Hither And Yon
By Mitch Berg
People sometimes ask – usually with a peevish edge in their tone – “Why aren’t you writing about the war? Huh? Huh?”
The answer: Mainly, because I have little to say, and there are people much better sited to write about the subject than I who are doing it every day.
Like Michael Yon, whose latest dispatch on the eve of what will likely be the biggest offensive since the end of the conventional war in Iraq four years ago is out today.
Read the whole thing. Print it out. Mail it to Harry Reid. (Reid’s contact form, courtesy of Wake Up America)
More later.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:07 am
This was an interesting snippet:
“”Al Qaeda and associates had little or no presence in Iraq before the current war. But we made huge mistakes early on and are pumping blood and gold into the region to pay for those blunders. When we failed to secure the streets and to restore the stability needed to get Iraq on its feet, we sowed doubt and mistrust. When we disbanded the government and the army, and tolerated corruption and ineptitude in reconstruction, we created a vacuum and filled the ranks of an insurgency-hydra with mostly local talent. But when we flattened parts of Fallujah not once, but twice, primarily in response to the murders of four of our people, we helped create a spectacle of injustice and chaos, the very conditions in which Al Qaeda thrives.””
Some, mostly on the Left say we either can not win, or have already lost. My patience is also running thin. But I will continue to support our President, through the Surge, in hopes that he keeps his word this time. By that I mean handing over Iraq security to the Iraqi’s in November, and then, like Gov. Richardson said to me “What I would do with our troops is redeploy them to bases in Kuwait where they ARE wanted. In Afghanistan where I believe the we DO have a threat of Al-Qaeda.”
The War on Terror WILL be a campaign issue, but our presence in Iraq should be decided by the time we go to the polls in November ’08
Flash
Centrisity.com
June 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am
The problem is that al-Qaeda *isn’t* a problem in Afghanistan. The Afghans hate the Arabs, and even the Taliban doesn’t have much luck there. Only an idiot of a strategist would keep operations in a place like that.
Al-Qaeda is based almost entirely out of two places: Pakistan and Iraq. Iraq we’re dealing with, but so long as Pakistan has nuclear weapons we can’t do much about al-Qaeda’s presence there.
Putting more troops into Afghanistan is pointless — we wouldn’t be fighting al-Qaeda, and we wouldn’t be advancing the war. It’s a convenient trope for Democrats to say that they want to fight al-Qaeda in a place where al-Qaeda doesn’t live, but it doesn’t mean much in terms of actually winning this war.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Gee, you seemed to be writing a lot about it at the beginning. The “not-losing-yet” part.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Iraq Embeds:Risking Life and Limb to Bring Us Trut…
We are a nation at war…. perhaps it is time to declare to the world as one, that we will not surrender and we did not start this war, but we sure as hell intend to win it. That is a message I have not heard from one Democratic politician, even thos…..
June 19th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Gee, you seemed to be writing a lot about it at the beginning.
Like most pro-war bloggers, Mitch’s lusty chest thumping has given way to a heavy, embarrassed silence. Hard to believe this is the same fellow who not too long ago had the temerity to call the anti-war crowd “pro-rape, pro-genocide…in support of dictators and thugs.” Whether or not Mitch and his ilk possess the honesty to assess themselves as pro-slaughter-of-American-soldiers, pro-crippling-of-the-GOP and pro-crushing-of-the-American-psyche remains to be seen. Doubtful I’d say, seeing as the whole bunch seems to be pulling a St. Peter on their golden boy.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Like most pro-war bloggers, Mitch’s lusty chest thumping has given way to a heavy, embarrassed silence.
Er, the term you’re looking for is “thoughtful consideration”.
Hard to believe this is the same fellow who not too long ago had the temerity to call the anti-war crowd “pro-rape, pro-genocide…in support of dictators and thugs.”
Any who think that it’s better to leave people suffering under a brutal, genocidal dictatorship when an opportunity – indeed, a mandate – exists to change things…well, what DO we call them, then?
They may not have seen themselves as such – but as in Vietnam, the end result of their activities is happy dictators and millions of dead people.
Call it whatever you will.
Whether or not Mitch and his ilk possess the honesty to assess themselves as pro-slaughter-of-American-soldiers, pro-crippling-of-the-GOP and pro-crushing-of-the-American-psyche remains to be seen.
That’d be less “honesty” than “conforming to the currently lefty hallucination.
On which more later.
Doubtful I’d say, seeing as the whole bunch seems to be pulling a St. Peter on their golden boy.
Not true. As a Forbes guy, I supported Bush grudgingly in 2000, judging him (correctly) to be vastly better than the alternative. For all Bush’s MANY flaws, given a choice between him and ANY Democrat today, I’d still vote for him.
Saint Peter this.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:04 am
“”For all Bush’s MANY flaws, given a choice between him and ANY Democrat today, I’d still vote for him.””
This begs the question, if Bush could run again, what would his chances be for the nomination. Something tells me there would still be an open primary where his incumbency would be a detriment rather than an asset.
Thoughts?!?
Flash
June 20th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Thoughts?!?
My thoughts: Time to move on.
Bush would have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do on immigration and spending.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:52 am
From Spree…
Iraq Embeds:Risking Life and Limb to Bring Us Truth
In a followup to Snoopers original piece “Michael Yon’s…Be Not Afraid, here are few more thoughts and articles.
Snooper has already mentioned Michael Yon’s….