Republicus Returns

Republicus is back and trusts everyone has had a joyful holiday season and a Happy New Year.

He would like to extend his warmest gratitude (in general order of appearance) to guests Douglass, Phelonius, Dana, Anon v.20, George Warbucks, Irina, Kafir (who I hope to vindicate), Amy, John Roper, Clampett (who's a spittin' image of Kafir), and, most especially, Kelly and Nanc, for keeping the place lived in and lively and the seat warm while your host saw to other, extra-blogular matters.

Republicus is well aware that in the half-year hiatus of production from the last, July 6 post until now there was much news of blogworthy natures to note and discuss. Indeed, so significant--even historic-- have been many of the events that our republic has decidedly become a horse of a different color in a mere six months (not exactly the blink of an eye, although the world does seem to be spinning much faster).

Unfortunately, Republicus could not divide his time and serve two masters. He was watchful and ruminative, however, and now and then commented on a noteworthy something and stored the draft like a squirrel burying a nut in the yard, to be resurrected with the fresh, newsbreaking immediacy of its original debut preserved (and with no moldy nuttiness whatsoever).

And so, assuming (though by no means guaranteeing at this somewhat transitional juncture in the life of Republicus) increasing regularity of production, Republicus may post and comment on a subject that has already been rapaciously deflowered, molested, and manhandled by the orgiastic MSM quite some time ago (i.e. within the last six months) and may appear to be beating a dead horse and being behind the curve.

But although the MSM enjoys beating the life out of its racing and racy subjects, Republicus can breathe life back into them and do them a greater justice (if even only by two-cents worth).

And as for being "behind the curve" because of forthcoming but belated "newsbreaking," Republicus--quite frankly--has been so far out ahead of the curve on some of the most pressing issues of the day that he can afford the casual luxury of playing catch-up.

For example, Republicus on the Environment:

In the December 10, 2005 post "Former-President Clinton Is A LIAR!" Republicus wrote:

Former-President Clinton told a global audience of diplomats, environmentalists and others Friday that "There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating and caused by human activities."

Did he say "accelerated and caused by human activities?" No. He said "accelerating," which seems to be true when factoring the derivatives of the velocity of infinitesimal temperature increases over the last century...but when immediately conjugated with "and caused by human activities," it comes off as "accelerated and caused by human activities," with the subliminal message being "caused and accelerated by human activities," while grammatically--technically-- allowing a denial that he said--no less meant-- that.

...

But this, ladies and gentlemen: "There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real...and caused by human activities," IS A LIE.

There is very serious doubt.

Carbon emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels account for percentiles of the cumulative greenhouse gases which contribute to the Greenhouse Effect.

A year and a month later, the United Nations finally comes around to agree with Republicus (bold added):

UN Downgrades Man's Impact On The Climate
Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:37am GMT 11/12/2006

Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year.

In the same December 10, 2005 post, Republicus also wrote:

The main culprits (i.e. of global warming) are solar flares (which don't give a damn if you drive a Hummer), volcanic activity (which also, while spewing greenhouse gases, apparently counteract any greenhouse effect they contribute to by becoming atmospheric coolants because of their reflective properties), and manure.

Yes. Manure.

i.e. BULLSHIT.

Exactly one year later (bolds added):

Cow 'Emissions' More Damaging To Planet Than CO2 From Cars
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 December 2006

Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock (by Republicus: particularly their flatulence!) are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

Yes. Republicus could have told you all that "news" a full year before.

And did.

Note this:

"Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together."

Did the reporter just say that the cumulative amount of greenhouse gas emissions from all forms of transportation account for less than 18% of all greenhouse gases?

Yes, he did.

What did Republicus write exactly one year before?

This:

Carbon emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels account for percentiles of the cumulative greenhouse gases which contribute to the Greenhouse Effect.

But what does that mean?

It means that:

(1) The overwhelming amount of greenhouse gases are indeed created by natural phenomena that we can do nothing about, like solar flares and volcanoes, and natural byproducts like cow farts (which means McDonald's and Burger King are going to start getting the Phillip Morris treatment soon).

