Lieberman - One Choice in Iraq

I promise I did try to excerpt and condense Lieberman’s Op-Ed in the Wash. Post.  In the end, though, I think I have 3/4 of it here:

Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians — innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus’s security strategy has failed and that the war is “lost.”

This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.

In the two months since Petraeus took command, the United States and its Iraqi allies have made encouraging progress on two problems that once seemed intractable: tamping down the Shiite-led sectarian violence that paralyzed Baghdad until recently and consolidating support from Iraqi Sunnis — particularly in Anbar, a province dismissed just a few months ago as hopelessly mired in insurgency.

Indeed, to the extent that last week’s bloodshed clarified anything, it is that the battle of Baghdad is increasingly a battle against al-Qaeda. Whether we like it or not, al-Qaeda views the Iraqi capital as a central front of its war against us.

Al-Qaeda’s strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission.

In other words, just as Petraeus and his troops are working to empower and unite Iraqi moderates by establishing basic security, al-Qaeda is trying to divide and conquer with spectacular acts of butchery.

That is why the suggestion that we can fight al-Qaeda but stay out of Iraq’s “civil war” is specious, since the very crux of al-Qaeda’s strategy in Iraq has been to try to provoke civil war.

The current wave of suicide bombings in Iraq is also aimed at us here in the United States — to obscure the recent gains we have made and to convince the American public that our efforts in Iraq are futile and that we should retreat.

When politicians here declare that Iraq is “lost” in reaction to al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks and demand timetables for withdrawal, they are doing exactly what al-Qaeda hopes they will do, although I know that is not their intent.

Even as the American political center falters, the Iraqi political center is holding. In the aftermath of last week’s attacks, there were no large-scale reprisals by Shiite militias — as undoubtedly would have occurred last year. Despite the violence, Iraq’s leadership continues to make slow but visible progress toward compromise and reconciliation.

Al-Qaeda, after all, isn’t carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn’t to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it. [emphasis added]

Certainly al-Qaeda can be weakened by isolating it politically. But even after the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree on a shared political vision, there will remain a hardened core of extremists who are dedicated to destroying that vision through horrific violence…They must be defeated.

The challenge before us, then, is whether we respond to al-Qaeda’s barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do — abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week’s atrocities — or whether we stand and fight.

To me, there is only one choice that protects America’s security — and that is to stand, and fight, and win. [emphasis added]

I hardly agree with Sen. Lieberman on any issues, but he’s been super on the war.  He puts several in the Republican party to shame.

Tony Snow Returning

A lot of folks have been pulling for Tony Snow.  This is good news:

 Ailing White House spokesman Tony Snow has told his boss that he plans to return to work on April 30.

“That’s what he’s been telling people” inside the West Wing, says an official. Snow’s been away fighting cancer and surprised Washington when he attended last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner…

Hopefully, his return signals that he is beating the cancer.

Welcome back Tony!

Skipping Out on Petraeus

Here are the excerpts with linked articles:

Pelosi Won’t Attend Petraeus Briefing

As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

“She can’t make the briefing tomorrow,” a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. “But she spoke with the general via phone today at some length.”

This isn’t the first time this happens. Petraeus held a video briefing on April 8th with similar results (only one Democrat attended). Kudos go to Levin (D-MI) for attending.

Of course, that won’t stop the Democrat leadership from invoking Gen. Petraeus (who they voted for/confirmed and now stand as roadblocks to the plan he presented) when it comes to the spending bill battle:

Democrats said they won’t back down and pointed to past remarks by Gen. David Petraeus, the new Iraq commander, that security in Iraq requires a political solution.

Bush said U.S. troops should not be caught in the middle of a showdown between the White House and Congress.

“The American people did not vote for failure,” he said. “That is precisely what the Democratic leadership’s bill would guarantee.

Petraeus will try to persuade lawmakers in a private briefing this week to pursue a difference course. As part of the president’s push, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to meet Tuesday with key senators, including members of the Senate Finance Committee, to discuss the funding bill. The topic also likely will be discussed at a policy lunch that Vice President Dick Cheney is having on Capitol Hill. [emphasis added]

LAT Op-ed: Gun Control Isn’t The Answer

I know this is about four days old, but it is worth a read (plus, it’s one of the rare times I actually like something the LAT published!).  These are excerpts only - I strongly recommend clicking the link for the full Op-Ed:

Gun control isn’t the answer
Why one reaction to Virginia Tech shouldn’t be tightening firearm laws.

