According to Ralph Peters’ latest NY Post column, al Qa’ida’s stock is about to bottom out. Col. Peters doesn’t think it’ll recover, either. Here’s his harshest words, directed at the Democrats, though he doesn’t do it by name:

The partisan hacks who insisted that Iraq was a distraction from fighting al Qaeda have missed the situation’s irony: Things are getting worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan not because our attention was elsewhere, but because al Qaeda has been driven from the Arab world, with nowhere else to go. Al Qaeda isn’t fighting to revive the Caliphate these days. It’s fighting for its life.

I’ll remind everyone that Ralph Peters isn’t a pro-Bush shill. This is simply his honest opinion on the trouble al-Qa’ida is in. That he’s saying that al-Qa’ida is fighting for its life is pretty dramatic. Col. Peters isn’t given to making such statements very often.

Where do Osama & Co. stand today? They’re not welcome in a single Arab country. The Saudi royals not only cut off their funding, but cracked down hard within the kingdom. A few countries, such as Yemen, tolerate radicals out in the boonies but they won’t let al Qaeda in. Osama’s reps couldn’t even get extended-stay rooms in Somalia, beyond the borders of the Arab world. (continue reading post »)

It would’ve been so much fun having Jesse Ventura in the race this time. I found this blurb on him in Charlie Walters’ column this morning:

DON’T PRINT THAT

Former governor Jesse Ventura, who is a member at the TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, site of the 3M Championship, showed up at the course Thursday to play in a pro-am driving his Porsche with a sticker on the back window that read “9-11 was an inside job.”

Ventura left the course to do an interview with the Middle East network Al Jazeera.

“I prefer Al Jazeera to the Minnesota media,” Ventura said. “I’ll talk to them; I won’t talk to you.”

It’s one thing for Jesse to not like parts of the Twin Cities’ media. Lord knows that I’ve ripped some of the buffoons currently littering the media landscape. It’s quite another to say that he prefers propagandists like al-Jazeera and that 9/11 was an inside job.

Jesse’s living proof that only buffoons thinks that 9/11 was an inside job.

It would’ve been fun having Jesse in this race solely for the quotes we would’ve gotten from him. He would’ve been a blogger’s full employment act. He might’ve even made Al Franken look relatively sane.

Technorati Tags: 9/11, Truther, Jesse Ventura, Al Franken, al-Jazeera, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Though you’d never know it from the NY Times’ front page or the lead story on NBC, it’s fact that Muqtada al-Sadr’s regime is crumbling. Here’s the political situation in Iraq:

Already Mr. Sadr’s partisans and members of his Mahdi Army militia believe that ISCI and its affiliate party, the Badr Organization, previously known as the Badr Brigade and ISCI’s armed wing, instigated the recent US-Iraqi military operations against the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq and Baghdad. They allege it was part of an ISCI/Badr plot to dismantle Sadr’s organization ahead of elections.

On Friday, Sheikh Salim al-Darraji, an ISCI official based in Basra, was assassinated in a part of the city traditionally controlled by Sadrists. It comes one week after Basra’s chief of military intelligence was killed in a predominantly Shiite part of eastern Baghdad.

The ultimate goal of ISCI and Badr is to consolidate their grip on southern Iraq and to create a nine-province Shiite region on par with the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north. This is a subject of great controversy among many Iraqis, including the Sadrists.

“We believe the elections are extremely important. We will run jointly with (ISCI). We both have a significant base of public support,” says Hadi al-Ameri, Badr’s leader and a senior member of the Iraqi parliament.

ISCI was part of the Shiite coalition during the JJanuary and December elections in 2005. Now they’re the dominant force in a major political coalition in October’s elections. Wisely, they’ve chosen to align themselves with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Here’s an example of Badr’s blunt talk about Sadr: (continue reading post »)

If you didn’t read this Times Online article, you’d likely never know that AQI is getting their heads handed to them in Mosul. But that’s exactly what’s happening:

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.

The first question that liberals will undoubtedly ask is what this operation has to do with keeping us safe. That’s a fair question, one which I’ll answer this way: (continue reading post »)

Yesterday, I posted about Ralph Peters’ column in which he debunks the whoppers thats Democrats have told about Iraq. Gateway Pundit just posted the YouTube of Col. Peters’ appearance on last night’s Geraldo At-Large. It’s simply the best anti-Reid/Pelosi refutation known to mankind. Here’s a partial transcript of Peters:

I think it’s easy to get wrapped up with details but this isn’t one or two little things going right. for the last eighteen months, the positive trendlines have been overwhelmingly positive. The Iraqi military has been doing a remarkably good job. Even last year, the Iraqi parliament passed more pieces of major legislation than the U.S. Congress. Our troops can now focus on killing the remnants of al-Qaeda, killing the key Shia militia leaders and Iranian special groups. Every major city in Iraq is now in the hands of Iraqi security forces, backed by the U.S. forces. And on top of all this, Geraldo, al-Qaeda suffered a collosal strategic defeat by declaring Iraq their central front, then having Sunni Arabs turn on them by the millions. al-Qaeda is a broken organization, not defanged entirely, but broken. (continue reading post »)

That’s essentially the question Ralph Peters is asking in this column. Based the evidence, it’s clear that we’re safer now than we were during the Clinton administration. Here’s the first proof Col. Peters offers:

Whopper No. 1: America is less safe today than it was on Sept. 10, 2001. Oh, really? Where’s the evidence? The Clinton years saw New York City attacked and Americans slaughtered by terrorists around the globe. Nothing was done to protect us.

