Case Closed on 'Collateral Murder' -- UPDATED!!

Jawa Report has the definitive entry, "Case Closed: Weapons Clearly Seen on Video of Reuters Reporters Killed in Iraq."

Click on the report right now (here). The piece features a dynamic vidcap demonstrating -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- the insurgents' RPG capabilities. In addition, here are images from the unclassified Pentagon investigation. "AIF" designates "ANTI-IRAQ FORCES", i.e., insurgents:

And here are screencaps of key sections from the Pentagon's internal investigation ("AWT" designates "AERIAL WEAPONS TEAM", i.e., the U.S. Apache helicopter):

See, "Legal Review of AR15-6 Investigation..."

It's not as if the antiwar activists and their media enablers don't have this information. Jawa Report noted this buried passage from yesterday's NYT hit-piece:

Late Monday, the United States Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released the redacted report on the case, which provided some more detail.

The report showed pictures of what it said were machine guns and grenades found near the bodies of those killed. It also stated that the Reuters employees “made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives and their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the coalition ground forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.”

The full story is here, "Video Shows U.S. Killing of Reuters Employees." Memeorandum posted the story last night with a bit less emotion-inducing headline. Now it's not the "photographer" -- who chose to embed with armed insurgents -- but the "Reuters employees," which implies a "civilian" massacre:

And that's just the beginning. Despite the availability of information to the contrary, media reaction has been entirely predicable. Here's Dylan Ratigan's episode from last night, featuring WikiLeaks' America-bashing Julian Assange and anti-American Glenn Greenwald. Talk about fair and balanced!

Assange decries the "moral corruption" of U.S. forces, and useful idiot Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer argues that American forces should have captured the insurgents captured rather than kill them (i.e., U.S. forces were to use "minimum force"). And Greenwald goes on to extrapolate that America's "imperial" interverntions are all about killing indigenous civilian populations, blah, blah. Only Brett McGurk of CFR, who spoke after Assange, possesses anything near an objective take on what happened.

Now, taking a look around the 'sphere, here's Greenwald's entry this morning, "Iraq Slaughter Not an Aberration." See what I mean? (And this despite rigorous empirical evidence showing that the norm of non-combatant immunity has been univerally adopted in the U.S. military, and that Iraqi civilian casualties have been historically low compared to previous U.S. wars.) And an update from Greenwald, "N.Y. Times, Weekly Standard Join in a Falsehood." Then Greenwald links approvingly to this, "Neo-Cons Defend Massacre of Iraqi Journalists, Children":

Bloodthirsty neo-cons who would defend barbecuing Arab babies on the White House lawn if they were told it was part of the “war on terror” are disgracefully scrambling to defend a shocking video released by Wikileaks which shows U.S. Apache helicopters massacring Iraqi journalists and children in Baghdad while laughing about it.

And while I almost forgot about him, Barrett Brown demonstrates utter fail while adding a catchy title, "Fascist U.S. Bloggers Come Late to Game, Announce Score":

The entire video is inconsistent with the military’s report. These Apaches aren’t responding as reinforcements to an ongoing firefight in which this particular spot has been identified as containing insurgents who have just fired off RPGs. None of these people had RPGs, for one thing.

Sorry, Barrett, don't pass go, don't collect $200. Better go back and visit Jawa a bit more.

Okay, what about Matthew Yglesias? It's not like we don't know which side he's on:

I watched this gruesome video yesterday of US military personnel in Iraq gunning down a group of people, including two Reuters employees, based on the notion that they’re carrying AK-47s and RPGs. I can’t see clearly enough to tell whether or not some of the men in the group are in fact armed, but it’s clear that one of the so-called RPGs is actually a camera. And it’s also clear that whether or not anyone in the group was carrying weapons, that possession of a firearm is not cause for summary execution either in Iraq or the United States. My understanding of the rules of engagement is that soldiers are not supposed to fire unless there’s a hostile act or a clear sign of hostile intent ...

The confusion or whatever about the weapons is bad enough, but the people on this recording don’t seem to have any idea what the rules of engagement they’re supposed to be operating under are, or else they don’t care.

Not only is Yglesias wrong about the armed insurgents and RPGs, he's lying as well. The video clip repeatedly shows communications between the AWT and ground forces, and no shots were fired without both proper identification and permissions from U.S. personnel in the immediate vacinity. And recall that Yglesias is an author of a book on the war? Hmm, you'd never know ...

And hatemaster Larisa Alexandrovna claims that Americans targeted Reuters journalists all along, "Would you put it past the likes of Dick Cheney to have a policy of getting rid of pesky journalists too near a big story?"

Marcy Wheeler plays up the civilian angle, "“Well, It’s Their Fault for Bringing Their Kids into a Battle” – Wikileaks Tape Shows Civilians Killed by US Troops."

And Crooks and Liars takes it from there, "Death, Lies and Videotape":

What truly bothers me is the absolute callousness of the conversation going on in the Apache helicopter. Beyond the 'fucking prick' and the 'bastards' comments, it's the laughter, particularly during the shooting as if it's all just a video game, cheering each other on as the wounded journalist crawls on the ground, willing him to reach for a ‘weapon’ so they can shoot him again, laughing when his body is run over by a military truck. The comment when the crew realized children have been wounded was shocking: ‘Well, it’s their own fault for bringing their kids to a battle.'