By James Q. Wilson, JAMES Q. WILSON teaches public policy at Pepperdine University and previously taught at UCLA and Harvard University. He is the author of several books, including “Thinking About Crime.”

THE TRAGEDY at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control.

So far, not many prominent Americans have tried to use the college rampage as an argument for gun control. One reason is that we are in the midst of a presidential race in which leading Democratic candidates are aware that endorsing gun control can cost them votes.

This concern has not prevented the New York Times from editorializing in favor of “stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage.” Nor has it stopped the European press from beating up on us unmercifully.

Leading British, French, German, Italian and Spanish newspapers have blamed the United States for listening to Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Assn. Many of their claims are a little strange. At least two papers said we should ban semiautomatic assault weapons (even though the killer did not use one); another said that buying a machine gun is easier than getting a driver’s license (even though no one can legally buy a machine gun); a third wrote that gun violence is becoming more common (when in fact the U.S. homicide rate has fallen dramatically over the last dozen years).

However, there is no way to extinguish this supply of guns. It would be constitutionally suspect and politically impossible to confiscate hundreds of millions of weapons. You can declare a place gun-free, as Virginia Tech had done, and guns will still be brought there.

If we want to guess by how much the U.S. murder rate would fall if civilians had no guns, we should begin by realizing — as criminologists Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins have shown — that the non-gun homicide rate in this country is three times higher than the non-gun homicide rate in England. For historical and cultural reasons, Americans are a more violent people than the English, even when they can’t use a gun. This fact sets a floor below which the murder rate won’t be reduced even if, by some constitutional or political miracle, we became gun-free.

But even if there were even tougher limits, access to guns would remain relatively easy. Not the least because, as is true today, many would be stolen and others would be obtained through straw purchases made by a willing confederate. It is virtually impossible to use new background check or waiting-period laws to prevent dangerous people from getting guns. Those that they cannot buy, they will steal or borrow.

It’s also important to note that guns play an important role in selfdefense. Estimates differ as to how common this is, but the numbers are not trivial. Somewhere between 100,000 and more than 2 million cases of self-defense occur every year.

There are many compelling cases. In one Mississippi high school, an armed administrator apprehended a school shooter. In a Pennsylvania high school, an armed merchant prevented further deaths. Would an armed teacher have prevented some of the deaths at Virginia Tech? We cannot know, but it is not unlikely.

AS FOR THE European disdain for our criminal culture, many of those countries should not spend too much time congratulating themselves. In 2000, the rate at which people were robbed or assaulted was higher in England, Scotland, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Sweden than it was in the United States. The assault rate in England was twice that in the United States. In the decade since England banned all private possession of handguns, the BBC reported that the number of gun crimes has gone up sharply.

Some of the worst examples of mass gun violence have also occurred in Europe. In recent years, 17 students and teachers were killed by a shooter in one incident at a German public school; 14 legislators were shot to death in Switzerland, and eight city council members were shot to death near Paris. 

The main lesson that should emerge from the Virginia Tech killings is that we need to work harder to identify and cope with dangerously unstable personalities. [emphasis added]

The emphasized statement, is the crux of the matter, in my opinion.  We’re far too focused trying to address the symptoms rather than the cause.

Again, please check out the whole op-ed at the LAT site.

How Not To Hide A Crime and Human Trafficking

Fortunately, the boy is recovering and will be OK.

Not the smartest illegal immigrants in the world:

Springville police arrested two men Wednesday in connection with the hit-and-run accident Sunday afternoon that sent 15-year-old Joshua Evans to the hospital with severe injuries.

Police say a 26-year-old male was driving a red Pontiac Firebird on Sunday afternoon when he hit Evans, who was riding his bike. After police asked the public for help locating the vehicle, officers say the man panicked and, with the help of his 19-year-old brother, drove the car up Spanish Fork Canyon on Monday night, put a container of gas in the back and pushed the vehicle off the Thistle Overlook.

“He told us he wanted to hide the car where he thought we wouldn’t find it,” said Springville Police Lt. Dave Caron. “It didn’t work out for him.”

A group of campers near where the car landed saw the car’s flames and called the Spanish Fork Fire Department, who notified Springville police when they realized it was a red Firebird.

With the help of the Utah State Motor Pool, officers were able to locate the vehicle identification number and trace it back to the family of the two men. Both are believed to be in the country illegally, and agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement helped locate them.

