February 05, 2007
Have some time on your hands?
Commentary Magazine is wrapping up a four-round, eight-column debate between Max Boot and Victor Davis Hanson on the big picture in Iraq.
Posted by bill at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2007
Chimpy McBushhitler strikes again
If your Thursday's off to a bad start, don't read this. I don't read the NY Times but a friend emailed today's op-ed, which chastises the Bush Administration for "bully Iran into stopping its meddling inside Iraq" and suggests diplomacy would be more effective.
This op-ed reads as though it could have originated in Tehran. It's fair enough to suggest Ahmadinejad is weakening, and Maliki shouldn't be canoodling with Iranian-trained militias, if he is. Those are fair points, although the insinuation Bush has somehow abandoned diplomacy is false. But the NYT, as it and its Angry Left readers have repeatedly done wherever President Bush is concerned, obscures kernels of truth and worthwhile debate, in a tiresome anti-war, anti-Republican polemic. The suggestion Bush is "bullying" Iran -- that poor sheep lost in the woods -- by clarifying that US soldiers can protect themselves from Iran's goons is beyond idiotic. And that's why the NYT is an intellecutal garbage dump.
There's always been plenty to debate on Iraq. But as the NYT shows time and again, there's no one on the left to offer any reasoned discussion.
Posted by bill at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2007
Blankley: There is no "Third Way"
Tony Blankley delivers another gem, exposing the lie that we can somehow exit Iraq without defeat or victory:
the current mentality in Washington -- to pretend that there is a third way between victory and defeat -- is morally despicable. Washington politicians of both parties are trying to salve their consciences for the ignominy of accepting defeat by fooling either themselves or the public into believing they are doing otherwise.
Well worth a read.
Posted by GadsdenFlag at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
You mean we're not just killing women and children over there?
Wonder why we don't see stories like this in the US MSM:
The Iraqi sergeant has dodged bullets from the al-Mahdi Army and traded fire with Sunni insurgents. Yet in his years with the Iraqi Army he has learnt one simple lesson: once the US military pulls back in Iraq, he should leave the country if he wants to survive. "As soon as it happens, I will quit my job and live outside Iraq."
Posted by GadsdenFlag at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2006
WMD or not WMD?
It strikes me that conservatives' message on newly-disclosed sarin and mustard gas munitions in Iraq is a bit off-key. Let's face facts: a majority now believe the war was a mistake, and this is mainly because the "Bush lied" meme is having its intended effect. The great purple middle, having heard "no WMD" for years, regards this as a "known fact." And the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" is itself almost at a point in the talking point lifespan that it's regarded mostly with either extreme skepticism or outright disdain. That's the problem with neat labels --few now consider what those three words put together mean. So instead, shed that talking point and give us bare, non-technical facts: How are sarin and mustard gas used? How might Saddam have used them, or planned to - why did he have them? What countries could they reach? How many would have died? Thousands? Millions? Could they or the technology have been sold? To whom? I also don't want to hear how many "cannisters," or "munitions," or "shells." Like most people, these terms have little real significance to me.
Just the facts - so we know how awful sarin and mustard gas are, and we'll use our own labels.
Gadsden Flag adds:
I would go so far as to say that the term WMD has almost come to be a badge of scorn, or an albatross hung around Bush's neck, as if the mere mention of the term is cause for snide laughter. Sort of like Bush's Monica Lewinsky.
What troubles me about the latest WMD info is not so much that it appears to be pre-Gulf War I stockpile (and thus no support for Saddam having an active WMD program prior to the invasion). As long as he had them, he could use them, and we know he did in the past. What does trouble me is the administration's silence over these findings for too long. I read that France, China and Russia have their dirty fingerprints on the precursors, and I think there is also more evidence that Russia agreed to transport the WMD to Syria prior to the invasion. Is Bush so reluctant to disclose this because it implicates 3 members of the UN Security Counsel? Why should Bush, and the US, take a bullet for three countries that aren't doing us any favors? Would revealing this information some how track back to us during the time we supporte Iraq over Iran?
Posted by bill at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2006
Liberals, say it with me: "Bush did not lie..."
