Archive for the 'War And Peace' Category

Yep

Friday, August 30th, 2013

Say what you will about Dubya. He spent like a lib, after all.

And say whatever you’d like about Iraq. Well-advised? Perhaps not, in retrospect.

But when we went to war with Iraq, we did it with 40 other nations and the UN.

Somewhere Over Syria, September, 2013

Thursday, August 29th, 2013

(SCENE:  The cockpit of a US Navy F-18 Super Hornet strike fighter.  The plane, loaded with JDAM precision-guided bombs, flies through the clear desert skies as the camera closes in on the PILOT).

PILOT:  “Cobra Two Five, On Station”

CONTROLLER (flying in an AWACS plane over the eastern Mediterranean):  “Welcome to Syria, Cobra Two Five.  We’ve got an air support call from “ABU”.  Go ahead, Abu”

ABU: (mildly distorted, on the radio) “This is Abu Fuad Hadji Al-Ramshish.  We are trying to advance through Al-Khebab, and there is a group of government tanks blocking the way”.

PILOT:  “Copy, I’m five minutes out…hey, wait.  Abu Fuad Hadji Al-Ramshish?

ABU:  “That is correct”

PILOT:  “Didn’t a bunch of Marines call me in on an ground support strike against you near Fallujah back in 2005?  Weren’t you an Al Quaeda commander?”

ABU:  “Why yes!  I thought you sounded familiar, Cobra Two Five!  Call sign…er…Mobster?”

PILOT:  “Er, yes.  Wow.  So you’ve switched…”

ABU:  “Oh, merciful heavens, no.  Your bomb missed me, I left Iraq, I got promoted, did a tour in Afghanistan…”

PILOT:  “Hey, me too…”

ABU:  “…and now I’m here”.

PILOT:  “Well, I’ll be”.

ABU:  “Small world, isn’t it?”

PILOT:  “And now I’m flying air support for…uh…”

ABU:  “For me, an Al Quaeda operative.  That is correct.”

PILOT:  “Huh.  OK.  Well, Cobra Two Five, I’m at the IP”

CONTROLLER:  “Weapons Free, Cobra Five, clear to go hot”

ABU:  “Good shooting, Mobster.  And then die, American infidel pig dog”.

Line Of The Day

Tuesday, August 27th, 2013

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

Hmm. Seeking a coalition of the willing to take down an Arab Ba’athist dictator over WMDs. Where have I heard this before?

How many times do we need to repeat it?

At least so far Obama’s copied the parts of Bush’s administration that actually worked.  Now he’s treading into “squib” territory.

 

Time To Bury…

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

…for all time the quaint, pollyannaish notion that the “elite” media exist as anything but a Praetorian Guard for the Democrat party.

CBS News has been busted gundecking coverage of Benghazi that afflicts the Administration narrative

The biggest Benghazi-related story that took place outside of the House Oversight Committee’s hearing room today is this item in Politico, regarding CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. She’s the reporter who famously drew White House officials’ profane ire over her unapologetic pursuit of the Fast & Furious scandal story; now she’s apparently facing searing criticism from another source: Her own bosses. Why? Because she’s been covering the Benghazi story too aggressively

Read the whole thing.

If Bohner and Cantor don’t get a select committee on Benghazi going yesterday, then what the hell is the point of even having an opposition party?

Neo-Neo-Neo-Neo-Colonial

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

John Kerry, Secretary of State, offers to withdraw United States missile defense batteries from the Far East, if China will agree to restrain North Korea from launching nukes at us.

We’re outsourcing the defense of our nation to China.  Well, why not?  They’re already our biggest creditor.  What could possibly go wrong?

Joe Doakes

Como Park.

On the one hand, that was a common tactic in the colonial era; turn one of the tribes in an area of your interest against the other, thereby neutralizing everyone and keeping order.

On the other hand, that only worked when you had some power and influence; the Danes could never get the Sikhs to turn against the Hindi to colonize India; the British could.

And we’re becoming more like Denmark, only deeper in debt.

The Moon Unit Will Be Divided Into Two Divisions

Monday, April 1st, 2013

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Minutes of meeting of Chief of Naval Operations and staff:

CNO: “You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have? ”

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Hint:  buy stock in armature companies.

Here’s A Little Day-Brightener

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

North Korean missile pr0n:

Bonus: “We Are The World”?

Mysterious Ways

Friday, February 1st, 2013

There was a story yesterday.

