November 16, 2008
See, I Told You We Were Winning
Reporting from Iraq, Michael Yon tells Glenn Reynolds that
"The was is over and we won"
Lucky for the Democrats Iraq wasn't an issue in the election.
"There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. toops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.
It turns out that it's even better than that. Reynolds one bit wrong, and Yon emailed in this correction:
"Actually, NONE of them have fired their weapons in combat during this tour, and about half of them are combat veterans from Afghanistan and/or Iraq."
With news like this it's no wonder that my liberal commenters have nothing to say about my Iraq posts.
After all, after Bush announced the surge in December of 2006, rather than support it the Democrats turned into Civil-war era Copperheads, squawking that the war was lost and there was nothing we could do.
But as I reported at the time, those who promoted the surge (General David Petraeus, Sen. John McCain, Dr. Fred Kagan, Gen. Jack Keane (ret), Australian Lt. Col. (Dr) David Kilcullen, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, and many others) said that no, we can do it.
Then, as the surge was implemented, throughout 2007 and into 2008 I reported on our progress through many "Iraq Briefings" and more. It became clear in late 2007 that we were winning, and since then we've done nothing but consolidate our gains.
Let us now review a little history.
First up is an excellent video documenting Senator Obama's pronouncements opposing the surge. Listen to him announce his "Iraq War De-Escallation Act of 2007" on January 30 of that year in which he demands an immediate withdrawal before the surge can take effect. Note also when he says that he believes that sending 20,000 additional troops would be counterproductive:
As late as last January, the Obama campaign was insisting that the surge was not working
Sorry, but although much still remained to be done, by January of 2007 it was clear that the surge was working.
I know, I'm "piling on." After all, Obama has been elected president and we on the right should just learn to deal with it.
Not to worry, I'll cut him a break when he takes office.
But the reason for this post is that I see a President Obama claiming credit for all this. Call me cynical, but I can just see him making big announcements everytime a unit comes home from Iraq, and all the leftie bloggers proclaiming too that it was all due to the wisdom of The One.
We'll know the truth, though, which is that Obama, Biden, and virtually all other Democrats wanted to quit the war back in 2006 if not earlier, and opposed the surge and all that it entailed. Then, months after it was apparent to everyone else that the surge was working and we were winning they denied it and continued to denigrate our effort.
Anyone who has followed the "Iraq Briefings" I've posted on this blog know that we have been so successful that troop withdrawals have in fact been going on for months.
Interestingly, our commanders on the ground tend to be more cautious than reporters like Yon. Last October, Col. Philip Battaglia said what we were "not yet at the tipping point" whereby success could be assured. Battaglia is commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, which is part of Multi-National Division - Center, which in turn is headquartered by the 10th Mountain Division, which is the area where Yon reported from.
Still, that we have been winning is evident. Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, Commander of Multi-National Division-Center, and the 10th Mountain Division, reported last July on the incredible changes he'd seen since his last deployment, saying that "it's indisputable that the level of attacks are phenomenally low."
In that same month Col Tom James, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division, part of f Multi-National Division - Center, headquartered by the 10th Mountain Division, told us about the confident and capable Iraqi leadership that he'd seen.
As for troop withdrawals, we've seen a lot of that too. Just last week Maj. Gen. Martin Post, Deputy Commanding General, Multi-National Force-West, headquartered by the I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), spoke of how the Marines had reduced their forces by 50% and had turned over all of al-Anbar to Iraqi control. They're closing bases down (including Camp Fallujah!) and the remaining units are in oversight mode only.
Part of Multinational Division-Center, Col. Dominic Caraccilo, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), said that his 4,000 man unit will be replaced by two battalions that total 1,800 troops.
To be sure, some commanders are reporting that although their areas are stable now, things could take a turn for the worse if we're not careful.
Col. William Hickman, Commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), which is part of Multinational Division-Baghdad and headquartered by the 4th Infantry Divison, said in October that although there has been much progress, "the situation's certainly fragile."
As always, Steve Schippert provides some of the best analysis of Yon's report and what's going on over at The Tank. Don't miss it.
In the end, though, if Obama wants to claim that the drawdown is all due to him, I'll just have to sit back and watch. I just hope that he listens to our commanders and follows their advice on just how fast we should bring them out.
Update
Here are two excellent articles by Peter Wehner in Commentary that are worth your reading
From April of 2008, "Obama's War," in which Wehner traces Obama's evolving position on the war. He's held several. Basically he went from total opposition before it, wondering whether he was wrong after seeing the statue of Saddam toppled, to wanting to send more troops to Iraq, to opposing the surge and finally denying that it was working. In other words,he's been anything but the model of consistency that he's claimed himself to be.
Second is "Liberals and the Surge." In this piece Wehner describes how no matter what the news about how successful the surge was, leading liberals continued their mantra that all was lost and that nothing was or could work. Finally, when it could no longer be denied that violence was way down, they claimed that it was not because of anything our military did or due to any Administration policy.
Posted by Tom at 8:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 8, 2008
A Warning and A Hope
Melanie Phillips knows a thing or two about liberty and how a leader can destroy a nation. In Londonistan, she explained how her country had become a haven for terrorists because of political correctness. In a piece printed at National Review she tells of how Tony Blair
...directly promoted or did nothing to stop the long march through Britain's institutions -- the systematic undermining of the country's fundamental values and traditions, in line with the cultural Marxism strategy of the philosopher Antonin Gramsci. It tore up Britain's (unwritten) constitution, devolving power to Scotland and changing the composition of the upper parliamentary chamber, the House of Lords, destroying the delicate equilibrium of the balance of power.
...set about changing the identity of the country. Promoting the doctrine of multiculturalism, it opened Britain's doors to mass immigration. In the state-controlled schools, teachers no longer saw their role as the transmission of Britain's historic culture, which was "racist"; accordingly, children were not taught the history of their country, but instead a concept of 'citizenship' which was all about changing the values of the country. It undermined marriage, promoting instead "lifestyle choice" by incentivising lone parenthood (official forms no longer refer to husband and wives, merely "partners"). It discouraged prison sentences because criminals were said to be victims of life and jail would make them worse.Obama has talked about remedying what he sees as the flaws in the U.S. Constitution which promotes only "negative liberties," or freedom from something rather than positive rights to something. Well, through human-rights legislation Britain has exchanged its historic concept of "negative" liberty -- everything is permitted unless it is actively prohibited -- for the 'positive' European idea that only what is codified is to be permitted.
We already have something of a "victim culture" in our country, though nowhere near as bad as in the UK. Look for it to get worse.
More, Obama wants to change the meaning of "rights" to a greater degree than ever before. The way our Constitution is written, rights are certain things that you have because you are a person and the government simply cannot take them away from you. They are "negative" rights, as in you have the right to own firearms and the government cannot ban them.
Like Blair, Obama wants to add to that "positive" rights; a right to a job, a level of income, health insurance, etc. While FDR experimented with this idea, and one might say it was cemented in the minds of many during LBJ's "Great Society" days, it seems that Obama is more audacious than any previous president.
If you don't believe me listen to Obama himself in a very revealing 2001 interview he gave on Chicago Public Radio Station WBEZ FM
Stop the ACLU has a partial transcript.
What is the result of this type of culture? Phillips explains that
...this doctrine holds that the "powerless" can do no wrong while the "powerful" can do no right, injustice is thus institutionalized, and anyone who queries the preferential treatment afforded such groups is vilified as a racist or bigot.All this constitutes a profoundly illiberal culture in which no dissent is permitted, group is set against group and intimidation is the order of the day. And this also happens to be the culture of ACORN, of the radical groups funded by the Annenberg Challenge and Woods Fund, and the 'educational' or criminal justice ideas of William Ayers, endorsed by Barack Obama.
I think we already see that here in the U.S.
A Hope
The good news is that we on the right are not down and out, but if anything are energized by the election. We knew from the outset that it would be a difficult year. It was the "perfect storm" for the Democrats. Our candidates were flawed, and that it took Sarah Palin to infuse any energy at all into the campaign is revealing.
