baldilocks

The Family Hero

Private Quinton Ezeagwula, the young soldier who survived the Arkansas terror attack committed by the Islamist Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is shocked that people are calling him a hero,  but his mother, Sonja Ezeagwula says that he's a good kid who beat the odds in many ways.

She said her son stayed away from gangs and drugs as a youth and was doing something positive. "He was supposed to have been a statistic from a dysfunctional family. Look what happened."

The Ezeagwulas also think the world of the late Private William Long's family and Private Ezeagwula's mother is

"overwhelmed with how much love Americans have for this country. I really am. And I'm glad I got a chance to see it."

She said her family is Christian, "and we believe when something happens, God will turn it around," and good will come of it.

Amen.

Late and Short

An offhand remark from the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces issued while he's not even on American soil:

I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.

Is this statement on the White House site?  The statement about the Tiller murder was.

It's well past the point where President Obama has to front as if he cares about those whom he commands.  However, this afterthought is almost worse than saying nothing at all.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)

Interview with Private William Long's Father

From a former Marine. Look and Listen.

But what of the young man's Commander-in-Chief?

(Thanks to Blackfive)

'I am the Surge'

Vets for Freedom produces an ad demanding that the Democratic Party--specifically its leader, Barack Obama--acknowledge the success of Iraq Surge and, therefore, its authors, the United States Armed Forces:

Senate Resolution 636

(Thanks to Hot Air)

Al Qaeda's 1998 Attacks on Africa

Ten years ago today--using the time-tested truck-bomb method--Islamists blew up the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The toll: in Nairobi 213 dead—of that number 12 were American; in Dar es Salaam 11 dead—all Africans—and 85 wounded.

From the Kenya attack, over 4500 were wounded, 150 were blinded.

From the Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower:

Beyond the obvious goal of calling attention to the existence of al Qaeda, the point of the bombings was vague and confusing. The Nairobi operation was named after the Holy Kaaba in Mecca; the Dar es Salaam bombing was called al-Aqsa, after the mosque in Jerusalem; neither had an obvious connection to the American embassies in Africa. Bin Laden put forward several explanations for the attack. He initially said that the sites had been target because of the “invasion” of Somalia; then he described an American plan to partition Sudan, which he said was hatched in the embassy in Nairobi. He also told his followers that the genocide in Rwanda had been planned inside the two American embassies.

That would be funny if it didn't make me nauseous.

Muslims all over the world greeted the bombings with horror and dismay. The deaths of so many people, most of them Africans, many of them Muslims, created a furor. Bin Laden said that the bombings gave the Americans a taste of the atrocities that Muslims had experienced. But to most of the world and even to some members of al-Qaeda, the attacks seemed pointless, a showy act of mass murder with no conceivable effect on American policy except to provoke a massive response.

But that, as it turned out, was exactly the point.

Wright says that bin Laden had been trying to get the Americans to come and get him in Afghanistan, figuring that, if he killed enough Americans we would. (We know what happened afterward and what is still happening, but I don’t want to make this post too much about Americans.)

I contend that there was another point. Al Qaeda did it for the same reason they do everything else. Evil is almost always its own point.

Kenya’s Daily Nation has, of course, been commemorating the attacks.

Nairobi’s Day of Horror Recalled

Nairobi. 10:40am. Friday August 7, 1998. First came two explosions, then the mighty sonic boom, the ground shook and the skies over a corner of the city darkened with a mushroom cloud.

As the smoke and dust cleared, tonnes of paper thrown up by the blast wafted lazily over the city, coming down in slow pirouettes that belied the force of the explosion that had sent them into the sky. By the time New York got its 9/11, Nairobi already had its August 7, a date of horror etched in the collective memory of millions of Kenyans.

When the dust had cleared 213 innocents, nearly all of them Kenyans, lay dead.

The target of the terrorist attack, the US embassy, a stout, solid, fortress by the Haile Sellasie Avenue-Moi Avenue-Kenya Railways roundabout, was still standing defiant, but a mere shell gutted into the insides. Twelve American and 31 other embassy staff, nearly all Kenyans, lost their lives.

Adjacent to the embassy building, the taller 7-story Ufundi Cooperative House [containing a secretarial college], not constructed to withstand bomb attacks, had crumbled to the ground.

(Emphasis mine.)

Sound familiar?

More:

How the Nairobi Terror Attack was Planned

Victims: Only the Scars Have Died
“We forgive you, but we have not forgotten.”

