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Chronicles Roundup

I have been remiss in getting links to the latest material at Chronicles‘ website this week, where they have a number of very good articles up.  Here is Paul Craig Roberts on the war: Obviously, sending more U.S. troops will not succeed in dismantling the Iraqi sectarian militias. However, a U.S. attempt to dismantle the militias […]

I have been remiss in getting links to the latest material at Chronicles‘ website this week, where they have a number of very good articles up. 

Here is Paul Craig Roberts on the war:

Obviously, sending more U.S. troops will not succeed in dismantling the Iraqi sectarian militias. However, a U.S. attempt to dismantle the militias will result in the militias joining the insurgency and turning on the U.S. troops. The situation would deteriorate, not improve. It is frightening that the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee does not understand this.  

As we have seen already in recent days, there are many things Mr. Reyes does not understand and it is rather frightening.  What is worse is that I am unsure whether Jane Harman, who would have been chairman of the committee were it not for Pelosi’s catfighting instincts, would have understood any of this any better than Reyes does.

Also at Chronicles‘ site is Pat Buchanan’s article on the Iraq Study Group’s report:

It is a time for truth. The strategic retreat recommended by Baker-Hamilton is not going to win this war, or end it well for the United States—it is going to advance the timetable of our impending defeat.

When U.S. combat forces leave, Iraq is going to be lost to those who ran us out. Our friends there are going to endure what our abandoned friends in Vietnam and Cambodia endured. The forces of Islamic radicalism will be emboldened to take down our remaining allies in the Middle East. Our days as a superpower will be over.

Scott Richert reports on an important story of domestic Islamic terrorism in Rockford that you will probably not have heard much about anywhere else:

So, what’s going on here? Why the radio silence from the major media on the link to Islam? Are we to believe that, because federal authorities say that Shareef was not part of a broader conspiracy, Islam had nothing to do with it? Or that, because he is a Black Muslim, Islam had nothing to do with it?

Islam, as readers of Chronicles know, and as anyone with any understanding of history is aware, is not a religion of peace. There is no reason not to take Shareef’s statements about his motivations at face value, and there are very good reasons to publicize them.

Out here in the middle of the American heartland, Islam has a greater foothold than many people realize. I’ve discussed this at length, most recently in the December 2006 issue of Chronicles. Aaron Wolf and I spent a day at the local mosque and Islamic school in February 2002, and I’ve written about that day here and here. Read those pieces. See what Muslim students are learning in Rockford, Illinois. Pay attention to the words of a prominent Muslim doctor, the chairman of the board of the school, when he praises Osama bin Laden and talks about the way in which sharia will be imposed in the United States. Look at the understanding of peace—the submission of all men to Allah—that the current imam at the mosque preaches.

Scott has another article on the related issue of increasing numbers of native-born American converts to Islam, and you can see his television interview on the arraignment of Shareef here

Here is Pat Buchanan’s latest on intra-GOP quarreling over who is responsible for the failure in Iraq, which I have noted would probably become one of the main dividing lines in the next presidential race: 

This deepening fissure in the GOP presages a civil war inside the party by 2008, over whether to stay in Iraq—or, if the war has ended in a debacle or defeat, over “Who Lost Iraq?”

In urging intensified training of the Iraqi army and an expedited withdrawal, the Baker Commission is laying down the predicate for the case that America did not lose this war, Iraqis lost their own war.

This ISG report is less about saving Iraq than about saving the U.S. establishment from being held responsible for the worst strategic blunder in U.S. history. It is about giving Bush and Congress a “decent interval” before Iraq goes down and a Saigon ending ensues.

The neocons are also preparing their defense before the bar of history. Realizing the Baker Commission recommendations point to slow-motion defeat, they are savaging Baker and calling for tens of thousands more U.S. troops to be sent to Baghdad and a new strategy of victory, no matter how much it costs or how long it takes.

If Bush fails to follow their counsel, they will then say: “It was not our fault. It was Bush’s rejection of our advice that lost the war.”

There is also more from Paul Craig Roberts here.

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