Bill Whittle, also writing over at NRO, sees the same thing. Amateur historian that he is, he compares our situation to that of the Union in October of 1864. The war was at a stalemate, which meant that the South was winning.
General Phillip Sheridan rallied his troops after their rout at Cedar Creek and led them to victory. His troops had lost a battle, but weren't whipped. All they needed was leadership and direction. "We are going to get a twist on those fellows, men! We are going to lick them out of their boots!"
It has been a source of delight for me these past few days to see nothing but evidence of this, all across our defeated lines. Nowhere have I heard a shred of defeatism or despair. On the contrary. In point of fact, the magnanimity and graciousness I have seen in defeat in so many places on the right tells me that this is an eager and seasoned army, one able to look defeat in the face and own up to the errors in tactics and strategy that got us there. And nowhere do I see a call to abandon our core principles and sue for terms, but rather that our loss was caused precisely by our abandonment of the issues which we hold dear and which have served us so well on battlefields past.So consider this, my fellows in arms: On Tuesday, the Left -- armed with the most attractive, eloquent, young, hip, and charismatic candidate I have seen with my adult eyes, a candidate shielded by a media so overtly that it can never be such a shield again, who appeared after eight years of a historically unpopular President, in the midst of two undefended wars and at the time of the worst financial crisis since the Depression and whose praises were sung by every movie, television, and musical icon without pause or challenge for 20 months . . . who ran against the oldest nominee in the country's history, against a campaign rent with internal disarray and determined not to attack in the one area where attack could have succeeded, and who was out-spent no less than seven-to-one in a cycle where not a single debate question was unfavorable to his opponent -- that historic victory, that perfect storm of opportunity . . .
Yielded a result of 53 percent.
Folks, we are going to lick these people out of their boots.
And I will do everything I can to make it happen.
Posted by Tom at 11:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 4, 2008
Barack Obama and the Fall of the Democrat Party
If I had lived throughout the latter half of the 20th century, I'd have been a Democrat during most of it. Unlike most conservatives today I admire FDR. I would have liked Eisenhower, I suppose, but found his nuclear weapons policy unacceptable. I like JFK and RFK, and would probably have voted for LBJ because he was a foreign policy hawk and promoted civil rights at a time when such advances were sorely needed. I would have also probably voted for Humphrey in 1968, but that is the last time I can say I would have voted Democrat. With the nomination of George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976, I'd have take a turn towards the GOP. I probably just raised a few conservative eyebrows in this paragraph but so be it.
So here is the current nominee of the Democrat Party
The only, and I mean only, reason Ayers isn't in prison is because the government so screwed up the case that all or most all of the evidence was thrown out. Nobody, not even Ayers himself, disputes his guilt.
Whatever happened to the party of Harry Truman, John F Kennedy, or Henry "Scoop" Jackson? They would be spinning in their graves if they knew what was going on today. Zell Miller is another that I miss. The Democrats have even chased away the last decent member of their ranks, Senator Joe Lieberman.
Even Bill Clinton was a moderate by today's standards, he having famously once been chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC is the voice of moderation in the party, but has now been reduced to a shell of its former self. The "progressives", most notably Barack Obama now shun all of its positions.
Amazing, isn't it, how far the Democrat Party has fallen?
The Democrats are now the party of the crazy anti-war left, who welcome Moveon.org and Michael Moore into their ranks. Although Barack Obama did not start out as part of this movement, he has certainly embraced it.
In 2004 this party nominated John Kerry, a man who returned from Vietnam to betray his country by his participation in the "Winter Soldier" tribunal/investigation, and the disgraceful group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. His testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971 is positively awful.
And today they've nominated a man who sat at Trinity United Church and listened to a racist kook hatemonger for 20 years and only left when it became politically expedient for him to do so. Say what you want about Sarah Palin's Wasilla Bible Church, there's no comparison. So far I've listened to six sermons from that church, and can find nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary. In fact, they're really quite mainstream and I found them inspirational. So there.
It's also the sheer creepyness of the messianic "Obama worship" that is disturbing. I think that conservatives sometimes go too far with Ronald Reagan, such as when during the primaries the GOP candidates where trying to out-Reagan each other. Commentators fall into this trap too, with Heritage even having a "What Would Reagan Do" section on their website.
Obama's Jimmy Carter foreign policy is grating because it's so naive in irresponsible, but I've already written about that at some length.
Mostly, though, it's Obama's past associations, namely those of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, that get me. The Tony Rezko stuff, while bad, is the garden-variety corruption. The man should not be the Democrat candidate.
I've covered the Wright stuff, so now let's talk a bit about his association with the unrepentant 60's terrorist William Ayers.
First, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy reminds us in National Review of just who Ayers is and how he is still lying today about what he and his terrorist Weathermen wanted to do:
In (a) Fox interview...Ayers preposterously claimed that he and his fellow Weather Underground terrorists did not really intend to harm any people -- the fact that no one was killed in their 20 or so bombings was, he said, "by design"; they only wanted to cause property damage. ...First of all, "that moment in the townhouse" he's talking about happened in 1970. Three of his confederates, including his then girlfriend Diana Oughton, were accidentally killed when the explosive they were building to Ayers specifications (Ayers was a bomb designer) went off during construction. As noted in Ayers' Discover the Networks profile, the explosive had been a nail bomb. Back when Ayers was being more honest about his intentions, he admitted that the purpose of that bomb had been to murder United States soldiers
...In fact, Ayers was a founder of the Weatherman terror group and he defined its purpose as carrying out murder.
...Now he wants you to think they just wanted to break a few dishes. But in his book Fugitive Days, in which he boasts that he "participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972," he says of the day that he bombed the Pentagon: "Everything was absolutely ideal. ... The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them."
And he wasn't singular. As I noted back in April in this article about Obama's motley collection of radical friends, at the Weatherman "War Council" meeting in 1969, Ayers' fellow terrorist and now-wife, Bernadine Dohrn, famously gushed over the barbaric Manson Family murders of the pregnant actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and three others: "Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!" And as Jonah recalled yesterday, "In appreciation, her Weather Underground cell made a threefingered 'fork' gesture its official salute." They weren't talking about scratching up the wall-paper.
A Weatherman affiliate group which called itself "the Family" colluded with the Black Liberation Army in the 1981 Brinks robbery in which two police officers and an armed guard were murdered. (Obama would like people to believe all this terrorist activity ended in 1969 when he was eight years old. In fact, it continued well into the eighties.) Afterwards, like Ayers and Dohrn, their friend and fellow terrorist Susan Rosenberg became a fugitive.
On November 29, 1984, Rosenberg and a co-conspirator, Timothy Blunk, were finally apprehended in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. At the time, they were actively planning an unspeakable bombing campaign that would have put at risk the lives of countless innocent people. They also possessed twelve assorted guns (including an Uzi 9 mm. semi-automatic rifle and an Ithaca twelve-gauge shotgun with its barrel sawed off), nearly 200 sticks of dynamite, more than 100 sticks of DuPont Trovex (a high explosive), a wide array of blasting agents and caps, batteries, and switches for explosive devices. Arrayed in disguises and offering multiple false identities to arresting officers, the pair also maintained hundreds of false identification documents, including FBI and DEA badges.
When she was sentenced to 58 years' imprisonment in 1985, the only remorse Rosenberg expressed was over the fact that she and Blunk had allowed themselves to be captured rather than fighting it out with the police. Bernadine Dohrn was jailed for contempt when she refused to testify against Rosenberg. Not to worry, though. On his last day in office, the last Democrat president, Bill Clinton, pardoned Rosenberg -- commuting her 58-year sentence to time-served.
These savages wanted to kill massively. That they killed only a few people owes to our luck and their incompetence, not design. They and the Democrat politicians who now befriend and serve them can rationalize that all they want. But those are the facts.