And the true end of the Clinton era came on 9/11. A record to be proud of.

Democrats have put forth their propaganda for the past 6+ years and no one’s called them on it. Until now. Allegations aren’t proof. Allegations shouldn’t be treated with respect. They should be ridiculed, which is what’s happening in Col. Peters’ column.

Whopper No. 2: Al Qaeda is stronger than ever. Al Qaeda just suffered a strategic defeat in Iraq that may prove decisive. It can’t launch attacks beyond its regional lairs. The cowardly Osama bin Laden can’t show his face (remember his Clinton-era pep rallies?).

Yes, terrorists can still murder innocents on their home court. I personally prefer that to them killing Americans in Manhattan and Washington. Even in Iraq, al Qaeda’s been beaten down to violent-fugitive status. (continue reading post »)

Initially, Russ Feingold said that he’d fight the FISA legislation currently making its way through the Senate but that he wouldn’t filibuster it. When his Nutroots puppeteers heard that, they changed his mind fast. Now he’s singing a totally different tune. Here’s some of the new ‘lyrics’:

The Wisconsin Democrat voiced considerable frustration with members of his own party, who, he says, have enabled the sweeping new legislation. “Sen. Dodd and I and Sen. Leahy are going to do everything we can to stop this mistake,” Feingold noted, referring to fellow opponents of the bill. “But I’m extremely concerned that not only virtually every Republican… but far too many Democrats will vote the wrong way.”

“We met with Sen. Reid on Friday morning,” said Feingold, speaking of himself and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., “and we indicated our desire that this thing not just be jammed through, we’ll be requiring key procedural votes and we’ll also be taking some time on the floor this week to indicate the problems with this legislation.”

While Feingold hasn’t changed his mind on the legislation being awful, he’s changed his mind on whether he’d attempt to stop it with a filibuster and through procedural votes. Democrats can’t be seen as not getting a FISA reform bill to President Bush’s desk before the current set of warrants expire.

If those warrants expire, Republicans will spend August telling the voters that Democrats put their trial attorney allies’ priorities ahead of national security. It’s unlikely that Democrats will want to be put in that defensive posture for an entire month, especially since they’re already in a defensive position on oil exploration. (continue reading post »)

Following the Supreme Court’s idiotic ruling giving terrorists the same rights as a street criminal, Sen. Dianne Feinstein is now saying that Gitmo was a blight on the integrity of the United States. Here’s what she said specifically:

“Guantanamo has been a terrible blight on the integrity of this nation,” says Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who has proposed closing the prison complex.

This is typical Democrat thinking on foreign policy. They say these things because they’re more worried about being popular than respected. In fact, they worry more about being popular than being safe. Their go-along-to-get-along attitude isn’t keeping American safe.

What’s keeping America safe is George Bush’s policy of attacking terrorists where they live. President Bush hasn’t given the terrorists any breathing room. As a result, we’ve gone almost 7 years without a terrorist attack. That didn’t happen by accident. Because President Bush had the wisdom to implement this aggressive policy, we’ve been protected. (continue reading post »)

Now that Sen. Obama has gathered enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination, Sen. McCain has trained his sights on Sen. Obama. In a speech just delivered, Sen. McCain repeatedly challenged Sen. Obama. I suspect that it’ll get underneath Obama’s skin just a little because McCain ridiculed Obama’s slogan of “Change You Can Believe In” against him.

Here’s how Sen. McCain challenged Sen. Obama on Iraq:

I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding where the previous strategy had failed miserably. I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I was criticized by the press. But I don’t answer to them. I answer to you. And I would be ashamed to admit I knew what had to be done in Iraq to spare us from a defeat that would endanger us for years, but I kept quiet because it was too politically hard for me to do. No ambition is more important to me than the security of the country I have defended all my adult life.

Senator Obama opposed the new strategy, and, after promising not to, voted to deny funds to the soldiers who have done a brilliant and brave job of carrying it out. Yet in the last year we have seen the success of that plan as violence has fallen to a four year low; Sunni insurgents have joined us in the fight against al Qaeda; the Iraqi Army has taken the lead in places once lost to Sunni and Shia extremists; and the Iraqi Government has begun to make progress toward political reconciliation. (continue reading post »)

Last week, when Gen. David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill, Gen. Petraeus could report alot of positives. As a result, Sen. Carl Levin had to make a stunning admission. Here’s what Sen. Levin said:

“Regardless of one’s view of the wisdom of the policy that took us to Iraq in the first place and has kept us there over five years, we owe Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Odierno a debt of gratitude,” said Sen. Carl Levin. “And regardless how long the administration may choose to remain engaged in the strife in that country, our troops are better off with the leadership these two distinguished soldiers provide.”

John Murtha must’ve been upset when he read that quote last week. Murtha spent almost 2 years telling anyone who’d listen that there wasn’t a military solution to Iraq. Now that the Surge has worked, it’s impossible to argue that we didn’t need a military component to solving the troubles in Iraq.

Because of his arrogant predictions, Murtha should be subjected to healthy helpings of ridicule. In fact, if you couple Gen. Petraeus’ testimony with Amb. Crocker’s statement, you’d have to conclude that the Surge is succeeding on all fronts: (continue reading post »)