Funny Video, Unfunny Cause

Here's a comedian's spoof of what it would be like if Australian David Hicks who is currently detained at Gitmo appeared on MTV's Cribs:



Getup.org ruins this comedic video by advertising their website where you can petition for "David's" release. A visit to the site greets you with this message:

Already more than 55,000 people have joined GetUp's petition to the Australian Government, asking our leaders to bring David Hicks home. Vote David Out of the House now, and we'll add your name to the call!

Great. Let's just release poor David, it was obviously a misunderstanding. I should probably note some of the background in what led to him being in Gitmo, however.

First, let's stop calling him David. When he was taking up arms against America in Afghanistan he was known to his terrorist brothers as Abu Muslim al-Austraili (or Mohammed Dawood; remember it's a rule that a Muslim must have at least fourteen names.) According to the over-sympathetic entry on Wikipedia:

[Abu Muslim al-Austraili has been held] ... as an unlawful combatant by the United States Government at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years without trial. According to the U.S. government, Hicks served as a common foot soldier with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But that's just according to the US government, and we all know they would create and elaborate lie and waste man power and money imprisoning an Australian citizen they knew to be innocent.

Later, the man who would never take up arms against the US:

... traveled to Albania, where he joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary organisation of ethnic Albanians fighting against Serbian forces in the Kosovo War, and served with them for two months.

For those of you who are unaware of the KLA they are an organization that:

... was accused of killing Serb civilians and Albanians perceived as being allied to the Yugoslav government. The Yugoslav authorities, the United States and other Western governments (prior to 1999) considered it to be a terrorist organization. Some former members were also widely regarded as being involved in postwar criminal activities and the destabilization of neighboring states in pursuit of a "Greater Albania".

I realize that they were on our side in that particular war, but their goals were far more militant than ours and their tactics were deplorable - yet Abu Muslim al-Austraili had no problem joining up, even posing in some of their bizarre Muslims-with-weapons porn:



I know this is getting winded, so let me get to the good stuff:

On 11 November 1999 Hicks traveled to Pakistan to study Islam. After a period of time he began training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba learning guerrilla warfare, weapons training, including landmines, kidnapping techniques and assassination methods.

Free David Hicks!

[US prosecutors] claim that, on an occasion when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden visited an Afghan camp, Hicks questioned bin Laden about the lack of English in training material and subsequently "began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English". Hicks wrote home that he'd met Osama bin Laden 20 times. But he later told investigators he'd exaggerated. He'd seen bin Laden about eight times and spoken to him once.

It doesn't seem like an innocent Australian travelling through Afghanistan sightseeing would have met Osama eight times, but who am I to judge?

Unfortunately gov't cronies got to Abu's mom:

Hicks spoke to his parents from just outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in November 2001. "He said something about going off to Kabul to defend it against the Northern Alliance," Terry Hicks said.

Anyway, this "Free David Hicks" thing is just another cause for liberal sheep to jump on in order to demonize America. Abu Muslim al-Austraili has shown that he was willing to fight along side those who kill innocent civilians and went to Afghanistan to fight "the Northern Alliance" and met Osama Bin Laden almost a dozen times - if not more.

Side Note: As funny as the video is (and I know, it's only marginally funny) it has the classic trappings of liberal crap in its portrayal of Abu's cell. Here's an actual picture of the very cell he's housed in:



Note the cushioned bed. I guess he didn't have to curl up in that corner for two years. As Wikipedia notes, the window looks into a corridor (you mean he can't see the sky!?!?) and the inset picture is his reading room with no books in it! (He can't read poetry either!?!?!)

I can't believe these detainees even get reading rooms. I will note that there's a book in his main cell.

Malkin Covers The Gathering Of Eagles

Malkin covered the Gathering of Eagles in DC:



The media not only ignored the pro-war demonstrators, but they ignored the fact that 80% of the anti-war crowd seemed to either be Truthers or commies.

Head over to Malkin's blog for more coverage.

Coalition Forces Destroy Anti-Aircraft Gun, Terrorists

So this is an awesome video. It's what some would call military porn:



Hat tip to Allah at Hot Air, who apparently didn't want to find this on YouTube. He says, "It’s true, you can’t win the war through military means alone. But every little bit helps."

