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".

HOPING TO FILL THE DANCE CARD WITH FOLKS NAMED STUPID

Here is a bit more on Washington Congressman Jim McDermott.

But read everything written here please...

Dazed and disoriented, not seen since the Iraq war began, he emerged talkative yet defiant. Saddam Hussein? No, Rep. Jim McDermott.

The Washington Democrat told a Seattle radio station Monday that the U.S. military could have found Saddam "a long time ago if they wanted." An incredulous host asked whether the congressman really thought Saturday's capture was timed to help President Bush.

"Yeah. Oh, yeah," McDermott replied. "There's too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing."

Yes, we really haven't heard from the Seattle lawmaker since he turned up in Saddam's Iraq last year to call the president — Bush, not Saddam — a liar. Now "Baghdad Jim" is back, accusing Bush of staging Saddam's snare for political reasons. The past year seems to have been as tough for McDermott as it has been for Saddam. One has lost his country; the other has lost his mind.

McDermott has contributed to greater bipartisanship. Washington state Republicans blasted his "crazy talk." His Democratic colleague from Washington, Norm Dicks, said: "With all due respect to my colleague, that is a fantasy. That just is not right. ... It's one thing to criticize this administration for having done this war. ... But to criticize them on the capture of Saddam, when it's such a big thing to our troops, is just ridiculous."

Exactly, but Dicks' sane words are out of sync in a Democratic Party that increasingly suffers a kind of psychological affliction: It's ready to believe the most hateful charges against George Bush but unwilling to even acknowledge evidence of Saddam's links to al-Qaida.

It would be one thing if McDermott were alone in concocting these anger-filled phantasms. But the Capitol Hill backbencher has eye-catching company. Consider the recent musings of Howard Dean on National Public Radio. He was asked about charges that Bush is holding back information that he had been warned about Sept. 11.

"The most interesting theory that I have heard so far ... is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis," Dean replied. "Now who knows what the real situation is?"

He admitted this "most interesting theory" couldn't be proved and, in later days, said he didn't actually believe it. But here was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination trafficking in a theory that, according to his staff, the candidate just picked up "out there" in the political atmosphere — a theory that accuses Bush of knowing in advance about the terror attacks and doing nothing to stop the slaughter of thousands of Americans.

Will Dean be favoring us with other "most interesting" theories or just the ones that accuse Bush of treason or worse?

We've been talking a lot lately about folks paying attention, or not, as the case may be. Simultaneously, we've also kept an eye on the reporting "styles" of the main stream media.

This story of Jim McDermott's assertions the Saddam capture is a political stunt is, of course, absurd.

More absurd...way more absurd...is the notion uttered by Howard Dean and widely reported in the press that President Bush was warned in advance about the attacks of September 11th.

But consider please...I doubt seriously that Howard Dean is a certifiable idiot...meaning I doubt that he for a moment believes the President sat by and let 3000 people die and billions vanish from the US Economy.

If this is true...that Dean is not an idiot...why would he say it?

The results of this poll might just be an insight. Taken in 2002 the bottom line on the poll is this:

The public's news habits have been largely unaffected by the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent war on terrorism. Reported levels of reading, watching and listening to the news are not markedly different than in the spring of 2000.

So...let me proffer this. Certainly the political parties have their own polls to research the best means of reaching the public. As a result of such polling they have found what you and I know to be true...most folks just aren't paying attention.

They get their news from "headline news" type TV while getting dressed...or the 90 seconds of news that most radio stations play at the top of the hour.

Or they get it from reading the newspaper headlines as they walk by the newspaper machine.

Or they get it from word of mouth...

If that is all the opportunity one has to influence an opinion then one will never sufficiently inform the Amercan populous of the nuances of one's stance vis a vis anothers.

So the best one can do is to create a bogus but compelling story and let it make the headlines to be further spread by word of mouth.

I mean - supermarket tabloids make a fortune by making up stories that anyone with an IQ higher than a celery stalk would never believe. But a whole bunch of folks buy the tabloids (and presumably believe them...or want to believe them).

So...is Dean trafficking in tabloid style campaigning? It would seem so.

I theorize that we can agree that most of us don't believe the President sat back and allowed the attacks on the World Trade Center to happen...

I believe that most reasonably intelligent Americans think we found Saddam Hussein one week ago...and pulled him from a hole...

If my theory is correct then why do Dean and others say wild stuff?

They are courting the stupid vote.

That is the long and short of it. If it makes no rational sense (here I'm not talking about genuine disagreements over tax policy or even the existence/not of WMDs...I'm talking about the irrationals such as uttered by Dean, Mcdermott and even Madelaine Albright for crying out loud...)...if it makes no rational sense (and I presume them to be rational folks) then the only conclusion that can be drawn is this is a strategy to gain the vote of stupid Americans.

