To simply call Senator Kennedy a disgusting embarrasment would be insulting to those who are disgusting embarrasments. His latest speech to the John's Hopkins School of International Studies would in other parts be known by other words: sedition and treason.

His speech is the canned hate speech of the anti-American left:

The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.

I supposed they're the equivalent of the minutemen senator? What about the 80% of Iraqis that lived in total fear of Saddam and are ever grateful for their liberation. or are you to busy praying for bad news to actually notice that most of Iraq is relatively stable. Evan Maddy Albright noticed that recently.

The elections in Iraq this weekend provide an opportunity for a fresh and honest approach. We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces.

And they would be having elections with Saddam? You seem to forget that is precisely the point of the elections, that the new government will be legitimate. Then they will ask us to leave when they want us to. But I guess you figure the elections would just have happened anyways?

No matter how many times the Administration denies it, there is no question they misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq. President Bush rushed to war on the basis of trumped up intelligence and a reckless argument that Iraq was a critical arena in the global war on terror,

Every intel agency in the world thought he had WMD's. The notion that they pressured people to give them the intel they want is urban legend that is completely unsupported by the facts. Joe Lieberman agrees that the war in Iraq is the war on terror, and even your pal Kerry thought it was too. Perhaps you choose to put politics before country, and ignore the evidence of Saddam's ties to terror, his continual attempts as acquiring WMD's, and his use of WMD's.

The President bungled the pre-war diplomacy on Iraq and wounded our alliances.

Ever heard of oil-for-food? And our "allies" are blameless? But of course, you're of the "blame America first" mentality.

He and his advisors predicted and even bragged that the war would be a cakewalk, but the expected welcoming garlands of roses became an endless bed of thorns.

The war did go stunningly fast, faster than predictions, and we were greeted warmly by most of Iraq. Of course you wouldn't know it by most news accounts, which would do anything to protray the war negatively. And the insurgency was fueled by Saddamite loyalists and foregin terrorists. I'm sure you would like to see them in control.

Never in our history has there been a more powerful, more painful example of the saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Exactly senator. Why should we wait until we're attacked, until the mushroom cloud goes off? Didn't we learn anything from 1938?

The nations in the Middle East are independent, except for Iraq

Either they are despotic terror supporting states like Iran or Syria, lifetime presidencies like Egypt's Mubarak, or oil money soaked shiekdoms bargaining for their safety. And you call them independent? That's like saying the plague was just a bad cold.

We all hope for the best from Sunday’s election.

Really? Sure doesn't sound that way.

In fact, the Central Intelligence Agency’s top official in Baghdad warned recently that the security situation is deteriorating and is likely to worsen, with escalating violence and more sectarian clashes.

Would that be the same CIA taht missed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of jihadism, al Qaeda, 9/11, Niger uranium, and of course, the infamous Iraqi WMD's. With a track record like that, hardly the authority I'd rely on.

A new Iraq policy must begin with acceptance of hard truths. Most of the violence in Iraq is not being perpetrated – as President Bush has claimed – by “a handful of folks that fear freedom” and “people who want to try to impose their will on people…just like Osama bin Laden.”

Really? And what exactly did Zarkawi rename his group to? What would you call them then? Freedom fighters? These people cut heads off election workers, blow up bombs in mosques and schools, and are terrorizing mostly Iraqis who simply want to live a better life.

The insurgency is largely home-grown. By our own government’s own count, its ranks are large and growing larger. Its strength has quadrupled since the transfer of sovereignty six months ago –from 5,000 in mid-2004, to 16,000 last October, to more than 20,000 now. The Iraqi intelligence service estimates that the insurgency may have 30,000 fighters and up to 200,000 supporters. It’s clear that we don’t know how large the insurgency is. All we can say with certainty is that the insurgency is growing.

You are partly right. Saddam built mosques, imported wahabi/salafi clerics, built training , recruited youths, and indoctrinated, trained and motivated them. So yes, we have a home-grown insurgency, but it's of Saddamite terrorists. And 30,000 out of 25 million is hardly what I'd call a vast movement.