The Democrats' timing is impeccable. As many liberals in the House and Senate try to rally the "cut and run" contingent, new developments on Saddam Hussein's link to Al Quaeda and his WMD (more here) give the lie to the Kerry/Murtha "Bush lied, withdraw troops now" meme.
(H/T: Gregg Jackson.)
Posted by bill at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2006
Oh, THOSE weapons of mass destruction
At some point the Bush administration abandoned (at least publicly) the possibility Saddam Hussein had WMD that were smuggled out of the country before the US invaded. Last month the President said:
After the swift fall of Baghdad, we found mass graves filled by a dictator; we found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction, but we did not find those weapons.
It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.
I've never understood why the WMD dialogue blithely assumes that if WMD weren't found, Saddam didn't have them, and I've been disappointed the WH seems unwilling to acknowledge that an unintended consequence of disarming Saddam may have been arming Syria et al. That position seems more credible than a wholesale "we were wrong." But it raises questions about the conduct of the war, and to me its abandonment reeks of crass political calculations. Anyway, with this in mind I was pleased to see the NY Sun is pursuing the smuggled WMD story, previewing "Saddam's Secrets," a book by the No. 2 man in Saddam's Air Force, Georges Sada. The Sun reports:
Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed...two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats...Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including "yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel." The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks.
Posted by bill at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2006
Sadr Power
Conflicting reports make it clear at least that Iraq's Mahdi Army leader Moqtada al-Sadr sees advantage to be gained from flirting with Iranian solidarity. The cleavages run counter to a firm alliance -- that is, the sort that would cause Sadr to order his milita into action in Iraq if Iran were struck by the West. First: Iran is not an Arab nation. Second: although the Shi'a are a powerful bloc in Iraq, it appears that those among them willing to destroy the government they have just helped create -- in order to step onto the wrong side of the line with Iran -- are in the minority.
Finally: I suspect Sadr is more interest in power than in principle. His future is far brighter as the anti-Chalabi in Iraq than it is as the cannon fodder of Iran ("we'll fight so you don't have to.") In order to maintain his position in a moment of fluidity, Sadr must become fluid -- tolerating vagueness and disjunct in his attributed statements, raising the possibility -- but by no means the certainty -- that he would order the Mahdi to join forces with Iran. Sadr has been playing a dangerous, double-dealing game for long enough to know that now is the time that practice may make perfect.
Posted by James G. Poulos at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2005
Iraq's challenge, and its promise
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, discusses what today means for Iraq, and what Iraq means to us. In short, "It is a linchpin in the needed transformation of the broader Middle East, which is the defining challenge of our time."
Rolling updates here and here but not here or here.
Posted by bill at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2005
"The Truth on the Ground"
Ben Connable is a USMC Major. His piece today in the Wash Post, "The Truth on the Ground," talks about what the military sees in Iraq, slapping around the white flag cancer that's spreading among the left:
...it is not a simple thing to ignore genuine optimism from mid-grade, junior and noncommissioned officers who have spent much of the past three years in Iraq.
We know the streets, the people and the insurgents far better than any armchair academic or talking head. As military professionals, we are trained to gauge the chances of success and failure, to calculate risk and reward. We have little to gain from our optimism and quite a bit to lose as we leave our families over and over again to face danger and deprivation for an increasingly unpopular cause. We know that there are no guarantees in war, and that we may well fail in the long run. We also know that if we follow our current plan we can, over time, leave behind a stable and unified country that might help to anchor a better future for the Middle East.
It is difficult for most Americans to rationalize this optimism in the face of the horrific images and depressing stories that have come to symbolize the war in Iraq. Most of the violent news is true; the death and destruction are very real. But experienced military officers know that the horror stories, however dramatic, do not represent the broader conditions there or the chances for future success. For every vividly portrayed suicide bombing, there are hundreds of thousands of people living quiet, if often uncertain, lives. For every depressing story of unrest and instability there is an untold story of potential and hope. The impression of Iraq as an unfathomable quagmire is false and dangerously misleading.
Bravo!
Posted by bill at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 07, 2005
Infamy And Victory
On this still-living day, in 1941, the United States embarked on a path toward the unconditional surrender of those who had brought it war. The clarity of those days is over. It ended, indeed, less than half a decade later with the Korean War. And now, again, we experience the complications of limited war in Iraq, only within a culture that does not believe there is no substitute for victory. No wonder: the definition of victory itself has changed. For good and for ill, winning isn't what it used to be.
