Catch-43: May 2006

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Noam Chomsky

Chomsky, one of America's leading left-wing intellectuals, showed his true colors recently (hat tip: Belmont Club). Hey, at least the guy's honest.

MS-13

Long considered to be one of the most violent and dangerous gangs in the western hemisphere, MS-13 is now considered to be a national security threat, to be met with a coordinated international response.

Chris Swecker, Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, had this to say to Congress:

Although there have been recent media reports alleging that MS-13 gang
members have met with an al-Qa'ida operative in Honduras and that al-Qa'ida
financed a MS-13 gang summit, there is no credible, independent reporting to
support or otherwise corroborate these reports. Current analysis also supports
the assessment that it is unlikely that MS-13 and al-Qa'ida would form an overt
partnership for both security and ideological reasons.

According to reliable sources, the reason for the gang summit meeting in
Honduras was to discuss international leadership issues within the group. There
was no indication that this meeting was financed or attended by any outside
organization.

Despite this initial assessment, the FBI continues to remain alert for any
possible connections between MS-13, and any other gang or criminal enterprise,
with Al Qa'ida. The FBI is well aware of at least one example of state-sponsored
terrorists working with a U.S. street gang. In 1986, members of the El Rukin
street gang in Chicago plotted with Libyan leader Mu' ammar al-Qadhafi to
perpetrate terrorist acts against the U.S. in exchange for money. Qadhafi,
however, is a notably secular Muslim leader who forged alliances with many
groups, and he is opposed by al-Qa'ida-affiliated groups.

I would add that Jose Padilla, who appears to have loosely coordinated with Al Qaeda, was a member of a street gang in Chicago when he was recruited. I would also add that, with a dramatically open southern border, Al Qaeda's best chance of slipping in operatives is to work with Mexican criminal gangs such as MS 13. Al Qaeda has shown a willingness to work with groups who do not share its ideology in order to further a common goal, thus a partnership is not implausible. To name just a few examples, Sunni Al Qaeda leaders have closely cooperated with Shiites in Iran and secular ex-Baathists in Iraq - two groups who they don't exactly see eye to eye with.

The tri-border region in South America is also ripe for exploitation by Al Qaeda. Once they are in, the trip to Mexico and to the United States is a piece of cake.

Located where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, the area is home to roughly
20,000 Middle Eastern immigrants—mostly from Lebanon and Syria—and has long been
a hotbed for terrorist fundraising, arms and drug trafficking, counterfeiting
and money laundering. By moving freely through the region’s porous borders,
operatives from the terrorist organizations Hizbollah, Hamas, and according to
some reports, al-Qaeda, are able to conduct arms-for-drugs deals with secular
Latin American terrorist groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and Peru’s Sendero Luminosos (Shining Path). All told, U.S. officials
believe that between $10 and $12 billion is funneled through the tri-border
region each year, with Hizbollah among the prime beneficiaries.
Paraguayan
Interior Minister Julio Cesar Fanego has said the group received between $50 and
$500 million from the area from 1999 to 2001 alone. Although Hizbollah seeks to
create Iranian-style Islamic “republics”—which punish narcotics offenses with
flogging, imprisonment and in some cases, death—a large chunk of its tri-border
funds are earned in the drug trade.

See a collection of articles on MS-13 here.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

2006, or 1938?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is leaving Holland. For the crime of pointing out the Islamic mistreatment of women along with Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch lawmaker has been subjected to constant death threats. After Van Gogh's murder (shot and stabbed to death), she went into hiding - reemerging later with heavy police protection around the clock. She moved into a luxury apartment which was outfitted by Dutch counterterrorism specialists for her protection. Unfortunately, her fellow residents brought a lawsuit against her, arguing that their human rights were being violated because of the danger her presence put her in. After a long court battle, she is leaving her country. She is leaving Europe to come to America, where she will reportedly work for the American Enterprise Institute.

To give context, take a look at another famous European who fled the Continent due to the gathering storm:

He was one of many.