Of course, American forces are fighting a war, and, frankly their language is cleaner than construction guys I've worked with. Free Market Miltary responds:

I can see and understand some people’s comments ... that the Soldiers (Pilots) were a bit blood thirsty, callous, and a little to casual with humor in killing the insurgents. I think their wrong! Frankly, I’d never hold it against anyone in taking enjoyment out of their job. You might find that callous as well. Tough. If your living this 24/7 I doubt you would spend a year without laughing and having a good time. This is war, the thing video games are based upon and billions of dollars are spent for enjoyment.

Once again, these pilots did their job. They probably even saved American lives that day.

Also, I left the link to yesterday's AmPower report at Crooked Timber, but that didn't make folks too happy:

Americanmoralcretin, fuck off.

Wars of choice ARE criminal precisely because this kind of stuff is guaranteed to happen.

**********

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit links, "Confirmed: Media’s Military-Hating America-Bashing Allegations Proven False & Misleading (Video)." Added: The Rhetorican links!

**********

UPDATE II: Barret Brown has made a correction to his posts on Wikileaks, "WikiLeaks Editor Lies to Stephen Colbert, World; WikiLeaks Necessary Nonetheless."

Maxine Waters: Vanguard Revolutionary

Allahpundit ran a post the other day entitled, "Maxine Waters: We can’t hear legitimate tea-party concerns because they’re drowned out by the fringe."

That's a perfect summary of the Democrat congresswoman's appearance on MSNBC. Fox Nation has a brief unedited clip, "Waters: 'Outrageous' That GOP 'Waved American Flag' at Tea Party."

But check out the congresswoman "egging on" Bush-era antiwar communists at this clip. This is where we are in American politics, and bloggers are bringing it to you:

Leftist Hack David Weigel Premieres at Washington Post

I missed the announcement at Politico earlier, "WaPo Hires Weigel." Weigel worked previously at the Washington Independent, where he published a stream of leftist screeds against conservatives and the tea parties. For example, "‘N-Word’ Sign Dogs Would-Be Tea Party Leader" (on the totally repudiated Dave Robertson), and "Tea Partiers Want You to Remember the Days When the Left Was Crazy" (where Weigel's spews equivalence in comparing tea partiers to the "Bush = Hitler" protesters).

The guy's a hack.

Stephen Gutowski reports that WaPo is looking to hire more leftist bloggers in an effort to repeat their "success" in bringing radical Ezra Klein on board:

Yes, it seems that Post is so pleased with the success they've had in promoting Ezra Klein's heavy-handed liberalism that they want to duplicate it at any cost to their own credibility. While it's laughable to think that Washington Post print reporters don't have an absurd and unprofessional amount of latitude to reach conclusions, it is utterly unacceptable that they want to move even further in that direction.

Anyway, Weigel's blog has now launched, "Welcome to 'Right Now'."

Robert Stacy McCain once vouched for Weigel, telling me that he was a good man who got caught up in the exuberance of a Democratic resurgence. That premise will be tested throughout 2010, when Weigel will have plenty of opportunities to affirm his pleadings that he's just a misunderstood conservative.

PREVIOUSLY: "What's Up With David Weigel?"

HAT TIP: Glenn Reynolds.

CARTOON CREDIT: Eric Allie.

WikiLeaks 'Collateral Murder' is Left's Latest Attempt to Criminalize U.S. Wars

The story's at the BBC, "WikiLeaks Posts 'Killing' Video," and Guardian UK, "Wikileaks Reveals Video Showing U.S Air Crew Shooting Down Iraqi Civilians."

There are two versions, long at short, available at WikiLeaks' Twitter page, and there's a website as well, with links to "Collateral Murder." And Glenn Greenwald's orgasmic tweets are here, here, and here (for starters). Greenwald's been active in getting WikiLeaks public, for example, "The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters." MSNBC extremist-hack Dylan Ratigan also tweets, and the network has an item up already, "U.S. pilot seen firing on people in Iraq." And radical feminist Charli Carpenter has a post up entitled, "Precision Targeting at Work." (Via Memeorandum.) These folks, anti-Americans all, have long pushed a delegitimation campaign against the U.S. and American foreign policy.

The Guardian provides a synopsis of the news, and the short version is embedded:

The newly-released video of the Baghdad attacks was recorded on one of two Apache helicopters hunting for insurgents on 12 July 2007. Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. The Pentagon blocked an attempt by Reuters to obtain the video through a freedom of information request. Wikileaks director Julian Assange said his organisation had to break through encryption by the military to view it.

In the recording, the helicopter crews can be heard discussing the scene on the street below. One American claims to have spotted six people with AK-47s and one with a rocket-propelled grenade. It is unclear if some of the men are armed but Noor-Eldeen can be seen with a camera. Chmagh is talking on his mobile phone ...

I'll first note that WikiLeaks online infrastructure is questionable. The Collateral Murder page barely loads, if at all, but WikiLeaks claims to be raising hundreds of thousands for the effort, so why not launch with enough servers to handle the load? Plus, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' editor, is Australian, and a key activist in the global left's movement for international war-crimes trials against Bush administration civilian and military officials. In a piece at communist Alexander Cockburn's CounterPunch, "The Anti-Nuclear WANK Worm," Assange's bio reads:

Julian Assange is president of a NGO and Australia's most infamous former computer hacker. He was convicted of attacks on the US intelligence and publishing a magazine which inspired crimes against the Commonwealth.

