Sadr City Celebrates American Presence

Iraqis in Sadr City celebrate the Americans and there are pictures to prove it. Some corners of the dark world are seeing light again and that's good news.

The Mean Streets of Cleveland

Marines as targets.....in America.

Women in sports and the military

What sports should be off-limits to a qualified woman?

Glenn Reynolds has been talking about his cousin, the ski jumper and how the International Olympic Committee banned them. And now, small colleges are boosting their enrollment with women's sports like wrestling and it has nothing to do with Title IX and everything to do with money.

I'm trying to think of a sport where a woman shouldn't play. That might not mean inclusion on a men's team, though. Women have significantly less upper body strength (and lower body strength) than men (the average woman) so the fight wouldn't exactly be fair in a sport like wrestling.

What if a woman is so extraordinary she could succeed on the men's team? And then does that mean men should be allowed to play on women's teams? My opinion is still that women shouldn't be in combat, if only because in hand-to-hand combat and things like trudging through the countryside she's at such a disadvantage, not to mention that a woman is victimized in brutal ways should she be captured.

It seems to me that it's possible to recognize the biological differences and go for as much inclusion as possible.

Thanks Pilot Pal!

I shared with you people one of my favorite essays by David Sedaris called, "Thanks! Stadium Pal!" It's one of the funniest things I've ever read. One passage was particularly apropos to today's topic: How do jet fighter pilots pee in flight? The sad former answer was in their pants or some other equally humiliating answer. Hell, it's the same answer for marathon runners, so whatever. Some tasks require sacrifice. Flying a jet is worth wet pants, I guess.

The humiliation is over and there is a new urination technology for pilots:

The aerobatic maneuver is even harder for female pilots.

On long or cold-weather flights, the amount of gear and clothing made the maneuver nearly impossible, and pilots would sometimes have no choice but to relieve themselves in their flight suits.

In the AMXD, a cup for a man and a pad for a woman is strategically placed before the pilot dons a flight suit.

An instructional DVD tells pilots: "When the time comes to urinate, unzip the flight suit, remove the hose.... The control unit will pump the urine from the cup to the collection bag, where it will be chemically gelled." See how the system works »

Pilots are free to think about other business.

The Army and Navy look to use these elsewhere. But I have to wonder, why not just use the Stadium Pal? Truckers use them. And if the adhesive that Sedaris used and so viciously harmed his nether regions were replaced by something kinder and gentler, I would think it'd be a cheaper alternative. $2,000 bucks a pop seems excessive just to pee easily.

Marines Are Stooopid

A friend and staunch Obama supporter argued extensively with me yesterday about the "criminal" Bush. One of his chief arguments was that the military enlistees were a bunch of rubes who "didn't sign on" for Iraq. They didn't believe that a "misguided" war was part of the bargain. It seems to me that a soldier should have the idea that he or she might do the work of soldiering and that often involves war.

So, are the new Marine recruits stupid? The Marines hit 142% of their recruiting target. Why? Tigerhawk has some theories:

I wonder three things. First, we are in the middle of a presidential election in which even the anti-war candidates repeatedly claim to "support our wonderful troops". Perhaps that is rubbing off -- I mean, if you have heard nothing but praise for our military from politicians of all stripes for years on end, maybe you might actually absorb the idea that military service is a meaningful and respectable way of life. Second, perhaps new recruits have become a bit desensitized to the risk of combat. After all, we have been at war a long time against a tough enemy in a very difficult part of the world, and notwithstanding predictions to the contrary the numbers of killed and permanently injured remain relatively low as a percentage of the total exposed to the risk. Perhaps new recruits today are more willing to confront the personal risk than during -- say -- 2005, when recruitment swooned under the press of the war. Finally, I wonder whether the apparent success of the new strategy under David Petraeus is also helping recruitment. It is obviously more appealing to join the military if you can believe that its leadership knows what it is doing.

I also think people are seeing the veterans come back. What an impressive group of people! They walk tall. They seem sensible. I have yet to meet one vet who is crazy in the head or otherwise unstable (the Vietnam mis-perception). They seem strong and centered and mature in a world where young people act aimless, self-centered and immature. It's nice to see the veterans. They are impressive and not at all the caricature the Left would portray them as.