In a related story, Bernard Lewis (one of the world's preeminent authorities on the Middle East), feels like it is 1938 all over again:

As it races to acquire nuclear weapons, Iran makes clear that if there is any
trouble, the Jews will be the first to suffer. "We have announced that wherever
[in Iran] America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be
Israel," said Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, a top Revolutionary Guards
commander. Hitler was only slightly more direct when he announced seven months
before invading Poland that, if there was another war, "the result will be . . .
the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
Last week Bernard Lewis,
America's dean of Islamic studies, who just turned 90 and remembers the 20th
century well, confessed that for the first time he feels it is 1938 again. He
did not need to add that in 1938, in the face of the gathering storm -- a
fanatical, aggressive, openly declared enemy of the West, and most determinedly
of the Jews -- the world did nothing.
When Iran's mullahs acquire their
coveted nukes in the next few years, the number of Jews in Israel will just be
reaching 6 million. Never again?

The enemies of civilization have made their intentions clear - both in Europe and in Iran. Are we listening clearly?

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Success Unheralded

Judith Miller has a detailed piece on Gadhafi's decision to give up his WMD program. The timeline dovetails with the invasion of Iraq. Surely this is a coincidence?

September 11th, and an increase in U.S. pressure

Col. Gadhafi was alarmed by the new U.S. agenda, and Libyans say that the 9/11
attacks were a turning point for the Brother Leader, who was among the first to
condemn them. Through intelligence channels, he sent the administration a list
of suspects. He also called Hosni Mubarak in a panic, convinced that Mr. Bush
would attack Libya once the Taliban had been crushed in Afghanistan, according
to a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo reported last month by Time.
Meanwhile, Washington increased its rhetorical pressure. Though Libya was not
included in Mr. Bush's "axis of evil," then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton
called Libya a "rogue state" determined to acquire WMD.

The run-up to the Iraq War

As U.S. and British troops began flooding into Kuwait, Col. Gadhafi grew
agitated, diplomats said. Italian press accounts quote then-Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi as saying that Col. Gadhafi had called him to say he feared he
would be America's next target. "Tell them I will do whatever they want," said
one diplomat, recounting the call. In early March 2003 just days before the
start of the Iraq war, Saif and Musa Kusa, a top Libyan intelligence official,
contacted the British to say that Col. Gadhafi wanted to "clear the air" about
WMD programs in exchange for assurances that the U.S. would not try to topple
his regime, according to several accounts.

The insurgency in Iraq begins

Yet as American forces became bogged down in Iraq, Col. Gadhafi's enthusiasm for
giving up his WMD programs seemed to wane. Libya had yet to acknowledge even
that it possessed banned weapons and programs, a senior official told me. And
while the Libyans had agreed in principle to let a team of U.S.-U.K. weapons
experts visit sites in Libya, no date had been set. "No agreement on a date
meant there was essentially no agreement on a visit," the official said. The
talks stalled.

The turning point

The diplomatic lull soon ended, however. Libyans close to the Gadhafi family
told me that after Saddam Hussein's sons were killed in a shootout with U.S.
soldiers in Mosul in July 2003, Safiya, Col. Gadhafi's wife, angrily demanded
that he do more to ensure that Saif and her other sons would not share a similar
fate.

The intelligence coup

Then, in early October 2003, the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Italy interdicted
the "BBC China," a German ship destined for Libya that the Americans had been
tracking for nearly a year. A U.S. intelligence official informed the Libyans
that the five 40-foot containers marked "used machine parts" that were offloaded
from the ship contained thousands of centrifuge parts to enrich uranium,
manufactured in Malaysia by the A.Q. Khan network. Stunned by the discovery,
Libya fast-tracked its long-promised invitation to the British and U.S. experts
to tour suspect sites.

The second intelligence coup

While Col. Gadhafi could have claimed, as Iran now does, that the enrichment
equipment was for a peaceful energy program, the pretense was shattered in
November when U.S. intelligence gave the Libyans a copy of a compact disc that
intelligence agencies had intercepted. According to Saif and Libyan officials in
Tripoli, the CD contained a recording of a long discussion on Feb. 28, 2002,
about Libya's nuclear weapons program, between Ma'atouq Mohamed Ma'atouq, the
head of that clandestine effort, and A.Q. Khan. Denial of military intent was no
longer an option.

The announcement

When Libya dramatically declared on Dec. 19, 2003, that it was abandoning its
rogue ways, President Bush and other senior officials praised Libya and Moammar
al-Gadhafi, the surviving dean of Arab revolutionary leaders, as a model that
other rogue states might follow.

The praise from the media, the credit from the American public, the credit from the rest of a suddenly safer planet
......

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Re: What's the Difference?

