Misc Commentary For August 25, 2006

— If the mainstream media were objective, instead of biased to the left, wouldn’t this be front page news?

A security operation was helping to curb an increase in violence in Baghdad in recent months after a surge of bombings and shootings, America’s two top generals in the Middle East said.

…Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the operation that began in early August was working.

“I think everybody has seen an improvement in the situation in Baghdad over the last weeks because of the operations of the Iraqi security forces supported by the American Army,” he said. “And we’re confident that we can sustain that.”

Also Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said after meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that he did not believe the country had fallen into civil war, although there is a danger that it could.

“I think Iraq’s far from it. I think that there’s been great progress in the security front here recently in Baghdad,” he said.

Abizaid said he and Casey were “very optimistic that the situation will stabilize.”

— The West spends an inordinate amount of time worrying about how we’re perceived, “why they hate us,” building good will, etc. Given these results from PC Britain, maybe Muslims across the world should start doing the same thing:

“Most people in the UK feel threatened by Islam, a poll has revealed, after the Government launched a bid to tackle inter-faith tensions.

The YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph found 53% were concerned about the impact of the religion – not just fundamentalist elements – up 21% from 2001.”

This is a creepy and horrible story, as much as anything because it makes you wonder how many other missing children may be in the same boat out there, stuck in some sociopath’s basement.

“A girl held captive as a sex slave in a dungeon for eight years told police of her dramatic escape from the man she was forced to call ‘Master’.

Natascha Kampusch, who was ten when she was kidnapped on her way to school, was imprisoned in a tiny pit dug into the floor of her captor’s garage.

She was held for so long that she developed Stockholm Syndrome, the psychological condition in which captives begin to identify with their abductors.

But after years of obeying the Master, Natascha escaped after being let out of her cell unsupervised.”

If this guy could pull it off for 8 years, then isn’t it entirely possible other people are doing the same thing? Scary….

— I don’t believe I’ve ever been to The LawDog Files before, so I can’t vouch for the veracity of this story, but it’s so good that I’m going to toss it out there anyway (make sure to head over and read the whole thing):

“Finding no one home after repeatedly hammering on the door and screaming, Mr. Critter departed the premises, only to return shortly.

As he began to resume his obnoxious activities, the neighbor of the schoolteacher, a middle-aged gentleman whose wife occasionally babysits the infant daughter of the schoolteacher, walked next door to inform Mr. Critter that the schoolteacher was out of town on vacation and to kindly desist from raising Cain on her front porch.

Mr. Critter promptly whipped a large silver-coloured revolver from his waistband, struck the man across the face with the barrel, knocking the neighbor back and down to one knee. Mr. Critter then proceeded to advance on the neighbor, pointing the gun at him him and loudly screaming: “You want a piece of me, mother****er?! Huh?! You want a piece of me?! I’ll **** you up, you ho-*ss mother****er! You want a piece of me?!”

Down on one knee and unable to retreat, the CHL-equipped neighbor skinned his Glock 23 and neatly whomped two .40-calibre slugs through Mr. Critter’s brisket. (The detective taking the statement said, “I guess that’d be a ‘Yes…'”)

Mr. Critter had the good manners to drop the unloaded Daisy BB pistol with which he had armed himself and expired.

The officers handed the neighbor a receipt for his Glock and told him to come down to the station and pick it up when the Grand Jury was done.

I love Texas.”

Russia on Friday rejected any talk for now of sanctions against Iran and France warned against conflict with Tehran, raising doubt whether it will face swift penalties for not halting nuclear work by an August 31 deadline.”

Of course Russia “rejected any talk for now of sanctions against Iran.” They’re the ones helping them build a nuclear bomb in the first place! Why can’t the Bush Administration come out and publicly say that it’s a waste of time to try to deal with this problem since one of the members of the Security Council is half of the problem?

It’s so aggravating — but it’s also probably part of a wider strategy. My guess is that the Bushies are not ready to bomb yet and are just killing time at the UN. The advantage of doing that is that when the time comes in 2007 or even 2008, and we bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, we can say, truthfully, that we gave peace every chance and tried to deal with the situation through the UN. So, we may know that we’re going to have to bomb them today, but when it actually happens, we’ll be able to say it was a last resort.

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