Author: VD

From Debka:

Two security-related incidents Saturday temporarily shut several Los Angeles international airport terminals and prevented planes taking off. Roads to and from airport blocked. No details given out. Rumor of small bomb that exploded in a terminal and injured 7 passengers not officially confirmed.

Remember, a similar diversionary tactic was employed to help the two Chechen terrorists board the two Russian planes that were bombed. I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn that there was a plan to go after some airliners at LAX, although if there was an attempt and it was stopped, we may never hear another word about this incident.

Debka also had some interesting, if somber analysis about the fragmentation of al-Qaeda, and how this may lead to a more dangerous situation.

In “Al Qaeda Today, Centralized Strategic Decisions, Decentralized Operations”, examination of the terrorist network’s operational deployment revealed that its supreme leadership was losing direct control over target selection or the modalities of attacks decided by local branches, beyond general directives. The brutal school siege in Beslan, North Osettia, this week, was on example of a regional operation run by semi-autonomous regional or local affiliates over which the overall leadership has little control.

The school siege was masterminded by the Saudi wing of al Qaeda in Chechnya. Al Qaeda cells based in Iran are prone to manipulation by Tehran for political and military ends that are foreign to the movement’s objectives. Al Qaeda is also found in league with Iran and the Lebanese Hizballah in attempting to grab footholds in South Lebanon and Gaza Strip….

The first cracks are marring the once rock-smooth relations of unity and obedience binding the fundamentalist terror network’s various operational branches to the directives handed down by the top leaders.

This fragmentation of al Qaeda into ungovernable entities allied with outside forces, embedded in civilian populations and targeting other civilians, seriously hampers the efforts of counter-terror force to catch – let alone prevail over – all its widely-diffused fighting elements – certainly not by conventional military means.

Isn’t it interesting, how individuals from those two strategic centers I mentioned in the column on Clausewitz two months ago keep popping up. Iran and Saudi Arabia. Another lesson from the Russian school horror that the West should have learned from the seventies terror strikes is that capturing and holding terrorists is always a mistake. Many of the most brutal attacks are made in order to free previously captured terrorists.

As silence begins to fall upon the delusional invasion argument, the production/sabotage case raises its feeble head. This is even easier to dismiss. I’ll hold quite a bit of ammo in reserve, but here’s some food for thought. The numbers of tanks produced by each country:

USA 88,410

SOV 71,000

GBR 24,800

GER 22,800

JAP 3,500

ITA 3,300

Total Axis production was 16 percent of Allied production. Japanese production was 3.9 percent of US production. You may wish to keep these numbers in mind before deciding to bend over and shout “thank you, Vox, may I have another!”

I don’t have an answer. I can’t even think about this; it sickens my soul. I doubt, however, that the answers will be found in Chechnya, Iraq, or elsewhere along the Islamic periphery. Considering that the Russians have already killed 10 percent of the Chechen population, it seems unlikely that killing another 10 percent is going to help. The ultimate solution to the jihad, I suspect, will be found in immigration controls and transit laws, not military action.

It isn’t me. It certainly isn’t one of the bookend charlatans. I speak, of course, of the incredible Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, whose fantasy football drafts I am not worthy to critique. His knowledge is unsurpassed, his skillz are legion, but the talent of which I am the most envious – aside from his pure gift for comedy which I wouldn’t know what to do with anyhow – is his ability to casually but viciously slash someone to pieces in passing, without mentioning them by name but leaving you no doubt to whom he is referring. Witness the master at work, as he lists 84 reasons that 1984 was the greatest sports season in ESPN’s 25 years.

33. Eddie Murphy’s last season on “SNL.” For my money, the most important “SNL” performer ever — Eddie saved the show and made the most money afterwards. If you disagree, you’re a racist and you hate blacks. End of story. (Sorry, this is the new way to argue points at Page 2. I’m just following instructions.)

Che magnifico! I am moved almost to tears.

Fred offers solutions:

Education: Get big cement trucks, fill them with linoleum cement mixed with potassium cyanide and maybe thumb tacks. Dump this salutary porridge into the faculty lounges of the teachers colleges, being sure that the scoundrels are still inside. Put up signs all around saying “Mutant Radioactive Cholera Site. Go Away.”

Catch all the employees of the Department of Education and paint “Deer” on them in red letters, and then tell suburban deer hunters that it’s open season. They won’t know the difference. Put a bounty on certified teachers. Personally I would not want the varmints stuffed over my fireplace, but we could make cat food from them.

