Squiggler

Yikes! Terror in Detroit

I remember this story vaguely as being treated as nothing. A no there there type of half day story. From this follow-up at LGF, it sure sounds like there is plenty of there there. Shivers.

Detroit Metro Terror Arrest Update

In Detroit Metro

Ethiopian-born Sisayehiticha Dinssa, arrested at Detroit Metro Airport, is going to stay locked up: Suspicious airline passenger to stay locked up. (Hat tip: Joseph.)

This article has new details about what Dinssa had in his possession, including $80,000 in cash, data about US nuclear power plants, suitcase bomb instructions, a commemorative edition of a newspaper dated September 11, 2002, and a hand-written threatening note.

And perhaps the most appalling thing about the story: a federal judge had to overrule a magistrate’s decision to release him.

A federal judge overturned a lower ruling Monday and ordered detention for a man stopped at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with articles about nuclear plants and suitcase bombs and the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman ruled Sisayehiticha Dinssa, 34, was both a flight risk and a danger to the community. He overturned a ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen, who earlier on Monday ordered Dinssa released under strict supervision.

Dinssa, an Ethiopian-born U.S. citizen who lists his address as Dallas, Texas, was arrested Tuesday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after arriving from Kenya by way of Amsterdam.

He is charged with currency smuggling after telling Customs agents he was only carrying about $18,000 before a search of his luggage turned up nearly $80,000.

Though he faces no terrorism charges to date, Assistant U.S. Attorney Leonid Feller told Borman that evidence found in Dinssa’s luggage and inside his laptop computer makes him a potential threat to national security.

Agents found articles about nuclear plants, suitcase bombs and a hard-copy commemorative edition of the Dallas Morning News from Sept. 11, 2002 — the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Feller said.

Agents also found a hand-written note saying: “This community is angry. Something is going to happen. We are going to see justice. This is a powder keg waiting to go off.”

Peter Lance: TRIPLE CROSS - How is Plame prosecutor Fitzgerald involved?

What else can one say but Wow!

Harper Collins issued the following press release announcing Peter Lance's new book about Ali Mohamed, Able Danger, and the failure of the FBI to stop the 9/11 attacks:

Click here to download the PDF.

TRIPLE CROSS

How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him

By Peter Lance

In TRIPLE CROSS, five-time Emmy-award winning investigative reporter Peter Lance reveals how U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and the FBI’s elite bin Laden squad failed to stop Ali Mohamed, a1 Qaeda’s master spy, in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Recruited as an FBI informant as early as 1992, Mohamed -- an intimate of Osama bin Laden -- was allowed to remain free for years, planning and executing multiple acts of terror, including the 1998 African embassy bombings that killed 224 and injured 4000 -- while Fitzgerald and key FBI agents did little to stop him.

Mohamed had been on the FBI’s radar since 1989, when the FBI’s Special Operations Group photographed a cell of his trainees firing AK-47s at a Long Island shooting range. Yet despite their prior knowledge of this New York cell, the Bureau ended its investigation, paving the way for multiple acts of terror in the years that followed.

Of the Islamic radicals trained by Ali Mohamed and photographed by the FBI: one went on to kill Rabbi Meier Kahane in 1990, three were convicted in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and another American Muslim was convicted by Patrick Fitzgerald in 1995 in a plot to blow up the bridge and tunnels into Manhattan. Mohamed himself was opened as a Bureau informant on the West Coast in 1992-a year before the WTC bombing. Worse, he continued to snooker Fitzgerald and other FBI and Justice Department officials for years as he learned the FBI’s playbook on a1 Qaeda.

After a five-year investigation into FBI negligence on the road to 9/11, Lance reveals:

How Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who was directing the FBI’s elite bin Laden squad (I-49), allowed Ali Mohamed to remain an active a1 Qaeda agent despite the fact that the FBI knew he had sworn allegiance to bin Laden as early as 1993. Mohamed moved the Saudi billionaire from Afghanistan to Sudan, trained his personal bodyguard, set up a1 Qaeda terror camps in Khartoum, and trained the terrorists responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing and Day of Terror plots.

