Yeouch.
"
[The] hippies did not sell out. Hippie ideology and yuppie ideology are one and the same."
Read the whole thing. Chances are, no matter side of the political spectrum you're on, you'll end up squirming a bit.
Old Ironsides
The 1st Armored Division is on of the Army's oldest mechanized units. For the past 20 years, it's primary job was to stand in the Fulda Gap and repel any possible Soviet push into West Germany, battling main battle tanks, hostile air units and advancing infantry.
Now,
it's being re-purposed for fighting in Iraq against a completely different foe.
Remember, we can learn, too. And the side that learns fastest, wins.
Uniquely deadly
"
Many observers have noticed that Democrats of the left speak of Iraq as another Vietnam. Few have explained why: Because Democrats of the left want Iraq to be another Vietnam."
That goes a little farther than I'm willing to, but I think it's fundamentally correct. To a certain segment of the Democratic Party, all the wars we've been in since 1975 have been Vietnam. Afghanistan was going to be Vietnam. Panama was going to be another Vietnam. Gulf War I was supposed to be another Vietnam.
You know what war was Vietnam? The Vietnam War.
Fighting a popular, country-wide insurgency is really tough, and it's only been done successfully a handful of times in the last 100 years. But the people fighting us don't control the country, they're not popular with the locals, hell, most of them aren't from Iraq, they're Al Qaeda thugs from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.
Iraq is not Vietnam, anymore than Iwo Jima was. Each war is has unique problems of it's own.
(Minor note: I just noticed I described radical Muslim criminals as "thugs", when the word "thug" comes from "thugee", a follower of Kali, a Hindu diety. Oh, the irony.)
Shocked, shocked I say.
It looks like opposition to the removal of Saddam in the U.N. might, MIGHT, I say, have something to do with
Russian, Chinese and French companies being the primary benefactors of kickbacks from the Oil-For-Food mess.
Remind me again how its U.S. foreign policy alone that's driven by lust for profits and oil, and just how this helps China, Russia and France pass the "Global Test"?
With supporters like these,
who needs critics?
Note to Cindy Sheehan: When the Washington Post does a column written by a vocal critic of the President that rips you a new one, maybe it's time to hang it up...
Let's be clear about one thing:
All the problems with the
UN Oil-for-Food program did one thing: Take money from humanitarian relief and put it in the hands of a fascist dictator.
Chew on that for a while.
And then ask yourself,
why is this man a hero to those who are allegedly against facism?
The Fighting Tremeraire*
*One of my favorite paintings, ever.The last of the Spruance-class destroyers was
decommisioned last month.
They went too soon. Sure, the Soviet Union is gone, and they were getting a bit long in tooth, but they served their country well. Until the
DD(X) gets up and running, there'll be a hole in our ASW capabilities.
navy,
destroyers,
warships,
Spruance
Outfoxed
The Fourth Rail has more on
this report on the potentional for the war in Iraq to be a training ground for terrorists. It probably is, but what are they learning? Are they coming up with new tactics? Nope, it's still car bombs, IED's and suicide bombers. Are they coming up with a new message? Nope, it's still kill the infidel Americans and Zionists. They are learning new ways to hit innocent civilians and U.S. troops with car bombs and the like, but as far as strategic goals, what really have the terrorists accomplished in the past year? Have they stopped the elections, the referendum, heck, have they taken back one city, one town, one hut that they've lost to Coalition control?
Nope.
Why? Because we can learn, too. And the battle always goes to the side that learns faster.
Iraq,
terrorism,
strategy
Yesterday's news
Al Gore sits on the board of Apple Computer, so he should know what the
future of TV will be, (or something similar).
So why is he pushing
CurrentTV so hard?
It's like being aware of radio, but insisting that a town crier is better.
And
Jeff Jarvis has more.
Media,
CurrentTV,
Internet
Breathtaking
I like authors who are smarter than me. I like the insight and the sense of wisdom I get from reading what they have to say.
And Michael Barone is definitely smarter than me.
Another miserable failure turns into a smashing success
I remember one of my first awakenings to the inaccuracy of the MainStream Media was a report on 60 Minutes on the then-new
M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. They were absolutely sure this thing was a death-trap and was going to get hundreds of soldiers killed if it ever went into combat.
Why? Because it looked like a tank, but wasn't armored like a tank.
I was working in a hobby store at the time and doing a lot of reading whilst being bored out of my skull waiting on customers. At this store, we had a series of books on modern armour, and I had read a lot about the Bradley IFV, the tactical doctrine behind it, and what it could and could not do. And one thing I understood from even this brief introduction is that the Bradley wasn't a tank, but rather an updated American version on the Russian BMP IFV's. It was meant to accompany tanks to battle, but definitely not meant to slug it out toe-to-toe with the latest Soviet tanks.
