An Accidental Victory Over The Islamic Fascist Movement?

As the evidence of the progress toward the defeat of al Qaeda and its allies in Iraq becomes indisputable, Canada's Simon Fraser University released a report noting that terrorist attacks outside of Iraq also collapsed as the Iraq War progressed:

In both the START and MIPT data, non-Iraq deaths from terrorism have declined by more than 40 percent since 2001...

In the only other independent analysis of terrorism data, the U.S.-based IntelCenter published a study in mid-2007 that examined "significant" attacks launched by Al Qaeda over the past 10 years. It came to the conclusion that the number of Islamist attacks had declined 65 percent from a high point in 2004, and fatalities from such attacks had declined by 90 percent.

The Simon Fraser study notes that the decline in terrorism appears to be caused by many factors, among them successful counterterrorism operations in dozens of countries and infighting among terror groups. But the most significant, in the study's view, is the "extraordinary drop in support for Islamist terror organizations in the Muslim world over the past five years." These are largely self-inflicted wounds. The more people are exposed to the jihadists' tactics and world view, the less they support them. An ABC/BBC poll in Afghanistan in 2007 showed support for the jihadist militants in the country to be 1 percent. In Pakistan's North-West Frontier province, where Al Qaeda has bases, support for Osama bin Laden plummeted from 70 percent in August 2007 to 4 percent in January 2008. That dramatic drop was probably a reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but it points to a general trend in Pakistan over the past five years. With every new terrorist attack, public support for jihad falls. "This pattern is repeated in country after country in the Muslim world," writes Mack. "Its strategic implications are critically important because historical evidence suggests that terrorist campaigns that lose public support will sooner or later be abandoned or defeated."

In short, while far too many Muslims danced in the streets celebrating al Qaeda's mass murder of Americans during 9/11, Muslim support for al Qaeda terror collapsed after the United States brought the war to the Middle East and al Qaeda turned its murderous ways towards slaughtering fellow Muslims, primarily in Iraq.

The United States brought the war to the Middle East to destroy al Qaeda where it lived, but may have accidentally achieved its greatest victory by compelling al Qaeda to bring its terror home as well.

Is Honesty The Best Policy?

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) spills the beans that the Dems lied to their anti-military base when they promised retreat and defeat in Iraq:



Transcript:

"I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats, I think pushed it as far as we can to the end of the fleet, didn't say it, but we implied it. That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up."

To think that this party is expected to make substantial gains in Congress this fall.

The One Key Defining Moment Of The Presidential Campaign

Elections guru Michael Barone has an interesting article out today exploring the impact of the Right Reverend Jeremiah Wright on the presidential campaign:

As Barack Obama makes his slow but steady way toward the Democratic nomination, the assumption in the admiring precincts of the press corps is that voters have dismissed as irrelevant his longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But that may prove as mistaken as the assumption, back in 1988, that voters would not be impressed by Michael Dukakis's 11-year support of a law granting weekend furloughs to convicts sentenced to life without parole, an issue brought up in the primaries by Al Gore but largely ignored in press coverage at the time.

Evidence for this comes in the exit polls from the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries on May 13 and 20. In both, about half the voters -- and these are voters in the Democratic primary -- said that they believe Obama shares Wright's views either somewhat or a lot. And slightly under 50 percent of these voters said that Obama is honest and trustworthy...

Which leads me to ask why these voters declined to say Obama is honest. When have they seen him lie or being caught in a lie? The response to the question on Wright may provide the answer. They know that he attended Wright's church for 20 years. They know that he said, both on March 18 when he refused to renounce Wright and on April 29 when he did renounce him, that he was not aware of his pastor and spiritual mentor's incendiary comments. Yet half of these voters also think that, despite those statements, Obama agrees with what Wright has been saying...

I find confirmation from this in a recent focus group conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center by pollster Peter Hart (for whom I worked for seven years) of non-primary voters in Charlottesville, Va. As Hart and Alex Horowitz note in their analysis of reactions to Obama, "When asked to recount any two memories of the total presidential campaign so far, seven of the 12 participants cite Rev. Wright by name. So far, clips of Rev. Wright clearly are the one 'key defining moment' of this campaign."

The new insight which Mr. Barone offers here which has not been much previously discussed is that a substantial number of Dem voters now view Obama as a liar because of his changing non-credible claims about his relationship with Wright. An integrity problem could far outweigh Obama's already weighty problem that folks think he shares some of the radical racist and anti-American views of the Right Reverend Wright.