That's him at this Al Jazeera broadcast, "Video of US attack in Iraq 'genuine'":

I've watched the "Collateral Murder" clip above. Seeing the video and listening to the combat audio, the crew in the Apache are engaging an insurgent contingent, and at the distance the transmissions identify the fighters as clealy armed with AK-47s and RPGs. There is no mention as to an accompanying civilian or journalists' detachment. It appear as a routine search-and-destroy aerial operation. The crew commander repeatedly calls to hold fire until "we see weapons." This is not indiscriminate fire. When an unmarked van rolls up the street near the fallen bodies, the commander radios, "trying to get permission to engage." A lot is being made of the two small girls who were injured in the fight and rushed to a local hospital (not a military hospital, and which is alleged to mean they'd deliberately get inferior care). At the end of the clip, the caption denounces not just this episode -- which shows civilian casualties as incident to an ongoing active combat engagement -- as dedicated "to all the victims of war whose fates remain unknown."

As I'm writing, checking Memeorandum, there's an entry up at hard-left MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow's blog, "Wikileaks posts combat video from Iraq showing civilian casualties."

This is going to be the lead story before the night's out, especially with the dinnertime news hour coming up right now on the East Coast. The story's being engaged by conservatives as well. See Ed Morrissey, "Video: Collateral murder, or the risks of war zones?":

In the video, starting at the 3:50 mark, one member of this group starts preparing what clearly looks like an RPG launcher, as well as some individuals with AK-47s. The launcher then reappears at the 4:06 mark as the man wielding it sets up a shot for down the street. In 2007 Baghdad, this would be a clear threat to US and Iraqi Army ground forces; in fact, it’s difficult to imagine any other purpose for an RPG launcher at that time and place. That’s exactly the kind of threat that US airborne forces were tasked to detect and destroy, which is why the gunships targeted and shot all of the members of the group.

More at the link and Memeorandum.

I'll have more on this when I get some information from military personal, although we do have rigorous political science research that provides context. U.S. policy on the rules of engagement were more comprehensive and effective in Iraq than at any time in the history of American wars. See, Colin H. Kahl, "In the Crossfire or the Crosshairs? Norms, Civilian Casualties, and U.S. Conduct in Iraq." Here's the abstract:

The belief that U.S. forces regularly violate the norm of noncombatant immunity (i.e., the notion that civilians should not be targeted or disproportionately harmed during hostilities) has been widely held since the outset of the Iraq War. Yet the evidence suggests that the U.S. military has done a better job of respecting noncombatant immunity in Iraq than is commonly thought. It also suggests that compliance has improved over time as the military has adjusted its behavior in response to real and perceived violations of the norm. This behavior is best explained by the internalization of noncombatant immunity within the U.S. military’s organizational culture, especially since the Vietnam War. Contemporary U.S. military culture is characterized by an "annihilation-restraint paradox": a commitment to the use of overwhelming but lawful force. The restraint portion of this paradox explains relatively high levels of U.S. adherence with the norm of noncombatant immunity in Iraq, while the tension between annihilation and restraint helps to account for instances of noncompliance and for why Iraqi civilian casualties from U.S. operations, although low by historical standards, have still probably been higher than was militarily necessary or inevitable.

And from the body of the article:

The number of documented fatalities attributable to U.S. forces or crossfire in Iraq is much lower than those for many other U.S. military campaigns of the last century where civilians were clearly targeted. During World War II, for example, U.S. and British forces engaged in strategic bombing against German and Japanese cities, killing more than 1 million noncombatants. In a single night of U.S. firebombing over Tokyo in 1945, at least 85,000 people, mostly civilians, were incinerated—nearly 21 times the total number of civilian deaths from U.S. air strikes in Iraq through the end of 2006 (according to IBC data), and 6–10 times the total number of Iraqi civilians killed by all U.S. ground and air forces or crossfire in the first three and one-half years of the war. Although some might argue that improvements in precision-guided munitions account for the majority of this historical difference, many of the noncombatant fatalities from bombing during World War II were the result of attacks aimed at destroying enemy morale, not incidental by-products of crude targeting and guidance technologies.

Perhaps the most telling comparisons, however, are to the U.S. wars in the Philippines and Vietnam, the two most significant foreign counterinsurgency campaigns in U.S. history. In the Philippines between 1899 and 1902, approximately 16,000 guerrillas were killed and at least 200,000 civilians perished (out of a total population of 7.4 million in 1900). U.S. forces engaged in the widespread destruction of crops, buildings, civilian property, and entire villages as forms of collective punishment against families and communities suspected of supporting insurgents. Hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians were moved to concentration camps to separate them from guerrillas, and ablebodied men who dared to venture outside of these “protected zones” were assumed to be enemies and could be shot.

In Vietnam, the United States also fought in ways that put civilians directly in the crosshairs. Almost 750,000 North Vietnamese troops and Vietcong were killed during the war, and a conservative estimate of civilian deaths from violence in South Vietnam places the total at 522,000 (out of a total population of 16 million in 1966). U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam relied on massive firepower directed on occasion at targets in densely populated areas. U.S. forces established “free fire zones” in some areas, allowing anyone not wearing a South Vietnamese military uniform to be shot. The U.S. military used more than 29 times the tonnage of incendiary bombs in Vietnam as it did in World War II, and sprayed toxic defoliants on land in South Vietnam that was home to about 3 percent of the population. U.S. forces were also involved in many cases of outright murder and several incidents of mass killing. In the most notorious case, at My Lai on March 16, 1968, as many as 571 unarmed men, women, and children were massacred by a platoon of U.S. soldiers. Recently declassified records show abuses were documented in every U.S. Army division deployed to Vietnam.

