Marc Ficcarra: USAF Hero murdered in DC...

"I need a little help. On the 20th of January a friend and fellow Air Force member was leaving a club in Adams Morgan. He witnessed a girl getting harrassed by a man who was eventually punched in the face by him. My friend Marc Ficarra went to the girls aid and ran off her assailant. Within minutes the guy returned with 4 friends who jumped him. Marc didn't have a chance. At least one of the assailants had brass knuckles and Marc received multiple head wounds putting him into a coma. After several surgeries and a week of coma Marc died early Sunday morning. I served with Marc in Iraq for four months and was stationed with him at Andrews AFB for two years. You won't find a better man than Marc. These punks who jumped Marc left his three children without a father. As of now there are no leads on the men who jumped him. Some members of the ES community might frequent Adams Morgan or know people who do. Please put the word out there, if anyone has any information or leads about this incident please contact the authorities. We all know when people beat someone down they feel as if they've done some extraordinary feat and want to brag about it. Inevitably someone will brag, when they do I hope someone tells the cops so these individuals can pay for what they've done. It just doesn't seem right that a member of the armed forces goes to a war torn country like Iraq, defends his country just to come home and be killed by the people he fault to protect. It hurts my heart to think of what his family must be going through. Please contact me or contact the police. Thank you all ahead of time."

For Israel: Life after Hamastan..

From Allison Kaplan Sommer's blog: "My general explanation for this has been that the average Israeli's coping mechanisms are just a little too powerfully honed: We've lived through seeing people -- including friends, friends of friends, family and neighbors, being shot at on our highways or blown to bits by terrorists on a regular basis in malls, pizza joints and coffee shops you've eaten in, and crowded buses turned into scorched metal coffins. We've sent our kids to school with gas masks and contemplated having chemical and biological-tipped missles hurled at us. We hear our right to live, breathe and exist debated on a regular basis.Frankly, under these conditions, it's hard to get worked up about mere election results, no matter how menacing. Panic doesn't come easily.But now I've read an article by Michael Oren that explains the measured Israeli reaction in a more analytical fashion, tying it to why this development won't really change the Israeli political map. A solid majority of Israelis accept that they cannot continue to occupy the West Bank and Gaza without endangering the moral and demographic foundations upon which the Jewish state is built. That same majority would prefer to negotiate with a freely elected Palestinian leadership toward the creation of a Palestinian state that would live side-by-side with Israel in a relationship of mutual and permanent recognition. In the wake of President Mahmoud Abbas's failure to disarm and dismantle terrorist organizations, however, most Israelis internalized the conclusion that no Palestinian leadership was capable of meeting the minimum requirements for peace. Consequently, these same Israelis have resolved to preserve their national interests by supporting the Kadimah party -- which, in the absence of peace talks, advocates drawing Israel's borders unilaterally. The advent of a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority will not alter these basic Israeli conclusions. Under Fatah, the PA expressed a willingness to renew the peace process but took none of the antiterror measures necessary to reactivate the talks. Hamas does not want peace talks, and will do everything to ensure that such discussions do not take place. In either case, Israel, in order to ensure its vital interests, will have to act unilaterally. There is no doubt that the Hamas victory will enable the right-wing Likud to point out the folly of the Gaza withdrawal and the danger of future unilateral pullbacks. Nevertheless, the outcome of the elections has confirmed Israeli doubts about the Palestinians' willingness to negotiate, and will more probably reinforce popular support for unilateral moves. With little impact on Israeli politics, Hamas's victory is also unlikely to effect major changes in Israeli security policies. Even before the elections, Israeli forces remained on constant alert and were actively engaged in combating the terror organizations which the PA refused to neutralize. The presence of a Hamas government in Ramallah will do little to alter the situation. There has never been a shortage of volunteers for suicide-bombers or the ordinance necessary for arming them, and augmented state support for terror will not increase the number of attempted attacks. Israel has already developed tactics for fighting terror, and will continue to apply them with success. What WILL change,Oren says (and most people have been saying lately) is the ability of the Palestinians to send a double message. The legitimacy which the Palestinians have freely granted terror by voting for Hamas will facilitate Israel's efforts to defend itself. The PA will no longer be able to claim ignorance of terror operations, and Israel can better justify pre-emptive and retaliatory actions before the world. On the diplomatic front, the Palestinian election has sown confusion among U.S. and European sponsors of the Road Map. The Bush administration has adamantly refused to deal with Hamas until it disavows violence and accepts Israel's existence, even calling on Mr. Abbas to remain in office. The European Union has been more equivocal, intimating a willingness to deal with any Palestinian government "interested in peace." Still, even the most imaginative Europeans will have difficultly construing Hamas's platform of praising terror and categorically rejecting Israel as peaceful. U.S. and European officials alike have maintained the hope that by taking on the responsibilities of government, Hamas will be forced to moderate its policies. But this presumes that it is committed to the democratic process, and that radical parties, upon achieving power, invariably moderate. The example of Iran refutes both assumptions. Even if Hamas agrees to a prolonged ceasefire, it will remain doctrinally incapable of accepting the legitimacy of the Jewish state or of permanently refraining from seeking its destruction. The presence of a Mr. Abbas as a puppet president will not dissemble the basic reality that Hamas is in control and cannot be a partner for peace. The logic of unilateralism--that in the absence of a credible Palestinan partner, Israel must define its own borders--has never been more compelling. Yet, ironically, the consequences of unilateralism have never been more terrifying. Until the Hamas victory, those of us who supported further unilateral withdrawal hardly expected Fatah to control terror and rocket attacks from the evacuated territories, but could at least trust that Fatah would try to prevent Iranian penetration, if only to ensure its continued rule. Now, though, any territory Israel evacuates will almost certainly become a frontline base for Iran. The operative result of the Hamas victory, then, is that Tehran has just moved several thousand kilometers closer to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In fact, Israel is now surrounded by Iranian proxies--Hezbollah to the north and Hamas to the south and east. As untenable as Israel's options have now become, the more enduring tragedy belongs to the Palestinian people. Palestinians have chosen rejectionism after being handed the entirety of Gaza as an experiment in Palestinian sovereignty. Electing Hamas, then, may well be the historical equivalent of the Palestinian rejection of U.N. partition in 1947. Palestinians have delivered their next generation to Moloch, to a movement whose religious pageants include parading children dressed as suicide bombers. The celebration of mass murderers as religious martyrs and educational role models, promoted by both Fatah and Hamas, has now reached its inevitable conclusion in the national suicide of the Palestinian people.

