The Other Shoe

President Bush was greeted by one of the practitioners of the welcoming religion of peace in Baghdad yesterday. His press conference was disrupted by a journalist who threw his shoes at our President. The reporter is being questioned by the Iraqi President's guards, but thousands of Iraqis have rallied demanding the shoe tossers immediate release. He merits no consideration or special dispensation because of his status as a member of the fourth estate. Did the absolutely innocent Daniel Pearl get favorable treatment from the Allah akbar crowd because of his press card? The sabots were thrown at the US from conservative hawks who pushed for war, at Quaker pacifists, at crazed Code Pinkers, at our very ideals of tolerance, pluralism, and liberty. Almost everyone in the Muslim and Arab worlds despise us. The only place where there is consistent gratitude and respect for America and Americans is the Kurdish area of Iraq. Even Iraq's oil minister called for $80 a barrel oil to demonstrate the true desire of the Iraqi government to punish America for Iraq's liberation. The Mumbai murderers were reported to have demanded British and American passport holders come forward for what no doubt, if any had complied, would have meant their deaths. In the first Gulf War, President Bush's father liberated Kuwait and earned mostly the admiration of the al Sabah family, but that has not stopped Kuwatis from joining jihad against the West with two Kuwatis numbering amongst the suicide murderers of September 11, 2001. In Afghanistan, virtually any US-inflicted casualties are called "innocent civilians" often engaged in "wedding parties" by their treacherous, ungrateful Afghan mates. Harry Truman said if you want gratitude in Washington, "get a dog". America can no longer afford the cut-throat loyalty of our so-called Arab and Muslim "friends". In the Dar al-Salam, they think Americans are all dogs. But remember out here in the Dar al- Harb, we will never be your dhimmi. We have canine teeth, and we bite back.

Trial by Travesty

The pending charges against two members of the 101st Airborne are part of a disturbing, and I believe unprecedented (at least since the summary justice-injustice, of trials of soldiers during the American Civil War) trend. Blackwater contractors also face charges today. During Vietnam, William Calley and a literal handful of others faced charges similar to the allegations all too many of our troops are facing or have recently faced. What possible reason would the Blackwater employees have to shoot up an intersection except the ambush they described that they faced? If they wanted to massacre innocent Iraqis, there were plenty of more discreet ways to dispatch Iraqis, had that been their desire. These prosecutions have a chilling effect on combatants on the ground. A moment of hesitation in a life or death situation may cost US forces their lives or the lives of their comrades or even innocent Iraqi lives. A soldier, marine, or State Department bodyguard holding his fire out of concern for what a court may later determine may cost hundreds of lives as in the case of a truck or car bomber or dozens of lives in the case of a terrorist armed as in Mumbai with an AK-47 or AKM. President Bush, in the interest of preserving innocent life, should pardon these brave men now and ensure that other US contractors and troops never face the family breaking expense of litigation of this sort and its accompanying jeopardy. After all, Bush's decisions sent them into the line of fire in the first place.

Splitting the Difference

Eric Shinseki will serve as Obama's Secretary of Veterans Affairs. This should be no surprise as Shinseki seemed to be a political general. His suggestion that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to occupy Iraq was a gross exaggeration. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was wrong as well, trying to mount operations on the cheap. Hindsight has acquitted the position of General David Petraeus advanced at some risk forcefully by Senator John McCain of a troop surge to slightly more than 160,000. A cynic might wonder if Shinseki pushed such a high number to dissuade the US liberation of Iraq in the first place. If this was so, Shinseki is being rewarded now.