The contrast between the current Iraq war and previous U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns is striking. Adjusted for population size and duration, civilian deaths in Iraq through the end of 2006 were 11–17 times lower than in the Philippines. Because available data for the Philippines do not separate casualties caused by U.S. forces, this estimate is based on all violent deaths in Iraq. This certainly underestimates the difference between the Philippines and Iraq because, in the former case, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that U.S. troops were responsible for a much higher percentage of total deaths. In the case of Vietnam, extrapolations from available hospital records suggest that at least 177,480 South Vietnamese civilians were killed by U.S. bombing and shelling. Controlling for population and duration, Iraqi civilian fatalities ttributable to direct U.S. action and crossfire through the end of 2006 were 17–30 times lower than those from bombing and shelling alone in Vietnam. Without adjusting for population, the average monthly deaths are still 10–16 times lower than in Vietnam.

Outside the U.S. context, contemporary Russian counterinsurgency efforts in Chechnya offer an even starker contrast. In the two Chechen wars (1994–96 and 1999–present), the Russians used an extraordinary amount of indiscriminate firepower, including intensive artillery and aerial bombardment in dense urban settings. The lowest estimate of civilian deaths attributable to Russian actions through 2003 is 50,000 out of a total Chechen population of approximately 1 million (other estimates place the death toll for the two wars as high as 250,000). Even the most conservative estimate is 100–175 times the U.S.-caused toll in Iraq through 2006 (controlling for duration and population). Given the nature of the conflict, the number of civilians killed in Iraq, however awful, is not sufficient to suggest systematic U.S. noncompliance with the norm of noncombatant immunity. On the contrary, compared with conflicts where civilians were directly targeted, Iraqi casualty data provide some indirect evidence for U.S. adherence.

These findings will be meaningless to the anti-Americans of the neo-communist left and their enablers in the Democratic-media-complex. But keep an eye on those now pushing the meme of a wartime cover-up (compared to the objective analysis of international security specialists). You can see that this is just one more instance in the global left's campaign to criminalize American foreign and military policy.

Obama's First Pitch at Washington Nationals Opener!

Last week Harry Smith of CBS News asked President Obama, who loves basketball, "if he can ever go to his right." The president responded, "I can go to my right, but I prefer my left ..."

Let's make that HIGH AND WIDE left, as seen here at the Washington Nationals' opener:

Or as JackM. at AOSHQ quips, this is "why Baseball is not Kenya's national pastime." And DrewM. embeds the video (see 3:30 minutes) and adds, "How a real man and a real President throws a pitch":

See also, Lonely Conservative, "Obama Still Throws Like a Girl."

13 Year-Old Smashes 'Post-Colonialist Feminist Theory'!

You gotta love this!

Via BCF, it turns on that Alaina Podmorow, from British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, has smacked down Canadian political scientist Melanie Butler, and her thesis, "Canadian Women and the (Re)Production of Women in Afghanistan." Notice Butler's canned post-modern attack on U.S./Canadian foreign policy:

In Canada as in the United States, government agencies have justified the military invasion of Afghanistan by revitalizing the oppressed Muslim woman as a medium through which narratives of East versus West are performed. While CW4WAfghan [Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan] attempt to challenge dominant narratives of Afghan women, they ultimately reinforce and naturalize the Orientalist logic on which the War on Terror operates, even helping to disseminate it through the Canadian school system. Drawing on post-colonial feminist theory, this paper highlights the implications of CW4WAfghan’s Orientalist discourse on women’s rights, and tackles the difficult question of how feminists can show solidarity with Afghan women without adhering to the oppressive narratives that permeate today’s political climate.

Miss Podmorow's response is here, "A Very Young Activist's Reply":

... even though I don’t understand at all the words Orientalist or feminism theory, I do understand what this chunk means, and now I want to speak my truth.

I am the founder of Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan. I founded this organization 3 years ago, when I was 9 years old. In the fall of 2006, I found out that the privileges that I have, other girls in our world don’t get. I learned about this when I went with my Mom to listen to journalist, author and human rights activist, Sally Armstrong speak about Afghanistan. She told stories about the terrible things that happen to little girls in Afghanistan. I was so moved. It was so upsetting to me that these girls weren’t able to exercise their rights. They were not able to go to school and sometimes they didn’t go to school because they were afraid they would be hurt or even killed ...

No one will ever tell me that Muslim women or any women think it’s ok to not be allowed to get educated or to have their daughters sold off at 8 years old or traded off at 4 years old because of cultural beliefs. No one will tell me that women in Afghanistan think it is ok for their daughters to have acid thrown in their faces. It makes me ill to think a 4 year old girl must sleep in a barn and get raped daily by old men. It’s sick and wrong and I don’t care who calls me an Orientalist or whatever I will keep raising money to educate girls and women in Afghanistan and I will keep writing letters and sending them in the back pack of my friend Lauryn Oates as she works so bravely on the ground helping women and girls learn what it is to exercise their rights. I believe in human rights so I believe everyone has the right their own opinion, I just wish that the energy that was used to write that story, that is just not true, could have been used to educate a girl in Afghanistan. That’s what the girls truly want. That’s what the Women in Afghanistan truly want. I have a drawer full of letters from them that says just that.

I wonder how my good friend Charli Carpenter and her friends at DOM and LGM feel about this? They really do like smart, precocious kids:

Don't bug 'em though, well, at least not until they get back from their upcoming conference on "Gendered Consequence of Violence and War on Women’s Health" (among other things).

Karl Rove for the Census? You Better Think!

One could argue that it's for the good of the nation. And in this case, that'd be saying a lot, considering how the administration's turned the census into a $14 billion vote-buying alien-amnesty boondoggle. And that's not to mention the recent attacks on Rove, such as the genuinely demonic "citizens' arrest" from President Obama's Taliban liaison Jodie Evans. But it's come to this? "Karl Rove Appears in TV ad for Census" (via). Say it ain't so, Karl:

Actually, Karl better think:

Here's the real deal, at WSJ, "Republicans Fear Undercounting in Census."

