Dhimmi This!

Iraq the Model and Soccer

    I have added Iraq the Model to my blog roll.  Why I had failed to include it earlier I have no idea. My bad. The website is written, if I remember correctly by two brothers, in Iraq.  I have read the website off and on since its earliest incarnation shortly after Iraq was liberated from Saddam Hussien.  It provides its readers with an honest dose of reality of living in Iraq.  It tells the good and the bad, but it provides a picture of why we went and why we are still there.  The latest post concerns the win of the Iraqi National Soccer team over the Saudi Arabian team.  But for the worries over sufficient fuel for the generator and the celebratory gunshots, it could be a post from any American city describing the Superbowl, NCAA Title games, or the World Series.  When it gets down to details, we really are not all that different.  Stop by and read the post when you can, you may will learn something.

    After the soccer post is a post concerning the attempt of one of the writers to get into Jordan to obtain a Visa to the US.  In a nutshell, he was denied entry into Jordan and forced to fly back to Iraq.  I was reminded of this post earlier when I saw a video on the Fox News website about where the Iraqi politicians may go for vacation.  The reporter said that many go to Jordan.  Evidently, that may be easier said than done

    Also, while you are at it shoot over to Michael Yon's latest dispatch from Baqubah.

Rep. James Clyburn: Democratic Politics Trump Winning the War

The Washington Post has an article discussing an interview with House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).  Clyburn discusses the effect that the surge will have on the Democratic party's ability to pass legislation forcing a withdrawal of troops for Iraq. 

"a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war."

The most telling quote in the story follows:

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."

But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

    Essentially, Clyburn is stating that if the surge is successful, meaning our troops are winning and the Iraqis are safer, then it is a " problem for us".  This is the problem with the Democratic party.  The war is not about defeating terrorist, curbing radical Islam, or even developing a stable democracy in the middle east to provide an haven for free thought rather than radical Islam. To the Democratic party the war is about politics and winning in the political arena. The Democratic party has taken the political position that the war must be stopped.  To the Democratic party this position must be maintained regardless of the facts because it is viewed as a win by the Democratic party if they can force George Bush to withdraw the troops prior to the time that he is ready to withdraw the troops.  It is better for the Democratic party if the withdrawal of the troops occur with a defeat.  I truly believe that many leaders of the Democratic party would like nothing better than video on the evening news of Marines loading diplomats onto helicopters from the roof of a building in Baghdad as insurgents and jihadists overtake the Green Zone and collapse the Iraqi government. I believe this because winning  "is a big problem for us."

    There is a real problem when what is good for the Democratic party is not what is good for the country, and, at least as far as the Democratic party is concerned, what is good for the party trumps what is good for the country. 

Is Charles Foti guilty of arrogance or incompetence?

This is an Opinion Letter in the Shreveport Times about Charles Foti. It appears, from all reports, that it has sent the DailyKingFish.com lunatic fringe of left wingers in Louisiana politics over the edge. I will not provide a link at the risk that any hits on his sitemeter will give the little fabricating weasel a feeling of accomplishment.

HT: www.thedeadpelican.com

Richard M. John: Is Charles Foti guilty of arrogance or incompetence?

July 27, 2007

There is a story I have heard repeated on numerous occasions about the duties of the Louisiana lieutenant governor's job. It is something to the effect that one of the office holders used to wake up every morning and call the governor's office. He would ask the governor's aide if the governor was still alive. Every morning the lieutenant governor would get the same answer, "Yes, Sir." He would then put on his golf clothes and head to the golf course, since he had no responsibility other than filling the seat of a vacated governorship.

Unlike the lieutenant governor's job, the attorney general for the state of Louisiana is the chief legal officer in the state and his duties are numerous. According to the Louisiana Constitution, the attorney general is to protect the interest of the state of Louisiana and is given the power to institute, prosecute or intervene in any civil matter, If requested by a district attorney, he may advise and assist in the prosecution of any criminal case, and upon a proper showing to a district court he may institute, prosecute or intervene in any criminal prosecution. These duties, as further defined by the Legislature, are extensive and are essential to the welfare of the state and its citizens.

How is it then that with such vast responsibility and extensive duties, the current attorney general, Charles Foti, continues to find the time and the resources to take actions outside the scope of the duties of his office and yet fail to perform those tasked to him? Whether it is incompetence or arrogance, I do not know; but, I do know he has an obvious problem carrying out the duties trusted to him by the voters of this state.

