Category Archives: The War

Video games go to war

Posted on December 25, 2009 | Comments Off on Video games go to war

Mr. B.’s big item for his and Mrs. Charm’s secular Christmas celebration was Guitar Hero. When he’s older he may find the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns more enlightening. Fortunately there’ll be more available than the usual anti-American, anti-war movies that Hollyweird churns out:

Video "game makers aren’t afraid to put players in situations where U.S. soldiers are unambiguously the good guys, while the combatants – often Muslims – are the bad guys."

Via Instapundit.

Re our secular Christmas at the rancho: This celebration of parties, presents and poinsettias has more to do with Saturnalia than Christianity. It is far older than the religious version. (Some nineteenth century Protestants found it so unnerving that they took to assuring their fellows that while they did mark the Nativity they did "not worship the tree.")

Christians still confuse the two, some of them whacking the secular version as ungodly. Well, to each his own. Mrs. C. would be lost without her favorite time of the year. And while he long ago graduated from Santa to understanding who the real gift-givers are, Mr. B. likewise would be bereft without packages to unwrap and goodies to consume. Good thing they needn’t be.

Link via Power Line.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Library, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, The War, Troops

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Let me make this perfectly clear

ramirez-afpak.jpg

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Posted on December 3, 2009 in Afghanistan, Obamalot, The War, Troops

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Barry’s sort of, half-hearted surge

Posted on December 2, 2009 | Comments Off on Barry’s sort of, half-hearted surge

I’ve said it before, if we’re going to dither, we should leave Afghanistan immediately. The government is more corrupt than the one in Iraq (and that’s saying something) and the Afghans don’t seem to want to fight. (Reminds me of South Vietnam.) We can always go back if we have to, or leave a few spec-ops behind to direct any necessary smart-bombings.

But Barry’s new half-in, half-out strategy is pathetic. Especially his setting of a timetable for departure, which will only serve to put the Taliban and Al Q on notice that they can do all the free-killing of American troops they desire in the meantime. President Pantywaist has done the next worst thing to failing to decide at all. "America – we are passing through a time of great trial." No kidding. Will the last soldier out of the GWOT please close the door? Meanwhile, keep your heads down out there.

UPDATE:  Military analyst Ralph Peters agrees: "Our president is setting up our military to fail." Yep and, meanwhile, sending the enemy more American targets to shoot at.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Obamalot, The War, Troops

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The Path to 9/11

Posted on November 17, 2009 | Comments Off on The Path to 9/11

This post is as star-crossed as the docudrama it’s about. Twice now, Movable Type has trashed it before I could get it on the site. Grrrr. Once more with feeling: I missed the 2006 ABC airing of this Disney film. I figured it was probably just more Hollyweird drek like Moore’s crockumentary on GWB.

Apparently not. This one dared to come down on the Clintons. Whoa. And they, who have famously always depended on Hollyweird for campaign cash, couldn’t keep it off the air. But they have succeeded in stopping its sale as a DVD, according to various sources including conservative talker John Ziegler. The trailer to his documentary Blocking The Path to 9/11 was compelling enough that I bought one.

Then I went to Amazon looking for a copy of the old series, just in case it was now available. Nope. But one of the reviewers there had an url to an import version. So I went there and got a copy. Amazing, you can buy the Disney production overseas or on the Web. You just can’t buy it in this country or on Amazon. Well, anything Slick Willie and Hilarity (She was under fire in Bosnia!) don’t want me to see is a tantalizing draw. More on all this when I’ve received and watched both productions.

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Posted in Library, Scribbles, The War

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KSM’s trial: So what?

Posted on November 16, 2009 | Comments Off on KSM’s trial: So what?

I’ve read the arguments about why this Jihadi jerk shouldn’t be tried in federal court in New York, but I remain unimpressed. Surely, if GWB had any plans to have him tried by a tribunal and hung, it would have been done sometime in the seven plus years he was in Gitmo. Since that didn’t happen, it doesn’t bother me especially that he will now be tried in a civilian court. And if he gets off? Well, then it will just have to be arranged for him to be run over by a bus.

But it’s tempting to believe, as Power Line relates, that AG Holder’s motive is to see KSM’s lawyers run with his "treatment by the Bush administration, real and imagined, [as] the centerpiece of their defense, with the possible result that Bush, Cheney, and others may be indicted as war criminals by European countries or international courts, thereby satisfying the far left of the Democratic Party, which Obama represents."

It’s still not clear to me, however, why this couldn’t have happened just as easily in a military tribunal.

UPDATE: Two Bush-era lawyers have an argument for KSM’s NYC trial that’s much better than mine, including that such trials have already happened before:

"Many of Holder’s critics appear to have forgotten that the Bush administration used civilian courts to put away dozens of terrorists, including ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid; al-Qaeda agent Jose Padilla; ‘American Taliban’ John Walker Lindh; the Lackawanna Six; and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was prosecuted for the same conspiracy for which Mohammed is likely to be charged. Many of these terrorists are locked in a supermax prison in Colorado, never to be seen again."

Read. The. Rest.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The War

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Will Fort Hood’s dead and wounded get Purple Hearts?

Posted on November 14, 2009 | Comments Off on Will Fort Hood’s dead and wounded get Purple Hearts?

That’s a more loaded question than it may appear. Depends on how you define what happened there. Was it a massacre in the war on terror? Then they get Purple Hearts. Or was it a lone wacko’s criminal act? in which case, they don’t.

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Posted in Obamalot, The War, Troops

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Moral: Be careful who you sue

Posted on November 13, 2009 | Comments Off on Moral: Be careful who you sue

You may find you have much more to lose in the long run as your target’s lawyer sifts through your files in the discovery process. Much the way the National Iranian American Council has had its illegal lobbying for changes in American foreign policy apparently discovered. Why NIAC even supplies money to J Street, a supposed but thereby obviously unlikely backer of Israel. And all because NIAC sued for redress of a journalistic piece they didn’t like.

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Posted in Israel, Obamalot, The War

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