BBIED

A little fun from a training area at Fort McCoy. Oh, and yes, yes it is very hot here.

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Anyone Else Notice This Loser?

Maybe someone already posted this and I missed it, but Bin Laden went and got himself some loser who couldn't cut it in America and is now parading him around in jihadist videos as "Azzam The American".

On a dark weekend underway, this one is worth a good laugh or three if Al-Qaeda is this desperate to take this joker in.

Iranian-made C-802 missile hits Israeli warship?

While the reports are still relatively early (and therefore suspect), the allegations are that a Chinese designed, Iranian-made anitship missile, perhaps a C-802, is what struck an Israeli SAAR-5 corvette.

Some sources in Israel assert that the C-802 almost insures that Iranian forces are involved in Lebanon.

More here, including links in the comments to additional information.

Re: Democracy Project?

GH, Tom Friedman (who i don't ordinarily enjoy because he's annoying beyond belief with his constant need to oversimplify EVERYTHING) is spot on answering that question:

Friedman:

Why don’t the silent majorities punish these elected Islamist parties for working against the real interests of their people? Because those who speak against Hamas or Hezbollah are either delegitimized as “American lackeys’’ or just murdered, like Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

The world needs to understand what is going on here: the little flowers of democracy that were planted in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories are being crushed by the boots of Syrian-backed Islamist militias who are desperate to keep real democracy from taking hold in this region and Iranian-backed Islamist militias desperate to keep modernism from taking hold.

It may be the skeptics are right: maybe democracy, while it is the most powerful form of legitimate government, simply can’t be implemented everywhere. It certainly is never going to work in the Arab-Muslim world if the U.S. and Britain are alone in pushing it in Iraq, if Europe dithers on the fence, if the moderate Arabs cannot come together and make a fist, and if Islamist parties are allowed to sit in governments and be treated with respect — while maintaining private armies.

The whole democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is at stake here, and right now it’s going up in smoke.

I'm all for Israel taking this war to Syria and even Iran, but punishing Lebanon for being unable (and understandably unwilling) to control Hezbollah is bollocks. Where was NATO or even Egypt or Pakistan to help modernize and train Lebanon's military to one day be able to control the country, including the Hezbollah dominated South?

For the Record (3)

In Iraq, Shiite slumlord Muqtada Sadr condemns the Israeli actions in Lebanon.

But what matters in Shiite Iraq is what Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has to say. Thus far, not much.

Sporting News

Bruce Arena is out. Prediction: Jürgen Klinsmann, the California commuter who just stepped down from coaching the German team, will be the next coach of the US Soccer Team.

Best of luck to both.

SURFIN' U.S.A.

Moving this back up top... If you're depressed about the situation in the Middle East, well here's a way to make yourself feel better by doing something to help wounded soldiers & marines who just want to GO SURFIN'!!

Since my original post I have learned that Derrick was wounded in Fallujah... and he and the guys at Brooke Army Medical are (their words, not mine) "SO STOKED" that they might get to go!!!

Derrick McG learned to surf early and he did it often. Surfed all his life. He loved it. He thought a lot about those big waves and the cold water while serving as a Navy Corpsman in the waterless, hot and dusty sand of Iraq. When he lost his leg in an IED explosion, he couldn’t reconcile that he might never surf again.

When Derrick approached Janis Roznowski, the Director and Founder of Operation Comfort about going surfing, she told him that if he could find someone who could teach amputees how to surf then she and the organization would raise the money to take them. So Derrick did some looking and he found Rodney Roller of the Association of Amputee Surfers -- Ampsurf.

Now Operation Comfort is planning to take 20 amputees to Pismo Beach August 15-20 for a five day surf clinic and for a Thursday stay at a beachfront resort. Two professional surf schools will teach these military hero amputees how to surf!

Of course, they haven't raised enough money yet to take them all, so GO HERE TO MY PLACE TO SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP>

Democracy Project

Andy McCarthy asks "How's That Democracy Project Going?"