About 45 minutes into the film, Harry and his classmates are subject to their new ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts’ instructor, Dolores Umbridge. Umbridge was recently appointed by the Minister of Magic (Cornelius Fudge). Her role at Hogwart’s is to not only teach a watered-down version of the class, but likewise to play down the fears of Lord Voldemort’s return and act as a shill for the Ministry of Magic, helping to whitewash the perceived threat.
The wonderfully sardonic, condescending and controlling Umbridge, played by Imelda Staunton, seemed to embody every shameful ounce of Democratic obfuscation and denial when it comes to the war on terror. She contained elements of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Jack Murtha, and John Edwards in her persistent and eager desire to reduce any hint of danger to mere understanding or hyperbole, seeking to silence dissenters (Through the implementation of tortuous quills, if necessary).
More on the Congressional temple of democratic denial at Gateway Pundit, who also has the al-Qaeda map. Ralph Peters:
Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq is suffering a humiliating defeat, as fellow Sunni Muslims turn against the fanatics and help them find the martyrdom they advertise. Yet for purely political reasons – next year’s elections – cowards on Capitol Hill are spurning the courage of our troops on the ground.
While Congress waves the white flag and we’re watching movies, Iran Celebrates US Congressional Resolution. Jules asks if the media’s Lazy, Stupid or Willfully Ignorant?
Here’s one from the AP yesterday about a contested village north of Baquba. The story is all about failure. The failure to control this village. The failure of Iraqi forces to provide follow-on security in areas U.S. troops have cleared. It tells us, “Fleeing insurgents appear to be trying to capture more territory farther north in Diyala, where Iraqi security forces are fewer.”
It doesn’t say why. Because they have been run out of Baquba, after being run out of Baghdad and Anbar. The three-week operation to clear Baquba has been highly successful, with the loss of one soldier, according to Michael Yon. Can this possibly be true? One soldier killed in three weeks of what is routinely described as bitter fighting in Baquba, fighting that has run al-Qaeda out of the much-vaunted IED-saturated stronghold where al-Qaeda was executing people in the city square. How is that not a screaming headline?
As Steve Gilbert realizes,
But you can’t blame our media too much.
It is their job to make US lose this war. Their Democrat masters insist.
Victor Davis Hanson fisks the NYT editorial clamoring for surrender, and concludes:
The truth is that Iraq has upped the ante in the war against terrorists. Our enemies’ worst nightmare is a constitutional government in the heart of the ancient caliphate, surrounded by consensual rule in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Turkey; ours is a new terror heaven, but with oil, a strategic location, and the zeal born of a humiliating defeat of the United States on a theater scale. The Islamists believe we can’t win; so does the New York Times. But it falls to the American people to decide the issue.
Go read the full article.
Update
This is what passes for leadership in Washington:
Even Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) admitted that the Democrats’ bill was a political charade, telling reporters yesterday that Democrats had to bring the bill to the floor to pacify antiwar groups: “If we don’t do anything, these groups will feel like we haven’t done anything.”
Lord Voldemort, and Wahhabism: let’s call them by their names:
The Sunni radicals have a name. They are Wahhabis and they are backed by a powerful faction within Saudi Arabia, Iraq’s southern neighbor. The MSM continues to dance around a reality that has been visible since the Coalition took Fallujah in late 2004 – almost three years ago [see here.] As I wrote then on TCSDaily, Fallujans had turned against the Arab Sunni extremists who invaded their city and “set up a Taliban-style dictatorship, in which women who did not cover their entire bodies, people listening to music, and members of spiritual Sufi orders… were subject to torture and execution… [The radicals] were financed, recruited, and otherwise encouraged by Wahhabism, the state religion in Saudi Arabia.”
The missing truth in the MSM about Ramadi is the same as that in Fallujah, and although habitually elided from Western reporting, it is known to Muslims, if they pay attention to Iraqi events. The Sunnis of Anbar, both sheikhs and ordinary folk, deeply resent the attempted imposition of an extreme Sunni order on them and are prepared to conciliate with Iraqi Shias and cooperate with the U.S.-led coalition to prevent it from happening.
Why do Westerners remain so reticent about Wahhabism and its Saudi backers?
Read it all.
Update 2
Read Obi’s Sister’s post, The Voldemort war and Alice the goon
Special thanks to Larwyn.
