SECOND EVENING POST:  JULY 29,  2008

Posted at 10:16 p.m. ET

SUICIDE WOMEN

The Times of London runs a disturbing picture of the use of women as al-Qaeda suicide bombers in Iraq:

A woman pretending to be pregnant walks up to a hospital in one of Iraq’s most dangerous regions and blows herself up.

Minutes later a man, also laden with explosives, attacks the rescue workers who rushed to the scene in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. Thirty-two people are killed and 52 wounded.

The co-ordinated bombings that ripped through the town of Baladruz in May are one of twelve attacks involving thirteen women suicide bombers to strike Diyala so far this year – a huge jump, signalling a new tactic by insurgents. US officials suspect that al-Qaeda has built a network of cells that recruit women and turn them into killers.

You will notice the worldwide protests by "women's rights" advocates.  Not.

Women are the perfect weapon in a country where it is frowned upon culturally for a man even to approach a woman without her husband or father in tow, let alone frisk her for weapons at one of the many checkpoints that are the bombers’ favourite targets.

Can't you just hear the growing protests by those "feminist" groups?  Don't you hear them?

The military believes that al-Qaeda employs a variety of tactics to get women to become suicide bombers. Some are easy prey because their husband or children have been killed or detained by US forces, said Captain Matthew Shown, the intelligence officer for “Sabre Squadron”, 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, which is based in southeast Diyala.

Another method is for a member of al-Qaeda to marry a woman and then dishonour her in some way, such as letting someone else rape her. “This would leave her with no choice but to end her life,” Captain Shown, 34, said.

There are also reports of women being told that their husband or child will be killed unless they agree to become suicide bombers.

Is Gloria Steinem still alive?  Is she interested?  Oh, but who are we to question another culture?  No Manhattan party invitations in that kind of thing.

Eliminating the threat of female suicide attacks in Diyala is a priority for US and Iraqi forces...

...The US military is also hiring women to stand alongside male guards at checkpoints to ensure that all women get a full body search.

But will women participate in the struggle against female suicide bombers?

The woman guards will complement a workforce of about 80,000 men who are paid by the US military to protect their neighbourhood under a programme that encouraged many former Sunni insurgents to turn against al-Qaeda.

There are few female volunteers, however, just as there are not many women in the police and Army because it is not part of their culture.

The female bomb threat appears to be changing attitudes. In Baladruz, twenty-five women are due to start civilian guard duties this week, and an appeal has been made for another ten.

It might help if some women's organizations in the West would assist them, and support them.  But it's so much more fun, and far more self-indulgent, to beat up on the former president of Harvard for something he didn't even say.  After all, dearies, what's the better dinner-table conversation?  And isn't that what really counts?

July 29, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING POST:  JULY 29,  2008

Posted at 7:31 p.m. ET

OBAMA ON OBAMA

The Times of London reports that Senator Obama is acknowledging the doubts voters have about him...but insists it's a passing thing.  When his wonderfulness is fully appreciated, Obama seems to believe, he will emerge victorious.

Barack Obama conceded yesterday that US voters were nervous about making him their next president as fresh polls showed him in an increasingly tight race against John McCain, his Republican rival.

The Democratic candidate sought to explain why he has not seen a significant bounce in the polls after his international tour last week - with a new survey showing Mr McCain taking a lead for the first time since Mr Obama secured his party's nomination...

...The Democrat said that voters were still sizing him up and that his candidacy was “new for them, new for us as a country.

“This is going to be a close election for a long time because I'm new on the national scene and people sort of like what they see but they're still not sure.” But he added: “The odds of us winning are very good.”

Earth to Barack:  You're not new on the scene any longer, Senator.  You've gotten saturation coverage for months.  And by the way, not all voters "sort of like what they see..."  Some don't like it at all.

The Illinois senator is running a sharp, disciplined campaign - often setting the day's agenda - with Mr McCain appearing slow-footed and reactive.

Yet in recent polls the message is clear: voters may want change, but they are uneasy about Mr Obama. Both campaigns admit that the election is becoming a referendum on Mr Obama, testing the willingness of voters to overcome their doubts about a 46-year-old African-American with little political experience, to whom many find it hard to relate.

And...

Mr McCain, who at 71 is the oldest US presidential candidate in history, said last week: “They need a steady hand on the tiller. That's what I'm going to convince them of.”

He has also begun to attack Mr Obama's patriotism. In a new advertisement the Republican campaign pounced on Mr Obama's decision to call off a visit to wounded US troops in Germany. “He made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras,” the narrator says.

The Obama camp countered that the visit had been scrapped amid concerns that it would appear too political.

Like the visit to the Western wall wasn't too political.  Like playing basketball with troops in Afghanistan wasn't too political.  Oh, please.