Maybe, people are accumulating enough evidence to judge for themselves and the media has less impact than it did.

Michael Yon's Book

Hey, ya'll (I never say that in real life, but it sounds endearing doesn't it?)! Anyway, I got the Micheal Yon's signed book Moment of Truth in Iraq. Yo, Michael! Looks good, so far. If you want the real story of what is going on in Iraq, read this.

Contempt For Military

Duty and honor. The respect for the military is gone on the left.

And it's not just Dick Cavett. It didn't just begin with him, and as I noted the other day, this contempt for military service and everything it stands for has been coming out of the woodwork for some time now.

I'm wondering how this contempt will manifest in the coming months and years.

Surging: One Year Anniversary

Celebrations all over Baghdad! Wait, have you heard it on the news? Go read all about it.

Our Pals the Russians

A U.S. general reports intercepting Russian bombers:

According to an account from The Associated Press, the flock of Bears first raised alarms over Japan, where officials say that Japanese national airspace was violated — a bomber overflew an uninhabited island south of Tokyo, they said.

American Navy vessels tracked the Bears as they went, and then let slip the jet-fueled hounds:

As the bombers got about 500 miles out from the U.S. ships, four F/A-18 fighters were launched from the Nimitz, the official said. The fighters intercepted the Russian bombers about 50 miles south of the Nimitz.

At least two U.S. F/A-18 Hornets trailed the bomber as it came in low over the Nimitz twice, while one or two of the other U.S. fighters followed the second bomber as it circled.

There was no further escalation, no messages were exchanged between the two sides and no formal protest will be filed to Moscow, The A.P. continued. The military escaped a whole lot of paperwork during the Cold War by keeping this game on the field, and away from the diplomats.

So friendly, the Russians. With some "friends" war never ends.

Porky Pigs Everywhere But Pig Country

Check out this Google map of where the earmarks go in America. Now, I'd like to know the about the density of tax revenue and population maps superimposed. Say what you want about Tom DeLay, but I don't see a gazillion dollars coming to Houston, Texas. Five beneficiaries: Rice, Methodist Hospital, NASA and two aerospace companies.

And look at Detroit, that vacuum of despair sucks away at the taxpayer teet and has about as much to show for it as New Orleans--money and corruption and misery among the populace. Does anyone know if the Detroit companies are well-known and legit or is this a Murtha thing?

President In Iraq

Connecting the bottom-up organization with the top-down organization is the goal going forward in Iraq. (Allah says that's impossible. Video of Bush, here.) That means that the local militias need to be connected to the Iraqi security forces. Once these threads are made, the fabric of Iraqi society strengthens significantly.

It is fashionable to be pessimistic. I think I might the only one in my family who still has hope. But I do have hope for these people. There is always a chance for a new kind of peace.

Gateway Pundit has the round-up. He also writes about the British Press spinning of the Brits leaving Basra.

As an aside:
The press corps are a big bunch of pansy-asses. I read the Pool Report. Give me a break. Here's some of the snark:

POTUS leaned slightly forward, both hands on a makeshift table, as the Marine with a pointer in hand, gave an overview. About 20 troops in fatigues framed POTUS during the briefing, making for better pictures, no doubt.

Are they capable of giving the facts without editorializing? That was a rhetorical question. And now from the Man Up Department:

From there, we left and were back to the file –or what passes for it. Internet connections are slow, and private accounts are tough to access. POTUS is now off to his meeting with Petraeus and Crocker, and co. Next is Maliki, after which they are to make a joint statement. Then it is a session with tribal leaders, remarks to the troops and back to the plane.

I wonder if the tone would have been better if they had access to caviar and T-1 lines.

Oh, and in Iraq right now, it's hot. Really, really hot. And the press doesn't like that either.

American Left Aren't The Only Ones Anticipating New Leadership

Dr. Sanity points to this very interesting article. It's worth reading the whole thing. Here's a tidbit, OK, more like a meal:

Like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the many other adversaries America and the West must continue to face, the Russians are looking forward to the time after George Bush leaves office. It is assumed that the American electorate has by now tired of playing policeman to the world, and that the next president will be a liberal Democrat, eager to make unilateral concessions, slash military budgets to fund social programs, and cut-and-run from foreign battlefields.

