Category Archives: Troops

9/11 ten years later

What’s changed since that awful morning?

Well, nothing on the Islamic war against the West. It continues. Our all-volunteer military, while benefiting from a new generation of volunteers, remains stressed with two major campaigns and a host of smaller ones. For the first time, the National Guard and Reserves have become continuously- active parts of the active-duty force.

But the war is not (officially) called the War on Terror anymore (which, though clumsy and avoiding the main [Muslim] issue, was, at least, descriptive)—thanks to the Dumbocrats and their academic, Hollywood and media surrogates, who’ve impeded it every step of the way.

They’ve always been more concerned with nomenclature than reality. Green energy, anyone?

The war itself is still pretty much of a loser. Caroline Glick says it’s because Bush Jr.’s toughest words never got translated into action, the USA still refuses to admit it’s fighting radical Islam, and appeasement of Muslim countries in the Middle East remains the order of the day. Sigh.

Airline travel has become (if possible) even more onerous. We take off our shoes now, in order to get aboard, in honor of would-be terrorist Richard Reid (serving a life sentence in Britain, which means he’ll probably be out soon). Also no bottles of liquid allowed unless they’re purchased within the gate area, in honor of someone I forget, there have been so many of them.

For a long time afterward most previously-open military installations were closed to the public. Austin’s Camp Mabry recently reopened, making its good military history museum accessible once more. Fort Hood, after enduring its own terrorist shoot-em-up by a Muslim major, still is closed—probably for good.

One thing that hasn’t changed: Israel’s perpetual 9/11, a suicide bomber here, a suicide bomber there, and, as always, few media elsewhere pay any attention—except to write pitying profile stories about the Muslim bombers, only rarely about their Jewish victims.

UPDATE:  The Third Jihad, a film still worth watching, for a reminder of the war that likely will still be with our children’s children.

Luttwak talks Bin Laden and Israel

I’ve often wondered why it was necessary to kill Osama. American military strategist Edward Luttwak, in a fascinating new interview in Tablet Magazine, has an excellent answer:

“They killed him because of the fact that if we captured Bin Laden, every Jihadist in the world would have been duty-bound to kidnap any American citizen anywhere and exchange him for Bin Laden.”

Luttwak also thinks constant conflict with the Arabs actually is good for Israel because it has produced an internal cohesion that might not otherwise exist. Read the whole interview here.

Obamalot: A Uniter, not a Divider

Except, of course, of Jerusalem.

Very funny video about how Obamalot has united New York Republicans, Democrats and Independents seeking the Jewish vote by condemning his Israel policy.

Rick Perry, jet jockey

Rick may have wound up flying turboprop C-130s, but, like all Air Force student pilots, he first flew the T-38 Talon, a twin-engine, supersonic jet trainer. Looks pretty good, eh?

Just one more reason why the Dumbocrats, populated as they are by old draft-dodgers and modern military shirkers, are doing everything they can to smear Rick as too stupid, too religious, too whatever, to take over from Obamalot.

Even the Republican elite prefers Romney. Stupid, stupid.

Speaking of smears, the champagne socialists of the Guardian have dipped into the high-crime southeast Austin suburb of Dove Springs to reveal “the dark underbelly” of Perry’s alleged Texas economic miracle.

Largely illegal Hispanic (dark, get it?) Dove Springs’s poverty isn’t unusual in the USA (or anywhere else, for that matter), but an enduring problem neither socialists or capitalists have been able to solve, and raising taxes for more welfare (the Dumbocrat solution that bankrupted California) isn’t likely to.

Make Fort Monroe a park

One use of federal tax money I support is the establishment and maintenance of historical parks. Such as the closing of Fortress Monroe (the green area inside the blue moat above at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay) which the Army has decided to abandon.

Not because I used to spend time there in 1970-71 when I was an Army recruiter and recruiting headquarters was then at Monroe. Nope.

But because, well, among its other historical aspects, the fort that was built when USA was a new republic has the cell where Confederate President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned after the Civil War.

It was also horror writer and poet Edgar Allen Poe’s home when he was an Army artillery sergeant in the early 1800s. There’s just too much history there to let some developer turn it into beachfront condos.

Via To The Sound of the Guns.

The ‘poor Palestinians’ shuck

Barry Rubin explains the latest wrinkle. Same as the last one.

“Rockets from the Gaza Strip continue to pound Israel. And much of the Western media blames: Israel. I want to explain again how this system works:

“What follows is a seven-point pattern that goes something like this: Someone shoots at your spouse, you punch the attacker, he yells, ‘Ceasefire!’ then kicks you in the groin and takes some more shots at your spouse.

“You try to defend yourself. The police stand by doing nothing and then declare you to be the aggressor for breaking the ceasefire.”

Fortunately, enough Israelis are getting fed up with this scenario that they may finally stop worrying about Western media. As well they should.

The Sherman Tank

Of the scores of old and new battle tanks on open-air display at the Israeli Armored Corps museum at Latrun, west of Jerusalem, only the M-4 Sherman gets a tall pedestal and flood-lamps to spotlight it by night.

The modified M-4 was Israel’s mainstay in the wars of 1948 and 1956 and was still in use in the wars of 1967 and 1973. So it gets official reverence, anyhow, even if some of its crews probably hated it as much or more than some American veterans of World War II who considered it outclassed by German armor.

But the tank that once graced the lawns of most National Guard armories across the U.S. (now replaced, for the most part, by M-48 Pattons) still has its defenders. Some of them recently unloaded on Death Traps, a new World War II memoir about the problems of maintaining the under-armored and under-gunned beasts. They were, of course, appropriately named for an American Civil War general who was also quite controversial.