IF YOUR NAME IS ARAFAT YOU JUST GOTTA HATE IT WHEN HE SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THIS...

Bush declares: "We must get rid of Arafat"

CPT PATTI IS MAN OF THE YEAR!

Well, not exactly...Time magazine is way to PC to make that blunder...

But Drudge says she might be included...

SOME GOOD POINTS

To be read carefully please.

All of this twisted, blame-America-Bush-bashing and mind-numbing negativism has obscured some very important facts that need to be re-emphasized:

Saddam is responsible for two horrific wars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. His record is replete with the kind of atrocities that brought the United States into two world wars, as well as a bloody campaign in Korea and the war I fought in -- Vietnam. He raped, tortured, robbed, starved and murdered his own people. He acquired and used weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors and countrymen. He attempted to assassinate an American president. He trained and supported Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Muslim Brotherhood terrorists who killed Americans. Are we to believe that Al Qaeda was the only Middle Eastern terror group that Saddam did not support?

The image of Saddam as a filthy, decrepit, coward captured -- not killed -- by an American soldier, is a powerful message to repressed people all over the globe that this is the way brutal despots go. Placing him on trial before the people of Iraq -- not in The Hague or somewhere else -- sends a clear signal to totalitarians, be they in Damascus, Tehran, Pyongyang or Havana, that they are accountable to the people they have tortured. Now, the most committed followers of Usama bin Laden have cause to wonder if their bearded leader who wants them to die for his cause would ignominiously surrender himself to the tender mercies of the International Criminal Court to avoid an untimely demise.

Finally, the loopy leftist rhetoric in the aftermath of Saddam’s capture obscures the extraordinary courage, training, persistence and discipline of the American soldiers who pursued and caught the Butcher of Baghdad. Rather than wasting time inventing crazy conspiracy theories and efforts to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the Democrats and their media allies ought to simply try hanging around with these heroes for a few days. It would be good for their mental health.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21st.

It is almost noon. She is still sleeping...but given that bed time was nearly 5:00 a.m. small wonder.

Me...still pinching myself.

SHE ARRIVED AT RAY BARRACKS AT 2:00 A.M.

She looked great yet smelled a little like an Army tent.

We made it home about 2:55. She showered, I prepared a LATE dinner...

She looks wonderful..(.she smells beautiful)...her smile is even bigger than I remember it (if that is even possible) and the conversation is better than ever.

It's 5:00 A.M now. I'm too stoked to sleep. However, she is sleeping gorgeously as I expect she will for the better part of the next 12 hours.

And somehow...I think she is even sweeter than when she left.

Amazing.

I over-achieved to an absolutely serious degree.

Praises to Him who makes such things possible.

1:00 AM UPDATE

Just heard from our girl...she has arrived safely in Germany...I'm guessing I'll see her in about an hour.

Whoo Hoo...

However, she sounds completely beat...three days travel will do that...

THE GZILLIONTH EXAMPLE OF WHY IT DOESN'T PAY TO BE NICE TO TERRORISTS

File this under "No good deed goes unpunished".

One of the 13 Palestinians deported from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in May 2002 was arrested Tuesday in Belgium on suspicion of participating in a number of robberies in which more than $250,000 were stolen.

Khalil Mohammed Abdullah al-Nawara received asylum in Belgium following the siege on the church.

Sounds like he didn't learn much from his days in one of the holiest sites in all Christendom.

Let's put it this way...if a Belgian had taken hostages and weapons into the Kaaba, Mecca's holiest shrine...what do you think the odds are of him being offered asylum in, say, Jordan?

Hell, what are the odds of him coming out alive?

ONE OPTION

If you are out of work and you covered your tracks very, very well...

Former congressman Gary Condit hit three supermarket tabloids with a $209 million defamation suit Friday for printing articles suggesting he killed Washington intern Chandra Levy.

The stories published in The National Enquirer, The Globe and The Star portrayed Condit as a "murderer" and "sexual deviant" and "caused him to be exposed to public hatred, contempt and ridicule ... for things that never happened," according to the suit filed in Palm Beach, Fla.