(2) The global warming activists who identify human industry as the main "cause" and "accelerator" of warming are full of cow ca-ca.

i.e. BULLSHIT.

Republicus on the Correlation Between Rising Oil Prices and Inflation:

In the April 21, 2006 post "Dead Dinosaur Gunk Going Gold," Republicus wrote:

LONDON (Reuters)— Oil (i.e. dead dinosaur gunk) rose to a new peak of $75 a barrel on Friday as investment funds snapped up crude futures and tension mounted over Iran's nuclear intentions.

Republicus: This must be affecting the macroeconomies of the oil-consuming world in very insidiously-erosive ways.

Every consumer product runs on, or is accompanied by, or is made with, oil.

EVERYTHING.

...

And so, the spike in oil prices--and, make no mistake, the spike will continue to climb-- will reverberate across the entire macroeconomy as microeconomies everywhere begin hemorrhaging cash just to maintain previous levels of operation, and receiving needed transfusions by raising prices.

How can inflation remain suppressed if oil hits $100.00/barrel?

Just over eight months later the population at large is informed by the MSM (bold added):

Producer Prices Spike By Largest Amount in 30 Years on Higher Energy Prices
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

WASHINGTON — U.S. producer prices jumped a bigger-than-expected 2 percent in November, the largest gain in more than three decades, on a spike in energy prices, a government report showed on Tuesday.

...

The rise in overall producer prices was the largest since a matching 2 percent in November 1974. That gain is likely to cause anxiety inflationary pressures that are not fully contained and may seep into retail prices.

Yes. Republicus could have told you that eight months earlier.

And did.

Republicus on the Inherent Flaws of the Real Estate boom:

In the lively commentary section of the April 8, 2006 post "Who Is He Calling 'Stupid?'" Republicus supported the impressive pros of the Bush Recovery and Expansion against the insanely nitpicking Anonymous but also provided the real cons:

Republicus: What you (i.e. Anonymous) fail to mention is the record-amount of foreclosures, and what would be interesting to know is if the ratio of buying:foreclosing has been relatively, reasonably, constant or if in fact the foreclosing variable has increased, and to what extent, as the danger is the loosening of lending practices which allowed people who couldn't afford a particular home to find themselves owning it and paying a mortgage they couldn't afford by the earlier lending standards.

A lot of that was enabled by the lower interest rates, but a lot of the mortgages are ARMs, which means that an uptick of a whole point or two in interest could indeed cause a loud popping sound and a cascade of foreclosures.

Over eight months later (bolds added):

Report Reveals 2.2 Million Borrowers Face Foreclosure on Subprime Home Loans

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) study reveals that 2.2 million American households will lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market.

...

CRL's research suggests that risky lending practices have triggered the worst foreclosure crisis in the modern mortgage market, projecting that one out of five (19.4%) subprime loans issued during 2005-2006 will fail.

Yes. Republicus could have told you that eight months earlier as well.

And did.

Republicus on Politics and the Midterm Elections:

Although Republicus makes sound analyses and can offer the logical/probable conclusions/consequences to a set of existing and dynamic variables before they culminate accordingly, and although he does lend polls some credence in providing accurate, demographic snapshots (be reminded that although pollsters erroneously "predicted" a Kerry victory in 2004, they did--quite accurately--call the 2000 contest "too close to call" and "a dead heat" in the weeks leading up to Election Day), he does not--and cannot-- engage in mind-reading clairvoyance and fortune-telling predictions and say what people in general--which includes you-- are thinking and what they are going to do (e.g. in the voting booth)...

