Tim Sumner

Iraq, War on Terror

Perish the thought, not the al Qaeda in Iraq: Dems

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This morning, in the New York Post:

“Your soldiers are in our hands … What you are doing in searching for [them] will lead to nothing but exhaustion and headaches,” said the online statement from the Islamic State of Iraq – one of al Qaeda’s Iraqi incarnations.

The warning recalls Pelosi’s words from 2006; she said she felt “sad” over President Bush’s insistence that al Qaeda is operating in Iraq.

Or Reid, who recently called on the president to “change course [away from Iraq] and turn our attention back to the war on al Qaeda and their allies.”

For the Democrats, the War on Terror should be waged exclusively outside Iraq’s borders. What’s happening in Baghdad and Anbar province, they maintain, is nothing more than a Sunni-Shiite civil war – one from which America must cut and run.

All the current Democrat Party’s candidates for President and, minus a very few, those in Congress would disengage from the al Qaeda in Iraq. It is all too much. The enemy keeps counter-attacking, the war is so brutal, and our side also suffers casualties.

The real war is where the enemy is yet, for the Democrats, it is like the 1960’s all over again. They cannot get slogans like “What if there was a war and nobody came?” out of their heads.

Our leaving Iraq will not end the sectarian violence and the al Qaeda will not just go away. Our enemies fight wherever they find targets of opportunity — wherever they find us.

In the War on Terror, there is no place to run from here.

Taking the fight to the enemy is more than a theory. While our enemies know that, the Democrats running for election next year and now running the House and the Senate remain in a state of denial.

6 imams, Aviation Security, Fort Dix 6, John Doe protection, Political wind

‘John Doe’ bill reintroduced after Congressional conference stall

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Katherine Kersten, Minneapolis Star-Tribune commentator reports:

Last week, we learned that federal authorities have foiled a plot to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. The FBI uncovered the plan after an alert Circuit City clerk passed on suspicious video footage that the alleged conspirators had asked him to transfer onto a DVD.

The clerk’s action was just the kind of citizen vigilance that a new bill before Congress is designed to encourage, and to shield such citizens against intimidation. The bill was inspired by a lawsuit filed in federal District Court in Minneapolis in March by the now famous “Flying Imams.”
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The bill’s sponsors submitted it as an amendment to another bill in March. It passed 304-121. Every House Republican and 105 Democrats voted for the it. Opponents included Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and Jim Oberstar.

So where is the bill now? It’s stuck in a House-Senate conference committee. Last Friday, however, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and others introduced a standalone version of the bill, and this week sponsors plan to do the same in the House.
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The stakes here are large. What would have happened at Fort Dix if the store clerk had hesitated to contact authorities because he feared a retaliatory lawsuit? We might be watching funerals on TV.
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J.P Weis, the FBI agent in charge of the case, praised the anonymous clerk. “I want to especially salute the unsung hero who took the initiative to report the video to local authorities,” he said in a news release. Weis continued: “We need to reach the point where everyone is willing to come forward and say to law enforcement, ‘I have seen or heard something that you need to know.’ ”

But if Congress refuses to act on the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act, that point will never come.

“This bill should have sailed through the House and the Senate and been on the president’s desk in a week,” says Kline. “It’s amazing to me that some people still don’t understand the nature of the threat we face.”