Going to Tom Maguire at Pajamas Media we now look at Obama and Ayers:
Barack Obama and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers have worked closely together on education reform since 1995, and possibly since 1987. Obama has obfuscated and minimized this association in his public statements and on his website. Why the cover-up? We don't know, since we aren't sure what is being concealed.It's becoming known as the Annenberg Challenge cover-up and it's become big news since the McCain campaign highlighted it in a press release late Wednesday.
...This is what we know. Bill Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a violent radical student group of the 1960s. His father, Thomas Ayers, was a prominent Chicago business and philanthropic leader who served as an adviser to Mayor Richard J. Daley, father of the current Chicago mayor. Although he is not apologetic about his terrorist past (and had the bad luck to be quoted as saying, in an interview that ran on Sept 11 2001, that "I don't regret setting bombs. ... I feel we didn't do enough."), Bill Ayers has been accepted back into the Chicago political community and has been an informal adviser to the current Mayor Daley on education reform.
But regardless of his cachet in the liberal circles of Chicago politics, presidential candidate Barack Obama has not been eager to explain his own relationship with Bill Ayers. Published reports from February 2008 gave a glimmer of their ties. In 1995 Ayers hosted a fund-raiser for Obama prior to Obama's run for Alice Palmer's seat in the state Senate; they both served on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago from 1999 to 2002; and Ayers donated $200 to Obama's state Senate campaign. Other researchers and reporters (for example, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times) noted a few joint panel appearances and a favorable review by Obama of a book by Bill Ayers.
But even this was more than Obama was willing to admit. Asked point blank by George Stephanopoulos in the Philadelphia debate preceding the Pennsylvania primary to "explain that relationship for the voters," Obama prevaricated by pretending he scarcely knew Ayers:
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
Lie.
Stanley Kurtz, writing in National Review, explains why
Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama's account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama's time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers's own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago's public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago's education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers's radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore "exchanging ideas on a regular basis"). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama's dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers.
Unbelievable.
But Obama followers see nothing wrong with this. They're either in denial or don't care.
And what is Ayers doing today? Why, He's a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the title of Distinguished Professor.
Which tells you everything you need to know about today's left. The left that makes up the anti-war base of the Democrat Party.
Remember, the only reason Obama has distanced himself from Ayers is the same reason why he distanced himself from Wright; not because he disagrees with them, but because he found it politically inconvenient to remain friends with them. And it's not that Obama agreed with everything Ayers or Wright said or did, that's not the point. The issue is that Obama may not have agreed with everything about them, but was ok enough with them to hang around them. He didn't see them as especially objectionable.
There's nothing to equal any of this on any Republican candidate for president since Watergate, and that happened when Nixon was president, so it's not really the same. The left has nothing like this on John McCain (the Keating five stuff having been thoroughly investigated, and to be sure while he showed "poor judgment it's not like associating with an unrepentant terrorist). They can say what they like about Sarah Palin, most all of it's false and anyway it's all penny-ante stuff compared to this.
Sunday Update
Silly me, I forgot it was racist to bring up Bill Ayers! Or so says Douglass Daniel of the AP.
Shame on you for nominating Barack Obama.
Update
Don't take it from me that Obama knew full well about Ayers, take it from Mark Halperin of Time Magazine (h/t TWS)
Halperin: "Is it fair to say that [Barack Obama] continued to associate with [Bill Ayers] professionally -- and personally on a casual basis -- even after he learned?"Robert Gibbs: "He continued to serve on a charitable board and an educational grant board with money supplied by Walter Annenberg, a Republican who was an ambassador under Richard Nixon. Yes."
Halperin: "But with the knowledge of Ayers' past?"
Gibbs: "Yes."
Apparently it's ok to associate with unrepentant ex-terrorists as long as you condemn them.
Got it.
Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 30, 2008
The Creepyness of Obamamania
Update - New video below the fold that's very disturbing.
You just can't make this stuff up.
If I hadn't seen the first one at Andrew Sullivan I would have thought it was a spoof.
The second is a perfect example of what Mark Hemingway calls Manipulated Child Syndrome.
My only question for Obama supporters is, if he's elected president, will we have to call him "Great Leader", or will "Dear Leader" suffice?
Update - New video
Newsbusters says this video is very real and is not a spoof.
Posted by Tom at 8:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 28, 2008
Thanks, Scott!
So as I think we all know by now, former Bush Administration Press Secretary Scott McClellan released his new book the other day in which he lambasted the President and other officials. McClellan served in this role from July 15, 2003 to April 19, 2006, in between Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow.
It's title alone, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, is pretty sensational. What's in it is more so. Since the Amazon product description is too bland to be useful, I'll use the one on Wikipedia
In the book, McClellan unexpectedly and harshly criticizes the Bush administration. He accuses Bush of "self-deception"[1] and of maintaining a "permanent campaign approach" to governing rather than making the best choices.[2] McClellan stops short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that the administration was not "employing out-and-out deception" to make the case for war in 2002,[3] though he does write that the administration relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war.[4] The book is also critical of the press corps for being too accepting of the administration's propaganda on the Iraq War[2] and of Condoleeza Rice for being "too accommodating" and being very careful about protecting her own reputation.[1]
Well isn't that nice.
Here's the bottom line; if we take McClellan at his word then he is a self-promoting coward. Anyone who knew what he says he knew should have immediately quit and exposed the whole affair. He should have held his own press conference and then immediately gone before Congress.
But he didn't. He resigned just over two years ago and just now tells us...and in a book where he can make lots of money.
Further, and again for purposes of argument I am taking him at his word, for the almost three years that he was press secretary he lied continually to the press corps. He defended an administration that he knew was engaged in deception. Even more, from what I am reading he never expressed any objection to anyone in the Administration while all this was allegedly going on.
If this is the case then Scott McClellan is a money-grubbing coward. He was unwilling to sacrifice his career when it mattered, and waited until he could make a lot of money to make his revelations.
There are two other possibilities. One is that he is an outright liar, the other that he is speculating on matters he doesn't have full information about. Given the stakes, both are contemptible positions.
But before Democrat anti-war types get too full of themselves over McClellan's book, they need to look at their own in Congress.
For years we have heard from Democrats that "Bush lied (or misled) us into war", that he cooked the books, exaggerated the evidence, etc.
Those are charges so serious as to border on treason.
Yet there has never been a serious move toward impeachment. Before the last elections the excuse was that Democrats didn't have a majority and there efforts would be thwarted, but given the seriousness of the matter you'd think that they'd be courageous enough to stand on principle; if, that is, we take them at their word. But, oddly, now that they've got a majority they do nothing. And given the charges regularly leveled at Vice President Cheney, you'd think they'd be itching to impeach both of them, since now they could get one of their own, Speaker Pelosi, into the White House. They could then just pull out the troops immediately - which is what they claim to want.
So just as McClellan, those in Congress who make the "Bush lied/misled" charge are either cowards or liars themselves. They need to either put up or shut up.
As for McClellan, I doubt his book will be more than a one or two week wonder, especially if this Daily Kos article is any insight as to what the left thinks about him.
Posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 14, 2007
"Phony Democrats"
I don't have much to say about the whole Media Matters/Rush Limbaugh situation, other than that Limbaugh is a giant among lilliputians. That said, I rather liked this post by Scott Johnson over at Power Line last week
In the recent past prominent Democratic officeholders have made remarkably insulting and/or counterfactual statements about our soldiers and their leaders. Among the recurring themes are the proposition that our troops are stupid and their leaders are liars. Has anyone compiled these statements? I think they would provide useful context for the phony "phony soldiers" controversy orchestrated by Hillary Matters and executed by HM's dutiful Democratic poodles. I have a few that come to mind this morning.Harry Reid (on "the surge"):
Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything.Dick Durbin (on Guantanamo):
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.Hillary Clinton (to General Petraeus):
[T]oday you are testifying about the current status of our policy in Iraq and the prospects of that policy. It is a policy that you have been ordered to implement by the president. And you have been made the de facto spokesmen for what many of us believe to be a failed policy.Despite what I view as your rather extraordinary efforts in your testimony both yesterday and today, I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.