...although he has the number of those who unapologetically do just that, the leftists (i.e. the modern-day "liberal") and can pretty much read them like a book and has concluded that they are, indeed, a predictable bunch, and a foolish one, as they've squandered their credibility and recklessly put their reputations on the line by vociferously "predicting" all sorts of wishful-thinking nonsense, from Al Gore's Florida State Court-decreed elevation to the presidency in 2000 to the U.S. military's quick defeats shortly after invading Afghanistan and Iraq to the American Economy crashing and not getting up to Carl Rove "frog-marching" because of the ridiculous--and dismissed--Plame affair to a Kerry victory in 2004 to a landsliding victory for the 2006 midterm elections, none of which materialized in any resemblance to the "reality" conjured up by the knuckle-headed--if not deranged--Bush-hater.

Most of those "predictions" (particularly in regards to electoral turnouts) were premised on the snide lefty's arrogant conceit that he is "in touch" with "The American People"...

...who supposedly are as egotistically shallow, historically illiterate, politically dense, treasonous, godless, hateful, judgmental, intolerant, petty, and vindictive as the Bush-hating leftists themselves most certainly are.

All that being said, as to Republicus' predictions for the 2006 midterm elections, in the April 20, 2006 post "Was It Something I Said? :(" (over six months before Election Day), Republicus wrote:

Ignore the suggestions--if not assertions--that "At last! America has woken up to what the Bush-haters have been saying all along, wa-ha!" and that "Oh, I'm a Pepper, and he's a Pepper, and she's a Pepper, and wouldn't you like to be a Dr. Pepper too?" (i.e. a Bush-Hater), because Republicus doesn't think that the disgruntled 10-15% of erstwhile Bush-approvers are ready to vote Democrat any time soon, but simply are recoiling from a political spectacle that has been Jerry-Springerized (while enjoying the highest standard of living in history).

Indeed, despite the erstwhile resident Bush-hating troll par excellence Lee Harvey's repulsive--and wrong--"THE PEOPLE Will Rise!" and "Everyone Knows!" rabble-rousing, the midterm results were extremely close:

18 U.S. House seats were decided by less than 5,000 votes each--and three U.S. Senate seats were decided by 2% or less of the vote.

Historically, when compared to other midterm elections at this juncture of a two-term president, the opposition party did poorly.

It was nowhere near the predicted "landslide," and should not be characterized as some kind of Bush-hating "mandate" the way the historic-- and truly landsliding--1994 mid-terms were indeed an anti-Clinton mandate, and the 2004 pasting of Democrats a pro-war one.

The Republicans are not quite "sitting pretty," but they are certainly not neutralized as the Democrats have essentially been for years (although the figurehead of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of The House is--symbolically, at least-- a demoralizing factor, to be sure).

Republicus did sally forth and--prudently--extend this:

Republicus will venture a prediction: The mid-term elections will have a record turn-out of Democratic voters.

If Republicans manage to still be sitting pretty, that will be accomplished by the highest total turnout in history (i.e. reciprocal Republican participation).

Now, Republicus--a Northern Virginian--was admittedly forecasting nationally, and that--i.e. a record, national turnout of Democratic voters in mid-term elections--might very well still prove true, after all, but, try as he might, Republicus can't validate that right now (if anyone can, feel free to do so).

However, his prediction was dead-on when applied to the pivotal state of Virginia (which may have influenced his national outlook by the osmosis of the immediate proximity), and certainly conformed to the general contours nationwide, anyway (if "a record" was not actually made):

Washington, November 8, 2006 (CBS/AP): A preliminary analysis shows voter turnout this year was slightly higher than the last midterm election, a little over 40 percent, says Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

Turnout was down in some states and up in others — notably up in Virginia, where it appeared a higher number voted than in any midterm in the state's history.

It also was a big turnout success for Democrats. They drew more voters than Republicans for the first time in a midterm election since 1990, Gans said Wednesday.

The national figure of slightly over 40 percent turnout this year compares with 39.7 percent in the last midterm in 2002.

National turnout could end up substantially higher, pending more complete numbers from California and Washington state, Gans said. The highest recent midterm turnout was 42.1 percent in 1982.

And that was the preliminary report on November 8, 2006.

Republicus could have forecasted as much over six months earlier.

