Posted on 12/03/2006 2:37:59 AM PST by goldstategop
If it weren't so serious it would be absolutely laughable. Vernon Jordan? Sandra D? C'mon! Who exactly set up this comission and who does it answer to and why should the President listen to anything these had-beens and never-wuzzes have to say?
Big Steyn BTTT.
Cheers,
knewshound
http://knewshound.blogspot.com/2006/11/allahboard-us-airways.html
Are we talking about intimidating Iran, or annexing Texas?
I'm talking about destruction of a hostile culture.
Who said anything about adding to the troops in Baghdad? I'm talking about leaving Iraq altogether.
Our Stryker Brigades were built for just this type of fight. Put them on the border, get the UAV's up, the JSTARS working and whack dudes coming across. There is no great mystery here...great article.
Regards,
Steyn nails it, as usual. Thanks to Fair Opinion for posting the link in his other thread.
Actually, Steyn's comment about Jill St. John is one of his rare misfires. In reality, she is brilliant and possesses a near genius-level IQ.
On a more serious note, it's also not the case that we haven't tried to interdict the insurgents and their supply lines from Iran and Syria. Our forces have repeatedly executed remarkably successful operations, from a military perspective, but which have been time and again aborted, undone, or rolled-back by the diplomatic and political authorities.
One such effort, which was highly publicized, was the abortive First Battle of Fallujah, where the Marines had the terrorists cornered and were ready to administer the coup de grace, but Paul Bremer allowed himself to be suckered by the promises of "local leaders" who were in fact insurgent sympathisers, and thus p***ed away the Marine's hard-won victory. No matter how we spin it here on FR, around the Arab world they consider that battle a victory for them.
Another successful campaign, though not highly publicised, which wound up being FUBAR'ed by the diplomats and politicians was the "river road" interdiction campaign which choked-off the supply line of men and materiel streaming into western Anbar province along the Euphrates River through the insurgent-controlled towns and bases near the Syria/Iraq border. Our troops did a tremendous job cleaning out those rat's nests on the Iraqi side, but when the moment arrived to finish the job AND send the proper message to Syria by taking-out the ones on the Syrian side, the diplomats and politicians lacked the will, lost their nerve, and pulled the plug. Eventually, as our forces redeployed into other missions in other areas, the insurgents simply flowed back into the vacuum and resumed their operations.
Upon consideration of all these factors, I believe things might have gone better if Jill St. John had been in charge. In addition to her intelligence, she would certainly have been a good morale booster and inspiration for the troops!
<< It would .. be a particularly contemptible confirmation of a line .... that "America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend."
To punish your friends as a means of rewarding your enemies for killing your forces would seem to be an almost ludicrously parodic illustration of that dictum. >>
If Mr Bush caves to the Baker Boys and the Dims and cuts and runs from the War against Islamanazism's Iraq Theater, we Humans will be headed into a new Dark Ages from which we are unlikely to ever again emerge into the Light.
I thought I was the only person in the world who couldn't stand James Baker. He's against Israel .. and he would sell them out in a minute if given the opportunity. Oh .. by the way .. he did just that during the first Bush reign. Why on earth anybody would choose that idiot to chair a committee on anything to do with foreign relations is beyond me.
I hope this little tete-a-tete with Baker has once and for all time concluded the guy is not on AMERICA'S SIDE.
too late game over... heres yur koran and burkha...
There was another President whose motto was "the buck stops here." He gave the order to nuke Japan. His Administration fashioned the strategy that eventually prevailed over the Soviet Empire.
A later President castigated America for its inordinate fear of communism. He lamented American malaise. He lost Iran to the mullahs, the same mullahs who, today, use oil revenues to support terrorists and build nukes.
Bush's legacy, right now, is trending more toward Carter's than Truman's.
What an awesome piece. So true, and because it's true, it's scary.
It's over. All this talk is hot air. We lost Iraq on Nov 7, 2006. Anyone telling you different is dreaming.
Is a big driver maybe an unwillingness to apply conventional warfare methods against the insurgency? Unwillingness to temporarily face a big spike in US casualties and major collateral Iraqi civilian casualties to conclusively wipe out key insurgent groups, the rough location of whose bases of operations we must know to a degree? E.g., if you suspect that somewhere in some city block some guys are assembling or warehousing IEDs, go ahead and flatten that entire block (major collateral casualties) or clean it out Fallujah-style (probable high US casualties and collateral). I think it's less of an issue of military bureaucracy and unwillingness to change than one of the current US political and media environment not tolerating drastic Dresden-style operations.
While in Iraq we are where we are, I agree that in the long run, a SOCOM-like branch tuned to counterinsurgency could be a big asset to the US military. Even so, aggressive counterinsurgency operations in a special ops mode may always entail relatively high casualty rates and may never be conclusive when you're fighting in places where tens of thousands of jihad-indoctrinated, under-educated and under-employed youths are easily recruited.
""President Bush Expands Ground War to Iran, Syria". I don't see the gains worth the PR damage."
- And what makes you believe that such teams would operate on the Syrian/Iranian side of the border and not confine their activities to just inside the Iraqi border? As I understand it, most of the infiltration routes are little more than donkey trails that can be ambushed just as well on one side of the border as the other.
I believe the Marines won that second engagement in Fallujah, and won it handily. They would have won the first engagement as well except they were called off by the political powers that be because they swallowed the enemy's propaganda about civilian casualties. ( See Bing West's book "No True Glory").
Which makes Steyn's point, we are not lacking in military power to disrupt Syria's and Iran's support of the terrorist insurgents or even to take to out Syria or Iran if we choose, we are only lacking the political will. Raids against terrorists supply routes along the border or destruction of Iranian weapons factories that are supplying the terrorists would be a good start. All we lack is the will.
BTW, your 1.4 billion are spread around the world and not that cohesive or militarily organized and as such are a bit of a red herring on your part.
You are right on! The "country" we are fighting is Islam. In WWII, when we declared war on a country, we declared war on the whole thing and let the good guys separate themselves and help us as partisans if they would and could.
We have no way of knowing if ANY of the Muslims consider themselves anything but Muslim FIRST, even the citizens of this country.Until and if (huge IF) the Muslims themselves start to weed out terrorists smong themselves, the whole shebang is the enemy as far as I am concerned.
And we not only have a Representative, but also a Senator who may be Muslim at heart, as he was raised up to be one and is of Arab-African descent.
The Muzzies are pushing on all fronts, now. This recent thing about the 6 Imams on the aircraft was a put up to make a show, create a "victim" status for the poor racial profiled Muzzies, and it worked because of the MSM. Expect to see and hear more of them front and center praying in public places and demanding in public--the ACLU will get you.
vaudine
No, don't wait! These trial balloons are meant to test public opinion. Conservatives serve the country badly by remaining silent while the MSM liars spin and spin.
Get on the blower to your Congresscritter, write a (handwritten) letter (on heavy bond) to your Senator. Tell them what you want NOW.
And you don't need any more address than:
Senator [X]
The Congress
Washington, DC
Remember, the U.S. Postal Service has never lost the Congress. They always know where the appropriations come from! They will find your Congressman!
Hear them out politely. Ask questions, probe and searchingly tease out the nuances and ambiguities. Thank them for their service. Then do the opposite, within 24 hours.
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