John Kerry:Education -- if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.Charles Schumer (on "the surge"):
[L]et me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves. It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here.Charles Rangel:
If there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.John Murtha (on Haditha):
It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell.Do you have any additional nominations for consideration? I'll update this post with additional quotes sent in by readers.Now, you can imagine the impact this is going to have on those troops for the rest of their lives and for the United States in our war and our effort in trying to win the hearts and minds.
UPDATE: Our readers respond. Robert Dodd gives us Edward Kennedy:
Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.Kyle Christensen gives us more John Kerry:
And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the -- of -- the historical customs, religious customs.
Steven Ives gives us Barack Obama:
We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.
As a bonus, Mr. Ives gives us the Hillary Matters link for the Obama quote.
Michael Costello gives us more Harry Reid:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed Thursday that he told liberal bloggers last week that he thinks outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace is "incompetent."Ed Morrissey trenchantly reminds us that those whom I refer to as phony Democrats are of course "Real Democrats, unfortunately."
See also Glenn Beck's collection of Inconventent Quotes. Enjoy!
Posted by Tom at 8:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 6, 2007
Can We Question Their Patriotism Now?
According to a new Fox News poll, "nearly one out of every five Democrats thinks the world will be better off if America loses the war in Iraq"
Here are the details; The poll was conducted by telephone on Sept 25 & 26. The total sample was 900 registered voters nationwide, giving it a margin of error of +/-3%.
The relevant question is this one
Do you personally think the world would be better off if the United States loses the war in Iraq?
______________Yes______No_____(Don't Know)
Democrats____19%_____62________20
Republicans____5%_____87_________8
Independents___7%____ 76________17
Don't get me wrong; I'm just as disturbed by the 5% of Republicans and 7% of Independents who would answer such a question in the affirmative as I am the Democrats. For that matter, I cannot imagine how anyone could say they don't know. Of the Republicans, my guess is they're Ron Paul types.
The best I could say for someone who would think that "the world would be better off" is that they buy into the lies that we are wantonly massacaring Iraqis, and that if we left the violence would magically cease. They probably also believe that it is a war fought to steal Iraqi oil, or to benefit "big business" like Halliburton, or some such thing.
The poll question looks pretty straightforward to me. I don't see how someone could complain that it was worded poorly, or that the results have been twisted out of context or something.
The bottom line is that almost 1 in 5 Democrats, and 1 in 20 Republicans want their country to lose a war. This is not a question of why we went in, or should we stay, or whether the war is winnable. By agreeing with question they want us to lose, and as such deserve to have their patriotism questioned.
Posted by Tom at 7:33 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
September 22, 2007
The War Against al Qaeda is in Iraq: But the Left is Giving Encouragement to the Enemy
This post by W Thomas Smith Jr on The Corner is so right-on it's worth reprinting in it's entirety
At "The Corner," Victor Davis Hanson considers the fact that:
Although it is taboo to say so, it really is true that Afghan veteran terrorists like al-Masri and Zarqawi did flee from Afghanistan to Iraq where they often ended up dead.There is no question but that this is true. War is all about finding, fixing, and destroying the enemy; and that often means maneuvering around him, thrusting, feinting, luring, forcing him to turn, withdraw, or perhaps move to a position that he believes is the best ground from which to engage us. When in fact, we have — by virtue of our own positioning — forced the enemy to that ground he wrongly believes is best-suited for him. That is exactly what we have accomplished (among other things) by invading Iraq.
The Left says we are in a quagmire in Iraq. For Heaven's sake, Al Qaeda is in a quagmire. AQ is suffering huge losses in that country, and it is having an enormous impact on their ability to wage war against us elsewhere in the world.
Doesn't mean AQ isn't fighting us elsewhere in the world. They are. But their focus is on Iraq where we and the Iraqi security forces — which by the way are getting stronger all the time — are chewing them to pieces. AQ has to win in Iraq — which they won't — because losing in Iraq would be disastrous for them globally.
No thanks to the gutless, propagandizing Left in this country, who I've now grown beyond the stages of simple intellectual disagreement. I'm now truly angry at them because they've hurt the American military effort in Iraq. They've constantly condemned it: Said it was a "failure," a "disaster," and "lost," even as Anbar was turning around (and we now see the success of Anbar is spreading to other provinces). They've mercilessly ridiculed the commander-in-chief. Accused the senior commander on the ground in Iraq of "betrayal." And attempted to publicly convict the rank-and-file riflemen — of whom Jack Murtha said killed innocent civilians in "cold blood" — prior to any charges being leveled against those riflemen in a case that is still being argued.
In that sense, the Left has stiffened the backbone of the enemy. Made him fight harder than he should have. Made him believe there is hope for his own success at driving us out of Iraq, when the enemy should ALWAYS be made to feel there is no hope of defeating the United States anywhere on earth.
The left just doesn't understand that if we pull out of Iraq without finishing the job it will be seen around the world as a huge victory for al Qaeda and a huge loss for the United States. They'll use it to bolster their numbers, and no country will trust the United States to protect them from anyone.
But I don't think they really care.
Posted by Tom at 9:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2007
Moveon.org Slanders General Petraeus II
So far not a single Democrat Congressman or Senator has denounced the slanderous Moveon.org attack on General Petraeus. I checked the site of my own Democrat Senator, James Webb, and he is completely silent on the matter. He ran as a conservative Democrat. Let's see if that was just hot air or if he does the right thing.
Instead, once again Senator John McCain stands tall in a Congress full of Liliputians
"I remain deeply disappointed by the failure of leading Democrat presidential candidates to personally and publicly denounce the smear tactics used against General Petraeus by MoveOn.org. There is no greater slander to a soldier than an accusation of betrayal to his nation. I do not understand why those seeking to be commander-in-chief have yet to forcefully denounce, in their own words, this McCarthyite attack on our commander. I hope they would reconsider their silence and not let this slander of an exceptional American stand."
Be sure to also read his opening statement before the Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.
Becuase of his stances on immigration and campaign finance I've never thought I could support him for president, but if he keeps this up I'll definately reconsider.
The Washington Times points out that
The Democrats who take MoveOn.org's money are the same ones who cry "my patriotism!" whenever someone observes how weak they are on national security. They're either silent or engage in Mr. Reid's tepid talk in defense of common decency. Democrats dismiss Gen. Petraeus as not being an "independent evaluator" — that's Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California — or accuse him of "carefully manipulating the statistics" — that's Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois. Others who cannot summon the boldness to say anything in public praise MoveOn.org's ability to do the dirty work.If these attacks are not smears on the patriotism of Gen. Petraeus, nothing could be. The left expects its "my patriotism!" indignation to be taken seriously, but and expect others to stand by as the smear is launched. It does not add up.
My response to any leftist who is upset that someone has questioned his patriotism is "fine, we'll stop questionin your patriotism, the moment you stop calling our President and military leaders liars".
And those Democrats who claim that Gen Petraeus has presented misleading information need to put their money where their mouth is. If they truely believe such things, they need to file perjury charges, or recommend that he be brought up on charges and tried in a courts-martial.
After reviewing several of the more offensive statements leading Democrats have made about Petraeus, the Wall Street Journal asks if
(This can) really be the new standard of political rhetoric across the Democratic Party? There was a time when the party's institutional elites, such as the Times, would have pulled it back from reducing politics to all or nothing. They would have blown the whistle on such accusations. Now they are leading the charge.Under these new terms, public policy is no longer subject to debate, discussion and disagreement over competing views and interpretations. Instead, the opposition is reduced to the status of liar. Now the opposition is not merely wrong, but lacks legitimacy and political standing. The goal here is not to debate, but to destroy.
No doubt that in the 90s many on the right got carried away with their denunciations of President Clinton. I sometimes found myself half-believing in some of it. It's a strong temptation to believe the worst about your political enemies. But after all of the investigations, I was persuaded that yes, Vince Foster really did kill himself in Fort Marcy Park, and that no, the government did not intentially set fire to the Waco compound.