America is demonized as the "cowboy," going it alone; and Western politicians, especially on the left, score easy points by smugly playing to their domestic anti-American galleries. The lethal enemies of the West cannot help but notice this dynamic, and from car bombings in Iraq, to the rhetoric of Russian and Chinese military commanders, they exploit it to drive further wedges between the U.S. and her allies.

We are caught in a trap. The very success of the Bush strategy, in preventing another major terror strike on the U.S., in confronting and arresting the progress of Islamist terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and also in consolidating the post-Cold War European gains of NATO and the European Union, contributes to an illusion of security in a world that has seldom been such a dangerous place. People forget what alliances require.

Forget allies, the American Left seems to forget what their own security requires. It's so much fun to bash Bush, but will any of them grow up in the face of real security concerns should they take the mantel? Or is every world leader from Castro to Assad to Putin to Ahmadinejad betting correctly?

And this one factor may well be why we'll have a Republican again as President in 2008.

Abandoning Iraq to Vietnam's Fate...Except Worse

I don't know how any American can't feel shame over the humanitarian disaster America left in her wake in Vietnam. Some people on the left view that time as their biggest ideological triumph. It is very much the cutting of ones nose to spite ones face. Mark Steyn is glad the President finally called out the insanity. Steyn connects the consequential dots of the Democrat's "finest hour". America still pays a horrible diplomatic and security price for the expedience of yesteryear:

American victory in the Cold War looks inevitable in hindsight. It didn't seem that way in the Seventies. And, as Iran reminds us, the enduring legacy of the retreat from Vietnam was the emboldening of other enemies. The forces loosed in the Middle East bedevil to this day, in Iran, and in Lebanon, which Syria invaded shortly after the fall of Saigon and after its dictator had sneeringly told Henry Kissinger, "You've betrayed Vietnam. Someday you're going to sell out Taiwan. And we're going to be around when you get tired of Israel."

President Assad understood something that too many Americans didn't. Then as now, the anti-war debate is conducted as if it's only about the place you're fighting in: Vietnam is a quagmire, Iraq is a quagmire, so get out of the quagmire. Wrong. The "Vietnam war" was about Vietnam, if you had the misfortune to live in Saigon.

But if you lived in Damascus and Moscow and Havana, the Vietnam war was about America: American credibility, American purpose, American will. For our enemies today, it still is. Osama bin Laden made a bet – that, notwithstanding the T-shirt slogan, "These Colors Do Run": They ran from Vietnam, and they ran from the helicopters in the desert, and from Lebanon and Somalia – and they will run from Iraq and Afghanistan, because that is the nature of a soft, plump ersatz-superpower that coils up in the fetal position if you prick its toe. Even Republicans like Sen. John Warner seem peculiarly anxious to confirm the bin Laden characterization.

Here's what I don't understand. The American people, more than the political elite seem willing to hang on for the long-term, understanding that losing this war means delaying the inevitable and burdening the next generation. But throw the populace a bone, for Petreus' sake! Americans want to see winning. If the press won't show it (and they seem determined not to), then the leadership must lead and talk to the people loudly and often. Call a press conference once a week. Whatever it takes!

This is a war that will cut America off at the knees should we do anything akin to retreating. I am quite sure that that is what some are hoping for. Against all odds, the American public seems to be coming around. It's a truly miraculous development, when you think about it. They are managing to get their news elsewhere.

Self-serving aside: Could it be that alternative media (including blogs) is truly making a difference?

Soldier Baby Killers Marauding Through Afghanistan, Too

Baby killers. They're everywhere the U.S. military works. Now it's Barak Obama vilifying our soldiers.

Do these presidential candidates consider how their soldiers will feel serving them as Commander-in-Chief? Oh yeah, the Commander will have your back, soldier. NOT.

