Nice move, Iran, you've even irked the Canadians

Iran, showing its usual deft sense of diplomacy, manages to select as a UN "human rights delegate" a man implicated in the death of a female Canadian photographer as reported here:

Canada expressed "disgust" on Wednesday at Iran's decision to send Tehran's chief prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, as a delegate to the new United Nations human rights council, saying he was implicated in the death of a Canadian photographer.

"The presence of Mr. Mortazavi in Iran's delegation demonstrates the government of Iran's complete contempt for internationally recognized principles of human rights," Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement.

"The government of Canada expresses its disgust at the fact that Iran would choose to include such a person in its delegation to a new U.N. body intended to promote the highest standards of respect for human rights."

Canada's relations with Iran have been frosty since 2003, when photographer Zahra Kazemi -- who held dual Canadian and Iranian citizenship -- died in detention after being arrested outside a Tehran prison.

Canadians are usually hard to get riled, but Iran seems intent on sticking a finger in the Canadian eye.

Dolts and clods seem to be in charge in Tehran now.

Cross posted.

National Review Online Interview

Just returned from a family funeral, so I'm catching up on emails and getting back to doing interviews for the book.

My interview with National Review Online (NRO) ran yesterday. I was feeling kind of saucy that day, ergo pull quotes like this:

“If the MSM can find space to report on Ashlee Simpson’s nose job, or who Paris Hilton is dating this hour, surely they can find a few minutes of airtime and drops of ink to inform us about the incredible heroism and bravery of the guns in the fight,” says Wynton Hall.

Oh well, there goes the Ashlee Simpson/Paris Hilton demographic.
Full interview can be read here.

Slogans and Inconvenient Truth

I know we're not all politically oriented here. But we are all Patriots. So I'll cut to the chase, and leave more of the political discussion back at home, for those so inclined.

I've linked to Peggy Noonan’s fine critique in a nutshell; I should have paired it with a companion piece for James Lileks’ latest Pig-in-a-Screedblog.

I like Lilek’s slogan for the GOP: “Fight and win the War on Terror by blowing up more bad guys real good.” The Republican Candidate for President in 2008 would do well to have it put on party worker T-shirts.

Not the Democrats. They don’t want to fight today’s wars. They lost in 2004 by fighting the Vietnam war redux. They don’t object to wars per se, but they have to be small, tidy, sound-bite compatible and not at all involving anything that requires a political price of admission, as noted by their disgraceful clamoring for retreat, then voting in large numbers against the cut and run they say we need.

As I said, more hyperventilation of a political kind back at home.

The Savages

From an Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal

The Savages: A barbaric enemy disqualified from the Geneva Conventions

Combatants who fail to obey those laws--by not wearing distinctive military insignia or targeting civilians--are not entitled to its privileges. If they were, the very purpose of the Convention would be rendered a nonsense. And this is why the U.S. has refused Geneva privileges to the enemy combatants at Guantanamo, which we hope is an argument heeded by the Supreme Court as it decides the Hamdan case.

Especially so given the kinds of combatants the U.S. and the rest of the civilized world now face in Iraq. Privates Tucker and Menchaca were not simply ambushed, taken prisoner and killed. "The torture was something unnatural," said Major General Abdul Azziz Mohammed Jassim of Iraq's Defense Ministry, hinting at the state of the soldiers' remains. The corpses were so mutilated that they could be positively identified only through DNA testing.

Here, then, is the enemy we face in Iraq: not nationalists or extremists or even fanatics, but something like a band of real-life Hannibal Lecters for whom human slaughter is both business and religious fulfillment. Following the killing, an Internet statement said to be from the Mujahadeen Shura Council praised Abu Hamza al-Muhajir--who is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's successor as head of Al Qaeda in Iraq--with "the implementation of the sentence." Note the legalistic pretensions: This is the kind of "justice" Iraqis could expect should the insurgents come to power. And it is the enemy that might well come to power if the U.S. left Iraq prematurely, as many Senate Democrats urged yesterday

Well, and I got a little riled at my place...

Acts of War

The other two legs of the Axis of Evil eagerly await the results of the impending nuclear-capable, intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Watch it unfold, and ask yourself. Will the same sniggering critiques that thought President Bush some wild eyed, Strangelovian cowboy, acknowledge how precisely President Bush identified the threats we face, back in 2003?

It might have been Saddam, too, eagerly watching that test, waiting to get into serious negotiations to get him some. But we took care of that threat, didn’t we?

Update: VA Information Theft

Today, the VA announced that it would be bidding for credit watch services for all veterans and active duty personnel whose personal information was compromised in the theft a few weeks back. From the announcement on C-Span covered earlier today, all those who received the first letter notifying them of the theft of information will receive a letter in August detailing the program. (That assumes that someone can write the RFP (request for proposal) and receive and analyze the bids, write, negotiate and execute the contracts and write and mail letters by then... (heh).

As part of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continuing efforts to protect and assist those potentially affected by the recent data theft that occurred at an employee's Maryland home, VA announced on June 21 that the agency will provide one year of free credit monitoring to individuals whose sensitive personal information - Social Security Number (SSN) - may have been stolen in the incident.

VA also announced on June 21 the Department is soliciting bids to hire a company that provides data breach analysis, which will look for possible misuse of the stolen VA data. The analysis would help measure the risk of the data loss, identify suspicious misuse of identity information and expedite full assistance to affected individuals.

Find the Q&A on this information HERE

And while the original letter from the VA warned individuals to guard against "phishing" efforts and telephone solicitations asking for personal information, I received an email from the Mom of one of my favorite Marines (hey, Taco!) that there is an actual phishing scheme out there -- SO BE CAREFUL.

RO-IRMs and ISOs: The Philadelphia Network Support Staff is seeing increasing reports of users receiving email from the address abuse at vba.va.gov asking them to check an account by clicking on a link.

This email is a phishing scam, an attempt to gain personal information. The email address abuse at vba.va.gov is fake and the link in the email is to a web site in Asia.

Please notify all users of this phishing scam and instruct them to delete this email if they receive it. DO NOT OPEN the email.

Leaks and Announcements

This Insta post has a transcript from congressmen who want to tell you something but are not doing so because the information is classified; they've been working to release what can be released and had a press conference announcing the current results.

This is as it should be.

I do wonder, however, if the information they are presenting includes the IEDs we found last year made of artillery shells with sarin in them, or the ones with mustard. Those were enemy mistakes, clearly; you don't expend valuable sarin on a roadside bomb emplaced in such a way as to blow up the vehicle like a normal artillery round would.
(crossposted)