They say it was a legitimate attack on insurgents crossing the border:

Kimmitt said coalition ground troops were investigating a suspected "rat line" — a route used by anti-U.S. insurgents and criminals such as smugglers — when they came under fire.

The troops called in air support, Kimmitt said, and coalition planes attacked the site. He said the ground troops afterward recovered "numerous weapons, 2 million Iraqi and Syrian dinar, foreign passports, and a SATCOM radio."

Hmmmmmm. Maybe it was one of those weddings where everyone decided to give the bride a SATCOM radio and foreign passports. We think you can get those when you register at Macy's.

Dave Pasquino immediately disputed our "Oh, the sky is falling" take on the report earlier. We're extraodinarily happy to be proven wrong.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (7)
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Recovers Message-Discipline Just in Time to Avoid Actual Mention

W A S H I N G T O N -- The blogosphere was roiled today when it was learned a blog-posting written by hyperpartisan hack Josh Marshall almost, but didn't quite, mention the discovery of sarin.

The controversy arose when Josh Marshall linked a NYT column by William Safire which itself mentioned the discovery of WMD's in Iraq.

Although Mr. Marshall took great care to avoid mentioning the actual topic of Safire's column, choosing instead to criticize Safire for tangential statements, the very fact that he linked the column might have resulted in liberal readers clicking through to Safire's column and learning that Sarin had indeed been discovered in Iraq.

Josh Marshall, accused by fellow liberals
of very nearly informing his readership
about important breaking news.

"Too Close for Comfort"

"For God's sakes, what could he have been thinking?" wondered a fellow leftist blogger calling himself the Daily Kos. "We all know our duties as liberal pundits. We exist to insulate our readers within the warm and comfortable womb of orthodox liberal thought. Liberals just can't coccoon themselves, after all: this is our job. We must not, under any circumstances, ever mention anything that might cause our readers to question their partisan religous beliefs. And yet Josh Marshall -- an experienced, talented liberal propagandist -- almost mentioned the 's' word in today's posting. I'm just frankly stunned and saddened that he almost, but didn't quite, inform his readers about recent news."

Other liberals were more forgiving. "Sure, he got himself into trouble there for a little while," said Kevin Dunn, formerly CalPundit, and now writing for The Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog. "And yeah, I have to admit, I was afraid he'd actually lose control of himself and mention an incontrovertible fact which undermines liberal fantasies. But I think he managed to pull himself together just in the nick of time, right on the brink, as it were. You'll notice that he derides Safire's prediction of finding biological weapons, and yet he very craftilly manages to avoid mentioning the actual finding of chemical weapons, nerve agents, such as Sarin. The man is a pro, and I'm not going to sit here passing judgment on him. He made a mistake; but he corrected it. Isn't that all we can ask?"

"Mistakes Were Made"

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wasn't quite so willing to pardon what he called "an unforgiveable error" on Mr. Marshall's part. Krugman earned special praise in liberal circles for writing a series of damning articles about Bush's alleged association with Enron, while masterfully failing to reveal the fact that he himself had been a paid Enron advisor in past years and had, in fact, written an enthusiastically-gushing puff-piece on the company for Fortune magazine-- an article which was almost certainly a quid pro quo for his payment by Enron.

"Look, I realize sometimes it's hard to avoid mentioning important breaking news with enormous political consequences," the diminutive dean reflected. "But, for God's sakes, I'm an American economist who has studiously avoided discussing the state of the American economy for some fifty days straight now, despite writing two columns a week. If I can avoid even broaching the subject in which I am supposedly an expert for such a long period of time -- nicely avoiding any mention of GDP growth, productivity gains, falling deficits and explosive jobs creation -- I think someone like Josh Marshall should be able to manage avoiding any mention of Sarin for a couple of weeks."

Josh Marshall was contacted for his reaction but would not provide any comment. When asked about the discovery of Sarin in Iraq, he said, "I'm sorry, but I really don't know what you're talking aobut. No habla Englais. Dees is a shoe store, Senor. Please no call again."

Update: Link corrected to point to referenced post.

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (31)
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THE GREAT WESTERN Desert, Australia -- It's a tiny community, of just one hundred and fifty souls. The economic center of the town is a single oil well; the only other economic activities are subistence farming and light trade with far-flung outposts across the dangerous highways. The town has no name, and appears on no maps.