Beyond the insurgency’s numbers, it has popular and tacit support from thousands of ordinary Iraqis who are aiding and abetting the attacks as a rejection of the American occupation.

How about the 14 million that have registered to vote?

Anti-American sentiment is steadily rising.

It's a national sport in most of Europe.

Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing – the hearts and minds of the people – and that is a battle we are not winning.

Words cannot describe the vileness and dishonesty of this statement. The people blowing up mosques and schools and killing election workers are trying to reimpose a reign of terror and fear upon millions. Would Kennedy rather that a minority of a Sunni minority begin to fill up the mass graves again. Of all the disgusting things he said, this has to be the foulest. And do you suppose that Zarkawi would be holding elections?

First, the goal of our military presence should be to allow the creation of a legitimate, functioning Iraqi government, not to dictate it.

I think they're called elections. I find it rather absurd that the president can dictate to 14 or more Iraqis.

The reality is that the Bush Administration is continuing to pull the strings in Iraq, and the Iraqi people know it.

That'll sure play well on al Jazeera. This is of course the typical bile spewed by the left, the tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists. Bet you'd just love to throw a Haliburton in there now wouldn't you?

It is time to recognize that there is only one choice. America must give Iraq back to the Iraqi people.

We did. Or are you so blinded by partisanship that you failed to notice. Giving it back implies we took it in the first place, and I think that film played last year.

We need to let the Iraqi people make their own decisions, reach their own consensus, and govern their own country.

Sunday, January 30th. They're called elections.

President Bush broke Iraq

Iraq had been raped and pillaged for thirty years before we got there. Much of Iraq didn't even have running water or electricty. Again, this implies that Iraq was a peaceful, modern, and prosperous country before we arrived. The truth senator, is that Saddam allowed the infrastructure to decay while he built lavish palaces with ill-gotten UN blood money. We didn't break Iraq, it was long since broken.

The Iraqi people are facing historic issues—the establishment of a government, the role of Islam, and the protection of minority rights.

Ask the Kurds about minority rights. Ask the Shia too. Ask the March Arabs whose lands were destroyed.

The United Nations, not the United States, should provide assistance and advice on establishing a system of government and drafting a constitution.

Based on what? Their endless support of tyrants? Their record on human rights? Their record on promoting democracy? The Iraqis know what the UN means: bribery, corruption, scandal. Wait a minute, that sounds like the big dig in your neck of the woods.

For our part, America must accept that the Shiites will be the majority in whatever government emerges. Sixty percent of the population in Iraq is Shiite, and a Shiite majority is the logical outcome of a democratic process in Iraq.

About the only people who don't accept that are your "freedom fighter" Sunni insurgents and Zarkawi led terrorists.

The Iraqi people do not believe that America intends no long-term military presence in their country. Our reluctance to make that clear has fueled suspicions among Iraqis that our motives are not pure, that we want their oil, and that we will never leave. As long as our presence seems ongoing, America’s commitment to their democracy sounds unconvincing.

No, what they see is our resolve and committment to see a successful outcome. You want us to cut and run, which is just another name for surrender.

The rest is just more of the "timetable" nonsense.

Senator Kennedy displays that he has no grasp of anything other than tha ability to reiterate other poeple talking points. His only solution is to do things differently, but what that amounts to is exactly what the president is doing: holding elections, training Iraqis forces, pursuing insurgents. His ultimate goal is to secure a timetable for troop removal which is tantamount to surrender.

All he has done is give soundbites to the enemy, calling our presence an occupation, and mocking the brave Iraqis running for office as mere puppets.

This man has no shame, no concern for our security or safety. He is so filled with rage, hatred that he'll never be president, that he will strike out with what little authority he has left. He hurls outrageous claims solely to score political points while putting the mission and soldiers lives at risk. And he has no compunction whatsoever.

He is a disgrace and an embarrassment. He is also his party's spokesman, something Bush should take full advantage of.

Could this man really have the same DNA as Jack? Somewhere, Jack must be crying.

