Hewitt Blog

Although it isn't like Loopy Lincoln hadn't already telegraphed the need to dump him.

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Central Command is in charge of Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, and its commander, General John Abizaid, testified to Congress this week and the force posture of Central Command. It is well worth the time it takes to read.

Key graph:

Our training of Iraqi security forces over the past year produced significant, tangible results. Many Iraqi Army units are now in the lead in the counterinsurgency fight in key areas of the country. While large numbers of units are being equipped and trained, institutional building of military academies and training centers moves forward as well. Small teams of U.S. and Coalition soldiers serve with the Iraqi military and many Iraqi police units, providing Iraqi forces with access to U.S. and Coalition combat support and logistics enablers. A similar model exists with Afghan National Army units.

Crucial section on the nature of the enemy:

These extremists defame the religion of Islam by glorifying suicide bombing, by taking and beheading hostages, and by the wanton use of explosive devices that kill innocent people by the score. Their false jihad kills indiscriminately and runs contrary to any standard of moral conduct and behavior. The enemy’s vision of the future would create a region-wide zone that would look like Afghanistan under the Taliban. Music would be banned, women ostracized, basic liberties banished, and soccer stadiums used for public executions. The people of the region do not want the future these extremists desire. The more we talk about this enemy, the more its bankrupt ideology will become known. But more important, the more that regional leaders talk about and act against this enemy, the less attractive it will be. Osama bin Laden and Musab al Zarqawi cannot represent the future of Islam.

Al Qaida and their allies are ruthless, giving them power beyond their relatively small numbers. They are masters of intimidation. Their depraved attacks menace entire communities and can influence the policies of national governments. They embrace asymmetric warfare, focusing their means on the innocent and defenseless. In Jordan, they target wedding parties. In Iraq, they murder children playing in the streets, doctors working in hospitals, and UN employees supporting Iraqi efforts to build their country. They respect no neutral ground.

This enemy is linked by modern communications, expertly using the virtual world for recruiting, fundraising, planning, training, indoctrination, and proselytizing. The internet empowers these extremists in a way that would have been impossible a decade ago. It enables them to have global reach and to plan and coordinate terrorist operations throughout the world.

Finally, and most important, this enemy seeks to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction. If they could develop or acquire a chemical, biological, or nuclear device, they would use it. This is not a guess. This is what they say. Their willingness to use suicide means to deliver such a weapon heightens this threat. There should be no mistake about the stakes in this broader war against al Qaida. The enemy must be deprived of time, safe haven and resources to prevent development and use of mass-casualty producing devices.

Chuck Schumer staffer Lauren B. Weiner faces federal charges for stealing credit history information on U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele, who is currently the Lt. Gov. of Maryland.

Weiner worked for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee which is run by Schumer, and although the Washington Post buried this story on page B-4 and didn't even mention Schumer, count on talk radio to let the country know the culture of corruption that Schumer has built at the DSCC.

The Christian Science Monitor has updates on the campaign to persuade her kidnappers to free Jill Carroll, including a video of the public service announcement running on Iraqi television.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers is urging that all bloggers link to the site and the public service announcement.

If you have not already done so, please do.

Michael Novak, writing at the FirstThings blog:

Did you know that religious women are having many times more babies in America than secular women? Not to put too partisan a ring on it, but the same article–and the discussion it has prompted–points out that women in the red states are having 12 percent more babies than women in the blue states.

The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation. By contrast, nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children.

The great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies. Consider the demographics of France, for example. Among French women born in the early 1960s, less than a third have three or more children. But this distinct minority of French women (most of them presumably practicing Catholics and Muslims) produced more than 50 percent of all children born to their generation, in large measure because so many of their contemporaries had one child or none at all.

In the U.S., even without counting the loss of millions of black votes through abortion (at a rate of something like three to one with respect to white babies aborted) sheer demographics are killing the Democratic future. Feminism, gays, and abortion have not been demographic plusses.

Here is the PDF of the entire document. Don't trust the MSM to tell you what is in it. Read it for yourself.

Robert Novak puts the focus on long-delayed judicial nominees.

Not only should those judges be at the top of the Judiciary Committee's list of business (along with Feingold's Folly), but the White House also has to announce new nominees, especially for vacancies on the D.C. Circuit.

Here is a list of judicial nominations which includes information on those made by the president but not acted upon.