Examples of the harmony between the comments of Democratic lawmakers and activists and the comments of the most vicious madmen on the face of the planet abound. For instance, the text of the random Ted Kennedy speech below was simply from the first item that popped up in a google search.

As a further example (and posted primarily because it will take little effort on my part), put your hands together for...... AMERICA'S FIFTH COLUMN!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!
Their website is here.

HELP! HELP! The house is on fire and we are all living in it. The United States
government and its dependent organizations, such as the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), have responded to the fire... by pouring more oil on it. They
call it "democratic nation building"—a fancy name for the perpetual wars, theft
of the commons, exploding economic inequalities, weakening civil liberties
(including the introduction of torture), and the intensifying degradation and
outright destruction of our natural environment that lie hidden behind "free"
trade and the promise (seldom fulfilled) of a "free" election. Billions of
people outside America want this madness to stop, but what can they do? Our new
and independent organization, the International Endowment for Democracy
(I.E.D.), believes it will only stop if democratic nation building (the real
thing, not the oil) is applied to the U.S., which is the country most
responsible for these frightening global developments, and that people
everywhere can play a role in bringing it about.

What's the Difference?

Excerpts from letter sent by President Ahmadinejad of Iran to President Bush:

On the War in Iraq: "Under the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with."
On Saddam Hussein: "Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal; nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran, Saddam was supported by the West."
On lying: "Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to."
On the state of the world: "How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people’s houses destroyed over their heads? Are you pleased with the current condition of the world? Do you think present policies can continue?"
On the responsibility of leaders: "The people will scrutinise our presidencies. Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them? Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the spectre of intimidation and threats?"

Excerpts from Osama bin Laden videotape (11/1/04):

On lying: "But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred."
On Iraq: "And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages."
On Iraq and WMD's: "And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America. So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth."
On Bush and corruption: "At a time when some of our compatriots [heads of Arab monarchies] were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty."
On Bush's reasons for war: "Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results. "
On the Bush administration in general: "It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you."

Excerpts from Ted Kennedy (George Washington University, 9/27/04):

On Iraq: "The President's handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology. No amount of Presidential rhetoric or preposterous campaign spin can conceal the truth about the steady downward spiral in our national security since President Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. If this election is decided on the question of whether America is safer because of President George Bush, John Kerry will win in a landslide. Enough time has now passed to make us sure of that verdict, beyond any reasonable doubt."
On Saddam Hussein and WMD's: "We all know that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. We've known it for more than 20 years. We're proud, very proud, of our troops for their extraordinary and swift success in removing Saddam from power. But as we also now know beyond doubt, he did not pose the kind of immediate threat to our national security that could possibly justify a unilateral, preventive war without the broad support of the international community. There was no reason whatsoever to go to war when we did, in the way we did, and for the false reasons we were given. The Administration's insistence that Saddam could provide nuclear material, or even nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda has been exposed as an empty threat. It should have never been used by George W. Bush to justify an ideological war that America never should have fought. Saddam had no nuclear weapons. In fact, not only were there no nuclear weapons, there were no chemical or biological weapons either, no weapons of mass destruction of any kind. Nor was there any persuasive link between Al Qaeda and Saddam and the 9/11 attacks."
On the future in Iraq: "In other words, the best-case scenario, between now and the end of 2005-2005--is that our soldiers will be bogged down in a continuing quagmire with no end in sight. President Bush refuses to give the time of day to advice like that by the best intelligence analysts in his Administration, but the American people need to hear it. The outlook is bleak, and it's easy to understand why. It's because the number of insurgents has gone up. The number of their attacks on our troops has gone up. The sophistication of the attacks has gone up. The number of our soldiers killed or wounded has gone up. The number of hostages seized and even savagely executed has gone up."
More on Iraq: "By any reasonable standard, our policy in Iraq is failing. We are steadily losing ground in the war. The American people are seeing through the White House smokescreen more clearly every day - seeing the catastrophic failures resulting from the Bush Administration's gross incompetence in managing so many aspects of our occupation of Iraq. We can't go on like this. Before the war, President Bush and his advisers manipulated, mishandled, and misled the American people about the intelligence, because they were so focused - so blindly focused - on removing Saddam Hussein from power. They bungled the pre-war diplomacy on Iraq, insulted our friends, and left us more isolated in the world than ever before in our history, unable to obtain real allied support. They failed to plan for the possibility that the liberation of Iraq would not be the cakewalk they predicted. They arrogantly rejected the counsel, the cautions, and the expertise of the professionals in the State Department most familiar with planning for post-war and post-conflict conditions. Our soldiers were not adequately trained for the missions thrust upon them. Month after month, our courageous troops could not get even enough armored vests of their own or enough armor for their humvees to protect themselves on patrol. What kind of leadership is it, when month after month, our troops on patrol are so urgently in need of protective armor that they call home in desperation and ask their loved ones to buy armor at the local store and fed-ex it to them in Iraq? The Administration shrugged when the massive looting began after the fall of Saddam. Secretary Rumsfeld said, "Stuff happens." They foolishly disbanded the Iraqi army, but let them keep their weapon and left ammunitions depots unguarded, creating a bonanza for the insurgents. The Bush Administration has yet to effectively train a new Iraqi army, or even provide the existing units with adequate equipment."