How Fitzgerald and other top officials buried a treasure trove of a1 Qaeda-related evidence in 1996 -- including proof of a liquid-based airliner bomb plot that was a precursor to the August 2006 plot revealed by U.K. authorities. The evidence included proof of an active a1 Qaeda cell operating in NYC five years before
9/11.

How Mohamed twice smuggled a1 Qaeda’s second-in-command, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, into the U.S. in the 1990s to raise half a million dollars for the Jihad -- and left his post at Fort Bragg, against orders, to hunt down Soviet Spetsnaz commandos in Afghanistan in the midst of America’s covert war.

How Mohamed stole TOP SECRET memos and other classified intelligence from Fort Bragg and passed it onto the a1 Qaeda leadership, including memos to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the positions of all Special Forces units worldwide. Copies of that intelligence, with Mohamed’s notes in Arabic, are part of more than 30 pages of declassified or formerly SECRET documents included as appendices to the book.

How, after meeting Mohamed face-to-face in 1997, Fitzgerald called him “the most dangerous man I have ever met” and vowed, “We cannot let this man out on the street.” Yet for another ten months he allowed Mohamed to remain free, while the a1 Qaeda spy continued to support the African embassy bombing plot he had set in motion in 1993-after being freed from custody on the word of his FBI control agent.

How Mohamed had told Fitzgerald that he had “hundreds” of a1 Qaeda sleepers ready to go “operational” at any time -- and yet to this day the FBI has failed to detect them. Mohamed, who wasn’t even arrested until a month after the 1998 embassy bombings, remained in U.S. custody for three full years before 9/11. But even after cutting a deal that allowed him to escape the death penalty and enter witness protection, Fitzgerald failed to extract the 9/11 planes-as-missiles plot from Mohamed.

How as early as 1991 the FBI was aware of a New Jersey mail box store directly linked to a1 Qaeda, but failed to monitor the location. Fitzgerald himself had named the store owner as an unindicted coconspirator in the 1995 Day of Terror case. Six years later, in July 2001 , the FBI blew an extraordinary chance to interdict the 9/11 plot when two of the 9/11 hijackers got their fake IDS at the very same store. “All the FBI had to do was monitor that location, the way they sat on John Gotti’s Ravenite Social Club,” says Lance, “and they would have been in the middle of the 9/11 plot.”

PETER LANCE’S first two FBI investigative books, 1000 Yearsfor Revenge and Cover Up, were national bestsellers. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) called 1000 Years “A must read for the FBI, the 9/11 Commission, Congress and anyone whose job it is to protect national security.” Kristen Breitweiser, one of the “Jersey Girls,” called it “a 500-page smoking gun.” Lance testified before the 9/11 Commission in 2004.

His investigation of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, reported in Cover Up, led to DeVecchio’s indictment on four counts of second degree murder in March 2006.

TRIPLE CROSS

How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBIand
Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him

By Peter Lance

Hardcover: $27.95  ISBN 978-0-06-088688-2

Lance will be on O'Reilly (Fox), Tuesday.

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/Book%20Tour%20schedule.html

Flopping Aces has much more:

New Book Highlights Able Danger

By Curt on Able Danger

Mike Kasper at Able Danger Blog updates us about the new book from Peter Lance that finally delves feet first into the 9/11 conspiracy. This time there is no backroom dealing to leave stuff out or gloss over the facts as the 9/11 Commission did:

Is anyone connecting dots?

I figure these two articles need to be read together. You know, because those detainees are such innocent little babies who wouldn't hurt a fly or, shudder, be a terrorist or anything.

Three Former Gitmo Detainees Held in Morocco

By Gateway Pundit

Morocco re-arrested three former Guantanamo detainees on terror charges:

A Moroccan court has convicted three men who were formerly held by the US at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of creating a criminal group and forging documents.

The criminal court in Sale, located near the capital, Rabat, handed the heaviest sentence of five years in prison to Mohamed Souleymani Laalami, who was accused of forming a criminal group, the MAP news agency reported late on Friday.

Two other defendants, Najib Lahssini and Mohammed Ouali, were sentenced to three years each on charges of falsifying documents, the news agency said.

Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy Wants Detained Terrorists to have Habeas Corpus Rights

By Kim Priestap on War On Terror

First we hear that we just may have House Majority Leader John Murtha. Now there's word that Patrick "Leaky" Leahy wants to ensure that terrorists detained at Gitmo have full Habeas Corpus rights:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A battle is shaping up between Democrats and the White House over the Military Commissions Act, signed into law last month by President George W. Bush.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is expected to take over as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and The (Calif.) Daily Journal reports that Leahy is drafting a bill to undo portions of the new law in an effort to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants.

A spokeswoman for Leahy told the newspaper the bill would be intended to repeal portions of the law that prevent some detainees from pursuing federal court challenges to the government's authority to hold them indefinitely.

Spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler told the newspaper the goal is to "try and do something to reverse the damage."

Scott L. Silliman, Director of the Center for Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University School of Law, told the newspaper an attempt to amend the law could set up a partisan showdown in Congress, and possibly a presidential veto.

Civil rights attorneys filed a constitutional challenge to the act after Bush signed it Oct. 17, the Journal said.

The silence is deafening

IraqPundit is asking why the Democrats aren't responding to al Qaeda's, Iran's, and Syria's statements that a Democratic victory in Congress is a good thing for their cause:

Al Qaeda and Iran are both gloating over the U.S. election results. AQ's chief in Iraq, Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, actually mocked Bush while praising the Democrats' victory in the congressional mid-term contests. According to an audio tape message attributed to Al-Mujahir, Americans had "voted for something reasonable in the last elections."

Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated that the Republican defeat at the polls "is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

The White House has declined to comment on these statements, but what about the Democrats? Doesn't it behoove the Democrats to correct the claim that their ascension to power is good news for the enemies of the U.S.? Don't they want to move quickly to disabuse Al Qaeda of the idea that Democrats represent something that these butchers deem "reasonable"?

A hat tip to Wizbang where Kim wonders the same thing. And so do Ann Althouse and Tom Maguire.

So Democrats, what do you have to say? Or are you too embarrassed to comment? You should be!

Don Rumsfield not writing his goodbye speech just yet

Via Red State:

Listen up, countrymen--I come to praise Rumsfeld, not to bury him.

By [email protected] (Redstate Network) on War

Donald Rumsfeld resigned as Secretary of Defense on Wednesday, but he will remain in his post for some months while the transition to Robert Gates takes place. And yesterday he suggested that those months of transition (and beyond) may not be devoid of activity--indeed, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, Mr. Rumsfeld's most difficult but most important work for the Bush administration may well lie ahead of him.

While a lesser man might have sulked in his tent after resigning in response to a bad election cycle, Mr. Rumsfeld went about business as usual and delivered a noteworthy address at Kansas State University. In a way, Mr. Rumsfeld may feel liberated to start articulating some broader-reaching long-term goals for the DoD and the government. In the Q&A he declined to give specific advice to Mr. Gates, possibly because he had already done so in a speech that sketches out a broad plan for systemic government reform expanding on the transformation program Mr. Rumsfeld has so ably implemented at the Pentagon.

Secretary Rumsfeld was in Kansas to celebrate KSU alum and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, who is having a new building named for him on campus. General Myers is one of the many among the top military brass who have been rumored in the press to secretly oppose Mr. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon. That has never seemed terribly likely to me, and General Myers reinforced my opinion yesterday in his introductory remarks:

...

It is in many ways unfortunate that one of the few people who truly understand the nature of this terrible foe is now leaving the Bush administration. But I understand the political reality that made Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation nigh on inevitable after Tuesday. Elections happen, and what sets us apart from our enemies is that their ramifications are peacefully implemented in this country. While I do not agree that Iraq was in and of itself the defining factor in this election (voters overwhelmingly named "corruption" as their most important issue), it is the most important issue among the newly-elected congressional majority, who have signalled their intentions:

House Democrats say they plan to set up a new committee next year focused on uncovering abuses in defense spending and policies, and possibly an independent commission to investigate waste and fraud associated with the billions of dollars spent to rebuild Iraq. Implementing unfulfilled recommendations by the 9/11 commission -- such as plugging holes in airport security -- is also on their agenda.

