Blue Crab Boulevard

The left wing screeching about American activities at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has gone on, pretty much endlessly, ever since those events occurred. Let me put this very clearly - what happened in that place should not have. Period. But the United States military was already investigating the events before Time Magazine "broke" the story.

But the British sailors and marines who were taken hostage by an act of outright piracy on the high seas by Iran were actually subjected to worse treatment.

And the (almost) complete silence from the left on this is simply amazing. Memeorandum tells the tale. Only "Newshog" addresses it - and only to apologize for the Iranians. Andrew Sullivan also completely misses the point by neglecting the enormous difference - the Geneva Conventions have never, ever, applied to illegal combatants. And were not meant to. Period. But he calls the US actions worse than that of the Iranians. Who crossed a recognized border to take sailors and marines of an allied nation hostage in an act of outright piracy.

Worse than piracy? Really? Worse than violating the most holy "International Law" to take hostages? Really? 

But as for the rest of the left, there is complete silence. Deafening silence. The raging double standard is on full display.

On this day in 1862 Federal forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant were attacked by a Confederate army led by Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at Pittsburg Landing. The battle has come to be known as Shiloh, after a small church at the site of the battle. The Shiloh meeting house would be forever linked to Bloody Shiloh.

In the gray light of dawn, April 6, a small Federal reconnaissance discovered Johnston's army deployed for battle astride the Corinth road, just a mile beyond the forward Federal camps. Storming forward, the Confederates found the Federal position unfortified. Johnston had achieved almost total surprise. By mid-morning, the Confederates seemed within easy reach of victory, overrunning one frontline Union division and capturing its camp. However, stiff resistance on the Federal right entangled Johnston's brigades in a savage fight around Shiloh Church. Throughout the day, Johnston's army hammered the Federal right, which gave ground but did not break. Casualties upon this brutal killing ground were immense.
      

Meanwhile, Johnston's flanking attack stalled in front of Sarah Bell's peach orchard and the dense oak thicket labeled the "hornet's nest" by the Confederates. Grant's left flank withstood Confederate assaults for seven crucial hours before being forced to yield ground in the late afternoon. Despite inflicting heavy casualties and seizing ground, the Confederates only drove Grant towards the river, instead of away from it. The Federal survivors established a solid front before Pittsburg Landing and repulsed the last Confederate charge as dusk ended the first day of fighting.

The Union men who stood their ground in the Hornet's Nest bought the time necessary for Grant's forces to reorganize and for reinforcements to arrive. The following day, the Union army drove the Confederates from the field. Almost 24,000 casualties (total from both sides), dead, wounded or missing, occurred in those two days.

UPDATE: Thanks to Crosspatch for pointing this out. The memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant are available, free of charge, online. Here's the chapter on Shiloh.

Remember Karl Szmolinsky , the German farmer who raises enormous "German grey giant" rabbits? He sold a bunch of the gigantic fuzzy bunnies to North Korea, where officials were planning to raise the humongous hares for food. Szmolinsky was scheduled to visit North Korea to advise them on raising the creatures. He won't be going, though.

He's pretty sure the North Koreans already ate all the rabbits.

Karl Szmolinsky sent the huge rabbits, which can grow as big as dogs and produce 15lb (7kg) of meat, to North Korea last year so they could be bred and used to ease desperate food shortages.

He thought they were being kept at a zoo in the capital Pyongyang and was planning to travel to the country after Easter to give advice on setting up a breeding facility.

But the 68-year-old says his trip has been cancelled and he suspects it may be because communist officials have eaten the rabbits, which he sold for a cut-price €80 (£54) each rather than the usual €200.

Mr Szmolinsky, who has won prizes for his rabbits during 47 years of breeding them, said: "That’s an assumption, not an assertion. But they’re not getting any more.

"I think the animals aren’t alive any more. I was due to go and inspect the animals and look at the facility.

"They kept delaying the trip. I would have liked to go."

He added that he will no longer export rabbits to the country. "North Korea won’t be getting anything from me any more, they shouldn’t even bother asking."

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard could have predicted this, had Szmolinsky just given us a call. The rabbits were doomed from the get-go. Not only are people over there starving but there's an even more important reason. The rabbits were condemned to death when Kim Jong Il realized they were taller than he is. And had nicer hair.

Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to? 
Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to?
All on that day.

Run to the rock. 
Rock, won't you hide me? 
Run to the rock. 
Rock, won't you hide me?
Run to the rock. 
Rock, won't you hide me? 
All on that day.
(Traditional, Sinner Man) 

USA Today, not exactly known as a rightwing standard bearer, has come out with an editorial that savages Nancy Pelosi for her little jaunt to the Middle East - especially Syria. Even though they disagree with the administration's policies, they still say Pelosi should not have taken this trip. This is the worst beating that paper has administered to a Democrat that I can remember. They call her behavior, "Crossing a line."

