Confederate Yankee
October 31, 2006
Hilferatu
Happy Hilloween
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
07:15 AM
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1
Good God, man, are you trying to give me a heart attack?!? I haven't had my 1st cup of coffee yet!
Posted by: Ric James at October 31, 2006 08:29 AM (1T43H)
Posted by: Fred at October 31, 2006 08:37 AM (jSBbA)
3
Now _THAT'S_ freakin' scary!
Posted by: Timothy S Carlson at October 31, 2006 09:24 AM (TfTAE)
4
That's almost as scary as her health care plan...Nope.. it's a tie. (double tie)
Posted by: MB at October 31, 2006 10:13 AM (TOHVc)
5
Let me guess, the one on the right is the monster, right?
Posted by: Purple Raider at October 31, 2006 12:23 PM (mzwtC)
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October 30, 2006
Maryland Shocker: Top Dems Cross Party Lines, Endorse Steele
Okay, I can't even pretend that I saw this coming:
Former Prince George's County executive Wayne K. Curry, backed by five black members of the Prince George's County Council, today endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Curry, a Democrat who became the first black Prince George's county executive in 1994, and served two terms, is influential in Prince George's, the state's second-largest county, with about 846,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
But the endorsement itself, while very important, doesn't excite me as much as
why Curry seems to be breaking ranks with the state Democratic Party.
Mr. Curry signaled his dissatisfaction with Maryland's Democratic Party last spring, when a Democratic poll was leaked to the press, calling Mr. Steele a "unique threat" to the Democrats.
The poll advised Democrats to "knock Steele down" by linking Mr. Steele to President Bush and national Republicans, to turn Mr. Steele "into a typical Republican in the eyes of voters, as opposed to an African-American candidate."
Mr. Curry was incensed by the poll, and said at the time that Mr. Steele's candidacy presented an "enormously historic" opportunity for blacks that "may ultimately break this sort of vices grip by Democrats who feel entitled to black votes regardless of how they treat black voters."
I've long felt that lock-step voting was bad for blacks as individual voters and as communities, as Democrats felt they didn't have to give them anything other than lip-service attention to blacks during campaign season, while largely ignoring them between elections. The flipside of this, of course, is that Republicans running for office felt that they had no chance of picking up votes from blacks, and they ignored them, too.
Both parties took black voters for granted in their own way, and black communities suffered as a result of their political capital being wasted.
Perhaps this movement by a small group of Prince George's County black Democrats is just an anomaly that will prove to be a one-off oddity in the realm of American politics. On the other hand, perhaps other black community and political leaders will key in on Mr. Curry's observations and realize that breaking the vice grip Democrats have on the black vote is the best chance they have of wielding real political power in the future.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
09:25 PM
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I worked for a Member of Congress in Baltimore County, but she was also State Republican Party Chair and so we did a lot of work statewide. At the time, she was the senior elected Repub. in Maryland and pretty much the party spokesperson.
I cannot tell you how big these endorsements are. Prince Georges county is a very black middle class county. These powerful dem. leaders in PG carry a lot of weight. But not only that, this will reverberate right into Baltimore City, which is the other majority black dem. stronghold.
Posted by: Sara (Squiggler) at October 30, 2006 09:46 PM (FwPlP)
2
We'll know that blacks are full participants in our society when they start voting Republican. The same was true of Irish and Italian immigrants in the past.
Posted by: Van Helsing at October 30, 2006 10:27 PM (tYH7u)
3
It really is nice that some leaders of the black community are begining to think out of the democrat box, but Steele is still down 11 points or so w/ a week to go. The dems have been shooting themselves inthe foot though - negative campaining against a black person running for a prominant position does not go over well in PG and Mongomery counties and Baltimore City.
Posted by: Web at October 31, 2006 07:13 AM (gKXtT)
4
The GOP consistently chooses WASP racism over justice for Blacks. As long as this happens Blacks will vote for Democrats. To vote for GOP just because he is Black is ammature politically.
Irish and Italians vote GOP because the GOP reflects some of there policies. The GOP on the whole is antagonistice to the needs of most Blacks.
Posted by: Bernard W. Scott at October 31, 2006 09:33 AM (4v6hd)
5
The GOP is the only party that advances Blacks to higher office and has its African American members supported by the party. If we right wingers are so racist, then why would the republicans have no problem putting a Black candidate as LT. Govener, and support the same guy for Senate. I agree, that to vote just based on race is not a good political idea, which is why I (as a white man) will have no problem voting for Steele. However I disagree that the GOP is not advancing the true needs of most Blacks, we just dont make feel as good.
Posted by: Web at October 31, 2006 09:51 AM (gKXtT)
6
The GOP on the whole is antagonistice to the needs of most Blacks.
Why have they done so well under this republican administration then?
Black home ownership and small businesses are all up sharply.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 31, 2006 10:46 AM (AuPsg)
7
Interesting that the MSM meme is: "Harold Ford, Jr. has chance to be first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction." Last time I examined the subject, Maryland was a Southern state. Funny how Steele never gets that same boosterism, isn't it.
Posted by: wjo at October 31, 2006 12:07 PM (gI0Ku)
8
Big difference between Maryland and Tennessee (and what makes Ford special) is that in the 1860's while the latter broke away, the former stayed.
And, it's not that bright to support a black candidate simply because he's black... PG doesn't always get that whole "thinking" thing down every time.
Posted by: Desk Jockey at October 31, 2006 12:40 PM (cF46v)
9
wjo,
As somebody who grew up in Kentucky, and has spent several years living in Florida and Mississippi, I can tell you - the only people who think MD is part of the 'south' are Marylanders. Nobody south of I-64 takes that claim seriously :-)
Posted by: legion at October 31, 2006 05:00 PM (3eWKF)
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Zawahiri Targeted
That is what A.J. Strata, AllahPundit, Bill Roggio and others are thinking today in response to reports that Pakistani military forces killed 80 suspected al Qaeda militants with a strike led by Pakistani helicopter gunships using "precision weapons," Among the confirmed dead so far is radical cleric Maulana Liaqat, who led the al Qaeda-affiliated school.
Roggio suspects that the attack may not have been carried out by Pakistani forces, but instead an combined forces hunter/killer team currently named Task Force 145.
In previous incarnations, this team hunted and killed Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq as TF 626, hunted and coordinated the capture of Saddam Hussein as TF121, and hunted down and killing Saddam's son's Uday and Qusay as TF20.
Whatever the group is called, it is thought to be composed of the most elite American and British Special Forces units from all branches of service, including elements of Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, SAS and SFSG commandos, and US Army, USAF, and RAF special operations air units.
Brian Ross is stating that the attack came from Predator drones.
Zawahiri was targeted and almost killed in a Predator strike under similar circumstances
back in January.
Update: The operation appears to be completely Pakistani in execution, as eyewitnesses identified
three Pakistani helicopters as having fired upon the Taliban and al Qaeda affiliated madrassa. What is interesting is that the locals have displayed just 20 bodies of the 80 thought to have been killed, even though there is comparatively little rubble remaining to hide bodies according to the few pictures taken from the scene.
We know from previous attacks in the area that the Taliban and al Qaeda forces are quick to claim their bodies for the rubble of such strikes if at all possible, and so the discrepancy between the number claimed killed and those recovered may be an inadverdant indicator of how many militants were indeed killed.
Update: An al Qaeda leader that survived the strike confirmed that the madrassa
was used to train militants.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
03:04 PM
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Last time around Musharaff unequivocally stated he "would not let this happen again"- (i.e., an American air attack over Paki territory).
Someone must have had solid intel.
Could this be the one?
Posted by: TMF at October 30, 2006 03:10 PM (+BgNZ)
2
Realistically, the guy has nothing to lose these days by taking a hard line. They're already trying to assassinate him, so being a badass isn't going to change that.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 30, 2006 11:13 PM (AuPsg)
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Missing U.S. Soldier Snatched By al Sadr's Mahdi Army
The American translator kidnapped last week has been identified, and it appears that he broke Army regulations by marrying an Iraqi civilian:
A U.S. Army translator missing after being kidnapped in Iraq had broken military rules to marry an Iraqi woman and was visiting her when he was abducted, according to people who claim to be relatives of the wife.
According to a report in Monday editions of The New York Times, the relatives said that the soldier, previously unidentified by the U.S. government, is Ahmed Qusai al-Taei, a 41-year-old Iraqi-American. The family did not know he was a soldier until after the kidnapping, the relatives said.
Taei married a 26-year-old college student, Israa Abdul-Satar, three months ago, the family said. They showed visitors photographs of the couple's wedding and honeymoon, the newspaper reported.
The relatives said members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia came to the wife's home on Oct. 23 and dragged Taei into their car.
It should be pointed out that the situation al-Taei put himself in is one of the reasons why the military discourages soldiers from marrying into the local population, as it places both the soldier and the family at risk for reprisal attacks.
If al-Sadr's Mahdi Army is indeed behind the kidnapping, the situation has the potential for causing significant a significant political rift, as it may force a more aggressive targeting of the Shiite militia that has formed part of the base of support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
10:23 AM
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I wonder how this guy's chain of command will answer during the investigation(s) that will no doubt follow? "Well, Sir, I guess we just weren't aware that he was going out, meeting women, and marrying them." The only good thing for him is that he was captured by a group that has been known to negotiate in the past I guess, and Al-Sadr probably doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest by whacking this guy and putting it all over the internet. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
Posted by: paully at October 30, 2006 11:09 PM (yJuX3)
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Entering the Home Stretch
I've mentioned the Scott Elliott's polling web site Election Projection before as being among the most accurate in the 2004 election campaign, and his latest results show the Republicans holding onto a slim lead in the Senate and moving within striking distance of maintaining the all-important House of Representatives.
I consider the House to be "all important" for one simple reason; electing a Democratic House means that John Conyers and Lynn Woolsey and other liberals will be able to accomplish their dream of purposefully losing the War on Terror by
defunding the military in Iraq, forcing a precipitous withdrawal, and
setting the stage for genocide.
Democrats are loath to admit it publicly, but electing them with be catastrophic not only for Iraq, but for our own nation, which will see Democrats furthering censure and impeachment measured
they have already filed against the President and Vice President.
In my opinion (and in the opinions of the two airmen and three soldiers I've recently talked to who just got back from Iraq), we owe it to those soldiers who have been killed and wounded in Iraq and the Iraqi people to finish the job we started there, not leave it abruptly in state chaos.
Looking at the projections provided by Scott's formula, perhaps the security moms and dads that decided the 2004 elections are coming around to that same conclusion.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
09:11 AM
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What does anyone have to hide from hearings? You guys did everything on the up and up, right? We owe it to those soldiers who have been killed and wounded in Iraq to find out were billions of dollors in waste have gone in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred at October 30, 2006 09:20 AM (jSBbA)
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Im guessing the money went to:
Removing Sadaam from power, killing his sons, killing Abu Musab Zarqawi, bringing about 3 hugely successful elections, killing thousands upon thousands of jihadi terrorists and ex-Baathists, and things of that nature.
Have we suffered casualties (dazzingly low numbers, historically speaking)?
Yes. Thats what happens in war.
I wouldnt expect the typical lib to understand this fact.
When you major in post-structuralist philosophy, gay, lesbian and transgendered studies etc.. you tend to lose sight of the forest from the trees, historically speaking.
Posted by: TMF at October 30, 2006 09:56 AM (+BgNZ)
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Of course you'd be mistaken in this, as well as the rest, if you were to label me "Lib," not that being labeled Liberal is anything close the shame of being labeled, "neo-con." But jumping to conclusions with out verified facts has never stop people like TMF before.
No, I was talking about these wastes:
1) Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors. More…
2) Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million under a contract to build 142 health clinics, yet completed fewer than 20. According to Iraqi officials, the rest were “imaginary clinics.” More…
3) Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq’s national airline, repainted them, then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) through a Cayman Islands shell company — charging an extra fee along the way. More…
4) Halliburton allowed our troops in Iraq to shower, bathe, and sometimes brush their teeth with water that tested positive for e. coli and coliform bacteria. One expert has said that the troops would have been better off using the highly polluted Euphrates River. Halliburton has admitted that it lacked “an organizational structure to ensure that water was being treated in accordance with Army standards and its contractual requirements.” More…
5) Halliburton served the troops food that had spoiled or passed its expiration date. Halliburton managers ordered employees to remove bullets from food in trucks that had come under attack, then saved the bullets as souvenirs while giving the food to unwitting soldiers and Marines. More…
6) Halliburton charged taxpayers for services that it never provided and tens of thousands of meals that it never served. More…
7) Halliburton double-charged taxpayers for $617,000 worth of soda. More…
Halliburton tripled the cost of hand towels, at taxpayer expense, by insisting on having its own embroidered logo on each towel. More…
9) Halliburton employees burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire — and knew that the trucks could be replaced on a profitable “cost-plus” basis, at taxpayer expense. More…
10) Halliburton employees dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they ordered the wrong size, all at taxpayer expense. More…
11) Halliburton employees threw themselves a lavish Super Bowl Party, but passed the cost on to taxpayers by claiming they had purchased supplies for the troops. More…
12) Halliburton chose a subcontractor to build an ice factory in the desert even though its bid was 800 percent higher than an equally qualified bidder. More…
13) Halliburton actively discouraged cooperation with U.S. government auditors, sent one whistleblower into a combat zone to keep him away from auditors, and put another whistleblower under armed guard before kicking her out of the country. More…
14) Halliburton sent unarmed truck drivers into a known combat zone without warning them of the danger, resulting in the deaths of six truck drivers and two soldiers. Halliburton then offered to nominate the surviving truck drivers for a Defense Department medal — provided they sign a medical records release that doubled as a waiver of any right to seek legal recourse against the company. More…
15) Halliburton’s no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure was the worst case of contract abuse that the top civilian at the Army Corps of Engineers had ever seen. She was demoted after speaking out. More…
16) Under its no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure contract, Halliburton overcharged by over 600 percent for the delivery of fuel from Kuwait. More…
17) Halliburton failed to complete required work under its oil infrastructure work, leaving distribution points unusable. More…
1
Iraq under the CPA was like the “Wild West,” with few limits and controls over how inexperienced officials spent — and wasted — millions of taxpayer dollars. More…
19) Cronies at the CPA’s health office lacked experience, ignored the advice of international health professionals, failed to restore Iraq’s health systems, and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. The political appointee who ran the office had never worked overseas and had no international public health experience. More…
20) Administration officials promoted construction of a “boondoggle” children’s hospital in Basra, which ended up more than a year behind schedule and at least 100 percent over budget.