But hey, "lefties love the bipartisanship"!

Death Threats Won't Keep Erin Andrews From 'Dancing With the Stars'

Erin Andrews was threatened with murder last week. See Fox News, "Death Threats Made Against ESPN Reporter Erin Andrews." And LAT, "Erin Andrews has been receiving death threats; FBI has identified sender."

But the resilient ESPN reporter's not giving up the game. See PopEater, "Quitting 'Not an Option' For Erin Andrews." And at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Dancing's Erin Andrews Trying to 'Be All Va-Va-Voom'":

It's no surprise that Erin Andrews feels unnatural on Dancing with the Stars — not because she has never danced, but because she's a self-described tomboy. "I'm sitting here looking at my face and seeing what all this makeup has done to me. It's like, 'Aaahh!'" she tells TVGuide.com. "There are just some things that you're not used to." The ESPN reporter, who will compete despite receiving death threats, is also not used to playing a character, but is determined to show off some acting skills in Monday's waltz. See who's been helping her out, why Dancing has been a "perfect release" after everything she's been through, and if Maksim Chmerkovskiy really does smell amazing.

There's an interview at the link.

RELATED: The incorrigible Robert Stacy McCain's coming out of celebrity blogger retirement, "Celebrity Meltdown Update."

BONUS: Theo Spark, "Monday Mopsies ..."

Video: Space Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off for Space Station

As readers know, I'm fascinated by the shuttle launches. The New York Times has a big story, "Shuttle Lifts Off for Space Station."

And as always, AubreyJ provides comprehensive coverage, "Watch Launch and Mission Live Of Space Shuttle Discovery STS-131."

Plus, see ABC News, "Discovery Teacher-Astronaut Breaks the Mold: Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger's Unusual Route to Becoming a NASA Astronaut."

Gallup: Tea Partiers Aren't Nazis After All!

I wish I'd saved up some of these screeds, you know, the "tea partiers are God-bagging racist homophobic wifebeaters," but there's not enough time in the day.

Oh sure, there's distrust in the president that bears marks of irrationality, and folks like John Avlon are all too happy to point it out to you (see, "Scary New GOP Poll"); and from Janet Napolitano on down, any plain Middle American tea party protester is equivalent to Timothy McVeigh and genuine right wing extremists (Frank Schaeffer's got the latest on that, "The Evangelical "Mainstream" Insanity Behind the Michigan 'End Times' Militia"). And what the heck! We can add Digby to the mix here, with her latest Frank Rich-style histrionics against protesters scheduled to converge on D.C. on April 19th (that's the anniversary of Waco and Oklahoma City, and that's all you need to know).

But take away all the disinformation and demonization, and the hard, cold fact remains: Tea partiers are just regular folks worried that the nation's abandoned its Constitutional founding, and that liberty's at risk of slipping away. To that effect, see Gallup's new poll, "Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their Demographics":

Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That's the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.

Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more likely to be male and less likely to be lower-income.

In several other respects, however -- their age, educational background, employment status, and race -- Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large.

Well, God have mercy!

RTWT at the link (via Memeorandum).

BONUS: JammieWearingFool, "Tea Party More Popular Than Obama, Frank Rich Hardest Hit"; YidWithLid, "Et Tu Gallup? Second Polling Org. Shows Tea Party as Bi-Partisan, Bi-Racial Movement;" and Hot Air, "Who are the Tea Partiers?"

ADDED: Excellent piece from Andrew Malcolm, "Myth-busting polls: Tea Party members are average Americans, 41% are Democrats, independents":

For upwards of 12 months now members of the so-called Tea Party protest movement have been stereotyped, derogated and often dismissed by some politicians and media outlets.

They've been portrayed variously as angry fringe elements, often inarticulate, potentially violent and merely Republicans in sheep's clothing or disgruntled pockets of conservatives blindly lashing out at a left-handed President Obama and the same side of his Democratic Party finally getting its chance to drive home a liberal agenda after eight years of Republican rule and six under a centrist Bill Clinton.

Alas for stereotypes, they're convenient, often catchy. But not necessarily true ...

Taliban Attacks U.S. Consulate in Pakistan!

At NYT, "U.S. Consulate in Pakistan Is Attacked by Militants":

Militants mounted an assault against the United States Consulate in this northern Pakistani city on Monday, using a powerful bomb and rocket launchers in a multipronged attack, said a senior Pakistani intelligence officer.

Five people were killed outside the consulate and about 20 were wounded, according to a senior government official.

The United States Embassy in Islamabad said that at least two Pakistani security guards employed by the consulate were killed in the attack, and that a number of others were seriously wounded. The embassy confirmed that the attack was coordinated, and said it involved “a vehicle suicide bomb and terrorists who were attempting to enter building using grenades and weapons fire.”

Militants managed to damage barracks that formed part of the outer layer of security for the heavily fortified consulate area, but did not penetrate inside, the Pakistani intelligence officer said.

Pakistani television networks showed a giant cloud of dust and debris rising from the Saddar area, where the consulate is located, shortly after 1 p.m. Local media reported that there had been three blasts. Authorities cordoned off the area and gunfire was heard long after the explosions.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and warned that “we plan more such attacks,” Reuters reported.

The assault was a chilling reminder of just how close the militants are still able get to their targets in Pakistan, where months of operations by the Pakistani military in Taliban-controlled northern areas have dramatically reduced violence.

