I’ve long thought that, despite CIA claims to the contrary (I mean, it’s not like the CIA is a reliable source), Osama has been dead for years. Here’s a Koranic interpretation of the latest “new” (really old) video, that speculates that it’s preparatory to an announcement that he’s gotten his virgins.

I’ve long thought that, despite CIA claims to the contrary (I mean, it’s not like the CIA is a reliable source), Osama has been dead for years. Here’s a Koranic interpretation of the latest “new” (really old) video, that speculates that it’s preparatory to an announcement that he’s gotten his virgins.

I’ve long thought that, despite CIA claims to the contrary (I mean, it’s not like the CIA is a reliable source), Osama has been dead for years. Here’s a Koranic interpretation of the latest “new” (really old) video, that speculates that it’s preparatory to an announcement that he’s gotten his virgins.

Zawahiri doesn’t sound very optimistic. But expect continued blather from the media and Congressional “leadership” about how we’re the ones losing the war.

…and winning in the media and in Washington. It’s Tet all over again, and we’re just letting them do it.

A congressionally-imposed defeat in Iraq may be averted by a swing in the polls, or more precisely, a swing in the GRPs that move the polls. Given the military’s long standing Public Affairs policy of media neutrality, the administration and the Generals will have to earn the GRPs in a hostile media environment. This is difficult, but not impossible, given the substantial American center – Citizens who would prefer victory if given reason to hope.

Alternately, Congress could defy the polls. Al Qaeda is running its war on smoke and mirrors – or, more accurately, on bytes of sound and sight. Congress could act on General Petraeus’ reports from the ground, rather than broadcasts generated by insurgents. This requires a simple commitment – one foreign to many in the elective branch: Leadership.

Something that seems to be in frighteningly short supply inside the Beltway these days. As Glenn notes:

Targeting our politicians and journalists is clearly going after our weak points…

Yes, they’re pretty soft targets.

[Update late morning]

Despite the cheerleading for them from the media and Congressional leadership, Michael Yon says that Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq:

The focus on al Qaeda makes sense here, where local officials have gone on record acknowledging that most of the perhaps one thousand al Qaeda fighters in Baqubah were young men and boys who called the city home. This may clash with the perception in US and other media that only a small percentage of the enemy in Iraq is al Qaeda, which in turn leads to false conclusions that the massive offensive campaign underway across Iraq is a lot of shock and awe aimed at a straw enemy. But as more Sunni tribal leaders renounce former ties with al Qaeda, it

Mark Danziger:

My adult son’s independent decision about what he wants to do with his life has no bearing on me or on what I write. My views and words about the issues that have concerned me for five years or more are not one gram more significant nor my arguments one iota stronger or weaker because of the decision which he independently made. Judge me as a parent if you will, but please do not judge my positions as a writer based on this act by someone else.

Also, on the chutzpah of the surrenderistas at New York Times:

One of the main arguments supporting the claim that we should leave now is the obvious and real collapse of public support for the war – a collapse that is shocking, just shocking, given the years of media spin on the war – media spin that bloggers have been pointing out continually. There’s something to say about the media and antiwar left beating on public opinion for four years, and then using that collapse of public opinion as an argument for their position.

Jules Crittendon has further thoughts on that subject.

Perhaps because they find it too inconvenient:

If Israel sent the IDF three kilometers into Lebanon and started digging trenches and building bunkers it would make news all over the world. But Syria does it and everyone shrugs. Hardly anyone even knows it happened at all.

Syria can, apparently, get away with just about anything. I could hardly blame Assad at this point if he believes, after such an astonishing non-response, that he can reconquer Beirut. So far he can kill and terrorize and invade and destroy with impunity, at least up to a point. What is that point? Has anyone in the U.S., Israel, the Arab League, the European Union, or the United Nations even considered the question?

The London subway bombings.

Things seem to have gotten worse, lately, not better, in terms of their ability to preempt these things.

And now it’s the police:

Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda.

Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces…

…Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because – it is claimed – police do not have the “legal power” to dismiss them.

We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq.

He is said to have argued that he was trying to “enhance” debate about the war.

Classified intelligence reports raising concerns about police staff’s background cannot be used to justify their dismissal, sources said.

This is almost like something out of Monty Python. It reminds me of the skit with Graham Chapman as the British Navy officer who lectures the audience on how the cannibalism problem in the Royal Navy is completely under control, as a sailor walks behind him munching on a leg. Well, almost like it, except it’s not funny. One could do a World War II parody on how MI5 has very few Nazis in it, and most of them are fine chaps, except for their support of gassing Jews, and providing bombing targets to Germany.

One fears that the entire British government bureaucracy is rotted with these termites. When will the British people recognize that they are at war, muster up the will to fight, and reclaim their nation? This is what a people unconfident in their own values looks like.

Looks like the axis of evil may be about to stir up the pot:

A series of op-eds in the Lebanese daily Al-Mustabal, by Nusair Al-As’ad, warned of a planned Syrian-Iranian coup in Lebanon. [9] According to these articles, Hizbullah was planning to launch, in the near future, a new stage in the coup being led by Syria and Iran in Lebanon, during which it would use its weapons on the domestic Lebanese front. The threats by the Lebanese opposition to establish a second government in Lebanon were part of this planned coup, and the coup was to be carried out under the banner of establishing a second government.

The articles stated that the threat voiced by Syrian President Bashar Assad during his April 2007 meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, namely, that the situation in Lebanon would “reach the point of civil war,” was actually “an official declaration of the coup he is now staging in Lebanon.”

That would be the end (at least temporarily) of the Cedar Revolution. The State Department is supposedly gung-ho on democracy in the Middle East. Do they have a plan? I’d like to think so, but only because, like a second marriage, it would be a triumph of hope over experience.

Many have been expecting, and Israel has been prudently preparing for, another war this summer. This may be the precipitating event. Let’s hope that they learned from their mistakes from last summer.

[Early afternoon update]

And then there’s this:

The London based Al-Hayat reported Saturday that Israel was “concerned” that Syria’s decision to remove military checkpoints on the road to Kuneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights could be a preparation for war.

According to the report, the checkpoints in question had been in place for 40 years, ever since the Six Day War.