The Sorosphere started feverishly blogging and tweeting about it…

…and then it stopped.   And the mainstream media barely touched the story, as important and utterly newsworthy as it was.

Why?

Because the story’s main takeaway was that the NRA was absolutely right.

Paymar And The Blazing Reichstag

Friday, February 1st, 2013

I spoke too soon yesterday in writing about the DFL Metrocrats’ hearings regarding guns.  They – Hausman, Paymar, Sheldon Johnson and Simonson, to be exact – introduced a bill today aimed at “High Capacity Magazines”.

Their definition of “high-capacity”:  seven rounds.

Money shot:

Sec. 3. PERSONS POSSESSING LARGE-CAPACITY MAGAZINES ON EFFECTIVE DATE OF ACT; REQUIRED ACTIONS.

2.29Any person who, on August 1, 2013, is in possession of a large-capacity magazine has 120 days to do either of the following without being subject to prosecution under

Minnesota Statutes, section 624.7133:

 

2.32(1) remove the large-capacity magazine from the state; or

(2) surrender the large-capacity magazine to a law enforcement agency for  destruction.

OK, gun owners – all of you, hunters and skeeters and defensive shooters alike; if you’ve never come out and gotten active in politics before, now is the time.  This piece of Stalin-era twaddle isn’t going away on its own, or because the orcs who introduced it will be overcome with long-hidden feelings of libertarian conscience.

It’ll be because law-abiding Real Americans like you and me take it down and kick it to death.

It’s going to the “Public Safety Committee”, which we talked about yesterday.  Call them, especially Ward, Savick and Rosenthal (UPDATE: And Simonson).

We need to crush the switchboards.

BONUS QUESTION FOR CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLARS: Isn’t “give us your legally-purchased and not-by-any-means-inexpensive property or risk going to jail” the very definition of an “Illegal Taking?”

Because 13 round magazines for a SIG P250 were $45 a pop even before the current hysteria set in.  Or so I’m told.

Fibber McGee & Mali

Monday, January 21st, 2013

With French and African forces bearing down on Islamist rebels, the question arises – is Europe lying to itself about their commitment to Mali?

As Barack Obama declared that “a decade of war is now ending,” French warplanes hit the positions of Islamists who didn’t get the memo.

The re-taking of two Malian towns signified immediate progress for French forces fighting to prevent a Somalia-like failed state in what foreign policy experts call “the largest al Qaeda-controlled space in the world.”  The instability of Mali predates NATO’s Libyan intervention but was significantly exasperated by the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.  Malian fighters, both for and against Gaddafi, flowed into Libya as fast as arms flowed back into Mali once the major fighting was done (to say nothing of the present violence in Libya).

The French intervention has gained tepid material support from the U.S. and NATO allies (with onerous financial strings attached), showcasing once again the limitations of “leading from behind” – including placing a far from resolute President at the heart of the fighting in the shape of French President François Hollande:

It was supposed to be a quick and dramatic blow that would send the Islamists scurrying back to their hide-outs in northern Mali, buying time for the deployment of an African force to stabilize the situation. Instead it is turning into what looks like a complex and drawn-out military and diplomatic operation that Mr. Hollande’s critics are already calling a desert version of a quagmire, like Vietnam or Afghanistan…

Mr. Hollande, who has a reputation for indecisiveness, has certainly taken on a difficult task. The French are fighting to preserve the integrity of a country that is divided in half, of a state that is broken. They are fighting for the survival of an interim government with no democratic legitimacy that took power in the aftermath of a coup.

Hollande has continued the post-WWII French tradition of an obtuse foreign policy.  Despite saying almost nothing on foreign policy during his campaign, Hollande has at once suggested that France will leave Afghanistan, NATO and yet invade Syria.  It’s little wonder than that France’s stated position on Mali is equally confusing.  An objective of “total conquest” (a charged word when fighting Muslims; or so we’re told when a Republican President says something similar) sounds aggressive and determined.  Instead, it represents something entirely different:

Camille Grand, a defense expert and director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, said the French objective is “to return to the status quo ante, where those Islamist groups are cornered in the gray zones on the borders, with limited ability to act and not controlling population centers, where it is difficult for them to make raids or take hostages.”

Those goals, he said, are “definitely something that makes sense from a military standpoint. But “if the ultimate objective is to eradicate the presence of radical Islam in the Sahel,” he warned, “it probably won’t happen; it’s a bridge too far for anyone.”