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Misled into Iraq? Hardly

In response to the heckling of Donald Rumsfeld today and the heckling of George W. Bush by Stephen Colbert on Saturday night, a rebuttal of the heavyweight argument that "Bush lied people died". I can't put it any better than Norm Podhoretz, so let me close with his final paragraph and a strong recommendation to read this article:

And so long as we are hunting for liars in this area, let me suggest that
we begin with the Democrats now proclaiming that they were duped, and that we
then broaden out to all those who in their desperation to delegitimize the
larger policy being tested in Iraq—the policy of making the Middle East safe for
America by making it safe for democracy—have consistently used distortion,
misrepresentation, and selective perception to vilify as immoral a bold and
noble enterprise and to brand as an ignominious defeat what is proving itself
more and more every day to be a victory of American arms and a vindication of
American ideals.

The untimely demise of Andersen

Of course, one of the biggest victims in the Enron debacle was Arthur Andersen - the king of the accounting firms. What Enron Task Force lawyers initially though would be an easy takedown became a widely publicized legal battle which ended with the indictment and conviction of an entire firm.

Why did this happen? For starters, the case against Enron was probably dead in the water without the help of Andersen accountants. The government figured that it would bring pressure to bear on the firm for a large settlement, possibly indict some of the top partners on the Enron account, and that Andersen would cooperate fully with the investigation. However, the leadership at the firm was unable to agree with the government on the terms of the settlement, choosing to fight instead. Rarely has there been so much pressure on the prosecution to produce a victory. By late 2002 no criminal sentences had been handed out to an American public eager for blood.
During the course of the trial, the myth of the sinister accountant with a Masters in Shredding embedded itself in the public consciousness (and the minds of the jury). Andersen was alleged to have smelled trouble brewing at Enron and shredded everything they could - even as they knew an investigation was coming. Background:

Andersen’s conviction arose out of its destruction of evidence pertaining to its
audit work for Enron just as the Enron scandal was emerging. In August of 2001,
shortly after Enron’s CEO, Jeffrey Skilling, resigned, Enron’s senior
accountant, Sherron Watkins, warned newly reappointed CEO, Kenneth Lay, and two
Andersen partners of looming accounting problems. By August 28, 2001, potential
improprieties at Enron were reported in the Wall Street Journal and an informal
investigation was opened by the SEC. By early September, Andersen had formed a
"crisis-response" team including in-house counsel, Nancy Temple, and by October
8, Andersen had retained outside counsel in connection with potential
Enron-related litigation. The next day, Ms. Temple’s notes reflect that an SEC
investigation was "highly probable."
Nevertheless, on October 10, one of the
two Andersen partners who was warned by Ms. Watkins spoke at a general training
meeting that included personnel on the Enron engagement team and urged
compliance with Andersen’s document retention policy. This
partner expressed
the view that destruction of evidence under the policy would be "great" if
litigation were to be filed the next day. Two days later, Ms. Temple sent an
e-mail to the same partner indicating that he should "remind the engagement team
of our documentation and retention policy."
One day after Enron’s October 16
announcement that it would take a $1.01 billion charge to earnings, the SEC
notified Enron of the investigation and requested documents. The SEC’s request
was forwarded to Andersen on October 19. The same day, Ms. Temple sent an
internal e-mail attaching a copy of Andersen’s document retention policy. During
a call with the crisis-response team the next day, Ms. Temple instructed
everyone to "make sure to follow the . . . policy." Three days later, Mr. Lay
declined to answer questions during an analyst call because of "potential
lawsuits, as well as the SEC inquiry." After this call, the head of Andersen’s
audit engagement team for Enron instructed other partners on the team to ensure
that team members were complying with the policy. Substantial destruction of
paper and electronic records ensued. Even after the SEC opened a formal
investigation on October 30, the destruction continued until one day following
service of a subpoena by the SEC.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A funny thing happened on the way to crucifying an entire firm for the sins of a few: the jury was given instructions which made it impossible to acquit!

