[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links: FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson 
His website: http://victorhanson.com/     NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

[MACVSOG68]

Well said. But even more troubling should be the vote yesterday by Republicans in the Appropriations Committee. Holding hostage an appropriation for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for nothing more than a political statement is outrageous and disgusting. They are worse than Democrats because they (Republicans) know better.

[nuconvert]

Unless someone brings down the regime in Iran, this war is indeed unwinnable.

Forget the nukes. Get rid of the regime and the nukes won't be a problem. Get rid of the regime and the terrorist support starts to dry up. Get rid of the regime and al Sadr's support dries up. Get rid of the regime, and Syria's support dries up. Get rid of the regime and the Taliban support dries up. Get rid of the regime and Hezbollah's support dries up.

GET RID of the Iranian Regime NOW and we can get out of Iraq.

[MattinNJ]

Once we ascertained that there were no WMD's (which we had every right-indeed a responsibility-to look for)we should have divided Iraq amongst the Kurds, Shii'as and Sunnis while maintaining bases in the newly created Kurdistan. To force these 3 to live in peace in lines drawn in the sand by the Wilsonians is an exercise in futility. I applaud the administrations and our troops efforts though.

[kabar]

So here we are — close to victory abroad, closer to concession at home.

So very true. We are winning in Iraq as the transition to Iraqi forces to assume more and more control of their own security continues. Our casualties are declining for the sixth straight month.

October 05-- 96 (78 KIA; 18 non-hostile)

November 05-- 84 (70 KIA; 14 non-hostile)

December 05-- 68 (57 KIA; 11 non-hostile)

January 06-- 62 (42 KIA; 20 non-hostile)

February 06-- 55 (46 KIA; 9 non-hostile)

March 1-10, 2006-- 7 (7 KIA; 2 non-hostile)

[facedown]

The headline could be shortened considerably:

Conservatives are losing their nerve

[aculeus]

BTTT

[kellynla]

And everyone who has actually gone to Iraq and been in the field with the troops has reported that the morale of the American troops is EXCELLENT, the Iraqi soldiers are doing a very good job and that there is NO CIVIL WAR!
In fact, people are working, businesses are flourishing and the children are actually PLAYING IN THE STREETS!

I would wager that none of these naysayers has actually been to Iraq in the last year if at all!


Of course there are problems, but there are problems in L.A.,N.Y.C. and everywhere else in America for Pete's sakes!

[robowombat]

It is very unfortunate that the administration has not thought it politic to through some channel, state a that there were really significant strategic US interests involved in the Iraq operation which far outstriped making the Iraqis happy gum chewing democrats.

After 9-11 the Suadis, who were already nervous about it, got really spooked about the growth of Al Quiada or AQ like subversive movements within the kingdom. Ever since the Khobar Towers bombing they had been politely suggesting US forces were becoming unwelcome guests and would we please plan to move on. Since the air fields in SA were key to the US keeping the embargo enforced on Saddam Clinton and Albright had pretended not to hear. After 9-11 the Suadis got really insistent that we start seriously planning to leave, sooner rather than later. Us military presence in the sacred sandpile and the launching of attacks on 'Brother Arabs' from that hallowed precinct by the infidels was seriously exercising the dim minds of the Muslim masses in the kingdom. Our military presence was becoming a clear negative to the maintenance of the pedophile dynasty.

If we packed up and moved out that would be the de facto end of enforcing the embargo on Saddam. The Gulf Arab states wouldn't be happy to host a big chunk of the USAF for bombing and patrolling the skies over Iraq even if there was really room enough on their air fields. Within a year or so the embargo regime would de facto collapse and in the midst of the 'Global War on Terrorism' Saddam could emerge from hiding and proclaim again "Brave Iraqis you (I) have won." Not the message we wanted to send. Just wait the infidels out and you will win. Plus having Iraq go right make into the atoms and bugs and gas business.

So we finished off Saddam and eliminated that possibility. The administration doesn't want to have this come out because it would hurt the 'honor' of the pedophile dynasty and we keep to the story we did it all to bring the blessing of liberty to Iraq.

[Publius6961]

Or three, that war is to be solely punitive. We are to go in, defeat the enemy, and leave the ensuing mess to others, on the premise that we either cannot or should not worry about whether the populace deserved the odious regime we were obliged to end.

I don't know where Hanson is going with this but this, to me, has always been the solution of choice when dealing with muslims.
I have believed it completely and absolutely, due to one simple fact: a complete undestanding of islam, and the culture it has nurtured world wide.
The reasoning is simple: I am not willing to sacrifice the lives of sons, friends or neighbors to save a mad, primitive, savage, people from themselves.

