It's Been a Long Time Coming
Max Boot shares an email he received from a Lieutenant Colonel in Iraq.
Almost nobody trusts the politicians, but they might if they see the coalition forces standing side by side with Iraqi Security Forces for long enough. As the public begins to develop confidence in the Iraqi formations, that trust could rub off into government legitimacy. Our only other option would be to replace the government, which nobody in the U.S. seems to have the political stomach for at this juncture.
Here's a theme that has been echoed repeatedly. The idea that structures in Iraq are actually developing from the bottom up, where the Iraqis in the field may actually be doing better than the politicians in the Green Zone. The email continues:
Given that reality, we need to stand by the Iraqis. How long, you ask? I am on my second tour following a year in Tikrit from 2004-2005. A realistic goal is to have stabilized this region by the time my eleven-year-old son is old enough to serve in the military. Not that he is preordained to serve, but my hope is he will not have to deal with the complexity and tragedies that I have witnessed in Baghdad over the last eight months. My only other goal is to be able to look myself in the mirror every day, knowing that I stuck to my principles and did as much as possible to win in this very dangerous environment.
If our government decides to prematurely pull out, I would fail to reach both goals, and my son and his generation may find themselves embroiled in something far worse than what we experience now—all because my generation couldn’t get the job done.
I've heard this argument repeated in many places. It usually takes this form: whatever mistakes we've made nothing can compare with the mistake of quitting. Of course, it is always hard to compare actual deaths incurred in Iraq today against the belief -- however well founded -- that enduring them now will lead to benefits later. Human nature is such that the present difficulties always seem more immediate than the future. Nevertheless, when warnings against pulling out are expressed by people actually in the field who have the greatest possible incentive to avoid danger, then it is only reasonable to take these warnings seriously.
Austin Bay has advanced the opinion that the West hasn't found the way to mobilize all the sources of national power against the problem of terrorism. Certainly the diplomatic and aid agencies are in no way full "expeditionary". And the information warfare organs of the West, if the media and academia can be so termed, haven't even made up their minds about whether there's a war on at all, and if so, whose side they are on. All these problems need to be resolved. It will take a long time.
posted by wretchardthecat at 5/18/2007 08:12:00 PM
46 Comments:
It is imperative the American population recounts our own history.
Most of our population has no idea what it took to construct this nation in blood and time and with a group of men intellectually superior to any group thrown together in history. A little time orientation.
From the Articles of Confederation to the production of the Constitution?
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly known as the Articles of Confederation, was the first governing document, or constitution, of the United States of America. It was written in summer 1777 and adopted by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777 in York, Pennsylvania after a year of debate. In practice it served as the de facto system of government used by the Congress ("the United States in Congress assembled") until it became de jure by final ratification on March 1, 1781. At that point Congress became Congress of the Confederation. The Articles ...remember 1777.
The Constitution:
After fierce fights over ratification in many of the states, New Hampshire became that ninth state on June 21, 1788. Once the Congress of the Confederation received word of New Hampshire's ratification, it set a timetable for the start of operations under the Constitution, and, on March 4, 1789, the government under the Constitution began operations.....remember 1789..
1777 to 1789 without fanatics trying everyday to create chaos and keep you in the 7th century...
THAT'S TWELVE YEARS FOLKS, TWELVE YEARS
Out in blogland some think it should all get done in Iraq like yesterday ...
In the 1770's it took a year or more for news to travel. The last battle of the revolutionary war, the battle of Blue Licks, was fought in 1782, a year after the war was over. See: The Battle of Blue Licks. So twelve years doesn't sound like so long a time to produce the US Constitution.
Having said that, I think that most Americans would be willing to wait if they felt that progress was being made. If we're moving forward then it's worth it. If not, then let's cut our losses.
IMO, if we leave soon we'll be back over there. Maybe it'll be five or ten years but we'll be back.
How many wahhabi madrassas has the Lt. Col's men closed down in the last six months?
None?
And who exactly are we counting on to close those universities of hate? They are not just going to close themselves, are they?
When you talk about generational treason, I would hate to be in the Lt. Col's shoes when he has to explain to his son why his generation took the easy way out and insisted on playing nation builders in Iraq while less than a thousand kilometres away the wahhabi madrassas in Saudi Arabia continued to propagate the next generation of terrorists on an industrial scale.
