Category Archives: Afghanistan

Heroes

Posted on February 12, 2007 | Comments Off on Heroes

Fifty of them, from all fifty states, including Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Juan M. Rubio, of Texas.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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Let Arkin pick on his peers

Posted on February 2, 2007 | Comments Off on Let Arkin pick on his peers

Not a 21-year-old soldier, says Don Surber, in this good rebuttal piece on why the WaPo’s Arkin is a mouse not a man.

"Arkin is a media bubble boy. He does not realize how wrong he was for dumping on a soldier in Iraq who dared — when asked directly — say, hey, you protesters are not helpful."

Arkin is no journalist, no Ernie Pyle, just a flaming lefty who likes nothing better than to sneer, call names ("mercenaries!") and tell other people what to do and think. People like him are one reason why the Left is so marginalized in America, even if they do have the big megaphone of the media, which, increasingly, is despised for providing it.

Instead of listening to the WaPo’s resident douchebag, help the troops do one nice thing for Afghanistan and Iraq.

UPDATE  Malarky Arkin is still at it, this time complaining that he’s being demonized. He, he maintains, is the true martyr here. Tough cookies, Malarky. Looking at his thumbnail picture, I realize that he really needs shave. Yeah, I know, it’s fashionable to look like a bum. 

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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Unflattering comparison

Posted on January 26, 2007 | Comments Off on Unflattering comparison

Don Suber, in his Charleston (WVA) Daily Mail column today, makes a good point: Bush is a poor wartime leader. Just about everyone who supports the Iraq campaign has compared the war on terror to World War II, but Bush apparently can’t see or feel the parallels. Elsewise he might have devoted his entire State of the Union speech to the campaigns, as FDR did to his war:

"President Roosevelt delivered a 4,588-word State of the Union on Jan. 7, 1943, that was on one topic alone: World War II. The war was that serious to FDR. He went through the battles. He went over the war production. He did not mention a single domestic program. He offered hope instead…In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Bush didn’t get around to the war until after 2,317 words in his 5,667-word speech. The people can hardly be expected to stay the course when the captain is not at the helm 24 hours a day."

Bush, whose approval rate average is hovering just two degrees above freezing, has kept most of the war’s details to himself, instead of sharing them with us, and we’re all paying the price for his shortsightedness.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War

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President Bush unfiltered

Posted on January 23, 2007 | Comments Off on President Bush unfiltered

Some conservative and libertarian bloggers, Bush supporters all though they wish he would fight harder, are calling it his best State of the Union message yet. While I agree that it’s doubtfull it will do him much good politically, it at least had the virtue of reinvigorating those of us who have supported him all along.

"Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers."

New Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s rebuttal got less praise, particularly his claim that a majority of the military doesn’t support the "way this war is being fought." That’s a narrow enough claim that it might have some truth to it, since I suspect from all the milblogs that I’ve read that the military would, if anything, like to fight harder, eradicate Mookie and his gang, and hit Iran and Syria, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. But not, as Webb implied, that they’d sooner abandon Iraq.

Steve Green, the Vodkapundit who is struggling with what might be Graves Disease, concluded after live-blogging Bush’s effort that about all that seventh-year presidents have left to accomplish is foreigh policy. That would be a lot for Bush who staked his all on it after 9/11. Hopefully he will follow through on his words this time, and we’ll finally have a resolution to the trouble Iran and Syria are fomenting in Iraq and Lebanon, possibly through military action, or whatever it takes. We can hope so, anyway.

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President Bush

Posted on January 14, 2007 | Comments Off on President Bush

He’s grown old before my eyes. More wrinkled, grayer, doesn’t smile as much as the Texas governor who once elbowed me in the ribs as he circulated among state troopers after receiving an Austin briefing on a major flood in South Texas. I was there as a reporter. He didn’t know me from Adam. But he may have remembered me from the governor’s mansion’s Christmas party for the news media the previous December. If so, he had a good memory for faces and names. When he elbowed me, in a sort of happy-jock way, with a happy-jock grin on his face, I sort of half-smiled and, though I was there to write down whatever he said, I spent the rest of the time trying to stay out of his way. He still smiles easily in news conferences at the White House, but I can see that he’s tired. He spends too much time with the loved ones of dead soldiers and Marines, too much time with the wounded at Walter Reed, too much time with generals and advisers, and probably reads too much of the vitriol the media, the Dems, and the haters have thrown at him for six years now. I don’t hate him. I dislike some of his decisions, such as his refusal to control illegal immigration, to have (until lately) declined to increase the size of the fighting forces, and his apparent disinclination to follow through on some of his (I think) admirable aims after 9/11, such as taking on nations supporting terrorism. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. Yet, in the main, I still like him, and I’ve lost some friends over defending him. Bush haters all. Their slurs seem irrational to me. Also to House of Eratosthenes who (which?) has the best essay I’ve ever seen here on Bush Derangement Syndrome. Good luck, George, in your last two years. Try not to let the bastards get you down.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Texana, The War, Troops

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Ain’t your grandfather’s war

Posted on January 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Ain’t your grandfather’s war

Lot of truth in this analysis, seems to me, unfortunately: neither Bush nor Dems accepting responsibility for what the war (or its loss) means. He wants to win but not tell the electorate exactly what that will entail–war with Iran and Syria for one, and staying in Iraq for decades, for another. The Dems want to lose but not tell the electorate why, beyond their hatred for Bush, because they doubt their real hatred, for America as it is presently constituted, would play in Peoria. They make Bush look honorable, but just barely. Crikey!

Via Fresh Bilge 

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W’s last stand

Posted on January 6, 2007 | Comments Off on W’s last stand

In Bush’s coming speech Wednesday we’ll learn whether he finally has the will to do what he should already have done, i.e. taken the war to Iran, Syria and, if they don’t stop sending money and volunteers to Iraq’s Sunni insurgency, Saudi Arabia. Or not. He’s made so little effort in the past four years to explain himself and his strategy, popping up every three months or so to make another speech, then disappearing again for another three months, that serious change doesn’t seem to be in him. Apparently he’s just going to shuffle the commanders around and send a token 10,000 more troops to Iraq for "a push," which will be inconsequential in the long run. It will just give the bad guys more American targets to shoot at and bomb, while Iraq’s neighbors keep undermining Iraq and us. Debka sees hope for more than a token effort. But Debka always sees more, whether it materializes or not. For one thing, Debka has the Stennis carrier strike group already headed for the Persian Gulf when the Navy says it won’t leave until late this month. So far, we haven’t even had the sense to arrest or kill Mookie Sadr and put his Shiite militia out of business. Bush might as well bring the troops home, or shuffle some to Afghanistan, where Iran and Pakistan can go on undermining the effort there. Not that I think the Dems have anything more to offer than retreat. Wretchard says what we really need is the will to win. The bitterly divided populace plainly doesn’t have it. It’s becoming apparent that even the leadership doesn’t. Not even 9/11 could produce it, and it remains to be seen if even a second 9/11 would do it. Though we may get the chance to find out.

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