Posted by: Fred at October 30, 2006 10:35 AM (jSBbA)
4
Good one, Mr. Moore. Hows that new "documentary" coming along.
On another note:
Anyone hear Harold Ford on why TN voters should elect him?
"I am a gun loving American who will fight to keep God important in the United States"
I thought the blue tidal wave was a referendum on wacky gun loving Christianists?
And Lieberman is annihilating deer in the headlights empty suit Ned Lament
I thought the blue tidal wave was a referendum on the neo-con imperialistic war in Iraq?
Could...KOS.....be....Wrong?
Posted by: TMF at October 30, 2006 10:41 AM (+BgNZ)
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Here's the deal:
Valid questions have been raised about a variety of aspects of the GWOT and its execution.
A thorough examination of the facts--even if it's an impeachment hearing--is the right thing to do. If there have been problems, I'm sure even conservatives would want to see those problems solved. If there haven't been problems, then the liberals are proved wrong, and vindication for the Bush Administration is the order of the day.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 30, 2006 04:25 PM (/Wery)
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October 29, 2006
French Bus Torched by Undescribables
And the Anonymous War continues:
Teenagers set a bus ablaze in Marseilles, France, seriously burning a female passenger and sending three others to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
The group reportedly forced the vehicle's doors opened and threw a flammable liquid into the bus before fleeing, the BBC said Sunday.
Authorities reported several recent bus attacks, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of riots in poor suburbs across France. The deaths of two teens in Paris sparked the riots.
In Paris, about 500 people marched in memory of the two teenage boys who died in 2005. The deaths of the two, both from immigrant families, and suggestions they were fleeing from police touched off weeks of suburban clashes, the BBC said.
During last year's riots, authorities said more than 10,000 cars were set on fire and 300 buildings were firebombed, the BBC said.
It's too bad no one can seem to get a description of the people carrying out these attacks. Apparently, France is being overrun by vague, featureless teenagers.
Oh, the
horror...
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
10:25 AM
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How about "the ugly face of the failure of the French experiment with Socialism."
Yes, they are primarily young muslim males, but I'm leaning toward the bulk of the blame being French government policy.
Posted by: Mark at October 29, 2006 10:42 AM (uUD7+)
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Damn Druids - I knew it would come to this...
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 29, 2006 11:05 AM (AuPsg)
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And how about this wonderfully telling quote on how things are going in France:
Two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight, police said.
"...Still the Interior Ministry described the night as "relative calm," noting that up to 100 cars are torched by youths in troubled neighborhoods on an average night..."
Yeah, I sure want this country influencing world events.
Losers...
Posted by: WB at October 29, 2006 11:05 AM (A9ieS)
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How fortunate, then, that my home country, Finland, is very reluctant to take immigrants, and is quite keen to deport them, should they commit any serious crimes. I'd hate to see the French way of doing things (or rather, NOT doing things) in here.
It seems that much of Europe is held hostage by these criminals, who are so eager to kill, burn, and then blame others for what they themselves have done.
Posted by: Anonymous for now at October 29, 2006 04:26 PM (RMHg5)
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Anonymous Finn, the last time I was in Helsinki, the central train station was full of sullen Somali "youths".
Posted by: Anonymous too at October 29, 2006 05:56 PM (gq1+F)
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Just another example of media manipulation. They do it all the time. Just check out my latest article at www.fromthepen.com/issue208.html to see another example.
Regards
buck
Posted by: bucktowndusty at October 29, 2006 06:53 PM (XDAh6)
7
This is really laughable because everyone on the planet with an IQ above room temperature realizes that "youths" in this context means Muslims.
If whites rampaged against Muslims, does anyone doubt that the editors would find "youths" to be an inadequate discription of the perpetrators?
Posted by: Karl at October 29, 2006 10:33 PM (BHlA3)
8
"Anonymous too" - you probably saw most of our Somalis there.
BTW, I'm missing your point. They didn't rob you, did they?
Posted by: Anonymous for now at October 30, 2006 12:46 PM (RMHg5)
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October 27, 2006
Blog Headline Writing 101
Clearly, the appropriate title for this post exposing the Democratic activist who created the faux StopSexPredators blog to attack disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley should have been The Face that Launched a Thousand Quips.
Frankly, I'm past the point of caring about the whole Foley issue, but as this guy sowed, so shall he reap.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
02:19 PM
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Pentagon Announces New Front In War On Terror
Via Instapundit, StrategyPage reports that the U.S. military is opening a new front in the War on Terror against one of terrorism's most insidious allies... the mainstream media:
The U.S. Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as For the Record (located at http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/index-b.html). Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor.
The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial. This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon's rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country.
The
DoD site has specifically challenged the
New York Times,
Newsweek, and the
Weekly Standard.
It's good to see our military is finally willing to start fighting the War on Terror on the media front as well.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
09:49 AM
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Long overdue. It's called fighting subversion.
Posted by: jay at October 28, 2006 04:37 PM (BsbRJ)
2
This post rasies a question that I'd like folks to answer, if they want to:
Is it ever okay for a newspaper to come out against a nation's war effort? Even on the op/ed page?
Is it ever okay for a newspaper to reveal secret government information? (Note that I'm not talking legal here--I'm talking about being okay with you.)
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 28, 2006 04:47 PM (tQaSR)
3
Is it ever okay for a newspaper to come out against a nation's war effort?
Is it ever okay for a newspaper to reveal secret government information?
Yes.
Yes.
That was easy. Next question.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 28, 2006 06:47 PM (AuPsg)
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the way my daddy raised me, if you'd be ashamed to see it in the paper, don't do it.
Read this NYT article: 1)if al queada is so dumb they don't realize we're gonna look at their bank transactions, they ain't too scary. 2) law sez they gotta have a warrant. They dint, and they dint get permission to do it without a warrant. 3)a temporary program that's FIVE YEARS OLD? Govt's a damn sight scarier'n the terrorists. So yeah, the reporter ought to point this out, yeah.
Posted by: dzho at October 29, 2006 02:14 AM (jb33V)
5
No warrant is required for accessing records of non-citizens at banks in other countries...you maroon.
And the reporter should be jailed along with his editor.
Posted by: iconoclast at October 29, 2006 05:50 PM (om6Bp)
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October 26, 2006
Watching Them Shoot At His Own
BBC reporter David Loyn has become an embedded journalist with the Taliban in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, as the terrorists square off against British forces in the region.
I find it quite troubling that a British news organization would send a reporter to embed with those forces attempting to kill their fellow countrymen, and I find it equally troubling that
Loyn would accept such an assignment.
I can't imagine Scripps Howard sending
Ernie Pyle to report from behind German lines in North Africa, or the Associated Press sending
Joe Rosenthal to report from a palm-log bunker on a Japanese island fortress, but perhaps those were more idealistic times where one might expect a nation's news organizations to actually support their own side in a war.
My, how things have changed.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
03:36 PM
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I can see the joy on the Brit Soldiers face when he shoots Loyn between the eyes.
Posted by: Scrapiron at October 26, 2006 05:48 PM (GIL7z)
2
Well, at least the BBC has made it clear as to whose side they're on.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 26, 2006 11:14 PM (AuPsg)
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I wrote an e-mail asking if they had any decency. The reporter seems to be idealizing the terrorists! I told them it was a slap in the face to those British soldiers and NATO forces who are fighting murdering and destructive terrorists. So far, no response.
Posted by: seawitch at October 27, 2006 07:34 AM (7tZJc)
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Its amazing that just days after CNN crosses the line between reporting the news and aiding the enemy, BBC goes one step further. "There is no army on earth as mobile as the Taleban." No shit, that's because if they stay in one place more than 5 mintues they'll get spotted by Predators or satellites and get blown into little Tali-bits. This will end only two ways for David Loyn. Death by NATO air strike, and subsequent martyr-ization by the media. Or death at the hands of the Taliban when his usefulness runs out, which will cause no outrage at all.
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at October 27, 2006 08:05 AM (oC8nQ)
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How long before he starts staging photo's?
All the moonbats going on about losing civil liberties when just a generation ago this guy would have been shot if he returned home.
What does this gain for the BBC other than losing more respect or credibility? (not that they had that much to begin with)
Posted by: Old Tanker at October 27, 2006 08:58 AM (R1BcM)
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This is worse than what CNN did...The BBC is funded by British TAXPAYERS.
Posted by: Marvin at October 27, 2006 08:59 AM (57AYn)
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There is no army on earth as mobile as the Taleban.
I was struck by that comment too. Apparently this dope never considered that they're "mobile" because they are essentially robbing the citizenry wherever they go. Mobility is easier if you don't have to hump supplies around.
This is not the sort of thing one should be crowing about I would think.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 28, 2006 12:12 AM (AuPsg)
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Old Tanker, is he going to be in one place long enough to fire up the Photoshop?
I agree with Scrapiron although I think that they will find out about him after the fact.
Posted by: Mike H. at October 28, 2006 01:43 AM (rjroG)
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I guess I forgot that part where the objective of journalists to report the truth is to be superceded by their allegiance to their home country's war goals.
Posted by: arbotreeist at October 29, 2006 12:16 PM (N8M1W)
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I've linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2006/10/re-watching-them-shoot-at-his-own.html
Posted by: Consul-At-Arms at October 29, 2006 04:41 PM (TOyuv)
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CNN Poll Says Bush Failed: America Not Completely Fascist Yet
Note with amusement that CNN filed this under "Broken Government," and then get sockpuppet some smelling salts :
Most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror, a new CNN poll released Thursday suggests.
While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough.
Asked whether Bush has more power than any other U.S. president, 65 percent of poll respondents said no. Thirty-three percent said yes. Of those who said yes, a quarter said that was bad for the country.
I'm glad to see that the Halliburton-built
concentration camps reeducation centers are finally working.
I was starting to get worried.
Update: Mangled syntax corrected.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
01:12 PM
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I saw the promos for "Broken Government" while working out at my health club and chuckled each time I saw it. A totally moonbat lineup of programs.
Guess they won't cover the recent "news" that Teddy Kennedy sobered up enough to commit treason. Or CNN's efforts on the behalf of islamic terrorists in Iraq.
Posted by: iconoclast at October 26, 2006 01:22 PM (Jpc2l)
2
We can attribute the lack of fascism to the Department of Homeland Security's gutlessness in enforcing various and sundry crimes against the state proved by examinations of the reading lists of all Americans and foreigners dangerous enough to use a public library or to buy patchouli incense. The ineptness of bureaucrats in bringing about the Republic's descent into the dark night of totalitarianism is truly appalling.
Posted by: wjo at October 26, 2006 05:15 PM (gI0Ku)
3
Teddy Kennedy committed treason? I didn't know he was involved with the Wilson/Plame leak. After all, that's been the only treasonous thing that's happened in the last 40 years...
Posted by: Becker at October 26, 2006 05:47 PM (98RbQ)
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Becker: I hope your entire comment is 'sarcasm'. Otherwise poor old uneducated me can supply you with a list of 'traitors' in the past 6 years that will smoke your brain or make you want to go on a killing spree.
Posted by: Scrapiron at October 26, 2006 05:53 PM (GIL7z)
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Excerpted and linked at Bill's Bites >> Poll: Most feel civil liberties not harmed by war on terror
Posted by: Bill Faith at October 26, 2006 06:02 PM (n7SaI)
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This means that 33% of Americans are ignorant of history. Prior wartime presidents (Lincoln and Wilson come to mind first) exercised much more severe and actually REPRESSIVE powers. (arrest and trial of American citizens by military authorities? Civil war under Lincoln)
How sad.
Posted by: Dawnfire82 at October 26, 2006 08:37 PM (RvTAf)
7
Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail.
Then, Bush's fascism will become very clear to everyone.
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 08:51 PM (BXNs8)
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Don't hold your breath TD. You will die first. OF course you'd probably blame that on Bush too.
Posted by: Specter at October 26, 2006 08:57 PM (ybfXM)
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Specter, what I am supposed to "die" from? Al Qaeda?
Please, they are essentially a video production company these days. I don't lie awake at night worrying about those clowns.
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 09:34 PM (BXNs8)
10
"This means that 33% of Americans are ignorant of history. Prior wartime presidents (Lincoln and "Wilson come to mind first) exercised much more severe and actually REPRESSIVE powers. (arrest and trial of American citizens by military authorities? Civil war under Lincoln)"
Let's not forget the liberal hero FDR who with another liberal hero Earl Warren rounded up Japanese-americans, including thousands of US citizens, and sent them to camps.
Posted by: Patrick at October 26, 2006 10:08 PM (JgFks)
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"Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail."
When they went after the child molesters I didnt pipe up, because I wasn't a child molester;
when they went after the suicide bombing terror leaders, I didnt pipe up, because I wasn't a suicide bombing terror leader;
then, when they went after the burglars and thieves, and I cowardly said nothing because I wasnt a thief;
*then* they went after the drug dealers, and I said nothing as I wasnt into drugs ...
and then they went after the shoplifters ...
and then the hustlers and con men ...
And I did nothing to defend these from the ravages of the police state that tried, convicted and jailed these for being 'enemies of the state'...
But by that time our town was pretty well cleaned up on crime, and I said "Hey, being tough on criminals really works, doesnt it!"
:-)
Posted by: Patrick at October 26, 2006 10:15 PM (JgFks)
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TD,
Are you more worried about Hezbollah? How about Hmmas? Islamic Jihad? Muslim Brotherhood? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards or whatever?