Who's going to close those madrassas? Why the Lt. Col's son's generation of course. Only the job is going to be exponentially more difficult than it would have been if we had done it in 2003 instead of invading Iraq.
And who exactly are we counting on to close those universities of hate?
Kevin, we were hoping we could count on you and your comrades. Glad to see our hopes were not misplaced.
"Nevertheless, when warnings against pulling out are expressed by people actually in the field who have the greatest possible incentive to avoid danger, then it is only reasonable to take these warnings seriously."
The Lt Col obviously doesn't want to throw away the blood and treasure already committed and spent anymore than the Confederates or the soldiers of the Wehrmacht or USA Vietnam guys did.
But his own answer of at least 7 more years of this stuff so my 11 year old won't have to come here as a soldier is unacceptable to the American public.
We simply don't have 7 years.
The Americans were told that the problem was not with the Religion of Peace but with a few "evildoers". We got huge tax cuts, never geared this country up with a national effort. No Muslim nation language schools were set up, no bostered State Department, no effort at strategic communications. We left our Borders Open. We did nothing to confront radical Islam but pretend that if they knew us better, they would like us and we would help them ignore Israel, set them up with "Sharansky-style neocon democracy" and woman's lib.
We lost all our allies but Australia and Poland in public opinion about Iraq, and add the UK being there in Iraq is against the popular will.
We didn't add to our military. We have badly damaged our undermanned forces with abuse and equipment losses that have not been replaced. We discontinued building subs and ships at a time the Chinese are building a blue water Navy to keep us away when they retake Taiwan and assert the Eastern Pacific is no longer a US-only naval space.
We made a series of catastrophic blunders under Rummy and the neocons in Iraq. Just as Lefties charged, and few of us who believed the US could walk and chew gum at the same time believed was possible back in 2002 - we DID take our eyes of Afghanistan, and now face having to do a 2nd war there rather than avoid Iraq and finish mopping up back in 2003-2007.
Unless the Iraqis wake up to reality, we will leave. Then lots and lots of them will die and the general reaction from Americans will be "F*ck 'em". I can live with that, also having to go back later when we actually know what we are doing (vs. the Bush years), to fight them again.
The Colonel highlights the point that progress is being made from the bottom up in Iraq. The irony is we were burdened with poor political leadership and decisions from the top down in the US. Things don't trickle up very well in Washington either
I love these arguments; it's like counting the petals on an opium plant while walking through the field: Aren't they pretty? Pity we can't find a better use.
Our Lt. Colonel makes a standard plea, (standard argument from those "at the tip of the spear") heard since the first soldiers went out into harm's way. And as always, the really "big brains" of the outfit ponder their next moves while the citizens who seem surrounded by these hostilities wonder when peace will--if ever, return.
Rules of Engagement: Perhaps if they were not only printed in every newspaper within the US, but also presented via the televised media, our citizens would come to know how this war is really being waged.
Why, it's like sitting in your doctor's office and listening to him explain your options for fighting the cancer recently discovered within your body.
What's that he's saying? Doc: "Am I going to live?" Doc says: "We don't really know the outcome, but without this treatment you will most certainly die sooner." Medical ROEs are just as tricky.
And every patient responds to bad news in his or her unique way.
It's just that I am getting really tired of hearing the bad news presented the same old way. Even when there might be good news it is presented in this same old way.
God speaks. Says who? Right--his special messenger, here on Earth.
M.C. Hammer had the line: "Can't touch this!" Yea, right. The real question is when do you touch "this"? That's what we're still getting ready to ask.
And, as always, these wise words: "Don't wait too long, before it's too late," come to mind.
The forks in the roads we have to meet while living one's life! Yogi, where are you?
this is funny
Utopia Parkway,
Good points about communication time, however the challeges are similar in establishing a government of competeing factions and interests with very long histories of blood feuds.
I think it is also significant to point out that in five or ten years the ME isn't going to look anything like today, why?
Iran is within a year of being hit by the Israelis probably with US help.
Certainly the Israels' are not "walking back into the showers" and will stop Iran from acquiring the bomb even if it costs them everything.
Once that event occurs I would expect the concomitant rise in attacks within the US and Britian by sleeper cells. My estimation is a Tet like day with multiple NBC type attacks within major metropolitan areas.