'It's going to be hearings, accountability, trying to restore trust so the people understand what the real facts are,' said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the Marine veteran who last year called for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and helped crystallize congressional opposition to the war.

It seems logical to conclude that Mr. Rumsfeld had wind of this plan in early October and that the "thoughtful discussions" in which he engaged with the President leading up to the election were largely centered on this topic. This perspective makes all the more meaningful Mr. Rumsfeld's decision to boost troop levels in Baghdad in October; he noted in a recent press conference that:

"I remember going up on the Hill and people saying to me, "Oh, what's the October surprise going to be? You're going to reduce a whole bunch of troops or produce Osama or something?" And well, the October surprise was, we increased troop levels. (Chuckles.) Why? Because it was the right thing to do."

It was the right thing to do so Mr. Rumsfeld did it rather than engineer a temporary reduction of forces that might have extended his tenure at the Pentagon, but which would have undermined the mission. And he chuckled, knowing full well how his good deed most likely would be rewarded.

What the re-empowered Mr. Murtha proposes are not policy hearings on Iraq along the lines of what will occur in the Senate Armed Services Committee next week, but rather a witch hunt that will be facilitated by the Byzantine budgeting process that funds the DoD. One can only imagine the mountains of paper that will be subpoenaed. Remember the infamous $436 hammer that inspired former Vice-President Al Gore to create "The Hammer Award?" That's going to be child's play compared to the dissection of the Afghanistan and Iraq books. I'm not suggesting that there is any deliberate or systemic impropriety in the accounting for the war, but there are sure to be such hammers to be found in a campaign of this scale, as well as funding processes that were developed to enable timely progress in both campaigns as conditions on the ground changed more rapidly than the current system could support. Secretary Rumsfeld signaled as much in his KSU speech:

The realities on the ground in the rest of the world do not correspond to the yearly federal budgetary process -- where it can take one year to craft a budget, another to get it approved by Congress, and then a third year to execute that then somewhat stale program.

READ IT ALL HERE ...  

Terrorists rejoice over Democrat win

What has America wrought?

From YNetNews:

Everybody has an opinion about Tuesday's midterm congressional election in the US - including senior terrorist leaders interviewed by WND who say they hope Americans sweep the Democrats into power because of the party's position on withdrawing from Iraq, a move, as they see it, that ensures victory for the worldwide Islamic resistance.

The terrorists told WorldNetDaily an electoral win for the Democrats would prove to them Americans are "tired."

They rejected statements from some prominent Democrats in the US that a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency, explaining an evacuation would prove resistance works and would compel jihadists to continue fighting until America is destroyed.

A warning that will be ignored -- to our peril, unfortunately

A WAKE-UP CALL!

This letter appeared today in a Jonah Goldberg post on NRO's "The Corner." It is a warning. Unfortunately, the idea that Democrats will heed this warning are slim to none. The idea that Americans, in general, will heed this warning are even slimmer, if that is possible. They will be far more interested in protecting the delicate sensibilities of political correctness than they will be interested in protecting us from terrorists and extremists. These are dangerous times and to not understand our enemy is foolish and, in my humble opinion, catastrophic. I know that those who infest the fever swamps do not believe we face any danger. They leave comments here and all over the blogosphere accusing the President and our leaders of scare mongering. They live in their safe little worlds and think that because they can still go hang out at the Mall or buy their iPods, that all is safe. Those who actually know better and see the danger for what it is are not speaking up loudly enough. They have turned the enemy of all of us into political campaign rhetoric and this is as dangerous as the denial of the swampers is. Extremists don't care whether you voted a (D), an (R), an (I) an (L) a (G) or didn't vote at all. When they are ready, all are at the same risk. And dead is dead no matter who you campaigned for or who you voted for.

I served a quarter century in the AF (retired colonel) and a quarter century in the pages of National Review.  Here’s what I think.   