More at Guardian UK, "Dozens killed in Pakistan bomb attacks: Death toll climbs after attacks on political rally and US consulate."

Video Hat Tip: The Lede (via Memeorandum).

Living by Faith in God

I thought I'd postpone some of the JBW blog wars for a few days, but I have to say, for an Easter holiday, this guy packs some wicked demonic heat. Thankfully, Serr8d's on the case and has been peppering JBW with covering fire. And as you can see, the Brain Rage posts have become more whiny and impotent with each iteration, so the higher power's getting to this human defect, fallen temporarily though he may be.

JBW's responded as well to Stogie's photoshop, but my comments on that will go live tomorrow or Tuesday or whenever. Here I just want to elaborate the differences between myself and JBW, and perhaps he'll think through the scathing fires of the perturbations tormenting him.

The differences are of faith, and that which sustains me, and the absence of The Good, which inflicts JBW for want of meaning and fulfillment. Here's a passage from The Strategy of Satan: How to Detect and Defeat Him, which is a pocket handbook for the Christian (blog) warrior, "Living by Faith in God":

Everybody in this world lives by faith. The difference between Christians and the unconverted person is not the FACT of faith, but the OBJECT of faith. The unsaved person trusts himself and other humans; the Christian trusts God. It is your faith in God that is the secret of victory and ministry. If you have any doubts that God honors faith in himself, read Hebrews 11. In fact, one of the greatest problems God has with his children is the developing of their faith.

Satan knows this, and therefore attacks the believer's faith. Paul's words to the young Christians in Thessalonica illustrate the point:

Therefore when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith....For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and your labor would be in vain. But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we also long to see you, for this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith...as we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face, and we may complete what is lacking in your faith.

1 Thessalonians 3:12, 5-7, 10

According to Romans 1:17, the Christian is supposed to go "from faith to faith." When you read the life of Abraham in Genesis 12-25, you see that all that God did, he did in order to perfect Abraham's faith. It is a spiritual principle.

"It shall be done to you according to your faith."

Matthew 9:29

Whenever God works in and through your life, it is always in response to faith. The thing that hinders the working of God is not his lack of his power, but his people's lack of faith ...

At seeing JBW's Easter sacrilege today my heart skipped at Satan's breath, and I fear that JBW knows not of his wayward travels to the underworld of death. He thinks he's cool -- that I'm an old man, a tubby has been -- and that he's got nothing to learn of the ways of grief and hardship and perseverance to the life of goodness in The One. Serr8d, in his rough manner, repudiates JBW's demonology, and that's when JBW recoils and pleads his divine tormentors off. We might say in regular terminology: "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen." So, in fact it's JBW who should call it a day when beaten silly.

But however it's assessed, the boy has lost his faith, and thus he's lost his way in this world. (I know this from JBW's confessions of his parents love and values, and his rejection of them.) Perhaps a further comeuppance is due before change can be effected, but mysterious are the ways of the Lord.

More tomorrow, dear readers ...

Cuba's Hidden Side

Guardian UK covers Cuba's dissident movement, "A Hunger Striker Exposes Cuba's Hidden Side":

The image of gaunt journalist Guillermo Farinas reveals failure by the Raul Castro regime to deliver greater tolerance.

It is not the face Cuba's leaders wanted to project: the eyes are sunken, the cheeks hollow, the expression grim. Guillermo Fariñas is entering his sixth week of hunger strike a gaunt, stricken figure and a symbol of despair under President Raul Castro.

The dissident journalist stopped eating and drinking on 24 February in protest at repression that has derailed hopes of greater tolerance on the communist island.

When Raul formally succeeded his ailing brother, Fidel, last year there was talk of easing political and economic restrictions and a thaw with the US. Raul signalled reform and Barack Obama promised a "new beginning" after half a century of enmity. A year later those hopes are ashes and Fariñas's doleful gaze captures a bleak mood infecting diplomats, analysts and ordinary Cubans.

First came disappointment over economic reforms. Raul's efforts to boost moribund agriculture and industry were timid and no match for a global financial crisis that in effect bankrupted the government, forcing it to slash subsidies and salaries. Food production in Havana province is 40% below target this year, heralding bare shop shelves and markets.

Then on 23 February Orlando Zapato Tayamo, a political prisoner, died after an 85-day hunger strike for better conditions, triggering international condemnation and souring Havana's relations with the European Union.

Fariñas started his hunger strike a day later to demand the release of political prisoners and has vowed to continue until death if necessary. As he turns more skeletal, criticism of Havana grows. When a pro-government mob roughed up the Ladies in White, relatives of the prisoners, angry rallies in Miami and Los Angeles denounced the regime and Obama accused it of responding "to the aspirations of the Cuban people with a clenched fist".

HAT TIP: Babalú.

Obama's Offshore Oil Drilling Plan Riles Coastal Residents

At Fox News, "Cost of Offshore Oil Drilling":

Plus, letters to the editor, at NYT (where none of the authors favor "drill baby, drill"), "Obama’s Plan for Offshore Drilling"

To the Editor:

Just as he did with health care reform for the better part of last year, President Obama is now courting Congressional Republicans with his new energy proposals. This, too, is likely to be a futile exercise, especially when Republicans have vowed not to cooperate with anything that Democrats propose.

But far more important than the political capital and time wasted, the president’s proposals are a Faustian bargain. They call for more nuclear power when there is still no good plan for what to do with the long-lived, lethal radioactive wastes. They call for more offshore drilling when we should be burning less, not more, oil; when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated so clearly the risks to offshore oil rigs; and when coastal marine ecosystems are already under such severe threat. They call for “clean coal” when anyone who has looked seriously at the environmental and public health disaster of mountaintop coal mining knows there is no such thing.