The chaos that will produce will be civilization altering and no doubt last for a score or more years.
Everybody is aiming at the big dog, the USA, not because we desire golbal hegemony via the gun but rather our economic power is so dynamic that the world is at our mercy. Then theres the cultural thing with our hedonistic ways relative to Islam.
Chinas pursuing a course that will lead to no good. Russia is in retrograde. And now it looks like we will be acquesing to mass felonies by virtue of an amnesty for millions of illegal, nonintergating Latinos , with a mix of Muslims and God knows whatever else is simply walking in the door.
The next two to five year will set the tone for the next hundred.
Unfortunately the creation of a competent military for an incompetent civil government has a quite predictable outcome, especially in the third world. If we leave this becomes a near term certainty – resulting in outcries from the Left that we make sure that the coup government fails.
If we stay long enough to truly birth the new democratic baby, an eventual military coup becomes merely fairly likely. This also will result in more insistence that we ensure the coup government fails. After that, chaos and reset to Square One. However, if a Democratic administration is in power the Left will hold their tongues enough to enable Realpolitik to come into play, if there is any around to be had. Then when a Republican Administration comes back in the Left will one more insist that we cut our dictator loose – and therefore try to force a reset to Square One.
The politicians in Iraq are sealing their fate by their fractious incompetence. Pay me now or pay me later; a firing squad is their future. Perhaps it is all most of them can imagine.
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By the time the term oF George W Bush is complete will be just about the same timeline, recently revised, for the Iranians to have acquired the bomb.
This is enough reason for President Bush to aid Israel in attacking Iran and retarding their nuclear goals. The next administration will be dealing with that Realpolitik which will dominate all other issues as to render them as routine business.
It happened to JFK and the Bay of Pigs. Ike had the mission mapped and in motion, JFK could either totally back down thus freeing up the entire invasion cadre the US had trained to go to the press with cries of "JFK" the President who allowed commmunism to gain a foothold 90 miles away from our shores...(JFK had barely nosed out RMN for the WH with fraudulent votes from Mayor Daly's Cook County, Ill mafia. Nixon, for the good of the nation did not do an Algore and protest) or JFK could go ahead. He went ahead but denied the air cover that was imperative for success. The rest we know.
GWB will not hand a plan to the next administration but rather an action already taken.
"They'll be a hot time in the old town tonight"..wow
The list of damnable things one can put together with regard to the general state of US affiars is long on both sides of the ideological divide. Here are my favorites gripes , as if anyone cares. It is however good therapy.
1.Sandy Berger getting away with treason and we don't even know the scope of the damnage. In fact we know damn little of the marrow of the deal gone down.
2.Inability of the US to make total, devistating war on our enemies and do the clean up afterwards such as was done in Germany and Japan.
3. The break from 200+ years of Presidential tradition that dictated that former Presidents would not openly attack their successors. Jimma Carter has been the most egregious offender with Bill Clinton a close second.
4. The US's continued membership in the UN without attempting to organize a more relevent newer organization.
Habu,
Bush is paralyzed and the US is no longer driving but only weakly reacting to world events. All that matters to the political elites is the next election. Meanwhile the electorate is disgusted with the whole lot.
The US has telegraphed the intention to abandon Iraq. Game over. Afghanistan next. Warlords will rule both. The Iran-DPRK-Russia-China axis will build Iranian nuclear ICBMs while the West retreats. Bush will do nothing.
Our enemies won't have to attack us, we will collapse from within as socialists take over the government, illegal aliens overrun our culture, industry goes offshore and the retiring baby boomers consume national wealth through social security/Medicare benefits.
The coup-de-grac for the US will be the destruction of Ras Tanura or Al Qatif infrastructure which will send oil over $200/bbl. With gas over $10/gal the US economy will go balls up and we descend into anarchy.
And our political elites will stand mouth agape and do ....nothing. Mexican life is our future.
The US had it's 50 years on the world stage, now it's the turn of warlords because the American people are mostly narcissistic, arrogant weaklings.
Habu,
I think we went astry when we gave the vote to non-property owners and then women.
When we gave the vote to men who didn't have a vested interest in the success of the nation we opened up a concept of redistribution of wealth through government. We see the effects today.