And did.

Republicus on Iraq:

Republicus has not wavered one iota from what he has consistently wrote since his earliest posts, and stands by those words of yesteryear with equal conviction:

Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Saddam Had To Go

There is a bizarre inversion of the direction of hostility going on that is aimed not at our enemy-- the apprehended Saddam and the climate of Terror he presided over and is still kicking-- but at President Bush for sending the troops in to take him out.

It is understood that the opposition party, its allies in the media, and its politically-active sympaticos in the population--all rife with "Blame America First"/Anti-War Bush-haters-- will engage in all sorts of spin and demagoguery to darken the portrait of the sitting president, but to propagandize with the obvious intent to defame the president’s signature issue-—his prosecution of the War on Terror—-by pessimistically and essentially mischaracterizing the war, is unconscionable, as it results in the demoralizing of our troops and the emboldening of our enemies (precisely as the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era did, which seems to be the pattern the Bush-Haters are trying to replicate).

The Global War on Terror should not be defined as a multi-billion dollar manhunt for Osama Bin Laden. The massive mobilization of the greatest military force in history is not the rounding up of some posse on behalf of a lynch-mob mentality, hoping to hang the man behind the crime of 9-11 which killed 3,000 + civilians one fine day, and then walk away, leaving the status quo largely intact--and burgeoning.

It is a long-term operation which endeavors not to simply excise a malignant, symptomatic growth -—Bin Laden-- but to aggressively confront and treat the underlying condition of Middle-Eastern Wahabism, an extreme, intolerant, and bellicose form of Islam which produced Bin Laden and has declared war and death upon the West in terms of satan and scorpions and which considers women and children legitimate military targets in the pursuit of their own agenda.

It is a very bold and ambitious endeavor, and the domestic argument should not be about whether Saddam’s Iraq qualified as a strategic target in the broad outlines of the Global War on Terror. It does, and that should be obvious by the suicide bombings, the cafe attacks, the decapitations, and the civilian massacres employed by the Iraqi “insurgents.”

THEY'RE TERRORISTS.

Instead, the argument proper should be about whether we should (a) aggressively proceed in intrusive efforts to re-wire—-if not destroy—the Medieval zeitgeist which emanates hate and death out of the Middle East and reverberates around the 21st Century world, explicitly threatens the welfare of the West, and creates instability in an otherwise cooperative movement towards globalization, or (b) to back off, mollify it, contain it, work around it, and spray it from time to time as needed ad infinitum in an obviously failed policy which President Bush accurately described as “Swatting flies” while wasps swarm.

It is a question of whether one supposes that the “nuisances” of the “pesky” regularities of terrorism throughout the 1990’s that reached an intolerable crescendo on September 11, 2001 were acceptable and willing to be endured as they obviously escalated in magnitude, from the 1993 Al Qaeda-orchestrated downing of two Black Hawk helicopters and the killing of 18 American soldiers and the dragging of their corpses through the streets of Mogadishu (who were there on a humanitarian mission)...to the first World Trade Center attack of that same year (when it was hit low), which killed six civilians and injured 1,000... to the 1998 bombings of our sovereign embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 258 and injured 5,000... to the year 2000 bombing of the U.S.S Cole (a guided-missile destroyer of the United States Navy), which killed 17 United States servicemen and women... to the attacks of 9-11, when 3,000 + human beings of diverse backgrounds were killed by the hijacking and destruction of four commercial airliners, the ensuing collapse of the World Trade Center (when it was determinedly hit high this time around), and the blind-siding of the Pentagon (the brain center of the Armed Forces of the United States).

The fourth plane, brought down in the Pennsylvania countryside by Todd Beemer and the boys--well, the real men, actually-- was heading for the White House or the Capitol Building.

Much is being made of the fact that Bin Laden’s head has not been delivered on a pike, and the Bush-haters are using that fact as some indication that President Bush is not properly or succesfully prosecuting the war.

