We are in a cabin deep down below decks on a Navy ship jam-packed with troops that’s pitching and creaking its way across the Atlantic in a winter gale. There is a man in every bunk. There’s a man wedged into every corner. There’s a man in every chair. The air is dense with cigarette smoke and with the staleness of packed troops and sour wool.

“Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans,” puts in the lanky young captain in the upper berth, “but
”

“To hell with the Germans,” says the broad-shouldered dark lieutenant. “It’s what our boys have been doing that worries me.”

The lieutenant has been talking about the traffic in Army property, the leaking of gasoline into the black market in France and Belgium even while the fighting was going on, the way the Army kicks the civilians around, the looting.

“Lust, liquor and loot are the soldier’s pay,” interrupts a red-faced major.

The lieutenant comes out with his conclusion: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” You hear these two phrases again and again in about every bull session on the shop. “Two wrongs don’t make a right” and “Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans, but
.”

The troops returning home are worried. “We’ve lost the peace,” men tell you. “We can’t make it stick.”

A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word “liberation.” Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting.

You try to explain to these Europeans that they expected too much. They answer that they had a right to, that after the last was America was the hope of the world. They talk about the Hoover relief, the work of the Quakers, the speeches of Woodrow Wilson. They don’t blame us for the fading of that hope. But they blame us now.

Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops, of out misunderstanding of European conditions. They say that the theft and sale of Army supplies by our troops is the basis of their black market. They blame us for the corruption and disorganization of UNRRA. They blame us for the fumbling timidity of our negotiations with the Soviet Union. They tell us that our mechanical de-nazification policy in Germany is producing results opposite to those we planned. “Have you no statesmen in America?” they ask.

"The initial diagnosis is that I will be sore for a few weeks and return to full duty, so reports of my demise are premature," Gen. Vines wrote. "Do not therefore ask for my sheath knife or truck."

"we have incredible soldiers and airmen daily confronting some of the most evil people on the planet," Gen. Vines said. "They are an inspiration to me, and to flinch at a few mutant cells in the face of their courage would be cowardice.

"It has been my highest honor to serve you," he said. "We will press the fight until the hour I depart the [joint operations area] because, in the words of a leaf-eating nongovernmental organization representative, ’There are still a lot of people who need to be killed.’ Remain focused."

More proof that the French are not only profoundly anti-American, but extremely sick as well. In a country where Thierry Meyssan sold 200,000 copies of ’911 The Big Lie’,
"L’effroyable imposture", hey I’ve read that book, not even remotely convincing, enterely an "internet investigation"
the new bestseller at the FNAC (French books & CD chain) is ’L’Empreinte du Diable’ (’The Mark of the Devil’) by Ben Peri. The book makes the now standard Euro-parano claims about CIA and Mossad plots in 9-11. The author goes so far as to claim that ’only 61 victims of the attacks were Jewish’. This revisionist anti-semitic ’literature’ is being showcased in Paris bookshops. Oh, and get this, the French publisher that has managed to produce this best seller is called ’Truth Publishers’. This is strictly a word-of-mouth success story because the book has had no major media promotion. The French population is so hateful that it is clamoring for this shit.

UPDATE: According to the Moroccan portal Atlasvista, the Ben Peri’s book has sold over 1000 copies in Morocco in just 24 hours.

Training At Nahrawan and Salman Pak
"An Iraqi officer (L) [only identified by initial] tells us that one day a Land Cruiser belonging to the Personal Security Force (responsible for the protection of Saddam Hussein) arrived and a senior officer from the Presidential Palace stepped out of it. He was one of those officers who used to stand behind Saddam, which means that he was one of [his] personal bodyguards. After a two-hour meeting with a select group of officers at the Special Forces School, we were informed that we would have dear guests, and that we should train them very well in a high level of secrecy - not to allow anyone to approach them or to talk to them in any way, shape, or form. A few days later, about 100 trainees arrived. They were a mixture of Arabs, Arabs from the Peninsula [Saudi Arabia], Muslim Afghans, and other Muslims from various parts of the world. They were divided into two groups, the first one went to Al-Nahrawan and the second to Salman Pak, and this was the group that was trained to hijack airplanes. The training was under the direct supervision of major general (M. DH. L) [only identified by initials] who now serves as a police commander in one of the provinces. Upon the completion of the training most of them left Iraq, while the others stayed in the country through the last battle in Baghdad against the coalition forces."