By the way September 2006 was a milestone of sorts. It was the month that military fatalities in the GWOT (from October 2001 onward - almost 5 years) exceeded the civilian fatalities of 9/11 (almost two hours). It is a nice way of remembering that our adversaries do not seek military targets - they seek you TD.
Two thousand, zero, zero party over oops out of time... So tonight let's party like its 9/10...
Posted by: Boghie at October 26, 2006 11:02 PM (f2xdo)
13
Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail.
I've been wondering why you're even still alive to post this. If its as bad as claimed, there should be a legion of moonbats taking dirtnaps in shallow graves with bullet holes in the back of their heads.
Where's the beef?
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 26, 2006 11:19 PM (AuPsg)
14
Are you more worried about Hezbollah? How about Hmmas? Islamic Jihad? Muslim Brotherhood? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards or whatever?
Not particularly. Hezbollah's last action against us was the kidnapping of our CIA station chief in Lebanon in 1984. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood have never taken any action against us. The Iranians last act against us was the bombing of the Khobar barracks in Saudi in 1996 which was retaliation against our shooting down of an Iranian civilian jetliner in 1988 that killed 290 people.
So, let's see. In terms of nuclear warheards, conventional warheads, laser-guided weapons, jet fighters and bombers, aircraft carriers, tanks, artillery, and cruise missiles who do you think has the upper hand? Us, or the Hamas/Hezbollah/Islamic Jihad rabble?
No, I must admit that I don't spent a lot of time cowering in my bunker worrying about these clowns. Do you?
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 11:31 PM (BXNs8)
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I've never been more scared in my life...
During a war our Congress passes a bill the President signs which provides military tribunals for non-citizen illegal combatants and terrorists.
That terrifies me as a citizen who is not a combatant and is not initiating any terrorist activity.
Who would have thought that espionage, sabotage, and murder would be illegal in a time of war?
Posted by: Boghie at October 26, 2006 11:32 PM (f2xdo)
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So TD,
You think we respond militarily by attacking civilians! Shooting down jet liners. Wow.
We obviously knocked down TWA 800!
Don't forget about the missile that slammed into the Pentagon!
MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base (www.tkb.org)
Hezbollah murdered 836 people. Over 200 Americans died in an hour while on a peacekeeping mission. I do not forgive them that.
Hamas routinely murders civilians and diplomats. 603 murders.
Islamic Jihad the same...
I do not cower in a bunker. And, I do not wait to get hit. There is no reason for any of these barbaric turds to exist.
When you talk about our military hardware are you directly stating that a Total War solution is available if/when we are attacked next? What is your acceptable casualty limit? Or is your argument merely a debating tactic?
Posted by: Boghie at October 27, 2006 12:08 AM (f2xdo)
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I've never been more scared in my life...
You need to ground your tinfoil hat better. I suggest a 100' ring of 500mcm copper with twenty 4/0 copper radials each 25' long.
That should do the trick and get you back in shape.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 27, 2006 03:35 AM (AuPsg)
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"Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail."
Riiight. He's, uh, waiting until about 5 minutes before he leaves office to do that, right?
If a REAL totalitarian government were to emerge in this country, gutless clownboys like this will hide under the bed. Confederate Yankee and many of the people populating forums like this are the types who'd step in to set things right. It's the ones yammering about their 'terrible oppression' (WHAT oppression?) during times when they actually have nothing to fear who'd be actually first to join up with the next wave of Nazis, because all they really care about is promoting their own agenda. What they want more than anything else is the chance to shut up anyone who disagrees with them.
Posted by: Mr. Snitch! at October 27, 2006 08:51 AM (2CNDQ)
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When asked, 99% polled had no idea what civil liberties they've lost.
The good news is that now Bush is taking away all our civil liberties we won't have to put up with trolls anymore, they'll be tracked down and sent to the gulag.......
Posted by: Old Tanker at October 27, 2006 08:53 AM (R1BcM)
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Well, TD, how do you suppose that Al Quaida got turned into a video production company?
Posted by: wjo at October 27, 2006 09:09 AM (gI0Ku)
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Hey TD, has Bush authorized the FBI to invade DU? I mean Clinton Authorized the FBI to invade the compound in Waco.
Has he authorized the FBI to storm a legal citizens house and kidnap a boy at gunpoint? Clinton did right.
Where you complaining then about your civil rights being taken away?
Have you complained about the Kelo case, where if the judges nominated by democrats had voted against it, you would not have lost the right own property.
And the original line of the Declaration of Independence read, "The are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Property."
Posted by: James Stephenson at October 27, 2006 09:16 AM (03dXc)
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It continues to amaze me that those taking the position that data mining phone records in order disrupt terrorist activity is a serious invasion of privacy, but appear to have no problem with publishing the identity and private emails of a senate page in order to score cheap political points in a meaningless race for a house seat.
Posted by: TO at October 27, 2006 09:40 AM (mNYvH)
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TD,
Don't be naive. You said:
Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail.
Then, Bush's fascism will become very clear to everyone.
To which I replied - Don't hold your breath. That was in obvious reference to your statement about us having to "just wait." The line was simple - if you hold your breath waiting for that to happen you will die before it does. What was hard to understand about that?
Posted by: Specter at October 27, 2006 10:16 AM (ybfXM)
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I think the American people do not understand what liberty is. Most think it is normal to try and get on a plane and have to throw your persoal affect away and strip half naked, yet don't understand it is for nothing other than show. They also don't understand it is better for cops to observe drunk drivers in their activities rather than stopping everyone at a check point and clearly breaking the law by requiring sobriety test. Or to try and get on a subway and have your possession inspected.
They don't seem to understand that war means defining a human enemy and killing him by any means possible to maintain your freedom. Our enemy is Islam. We need to put a hurt on every aspect of the people that expouse to this religion of hate.
Posted by: David Caskey at October 27, 2006 12:22 PM (OSKRn)
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I thought TD's comments were sarcasm at first - always hard to tell with these sorts of posts. If he's not kidding, and five years after they're still finding human limbs in and around ground zero, and this guy thinks the Islamists are clowns and we have nothing to fear from them, then that's a sure sign of amazing success on the part of the administration. In the weeks after 9/11, the TDs of the world were trying to figure out who we should surrender/apologize/kneel to first, before they hit us again. Five years and a little action in Afghanistan and Iraq later, the Islamists are irelevent.
Posted by: chachi at October 27, 2006 12:29 PM (V/d7C)
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Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail.
I thought that was sarcasm....you mean you ACTUALLY think that's going to happen...
[Runs finger in circle by head...points at TD..."cuckoo, cuckoo"]
Posted by: Cro at October 27, 2006 01:27 PM (9Qogb)
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I'm sitting here at Reagan airport replying to you over a Cingular connection. I love your post. I'm also being marinated in CNN and I can't escape. The f***king thing is everywhere in airports these days. It's piped over the speaker system. You can't get away from it. Stop by my blog and leave me a note if you'd like to help get CNN out of our airports.
Posted by: K T Cat at October 27, 2006 01:55 PM (DHuTQ)
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At the end of CNN 'Broken Gov't' they should have the voice over 'the DNC has approved this program'
Posted by: Bandit at October 27, 2006 02:37 PM (9UEu0)
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"Just wait until Bush starts declaring those of us who oppose him vociferously as "enemy combatants" and throwing our a--es in jail."
Yeah any day now.
If he had that kind of power, why pray tell are all the employees and owners of the NYT, the WaPo, CNN, CBS, and Reuters still on the loose?
The NYT has committed treason multiple times and has certainly been a royal pain in the a**.
Why, oh why, would the Great Leader hold off on them?
Posted by: Bostonian at October 27, 2006 06:13 PM (rXQoC)
30
Most think it is normal to try and get on a plane and have to throw your persoal affect away and strip half naked
When I was a child growing up, anyone could get on a plane armed with a handgun and nobody cared.
A lot of this nonsense would be unneeded if we were to hand out .38's at the door to every passenger who wanted one ;->
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 28, 2006 12:29 AM (AuPsg)
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Common Goals
Andrew Cochran notes something of interest today in the Counterterrorism Blog:
I'm amazed by the op-eds written by Peter Bergen in today's New York Times tiled, "What Osama Wants," and by Michael Scheuer in yesterday's Washington Times, titled, "Another bin Laden victory." Both men are luminaries in the counterterrorism community on the basis of their brave and objective work inside terrorist cases and events, and also due to their open criticism of numerous elements of current national security strategy. Mr. Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, known in Washington more for criticizing President Bush than for agreeing with him. But both men endorse the current strategy in Iraq and express certainty that the loss of GOP control of the U.S. Congress would be an outright victory for Al Qaeda and jihadists. Frankly, I never would have imagined that either man would write this so close to the election. Given their backgrounds, their views should be taken seriously as a forecast by two world-reknowned and objective experts of probable jihadist reaction to the election.
Considering that Democratic and al Qaeda rhetoric in the 2004 Presidential campaign was
almost identical, this should hardly be surprising.
When the language of the Democratic Party's leading luminaries is indistinguishable from that of those who desire to destroy the American way of life, it might be time to reevaluate their choice of words and their positions.
Keep that in mind, Security Moms.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
12:44 PM
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That's funny... seems like it's the GOP that's using direct-quote AQ propaganda these days to cling to power.
Posted by: legion at October 26, 2006 02:21 PM (3eWKF)
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That's pretty funny considering there are only about 1,000 Al Qaeda in Iraq according to the US military, and they are only one of about 100 different warring militias and factions. The Sunni insurgents themselves will wipe out the Al Qaeda in Iraq once we leave. They only tolerate them now because Al Qaeda is helping them to force us out.
There are many things to worry about in Iraq, but Al Qaeda is far down the list. The Shiites and Kurds (who make up 80% of the population) are implacably hostile to Al Qaeda which is based on the Wahabbi brand of Sunni Islam. As for Iraq's Sunni population, they are largely secular and modern. Iraq doesn't provide the same sort of fertile ground for Al Qaeda that countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan do. Once we leave, Al Qaeda in Iraq is finished.
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 02:21 PM (dzsL2)
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They only tolerate them now because Al Qaeda is helping them to force us out.
Can you point me to the source for this analysis?
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 26, 2006 11:21 PM (AuPsg)
Posted by: Fred at October 28, 2006 01:05 PM (dbo1X)
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The Enemy of My Enemy
It is by now a well known fact that Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups are extremely media savvy, producing and packaging their own propaganda, staging false media events, and timing both individual attacks and campaigns in an attempt to influence public opinion so that they might win wars through media manipulation that they are far too weak to win militarily.
I don't doubt that the media knows that attacks are purposefully increased leading up to major events such as national elections in nations allied against terrorists, and yet, that fact rarely, if ever, receives any acknowledgement.
Is it too much to ask for professional media oranizations to acknowledge that the
news they report is part of a carefully considered and purposefully shaped terrorist campaign targeted for media consumption, or have we come to a point where we should simply assume that they are willing pawns, conspiring with terrorists toward a
common goal?
Does it sound far-fetched that the enemies of our way of life might conspire with those in our own ranks to attempt to defeat what they consider a common adversary?
It shouldn't.
It has
happened before, and most assuredly is happening again.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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Maybe the Republican Party should stop using terrorist propaganda in its ads to set an example for the media? If you've seen the "Stakes" Republican National Committee ad you know what I'm talking about.
I lost a cousin in the Twin Towers and I don't appreciate the Republicans putting his murderer (bin Laden) on TV and repeating his message. That's wrong.
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 02:29 PM (dzsL2)
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> ... I don't appreciate the Republicans putting his murderer on TV and repeating his message.
Ah, yes, we wouldn't want the people to be reminded what is really on our enemies' minds, would we? That gets in the way of Big Bad Bush is Beating up on the Beleagered Bedouins narrative.
There is a difference between using enemy propaganda to erode our will to fight and using it to remind people why we are fighting.
Context, context, context.
Posted by: philmon at October 27, 2006 09:00 AM (DRXSB)
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October 25, 2006
This Message Brought to You By Embryos Against Dishonest Actors
A response to Michael J. Fox from Scott Ott (Links shamelessly stolen from Allah at Hot Air).
To date, embryonic cell research has brought forth not one cure, and instead, is plagued with the problem of uncontrolled cell division.
Uncontrolled cell division, of course,
has another name.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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Hmm.. let's see. Americans wanting to protect innocent life in the womb and also protect innocent life outside the womb: hypocrites. Americans wanting to feed on the flesh of the unborn so they can prove whether or not it's of any use while actively supporting death cults like Hammas and Hezbollah: not hypocrites. Oh wait, I guess the left isn't hypocritical.
They're just pathologically selfish.
Why don't you go find yourself a Zionist Joooooooooo to spit on, arbo?
Posted by: spmat at October 25, 2006 10:54 PM (T0eyj)
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"Thousands of embryos are and have been routinely discarded from fertility clinics for years, and is the culture of life folks protesting that?"
The answer is yes, you ignorant twit.
The Catholic Church has been speaking out about this for decades. And about the misapplicaiton of the death penalty. And the bogus concept of Gay Marriage and the wrongness of the homosexual lifestyle, and the negative impact of porn and violence on our society.
Seems you haven't been paying attention to anything other thna your lefty mischaracterization of anything and anyone religious, except when you selectively filter it.
Hypocrite.
Posted by: WA at October 25, 2006 10:57 PM (R+N0e)
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Folks I havea zero-tolerance policy for profanity, and so the first two comments to this thread--the first profane, the second quoting it--were deleted.
I know this is a particularly sensitive topic for many, but try to keep the language PG.
Thanks
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 25, 2006 11:06 PM (HcgFD)
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Horrible. Just horrible. It's an innocent, unborn child. All the semen should be kept alive, as well.
Posted by: Anonymous for now at October 26, 2006 01:57 PM (RMHg5)
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To date, embryonic cell research has brought forth not one cure, and instead, is plagued with the problem of uncontrolled cell division.