But for the past year, residents have been debating a problem: what is to be done about the growing threat from the rampaging, gay-looking, bare-assed S&M biker gangs that control the highways and occasionally surround the town?

Lord Humungus, spiritual leader of the savage roving sort-of gay biker-gangs. Called "The Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah," he is seen here delivering the daily prayers to his followers and exhorting them to "kill, kill, kill" all who stand in his way. He describes himself as being fundamentally "a man of peace."


One resident, a 30-year-old unmarried female known only to her fellow residents as "Warrior Woman," sees the threat in stark terms. "They're monsters," she says flatly. "They butcher us when we dare to leave the town's protective walls. Every day they kill a couple more of us; every day their numbers grow. The only solution is to take the fight to them."

A Feral Kid expresses his full agreement with the Warrior Woman. "Rrrrahhh," he says. And there seems little chance of changing his mind.

But other residents are more cautious. "'Take the fight to them?'" scoffs one resident. "That's what Warrior Woman says about every problem. Are the chickens not producing enough eggs? Take the fight to them. Are the engines of our scavenged vehicles old and in dire need of replacement? Take the fight to them."

The resident, who only identifies himself as The Curmudgeon, sighs and shakes his head. "Warrior Woman has a cool composite bow and bright-white football shoulder pads. She thinks she can fight the highway trash. But you know what? The highway gangs have shoulder pads too, and lots of bows and arrows. They've got crossbows, little ones that fit right on their forearms. And their leader even has a .44 magnum revolver and four bullets, several of which might not be dud rounds."

The Curmudgeon doesn't believe that war is the solution. "An arrow for an arrow leaves the world blind."

"I reject the term 'terrorism,'" says the leader of the highway gangs, a beefy, steel-hockey-mask-wearing self-styled "resistance leader" calling himself Lord Humungus. "Is it 'terrorism' when when we indiscriminately slaughter innocent civillians? Is it 'terrorism' when we take them prisoner and tie them to the front of our dune-buggies as human shields? Is it 'terrorism' just because we surround their camp and tell them they must give in to us or else we will continue terrorizing them?"

Lord Humungus scoffs at the absuridity of that characterization. "I think terms like 'terrorism' are far too simplistic. The world isn't black and white. It just isn't. Sure, all the people in the town wear white shoulder pads and bleached canvas, and all of our highway maniacs wear black leather bondage gear, but viewing the world in such a way lacks all nuance."

"This town's leadership doesn't understand that we can compromise with these savage, merciless bisexual rapist-killers," The Curmudgeon says. "This Humungus is a reasonable man. He can be negotiated with."

Lord Humungus is quick to agree. "We want exactly what they want. We want to torture them and butcher them. We want to rape them indiscriminately, men, women, children, and poultry. We want to take everything they have and leave them for dead, to be feasted upon by the desert vultures. Surely they can see that, by cooperating, we can both achieve all of our goals together. They will finally have peace, and we will finally have murdered every single one of them."

He seems reflective as he contemplates the misunderstanding between the cultures. "The savage marauding somewhat-gay biker-gang culture is a Culture of Peace. I do not want to set my beloved Dogs of War on these people. But they force me to. All of this senseless violence. And for what?"

One resident thinks she knows. "It's all about the oil," says an unnamed, chubby-but-hot blonde woman whose breasts seem perpetually in danger of falling out of her wide-open blouse, but never quite do. "It's just about the oil-well in the middle of our town. That's all this is about." She says she recently protested a speech by the town's leader, Pappagallo, waving a sign reading "NO BLOOD FOR GUZZOLINE."

Outside commentators see no easy answers, no obvious way to break the unending "cycle of violence."

Some have suggested that the only possible solution to the town's dilemma is the arrival of a mysterious, amoral drifter who can drive like an absolute madman but who is haunted by the deaths of his wife and daughter. The arrival of such a hero, it is imagined, will unite the town behind a single plan of action and lead to a daring daylight escape to the more civilized coastal areas, where there's "nothing to do but breed."

But Auntie Entity, Mayor for Life of neighboring Bartertown, rejects this solution as being "too easy." "We don't need another hero," she says as she polishes her chainmail boustier. "We just need to find the way home."