First of all, the war plan is much bigger than Bin Laden. Bin Laden was simply the last straw in a haystack which needs to be bailed or burned.

Secondly, we did get him, for all intents and purposes. He is in all probability laying very, very low in a cave somewhere, a la Saddam in his spider-hole, fearful of even using a cell-phone (which is preferable, actually, as he can behold the “paper tiger” turned awakened Giant and ponder his folly). Let him disseminate on videotape his sermons and lectures in the hopes of defeating his arch-enemy, George W. Bush.

One thing is certain: His capture or his coerced cavorting with 70 virgins in some unearthly realm is inevitable and will certainly satisfy some aspect of justice, but it would not end the conflict, as it will provide nowhere near the finale for the war that, for example, Emperor Hirohito’s formal surrender to President Truman on the U.S.S. Missouri did for WWII.

President Bush has said repeatedly that the nature of this new kind of war, and the measurement of its success, cannot be gauged by previous standards of armies routed and leaders signing surrender papers. That will not work with Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network, or like-minded extremists who do not belong to Al Qaeda proper, but are brothers in arms in outlook.

Differences can easily be drawn between the Jihadist terror network of Al Qaeda that was operating out of Afghanistan—-which was directly responsible for the hatching and carrying out of the plot of 9-11—-and the secular Baathist-run nation of Saddam’s Iraq, and it is those rather superficial and circumstantial differences which are amplified by the various Bush-hating organizations and propaganda outlets on a daily basis to form a wedge which separates Saddam’s Iraq from the Taliban’s Afghanistan.

But let’s review the record of Saddam, and decide if such a character with global influence was not only as worthy of attention as Bin Laden (if not more), but should have been tolerated as the civilized world marches into increased modernity in the 21st Century while being harassed by Jihadist terrorists along the way who have declared war on the West in no uncertain terms:

(1) Saddam fancies (or fancied) himself to be not only the heir to the Medieval Saladin (while minding the connotative fact that Saladin expelled the Anglo Crusaders from Jerusalem and made the Jewish city Muslim) but also some reincarnation of the ancient, Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar (while minding the present-day connotation of the fact that Nebuchadnezzar had exiled and subjugated the ancient Israelites).

(2) Saddam built and lived in monumental, luxurious palaces and his eldest son Uday amassed a fleet of expensive automobiles while the Iraqi civilian population suffered under sanctions that Saddam himself brought upon them. It should be added that the maintaining and even expanding of the luxurious lifestyle despite constrictive sanctions was apparently enabled by lucrative kickbacks of sorts from the United Nation’s Oil-for-Food program, and side-deals with UN members, who conducted business with Saddam and also profited while the United States was roundly condemned by the BAFs (i.e. pre-war Blame-America-Firsters) for “starving” the people of Iraq with the sanctions specifically designed to ensure that the Iraqi people would not starve.

What the corrupt UN members were doing was buying oil from Saddam beneath the publicized price, and kicking back half the difference, which, when dealing with the world’s second largest oil producer, was quite a difference for both pockets, and, by the secretive nature of the transactions, had the same unaccountability as cash. And it was those very nations-—France and Germany-—who resisted forced change of that status quo on the grounds of “legality” and “principle.”

(3) Saddam had thousands of political opponents tortured, murdered, and buried in unmarked mass graves.

(4) Against International Law, Saddam fumigated ranks of thousands of Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds alike with chemical weapons (as if spraying cockroaches with Raid).

(5) Against International Law, in 1991 Saddam brazenly invaded his Muslim neighbor (Kuwait) to the south (however artificially drawn the borders were way back in Lawrence of Arabia’s day) in order to seize a good-sized gas-pump of the world’s NUMBER ONE energy resource (oil), a seizure which, if allowed, would have given Iraq under his fist-—and then the dreaded Qusay’s for another generation-- undisputed hegemony over the Middle-East and economic influence on a global scale, assuredly protecting, enabling, emboldening, bribing, and enlarging the already well-financed institutions of anti-Western Jihadists of which had only recently been aggressively addressed and begun to be dismantled.