Al-Qa'ida Group Headed by a Saudi Cleric
"I remember that the leader of the group was a Saudi cleric called [Muhammad], who was a fervent and audacious individual and did not require much training. He was highly skilled, and could fire accurately at a target while riding a motorcycle. Additionally, he used to deliver fiery sermons calling for Jihad and for fighting the Americans anywhere in the world. Surprisingly, this man's picture, alongside the commander of the Special Forces School, was televised several times before the beginning of the war and the fall of the former regime."

Training Supervised by the Fedayeen Command
"...The Fedayeen command [Fedayeen Saddam under Uday's command] supervised the 100 Al-Qaida fighters directly, to the extent that senior Fedayeen officers visited them constantly and inspected them almost daily, especially during the final days when they transferred them, late at night in two red trucks that belonged to the Ministry of Transportation, to an undisclosed destination. I witnessed that with my own eyes because on that day I was the duty officer."

Al-Qaida Members Participated in Battles Against U.S. Forces
"A few days before the beginning of the last war, we were surprised to see the same people whom we had trained return to the Special Forces School and with them 100 additional individuals. The high command asked us to re-train them and to divide them into several groups to be deployed in various areas in Iraq.

Truth be told, most of these individuals competed to go to war and to the front lines. Therefore, under pressure they participated immediately in extremely fierce battles that astonished the Iraqis and the Americans."

With the 11th Division in the Area of Al-Kifl
"On April 5, 2003 orders were issued to send these individuals to the battle front immediately. About 100 of them were sent to the 11th company division in Nasiriya. And for the sake of history I will say that this division's endurance was due to some formidable fighters, the commanding officer and members of Al-Qaida who fought with intensity and brutality that are seldom matched, while they were praising Allah: Allahu Akbar... Allahu Akbar... What I mean by that are the violent battles that took place along the rapid highway for seventeen consecutive days and forced the Americans to withdraw and re-enter from the industrial area of Nasiriya ... As for the groups which went to Al-Kifl, they participated in extremely brutal battles. Not many of them retreated and they sacrificed their lives to Apache [helicopter] fire, amid the admiration of the Iraqis and the Americans themselves. The proof is that some of them blew themselves up in the midst of American forces."

• 'The speech correctly addressed the issues confronting Muslims and regarding what Muslims should do. Muslims must educate themselves, they must begin to be progressive and develop themselves.' -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who did not think the speech was anti-Semitic
  
  
• 'This was a pep talk to the Muslim countries for them to work hard and look to the future, but as soon as you have any criticism of Israel, then there are people who are very eager to rush to condemnation, even without comprehending what it's all about.' -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher
  
  
• 'We view them with the contempt and derision they deserve.' -- US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli, saying that the remarks were offensive and inflammatory.
  
  
• 'The Prime Minister used expressions that were gravely offensive, very strongly anti-Semitic and... strongly counter to principles of tolerance, dialogue and understanding between the Western world and the Islamic world.' -- Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini
  
  
• Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the comments were 'offensive' and 'repugnant', and that 'any invocation of rivalry between Jews and Muslims is very unhelpful'.

First: the deterioration of the Palestinian President’s health, which is evidenced in the fact that this is the first time that he accepts to hand over the security prerogatives to the Minister of Interior, General Nasser Yousef.
Yasser, letting go of the security forces? Did the Sox’s loss affect him that much?

Second: The extent of threats against the Authority as far as Israel’s intentions towards the Palestinians, including the invasion of Gaza following the air raid against Syria.
Worried that time has run out.

Third: There are rumors according to which Washington gave Israel the green light to respond to Haifa’s attack provided it doesn’t directly harm Arafat.
"He’s dying anyway, why waste the bullet?"

Fourth: the threats by the resistance to carry out new attacks in Israel in the next few days, following Haifa’s attack.
That would do the trick.