Category Archives: Troops

Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!

It’s pretty common nowadays to compare politicians you don’t like, especially presidents, to Adolph Hitler. It’s not often that the politician does it for you by repeating two-thirds of the Nazi’s favorite slogan of “one people, one nation, one leader.”

From Barry’s inaugural speech on his collectivist, statist aims of more spending, more entitlements and more regulation: “Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”

But, as PJMedia’s Michael Ledeen says, neither Barry nor many other American politicians today fit the old Fascist mold of charismatic old warriors leading anew:

“Fascists don’t change the world by ‘leading from behind.’  They take charge in front of the troops….we are a long way from the cult of personality that dominated Italy and Germany in the fascist epoch.”

Taking charge in front of the troops is one thing we’ll likely never see Barry do, not even in rhetoric, much less in practice. Could you imagine him in Patton’s movie uniform of shiny helmet and jodhpurs? Of course not.

He likes his speeches pedestrian, his socialism comfortable, and lots of expensive vacations and time for golf. Which is why, as Ledeen says, the jihadis consider him “a weakling, a loser and a pushover.”

For us, however, Barry’s inherent laziness and refusal to negotiate for what he wants might well be his most redeeming qualities.

Infantry’s oldest enemy: mud

“Afghan peanut butter turns treads into sleds,” is war correspondent Michael Yon’s caption on this photo of a combat vehicle stuck in the mud in his post Amber of War. It’s an old lesson the Pentagon seems never to have learned.

I slept in the mud in Vietnam a few times on night ambush in ’69 and recall once trying hopelessly to get a jeep that had slid off the road out of the mud, but I was lucky not to have to hump through it hour after hour, day after day.

I’m not surprised there are books about it. None, however, seems as focused or as complete as Mud: A Military History, which Yon recommends and I am reading. Whoever invented body armor, heavy packs and persnickety machinery like M4s that need constant cleaning should as well. (But probably won’t.) It’s not the soldiers who have lost our recent wars, but the leadership—so-called.

The courage of conventional wisdom

I’m wondering about all the negative hoorah over Sen. Hagel. Is he for-real evil or just another hack pol who can’t remember to tell the truth, if he ever knew it? Brett Shephens, at the link below, shows how he prefers to ride on bandwagons.

The fact that he’s a former Vietnam grunt with two Purple Hearts is interesting but hardly dispositive of anything (so is that creep Kerry) because he’s been a pol for several decades now, a line of “work” that doesn’t require being courageous or smart, just “flexible.” Hence:

Moving forward, in 2008 Mr. Hagel endorsed engagement with Syria’s Bashar Assad and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, and he was especially keen on engagement with Iran, enthusing at one point that ‘Iran had rights for women long before many countries in the world. Women could vote, I actually think before they could vote in America.’ (He’s wrong: Iranian women were enfranchised only in 1963, thanks to the Shah.)”

That he’s a liar or a fool doesn’t surprise me. That he might withhold military aid (i.e. bombs or ammo) from Israel at some crucial time worries me. On the other hand, does Barry think Hagel’ll be denied confirmation and have someone worse (like Samantha Powers) waiting to benefit from a consolation quicky follow-on approval? Or is that too paranoid?

Rice, the latest distraction

“Rice wasn’t making life-and-death decisions on Sept. 11, 2012, when the U.S. compound in the Libyan city of Benghazi came under attack; President Obama was. Rice, therefore, is unable to answer the all-important question about what order President Obama issued upon hearing that U.S. diplomats in Benghazi were under fire. She can’t look America in the eye and answer whether the U.S. military was ordered not to rescue Americans fighting for their lives.”

First the Petraeus distraction. Now the Rice one. When are we going to find out what Barry knew, when he knew it and what he did then? Ever?

Why isn’t this guy dead yet?

I mean really. Can’t win wars, can’t name a jihadi event on one of their own bases for what it is, can’t try a murdering scum without tying themselves in knots. Tell me again. Why do we have a military?

Why most Americans back Israel

I’ve tried to explain to Israeli friends why it’s not just some American Jews and most fundamentalist American Christians, but a whopping majority of Americans whose religion is far less formal (or even nonexistent) who back Israel unequivocally.

Walter Russell Mead does a much better job of it.

“….when Israel brings the big guns and fast planes against Gaza’s popguns and low tech missiles, a great many Americans see nothing but common sense at work. These Americans aren’t mad about ‘disproportionate’ Israeli violence in Gaza because they don’t really accept the concept of proportionality in war. They think that if you have jus ad bellum [right to fight], and rocket strikes from Gaza are definitely that, you get something close to a blank check when it comes to jus in bello [justice in war].

“If anything, rather than weakening American sympathy for Israel, Israel’s response in Gaza (and the global criticism that surrounds it) is likely to strengthen the bonds of respect and esteem that many Americans feel for Israelis. Far from seeing Israel’s use of overwhelming force against limited provocation as harsh or immoral, many Americans see it as courageous and wise. It strengthens the sense that in a wacky world where a lot of foreigners are hard to understand, the Israelis are honest, competent and reliable friends — good people to have on your side in a tight spot.”

Which is why I believe that when Americans learn that Barry is threatening to withdrawn military support from Israel unless Israel does what he says, Democrat politicians who don’t immediately turn on him will have a very hard time getting re-elected.

Read it all here.

Hamas gets its breather

It’s called “a cease fire,” the thing the international “leaders” like our lying president with his hollow words fall all over themselves to “achieve” when Israel dares to fight back.

I don’t suppose we’ll ever know how much tax money Barry and the Hildabeast promised the puppeteers in Egypt to “restrain” their Hamas proteges for however long they actually do it. A week? Less?

Or what threats Barry made to Bibi to get him to go along? The end of American military support? No more parts for those stretch, two-seat F-16s? Or Blackhawk troop movers? Opening an American consulate in Ramallah or Gaza?

Bibi wouldn’t have folded easily because now his government teeters and his political career is in jeopardy from a fed-up Israeli electorate. Including for the first time the distracted seculars of Tel Aviv whose “bubble” those Iranian rockets finally pierced.

When Hamas (hamas in Hebrew means “violent robbery”) finishes reloading and, inevitably, breaks the “ceasefire,” perhaps whoever has replaced Bibi will have the cahones to cut off Gaza’s water and electricity. Until the go-along (hardly innocent) populace forces their Jihadi masters to surrender. How old mannish of me, thinking rational rules could still apply.

UPDATE:  Starting back in January and at least twenty times this year Jerusalem asked the Dictator’s Club (otherwise known as the U.N.) to condemn and stop the rockets from Gaza bombarding Southern Israel. No response. No action. So the IDF fights back and, suddenly, the UN comes flying in to save Hamas.