Another American Hero from Maryland

At funeral for Md. soldier: man he saved Blasts occurred Christmas Eve ByJENNIFER BROOKS News Journal Washington Bureau 01/21/2006 ARLINGTON, Va. -- Beside a flag-draped coffin in Arlington National Cemetery, a pale young man in a wheelchair embraced the parents of the man who died while saving him from a roadside bomb in Iraq.It was a hero's funeral for Maryland National Guard Sgt. Michael McMullen, a 25-year-old firefighter from Salisbury, who died Jan. 10 of wounds he suffered while rescuing fellow guardsman Sgt. Randal Divel, of Middletown, Md. Still recovering from second- and third-degree burns, Divel left a rehabilitation center in San Antonio to attend the funeral. McMullen received the Silver Star for gallantry under fire and a posthumous promotion to staff sergeant. His body was carried to Arlington in a firetruck in a long, solemn procession that wound through the back roads of Maryland. Along the way, family spokesman Steven Dickerson said, firehouses tolled their bells 25 times for the 25 years of McMullen's life. People lined the road to wave American flags and salute the fallen soldier.The funeral procession -- half a dozen fire engines, police and rescue vehicles and hundreds of friends and supporters in vans and chartered buses -- left Salisbury at 9 a.m., reaching Arlington a little before 1 p.m."He was a son, a brother, a comrade-in-arms and a true American hero," said Maryland National Guard Maj. Gen. Bruce F. Tuxill, who presented the folded flag from McMullen's coffin to his parents. Robin and David McMullen gently stroked the fabric as a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace." With them at the graveside were McMullen's sister, Jeanette; brother, Brian; and his fiancee, Kim Mundorf, whom he'd planned to marry when he returned from active duty.For his family, the greatest proof of McMullen's heroism may have been the man in the wheelchair.It was Christmas Eve outside Ramadi when McMullen and members of the 243rd Engineer Company hit a roadside bomb. McMullen, a trained paramedic, pulled a wounded soldier from a burning vehicle, extinguished the flames and then protected the injured man with his own body when a second explosive device detonated. McMullen died of his injuries weeks later. At the graveside, Divel pushed himself closer to the coffin and stared at it silently. Then he turned to McMullen's parents, who rushed up to hug him, smiling through their tears.A Marine honor guard fired a seven-gun salute over his grave as taps was played and the sound drifted over the rows of marble headstones.McMullen's grave lies in one of the newest areas of the cemetery, surrounded by other casualties of the Iraq war on a rolling green slope that faces the Potomac River and the Pentagon, with the spire of the Washington Monument just visible through the trees. "Let not your hearts be troubled," the chaplain told the mourners. "Pray that the Lord gives us faith to look to the future with hope and confidence."