I believe good Democrats and good Republicans believed this war was going to end if their party won on election day. The Dems believed they'd end the war through withdrawal; the GOPers believed they'd end it through victory.  They're both wrong.  This war is going to go on for a long, long time.

It seems to me that Americans believe wars end when we say they end.  Whether we win (WWII), lose (Vietnam), or draw (Korea), our wars have ended when we said they ended.  The defeated Germans, victorious North Vietnamese, or stalemated North Koreans never came after America when hostilities ended. But the jihadists are coming, no matter what happens in Iraq. Make no mistake.

I was 21, and just about to start a 27-year relationship with the pages of NR, when the Iranian hostage crisis happened.  I remember all the pronouncements from US leaders that they, and the American people, would have to get acquainted with the Quran to understand what all this revolutionary stuff was about.  Now, all these years, I find that virtually no one in America has read the Quran or other holy books on the life of Mahommad.  They have no idea that what we're seeing on TV—the Army of God (Hezbollah) attacks Israel; the regular practice of beheading; the spread of Sharia law; the brutalization of women; and the worldwide practice of actual jihad, not spiritual jihad, springs directly from those sacred texts, word for word.

I invite you to try a test with friends and family.  I've done this with about 15 people in the last couple of weeks.  Ask them to put the following three names in history, in the order in which they appeared: Jesus, Mohammad, Moses.  I have been shocked at how many put Mohammad before Jesus, and even before Moses.  I think the reason this happens is because Muslim countries look so much older on television!  Now how could Americans understand Jihad, the Crusades, the relationship between the Bible and the Quran, or any thing they might hear that the Quran directs, without even understanding the historical sequence of the prophets?

With the Democrat victory, I hear a sigh of relief across the country that now we can bring this whole thing to a close.  It is an illusion. Until we get into the animating texts of Islam, and do so publicly, loudly, and consistently, we will invite more violence, and abet the silence of moderate Muslims of goodwill around the world.I believe the leadership of this debate is the most urgent task to ever face the brave staff of National Review.  You already led the debate on Communism, but then you remember Communism had few real adherents in Communist countries.  Radical Islam has tens of millions of true believers.  This will be harder. 

Watch and learn.

Playlist: Obsession: Exposing Radical Islam

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 1- There's a Problem 08:49 We can pretend it doesnt exist, but that wont help. We can pretend it's not our problem, but That wont help either. It's 1938 and Hitler wants the Sudetenland. Do we give it to him...Again? Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 2 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 22,048

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 2 - The Culture of Jihad 10:37 Part 2 of the landmark Documentary film...How Radical Islamist Clerics are imbuing Arab Culture with Jihad Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 10,225

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 3 - The Media of Terrorism 10:16 Part 3 of the Documentary. Peeling another layer off the onion. Arab Muslims, Ex-Muslims and Historians delve into the Radical Islamic influence on the Media. Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 7,295

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 4- Jihad in the West 10:16 Part 4 Of the landmark documentary film. Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 5,768

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 5 - The culture of Denial 10:52 The Culture of denial, What we see and hear is what it is...Not something else. It is what it is. Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 5,361

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 6 -  To Their Own Children! 08:39 Part 6: The worst of the Terrorist Propaganda, and Hatred Is Drected at the Minds of Their Own Children. "Cameras are there for the whole world to see it, but the world Refuses to see it." - Walid Shoebat Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 5,243

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 7 - Hitler and the Mufti 08:32 Part 6: Haj Amin al-Hussieni The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Yaser Arafat's Uncle, Broadcast weekly from Berlin on Arab Radio, to the Middle East. He was put in charge of recruiting 3 Divisions of Muslim SS. They were His Divisions, and the Arab Muslims were Allied with the Nazi Axis in WWII. Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 4,768