Note: The quality is way better if you go to this external site. Maybe that's why Allah didn't use YouTube.

Further Note: I give this video a day before it's labeled "obscene" for portraying the deaths of "heroes trying to defend their homeland from aggressors."

Israeli Killer Robot

Cool:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli defense firm on Thursday unveiled a portable robot billed as being capable of entering most combat zones alone and engaging enemies with an onboard armory that includes a machine-pistol and grenades.

The VIPeR, roughly the size of a small television, was invented as part of Israel's efforts to develop weaponry that could reduce the risks to its forces from hand-to-hand fighting against Palestinian or Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.

The manufacturer, Elbit Systems Ltd., said that the VIPeR's small size and dual treads enable it to move "undeterred by stairs, rubble, dark alleys, caves or narrow tunnels".

As well as bomb-sniffing and bomb disposal equipment, the VIPeR can carry an Uzi machine-pistol or plant a grenade. The weapons would be aimed using an onboard video camera.

According to Elbit, which has close links with the Defense Ministry, Israel plans to deploy the VIPeR among its infantry units after field tests. The robot could also be of interest to foreign police units or U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sound almost as cool as their robot bee assassin. Actually, this sounds more feasible.

I think this is a picture of it:

Grim Milestone In Terrorist Deaths

Terrorist Death Watch has the number of terrorists killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of 2006 at a little over 3,000 (as of now.)

Hat tip to Ace and Ace of Spades HQ, who has this comment:

If Coalition KIA's are a useful metric for guaging [sic] the success of the terrorists (and failure of American policy), why is it that terrorist KIA's are never cited by the MSM as a metric of guaging [sic] the success of American troops?

The problem is that the left just sees terrorist deaths as another reason to be against the Iraq war, after all, it was our imperialistic, oil-centric foreign policy that made them terrorists in the first place.

Badass!

Hat tip to Ace of Spades HQ:

He did it all for the paycheck, of course.

He will be fondly remembered. Even better, he gets to do some of the remembering himself, because he followed Patton's rule:

As ANP forces chased the suspect, Coalition forces verbally instructed him to stop. When he did not, they engaged with small arms fire, hitting the bomber several times. A U.S. Soldier wrestled him to the ground, restraining him long enough to allow the crowd of people to move safely away. He was able to break free from the bomber prior to the explosion. He sustained only minor injuries from the blast.

Mercenaries. Is there anything they can't do?

Gitmo At 104

In honor of the anniversary of the US "[assuming] territorial control over Guantánamo Bay under the 1903 Cuban-American Treaty, which granted the United States a perpetual lease of the area," here's a video of Rep. Duncan Hunter describing how horrendously well the inmates at Gitmo are treated:



An historical note: "The current Cuban government rejects the Cuban-American Treaty on the grounds that it violates article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and therefore considers the U.S. presence in Guantánamo to be an illegal occupation of the area." Well that's funny Fidel. Why don't you go ahead and try and take it back. Just give us any reason to hang your sorry ass.

Further note: Leftist moonbats are clearly still editing at will over at Wikipedia, where you'll find this gem:

Recently, the base at Guantánamo Bay began hosting a detainment camp for suspected militant combatants collected (actions that are viewed by some as kidnapping) from both Afghanistan and Iraq, or from secret NATO prisons in Europe (discovered recently, in 2006).

Chlorine Car Bombs In Production

Sounds like the chlorine car-bomb craze is catching on amongst terrorists in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Feb. 22 — American troops on a raid near Falluja discovered three car bombs under construction in a bomb-making factory that appeared intended to be used with chemicals, the chief American military spokesman in Baghdad said today.

Five of the buildings raided by American forces were packed with munitions and chemicals, he said.

The discovery follows three gas attacks in the past month in which insurgents used truck bombs to deploy chlorine, a greenish gas that burns the skin and can be fatal after just a few deep breaths. The latest such bombing on Wednesday in southern Baghdad killed at least two people and wounded 32 others, many exhibiting symptoms of chlorine exposure.

The spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, described the materials found in the raid as 65 propane tanks and ordinary chemicals, but he did not say any chlorine gas was found. He said the troops found “five complete buildings full of these various types of things to include car bombs that were being assembled and put together with propane tanks.

