As of this writing, we’re 36 hours away from the election.

36 hours.

Hard to believe it’s been 4 years since the nightmare that was the 2000 elections. Over 3 years since 9-11. Almost 2 years since the beginning of the war in Iraq. We’ve come a long way, but have so much more of a way to go.

So here we are: the moment we’ve been waiting for is almost upon us. Early voting in most states is over. The polls in the “battleground states” are so close as to be within the margin of error. It’s anybody’s guess as to who will win. There have been several pundits who’ve come out in the last few weeks giving their (predictable) endorsements and along with that, the newspapers are throwing out their endorsements as well.

One thing I wanted to touch on in this post was the theme that we knew this election was going to come down to all along: national security, with the focus on Iraq. This election is going to boil down to who the American people trust the most with keeping them safe. Who the American people trust the most to finish what we’ve started in Iraq. Lawrence Kaplan, a senior editor at The New Republic, wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal today which talks about who the “liberal Iraqis” support for re-election: George W. Bush. Kaplan writes:

Liberal Iraqis repeat the same question: Will the U.S. leave? These, after all, are the Iraqis building institutions, occupying key positions in ministries, and cooperating openly with the U.S. And they’re the Iraqis with the most to lose in the event John Kerry makes good on his pledge to “bring the troops home where they belong.”

This prospect, once unimaginable, has become very real in Iraq. The fear of abandonment has transformed meetings between Iraqi and U.S. officials, until recently arenas for grievance, into forums for the expression of solidarity. Leading Iraqis stayed up late into the night to watch the presidential debates. “Sophisticated Iraqis are listening closely,” Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak Al-Rubaie says in a telephone interview. “Any discussion of withdrawal worries them.” Echoing this, Manhel al-Safi, who recently left his post as an aide in the prime minister’s office for a job in the Foreign Ministry, says, “There’s a level of fear–people in the government are afraid the Americans will leave Iraq.” He adds a personal plea to Sen. Kerry: “Mr. Senator, destruction is easy; building takes a long time.”

Such fears haven’t been spun out of whole cloth. As far as Iraqi elites are concerned, President Bush brought democracy to a land that knew only dictatorship. From Sen. Kerry, however, they hear no commitment to build a liberal state or, for that matter, any state. What they hear instead is a presidential aspirant who complains about “opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America,” even as his campaign aides dismiss Iraq’s prime minister as an American “puppet.”
Not surprisingly, surveys by the Iraqi Center for Research and Strategic Studies find that, whereas Mr. Bush garners the most support in the Kurdish north and from Iraq’s well-educated urban elites, Mr. Kerry draws his strongest support from what the Center’s Sadoun al-Dulame calls Iraq’s “hottest places”–hotbeds of resistance to the U.S. A poll taken earlier this month in Baghdad, for example, finds that while President Bush would win a higher tally in New Baghdad’s Christian precincts, Sen. Kerry carries Sadr City hands down.

Leaving aside that speechifying about a U.S. withdrawal culminates in what Mr. Rubaie describes as “a huge moral boost to the terrorists”: How does Sen. Kerry intend to work alongside the pro-U.S. Iraqis he denigrates at every turn? This is a practical as well as a moral question. By advancing the fiction that there’s no such thing as bringing the troops home too soon and nothing to justify an adequate level of expenditure in Iraq, he’s already signaled his willingness to forfeit America’s obligation to rebuild the country it turned inside out. And he offers this as heightened moral awareness.

Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak Al-Rubaie describes a Kerry victory as a “huge moral boost to the terrorists.” Why would the Iraqi national security adviser say that? Because Kerry’s position on the war in Iraq has been so nuanced as to be unintelligible. As the President has repeated consistently throughout these last few months, how can our troops, and how can the Iraqis fighting alongside them feel comfortable with someone who describes this war as the “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time”? If someone believes this is the wrong war, what kind of confidence does that person give to the people who are fighting to win it? How does describing this war in that manner work in helping us to bring allies onboard? When another country hears potential president Kerry say “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time” what does that say to them?