We must applaud the president’s small-scale initiatives for renewable energy generation — solar, wind, some forms of biomass, and geothermal — and for promoting energy efficiency and mass transit. These are the real healthy, sustainable, job-creating solutions to our climate and energy crises that we must expand exponentially, starting now. China is doing so, and is rapidly cornering the world market. Why aren’t we?

Eric Chivian

Boston, March 31, 2010

That's Philippe Cousteau at the interview. He's founder of EarthEcho International, and environmental lobbying group. He looks like a nice guy, although I'd need to do longer search to see if he's got radical ties. He's hangin' with some key Dems at the link, so what can you do?

Magnitude 6.9 Earthquake Hits Mexicali! - UPDATED!! - Crowds Flee Disneyland!! - One Dead!! - PICS! VIDEO!!

From Ed Driscoll, "Video of Earthquake in San Diego as It Happened":

SCROLL DOWN FOR ADDITIONAL UPDATES!

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Getting this and this off Twitter.

Here's the screencap of the earthquake in Baja California:

The U.S. Geological Survey website is slowing down now.

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LAT has a post up, "6.9 Earthquake Strikes Baja California; Los Angeles Rattled":

A 6.9 earthquake struck Baja Calfornia this afternoon, rattling a large swath of Los Angeles and Southern California.

The temblor struck about 3:40 p.m. about 108 miles east of Tijuana. In Los Angeles, the shaking persisted for several seconds. It was felt across Southern California, with skyscrapers shaking in San Diego. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

This part of Baja California has experienced regular seismic activity -- mostly small quakes but also some strong ones.

The temblor this afternoon prompted reports to local authorities in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and dozens of people so far have reported it on the "Did You Feel It" reporting system at the U.S. Geological Survey.

Plus, at ABC7 Los Angeles on Twitter and live stream. Earthquake is updated to magnitude 7.2:

Photos coming in on Twitpic (and here):

And from LA Weekly and Twitpic, power lines down in Mexicali:

More on Twipic, here, here, and here:

Video from CNN:

Left Coast Rebel's got lots of coverage, and check Temple of Mut as well.

Plus, more Twitpics coming in, here and here (via LA Weekly):

LAT updates, "20 million people felt Mexicali earthquake; big aftershocks are 'likely,' Caltech says."

And LA Weekly's got awesome coverage, "Bigger Than Haiti: 7.2 Earthquake Hits Baja, Felt In L.A." (Updated)."

More video, on the local reaction, from ABC 7 Los Angeles:

LA Weekly tweets, " UPDATE: One dead in #BajaQuake http://bit.ly/cN7KDZ."

And more from Twitpics, here and here:

Tea Partiers and Terrorists: Weighing Moral Equivalence

Okay, here's a follow up to last night's entry: "Disgusting: New York Times Crops Weathermen/Tea Party Mash-Up Pic for Sunday 'Week-in-Review' Hatchet Job!"

I sent it out by e-mail, and got picked up by Jim Hoft, "Outrageous!… NY Times Sunday Hit Piece Pictures Tea Party Protesters With Weathermen Terrorists." Jim in turn got picked up by Glenn Reynolds, "JIM HOFT IS UNHAPPY THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES CONFLATES TEA PARTIERS WITH weathermen terrorists. But I think they’re saying that Tea Partiers will be close friends with the next President ...."

Sometime this morning Jim's entry got picked up as a Memeorandum thread, and after that, naturally, a lot of folks saw it, some checking the link to my blog. Here's a roundup, with some picking up my post directly by e-mail, some from Gateway Pundit's at Memeorandum, or at Instapundit, etc.:

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* Atlas Shrugs, "The Left Destroy Machine in High Gear: New York Times Declares War on America."

* Doug Ross, "Larwyn's Linx."

* Free Republic, "New York Times Crops Weathermen/Tea Party."

* Gun-Toting Liberal, "A Conservative Resurrection."

* Left Coast Rebel, "Another Fresh New 52 Week Low for the Press, the New York Times Sunday Pictures Tea Party + Weathermen Terrorists."

* Lonely Conservative, "New York Times Compares Tea Parties to the Weathermen."

* Maggie's Notebook, "New York Times Compares Tea Partiers to Weathermen."

* The Other McCain, "One of These Things Is Not Like the Other."

* The Radio Patriot, "Just to show you how serious this is ..."

* Right Wing-Nut, "NYT Depicts Tea Party As A Rising Political Force!"

* Saber Point, "The False Analogy of the New York Times: Tea Party Members vs Weather Underground."

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All of that for a NYT essay that ran March 28th!

And there's more: It turns out that Ann Althouse took a crack at it with some lawyer's analysis, "Is it a "hit piece" if the NYT parallels Tea Partiers and 60s radicals?" Where I focused on pictorial accompaniments and editorial discretion, Ann goes straight for the textual analysis of the author. Here's her introduction, but check the link for her bottom line:

It was the front-page teaser for this "Week in Review" piece by Benedict Carey. Carey is a medicine and science writer for the newspaper, and his topic is the public display of anger in American politics. He's looking at the long history of demonstrations, and it's a great concept to put up a 60s "Days of Rage" photograph with a man yelling and gesturing along with a present-day Tea Party photograph with a man yelling and gesturing in just about the same way. That the man in the 60s photo is Bill Ayers is a fabulous bit of irony. It's a perfect illustration for Carey's topic, Carey's topic is a good one, and the newspaper succeeds in attracting readers.