And liberals just can't get it into their pee-sized brains that if we cut-and-run out of Iraq, it won't be long before blood-thirsty terrorists come over here and start setting these bombs off in our streets. This is scaremongering, it's reality and common sense. Iraq is a target-rich environment full of American troops, and yes it has acted like a magnet for terrorist the world over - but that's a good thing. By smoking them out of their various homes and bringing them all to fight in one theater we increase our chances of victory.

As soon as we go back to pre-9/11 days when all of the Americans that you wanted to kill were here in America - well that's right where the terrorists are going to go, just like they did on 9/11.

Detainees Not Covered By US Constitution

What's this? A Court of Appeals decision that makes sense?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision of a law at the center of President Bush's anti- terrorism plan.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.

Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.

The ruling is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.

The Military Commissions Act was crafted in response to that decision and the president hailed it as a necessary tool for bringing terror suspects to justice.

Civil libertarians and leading Democrats decried the law as unconstitutional and a violation of American values. The law allows the government to indefinitely detain foreigners who have been designed as "enemy combatants" and authorizes the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics.

But the most criticized provision of the law was the one stripping U.S. courts of the authority to hear arguments from detainees who said they were being held illegally.

Attorneys argued that the detainees aren't covered by that provision and that the law is unconstitutional.

"The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote.

U.S. citizens and foreigners being held inside the country normally have the right to contest their detention before a judge. The Justice Department said foreign enemy combatants are not protected by the Constitution.

Randolph and Judge David B. Sentelle ordered that the hundreds of cases pending in the lower courts be dismissed.

Judge Judith W. Rogers dissented, saying the cases should proceed.

"District courts are well able to adjust these proceedings in light of the government's significant interests in guarding national security," Rogers wrote.

It's about time. We'll have to see what that oh-so conservative court that Bush "stacked with neocons" has to say about this later on, I guess.

Muslim Hijacks Plane - Passangers Beat Him Into Subbmission

Although governments may have learned nothing from 9/11, at least the civilian population has, beating this Muslim into submission before he could kill anyone:

MADRID (Reuters) - Passengers on a hijacked Air Mauritania plane ended the ordeal when they stormed the cockpit and beat up the lone gunman after the aircraft landed in Spain's Canary Islands on Thursday night, Spanish police said.

As armed police surrounded the Boeing 737 on the runway, five passengers and the co-pilot burst into the cockpit and knocked the hijacker to the ground before beating him up, a police spokesman said.

"When we landed at Las Palmas ... we entered (the cockpit) and hit him and knocked him down," one passenger told television station CNN+.

The fight gave the crew time to let in security forces, who swiftly arrested the man, the police spokesman said.

The article continues:

Passengers said they had been terrified when they realized their internal flight from the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott to the port of Nouadhibou had been seized.

Passenger Jose Manuel told newspaper ABC that fellow travelers, mostly Spaniards, had donned life jackets, thinking the plane was going to crash.

"The plane has been hijacked! You should follow instructions. We are going to Dakhla (In Western Sahara)," the hijacker announced from the cockpit soon after taking control, newspaper El Mundo reported passenger Mohamed Ahmed as saying.

The hijacker, who police said was a 32-year-old Mauritanian man, ordered passengers to the back of the plane and held a gun to the pilot's head but one passenger managed to alert Spanish emergency services by mobile phone, media reported.

The man had demanded the plane fly to Paris, but the pilot told him the plane had to be refueled first. Moroccan authorities refused to let it land in Western Sahara so the 71 passengers and eight crew flew on to the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.

Police have not revealed the hijacker's motive but Spanish media have reported he was seeking political asylum in France.

The hijacking came on same day that Spain began the trial of 29 people, mostly Moroccans, for the 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people, and days after al Qaeda called for attacks on Mauritania's rulers.

I think most of us here in the sane world can guess his motive. The article fails to mention that Mauritania is "officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania" and is "a country in northwest Africa."

But if there's anything that we've learned from the Mainstream media it's that the fact that someone is Muslim is never important, unless of course they're the victim of some crime.