The French offensive is designed to push the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) back to their southern stronghold – a sort of Malian 38th parallel.  Considering there might be as few as 3,000 Tuareg fighters for the MNLA, the French objective might be quickly reached.  What remains less likely is that a French victory along these lines will accomplish anything.  The MNLA, or an offshoot, will likely just regroup and march north again unless Malian government soliders, which have significantly outnumbered the MNLA, can stand their ground.  Talk of French or NATO training of Malian troops sounds promising, but after a decade-plus of a similar commitment to Afghanistan, the historical results of such training don’t look promising.

So we’re left with Libya – the sequel.  Neither Europe, or NATO, or the U.S. have the stomach to resolve the conflict nor stand aside and watch as Mali falls and al-Qaeda gains a new forward base for attacks abroad.  The moves of the French and others thus far provide limited political or military risk, but also limited to nonexistent gains.  Again, like Libya, if Europe or the West want their preferred side to prevail, they’ll likely have to do most of the fighting themselves.  Considering the nomadic Tuareg opposition (literally translated into “abandoned by God”), are solid guerilla tacticians, a long-term French ground war will inevitably bring French casualties.  The intervention is politically popular in France – for now.  What happens if that changes?  The outlook isn’t good when the man in charge is known as “Flanby,” a type of flan dessert.

The lack of U.S. leadership in the matter isn’t going unnoticed in Europe either.  In the choice of victory or defeat in Mali, the American choice seems to be to vote ‘present.’

As Obsolete As Bayonets

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

For the benefit of our Commander in Chief, a look at a recent, modern, counterinsurgency use of the bayonet – which is still issued as standard equipment to infantry around the world:

In May 2004, approximately 20 British troops in Basra were ambushed and forced out of their vehicles by about 100 Shiite militia fighters. When ammunition ran low, the British troops fixed bayonets and charged the enemy. About 20 militiamen were killed in the assault without any British deaths.

Soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – the “Argylls” – who carried out a successful bayonet charge in Basra in 2004, killing 20 Mahdi without casualties. Although to be fair to President Obama, they were not on horseback.  

The bayonet charge appeared to succeed for three main reasons. First, the attack was the first of its kind in that region and captured the element of surprise. Second, enemy fighters probably believed jihadist propaganda stating that coalition troops were cowards unwilling to fight in close combat, further enhancing the element of surprise. Third, the strict discipline of the British troops overwhelmed the ability of the militia fighters to organize a cohesive counteraction.

I can imagine a Scottish squad leader muttering “That’s jooost crrrrezzy enoof to wairk”.

The Buck Stops WIth The Help

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Holy Cow, it turns out Hillary Clinton actually DID win the election and actually HAS been running the government while Obama golfed.

I Knew It!!

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Truly a profile in courage.

On Obama’s part, naturally.

Things President Obama Did Other Than Talking With Netanyahu

Thursday, September 20th, 2012

He’s a busy, busy man.

It was in observance of “Talk Like A Pirate Day”, yesterday.

Perhaps we should respond with “Talk With An Israeli Prime Minister” day…

UPDATE:  As commenter Jeff Rosenberg (Hey, Jeff!) points out, Media Matters has leapt to the President’s defense, noting that the photo above is three years old.

The MM4A piece is silent on what the President was doing.   Playing golf with Jay-Z?  Meeting with (and bowing to) Somali pirates?   Playing video games with his daughters?  At an Eva Longoria fundraiser?  We don’t know.  All we do know is, it wasn’t “meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu at this crucial moment in both nations’ history”.

Someone Got Shot

Monday, March 26th, 2012

One dark, ambiguous evening, a black youth was shot under circumstances that, to the local media, were confusing. Not much information was available; the youth was shot by a citizen with a legal handgun.  The citizen claimed self-defense.

So the local media did what they always do on big stories – shootings! – when not much information is available, as they waited for the details of the investigation to go public.  They found stuff  to write about.

They interviewed the deceased’s mother and family – who, stricken with grief, demanded justice.  They talked with friends of the deceased, and community leaders, many of whom wondered why the law allowed mere citizens to use lethal force, or to be able to claim “self-defense” with such seeming impunity.

Some of the media’s learned observers scratched their furrowed brows and pondered aloud (or in print) whether the changes the legislature had made in 2005 to the state’s laws regarding self-defense were wise – repeating things many of them had written at the time.

I am of course, not talking about the Trayvon Martin case.  I’m talking the Evanovich case in Minneapolis last fall.  You had the family.  You had the friends and community leaders.  Furrowed learned brows?  Check .