Al-Qaeda Commanders killed in Damadola

Pakistani and Afghani al-Qaeda commanders killed in airstike along with Masri, the WMD chief By Bill Roggio The final results of from the airstrike in the Pakistani border town of Damadola are now known. In addition to Abu Khabab al-Masri, who was al-Qaeda’s chief bomb maker, head of the WMD program, and former terror camp commander, two other al-Qaeda commanders were killed in the strike. ABC News confirms that Khalid Habib [or Khaled al-Harbi] and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi perished in the attack.Khaled al-Harbi is al-Qaeda’s operational commander in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al-Harbi splits duty in Afghanistan with Abd al Hadi Al Iraqi, and both are considered “two of [al-Qaeda’s] most able commanders”. Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, a Moroccan, is thought to be al-Qaeda’s commander in Pakistan, and is said to have replaced Abu Hamza Rabia, who was killed in Pakistan on December 1, 2005. According to a trusted source, the DNA tests are complete and the two other other “foreigners” killed are said to be al-Qaeda bodyguards. Ayman al-Zawahiri appears to have slipped the net. ABC News provides further important details on the meeting that took place: Authorities tell ABC News that the terror summit was called to funnel new money into attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan… “Pakistani intelligence says this was a very important planning session involving the very top levels of al Qaeda as they get ready for a new spring offensive,” explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry and now an ABC News consultant. It is clear the reports from earlier in the week that al-Qaeda is refocusing efforts in Afghanistan are accurate. With the recent capture or killing of several high-level al-Qaeda leaders, including Abu Hamza Rabia and Abu Musab al-Suri before last week’s strike, it is clear U.S. and Pakistani intelligence is gaining a clearing picture of al-Qaeda’s network and operations in along the Afghan-Pakistani border. As al-Qaeda amasses strength in the region and grows more confident in its abilities to operate more openly, they expose themselves to intelligence operations and military strikes. The nature of the intelligence on this meeting gives clues as to the nature of intelligence operations in the region: either the U.S. has sophisticate signals intelligence able to penetrate al-Qaeda’s communications; there are one or several high value human intelligence sources within al-Qaeda and the Taliban; or a combination of the two. Whatever the answer, al-Qaeda has loot five senior leaders over the span of five weeks.The meeting in Damadola was a high value target of opportunity which could not be passed up. U.S. intelligence took the risk, pulled the trigger and bagged three senior al-Qaeda commanders. Masri, Habib, and al-Magrabi have been removed from the chain of command, and must be replaced by junior operatives who possess neither their stature, experience or connections. Al-Qaeda has been weakened.

We must stop the Iranians now..