The next time there's a Democrat president I'll have to watch myself, that I don't automatically buy into every bad thing that's said about him...or her. Perhaps in that sense the 90s and today are good lessons for us all.
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Posted by Tom at 8:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 9, 2007
Democrats Behaving Disgracefully III
Via Redstate we have Senator Harry Reid joining Senators Durban and Schumer in an unparalleled showing of disgraceful behavior. ABC News reports this
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in his party's weekly radio address today that he expects the Petraeus report to be nothing more than the Bush administration's selective take on the surge."Before the report arrives in Congress, it will pass through the White House spin machine, where facts are often ignored or twisted, and intelligence is cherry-picked," said Reid.
On Friday, Reid went so far as to question not only the true source of the report but also the four-star general's honesty.
"He has made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual," Reid said. "I have every belief that this good man will give us what he feels is the right thing to do in his report, but it's not his report anymore. It's Bush's report."
This is doubletalk. If Gen Petraeus is a "good man" he will not deliver a report as his own that he knows is written by the White House and contains false or misleading information. But Harry Reid is saying that he will deliver such a report, one written by the White House and which contains false or misleading information.
Further, Reid called Petraeus a liar when he said that "he has made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual." He can't be much of a "good man" if he has made false statements, can he?
Reid can't have it both ways. Either the general is a liar and a purveyor of false information, or he is a "good man", but it can't be both.
What Reid is doing is obvious; he is at once trying to discredit the report while not appearing to be "anti-military". It won't work.
Here's more of the same doubletalk from Reid, this time from the New York Times (also via Redstate)
“I have every belief that this good man, General Petraeus, will give us what he feels is the right thing to do in this report, that is now not his report,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “It’s President Bush’s report. President Bush took final ownership of this when he landed in Anbar Province just a few days ago.”
This would be the same Senator Harry Reid who on January 26, 2007, voted along with 81 other Senators (the other 19 simply didn't vote) to confirm then Lt. Gen. David Petraeus to 4 star rank, and commander of MNF-Iraq.
If we were to give Reid every benefit of the doubt, and conclude that he thought Petraeus was an honorable man in January but has since changed his mind, then he is a dolt.
More likely though Reid was playing politics in January and he is playing politics now. He voted to confirm Petraeus because he thought it the politically expedient thing to do. He now disparages the same man because the nutroots have told him that he has to end the war or else. In other words, the Democrats are so invested in an American defeat that they have to make it happen whether it is or not.
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Democrats Behaving Disgracefully II
Posted by Tom at 8:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 8, 2007
Democrats Behaving Disgracefully II
Continuing the Democrats disgraceful attempt tos slander General Petraeus before he makes his report next week to Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer says that U.S. forces had nothing to do with the dramatic turn-around in Anbar. On the floor of the Senate last Wednesday he said that
And let me be clear: the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the Surge, not because of the Surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from Al Qaeda said to these tribes: We have to fight Al Qaeda ourselves. — Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Congressional Record, 9/5/07, p. S 11090
Schumer was one of 81 Senators who voted to confirm Petraeus last January, but the political winds were blowing another direction back then.
As former Marine W Thomas Smith points out over at NRO (link above)
The violence has gone down in Anbar because of the approach to operating joint U.S.-Iraqi military stations in cleared areas of Anbar, especially where it all began up on the Syrian border following Steel Curtain in 2005. And the surge of forces throughout central Iraq and in the west has most certainly played a role in the success of the Anbar turnaround, though the turnaround did indeed begin before the surge.Additionally, many of the Sunni tribal leaders were in league with Al Qaeda, but over time began switching sides because (a) they were sick of the civilian-targeting and threat tactics of Al Qaeda, and (b) they knew that the only armed elements in the region who were able to protect them and their families were U.S. forces.
Down the Memory Hole
But Schumer's offense goes farther than just not being honest about what's happening in Anbar. He has tried to have his comments erased from history.
Sweetness and Light caught him. Here again, is what he actually said
And let me be clear: the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the Surge, not because of the Surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from Al Qaeda said to these tribes: We have to fight Al Qaeda ourselves.
And here is how Schumer has it on his website
And let me be clear: the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The lack of protection for these tribes from al Qaeda made it clear to these tribes, “We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves.” It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords had to create a temporary peace here on their own. And that is because there was no one else there protecting them.
Not quite the same, is it?
Here's the video to prove it
You're a clear liar is what you are, Schumer. You changed what you said on your website because on the floor of the Senate you said what you really think and later realized that it didn't look good politically. Everyone cleans up speeches to get rid of the occasional "um" and "ah" or when you transpose words, but this is more than that.
The Washington Times had this to say about Senator Schumer and his fellow Democrats yesterday
The most disgraceful player so far is Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who in speech ridiculed as "desperate" the successful strategy implemented by Gen. Petraeus, which has dramatically reduced violence in Anbar province and saved both American and Iraqi lives. The alliance between the U.S. military and Sunni tribesmen has encouraged the Sunnis to stand against al Qaeda. "Are we placing our faith in the future of Iraq in the hands of some warlords?" asked Mr. Schumer with a sour verbal sneer. "Some tribal leaders who at the moment dislike al Qaeda more than they dislike us? Is this the vaunted clarion cry for democracy in the Middle East that the President announced when he started the build-up in Iraq?... This is a policy of desperation."Only a poisonous partisan — or someone ignorant of history and geopolitical reality — could say something like that. Using the Schumer standard, FDR and Churchill were wrong to form an alliance with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin because he was an evil man who didn't share our regard for "democracy." The World War II leaders of the West rightly judged that Hitler and the Axis powers posed a greater threat to U.S. interests than Stalin at the time — hence the decision to ally the United States and Britain with the Soviet Communists. No one now pretends that Sunni tribesmen have very much in common with Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. But only fools would take Mr. Schumer's advice to give the back of the hand to the Arab Muslims who are willing to join the fight against our mortal enemy.
Churchill and Roosevelt knew exactly what they were doing when they allied with Stalin. They may not have known the full extent of Stalin's mass murders, but they knew that he was an evil dictator. But as the Times said, they also knew that at the time Hitler was the greater danger. Churchill and Roosevelt where right then, and we are right now. Schumer is just a bitter partisan desperate for political advantage. General Petraeus' report is going to be largely positive and they have bet the farm on an American defeat.
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Democrats Behaving Disgracefully
Posted by Tom at 9:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 6, 2007
Democrats Behaving Disgracefully
The Democrats are already dismissing General Petraeus' report, and he hasn't even given it yet. From today's Washington Times
Congressional Democrats are trying to undermine U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus' credibility before he delivers a report on the Iraq war next week, saying the general is a mouthpiece for President Bush and his findings can't be trusted."The Bush report?" Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said when asked about the upcoming report from Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.
...The top Democrats — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California — also referred to the general's briefing as the "Bush report."
These Democrats are nauseating. They know Petraeus will have good things to say, and they can't have any of that. Captain Ed has it right, they're trying character assassination on him. What's particularly galling is that most of them, including the Senator Durbin quoted above, voted to confirm him 81 - 0 last January. A few abstained, and one wonders if they did so in order to attack him later.
The charge that President Bush is writing the report, or that it will be "tainted" is utter B.S., and here's why:
From Blackfive
There has been some talk in the press and on the blogs that suggests the White House intends to tamper with -- or simply write -- General Petraeus' assessment to Congress. In a discussion today with a DOD Legislative Affairs expert, we got the truth.Congress itself mandated by law who will assemble each of the several reports due in September. It also, separately, mandated that General Petraeus be available to testify to them at this time.
Public Law 110-28 specifes that "the President, having consulted with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command, will prepare the report and submit the report to Congress."
The law separately requires that: "[T]he United States Ambassador to Iraq and the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq will be made available to testify in open and closed sessions before the relevant committees of the Congress."