Did 60 Minutes explain this? Nooooooo.
Now we come to the
Stryker Medium Assault Vehicle, the latest APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) in U.S. service. It's critics complained it was too light, too fragile and would be a deathtrap for any soldiers inside.
And once again, they're wrong.
Would it hurt the media to actually interview the soldiers who use the darn thing before they write how it's deathtrap? Apparently so.
Military,
Army,
stryker
"Shot himself in the back of the head...
"..pausing only twice to reload."
The head of Syrian Intelligence in Lebanon
commited suicide.
Uh-huh.
Syria,
Mideast,
Lebanon
Combat is the best teacher of all
Much has been written about the ineffectiveness of the new Iraqi Army and Security forces in combatting the terrorists within Iraq. Given that the army was raised up from nothing, instances
like this are a good sign.
And let's say Iraq gets a professional, *battle-hardened* military in place by the end of next year. They'll end up with a military that's second only (maybe) to Israel in terms of experience and professionalism in the Mid-East. That'll shift the balance of power somewhat, as the current big dog in the gulf is probably Saudi Arabia. An Iraqi army that's pro-West and powerful will change things in the Gulf for years to come.
Iraq,
military,
politics,
strategy,
MidEast
I can't disagree with this.
James Carville says the
Democrats need to work on their story-telling.
Yep.
Nobody likes to be preached to all the time. Look at the instructional methods of Christ. When he wanted the crowd to pay attention, he used parables. When he wanted to make a point a specific group of people, then the gloves came off. But his day-to-day preaching style was gentler, in a way that everyone could relate to. And the Dems need to learn that there's a 100% chance Bush won't get re-elected again: A strategy consisting of nothing but "Vote for us! We're not Bush!" will get them nowhere.
Carville's still nuts, of course, so he throws in some jabs at the current administration, and I disgree with his characterization of Gore, but he's the best strategist the Dems have right now. Without him, the Dems have gone 0-5. If there's any hope of the Dems getting the White House in 2008, they need to listen more to him and less to Howard Dean.
A quagmire wrapped in a stalemate wrapped in a failure.
Or not.
Compare
this post from May of this year to
this one.
3/4 of Al-Qaeda's command structure has been taken out since May.
Funny how I don't remember hearing about that on the nightly news...
Iraq,
War,
Military
Psst: You only PLAY a politician, Don.
Dear Donald Sutherland,
In the words of
Laura Ingram,
shut up and sing.
Actually, skip the singing part, please.
Thank You.
Inside the Beltway, outside the loop
Air Force Colonel John Boyd is one of those renaissance men who, 200 years ago, would be as celebrated as von Clauswitz or Lafayette. Unfortunately, current cultural mores prevent the idea of glorifying running dog warmongers, errr, military heroes, so his work has been laregly unknown outside military circles.
Which is a shame, as
his work on OODA loop is nothing short of brilliant. In defining what initiative is in combat, and how to get it, his thinking has been embraced by everyone from butterbar First Looeys in the army to the boardrooms of America's most powerful companies.
And obviously, the GOP as well. Ever since the start of Iraq War, the GOP has held the initiiative in national politics, from Social Security to ANWAR to trade. The Dems haven't figured this out yet. They've fallen back into the rhetoric of the anti-Vietnam era, where every setback is a Tet, every protest is a Kent State in the making, and even Jane Fonda is back on the road again.
The Dems don't realize what worked with their leadership in Congress and a GOP president crippled by Watergate won't work with a GOP Congress that's been gaining seats for the last 10 years straight, and strong future Presidential candidates on the horizon like McCain and Guiliani. The GOP is running rings around the political strategists of the Dems (Damn you, Karl Rove! :-) ), and unless the Dems can drop the 60's-speak and wake up to the 21st century, it'll be that way for a while to come.
Editorial license
Creative editing exists, of course.
But there's a reason
why this photo went on the front page. It's not due to the sinister bias of of the Mainstream Media (this time), it's just a stronger, better picture
than the others. It's not a bias thing, it's a photo thing.
Which brings up a good point about protesting. Open display of emotions = better pictures, and it's been that way since the days of Capa, Bourke-White and Smith.
That's something that the pro-war faction hasn't figured out yet. You want the front page? Get angry. 200 happy flag-waving soccor moms means your story's on B12. One upset vet? Front page.
And
protest babes are a good idea, too.