The answer to all of the above is that it says that Kerry is not committed in a way that is necessary of a Commander in Chief to win this war which our men and women are fighting bravely and that other countries need not be concerned with committing troops and/or money to this “wrong war” despite Kerry’s promises to bring them to the table. Kerry can say whatever he wants, that he won’t surrender the sovereignty of this country over to the UN and that he’ll “hunt down and kill the terrorists” but what do those very terrorists think when they hear someone describe Iraq - one of two countries where our troops and the coalition are battling terrorists daily - as the place where we have conducted the “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time”? How can they not secretly feel good about that?

This is not to suggest Kerry is “pro-terrorist” - I’m sure he’s not. But Kerry has shown a history of willingness to negotiate with people with whom you cannot negotiate. I won’t rehash his meeting in France during the Vietnam area but you know what the result of that “negotiation” was. Nothing. He failed in his attempt to negotiate with the Sandinistas back in the 80’s was just that - failed. Kerry mentioned a “global test” which our country must pass in order to conduct a war - which essentially is that we have to go into it with the UN’s blessing. What does it say to the Iraqis who know that the last time we went into Iraq full scale - in 1991 - that the Kerry “global test” was passed yet Kerry voted against the US going to war with Iraq?

The fact of the matter is that war is *never* the answer with John Kerry. Before I continue, let me just say that no one wants war. But as we’ve learned the hard way, it is sometimes necessary. John Kerry, as was Bill Clinton, is someone I can’t ever see being able to see what we’re doing in Iraq through to its logical conclusion. This man has repeatedly said that the President “misled” the people, he’s “lied” regarding Iraq, etc etc. How can this man lead our men and women in Iraq in a war he thinks was based on lies?

These are the questions that undecided voters need to ask themselves before they visit the polling booth on Tuesday. Forget the 60 Minutes hit pieces, all the campaign ads, and think about this one thing: when it comes to fighting terrorism, who has taken the most consistent position almost to the point of bullheadedness to some? The answer is obvious. Our President, even with the faults that he has, is the answer. John Kerry, on the other hand, you just don’t know how he’s going to feel about the war from one day to the next. Our men and women fighting in Iraq and the Iraqis who are fighting alongside them need to know that the man they call Commander in Chief is willing to stay committed to the mission there, who wants to see his vision of a democratic Iraq materialized because a free Iraq, alongside a free Afghanistan, will give hope to a region of the world which doesn’t have much in the way of hope. Showing the people of the Middle East that democracy is the answer promotes freedom and discourages the attitudes of those who want to promote hate and terror throughout the world.

This is why George W. Bush will have my vote on Tuesday. I encourage Bush supporters to call any family or friends you know who may not be voting or may be undecided and do what you can to convince them of your choice. Know any Democrats who may be leaning towards the President but still unsure? Have them read Tammy Bruce’s piece “Why Democrats Should Vote for Bush” for all they need to know. President Bush is the most sensible choice to make: in these troubled times, one person has stood out as the clear choice to lead us through them. There have been a lot of ups and downs on this road, to be sure, but they are ups and downs this country can and will weather. We must. And we must do so with President Bush as the Commander in Chief. Our men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq - we need to win this war because their lives lost must not have been lost in vain.

FYI, been a busy last couple of days for Sister T. Had a friend get married today, went to a party last night to celebrate the marriage pre-wedding - so it’s been a busy couple of days for me. Getting ready to head out in just a bit for the after-reception reception. I’ll be back to blogging tomorrow. Promise

Take a look at this. Proves there was definately activity at Al QaQaa shortly before the US invasion of Iraq. What kind of activity, though, is the mystery:

The Pentagon also declassified and released a single image, taken by reconnaissance aircraft or satellite just days before the war, showing two trucks outside one of the dozens of storage bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base.

The particular bunker is not one known to have contained any of the missing explosives, and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said the image only shows that there was some Iraqi activity at the base when it was taken, on March 17. Di Rita said the image says nothing about what happened to the explosives.

Another story from ABC News mentions on a video the obtained from an affiliate which they claim proves these explosives were still there after our troops visited the Al QaQaa site in early April. I’m awaiting independent verification rather than relying on their “expert’s” opinion.