Moral issues aside, that is without a doubt the single stupidest thing ever written in an attempt to attack scientific research.
No, CY, stem cells don't magically cure everything in the world just by being "applied to the head" - we have to actually do research and experimentation. But it's the most promising thing we've found so far. The alternative is sitting on our butts & waiting to die any time we catch any disease. I certainly hope you've never been vaccinated against anything, because that would break the fragile moral barrier yo've set up around this one topic.
Posted by: legion at October 26, 2006 02:28 PM (3eWKF)
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To date, embryonic cell research has brought forth not one cure, and instead, is plagued with the problem of uncontrolled cell division.
Before the discovery of penicillin, research using molds and fungi had not brought forth a single cure. Did that mean that type of research should be abandoned?
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 02:34 PM (dzsL2)
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The agrument, in my opinion, is about stem cells. Stem cell research is on going and is using both embryonic and adult stem cells. I understand there are currently more than 70 promising applications in process using adult stem cells. The CY post is only telling you there has been no promising breakthoughs using embryonic stem cells. Seems to me our money should go the stem cell research returning the greatest benefit to society, i.e.,adult stem cell researh
Posted by: Dick at October 26, 2006 03:19 PM (fEnUg)
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Wrong Dick.
Our money should go where research scientists think it can be of most use as is currently the case with every other type of research the government invests in.
We should leave the process in the hands of the experts rather than allowing politicians who are seeking to mobilize a certain segment of voters to override that process.
Posted by: TD Larkin at October 26, 2006 09:01 PM (BXNs8)
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We should leave the process in the hands of the experts rather than allowing politicians who are seeking to mobilize a certain segment of voters to override that process.
Hear, hear. And the experts are saying that embryonic cells have far greater potential than adult stem cells for treatments and possible cures. I'm tired of the all the ignorant second-guessing of scientists on the right when it comes to things like stem cells, climate change, air/water quality, DU contamination, evolution, you name it.
Posted by: arbotreeist at October 26, 2006 11:18 PM (N8M1W)
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I'm tired of the all the ignorant second-guessing of scientists
Its not all ignorant. Some doubters have advanced degrees in the sciences and engineering.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 28, 2006 03:08 AM (AuPsg)
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New War Spin: Fighting Makes Army Unsuited For Combat
Baltimore Sun reporter David Wood makes that claim citing the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, in an oddly-titled article, "Warfare skills eroding as Army fights insurgents":
Pressed by the demands of fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army has been unable to maintain proficiency in the kind of high-intensity mechanized warfare that toppled Saddam Hussein and would be needed again if the Army were called on to fight in Korea or in other future crises, senior officers acknowledge.
Soldiers once skilled at fighting in tanks and armored vehicles have spent three years carrying out street patrols, police duty and raids on suspected insurgent safe houses. Officers who were experienced at maneuvering dozens of tanks and coordinating high-speed maneuvers with artillery, attack helicopters and strike fighters now run human intelligence networks, negotiate with clan elders and oversee Iraqi police training and neighborhood trash pickup.
The Army's senior leaders say there is scant time to train troops in high-intensity skills and to practice large-scale mechanized maneuvers when combat brigades return home. With barely 12 months between deployments, there is hardly enough time to fix damaged gear and train new soldiers in counterinsurgency operations. Some units have the time to train but find their tanks are either still in Iraq or in repair depots.
The Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, recently told reporters that there is growing concern that the Army's skills are eroding and that if the war in Iraq continues at current levels, the United States could eventually have "an army that can only fight a counterinsurgency." Cody is broadly responsible for manning, equipping and training the force.
While General Cody is a career military officer and I am but a humble civilian blogger, I beg to differ with his analysis. Put simply, it seems doubtful that large U.S. mechanized units will every again square off against comparable units in large scale, high-intensity maneuver warfare, if that is indeed the assertion he was trying to make.
Advances in imagery and signals intelligence makes it doubtful that an opposing Army could assemble a large mechanized force without U.S. commanders learning of its location, at which point other intelligence gathering assets would be able to determine the force make-up and develop precise targeting coordinates. At this point, Air Force, Navy, and Marine strike fighters and bombers, along with cruise missiles and long-range artillery assets such as the
MLRS and
ER-MLRS can repeatedly engage opposing force armor concentrations at a range of hundreds of miles. Once closer, any surviving units can be engaged with close air support by Army and Marine attack helicopters and conventional artillery assets, in addition to on-going attacks from Air Force and Navy strike fighters and bombers. By the time American armor closes to within their several-mile striking distance, the bulk of enemy forces will likely be destroyed, at which point the job for American armored forces will likely be identifying and destroying surviving remaining enemy armored forces that are significantly degraded and largely immobilized.
Likewise, if General Cody does not see large armor-versus armor conflicts on the horizon, the practical experience gained over the past three years in urban street fighting probably makes our soldiers better prepared for future conflicts. The kind of overwhelming short range fire-support and long range "sniping" against fixed position targets that Neil Prakash wrote about in his now-defunct milblog
Armor Geddon seems to be the future of heavy armored units in heavily integrated combined arms warfare.
General Casey may indeed have a point if we once again face an opposing force that can deny us the air superiority needed to make a combined arms battlespace its most effective, but as our most pressing projected opponents—Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, according to the article—do not have that capability, his concerns seem to me to be the complaints of the kind of stereotypical general wedded to past tactics, guilty of always fighting the past war.
Note: John Donovan tells me via email that he might address the
Sun article in more detail later today at
Castle Argghhh!
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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The one area where the US technical superiority can be evaded in a ground war is when the enemy goes underground. Witness the problems faced by Israel v. Hizbullah in South Lebanon or the situation in Gaza. The terrorists dug their underground bunkers and were able to evade and escape aerial bombardment, and the limited ground attacks meant that quite a few of the terrorists escaped unscathed.
Around the world, the Iranians, North Koreans, and other terror groups have noted the problems dealing with underground threats and the difficulty that the US has in dealing with them (building nuclear weapons facilities underground, assisting terror groups build underground caches/bunkers, and preparing for conflict with underground attack in mind. These threats will exploit this weakness most surely. That's why development of new bunker busting technologies is absolutely necessary.
After all, the US ran into the same kinds of problems in Vietnam - the Iron Triangle/Cu Chi tunnel complex proved a tough nut to crack.
That said, the military tactics don't necessarily erode because US soldiers and Marines are dealing with one set of tactics at the moment. The NTC is still teaching armor movement in addition to other scenarios.
Posted by: lawhawk at October 25, 2006 01:21 PM (5jnES)
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This is indeed a puzzler. CY, a self-described "civilian blogger," says that our troops are better prepared for warfare than they were before, while others disagree. If only we could get an expert to weigh in on the issue--you know, like the Army's vice chief of staff or somebody like that. If only!
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 25, 2006 01:21 PM (/Wery)
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So, erm, if they aren't using their tanks, AFVs, and Strykers then why do we seem to have so many over there?
Posted by: Spade at October 25, 2006 01:55 PM (MwlDS)
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I've got to agree with Cody on this. In Iraq, they're using mech infantry, tankers, artillerymen, engineers, etc as light infantrymen and military police. These people are not practicing the techniques that won the original war - big-unit combined arms warfare. That skillset takes continuous training for a unit to be effective. If we find ourselves facing large-unit warfare again any time soon, we will do so with eroded skills. Given our history, I doubt very much that intelligence will provide enough time to retrain, and air attack will only provide a limited capability - remember that anyone with the capability to mount an armored assault will also have an air defense capability, something our air force hasn't faced since Vietnam.
Posted by: Cap'n Dan at October 25, 2006 02:29 PM (YYKx0)
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If only we could get an expert to weigh in on the issue...
Be snide all you want, Doc. It does seem to be one of your few talents.
History has shown us shows us time and again that once senior military officers have ingested certain strategy and tactics and have become comfortable with them, they are loath to deviate from these in the face of new technologies. The British suffered defeats in the American Revolutionary War by using tactics from previous continental conflicts, just as ground combat in WWI, where infantrymen stood side-by-side and marched against fixed positions, is perhaps the penultimate example of generals failing to recognize how new technologies should change new tactics.
Though a career Army Aviator and Master Pilot, General Cody came up through the ranks during the Cold War, where our military trained to fight a massive armored ground campaign against divisions of Warsaw Pact armor surging through the Fulda Gap with up to 50,000 main battle tanks (and that was just the Soviet Army circa 1988, not its allies). Combine all three nations that the military views as potential threats in this article—Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea, and they have just 6,400 MBTs combined.
Cody’s entire generation was brought up to fight on massive fields of armor in Europe, and the training regimen at Fort Irwin was largely created to fight that war that never came. Cody and other generals are still apparently trying to fight that war, or perhaps the 1991 Gulf War, which featured the Battle of Medina Ridge. It was the largest tank battle in U.S. history. It lasted two hours.
Since then, the technologies I briefly outlined above meant that when the British fought in their largest armored engagement since WWII during the 2003 invasion, they killed just 14 enemy tanks. All the rest had been destroyed or abandoned because of the combined arms strategy that is becoming more refined and lethal over time.
There is certainly a place for the kind of tactics and training Cody discusses, it just remains to be seen if there is an enemy on the modern battlefield that can expect to live long enough to have these tactics used against them.
Spade, I invite you to re-read the article. They are using these armored vehicles, and nobody is debating that point at all. What is being debated are the most applicable tactics and training for our modern military considering our huge technological advances since these tactics were first developed.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 25, 2006 02:41 PM (g5Nba)
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Well, your damned if you do and damned if you don't. The US Army & Marine Corps have more urban combat experience, more combat experience period that than any other army on earth but apparently they're too busy fighting to keep up their mechanized warfare skills. It seems the military can't be all things to all people. I would be more concerned about the wear and tear on the equipment from it's continuous use than the skill of the soldiers who have to use it. It doesn't matter what their skill level is if they get in the tank and the treads fall of off it.
Posted by: Tbird at October 25, 2006 03:14 PM (7rIVo)
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Hmmmmm. Lessee. There is no doubt, that at company level and below, US infantry, especially light infantry, is far far improved over what it was (less the Rangers perhaps) prior to 2001.
US artillery, in terms of ability to deliver fires, is probably unchanged, even with many units functioning in MP/light infantry mode. Certainly precision fire capability has improved. The ability to mass fires, however, is probably decayed somewhat. That's an open issue as to whether or not it's important. Mass is a quality all it's own, sometimes. But, on balance, we're probably okay, and of the combat arms branches, Artillery and Air Defense are probably the easiest to stand up quickly should you need them. That refers to delivery units.
Fire *planning* skills, that's different, and that gets at the heart of combined arms warfare. I suspect that is a skill that is atrophying somewhat for integrated maneuver, while improving for urban combat.
Lawhawk observes that the NTC still trains large scale maneuver - I would disagree, given how the NTC has changed significantly to reflect the Current Operating Environment. With 54 rotations as an O/C and a player, I'll suggest that what goes on there now is *not* nearly the same thing that went on there back in 2000. Nor should it be - but to just note that sometimes a battalion of tanks maneuvers out there is not the same thing as two weeks of combined arms attack and defense.
General Cody's real point is uncertainty.
In July of 1990, we had no idea we'd be fighting the war we'd be fighting in February of 1991. The same is true for Afghanistan, and, to a lesser extent, Iraq.
General Cody is concerned that we're building the Army to fight the current fight and designing the future army to fight this fight... and we've usually been wrong about what that future fight would be, in the event.
The whole transformation process is trying to reshape the forces to fight with less stuff, fewer people, and lighter vehicles - all made possible by the network.
Heaven help us if the network falls apart. Ask the Israelis.
Bob's critique makes some good points - but one reason there are seemingly no on-the-horizon threats out there to the Armored Force is precisely because most people know they can't stand up to it. General Cody would like to keep it that way.
Reality is, we're going to have to make some choices, and General Cody feels it's easier to flex from the 2000-style force to what we're currently doing than it will be to flex from a light fighter force to a heavy-punch force.
The real trick is trying to keep the core skillset for both. That's General Cody's challenge.
I'm an old fogey from the old days, and I make a living studying the new days - and I don't share Bob's faith in precision fires throughout the depth of the battlefield.
And what works on flat sandy pool tables doesn't work that well in cross-compartmented woody terrain. Can you spell Air Campaign in Kosovo?
Posted by: John of Argghhh! at October 25, 2006 03:18 PM (Iymsr)
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Just because counterinsurgency operations require a finer level of skills than open warfare, doesn't mean soldiers cannot fight. You can't do surgery with a sledgehammer, but you can certainly kill someone with a scalpel.
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at October 25, 2006 03:31 PM (oC8nQ)
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I think one of the biggest overlooked facts is the new doctrine of combined arms warfare. I don't think large tank formations would ever survive the watchful eyes of drones, followed by bombers loaded with swarms of smart weapons.
I wouldn't want our guys out in the tanks.
What's need is more high speed agile weapons systems with better protection, like stryker. Calling in a bomber is far more effective than trying to hit the enemy with a formation of loud clanking tanks. The Israelis found this out with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Save the tanks for mop up.
Times change.
Posted by: bill at October 25, 2006 03:43 PM (7evkT)
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Another PC general promoted in the 90's. Put in charge and he'll probably bomb the Chinese embassy like the idiot Clark. Light mobile forces has been the thing for the past 6 years.
Posted by: Scrapiron at October 25, 2006 04:50 PM (fEnUg)
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Um... if the good General's problem is the erosion of tanker and arty skills when tankers and arty troops are used as infantry, why isn't he suggesting either recruiting more infantry or having those specialist troops cross-trained as infantry?
And don't I remember a problem early in the invasion... something having to do with a convoy of track mechanics getting lost, ambushed, and captured because they had no infantry skills but instead were soley "specialists" like General Cody desires?
Posted by: DaveP. at October 25, 2006 05:52 PM (G4UbQ)
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The problem is once they plug the mechanized guys back into the Matrix they have to delete the mechanized skills and install the infantry ones. But that damn Bill Gates hits you with another a licensing fee when you try to re-install the mech skills.