You had everything you have today in the Martin case, with one exception; a resolution.  Media caterwauling notwithstanding, it was a legitimate enough case of self-defense to prompt the frothingly anti-gun, anti-Second-Amendment, anti-law-abiding-citizens-with-guns Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman to praise the shooter.

The point of this post is not to try to compare the Evanovich and  Martin cases; in terms of the factual and legal specifics, it’d be stupid to try, since we, the non-investigators, know nothing about the facts of the case.

Well, almost nothing; we know what the local Florida and national media have told us about the case.

And if there are any lessons from the Evanovich shooting to apply to the Martin case, they are…:

  1. When it comes to emotionally-charged cases, the media is no better off at getting the facts than we are.  And that’s a best case.  Because…
  2. …whether they will admit it or not, the media has a narrative; the higher up the media food chain you go, the worse it gets.  The law-abiding gun owner, the bitter, gun-clinging Jebus freak, is a powder keg just waiting to blow.  They’ve been saying it, one way or another – if not in their editorial stances, then via their editorial selection bias – since 1983, when Florida passed its “Shall Issue” law.  They did it with each of the 30+ states that have passed similar laws in the past 29 years.  They did it when Florida passed “Stand Your Ground” seven years ago, and in each of the dozens of states that have some combination of “Stand Your Ground” and “Castle” laws.   They’re still predicting it.  We’re still waiting for it to happen.  But hey, it’s only been almost thirty years; one of these days, the powder keg’s just gotta blow, right?

On gun issues even more than most others when it comes to the mainstream media; distrust, then verify.  Then, almost invariably, distrust some more.

That’s not to say the Martin case might very well not be a legitimate shooting.

We don’t know.

And when I say “we”, I mean “especially those of you who get your information on the case from the mainstream media”.

More later.

Farewell to Arms

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

Florence Green - WWI's Grandmother

World War I now belongs only to history.

The last surviving veteran of what H.G. Wells foretold would be “the war to end wars” (and was later modified by Woodrow Wilson as the more famous quote “the war to end war”), has passed away.

Florence Green joined the RAF as a mess steward at 18, just two months before the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918.  She could have had little notion that amid some of the most frantic fighting of the war, as the Allies pounded the Château-Thierry salient in the Battle of Amiens, undoing the summer gains of the German Army’s last ditch attempt to force a conclusion to the Western Front, that the war would be shortly over.  Nor could Florence Green have likely envisioned that a conflict that took or injured 35 million lives would spare her until nearly 111 years of age.

The “World War I generation”, if such a term can even be coined, has long since passed as the few surviving modern links to the conflict vanished.  The last combatants, Charles Choules of the British Navy and Frank Buckles of the U.S. Army, died early last year.  The German debt from the Treaty of Versailles was only paid off in September of 2010.  Even the geopolitical and cultural effects of the war have significantly faded, as Germany and France battle not for European supremacy but jointly to keep the rest of Europe’s crippling debt from dominating them.

With nothing seemingly remain to tie the past to the present, how will World War I truly be remembered now that it’s final judgement is in the hands of history?  Will it be seen as the touchstone for the creation of the modern world, ending the age of European empire?  Or will Florence Green, Frank Buckles and others become future Yves Prigents, the last survivor of the Crimean War – trivia notes for wars of senseless and forgotten ages.

Florence Green’s passing changes nothing about our view of World War I – right now.  The “Great War” was seen as incomplete in its own era, and increasingly became a bloody footnote to the conflict that resolved the question of whether Europe (and thus the world) would be dominated by Anglo-Franco democratic sensibilities or Prussian authoritarianism.  Such thoughts today seem as foreign as an Austro-Hungarian Empire, or that an assassination of an Archduke nearly 98 1/2 years ago in Sarajevo could spark a global war.  Heck, plenty of people don’t even remember the conflict in Bosnia & Herzegovina in the 1990s.

The task of preserving the significance of World War I, indeed any war, falls not on the Florence Greens of the world nor historians.  It falls a little on everyone to remember such sacrifices and remind the next generation why they mattered.

Gap In Reasoning

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

There was good news and rejoicing; the SEALS continued their winning streak, rescuing an American and Danish hostage in Somalia.

But buried in the good news is a sign of the Obama Administraion’s myopia.

The Navy SEAL operation that freed two Western hostages in Somalia is representative of the Obama administration’s pledge to build a smaller, more agile military force that can carry out surgical counterterrorist strikes to cripple an enemy.