From National Review: "Since the discovery of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program nearly three years ago, the West has been divided between two competing views. The first — associated with the United States, and especially with “hard liners” Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Bolton — was that the IAEA should immediately refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council. Proponents of this approach didn’t assume that a solution would be found in the U.N., but they saw a Security Council referral as a necessary step in demonstrating the seriousness of our resolve to block Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. During those fruitless negotiations, Iran revealed its true designs. If its sole aim were the peaceful production of nuclear power, nothing would have stopped it from accepting the deals Europe offered — which included, among other things, civilian nuclear technology. Instead, Iran refused to make even a single significant concession to the West, all the while issuing dark threats about the consequences of thwarting its “right” to a nuclear program. These provocations have recently been given emphatic punctuation by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who holds that the Holocaust is a “myth” and has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” That — combined with Iran’s resumption of research on uranium enrichment — was too much for even Europe to stomach, and the EU-3 announced that negotiations had reached a dead end. In doing so, Europe fully vindicated the “hard line” position within the Bush administration: There is now a trans-Atlantic consensus that Iran cannot be trusted as a negotiating partner, and that its case must be taken up by the Security Council. The choice, Europe seems finally to have realized, is not between a nasty confrontation with Iran now and a negotiated solution later, but rather between a nasty confrontation with Iran now and a much nastier confrontation with Iran later. It is also unclear whether sanctions will be effective. Iran’s highly ideological regime may prove impervious to economic pressures, and it is even possible that sanctions could strengthen the regime by giving the mullahs a means of galvanizing opposition to the West. This seems unlikely, given that one of the Iranian dissident community’s chief complaints against the regime is that its actions have isolated Iran — a perception that economic sanctions are only likely to underscore. But in any case, we must confront the possibility that sanctions will not bring about the desired outcome. For that reason, military action cannot be forsworn. Critics of such a solution point out that Iran’s nuclear facilities are spread out over many locations, as though this were proof that any military campaign would be ineffective. But destroying Iran’s nuclear program would not require destroying every facility. The production of nuclear weapons involves a series of processes, from the mining of Uranium to its enrichment and weaponization to the eventual construction of warheads. Breaking the chain at any point along the way would incapacitate the program — and this is something that could probably accomplished through a vigorous round of air strikes. While we should hope that military action proves unnecessary, we must also understand that it becomes likelier to the very degree that Iran thinks it is unlikely and, accordingly, refuses to accede to Western demands. British foreign secretary Jack Straw’s recent comments ruling out the use of military force are therefore destructive to the interests of peace, as is any signal that the West has resigned itself to the advent of an Iranian nuclear age. President Bush has said repeatedly that the United States will accept no such thing. We take him at his word. For Iran — the world’s most incorrigible state sponsor of Islamic terrorism — to acquire nuclear weapons not only would increase the mullah’s nefarious sway in the region, but would also expose America and her allies to a potentially mortal danger. Iran quite simply must be stopped. That Europe appears to have moved toward this conclusion is cause for limited optimism. But it should in no way attenuate the sense of urgency we feel — or our will to act.

We have to strike Iran..