While he has no problem using his office to issue "Attorney General Opinions" for his political crony, John Breaux, he cannot find the time to issue an opinion on the legality of a crony's apparently improper use of public transportation for political campaigning in Monroe. While he has no problem blatantly overstepping the boundaries of his office to attempt to prosecute Dr. Ann Pou and using the prestige of his office to alert the media to the investigation, he cannot admit he bungled the whole prosecution because he did not have authority to do anything in the first place. He can punt the whole Pou mess to Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan, but he cannot admit he made a mistake and end the entire charade. He can certainly find time to belittle Jordan's office when a grand jury, looking at the evidence gathered by Foti, found the evidence to be insufficient to even justify proceedings against Dr. Pou, but he cannot recognize he violated the sanctity of the grand jury proceedings, for the sake of salvaging his own tattered reputation, by discussing evidence presented to the grand jury with the media. These are only a few examples of the attorney general's failure to understand the very laws he is responsible for upholding.

Attorney General Foti has spent more than 33 years on the public dole. He has evidently forgotten he has been vested with a public trust to do a particular job and not given free reign to help his cronies and push his own personal and political agenda. If the hurricanes of 2005 have taught Louisiana anything, it is we cannot continue to allow those who run our state to do so with a laissez-faire attitude. If we refuse to hold our politicians responsible and require they act in the public trust rather than their own, we may all be washed away whether or not the levees hold.

UPDATE:  I will from time to time add other blogging on this subject.
Houston's Clear Thinkers

Charles Foti - Is he headed down the same path as Nifong?

On July 24, 2007 a New Orleans Grand Jury refused to indict Dr. Ann Pou on charges that she murdered several patients at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The allegations arose from Dr. Pou's actions in staying behind to care for patients who were stranded at the hospital as a result of Hurricane Katrina.  The fiasco surrounding the attempted prosecution of Dr. Pou was started when the Louisiana Attorney General, Charles Foti, began investigating second guessing the actions of Dr. Pou and then topped it all off with the grandstanding of her arrest.  The only problem was that under Louisiana law, the State Attorney General does not have the power to indict anyone for any crime, absent a written request for such action from the local District Attorney or special permission, given only with cause, from a District Court judge. 

    Caught writing proverbial checks that his $ss could not cash, Foti ultimately pushed the prosecution onto Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan.  Jordan who had no interest in indicting Dr. Pou, then used the expedient process of presenting the indictment to a Grand Jury.  The Grand Jury after hearing the evidence presented to it by the District Attorney's office refused to indict Dr. Pou.  In other words they found that there was insufficient evidence to charge her with a crime.  Rather than praising the Grand Jury for doing its job, Foti decided to attack the decision of the Grand Jury and to attack Jordan's office for not doing the job the way he thought it should have been done.  The question of course is then raised as to why Foti did Foti not do the job - the answer is because he did not have the power or authority to do what he started.

Jeff Croure at the Bayou Buzz questions Foti's competence and experience to do the job.   As Croure points out running the Orleans Parish Sheriff's office is evidently not sufficient training to be a competent Attorney General. 

Foti was the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff prior to being elected Attorney General. He basically ran a prison for 30 years and all voters of Louisiana are now painfully aware that the Orleans Parish prison is not a proper training ground for being Attorney General. It is apparent that Foti was elected to this position without the necessary experience as a prosecutor and trial attorney and without an in-depth knowledge of the legal system.
 

In the fall, the voters ofLouisiana can overturn the horrible mistake they made in 2003. They can elect a new Attorney General, one who can return competence and integrity to this important office.

   There are calls for sanctions by the Bar Association or Impeachment. Personally, both will take too long.  I agree with Croure that the fastest way to restore order to the Attorney Generals office is by voting Foti out this Fall.

Foti's response to the criticism has been to blame everyone but himself.  Oh well and then there was this response as well -

Alexander tops Foti in fundraising almost 6 to 1

Campaign Finance documents recently released highlighted the enormous fundraising advantage candidate for Attorney General, Royal Alexander, held over New Orleans Democratic incumbent, Charles Foti, in the second quarter. In the most recent reporting period, Alexander raised $435,808.32 compared to Foti's $76,025.00. See full report here.

“I’m invincible! I’m invincible!”

“I’m invincible! I’m invincible!” - The words of LT Brad Krauss who was thrown, Superman style, out of his Stryker when it was hit by a roadside bomb while his team was patrolling Route Tampa northwest Baghdad.  “No you’re F*&%’ing not! You’re F*&%’ing lucky!” was the response of SSG Daniel Walwark as he tried to bring Krauss back down to reality and help the rest of the Stryker team.  Amazingly, no one had anything other than minor scrapes and bruises. 

The full story, Superman, is by Michael Yon.  A picture of the overturned, but still operational Stryker was on Fox News website.

