Archive for the 'Iraq' Category

Who do you trust, McCain or Obama?

TigerHawk has an interesting article on Andrew Sullivan’s comments about our recent successes in Iraq.  The article includes this quote from Sullivan:
Of course, this all makes Obama’s 16 month withdrawal timetable more and more feasible. It really now is a question of prudence and strategy in how best to withdraw troops. Do you trust McCain to [...]

Talking to the troops

I’m sorry to say that, for me, “the troops” have always been somewhat abstract, not because I don’t respect and admire them, but because I really don’t know any troops.  Living in my Marin bubble, where the military is anathema to the average person, you simply don’t have a large number of people entering the [...]

Prescient versus naive? stupid? ideologically blind?

Frederick Kagan has a fascinating comparison of the specific Iraq policy plans McCain and Obama advanced before the Surge.  McCain actually envisioned a surge-like event, and described all the positive benefits that would flow from it — and his predictions proved to be completely accurate.  Obama, of course, demanded retreat and defeat.  Given the success [...]

WaPo editor finally figures out that the Left lied, not Bush

There is an absolutely staggering editorial in today’s Washington Post — it admits that, John Rockefeller’s “official” indictment to the contrary, Bush did not lie. If anything, Rockefeller, in his official Senate Intelligence Committee report is lying by reaching conclusions at odds with his own evidence:
Search the Internet for “Bush Lied” products, and you [...]

Victory might be ours

I love Dean Barnett’s column explaining how much Bush and our military have achieved In Iraq and deservedly castigating the Democrats who would, first, deny that any victory is within our sights and, second, give the credit for American perseverance, strength and fortitude to the Iranians.

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Lynn Woolsey confirms her status as an idiot *UPDATED*

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but Lynn Woolsey represents me in Congress. I didn’t vote for her — but this is what you get in a majority style democracy. Marin County has many virtues, which is why I like to live here, but wise political choices are not among those virtues.
Right now, as [...]

Why you shouldn’t cut off your nose to spite your face

I’ve been finding very disturbing the intense hostility that conservatives direct against John McCain. So much so that I wrote a very long rant on the subject, which American Thinker was kind enough to publish and which I reprint below:
Perhaps because I’m a neocon, and not a dyed-in-the-wool, native-born conservative, I look at John [...]

These bombs were not put together in the garage *UPDATED*

Have you heard the old expression “a fine Italian hand?” It’s an old saying that applied to a situation in which you believed, at first, that you were dealing with one rather inept adversary. However, as the matter progressed, you began to realize that there was a more skilled, subtle — and invisible [...]

Moral relativism demands that we respect their choices

There are no good people or bad people. There are only people who have different cultural values. My deep and abiding respect for the multicultural principles underlying moral relativism demand that I accept as culturally reasonable the fact that terrorists in Iraq strapped a remote-controlled bomb to an eight year old girl in [...]

The dishonor of an “honor culture”

The British press was rocked for a few minutes a couple of weeks ago by the story of an Iraqi girl whose father murdered her quite brutally because she’d fallen in love with a British soldier. (There was no hint, by the way, that she’d done anything about the love; it was an infatuation [...]

“Yes, I will ignore the commanders.”

Our local public radio station was replaying the most recent Hillbama debate, and so I listened to a piece of it that had slipped under my radar the first time. It’s actually quite funny, despite the scary implications of what Hillary is saying she’ll do regarding Iraq if she’s elected President. Here’s what [...]

Beating up thugs

The news story was the beating the Iranian thugs and terrorists took in Basra. But there was another type of thuggery going on, too, and Ralph Peters attacks it with a righteous zeal:
LIKE many Americans, I get angry at biased “reporting” about Iraq and the spin from dishonest pundits. Usually, I get over it [...]

The horrors of battle

A couple of nights ago, I watched a Frontline show entitled Bad Voodoo’s War, which followed a platoon of National Guard soldiers who were deployed to Iraq at the beginning of the Surge in 2007.  The show’s editor/producer did not go to war with the men.  Instead, she gave them video cameras, and they recorded [...]

I believe them, but….

Here’s the story:
Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called [...]

Interesting editorial choice

As is the rest of the media, the Times is making much of the fact that 4,000 American troops have died during more than five years of war in Iraq. I won’t repeat here (or, at least, I won’t repeat at length) my oft-stated belief that, while each death is a personal tragedy, this [...]

A little perspective on the “grim milestone” watch

If nothing else proves that most MSM journalists are hacks, it’s their inability to break free from the phrase “grim milestone” whenever they talk about a new reportable number of American deaths in Iraq.  They’ve taken a phrase that should give a sense of tragedy and, instead, turned it into something so hackneyed it’s almost [...]

Iraq would vote for McCain

To be honest, I made that post title up, but the fact is that Iraqi attitudes are in line with McCain’s (and Republicans’) views about Iraq: They too think the situation in Iraq is improving, they want Americans to stay and see this thing through, and they think it is very important that America [...]

McCain and . . . Churchill

Writing at American Thinker today, Steven Warshawsky gave a very good review to John McCain’s victory speech the other night. Warshawsky praises McCain for taking the high road and promising to focus on the issues, which should help middle class voters get past possible guilt about not voting for the woman or the black [...]

A citizen journalist in Iraq

I lost track of his blog for a while, and didn’t realize that Teflon Don, who wrote so poetically and movingly on his blog, Acute Politics, about his Iraq experiences when he was on active duty there has returned as a civilian journalist.  You should definitely check it out.  He’s roaming more freely as a [...]

When the absence of news is political

A friend sent me an email that I found fascinating on two levels. The first level was the email’s content, which describes all the huge positive strides occurring in Iraq that somehow never manage to get into the mainstream media:
Did you know that 47 countries have reestablished their Embassies in Iraq?
Did you know that [...]

The face of the enemy shows even when he tries to hide it

Are there words to describe men who strap bombs onto mentally disabled women and then send them into a marketplace, only to blow up the women and kill and injure hundreds of surrounding civilians, using remote control devices that keep the bombers themselves safe?  I think there is a word:  Evil.  This is pure, undiluted, [...]

Does this mean Bush didn’t lie? Yes, I think it does. *UPDATED*

I’ve never believed Bush lied and, to the extent his information was incorrect (as was information in the hands of all other Western agencies and governments), I assumed that our spywork was to blame. Now we get confirmation of what’s been rumored forever — it was Saddam who lied, never suspecting that his bluff [...]

Throwing yourself into the breach

When I was growing up, my father always told a story about a weapons training class he had in the Israel Army (this was during the War of Independence). An explosives expert led the impromptu class, made up of men and women soldiers, all grouped around the teacher in the hot Mediterranean sun. [...]

Stunning decline in casualties in Iraq

The Surge’s effectiveness in bringing down the rate of deaths in Iraq is stunning.  Naysayers (and there are a few who hang out here), have already moved the goal posts, saying that the Surge hasn’t worked because (a) all the necessary internecine, tribal, religious, etc., killing was already done before the Surge kicked in and [...]

Iraq’s producing a lot of oil

This is good news:
Iraqi oil production is above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year.
It puts the rise [...]