To make it worse, the instructor package is even more expensive so we can't even train!!!! Might as well just roll up Ft Irwin.
Posted by: y7 at October 25, 2006 07:42 PM (I1rXq)
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"Another PC general promoted in the 90's."
When you don't know what you are talking about, you would be best advised to say nothing. GEN Dick Cody is far from a PC officer. I've known Cody for many years and you will find no officer more committed to his nation, his mission and most improtantly his Soldiers.
Yes, Dick came up through Army Aviation, but do not try to out think him in any other area of Army skills; you will only embarrass yourself.
It is imperative that our soldiers prepare and finely develop the skills necessary to be successful in their current engagement. To that end they train for desert and desert urban insurgent warfare. Their core skills used in mid to high intensity battlefields take a back seat and rightfully so. As we adapt our tactics, so does the enemy and so must we and on and on. Vietnam was a constantly changing tactical operation (with no mid to high intensity armor fights).
It is not just armor that has to adapt to being policemen... aviation operations changes significantly, too. There are no deep attacks or deep air assault operations. Attack helicopter ops is denegrated to escort and guard duty. Assault helicopter ops becomes ash and trash and transport. Heavy helicopters are not involved in conducting deep strike artillery raids, and so on. These are mid to high intensity conflict core skills necessary for the Army to be successful in larger engagements.
Gen Cody's concerns are not alarmist and are not meant to indicate that we cannot readapt. I believe he wants the nation's leadership to understand that we cannot fill all missions at once with the size of the current force.
In Vietnam we deployed units with equipment to the theater and rotated soldiers in an out. In Iraq and Afghanistan we are rotating units with equipment in and out of theater. The desert theater is much harsher on equipment requiring extensive maintenance downtime when the units return. The equipment downtime does not support continued core training. Battle labs and simulation devices enable some training, but cannot accomodate large unit formations, etc. Although staffs can pretty much stay trained, individual weapon system crews cannot.
Partial combined arms responses as CY points out is most surely part of the tools that our tacticians plan to use to hold off an attack until the cavalry can arrive. That''s what "combined arms" is all about.
I guess my main point is - do not sell General Cody short. He is not some narrow minded antiquated unchangeable dinosaur who is on active duty way past his usefulness. Dick is one of the sharpest minds the Army has had in a long time. If anything, he is probaly frustrated because the Army is not being resourced to the level necessary to meet all the mission demands being placed upon it. Yet he is Soldier enough to salute the falg and do the impossible with little resources.
Posted by: Old Soldier at October 25, 2006 07:46 PM (owAN1)
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There is absolutely nobody the Right will listen to when it comes to problems in Iraq. It doesn't matter how dialed in or how high up they are--if they bear bad news, they must be screwed in some way. They "weren't in the loop," or they were only speaking out to increase book sales, or they're trapped in the past.
The Right isn't speaking out about these people when they're doing things that promote the Rightist agenda, but when they break ranks, baby, they better not bend over in the shower to pick up the soap.
This suggests to me that the key for the Right is uniformity of message at all costs, no matter what the facts are out here in the reality-based community.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 25, 2006 08:42 PM (8+v6o)
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"There is absolutely nobody the Right will listen to when it comes to problems in Iraq."
C'mon, you can't really mean that. Tactics are adjusted to the current threat all the time. You're position is insane. And what's all that garbage about male rape. Please join in the adult discussion.
I'm really impressed with most of the comments here. CY was right though. The title of that article was pretty absurd. "Warfighting skills eroding..." . So urban combat isn't "warfighting"? Thanks a bunch, Baltimore Sun.
The concept of how our military should train, trying to anticipate future conflicts is a great discussion, because there is a lot of gray area, however we are currently in a fight, therefore current training should reflect the current situation.
Posted by: brando at October 25, 2006 11:26 PM (K+VjK)
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Brando:
Don't tell me what I mean or don't mean. Give me an example of a time when a bearer of bad news about how the GWOT is being carried out has not been pilloried.
Also: I was using a metaphor. Higher level thinking: it does a body good.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 26, 2006 07:35 AM (UCOZf)
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"There is absolutely nobody the Right will listen to when it comes to problems in Iraq."
And when it comes to Iraq, there is no news or information that the left cannot turn into an attack against Bush.
Nowhere is the general suggesting that our policy in Iraq is wrong, or that we are losing the fight. All he is doing is making the observation that one skill set (battalion level and higher mechanized combat operations) is being neglected for another (counterinsurgency). As a general in charge of training, I am not suprised in the least that what he really wants is MORE TRAINING.
Oh and here's my second analogy:
You can have Michelangelo paint your house, but you can't have Sherman-Williams do the Sistine Chapel.
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at October 26, 2006 07:36 AM (oC8nQ)
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Give me an example of a time when a bearer of bad news about how the GWOT is being carried out has not been pilloried.
Right off the top of my head, Michael Yon is seen by many on the right as having a great amount of credibility, and he has been speaking about problems in both Iraq and Afgahnistan for quite a while, speaking of problems with both tactics and strategy, and also with the military's apparent aversion to allowing embeds such as himself to take the field.
He of course isn't the only one, just one with a lot of on the ground experience that is seen is far more credible than those journalists hiding in the al Rashid Hotel uncritically "reporting" whatever stringers bother to bring them.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 26, 2006 07:57 AM (g5Nba)
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Yon doesn't fall into the same category as Administration members or high military brass. Is there a member of the GWOT Establishment, like Richard Clark or the general under discussion, who has not been discredited by the Right when he has spoken out?
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 26, 2006 10:45 AM (/Wery)
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No one is discrediting him. I think its just a stupid comment. There is no doubt the Army is cross-training soldiers into different functional areas. Many field artillery guys are becoming MPs, Convoy Security, and Truck Drivers. Does that mean that they have forever and ever lost thier skills as Artillerymen?
No. The Army right now needs MP's, Convoy Security, and Truck Drivers. The Army does not need Artillerymen in as great of numbers as we have them. So what do we do? Do we enlist more MP's and Truck Drivers to free up our artillerymen for desert warfare training in Ft Irwin?
The most ridiculous part of this conversation is the ommission of the follow-up question: "What's your point?"
Is he saying that America is less safe because our tankers are engaged in more mission essential activities in the actual war that we are fighting rather than training for a war that may, and probably won't, ever come? If so, what is his proposal? Should we draft more tankers? More MP's?
I get the impression he is he saying that North Korea's tankers are now more proficient than US ones. How much additional train-up will our tankers need to catch up to the vaunted Starvation Army? I'm very interested...what is his point in talking about this?
The end of the article states his concern is that we will only have an army capable of fighting a counter-insurgency. Ok. Before this we only had an Amry capable of fighting a conventional war. My argument, being a soldier and knowing how well we train, is that we now have an Army capable of fighting both...the beauty of cross-training. The tankers may be unpracticed, but they are not untrained. And get this, no matter how much practice a unit had, before they were sent to war, they got to practice more! Train, train, train, that is what the Army does.
The important part of the article that should be discussed (rather than the looming incompetence of our soldiers) should be this quote:
"Some units have the time to train but find their tanks are either still in Iraq or in repair depots." That is the real problem. We don't need more troops or less cross-training, we need more stuff. Lets have that discussion instead.
Posted by: y7 at October 26, 2006 01:35 PM (yYph9)
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Please Doc, there's no reason to be defensive. When I said "You can't possibly mean...", I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I was giving you a gift. Lashing out doesn't count as intelligent discourse. You may have been raised to think so, therefore I forgive you. Lying and metaphor are not the same thing, please try harder.
CY, this is slightly off topic, but you mentioned the al Rashid Hotel, and I was there once. You're absolutely right. The place is pretty darn nice, and reporters who live there basicly have expert knowledge of catered food and a swimming pool. They'd be hard pressed to say that they're in Iraq.
Posted by: brando at October 26, 2006 02:35 PM (K+VjK)
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Brando, I was trying to find a way to contact you privately, but, when I go to you site (linked above), I find no email address. I guess I'm left with doing this here.
I've managed to avoid namecalling in the time that I've been reading and posting on Confederate Yankee, but your idiocy has pushed me past my limit. I've read your last two posts and have come to the conclusion that you have to be one of the stupidest lumps I've ever encountered on the Web.
If you seriously, honestly think that my "don't bend over in the shower" line is lying--LYING, mind you--and not metaphor, then you seriously, honestly believe that all these guys--the generals and the mucky-mucks on the Joint Chiefs and the national security advisors--all actually shower together on a regular basis, and that I've impugned someone's honor (whose is not clear) by suggesting that he actually, factually tried to anally rape one of these other guys when they were all in this enormous shower. (And where might this imaginary shower be, I wonder?)
You poor sod, I'm talking about the metaphorical shafting Administration members get when they go off-message. It's a figure of speech. Nobody is actually forcing his wang into someone's bunghole. There is no actual shower that these guys climb into together.
Go ahead and try to give me what-for about metaphors if you'd like. I've been teaching metaphor for the past seventeen years, but please share your vast knowledge with the rest of us.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 27, 2006 12:21 AM (TAunl)
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I forgive you for that too.
Posted by: brando at October 27, 2006 01:00 AM (K+VjK)
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Doc, I see how you got confused. Despite your rage, I still hope that you can learn that you're accountable for what you say and do. I can't "push you" to anything. Like I said, I forgive you. I'm not trying to give you the "what for". I'm just trying to communicate. Simmer down.
The lie was the statement "absolutely nobody the Right will listen to ..."
It's such an extreme and absolute statement that it has no chance of being true. When CY mentioned Michael Yon, you basically said he didn't count.
"Absolutely nobody", remember?
Michael Yon is a person. He's a somebody.
All encompassing extreme statements that are false, just end up being polarizing, which is what I think you were looking for. You weren't looking for truth, you were looking for a fight. I was giving you a mulligan, and I still am. You can redeem yourself, but either way it's still no sweat.
Posted by: brando at October 27, 2006 02:03 AM (K+VjK)
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CY:
Whatever. In the couple of months I've been reading and posting, I have been relentlessly attacked by the right-wingers here. I've been called names--"stupid" being the least objectionable of them--my sexuality has been questioned, and my honesty has been impugned.
Throughout all of that--all of it--I have kept my cool and stayed on topic despite the best attempts of folks like SouthernRoots and Scrapiron to get me to do otherwise.
Throughout all of it you have done nothing. Not once have you stepped into the message board to threaten them with expulsion.
Then, the first time I indulge in the pastime of so many others at this same site, I'm threatened with expulsion.
So, again, whatever.
Brando:
"There," as Reagan used to say, "you go again." In a previous post, you wrote, "Lying and metaphor are not the same thing, please try harder." When you write that, there is no other interpretation possible than that you are calling a lie the statement that I called a metaphor. The metaphor was the prison-shower riff. There is no other interpretation available.
Finally: the discussion about who the Right would listen to in re: problems in the GWOT was focused specifically on high-level Administration or military types. I know that to be the case because I'm the one who started the discussion and I set the direction. There are people who are off the table--that is, for the sake of this discussion, they don't count. For example, CY would probably listen to his mother if she had reservations about the GWOT--we have to listen to what our mothers say, after all--but he wouldn't be foolish enough to bring her into this discussion.
When I made my charge in a previous post, I wrote, "It doesn't matter how dialed in or how high up they are--if they bear bad news, they must be screwed in some way. They 'weren't in the loop,' or they were only speaking out to increase book sales, or they're trapped in the past." It is clear that I'm talking about those who were, in fact, "dialed in" or "high up"--people who are in the loop. That is the universe of people I defined.
Michael Yon is not a member of that universe. He is neither dialed in nor high up. He's a guy with a blog. For the sake of the discussion as I defined it when I began it, he does not exist. Neither does my wife. Nor does my boss. Nor do the guys in my band. They're not part of the discussion. If they spout off on the GWOT, nobody cares.
My original charge remains. Of people who are dialed in and high up, nobody who questions the progress of the GWOT escapes unscathed by the Right.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 27, 2006 08:39 AM (ZDygY)
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My original charge remains.
No, it hasn't. You've significantly moved the goalposts from "absolutely nobody" on the Right, which is 111 million people give or take, to "Administration members or high military brass," perhaps a few hundred people at best.
As for those few hundred, specifically those in the "high military brass," they've had it with dishonest liberal media bias, and have started their own web site to combat it, and several top counterterrorism experts often at odds with the Adminstration are coming down strongly against Demcratic plans to cut and run in Iraq. Simply put, the experts think if Democrats win on Nov. 7, that the terrorists win the War on Terror.
As for Mike Yon, he is incredibly "dialed in," spending more time in both Iraq and Afghanistan than any American politician I'm aware of, and he has contacts throughout the military. Even while stateside, his network of contacts gives him better eyes on the ground than most major news organizations.
You can tell yourself there is an echochamber on the right, but I think it is readily apparrent to any honest observer that there isn't.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 27, 2006 09:11 AM (g5Nba)
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CY:
Interesting info about Michael Yon. Remind me again of the Administration policies he has been in charge of developing or executing--you know, like Joe Wilson, Clark, this general we're discussing, and any other higher-ups who have been smeared by the Right.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 27, 2006 10:37 AM (/Wery)
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I just reread that article again, and like I said before, I think this topic is worthy of discussion. The thing is, this is always discussed in the military. Changing training methods for predicted future conflicts has been a big deal in the military for as long as we’ve had a military. Just because some journalists have never thought about it before, doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been thought about. It’s almost an un-story, but the article is written as though they are pointing out an Iraq problem, that our stupid, stupid military needs to be alerted to. The headline is just flat-out goofy. For the next 15-20 years were going to have a lot of combat experienced veterans to draw from, and the article makes it sound as though more experience equals less experience.
What makes for relevant and safe military training is very open to debate, however the article writer has reported it as though the debate is over, and he’s obviously right. Maybe we should have him teach at a War College, or literally be an oracle.