Nagging at Mr Obama are memories of his big defeats to Hillary Clinton in the later stages of their primary battle, when white, working-class voters turned their backs on him.

In the primaries Obama really couldn't close the deal.  The reason he won the nomination was a string of victories he scored against Clinton in February, when the Clinton forces underestimated the importance of caucus states.  Obama is an inspired speaker, but even inspiration wears thin after a time.  When people feel their country is in trouble, they want answers, not bromides.

Every time voters have given Obama a sober second look, he's lost support.  It can happen again, but McCain should take a lesson, excuse me for the sacrilege, from Hillary Clinton, who came alive in the late stages of the Democratic race, corrected what was wrong with her campaign, and became superbly effective.  McCain can do it.  He's done it before.

July 29, 2008.       Permalink          

SNIPPET:

From the AP:     LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The International Olympic Committee says Iraq can take part in Beijing Games, lifting its previous ban.  IOC officials say they have reversed an earlier decision because the government has pledged to ensure the independence of its national Olympic committee.

Sporting of them.  We noted here a few days ago that there was no ban when Saddam was in power, and his sons treated Iraqi athletes as personal property.

LATE AFTERNOON POST:  JULY 29,  2008

Posted at 5:37 p.m. ET

IRAN TO STRIKE U.S.?

Ken Timmerman is a knowledgeable, respected reporter on Iran. I can't verify the information he presents here, but he should, at minimum, be taken seriously:

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned...

...In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

And...

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001...

...“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

To what purpose?

"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.

While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.

Anyone interested?  Senator Obama, you've expressed your militant opposition to missile defense.  Does this change your mind?  Or, in a manner only you can understand, does this confirm your "judgment" on the issue?

More:

The United States “would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country.” except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said.

“Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them,” Graham said.

And...

Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply.

“You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication.

“I’d have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack,” he said.

Frightening enough?

In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission’s request, “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States.”

And...

Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack...

...The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur.

Could missile defense systems prevent an EMP attack?

“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.

“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.

Now, it could be that these experts are wrong, and that Iran plans no such attack.  But, given the nature of that regime, its belief in suicide as a tactic, and its rush to develop nuclear technology, I wouldn't bet my kids' future on an optimistic point of view.  Others, though, are happy to, the better to favor "peace." 

Missile defense, which Obama threatens to gut, may be the best bargain America ever obtains...if we build it.

And if we build it, the Iranians won't come.

July 29, 2008.      Permalink          

SNIPPET:

LEESBURG, Fla. -- A giant American flag that is larger than a city ordinance allows will be allowed to continue to fly at a popular Central Florida car dealership.  Monday night, Leesburg city commissioners agreed that the flag at the Cecil Clark Chevrolet dealership is more like a landmark since it has been on display for 20 years, and said it could stay.

This became a widely circulated story a while back.  It's good to see that, occasionally, sanity prevails.  Yeah, I'd say that after 20 years it's a landmark.  It also happens to be an American flag.

AFTERNOON POST:  JULY 29,  2008

Posted at 1:43 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

Both our standard trackers are out for today, and they confirm what the numbers yesterday suggested:  Whatever bounce Obama received from his trip has started to fade.

As reported here earlier, Rasmussen has Obama up only one.

Gallup has now posted, and has Obama up six.  But Gallup had him up eight yesterday.  And Gallup is polling among registered voters, whereas Ras uses likely voters.  I'd go with the "likely voter" scenario.  I think it's generally more accurate.  That may be particularly true this year, as some of Obama's greatest strength comes from groups, including minorities and young people, who tend to be a bit reluctant about actually voting. 

Polls have to be followed over time to show trends.  It will be fascinating to see how Obama performs post-trip.  Both Ras and Gallup have him at 47 percent.  He can't seem to break 50. 

The conventions start in about a month.  That's when the game gets truly serious.

July 29, 2008.      Permalink          

SNIPPET: 

First tracker of the day is out (9:48 a.m.).  Rasmussen reports Obama up by only one point.  Any bounce from his trip abroad has apparently bounced back.  We'll know more when Gallup reports this afternoon. 

The American people are known for giving issues and candidates a sober second look.  Let's hope we get sober by November.

SNIPPET:

From The Politico:  “I have always loved longitude,” Nancy Pelosi says before breaking into laughter. “I love latitude; it’s in the stars. But longitude, it’s about time. ... Time and clocks and all the rest of that have always been a fascination for me.”

This woman is the speaker of the House in an America at war.