Beauchamp Blues : The New Republic Gets Duped By A Dope--UPDATE

Not that any of you care, but another member of the narrative-driven MSM got duped. This time they were duped by a soldier spewing their cherished beliefs (they should have slowed down, I mean it's like totally common knowledge that soldiers are scum): mainly that soldiers are raving psycho killing-machines marauding the Iraq countryside killing dogs, laughing at disfigured people (who don't exist and if they do exist, exist in Kuwait before being stationed in Iraq but let's not get picky, we all know soldiers are malignant amoral automatons), and creating mass graves, because, hey!, it's fun.

Ace is laughing and doing a celebratory Ewok dance.

Michelle Malkin asks if Beauchamp lied under oath or to TNR. He's lying to somebody.

And he's definitely screwed TNR and his buddies according to Resurrection Song--except the language isn't so delicate.

You know, I really, really don't care about The New Republic being screwed. If they weren't such eager beavers, they would have used some sense and checked out the fantastical stories. Beauchamp's war buddies, though, have been smeared. Who would want to be in a foxhole with this jerk? I know I wouldn't.

And just for the record, it was stooopid, un-fact checked bloggers that checked the facts. Again.

History here.

UPDATE: And how will those who defended him react? Why, this will up his street cred with them. Scott Beauchamp got railroaded by the Man, man. Probably water-boarded, too, dude. Beauchamp will be giving false testimony to Congress and running for the Senate, if history is an guide.

Harry Reid & The Pack of Liberal Misrememberers

What I find interesting about Harry Reid's utterly predictable bilge to a sympathetic audience (covered in detail by Captain Ed) is not that he said what he ostensibly believes (anyone or anything associated with Bush is "incompetent" in his book, I'd guess, even if he did recently give his own stamp of approval to General Petraeus), but that the paragons of virtue in the leftosphere were so willing to confabulate to cover for their fearful leader. Makes me think that all their "Bush lied!" talk is pure projection--you know he who smelt it dealt it.

Greg Sargent got some on-the-record recollections from some of the best and brightest on the left:

We asked Joan McCarter, who blogs at DailyKos under the name McJoan and wrote about being on the call here, if she recalled Reid calling Pace "incompetent."

"I don't remember him saying anything like that," she answered. "I can't swear he didn't say it. But I have no memory that he actually did. It's not in my notes."

Asked if Reid had disparaged Petraeus at all, McCarter said: "No. He said something about [Petraeus] coming back in September to deliver a report." But on the question of whether he'd said something disparaging, McCarter said: "Not that I recall, no."

"I don't even recall Pace's name specifically being mentioned," adds Barbara Morrill, who blogs at Kos under the name BarbinMD and says she was on the call. "If it was, he did not say that he was incompetent."

Asked if he'd criticized Petraeus, Morrill said: "Not that I recall. I checked my notes," and there was nothing like this. "He mentioned the report that Petraeus is supposed to be coming out in September. I only recall him saying something along the lines that the Bush administration had run the war poorly. Any criticisms were against the Bush administration."

Finally, here's what MyDD's Jonathan Singer, who wrote about the call here, told us: "I don't remember him calling Pace incompetent." He added that while he couldn't promise that he hadn't done it, "I just don't recall those statements."

Good thing none of them got subpoenaed by Patrick Fitzgerald. One would think they would be more merciful.

It turns out that Josh Bresnahan of The Politico was right in his reporting this morning. Harry Reid said exactly this (and the linked post titled "The Politico Fails Journalism 100" would be called condescending rationalization, aka "tone"--that's learned in Journalism 101):

“I guess the president, uh, he’s gotten rid of Pace because he could not get him confirmed here in the Senate… Pace is also a yes-man for the president and I told him to his face, I laid it out to him last time he came to see me, I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was.”…

Taken in context, though, Reid meant this helpfully. Really. Glenn Reynolds says:

Most likely, those sorts of statements just don't make much of an impression with the netroots. Which is ironic, since Reid probably made them for their benefits.

How charitable, Professor Reynolds. Somehow I doubt the netroots would be nearly as kind should you have so misremembered a conversation with Karl Rove.

Military Motivation

Website of the day: Military Motivator.com. It's modeled after these products, which are motivating, too, in their own dark way.

