Some more quick hits on stories I was reading this morning before heading out for the day.

Turkey has a man in jail who claims to have trained the 9-11 hijackers. While this could be faux bravado or some effort to divert attention, the man does seem to have the characteristics one would expect in a top level, heavily funded terrorist:

He was travelling under the Turkish name Erkan Ozer – one of his 16 false identities – when he was arrested in the southeastern town of Diyarbakir in August 2005. His downfall was as a result of a nighttime explosion that caused a fire in his apartment a week earlier. When fire-fighters reached the blaze they found a do-it-yourself bomb factory with vats of hydrogen, bags of aluminium powder and 6kg of plastic explosives.

Sakka had been planning to sink Israeli cruise ships off the Turkish coast using motorised dinghies. Despite having plastic surgery to disguise his face, he was easily identified by the Turkish authorities.

16 different useable identities – with papers one would assume? Plastic surgery at 34 years of age? Trained in brewing plastic explosives? He has all the trappings of a top member of some terrorist organization.

The Surrendercrats are going to be facing a tough time at home this Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday as Americans sit around enjoying their families, giving thanks for what they have, while worrying about those doing their duty in Iraq and Afghanistan all the time knowing the Democrats have left our military high and dry this holiday season. Instead of thanking them for their sacrifices and celebrating their successes, the Democrats sent our forces a nasty “Scrooge You” by not funding their needs on the front lines. The lame reason for turning their back on our brave men and women was supposedly because they wanted our troops home. Well that BS ain’t going to stand the smell test now that they ARE coming home because of all their great work and sacrifice:

The first substantive drawdown of American troops in Iraq has begun, as the first members of a brigade in Diyala Province have started to leave, American military officials in Baghdad said Saturday.

…

The replacement soldiers are already in Diyala and are taking over their new jobs, Colonel Sutherland said. The replacement brigade, which had worked in Salahuddin Province, which is to the north and west of Diyala, will leave quieter areas of that province to the Iraqi Army and concerned local citizen groups, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, spokesman for the multinational division forces in Baghdad.

These troops are coming home and not being replaced with state-side troops because they earned it in victory. But the Democrats seem hell bent on them coming home under a cloud of failure (that’s what the rhetoric says clearly). America is NOT going to give the Dems any credit for trying to make our success into a retreat. And they will be punished if it is decided that they are holding our forces still on the front line hostage simply so they can spin the nature of the pending withdrawals. Since a victory would create the desired force reduction no one is going to buy the Surrendercrats emotional need to make the Bush success look bad for their own CYA efforts. Our troops did well and helped change the course of this war, and THEY deserve to spin the results – not those lazy, cowering pols back in DC appeasing their base.

Speaking of victory, Jeff Jacoby has a good piece out on the sea change in Iraq and the shock of success rippling through the SurrenderMedia. Definitely a good read if you have been a supporter of the Iraq effort, our troops and President Bush.

The changes in Iraq are so dramatic that even al-Qaeda forces are surrendering and looking for a way to fit back into Iraqi society:

One the U.S. says is succeeding beyond their own expectations.

“We have al Qaeda coming to our checkpoints, coming to a volunteer saying, ‘Can you let me talk to the commander, we want to quit, but how do we do this?'” said Lt. Col. Kurt Pinkerton of the 1st Cavalry Division.

“And what do you say?” asks Logan.

“We take very slow steps with them,” said Pinkerton.

Al Qaeda terrorists are not allowed to join the “volunteers” manning these checkpoints, says the top U.S. commander in Baghdad.

But Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil’s men also don’t turn these terrorists away, instead giving them other jobs like road or sewer repair.

That’s a remarkable turnaround for an area that until recently served as an important base of operations for al Qaeda.

The NY Times, no less, notes the shifting sands in Iraq are changing the political dynamics in the Surrendercrat presidential primary:

As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy.

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But the changing situation suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue.

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This is a delicate matter. By saying the effects of the troop escalation have not led to a healthier political environment, the candidates are tacitly acknowledging that the additional troops have, in fact, made a difference on the ground — a viewpoint many Democratic voters might not embrace.

