Intel on the targets came from Sunni fighters in the province, who don't seem to want Al-Qaida in the neighborhood.

The targets consisted mainly of weapons caches and powerful roadside bombs buried deep underground—key defensive elements for al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents, said [USAF Col. Peter] Donnelly and Army Col. Terry Ferrell, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

The bombing campaign was part of a nationwide operation that the U.S. military began on Tuesday in an effort to rid Iraq of al-Qaida fighters.

Col. Donnelly also said to the military's knowledge, no civilians were killed. That hasn't been independently confirmed, but he added three strikes were called off "because unmanned surveillance planes showed civilians in those areas."

That doesn't sound like widespread carefree carpet bombing to me.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 07:36 AM | Comments (24)
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O RLY?

On October 12, 2000, a small boat exploded alongside the USS Cole killing 17 sailors, wounding 39 others, and leaving extensive damages.

"Our prayers are with the families who have lost their loved ones," President Clinton said in a statement on October 12.

The USS Cole was refueling in the port city of Aden, Yemen. Officials believe that two suicide bombers crashed the small boat into the USS Cole, detonating a bomb. Yemeni officials discovered bomb making equipment in a house near Aden and believe that the two men spent several days there planning the attack.

Ron Paul asserted these ships could have taken care of the speedboats in "five minutes," which is odd, because he was also whining we should have jumped to start World War III by "taking care" of these speedboats at all.

Furthermore, the speedboats were allowed to approach pretty closely to our ships -- our commanders showed a lot of restraint. The point is by that point they had, due to their restraint, given up most of that "five minutes" and now had maybe fifteen more seconds to act, tops. The speedboats disengaged at that point. Had they not, our seamen would have had ten seconds to "take care" of them. Not five minutes.

He just doesn't make any sense.

Were our commanders supposed to "take care" of the speedboats in "five minutes," Dr. Paul? Or were they supposed to let them collide with our ships because "little speedboats" couldn't harm US military craft? Which? You claimed both in the span of ten seconds.

Because Dr. Paul is such a renaissance man of economics, science, diplomacy, international bankers and their filthy gutter religion, and warfare, I hereby forbid any reference to him by his given name.

On this site, henceforth, he will be known by the high honorific he has so richly earned: Professor Science.

Thank you for observing this rule.

Well, It's Not Professor Science Exactly... But Slublog did this earlier tonight.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 PM | Comments (230)
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I'm just kidding. I love Brit Hume.

But.

He did seem to pursue a line of questioning for far too long to no good effect. He badgered all the candidates about whether or not they were content with the naval commanders' decision not to open fire on the harassing Iranian speedboats.

He didn't just ask the question. He badgered. It was a dumb question. No candidate on the stage has any idea what the navy's rules of engagement are. No one knows the exact protocols those commanders are under as regarding opening fire. Few know -- some know, but certainly not anyone except naval officers or naval buffs -- what the minimum safe distance is for any of these ships, that is, the point at which they'd more or less be obliged to open fire or else lose the possibility of bringing their defensive guns on to the target.

Most of this stuff is fairly classified, for reasons I think should be obvious. Even if a candidate knew all the variables that enter into this decision, prudence would dictate he not respond concretely. Let's say someone knew the commanders had actually allowed the speedboats past what the navy considers the minimum safe distance for engagement -- should a candidate announce that fact to the world?

I really did not see what possible information Hume sought to elicit here.

It's also a bit of a loaded question, in that harassing and provocative behavior like this is relatively common, and our officers are trained to allow a certain amount of it -- a certain safe amount of it -- before blowing foreign military craft to hell.

Was Brit Hume really suggesting that a candidate announce tonight that the Navy's new protocol should be "Shoot on Sight"? I don't think he had such a preposterous notion in mind. So what differences was he seeking to elicit from the candidates?

Note all of them answered the same, predictable, correct way: "Dude, what the hell do I know? I'm not in the frigging Navy, I'm not a trained Naval commander, and I wasn't freakin' there. What do you want me to say? Based on my very limited, incomplete second-hand knowledge of the situation, I think these commanders should be reprimanded and retrained for not opening fire?"

That's sort of a large judgment to make based upon such sketchy information. I'm sure the higher-ups in the Navy are reviewing the situation and the decision with all of the available information, but they're experts at this, and have real, complete information to make such judgments upon.

