Thursday, May 24, 2007
Q and O has some questions
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Just How Dumb is Joe Klein?
Oh, pretty dumb, it seems. Consider this passage:
Got that? Beating them puts a crimp in the rationale for the war. You just can't win with these assholes. Nothing is good enough. Losing is bad. Winning is bad. They are so twisted in their reasoning that anything resembling victory is tautologically impossible.
And when the hell has a political solution not been neccessary for the resolution of ANY insurgency?
Klein has no business trying to do military analysis.
Time will let just about anybody write for them these days. Andy Sullivan? Ana Marie Cox? Joe Klein? These lightweights are the very best Time can do?
Pathetic. What a sullying of what ought to be a great brand.
They need to go after the Atlantic Monthly writers.
Splash, out
Jason
And as General David Petraeus keeps reminding us, a political solution is necessary: a military victory is not possible. So let's try to put the good and bad news together. It's not impossible that the Iraqis will eventually remove the al-Qaeda cancer from the Sunni insurgency—which would put a serious crimp in President George W. Bush's current rationale for the war, that we're there to fight al-Qaeda.
Got that? Beating them puts a crimp in the rationale for the war. You just can't win with these assholes. Nothing is good enough. Losing is bad. Winning is bad. They are so twisted in their reasoning that anything resembling victory is tautologically impossible.
And when the hell has a political solution not been neccessary for the resolution of ANY insurgency?
Klein has no business trying to do military analysis.
Time will let just about anybody write for them these days. Andy Sullivan? Ana Marie Cox? Joe Klein? These lightweights are the very best Time can do?
Pathetic. What a sullying of what ought to be a great brand.
They need to go after the Atlantic Monthly writers.
Splash, out
Jason
Gee-Whiz Gear
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Jewbaiting Reporters at the AFP
Here's the latest from the dorkwads at Agents France Presse:
Wait a minute...The murderers at Hamas are still firing rockets from Gaza, and it's Israel's actions that exacerbate tensions?
A Jew can do nothing right. Even when they bomb known terrorist headquarters.
Splash, out
Jason
Israel bombed a Hamas headquarters in the heart of Gaza City on Thursday as rival Palestinian factions clashed again in the unruly territory wracked by days of deadly internecine bloodshed.
An Israeli aircraft fired at the headquarters of a Hamas paramilitary force, killing one person, wounding 30 others and destroying the two-storey building after Israel vowed to hit militants firing rockets from the territory.
Israel's actions threatened to further exacerbate tensions in Gaza, riven by five days of gunbattles and reprisal attacks between rival Fatah and Hamas fighters that has stoked fears of a civil war and driven the coalition cabinet to the brink of collapse.
Wait a minute...The murderers at Hamas are still firing rockets from Gaza, and it's Israel's actions that exacerbate tensions?
A Jew can do nothing right. Even when they bomb known terrorist headquarters.
Splash, out
Jason
Football rivalry
Here's one of the first signs that the Glasgow Celtic vs. Rangers rivalry is getting out of hand.
Look, I'm not saying I condone what he did. I'm just saying I understand it.
Tilg a mach,
Jason
Look, I'm not saying I condone what he did. I'm just saying I understand it.
Tilg a mach,
Jason
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
In Memory of Major Doug Zembiec, USMC
A letter in remembrance from his Sergeant Major.
Read the whole thing. I can neither add to it nor excerpt.
Read the whole thing. I can neither add to it nor excerpt.
Labels: in memoriam, soldiers' issues
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Rev. Falwell has passed away.
Self-refutation, thy name is Kos...
The money quote: "It's a losing proposition to play off the importance or the tragedy of the death of one soldier against another, or of a soldier against the Iraqi civilians of whom Professor Basevich was writing in the Post."
The title of the post: "This soldier's death is, somehow, worse."
These idiots are simply beyond parody.
Splash, out
Jason
The title of the post: "This soldier's death is, somehow, worse."
These idiots are simply beyond parody.
