Sanctions — so the story goes with the anti-war Left — should’ve been allowed to work in Iraq, and the invasion should have been a last resort. OK, let’s put aside for the moment that the sanctions weren’t working, were instead enriching Hussein, and were being actively undermined by our “allies” France and Russia. Let’s just focus on sanctions in and of themselves. You’d think that installing sanctions on organizations that the US has labelled terror groups would meet with approval by this crowd.

You’d think wrong.

Several Democratic presidential candidates, though not front-runner Hillary Clinton, said they were worried the White House had begun a march to war.

“I am deeply concerned that once again the president is opting for military action as a first resort,” said Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, a long-shot Democratic candidate.

How much of a long-shot do you have to be to require labelling sanctions “military action”? How desperate must you be to find something, anything, to complain about that you stoop to this level?

Perhaps as desperate as a Russian President.

It is the first time the United States has sought to take such punitive measures against another country’s military. Russia and some other U.S. allies believe dialogue rather than more punishment or military action is the way forward.

“Why should we make the situation worse, corner it, threatening new sanctions?” Putin said in Lisbon.

Sure, because dialogue has made things so much better already, with Iran utterly ignoring the sense of the international community. They know they’ll at least have France and Russia on their side, eh?

What military options there are must be considered, as a last resort, because to not consider them does two things. First, it catches us off guard if we turn out to need it and have not prepared for it. Second, it shows that, during such dialogue, we are serious about what we are saying. Any country not willing to back up its words with actions, and to prepare for those actions should they become necessary, will simply not be listened to by any rogue state. Instead, said rogue state will simply keep the international community at the “bargaining table” until such time as they’ve done what they wanted anyway.

Which is the course this is taking already. Iran has showed no signs whatsoever that diplomacy is working on them. Think it’ll be easier to bargain with an Iran backed by a nuclear bomb? But in the meantime, the anti-war Left is whining about sanctions being put in place. I’ll bet if this was a Democrat doing it, they’d be extolling the diplomatic process.

UPDATE: The Captain points to another article on the subject that finds more whining against sanctions.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said in a statement yesterday that Bush’s action “not only echoes the chest-pounding rhetoric which preceded the invasion of Iraq in 2002, but also raises the specter of an intensified effort to make the case for an invasion of Iran.”

Technorati Tags: sanctions, Iran, Revolutionary Guard, Vladimir Putin, Christopher Dodd

Shire Network News #104 has been released. The feature interview is with graphic novelist, Bosch Fawstin. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary segment.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to “Consider This!”

MoveOn.org placed a full-page ad in the New York Times suggesting that General Petraeus might be called “General Betray Us”. MoveOn.org, who I assume supports the troops, just not their leaders, and who don’t question anyone’s patriotism, except when they do, says that “Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war.”

Now, by “unwinnable”, I imagine they mean that we can’t win, by stopping the fighting. And that’s certainly true, especially if you look at history. I mean, the British have been trying to stop Protestant and Catholic violence in Ireland for…. Oh, wait. They did manage to stop the violence. OK, well that’s a good thing, right?

The peace in Ireland came after 38 years of, shall we say, “occupation” by British forces. But MoveOn.org is shocked — SHOCKED — that “American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years”. So perhaps peace after 38 years was not worth it? Talk about your short attention spans. Talk about your instant gratification culture. These guys must not keep their money in anything longer than a 6-month certificate of deposit. “The Cold War going to last how long? Ah, just give the Soviets what they want. A few innocent looking missiles in Cuba aren’t going to hurt anyone. Let’s just move on, and bring the troops home from Germany.”

(Oh, and we’d better not let them know that we still have American troops in Germany. I mean, can you imagine the reaction? I may be a mean-spirited wingnut, but I have my limits.)

And if there was any question — any at all — that MoveOn.org and the allegedly objective New York Times were on the same, viciously partisan side, here’s some information that should clarify things. The Times gave MoveOn.org a significantly cut rate on their “Betray Us” full page ad. The standard rate for that size an ad is $181,692, but MoveOn.org got theirs for a mere $65,000. That’s a about 65% off! That’s either because September is a slow ad month for the Times, or because, as one Republican staffer put it, they must’ve gotten the “family discount”. Actually, this rate is called the “special advocacy” rate, but is this discount available for conservative causes? If you ask the Swift Boat Vets for Truth, or the National Right to Life Committee, you’ll soon realize that this “special advocacy” rate is applied in a rather lopsided fashion. Got to keep it all in the family, as it were.

In conjunction with this, the Times has put out a new, sliding scale rate for political ads. The new schedule is as follows:

All Republicans: 110% of list price
Generic Democrats: 75%
BDS Sufferers: 50%
Daily Kos writers: 40% but the ad must appear in the Entertainment section
Michael Moore: No upfront charge. Instead, 13% of gross profits from the next movie
William Shatner: Name your own price
And an additional 5% off for each clever pun on someone’s name (which must appear in at least 48 point type)

At least we know where the Times stands; side by side with an organization, like MoveOn.org, that is willing to smear anyone for political gain. It runs in the family.