Posted by James G. Poulos at 10:38 AM | Comments (2)
November 30, 2005
It's a war. Get over it.
I'd be surprised and concerned if the U.S. weren't undertaking propaganda in Iraq. It's how you win a war.
Posted by bill at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
Calculated Miscalculation
In a Weekly Standard piece William Kristol puts forward the theory that Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, has effectively doomed any chance the Democratic Party had of capturing the House of Representatives in 2006. How does Kristol think she accomplished this? By suggesting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Kristol then goes on to contradict himself by explaining how Pelosi may have staked out the superior position for her party:
it is possible that the situation in Iraq will worsen over the next year. If that happens, Bush and the GOP are in deep trouble. They would have been if Pelosi had said nothing. But it is much more likely that the situation in Iraq will stay more or less the same, or improve. In either case, Republicans will benefit from being the party of victory.
The ignorance of guerilla conflicts inherent in the claim that Iraq will "stay more or less the same" is mind-blowing. If the Democrats claim the House, the GOP will have its own intelligentsia to blame.
Posted by Audi Partem Alteram at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)
The way forward
The White House continues to fight back, with its 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." I am hoping the good folks at Powerline or Captain Ed will have time for a detailed look but until then, we can rely on the Wash Post. That is a joke, of course. The document is here. Take a look for yourself.
Posted by bill at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 27, 2005
Fighting back
This piece is a refreshingly pro-military read at the Christian Science Monitor entitled, "The Iraq story: how troops see it." Better: Bruce Willis is fighting back on behalf of American soldiers:
ANGERED by negative portrayals of the conflict in Iraq, Bruce Willis, the Hollywood star, is to make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.
He is expected to base the film on the writings of the independent blogger Michael Yon, a former special forces green beret who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their heroics.
Excellent! Read about Michael Yon here and listen to Yon's interview with Pundit Review Radio here. (H/T: Michelle Malkin.)
Posted by bill at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2005
On Iraq, Kagan & Kristol Get Getting It Right Wrong
Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, writing in the Weekly Standard, deploy a set of facts to refute Murtha but, unfortunate as it is, refute themselves instead.
Murtha, of course, claims that the U.S. occupation is the primary problem in Iraq and that "our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence." This is nonsense. For many months now, the insurgents have been shifting their attacks away from U.S. and coalition forces and directing them at Iraqis instead. Iraqis now make up the overwhelming majority of casualties resulting from insurgent attacks. This shift is evidence not only of the effectiveness of our protective measures, but also of the growing vitality of the Iraqi political process, which the insurgents, according to their own statements, fear and hate more than the U.S. military presence.
As one can guess, the emphasis was not Kagan and Kristol's. A belief that our success in protecting Iraqis is measured by how many of them have been blown up instead of American soldiers is not just analytically oxymoronic but a backhanded compliment stunning in its sheer moral autism. More...
Posted by James G. Poulos at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Rubber, meet road
Via Drudge and Daily Kos - Hotline Blog is reporting there will be a HOR vote this evening on the following resolution:
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
According to HB, "Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) rose this a.m. at the House GOP Conference and suggested that they call for a vote to force Dems to show "where they stand to the American people"....Hayworth's call was met with what VanHoose described as "enthusiastic applause" from the rank-and-file GOP." Kos demonstrates why: liberals don't want to take a stand. "...[T]he smartest thing to do would probably be to simply disappear for the vote," Kos says. "A 218-0 vote would be pretty useless as a political weapon for the GOP. No need to give them the satisfaction of a vote."
So let me get this straight - Kos wants Dems to cut and run from a vote on whether to cut and run from Iraq? This vote should prove fascinating, although I have to imagine Dems would seriously consider the response Kos suggests. Their best bet is to downplay the vote as unserious gamesmanship. In the end I think it's a brilliant move that could end up shutting down the withdrawal rhetoric, at least for a while. It will also give the White House a chance to re-take the reins on Iraq.
UPDATE: Watch the debate here.
