Monday, December 05, 2005

Jed Babbin: On Way to Iraq

Tomorrow night, I depart for a few days in Iraq. If all goes as planned I will visit with U.S. and Iraqi troops, interview some of the government leaders, and come home with a better understanding of what we're up against.

The Washington Post's revelation of the secret terrorist jails was news only because it listed some of the nations that host these facilities. Anyone who was paying attention knew Khalid Sheik Mohamed, once al-Qaeda's #3, was captured in Pakistan in 2003. Various government spokesmen said KSM was in U.S. custody outside U.S. borders, and the Pentagon denied he was held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But what of the others we captured who weren't at Gitmo? You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that we had one or more secret facilities in friendly nations, which term we now define to exclude France, Germany, and the rest of the EUnuchs. If you spent a few moments with a map, you'd say that some of these places were in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and anywhere else nations chose to side with us, quietly and effectively, in the wider war.

All the pols flocking to television studios to express their outrage -- especially the EUnuchs, who demand full disclosure from us and threaten each other over cooperation with us -- are only displaying the lack of intellectual horsepower that prevented them from reaching these conclusions without the help of Dana Priest. The fact that Secretary Rice is telling the EUnuchs to butt the hell out is the best action by the State Department since Adlai Stevenson's U.N. speech faced down the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis.

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