Posted by: brando at October 27, 2006 11:01 AM (RqbPA)
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Since when has Joe Wilson developed or executed policy during this Presidency? He hasn't. He's tried to undermine policy it with thoroughly discredited pablum, but he he certainly hasn't developed any during this Administration, having retired from diplomatic life in 1998.
As for Clark, are you referring to Wesley, the retired General and Democratic Presidential Candidate, or are you referring to Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism official that once stated in 1999 that "old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad," only to later change his tune and ship home the bin Laden family on 9/14/01?
Irregardless, all of these men made their most famous statements regarding Iraq after they were no longer serving this nation, and unless the freedom of speech is allowed to only work one way (and after the Columbia University Free Speech Massacre, that might be precisely what liberals prefer), their conclusions, reasoning and methodology in arriving at their conclusions can certainly be challenged.
As for General Cody, the post I wrote disagree with his apparent analysis if he was quoted properly--my exact phrase was "if that is indeed the assertion he was trying to make"--and at the very worse part of my post, I mentioned that his comments as I understood them, "seem to me to be the complaints of the kind of stereotypical general wedded to past tactics, guilty of always fighting the past war."
I laid out a case of why I thought that what I took away from him comments did not seem to mesh with what I know of evolving military technologies and expected enemies. That is called a difference of opinion, not a smear.
The overwhelming majority of commentors to this post, whether they agreed with Cody's assessment or not, only agreed or disagreed with his position. They didn't smear him. Only one commentor said anything purposefully derogatory.
On the other hand, you accuse "the Right" of being a monolithic horde that reflexively strikes out to strike down anyone who isn't 100% on message.
I'll have to refer that to Joe Lieberman. He might get a laugh out of that.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 27, 2006 11:42 AM (g5Nba)
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He is neither dialed in nor high up.
He seems more dialed in than you though. Just saying...
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 28, 2006 06:59 PM (AuPsg)
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Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory
Mary Katharine Ham vlogs that it appears once again that Democrats may be priming themselves for another electoral meltdown.
I agree. Now all they need is some
good theme music.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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Virtual Reporting: Live from Rear Lines
Michael Fumento, who has embedded as a journalist three times with combat units stationed in Iraq's al Anbar province, launches a scathing attack against the way the mainstream media is covering the war in Iraq:
Would you trust a Hurricane Katrina report datelined "direct from Detroit"? Or coverage of the World Trade Center attack from Chicago? Why then should we believe a Time Magazine investigation of the Haditha killings that was reported not from Haditha but from Baghdad? Or a Los Angeles Times article on a purported Fallujah-like attack on Ramadi reported by four journalists in Baghdad and one in Washington? Yet we do, essentially because we have no choice. A war in a country the size of California is essentially covered from a single city. Plug the name of Iraqi cities other than Baghdad into Google News and you’ll find that time and again the reporters are in Iraq’s capital, nowhere near the scene. Capt. David Gramling, public affairs officer for the unit I’m currently embedded with, puts it nicely: "I think it would be pretty hard to report on Baghdad from out here." Welcome to the not-so-brave new world of Iraq war correspondence.
Vietnam was the first war to give us reporting in virtually real time. Iraq is the first to give us virtual reporting. That doesn’t necessarily make it biased against the war; it does make it biased against the truth.
Put simply, it's hemorrhoid reporting: "if it bleeds it leads," and you only get it from the rear.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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You mean "If it's American and bleeds, it leads." Remember that Times headline "AL QAEDA ON THE ROPES: 4,000 DEAD AND NOTHING TO SHOW"?
Neither do I.
Posted by: Cover Me, Porkins at October 25, 2006 09:56 AM (0pS3m)
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Maybe somebody needs to tell it to CENTCOM? I refer to the bureaucracy that refused to approve me for embedding because instead of being "vouched for" by some "news agency," I, with five Vietnam years in my background, was ready to send myself to Iraq and blog the story in--de--pend-ent-ly.
Posted by: gringoman at October 25, 2006 12:41 PM (qkZ2I)
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The citizen/soldier of this republic has a lot more to fear from the journalist than the journalist has to fear from the citizen/soldier.
The great failing of American journalists is that they do not understand this.
Posted by: Daddy at October 25, 2006 01:30 PM (3aKCj)
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Helping Heroes
Via Michelle Malkin this morning, a call to support milblogger Reid Stanley of A Storm in Afghanistan.
Reid's wife Ellicia has been diagnosed with cancer in her breasts, lungs and brain. The prognosis is terminal, and hospice care is not covered under his military benefits.
I humbly ask my readers for two things:
First and foremost, if you are able,
please contribute financially to help his family through this traumatic time if you are able, and keep them in your prayers.
Second, please
contact your Congressmen and Senators to ask that hospice care for the immedate family members of servicemen be added to the benefits package of those serving this nation. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines risk their lives to protect us. It seems only right that we provide for them and their families when they need it most.
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October 24, 2006
Coincidences
Okay, I'll confess my ignorance and ask the question:
Has anyone else ever seen an
African-Palestinian terrorist before?
There is the possibility that the gunman pictured is just a very dark-skinned Arab, or that the color balance was incorrect in this photo. Indeed, another photo of what appears to be the same individual at the same location does apparently show somewhat
lighter skin. But with the population of Gaza being
99.4% Arab Palestinian and the remaining 0.6% being Jewish, the question is obvious:
Who is that masked man?
Do we now have photo evidence that Palestianians are importing terrorists from North African terrorist groups? And would that perhaps explain why the Associated Press photographer who shot this photo was
kidnapped just hours after this picture was published?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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1
It is only a thumbnail with low-resolution, but it looks lke the black is a PhotoShop effect, called 'masking', I think.
Notice his 'black' color is constant and continuous and that just isn't right for any picture of that type.
Also look at the outline of the head. No hair or ears or features other than white eyes.
Posted by: Brett at October 24, 2006 06:20 PM (tcu3i)
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It is only a thumbnail with low-resolution, but it looks lke the black is a PhotoShop effect, called 'masking', I think.
Notice his 'black' color is constant and continuous and that just isn't right for any picture of that type.
Also look at the outline of the head. No hair or ears or features other than white eyes.
Posted by: Brett Field at October 24, 2006 06:20 PM (tcu3i)
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Not to disagree with the hypothesis above, but it isn't beyond reason that black Muslims from Somalia, Egypt, Sudan, or wherever have gone to Palestine to 'fight for the cause.'
Posted by: Dawnfire82 at October 24, 2006 06:57 PM (RvTAf)
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Wow, an African fighting Israelis? That would present a conundrum white supremacist groups around the nation.
Posted by: paully at October 24, 2006 09:15 PM (yJuX3)
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1. the population of Gaza has been 100% arab Palestinians for over a year now (ever since the disengagement). There is not a single Jew living there. Not even one. (There are African/black Jews in Israel, by the way).
2. There are black Palestinians in the strip. Bein Hanun for example is of Bedouin tribes. There are Bedouin tribes who are black just like Africans, (although I'm not familiar with their history), the Tarabin for example.
3. Never the less, your theory is very realistic, since Somalis and other Africans who escape from their countries, have been crossing the border to Israel from Egypt for over a decade now, it is a very common thing. For the last year the border between Egypt and Gaza has been practically open, so that Africans can cross to Gaza with no problem. Given the fact Sinai is flooded with Al-Qaeda cells, and the consistent call in the Arab world for more Muslims to continue coming to the Israeli front, I guess what you suggested is not very unlikely, with no further data.
Posted by: an Israeli at October 25, 2006 06:16 PM (7A241)
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Abandon All Hope
This child was weak—perhaps injured or dying—as this photo was taken in the Darfur region of Sudan in 2004. He may already be dead. One thing is certain; the future of millions of children throughout the Middle East just like him will be affected by you very soon.
As you read this,
Darfar is a largely abandoned genocide. Supported by the Sudanese government, Arab
janjaweed militias are exterminating Africans of the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. Estimates of the number of dead vary, and millions are thought to be displaced. We know that children and babies are among the targets of the
janjaweed attacks, and that dismemberment is a not uncommon tactic. We also know that the violence in Darfur is projected to worsen throughout the rest of the year.
If current U.S. political trends hold, Iraq may become another Darfur, and Darfur well may be on its way to becoming another Rwanda.
As Victor David Hansen notes of unexpected outcomes
today:
Where does all this lead? Not where most expect. The Left thinks that the “fiasco” in Iraq will bring a repudiation of George Bush, and lead to its return to power. Perhaps. But more likely it will bring a return of realpolitik to American foreign policy, in which no action abroad is allowable (so much for the liberals’ project of saving Darfur), and our diplomacy is predicated only on stability abroad. The idealism of trying to birth consensual government will be discredited; but with its demise also ends any attention to Arab moderates, who whined for years about our support for the House of Saud, Pakistani generals, Gulf autocrats, or our neglect of the mayhem wrought by Islamists in Afghanistan. We know now that when the United States tries to spend blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq that it will be slandered as naïve or imperialistic.
Every major Democratic candidate in this fall’s congressional race—save one principled independent Democrat in Connecticut—is pushing for the United States to withdraw from Iraq. Some moderate Republicans are taking this tack as well. They claim that they want U.S. forces out of Iraq because our continued presence there only invites attacks against American soldiers, saps the national treasury, weakens our ability to respond to other threats such as Iran and North Korea, and weakens our image in the international community.
All of these points have some merit.
U.S. soldiers would be far safer if
redeployed to Okinawa. There are no insurgents, no sectarian militias, and no roving bands of al Qaeda terrorists there.
The War in Iraq is indeed expensive, costing over
336 billion dollars and growing according to one anti-war web site.
Having such a large commitment of soldiers currently in, returning from, or preparing to go to Iraq certainly absorbs a significant portion of our current military strength, though it barely occupies our force projection from the Navy and Air Force to any extent.
And let us not forget that our international image is indeed tarnished, particularly among those nations of the world community run by strongmen, despots, and dictators that would see a weaker and more isolationist United States as a benefit for their own foreign policy desires.
But what no candidate in favor of withdrawal wants to address is what will happen to the Iraqi people if anti-war candidates do take control of Congress and attempt to live up to their campaign promises.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and other leading Democrats have already made their intentions
abundantly clear:
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee if Democrats win control of the House next year, but his main goal in 2007 does not fall within his panel’s jurisdiction.
"I can’t stop this war, " a frustrated Rangel said in a recent interview, reiterating his vow to retire from Congress if Democrats fall short of a majority in the House.
But when pressed on how he could stop the war even if Democrats control the House during the last years of President Bush’s second term, Rangel paused before saying, "You’ve got to be able to pay for the war, don’t you?"
Rangel’s views on funding the war are shared by many of his colleagues – especially within the 73-member Out of Iraq Caucus.
Some Democratic legislators want to halt funding for the war immediately, while others say they would allocate money for activities such as reconstruction, setting up international security forces, and the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"Personally, I wouldn’t spend another dime [on the war,] " said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).
Woolsey is among the Democrats in Congress who are hoping to control the power of the purse in 2007 to force an end to the war. Woolsey and some of her colleagues note that Congress helped force the end of Vietnam War by refusing to pay for it.
If Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, they
will cut funding to the war effort. What they will not publicly admit is that the nearly immediate precipitous withdrawal that that would force will almost certainly destroy any hopes of Iraq being able to develop a representative form of government.
An impending, unimpeded civil war dwarfing the current level of sectarian violence will quite probably lead to genocide in Iraq, and yet, politicians in the House would not likely respond by reinserting U.S forces to help halt the violence. To do so would be to admit that they were wrong to force such an abrupt withdrawal.
Photo of an Iraqi family near the Iranian border courtesy of Michael Yon.
The price of such short-sighted political miscalculations will be paid for with the blood of Iraqi, men, women, and children. They
do not want an even wider civil war, but lack any authority or capability to stop it on their own. No one can predict just how bad the violence would become, but anyone addressing the situation honestly must acknowledge that the number of those killed, injured and displaced will be far greater than the already unacceptable casualties thus far.
The Democratic Party’s intention is not genocide in Iraq, but if they come to power in Congress, that is almost assuredly what they will cause. Their much-discussed and on-going drive for isolationism is precursor to mass murder.
And yet, Iraqi civilians will not be the only victims of a Democratic Congress. A Democratic House that refuses to allow American forces the opportunity to attempt to stabilize a situation we created will have no political capital to intwt in interceding in other conflicts where we have even less direct interests.
As Hanson notes in his article linked above,
no action abroad will be permissible if we withdraw from Iraq. There can be no intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur. There can be no intervention in any other "hot spots" that may develop around the world ,because a Democratic Congress that abandoned Iraq will have committed itself to a policy of non-intervention worldwide.
It is well within the realm of possibility that American voters will determine with their votes on November 7 whether or not we will see
this mistake of inaction repeated in other nations in the Middle East and Africa in coming years.
The cost in blood and treasure of the current "Republican" war may yet pale in comparison to the human suffering imposed by a pending Democratic "peace."
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
11:44 AM
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1
The politicians who will withdraw the troops from Iraq and Afganistan are not the politicians who will want to deploy troops to Darfur.
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at October 24, 2006 12:08 PM (oC8nQ)
2
No one reads history anymore. South Vietnam did not collapse until the Congress cut their military funding. And the slaughter that followed was horrific.
Posted by: Dawnfire82 at October 24, 2006 07:01 PM (RvTAf)
3
No one reads history anymore. South Vietnam did not collapse until the Congress cut their military funding. And the slaughter that followed was horrific.
Or maybe they just don't care what happens to the Iraqis in the first place. Their own moral self righteousness is more important.
Posted by: Dawnfire82 at October 24, 2006 07:02 PM (RvTAf)
4
Oh, god, now it's the conservatives who are urging us to abandon our national interests in the service of people elsewhere. America must do, first of all, what is right for America. And that means telling the Iraqis that we do not have infinite patience, money and lives, and that they must work this out on their own.