Posted by bill at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005
Zawa's Fatwa
With Iraq on lockdown approaching Saturday's momentous constitutional referendum, Al Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahri has gone on record (quite unintentionally) as advocating the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
"It has always been my belief," he writes, "that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world." From that heart (called Mesopotamia, remember, not Iraq) will extend tentacles of Islamism aimed at Syria as well as Jordan and Lebanon.
The publicity of this note, meant for pen pal al-Zarqawi, comes at a fine time. Not only does it throw the upcoming vote in Iraq into higher relief, but it expresses in a very public forum (the Associated Press) the very real danger posed by revolutionary Islamism to countries not known to be American stooges or poodles. If it wasn't yet clear to Arabs generally and the world at large that Al Qaeda intends to impose deliberately its repressed and cankered will without regard to American policy, then it should be now.
Will Assad get the drift (while he lasts)?
Posted by James G. Poulos at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2005
A Constitutional Convention's Unconventional Intervention
Iraq watch: federalism issues have produced such an impasse that Bush himself picks up the telephone and suggests Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim partake of a little consensus-building.
Why are we here? The bogus colonial boundary-lines of modern-day Iraq. What do they contain? Three distinct groups with little in common and a tarnished and exhausted national identity.
Who can help Iraq toward a functional nationalism? The answer might surprise. Moqtada al-Sadr, he of the once-infamous Mahdi Army, is the only Shi'ite of any real power who supports unitary nationalism. Is the United States willing to reach out again to a man they once clobbered, a young firebrand willing to segue insurgency into politics? As time ticks down, it will also tell.
Posted by James G. Poulos at 09:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Time for GWB Fireside Chats?...and stuff
This is why I was happy to see Michael Barone had forrayed into the blogosphere. (H/T: Punditreview.com.)
If you're more interested in baseball, whether MLB is still riddled with steroid abuse and whether Rafael Palmeiro should take a lie detector test, you might opt for this story, in which Red Sax underperformer David Wells tells it like it is; or this one, marveling at 47 year-old Julio Franco, the oldest position player in MLB history.
Posted by bill at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
Global Cop? Global War? Try Military Police
Kerry was ridiculed for suggesting in debate that our national security imperatives could (and should) be handled with a low-intensity constabulary approach. Contrasting the prosecution of war with the booking of hoods were Bush and Cheney, who portrayed our mission abroad as less a game of global policeman than a matter of doing battle.
But as the Pentagon peers in its crystal ball the picture clouds. With the War on Terror as catchphrase caught in official limbo and the possibilities of life after Iraq and Afghanistan coming alive in the imagination of policy planners, the future prerogative of force looks like a combination of crime-busting for supercops and expeditionary thrusts by small-scale forces.
What we're facing is a world's-policeman role more musclebound and aggressive than anything Kerry could have imagined, and a granular, fine-focus network approach to combat far more latticed and finessed than what the Administration made it out to be by contrast. The line between Police Captain and Army Captain will continue to blur--not just overseas, but in America, too. Indeed, as border control cross-pollenates homeland security, the line between local and federal enforcement will shift in some places and merge in others (unless, of course, the Federal government continues to fight illegal immigration with poses and postures).
Posted by James G. Poulos at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
Iraq Constitution
Fred Kaplan misses some points in his column "Philadelphia 1787 vs. Baghdad 2005" (among which is to underestimate the havoc of America's first constitutional convention - read more here) but Kaplan's column is worth a read; many on the left, emboldended with barren hearts and vapid intellects, are left to little more than ridicule.
Posted by bill at 08:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 28, 2005
On Iraq
In advance of the President's speech tonight, advice comes cheap. John F. Kerry does make some valid points in his column today, foremost that our troops "deserve leadership equal to their sacrifice," which, the Senator might consider, is why he is writing op-eds instead of delivering tonight's speech.
Cliff May suggests Bush include this call to the next "Greatest Generation":
I have confidence that you understand that if we were to allow our enemies to destroy our will to fight, if we were to let our enemies defeat us on the battlefield in Iraq, that would not be the end of the war.
Rather, fortified by his victory, our enemy would go on to challenge us on other battlefields. I ask those calling on us to withdraw from Iraq leaving the Iraqi people to the tender mercies of al Qaeda: Where would you prefer we fight this enemy? Where would you like the battlefield to be? Or do you think we can hide from this enemy or cut a deal with him or make ourselves inoffensive to him? If so, you are seriously mistaken.
