There is an interesting piece over at the Asia Times, entitled “Nasrallah’s other fight.”  Not only is there a close connection between Nasrallah and Iraqi clerics, but Hezbollah fighters have been in Iraq (and in fact, some 18 have been captured).

Indeed, Iraq in 2006 looks a lot like the Lebanon of 1983. For example, the Iranian man in charge of this whole operation is Hassan Qommi, who had the exact same job … in Beirut in 1982. Qommi helped Hezbollah instructors get to Iraq to train Muqtada’s Mehdi Army, which has staged several high-profile confrontations with US forces, notably at Fallujah.

Starting in 2003, Hezbollah began building up organizational and military apparatuses in Iraq. For instance, that April, Hezbollah opened two offices in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Safwan. The campaign, targeting moderate Iraqi Shi’ite clerics willing to work with the US, was most likely orchestrated by Muqtada and Hezbollah.

Keep in mind that even though Nasrallah greatly respects Sistani, he is totally at odds with him when it comes to fighting the US presence.

Also in 2003-04, Imad Mughniah, the top Hezbollah operative wanted by most Western secret services for his role in most of the attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah, including the bombings of the US Embassy and the US and French barracks in Beirut in 1983, was sighted in Iraq. Syria had most probably facilitated his entry on to Iraqi soil.

Hezbollah also had a specialty in Lebanon in the 1980s, which was kidnapping foreign citizens. Is it a coincidence that it was happening on a daily basis in 2004 in Iraq? 

Given that Nasrallah has sent terror weapons into Israel, and given that he is responsible now for the deaths of innocents in Iraq and is making it more difficult for democracy to get a foothold, and given that his future existence may very well cause the deaths of more U.S. troops, I would like to be the first out of the gate to call for a targeted assassination of Nasrallah.  This would be the action that mose closely comports with the protection of American lives, and is therefore the moral thing to do.

I don’t care how it happens: bomb the Iranian embassy, target him with a .50 caliber rifle round a few weeks from now, or send in Israeli assassins.  It doesn’t much matter to me.  He needs to go.

There is an interesting piece over at the Asia Times, entitled “Nasrallah’s other fight.”  Not only is there a close connection between Nasrallah and Iraqi clerics, but Hezbollah fighters have been in Iraq (and in fact, some 18 have been captured).

Indeed, Iraq in 2006 looks a lot like the Lebanon of 1983. For example, the Iranian man in charge of this whole operation is Hassan Qommi, who had the exact same job … in Beirut in 1982. Qommi helped Hezbollah instructors get to Iraq to train Muqtada’s Mehdi Army, which has staged several high-profile confrontations with US forces, notably at Fallujah.

Starting in 2003, Hezbollah began building up organizational and military apparatuses in Iraq. For instance, that April, Hezbollah opened two offices in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Safwan. The campaign, targeting moderate Iraqi Shi’ite clerics willing to work with the US, was most likely orchestrated by Muqtada and Hezbollah.

Keep in mind that even though Nasrallah greatly respects Sistani, he is totally at odds with him when it comes to fighting the US presence.

Also in 2003-04, Imad Mughniah, the top Hezbollah operative wanted by most Western secret services for his role in most of the attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah, including the bombings of the US Embassy and the US and French barracks in Beirut in 1983, was sighted in Iraq. Syria had most probably facilitated his entry on to Iraqi soil.

Hezbollah also had a specialty in Lebanon in the 1980s, which was kidnapping foreign citizens. Is it a coincidence that it was happening on a daily basis in 2004 in Iraq? 

Given that Nasrallah has sent terror weapons into Israel, and given that he is responsible now for the deaths of innocents in Iraq and is making it more difficult for democracy to get a foothold, and given that his future existence may very well cause the deaths of more U.S. troops, I would like to be the first out of the gate to call for a targeted assassination of Nasrallah.  This would be the action that mose closely comports with the protection of American lives, and is therefore the moral thing to do.

I don’t care how it happens: bomb the Iranian embassy, target him with a .50 caliber rifle round a few weeks from now, or send in Israeli assassins.  It doesn’t much matter to me.  He needs to go.

From Ynet News:

Hizbullah steps up attacks: Hizbullah steps up attacks: For the first time since the fighting in the north began 17 days ago, Hizbullah launched five Pajr-5 missiles at Israel Friday afternoon. Police officials said that long-range missiles of this type can carry a larger amount of explosives than the rockets that had been fired at Israel so far.

