One must ask how many more resounding victories need to come out this year before the Left begins acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, America isn't getting its collective rear handed to it by an organization of fighters who haven't won a single engagement with American troops since the insurgency began.  That's an important thing one needs to consider - that America has not lost any ground to the insurgency, they have not been forced to yield or surrender in any way, they have not lost a single engagement, and somehow we are to believe that the conflict is a "quagmire", that, as Harry Reid would say, we have "lost".  We continue to be forcefed this nonsensical rhetoric when a cursory glance at any information on the ground spits so utterly in the face of this brazen claim that it would be akin to declaring that Anaheim lost the Stanley Cup last year.

Well, at least Anaheim lost a game against Ottawa, such cannot be said about American forces against the Insurgency.

You have Senators who do not even know the fundamental differences between a Sunni and a Shi'ite - not something I'd expect from an elected official before 2003, but something I consider imperative after 2004 - or what the word Anbar is declaring with satisfaction that the war is unwinnable.  It causes me great distress to watch any video posted on the net by these insurgent groups where they fumble with the most archaic of military technology before being forced to withdraw from a superior trained superior armed American force and this translates to America's loss.

It seems the standard of victory is one that is impossible to attain and what's more for reasons I still can't quite understand.  Even in the most American liberal style days of Roman history, even as Cato Reid stood on his pedestal and hissed and screamed against Caesar's legions in Gaul, no one would have imagined someone uttering the absurd words "Rome has lost" unless Rome has actually lost.  And losing was not something done frequently, just like with the United States.

We want to continue to heap onto ourselves the belief that defeating guerrillas is so impossible - as though assymetrical warfare is some kind of "master" tactic without actually understanding anything about these two strategic terms (which aren't as closely linked as some people seem to think).

Which of course simply reveals the already thiny-veiled side that the anti-war crowd stand on.  It's not so much a factor of "America is losing the war" (if there is one to be had, which one are they referring to, the War on Iraq that ended in 2003, or the War on Terror, which they so badly want to hog tie America's feet over?) but rather that because Congress did not listen to them in the opening stages of the conflict they need to be "punished".  The punishment comes in the shape of a humiliating American defeat - that should teach the big bad warhawks a thing or two about not listening to them, they reckon.

Of course, this goes terribley in the face of reality - which brings us full circle to the fact that, in the words of John Edwards, we have two Americas.  We have an America who will be pleased by hearing of constant American victories (which I hope is the majortiy of citizens) and then you have those who are so petty over their "loss" in 2003 by being unable to manipulate the government that a small, concellation prize would be for America to be "proven wrong" and "get whipped by petty insurgents".

It would be great if I was entirely wrong about the Middle East, Islamic Fundamentalism, the threat of radical governments the world over and the serious jeopardy the world is put into by the European style appeasement that has been shown Muslim offenders of late – but unfortunately I’ve got a remarkable track record of being right.  I was a staunch advocate that the 2006 plan of slowly removing the American presence from Iraq was going to result in a massive increase in violence over the course of the year, I stuck to my guns on the idea that the Iraqi government and by extension the American forces were showing too much leniency in the opening days of the insurgency, I pointed out that martial law was imperative in Baghdad to keep it under control.  Off the topic of the Middle East specifically, I made my voice known when I worried that anti-Semitism and pro-Nazi style behavior was going to return (albeit not so quickly).  I suggested that killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would require a fundamental strategic shift by the insurgency and would very likely fragment it.

On each of these notes I’ve been right – when American forces left the fighting to the Iraqis they turned on each other because the absence of a strong tyrannical government allowed old vendettas to roll out into the streets – and now it’s turned to the point that we needed the Baghdad Security Plan.  As I said from the moment I heard about the insurgency we needed to clamp down with security, barring crowds of people from walking around Baghdad with the potential to be armed and a curfew would be necessary.  This wasn’t done and violence exploded as a result and where did the guerrillas run to?  The crowds of people in the street of course.  It wasn’t until it was all but too late did Nouri al-Maliki finally start imposing the security measures I’d advocated since day one.

On the topic of the Holocaust, pro-Nazism, and anti-Semitism, the United States is constantly being pressured by internal persons to abandon their ally in Israel (the bevy of Uncle Choms – or those Jews who adhere to the Noam Chomsky line of thought – for example) which helped lead to Israel’s defeat in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War and Holocaust Denial is on the rise?  So much so that British schools, at the behest of mosques who teach that it never occurred or in smaller numbers, are dropping the topic altogether in school.

What happened when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died?  There is something of a misrepresentation in the Media by this (but does this really surprise anyone?).  Yes, there is still violence in the wake of his death – a crude and disorderly violence that could be swept up if America did not cowtell to al-Maliki’s loyalty to  his Shi’ite Militias.  Under Zarqawi the various organizations were brutally kept under his sway and thumb.  To a certain degree the brutality he showed the relatively secular Iraqis (or rather, a race of people accustomed to a secular government and not strict Sharia Law) was able to be overlooked by the insurgents because he was both able to get things done and absolutely refused to see disunity amongst his ranks.  With his death the province of Anbar – considered the Wild West of Iraq and the hotbed of insurgency – has largely come under control, giving rise to the Anbar Salvation Council.  Diyala is under increasing pressure and shows signs of improving (the liberation of Baqouba speaking well in this regard) while the umbrella factions that made up the Iraqi Insurgency have splintered.