From Chester Milblog: "My spider senses are twitching about Iran. I sense a disturbance in the force. Several reports, from different sources -- Strategic Forecasting, the Turkish press, and now RegimeChangeIran -- are all hinting at windows of opportunity that are closing: for the US or Israel to stop Iran's nuclear program, or for Iran to exploit the situation in Iraq to its advantage before democracy takes root. Perhaps a better comparison might be 1914. Things might get hairy awful fast in the mid-east. Iran is not just another country; it is an entire Persian civilization with a long history of conquest from Darius and Cyrus fighting the Greeks, to the Sasanians, the Safavids, and the modern state. The prediction markets currently have a 36% chance of a US or Israeli airstrike on Iran by March of 07. I plan to keep a close eye on these numbers. Here's what I expect in the next 12 months. -There will be airstrikes upon Iranian facilities by either the US or Israel. -There will be catastrophic, if not cataclysmic, terror attacks in various parts of the Middle East, sponsored by Iran or its proxies; The Gulf States, Jordan, Israel, and Iraq are potential targets. I'm not going to make any definitive statements of causality. Either of the above two events may happen before the other. What happens after those two is anyone's guess. But I think they are both coming, and coming faster than we may all expect. UPDATE: Many assume that Iran would not overtly use terror or the deterrent effects of its new nukes to its own gain in the immediate future, thinking instead that things would settle into a "cold war" of sorts. This represents a best-case and is foolhardy for planning purposes. As usual in strategy, Iran's advantage rests in its ability to exploit seams; at the moment there is quite a transitional seam in Israeli politics and therefore policy. If there were plans on the drawing board for an Israeli strike, they are being shelved for sure. We are about to encounter another seam via the US election as well, wherein the entire Congress temporarily becomes entranced by domestic concerns and local politics. If Iran declares itself a nuclear power, the institutions, systems, policies and governments of the region and the world will not just snap into a new paradigm of a "cold war" with Iran, though in the longer term, that is certainly probable. Instead, from the moment Iran makes the announcement, or detonates a bomb, a new seam begins between the old policy regimes and the new. And there lies Iran's advantage. Much hay can be made while the capitals of the west are engaged in debate on a response. UPDATE3: Between reading reader comments this evening, I was perusing a chapter in Grand Strategies in War and Peace entitled "British Grand Strategy in World War I" by Sir Michael Howard. This section struck me as particularly relevant to our current discussion on Iran: In 1915, whatever British strategists may have intended, the eastern front was the major theater because the Germans had decided to make it so. During the course of that year the German armies in the east inflicted such drastic defeats on Russia that her Western allies began to doubt her capacity, and even more the will of her government to carry on the war at all. It was the need to relieve the pressure in the east that compelled the French and the British armies to continue their offensive on the western front. There was no longer any expectation of a strategic breakthrough leading to a major decision: the object now was to pin down the German forces and exhaust them. It was a strategy determined by the French High Command, and one into which Kitchener allowed himself to be drawn only very unwillingly. But if he did not do so, he feared, not only the Russians but even the French (who had already suffered over a million casualties) might be tempted to make peace. It was at this stage that the truth broke in on him that one has to make war, not as one would like to, but as one must.[emphasis added] Are we not perhaps in a similar situation with Iran? As much as Kitchener would have preferred to use British naval forces to merely blockade Germany, or to invade from the south, via the Dardanelles as Churchill disastrously suggested, thereby taking pressure off the Russians in the east, but without going straight into the maw of the enemy on the west, as much as he would have preferred these alternatives, he slowly realized that they would not work. And he was forced to fight the war in a much less than ideal fashion. Here we are again. As much as we might like to a) have the EU diplomacy work or b) have no insurgency in Iraq simultaneous to this crisis or c) have a larger ground force in readiness or d) have more perfect intelligence or e) just let Israel do it, as much as we might prefer those things, they either aren't available or they won't work. Iraq, as messy as it is, has perhaps spoiled us still for what war really is: a situation wherein every alternative is equally unpalatable, but in which one must act, must do something, risking possible defeat from the choice taken against certain defeat from the failure to choose at all. UPDATE5: While we're all considering all the ifs, ands and buts to the Iran situation, I encourage those who haven't to read an article by Mark Helprin in the Claremont Review of Books, entitled "Let Us Count the Ways." Here is an excerpt particular to Iran: Take for example Iran, a peripheral state that is nonetheless the most powerful and belligerent sponsor of terrorism remaining in the Middle East and indeed in the world. This is a country of 73 million, with a formidable military and difficult mountainous terrain. It is not, absent the kind of mass and power the United States and NATO needlessly relinquished at the Cold War's end, a country to invade, even in the "in-and-out" style advocated herein. And yet it has acquired and is acquiring intermediate-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, it is a habitual and recidivist supporter of terrorism, and its legislature frequently opens with chants of "Death to America." We treat this obvious threat as if it were insurmountable, because due to our insufficient preparation, current deployments, and strategical blindness, at the moment, it is. The administration has no policy . .Meanwhile, Iran shelters al-Qaeda, acquires missiles, and races toward nuclear armament. But were the open and bleeding flank in Iraq closed, the center safely held, and the American military properly supplied, rebuilt, and rejuvenated, the sure way to strip Iran of its nuclear potential would be clear: issuance of an ultimatum stating that we will not allow a terrorist state, the legislature of which chants like a robot for our demise, to possess nuclear weapons; clearing the Gulf of Iranian naval and coastal defense forces; cutting corridors across Iran free of effective anti-aircraft capability; surging carriers to the Gulf and expeditionary air forces to Saudi Arabia; readying long-range heavy bombers in this country and Guam; setting up an unparalleled search and rescue capability. If then our conditions were unmet, we could destroy every nuclear, ballistic-missile, military research, and military technical facility in Iran, with the promise that were the prohibited activities to resume and/or relocate we would destroy completely the economic infrastructure of the country, something we could do in a matter of days and refresh indefinitely, with nary a boot on the ground. That is the large-scale option, necessary only if for some reason the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities could not, as is likely, be accomplished by stealth bombers and cruise missiles. The almost complete paralysis of its economy, should it be called for, could be achieved with the same instruments plus naval gunfire and blockade."

Sgt. Seavey cleans Murtha's clock...

VIDEO: A VETERAN TELLS OFF MURTHA/MORAN By Michelle Malkin · January 07, 2006 06:05 AM This. Is. Priceless. As I noted in the post just below, Sgt. Mark Seavey confronted Democrat Reps. Jim Moran and John Murtha at a town hall meeting in Arlington, Va., earlier this week and left the moonbats momentarily speechless. Greyhawk transcribed Sgt. Seavey's comments. I have now isolated and captured the video clip from C-Span for educational purposes and for posterity: Download the video (.wmv file).Sgt. Mark Seavey to Murtha and Moran: "I don't know who you two are talking to but the morale of the troops is very high." My favorite moments were the look on Rep. Jim "Bad Boy" Moran's face when Sgt. Seavey challenged the Dems' "demoralized troops" meme and noted that Moran didn't bother to send a single word of praise or attend a homecoming event when 200 of his Moran's constituents returned from duty in Afghanistan......and the look on Murtha's face as Moran scrambled to move on to a friendly moonbat questioner...I received an e-mail from Sgt. Seavey late last night. He told me: I was so upset, you wouldn't believe it. I speak to large audiences regularly, but never such a hostile one, and never when I am so upset, so I was really nervous about how I came off.You done good, Sgt. Seavey. Sane Americans everywhere are grateful for your bravery and service on the battlefield overseas--and at home.