What does Mitt Romney know about it? Even John McCain doesn't know jack about it -- he flew a plane in the sixties. He could render an expert opinion on the rules of engagement regarding a sixties-era fighter harassing his squadron, but what the hell does he know about 2000's era destroyers and frigates?

The whole line of questioning was five wasted minutes that drew no distinctions and elicited no useful information.

Except, of course, by pure happenstance: Ron Paul was revealed to be a doddering old buffoon who can't even be bothered to listen to his rivals' answers. He only could have topped his embarrassing answer by suggesting the entire situation could have been avoided by adopting the Austrian gold standard.

Which I'm pretty sure he would have actually said, had Brit Hume not interrupted the demented old dickbag.

Trap Question? The only interesting answer that could have arisen was some knucklehead trying to pander to the crowd by saying, "Hell yeah! Kill 'em all! Those commanders were derelict of duty! String 'em up! Sometimes you have to hang a few admirals to encourage the others!"

Thus exposing himself as a jackass.

But how likely was this? Apparently not very likely at all. Even the pandering Huckabee managed to grok that he really wasn't qualified to render much of judgment on this at all.

"I'd listen to what my advisers tell me" or "I'd heed the counsel of my generals" are never very interesting answers, and sometimes they're transparent dodges.

But here? Regarding second-by-second decision-making in a, um, fluid situation in which the rules of engagement are top secret? There can be no good answer except "I trust, provisionally, that the commanders acted properly and unless I'm informed otherwise I'm satisfied with their conduct."

Speaking of Incomplete Information... That radio threat made against the ships might not have been made against the ships at all. Or even have originated from the speedboats or Iran.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 PM | Comments (34)
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I'd like to think we had fun and, who knows, maybe learned something about life and love along the way.

Look for my work in a museum coming soon to your area. If someone had told me about this earlier, I'd already be a millionaire: Artists Jerks Off On Paper, Sticks It On Museum Wall, Collects $$$.

Be good to each other. I have to run out to the store for multi-colored construction paper, glitter, smiley-face stickers and Astroglide.

Maybe some of that talc that gymnasts use, too. I'm sort of behind the curve here and I have to put out a lot of product in a hurry.

All Righty Then! One down. I am now officially an artist working in the mixed medium of paper and male genetic material.

Hmmm... Not bad. It sort of looks like Ben Affleck in a snowstorm.

Oh wait, I think that's because I did it on a picture of Ben Affleck in US magazine... Damn, I meant to do it on a piece of red paper.

Because red is festive.

Oh well, I'm sure Van Gogh had a couple of "misfires" too, if you know what I mean.

Posted by: Ace at 08:44 PM | Comments (41)
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I love these things. Personally I'm in favor of skipping the debates entirely and just going right to the focus group.

No joshing around with Hugh Hewitt: I was pretty impressed with Mitt Romney, too, more than I've ever been with him. Objectively, these were the best performances so far by both Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, and no one who can considered a trusted analyst can say otherwise.

On the other hand... One woman is annoyed at Fred for being "flippant." I have kept saying this, over and over and over again: Irony and snark are city-slicker things, man. The heartland is more earnest -- you know, morons. (Just kidding.)

But seriously, Letterman's puckish drollery has never played outside the big cities. That's Leno country. More Great Big Head, less pork soda.

I know Fred has to be Fred, but I wish he could just stop running like a candidate who only cares if he's going to get AllahPundit's vote, for crying out loud. Allah's not even going to vote. Jeeze.

The Focus Group: Vid from Hot Air.

I didn't see the part where Thompson went after McCain a bit on immigration. Here it is. (Also taken from Hot Air.)

Oh, now that I see it, I remember this part. But the "attack" on McCain isn't there. He really didn't do anything to change the fact that McCain is ahead. At most he took some support from Huckabee -- but not enough of it to win the state.

So, I agree with Allah. But I'm not just saying me too. I thought Thompson had to, had to go after McCain in this debate, and he didn't. At best Thompson is now angling for a decent second place showing, if everything breaks his way.

We'll see if he uses that money you all just sent him to run ads about McCain's amnesty plans.

But he sure didn't do it here, with a big audience and free media.

Posted by: Ace at 07:59 PM | Comments (64)
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On Fox at 9pm Eastern.