Of course it's completely possible that he was merely trying to escape his Muslim nation, as indicated in the second-to-last paragraph and had no intention to harm anyone, but what a great way to try and do that. Way to go hijacker.

Al Qaeda Leader In Iraq Wounded

Almost got one in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed in a clash Thursday with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The clash occurred near Balad, a major U.S. base about 50 miles north of the capital, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Khalaf said al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and his aide, identified as Abu Abdullah al-Majemaai, was killed.

I'll still sleep better at night thinking of him writhing in pain.

*** Update, 12:07 pm Feb. 16 ***

A possible "nevermind"? I saw that some sites were claiming he was captured, which was apparently based on a sentence that NBC deleted by the time I caught the story.

Iranians In Iraq

Interesting:

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A top U.S. general said Tuesday there was no evidence the Iranian government was supplying Iraqi insurgents with highly lethal roadside bombs, apparently contradicting claims by other U.S. military and administration officials.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces hunting down militant networks that produced roadside bombs had arrested Iranians and that some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran.

“That does not translate that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this,” Pace told reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. “What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”

Meanwhile, Iraq seems to understand that it doesn't really matter whether the government's involved or not, they need to be stopped (along with foreign terrorists):

Iraq announced plans on Tuesday to close its borders with Iran and Syria and lengthen a night curfew on vehicles in new emergency measures to try to curb unrelenting violence in Baghdad.

The measures were unveiled during another day of bloodshed in the capital in which a suicide bomber blew up a truck rigged with explosives near a Baghdad college, killing 18 people just a day after bomb blasts ripped apart two crowded city markets.

They are the clearest sign yet from Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that an offensive against militants who are tearing Iraq apart is picking up pace.

Update, 5:30 pm -

I wonder if Pace was privy to this when he made that statement:

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.

The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.

The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops.

Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.

Over the last six months American forces have found small caches of the £10,000 rifles but in the last 24 hours a raid in Baghdad brought the total to more than 100, US defence sources reported.

Gee. I'm sure the Iranian government had nothing to do with purchasing 800, $20,000 rifles. That's just spare change to terrorists who live in caves.

What's a $20,000 rifle look like you ask. This:

Iran: Killing Americans In Iraq

How do you not invade/decimate Iran after this?

High-tech roadside bombs that have proved particularly deadly to American soldiers are manufactured in Iran and delivered to Iraq on orders from the "highest levels" of the Iranian government, a senior intelligence officer said Sunday.

The NYT covered it yesterday in a story I haven't read yet.

The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.

The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.

In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq.

Cox and Forkum covered Iran killing our troops by proxy on January 31:

Hypocritical Libs Are Unapologetic

A Senate panel is examining the "faulty intelligence" that lead us to war with Iraq. I think all you need to know is in this paragraph:

The long-awaited report by Thomas F. Gimble, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, concluded that, while the Feith team did not violate any laws or knowingly mislead Congress, it developed dubious intelligence that was inconsistent with the findings of the wider intelligence community.

If Congress wasn't mislead and they saw the same intelligence reports as the White House, how do so many Dems explain their actions in voting to go to war?

If the White House is guilty of going to war on false pretenses, so is every Dem who voted to support President Bush's plan. In the Senate, that would include: Joe Biden (D-DE), Max Cleland (D-GA), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Edwards (D-NC), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), John Kerry (D-MA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Harry Reid (D-NV), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The Crackdown Continues

More good news out of Iraq regarding the US crackdown on the Mehdi Army:

About 600 fighters and 16 leaders of the radical Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, have been captured by security forces in Iraq, the US military says.

The statement said 52 operations had been conducted in 45 days targeting the militia, which is loyal to Najaf-based cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Sunni extremists were also the focus of the crackdown, the US military said.

US and Iraqi forces are currently preparing for a broad offensive in the strife-torn Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, Ace says, "Now, all these killings and captures of Sadrists and Al Qaeda -- bear in mind, this is in preparation for the actual 'broad offensive.' I think that's a sweet teaser-trailer. Can't wait for the actual movie."

Agreed.

This story being from the BBC, however, they feel the need to add " In other developments" at the end of the story followed by five bullet points of bad news from Iraq. The BBC can only rest easy when all good news is accompanied by at least five negative stories. They also quote a "UN envoy" as saying that Iraq is sliding "into the abyss of sectarianism." I think that envoy's just a little upset at what cock-blocks those Iraqi children are.