Democrats in Congress have been busy flexing their foreign policy muscles almost from the moment they took power in January, for the most part responsibly. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi crossed a line this week by visiting Syria, where she met with President Bashar Assad. She violated a long-held understanding that the United States should speak with one official voice abroad — even if the country is deeply divided on foreign policy back home.

Like it or not (and we do not), President Bush's policy has been to refuse to negotiate with Syria until it changes its behavior. That behavior is malignant. Syria has long meddled destructively in neighboring Lebanon and is widely seen as the bloody hand behind the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Syria has aligned itself with Iran and supports the violently anti-Israel groups Hezbollah and Hamas. It foments violence in Iraq by allowing suicide bombers and jihadists to cross the Syria-Iraq border.

Pelosi surely knew that as speaker — third in the succession line to the presidency — her high-profile presence in Damascus would be read as a contradiction of Bush's no-talkpolicy. No matter that she claimed to have stuck closely to administration positions in her conversations with Assad, smiling photos of Pelosi and the Syrian president convey the unspoken message that while the U.S. president is unwilling to talk with Syria, another wing of the government is. Assad made good use of the moment.

Also along was House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who said the meeting was "only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria, and we hope to build on this visit." That suggested Democrats are going beyond unobjectionable fact-finding and getting-to-know-you conversation into something closer to negotiations, undermining U.S. diplomacy.

This is very harsh stuff for USA Today. I have pointed out that the media was sending warning shots across Pelosi's bow about her running out of media cover. It looks like time is up and the full battle is now on. Pelosi is about to find out what it is like to be on the receiving end of all that negative media attention. No place left to hide, all on that day.

Yesterday we brought you the warm, friendly story of the rats infesting the Miami International Airport. But lest you think all of the repulsive rodents are globe trotting jet-setters, we'd like to point out that they also vacation closer to home. On the Rat Riviera in Brevard county, Florida. They take up residence in the beachfront homes there.

Experts suggested that one of the causes may be newer landscaping coming of age and being used as a food source by the rats. Also, fewer snakes and birds of prey, along with more beachside construction, may be reasons for the infestation.

"Probably a little bit of all the above," said Linda Seals, a horticulture agent at Brevard County Extension Service in Palm Bay.

Whatever the reasons, given Florida?s fertile climate for year-round breeding of all sorts of unwanted creatures, experts warn that any home, anywhere, could be next.

"If you're anywhere in Florida, you're likely to have roof rats at some time," said William Kern, a biologist at University of Florida who studies urban pest control.

Residents in South Shores, however, said they're sorry it's their turn.

"Everybody on the street had them," said Alex Adamcewicz of Beach Elder Way.

Roof rats love the crowns of palm trees, especially queen palms such as those that grace many of the 138 homes in South Shores.

They gobble the globe-like fruit that dangles from the palms. They also have a sweet tooth for ripe oranges, or for any fruit, vegetable, grain or nut, for that matter.

And when a wind comes up, it's raining rats! We've mentioned the outbreak of activity by the roof rats (rattus rattus) recently. It's all part of the Animal Uprising™ planning for their themed celebrations next year to coincide with the year of the rat. But it could be worse, we suppose. Just think what would happen if there was a year of the Saint Bernard. They really cause a lot of damage when they hurtle down from a great height.

And we don't mean that Bambi got on an airplane to go somewhere. No, not a casual vacation flight or anything like that. We mean the deadly, demented, demonic deer actually, physically caught an airplane. Ripped the wheels right off the sucker, too.

Neither the plane's owner nor his passenger were injured when the Piper Arrow four-passenger plane hit the deer shortly after 8 p.m.

"They were coming for a landing and had the main wheels on the ground and the front wheels were still up," airport operations manager Rob Kopp said. "The deer came running up and took off the main nose gear."

The airplane was damaged, with some fuel leaking as a result, and will be repaired. The deer died from its injuries.

And you thought suicide deer were a problem on the roads. This is a whole new phase of the Animal Uprising™. They're going for the airplanes now.

The Daily Mail gets this story all wrong. They seem to think a cockatoo is mentally unbalanced because it is trying to hatch a bunch of Cadbury Creme Eggs. Regular readers know just how wrong the paper is, here. The bird is, of course, working for the Animal Uprising™.

A confused Cockatoo has spent the past two weeks trying to hatch a bowl of 20 Cadbury's Creme Eggs.

Pippa, a 17-year-old silver crested cockatoo perched on top of the eggs when owner Geoff Grewcock bought them as Easter gifts for friends and family.

The barmy bird is now overprotective of the eggs squawking and flapping her wings if anyone tries to get near them.

Pippa happily protects the confectionary as baffled Geoff searches for an explanation for the bird's bizarre behaviour.

