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Dr. Sowell, now stop it. You are disenfranchising those who are challenged with Anti-Maturing Syndrome. This is discriminating against those victims who long suffer from this medically nebulas affliction. Where is your compassion?
And that, boys and girls, is the difference between our sitting President and his nominative challenger.
Having seen the film, I was astonished to learn that a NYT reviewer had attacked it. Now that is one limp-wristed paper!
Just finished sending an appreciative email to Dr. Sowell. Thanks for posting the thread.
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Thanks, kattracks, for a great post! I always appreciate the clear vision that Dr. Sowell brings to his columns - a vision that makes him one of the giants (IMO) of journalism.
I grew up under Ike and have learned much about him since he passed away so many decades ago. Ike was, without a doubt, a master politician; able to deal with the likes of superegos such as Patton, DeGaulle and Montgomery. Somehow, despite the depth of his feelings and his command of the war, he managed to get all of those great men under his command to work together as one. For ANY organization to attempt to sully his reputation is cowardice. Ike was a fine, honorable man capable of taking on today's crop of limp-wristed, leftist, appeasement-centric "journalists" with both hands tied behind his back.
Were Ike running the War in Iraq today, a lot of "journalists" would have a lot of "'splainin'" to do - just before he booted their cowardly butts out of country.
The one thing missing from this article is mention that the Allies were pinned to the beachheads at Normandy for about a month after D-Day. That really was nearly a quagmire-type situation, but again, we simply built up our forces and a tactical and strategic strategy to cope with that problem.
The adults were not only in charge during 1944, but they also were in evidence operating the old media. Now, the Fraudcasters and Old Media mediots are being operated by adolescent socialists and nazis.
Omaha Beach was not the only quagmire. How about the strategic bombing campaign of 1943 in which the deep penetration raids into Germany were called off after the catastrophic heavy bomber casualties of Schweinfurt and Regensberg? No one whining loudly and publicly about the fact that the self defending bomber formation concept was flawed and that they failed in not having a long-range fighter escort ready at the time. We are so used to the Air Force sustaining almost no casualties in current day operations that we often forget that the 8th Air Force alone had more dead (26,000) than all the entire Marine Corps did in World War II (20,000) there were no loudly public howls of quagmire, quagmire we can't win this.
How about the night naval battle off Savo Island, Guadalcanal in August of 1942 in which the United States Navy was defeated, sailed away and left the Marines stranded on Guadalcanal? There weren't any howls of quagmire, quagmire we can't win.
How about the slaughter off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States in 1942 in which the U-boats of the German Kreigsmarine sunk 500 allied merchant ships in a six-month period in the greatest naval disaster in United States history? Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire we can't win.
How about the Kasserine pass in Tunisia in February of 1943? Rommel's Afrika Corps soundly defeated and routed green American troops, sending them into pell mell retreat? Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire these Germans are just too tough to beat.
How about the bloody stalemate inflicted on units of the 1st, 4th, 28th, and 9th infantry division's by the Germans during the battle of Huertegen Forest as a prelude to the Battle of the Bulge? Or that battle's disasterous opening on the Schnee Eifel in Belgium in which intelligence failures allowed a totally surprised American Army to lose two whole infantry regiments in the opening rounds of the battle? Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire we just can't win.
Or how about the defeat inflicted on the allies during Operation Market garden in 1944 when everyone knew the Germans were already beaten? Or the horrendous losses off Okinowa? Or the bloody repulse at the Rapido River in January of 1944, or the bloody stalemate at Anzio or even the entire checkmated Italian campaign? Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire we can't win.
We often forget that World War II was no unrelieved string of victories until the final triumph. We often suffered defeat on the battlefield, sometimes catastrophic, but we prevailed because we knew that we had to.
Nothing even remotely resembling any of these historical disastrous of World War II has occurred in Iraq, but these infantile naysayers who try to pose the situation has an absolute defeat are either hopelessly naïve or determined to demoralize our soldiers and willfully undermine this effort. Despite the setbacks that have occurred in Iraq, there is nothing here they cannot be remedied to this country's favor.