An Undeclared Victory, a Lack of Deterrence By Leif Babin
Leif Babin is a former Navy SEAL officer who served three tours in Iraq, earning a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
The President announced yesterday that the United States will withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year. This ends months of speculation on U.S. troop levels in Iraq beyond 2011 and confirms the Associated Press reports from last week of a total withdrawal.
I wrote an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal last month entitled “We’ve Won in Iraq So Let’s Leave” and an editorial for FoxNews.com last week calling for just this outcome. In these I argued it was time the United States declare victory in Iraq and shift precious military resources to the highest priority mission in Afghanistan. Despite the hope of many U.S. military commanders to keep a large U.S. force in Iraq beyond 2011, the decision to withdraw all forces appears to have been based on the Iraqi Parliament’s refusal to grant immunity in Iraqi courts to U.S. military forces. This, in effect, is Iraq politely telling us that it’s time to go. They are confident enough to stand on their own. And while different than we might have originally envisioned, I would argue that this is, in fact, what victory looks like.
But while I applaud the decision to withdraw all U.S. Forces, I offer harsh criticism of the President for the following reasons outlined below.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_c7b346f4-fd32-11e0-9ad8-001cc4c03286.html The Occupy Wall Street movement has been aptly described as “Anarchists for Totalitarianism.” Given the logical inconsistency of such a movement, the OWS folks have to be glad there is no official theme song yet; otherwise, the repetitive mindless chants emanating from Zuccotti Park would all have to end with “If I only […]
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/10/23/the-bork-nomination-24-years-on/
I have to admit that when I saw the headline “The Ugliness Started with Bork” over an op-ed column by Joe Nocera in The New York Times [1], I reckoned it would be yet another chapter in the long-running left-liberal campaign to demonize the great jurist Robert H. Bork. I was wrong. Today — October 23 — is the 24th anniversary of the Senate’s shameful vote against Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Nocera wrote, if not to apologize, exactly, then at least to acknowledge that the poisonous campaign to discredit Bork — unprecedented in its nastiness — was “the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics.”
That’s probably correct. And while politics by its very nature is a partisan business that elicits strong emotions, and strong rhetoric to match, the campaign against Judge Bork was unparalleled in its ferocity and — something Nocera touches upon but gingerly — patent mendacity. Supreme Court nominees had been voted down before (and since). But had any previous candidate with what Nocera right calls Bork’s scholarly “pedigree” and “intellectual fire power” ever been voted down? After all, at the time he was tapped by Reagan, Bork had been a professor of law at Yale, former solicitor general of the United States, and a federal appeals court judge. He was — and is — also a prominent and articulate legal scholar, arguing forcefully for the doctrine of “original intent,” i.e., that a judge’s primary task is to discern the law in the light of the Constitution.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/10/together-i-shall-ride-you-to-victory.html
Together, I Shall Ride You To Victory A Very Special Announcement by T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII
In the long steeplechase of human events, the course ofttimes wends its way through a dense forest of uncertainty; into which the horseman must dash headlong through the hazardous branches of Doubt, surmount the briary hedgerows of Fear, only to confront the crossroads of Destiny. Here, the wizened old course-keeper Fate drops a gauntlet of challenge: down one path awaits doom, down the other victory and apres-race cocktails. Which path shall the rider choose? It is the fortunate horse indeed upon whom is mounted a rider equal to Destiny’s challenge, and wise to Fate’s trickery; for he can be sure that with every whip of the rider’s crop he is one gallop closer to the stables of security. And thus, today, I dismount to retrieve Fate’s gauntlet, strike him smartly across his face, and declare my official candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/european-children-being-forced-to-bow-down-to-islam-literally/
European children being forced to bow down to Islam…literally
European children are being brainwashed into ‘respecting’ Islam with school-organized mosque visits and syllabuses that give undue prominence to a mythical Islamic ‘Golden Age.’
Islam vs Europe Here’s an excerpt from the British government website that provides information on the national curriculum. It describes a programme of lessons called “The Achievement of Muhammad (pbuh)” and discusses how to grade the childrens’ essays, quoting a few examples:
Over a number of lessons, the pupils had read and discussed texts about Muhammad’s (pbuh) life, covering his family’s reaction to his claims, as well as the reaction of people in Mecca and Medina. The pupils debated Muhammad’s (pbuh) achievements in groups and as a class.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/gaddafi-sharia-islamic-law/2011/10/23/id/415429?s=al&promo_code=D502-1 Libyan Leader Declares Nation Islamic, Sharia Law to be Implemented Libya’s transitional leader declared his country’s liberation Sunday after an 8-month civil war and set out plans for the future with an Islamist tone. The announcement was clouded, however, by international pressure to explain how ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi had been captured alive days […]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8844646/World-power-swings-back-to-America.html
The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.
The making of computers, electrical equipment, machinery, autos and other goods may shift back to the US from China.
Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline – so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue – will seem wildly off the mark by then.
Telegraph readers already know about the “shale gas revolution” that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia.
Less known is that the technology of hydraulic fracturing – breaking rocks with jets of water – will also bring a quantum leap in shale oil supply, mostly from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in Texas, and other reserves across the Mid-West.
The Muhammad al-Dura Hoax and Other Myths Revived http://www.meforum.org/3076/muhammad-al-dura-hoax On September 30, 2000, a day after Yasser Arafat launched his war of terror, euphemized as the al-Aqsa intifada, state-owned France 2 Television broadcast a news report, filmed by a Palestinian cameraman, of the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old Palestinian identified as Muhammad al-Dura. The dramatic […]
http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/10/palestinian-black-arts-brand.html Word is out they are going to try brand “Palestine” as this firm, Qorvis, has signed a contract and registered as a Foreign Agent for piurposes of working with the Palestinian Authority (or is it Fatah, or the PLO?):- “One of Washington’s best-known lobbying and public relations firms has been upended in the wake of the […]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_kramer/galleries/72157627717322623/
Sandbox | Martin Kramer on the Middle East
In Cairo and Damascus, the October 1973 war with Israel is celebrated by museums of similar design and purpose. At the center of both attractions is a panorama (or cyclorama): a 360-degree depiction of the key battles of the war. The concept is to immerse the visitor in a “surround” view of a battle—in Egypt’s case, the crossing of the Suez Canal, in Syria’s, the battle for the Golan Heights—with visual and sound effects, stirring narration, and martial music. Both sites have adjacent grounds for the display of captured and destroyed Israeli hardware, alongside examples of the Soviet-made Egyptian and Syrian armament of the day. The construction of panoramas has become a North Korean specialty, and the Egyptian and Syrian panoramas are of North Korean design and execution.
School groups, soldiers, and local and foreign tourists who visit these sites are told similar stories of triumphant victory, leaving no room for ambiguity as to the war’s outcome. A recent visitor described her experience at the Cairo attraction: “A vast panorama of lights and noise depicted the epic struggle to cross the canal. I saw no mention of the Israeli counterattack. It has been subsumed by myth and propaganda.” Another recent visitor to the Damascus panorama made this observation: “If you relied only on a visit to the Panorama for information about the war, you would not know a) that Egypt was also involved in the fighting, b) how long the war lasted, c) how many people died, or d) that Israel won.”