The jury was instructed that Andersen could be convicted even if it honestly and
sincerely believed that its conduct was lawful. The Supreme Court held that it
was improper to convict Andersen without instructing the jury that a conviction
requires knowledge of the wrongdoing.

The Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2005. Cold comfort to the thousands of Andersen employees who had nothing to do with Enron but lost their jobs. What a shameful debacle, and very illustrative of how a treacherous political environment can destroy lives.

As a side note, the length and the complexity of the trial slowed down the Enron investigation immensely, and is the main reason that Lay and Skilling are only now in a courtroom on trial.

Task Force 145 and the Hunt For Zarqawi

Special Operations forces are hot on the heels of Zarqawi (hat tip: Counterterrorism Blog).

Task Force 145, a group which has undergone several name changes since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is composed of Army Ranger, Navy SEAL, Delta Force, and British SAS commandos. TF 145 is organized into four sections, each of which has the capability to launch raids and call in airstrikes autonomously.

As AQ in Iraq has become less and less popular among the Sunnis, intelligence has improved. Thus TF 145 operates with a "furious operational tempo" and has experienced a good measure of success:

161 Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders killed or captured since January 2006
31 foreign fighters killed in Iraq since April 2006
"upwards of 200 Zarqawi leaders senior enough to have contact with the man himself" captured or killed during the first eight months of 2005
several extremely close brushes with Zarqawi

To elaborate on the last bullet point:

But Zarqawi’s command style and his determination to take the same risks as
his fighters have almost led to his capture on several occasions, with
perhaps
his closest brush with JSOC coming Feb. 20, 2005.
Using
intelligence derived
in part by an Arab-American soldier in TF 145, the task
force obtained a time
frame for when Zarqawi was due to travel down a
stretch of highway along the
Tigris River.
This allowed a task force of
Rangers and Delta operators to set
up an elaborate ambush. But according to
special operations sources familiar
with the event, Zarqawi was late.
The
U.S. troops were preparing to leave
when his vehicle came into view. He and
his driver blew through a Delta
roadblock before nearing a Ranger
checkpoint. The Ranger M240B machine-gunner
had Zarqawi in his sights and
requested permission to fire, but the lieutenant
in charge of the checkpoint
did not give the OK because he did not have
“positive ID” of the vehicle’s
occupants, a TF 145 source said.
To the
intense frustration of other
Rangers on the scene, Zarqawi’s vehicle hurtled
past, with the Jordanian
staring wildly at the Rangers, while wearing a Black
Hawk vest and gripping
a U.S. assault rifle, the TF 145 source said. Delta
operators took up a
high-speed pursuit, while a Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle
tracked the
action from above.
But the Delta men fell victim to bad timing.
When he
realized he had a tail, Zarqawi’s driver took the vehicle — with Zarqawi
inside — off the main highway and onto a secondary road. With the TF 145
operators perhaps 30 seconds behind, Zarqawi jumped out and ran for it,
leaving
his driver, laptop, and $100,000 in Euros to be captured by the
Americans.
As
staffers in an operations center tried to vector the
chasing Americans toward
him using the UAV’s pictures, the Shadow’s camera
chose that moment to “reset,”
switching from a tight focus on Zarqawi’s
vehicle to a wide-angle view of the
town. By the time the staffers
frantically zoomed the camera back in, Zarqawi
had vanished.
It was an
extraordinarily frustrating experience for the
members of TF 145; they knew
how close they had come, and how infrequently such
opportunities
arise.
Zarqawi also seemed to realize the peril he was
in.
“He was
sh---ing his pants. ... he was screaming at the driver,” the
special
operations source said. “He knew he was caught.”

In addition, two raids launched in Yusufiyah have come very close to Zarqawi. In addition to killing and capturing AQ personnel, the raid led to this little tidbit: video evidence that Zarqawi doesn't know how to operate a machine gun (even as he's trying to show off). Should we call this Iraq's Funniest Home Videos?

Catch-43