Bookworm Room

Tweet I promise that this post will be a review of Marcus Luttrell’s Service: A Navy SEAL at War.  First, though, I have to start with the ridiculous, before I can give proper context, not to the sublime (because war isn’t sublime), but to the important and meaningful. The ridiculous is, of course, MSNBC’s own [...]

25 Comments »

Tweet One of the most iconic British World War I recruiting posters had as its goal shaming slackers into enlisting by reminding them that, at some future time, their children would want to look up to them for their war service: The Obama administration has just added a whole new twist to the concept of [...]

7 Comments »

Tweet A friend sent me a link to an editorial bemoaning the fact that, by abruptly pulling out from Iraq and, soon, Afghanistan, the Obama administration is ensuring that we’re leaving a job undone — something that invariably means one has to do it again.  If history is going to keep repeating itself, why can’t [...]

4 Comments »

Tweet Here’s a Robert Samuelson article, “bye bye Keynes” that should give us all pause: the arguments he uses to write Keynes’ obituary are arguments that we all posited in our own excoriation of Keynes in years past, in response to a string of commentators, ranging from A to Z. I’ve been reviewing our last [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet After neatly exposing Obama’s deeply flawed thinking when getting the US into Libya, VDH dissects the differences between Iraq and Libya.  Whether one supported the Iraq War or not, it’s obvious that Bush at least had a rationale that conceivably benefited American interests; Obama does not.

No Comments »

Tweet Israel as the next Saudia Arabia?   According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Israel’s unusually large and high-quality shale oil reserves may yield as much oil as all of Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576242420737584278.html   These discoveries are in addition to of Israel’s recently diclosed gas reserves, also anticipated to [...]

16 Comments »

Tweet I was very surprised to see an AP wire story reporting that Islamic militants (as opposed to mere “militants” or “insurgents”) were holding “Christians” (as opposed to mere “people”) hostage.  Even more surprising, the AP reported that the Islamic militants were probably affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq, an entity one apparently couldn’t acknowledge [...]

2 Comments »

Tweet UPDATE: Thanks to the amazing power of the internet, a reliable source has let me know that this is a rumor, pure and simple.  No truth to it.  I’m leaving this post here, however,  just in case anyone follows up on it, so that there is no confusion about the truth (this) and the [...]

4 Comments »

Tweet Greyhawk is trying to put the pieces together in Iraq and Afghanistan when it comes to troop rotation.  Right now, on the information available, it looks as if their’s some sleight of hand going on with regarding to troop movements and the American public.  What do you think? In the mid-19th Century, Palmerston called [...]

5 Comments »

Tweet The head of the UN General Assembly just called Israel an “apartheid” state.  In other words, Israel is emblematic of evil in the world.  I’ve finally realized what the problem is:  Israel has a mixed population. Think about it:  Iraq expelled her Jews and hounded her Christians into obscurity.  Saudi Arabia makes it illegal [...]

12 Comments »

Tweet The MSM didn’t give this story any prominence (natch), but it’s some story: U.S. deaths in Iraq fell in October to their lowest monthly level of the war, matching the record low of 13 fatalities suffered in July. Iraqi deaths fell to their lowest monthly levels of the year. Eight of the 13 Americans [...]

2 Comments »

Tweet We all know that in the news world, “man bites dog” gets the front page, while “dog bites man” is ignored.  In a twisted way, then, one could say that the wall-to-wall Abu Ghraib coverage reflected the media’s horror that the American military had morphed from honor to dishonor.  (Or we could be realistic [...]

14 Comments »

Tweet There’s a good news article in the SF Chronicle today, and one that also has a one interesting point and one missing point.  First, the good news:  A local Marine battalion just returned home yesterday, safe and sound, from its fifth tour of duty: Number five was relatively easy. The Marine battalion that has [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet Two days ago, word broke that Barack Obama, despite myriad campaign promises to bring the troops home from Iraq as soon as possible, tried to derail withdrawal talks in order to advance his own political agenda.  Yesterday, Barack Obama issued a weirdly phrased denial that called Amir Taheri (the journalist who broke the story) [...]

2 Comments »

Tweet Treason is a pretty simple concept.  Here are a few choice definitions: A violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state. Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies. 1. a [...]

10 Comments »

Tweet Before today, I hadn’t heard of Frank Turek.  After today, I’m going to keep an eye out for his articles.  He’s written a really splendid article explaining how deeply, terribly wrong Obama’s every position is regarding Iraq.  Frankly, for those who are well-informed, there’s nothing in this article you haven’t seen before.  I’m just [...]

No Comments »

Tweet In light of the Surge’s manifest success, John Hawkins, of Right Wing News, has written a column that assembles many of the Democratic gloom and doom predictions about the Surge when it was first proposed.  Makes for interesting reading in that it exposes the profound ignorance and ideological blindness coming from the Left.

1 Comment »

Tweet 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 [...]

7 Comments »

Tweet 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 [...]

7 Comments »

Tweet 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 [...]

No Comments »

Tweet 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 [...]

2 Comments »

Tweet 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.

3 Comments »

Tweet 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 [...]

No Comments »

Tweet 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 [...]

38 Comments »

Tweet 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 — [...]

2 Comments »