A prognosticaiton of the upcoming Iraqi elections:

1) The elections will go exceedingly well.
Iraqis have been registering to vote in high numbers, over 14 million already. The vast majority of the popualtion, 80%, i.e. the Shia and the Kurd, want them to succeed and will vote. There are over 6000 polling stations and expect a high voter turnout. The majority of the popualtion, according to recent polls, has high expectations and belief in the legitimacy of the elections.

2) The terrorists, contrary to popular leftist wishes, are on their last legs. (See earlier post)
Z-Man has played his hand with his recent video. It is the insurgents who have been relentlessly killed and rounded up while their supply of weaponry captured. The mere fact that the majority of the country is relatively safe and peaceful, something even Madame Albright begrudgingly admits, indicates not a growing, but a localized and limitied insurgency.

Not everything in Iraq is bleak. The majority of the country is relatively peaceful. Millions of Iraqis are enthusiastic about finally having the right to vote. Thousands have braved threats to help organize and monitor the balloting. The elections should be honest. Though voting in some areas will be too dangerous, the winners will still have more legitimacy than any Iraqi government in history. They will have a mandate to write a constitution and prepare for the election of a permanent government at year's end.

As Chritopher Hitchens notes in today in Slate:

No "insurgency" based on a minority of a minority has ever succeeded militarily, even if regularly resupplied from a friendly neighboring state. And this group has further isolated itself by making an alliance with imported Bin Ladenists: an alliance that (however often it is denied) was in fact the signature of the declining days of the Saddam dictatorship.

Even "among their own", they are a small group. They have aligned themselves with the most radical of the radical, whose views are do far outside the realm of the acceptable that it is only virulent anti-Bush/anti-Americanism that protects their worldwide condemnation.

3) The Sunni see the writing on the wall.
No matter what happens, there will be elections, Iraqis will go to the polls, they will draft a new constitution, they will form a government, and they will ascertain a level of sovreignty over their own country. As they say, it's all over but the crying. The writing is on the wall, and the Sunni can read it quite well. They either play or pay. After thirty years of minority oppressive rule, and the Kurd and Shia are offering an olive branch, and most Sunni, I believe, are smart enough to take the best deal they're going to get. This leads to the final point.

4) All other options are bad.
Actually, they from bad to worse. If the Sunni don't participate, they are ending any chance they had at representation in the new government. And they'll have nobody else to blame but themselves. Who's going to come and help them out? Syrian or Iranian involvement would be seen as a violation of territorial sovreignty, aimed at overturning a legitimately elected government. And surely the US would have something to say about that as well.

Should they provoke a civil war, a remote possibility, the odds are decidely against them. They know they can't win. The Kurds are armed, the peshmerga a fierce fighting force. The Shia will certainly field a force more than willing to exact revenge. That Sunni would start a war they cannot hope to win, and worse, one they know will crush them, is highly unlikely. The few jihadis who harbor their own jihadist gotterdammerung are going to find few happy warriors among the mostly educated populous. They know that all options go from bad to worse. And go that way in a hurry.

So, what to expect Sunday?
Expect localized and regional violence. Expect high turnout from the Shia and Kurd. Expect much higher than anticipated turnout by the Sunni. Expect Afghanistan. Which means they'll go well, and the press will ignore them.

In goes without saying that the deadliest battles in WW2 were the last battles. At Okinawa and in the Ardennes, more Americans were lost, in a shorter period of time. In both insatnces, the soldiers were told and the public assumed that enemy was on his last legs. The mad dash across France in the fall of '44 and the blockade and strangling of Japanese shipping surely had indicated a defeated enemy.

Sadly we were mistaken. Though as of yet the cause is unknown, and though they were flying was a sandstorm, the death of 31 marines onboard a helicopter is nonetheless an example of the horrible price being paid to preserve our freedom and liberty. On this, the deadliest day of the war, it is important to remember that it is often most violent before victory.