The reality that Obama may have permanently alienated a large swath of his Dem base has the GOP quietly discussing the possibility that McCain could gain a larger victory than Mr. Bush in 2004. This speculation is reasonable given that Mr. McCain is in a far better position now than Mr. Bush was at this time of his 2004 campaign. Time will tell, but it appears that Mr. Obama may have already undergone his Swiftboat moment and the die has been cast.

Exposing The Fallacies Of Manmade Global Warming Models

A group of heretics from the manmade global warming religion styled themselves the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change and gathered in March 2008 to offer papers and talks on the fallacies of the manmade global warming models and theories and how they do not comport with the evidence. However, the major media providers generally ignored the meeting and what reporting occurred did not much discuss the actual arguments provided.

The NIPCC issued a report summarizing the findings offered by their members correcting or completely debunking the data relied upon by the manmade global warming models and demonstrating how those models vary significantly from reality. You can read the report here.

To give you an idea of the degree to which manmade global warming models exaggerate reality, here is one of dozens of graphs offered in the NIPCC report.

All Quiet On The Iraqi Front?

ABC reports:

> Last week, the overall level of attacks was at the lowest point since April 2004.

> May has seen the lowest US military death rate of the entire war. ABC notes that 14 US military have died in Iraq during May, averaging 0.76 per day. However, even this rate is inflated since the number of KIA were only 12 and five of those died on May 1 in the last fighting with the Mahdi militia. Between, May 2 and May 22, we have lost 7 KIA at an average of only 0.33 per day.

> The Iraqi military has taken the lead in all remaining significant combat operations and have succeeded decisively.

> ABC News actually entitled this report "The Turning Point." Even the surrender media is recognizing that we are about to win the Iraq War.

Meanwhile, General Petreaus told Congress that he expects the post- Surge troop drawdown to start up again in September if these trends continue.

Does anyone think that the Dems presiding over the hearings to confirm General Petreaus as CENTCOM commander will offer this magnificent officer a hearty congratulations for his victory in Iraq and wish him the same outcome in Afghanistan?

Can America Be The New Saudi Arabia?

Out here in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, we have around 1.23 trillion barrels of oil sitting in our shale deposits - an amount which is five times that of the Saudi Oil reserves. Oil can be recovered from our shale for roughly $40 per barrel, which is 1/3 of the current price per barrel of oil.

So why in heaven's name are we shipping our wealth over to terrorist regimes in the Middle East instead of mining this American oil bonanza?

Well, nearly all of our shale oil reserves are on federal land and are tied up in the land management and environmental bureaucracies.

Utah Senator Oren Hatch raised this issue in yesterday's Dem kabuki dance hearings scolding our oil companies for not producing more oil in this interesting exchange:

HATCH: I want to get into that. In other words, we're talking about Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. It's fair to say that they're not considered part of America's $22 billion of proven reserves.

HOFMEISTER: Not at all.

HATCH: No, but experts agree that there's between 800 billion to almost 2 trillion barrels of oil that could be recoverable there, and that's good oil, isn't it?

HOFMEISTER: That's correct.

HATCH: It could be recovered at somewhere between $30 and $40 a barrel?

HOFMEISTER: I think those costs are probably a bit dated now, based upon what we've seen in the inflation...

HATCH: Well, somewhere in that area.

HOFMEISTER: I don't know what the exact cost would be, but, you know, if there is more supply, I think inflation in the oil industry would be cracked. And we are facing severe inflation because of the limited amount of supply against the demand.

HATCH: I guess what I'm saying, though, is that if we started to develop the oil shale in those three states we could do it within this framework of over $100 a barrel and make a profit.

HOFMEISTER: I believe we could.

HATCH: And we could help our country alleviate its oil pressures.

HOFMEISTER: Yes.

HATCH: But they're stopping us from doing that right here, as we sit here. We just had a hearing last week where Democrats had stopped the ability to do that, in at least Colorado.

HOFMEISTER: Well, as I said in my opening statement, I think the public policy constraints on the supply side in this country are a disservice to the American consumer.

There was of course no response from the Dems who are blocking energy independence through oil shale.

Obama's Profiles In Inconsistency - Iran

Powerline offers a fun sample of the variety of contradictory positions Mr. Obama has held over the years concerning Iran. Pay close attention to Obama's dithering and handwringing response in a 2004 Chicago Trib article.

This man cannot make a decision to save his life. Not quite what most folks would consider CiC material.