Levy, 24, vanished from her apartment in May 2001. Her aunt said she had been conducting an affair with the married congressman, and the press focused on his possible involvement in her disappearance even as police said he was not a suspect. Condit, a six-term Democratic representative from California, was subsequently voted from office.

What's next...ya gonna sue all those voters for believing those stories and voting your investigation dodging butt from office?

IN CASE YOU WERE RUNNING OUT OF REASONS NOT TO TRUST THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

BARMY BBC bosses have banned reporters from calling tyrant Saddam Hussein a former dictator.

Instead, staff must refer to the barbaric mass murderer as “the deposed former President”.

The astonishing edict was seized on by MPs last night as more proof of a Left-wing bias inside the BBC against the Iraqi war.

Labour MP Kevan Jones, of the Commons Defence Select Committee, said: “This shows the crass naivety of the BBC. Such political correctness will be deeply hurtful to many of our servicemen serving in Iraq.

“It amply demonstrates elements of the BBC have got a clearly anti-war and anti-Government agenda.”

Uh...ya think?

ALERT THE AUTHORITIES

Because by all appearances time has actually stopped. We are at a standstill.

I've done everything I know to do (that doesn't involve messing up the house...)

I read an entire book, I took out the recycling (again...just since yesterday)...I helped neighbors carry in groceries. I've tuned every stringed instrument in the house (I collect them...and actually play many of them to one degree or another...) I've called my mother...

I've done more in the last two days than I've done in the last 7 months and I still have time left in the day?

Get those folks in Greenwich England on the phone...aren't they in charge of time? They'll want to know this...

Time has absolutely stopped.

And then you just watch. I'm betting it will start up again when she gets here...and then to make up for standing still all this day...it's gonna kick itself into high gear and zoom as fast as it can for about a week.

You just wait and see.

(sigh)

A LATER LATEST WORD ON A LONGER LONGEST DAY

Newest rumor is the flight puts down at Rhein Main sometime after 11:00 p.m.

Might as well call it Sunday. But I am NOT complaining...I am merely eager.

THE LONGEST DAY (UPDATE)

Latest word from the wife of the HHC 1SG is the flight is now due in to Rhein Main about 9:30 tonight.

Which means CPT Patti and I might may finally reunite in Friedberg about 11:30 tonight.

As I did last night I will take with me in the car a thermos of coffee and a bottle of beer.

Just to see which she needs more...

FUN AT "THE CORNER"

Did you hear what the troops were calling the Sikorsky Blackhawk which Hillary used to tour Iraq? "Broomstick One"

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON PLAYS THE DUMB AMERICAN

He's much too much a genius for that...but he makes a good go of it...

Europeans: Come on. You know that the animus is directed at Bush, not the American people.

Dumb American: No; I think the divide is even worse than that, I'm afraid. You see, the reaction over here is just the opposite — we have nearly given up not so much on European governments but Europeans themselves, which we see as essentially the same.

Europeans: In some ways you're right. After all, over half our population now believes that you — not the North Koreans or the Iranians — are the real threat to world peace.

Dumb American: I suppose a similar poll 65 years ago would have revealed the same thing about your fear of a unilateral Churchill and your ease with a multilateral Hitler, who seemed to get a nod from the Russians, Italians, Spanish, Eastern Europeans, and Japanese when he went into Poland. But in any case, we wish you luck with the Iranian mullahs. And as far as Tehran goes, for your sake — as long as we are not yet in missile range — we hope that your Nobel Prizes, trade credits, lectures, and so-called "soft power" provide better deterrence than an ABM.

Go read it all.

IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR...

The Prince of Peace? Well, yes...and now a smackdown too...

Official WWE Smackdown! Preview: 12/25 From Iraq

World Wrestling Entertainment in proud to present a special edition of SmackDown! from Iraq on Christmas night. Join the Superstars of SmackDown! as they have the honor of competing in front of America’s troops in what should be an evening filled with action, excitement and emotion.

THE ARAB PRESS

Ya gotta love 'em.

No "smoking gun" to convict Saddam Hussein yet, say Iraqi experts

Iraqi legal experts warned of the huge difficulties ahead in finding decisive evidence of Saddam Hussein's guilt in crimes committed by his regime in Iraq.