What a “Duh!” epiphany by the NY Times. Their only hope is to pretend it did not happen (i.e., focus on anything but Iraq like ‘domestic concerns’) and pray Americans have no recollection regarding the biggest issue of the last 5 years! Not likely. Everyone knows the left cannot support our troops or Iraq because it would make them wrong. And the left cannot face being wrong. If the left continues to deny success and how resisting destroys their credibility, they will simply implode in 2008 – possibly never to return to parity with the GOP.

The Surrendercrats, with the help of the SurrenderMedia, will be trying to spin their years of defeatism into some lame claim of always been supporting success in Iraq (even though they have to admit they could not envision HOW to succeed, only how to lose). One way they like to do this is to pretend GOP success is equivalent to Democrat success – or, in the case of one leftward biased DC based journalist, how Bush is just as much a failure as Clinton:

For most of my time covering presidential elections, I shared the view that there was a direct correlation between the skills needed to be a great candidate and a great president. The chaotic and demanding requirements of running for president, I felt, were a perfect test for the toughest job in the world.

But now I think I was wrong. The “campaigner equals leader” formula that inspired me and so many others in the news media is flawed.

Case in point: Our two most recent presidents, both of whom I covered while they were governors seeking the White House. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are wildly talented politicians. Both claimed two presidential victories, in all four cases arguably as underdogs. Both could skillfully serve as the chief strategist for a presidential campaign.

But their success came not because they convinced the news media (and much of the public) that they would be the best president, but because they dominated the campaign narrative that portrayed them as the best candidate in a world-class political competition. In the end, both men were better presidential candidates than they were presidents.

This is a Surrendercrat, working in the SurrenderMedia, facing the abyss of being completely wrong about Bush and Iraq. Bush has had two of the most successful Presidential terms in history. He is a war time president who is on the verge of vanquishing our enemies. The economy is doing very well, in spite of 9-11 and two wars. And his legislative agenda was a huge success, with only the very tough and divisive items like Social Security and Immigration Reform left on the table. Every President leaves work undone, Bush left issues that would stymy anybody in time of peace and optimal conditions.

But Mark Halperin simply deflates Clinton to a failure in order to avoid the obvious conclusion – Bush is a successful President. This is how deep the denial has gone in the far left. They would sacrifice the Clinton legacy to avoid admitting Bush was a success. Thankfully history will be its own judge and not rely on biased reporters for its guidance (in fact history tends to ignore the views of the time in making its determinations).

Finally, when not making up all sorts of delusional excuses on why what is happening in Iraq is not happening, the far left can get downright ugly when their fantasies are being destroyed. And as much as the Democrat presidential candidates want and need to appease to the broader America which would celebrate an Iraq success, the far left will work to destroy any candidate who even hints there is a worthy battle to be won in Iraq:

Is Hillary Clinton the hawk masquerading as the dove? Some Democrats who know her security advisers fear her war in Iraq will be just as bloody as George Bush’s.

Party critics foresee an aggressive Clinton administration pressing the fight in Iraq – and possibly in Iran, too.

Their dark concerns stem from the stable of hawkish advisers Clinton has recruited for her war council, who helped craft her recent saber-rattling over Iran and Iraq, as well as from her muscular voting record on national security.

Clearly 2008 will be about two futures for America. One will be the defeatist left’s wish we will accept Islamo Fascism and all its atrocities as punishment for being an imperfect (yet free and successful) society. And the then there will be the GOP’s optimistic view of America as a positive force that can and is vanquishing one of humanity’s worst horrors. If this narrative continues I don’t think it will be much of a contest, especially given the historically low support for Congress at this moment.

OK, one more last thought. Notice how when people cannot inflict their own imperialistic desires on humanity to make it conform to their view of what life should be like they lash out at those forces that are a barrier to their desires and call THEM imperialistic? Well some power hungry folks from the last Empire (that would be the British Empire) are upset America stands in the way of the creation of the new ‘world order’. And so they call us “imperialistic”, even though if we were truly imperialistic one of our subject holdings would be the UK itself. When the folks of Britain are pledging allegiance to the American Flag and their silly monarchy has been disbanded then they can call us imperialistic – because we will then have our empire and it will be under our benevolent control!