Hugh Interviews Gen. Abizaid

A fantastically sober interview (audio here) between Hugh Hewitt, my radio/blogger man, and General John Abizaid, CentCom's man in Iraq . If you missed it on his radio show live it can be found at Townhall., a must read or listen to.
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HH: We have seen in the Hezbollah-Israeli battle obvious signs of Iranian support for Hezbollah. Do you see Iran supplying surrogates inside of Iraq, General?

JA: I see Iran supplying expertise, equipment, and training to Shiia extremist militia groups. Although they hide their hand very, very well, there's no doubt that on the one side, you'll get Iranian government officials talking about how they want to stabilize, and help stabilize Iraq. And on the other hand, you get their intelligence forces, the MOIS, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds force people, actively participating, again, it's hard to say what the numbers are, but there's no doubt that the IRGC, Quds force in particlar, is playing a very unhelpful role with some of the Shiia groups.

HH: I don't know what that is, General. Can you explain a little bit what that force is?

JA: Well, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds force is a terrorists training, paramilitary and terrorist organization group, sponsored by the Iranian government. They would have a different way of describing it than that.

HH: Is it active in other places besides Iraq?

JA: Yeah, you certainly see the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds force people training people in Lebanon's Hezbollah. You see some presence of them in passing weapons back and forth, and money back and forth to Lebanese Hezbollah. And they certainly trained some Lebanese Hezbollah fighters inside Iran. They also train other groups, especially what they would consider groups that are interested in Iranian Revolutionary thinking, and you see this in groups such as some of the Hamas paramilitary people that are operating inside Palestine and Israel.

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Folks need to wake up to what we are facing, it is 1938 with greater ramifications. Pascifism and appeasement are really nice but now is the time for the dogs of war, our sheepdogs to be set free. Our foe is bent on our destruction and we need to recognize that fact whether we fight them in Bagdad or Des Moines is an important decission to make. Is it one you want Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi making? Or would you rather have a staunch conservative like Rick Santorum, in the Senate, along side a true liberal like Joe Lieberman that understands the threat we face.
I pray CodePink, and Cindy Sheehan don't become the face of the DNC for if they do it is a loss to our nation.We need a strong multi-party system with vibrant ideas for progress and solutions besides more government.