Back to you, Brian.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, MoveOn.org, New York Times, Bosch Fawstin, General Peter Petraeus

Democrats have bemoaned the (alleged) loss of standing with the world that the US has suffered supposedly due to the war in Iraq. I guess before that, everyone just loved us, and since then we’ve lost the support of our allies. Well, the good news is, those Democrats can stop their worrying; France likes us again.

Sometimes it’s not the message, but the messenger who delivers it. After spending much of this decade going head to head with the US over its invasion of Iraq due to nuclear weapons suspicions, France seems to be joining American bellicosity when it comes to those same suspicions about Iran. On French radio on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that it is time to “prepare ourselves for the worst” and indicated that he was talking about a possible war with Iran.

The remarks are simply the most recent indication that France under new President Nicolas Sarkozy is turning its back on the almost reflexive anti-US stance of his predecessor Jacques Chirac.

Democrats who have cited our “standing” as a reason to oppose Bush will now start supporting him, right? Well, no, of course it couldn’t be that easy.

On Monday, the UN’s head nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei blasted Kouchner, saying that diplomacy is still the best route and warned against “hyping” the issue.

“There are rules on how to use force,” ElBaradei said “and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.”

Of course, the UN is still jittery. Yes, there are rules on how to use force, which, incidentally, we followed, and still we “lost standing”. Sorry, I don’t exert too much worry on what others might think of us even if we follow the rules. I want diplomacy to work, make no mistake. But I also want enemies to know that there will be a price if they continue to threaten us and our allies. That’s all that Kouchner was saying; nothing’s off the table.

Kouchner also indicated that the European Union might begin looking into imposing its own sanctions against Iran, should the UN continue to be unable to strengthen those currently in place.

Because we all know how well UN sanctions worked on Iraq. Exhibit A is:

China and Russia — both of which wield vetoes on the UN Security Council — have been reluctant to take a harder line against Iran, which is widely suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Anyway, it looks like the world is starting to see things our way again, albeit slowly. Democrats should be sleeping better tonight.

Either that or the whole “standing” issue was just a smoke screen, as long as the “world” though the way they did. I’m kinda leaning that way.

Technorati Tags: France, United Nations, Bernard Kouchner, Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran, China, Russia

I’m not a big fan of opinion polls, especially when average Americans are polled on a subject that they really don’t know or can’t know much about. One of the recent polls that the media has enjoyed reporting the results of is whether folks think the “surge” in Iraq is working.

Frankly, the average American, myself included, has no way to know definitively whether the surge is “working” or not. It mostly depends on your definition of “working” and what you’re hearing from the news media. A poll of people without all the facts — and if you’re not in the military or the government, you probably don’t have nearly enough facts — is pretty much useless.

Still, the media like to use them to generate news, and back in July, CBS News polled Americans and found that 19% thought the surge was “making things better”. However, when that poll started to go against the liberal media narrative of how bad things are going there, their coverage reflected their displeasure at the outcome.

On the day of the long-anticipated report from General David Petraeus on the “surge,” the CBS Evening News ignored how its latest poll discovered the third straight month of an increase in the percent of Americans who believe the surge has “made things better” in Iraq. As the percentage has gone up, CBS’s interest in the result has gone down. In July, anchor Katie Couric led with how only 19 percent thought the surge was “making things better” and a month later, in August, when that number jumped to 29 percent, CBS and Couric gave it just 12 seconds 20 minutes into the newscast..

While Monday’s CBS Evening News skipped how the share crediting the surge for “making things better” rose to 35 percent in the survey conducted through Saturday, the newscast found time to highlight three other findings that stressed public opposition to the war and distrust of President Bush.

When the poll backs the narrative, it leads. When it doesn’t, find some other way to ask the question to get the “right” response.

Oh, that liberal media.

Technorati Tags: liberal media, polls, Iraq surge, CBS News, Katie Couric

“At the outset I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or the Congress until it was just handed out. As a bottom line up-front, the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met.” —General David Petraeus

Technorati Tags: General David Petraeus, Iraq surge, Iraq war

Shire Network News #102 has been released. The feature interview is with Reut Cohen, a student at UC Irvine, who documents anti-Semitism on campus. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary segment.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network New, asking you to “Consider This”.

This is a Blogosphere News Roundup; a BNR on SNN. My own little version of the Blog News segment but missing the wonderfully funky segue music.

First up is a new movie from Brian De Palma, entitled “Redacted”, which attempts to paint all US soldiers in a bad light by highlighting, in gory detail, the rape of girl and the murder of her family by 5 soldiers. De Palma calls this “the reality of what is happening in Iraq”.

This incident is horrifying, no doubt about that. But isn’t calling that “the reality” sort of like looking closely at an ant hill in my 1-acre yard and thus, by extension, condemning my house since it must be overrun by ants? De Palma blames the US for this atrocity, which may be fair enough, but he also blames the US for the beheadings by al Qaeda. Heads, it’s our fault. Tails, the fault is ours. After all, if only we weren’t in Iraq, all these al Qaeda types would instead be sipping lemonade by the pool, and their new motto would be “Live and Let Live”. And if you believe that, I’ve got a couple of towers in downtown Manhatten I’d like to sell you.