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (24)
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Just terrible, terrible news, and potentially the sort of thing that will put Iraq over the edge.

This is one of the problems with "staying longer, doing more." These sorts of incidents are nearly unavoidable. Like rolling snake-eyes in craps, they're not very likely but they will occur given enough rolls. You can hope and pray that snake-eyes won't come up, and, if you're extremely lucky, maybe they won't.

But they usually will. Sometimes at the worst possible time.

The pilot in question probably had ever reason, from his perspective, and acting on the limited knowlege he had, to fire on the revellers, who were, of course, practicing the utterly stupid tradition of firing off their AK-47's in celebration. Not smart during a fucking war.

But the Iraqis, of course, will cut us no slack on that score.

At this point, this is just a "report," and, who knows, it's possible that the pilot actually fired on an enemy position, accidentally killing some women and children, and the PR-conscious terrorists immediately decided to start claiming "wedding party."

Perhaps. But we're sad to say that this probably was in fact a wedding party, and this calamity could cause massive problems in the country.

Our hearts go out to all the innocent dead, and to the pilot in question, who more than likely was confronted with what he believed to be hostile fire and acted appropriately and honorably -- but disastrously and tragically -- given the report of his senses.

Posted by: Ace at 09:44 AM | Comments (17)
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As you know, very serious and over-the-top charges have been leveled against this country by Massachusetts' senior Senator. If you've never heard of him, he's a champion at the soon-to-be-Olympic-sport known as "the modern Hexathalon" (Chivas chugging; grab-assing; drunk driving; vehicular bridge-diving; the twenty-foot surface swim combined w/mistress abandonment; vehicular manslaughter; and then political-connections cover-up).

Flying Spacemonkey alerts us to a petition demanding that this gold-medal hexathalete resign his position of trust in the Senate immediately.

We don't know how smart it is to toss around charges like treason. We do it ourselves, but we don't know how smart that is, either. And we're not joiners and signers, like so many liberals obviously are; you probably aren't, either.

Still, if you're interested, the petition is here.

Posted by: Ace at 08:51 AM | Comments (1)
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We can't do much better on this topic than Glenn Reynolds does here. Every link of this post is a keeper.

In a small victory for the blogosphere, it's the William Safire link that is the least compelling of all the links.

Posted by: Ace at 08:39 AM | Comments (1)
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Mr. Peanut's Top Ten Euphemisms for "Doin' It"

10. The shell game

9. Roastin' and toastin'

8. Visiting old man Macadamia

7. Doin' the funky filbert

6. Almond joy

5. Makin' marzipan

4. nougat-diving

3. Honey Dippin'

2. The Mexican Hat-trick

...and Mr. Peanut's #1 Euphemism for Doin' It...

1. gettin' "brittle"

Thanks to JFH who tossed us "goober." We changed the title of this post, for the better, to work in a goober joke.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 PM | Comments (7)
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Thanks to Marcland, who's expecting a junior Marcland any moment now, a link to this terrific chart:

Chart Showing Sharp Decline in Terrorist Attacks, and Amazing Increase in Thwarted Terrorist Attacks, Since Construction of Israeli Security Wall.

Read it and weep. Or rather, read it and gather hope. Terrorism can be defeated; we just need the will to do so, and the perseverance to ignore those among us praying for us to lose.

Marcland also brings our attention to this:

Okay, this is cheap and everything, but if you didn't know, who would you say was the edgy Irish rocker, and who would you say were the well-fed, boring Senators, based upon hairline recession alone?

Bono, it's time to cut what's left of your hair into something more suiting a weather-beaten, balding old man. Either that or go all the way with it, and tie the hair still growing on the back of your head into one of those horrid bald-hippie ponytails.

We take our victories when we find them.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 PM | Comments (14)
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Kausfiles has been pushing the "faster Iraq" plan for some time. We generally, tentatively, agree with him.

He makes a simple point in the latest offering, one we've been meaning to make ourselves.

Many conservatives want to stay in Iraq longer, and do more, because they believe that doing so correlates to a more stable Iraq, a more democratic Iraq down the road, and an Iraq more predisposed to being America's ally.

If this belief is true, then getting out of Iraq more quickly would indeed be a sell-out, a betrayal, a cutting-and-running for political reasons.

