A SPEECH LIKE NONE OTHER

Here's a very funny piece by Wesley Prudon published by the Washington Times.

DAVY CROCKETT IS THE PATRON SAINT of every politician who ever left Washington with a bruised ego and a broken heart. When he was bounced out of Congress in 1830, Davy told the folks on the banks of the Nolichucky River in Tennessee: "I'm going to Texas, and the rest of you can go to hell."

Departing presidents have left town nursing similar sentiments but avoided saying them out loud. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, continuing their endless rassling match today in Indiana and North Carolina, could take Davy Crockett's benediction as a caution. George W. Bush surely feels like Crockett is kin, and there's the fantasy of a speech floating across the Internet that George W. could but never would deliver. But if he had only the self-discipline of his critics, this is what he might say:

"If the polls are right, more than half of you don't regard yourselves as 'my fellow Americans," so I'll cut right to the chase. I'm getting out of Dodge. Before anyone gets in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, let me assure you that no laws were broken, the Constitution is intact. I'm quitting because I'm fed up with you people. You have no interest in what's actually going on in the world. Most of you are too lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

"Let's start local. The politicians and pundits have persuaded you that the economy is in the tank. That's despite record numbers of homeowners, including record numbers of minority homeowners. Minority business ownership is at record levels, too. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton administration. The stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever own stocks. But all you can do is whine about gasoline prices, and most of you are too dumb to realize that the price of gasoline is high because the Chinese and the Indians are driving cars now, and because Al Gore and a handful of wacko greenheads are more worried about polar bears and their beachfront property than they are about you.

"I'm tired of this 'blood for oil" crap. If I were trading blood for oil, I would have seized Iraq's oil fields a long time ago. And don't give me this 'Bush lied, people died' crap, either. I could have planted chemical weapons planted all over Iraq to be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. The rest of the world thought Saddam Hussein had the goods, too, same as me.

"Fools don't understand that we face a unique enemy. The 'soldiers' of our new enemy, unlike our old Soviet enemies, are actually eager to die. That's OK with me, and good riddance, as long as they aren't trying to take as many of you with them as they can. But they want to kill you in the name of what I generously called 'the religion of peace' (not that I ever believed it any more than you do). You all should be grateful that the Islamists haven't killed more of us here in the United States since September 11, but you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.

"I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight, but most of you think 'a long and difficult fight' amounts to a single season of 'Survivor.' You won't look through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do.

"The facts are easy enough to find. They're all over the Internet, along with a lot of stuff that ain't true. You have to pay attention and sort it out, but most of you would rather watch 'American Idol'. I could say more about your idiotic belief that government, not your own wallet, is where money comes from. But it would sail right over your heads.

Read it all.

SADDAM'S WEAPONS MOVED TO SYRIA

HAVEN'T WE ALWAYS believed this to be true? An upcoming joint US-Israel report on the September 6 IAF strike on a Syrian facility will claim that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein transferred weapons of mass destruction to the country, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Now in addition to the interest this report will have for those who are still arguing over whether or not we should have gone into Iraq at all, if it is true this report means that these WMD's are most likely still in Syria, since the recent strike obviously didn't clear away

As others have pointed out, Saddam was a major "Islamophobe" himself, equating Islam with violence and war, in regards to the Mother of All Battles Mosque, with its Scud-missile minarets, Kalashnikov ornamentation, and the Koran written in blood.

On the other hand, George W. Bush clearly was determined to take Saddam down from the first day of his presidential campaign and on. I have grown weary of the debate as to whether that was a good thing or not. The worst thing about this acrimonious and highly public dispute is how people who wish Saddam & Sons were still in charge of Iraq have provided the rest of the world with all manner of grist for the America-hating mill.