Splash, out
Jason
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Scott "Chickenhawk" Ritter says we're worse than the Nazis.
No, really. Quite literally.
Here's the penultimate paragraph, which comes after lengthy passages badmouthing our troops:
Good thing he's not a Captain in the Marine Corps anymore. I don't think he'd survive his first firefight.
If y'all know what I'm sayin (andithinkyoudo).
Via Newsbusters.
Here's the penultimate paragraph, which comes after lengthy passages badmouthing our troops:
I yearn for a time when “good Americans” will be able to stop and reverse equally evil policies of global hegemony achieved through pre-emptive war of aggression. I know all too well that in this case the “enemy” will only be emboldened by our silence, since at the end of the day the “enemy” is ourselves. I can see the Harvard professor shaking an accusatory finger at me for the above statement, chiding me for creating any moral equivalency between the war in Iraq and the Holocaust. You’re right, Mr. Dershowitz. There is no moral equivalency. In America today, we should have known better, since we ostensibly stand for so much more. That we have collectively failed to halt and repudiate the war in Iraq makes us even worse than the Germans.
Good thing he's not a Captain in the Marine Corps anymore. I don't think he'd survive his first firefight.
If y'all know what I'm sayin (andithinkyoudo).
Via Newsbusters.
Ceding the Battlefield
The Pentagon has not updated their "For the Record" page since November 21rst, 2006.
Splash, out
Jason
Splash, out
Jason
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Rebutting a meme
MadTom comments on yesterday's post:
Remind me again, at the time that OBL was in Sudan, what did we know he had done? And isn't the story that the Clinton administration got Sudan to move against OBL and break up his venture, forcing OBL to move leaving behind most of the investment OBL had made in Sudan, farms and maybe an airport or something?
That's just ridiculous. At the time OBL was in Sudan, we obviously knew enough about him that he attracted the personal interest of the President of the United States. OBL was not just some random haji on the street by that time. Indeed, Clinton himself claimed that at that time, "a lot of people were claiming I was too obsessed with Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda."
For chrissakes, madtom, OBL was in Sudan in 1996! That's three years AFTER Al Qaeda hit the World Trade Center and tried to bring it down with a truck bomb (and nearly succeeded!). By that time, OBL had been named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator.
We also knew damn well that OBL was building a terrorist network inside Sudan in 1996. Why? Because we sent a Ambassador Carney to meet with the Sudanese Minister of State for Defense Elfanih Erwa with a specific request for information on that network.
Furthermore, we also assessed that he was involved in an attempt to assassinate Hosni Mubarek.
Even more, the CIA knew that Osama Bin Ladin was enough of a threat even in 2006 that in April of that year they created a special unit devoted to tracking him down. The problem was that it was only created AFTER Clinton turned down the chance to have him handed over to us.
The story is not that we stripped him of his financial assets, because obviously we didn't. The Sudanese did, despite Clinton's dereliction (If you'll recall, in the spring of 1996, Clinton had some other distractions on his time of a more, ummm, personal nature.)
This idea that Osama was somehow entitled to a presumption of innocence, and that we had no reason to believe he had commited crimes or was a threat to the United States in 1996, is absurd and ridiculous.
Splash, out
Jason
Remind me again, at the time that OBL was in Sudan, what did we know he had done? And isn't the story that the Clinton administration got Sudan to move against OBL and break up his venture, forcing OBL to move leaving behind most of the investment OBL had made in Sudan, farms and maybe an airport or something?
That's just ridiculous. At the time OBL was in Sudan, we obviously knew enough about him that he attracted the personal interest of the President of the United States. OBL was not just some random haji on the street by that time. Indeed, Clinton himself claimed that at that time, "a lot of people were claiming I was too obsessed with Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda."
For chrissakes, madtom, OBL was in Sudan in 1996! That's three years AFTER Al Qaeda hit the World Trade Center and tried to bring it down with a truck bomb (and nearly succeeded!). By that time, OBL had been named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator.