Expect more violent clashes before the elections. But don't be fooled that the increase indicates a growing insurgency, but one on its final death throes. What little energy is left will surely be expended. The fact that they have been saving it up for the last days is a telling sign. The insurgents simply could not maintain steady contact with coalition forces,and were thus forced underground. Through the process of attrition both their numbers and effectiveness were whtitled away.

Ironically, it was the exact same strategy that they planned to use against us, a slow steady trickling of casualties, an attrition that slowly sapped our will to fight.

Here are the Senators that voted against Condi Rice to be Sec. State.

Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
John Kerry, D-Mass.
Carl Levin, D-Mich.
James Jeffords, I-Vt.
Jack Reed, D-R.I
Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii
Evan Bayh, D-Ind.
Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

Notice how they're all democrats. But then again, when you're the party of segregation, old habits die hard. Better not let a black woman actually think for herself. Better not let her think that she can accomplish anything on her own merits. No, better keep her in her place.

I am sure they're proud of their "courage". They should be ashamed.

In today's Slate, Christopher Hitchens writes about other good news from Iraq:

In the case of Iraq, it is scarcely ever pointed out that the majority of Kurds—20 percent of the population—are formally Sunni, while the "insurgents" are based on a minority of a minority—the Tikriti and other clan groups who were the clientele of the Baathist regime. No "insurgency" based on a minority of a minority has ever succeeded militarily, even if regularly resupplied from a friendly neighboring state. And this group has further isolated itself by making an alliance with imported Bin Ladenists: an alliance that (however often it is denied) was in fact the signature of the declining days of the Saddam dictatorship.

Let's see 12/14/04:

It is well known that Saddam was a huge benefactor of Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, who left Egypt for Afghanistan to become UBL's #2. it is well known the Musab al Zarkawi traveled extensively in and out of Baghdad well before the war. It is well known that al Qaida came to train at Salman Pak with an aQ affiliate called Ansar al Islam, funded by Saddam. Saddam even sent exported his chemical scientists to places like Sudan to train terrorists in the use of WMD's. And of course, the bombers of the World Trade Towers in 1993 were members of Saddam's Mukhabarat. And need we be reminded that Saddam offered asylum to bin Laden before he went to Afghanistan.

According to the State Dept. numbers, over 14 million Iraqis have registered to vote. This, despite the numerous bombings, attacks, assassinations, and various and assorted violence against election workers and candidates. As has been noted on numerous blogs (Indepundit, and this blog), the insurgency is failing. Powerline (link) cites a recent poll of Iraqis that are overwhelmingly supportive and hopeful of the elections. And just yesterday, the military announced the capture of Z-Man's #2.

Given that the elections are a fait accompli, it might be fair to conclude that the "insurgency" is a spent force. This does not mean that there will be no more killings, but what sustains a military force of any size, regardless their goals, is the hope of victory. And as every day passes, the hope victory slips farther and farther into the horizon, never to return.

What is most telling is not the number of bombings, but the lack thereof. The attacks, though horrific and deadly, are becoming fewer and farther apart. It is hard to estimate the numbers, but every day CENTCOM releases numbers of more and more insurgents captured, weapons caches discovered, and terrorists killed. The question remaining is not only of the numbers left, but of their resolve to fight.

We haven't cured the common cold, and we will never find the last terrorist. As every day passes, it is more and more evident that they are on the losing side, that they are simply dying for others' agendas. How many more are going to be willing to die for Zarkawi's ego? I would guess that the numbers are dwindling daily. We can't know the exact numbers nor can we surmise the enemy morale, but for all the predictions of violence, we can ask this simple question, "Is this the best they have?"

We can look back just a few months to the elections in Afghanistan with all the similar predictions of violence. So successful were the Afghan elections, that the press has quietly forgotten them, lest anyone be reminded of what might be the most remarkable foreign policy development since the Berlin Wall came down. And lest anyone be reminded that the driving force behind them was President Bush.

They won't go away completely, but if the elections go off with any level of success, the insurgency will have been proven to be a spent force. They had a run where it looked like they could influence the outcome, but no longer.

Several days ago, commenting on Norman Podhoretz'sThe War against World War IV, I wrote:

The war against the war on terror is almost, no, every bit as forceful as the war being waged against us by terrorists.