Saddam, a secularist leader, obviously tolerated and even pandered to Jihadists within his own borders, as long as they spat their Jihadist venom at Israel and the West, and not at him.

(6) Saddam only high-tailed it out of Kuwait by force after being given a stern but patient warning by POTUS, whom he responded to by challenging to a fight in “The Mother of all Battles.”

(7) Saddam lobbed SCUD missiles into Israel during the expulsion in the hopes that Israeli retaliation would compel the Arab partners of the coalition to jump ship or to his side. If Israel did not have the discipline and presence of mind to restrain itself, such a ploy had the potential to incite full-blown Jihad and ignite global Armageddon, a price Saddam was spitefully willing to pay for his own survival (i.e. if he was going down, the world was going with him).

(8) In another fit of spite, Saddam ignited oil wells on the hasty retreat, unconscionably creating an ecological disaster and destroying a large supply of oil (which is, once again, the number one energy resource for the civilized world) in the process.

(9) Saddam signed a United Nations Security Council Resolution in 1991 in order to cease hostilities and stay in power and would violate that and FIFTEEN more throughout the 1990’s.

(10) Saddam was behind a 1993 assassination attempt upon the retired POTUS who drove him out of Kuwait.

A foreign leader putting out a vindictive hit on a former POTUS is tantamount to an act of war.

(11) Saddam had a tiled mosaic of the head and shoulders of that POTUS gracing the lobby floor of the international Rashid Hotel, subjecting the facial image to the soles of hundreds of shoes a day, which is a widely-publicized and extremely-undiplomatic Mother Of All Insults.

(and yet it is the very son of that POTUS, POTUS 43, who is held responsible-- by the Bush-haters-- for provoking the “failure in diplomacy” that led to Operation Iraqi Freedom)

(12) Saddam never accounted for the destruction of the documented and/or admitted possession of such bio-weapons as mustard, sarin, VX, and anthrax. All of the Western intelligence agencies, and President Bill Clinton in the 1990’s, and Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, to boot, believed that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction up his sleeve, was a threat to the stability of the Middle East, and, furthermore, was a likely candidate to slide such weapons under the table to terrorist organizations who are bent upon the destruction of Israel, the United States, and then the seizure of Europe by sheer default.

In the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists, a few boxcutters and airplane controls caused the devastation of 9-11. In the hands of an unknown terrorist(s), a few letters containing “high grade, very virulent and sophisticated” anthrax caused the evacuations and quarantines of the Senate Office Building and the U.S. Capitol Building, the potential murder of prominent newsanchor Tom Brokaw, and the actual murders of postal employees and unfortunate recipients of the lethal letters.

With Saddam's character and record considered (as briefly and incompletely itemized above and below), and in the context of weapons-proliferation in the post-9-11 world—-which is the number one issue of concern agreed to by both President Bush and Senator Kerry during the debates-—and the policy of zero tolerance, Saddam’s cooperation consisted of playing “Hide-&-Seek,” “Catch-Me-If-You-Can,” and “Maybe-I-Do-Maybe-I-Don’t” games.

Joe Wilson's claims to the contrary, Niger WAS dealing in yellow cakes and was contacted by North Korea, Libya, Iran, AND Iraq. Saddam was indeed concealing a nuclear centrifuge. And as late as March of 2003, Saddam was trying to acquire long-range missiles from North Korea.

We see how difficult it is, now, during the occupation with a 100,000 boots on the ground and nurturing a friendly government, to keep tabs on who and what is coming and going over the border, and what's being hidden where.

Yet somehow, the Bush-Hating crowd insists that everything would have been transparent and open if we had just let Hans Blix keep running around the country following leads from intelligence sources that we're often flying blind.

(13) On October 31 (Trick or Treat?), 1998, The Iraq Liberation Act was signed by President Clinton, which made regime change an official U.S. policy.

Here are parts of his statement:

Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region...

I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.

Give the man a cigar. That was well-put.