Does that scare you as it scares me? That the next election...not just the Presidential election...any of them...getting stupid people to vote and to vote on the basis of WORLD WEEKLY tabloid style stories (PRESIDENT'S DOG INFECTS WHITE HOUSE STAFF WITH BRAIN WITHERING DISEASE!)...isn't that frightening?

Those of us who are paying attention need to recruit more folks to pay attention.

Because we have to out-vote the stupid people.

MILITARY HAPPY NEWS ROUNDUP

We mentioned this problem a couple of weeks ago. The fix isn't perfect, but it is a step forward.

The Army has enacted a policy that allows mobilized Army Reserve and National Guard officers to be promoted immediately, instead of waiting until they come home...

Until now, all reserve component officers, except for a few select branch officers, who were selected for promotion had to wait until a slot opened up in the next higher grade before they could “pin on” the higher grade.

And then there is this:

Effective immediately, active-duty soldiers who re-enlist while deployed to Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan will receive a tax-free, lump-sum bonus, which for most will exceed $5,000, Army officials said Thursday.

So if you are headed for deployment and your re-up window is open...wait until you get there!

ALL THE UN RESOLUTIONS IN THE WORLD VS. ONE WELL-AIMED BIG STICK

News item #1:

Iran signed an agreement on Thursday allowing the UN nuclear watchdog to conduct snap inspections across its territory, which Tehran said should prove it is not secretly developing atomic weapons.

The signature to the Additional Protocol to the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) comes nearly 18 months after an exiled Iranian opposition group sparked an international crisis by saying Tehran was hiding several large nuclear facilities. The allegations proved to be true.

News item #2:

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi has promised to surrender his country's weapons of mass destruction and halt its nuclear development program in a bid to end nearly two decades of international isolation, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced last night.

Libya will "immediately and unconditionally" allow international inspectors to enter the country to track unconventional weapons and oversee their destruction, said Bush, describing nine months of secret negotiations among U.S., British and Libyan officials.

The connection? These two countries looked around and noted what the United States did to Iraq, a nation much stronger than either of these, when the intelligence indicated that country had WMD.

In other words, after the USA went in and handed Saddam Hussein his ass...other CTIC (Chief Thugs in Charge) in the region went "Oh crap!...what if we are next???

And so two more rogue states are no longer a nuclear threat.

Think about that next time you hear one of the 9 Dwarves mealymouth about how the USA and the world are "not safer" for our actions in Iraq.

They are falling like nuclear-wannabe-dominoes.

Way to go, us!

THERE MAY BE MORE TIME TO BLOG

When I spoke to CPT Patti this morning she told me she has "had no meaningful sleep for 3 days".

(!)

STRIKING AN ENTIRE COUNTRY FROM MY CHRISTMAS LIST

CPT Patti called at 6:00 a.m. (It is now 9:15a.m. in Germany).

Says they now predict her flight will touchdown in Germany at 6:00 p.m. tonight.

Says they were in the air...had actually left a little bit early (charter flight, you know...) and were headed home when - get this - Turkey denied them entry into Turkish airspace.

Now lets be clear about this. This was not a big green war bird...this is a commercial jetliner from a charter service (Omni World, or some such...) and the flippin Turks for reasons unknown would not let them enter the air space.

This would be Turkey, the erstwhile ally. The same Turkey that caused the 4th ID to drill holes in the ocean as it's equipment shipments floated in circles while awaiting permission to use Turkish bases while we kicked Saddam's butt (permission was ultimately granted only to defensive capabilities...ie, protecting their Turkish butts...the tanks and tubes had to float clean around the Arabian peninsula and darn near missed the war.)

And it isn't just me! That plane was full of GI's who have spent 223 days in a war zone, headed home for Christmas...some going on to Baltimore...with connecting flights that no longer connect.

And so I am seriously considering altering my Christmas menu to Ham.

And I am resolved...and you can check me on this to ensure I am as good as my word.

Not one single solitary Turkish person from that huge vascillating flea-bag country is getting a Christmas gift from me this year.

Not one.

You can take that to the bank.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20th.

And the best laid plans...

An old Army saying "No plan survives first contact".

It is 3:55 a.m. and I've just returned from a 90 minute round trip drive (plus 45 minutes waiting time) to Friedberg only to learn that CPT Patti's flight from Kuwait was delayed.

They believe it will be landing about 10:30 a.m. today.

Me...I went to bed at 6:00 p.m. got up at 1:30. Shaved. Drank coffee.

Appears I'll probably crash, and need a shave about the time I'm supposed to pick her up.

Such is life from time to time.

But hey - at least she is still coming home...