Update: Oops! Forgot to credit Gateway Pundit who has an interesting post about which countries are most "at peace." You'll howl when you see the results. Guess who's not #1 or #50 or #75? Guess which totalitarian regimes rank highest?

It's getting harder to believe that the Left's hate stops at President Bush. All the evidence points to hating America and all it stands for.

Memorial Day: Being Worthy Americans--UPDATED

Do you remember life before 9/11?

I do. We really didn't know how good we had it. We had the luxury of complaining about trivial things. The trouble we endured was mostly personal. Public sorrow was reserved for death by heroism like the Space Shuttle blowing up.

The post-9/11 world simmers with unresolved anxiety and grief. As long as our troops are in harms way in huge numbers, much of the community goes about their business uneasily. I think that's part of the reason the Left wants the war over. It's hard to whistle Good Times Are Here Again (even with a booming economy) when vast numbers of the populace worries about their sons, brothers, and friends. It's unseemly. Many want that discomfort over. The consequences be damned. Everyone just wants a good night's sleep.

The post-9/11 world removed the shroud. Behind this curtain was a monster that everyone hoped didn't really exist. Since then, America generally, and President Bush, specifically, has endured no end of derision because we wouldn't wait for the next attack. Too afraid to see the monster, or too tied to the monster's success themselves, world leaders scape-goated. What else could one do, if one was determined to ignore reality?

And worse things have happened in the post-9/11 world. Multiple hurricanes have slammed the gulf-coast. Mud slides, tornados, floods, wild fires, tsunamis, and just plain weird weather has disturbed the natural order of things. Or maybe, these acts of nature are the natural order of things. Maybe, we've just been lucky. Or blessed.

What these natural disasters have revealed most places, is a tremendous can-do spirit and relentless drive to make things right again. And again. And again. But it also revealed a very dysfunctional community in New Orleans, one that still is not adequately on the road to recovery. This tumult is another source of national anxiety. The leadership vacuum means no one can get on top of it. The individuals there were/are so reliant, so compliant, so passive. The unspoken question: Is this what we're becoming?

I'm reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance:

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without pre-established harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

With all the talk about the government doing more, and the talk that if we weren't in Iraq, all the bad that America has endured these last few years would be magic-ed away, makes me wonder about the soul of America. I don't like seeing foreigners marching in my country demanding what another country should do for them. It's un-American to be so needy.

We're the country of boot-straps and individualism.

The one place I see the American character alive and well is the one place half our country seems to most scorn: the military. The best, matter-of-fact, intelligent discussions I've had about human nature have been with soldiers. Perhaps the stark right and wrong contrasts mixed in with the murkiness of war gives them added wisdom. Not perhaps, it does. Soldiers get fidelity. Their lives depend on it. Most marriages depend on fidelity yet fidelity certainly isn't a notion embraced in American marriages. Soldiers get sacrifice. Yet in many quarters, sacrifice is laughed at as an archaic notion--replaced by a narcissistic, licentious self-actualization. When a commenter on my blog wrote that any parent who chose to have a Down's Syndrome baby was selfish, more than a few readers marvelled. Has our society turned everything good inside out? The military, made up of fallible people, at least hold to these ideals. In this post-modern America, the idea of ideals seem quaint.

So, today I honor and remember those who fight and die for freedom. Today is a day to remember those who live and die by ideals once embraced by our whole country. These men and women are the spine of our society. They protect the soft innards. They cradle the future. Without the military, we are not much and won't last long.

I'm worried that the rest of us have become fat and flabby. We owe it to our fighters to reclaim our moral fitness. We need to remember who we are and where we have come from. We need to stop waiting for the government to save us and look within. We need to take a good look at ourselves and be better. We need to do what Emerson recommends:

And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

Do we even have the moral fortitude to embrace the idea of "advancing on Chaos and the Dark"? Can we say those words? America has work to do. We have work to do to be worthy of those who choose the profession that daily advances on Chaos and the Dark.

God bless those who choose this fight.

UPDATE: Peter Collier: "We're the land of the free for one reason only: We're also the home of the brave."

Memorial Day from the front by Michael Yon.

Fred Thompson asks, "How can you remember something you've never learned?"