Here's a list that includes vacancies for which no nomination has yet been made.

The White House needs to get the names for the D.C. Circuit announced, and then a push for the confirmation of those three judges, including Brett Kavanaugh, should take center stage in the Judciary Committee. Incredibly, the Committee's published meeting schedule does not convey any sense of planning for the steady review and vote upon the growing backlog of nominees.

After the confirmation of Justice Alito, the court watchers took a deserved break, but Bench Memos and ConfirmThem and others need to return to the daily business of demanding action from a Senate that has returned to a pace that even Patrick Leahy might have found embarassing during his time as chairman after Jim Jeffords' big jump.

With this announcement, state and local governments have no excuse not to prepare for H5N1's arrival in the U.S.:

6 a.m.: Roche Holding said it has greatly increased its capacity to produce antiviral drug Tamiflu, but that government orders to stockpile it were lagging far behind. "Our capacity is well in excess of all government orders that we have received to date," said William Burns, chief executive of the Roche Pharma unit. "We stand ready. There should be no holding back." The drug is regarded as the best initial defense against a pandemic resulting from a mutation of the bird-flu virus.

On Monday, HHS released a comprehensive update on avian flu preparedness, which included this section on the stockpiling of antivirals:

Antivirals are drugs that lessen the impacts of flu. There are currently two FDA-approved antivirals that have shown effectiveness against the H5N1 virus, Tamiflu, and Relenza. Both must be taken within 48 hours of the onset of flu symptoms. (Note that there are two other approved flu antivirals, but CDC studies show H5N1 to be resistant to them.)

We are building a national stockpile of these two antivirals. The immediate goal is to stockpile enough antivirals to treat 20 million people. The longer- term goal is to be able to treat 75 million people, or 25 percent of the U.S. population. Achieving this goal depends on future pandemic flu appropriations, manufacturing capacity and participation by the states.Because Tamiflu is also approved for prevention, treatment for an additional 6 million people is also being stockpiled. This will be used in an effort to help contain a first outbreak of potential-pandemic influenza. The concept is to blanket the area of the initial outbreak, giving Tamiflu to as many people as possible to prevent the flu’s spread before it gets out of control. In March, HHS purchased more than 14 million courses of Tamiflu and Relenza, which will increase the national inventory to nearly 20 million courses. The total targeted stockpile is 81 million courses by the end of 2008. HHS will purchase 50 million out right and subsidize (by 25 percent)
the states’ purchase of 31 million courses. (A course is the number of
doses needed to treat one person – ten capsules in the case of Tamiflu.)

Antivirals will be distributed among the states and territories on a per-capita basis. FDA is monitoring Tamiflu shipments to identify potential counterfeits, and is actively investigating companies selling fraudulent, unapproved influenza products.

Given the availability of the drug for prepurchase by state and local governments, an arrival of H5N1 that is not immediately countered by the distribution of Tamiflu to first responders and care-givers in order to prevent their infection will be a failure by the state and local government --not the federal government. As the report explains:

It is not enough to stockpile antivirals; there needs to be a plan to distribute them. HHS is discussing with the states whether the antivirals should be centrally located or warehoused locally. To receive funding, states are being required to develop distribution plans now, so that if a pandemic erupts, it will be clear where the drugs are to go and how they will get there.

Here's the kicker:

An influenza pandemic is likely to occur almost simultaneously across countries and communities. It will demand that every aspect of our communities be self-sufficient, able to deal with the outbreak of illness should it hit. Political leaders, employers, school leaders, healthcare leaders, faith-based and community organizations, families and the media must all be informed, engaged, and actively involved.

Step one: Plan for the arrival of the virus by determining where patients will be cared for and by whom.

Step two: Stockpile Tamiflu.

Every state and local government that has not doe both of these steps is failing in its primary responsibility to protect the health and welfare of its people.

It was only a matter of time.

Majority Leader Bill Frist assured my audience that one way or the other, a vote will be taken on the Feingold censure motion, though it appears it will have to come through the Judiciary Committee, which means a delay of a couple of weeks.

The Republican majority on the Judiciary Committee should refuse all amendments to the Feingold resolution, and vote it to the floor with a recommendation of defeat.

Radioblogger will also post the transcript of today's interview with Christopher Hitchens on Milosovich and with Professor John Eastman on the absurdity of the new "Iraq Study Group."