The vote for women feminized the country as women are mostly creatures of their emotions.
Now we have a government that is far too interested in individual rights and entitlements than responsibilities. So now, it really is all about "me" rather than the nation.
This is the source of the doom.
Lugh,
Great points all. I wouldn't dicker with a one. Those very points could have come from my keyboard because I think they are all righteous points.
We have a pile of trouble the way I see it and not enough tools or moxie anymore to get'er done.
I'm at this point however even a bit more gloomy than the points you have made would normally create in a fella.
I do think we'll have a big slam on Iran to take out their nuclear capability..If we don't I am positive Israel will..that's gonna trigger some jihadi action, as I mentioned, on the Tet scale. That will put our effeminate population in a panic so bad that, as the survivalists like to say it will be TEOTWAWKI ..The end of the world as we know it.
Things like electricity, drinking water, food, just the basics will be owned by the lean and hungry or those who have prepared and can defend their cache.
Yep, I think a hard hard rain gonna fall within five years, perhaps sooner.
Glad I got my Montana redoubt..I just hope I'm up there not down here in Florida when the ballon goes up.
Man I didn't want to have to go into my 60's with all this shit percolating, but then on the other hand I like a challenge. And I was never bothered by doing some killing.
Plus elk and deer aren't too bad with the proper prep.
"And our political elites will stand mouth agape and do ....nothing. Mexican life is our future."
I am convinced that what EVERYBODY DOES NOT UNDERSTAND that our elites (generally bureaucrats of some Marxist variety) truly believe they will slot into the positions as "elites" when the time comes...the rest of us will become peasants.
Nothin'...I repeat...Nothin' like a good elk roast!!! Yummmm!!!!
Habu,
Your scenario with Iran and Israel is possible but I just don't believe Bush anymore. Even if he had the will, he doesn't have the horsepower. I don't even know that the SecDef would obey an order to attack Iran, let alone the officer corp. The order would leak to the press and the Congress would stop it.
Israel will cease to exist in our lifetime. Either by a nuclear detonation over Tel Aviv or continuous insurgency on it's borders. Demographics alone will end the state of Israel. These Israelis aren't their fathers and they too lack the will to exist.
The West is willing to let Israel go to live another day, another tank of gasoline for their pretty car.
Gloomy. You betcha. Your five years window is not unreasonable. The pile of shit is reaching a critical mass
I hope you make it to Montana cause it's only men like you that will give our descendents any hope for a future. I'll probably be in tactical retreat up your way when the chaos begins. I got kin in the Dakotas.
Keep teachin those youguns shoot and manuveur.
Semper fi marine
bbg3Case,
Agree on the roast elk, but I can't recommend Impala. Now we don't have Impala here in the States but if you're out at an exotic eatery..skip it. Gator isn't too bad.
The ELITES. If it gets to the Sans-culottes stage here their asses are cooked. They can have all the private compounds they want, guarded by Blackwater or the Olive Group or whoever you chose to name but theirs gonna be too many of the Sans-culottes to save them from THE TERROR.
Well I'm off to the gun shop and a few errands.
Lugh,
Semper Fi back.
Shooting,absolutely..The US still has the CMP, Civilian Marksmanship Program that has great freebies and help teaching shooting. I think the ammo is free..it use to be.
CMP
Semper Fi Marine,
Jihadi demographics can be changed, and so can the Jihadi oil economy. When you're working harder and harder to achieve the same poor results, you know your method is wrong.
3. The break from 200+ years of Presidential tradition that dictated that former Presidents would not openly attack their successors. Jimma Carter has been the most egregious offender with Bill Clinton a close second.
But didn't Ronald Reagan attack Bill Clinton in the New York Times op-ed pages only one month after taking office?
Why yes he did (sorry for the length)
SECTION: Section A; Page 23; Column 4; Editorial Desk
LENGTH: 1009 words
HEADLINE: There They Go Again
BYLINE: By Ronald Reagan; Ronald Reagan, President from 1981 to 1989, heads the Reagan Center for Public Affairs.
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
BODY:
Less than one month ago, our nation showed the world the strength of our democratic system with the peaceful transfer of Presidential power from one elected citizen to another and, incidentally, from one political party to another. While it is no secret that I would have preferred a different scenario that day, I have great respect for our constitutional system and would like to support our new President.