Arik Sharon- a Giant of Israel...

From the Belmont Club: The Mere Rhetoric blogsite here and here has been following Ariel Sharon's third surgery. "(3:28am PST) There has just been a discussion about whether or not the family is prepared to instruct the doctors to cease trying to save Sharon. It appears that the family has left it up to the doctors - 'it is the decision of the entire country'". It's funny how the man so reviled as a warmonger in health has, on his sickbed, become the symbol of peace in the Middle East. Kofi Annan says he pleaded with Sharon to cut back on his workload after his first stroke. Newsday reports that: Even former critics on the Jewish left expressed regret Thursday about the events that followed so quickly upon Sharon's change of direction. "I just returned to New York from Israel less than 24 hours ago and I'm having great difficulty collecting my thoughts," said Jamie Levin, director of Ameinu, a progressive Zionist group. "Had you told me a year ago that I would be a cheerleader of Ariel Sharon, I wouldn't have believed it. To me, it is inconceivable that this staunchly militant warrier has become a peacemaker, albeit a unilateral one. But he did. And now, with him lying comatose in a bed, I'm seriously worried for the prospects for the future of peace." Are we talking about the same man who Belgium wanted to try for war crimes? The same Ariel Sharon who Amnesty International wanted investigated for crimes against humanity? Their absolution should be as worthless as their condemnation. And if so, what yardstick of opprobrium or praise can a man bear with him to eternity if he wants more than the judgment of the UN Secretary General? There is the comfort of good intentions, though those too can be mocked. After Neville Chamberlain died at the height of the Blitz, Winston Churchill, of all people, was asked to deliver the eulogy. Churchill never doubted that Chamberlain had meant well, despite all the ill that followed, and held those intentions up like a light to dispel the darkness of the legacy. It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart ... This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned. But there was in Churchill's eulogy disappointment that "what is called the verdict of history" would render its judgments past Chamberlain's hearing. He was sorry most of all that Neville would never know how things turned out. After he left the Government he refused all honours. He would die like his father, plain Mr. Chamberlain. I sought permission of the King, however, to have him supplied with the Cabinet papers, and until a few days of his death he followed our affairs with keenness, interest and tenacity. He met the approach of death with a steady eye. If he grieved at all, it was that he could not be a spectator of our victory; but I think he died with the comfort of knowing that his country had, at least, turned the corner. This last must have been said to ease the grief of those present, for Winston himself could not have known in the winter of 1940 that "his country had, at least, turned the corner". Whatever Chamberlain thought on his deathbed, Winston at his funeral was supplying enough faith for the both of them, knowing perhaps that faith was all there was. The best of us live in the hope of receiving judgment, not escaping it. Ariel Sharon's course is run, but he too, I think, would have wanted to know how it turned out.

More bad news for Baby Assad in Damascus...

Bombshell: Khaddam Talks from www.acrossthebay.com Syria's former VP Abdel Halim Khaddam is singing. In a long interview on Al-Arabiya, only a week after Saad Hariri's devastating interview on the same station, Khaddam all but accused Bashar of being behind Hariri's murder. He confirmed all the threats made to Hariri, including one made by Bashar -- in the presence of junior officers -- and before the last meeting about the Lahoud extension (I think this is the one referred to by Hariri's former aide Nouhad Mashnouq in his interview with al-Hayat earlier in the year). This is one day after Syria's FM Sharaa denied such threats ever took place, and claimed that Hariri "made them up" in order to justify his agreement to extend Lahoud's mandate. Sharaa's remarks were loudly denounced in Beirut.You can read Kais' English summary here, and read Al-Arabiya's Arabic summary here. Khaddam focused more on Ghazaleh, but in a deceptive manner, as he clearly pointed the finger at, and implicated Bashar along the way. Notice also the comments about the Al-Madina Bank, this also after the Judge investigating the Al-Madina case was assaulted, beaten, and left for dead.