president George W. Bush held a televised video conference with nine U.S. and one Iraqi soldier, and immediately the liberal media started griping about the even being highly scripted. Well, according to one of the soldiers who participated, it wasn’t:
Yesterday, I (bottom right corner in the picture) was chosen to be among a small group [...]

Were Muslim terrorists planning on attacking New York City on the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto? That’s an interesting speculation.
Update: As it turned out, the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by some terrorist in Iraq who presumably wanted to deal his way to good treatment or something. Regardless, Lepanto, what a battle!

From President George W. Bush’s speech at National Endowment for Democracy:
Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It is not justified. With every random bombing and with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters — they are murderers at [...]

Good analysis of the 9/11 conspiracy trial in Spain over at Captain’s Quarters. The verdict was a strange mix of good news, bad news, and odd news that, sum total, underscores the inappropriateness of treating al-Qaeda’s terrorism as just another form of crime.
It’s simply nutty to send to send a convicted al-Qaeda agent to prison [...]

“Crescent of Embrace”, the absolutely godawful Pennsylvania 9/11 memorial for the heroes of Flight 93 - a group of American civilians who did what their government could not: defend the capital - deserves every bit of the criticism it has received. It is a horrible, terrible, mindboggingly distasteful load of crap whose designer Paul Murdoch…well, [...]

Iraqi and American forces completed the brilliant, slow-motion assault on Tal Affar recently, having captured or killed hundreds of insurgents and terrorists. The Washington Post’s Jonathan Finer has a nice little piece on what the Americans did for fun after the victory:
After months of preparing for a battle with insurgents that never fully materialized [...]

An amazing report by Michael Yon in Mosul. I guess I should write another amazing report, but this time Yon pretty much outdoes himself.
It’s a long piece, but it is absolutely worth reading.

President Bush spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Salt Lake City yesterday, stressing that the only acceptable outcome for the war in Iraq is “total victory” over terrorists. The president said that insurgents wish to establish a Taliban-like regime in Iraq from which they can launch new attacks on the U.S, but “will [...]

Coalition and Iraqi troops killed two attacking insurgents in the town of Hit, Iraq yesterday, according to Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq officials. The insurgents were charging towards a joint patrol of Marines from 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment and Iraqi soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Intervention Force in a truck, with one [...]

Iraqi security forces in the northwest provinces are growing in “ability and confidence,” according to Army Major General David Rodriguez, commander of Multinational Force Northwest and Task Force Freedom. Reportedly, the 2nd and 3rd Iraqi Army divisions are developing better counterinsurgency skills and are becoming “a source of pride for the country of Iraq.” The [...]