If these savages, with or without their oil wealth, had to deal with rebuilding a country with no help from the US whatsoever, to feed themselves, to obtain even the most basic necessities of life, they would have neither the energy, the time or the wealth to travel internationally exporting their mass murder.
Destroy their larger cities; the basic infrastructures: communications, travel, transportation, energy production, pipelines, government buildings, bridges, major road features, dams, and keep doing it if they persist, eventually they will lose the will or the means to export their culture.

An uncompromising promise to do exactly that should solve our problem; with the minimum of cost in wealth or lives.
Bush, or any other administration will, if nothing changes dramatically, have to fight violently either muslims or Americans on American soil sooner or later.
Continued political myopia or tone deafness guarantees it.

No muslim immigration whatsoever, in the foreseeable future is an essential part of the plan to survive.

[Wasanother]

Lose their damn nerves all they want but just remember, Bush and Cheney still brings in big money at election time.

[Publius6961]

The loss of life over the last three years must be weighed against the yearly butchery of Saddam Hussein — deaths that were not part of the struggle for a democratic future, but the annual carnage that consolidated a fascistic regime and had no end in sight.

As much as I admire VDH, I find this sentence obscene. It assumes something I reject totally: that the lives within a pathological, killer society are worth exactly the equivalent number of American lives.

If those people cannot save themselves, and simultaneously contribute to the continuing export of murder and mayhem, then their lives are worth no more than cockroaches, even the images of wide-eyed children suffering the consequences affects me less and less, as the endless Politically Correct games play out.
In short, I am not willing to continue losing sons, neighbors and friends for the sole purpose of "feeling good" about being right, without changing a thing.

[rightinthemiddle]

To well-informed, clear thinking people outside the Beltway, the war in Iraq has been a success. Difficult and costly, but a success...thanks to our wonderful military.

I find it amazing that people have forgotten what it was like wondering what Saddam was up to every day.

[monday]

"Only in Afghanistan and Iraq have we used force to dethrone authoritarians and birth constitutional government. That’s pretty much what Ronald Reagan tried in Grenada. George Bush Sr. did the same in Panama, and so did Bill Clinton in the Balkans."

Overall this is a pretty good article. The above statement misses the point entirely however and almost made me quit reading. The fact that Afghanistan and Iraq have never had any history of democratic government, or any cultural affinity for it due to their religion, makes them completely different than Grenada, Panama, and even the Balkans.

Not only are they ignorant of the benefits democracy can bring, their religion essentially forbids the practice of sustainable democracy. As in Iran, another nominally "democratic" Islamic state, once the Mullahs have been voted into office, elections will become window dressing and "actual democracy" will cease to exist.

The only difference between Iraq and Iran in this case is that in Iraq there will probably be a prolonged civil war before the Mullahs can begin their rule.

Of course, all this was predictable before the invasion so I am sure the Bush administration planned for this eventuality.

[TBP]

This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. Our guys won on the battlefield, but the politicians and journalists lost the war by demoralizing the home front. Let's not let that happen again.

[billbears]

I cannot believe it. Vic made it through an entire article without comparing the action in Iraq to Greece or Athens. Doesn't make his point any more plausible but it's still suprising.

[MNJohnnie]

Right. Just ignore all the Freepers who post from Iraq. Ignore the experts. Mike Savage, a failed Social Worker from New York screams his hate and bile in a microphone and THAT is "fact". All the facts, data and information by people who ACTUALLY know something about the rest of the world is "Drinking the koolaid". What a nice comfortable bubble world the Know Nothings have created for themselves

[Christian4Bush]

bump

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting this.

Most of us who voted for GW in the last election, over 62,000,000 of us, could care less what these conservative hot house orchids fed and groomed by the left wing media have to say. William F. Buckley, Niall Ferguson, Francis Fukuyama, George Will, to a name only a very few are the equivalent of the Black Over Seers on the Plantations before the civil war. They have a paycheck and perceived power only if the MSM elite owners continue to want them.

They are Dinosaurs created and established by the old MSM. They exist because the elite left wing created them, fed them and cared for them the past few decades. Their job was to appear on the Sunday TV talk shows to get battered by the liberals and to whine like tethered goats. They were paid to do this and got to set up magazines and sites for the real conservative newsletters for a nice steady income. They have as much power over America as Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw do.

These token conservative darlings of the media suffer everyday as the major fishwraps who carry their columns of whining, dispair and hatred of GW, lose more and more paid readers and subscribers. As the voters for GW abandon the Sunday talk roasts, their self perceived power and importance diminishes.

They hate the successes of GW even more than their liberal elite benefactors.

[oldbrowser]

Anyone back in the United States can post facto write up a list of what ought to have been done in Iraq amid the heat and fire;

"We coulda done it better" cry the democrats when the war is popular.

"We woulda never done this" the democrats cry when the war is not popular.