But what if this belief isn't true?

What if the positives of America staying longer and doing more also come with significant negatives? What if staying longer, doing more actually produces more anger among Iraqis than goodwill; less appreciation for America rather than more; and a greater likelihood of instability and take-over by hostile Islamofascist forces rather than less?

And what if these negatives will actually get worse and worse the longer America retains control of Iraq? What if such negatives begin to exceed, and even dwarf, the positive benefits of a longer stay?

We admit that there is little firm evidence for the latter proposition. But there is just as scant evidence for the former proposition. We just don't know either way.

But those who would counsel "stay, stay" should bear in mind that there exists at least the possibility that the "stay, stay" plan is actually detrimental to the interests of both democracy-seeking Iraqis and American security.

Posted by: Ace at 10:42 AM | Comments (11)
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We watched Chris Matthews last night just to see what he'd say about the sarin, if anything.

He didn't bring up the topic himself, but his guest, Tony Blankley, did.

You won't be stunned to learn that Matthews immediately denigrated the discovery:

MATTHEWS: Well, let‘s take a look. That‘s a much bigger story than the camera move. Here it is, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was deeply concerned over the inaccurate information given to him for his U.N. presentation on Iraq‘s WMDs in February of 2003. And, remember, this was the main argument for us going to war to the world.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “MEET THE PRESS”)

POWELL: But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading, and for that I am disappointed and I regret it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Tony, he spent like—I mean, an enormous amount of time over at CIA headquarters trying to get the argument made correctly, and he‘s an honest man, I assume, Colin Powell, to make the case to the U.N. based on the best available intel. Now he‘s saying he doesn‘t believe in any of what the cause we made for war.

BLANKLEY: Well, and it‘s odd that it comes up just the week that now they‘ve announced that they have found one shell with sarin nerve gas. They had another one a week or two ago with mustard gas. Obviously, there‘s going to be found—there‘s now been found...

MATTHEWS: But these are tactical weapons of war. They‘re in any cache of weapons, aren‘t they?

BLANKLEY: Well, only in certain countries, like Iraq and Syria.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANKLEY: Obviously, my sense is that there are a lot of people in the administration

(CROSSTALK)

BLANKLEY: They know it‘s politically incorrect to say that we might still find them, but they still suspect they might still find them.

MATTHEWS: Still holding hope there, right? Cause to war.

That's what we'd call a clumsy shift in argument. For months, Matthews and the rest of the liberal media has been arguing strenuously that, of all the regimes in the world, Hussein's was one of the few not producing or maintaining WMD stocks.

It only takes the discovery of a single sarin shell to abruptly throw the spin into a squealing reverse and begin claiming that of course Saddam had sarin, everyone did. After all, aren't these mere "tactical weapons of war"?

Well, yes, Chris, they are. Any weapon which is not a strategic weapon is a "tactical weapon of war."

And if it's sarin, it's also prohibited WMD. A WMD "tactical weapon of war."

The left is forever raising the bar for evidence, and forever engaging in childish semantic games. The presence of sarin in Iraq doesn't prove the presence of sarin in Iraq. Furthermore, this was merely a "tactical weapon of war;" apparently the new sematic game will be that we went to war to stop Hussein's manufacture and retention of only strategic WMD's.

Tactical WMD's? Nothing to sweat about, apparently.

We're not sure if that's even worth mentioning. Hell, the sarin shell might not even turn out to be a sarin shell, or it might turn out to be so degraded it as to be proveably manfactured ten years ago and now utterly harmless.

Still, Jordan hasn't yet specified what chemical weapons were to be used in the terrorist attack that country spoiled. We're very curious if the agent was sarin. We actually suspect it was ricin, Jordan isn't telling yet.

And we're very curious if Chris Matthews can ever be made to understand that if you detonate enough "tactical weapons of war" in a civilian population center, that makes those weapons into stragegic weapons.

Strategic terror WMD's, as a matter of fact.

The weakness of Chris Matthews' artless repositioning would seem to indicate the left is not ready to even begin dealing with the possibility that Hussein had WMD, and that further discoveries will leave them sputtering and flat-footed.

But we guess we probably already knew that.