That’s a strategy much preferred to the land invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that have cost so much American blood and treasure over the past decade. The contrast to a full-bore invasion is stark: A small, daring team storms a pirate encampment on a near-moonless night, kills nine kidnappers and whisks the hostages to safety.

It all sounds good.  And so far, it is.

Here’s where the logic breaks down:

Special operations forces, trained for such clandestine missions, have become a more prominent tool in the military’s kit since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that led to the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The administration is expected to announce Thursday that it will invest even more heavily in that capability in coming years.

Cool, except that creating special operations troops is not just a matter of “Investment”.  You can’t create them with money.  You have to start with troops – traditionally people from the infantry and airborne, although they come from all corners of all services today – who learn the basics of being a soldier (or sailor, or airman, or Marine).  Then, the ones that have the urge to try will audition – and, mostly, fail – less than half of those who try to get into the Rangers succeed; the even-more-selective elite-of-the-elite units like the US Special Forces (“Green Berets”), SEALs and “Detlas” are vastly more selective; from6-12% of those who try out make the cut over a training-and-selection regimen that runs two solid years and change…

…and starts with people who are already proficient at soldiering; you don’t enlist to be a SEAL or a Green Beret or a Delta; you make your bones as a highly-competent infantryman or tanker or gunners mate or helicopter mechanic or paratrooper or Ranger or combat engineer first; to get into “Delta”, one usually starts the selection process as a highly-regarded, supremely fit NCO, a fairly senior sergeant with the beginnings of a solid career, before even volunteering for the brutally-exclusive selection process.

And in hearing the Obama Administration’s plan, I get the impression He thinks that you create SEALs and Deltas and Green Berets and Pararescue Jumpers by throwing a lot of money at an underemployed Georgetown Public Policy grad.

Generator Of Ex-Libertarians

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

I used to be a big-L Libertarian.

I left in 1998 – partly because I wanted to join a party that could both be pushed toward libertarian (with a small-l) principles and still actually exert some effect on society (by, like, winning elections and stuff)…

…and partly because the Big-L Libertarians had their feet firmly in the clouds when it came to foreign policy.  Even Thomas Jefferson, the Libertarians’ secular saint, realized toward the end of his presidency that he needed to build a Navy and Marine Corps to project power against the “Barbary Pirates”; merely defending the nation’s borders, even at a time when “missiles” flew a mile from brass cannon and threats moved around the world at the stately five-knot pace of a sailing ship, was not a tenable way to remain free.

Liberty, in short, needed defending.  And while military solutions weren’t the answer for every problem, there is a place and time for it.

I watched Ron Paul yesterday on the Sunday Morning shows in response to this news – that Iran may, again, be close to getting nukes:.

According to recent leaks, Iran has carried out experiments in the final, critical stage for developing nuclear weapons – weaponization. This includes explosions and computer simulations of explosions. The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that satellite photos of the site reveal a bus-sized container for conducting experiments.

Parchin serves as a base for research and development of missile weaponry and explosive material. It also has hundreds of structures and a number of fortified tunnels and bunkers for carrying out explosive experiments.

Now, we’ve heard this before…:

As far back as eight years ago, U.S. intelligence sources received information indicating that the bunkers would also be suitable to develop nuclear weapons. According to that information, Iran conducted experiments there to examine its capacity to simulate a nuclear explosion.

…and while I hate to sound like one of those Bush-era yapping ninnies who claimed that President Bush was “wagging the dog”, it’s a fact that responses to foreign policy threats have been the Obama Administraiton’s only real success.

Still, whatever the current status of the Iranian nuke program is, it is a fact that they will have The Bomb eventually.

And Ron Paul’s solution – “let’s make them not think we’re jerks”, essentially – is no less dumb that that of the “nuclear freeze” ninnies in the eighties.

Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty

Friday, September 16th, 2011

Sergeant Dakota Meyer is the first living Marine to earn the Medal of Honor in the war on terror:.

In the course of six hours [after an ambush in Afghanistan in September of 2009], survivors said, Corporal Meyer and his driver, Staff Sgt. Juan J. Rodriguez-Chavez, led five fights into the ravine toward Ganjigal. Four times they helped recover wounded men, first Afghans who were pinned down and later Americans similarly trapped.