So, in answer to the question: there is a report, and there is a separate assessment. The law requires the President to prepare the report, and General Petraeus to consult with him on that. The law also requires the General to testify separately before Congress.
There are no political games here: the US military is simply complying with the law as passed by Congress.
It is Congress who passes laws. The same Congress that is now complaining that the president will prepare the report is the same Congress that passed a law saying that "the president...will prepare the report."
A commenter on Captain's Quarters(link above) said it best
The fact is the "face" on this report is Gen. Petraeus. He played the major role in preparing it and he will be delivering it to congress. It represents to a large degree the view of the military on the ground in Iraq. In contrast we have a GAO report which represents the analysis of bureaucrats in the capitol far from Iraq. Now who do Americans trust more: the military? or Congress? ... This is an imbecilic move by the Dems.
Exactly.
In a related note, Senator McCain stood tall during last night's GOP debate. Unfortuantely it was at Governor Romney's expense, but that's how these things are.
ROMNEY: I don't have a time frame that I've announced. What I've indicated is very consistent with what the president is speaking about and what we're hearing from Iraq right now, and that is that the surge is apparently working.
...
MCCAIN: Governor, the surge is working. The surge is working, sir.
ROMNEY: That's just what I said.
MCCAIN: It is working. No, not "apparently"; it's working. It's working because we've got a great general. We've got a good strategy. Anbar province, things have improved.The Maliki government is not doing the things we want it to do, the police are not functioning the way we want them to do, but we are succeeding.
And the great debate is not whether it's apparently working or not, the great debate is going to take place on the floor of the United States Senate the middle of this month. And it's going to be whether we set a date for withdrawal, which will be a date for
surrender, or whether we will let this surge continue and succeed.
And I can assure you, it's more than apparent, it is working and we have to rally the American people. People in New Hampshire are saddened and frustrated and angry over our failures in Iraq. I share their anger, their frustration and their failure, and I want them home too. But I want them home for the right reasons. I want our troops home with honor. Otherwise, we will face catastrophe and genocide in the region.
When McCain is good, he's the best. And he's right, it is going to be one knock-down drag out debate.
Posted by Tom at 9:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 13, 2007
The Issue of Political Progress in Iraq
Two things are obvious about Iraq.
One, the "surge" (more properly Operation Phantom Thunder and now Phantom Strike) is making good progress, perhaps even better than expected. General Petraeus will likely give a very positive report on military operations in September.
Second, at the national level at least the Iraqis are not making the progress some in the United States they ought to make. Those who are determined to get US troops out of Iraq ASAP regardless of consequences will use this to make their case. Democrat Senators Durban and Casey said as much last week.
As with all such matters, the issue is terribly complicated and there are no easy answers. I'm going to make a case that we ought to stick it out in Iraq but I can see the other side. Some time ago Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer said last November of the Iraqis; "We have given them a republic and they do not seem able to keep it." Krauthammer is right about a lot, but I hope he's wrong here.
I'm going to cut to the chase; I think the editors of National Review had it right when they said that
Ultimately, reconciliation between the Sunnis and the Shiites is crucial. But it wasn’t going to happen in the next two months, whether the Iraqi parliament stayed in session or not. General Petraeus’s September report has come to be seen as a final test for Iraq, which makes sense only for Democrats hell-bent on leaving no matter what, and for nervous Republicans seeking a soft exit. We are beginning to see the fruits of a sound counterinsurgency strategy and, in this context, a debate focused on how to get out rather than how to consolidate our gains is shameful, however easy the sound bites are.
Cliff May points out that we are at least partially to blame for the lack of progress at the national level in Iraq
We are at least partly responsible for the Iraqi government's dysfunction. Watching the debates taking place in Washington — hardly the most inspiring example of democracy in action — Iraqis don't know whether we are going to stay to finish the job or abandon them to al-Qaeda terrorists and Iranian-backed death squads.And as long as Iraqis think we are heading for the exit, what possible incentive do they have to make painful political compromises?
I think he's on to something and l I'll just quote myself on what I said the other day about why I think so
My thought is that we've had Iraq backward all along. We've put political progress ahead of military progress, and we should have done it the other way 'round. We hurried to set up one provisional government after another, draft a constitution, hold elections, etc. Our hope was that by doing these things we could take the "legitimacy" out of the insurgency.It didn't work.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but we should have done this "surge" back in 2004 or at least 2005, and only when we'd squashed the terrorists worried about the political side.
The reason we got it wrong, I think, is that we have a tendancy to "mirror image" our thinking. We assume that hey, we can all get along without shooting each other, why can't they? We forget that the reality is that there are a lot of extremists over there who will shoot if they can't get their way politically. And before going in we completely underestimated extremism in Iraq. These people figure they can get what they want through violence, so they don't put much stock in what we consider normal political negotiations. Rather, they'll hold out for a better deal through violence.
Extremists will only negotiate in good faith when all violent options have closed; i.e., when the US military has crushed the insurgency.
All this is also why peace between Israel and Hamas or Fatah is a pipe dream. Or Israel and Lebanon. Until these terrorist organizations are destroyed or physically isolated there will never be peace.
David at The Thunder Run made another point to me in an email (which I won't print since it's private) that Iraqis are in fact making progress on the local level, and that this is in reality how most things get done in the US as well. He sees the war being won on the local level, both against al Qaeda and in the US military (primary leutenant colonels) working with local Iraqi leaders. As always he makes a good point and I tend to agree.
The bottom line is that the NRO editors have it right; Petraeus' Sept report is not a "final" report but an interim one, yes the Iraqis do eventually have to come together, but we ought to be talking about how to consolidate and expand on our victories, not how to cut-and-run.
Only time will tell if I'm right or not, but in the meantime Arnaud de Borchgrave throws some cold water on anyone who still looks at the situation in Iraq through rose-colored glasses
Mr. al-Maliki has little contact with his Cabinet ministers. Half are now off the job. The six Sunni ministers who resigned last week — and five independents who walked out this week — concluded the prime minister is not serious about reconciliation and national unity. They say he sees Iran, where he spent a few years in exile during the Saddam Hussein regime, as "more relevant to Iraq's future than the United States." Iran is here to stay as our neighbor, says Mr. al-Maliki's entourage. And Mr. al-Maliki remains close to Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery young anti-U.S. cleric who heads the 15,000-strong Mahdi Army militia and also has close ties to Tehran.With electricity down to an hour or two a day in Baghdad last week when temperatures hit a scorching 58 Celsius (134 Fahrenheit), and much of the city without running water, Mr. al-Maliki and his cronies, with the benefit of generators and air-conditioning, seem far removed from the urgent and monumental task of rebuilding the country. They gave their visitors the impression of being overwhelmed by the challenge. They don't want the U.S. military to abandon them, but at the same time wish them gone, a syndrome that borders on paralysis. Meanwhile, parliament gave itself a month off and many members went to European destinations to cool off.
The rest of the article isn't any better. He notes that "Iranian diplomacy has been diligent in laying the groundwork for an Iraqi satellite", and one of my fears is that we win the war only to end up with an Iraq that is no friend to the U.S.
If you'd like more bad news, there was this story in the Washington Post last Tuesday about how the British have been essentially defeated in Basra. The city is now a lawless place, with the Brits reduced to barracading themselves behind a makeshift fortress outside the city.
On the flip side of that story, though, is that the reason the Brits have lost is that they drew down their forces too soon.
Britain sent about 40,000 troops to Iraq -- the second-largest contingent, after that of the United States, at the time of the March 2003 invasion -- and focused its efforts on the south. With few problems from outside terrorists or sectarian violence, the British began withdrawing, and by early 2005 only 9,000 troops remained. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced further drawdowns early this year before leaving office.
Hello Democrats and wobbly Republicans; we'll get the lawlessness of Basra if we draw down too fast.