The missiles landed in open areas between Afula and the Beit Shean Valley, causing no injuries.

A short while later sirens were heard in the Haifa and Krayot area and residents were ordered into shelters and protected areas. Some rockets landed in open areas near Haifa. In a separate barrage a rocket landed in Nahariya, hitting a vehicle that immediately caught fire. Another rocket struck a public building in town and damaged it. No injuries were reported in the attacks.

Up until today, in 17 days of fighting, dozens of 22o millimeter-diameter rockets were fired at Israel, including several Pajar-3 rockets. A police official said earlier that the missiles that landed in Afula today were “of an unknown type, something between the Fajr-3 and the Zilzal missile.” However, sappers that were dispatched to the place examined the missiles and reported they were Fajr-5 missiles equipped with 100-kilograms of explosives each.

Ynet has learned that some of the rockets fired in the barrages on the Western Galilee on Thursday included 220 millimeter-diameter rockets. Up until now Hizbullah had launched these rockets only at Haifa. One of them had hit a train depot and killed eight employees at the place. 

So that we don’t become numb to it, consider these actions for a moment.  The missiles are still just area explosives.  They are not guided, and land wherever their trajectory takes them as governed by Newtonian physics.  They usually either explode harmlessly in a field somewhere, or they hit civilians, i.e., non-combatants.  There is no military value whatsoever to the places these missiles are falling.

Hezbollah is firing “terror” weapons.  They are doing this because they are terrorists.

Once again, Hezbollah’s actions tell us exactly what kind of people they are.  This, from Arutz Sheva:

Hizbullah stored ammunition and weapons in mosques, knowing that the IDF does not attack religious sites. Civilians were not allowed to leave so that Hizbullah could use them as cover. IDF officers said they ordered pilots not to strafe Bint Jbeil in order to spare civilian casualties.

A United Nations peace keeping officer from Canada told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that Hizbullah used the same tactic to draw fire on the UNIFIL post which resulted in the death of four U.N. observers. “This is their favorite trick,” he said. “They use the U.N. as shields.”

Nice.  They know that Israel is hamstrung by this.  Israel follows rules of war to protect non-combatants, while Hezbollah doesn’t care.  The world imposes an impossible situation on Israel: You have two weeks now, no more.  You hear?  Also, you can’t kill non-combatants or else we will call you savages.  Oh and by the way.  Don’t use force that we might consider to be “disproportionate.”  And all the while, Hezbollah gets a pass from the world leaders while the UN calls for the end of hostilities by politically strong-arming Israel — not Hezbollah or Lebanon.

Ed Peck, Chief of U.S. mission to Iraq under Jimmy Carter, was interviewed on Fox News Channel today, and said some remarkable things (over at HotAir.com).  Here is the conversation I transcribed a few minutes ago.  Ed Peck is EP, and the Fox News Channel commentators are FN.  After being pressed on how to prevent World War III, Ed Peck begins:

EP: Maám, it’s a good question.  I’m a diplomat.  I believe very sincerely on the basis of my experience and whatever knowledge I have of history, that if there’s a problem between two groups, and they sit down to see if they can eliminate or reduce the problem — they talk about it — there’s a chance that they can achieve that objective.  But if they do not talk, there’s no chance.

FN: But Mr. Ambassador, Hezbollah is bent on … you know … sort of wiping Israel off the map.  So what is there more to say?

EP: Well, and Israel is bent on destroying everybody in Hezbollah, so what is there to say?  There is a middle ground, almost always.  But you’ve got to talk, just like we did to the Russians during the cold war, although we knew they could blast us off the face of the earth — at cost.

FN: But Mr. Ambassador, do you believe that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization?

EP: Well, a terrorist organization is in the eye of the beholder.

FN: I’m asking you.

EP: Okay.  You have to understand, now, we parachuted people into Europe in World War II.  You’re too young to remember that.  Their job was to kill Germans.  Now.  Were they terrorists or heros?

FN: Well, let’s go back to Hezbollah.  Do you think its a terrorist organization?

EP: No, I think it has objectives to which we object very strongly, and some of them are bloody, but other people are doing things quite similar to that, and they’re not called terrorists, because they’re on our side.

Permit be a bit of commentary since I went to the trouble of transcribing this juvenile conversation.  Here is a remarkable testimonial to a foreign policy that has been completely unhinged from any value system except, or course, relativism.