I had every intention of holding back any comments on the new Administration until it was well in place and its policies became clear. Unfortunately, the policies are already becoming alarmingly clear. With campaign promises dropping like autumn leaves, I can't refrain any longer.
"First, we're going to raise the taxes on the people that did well in the 1980's," the Clinton Administration says. Did I hear that right? I'm afraid so! Do they really believe that those who have worked hard and been successful should somehow be punished for it? Is success in the 1980's, or any time for that matter, supposed to be something we as Americans are to be embarrassed about?
I hate to confuse their economic thinking with a few facts, but if they were to look at the 1980's, they would find that America experienced its longest period of peacetime economic expansion in our history. They would find that America led the world out of a global economic recession and that our economy was the envy of virtually every other nation. They would see that we created nearly 19 million new jobs for Americans of all income levels. And it may shock the Clinton Administration to discover that most of the economic gains of the 1980's were made by low- and middle-income citizens, not the wealthiest Americans.
Earlier this week, President Clinton said, "I know we have learned the hard lessons of the 1980's." I didn't realize they were so hard to learn. The fundamental lesson of the 1980's was that when you cut taxes for everyone, people have the incentive to work harder and invest, to make a better life for themselves and their families.
If the new Administration doesn't want to look back as far as the 1980's, maybe it will at least look back at the summer of 1992. Candidate Bill Clinton was promising that, if elected, he would provide a tax cut for the middle class. Now, in less than one month of his Presidency, that promise of a tax cut has not only been broken but it has been reversed into a tax increase for middle-income workers.
During the campaign, Bill Clinton said he would tax only the very rich. Last week, he defined this category as those making $200,000 a year. On Monday, the definition came down to $100,000 and now the "very rich" seems to be anyone making $30,000 a year.
Somehow, as the Administration raises everyone's taxes, it wants us to take comfort in knowing that others are getting theirs raised even more. Unfortunately, that kind of "comfort" doesn't put food on the table of the hard-working middle class, buy new shoes for the kids or make it easier to pay the mortgage, let alone put some money aside for savings. The fact is, every dollar the politicians take back to Washington means less spending power for average Americans and more opportunity for the Federal bureaucracy to waste money.
We must also listen for the sound of the other shoe to drop: the Clintons' health program. This will almost certainly involve proposals for another round of taxes later this year, and you can bet those won't be levied on a handful of millionaires.
In the Middle Ages, it was believed that alchemists could turn base metals into gold. Now it appears that alchemists in President Clinton's Administration hope to turn a huge tax increase into economic growth. Alchemy didn't work then and it won't work now. Taxes have never succeeded in promoting economic growth. More often than not, they have led to greater economic downturns.
In his campaign, candidate Clinton described himself as a "new Democrat," implying that there would be no more tax-and-spend dogma, no social engineering, no class warfare pitting one group against another. This week, however, he has begun to sound like an "old Democrat." That's the kind who does not understand one simple fact: the problem is not that the people are taxed too little, the problem is that the Government spends too much.
Until President Clinton and the liberals in Congress accept that principle and act accordingly, I'm afraid we are headed for a repeat of the late 1970's. And that is something we can all live without.
No one can dispute that the enormous budget deficit is a major threat to the economic security of our country. But let us remember that deficits are caused by spending. By the very terms of our Constitution, only Congress has the power to spend.
For more than four decades, one party, the Democratic Party, has controlled the House of Representatives. The solution to the deficit problem is not to ask heavily taxed working Americans to "sacrifice" even more.
It's the big-spending liberals controlling the Congress who need to show some restraint and "sacrifice" a few of the pork-barrel measures they've been slipping past the taxpayers for far too long. Only when the Clinton Administration and Congress summon the will to put the brakes on Federal spending will they get the deficit under control.
While I'm flattered that President Clinton admits to taking a page out of my communications plan, I wish he'd use it to sell an economic program of growth and expansion, not the failed liberal policies of the past.
Just as positive signs of economic recovery are appearing, Mr. President, please don't blow it. Although it goes back well before the 1980's, may I offer you the advice of the 14th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who said: "At the beginning of the empire, the tax rates were low and the revenues were high. At the end of the empire, the tax rates were high and the revenues were low."