There’s no question that some material was left unguarded there. The question is was it the HMX and RDX that is being so hotly debated now? Keep in mind that it’s not a big secret that we didn’t have all the ammo dumps protected after the invasion - so that’s not news. Why this has all of a sudden become news is beyond me, considering all that we’ve been told in the last year about the administration’s “poor post war planning.”

Visit my friend Solly’s new “Wisdom of Solomon” blog - Solly is a sometime contributor to the comments section here and has decided to try his hand at blogging. Good luck, Solly!

The curse has finally been lifted. Dan Drezner seems awfully happy

Update: Bush receives Curt Schilling’s endorsement

From Good Morning America today:

GIBSON: “Well, well said, Curt and Shonda. You both have certainly lifelong membership now in the Red Sox nation. It was a great thing to watch, and I think everybody – whether they were great Red Sox fans or not — had to admire what this team did. It was extraordinary, and one of the great stories of sport. And sport always produces such great stories. Curt, Shonda, great to have you with us. Congratulations.”

SCHILLING: “And make sure you tell everybody to vote, and vote Bush next week.”

Just saw this at the ABC News site. Looks like the Iraqi’s may have overstated what was at the Al-Qaqaa facility and these documents and not only that but the documents appear to support the contention that the vast bulk of these explosives were removed PRIOR to the OIF:

The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.

But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings” indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on “declaration” from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency’s inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the start of the United States launched “Operation Iraqi Freedom” in March 2003.

Just who could they have been removed by? The Russians, perhaps?

But in a further development, John Shaw, a deputy under-secretary of defence, suggested that “Russian units” had transported the explosives out of the country.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Shaw said: “For nearly nine months my office has been aware of an elaborate scheme set up by Saddam Hussein to finance and disguise his weapons purchases through his international suppliers, principally the Russians and French. That network included. . . employing various Russian units on the eve of hostilities to orchestrate the collection of munitions and assure their transport out of Iraq via Syria.”

The Russian embassy in Washington rejected the claims as “nonsense”, saying there were no Russian military in the country at the time.

Mr Shaw, who heads the Pentagon’s international armament and technology trade directorate, has not provided evidence for his claims and the Pentagon distanced itself from his remarks.

Bill Gertz at the Washington Times has more.

My thoughts on the possibility it could have been the Russian army who moved the explosives: if this story is true and the admin knew about this, it’s understandable why they would be reluctant to go public with it and are only now talking about it after two days of non-stop criticism from the Kerry camp - they have been trying to repair diplomatic relations with Russia. I’m still not sure what to make of this development, but if Mr. Shaw provides concrete proof of this, Mr. Kerry is going to look like an absolute fool. Let’s remember: it’s not so far off to believe that the Russians were in Iraq around the time of the war, when you consider this story.

As far as the ABC News story goes, if true it would blow a HUGE hole in both the Iraqi claim that 380 tons of materials were “looted” (something they’ve not been able to back up with fact as of this writing) as well as Mohamed ElBaradei’s repeated assertions that were supposed to back up this claim. It may end up that this shines an unflattering light on him and his motivations. Even the Washington Post is suspicious. My friends, I think this “scandal” is getting ready to be blown right out of the water and hopefully when all the smoke clears, the President will be redeemed.

Does it get any better on the “just chillin’ out” homefront than listening to Norah Jones?

Come Away With Me
Artist: Norah Jones
Album: Come Away With Me

Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can’t tempt us
With their lies

I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows
knee-high
So won’t you try to come

Come away with me and we’ll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me
And I’ll never stop loving you

And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I’m safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

Remarkable! (emphasis added by Sister T)

“This morning, we learned more disturbing news about the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives in Iraq. We already know these weapons could produce bombs that can demolish entire buildings… blow up airplanes… destroy tanks… and kill our troops. Terrorists used explosives like this to take down Pan Am 103 and al Qaeda used it to attack the USS Cole. The missing explosives could very likely be in the hands of terrorists and insurgents - who are attacking our forces nearly 90 times a day in Iraq.”

From 10/7/04: (snips denote a break I inserted in the article)

Democratic Sen. John Kerry said Thursday that a new report finding Iraq had no stockpiles of banned weapons “provided definitive evidence as to why George Bush should not be re-elected president of the United States.” *snip*

Kerry rejected the argument, saying that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction that the administration presented to Congress was why he and other lawmakers voted to give Mr. Bush the authority to go to war.

