A monthly summary of Iraq

Let’s do a quck review of where thinks stand in Iraq and which way they are going for the month of November:

• American casualties remain low, even though each of the 40 (including accidents) to date is  a tragedy.  Medical evacuations for wounds remain only slightly higher than that for accidental injuries.
• Iraqi ‘civilian’ deaths (which include the enemy) is down to 544, the lowest values seen by ICasualties since that left-leaning site started.
• Safer in Fallujah than NYC??  That’s what the man on the ground said.  Should we declare NYC a failure and redeploy to say, Nashville?
• Baqubah violence down 90%; still more than a normal city, but getting close.
• Christian Church reopens; Muslims asks their Christian neighbors to return. One of the best stories from the month 
• 60,000 Iraqis returned in month; even with the MSM reporter trying to write as much negative as possible into this report, it sounds hopeful.

It all is starting to sound less like a war and more like a place with too many lawless thugs (with excessive weaponry).  The enemy has no battle plan, no hope of gaining sway over any territory at all, and a population actively trying to get rid of the last of these thugs to get on with a more peaceful life.

Sounding closer and closer to victory (though not yet there).  And for the ‘fine, let’s leave then!’ crowd; the only time we’ve pulled out all troops from a war is the one we lost (with the help of the likes of you).  All other wars has resulted in a prolonged, but generally peaceful presence.  If that stretches our current military a bit thin, it would be time to pull about half our troops out of Germany and Italy; it’s been 60 years there, so I think it’s safe.And yet the Democrats play budget games to try to force a loss at this late stage.  Are they really that determined to lose the 2008 election for themselves (as well as 100,000s of Iraqi lives) just to pin a loss on a lame duck president?

Is Iraq worth it?

Read this, then tell me it isn’t.  People like these, especially the Muslims in this article, are worth the very best.  And America has sent- and sacrificed- our very best for them.  This article tells me they are worth it. 

Then go read this to see if progress is being made.  The key section:

Sitting in a small room lined with cots and gear, the lieutenant talked to Mohammed through an Iraqi interpreter. “We know you were an insurgent during the fighting – you’re in no trouble – I just want you to tell me the truth.” Mohammad was now visibly shaking and appeared nervous before he quietly answered “yes.” “Did you ever fire on any Marines,” was the lieutenant’s first question. Mohammad was clearly concerned and replied with a long answer, but ultimately ended with a simple yes. “I was in Ramadi during the same time, so you could have possibly been shooting at me,” stated the lieutenant. “It’s okay Mohammad – if you were shooting at me then I was firing back at you,” joked the lieutenant.  The rest of the session involved the lieutenant and Mohammad exchanging promises to never fight again, and to work together to protect the city of Ramadi. Furthermore, pledges were exchanged that this new understanding, between friends, would not affect their friendship.

Blessed be the Peacemakers; for they are called United States Marines!

And yet, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi conspire to assure our finest over there- like the 2-12 Infantry Batallion and the Marines in Ramadi- are starved of their funds and that they turn victory into defeat.  I’m sorry; it has gone beyond political dispute.  It is becoming sedition, it is becoming treason; and the MSM is busily trying to bury those votes onto the back pages to minimize the damage they should be doing to the Democrats.  I want them to have to look LtC. Michael,  the interpreter ‘Ice’ and the Marine lieutenent in the eyes and tell them what they are doing isn’t worth it.

It is past time for our veterens and active duty personnel get very politically active.  They must turn out in force, as voters, campaign workers and candidates in primaries, to beat back those willing to sacrifce their gains and their lives to score political points against a lame-duck president.

I’m Shocked, Shocked! Iraqi politicians are acting like ours!

Since the MSM can’t deny the progress in Iraq, they are hunting far and wide for negativity and found some:  the Iraqi Legislature is suffering deadlock and incompetance and mainly seems concerned about themselves.  How dare they act like OUR legislators, who- for the 40th time- are trying (and failing) to do the President’s job (running a war) while completely ignoring their own (passing an overall budget, rather than bits and pieces for political gain).

May God (or Allah, if applicable) Bless our Troops And Iraqis like these

Michael Yon is incredible; I am very proud that I’ve been a reader and supporter of his since before ‘Gates of Fire’.  A couple weeks before that groundbreaking masterpiece, I’d extended an offer to him and any of his Deuce Four buddies for steak and beer if they ever got to the DFW area.  After ‘Gates of Fire’ , I amended that; I would pay for said meal but I don’t have the Stainless Steel Balls it would take to have the honor to sit at the table in such company.

Please, PLEASE; If you have a few stray nickels available, go over and support real journalism by hitting Yon’s tip jar.

Boy, was I wrong! And I can’t stop laughing! (Actually, ended up right in the end).

Here is my post at the TPZoo that got them implying threats against a charity that supports orphans:

“Not a chance, folks; sorry. It won’t get off the ground because of the upcoming election. As soon as the first round of the primaries are done and the Kuciniches and other marginals are eliminated by the HillBill machine, the Dem leadership will deepsix the word ‘impeach’ through November. Doing otherwise likely would put the GOP nominee in the White House.