TUESDAY:  JULY 29,  2008

Posted at 7:21 a.m. ET

LIBERAL QUESTIONS

Richard Cohen is one of the resident liberal columnists of the Washington Post, and comes complete with the beard and glasses to prove it.  But he has, on my occasions, questioned liberal orthodoxy.  Now he seems to be at it again, wondering about Barack Obama's real qualifications to be president.  I hope, as he walks through the newsroom today, that he watches his back:

"Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.

On the other hand, I continued, I could cite four or five actions -- not speeches -- that John McCain has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe. First, of course, is his decision as a Vietnam War POW to refuse freedom out of concern that he would be exploited for propaganda purposes. To paraphrase what Kipling said about Gunga Din, John McCain is a better man than most.

And...

Obama argues that he himself stuck to the biggest gun of all: opposition to the war. He took that position back when the war was enormously popular, the president who initiated it was even more popular, and critics of both were slandered as unpatriotic. But at the time, Obama was a mere Illinois state senator, representing the (very) liberal Hyde Park area of Chicago. He either voiced his conscience or his district's leanings or (lucky fella) both. We will never know.

Ouch.  You mean he may not have been noble of heart?  Impossible.  But the apostate Cohen goes on.  Obama's contradictions?

He has been for and against gun control, against and for the recent domestic surveillance legislation and, in almost a single day, for a united Jerusalem under Israeli control and then, when apprised of U.S. policy and Palestinian chagrin, against it. He is an accomplished pol -- a statement of both admiration and a bit of regret.

The columnist speaks the truth.  There's more:

...the record now, while tissue thin, is troubling. The next president will have to be something of a political Superman, a man of steel who can tell the American people that they will have to pay more for less -- higher taxes, lower benefits of all kinds -- and deal in an ugly way when nuclear weapons seize the imagination of madmen.

The question I posed to that prominent Democrat was just my way of thinking out loud. I know that Barack Obama is a near-perfect political package. I'm still not sure, though, what's in it.

I'm getting a sense, and it's just a gut reaction at this point, that more and more people are willing to discuss that last point and ask the right questions.  Maybe it's that, as the election approaches, citizens and pundits alike are realizing how serious the choice is.  Maybe it's that Obama is experiencing a classic American press ritual - build someone up, then bring him down to Earth.

There are only hints of this for now.  I still must endure magazine covers of the Obamas every time I pass through the Stop n' Shop checkout.  (I really don't care how Michelle dresses the kids.)  But there is a questioning that now, unlike just a few weeks ago, seems a bit more respectable.  The very exposure Obama received on his recent trip may have stimulated more questions than answers.  We will hope so.  We will continue to watch, and to ask.

July 29,  2008.      Permalink          

SNIPPET:

AP headline today:  "US deficit zooming to half - trillion as Bush leaves"

Doesn't Congress, which isn't Bush, have a role to play here?

OUR DARLING ALLIES

Speaking of the anointed one's overseas excursion, a knowledgeable writer examines our relations with our European allies, and finds that even rampant Obamamania cannot cure the problems.  Although she doesn't use it, the word "decadent" may apply to the Europe that Anne Applebaum describes:

Way back in 1992, when an otherwise forgettable foreign minister of Luxembourg infamously pronounced that sentence, it seemed to portend great things. "This is the hour of Europe." That meant that in the post-Cold War world, Europeans, not Americans, would resolve the conflicts that were about to become the Bosnian war, and maybe a lot of other things too. He was wrong.

They usually are.  More:

In a very real sense, 2009, not 1992, truly will be the "hour of Europe." By that, I mean that if the chancellor of Germany, the prime minister of Britain, and the president of France — backed by their counterparts in southern Europe, eastern Europe, and Scandinavia — were to walk into the White House on January 21 and propose serious, realistic, new contributions to, say, the war in Afghanistan, the reconstruction of Iraq, the nuclear negotiations with Iran, and perhaps even climate change, the White House would listen.

Wait, wait.  Did I see the word "contributions"?  Is that word still in dictionaries of European languages?  I must've skipped it.

In fact, I'll wager I could find a dozen future members of either administration who would roll out the red carpet and greet them like envoys of a fellow superpower if they so desired.

Yet at the same time, I'd also wager that I could not find a dozen current members of any European government who have even thought about coming up with any ideas at all. This is the hour of Europe — but do the Europeans even know it?

No, and they didn't know it in the late thirties either, which is why we had all that bother.

Judging by the press and the popular reactions to Mr. Obama's visit there last week, they don't. Just about every account of the speech noted the dearth of applause for its single line encouraging European participation in world events: "America cannot do this alone ... the Afghan people need our troops and your troops" was not a crowd-pleaser. Neither was, "We can join in a new and global partnership" to fight terrorism.

Ah, as Rodgers & Hammerstein might have sung about Europe - "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you."

