No one tell Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, but Al Qaeda thinks they’re losing in Iraq.

Ain’t it a shame?

No one tell Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, but Al Qaeda thinks they’re losing in Iraq.

Ain’t it a shame?

We can’t necessarily remove every dictatorial regime on the planet, but there were many reasons to remove the one in Iraq. Critics of that decision often claim that it was up to the Iraqi people to stand up to Saddam and remove him if that’s what they wanted. Some of them (particularly the pacifists among them) even cite Mahatma Gandhi as an example, and advocate the use of non-violent resistance techniques.

What they ignore in doing so is that Gandhi faced an almost unique situation–imperialists who were not monsters, and were unwilling to put down the rebellion with the brutality necessary to do so. To think that Gandhi’s tactics would have been effective against a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a Saddam, is foolish.

And here we have a textbook example, that demonstrates the fatuity of such thinking. Who, after all, is more pacifist, and (according to their theory, should be more successful with such tactics) than Buddhist monks?

Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. “The Burma revolt is over,” she added.

“The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.

“Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear.”

Mrs Agerlid said Rangoon is heavily guarded by soldiers.

“There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon’s streets,” she added. “Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.

“People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned.”

The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned.

At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy.

The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon’s northern region, added: “I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.

“They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this.”

But such regimes can always find people who will not refuse (and some who will even take pleasure). If there is a solution to tyranny and dictatorship, it does not lie in passivity and non-violence. Or “dialogue.”

At least at the New York Times. Or if it was “fit to print,” they buried it pretty well.

“US Military Deaths In Iraq Lowest In Fourteen Months.”

Guess it doesn’t fit the template. Or help the Defeatocrats.

[Update in the afternoon]

It’s not just the military deaths that are dropping.

I should note, for anti-war loons. I don’t actually put that much stock in these kinds of statistics, for reasons I mentioned in comments–they don’t actually necessarily presage the future. I simply point them out to those who are so eager to leap on them when they think that they tell the false narrative that they want told.

[Update in mid afternoon]

For those who are into this kind of numerology, here is a lot more analysis by John Wixted.

At least at the New York Times. Or if it was “fit to print,” they buried it pretty well.

“US Military Deaths In Iraq Lowest In Fourteen Months.”

Guess it doesn’t fit the template. Or help the Defeatocrats.

[Update in the afternoon]

It’s not just the military deaths that are dropping.

I should note, for anti-war loons. I don’t actually put that much stock in these kinds of statistics, for reasons I mentioned in comments–they don’t actually necessarily presage the future. I simply point them out to those who are so eager to leap on them when they think that they tell the false narrative that they want told.

[Update in mid afternoon]

For those who are into this kind of numerology, here is a lot more analysis by John Wixted.

At least at the New York Times. Or if it was “fit to print,” they buried it pretty well.

“US Military Deaths In Iraq Lowest In Fourteen Months.”

Guess it doesn’t fit the template. Or help the Defeatocrats.

[Update in the afternoon]

It’s not just the military deaths that are dropping.

I should note, for anti-war loons. I don’t actually put that much stock in these kinds of statistics, for reasons I mentioned in comments–they don’t actually necessarily presage the future. I simply point them out to those who are so eager to leap on them when they think that they tell the false narrative that they want told.

[Update in mid afternoon]

For those who are into this kind of numerology, here is a lot more analysis by John Wixted.

I agree with Ron Rosenbaum:

I just don

I agree with Ron Rosenbaum:

I just don

I agree with Ron Rosenbaum:

I just don

Some interesting, and little reported activities in Waziristan and the Pakistan/Afghanistan border:

You may remember a couple of months ago a report that al Qaeda and its affiliates had abandoned their training camps in Pakistan along the Afghan border. The initial report caused quite a blog storm but soon the mystery was forgotten. According to AI, which links to references for all of this, the US got fed up with not being able to reach al Qaeda inside Pakistan. Then a few months back the US government told the Pakistani government that we had the coordinates for twenty-nine terror training bases and in a week we will be destroying them (perhaps on Cheney’s visit this summer). The intent was to drive the terrorists from those camps so we could get to them.

It worked. That’s why those camps emptied out.

So the US left the terrorists an escape route into Tora Bora. Once they had detected a large group of al Qaeda at the fortress and the likelihood of High Value Targets as determined by large scale security detachments, the US dropped the curtain on the escape routes back into Pakistan. We have been pounding the hell out of them for weeks in near complete secrecy.

But an observer may wonder why, if al Qaeda had to vacate the camps, didn’t they just go to other hideouts in Pakistan? According to this article in the Telegraph:

The Uzbeks are a surviving remnant of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an al-Qa’eda affiliate that fought with the Taliban against the Americans in 2001.

Its surviving members fled into Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt where earlier this year their hosts turned against them following a dispute. Afghan leaders say that the Uzbeks were recently given the choice to fight the Americans in Afghanistan or face annihilation by the local tribes.

At least one sizeable group of al-Qa’eda and Taliban fighters is continuing to resist despite heavy bombing raids and attacks from US Special Forces. American military spokesmen declined to corroborate the claim, saying the operation was ongoing.

As a reminder, “Uzbeks” is a synonym for al Qaeda in the Pakistani border region and what the locals call all foreign jihadists. So the reporting from Pakistan earlier this year was spot on. Some powerful Taliban leaders have turned on al Qaeda and when their terror camps were targeted by the US they had nowhere else to go.

I blame George Bush.