You all really don’t understand how this all works, do you? All kowtowing to the Left ends after the nomination is assured; no one wants another McGovern ‘Death March’.”

Brother was I wrong, but for a reason that almost got me falling on the floor laughing so hard at the absolute brilliance of the GOP leadership.  At the last minute, they started switching as a block to bring the bill to the floor for a vote!  Pelosi is scrambling around trying to get the Dems to vote to table it, looking like a complete idiot; her leadership has become a laughing stock.

The purpose is a ‘put up or shut up’ vote and there is no way the Democrat Party will let the bill pass through; they will have to kill it themselves or face a ‘McGovern Death March’, with the radicals of the party controling dialog right up to November ‘08.  It’s looking like Pelosi may muster her troops sufficient to kill it here, but either way, she becomes the ‘Foole of the Week’.  The netroots will be peeling her skin off for quite some time.   It is indeed unfortunate that the first woman Speaker turned out to be the chamber’s most incompetant.

My hats off to the GOP in the House; a brilliant move and something I should have anticipated.  I’m slipping up in my old age.

Alas, it looks like the Dems managed to shove it to the Judiciary Committe, where it will die quietly, never to be brought forward again.  The GOP allowed the Dems crawl whimpering off; count on the MSM to bury this story quickly and deep.

The Zoo Animals are all charged up about pounding on the Judiciary Committee to get this bill out for a vote.  I truly wish them luck (it would be a gift for the GOP if it did; a gift that keeps on giving), but it ain’t gonna happen.  My original post still applies.  And the latest is they can’t understand why there’s no coverage of it in the MSM; I guess I need to give them a clue:

The MSM is burying this story because the leader of their beloved Democrats in power put on a show that would have embarrassed the Keystone Kops.  It looked like she was trying to herd feral cats and the GOP threw a big, hungry pit bull into the mix. 

And she’s third in line for the Presidency??

BTW: John Conyers was one of the 81 Democrat ‘Switcheroos’ (those to voted to proceed, then changed their vote to table when it looked like it was going to pass).  And what are the odds of it coming out of his committee to the floor?

My venture into the realm of the REALLY Loony Left

This weekend, I checked on a blog associated with a commenter on this blog and found what appeared to be a fairly typical series of hard left postings on various issues, but the one celebrating Kucinich’s bill to impeach Cheney (they keep updating the date to keep in moving; just search for ‘KUCINICH IS DOING IT’) caught my eye enough that I thought I’d post a fairly innocuous comment below:

“Not a chance, folks; sorry. It won’t get off the ground because of the upcoming election. As soon as the first round of the primaries are done and the Kuciniches and other marginals are eliminated by the HillBill machine, the Dem leadership will deepsix the word ‘impeach’ through November. Doing otherwise likely would put the GOP nominee in the White House.

You all really don’t understand how this all works, do you? All kowtowing to the Left ends after the nomination is assured; no one wants another McGovern ‘Death March’.”

(UPDATE:   Told Ya! )

The immediate response?  Clearly implied threats, not just against me, but against a charitable organization that supports orphans in Uganda, a group whose link I removed for a time from this site for their protection.  Since they were directly threatening the kids I care so deeply for, I promised not to ever post on their site again. Not one of my posts entailed name calling, profanity or any other acts that could have been considered insulting to any rational person.

What I did NOT do is promise to refrain from writing on my own site; so, if any of those individuals that prefer to threaten kids over logically arguing issues would be interested in a merit-based discussion of the issues, or even if they want to take on me personally- as opposed to my family and the kids I try to help- you’re welcome to do so here.  Personally, I find your actions of this weekend disgusting and beneath contempt.

Let’s get into a listing of their abuses, including those that they have conveniently scrubbed from their site (but I have the cached pages for as reference, including their now scrubbed ‘about’ pages) and address them with facts:

“We know who you are”

“I only have his IPA and URL via his ISP. I only warned him. If you want more, I can provide it in a direct manner outside this forum. I would rather let a slap on the hand be the extent of this matter.”

That really answered the question of the political viability of the Cheney Impeachment bill, didn’t it?  Guys, your blog is not members only; you expect no disagreement??  This is what you call ‘open and honest’ debate?

This rapidly descended into a delusional hate-filled bigotry on their part.  Not on mine; I never threaten, never name call beyond liberal or leftist, and never use profanity.  Any one of these approaches only shows small-mindedness.  Some of it included

Fundamental name-calling; ‘sh**kicker’,  ‘NRA Fascist’ were two of the milder ones.

Outlandish presumptions of evil intent:  my charity work in Africa is ‘to feel like a God’, to abuse the children, and/or some evil profit scheme (must be pretty bad at the profit scheming; I’m down nearly $8,000 for the year on this stuff). 