After the corporal freed Captain Swenson, the captain joined him in the fighting while an Army platoon nearby declined to help. On the last trip they recovered the remains of three Marines and a Navy corpsman. By then, according to the Marine Corps’ account of the fight, Corporal Meyer had killed eight Taliban fighters and stood up to several dozen more. (A fifth American later died of wounds suffered in the ravine.)

“Dakota later confessed,” the president said, of the fighting in Ganjigal, “I didn’t think I was going to die. I knew I was.”

The key criterion for the Medal of Honor is heroism “above and beyond the call of duty”.  That’s a phrase the world of business – and Hollywood, naturally – have devalued to the point of meaninglessness – for civilians, anyway.

It means doing things that are far, far beyond what one is ordered, or reasonably expected, to do.

The sort of thing that makes a sergeant deserve salutes from four star generals.

Do You Remember…

Friday, June 24th, 2011

…when you didn’t dare question the patriotism of those who dissented from a rush to war?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is questioning the priorities of lawmakers criticizing the U.S. intervention in Libya.

She’s asking bluntly, “Whose side are you on?”

Remember when that kind of question would’ve earned a government figure (or anyone) a curt “don’t question my patriotism!”?

I’ve Been Waiting Seven Years To Write This

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

I’ve restrained myself ably, if I say so myself.

But after the better part of a decade of reading peoples’ bumper stickers, I just gotta way it.

I’m already against Obama’s next war. .

Where Credit Is Due

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

The credit for the news of the deqth of Bin Laden fairly goes (in addition to the intelligence, military and even some local Pakistanis)  to the President.  If it’d failed, it would have rested on his shoulders; it’s only fair that we credit him for the risk he took –  different though that risk is from the ones the SEALs, the Army chopper pilots and the rest of the guys on the ground took.  To be honest, given his record so far, I’d have expected him to have launched a Predator strike – something that would have killed him (or someone) without the political risk – but also without the certainty.

Now, here’s the part I’m looking forward to; watching the left walk back the fact that so much of the policies – and so many, I suspect, of the discrete military and intelligence activities that led to this day – were continued under the Bush administration.

Which, again, is no knock on Obama.

But I’m looking forward to seeing the reactions of the elements of the Twin Cities media who, 24 months ago, were acting like a bunch of 15 year old girls who’d just gotten Justin Bieber tickets after having been allowed into the presence of Seymour Hersh, who was talking (along with Walter Mondale) about a story from “upcoming book”:

“Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command — JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. …

According to Hersh, this mattered  because…:

“Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

It was JSOC troops – officially SEALs, along with Army Special Operations Aviation, but JSOC missions reportedly mix in other troops, Rangers and “Delta” and other units pretty liberally – that carried on the “execution”.

Just saying.

Failure Is An Orphan

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Victor Davis Hanson on Obama’s Libya strategy, or whatever it is:

The president spoke Monday night to clarify our intervention in Libya. Instead he made things worse, and could not explain the mission (are we/are we not after Qaddafi?), the methodology to achieve it (are we in a no-fly-zone or are we bombing ground targets essential to save the rebels?), and the desired outcome (who are the “rebels,” what do we wish from them, and are they better than Qaddafi?). Indeed, after almost two weeks, these questions still have not been asked much less answered.

So the omissions pose the question: how did Obama, the archetype war critic, find himself bombing—in optional and preemptive fashion, and without congressional authority — an Arab Muslim oil-exporting country, and one that posed no immediate threat to American national security, despite being governed by a monster who, nevertheless, had been recently courted by Western intellectuals, academics, universities, and diplomats?

Unfortunately, Obama has no principled or strategically logical foreign policy. So it is mostly loud declarations that he is not George Bush and making things up ad hoc as he goes along

Read the whole thing…

What If We Got Into A War…

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

…but only did it in a half-in, half-out, half-assed kind of way, so that when all was said and done our intervention really didn’t lead to our intended result at all?

Forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi continued to push rebels out of positions along coastal oil towns, further delaying the rebel drive on Tripoli and testing the limits of the coalition air strikes at a time when the alliance is considering arming Col. Gadhafi’s opponents.

So let’s get this straight; we went to war a month late, in support of “rebels” who very well may end up our enemies – and we may fail anyway?

Wow.  Too bad we couldn’t find a ward heeler with some foreign policy experience.

Fingers Crossed

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Joe Biden in 2008, saying…:

…that going to war without congressional approval is “an impeachable offense”.

“Maybe he was just referring to Bush?”

Nope. He was talking about Obama. In re attacking Iran without congressional approval.

No, i’m not going to go checking Biden for a shelf date.

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