Blogs For Victory

Which was totally harmless and, naturally, Saddam and his peaceful, secularist country would never, ever have dreamed of using the stuff for a WMD:

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

Prior to the left deciding that the whole WMD argument was a lie (and part of the larger BUSH LIED!!! meme), there was this 2003 news report:

In the suburbs about 18 miles south of the capital’s suburbs, this city comprises nearly 100 buildings — workshops, laboratories, cooling towers, nuclear reactors, libraries and barracks — that belong to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.

Investigators Tuesday discovered that Al-Tuwaitha hides another city. This underground nexus of labs, warehouses, and bomb-proof offices was hidden from the public and, perhaps, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who combed the site just two months ago, until the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Engineers discovered it three days ago…

…Yesterday, Hamza expressed great surprise that the underground site could even exist. The ground there is muddy and composed of clay, he said. The water table is barely a foot and a half below the surface of the ground. During construction of one of the former nuclear reactors there, French engineers spent a fortune pumping water from the foundation area, only to see buildings crumble when the water was removed.

Hamza said the French built a reactor at Al-Tuwaitha that Israel destroyed in 1981. The Russians built a reactor that was destroyed during the Gulf War. Both had the muddy ground to contend with.

So the Marine’s discovery makes the former atomic inspector wonder if the Iraqis went to the colossal expense of pumping enough water to build the underground city because no reasonable inspector would think anything might be built underground there.

Nobody would expect it,” Hamza said. “Nobody would think twice about going back there.”

Despite being destroyed twice by bombings, Al-Tuwaitha nevertheless grew to become headquarters of the Iraqi nuclear program, with several research reactors, plutonium processors and uranium enrichment facilities bustling, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

“The plutonium processing was dispersed on-site by the bombing in 1991,” said Michael Levi, the Federation’s director. “But the Iraqis started to rebuild it. And they continued building there after 1998, when the Iraqis ended the inspections.

Lots of people have lied about Iraq. Saddam lied. The French, German, Russian and UN bureaucrats who were bribed by Saddam lied. Plame lied. Wilson lied. The anti-war movement lied. President Bush, though, didn’t lie – not even once, and not even slightly. Remember: Saddam wasn’t supposed to have anything which could be used as part of a WMD program…but, amongst other banned things, he had 550 tons of yellowcake and post-Gulf War nuclear facilities undetected by the agencies charged with keeping tabs on him. Unless you want to assert – against all evidence – that Saddam was hiding entirely innocent and peaceful programs, the only logical conclusion is that he was, indeed, violating the 1991 cease fire vis a vis WMDs. Added to all the other justifications for liberating Iraq what we have here is that back in 2003 the only logical course of events for us once Saddam had re-thumbed his nose at the UN inspectors was to remove him from power.

The anti-Bush effort vis a vis Iraq has been a sick combination of stupidity, deception and cowardice…all of it done for purely political reasons by people on the left (joined by a few on the right) who wish to harm the United States in general and President Bush in particular. That millions of people have fallen for it just shows that Lincoln’s adage is correct – you can fool some of the people all of the time. There is, unfortunately, no way for us to immediately repair the damage – President Bush will leave office with millions of people having the conviction that he lied about Iraq and Saddam’s WMD programs. Only as this generation dies away and those personally identified with creating the lies are gone will an entirely unbiased treatment of this issue be possible.

Well, some times it is an outsider who can really distill what its all about:

The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain “self-evident” truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by “nature’s God.” Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called “ordered liberty”: an experiment in which men and women would enjoy equality of rights and opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and in service to the common good. Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community. Their authors clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others.

The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways. Millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic. Their commitment to build a free society with liberty and justice for all must be constantly renewed if the United States is to fulfill the destiny to which the Founders pledged their “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor.”

I am happy to take note of your words confirming the importance that your government attaches, in its relations with countries around the world, to the promotion of human rights and particularly to the fundamental human right of religious freedom, which is the guarantee of every other human right. Respect for religious conviction played no small part in the birth and early development of the United States. Thus John Dickinson, Chairman of the Committee for the Declaration of Independence, said in 1776: “Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of preexisting rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.” Indeed it may be asked whether the American democratic experiment would have been possible, or how well it will succeed in the future, without a deeply rooted vision of divine providence over the individual and over the fate of nations. – Pope John Paul II, December 16, 1997

R. R. Reno over at First Things has some interesting insights into the alleged “pregnancy pact”:

…it seems pretty clear that some teenage girls in Gloucester wanted to get pregnant, talked about it with their friends, and succeeded in conceiving. The school offers free pregnancy testing, and the school nurse reported girls celebrating when the tests came back positive. So, official pact or not, there has been an upsurge in Gloucester of something that our oh-so-inclusive age finds alien and threatening: planned teen pregnancies.