We also knew damn well that OBL was building a terrorist network inside Sudan in 1996. Why? Because we sent a Ambassador Carney to meet with the Sudanese Minister of State for Defense Elfanih Erwa with a specific request for information on that network.
Furthermore, we also assessed that he was involved in an attempt to assassinate Hosni Mubarek.
Even more, the CIA knew that Osama Bin Ladin was enough of a threat even in 2006 that in April of that year they created a special unit devoted to tracking him down. The problem was that it was only created AFTER Clinton turned down the chance to have him handed over to us.
The story is not that we stripped him of his financial assets, because obviously we didn't. The Sudanese did, despite Clinton's dereliction (If you'll recall, in the spring of 1996, Clinton had some other distractions on his time of a more, ummm, personal nature.)
This idea that Osama was somehow entitled to a presumption of innocence, and that we had no reason to believe he had commited crimes or was a threat to the United States in 1996, is absurd and ridiculous.
Splash, out
Jason
Somehow
The Associated Press manages to write a three page article on how Democrat congressmen are souring on promised ethics reform...and some how can't seem to name a single one!!!!
Splash, out
Jason
Splash, out
Jason
Friday, May 11, 2007
A great master of the art
Dynamics. Balladeering. Storytelling. Guitar.
Paul Brady.
Paul Brady.
Fight! Fight!!!
Richard Perl calls out former CIA director George Tenet in the pages of the Washington Post.
True. And ouch. But let's go back in time to 1993, when Clinton was taking office and the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time. It was easy enough to target Osama Bin Ladin, which Clinton did, except that he only targeted him. When the crosshairs found him, Clinton was too hamstrung by liberal feel-good legalism to pull the trigger on as many as ten different occasions.
And when the Sudanese offered to hand Bin Ladin over on a silver platter, the Clinton liberal White House staff was too crippled by the better angels of their nature and their desire to ensure Bin Ladin's precious constitutional rights were violated if he became a guest of the U.S. prison system to take them up on their offer.
But beyond targeting Bin Ladin, what was the effective countermeasure to the jihadist Zeitgeist building up in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere? Target the Saudi royal family? They have as much to lose as we do. They'll lose their necks to Al Qaeda under the new Caliphate. The Saudi royal family looked the other way too long, but they weren't the heart of the problem. Jihadism would have continued to flourish with or without them.
So what should we have been doing? Selling out Israel? As if that would have worked.
Abandoned the Kurds to Saddam's stormtroopers?
Who had the stomach to force the confrontation in 1993? Certainly not the Republicans then in the minority in Congress. Certainly not the Republicans in the majority two years later.
Only two people, after tea and cakes and ices, had the strength to force the moment to its crisis:
Osama Bin Ladin, and George W. Bush.
Splash, out
Jason
But the greatest intelligence failure of the past two decades was the CIA's failure to understand and sound an alarm at the rise of jihadist fundamentalism. It is Wahhabi extremism and the call to holy war against infidels that gave us the perpetrators of Sept. 11 and much of the terrorism that has followed. In his attempts to blame others for CIA shortcomings, Tenet cannot say, "I told the president that our Saudi allies were financing thousands of mosques and schools around the world where a hateful doctrine of holy war and violence was being inculcated in young potential terrorists." Fatefully, the CIA failed to make our leaders aware of the rise of Islamist extremism and the immense danger it posed to the United States.
George Tenet and, more important, our premier intelligence organization managed to find weapons of mass destruction that did not exist while failing to find links to terrorists that did -- all while missing completely the rise of Islamist fundamentalism. We have made only a down payment on the price of that failure.
True. And ouch. But let's go back in time to 1993, when Clinton was taking office and the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time. It was easy enough to target Osama Bin Ladin, which Clinton did, except that he only targeted him. When the crosshairs found him, Clinton was too hamstrung by liberal feel-good legalism to pull the trigger on as many as ten different occasions.