Your argument might have some merit if we could actually prevent genocide in Iraq by staying. Unfortunately, genocide has already taken place in Iraq, unless you have some other word for 600,000 dead Iraqis (if you want to dispute the figure, please go do your own peer-reviewed study). Iraq gets worse the more we stay, not better. We destroyed the country, made it worse off than under Saddam (it's un-PC to say that, but it's undeniably true). We at least owe it to them not to continue an occupation that is fueling a genocidal war.
And Dawnfire82? You might want to look at how many troops Nixon had pulled out of Vietnam by the 1972 election. If Bush was as much of a cut-and-runner as Nixon was, I'd be ecstatic. More than that, though, nobody ever explains how we could have helped matters by staying longer. Fewer Vietnamese died at the hands of the Communists (horrible as they were) than as a result of the actual war, and while Pol Pot was a genocidal madman it's not clear that we could have stopped him simply by remaining in Vietnam (unless we stayed forever).
The fact is this: committing to stay in Iraq until it is a stable, peaceful, pro-American democracy is the same as committing to stay until monkeys can fly. It means staying forever. If you can come up with an alternative between staying forever and telling them we have to go, let's hear it. And don't say "win" because we can't "win" another country's civil war.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 07:17 PM (u4Rnt)
5
Let's see if I understand:
Staying there gets Iraqis killed, so we cannot leave because that would get Iraqis killed?
Posted by: dzho at October 24, 2006 07:27 PM (jb33V)
6
What everyone seems to forget in this debate is whether or not the United States, no, scratch that, the PEOPLE of the United States still believe in the principles of our nation and whether or not they're worth fighting for, and yes; dying for.
Our founding fathers stated that All people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They didn't say 'only those living in these thirteen colonies.
If it takes forever then so be it, if we fight to free the oppressed then we can hold our heads high.
M.A. and so many others apparently feel it better to watch from a safe distance (but is it?) and complain about why we're not somewhere else, doing what we're already doing for the people of Iraq, helping them free themselves from tyranny.
Posted by: Rick Howard at October 24, 2006 07:39 PM (7MWQq)
7
What everyone seems to forget in this debate is whether or not the United States, no, scratch that, the PEOPLE of the United States still believe in the principles of our nation and whether or not they're worth fighting for, and yes; dying for.
Our founding fathers stated that All people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They didn't say 'only those living in these thirteen colonies.
If it takes forever then so be it, if we fight to free the oppressed then we can hold our heads high.
M.A. and so many others apparently feel it better to watch from a safe distance (but is it?) and complain about why we're not somewhere else, doing what we're already doing for the people of Iraq, helping them free themselves from tyranny.
Posted by: the commoner at October 24, 2006 07:40 PM (7MWQq)
8
The 600,000 number is not credible and the Lancet which published it is not a credible forum of peer review.
This current number is a result of the SAME Johns Hopkins group led by the SAME political activist (who in 2006 ran for Dem nomination to Congress) -- Les Roberts -- doing the SAME politically timed publication of numbers as just before the 2004 US election.
In 2004, the Lancet's "peer review" was remarkably compressed and Les Roberts openly admitted to AP that he submitted it to the Lancet on condition that they publish it before the US election. That study was immediately criticized by Human Rights Watch's own expert -- who was no ally of the Bush Administration!
Some intellectually very twisted people back then prated on about how the only proper response would be another peer-reviewed study -- taking long past the election! To use that argument a second time in defense of the same political corruption of science is to admit to reveling in that corruption. It's an admission that one wants scientific journals to become activist rags -- in fact it's to reveal oneself as an activist rag of a person. Be the handbill. So much easier than having a soul.
Wikipedia article on epidemiologist Les Roberts includes mention of his 2006 Congressional run http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Roberts_(epidemiologist)
The Google cache of his campaign site no longer captures the old text, as of a few days ago.
"655,000 War Dead?: A bogus study on Iraq casualties." - Steven E. Moore, Opinion Journal (WSJ), Oct. 18, 2006 p://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009108
"Exaggeration won't save Iraqis: The new claims about the civilian death toll in Iraq are vastly overstated" - David Burchell, The Australian, Oct. 19, 2006 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20604818-7583,00.html
Regarding Les Roberts and his Johns Hopkins group in the Lancet back in 2004.
"Scientists estimate 100,000 Iraqis may have died in war" http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-10-28-casualties_x.htm USA TODAY, Oct. 28 2004 -- Roberts admits he submitted article to Lance on condition of pre-election publication
"100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq" - Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Oct 29, 2004; Page A16, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html -- Human Rights Watch expert calls number inflated.
"100,000 Dead -- or 8,000: How many Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war?" - Fred Kaplan, Slate, Oct. 29, 2004 http://www.google.com/search?q=How-many-Iraqi+Fred-Kaplan
"Bogus Lancet Study" - Shannon Love, Chicago Boyz, Oct. 29, 2004, http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html
"Comment on 'Bogus Lancet Study'" AMMackay, Chicago Boyz, Oct. 29, 2004
http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html#009323
"Lancet Civilian Death Report Kills the Truth" - Michael Fumento, Tech Central Station, Nov. 1, 2004, http://www.techcentralstation.com/110104H.html
Now, back in 2006:
"The Lancet: Medical Journal Or Activist Rag?" - J.F. Beck, RWDB , Oct 13, 2006, http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_rwdb_archive.html
Posted by: ForNow at October 24, 2006 08:06 PM (0lNNS)
9
ForNow, it's been two years since that first study -- how come nobody has tried to do a more "credible" study? Apart from the whole thing about Iraq being dangerous and all. It might have been credible in 2004 to say that there had been no alternative study. In 2006 there's been plenty of time for non-Lancet alternatives and none are forthcoming.
Also, here's a debunking of the "debunkers" of the Lancet study.
As for the commoner, if you don't understand that the Founding Fathers did in fact value the freedom of America over the freedom of the rest of the world, you don't understand the concept of patriotism and national interest. Which, come to think of it, is true of many conservatives these days.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 08:50 PM (brQsT)
10
"is the same as committing to stay until monkeys can fly" a statement that pathetic makes you look like a complete fool. Why would anyone consider anything else you have to say. The MSM and Dems claim all is lost, yet in any measurement of history this war is still a huge success. Is it nasty, tough and tragic? Of course it is as are all wars. Retreat and defeat has so many more possible tragic consequences and will so embolden our enemies it will make this current battle look pale in comparison.
Lets be honest this is not about Bush lied or Bush is incompetent this is about the Dems lust for power consequences be damed. Bush is not in the basement picking bombing targets like LBJ he is taking his advice from the Generals in the field. Everytime the MSM and the Dems claims he is incompetent or has no plan they are just trashing the brass and could careless about the troups. The Dems just want power and the MSM is enabling them and it's all enough to make me puke.
I have wondered many times how this war would look if this country was united. But again thanks to the "power at any price Dems" and the terrorists they keep cheering on, that can not be known. I also love how the left blames Bush for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington as if he has said anything compared to what has been tossed his way.
The left can dream all they want about the coming Dem tsunami and relish in the last MSM push poll. I'll sleep well tonight comfortable in the sanity of the American people. Regardless of what the MSM claims will happen I am confident these pathetic clowns will never regain control.
Posted by: TitanTrader at October 24, 2006 09:05 PM (sRKVr)
11
Saddam Husein is gone and Iraq is no longer a threat. The question is whether democracy can be achieved in Iraq through our presence at an acceptable cost or whether we should prop up one or more authoritarian regimes in Iraq and leave.
I don't have the answer to that question. I do know that the Democrats are not capable of addressing it at all. A large Democrat majority in Congress would be a disaster for American policy.
Yes, it would be a replay of 1974 when the Democrats undercut our Vietnamese allies by withdrawing financial support for the war at a critical point, throwing away an American victory in the Viet Nam conflict and setting back American foreign policy for at least 6 years.
One thing I am sure of. We must be involved militarily in the Middle East indefinitely. It will be costly and horrendous mistakes will be made. The Republicans still seem willing to pay the cost and play the game in spite of the inevitable mistakes and setbacks. The Democrats consistently play the role of an opportunistic, irresponsible minority party that would compromise American lives and vital interests to regain power. Unfortunately we are stuck with the Republicans since the Democrats are unfit to lead the nation.
Posted by: charles R. Williams at October 24, 2006 09:11 PM (LzPcN)
12
The MSM and Dems claim all is lost, yet in any measurement of history this war is still a huge success.
A national-security "success" is where you improve your position. America by any standard is worse off now than it was in 2002, having removed an enemy of the Islamists and of Iran (the evil but secular Saddam), destroyed Iraq, and bogged itself down in the middle of a civil war. The fact that you can call it a "success" because some elections were held is an example of why Republicans and conservatives can't be trusted with national security: they define national-security success by meaningless benchmarks instead of hard strategic benefits.
I don't have the answer to that question. I do know that the Democrats are not capable of addressing it at all. A large Democrat majority in Congress would be a disaster for American policy.
Huh? You admit you "don't know the answer" to our national-security dilemma, yet you say that the Democrats -- the only party that is offering solutions -- is not capable of addressing it?
Face it, this isn't 1974 any more. It's the Republicans who have lost all semblance of seriousness on national security. The Democrats are offering a plan: tell the Iraqis we're losing patience and we're going to leave. You may not like that plan. But your party offers nothing except some lame argument over whether they want to "stay the course" or "adapt to win."
There's only one party that is even remotely serious on national security: The Democrats. If you don't like their national-security ideas, come up with some of your own. But stop advocating that we do nothing except stay in Iraq forever.
One thing I am sure of. We must be involved militarily in the Middle East indefinitely.
Well, at least you're honest about wanting to stay forever. Of course, this is the very definition of why only Democrats are serious on national security: too many Republicans really believe that we need to be at war forever, but they don't have the nerve to state this nonsense out loud (instead they use fake meaningless language about "victory").
The Republicans are the party of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld -- which is to say, the party that no longer cares about America's national security interests. The Democrats, for all their faults, are the only serious national-security party left.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 09:22 PM (brQsT)
13
M.A. writes "Your argument might have some merit if we could actually prevent genocide in Iraq by staying. Unfortunately, genocide has already taken place in Iraq, unless you have some other word for 600,000 dead Iraqis"
MA, even assuming 600,000 over 3+ years is true, if we leave, it is likely millions will die.
Guess to people like you, 600,000 Arabs down ain't too much different than, say, 3,000,000. Once the 600,000 threshold was reached, it doesn't really matter if a few million more bite the dust in your malignant-narcissistic, amoral world view.
They all look the same to you, no?
Posted by: ErisIDysnomia at October 24, 2006 09:39 PM (lFVRs)
14
M.A. writes "America by any standard is worse off now than it was in 2002"
I applaud M.A. for being the world's Owner and Master of Standards. He's certainly considered all the alternative standards, and judged accordingly.
Bow to the master! Hail the intellect and expertise of M.A.! Hail Caesar!
Posted by: ErisIDysnomia at October 24, 2006 09:42 PM (lFVRs)
15
MA, even assuming 600,000 over 3+ years is true, if we leave, it is likely millions will die.
Even assuming this is true -- and I would point out that a phased, gradual withdrawal by U.S. troops could help prevent that from happening; we wouldn't just pull everyone out at once -- what's your alternative? If we have to stay until Iraq is at peace, then we have to stay forever. And we cannot do that. Do you have an alternative plan that will allow us to a) stop millions from dying and b) not commit to staying in the country forever?
As for "they all look the same," I'm not the one who wanted to invade a secular Arab Muslim dictatorship because its people looked the same as the people who blew up the WTC....
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 09:45 PM (brQsT)
16
I applaud M.A. for being the world's Owner and Master of Standards. He's certainly considered all the alternative standards, and judged accordingly.
Cute. But that I'm right is proven by one thing: conservatives cannot, do not, will not argue for the rightness of the Iraq war without citing things that aren't true. They say that Saddam was a threat to America, that he wouldn't let the U.N. inspectors in, that he really did have WMDs, that he was not an enemy of Bin Laden -- all untrue, but all things you have to believe to pretend that the invasion has been helpful, not harmful, to America's national security interests.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 09:48 PM (brQsT)
17
I have heard just one plan from the Dems. It's to re-deploy to Okinowa. You can call that a "serious plan" but anyone with a ounce of commensense knows thats a complete joke. You can claim " by any standard where worse off then 2002". Thats just more Dem and MSM hyper-pol. Tell that to the 4000 dead terrorists they themselves claim.
Many experts predicted attacks where going to increase before this election. Yes they want to affect this election but why? It's obvious they want Bush to look bad and get Dems elected. Only a fool needs to ask why.
Posted by: TitanTrader at October 24, 2006 09:48 PM (sRKVr)
18
M.A. writes "Also, here's a debunking of the "debunkers" of the Lancet study."
M.A., Johns Hopkins caused the demise of patients a few years back because they didn't do the required research showing their "new" lung treatment had been found fatal in the 1950's.
Do a google search on "johns hopkins deaths pulmonary medline librarians"
So, how come you trust this politically-motivated "study" released by a leftward leaning professor and school a few weeks before an election?
See this professor's profile "Les Roberts" at Discover the Networks.org.
Posted by: ErisIDysnomia at October 24, 2006 09:51 PM (lFVRs)
19
TitanTrader, if you don't like Murtha's plan (where the word "Okinawa" only came up once), come up with a plan of your own that doesn't involve staying in Iraq forever.
As to the ramping up of attacks "before the elections," this is typical GOP narcissism -- assuming that everything that goes on in the world is all about what's good or bad for the GOP -- but it's also wrong on the merits. Bin Laden appeared in a video before the 2004 election because he knew it would help Bush. This was the judgment of the CIA, in any case, and it makes sense, since Bush has done exactly what Bin Laden wanted -- invade a Muslim country for no reason and confirm the bad things Bin Laden says about America. The last thing Bin Laden wants is a U.S. President who's serious about the terrorist threat, which is why he helped Kerry lose: Bin Laden knew that Kerry would be a more formidable enemy than the feckless Bush.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 09:56 PM (brQsT)
20
M.A. writes "Cute. But that I'm right is proven by one thing: conservatives cannot, do not, will not argue for the rightness of the Iraq war without citing things that aren't true. They say that Saddam was a threat to America, that he wouldn't let the U.N. inspectors in, that he really did have WMDs, that he was not an enemy of Bin Laden -- all untrue, but all things you have to believe to pretend that the invasion has been helpful, not harmful, to America's national security interests."