The younger brother was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence in an unrelated incident early Wednesday morning, Caron said. After police interviewed him, they decided to hold him for investigation of obstruction of justice. The older brother was arrested later Wednesday morning, for investigation of leaving the scene of an accident and obstruction of justice. Police say he was arrested without incident and confessed to hitting Evans and attempting to torch the car.

As for the boy:

…the most satisfying aspect has been Evans’ speedy recovery. He has been moved out of the intensive care unit at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center and is now listed in fair condition.

“When (the accident) first happened, we weren’t sure he’d pull through,” Caron said. “So we’re really thrilled.”

…Evans was scheduled to be released today.

In some sadder news, however (if you have not already heard about this):
Witnesses: SUV Driver Fondling Woman Before Crash - the driver (a human trafficker) resulted in the death of 8 illegal immigrants. Click here for video of the story.

According to the story: “He [ Rigoberto Salas-Lopez, the driver] said he was given the vehicle by a man in Phoenix who offered him $1,000 to drive the people to St. Louis from Phoenix”.

If this is accurate, I would hope that the Phoenix man is found and tried as an accomplice to murder or human trafficking, at a minimum.

Harry Reid: Give Iraq to the Terrorists

Via the AFP:

The war in Iraq “is lost” and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.

“I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Reid said, on the same day US President George W. Bush was giving a speech at an Ohio town hall meeting defending the war on terror.

Just disgusting.

UPDATE: troop reaction: here and here as well as at Pat Dollard’s site (note: the end of the reaction has some raw language) .

Protecting Your Credit For Free (Update)

I discussed ucourts a few days ago (click here for the post) with respect to verifying your and your child’s social security number (SSN) and running criminal checks on those who they come into contact with.

As I stated then, I used ucourts myself and verified the SSNs of several family members. Unfortunately, one member had someone else’s name on their SSN record.

Currently, I’m not certain if the apparent breach was simply a clerical error (such as the human resources clerk typing in the wrong SSN) or something more nefarious. Nevertheless, Alberto Toledo of Wenatchee is listed as having used or using the number.

The good news is that, thus far, it doesn’t appear that he has established any credit on the SSN (at least he hasn’t negatively impacted the credit report*).

Finally, if you do find fraud on your report, you may want to consider the 7 year freeze, which requires a police report. More information on the other steps you will need to take can also be found at:Utah Attourney General’s IRIS Program
UCourts.com - Identity Theft Basics

UPDATE: Some of the Experian information I had may not have been as good as I thought. Apparently the credit is not frozen and those issuing you (of the ID thief) a line of credits simply have the option of contacting you but do NOT have to. In other words, if they care more about the sale than your ID, they will ignore the alert and give the thief the credit. As such I have pulled the information from this post.

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*If someone uses your SSN (but NOT your name) to establish credit, credit bureaus create a subfile for the different name which is NOT available to you (even on your free credit reports - only banks/other institutions can see the sub files) - see page 3 of the link. As a result you may check your reports but be totally unaware of the other line of credit that has been established unless you see your score go down or are unexpectedly rejected for a loan. Yikes.

Virginia Tech

I’ve held off saying anything about the Virginia Tech shootings simply because I wanted to wait for the dust to settle and allow for some clear information to be presented. Anytime something like this occurs there is a flurry of information. Often, the massive amount of information (which tends to be a mix of accurate and inaccurate items) in a relatively short amount of time makes for a hazy view of what happened, to say the least.

Hot Air (see above) did do a pretty good job of disseminating things as they unraveled. Currently, Hot Air has started a new thread which brings further clarity. FreeRepublic is also a good clearing house for a plethora of news stories on the massacre (click on the vatech or virginiatech keyword).

I’m sure there will be plenty of details that will surface for the next few weeks.

Right now, three things seem apparent:

1. Students were entirely defenseless during the shootings. Virginia Tech retained a firearms ban. Of course, innocent, law abiding citizens will follow that rule while criminals will take advantage of it. One thing is for certain, no one knows what would have occurred if students and faculty were allowed to have firearms - just because they could, does not guarantee they would choose to provide for their on defense. Nevertheless, allowing law abiding folks the option to protect themselves wouldn’t have hurt -  the gun ban only ensured protection for the murderer.