Personally speaking, I learned quickly that none of my immediate family had been injured. Though I had never met any of them at the time, this was a great relief to me. The American response to the attack, however, made my then ongoing transformation from Democrat to Republican irreversible.

Many things were galling about the attacks, but one was the fact that Africans—Kenyans and Tanzanians—weren’t even the targets of the bombings but took most of the casualties. (This was also the case with the 2002 Mombasa attacks; Israelis were the targets.)

To quote myself:

I liken [al-Qaeda attitude toward the terror attacks in Africa] to a demolition company destroying a building. Who cares if the "vermin" in it are destroyed along with the building? For that is the cultural view that [many? most?] Arab Muslims hold for blacks, even for those blacks who are foolish enough to believe that being Muslims themselves will save them. Sudan, anyone?

At any rate, my heart goes out to those who are still feeling the physical, emotional and spiritual pain caused by those attacks. At least one of your American friends is thinking of you today, Kenya, and I know for a fact that I am far from alone.

Milblogs TV: Anbar Rising

Part 1 Part 2

Associated Press: US is Winning the Iraq War

You don't say!

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Notice that the authors still couldn't resist taking a shot at the president.

The following gentlemen asked and answered the question about possible victory in Iraq long before AP woke up:

• Michael Yon

• Michael Totten

• Greyhawk

One wonders why AP is admitting the truth now.

(Thanks to the other AP)

Joe Klein Clutches His Pearls

Dan Riehl:

Ever notice how [some] liberals talk tough and pretend to be looking for a fight, then turn into whiny little biatches the minute you hit back?

Yes, I have and it doesn't matter what the topic is.

However, in this case the liberal in question is Joe Klein and the topic is John McCain. Specifically, Klein refers to McCain's words today regarding Barack Obama's...nuanced...approach to determining whether the Surge tactic has served its purpose or not as a 'meltdown.' Really? To me, 'meltdown' equals crazy and/or mind-bogglingly illogical. Were McCain's words either of those? Let's see if this is so.

In response to Obama's admission that, knowing what he knows now, he would have still been against the Surge prior to its onset, McCain comes to a conclusion about his opponent:

This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.

Is this reasonable? Or is it "scurrillous?"

Obama's advisers have surmised that if their candidate admits error about his judgment in the matter, his base--the anti-warriors of the hard Left--will turn against him. In addition, the advisers are worried about those delegates to the Democrat National Convention--Hillary Clinton hasn't released hers yet. Who knows what would happen to them were Obama to repudiate his previous position regarding Iraq? (Notice I said that these are the advisers' concerns. The candidate himself isn't sweating this stuff.)

And then there's the fact that, in 2005, Obama was against withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Interviewer: But you said that troops should be withdrawn.

Obama: No, no. I’ve never said that troops should be withdrawn. What I’ve said is that we’ve got to make sure that we secure and execute the rebuilding and reconstruction process effectively and properly and I don’t think we should have an artificial deadline when to do that. What’s important is that we have a long-term plan in process and short-term security strategy.

(Emphasis mine.)

It's quite reasonable to conclude that Senator Obama would say anything to get elected, regardless of the effect that his words might have on the outcome of world-changing events--like wars. He has proved that he has no problem with contradicting himself without offering an explanation for the contradiction.

Klein:

Readers should note that I said that I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. Smart politicians leave the scurrilous stuff to their aides; in fact, a McCain spokesman expressed these words almost exactly on July 14. There is a reason why politicians who want to be President don't say these sort of things: It isn't presidential.

So, according to Klein, it's a "meltdown" because it isn't presidential. Whether it's a reasonable conclusion, whether it's the truth, is irrelevant.

That's politics, I suppose.

Then again, Klein's overreaction probably has much simpler explanation. He is probably just angry because someone said something bad about his savior. I understand that, since I get angry when someone slanders my Savior.

But it isn't slander if it's true, now is it?

(Thanks to Blackfive and to Richard Fernandez)

Just Say It!

Barack Obama, after his trip to Iraq:

"Here is what I will say," Obama said, "I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."

Come on, Senator, you can do it.

Obama maintained that his decision was not wrong.

I guess he can't do it. Maybe he's considering the plight of the anti-warriors. That many heads exploding would make a big mess.

Could you be married to a person who can't admit error? No wonder Michelle always seems PO'd. :-)

(Thanks to Ace of Spades HQ)

Milblogs TV--Episode One

(Thanks to Mudville Gazette, of course)