Then—I know this is extreme, and people will say I’m heartless, and low down, and shameful as a truss ad–hire smart teachers. Demand work from the kids. Yes, it’s radical. The cries of the little monsters would tug at my heartstrings. Do it anyway. I’ll just suffer….

We won’t do these admirable things because (1) we don’t really care about education, (2) the education lobbies have influence in Washington, but voters don’t, and (3) minorities in a real schools system would fall even more obviously to the bottom. Disguising their shortcomings trumps teaching. Anyway, we probably don’t have enough linoleum cement.

Wars: Require that Congress declare war before we have one. Bring back the draft, exclusively for the fetid princelings of the Ivy Leagues. Give them to Marine Corps for training and, oh yes, please, let me watch. (Actually you could sell tickets to veterans to finance the program.) Strap their mothers onto the skids of deployable helicopters for two years each and feed them intravenously if need be. The ruling classes will see the uses of restraint.

I would like to publicly recant my own education program of tearing down the public schools, sowing the grounds with salt and shipping every NEA member off to Cuba, and announce my support for Fred’s program. On second thought, I don’t see why we can’t combine the two in one super-duper federal program called “Leave No Educator Unscathed”.

I rather like his military program as well.

Next week’s column isn’t on internment; I already turned it in. But I just got off the phone with an extraordinarily grand high poohbah who knows more about military necessity and national security in the fingernail of his pinkie than you, me, Michelle Malkin and all the milbloggers combined. No guessing, please, I’m not name-dropping here.

Let’s just say aliens living on Pluto are going to be picking up tiny little shards of Ms Malkin’s case and wondering what they are.

At least I was with regards to this latest tragedy. From Debka:

Twenty hostage-takers killed, 10 of them Arabs – al Qaeda terrorists, some Saudis. About 13 escaped. At least one group attacked by soldiers in town.

I am still of the opinion that the Chechen people, like every other people, deserve to be free, and that more than 150 years of Russian/Soviet/Russian imperialism played a major role in allowing radical Islamic terrorists to establish a stronghold there. But the Debka report tends to suggest that what had once been primarily an irredentist movement has been hijacked by the global jihad.

So, I have to conclude that Bill was right on this one.

If Frank Rich says it’s a dogfight, it’s over:

As we leave the scripted conventions behind us, that is the uber-scenario that has locked into place, brilliantly engineered by the president of the United States, with more than a little unwitting assistance from his opponent.

I am a little confused, though. How does a drooling dummy brilliantly engineer anything?

Greg Robinson kicks the dead horse in the head:

It’s from June 25, 1942, and reflects a conversation that King had with Roosevelt in Washington during a meeting of the Pacific War Council…. According to King, Roosevelt “said he thought the Japanese were foolish in thinking we would be much affected by these attacks they were making on the Pacific Coast. That it was not likely to alarm the people unduly but rather to strengthen their feeling of resistance. It was clear that he, himself, did not contemplate much in the way of an attack on our Pacific Coast but felt that the possession of the bases at Kiska [in the Aleutian chain] and elsewhere were to help to meet the situation that might develop between Japan and Russia.”

Some of you seem to wonder why I’m so bloody-minded about the internment case. First, it’s related to an area of childhood interest, so I knew that the notion was off-base from the start. Also, I despise the advocacy of big government, like PJ O’Rourke I see it as treason to the human race. But to see this sort of evil governance celebrated and justified by one who is supposed to be a leading new conservative voice is particularly disgusting.

There’s also the sheer disbelief that anyone could take this nonsense seriously for more than five seconds. I don’t begrudge anyone a successful book, as I know how difficult the process is, but this sort of thing is worse than the Lizard Queen’s fiction. When I first heard about the Malkin book on Powerline, I had to read the post twice before I actually registered what position she was taking. It’s almost as ridiculous as Eric Alterman’s thesis that the media is right-wing because it is corporate-owned. The two of them are the bookend charlatans of the next-generation commentariat.

Is it considered less than perfectly kind to harbor maleficient wishes towards an individual one has never met and does not know? It’s not that I want anything bad to happen to Marshall Faulk – even though he missed half the season for me last year, the wretch – but I wouldn’t mind seeing him pull his Ricky Williams and go on tour with Lenny Kravitz or something.

That would complete a very nice backfield of Ahman Green, Duce Staley, TJ Duckett and, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Stephen Jackson.

The funniest thing is how Chokechain, last year’s unexpected champ, now features an All-Fragile starting backfield of Faulk and Fred Taylor. They should be good for what, six games between them? His entire bench is now made up of running backs. Good times… oh, yeah, it’s coming!