Back in December, commenting on David Brooks Hookie Award to James Fallows, I wrote:

The Vietnam War was one where never lost a battle, but ended up losing the war. North Vietnam knew it could not defeat us militarily, but could politically. They knew that they could use a propaganda campaign, with the press and the protestors their agent provocateurs. Walter Cronkite, John Kerry (yes, that one!!), and a cast of thousands provided more deadly ammunition than anything North Vietnam could muster.
...
Thus, their mission is to prolong the fighting as long as possible, continue to inflict casualties, however small historically and statistically, and terrorize the Iraqi population. And all the way, continue to use the media as a tool.
...
Our enemies are operating on a different strategic level: where our goal is to crush the insurgents and establish a functional democratic Iraq, theirs in much simpler, wear us out. They know they have willing allies in the media, and not just Al Jazeera but the BBC, AP, and even CBS, CNN, et al. They believe we will eventually do exactly what we did in 1974. They just don't believe it, they're relying on it.

Today, from the Mudville Gazette:

Yet even as their failures mount, even as their ranks are diminished and their slaughterhouses are shut down they know one thing that brings them a glimmer of hope: their allies in the world media will not let them down. Whether to simply sell papers, lure advertisers, or to support a cause they firmly believe in, many in the media are the insurgent’s final hope.

Lines are drawn. On one side, the people of Iraq, the majority of Americans, the freedom loving people of the world. On another are those who would behead them all in the street. A more well-defined definition of good vs evil has not been seen in modern times. The final days approach.

As I have said repeatedly, we are fighting two enemies, one at home, and one abroad.

It should be clear to even the most ardent Bush haters just who the real enemy is after the latest al Zarkawi tape:

We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.

Those who were so outraged about alleged intimidation, disenfranchisement, and fraud in Ohio and Florida should be equally as outraged.

You have to be careful of the enemy’s plan to implement so-called democracy in your country...to make Shiites dominate the regime in Iraq. Four million Shiites were brought from Iran to take part in the elections to achieve their aim of winning.

Now this is really interesting. Read between the lines, and the key words here are "your country". But his actions betray his words, for who have been the targets of most of the bombings, but mostly Iraqis. And he has apparently learned American style political hyperbole with the "four million Shiites from Iran" line.

At one time, the videotape was a powerful tool in the terrorists arsenal. Now it seems they are just another annoyance, an example of how impotent the "insurgents" really are. Realizing they can't stop the elections, and failed in their attempts, they are forced to resort to conspiracy theories.

It is possible, and probable, that there will be violence on election day, and on the days following. It is also highly probable, that counting on the help of a willing leftist press, the legitimacy of the elections will be questioned. Zarkawi knows that he has played his hand, and it is a losing one.

His failure to stop or delay the elections reveals not that events are passing him by, but they've already passed him long ago. Iraq represented the terrorists Black Hills, except this time, the general brought the machine guns.

Whether Iraq was or became the front line in the war on terror, the elections will deal another decisive blow to the terrorists, the second one in less than six months. Afghanistan and Iraq will have representative governments, despite belittling claims to the contrary from an equally defeated Western left. The Iranian dissident and Arab reformer will have models to present to a highly skeptical "street".

The real enemy is the one who offers a return to the past, repressive regimes, mass graves astride lavish palaces, and homicide bombers turning people into supplicants.

While the images of Abu Ghraib and alleged torture will inflame the left in the West, the immunized and educated children in Iraq and Afghanistan will have a different story to tell. They know all too well what real abuse and torture are, and they have learned first hand who is the bringer of freedom and hope.

The greatest historical irony of the twentieth century is the whitewashing of Stalin's genocides, far greater than anything Hitler ever accomplished, by the very people supposedly dedicated to fighting evil and hatred. Thus, it is always Hitler that the comparison to evil is made, not Stalin. And so it will be the irony of the twenty first century I imagine, that the cacophony of catterwalling about disenfranchisement and intimidation will be absent when confronted by a real evil, a real enemy to democracy.