Update-- "Ideological Certainty:" In the comments, Tman makes the perfectly plausible case that this shell might have simply been abandoned by Hussein long ago, accidentally discarded amongst non-prohibited high-explosives shells and other conventional munitions, and thus would not indicate that Hussein deliberately retained a WMD capacity.

That's plausible. Hell, as much as it pains us to say it, at this point that seems probable.

Longshanks, on the other hand, points out that the "accidental discovery" theory, even if correct, would seem to indicate the possibility of a lot of these shells lying around. Which would seem to undermine the case that Hussein just "forgot" to destroy this shell.

We can't yet know who's right, and it's too early for the right to begin claiming vindication.

But we will say this: One of the more self-serving and ludicrous vanities of the left is that they are more empirically-minded than the right, that they adjust their thinking according to real-world evidence while the right, especially as embodied in the figures of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the rest, clings single-mindedly and simple-mindedly to its ideological dogma no matter what the real-world evidence might indicate.

This is ridiculous as a historical matter, but let's put that aside.

We are bemused that the "empircially-minded," "evidence-seeking," reason-and-facts-not-ideology left is so quick to insist that their ideological claims, which have by this point hardened into something resembling core religious dogma, are of course unaffected by the discovery of sarin in Iraq. Indeed, they will soon be arguing that the discovery of sarin even buttresses their claims that Saddam never produced WMD. We're not sure how, but they'll make that case.

We're willing to admit that the right's case for war is not yet vindicated, and that additional evidence must be obtained before making any firm conclusions.

Will Chris Matthews and the other hard-core ideologues on the left make a similar concession?

It would seem thusfar that they are not. They know that the sarin doesn't indicate anything much at all. They don't base that on any evidence, but upon their near-religious belief that Saddam was one of the few bad operators in the world not seeking or retaining WMD's.

WSJ: Precursors Discovered in Military Stockpiles: The key to this is remembering that many chemical weapons -- especially nerve agents -- are very similar to pestiticides and, indeed, can be chemically converted to one another without great difficulty. Remember all those early "WMD finds" which were discovered to be, upon further chemical analysis, merely pesticides?

Newsmax digests a WSJ report stating that many of these "harmless pesticides" have been discovered, hidden and camouflaged, in military stockpiles.

Yeahp, It's Sarin: Tests confirm that the agent was sarin, and this story reports that the exposed troops did indeed suffer the symptoms of sarin poisoining, although they're okay now.

Here's the thing:

The left kept telling us (correctly) that sarin degrades over time. They kept telling us this because they expected the sarin to turn out to be utterly degraded and harmless, and thus indicative of long-ago manufacture which would not prove that Saddam has lately been producing WMD's.

But the sarin did in fact harm the troops.

We have no idea what the degradation curve of sarin might look like. Perhaps sarin still retains some capacity to do harm ten or so years after manufacture.

But we'd like to hear that from a genuine expert.

More, More, More: Great catch. Saddam Hussein never admitted he had binary agent weapons, and the US, in fact, didn't think he did.

Turns out our intelligence was wrong: Saddam had worse weapons than we'd guessed.

NRO tipped us to that. And you must read this December 2003 article quoted in The Corner, in which an Iraqi terrorist leader boasts of having access to Saddam's WMD's:

When a reporter expresses skepticism, Abu Ali smiles and says, "Wait and see."

The Boy in the Bubble: Too many people have wrongly claimed for too long that hyperpartisan hack Josh Marshall represented a moderate, reasonable liberal politics.

We've mentioned that some time ago Marshall declared he would no longer even bother responding to the "lies" of the right. He would just ignore all arguments from the right entirely.

Well, apparently he's taken to ignoring purely factual reporting as well. Apparently now working under the principle of See No Sarin, Hear No Sarin, Speak No Sarin, Marshall can't even manage to mention the discovery, not even in a "so what, nyaah, nyaah, nyaaah" style post as offered by Oliver Willis.

Search for "sarin' on Marshall's site. Expect to be disappointed.

If you refuse to admit a fact, that fact doesn't exist.

Blaster Seems Determined to Own this Story, Dang Him: We're not sure if he's right -- perhaps he's overlooked a report or conference somewhere -- but Blaster seems to have discovered the LA Times flat-out lying about General Kimmel saying this round was from "the eighties."

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (42)
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