(14) Saddam encouraged terrorism against both Israeli military personnel and mall shoppers alike by rewarding the suicide bomber's families with sums ranging from $30,000 to $ 63,000, the total sum of bribes reaching $40,000, 000.

Meanwhile, his people were starving to death.

(15) Saddam felt free to take potshots at American surveillance planes in the No-Fly Zone right up to the time of the invasion itself, in continual contempt of the cease-fire agreement of 1991.

(16) The Al Qaeda terrorist Al-Zarqawi was operating in Afghanistan before he fled following the invasion that ousted the Taliban and decimated and scattered Al Qaeda. He has obviously found easy passage into Iraq, ready residence, and either has familiarity or assistance in finding his way above and below ground. He is identified as the masked judge, jury, and executioner who, with a knife, sawed off the heads of tied and kneeling American, British, and Japanese civilian contract and aid workers while they pleaded for their lives. He is but one of thousands of Jihadist terrorists now congregated in Iraq.

We do indeed see that Jihadist element of the Middle East--the stated enemy of the GWOT-- at work in Iraq right now. They are engaging in kamikaze civilian massacres, the disrupting of the civilian infrastructure, and the attempted sabotage of the germinating Constitutional and democratic government of the good Iraqi people.

From the July 18, 2005 issue of The Weekly Standard, there is a special report on the new evidence of collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda, by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn. Despite the "Expert" insistence by the hyperbolic antiwar elitists--and from the 2004 Democratic presidential ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards-- that Saddam had "nothing to do with Al Qaeda," this follow-up on Stephen Haye's book The Connection makes plain a cooperative nexus between the two that vindicates the president's decision to eliminate Saddam in the early phases of the GWOT.

Here are but a few excerpts:

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999...At the same time, the Iraqis were cultivating a relationship with Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the current top deputy to bin Laden. According to Qassem Hussein Mohammed, a 20-year veteran of Iraqi Intelligence, Zawahiri visited Baghdad in 1992 for a meeting with Hussein.

In a 2002 interview with the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg from a Kurdish prison in northeastern Iraq, the IIS veteran described his duties as a bodyguard for Zawahiri during his visit. This was not Zawahiri's only meeting with top Iraqi officials. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi Intelligence official, Zawahiri met with Iraqi Intelligence officials in Sudan several times from 1992 to 1995. A foreign intelligence service has corroborated that report, adding that at one of those meetings Zawahiri received blank Yemeni passports from an Iraqi Intelligence official.

In 1993, at Turabi's urging, bin Laden came to an "understanding" with Saddam Hussein that the al Qaeda leader and his followers would not engage in any anti-Hussein activities. The Clinton administration later included this development in its sealed indictment of bin Laden in 1998. According to the indictment: "Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.*

They have been there and are still there, killing our troops piecemeal not in the hopes of defeating us militarily. They can't. They're fighting on in the hopes that the controversy cooked and stirred up by the Bush-haters here at home will win it for them, providing fuel for the protests by killing and causing mayhem.

Those are 16 reasons above that, cumulatively, more than warranted the removal of such a leader from the political world stage, and they include the 16 violations of the United Nations Resolutions that kept him in power--if obeyed.

And yet, incredibly, the Bush-haters have zeroed-in on "The Sixteen Words" regarding uranium yellow cakes from Niger in the pre-war State of the Union Address , which they insist is a LIE that qualifies as a High Crime and Misdemeanor that justifies regime change here.

What madness is this?

A correlation has become evident with the increased stridency against the Commander in Chief here by the Bush-haters, and the increased audacity of the Jihadists. The Bush-haters,in turn, linked in a symbiotic nexus with the Jihadists, are themselves spurred to greater stridency with each additional casualty, and so they dance together.

...

Republicus stands by the mission to defeat those forces and welcome a new Iraq into the global community. Republicus stands by the good Iraqi people who must not be left at the mercy of the terrorists.

Strength and Honor. Long Live the Republic.