One predictable reaction has focused on sex education, or more accurately the bemoaned lack thereof. If only the students had better information about the real consequences of sexual intercourse! If only the school health clinic were permitted to dispense birth control pills! If only Gloucester didn’t suffer from the repressive mentality of a majority Catholic culture!

Hello. We’re talking about girls who wanted to get pregnant. Is it so difficult to notice that girls who want to get pregnant are not victims of supposedly prudish culture that won’t teach children the truth about sex and give them condoms?

Another reaction is less easily dismissed: It’s not about sex but parenting. If only these girls knew the extraordinary difficulties of raising a child, then they never would have done such a silly thing! So the way to prevent teen pregnancies is to dramatize the challenges of motherhood, especially single motherhood.

Mr. Reno says he has to chuckle about these reactions – especially the suggestion of “if they only knew”, that would have stopped them. My reaction is this – given what we teach our children these girls did absolutely nothing wrong.

Now, as a Christian I can say quite properly that what the girls – and the boys who impregnated them – did was wrong. But our society is, at least in popular culture, entirely post-Christian. These girls violated very basic Christian morality, but what they did is entirely in keeping with the morality prevalent in our public square in 2008. To throw up our hands in horror and ask how this could have happened is akin to a drunk asking how he could have passed out on the floor again: We tell the kids how to have sex; we refuse to tell them not to have sex; we refuse to impart to them Judeo-Christian morality; we do impart to them the concept that “right” and “wrong” are mere social constructs subject to our individual will; we place no moral opprobrium on those who engage in extramarital sex and/or have children out of wedlock – and in conjunction with this we propagandise them massively via books, magazines, music, movies and television that sex is just the coolest thing anyone can do. What is surprising is that many of our youngsters still refuse to be drawn into this sort of thing – not at all surprising that large numbers of them get into it.

People make rational decisions based upon the information they have – we are, after all is said and done, creatures who have reason at our command…the only thing which can be different from one person to another is the sort of information they have to base their decisions upon. Can anyone out there demonsrate that these girls had information which in any way, shape or form would dissuade them from their actions? Only if its Judeo-Christianity…and we don’t know if they had any of it at all or, if they did, how strongly they had been instructed in it vis a vis how strongly they were instructed in the morality of our public square. If this event in any way disturbs you, then there’s only one thing for you to do – insist upon a greater application of Judeo-Christian values.

Bob Beckel, taking a page right out of Barack Obama’s strategy book (the chapter on playing the victim card at every turn) whines about angry readers who wrote to him in response to a poorly written post at The Fox Forum about the “arrogance” of George Bush. He opined,

Is it my imagination, or are many of you angry? If I were a Republican and facing the rejection of conservatism on an unprecedented scale this coming November, I suppose I’d be angry as well. Perhaps I can help you understand why your political philosophy is about to be rejected by the American people.

Yeah, we heard the same “you’re going to lose big time in November” line before back in 2004. But, Beckel’s wishful thinking is combined with a lack of understanding of what is really going on. Conservatism is not being rejected. Far from it. The truth is conservatives are frustrated when Republicans they elected stray from conservative principles. If conservatism was being rejected, as Beckel wants to believe, then Barack Obama wouldn’t be trying to win votes shifting his positions towards the center, and taking more conservative positions on the Second Amendment, tax cuts, even abortion.

1. Conservatives are supposed to be fiscally responsible yet when your crowd inherited a trillion-dollar surplus from Bill Clinton, Bush/Cheney and a Republican Congress turned it into a $3-trillion-dollar deficit.

You certainly won’t find fiscal conservatives justifying the increases in spending, but Beckel is absolutely ignoring the impact of the 2000-2001 Recession and 9/11. It is also worth noting that two key economic achievements of the 1990s, welfare reform and the balanced budget, while signed by Bill Clinton, came to be because of the efforts of the Republican Congress.

2. Conservatives strongly support the war in Iraq but won’t help pay for it. Never has our country been at war without asking and getting our citizens to help bear the financial burden…until this war. Conservatives don’t want to give up Bush’s tax cuts for the top 5% of wage earners to help pay for this war. Why?