2. There was a significant delay in informing students about the threat and locking down the campus. Police initially classified the first shooting as a murder-suicide. More information is coming out about this and the ‘person on interest’ (see the new Hot Air thread I linked above). I’m not going to second guess the police or school officials at this time on this. Hindsight is 20/20, I’m certain things would’ve been handled differently, had they known. The only thing I would like answered here is what led them to believe that when neither body had a gun near it? Or was it just a miscommunication (ie they really classified it as a domestic homicide with a fugitive they didn’t believe was a threat to anyone else)…

3. Prior to letting the dust settle and clarifying any ‘facts’ or seemingly even attempting to learn of the firearms used, some in the media and politics have quickly jumped on the ‘ban guns’ bandwagon (Brian Ross - ABC News, Rep. McCarthy, MSNBC Gun Control Special)

After all, it has worked so well for gun-free schools compared to something like the Appalachian School of Law.

Finally, as in all tragedies, a hero emerges. I doubt he will be the only one.

Who’s Using Your Child’s Social Security Number?

I don’t usually plug another site that charges for stuff, but this is the exception. I’ve blogged about identity theft on several occasions and paid particular attention to the fact that ID thieves (either illegal immigrants or traditional ID thieves) love targeting children. Alas, it is often very tedious and expensive to check your child’s SSN. The same feeling applies to criminal record checks on people who have contact with your child (should you feel the need). Not any more. I was referred to a very affordable, and easy to use, site:

UCOURTS (see also: about page)
I was told the site allows you to check your (and your children’s) social security number to verify no one else is using it.

The fee is nominal compared to other programs out there (yes, I’m cheap). It charges $5 per verification submission but requires you to purchase $15 increments (3 submissions). If you only need to run 2 numbers, you will retain one credit for the next time you use the service.

You can also run criminal checks for $5 (Utah only right now, but it will soon be expanded to a nationwide search) . That lets you know if your child’s soccer coach etc is someone you can trust.

I tried out the service and found it straight forward and easy. I ran several searches and it only took me about 7 minutes from start to finish (for the entire process NOT per search).Note: if you run your children’s SSNs, you will want a ‘no records in our database’ (or some statement to that effect) result.

Finally, if you don’t think your children would be the target of ID theft, you are wrong! Take a look at the Identity Theft category for some proof (especially the “…Victimless Crimes” posts). ID thieves love children’s identities.

More Meatpacker Raids? (ID Theft)

I came across this article a couple of days ago, but didn’t have the time to post anything about it until now. Below is a link to the article and some excerpts.

Packing plant workers prepare for raids:

DODGE CITY - Frightened by raids last year at six Swift & Co. plants, illegal immigrants in the nation’s meatpacking towns are preparing for their possible arrest.

…the United Food and Commercial Workers union has printed a bilingual immigration rights kit it plans to distribute nationwide to workers in the coming weeks. The kit includes practical information, legal documents and sample letters.

“We want to make sure they (immigration officials) don’t take advantage of our people,” said Martin Rosas, secretary-treasurer for UFCW in Dodge City.

Among those making preparations since attending a workshop is the family of a 43-year-old man who works under a false identity at the National Beef plant in Liberal. Two of his four children, ranging in age from 4 to 18, were born in the United States, where he has lived on an off for 21 years. [emphasis added]

His wife, a 39-year-old illegal immigrant, asked not to be identified for fear the family would be arrested. The family is writing documents so her brother, a legal resident, would have custody of the children if the parents are deported. They have put their few possessions in another person’s name and are trying to save what little money they can.

Rosas said UFCW’s bilingual kit will explain workers’ rights and offer practical advice for dealing with immigration problems. Among the documents in the kit are sample letters immigrants can use to better respond to the federal government’s inquiries about problems with Social Security numbers. [emphasis added]

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson] said illegal immigrants sometimes steal identities to get past the government’s “Basic Pilot” program, which screens Social Security numbers to make sure they’re real and that they match up with the person’s name.

Don Stull, a University of Kansas anthropology professor and industry expert, said it’s estimated about 25 percent of people working at the nation’s meatpacking plants are in the country illegally. In the Swift raids, about 10 percent of the company’s work force was arrested.

Two points:

It is nice to know that the UCFW is concerned that immigration officials don’t take advantage of their people. Too bad that concern isn’t extended to those who have been taken advantage of by ‘their people’ (whether it be stolen identities of their children or increased insurance costs etc).

I would very much like to know the details and see the suggested responses illegal immigrants are supposed to give to law enforcement regarding “problems with social security numbers”. Further, I would hope that the information would not assist other identity thieves (such as fugitives) on how to evade further scrutiny by law enforcement.