The truth, shown by the brief Obama visit, is that few European statesmen look on changes in Washington as an opportunity to propose something new. Most simply feel relief that President Bush will be gone, coupled with anxiety about what is to come next.

And as the election gets closer, the anxiety will grow.

Even the idea of Europe proposing anything imaginative freezes their socialist brains.

No wonder the adulation of Mr. Obama was tempered by a note of unease: What with one presidential candidate talking of "global partnership" and the other reminding Americans that "the United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War" the potential for the renewal of the transatlantic alliance is terrifyingly real — and the election isn't even over.

The fundamental idea of European foreign policy appears to be:  "You Americans give your all for our defense, and we send tokens for yours."  And, of course, all this is justified by a "superior" European understanding of the world of Islam, and any other world that appears menacing.

Good for Anne.  She's clarified things.

July 29, 2008.      Permalink          

SNIPPET:

From AP:    CAIRO, Egypt — An Al Qaeda commander who escaped from a U.S. prison has posted a Web video urging Muslims to kill the Saudi king for leading an interfaith conference in Madrid earlier this month.

You know something strange is going on when a Saudi king is considered too liberal.

WHAT DO THE SIMPLE FOLK DO?

This is not Earth-shaking, but it is a solid example of New York liberal elitism, and its impact on ordinary people. 

New York City is liberal, although the city as a whole can be supremely sane when it senses danger.  It has, for example, not elected a Democrat to the mayor's chair since 1989, allowing Rudolph Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, especially the former, to put in place some rational policies, notably in crime fighting. 

But the old liberal establishment, with its utter contempt for average citizens, retains its power, especially in Manhattan, the best-known part of New York, a place of liberal pretension and elitist mentality.  Manhattan was the site of the most costly of the 9-11 attacks, yet students at a Manhattan-based college five blocks from Ground Zero held an anti-war demonstration while the Twin Towers were still smoldering.  Manhattan, in its voting pattern in 2004, turned its back on the very president who did so much to prevent a new attack.  John Kerry is much more "our crowd" than George Bush, in the eyes of Manhattanites.

So it's not surprising that, in economic hard times that hit average families the most, a group of Manhattan elitists are uniting to fight one of the greatest menaces they see before them - Costco.  Drunk on their previous success in banning Wal-Mart from the precious streets of their island, they now take on an equally dangerous foe.  The New York Sun reports:

A plan for a Costco store in a Manhattan West Side residential project is drawing opposition from local elected officials, labor unions, and community groups, who may block the outlet from opening at a time when New York consumers could use the access to the lower prices available at the discount chain.

Oh, by the way, the term "community groups" in Manhattan has to be defined.  Many of these "groups" are a mixture of people who've paid millions for a tiny apartment and old-line leftover leftists who are holding the line against the 21st century.  They rub beautiful shoulders together.

The district's City Council member, Gale Brewer, is voicing objections to the proposed store, and the chair of the council's zoning committee, Tony Avella, says he would likely oppose the plan as well...

...The council has already barred Wal-Mart from opening in the city, at a cost estimated in the millions of dollars in lost sales tax revenues. Now the Costco plan is shaping up as another test of the city's hospitality — or hostility — to business at a time when Wall Street is suffering and city and state officials are warning that the city and state budgets are facing deficits in the years ahead.

And what are the stated reasons for opposition by the pure-of-heart?

Ms. Brewer said Costco raises particular concerns because it relies on bulk purchases for the majority of its business, so using a car is the most convenient way to carry goods from the store.

"I can't even imagine it," Ms. Brewer said in an interview yesterday. "I assume you need a car to go to Costco, and I thought we were promoting public transportation and bicycles and greening. Already, if you drive in that area now around rush hour you can't cross 72nd Street for 20 minutes."

This is a situation as serious as war itself.

A member of the New York State Assembly, Linda Rosenthal, who represents the district, says that her main concern is increased traffic but that she is also worried that the store could displace existing businesses.

"I don't want them to be competitors to our local stores," Ms. Rosenthal said yesterday in an interview.

Right.  Let's not have any competition.  After all, who needs it?  Why, dearies, do any of our neighbors really worry about the cost of food?  What is this, Bangladesh?  Oh, must not say that too loudly.  Our foreign exchange student might hear. 

There is, of course, another side:

Supporters of the store argue that Costco's low prices will broadly benefit the community. The chairman of the retail leasing and sales division of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Faith Hope Consolo, said the store could boost property values.

"I think it would only enhance the neighborhood," Ms. Consolo said yesterday in an interview. "There's always going to be traffic, but for what it brings — new employment, low-price products, revenue that was not there — it's worth it."

My guess is that the store will be defeated, and the people who defeat it will march to the polls in November, hold their poodles in their arms, and cast their vote for the "common man."

July 29, 2008.      Permalink