Geoff, who runs a wildlife centre, said: "I'm still scratching my head, I just can't figure out why she thinks these chocolates are her eggs.

"When I first saw her perched there I thought it was hilarious but now I'm a bit worried about her. "She's always been a bit nuts but this is beyond belief."

Not for Blue Crab Boulevard readers it isn't! The bird is on the way to actually hatching these eggs. The resultant evil, mutant, chocolate Easter birds will be unstoppable. Yet strangely delicious. Oops. Gotta go. That nice man from the Health Department just knocked on the door. Probably wants to check the place for chocolate eggs.

Unfortunately, that war is on their political enemies, particularly the president. The Opinion Journal is less than impressed with the behavior of the Democratic party leadership in Congress and once again sounds the alarm that media cover for the Democrats will not be forthcoming.

Democrats took Congress last fall in part by opposing the war in Iraq, but it is becoming clear that they view their election as a mandate for something far more ambitious–to wit, promoting and executing their own foreign policy, albeit without the detail of a Presidential election.

Their intentions were made plain this week with two remarkable acts by their House and Senate leaders. Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to withdraw from Iraq immediately, cutting off funds entirely within a year. He promised a vote soon, as part of what the Washington Post reported would also be a Democratic offensive to close Guantanamo, reinstate legal rights for terror suspects, and improve relations with Cuba.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her now famous sojourn to Syria, donning a head scarf and advertising that she was conducting shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Damascus. If there was any doubt that her trip was intended as far more than a routine Congressional "fact-finding" trip, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos put it to rest by declaring that, "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States."

Americans should understand how extraordinary this is. There have been previous battles over U.S. foreign policy and fierce domestic criticism. In the 1990s, these columns defended Bill Clinton against "the Republican drift toward isolationism and political opportunism" amid the Kosovo conflict. But rarely in U.S. history have Congressional leaders sought to conduct their own independent diplomacy, with the Speaker acting as a Prime Minister traveling with a Secretary of State in the person of Mr. Lantos.

Yes, Congressional Republicans have visited Syria too. But Ms. Pelosi isn't some minority back-bencher. Without a Democrat in the White House, she and Mr. Reid are the national leaders of their party. Even Newt Gingrich, for all his grand domestic ambitions in 1995, took a muted stand on foreign policy, realizing that in the American system the executive has the bulk of national security power. He also understood he would do the country no favors by sending a mixed message to our enemies–at the time, Slobodan Milosevic.

I have called Pelosi the Imperial Speaker; she appears to want to gather the power of the executive branch to herself. Other Democrats should be very, very wary of what she is doing here. Because one of their own will have to live with the consequences some day. A Democrat will inevitably occupy the White House at some point in the future. The will find themselves having to deal with the wreckage left by the Imperial Speakership. And there will be wreckage in one form or another, even if it is just in an ugly precedent that will leave the executive branch seriously weakened.

I am not at all happy with any of the politicians in the Congress - from any party -  visiting nations hostile to the US with delusions of impressing their mark on foreign policy. This, it seems, has become pretty commonplace these days and is exceedingly dangerous for America. Sending mixed messages is the worst thing a nation can do. The wreckage will be left for future occupants of the White House. And it is accumulating.

Charles Krauthammer writes his weekly column about the seizure by act of piracy and subsequent release of 15 British sailors and marines by Iran. He reaches the indisputable conclusion that Britain, Europe and the entire notion of the so-called transnational institutions have been humiliated. The European Union and the United Nations were completely and utterly powerless in the whole hostage crisis.

The quid pro quos were not terribly subtle. An Iranian "diplomat" who had been held for two months in Iraq is suddenly released. Equally suddenly, Iran is granted access to the five Iranian "consular officials" — Revolutionary Guards who had been training Shiite militias to kill Americans and others — whom the United States had arrested in Irbil in January. There may have been other concessions we will never hear about. But the salient point is that American action is what got this unstuck.

Where then was the European Union? These 15 hostages, after all, are not just British citizens but, under the laws of Europe, citizens of Europe. Yet the European Union lifted not a finger on their behalf.

Europeans talk all the time about their preference for "soft power" over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran's shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the European Union to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The European Union refused.

Why was nothing done? The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free-trade zone, but as a political entity it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. "The Dutch," reported the Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity.

Krauthammer asserts that is was American unilateral action that provided the quid pro quo for the release of the hostages. The humiliation of letting Iran get away with an open act of piracy on the high seas is particularly bad for Britain itself, I think. The Royal Navy, along with the US Navy has long been the major enforcer of freedom of the seas and the suppression of piracy. No longer. It is pretty much up to the United States now. But the transnationals will weep, wail and gnash their collective teeth whenever the US attempts to enforce the freedom of the seas. Long on toothless rhetoric, but short on anything approaching actual results, the transnational institutions have revealed their complete helplessness to the world.