Obsession: Radical Islam Part 8 - We've Been Here Before... 07:21 The Final part of the documentary movie "Obsession" What the West needs to know about Radical Islam. What have we learned? If history has taught us anything, it is this: Those who do not learn from it, are destined to repeat it. We ignored the signs in the 1930s. Hitler broke treaties, and Pacts, and we did nothing to stop him. Last week N Korea, an Allie of Iran, detonated and Atomic Bomb. Iran is trying to build one of their own. Just like Hitler said he was going to wipe out the Jews in 1938, today, Ahmadinejad says he's going to wipe out Israel. Ahmadinejad says he want to hasten the return of the Imam Mahdi, and the end of days, by instigating a calamity...We ignore him at our Peril. "We have not succeeded in making our children love life. We have taught them how to die for the sake of Allah, but we haven't taught them how to Live for the sake of Allah" - Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari-(Former Dean of Islamic Law, Qatar University) Tags: Obsession   Quran   Koran   Hitler   radical   Islam   threat   Christians   Jews   9/11   Shoebat   Truth   culture   Muslims   Nazis   Islamic   jihad Added: 3 weeks ago From: CHARLESMARTEL732 Views: 4,986

Soldiers Say Democrat War Plans "An Extreme Betrayal"

I was going to write my own article on this, but Confederate Yankee has done such a good job, I will defer to him. Let me trumpet these words of our soldiers in Iraq who tell the Washington Post during a series of interviews they did that:

A PRECIPITOUS WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ WOULD HAVE "DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES."

Soldiers Say Democrat War Plans "An Extreme Betrayal"

In an article published in today's Washington Post, dozens of soldiers interviewed by Post reporter Josh White revealed that the precipitous withdrawal favored by many top Democratic leaders would have "disastrous consequences" for the nation of Iraq, potentially plunging the nation into a widespread civil war:

For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.

"Take us out of that vacuum -- and it's on the edge now -- and boom, it would become a free-for-all," said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, who commands the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment just south of Baghdad. "It would be a raw contention for power. That would be the bloodiest piece of this war."

The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration's approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.

As I stated previously, a civil war is one possible outcome of the calamitous withdrawal apparently favored by Charles Rangel, Lynn Woolsey and other Democrats that favor forcing the military to retreat by de-funding the war, while other approaches favor by Democrats such as John Murtha's plan to "redeploy" the soldiers to Pacific island bases thousands of miles away would lead to the same bloody disaster, and possible genocide.

Blackfive has been collecting from soldiers stationed in Iraq--the ones that John Kerry still thinks aren't intelligent according to his own web site--and their opinions, while varied, support the war effort even though it is their lives on the line.

A sample from a Marine Sergeant on his second tour in Iraq:

People in the US who want to support the troops, who believe we are engaged in a war, and who recognize the long term consequences of failure need to look past all other issues and vote Republican. Democrats have no policy and can not be trusted. But, even worse, they display no apparent understanding of the dangers to our western civilization presented by the enemy. Their actions since 2001 indicate they are willing to sacrifice the safety and integrity of the USA in the future for short term political gains today.

It is painfully clear that those soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that put their lives on the line every day in Iraq overwhelmingly support staying in Iraq to finish the mission. This is borne out from the dozens of interviews collected by White in his Post article, by the more than 100 emails Blackfive has received from those serving in Iraq right now, and in conversation I've personally had with airmen and soldiers I've recently met who've just returned stateside from multiple tours in Iraq.

READ IT ALL HERE ...

RELATED:

Captain Ed's comments:

We have heard a lot from the Democrats in this election season about supporting the troops by withdrawing them from Iraq. Terms like "phased redeployment" and "event horizon" have been thrown around by critics of the war. However, the people that will have to execute those maneuvers do not have much enthusiasm for them.

(H/T Wizbang)  Leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, tells Muslims in the Middle East that the US will abandon them the same way it left Vietnam:

Here's a partial transcript:

When I talk about an [American] failure, I'm not saying that the Americans' plan for the region has collapsed, and that they are packing up their things and leaving, like what happened in the final days in Vietnam. But I would like to tell you clearly... I am one of those people who see a very clear picture. In our childhood... When we were young boys... I cannot forget the sight of the American forces leaving Vietnam in helicopters, which carried their officers and soldiers. Some Vietnamese, who had fought alongside the Americans, tried to climb into these helicopters, but the [Americans] threw them to the ground, abandoned them, and left. This is the sight I anticipate in our region, but I am not saying it will happen in months. It will take years. The Americans will gather their belongings and leave this region - the entire region. They have no future whatsoever in our region. They will leave the Middle East, and the Arab and Islamic worlds, like they left Vietnam. I advise all those who place their trust in the Americans to learn the lesson of Vietnam, and to learn the lesson of the South Lebanese Army with the Israelis, and to know that when the Americans lose this war and lose it they will, Allah willing - they will abandon them to their fate, just like they did to all those who placed their trust in them throughout history.

