Tag Archives: war

IPOD goes to war

I have avoided the wussy IPOD as just another over-priced piece of Apple detritus. But if it can forecast and track a sniper’s bullet from muzzle to impact, well, maybe not. So long, jihadis!

Bush unfiltered

It’s always best to read the president’s speeches in transcript, via the White House. Then the only filtering comes from the reader’s own politics, instead of several other political sensibilities and layers of partisan "context."

An excerpt from this lengthy, but engaging "national strategy" of the war, before the Military Officers Association of America:

"Just as we must take the words of the Sunni extremists seriously, we must take the words of the Shia extremists seriously. Listen to the words of Hezbollah’s leader, the terrorist Nasrallah, who has declared his hatred of America. He says, ‘Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute… Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America.’"

Well, that was a while ago, back in the days when Nas felt safe enough to come out his bunker. I suppose when the Israeli blockade ends, and no more F-16s with Stars of David on their wings are flying over Lebanon, he’ll emerge from his hidey hole once again and let us hear more of his wit. 

A new Israeli political party?

Yoni the Blogger thinks a new one is needed.

"We have gone from highs to lows over the last month as together we have watched Israel suffer.

"The people in the north of Israel have suffered deaths and injuries as well as losses of income and production in the billions of dollars, due to the rain of thousands of rockets that have fallen on their homes.

"All of Israel and those that love Israel around the world, have suffered through a month of the worse leadership in Israel’s history…The government’s on again and off again fighting of this war, has caused wide spread suffering in Israel and Lebanon without the destruction of Hizballah."

Others speak of Israel’s broken heart. (Requires free registration.)

"This is a nation whose heart has been broken: by our failure to uproot the jihadist threat, which will return for another and far more deadly round; by the economic devastation of the Galilee and of a neighboring land we didn’t want to attack; by the heroism of our soldiers and the hesitations of our politicians; by the young men buried and crippled in a war we prevented ourselves from winning; by foreign journalists who can’t tell the difference between good and evil; by European leaders who equate an army that tries to avoid civilian causalities with a terrorist group that revels in them; by a United Nations that questions Israel’s right to defend itself; and by growing voices on the left who question Israel’s right to exist at all."

Via An Unsealed Room

“Background chatter men”

I don’t recall anyone in the Army of the 1960s sounding like LTC Randolph C. White, Jr., but times certainly have changed in the past forty years. The quote below is from a Free Republic transcript of White’s speech to an advanced individual training (in this case, infantry) graduation back in April at Fort Benning, Ga., and it’s a rouser:

"Don’t let the pessimistic television talking heads, high browed newspaper writers, Hollywood idiots, or any other faction of the ‘blame America first’ crowd get you down! I’m speaking of the ‘Latte Biscotti Crowd.’ They are simply background chatter men and will always exist on the periphery of any endeavor that requires selfless service or loyalty. They are not worthy of your concern and truth be told — in the pit of their cowardly hearts — they wish they could be like you."

Blackfive has the complete video and the transcript and a link to where all 26 MB of the video can be downloaded for repeated viewings and squirreling away.