One of the hardiest fantasies of portions of the Western intellectual elite is the notion
of the Noble Savage. For the last couple of hundred years, anti-tech Luddites have dreamt that the ideal state
of man is sort of a Tarzan-like existence, swinging free from vine to vine in search of a ripe orange. Last Friday,
starting at 7:55 pm local time, three Americans died in Iraq to give witness to the reality of savages.
All three volunteers were members of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment,
2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Specialist David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass died at the scene in the initial attack. Pfc Thomas Tucker,
25, of Madras, Oregon and Pfc Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas were captured and taken away. The town was
Yusufryah in an area known as the Triangle of Death, a Sunni hot spot an hour or so away from Baghdad.
What happened to these two is still under investigation. Their bodies, Army officials said, were so horribly disfigured
that identification will require DNA testing.
While final details have not been released, reading the text of the Arab claims gives a picture of the two enlisted
men's fate. At a minimum, they were probably castrated, their eyes gouged out, beheaded and their mutilated bodies
dumped like dead dogs in the street. Their bodies, recovered Tuesday, were booby-trapped and the paths to get to
them lined with IEDs.
While local citizens, visiting journalists and civilian contractors have been dealt with in this manner before,
this episode is the first desecration of American military troops since Mogadishu.
The remains have been returned to Dover, Delaware for forensic examinations. It is doubtful that a full report
will ever be released due to political sensitivities.
The torture was both attributed to and claimed by Abu Ayyub al-Masri. He is reputed to be the new head of AQI (al-Qaeda
in Iraq) , replacing the deceased Abu Musab Zarqawi.
In Washington, the Senate debated on Wednesday and Thursday the wisdom of a Congressionally-mandated withdrawal
from Iraq. Two amendments to the FY2007 Defense Programs appropriations bill were offered.
The first amendment, sponsored by John Kerry and Russ Feingold, set a date certain - July 1, 2007 - by which no
more than training troops would be allowed to stay in Iraq.
In essence, Congress would replace the Executive branch in making key decisions about running the war. The Senate
rejected this amendment 86 to 13. The result spotlighted the relative impotence of the extreme Left. Aye votes
were confined to the bluest of the blue states.
The second amendment, a non-binding resolution from Carl Levin and Jack Reed, declared that a phased withdrawal
should begin before the end of the year but that no deadline would be set by Congress for its completion. That
burden is left up to the President. He would decide and Congress would kibitz. No distinction was made between
troop rotations and withdrawals. Troops could still go in and out depending on circumstances. The amendment was
essentially an attempt to get Democrats some credit for supporting the idea of the status quo but with their approval.
It was defeated 60 to 39.
The cut-and-run caucus has now had four votes on mandated withdrawal. Last November, John Murtha's proposal to
withdraw went down to defeat 403-3. In the end, he voted against his own proposal. Last week, both House and Senate
decisively defeated similar proposals. Some 42 Democrats in the House sided with continuing the war effort. The
House vote against a mandated withdrawal was 253-149 and in the Senate it was 93-6.
"We must hasten to lose less victory overtake us," has been the driving force behind these current Democrat
tactics. They believe that they cannot win elections if the war goes well. The professionals in the Democrat Party
are, frankly, frightened of their base. The current crop is not old union leaders that you can pop a beer with
and light up a cigar before the poker game. The naïve and juvenile current Democrat base is headed over a
McGovernite cliff and the main stream party professionals can't seem to stop them.
Case in point - John Murtha. The party base has ridden outsiders like the pony express - when one drops from exhaustion,
they jump on another. First there was the Hollywood crowd and Michael Moore. Then there was Cindy Sheehan. Now
there is 74-year-old John Murtha. His announcement of leadership ambitions last week and his enfeebled performance
on Meet the Press this past weekend has roused serious concern.
Even the MSM cannot resist retelling the Murtha Abscam story. Murtha is on video talking over the size of his bribe,
although he did not take cash. The only reason he kept his seat in 1980 was that he became an un-indicted co-conspirator
who flipped on the popular Congressman, Frank Thompson. His actions were resented by Murtha's caucus ever since
and he was kept a back bencher until his Vietnam record was needed for the cause.
In the light of his earmarking more than $20 million in current defense contracts to his brother's clients and
pressuring the Navy for land sales contracts for Minority Leader Nancy Palosi's nephew Lawrence, insiders are pressuring
the party to end their super-relationship with Murtha before fall. The corruption charges are valid and the video
public record.
In addition, there has recently been some national attention paid to Diana Irey, the Republican candidate for Murtha's
Congressional seat.
To check her out, visit www.irey.com .
If the kidnapping and torture of Americans, their allies and Iraqis is accelerated as a new tactic of AQI, then
both American strategy and tactics will change. Savages with Internet connections present a different set of issues.
Certainly ones outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention.
John Podhoretz says that if this new torture strategy is implemented it may not only terrorize local, American
and coalition forces but also divide them from each other. Fear and hostility are on a two-way street. Hyper vigilance
will create mistakes on both sides; Mistakes will be exploited by that portion of the agenda-driven media who care
more for beating the competition with unconfirmed reports than they do about truth and accuracy.
AQI intends to create an all-out civil war and they still think Americans will flee from rough going. The votes
this week say that our warriors did not die in vain.
But action counts for more.
06/23/06