The sole criteria that Mr. Peck sees being used to define the word “terrorist” is whether we agree with them or not.  He is incapable of judging any further than that as to means, tactics, purposes or causes.  It represents the impotent Carter administration exactly, and it is again remarkable that Mr. Peck even brought up the examples that he did.  Let’s look at them for a moment.

He brings up the cold war and the talky-talk with Russia.  But Carter accomplished nothing during his administration except the strengthening of communism and terror around the world (well, he did bring us 16% inflation).  It was the Reagan administration that won the cold war, and Peck’s mentioning of it only highlights the abject failure that defined the Carter administration during these years.  That Peck defines this as a success is incredible but informative.

Peck brings up the airborne troops that were dropped into Europe during WWII, asking rhetorically if they were terrorists?  FN failed to give the answer.  Let me supply it.  No.  The U.S. showed incredible restraint in the years leading up to our involvement in WWII.  In the years 1939-1943, German U-Boats sank approximately 4700 U.S. merchant ships, sinking them at a greater rate than the U.S. could manufacture ships.  One merchant ship, in fact, was sunk at the mouth of the Mississippi River on May 12, 1942.

All pathologies bent on world domination (communism, Islamic facism, Nazism, etc.) use times of talking to re-arm, rest, strategize and re-group.  These times of talking have always occurred at strategically beneficial points for those bent on world domination.  Why wouldn’t they?  If all we are willing to do is talk, the enemy waits until he is ready.  We will always be ready.

But this strategic use of timing to re-arm is irrelevant if there is no good and no evil.  If there is no side of right and side of wrong, it really doesn’t matter who is strongest now.  Only under a system that is hopelessly incapable of ascertaining good and evil does one compare the American G.I. in WWII with Hezbollah terrorists who drag non-combatants in front of them to die in their stead — and then celebrate the death of those same non-combatants.

No, the talking that Ed Peck and Jimmy Carter did on their watch caused, at least in part, the situation we now face.

Jimmy and Ed should be ashamed.  But their value system will not allow it.

Over at military.com, there is this interesting piece on battlefield weight:

The Marine Corps is involved in a delicate balancing act. It wants to field the most capable Marines, equipped with the latest gear and protected by the best body armor. However, Marines are saddled with 70-100 pounds of gear — the combat load — and simply adding more equipment and armor can make them tired and less agile, which potentially could cancel out any benefits the new gear may offer.

Read the entire piece here.

I know that my son, Camp Lejeune, 2/6, hates “humps.”  They carry 80+ pound backpacks on humps of 20 miles.  So it isn’t like they don’t train to carry this much weight into battle.  That doesn’t mean, though, that we shouldn’t push for technological development to lighten the burden.

I know this.  When he deploys to Iraq early 2007, the deal I am going to make with him is this.  He doesn’t ever go out into potential combat situations without wearing his body armor.  EVER.  PERIOD.  It was disturbing to read that some Marines are opting to leave their body armor behind.

This is a very moving tribute to our fighting men.  I am copying some of it below as a teaser for you to go to the link I am providing here to read the whole commentary. 

War, and all of its sacrifices, hit home.

Shame on me, I thought. My job puts me in a position where I have reams of information at my disposable on what’s happening in Iraq. We’re rapidly closing in on an unfortunate casualty figure since 9/11, when we’ll have lost more American lives fighting since the attack than we did on the day itself. Talk about terrible arithmetic. 

My father-in-law is a Vietnam veteran very active in veteran’s affairs. And yet only now had it really hit home. Only now, as I watched shoppers stroll comfortably in the air-conditioning, did it hit me in the gut.

[ … ]

And then I wondered about all the men and women who have come home with limbs missing, with the psychological scars war inevitably brings. We see them now, sweating in a Walter Reed rehab room. Running on their space-age titanium prosthetics, and biking across the country to raise money — reminding us at every turn of the spirit that drives this country.

But where will they be in 35 years, when youth has abandoned them and war is a distant memory for much of the country?

[ … ]

Later that night, after I’d read her stories and “lights out,” we whispered conspiratorially to each other in the dark of her room.  I have few memories prior to age four, and I often remind her, in those magic moments between parent and child, to remember special days and events.

“Alexa, remember the man we met today who gave you the American flag? The soldier?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she said. 

“Remember.”