Today's News In Global Warming

The biggest news today is that Nancy Pelosi is assembling a committee in Congress to look at Global Warming, but I don't want that to shadow all the other news, so here's a couple of other headlines from today:

Blast of Snow, Sleet Hits Texas, Okla.

Ice Chunk Crashes Through Delaware Co. Home

Slippery Snow Stops Malibu Drivers

Up to inch of snow expected tonight

More Snow, Sleet Possible This Weekend in North Carolina, Forecasters Say

The Wrath of Winter Continues

and

Tony Snow: Are War Critics in Congress Aiding Al-Qaeda?

If you caught a pattern, congratulations. It means you're smarter that Mrs. Pelosi.

Maliki Cracks That Whip

It looks like Maliki may actually be cracking down on the Mahdi Army:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said 400 fighters from a key backer of the Shiite-led government have been arrested, and a government spokesman said Thursday the U.S. is not giving Iraqi security forces enough money for training and equipment.

Al-Maliki's claim sought to address doubts about his willingness to take on the Shiite militiamen, especially the Mahdi army that is loyal to his key supporter, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Many of the militiamen are believed responsible for much of the sectarian violence in Baghdad in the past year.

Hopefully this is just the start of an Iraqi government that will finally start helping win the war in their country.

Drudge: 'Dem Chairman FOR the escalation ... until Bush proposed it...'

I'm off to class, but just thought I'd get the ball rolling today with this piece of liberal hypocrisy:

"In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq," the story began, Mr. Reyes "said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a 'stepped up effort to dismantle the militias.' "

"We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq," the Texas Democrat said to the surprise of many, "I would say 20,000 to 30,000."

Then came President Bush's expected announcement last week, virtually matching Mr. Reyes' recommendation and argument word-for-word -- albeit the president proposed only 21,500 troops.

Wouldn't you know, hours after Mr. Bush announced his proposal, Mr. Reyes told the El Paso Times that such a troop buildup was unthinkable.

Of course, we had the same thing going on with most Democrats during the election. But now that they're not accountable to the American people, the hideous liberal agenda comes out. Isn't that how it always goes?

Hard-Hitting News

Lindsay Lohan has entered rehab! My God! Also, there's a war going on somewhere, or something...

Letter From A Soldier

From the Anchoress (hat tip: Curt at Flopping Aces):

I also got an email from a member of the military, D.R., and I am reprinting most of his email, because we can never hear too much from our soldiers:

Many of us in the military know about the political chatter swirling about. We just shrug and say, “what else is new.” The stakes in Iraq, Afghanistan, HOA, and elsewhere are enormous. We would rather fight here than in our own streets. And, this is the point many Americans do not believe will happen if we leave this fight early. They see this as an abstraction, or more as fear-mongering. It is not. The assumption that a “Minuteman” response would occur is like believing that a snowball won’t melt in 100-deg weather. The “Minuteman” response would not happen simply because of fear and the terrible loss of life we’ll see.

The terrorists we face over here are stone-cold killers. They would kill their own if it means they get to propagate their hate and evil. And, they are evil in every sense of the word. They are not misunderstood, they are not the misforgotten, etc. They do know who they are. Many terrorists come from a world of privilege, more privilege than many of their kinfolk.

President Bush has done his absolute best. He’s the right man for the time. This is not an easy war by any means a stretch of the imagination. We do put in very long days and very, very short nights. Sometimes we see very good results, sometimes the results aren’t so good. War by nature is very messy. While we do our best to plan for contingencies, we adjust accordingly. With regard to the Vice President and former SecDef Rumsfeld, they’ve been the best to us. They understand the stakes, and this is most important … not the political usefulness. You want people in leadership positions who understand the stakes, willing to make the hard decisions, and take responsibility regardless of the situation. The Vice President and Rumsfeld are such people. But, this is a point that can be argued at another time and by others.

For your son, keep him close. If he wants to join, encourage and support him. Military life can be difficult at times, but there’s no other experience that is better. If he wants to go another route, encourage and support him. Not everyone should see the face of war.