I guess I must be in the top 5% of wage earners, because how else can I explain the tax cut that I received? But, I’m not in the top 5%, so, enough with that argument. Also, Beckel is either choosing to ignore the record economic growth that resulted from Bush’s tax cuts. And of course, Beckel’s argument loses all credibility when you consider government tax receipts went up as a result of those tax cuts.

3. The American people got tired of being lectured on “family values” by conservative clergy and Republican members of Congress, e.g. Larry Craig, who didn’t practice what they preached.

I’m sure the American people are tired of being lecture about the rich paying “their fair share” of taxes by rich Democrats in Congression who keep large chunks of their personal wealth in off-shore tax shelters to avoid paying taxes on it. I also can’t help mentioning Democrat governor Eliot Spitzer, who built his career on breaking up prostitution rings, only to be involved in one himself. Though, it may be true that conservatives are more likely to punish the hypocrites in their party than liberals are to punish the hypocrites in their party.

4. Or maybe the voters got tired of Republicans controlling the US House of Representatives for 12 years during which they handed out more wasteful pork projects than all the pork handed out by Democrats in the 42 years preceding the GOP takeover.

And what have Democrats done to control spending and cut pork since returning to the majority? Oh yeah, nothing.

5. Or maybe voters got angry when they learned the Vice President of the United States manipulated intelligence and misled the American people on why war with Iraq was in our national security interests.

Despite several investigations by various bipartisan and independent commissions and committees, all concluded that there was no manipulation of intelligence, and that statements made by the administration were supported by the intelligence available at the time.

6. Or maybe the public didn’t like George Bush vetoing legislation to provide health insurance for millions of kids.

Another ridiculous point predicated on the belief that health insurance should be funded by the government regardless of whether federal assistance is necessary. The Democrats’ proposed expansion of SCHIP would have provided taxpayer funded health insurance to children in families who didn’t need such government assistance – but also would have left many who needed it, with no such assistence.

7. Or maybe the public got embarrassed by Republicans in the Bush Administration who refused, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to accept the reality of global warming, aka “The Flat Earth Society”.

No, what’s more embarrassing are Democrats who think global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism, and who are afraid to debate skeptics of global warming.

Beckel then concludes his poorly written list with a self-righteous rant filled with feigned resignation about his alleged experience with conservatives. If the situation were reversed, and a conservative pundit attempted to generalize liberals based on experiences with a select few, Beckel might have written something about how you can’t judge an entire party or ideology, based on an angry, vocal minority.

I expect Beckel to look at things through a partisan lens, but now I think he’s just blind. As a liberal, he certainly finds it in his best interest to talk about elections with an attitude of inevitability of the eventual positive for his party, but doing so really destroy’s his credibility as a political strategist and pundit.

Out here in Las Vegas we did the usual – a rather general popular defiance of the laws against rocket-type fireworks. That plus a few hundred thousand out of towners dropping by to pay a goodly portion of our State budget for next year.

What did you do?

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Here’s where I was Friday…

At 86 years old:

Former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, a leading conservative on Capitol Hill, died Friday morning. He was 86.

The Jesse Helms Center posted a brief statement on its Web site saying Helms died at 1:15 a.m. in Raleigh, N.C.

“He was very comfortable,” said former chief of staff Jimmy Broughton, who added Helms died of natural causes in Raleigh.

The five-term senator from North Carolina formerly chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and often railed against Communism, liberalism and big government.

Known by some as “Senator No” for his opposition to Democratic measures, Helms was a polarizing figure for his positions on social issues.

He was a proponent of school prayer and an opponent of abortion rights and gay rights groups.

Colleagues said he always was a gentleman, no matter what his positions were.

“America has lost a great public servant and true patriot today,” a White House spokesman said, after learning of Helms’ death on the Fourth of July.

Liberals hated this man – but he was, by all accounts, a very kind person who treated everyone with the respect they were due as human beings…and when slavery reared its ugly head in Africa, it wasn’t the “civil rights” movement which led the fight against it, but Senator Jesse Helms.

May God bless you, Senator, and bring you home.

The phrase is in our Declaration of Independence – used to describe how our ancestors had resisted the attempts of King George to invade the rights of the people. Can you imagine anyone in America uttering such a phrase in 2008? And yet, there it is – in the primary American document. We are, in a sense, afraid to use the words our ancestors wrote and pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to defend. And, lets also understand that words like “sacred” and “honor” are, while not banned as completely as “manly”, are certainly rarely used. What has become of us?