Chris Wallace will probably grill Ron Paul, a bit, about the newsletters, and though he'll be tougher than Wolf Blitzer was, he's also a debate moderator, not a newsguy doing a one-on-one interview. So the exchange will be short, Ron Paul will lie his ass off with gibberish, and Chris Wallace will have to move on.

And no other candidate is going to go after him that much, either. There's no point trying to convert his glassy-eyed minions, and, as one commenter said, the moment Ron Paul exits the campaign they'll climb that tower and start on that shooting spree they've meaning to get around to, and no one wants to be on their kill-lists.

Meanwhile this is Fred Thompson's last chance to leave an impression, and by "impression," I mean a big ragged bloody bruise on an opponent. This courtly Southerm gentleman stuff does not win elections. If he wants to win, he's going to have to lay into someone ahead of him-- especially his good friend John McCain. If he can't do that he can't be president, and he won't be.

I suggest he take a page from Hillary and begin the night with a rousing stream of racial slurs. He should welcome the audience as "my niggaz" and then call Chris Wallace "Slanty McZipperhead" and respond to all of his questions with "flied lice" jokes.

9:15: Ron Paul takes no time getting to claiming recession due to "easy credit" and money being "poured" into the system, says we have to go to the Austrian school of hard currency.

Well, Helllllloooo, Nurse!!!! Fred is laying into Huckabee. NIIIIIICE.

Big cheers.

Swiped from Hot Air.

Fred showing some fire... and playing a little to the cheap seats with the "introduce them to those virgins they've been looking forward to." Gets a rousing round of applause.

Who does this help?

The answer is clear: Mitt Romney.

I'm sorry, whoever is doing "Hugh Hewitt" in the comments is killing me.

But... Mitt Romney sounds pretty darn good too.

And who does that help?

The answer is clear: It helps everyone.

Update [Slublog] - Huckabee: Death is a good soundbite. "We had no bridges falling down in Arkansas"

Wow. This guy is shameless.

Posted by: Ace at 05:34 PM | Comments (318)
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Couldn't make it up if I tried:

How can one not think of conspiracy theories having just observed a highly coordinated media attack on Ron Paul the day of the New Hampshire campaign? TNR from the left, Fox News and talk radio from the right, and piling on from beltway "libertarians" who made a point of loudly repeating the TNR smears and dumping Ron Paul on the day of the primary. Your eyes did not deceive you, all this happened. It is the result of a criminal conspiracy, but if one uses "conspiracy" as a metaphor for social networks of vast complexity, there is a strong sense in which conspiracy theories accurately, if metaphorically, explain what happened.

Posted by: Ace at 04:33 PM | Comments (27)
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By March! If you have kept up with the writings of Totten and Yon and haven't had your head up your butt for the last six months it should be no surprise to hear that Anbar will be turned over to the Iraqis this year.

The shocker is that it will be turned over so soon!

The left doesn't want to admit that the surge worked and that Petraeus should be commended, they would rather nuance the hell out of it, and attribute all the security gains to ethic cleansing.

The ethic cleansing theory is being put to the test right now as thousands of Iraqis are returning home.

If the security gains hold as the refugees return, look for the left to dig up some other lame excuse not to credit Petraeus and the surge.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:00 PM | Comments (7)
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He also hasn't done the "spade work," Hillary herself says.

Well played, Madame! Very well played.

This is an entirely unexpected bonus to the Obama candidacy: Suddenly, with the Democrats needing to not-so-subtly play the race card against a black candidate, a whole plethora of formerly-forbidden phrases and "racial code words" becomes, abracadabra, entirely suitable for civil discourse and not indicative of racism at all.

This is just wonderful news! I know I've got a whole list of terms I'm hoping the DNC and MSM will jointly now bless as acceptable. Top of that list: octaroon.

Not sure why. I guess it just reminds me of my two favorite guilty pleasures, macaroons and dressing up like Scarlett O'Hara.

Posted by: Ace at 03:50 PM | Comments (50)
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I can't be sure of that headline, but the evidence seems pretty strong to me.

Thanks to Conservative Belle.

Ron Paul

Solid, dependable old-fashioned dog-shit, backed by gold.

Because the Constitution demands nothing less.

Love!

Posted by: Ace at 03:27 PM | Comments (18)
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