And, no, I did not personally know Ibn Khaldun, although we may have had some friends in common!
"The Americans were told that the problem was not with the Religion of Peace but with a few "evildoers".
Far too many screeds begin with just such a resounding statement. The problem with them is double. First the auditor disingenuously treats them as 'sacred contracts' now feloniously broken. Second, all too often they reflect constant yammering from the MSM, usually found (if one takes the time to do the omitted research)to be convenient for attacking Bush but not based on an accurate statement of fact.
Kevin,
Still flogging the dead horse? Is it emotionally satisfying? Do you think Hillary or Barak or the Breck Girl will close any madrassas?
I don't think so. But they will push America down to road to Castratiland until some crude men decide that it is time to take over the place. Then, the women will be bagged and put in place while the metrosexual socialist-democrats ennuchs will be slaughtered.
lugh lampfhota: "The US had it's 50 years on the world stage, now it's the turn of warlords because the American people are mostly narcissistic, arrogant weaklings."
There's always the possibility of a "Hannibal at the Gates of Rome" scenario. That was when the Romans, finally realizing what deep ordure they were in, rallied, got very, very serious about things, and pulled their act together.
2nd Corollary to the Three Cities Axiom:
Once America has lost three cities, it will fully mobilize.
Of course, one of those cities is liable to be Washington, and thus most of the current style of leadership will have been removed for us.
Kevin,
OK Reagan wrote an op-ed page piece on economics.
I will roundly condemn a man with Alzheimers from defending his economics and pointing out the broken promises Bill Clinton had made to get elected. Ergo Ronald Reagan is the moral equivalent of Jimma Carter and the impeached,dope smoking,adulterous,pathologically lying Bill Clinton...does that satisfy you, meet the test of proving that Reagan and Clinton were morally the same? If you wish to live with those beliefs there are not enough words or logic in all of Christendom for me to alter your perception. As for me, I'm just not convinced Reagan earned the same heights of oppobrium that Bill Clinton easily raised to an art form.
I happened, years ago, to tape Bill Clinton's sworn testimony on his affair with Monica Lewensky. You know the one where he parses the word "is". I watched it just the other day. If he's a person you care to defend on what criteria do you choose to do so? Duty,Honor,Country? Good luck, you have my sympathy for it is a might task.
I should have focused that aspect of my list to a much narrower aperture to include only attacking the sitting President when the United States is involved in war operations. That is the aspect that has been breached that is truly dispicable and does provide aid and comfort to the enemy, as their leadership has pointed out a number of times.
That aspect doesn't appear to phase either Jimma Carter or Bill Clinton. But Carter's in the winter of his years, bitter from a totally failed Presidency, and word on the street is that Bills reversion to a "private citizen" and thus his resumption of coke and dope use is severly shortening his life.
I reject tu quoque your position.
lugh,
Still flogging the dead horse?
Yes, I know the idea is somewhat radical that we would actually attack the institutions (Wahhabi Madrassas) that produced the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 (and several other times before) and which continue to produce fighters who are destabilizing Afghanistan and Iraq in particular and the entire Islamic world in general. And no, I have not checked in with the various tools running for the Presidency. Unlike you I don’t see a huge difference between the “two” political parties – I see one wealthy elite and two shades of evil representing it. So, no, I do not limit my ideas to those acceptable to our political betters.
The problem is that, one day, my sons are not going to look back too kindly on our generation as they have to go out and destroy the cancer of Wahhabism after it has spread though out the Islamic world. That day they are going to ask me whether I had my head up my *ss while Wahhabism spread and I will tell them no.
Cedarford, stop with the tax cut claptrap! In case you haven't notice Federal tax receipts are at an ALL-TIME HIGH. It is not a question of monies not being available. It is question of priorities. Remember this is a nation that spends 4 BILLION a year on pet food. And we haven't even touched the misplaced priorities of the federal, state and local governments. We are a nation that fielded 3 million armed men and women in WWII with half the population and a fraction of the wealth. And speaking of the war effort, since when does fighting a ragtag bunch of terrorists require the nation to go to DefCon 1? We are not facing the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht. We are facing a bunch of rats who can only strike from the shadows and from behind the skirts of cilivians. If they face us in the open they die. We have the capacity to end this any time we chose. The Carthage option is one we could do in our sleep. One Ohio class submarine fully armed and set loose would end Islamic civilization. But we are not barbarians, we choose to fight "fair". For those that think it will take three American cities to get torched to come to that I disagree. One city gets nuked and the gloves come off.