The indefatiguable Michael Yon, who has spent a year and a half on the ground in Iraq as an independent journalist, believes that the charge that "there's no political progress" is bogus
False advertising is afoot. I write these words from Indonesia, soaking wet, having just returned from photographing rice paddies in a pouring rain, wearing a Florida Gators shirt. That means there is a green alligator on my chest. While supporting my team, my shirt perpetuates the myth that alligators are green, when in fact they are black when wet, gray when dry.The mantra that “there is no political progress in Iraq” is rapidly becoming the “surge” equivalent of a green alligator: when enough people repeat something that sounds plausible, but also happens to be false, it becomes accepted as fact. The more often it is repeated—and the larger the number of people repeating it—the harder it is to convince anyone of the truth: alligators are not green, and Iraqis are making plenty of political progress.There may be little progress on political goals crafted in America, to meet American concerns, by politicians who have a cushion of 200 years of democracy. Washington might as well be on the moon. Iraqis don’t respond well to rules imposed from outside their acknowledged authorities, though I have many times seen Iraqi Police and Army of all ranks responding very well to American Marines and soldiers who they have come to respect, and in many cases actually admire and try to emulate. Our military has increasing moral authority in Iraq, but the same cannot be said for our government at home. In fact, it’s in moral deficit because many Iraqis are increasingly frightened we will abandon them to genocide.
Yon gives three reasons why he thinks the "surge" is working, and as I said earlier I think that if we can make the military side work then we have a chance at the political
1. Iraqis are uniting across sectarian lines to drive al Qaeda in all its disguises out of Iraq, and they are empowered by the success they are having, each one creating a ripple effect of active citizenship.2. The Iraqi Army is much more capable now than they were in 2005. They are not ready to go it alone, but if we keep working, that day will come soon.
3. General Petraeus is running the show. Petraeus may well prove to be to counterinsurgency warfare what Patton was to tank battles with Rommel, or what Churchill was to the Nazis.
If you don't follow any of the other links in this piece, be sure to visit Yon's site. The photos alone are worth the visit.
Lastly are these thoughts from Jim Geraghty at NRO
Stuart Koehl of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS writes in with a good point:
The error being made—on your part as well as by others—is assuming that progress can only be made at the level of the national government. In fact, under the Iraqi constitution, the national government is rather weak, while traditionally real political power has been wielded on the local and regional level. And it is precisely at the local and regional level that we see real progress being made with regard both to power sharing and national reconciliation. Because of the social and constitutional structure of Iraq, political progress cannot be imposed from the top-down, but must percolate from the bottom up. To some extent, the members of the national assembly and the unity government are merely play-acting, posturing for the cameras until such time as a consensus emerges on the local level that will prompt them to act. The success of our counter-insurgency effort on the political front is not measured in the assembly chamber, but in the tribal councils. And there, we are definitely winning.UPDATE: I should note that I'm hearing a similar vibe from others who have been to Iraq recently — relationships between the local tribal councils are going pretty well, while the national assembly is a mess. "The bottom up strategy is making progress, but the national government is and is going to be a disaster... I think this means we're headed toward a soft partition."
Well, if the Kurds don't declare formal independence, and nobody sponsors al-Qaeda, I say, "hooray, good job everybody, and good luck. We'll be in Kuwait if you need anything. We're outta here."
It might just come down to that.
Posted by Tom at 9:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 9, 2007
The Democrat Line in December
Via NRO, I think that Senators Richard Durbin Bob Casey are floating a trial balloon regarding what the Democrat line in September will be when Gen Petraeus comes to Washington and reports that the surge is making good progress
(though the image here is that of a woman, it quickly goes to Senators Durbin and Casey on CNN)
Note how the CNN anchor seems amazed that Durbin would admit to any military progress at all. It's as if he couldn't quite believe his ears at first.
What's going on here is that the Democrats have learned that the "surge" (more properly Operation Phantom Thunder) is working better than they expected, or as I should say, feared. And I'm not going to go through the evidence here, but all signs point to military success in Iraq, at least right now.
Rep James Clyburn accidentally spoke the truth when he said that it would be a “real big problem for us” if Petraeus’s progress report is good.
Petraeus is not someone they can mock or disparage and get away with it. They know that if they take this tack they'll look stupid and will lose half their party. The nutroots may want to hear that Petraeus is Bush's lapdog, but it won't play with Joe and Jane Average.
What they'll do then is say we should pull out of Iraq because the Iraqis can't get their act together at the federal level.
To a certain extent the Democrats will have a point. Ultimately the Iraqis do have to make political progress. But it's not quite that simple. As the editors of National Review pointed out last week
Ultimately, reconciliation between the Sunnis and the Shiites is crucial. But it wasn’t going to happen in the next two months, whether the Iraqi parliament stayed in session or not. General Petraeus’s September report has come to be seen as a final test for Iraq, which makes sense only for Democrats hell-bent on leaving no matter what, and for nervous Republicans seeking a soft exit. We are beginning to see the fruits of a sound counterinsurgency strategy and, in this context, a debate focused on how to get out rather than how to consolidate our gains is shameful, however easy the sound bites are.
My thought is that we've had Iraq backward all along. We've put political progress ahead of military progress, and we should have done it the other way 'round. We hurried to set up one provisional government after another, draft a constitution, hold elections, etc. Our hope was that by doing these things we could take the "legitimacy" out of the insurgency.
It didn't work.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but we should have done this "surge" back in 2004 or at least 2005, and only when we'd squashed the terrorists worried about the political side.
The reason we got it wrong, I think, is that we have a tendancy to "mirror image" our thinking. We assume that hey, we can all get along without shooting each other, why can't they? We forget that the reality is that there are a lot of extremists over there who will shoot if they can't get their way politically. And before going in we completely underestimated extremism in Iraq. These people figure they can get what they want through violence, so they don't put much stock in what we consider normal political negotiations. Rather, they'll hold out for a better deal through violence.
Extremists will only negotiate in good faith when all violent options have closed; i.e., when the US military has crushed the insurgency.
All this is also why peace between Israel and Hamas or Fatah is a pipe dream. Or Israel and Lebanon. Until these terrorist organizations are destroyed or physically isolated there will never be peace.
David at The Thunder Run made another point to me in an email (which I won't print since it's private) that Iraqis are in fact making progress on the local level, and that this is in reality how most things get done in the US as well. He sees the war being won on the local level, both against al Qaeda and in the US military (primary leutenant colonels) working with local Iraqi leaders. As always he makes a good point and I tend to agree.
The bottom line is that the NRO editors have it right; Petraeus' Sept report is not a "final" report but an interim one, yes the Iraqis do eventually have to come together, but we ought to be talking about how to consolidate and expand on our victories, not how to cut-and-run.
Posted by Tom at 9:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 27, 2007
Dick Durbin Hits a New Low
From today's Washington Times
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee."The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.
"I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress."
This is astounding. Taking his statement at face value, the man is a coward. He let us go to war without coming out and saying something, even in private to his fellow Democrats?
On a matter this serious you don't sit back and say "gee, I'd like to do something to keep our president from lying about about the cause for a war, but since I'm sworn to secrecy I'll just do nothing."
The decision to go to war is the most serious one a president can make, period.
Senator Durbin is either a liar or a coward. I think he's a liar
Senate Republican staffers tell Kathryn Jean Lopez that other Democrat Senators thought the intelligence said something different
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): “[Saddam] has ignored the mandates of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.” (Committee On Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 09/19/02)SEN. JOHN ROCKFELLER (D-WV): “There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons. And will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years.” (Sen. John Rockefeller, Congressional Record, 10/10/02, p.S10306)
SEN. EVAN BAYH (D-IN): “Bill, I support the president's efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. I think he was right on in his speech tonight. The lessons we learned following September 11 were that we can't wait to be attacked again, particularly when it involves weapons of mass destruction. So regrettably, Saddam has not done the right thing, which is to disarm, and we're left with no alternative but to take action.” (Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," 03/17/03)
AND THE CURRENT SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID?