RELATED:

Believe the troops who are there or the pols who are not?

By TheAnchoress on Election 2006

Ignoring the fact that much good news in Iraq goes unreported by a press that even the Iraqi’s call “biased”, the Democrats keep talking about “redeploying” the troops, which is a nicer way of saying “pull out of Iraq…”

Because the Iraqi people haven’t been let down enough…we only told them once before that if they’d rise up, we’d be there for them, and then we skeedaddled. That certainly worked out well for everyone, didn’t it? Was honorable, too, right? Embellished the reputation of the United States, indeed! Just like pulling out of Vietnam did.

The Democrats keep telling us this is the only course of action, the sensible thing to do, pulling out. Oh, excuse me, “redeploying.” (There is nothing a Dem loves more than a euphemism. Change the word and suddenly everything’s alright, then!)

Our troops who, excuse me, Mrs. Pelosi, are there doing the work say differently. While your party wrings its hands and says “oh, no, this is getting hard and there is global warming to think about, let’s pull out,” this is what the troops are saying:

Waterboarding

Waterboarding is one of those things most of us have an opinion about and few of us know anything about. According to Steve Harrigan who gets waterboarded on Fox (see video), it is scary, causes panic, and is very hard to withstand, but that you fully recover from the experience within just a few minutes. Fox has been showing Harrigan's experience all day and Hot Air has the video.

FNC

Ed. note: Tune in tonight 10pm / 3pm ET as FNC's Steve Harrigan searches for answers on this controversial interrogation technique and undergoes a demonstration.

November 4, 2006

D.C. 9:20 p.m.

There are a lot of questions about waterboarding. First of all, how to spell it — as one word or with a hyphen?

It hit the news this week, but it has been in use since the Middle Ages, through World War II and Vietnam. Yet, despite its history, there are questions about waterboarding — What is it? Is it torture? And is it effective?

Some U.S. personnel have been trained in waterboarding in order to resist it as a form of interrogation. One told me that it is the fear of pain and the fear of drowning that make it more effective than enduring actual pain.

There are reports that waterboarding was used in the interrogation of 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. There are reports he held out two and a half minutes. There are reports that two and a half minutes is considered, by some interrogators, to be a remarkable length of time to endure waterboarding. The average endurance during training of interrogators has been reported as just 14 seconds. Of course, waterboarding is a broad term, and there are a range of techniques with varying degrees of intensity. More about those techniques in the days to come.

Jihadis endorse the Democrats

Well this clinches it for me. How 'bout you?

Palestinian mass murderers and terrorist leaders agree: Vote Democrat. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

“Of course Americans should vote Democrat,” Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, told WND.

“This is why American Muslims will support the Democrats, because there is an atmosphere in America that encourages those who want to withdraw from Iraq. It is time that the American people support those who want to take them out of this Iraqi mud,” said Jaara, speaking to WND from exile in Ireland, where he was sent as part of an internationally brokered deal that ended the church siege.

Jaara was the chief in Bethlehem of the Brigades, the declared “military wing” of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party. Together with the Islamic Jihad terror group, the Brigades has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing inside Israel the past two years, including an attack in Tel Aviv in April that killed American teenager Daniel Wultz and nine Israelis.

Muhammad Saadi, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, said the Democrats’ talk of withdrawal from Iraq makes him feel “proud.”

“As Arabs and Muslims we feel proud of this talk,” he told WND. “Very proud from the great successes of the Iraqi resistance. This success that brought the big superpower of the world to discuss a possible withdrawal.”

Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip, said the policy of withdrawal “proves the strategy of the resistance is the right strategy against the occupation.”