Meanwhile, Kos offers liberals two ways to talk about the Iraq war (advocate withdrawal or admit it's a failure and a mistake), which LGF notes:
comes after years of brittle screaming from Markos that "bringing democracy to Iraq" is nothing but a lie and a sham, and that we need to immediately cut and run. It's a little glimpse into the utter moral bankruptcy of the modern left, as they twist, distort, and change their stories at will depending on the political wind.
Posted by bill at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 20, 2005
Things about the war we don't see in MSM
Given MSM's treacherously biased coverage of Iraq, the more pictures like this the blogosphere can circulate, the better:
More here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Posted by bill at 08:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 02, 2005
Anysoldier.com
Want to help out our troops in Iraq? Here's a site that lists U.S. soldiers who are in need of supplies, everything from chap stick to soap. Check it out, and email the URL to a few people.
Posted by bill at 10:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 21, 2005
The Geneva Convention
I noticed that some blog responses regarding Abu Gharib invoked the well worn term "Geneva Convention" to both prove and disprove the illegality of the treatment of prisoners by the guards at Abu Gharib.
Well, what does the Geneva Convention say about prisoners of war? More importantly who are prisoners? What is a war?
Given the prevalence of terrorism in the waging of war today, the Geneva Convention seem sadly antiquated and naive in it's understanding of what war is and how it is actually conducted by peoples engaged in conflict.
The Geneva Convention does not wear well in a world of Saddam's, Arafats, and Bin-Laden's.
But you be the judge:
Excerpted from the
International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva
from 21 April to 12 August, 1949
entry into force 21 October 1950
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Click on this for the full text of the Geneva Convention
Posted by Lokisfur at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2005
Boxers or Briefs
Kudos to the UK's Sun for running this photo. No doubt the ACLU will have something to say about it. It's so humiliating and all.
Posted by bill at 09:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 07, 2005
Libeskind and the Liberal Stamp of Loserism on the WTC Site
Ugly or not the World Trade Center was no wimpy building complex. It was built to be in your face. One tower would have been a powerful show of corporate machismo. But two of them!!! Now that was a bold move and so New York, so unapologetically American.
The WTC was the most complete expression of the vitality and virility of US capitalism that has ever embodied an architectural structure. If New York City was the center of the world, the World Trade Center was its crotch.
Along comes Libeskind's plan -- a wispy pointy tower, like womens high-heeled shoes, dreadfully painful and a size too small. It could just as well be an oversized hotel in Paris, or a Japanese automaker's headquarters in Singapore. And just like all losers, it is unassuming, soulless, non-threatening and unoriginal -- add a depressing cemetery footprint that will remind everyone of how vulnerable and weak we were and you've got the architectural embodiment of what Democrats on the left and Liberals really think of this nation and the private enterprise which drives our economy and national philosophy.
Now that the Liebskind plan has been ditched, it's time to get real and stop apologizing for being us. I agree with Donald Trump, we need to rebuild the towers exactly the same...and at least one story higher.
Lest we forget. September 11, 2001. I watched the World Trade Center fall from my corner on 14th Street and Second Avenue. My niece was moving into her college dormitory about 300 yards from WTC at the time. My sister was in the air on a transcontinental flight back to Seattle. She had just finished staying with my mother for a couple of weeks to help her get back to "reality" after my father died suddenly in the last week of August.
We would not know whether or not my sister was alive for almost 24 hours, after all the planes that were part of the terrorist attack on this country had been accounted for and she was able to get a phone call through. It would take my sister almost an entire week to get back to Seattle using a hodgepodge of buses and trains to make her way across the panicked country.
I rode my bicycle to work that day. People in a fog. Dazed. That sickening smell of industrial smoke and combustion. Chemical. Horrible. Death. All of downtown seemed to be burning. I traveled uptown to the theater district where I worked. Broadway was solemn. There were no tourists anywhere to be seen. -- they had all become survivors. The shock of mortality trumping all cultural differences and stopping the blatant consumerism of "Times Square in its tracks.