“My fellow Americans, you don’t make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact,” Kerry said. “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States may well be the last two people on the planet who won’t face the truth about Iraq.” *snip*

Kerry said the evidence of weapons of mass destruction was overblown and designed to “purposefully used to shift the focus from al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.”

Hmmm. Hasn’t the President argued repeatedly that one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq was so that weapons such as the ones that apparently went missing prior to the invasion (my view, anyway) - the one’s that John Kerry states “…could produce bombs that can demolish entire buildings… blow up airplanes… destroy tanks… and kill our troops. Terrorists used explosives like this to take down Pan Am 103 and al Qaeda used it to attack the USS Cole”? Yes, in fact. The President has made that very argument. No one needs a link to recall the countless times he has done so.

This is the kind of material that Bush worried would get into the hands of the terrorists. This is the kind of material that John Kerry once upon a time didn’t consider a grave enough threat to go to war (”wrong war, wrong place, wrong time” - let’s not forget that quote).

Sometime between the last time the IAEA last checked this site (mid March) and very early April, when the 3rd ID arrived on the scene, these weapons were very likely moved. The Boston Globe reports today that Col. David Perkins, who commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, stated that it was ”very highly improbable” that someone could have trucked out so much material once U.S. forces arrived in the area. Here’s more from that story:

Perkins and others in the military acknowledged that some looting at the site had taken place. But he said a large-scale operation to remove the explosives using trucks almost certainly would have been detected.

Perkins, now a staff officer at the Pentagon, was made available to reporters by Defense Department spokesmen. Perkins’ account comes in the middle of a furious exchange of accusations between the campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry over what happened to the missing explosives.

Larry Di Rita, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, said what ultimately happened to the explosives is unknown. The department is investigating. But Perkins’ description seemed to point toward the possibility that the explosives were removed before the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, rather than during the chaos afterward.

Despite the drumbeat of “administration incompetence” by the usual suspects, the above scenario appears to be the most likely one. The only “imcompetence” appears to be on the part of the people who reported this story in its various forms, and of course the Kerry campaign, which is running with these distortions without knowing what the full facts really are. One more thing to remember: perhaps we’d have been in Iraq a bit sooner and snagged these weapons if we wouldn’t have participated in the foot dragging/pandering going on in the UN that people like John Kerry demanded we do prior to the war.

The President’s response to the Kerry attacks on this story:

“After repeatedly calling Iraq the ‘wrong war,’ and a ‘diversion,’ Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq was a dangerous place, full of dangerous weapons. The Senator used to know that, even though he seems to have forgotten it over the course of the campaign, but after all that’s why we’re there. Iraq was a dangerous place run by a dangerous tyrant who had a lot of weapons. We have seized or destroyed more than 400,000 tons of munitions, including explosives, and more than — thousands of different sites, and we’re continuing to round up more weapons everyday.

“I want to remind the American people, if Senator Kerry had his way, we would still be taking our ‘global test.’ Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would control all those weapons and explosives and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies.

Perfect.

Opener:

The United Nations is already embroiled in the largest economic scam in world history: the multibillion dollar Oil-for-Food scandal. Now there is reason to ask whether a senior U.N., official also has attempted to influence an American election by spreading misleading information.

As I said, it’s a must-read.

A reader emailed me this story today from the Harvard Crimson. ABC News President David Westin addresses opinions in the media and what impact they’ve had on the MSM:

ABC News President David Westin warned against the proliferation of opinion commentary in the news media at the Institute of Politics’ John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum yesterday night.

“The more time we express our opinions, the less time we have to talk about the facts,” Westin said. “Unfortunately, opinion is driving out facts too often in most of what we see on television today.”

In a speech entitled “Is Network News Obsolete?” Westin argued that network news is far from dead but that the networks must adapt to changes in media.

Westin pointed to the rise of alternative news sources, such as the internet and 24-hour news channels, which have challenged networks to meet constant deadlines and provide continuing coverage.

It’s nice to see the MSM start to do a little self-reflection.