Haditha - Not My Lai, Part II

Red State has the latest:

From the LA Times:

A hearing officer recommended Tuesday that murder charges be dropped against Marine Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt in the fatal shooting of Iraqi civilians in the western town of Haditha in late November 2005.

Lt. Col. Paul Ware said conflicting statements by Iraqis, inconclusive forensic evidence and questionable legal theories used by the prosecution were inadequate to send Sharratt to a court-martial on charges of killing three Iraqi brothers.

Ware's recommendation goes to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commanding general of the Marine Forces Central Command.

Sharratt is one of three enlisted Marines charged with murdering civilians.

Read on.

   

From the earliest reports we've been critical of the the Haditha allegations and investigation. At best it looked like a sop tossed to placate a media slavering to recreate a latter day My Lai. At worst it appeared to be a gutless, craven break of faith between the senior leadership of the US military, including the US Marine Corps, and the young soldiers and marines carrying the cudgel in Iraq.

To date the investigation has produced bupkis.

Haditha - Not My Lai

   

So Senator Vitter, how was your trip to DC?

Well, That Didn't Work Out So Great

Well, That Didn't Work Out So Great

Iowahawk Guest Commentary

By Kahlid Ahmed, MD

Board Certified Gastroenterologist and former Jihad Associate, al Qaeda UK

 

Ever have "one of those days?" Sure, all of us go through the occasional

rough patch, but I swear there are times when I think Allah must really have

it in for me. I mean, I know the "Big Guy" is supposed to have a sense of

humor, but do I always have to be the punch line?

 

Take for example this last week. A few mates and I had been planning a big

martyrdom weekend for quite a while; it's something we first began

discussing a few years ago in medical school back in Amman. We were sitting

around the dorm eating pizza, cramming for a big anatomy final, when Ali

said "you know, after graduation, we should get together for something

really big." We talked about a fishing trip to Canada or something, but most

of the guys thought that sounded pretty boring. Abdul suggested a golf

weekend in Cancun, but the all-inclusives there can get pretty pricey

in-season. Hassan (who's really into motorcycles) suggested renting Harleys

and going to Sturgis for the Biker Rally, but we heard that crowd can get

pretty rowdy.

 

Anyhoo, Achmed finally says, "how about packing cars with explosives and

killing hundreds of random infidels in a coordinated series of gigantic

fireballs?" And we're like, effin' A! Not only would it be an awesome

bonding experience (with plenty of Paradise poontang, LOL), we would be

doing a valuable community service. Okay, so we high-fived and made a solemn

promise that we'd target two years after graduation for the big weekend

prank blowout.

***Continued After Jump***

Know Thy Enemy

This story from Michael Yon regarding mass graves outside Baqubah (al Hamira) and the stories by some witnesses that Al Queda intimidated villagers by roasting the first born sons of certain families.

During a meeting, an Iraqi official in the room—who asked to remain anonymous—provided a narrative of how al Qaeda took control of Baqubah and much of Diyala Province. The paragraph that generated controversy follows:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Every syllable I wrote about this reported incident was in that paragraph, which offers no opinion about the veracity of his words.

Mr. Abdul Jabar had lived near the al Hamari village. He had more details about what happened there, and he was willing to go on the record. The reported incidents, wretching though they were and are, were reported “as is.”

    There is also this story in the New York Times concerning the murdering of school children as an intimidation tactic of the Taliban.

Six students were shot here on the afternoon of June 12, two of them fatally. The Qalai Sayedan School — considered among the very best in the central Afghan province of Logar — reopened only last weekend, but even with Kalashnikov-toting guards at the gate, only a quarter of the 1,600 students have dared to return.

Despite such tactics,

Afghanistan surely has made some progress toward development, but most often the nation seems astride some pitiable rocking horse, with each lurch forward inevitably reversed by the backward spring of harsh reality.

The schools are one vivid example. The Ministry of Education claims that 6.2 million children are now enrolled, or about half the school-age population. And while statistics in Afghanistan can be unreliably confected, there is no doubt that attendance has multiplied far beyond that of any earlier time, with uniformed children now teeming through the streets each day, flooding classrooms in two and three shifts.

A third of these students are girls, a marvel itself. Historically, girls’ education has been undervalued in Afghan culture. Girls and women were forbidden from school altogether during the Taliban rule.

But parents still have hard choices to make,

Parents are left with peculiar choices. “It is better for my children to be alive even if it means they must be illiterate,” said Sayed Rasul, a father who had decided to keep his two daughters at home for a day.

As Sun Tzu stated,

 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”