I apologize to other readers for the pronounced arrogance of M.A.
I've been to Saudi. The Saudis themselves have deformed children in their provinces bordering Iraq from Saddam's chemical warfare.
Sir, all the things you claim as untrue in your capacity to do the required investigations of easily-available material to confirm it.
I think you're in a panic because your leftist worldview is crumbling. I feel really sorry for you.
Posted by: ErisIDysnomia at October 24, 2006 09:56 PM (lFVRs)
21
ErislDysnomia, you claim that my "worldview is crumbling," yet you merely confirm my worldview: you cannot cite any truthful evidence in support of the Iraq war. (Instead you cite the fact that Saddam was evil and that he once had chemical weapons, both of which are true and both of which are irrelevant to America's security interests as of 2003.) The fact remains that Saddam was not a threat to America, that more Iraqis have died since the invasion than were dying in the last years of Saddam's reign, that Saddam had no WMDs and that the U.N. inspectors would have found this out if Bush hadn't kicked the inspectors out. Only by denying these facts can you justify the Iraq war -- but denial of basic facts is the reason why conservatives/Republicans are so weak on national security.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 09:59 PM (brQsT)
22
MA writes "but all things you have to believe to pretend that the invasion has been helpful, not harmful, to America's national security interests."
I see a lot of terrorists being killed in Baghdad, not Americans being killed in NYC as they were in london, spain etc. And none of the other attacks such as extensively catalogued on "the religion of peace.com"
I'd say on the face your argument is risible.
You need to learn how to argue rationally, not emotionally. Do your emotional venting on a street corner and spare us your babble.
Posted by: eris at October 24, 2006 10:01 PM (lFVRs)
23
M.A. writes "ErislDysnomia, you claim that my "worldview is crumbling," yet you merely confirm my worldview"
M.A., your belief that what I write confirms your worldview is proof that your worldview is inded crumbling. The left s exposed for the amoral, malignantly narcissistic, nihilistic mental illness that it is.
You think too relativistically and postmodernistically to understand the profound nature of this message, but think about it some before replying. Thanks.
Posted by: eris at October 24, 2006 10:04 PM (lFVRs)
24
Oh the old Bush lied meme. I guess when all else fails you can allways jump back on that one. I guess you know we are all sick of listing all of what the dems said about WMD. Face it most Dems voted for the war. When the going got tough the Summer Soliders rebuffed. You can claim retreat and defeat is a plan will find out soon enough if the American people believe its a plan.
Posted by: TitanTrader at October 24, 2006 10:05 PM (sRKVr)
25
As I have now won the argument with MA, who persists in arguing from the emotions rather than from logic, I now am going to bed.
Good night all!
Posted by: eris at October 24, 2006 10:06 PM (lFVRs)
26
I see a lot of terrorists being killed in Baghdad, not Americans being killed in NYC as they were in london, spain etc.
Again, you show why conservatives aren't serious about national security: you talk as if "terrorists" are a fixed pool, a finite resource, and if they're in Iraq they can't be anywhere else. Liberals understand the concept that there are many different kinds of terrorists and that they must be a) turned against each other and b) kept from recruiting more. Conservatives pretend that terrorists are all one group, like an army, and console themselves with the false belief that a terrorist killed in Iraq would otherwise have been a terrorist killing in America...
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 10:06 PM (brQsT)
27
Face it most Dems voted for the war.
Even that's not true. A slim majority of Senate Democrats voted for the use of force resolution, to their shame. But most House Democrats didn't vote for it, 21 Senate Democrats voted against it, and most rank-and-file Democrats were against the war. Here's what Barack Obama said in 2002:
"I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."
So while some Democrats were for the war, most of the people who were against the war -- and therefore in favor of America's best national security interests -- were Democrats.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 10:09 PM (brQsT)
28
Oh the rock star speaks while he was in the state senate no less. If "most of the people where against the war" why did most of the people re-elect GWB and increase Republican control thru-out the nation?
Posted by: TitanTrader at October 24, 2006 10:14 PM (sRKVr)
29
TitanTrader, I didn't say "most of the people were against the war." I said that of the people who were against the war, most of those people were Democrats. Nearly all Republicans were so weak on national security that they blindly supported the Iraq war. Not all Democrats opposed the war, but most Democrats did, and that proves that the Democrats are more serious than the Republicans on national security.
Posted by: M.A. at October 24, 2006 10:17 PM (brQsT)
30
No thats what you said I suggest you re-read it. Regardless just because the MSM and the Dems continue to cry about the war doesnt make them stronger on NAT SEC. It just make em a bunch of whimps. Just as their continued crying about the econ dosen't make them stronger on the econ. It just makes em a bunch of socailist, redistributing commies. And with that good night and good luck.
Posted by: TitanTrader at October 24, 2006 10:28 PM (sRKVr)
31
> Unfortunately, genocide has already taken place in Iraq, unless you have some other word for 600,000 dead Iraqis (if you want to dispute the figure, please go do your own peer-reviewed study).
600,000 is a propaganda figure, and easily recognizable as such. No one else has come up with a figure anywhere close to it.
> Iraq gets worse the more we stay, not better.
Debatable at best. And that's being kind. Much of Iraq's infrastructure has been rebuilt, free elections have been held, most of Iraq is realitvely peaceful, the Iraqi army has been substantially rebuilt and trained by our troops, the economy is growing by leaps and bounds, and much more. Sure, there's a lot that weighs against all that, but ... it's only been 3 years. You sound like the press trying to call the Iraq war a quagmire at the 3-week point.
> We destroyed the country, made it worse off than under Saddam (it's un-PC to say that, but it's undeniably true).
I deny it's true. Can't be very undeniable. It's not America that is destroying Iraq now, if you understand the concept of "civil war".
> We at least owe it to them not to continue an occupation that is fueling a genocidal war.
Again, an assertion, not an argument.
> And Dawnfire82? You might want to look at how many troops Nixon had pulled out of Vietnam by the 1972 election. If Bush was as much of a cut-and-runner as Nixon was, I'd be ecstatic.
That statement demonstrates either ignorance of the history or deliberate obtuseness. Nixon pulled Americans out of Vietnam by gradually standing up the South Vietnamese army, and promising to support them financially and with air support. This approach didn't collapse until Congress deliberately cut off all that funding and support. Which led almost immediately to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands.
> More than that, though, nobody ever explains how we could have helped matters by staying longer. Fewer Vietnamese died at the hands of the Communists (horrible as they were) than as a result of the actual war, and while Pol Pot was a genocidal madman it's not clear that we could have stopped him simply by remaining in Vietnam (unless we stayed forever).
Given the record of worldwide communism for global murder in the last century, it's shameless to claim fewer would have died if we hadn't been there. Ever hear of the "killing fields" of Cambodia? The killing of millions was a part of every successful communist revolution. Again, it's absolutely shameless to try to blame this on the US.
But it is at least on topic. Here is the one real comparison between Iraq and Vietnam: that willingness of so many to argue in favor of the enemy and against their own.
It's possible to argue seriously that Iraq was a mistake, but by now the die is cast, and we are at war. War has a way of reducing complex issues to a very simple dynamic: us or them. It is unconscionable to suggest that we just pull out with a mumbled apology and let some of the most heartless and wicked killers in the world destroy an entire nation.
> The fact is this: committing to stay in Iraq until it is a stable, peaceful, pro-American democracy is the same as committing to stay until monkeys can fly. It means staying forever.
Two problems with that statement: 1) What you say is not a fact, just an opinion with scant reason. 2) What you say is also a logical fallacy: a false dilemma. There are more choices than, "Leave now" or "Stay forever". For example, a) stay another year, b) another 2 years, c) another 3 years, d) until the Iraqi army reaches 95% e) until all militias have disbanded or been placed under control of the central government, and so on.
> If you can come up with an alternative between staying forever and telling them we have to go, let's hear it. And don't say "win" because we can't "win" another country's civil war.
Done. See above.
It's easy to come up with alernatives. The hard part is to pick the best alternative and stick with it, because there will be opposition dedicated to trying to make you fail.
If self-rule was easy, there wouldn't have been so many banana republics in South America. And yet, the Germans do it, the Italians, do it, the Japanese do it. 60 years ago, a lot of people doubted that any of them were capable of it, based on their own history. Who's to say the Iraqi's can't manage it?
Oh, that's right. You.
Posted by: Tom Henderson at October 25, 2006 12:33 AM (ZQpjR)
32
What's wrong with staying forever?
We've had bases in England, Germany, Italy and Japan for 60 years. We've closed some, but we'll probably have some there for another 100 years. It's a pretty good deal all around.
If we leave now and Iraq falls to complete civil war, Iran gets the south. That increases their part of the world supply of oil from about 11% to 18%. It means we no longer have them surrounded, and they can press their nuke development as fast as they want.
(It also means we give up on North Korea, and they can sell their fissile material and technology to Iran, giving them a leg up)
Once Iran has nukes, their internal politics will force them to use them. After all, the only justification the mullahs have to stay in power is the evil of Israel and the US.
So we save a couple of thousand US troops, and pay for it with New York, DC, Chicago and Los Angeles. And Tel Aviv, of course. Then we reply with a nuke launch that kills about 8 million Iranians.
After that, things get ugly.
Posted by: Svolich at October 25, 2006 03:31 AM (IaaeR)
33
a Democratic Congress that abandoned Iraq will have committed itself to a policy of non-intervention worldwide.
That's obvious election-time bullshit. Dems won't have opposed intervention, but stupid & counterproductive intervention. The Dems' categorical opposition to feckless intervention commits them to being opposed to Iraq, but doesn't foreclose action in, say, Darfur.
Posted by: jpe at October 25, 2006 04:47 AM (mX/Vp)
34
unless you have some other word for 600,000 dead Iraqis
Until such time as Al-Jazeera shows some substantial fraction of those fresh graves on video, I'm forced to conclude the "study" is crap.
Are you effectively alleging that perhaps Al-Jazeera is engaging in a coverup too?
You can't hide 600,000 fresh graves in this age of video cell phones.
As the old Burger King ocmmercial said: "where's the beef?"
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 25, 2006 10:23 AM (AuPsg)
35
Really, jpe? I'd say it's bullshit that the Dems would agree to "action" (as you put it) in Darfur. Oh yeah it sounds great in principle, but it'd get messy real quick.
How long after any deployment of US ground forces do you think it would be before the first teary eyed Sudanese woman went on CNN/BBC/al-Jazeera to claim the US forces killed her son and destroyed her house? 1, maybe 2 hours? And how long after that before ANSWER and Code Pink hold their first "stop the war" protest in Washington DC? 1, maybe 2, days?
As I said, any intervention in Darfur would get messy. We'd be chasing those Janjaweed militias, who like guerillas everywhere would be hard to find. Further, just like Iraq it would "create terrorists", because Jihadists would sign up to go fight us - again, just like Iraq.
Posted by: Tom the Redhunter at October 25, 2006 08:00 PM (uj7Or)
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October 23, 2006
U.S. Soldier Missing in Baghdad
Breaking on al-Reuters:
A U.S. soldier was reported missing in Baghdad on Monday, the military said.
The soldier, part of a multi-national division in the Iraqi capital, went missing at about 7:30 p.m. local time, the U.S. military said in a statement.
"Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces immediately responded to attempt to locate the soldier, the search is ongoing," the statement said.
The limited information coming out thus far does not indicate the circumstances under which the soldier went missing. In June, two soldiers were captured, tortured and eventually
beheaded after a larger force was drawn away and their isolated position was overrun.
It has not been confirmed that this soldier was indeed captured, but that is of course the fear.
More as this develops.
Update: Fox News television mentioned the story briefly. The soldier, a translator, was kidnapped. The kidnapping was reported by an Iraqi civilian who witnessed it..
As expected, the bottomfeeders at the Democratic Underground are
already insisting that any impending torture is, of course, President Bush's fault for signing the Military Commissions Act nine days ago.
Never miss a chance, kids, no matter how petty.
Update: This may be
something:
An employee at Baghdad's al-Furat TV, which was raided by American forces earlier Monday, said the U.S. forces conducting the search told him they were looking for an abducted American officer of Iraqi descent.
The employee said U.S. soldiers and Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the government's national security adviser who went to the station during the raid, told him the missing officer had left to join family members in Baghdad's Karadah district.
The officer's wife, also an Iraqi-American, was reportedly in the capital visiting family, according to the reports passed on by the al-Furat employee.
Having relatives in the combat zone means that this particular soldier had a great degree of potential exposure. I hope that whoever kidnapped the missing soldier did not use his family members or his spouse as bait leading to his capture.
Update: Snatched on the way to his family? that is what I take away from
this line:
American troops who raided Baghdad's al-Furat TV on Monday said they were looking for an abducted American officer of Iraqi descent who had gone to join family members in Karradah.
This is starting to sound like this specific officer may have been targeted, bring about the possibility that whoever took him is looking for intelligence, not just a random soldier to torture for propaganda purposes ahead of the election.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
05:34 PM
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1
Excerpted and linked at Bill's Bites.
So, did this guy slip off alone to see a friend or does someone in his chain of command deserve a firing squad for incompetence? I had to think about either possibility but I can't think of a third.
Posted by: Bill Faith at October 23, 2006 07:46 PM (n7SaI)
2
...hate to think... Next week I'm going to learn to type.
Posted by: Bill Faith at October 23, 2006 07:48 PM (n7SaI)
3
I guess the torture and multilation of previous captives was in anticipation of President Bush signing the Military Commissions act long before anyone thought it would be needed to counter the traitors from the left wing democ'rat party. The more the left wing liberal say the more stupid they sound.
Posted by: Scrapiron at October 24, 2006 12:26 AM (vFS/o)
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