Here is how it probably happened, according to one source:

"It happened during the 3-week hiatus in no-fly-zone overflights that Saddam worked out with Kofi Annan. More than 1,800 eighteen-wheelers were witnessed shooting across the border into Syria by the Mossad, which then squelched its own report. Interesting that Kofi suddenly termed the overflights "illegal" and then when the world confronted him about it Saddam recanted. This was on a Thursday. Saddam then gives the okay that on the following Tuesday overflights may be resumed. On Monday the last of the 18-wheelers crossed the border into Syria. And I'm standing in front of the TV for three weeks yelling, "They're moving the WMDs, you dopes!"

Defectors to the US from Syria have told the government exactly where the three large underground vaults are that house these weapons.

The case "against" would be that if they had 'em why hasn't Hizbollah used those weapons against Israel, or is it because Damascus knows it would be a smoking, radiating ruin in two hours if they did it.

And another thing on Isreal's side is that jet stream moves west to east, and curves generally south to north a little in this area, and if there's a nuclear detonation in Israel, Damascus and Tehran will be contaminated with proximity one radiation in no more than 36 hours. But, did Saddam move that stuff? Yes. To Syria. And that includes the 47,000 gallons of VX nerve gas they claimed to have destroyed and then "couldn't find the paper work" on.

Unfortunately, this report, even if proven to be 100% indisputably and incontrovertibly complete and true, will carry not one iota of weight with those who view America as the ultimate villain in this scene. If anything, it will further convince them of their inherently self-contradictory view of Bush as both evil genius and moron.

The ever knowledgeable Morgaan Sinclair writes:

Yeah, but if this gets out, the Saudis will drop oil prices to the USA by about $50/barrel, because what they REALLY fear is that the Shi'as will take Mecca and Medina. And one reason that the Syrians don't want the cat out of the bag is that it's just fine with them for the Saudis to be softening up the USA by bleeding it for every cent it can get at the tank, while they all set up shari'a banking to make sure the petrodollar usury profits stay in Islamic hands (if you think there's no "interest" in shari'a banking I've a bridge to sell you).

Meanwhile, this is bad news for the Left and anybody that wants to get out of Iraq, because if the evidence is absolutely incontrovertible, no amount of screaming from the cheap seats is going to hack it here.

The good news is that it becomes an INTERNATIONAL problem and splits the OIC down Sunni-Shi'a lines, and the dominant Sunnis then shift their weight (at least temporarily) to the West for protection.

And—what a surprise—this only makes us more dependent on foreign oil, now cheap again, the tactic that Woolsey says the Saudis have used against us five times in the last 20 years—or, every time Americans get real interested in alternative energy or get scared about the global climate change bullet many think has already left the chamber.

Could happen. I heard some pundit predict that gas would drop back to $2 per gallon by the end of the year. He didn't say why, but this report might very well be the clue. Funny also, how an Imam was just quoted the other day accusing Isarael of being the snarling watchdog for the United States. Interesting language becomes ever more precise now that more pieces of the puzzle are revealed. Damascus, anyone?

One thing we need to remember before Johnny goes trotting off to war with Syria. These chemical weapons lose potency over time. It's been five years since Saddam transferred these diabolical vials. This is old news.

WEAKENING THE CAMP OF ISLAM

Despite SOS Condi Rice's stern admonition, somebody's not listening.
Clearly, one of the most brilliant insights and policies the Reagan administration articulated was that as long as Iran and Iraq were fighting each other, they would constitute a lesser threat to everyone else. History has reflected this, since shortly after the Iran-Iraq war ended, both found new enemies.

When Sunnis and Shiites are channeling their Islamic jihad impulses into fighting each other rather than harassing everyone else, humanity as a whole is safer.

Jihad is a virtual imperative in Islam. It will either seep into the daily lives of those eager to please their bloodthirsty diety as intersectarian, interethnic, intertribal, interparty, inter(whatever) warfare between Muslims or else as warfare against humanity as a whole (e.g. all non-Muslims). The bottom line is that if Muslims are not fighting themselves, they pose an existential threat to everyone else.

There is a strategic lesson here.

But no, Bush had to lunge for Saddam Hussein, who terrified the Saudis; for the belated honor of his dad, Bush senior; supposed easy oil, and some heretical fantasy about being a war president. Democracy? What a joke!