This concern over words used has been turning over in my mind for some days now – I was reading a book by G. K. Chesterton where he discussed the issue of birth control. The thing is, he called it as it was, and although I am 43 years old and fairly well informed, I had never approached the issue from Chesterton’s angle – the correct angle, as it is. You see, it isn’t the control of birth which is desired by “birth control” advocates, but the prevention of birth. Birth Control would actually be the process whereby we control who is allowed to give birth and when – but, of course, that is not what is wanted. What is wanted, by the advocates, is a smaller number of births. But they call it birth control, and even we who are opposed to the basic concept call it birth control…we’ve all bought into a cowardly way of avoiding the real issue because to confront the real issue would require a great deal of courage and a sublime disdain of the modern pieties.

Our whole society has become unmanned, and this is revealed in the way we deal with issue after issue. If three men who live on the street are, respectively, insane, alchoholic and shiftless, we don’t call them what they are – they are all “homeless”. Abortion is a “choice”; men who suffer from the awesome mental and spiritual weight of battle suffer from “post-traumatic stress disorder”; rape is “sexual assault”; we can murder by degrees (he isn’t so bad, he only committed second degree murder…please un-remember that the person is first degree dead, all the same)…we can no longer, in America, oppose tyrants with manly firmness…we’re not allowed to. To be manly in our firmness is forbidden…blow up our citizens, rape our daughters, butcher our unborn children – we can’t be manly in our opposition. We are to ask politely if those oppressing us will please leave us alone.

The first step in the recovery of our society is going to have to be the recovery of our manliness – our ability, even amongst women (you ladies aren’t off the hook here, ya know?), to call things as they are and demand they stop in clear, ringing tones which leave no doubt as to where we stand. The late, great Pope John Paul II advised us early in his pontificate that we should be not afraid – and that is, indeed, what we must be. And JPII, by the way, resisted with manly firmness the depraved spirit of our current age. Politely and with love, he yet managed to make himself clear and stand firm for what is right – and that is the model we must take.

Take that first step – without being rude or seeking opportunities to stir up ill will, yet always state clearly and concisely exactly what you believe is happening. Let us start to be as manly as our ancestors, and make them proud we are their descendents.

Ed. Note: This first appeared over at Battle Born Politics last year.

…If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, “Peace! Peace!” — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! – Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

These inspiring words are what it means to be an American. One can believe a lot of things, but unless one subscribes whole heartedly to every iota of our sublime Declaration, then one is not an American. Outside the bible, there are no words written by the hand of Man more valuable.

Wow, Obama goes back on his own pledges so much, one can only wonder what his position on an issue will be from day to day.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) promised primary voters a swift withdrawal from Iraq, in clear language still on his Web site: “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

Not anymore. Heading into the holiday weekend, Obama and his advisers repudiated that pledge, saying he is reevaluating his plan and will incorporate advice from commanders on the ground when he visits Iraq later this month.

A top Obama adviser said he is not “wedded” to a specific timeline and Obama said Thursday he plans to “refine” his plan.

This is not going to sit well with the liberal base that delivered the nomination to him…

From the Washington Post:

“Sen. Barack Obama left open the possibility of slowing his promised, 16-month withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, saying he would consult with military commanders on an upcoming trip to the region to ensure a withdrawal would keep troops safe and Iraq stable.”

…the Los Angeles Times:

“Is Barack Obama softening his Iraq withdrawal time line? … On the campaign website, Obama says he would “immediately” begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and would have “all of our combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.” But at a news conference, he was asked about concerns by some that he was backing off on that timetable.”

…Associated Press:

“Democrat Barack Obama is opening the door to altering his Iraq policy. Campaigning in North Dakota, Obama says his upcoming trip to Iraq could alter his plan to bring U.S. troops home within 16 months. The Illinois senator says it all depends on what he hears in consultations with military commanders there.”

…and the New York Times:

“As he arrived for a campaign stop in North Dakota, Mr. Obama told reporters on Thursday that he intended to conduct “a thorough assessment” of his Iraq policy during a forthcoming trip to the country. … It’s been more than two years since Mr. Obama has visited Iraq, which Republicans have used as a point of criticism. After dismissing an invitation from Mr. McCain to visit Iraq together this summer as a “political stunt,” Mr. Obama began making preparations for his own trip to Iraq.”