NOW AWAITING THE 24/7 TELEVISION DISCUSSIONS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE BRIEF DURATION OF THE VISIT, HOW IT DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING, HOW THE MONEY COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER SPENT FEEDING THE POOR, HOW THIS IS JUST A PHOTO OP AND HOW UTTERLY DISGUSTING IT IS FOR A HEAD OF STATE TO VISIT DEPLOYED SOLDIERS

Spanish Prime Minister in surprise Iraq visit

I'M GUESSING THIS IS SLIGHTLY WORSE IN ARAB CULTURE THAN HAVING YOUR MOUSTACHE SHAVED OFF

The name of Saddam Hussein has been removed from the list of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

The head of the union of Ashrafs, Al-Sherif Najeh Muhammad Hassan al-Faham al-Aaraji admitted that the ousted president had been able to cheat despite the great value and honour attached to the line which is guarded in Baghdad.

The Ashrafs guard the Prophet's genealogical tree.

"Saddam had forced the origin experts to falsify his genealogical tree so that it went back to the Prophet," he said.

Let me get this straight. The Muslims can't event trust the very committee set up to protect the lineage of the Prophet Muhammed...and yet we are the infidels?

Story reported by various Arab Press, this one from al Jazeera no less.

THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Shown for what he is...

In the old days the conquered tyrant was dragged through the streets behind the Roman general's chariot. Or paraded shackled before a jeering crowd. Or, when more finality was required, had his head placed on a spike on the tower wall.

Iraq has its own ways. In the revolution of 1958, Prime Minister Nuri Said was caught by a crowd and murdered, and his body was dragged behind a car through the streets of Baghdad until there was nothing left but half a leg.

We Americans don't do it that way. Instead, we show Saddam Hussein -- King of Kings, Lion of the Tigris, Saladin of the Arabs -- compliantly opening his mouth like a child to the universal indignity of an oral (and head lice!) exam. Docility wrapped in banality. Brilliant. Nothing could have been better calculated to demystify the all-powerful tyrant.

It was a beautiful sight. But it was more than that. It was a deeply important historical moment. More than the fate of a man is at stake here. At stake is the fate of an idea, an idea of singular malignancy that has cost the Arabs not just countless innocent lives but a half-century of progress.

Hussein was the most aggressive and enduring exemplar of a particular kind of deformed Arabism, a kind that arose in the post-colonial era, appealed to the greater glory of the Arab nation and promised a great restoration...

Hussein's destiny is important because he was the last and the greatest of these pan-Arab pretenders, though he gave it a psychotically sadistic character unmatched anywhere in the Arab world. This stream of Arab nationalism brought nothing but poverty, corruption, despair, torture and ruin to large swaths of the Arab world. The mass graves of Iraq are its permanent monument.

This is why it was important not just to capture Hussein but to demystify him -- and with him, the half-century spell that radical pan-Arabism had cast over the entire Middle East. It was important that the god-king of pan-Arabism be shown as the pathetic coward he was...

On the run, Hussein enjoyed one final moment of myth: the ever-resourceful, undaunted resistance fighter. Perhaps, it was thought, he had it all calculated in advance, fading silently from Baghdad like the Russians withdrawing from Moscow before Napoleon, to suck in the Americans only to strike back later on his own terms in a brilliant guerrilla campaign masterminded by the great one himself.

And then they find him cowering in a hole, disheveled, disoriented and dishonored. After making those underground tapes exhorting others to give their blood for Iraq and for him, his instantaneous reaction to discovery was hands-up surrender.

End of the myth. It is not just that he did not resist the soldiers with the guns. He did not even resist the medic with the tongue depressor.

STILL NOT ONE WORLD

A powerful explosion in Baghdad Friday has killed one woman and wounded at least seven other people. The blast also demolished an office of a militia group linked to the country's largest Shi'ite political party.

The early morning blast collapsed more than half of the building containing the Jihad neighborhood branch of the Badr Brigade, a Shi'ite militia group allied to the country's largest political party. But the building was not just a Badr Brigade office, it was also a makeshift apartment building, housing several families who had nothing to do with the militia group.

I'm kinda glad I live in a country where our political parties don't have "militia groups".