Now, I understand the right-wing anger — hmmm — at the juxtaposition. The 60s protesters are Weathermen, and the Weathermen advocated and practiced violence. They murdered people. The Tea Partiers, by contrast, are engaging in the highest form of freedom of expression: assembling in groups and criticizing the government.

But people on the left admire and respect the 1960s protests. They wish there was more expressive fervor on their side today. To have the passion and vitality of the 60s is a good thing. And the air of potential violence, especially in the absence of any actual violence? I think lefties love that. They may not admit they do. But there's a frisson. Remember, the NYT readers are aging liberals. They — we — remember the 60s as glory days. Yes, there was anger, and yes, it spilled over into violence sometimes, but the government deserved it, and these young people were idealistic and ready to give all for their ideals. They are remembered — even as (if?) their excesses are regretted — in a golden light.

This is something of a, "well, you kinda had ta been there" approach. And I don't discount it. Except I read Carey's piece as well, and his larger sensibility toward comparative terror is to dismiss jihadis like Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan as "lone gunmen," which was the exact MSM meme emerging after Fort Hood, and which shortly became a major public relations fiasco. The "righties" won that media framing battle, although by the time of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Janet Napolitano's hee-hawing that "the system worked," it was clear the administration learned absolutely nothing. And there are more red flags at Carey's piece, for example, where he says:

So far, experts say that the discontent pooling on the right (anti-Washington and anti-Wall Street) and to a lesser degree on the left (anti-Wall Street) has some, but not yet all, of the ingredients needed to foment radicalism.

There's a huge fallacy of ubiquity here (or error of omission). Folks are seeing the tea parties all the time, 24/7 and despite the media spin, these events are virtually 100 percent peaceful (any violence we've seen has been instigated by SEIU thugs, etc.) In contrast, we've got an anarcho-communist revolt brewing on college campuses, especially in California, that's increasingly militant and violent (UC Berkeley Chancellor Roberrt Birgenau's house was attacked by a torch-bearing mob). And Carey's calling stuff like this a "lesser degree" of anger?

In any case, in contrast to Ann is Neptunus Lex, who sees things a bit more from the "righty" angle, "Precipice":

All change provokes reaction, but it seems disingenuous at best for those who initiate change to impugn the motives of those that react to it. Conservatives, after all, take it as read that not all change is progress, and that things – no matter how bad – can always get worse. Non-violent protests were until recently seen as the “highest form of patriotism,” but now the very right of people to peaceably assemble and register their displeasure with government is sneered at by the “paper of record.”

There’s real anger in this country at the direction that the political class is dragging the majority against their will, but it has been up to now peacefully expressed. Where violence has occurred, the guilty parties have much more often than not been those agitating for change, rather than against it.

Well, ahem, there you go ...

P.S. If I missed anybody in the roundup, leave your link in the comments and I'll update ...

On Obama's Watch! Deadly Easter Bombings Rock Baghdad!

There's coverage at Memeorandum.

But see NYT, "Bombings in Baghdad Aim at Diplomatic Locations":

Residents and security forces members gather at the site of a bomb attack near the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad April 4, 2010. Photograph by: Saad Shalash , Reuters.

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The Iraqi capital echoed with explosions on Sunday, with three suicide car bombings killing dozens of people around Baghdad. Other bombs and rockets went off at widely scattered locations, paralyzing traffic and disrupting communications throughout the city.

An official in the Interior Ministry said there were three suicide bombers who had targeted the Iranian embassy as well as the residences of the Egyptian chargé d’affaires and the German ambassador, all in the Mansour District and nearby on the western side of the city. Officials said that at least 32 people were killed in all, with dozens more seriously wounded. Separately, a police official in Kerrada, a neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said that a fourth would-be suicide bomber targeted the offices of the government’s embassy protective services but policemen shot and wounded the driver before he could detonate his bomb. The police identified that suspect, who they claimed was on drugs, as an Iraqi — Ahmed Jassim, 17 — and said he had been driving a Kia minibus carrying one ton of explosives. Bomb disposal experts worked for several hours to defuse the bomb ...

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Abdul Kareem al-Thirib, head of the security committee in Baghdad’s provincial government, blamed them on the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. “They are trying to show that the situation is bad,” he said. “This is a campaign launched by terrorists against innocent civilians to create chaos, but the security forces are totally in control of the situation.”

I blame the Obama administration, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

See Jamie Fly, "Obama and Iraq":

As Iraqi election officials tally the votes from Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the Obama administration faces some difficult choices in the weeks and months ahead. Despite the apparent success of the election and the limited violence associated with it, there is the potential for uncertainty in the coming months as Iraqi parties wrangle for control of a new governing coalition.

The Obama administration appears tempted to claim political credit and move on. Last month, Vice President Biden said that Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” President Obama, in his Rose Garden remarks after voting ended on Sunday, said that “the future of Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq,” and repeated previous promises that by the end of next year, all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq.

This comes as some question whether the United States should renegotiate, or at a minimum extend, the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement that mandated this U.S. withdrawal from the country and instead allow for a continued U.S. presence in Iraq beyond 2011. There has been a marked improvement in the security situation in Iraq, but Iraq’s future remains uncertain, especially if the U.S. moves out of Iraq too quickly. It will be interesting to see whether the administration is willing to take such action if conditions on the ground deteriorate and if so, how it will reconcile this real world need with the desires of a Democratic base that was promised an end to the war in Iraq by a candidate who ran touting his opposition to the war ...