And when the Sudanese offered to hand Bin Ladin over on a silver platter, the Clinton liberal White House staff was too crippled by the better angels of their nature and their desire to ensure Bin Ladin's precious constitutional rights were violated if he became a guest of the U.S. prison system to take them up on their offer.
But beyond targeting Bin Ladin, what was the effective countermeasure to the jihadist Zeitgeist building up in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere? Target the Saudi royal family? They have as much to lose as we do. They'll lose their necks to Al Qaeda under the new Caliphate. The Saudi royal family looked the other way too long, but they weren't the heart of the problem. Jihadism would have continued to flourish with or without them.
So what should we have been doing? Selling out Israel? As if that would have worked.
Abandoned the Kurds to Saddam's stormtroopers?
Who had the stomach to force the confrontation in 1993? Certainly not the Republicans then in the minority in Congress. Certainly not the Republicans in the majority two years later.
Only two people, after tea and cakes and ices, had the strength to force the moment to its crisis:
Osama Bin Ladin, and George W. Bush.
Splash, out
Jason
Monday, May 07, 2007
Smallville
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Army Blogging Policy
Army Lawyer pretty much has the same take as me.
Money quote: "Some ideas are too stupid for even the military to adopt. Your mileage and command may vary."
For another take on the absurd requirement phenomenon, read this.
Splash, out
Jason
Money quote: "Some ideas are too stupid for even the military to adopt. Your mileage and command may vary."
For another take on the absurd requirement phenomenon, read this.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: Army
Alright, Don't Get Your Panties In A Wad...
The new Army regulation, once implemented, probably won't mean much of a change for military bloggers. Active duty bloggers have been required to "register" their blogs for a long time now with their commanders for some time now. And commanders have had discretion over how closely to monitor those blogs all along.
No commander is going to spend his or her valuable time going over and approving and disapproving every single blog post his or her soldiers write. In real life, the common sense test will apply, and the commanders are going to say "look, just grant me the courtesy of looking over anything you think might violate opsec."
Commander's discretion has always been key. And as a company commander myself, I jealously guard that prerogative.
Most commanders are happy to have one of their own writing the soldier's perspective, anyway.
Sure, the Army's approach was ham-handed, and the regulation was poorly crafted. So what else is new?
Nothing much will change as a result. This is no big deal, in my view.
Splash, out
Jason
No commander is going to spend his or her valuable time going over and approving and disapproving every single blog post his or her soldiers write. In real life, the common sense test will apply, and the commanders are going to say "look, just grant me the courtesy of looking over anything you think might violate opsec."
Commander's discretion has always been key. And as a company commander myself, I jealously guard that prerogative.
Most commanders are happy to have one of their own writing the soldier's perspective, anyway.
Sure, the Army's approach was ham-handed, and the regulation was poorly crafted. So what else is new?
Nothing much will change as a result. This is no big deal, in my view.
Splash, out
Jason
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Did we get him???
The Iraqi Interior Ministry - not the most reliable bunch of dolts in the world - is claiming that the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyab al-Masri, has been killed.
Good riddance to another cockroach, if true. Sorry we didn't get a chance to pick him up alive after the Shia-led Interior Ministry's pipe-hitting goons got a chance to dispense some rough justice for a few hours.
Splash, out
Jason
Good riddance to another cockroach, if true. Sorry we didn't get a chance to pick him up alive after the Shia-led Interior Ministry's pipe-hitting goons got a chance to dispense some rough justice for a few hours.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: Al Qaeda
"Jane, You Ignorant Slut"
Austin Bay and Phil Carter debate force structure and its relationship to foreign policy.
Austin Bay agrees with Carter's recommendation for a larger end strength for the Army and Marine Corps, and chides him for his faulty reasoning.
Go figure.
Splash, out
Jason
Austin Bay agrees with Carter's recommendation for a larger end strength for the Army and Marine Corps, and chides him for his faulty reasoning.
Go figure.
Splash, out
Jason
