardly notice the difference. House rules do allow for revise and resubmits at any time.
ReplyDeleteNow I must return to my mourning.
Doug said, "The Vietnam war was waning just as O'Sullivan was becoming cognizant of the world, a kid in suburban Boston. Today, she is charged with guiding President Bush's strategy on Iraq..."
ReplyDeleteDoug, you're on this O'Sullivan chick like Allen was on Colonel Murphy a couple weeks ago, but at least the spectacle of that won't raise so many eyebrows in Republican Land.
How embarrassing, Saddam's hanging turns him from (spit) genocidal mass murderer to victim in the blink of an eye, swing of a noose and flash of a shutter.
ReplyDeleteInstead of hanging him, they should of dragged down MSR Tampa behind a HMWVV. Wouldn't have played much worse in the MSM, but at least then we would have got to hear him scream.
I have odd dreams about Rome, how defeated barbarian kings were paraded in a cage through the streets before execution. And the likes of gitmo detainees were crucified. The will to win. Romans, replete with short swords and pilum, could still kick the snivelling West's high tech collective ass today.
What is latvian for semper fi?
ReplyDeleteMya I quote you trish from a recent post?
ReplyDelete"roger that."
OBL?
ReplyDeleteI favor "shot while trying to escape".
In the back.
Thereby accidentally pitching him, mortally wounded but still alive, into a pig pen full of hungry hogs. Where a camera team from CNN, Al Jazeera and the BBC just happen to be filming. Out of respect for animals rights, recovering the body might be delayed a few minutes.
May not be a real credible "accident", but it'd send a message just fine.
Not many pig farms in Afghanistan/Pakistan, true, but its amazing what will fit into the back of a C-130.
Fellow Peacekeeper said, "Saddam's hanging turns him from (spit) genocidal mass murderer to victim in the blink of an eye, swing of a noose and flash of a shutter. "
ReplyDeleteSo when are the libs going to coddle the criminals who made a victim out of Saddam? Liberal Rule #16: Coddle criminals, who cares about the victims!
Osama Lives!
ReplyDeleteForever, without his head on a pike, at the gates of DC.
Osama will ride by the side of the 12th Imama, even though their sects differ. All for one and one for allah.
The Iraq Campaign has been riddled with ineptitude. Whether allen's puesgo Air Force lawyer, doug's redhead, US Generals, the Freemason or the Knoghts Templar are to blame matters just a smidgen.
The Lesson Learned is clear.
If the "War" cannot be wrapped up in ninety days, stay home.
The Departmennt of Defense cannot defend US through a "Long War". They do not have the ability to win on the Home Front.
As both Mr Bush and Ms Rice told US in 1990, the US ilitary makes for poor policemen. They proved themselves correct.
Doug said, "Just ten days after the attacks -- and less than 24 hours after Mr. Bush's famous address -- Miss O'Sullivan forcefully argued against the president's moral clarity."
ReplyDeleteSo the neo-cons have found their scapegoat for losing the war, and she wears a skirt. This way Michael Rubin can keep people from looking too closely at his pipe dreams of arab democracy, and he can appeal to the misogynistic crowd at the same time.
ur amigo over at Westhawk, Robert Haddick, is published at TCS, again. Linked to by RealClearPolitics. Moving up in the world of punditency without a whole lot of comments on his threads.
ReplyDelete"Bush Risks Losing Control of Iraq Policy"
is the title.
Link here
So there you go.
Well, rufus, I read this paragraph by Bob Novak and thought, immediately, of you:
ReplyDelete"... Even in Mississippi, the reddest of red states where Bush's approval rating has just inched above 50 percent, Republicans see no public support for more troops. What is happening inside the president's party is reflected by defection from support for his war policy after November's election by two Republican senators who face an uphill race for re-election in 2008: Gordon Smith of Oregon and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Coleman announced his opposition to more troops after returning from a trip to Iraq preceding McCain's.
Among Democrats, Lieberman stands alone. Sen. Joseph Biden, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, leads the rest of the Democrats not only to oppose a surge but to block it. ..."
"And another good idea from the psyops masters in Washington was the setting up of the prison in Guantanamo Bay. The theory appears to be that we would take prisoners in Afghanistan and spend one hundred million dollars each to have American Military Police hand them Qurans with white gloved hands, provide them with ethnically appropriate food and arrange for Islamic prayer times. Rather than shooting illegal combatants on the spot, the Administration had a better idea. I have yet to decipher what it was."
ReplyDeleteWe made a conscious decision early on that we would, and could afford to, fight a politically correct war that would avoid having it out with the fifth collumnists amongst us. That if only we kept people like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the lawyers, and all the rest of the hand-wringers on our side for a few more years, we'd be able to wrap this up without doing what was necessary.
Instead we're stuck in this nightmare putting up with, and giving credence to, their political nonsense.
Should have began executing them on 9-12, and then perhaps negotiated downward small steps from there, after taking our own price for doing so all along the way.
Good Day!!! 2164th.blogspot.com is one of the most outstanding innovative websites of its kind. I take advantage of reading it every day. All the best.
ReplyDelete