The 1920s Revolutionary Brigade has thrown in its lot with the Americans and Coalition along with dozens of other smaller groups that find the strict Sharia style imposed by Ayman al-Zawahiri’s new puppet to be distasteful.  Without the cold, iron grip of Zarqawi a desperate grab for power was necessary – a grab for power that came to be known as the consolidation of the Islamic State of Iraq.  Most times when someone hears this name in discussion they will usually turn to me angrily and declare “Iraq was secular, not an Islamic State,” – which is a clear display of their ignorance of current events on the ground.  It’s always fun to toss this around just to figure out on which level of discussion you really are with the person opposite you.

In these cases – my gut has long been right about these things, primarily because I imagine my gut bases its own opinions on what I’ve studied and know.  And while it would be a pleasant fiction to think that people like Ron Paul are right and al-Qaeda is the central and only threat to the United States none of the signs of the world agree with that.  It’s akin to saying “Well only Japan is a threat” in 1941 – ignoring Germany, Austria, and Italy – only in this case, it’s an entire region that spills out anti-Western hatred with promises of American destruction.  The pleasant fiction is just that – a pleasant fiction.

Everyone is more than well aware of what the news will highlight about the Iranian nuclear issue.  Naturally everyone in the reasonable world has a great deal of fear for a regime capable of supporting terror strikes against Israel receiving the destructive capacity to level entire cities with the push of a button - and while a President and a West continue to decry the Iranian regime and inhibit their growth of such a tool there are a number of alarming signifiers that keep coming up of late.  It should be clear that a nation such as Iran, who must displace thousands of gallons of oil just to make room for their nuclear facilities, has no legitimate need for "peaceful" nuclear power - and if one looks at a number of the facts of late, they would agree.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one time hit man for Ayatollah Khomeini, one time student protestor that kidnapped American embassy workers during the Carter Administration, now turned religiously psychotic president of Iran, is something of a media guzzler.  He is utterly obsessed with the idea of appearing on television channels and playing the part of the benevolent leader - as though he receives some kind of high when people chant in unison with him "Death to Israel, death to America".  Indeed, before he gave a speech where he claimed that Iranian scientists "cured" AIDS - which he calls a weapon created by the United States and the West - he had a kind of fluffer of hate come out to woo the crowd into chants of violence and anger towards the United States.

Frighteningly, this is all visible and easily accessible at The Middle Eastern Media Research Institute - anyone is able to go take a glimpse at Middle Eastern television and all of its macabre excerpts.  That's why I find it particularly amusing when I'm told, when espousing my fear of a nuclear armed Iran, to "stop watching television and formulate my own ideas"; I'm forced to inquire if that extends to Middle Eastern Television too.

It is on this television where the first and foremost alarming incident comes to light in the form of a grand "oopsie" by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki when he told Iranian Channel 2 Television, "We emphasize the peaceful nature of our nuclear weapons... I mean... of our nuclear power plant, and nuclear energy and activities."  Such slips of the tongue in Farsi are not something that Westerners are entirely interested in hearing from a high up government official.  Especially when Iranian generals promise that their strategies do indeed involve passing weapons off to suicide bombers, as told by General Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Yahya Safavi:

"Moreover, we are capable of giving these missile systems to neighboring and friendly countries. There is nothing preventing us from doing so.  We do not rely only on defense technology. The IRGC has thousands of martyrdom-seekers, who have gained military experience during the eight years of war, and these martyrdom-seekers are prepared to carry out martyrdom operations on large scales. They operate professionally, and have undergone training. They have a strong spirit of martyrdom."

Add to this the President himself stating that Iran will soon be the "ninth" nuclear nation - while there are, indeed, more than twenty nuclear powered nations, and eight confirmed nuclear armed nations - unless one counts the unofficial Israel which has yet to declare its nuclear status.  While it would seem simple for matters such as this to be a "mistake", the common amount of mistakes being reported are frightening in number, especially when you consider who it is they are coming from.  Are we to believe that before going on Iranian Television Channel 1 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to forego confirming which of the two nuclear quantities he's going to claim he is a part of?

It seems bizarre that the West can continue to ignore these "slip ups" - two words that should never go together when discussing nuclear weapons - on the day that Ahmadinejad announces that his country is "now nuclear".  He specifies this, according to the Associated Press, which his nation can "now complete the nuclear cycle".

When you have Foreign Ministers "accidentally" referring to this "nuclear cycle" as weaponry, can one really stand by and keep "talking" as French President Sarkozy advocates?  Talking, really, can only go so far, and as Machiavelli says, "War cannot be avoided; it can only be postponed to the other's advantage," and as long as we continue to delay Iran gets closer and closer to turning this "nuclear cycle" into a nuclear weapon.