All this doom and gloom is unwarranted and unjustified. We can only be defeated if we leave. Period. The MNF will not be driven from the field by an Islamic army. Only if the politicians lose their nerve will there be a defeat. It took forty years of effort to see Europe unified and free after WWII. The same effort is required here. My son is about to sign up to join the effort, "to make a difference" in his words. I fully expect that my grandson if I am so blessed will face the same choice as my son and others of his age do now. If this is as many here believe a "clash of civilizations" this will not end in a year, five years or ten years. It will be generations. Think Thirty Years War and Hundred Years War. There is no easy way out. Sorry.
BTW. President Bush has said this from day one. Even on the day of the infamous "Mission Accomplished"
speech, which by the way he never said. Problem is no one was listening, or wanted to listen.
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Tarnsman,
Well put old boy. I've always said we could and should have ended this before it even got started so to speak.
The recipe is easy.
1. level the country from the air
2. citizens remaining, now terrified of us, and are very compliant, recognising the strong horse.
3. be compassionate and rebuild their country
We could leaflet the country and tell them to leave and go into the desert where we could have already built a Katrinaville for them, while we demolish their cities and shrines.
This countries first wars were against the Barbary Muslims to which we paid tribute in the millions, at one point one tenth of our entire revenue went to pay tribute, before we got the balls to build a Navy and go after them. It was in fact the Barbary situation that finally turned the political discussion in this country to building a Navy in the first place. Washington ,Adams,Jefferson all had similar words for the Muslims that we have today, barbaric, thiefs, liars, and even poltroons.
A popular book at the time was,The Algerine Captive: Or, the Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill . Written by Royall Tyler, The Algerine Captive is the fictitious memoir of Updike Underhill, a picaresque Yankee who, after a spate of adventures at home, goes to sea and is ultimately taken captive by the Algerines.It is also one of the first attempts by an American novelist to depict the Islamic world, and lays bare a culture clash and diplomatic quagmire not unlike the one that obtains between the United States and Muslim nations today. The book was published in 1797.
Although the book was fiction its basis was facts gathered by Royall Tyler's interviews with merchants and freed captives of the Muslims. It's publication and popularity aided in building our Navy.
Royall Tyler
Royall Tyler
habu,
Oh the hole just gets deeper. So no ex-President ever criticized a sitting President on a matter of war?
You know, Google is your friend, you should try it some time:
In an appearance at a San Antonio grade school on October 13, 1993, Bush expressed concern that the humanitarian mission to Somalia that he had launched nearly a year earlier was being "messed up" by the Clinton administration. "If you're going to put somebody else's son or daughter into harm's way, into battle, you've got to know the answer to three questions," Bush told the students. He said the president has to know what the mission is, "how they are going to do it," and "how they're going to get out of there." Several news reports noted that Bush's comments appeared to violate his earlier pledge not to publicly criticize Clinton during his first year in office. [The New York Times, 10/14/93; The Boston Globe, 10/23/93]
But you know what the best part of this was? It was George Herbert Walker Bush who ordered the troops into Somalia in the first place.
Ladies, two words:
COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM
Herein lies the evil we mistook!
Kevin,
I have just added GHW Bush to my list of bad Presidents that broke years of tradition by criticising a sitting president while troops lives are at stake.
If they want that message out it should come through a champion of theirs not directly from a former president..that way it doesn't carry as much weight with the enemy.
Shame on them. While I may be a conservative Rep I will not support a former President making remarks injurious to our troops in the field. Let the current Commander in Chief be the mistake maker or hero and let the Fourth Estate do their job of enlightening us on their shortcomings. You can google with the best, but don't you agree be they Dem or Rep former presidents should maintain a certain decorum?
You do point out in the Bush quotes another item that we hear a good deal about but to me is hard to understand....that's the old "exit strategy" that is suppose to be at the end of the PowerPoint presentation on any particular military engagement.
"OK, now at precisely 3:33GMT our troops will reembark and we'll come home"
I am a firm believer in von Moltke.