Ace calls Memorial Day: "A day upon which we observe the sacrifice of only those soldiers whose deaths can be used as political ammunition against Republicans."

"If you're reading this blog, ... you can thank a veteran, either one who gave his life in service to his country, or one who gave his youth and health."

Confessions of a Chickenhawk.

A picture worth a thousand words.

Speaking of words, do you know the words to Taps? A soldier asks Americans to remember this way.

Remembering a soldier and forgetting the movement he inadvertently inspired.

UPDATE II:

Dr. Sanity writes more about the moral war:
Hence they are blind and unable to recognize those who--like themselves--are capable of incredible atrocities on a scale beyond imagining, simply because they do it in the name of some"virtue" or "good". This blindness to their own nature renders them morally paralyzed and incapable of confronting the threat of evil.

C.S. Lewis wrote:
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

The cruelty and inhumanity of this or that particular person is manageable--during time of war and during peace. Where a rule of law reigns, perpetrators will be--must be--held to account (see Bill Whittle's excellent essay that discusses in detail the ramifications to society if they are not).

But the dark is rising again, and its allies, who threaten humanity with their fantasies of a "pure race" or a "pure religion" or a "perfect" society, are loose and once more the singularity that is America must provide the light with which to confront the black, oppressive hopelessness it spreads within and without.

This Memorial Day, let us thank God that there are men and women in the world who are not morally paralyzed by the rabid nonsense currently being propagated by the left; and will not remain silent, but are willing to do what needs to be done to shine the light on that darkness.

And for contrast, here's Paul Belian's take on the moral framework in Europe:

Europe is in the middle of a three-way culture war, between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism. In Western Europe, the fight between Christians and secularists is all but over. The secularists have won. Now, the religious vacuum left by the demise of Christianity is being filled by the Muslims. Since one cannot fight something with nothing, the European secularists are no match for Islam.

America cannot afford to replicate the moral vacuum. America is a house divided. I believe we are a country deciding what kind of belief system will define our future.

And here's what happens when leftists prevail.

Democracy is never free. The fight is never over.

Iran Can Just Try American Hostage Taking

Americans can shoot the scum in self-defense. Excellent.

Has Iran Declared War on Great Britain or Iraq?--UPDATE Scroll Down

Iran operatives in Iraq's territorial waters have kidnapped fifteen British sailors. Does Iran have a death-wish or are do they believe the international community will be forced to negotiate about the nuclear thing?

With Ahmadinejad in the U.S. to address the U.N., perhaps the U.S. should seize him. Isn't it permissible to capture the enemy commander during war?

The President and Congress have more important things to deal with than subpoenas and testifying.


UPDATE: Well, I'm not alone in my thinking, but I'm surprised how nonchalant some appear to be about this development. Andrew Cochran notes that oil hasn't shot up in response (always a delightful outcome for rogue states in dire financial straits).

Brendan Loy has a nice round-up. His wife and I are on the same page, evidently. He points to Dr. Rusty Shackleford who says this:

Isn't this an act of war?

Another update: Given that embassies in Tehran were making evacuation plans yesterday.....er, I hate to place the tinfoil hat on here, but what are the chances that this was a planned operation?

Allah provides video of the last time Iran took British personell hostage and says:

Iran can’t have meant to do this, not with Ahmadinejad set to address the Security Council tomorrow about the nuclear program and not to the British, who’ve been adamant in opposing any military action on Iran.

Maybe, and in my heart of hearts I'm a Realist--which posits that nations are rational actors that act in their own interests. But rationality is constrained by culture and what may seem rational in Tehran may seem crazy-insane to the rest of us. Case in point: all of Iranian history since 1979.

Anyway, I agree that they'll probably be let go unharmed. And it's far more likely that Allah is right and that this is probably nothing more than a bunch of Iranian sailors working from the cuff and egged on by years of propaganda, but never completely write off the crazy. Especially when you're dealing with Iran.

Allah has more.

And the Brits are brave. May they come back whole and well. Right now, they're blind-folded and being paraded around.

UPDATE II: Ahmadinejad cancels trip. Awwww..... Wonder what he's going to do with his 15 British visitors? Each hour that passes bodes ill.