I went to work. I was 20 minutes late. A co-worker was already there. She was freaked yelling, "We are all gonna die!!!! We're under attack!!!" I don't know why I didn't panic.. My first feeling that I could connect to was anger, I hated the people who did this whoever they were. My next feeling was pride that I was an American. I began to answer calls at my work, "Hi this is O_____D Entertainment, in Manhattan, New York City, and we are open for business. We will not be shut down!" The husband of the best friend of the VP at my company died at the WTC that day. They had children. They had family. They were not alone. The attack on this country touched all of us.
I went home that night and showed my ID to the National Guard to get to my apartment. In full combat gear, with loaded M-16's, they had sealed off access to downtown to everyone but residents and emergency personnel.
I couldn't sleep that first night. I went to Union Square. There were already thousands of "missing" flyers on poles and trees, hoping against hope that their loved ones were still alive.
There were also hundreds of hateful, anti-American voices already rising up and yelling loudly, "The US did this" It is America’s fault.", "We deserved it", "Bush did it", "Israel did it." "Blame Capitalism, not Islam". The people saying this did not seem to be extremists who loathed this country...they were mostly students or young people in their 20's. The so-called MTV generation. It was disgusting. It reeked of ignorance, selfishness and ingratitude.
A short time later, the major media would pick-up the drumbeat of "blame America first" as "American" reporters who never had a problem wearing red AIDS ribbons took the American Flag off their lapels to show that they were "for the world" not "America"
Then the Democrats climbed aboard, Kennedy, Kerry, Dean, Moveon.org All calling the President a "Liar" and a "Nazi" and blaming America’s military, corporations and support of Israel for bringing the world's hatred upon us.
It is now 2005, and Iraq and Afghanistan have Democracy. Saddam is in Jail. Bush and Blair have been reelected. We have not been attacked again. Bin-Laden and Al-Quada have been rendered impotent and incapable of offering anything more then the occasional videotape urging followers to "kill" or "kidnap" someone and cut their heads off.
There are still two holes in the ground downtown that need to be filled.
If the past four years of US successes has shown anything, it is that America is still the vital and virile leader who has earned and deserves the right to be called the beacon of hope and freedom for the oppressed of the world. "Bring us your poor and huddled masses." And bring us back our "World Trade Center" Both towers. Bigger, better, stronger then before....just like we are.
Chris Ward can be reached at lokisfur@aol.com
Posted by Lokisfur at 01:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 04, 2005
Photo of the Year
In case you missed it, a photo taken in the aftermath of a recent attack on U.S. troops in Iraq:
Pardon My English writes:
This American soldier is cradling in his arms a dying child. An innocent child. Probably no more than five or six years old. He is a victim of those whose only true faith is the faith of death. This faith is islam. The "religion of peace".
This American soldier, doing his duty in a faraway land, brings forth the full throat of compassion in his deeds on behalf of this little child. He is bestowing the fullest measure of human kindness. A final act of tenderness. Perhaps the only true act of kindness this child has ever experienced in their brief life.
America and her gallant soldiers are often derisively referred to as warmongers. I would refer them again, to the words of General Douglas MacArthur.
"This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
The intellectually annointed will patiently, as if talking to little children, attempt to tell us that "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." How soothing those words must sound to someone comfortably ensconced in their university office.
(H/T: Michelle Malkin.)
Posted by bill at 08:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Liberal Hawk at The Guardian?
Another liberal, writing in The Guardian, thinks Bush may have done right in Iraq. But he has some reservations:
Yet it still seems reasonable to question the optimism currently prevailing among Washington's neocons, because this remains founded upon a woefully simplistic vision. It is true that, in some chronic, unstable regions, some bad governments — those of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein — have been removed by the Americans. But the fragile advantages gained will be lost, unless Washington can match its boldness in the deployment of military power with a new sensitivity to alien cultures, matched by far more subtle political skills.
To me, it always seemed clear that Iraq under Saddam had nowhere to go but up. It's that simple, or "simplistic," if you will. Nor do I think any "fragile advantages" are in danger of being "lost." Better and worse outcomes are possible, but no plausible scenario would be as bad as the status quo ante.
Hastings strikes me as the kind of liberal for whom everything is grey. To me, that's a simplistic worldview. A neocon sees not only shades of grey, but black and white as well.
Posted by Good Samaritan at 08:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