Moltke's main thesis was that military strategy had to be understood as a system of options since only the beginning of a military operation was plannable. As a result, he considered the main task of military leaders to consist in the extensive preparation of all possible outcomes. His thesis can be summed up by two statements, one famous and one less so, translated into English as No battle plan survives contact with the enemy and War is a matter of expedients
"How many wahhabi madrassas has the Lt. Col's men closed down in the last six months?"
..................................
How many have you?
If you feel so strongly about the topic, get busy.
Taliban is an Arabic word that is a plural form of the word student who studies Holy Koran and Hadiths. The biggest Taliban factories are the Arab based...
"Madrasahs," which are scattered throughout the Islamic kingdoms.
Likewise, there are thousands of Taliban factories in the West. But, because of the western influences, the factories turn into small size that can be called "the mini-Taliban factory." The question is, "where are the factories located in the lands of Kaffirs?"
These mini factories are nowhere but in many Moques, Islamic Learning Centres, and reserved rooms in universities & colleges.
...................................
So get busy if you have the strength of your convictions or maybe the state will protect you, right r?
same thing with immigration
"If the Federal power fails to protect the people, do not the people take it upon themselves?
Is that not an inalienable right?
To defend ones home and hearth, the markets and streets, from murder and mayhem?"
...go get em all u keyboard revolutionaries
r
As a firm non compassionate conservative I knew we were in trouble when:
COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM
hit us.
I was at CIA when GHW Bush was Director, ticket punching his way to the presidency. I found very few of the old OSS people liked him or respected him. So naturally as a young man idolizing these guys who had parachuted behind Nazi lines to set up networks during WWII I didn't favor Bush either..he had that "kinder,gentler" baloney work'in and no matter how you slice it, in the field if you give your sworn enemy a chance, he'll kill yo ass faster than you can say kinder-gentler.
I think in WWII if he hadn't been picked up so quickly by our sub but rather ended up in a Japanese prison his views might have been more real world instead of the world of a Bush grandee Yalie, with a touch of "Noblesse oblige"
Elijah
I'm just wait'n for the shit to start here. I'm locked and loaded as you must know.
From my very first blog I've lobbied for a decimation of Islam,no mercy..
But since I haven't yet been breveted as a genuine keyboard revolutionary I have to keep keyboarding. It's eiither that or my wife will make me vacuum the house ..ugh
Elijah
Also, I've actually put in applications with several mercenary outfits, Blackwater, etc but I just can't convince them that a 60 year old on the front lines is a good idea...can you believe that shit!
Sure my walker may slow me down and my daily constitutionals may take half a reading of a books chapter but I just know I can contribute...I did however turn down "IED finder".
Now I'm trying to get a press job with the Penny Saver so I can get imbedded with the Quartermaster's or commissary, whose motto is "We feed ya ,now you go fight'em"
i am not advocating any course of action.
just tired of all the whine
habu,
Teddy Roosevelt used to critcize Wlson harshly on WWI. Hoover was all over Roosevelt right up until Dec. 1941 and started up again after 1945 on Truman's occupation policies. Nixon and Kissinger criticized Reagan's arms conrol policies in the New York Times in 1987. If anything ex-Presidents criticizing sitting Presidents seems to be an American tradition.
I am not sure if I approve of it or not to be perfectly honest.
Kevin,
I may have to reexamine my list.I may substitute bad wine for that other bitch and be done with it!
But I still say I don't care about who's in the WH the previous Presidents still carry weight in the world and therefore what they say is amplified.
If it's Joe No (R)Shangra-La blasting away,well chances are the folks in Wallyland don't care as much.
But if it's a former Kingfish well the troops get crapped on a bit worse.
Please don't tell me that people criticised Mr Smith Goes to Washington or It's a Wonderful Life
Elijah,
Life is short for bad whine.
Now friends it is NASCAR time.
Just remember it's 90% logistics and 10% strategy.
Apparently politics trumps national security these days. And to hell with the poor bastard standing watch in Injun country.
Yeah, they'll fight and die for their countrymen. But for some self-centered, damnable politician's career? Justify that!
As each new generation of this country's progeny produces more "Kevins" than warriors, we come closer to the nightmare of totalitarianism actually triumphing over civilization. This is the true long term threat to this nation and to all of civilization.
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