The implication of intent or actual abusing of the girls was particularly disgusting.  Sorry to disappoint you; I’m a much-married man, I’ve reached that ‘comfortable’ age where the material between the ears has full control of everything below the waist, and the cultural climate over there among the kids- due to extensive AIDS awareness programs, is doing more for abstinence there than you’ll ever find in America (thankfully).  I am extremely protective of the girls over there, because their system suffers a level of male chauvinism that would grind most American feminists into the dust.  Again, an understanding that puts me way outside the ‘evil, narrow-minded bigot’ that many extreme leftists (like those at this site) insist on trying to stuff conservatives into… using their own narrow-minded bigotry.

Downright ignorance of laws (carrying a handgun on commercial flight??) and cultures (I’m supposed to change the traditional Ugandan expression of thanks from the younger to the older person) , with downright bigotry thrown in, implying that- since my wife is Chinese- she must be subservient.  Anyone who knows Catherine would get a real laugh out of that; I lucked out in getting a tolerant wife, who is at the same time tough and smart enough to deal with me on an equal footing.  Graduates of National Taiwan University scare away most Chinese men; too tough and independent. 

They are also convincing themselves that I’ve never been to Africa and it’s all fake.  I guess this picture

 

was staged by the same people who the Truthers (which some of these people are) believe really brought down  the Twin Towers.  Being the Charity’s web site Volunteer page primarily consists of my quotes and their discussion in detail of what I did over there, they are either in on the conspiracy or fooled by it.  It makes sense, with the right medication (or the lack of it).

Try as I might to get these  ‘Zoo animals’ (their name, not mine) to raise themselves above the tantrum-throwing toddler level of discourse, they insisted- in less than a dozen exchanges- on stooping to threatening the charity (run by people of mainly liberal persuasion, for the sake of children that the left so cares about).  Threats to me are one thing; threats to my family (in which I am including my ‘family of the heart’ that is in Uganda) is another matter. After posting contact and address information on the group and my home phone started ringing with hang up calls, I contacted them to pull the links and that I would not comment on their site.  They pulled them, along with the request (proof they did essentially threaten the group); selectively editing the comment area.  They won the debate on the Cheney Impeachment issue by threatening kids; great victory, guys! 

The web caches are stored and the paperwork prepared to trace any additional calls or other forms of harassment my family may get.  And, considering what I know about some of the people at the site’s employment and personal info (but will never post), they might consider if I acted as nearly as low a lifeform as they did, what impact they might be on them.

The proper measure of discourse that I strongly suggest they might want to employ if they ever have any desire to deal outside a self-gratifying echo chamber is one that matches what you are willing to say face-to-face, one-on-one.  I would highly doubt any of these brave netroot warriors (most who don’t have guts to even post a real picture of themselves) would be up to that.  Knowing that their failure rate to achieve any of goals of significance will continue to be zero is quite satisfying, however.

I was truly sorry to see one result though.  The one person who acted reasonably at the Zoo has decided to leave that group; hopefully it wasn’t primarily due to taking abuse for his willingness to be civil.  While he and I are at polar opposites in terms of political viewpoints and personal lifestyles, he was an honorable man and the Zoo is smaller and meaner for his departure. 

The difference between Articulation and Wisdom

An old high school classmate of mine Freddie Kaplan writes frequently for slate.com under a series called ‘War Stories’.  This has always amused me, as Freddie has never served in the military and, apparently, never been near an active war zone.  Freddie (who hates that version of his name and desperately tries to ignore his early upbringing on the plains of Kansas) is a fairly typical example of a Northeastern literary elitist.  His expertise comes primarily from his extensive skills at academic-style research, interview and articulation.  However, how often does this actually translate into useful precognitive capabilities, as opposed to after-the-fact analysis and conjecture?  About the same as 35 years ago in high school, when he predicted Patton would win no Oscars.

While he seems to avoid making many predictions (with his history for making them, it’s no wonder), he’s slipped a little of late.  I think it is primarily a result of the esteemed writer sinking too far into the Bush Derangement Syndrome that has disabled rationality in many of his more extreme colleagues and associates long ago.  Here are examples of his earlier writings on the ‘Surge’ in Iraq:

The Urge to Surge; The latest bad idea for Iraq.

Interesting, But Doomed; Why Petraeus’ intriguing new Iraq strategy will probably fail

Mission Impossible; Bush’s smart new general can’t save Iraq.

(Freddie completely negleted the availability, use, and effectiveness of Iraqi troops in the link above.  Talk about missing one elephant in the room!)

This is actually pretty illustrative of a liberal perspective in general and getting blinded by political hatred in particular.  Doesn’t their inability to ever be right about the future ever get around to bothering such people?   Haven’t they figured out that the reason that they prove incable of getting elected or- if elected- governing effectively, that the many premises upon which liberal elitism and undiluted anti-Bushism is based on are incorrect?

None of us are perfect at precognitive efforts, but some of us are more willing to recognize and ‘fess up about it than people like Freddie ever will be.  I think it’s a function of ‘being comfortable in one’s skin’ and maintaining something of a sense of humore about oneself.  Always remember: if you don’t learn to laugh at yourself from time to time, the world will more than make up for your lack of participation.