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President's approaching this in the right fashion.” (CNN's "Inside Politics," 09/18/02)
And Stephen Spruiell points out that
Sen. Durbin’s been saying stuff like this for a few years now. When pressed to name what specifically Durbin saw in classified intel briefings that differed from what the administration was telling the country, a spokesman for Durbin cites one of the key judgments from the Oct. 2002 NIE (declassified on July 18, 2003):
Most agencies believe that Saddam's personal interest in and Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors—as well as Iraq's attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools—provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. ([The Department of Energy] agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)Durbin's spokesman argues that the administration, while "factually correct" when it told the press that most agencies believed the tubes were part of a reconstituted nuclear program, was not being totally honest because it omitted the "greater expertise" of the Department of Energy.
Hat tip to Curt at Flopping Aces for the NRO links. Bookmark his blog if you haven't already.
Update
Power Line has links for the above quotes
Posted by Tom at 7:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 14, 2007
And You Shall Have Peace!
Guess what some of the Democrats in Congress have introduced(hat tip TigerHawk)?
H.R. 808: Department of Peace and Nonviolence ActSEC. 101. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE.
(a) Establishment- There is hereby established a Department of Peace and Nonviolence (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the `Department'), which shall--
(1) be a cabinet-level department in the executive branch of the Federal Government; and
(2) be dedicated to peacemaking and the study of conditions that are conducive to both domestic and international peace.
(b) Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence- There shall be at the head of the Department a Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the `Secretary'), who shall be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.
(c) Mission- The Department shall--
(1) hold peace as an organizing principle, coordinating service to every level of American society;
(2) endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights;
(3) strengthen nonmilitary means of peacemaking;
(4) promote the development of human potential;
(5) work to create peace, prevent violence, divert from armed conflict, use field-tested programs, and develop new structures in nonviolent dispute resolution;
(6) take a proactive, strategic approach in the development of policies that promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict;
(7) address matters both domestic and international in scope; and
(8) encourage the development of initiatives from local communities, religious groups, and nongovernmental organizations.
SEC. 102. RESPONSIBILITIES AND POWERS.(a) In General- The Secretary shall--
(1) work proactively and interactively with each branch of the Federal Government on all policy matters relating to conditions of peace;
(2) serve as a delegate to the National Security Council;
(3) call on the intellectual and spiritual wealth of the people of the United States and seek participation in its administration and in its development of policy from private, public, and nongovernmental organizations; and
(4) monitor and analyze causative principles of conflict and make policy recommendations for developing and maintaining peaceful conduct.
(b) Domestic Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) develop policies that address domestic violence, including spousal abuse, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly;
(2) create new policies and incorporate existing programs that reduce drug and alcohol abuse;
(3) develop new policies and incorporate existing policies regarding crime, punishment, and rehabilitation;
(4) develop policies to address violence against animals;
(5) analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns;
(6) develop new programs that relate to the societal challenges of school violence, gangs, racial or ethnic violence, violence against gays and lesbians, and police-community relations disputes;
(7) make policy recommendations to the Attorney General regarding civil rights and labor law;
(8) assist in the establishment and funding of community-based violence prevention programs, including violence prevention counseling and peer mediation in schools;
(9) counsel and advocate on behalf of women victimized by violence;
(10) provide for public education programs and counseling strategies concerning hate crimes;
(11) promote racial, religious, and ethnic tolerance;
(12) finance local community initiatives that can draw on neighborhood resources to create peace projects that facilitate the development of conflict resolution at a national level and thereby inform and inspire national policy; and
(13) provide ethical-based and value-based analyses to the Department of Defense.
(c) International Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict;
(2) provide for the training of all United States personnel who administer postconflict reconstruction and demobilization in war-torn societies;
(3) sponsor country and regional conflict prevention and dispute resolution initiatives, create special task forces, and draw on local, regional, and national expertise to develop plans and programs for addressing the root sources of conflict in troubled areas;
(4) provide for exchanges between the United States and other nations of individuals who endeavor to develop domestic and international peace-based initiatives;
(5) encourage the development of international sister city programs, pairing United States cities with cities around the globe for artistic, cultural, economic, educational, and faith-based exchanges;
(6) administer the training of civilian peacekeepers who participate in multinational nonviolent police forces and support civilian police who participate in peacekeeping;
(7) jointly with the Secretary of the Treasury, strengthen peace enforcement through hiring and training monitors and investigators to help with the enforcement of international arms embargoes;
(8) facilitate the development of peace summits at which parties to a conflict may gather under carefully prepared conditions to promote nonviolent communication and mutually beneficial solutions;
(9) submit to the President recommendations for reductions in weapons of mass destruction, and make annual reports to the President on the sale of arms from the United States to other nations, with analysis of the impact of such sales on the defense of the United States and how such sales affect peace;
(10) in consultation with the Secretary of State, develop strategies for sustainability and management of the distribution of international funds; and
(11) advise the United States Ambassador to the United Nations on matters pertaining to the United Nations Security Council.
(d) Human Security Responsibilities- The Secretary shall address and offer nonviolent conflict resolution strategies to all relevant parties on issues of human security if such security is threatened by conflict, whether such conflict is geographic, religious, ethnic, racial, or class-based in its origin, derives from economic concerns (including trade or maldistribution of wealth), or is initiated through disputes concerning scarcity of natural resources (such as water and energy resources), food, trade, or environmental concerns.
(e) Media-Related Responsibilities- Respecting the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the requirement for free and independent media, the Secretary shall--
(1) seek assistance in the design and implementation of nonviolent policies from media professionals;
(2) study the role of the media in the escalation and de-escalation of conflict at domestic and international levels and make findings public; and
(3) make recommendations to professional media organizations in order to provide opportunities to increase media awareness of peace-building initiatives.
(f) Educational Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) develop a peace education curriculum, which shall include studies of--
(A) the civil rights movement in the United States and throughout the world, with special emphasis on how individual endeavor and involvement have contributed to advancements in peace and justice; and
(B) peace agreements and circumstances in which peaceful intervention has worked to stop conflict;
(2) in cooperation with the Secretary of Education--
(A) commission the development of such curricula and make such curricula available to local school districts to enable the utilization of peace education objectives at all elementary and secondary schools in the United States; and
(B) offer incentives in the form of grants and training to encourage the development of State peace curricula and assist schools in applying for such curricula;
(3) work with educators to equip students to become skilled in achieving peace through reflection, and facilitate instruction in the ways of peaceful conflict resolution;
(4) maintain a site on the Internet for the purposes of soliciting and receiving ideas for the development of peace from the wealth of political, social and cultural diversity;
(5) proactively engage the critical thinking capabilities of grade school, high school, and college students and teachers through the Internet and other media and issue periodic reports concerning submissions;
(6) create and establish a Peace Academy, which shall--
(A) be modeled after the military service academies;
(B) provide a 4-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution; and
(7) provide grants for peace studies departments in colleges and universities throughout the United States.
If I wanted to caricature the left I couldn't do better than this.
The bill goes on but I think you get the point. Go and read the whole thing if you can stand to. You can also find it on THOMAS.
As you might expect, presidential hopeful Rep Dennis Kucinich is one of the sponsors. It's prominently displayed on his Kucinich 2008 website. He says he's got 52 cosponsors.
As things stand now it'll never get out of committee. However, if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008 and they expand their hold in Congress, all bets are off. To be sure, it would still be a long shot, but the left would push hard for it and if groups like Moveon.org expand their influence enough in the Democrat party then anything's possible. They'll at least push for it.
Posted by Tom at 5:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 18, 2007
Copperheads in Congress
I don't suppose there's anyone in their right mind today who couldn't imagine not fighting to free people imprisoned in the hell of slavery, especially when it's happening on your own soil.
And if you're like me, when you were younger and less well-read you had this view of events like the American Revolution, Civil War (from the North's perspective), and World War II as glorious crusades in which "of course" we were all in it together.
But it were the truth. Most history books will tell you that only about 1/3 of the colonists supported independence, another 1/3 were loyal to the crown, and the last 1/3rd just didn't care. Up until Dec 7 1941 up to 80% of Americans wanted nothing to do with aiding the British in any shape way