Category Archives: Iraq

We can run but we can’t hide

Posted on December 29, 2006 | Comments Off on We can run but we can’t hide

Here’s one congressman who didn’t go visit Baby Assad, but came back from a Middle East trip sobered anyway.

"While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States."

Joe Lieberman in the WaPo is worth a read. He supports more troops to secure Baghdad and Anbar. But what, really, is to prevent the enemy from just waiting until we leave to resume? Possibly a combination of their invigorated army, plus a stronger government to support them. The question, in my mind, is do we really have any choice but to press on?

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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Bucking up morale at home

Posted on December 28, 2006 | Comments Off on Bucking up morale at home

My unwitting use of a more-than-a-year-old Iraq email, posted at The Corner yesterday without a clue to its antiquity and still not explained as of this writing, reminded me that the best sources for news on what’s going on in Iraq and elsewhere still are the active-duty military bloggers, either on the scene or temporarily at home and waiting to go back.

One of the best in the former category is Badgers Forward which, as Badger 6, the blogger himself says, trys to buck up morale at home. He posts this quote from veteran milblogger Michael Yon, who is newly returned to Iraq as a private journalist, which sums up the problem rather well:

"This war is strange. I never hear soldiers worried about their own morale sagging. Contrary, the war-fighters here are more concerned to bolster the morale of the people at home. The morale at war is higher than I have ever seen it at home; makes me wonder what they know that most Americans seem to be missing."

Probably because the soldiers ignore CNN and the networks and don’t read the-sky-is-falling stuff purveyed by the MSM. So read the milblogs, folks. They’re the best source. When their writers get down, it’s time to worry, but only then.  

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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Weasel 61

Posted on December 27, 2006 | Comments Off on Weasel 61

John Kerry’s fact-finding trip to Iraq apparently was less than pleasant. But he could get the last laugh.

UPDATE  The Liberal blogs, led by TPM Muckraker, went ballistic over a photo at the "less" link above. Then Kerry’s aide also fought back but, in the end, the annonymous staff officer Ben of Mesopotamia declared it a draw and I agree. It’s pretty obvious that many troops despise Kerry, for a variety of reasons. Not all of them, of course, and BoM was generously evenhanded to him in the "less" link. Far more than I would have bothered to be.

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Bias for all to see

Posted on December 27, 2006 | Comments Off on Bias for all to see

I must admit, at first I didn’t see what the complaint was when LGF and a few others went off on what seemed to me to be this fairly innocuous Associated Press lede on a slow news day:

"The U.S. military announced the deaths of seven American soldiers Tuesday, raising the U.S. death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war to at least 2,978 — five more than the number of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S."

Just another in the MSM’s relentless focus on the grim and bloody, I thought. But Meryl Yourish helped put it in perspective for me by rewriting it this way as if it was during World War II:

"Earlier Tuesday, the military also announced the deaths on Monday of three American soldiers. The U.S. military death toll [rose] to at least 2,978, 575 more than the number killed in the Dec. [7], 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor."

Makes little sense that way, unless you are complaining about the reason for the war itself.

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Iraq update

Posted on December 27, 2006 | Comments Off on Iraq update

Not the gloom and doom narrative you find in the MSM, in fact rather opposed to their view:

"[M]orale among our guys is very high. They not only believe that they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted."

Interesting look at the overall tactical situation in Iraq by Cliff May at The Corner at the conservative National Review Online–a magazine few media subscribe to, altho they all get The [liberal] Nation. Worth a read.

UPDATE  Well I was fooled and I don’t appreciate it one bit. I have emailed The Corner to see what they have to say about this, although I don’t see any effort on their part to claim it is new, when it is more than a year old, but they didn’t point out that it was old, either. Thanks a bunch, NRO.

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Slogger flogged

Posted on December 24, 2006 | Comments Off on Slogger flogged

Omar at Iraq the Model has an interesting analysis of an article on Iraqi newspapers by former CNN editor Eason Jordan’s new Web venture IraqSlogger which claims the papers "sanitize their coverage" and are otherwise irrelevant. But Omar points out a number of mistaken conclusions, caused by a lack of understanding of the language and culture and trying to write from the U.S. instead of on the ground in Iraq:

"If the Slogger team wants to offer analysis or become a better alternative for whatever other sources of Iraq news, they ought to try better than this. Because if they keep writing like this, their site will soon be regarded as just one new waste of bandwidth, the same way that flipping channels looking for the whole image can be a waste of time."

Given Jordan’s biased and scandalous tenure with CNN (including sucking up to Saddam before he was deposed), screwing up would seem to be a normal part of his schtick. 

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Posted in Iraq, The War

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President Bush, unfiltered

Posted on December 21, 2006 | Comments Off on President Bush, unfiltered

As usual, the MSM is presenting Bush’s press conference yesterday as discouraging for all concerned. No surprise there. What else have they done for the past six years? So it’s worth reading the transcript of the event, without the Bush-is-failing, the-war-is-lost, the sky-is-falling spin, to make up your own mind.

"I want the Iraqis to understand that we believe that if they stand up, step up and lead, and with our help we can accomplish the objective. And I want the enemy to understand that this is a tough task, but they can’t run us out of the Middle East, that they can’t intimidate America. They think they can. They think it’s just a matter of time before America grows weary and leaves, abandons the people of Iraq, for example. And that’s not going to happen."

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Posted in Iraq, The War

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