De Palma’s next film will declare that the continent of Africa is devoid of people after filming 100 square yards of Saharan real estate. Working title: “The Bonfire of the Insanities”.

Next up, Senator Hillary Clinton was found to have taken campaign money from a man of questionable ethics. Hmm, fugitive raises money for a Clinton. Eh, never mind, no real news there.

But speaking of the US presidential campaign, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama picked up a key endorsement on Wednesday; the late Fidel Castro. Fidel, from beyond the grave, said that a Clinton/Obama ticket would be “invincible”. Castro should know something about invincibility; not even his death can keep him from writing editorials. (Yes, yes, I know Castro’s death has not been confirmed, but really; a Communist leader who took ill and has not been seen in months? These guys need to get an original script. I hear Brian De Palma has just come into some free time.)

In Sydney, Australia, thousands of Christians protested and set on fire the building where the religious art competition, the Blake prize, was showing off their entries. Among them was a statue of the Virgin Mary in a burqa, and a holographic image that morphed between Jesus and Osama bin Laden, which enrage Christians to the point of rioting. Heh, yeah, right, you knew better than that. Oh, the art exhibits do indeed exist. It’s just that the worst things that happened were a few tut-tuts from a number of folks including Prime Minister John Howard, and some angry phone calls. Hey fellas, I’ve got some Danish cartoons I’d like to enter in your contest. You’re open to all religions, right? Right?

It’s been 2 years since hurricane Katrina blew through New Orleans. The flood waters rose, the levees were broken, people were driven from their homes, and now President Bush is visiting there. I believe that according to my reading of the book of Exodus, locusts should be next.

And finally, from the news site The Australian comes this headline: “A nuclear-armed Iran would not be good”. Indeed. A sworn enemy of the West with one of the most powerful weapons on the face of the Earth could ruin your whole afternoon. I wonder if, 2 years ago, there might have been an article headlined, “Bad Storm Hit New Orleans”.

All yours, Brian.

Might be.

Remains of the Jewish second temple may have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Israeli television reported Thursday.

Israeli television broadcast footage of a mechanical digger at the site which Israeli archaeologists visited on Thursday.

Gaby Barkai, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, urged the Israeli government to stop the pipework after the discovery of what he said is “a massive seven metre-long wall.”

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jewish temple, Gaby Barkai, Bar Ilan University, Judaism

If we pull out of Iraq soon, and if there is a massacre there on the scale of the millions in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, will the news media tell us about it? If you look at the history of the media, probably not, since they didn’t say much about those very Killing Fields. The Media Research Center highlights a 1982 study done by George Washington University professor William Adams, in which he documented how much coverage, between 1975 and 1978, the media gave this holocaust. The short answer:

Television coverage averaged “less than thirty seconds per month per network.”

The study also compares the coverage to that of the Jonestown suicides, and debunks the excuse TV gave at the time that there were no pictures and without that there isn’t a story. It also slams the print media for their lethargy.

Oh, that liberal media.

Technorati Tags: media bias, Media Research Center, George Washington University, Killing Fields, Cambodia, Vietnam, William Adams

Christopher Hitchens is no fan of religious folks, and enjoys the infighting he sees among religions. However, there is one argument at least that he finds even lower than those.

Arcane as these disputes may seem, and much as I relish seeing the faithful fight among themselves, the believers are models of lucidity when compared to the hair-splitting secularists who cannot accept that al-Qaida in Mesopotamia is a branch of al-Qaida itself.

Hitchens takes apart the arguments that are used by folks to try to convince themselves that Iraq isn’t really a front in the war on terror. A short but meaty read. He closes by putting it all in context.

We can not only deny the clones of Bin Ladenism a military victory in Iraq, we can also discredit them in the process and in the eyes (and with the help) of a Muslim people who have seen them up close. We can do this, moreover, in a keystone state of the Arab world that guards a chokepoint—the Gulf—in the global economy. As with the case of Afghanistan—where several provinces are currently on a knife-edge between an elected government that at least tries for schools and vaccinations, and the forces of uttermost darkness that seek to negate such things—the struggle will take all our nerve and all our intelligence. But who can argue that it is not the same battle in both cases, and who dares to say that it is not worth fighting?

Isn’t that sort of idea, and indeed reality, worth fighting for?

Technorati Tags: Christopher Hitchens, Afghanistan, Iraq, al-Qaeda, AQI

Warner Hudson at Blogger News Network wonders, “how many times do we have to see the MSM reporting on a “massacre of Iraqi civilians” that turns out to be a false story planted by our enemies before we can definitively say that the MSM is purposefully aiding and abetting the terrorists?” He’s got coverage of yet another massacre that wasn’t.

Technorati Tags: Warner Todd Hudson, Iraq, media, terrorism