| August 6, 2007 Edition |
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The Iraq ShuffleMatthew ContinettiWeekly Standard Last week, when the New York Times published an op-ed arguing that Gen. David Petraeus should be allowed more time to pursue his counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, supporters of President Bush's "surge" got excited. The political momentum seemed to shift in their direction. But Bush's supporters shouldn't get carried away. They are in danger of seriously underestimating the ability of those who believe the war is lost or was always unwinnable to ignore, deny, and attack all news of positive developments. They should not underestimate the popularity of what you might call the Iraq shuffle. Antiwar activity seemed to crescendo in July, when leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post suggested the Bush administration was planning a significant reduction in American forces or a major shift in strategic goals in Iraq in coming months. The leaks--combined with congressional demands for a progress report on political and security "benchmarks" in Iraq and public criticism from several GOP senators that the current war strategy isn't working--caught the administration off guard. It scrambled to complete the progress report, explain the lack of political progress in Baghdad, and fight off further Republican defections. Full Story |
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| PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES, EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS |
Finish the job in Iraq, Marine's father urgesThe Philadelphia InquirerKevin Ferris John Wroblewski suggests Congress stop all the talk about leaving Iraq in 60 days, or 90 days, or 120 days. Instead, what the country needs, he says, is "more discussion about victory and how we're going to win." What he seeks is leadership. Courage, to stand up to a relentless, smart and brutal enemy. Patience, to see the nation through the inevitable dark days. Strength, to set priorities and see them through. Wroblewski sees these characteristics in those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, young men and women he considers heroes. Is it too much to ask the same of those who sent those troops into combat? The high school athletic director from Jefferson Township, N.J., is unapologetic in his support for the war and those fighting it - "You can't separate the troops and the mission," he says. Full Story The TurnDefeatists in retreat.Weekly StandardWilliam Kristol Hot July brings cooling showers, / Apricots and gillyflowers, as Sara Coleridge's doggerel has it. But for the American antiwar movement, this July brought only a cold drizzle, wilted blossoms, and bitter fruit. For the Iraq war's opponents, July began as a month of hope. It ended in retreat. It began with Democratic unity in proclaiming the inevitability of American defeat. It ended with respected military analysts--Democrats, no less!--reporting that the situation on the ground had improved, and that the war might be winnable. It began with a plan for a series of votes in Congress that were supposed to stampede nervous Republicans against the continued prosecution of the war. It ended with the GOP spine stiffened, no antiwar legislation passed, and the Democratic Congress adjourning in disarray, with approval ratings lower than President Bush's. It began with Democratic presidential candidates competing in their antiwar pandering. It ended with them having second thoughts--with Barack Obama, losing ground to Hillary Clinton because he seemed naive about real world threats, frantically suggesting that he would invade Pakistan. July also began with the liberal media disparaging the troops. It ended with the liberal media in retreat. The New Republic had to acknowledge that its pseudonymous soldier's account of an incident purportedly showing the dehumanizing effects of the Iraq conflict was a lie: It had taken place in Kuwait (if it happened at all), before this imaginative private ever saw the horrors of war. The New York Times was so shocked to discover in late July that public opinion hadn't continued to move against the war that it redid a poll. The answer didn't change. Full Story A War We Just Might WinNew York PostMichael O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration's critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place. Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with. After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated - many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work. Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference. Full Story |
| BREAKING NEWS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Grow Up, Middle East!Real Clear PoliticsVictor Davis Hanson Radical Islamists love to scream about the "decadent" West. Everything from our operas to our attitudes about women outrage these loud pious critics. As part of their condemnation, fundamentalist Muslims say they put a higher premium on family values and reverence for the past than crass modern Americans and Europeans do. But that is hardly true. In Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, unforgiving sharia law administered by stern state clerics dictates the cutting off a hand for theft. Is there less stealing then? Not at the highest levels at least. Sheiks from the ruling House of Saud are notorious for gambling and squandering abroad their nation's collective petro-wealth. But few such royals walk around Riyadh with missing limbs from "judicial amputation." Recently on a British Airways flight to London, members of Qatar's royal house were outraged that its princesses had been seated next to male passengers who weren't related to them. Was this a clash of civilizations? Full Story Gray Lady HedgesNew York PostRalph Peters SOMETIMES where a thing is said is bigger news than what was said. That happened on Monday, when The New York Times ran a guest op-ed detailing the progress in Iraq. Long before the fall of Baghdad, The New York Times was as dogmatically pessimistic about the Bush administration's efforts as it was gushingly supportive of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. It even promoted the least-qualified op-ed writer in North America as its point man for its attacks on our military: Frank Rich, whose experience was with ballet slippers, not combat boots. Rich must feel like a dying swan just now. What did the column in Monday's Times say? Exactly what readers of this paper have been hearing for months: Gen. Dave Petraeus has made a remarkable difference; al Qaeda's in trouble in Iraq; the performance of the Iraqi military is improving, and security gains are making a significant difference in the daily lives of Iraqis. Full Story The Arsenal of the Iraq InsurgencyIt's made in China.Weekly StandardJohn J. Tkacik Jr. This year, many truckloads of small arms and explosives direct from Chinese government-owned factories to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been transshipped to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are used against American soldiers and Marines and NATO forces. Since April, according to a knowledgeable Bush administration official, "vast amounts" of Chinese-made large caliber sniper rifles, "millions of rounds" of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and "IED [improvised explosive device] components" have been convoyed from Iran into Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists there is "no evidence as yet" that Tehran government officials are involved in shipping weapons to Iraq for use against U.S. forces, a judgment that seems to hinge on the view that the Revolutionary Guards are not part of the "government." But the administration source cautioned, "these are Revolutionary Guards trucks, and although we can't see the mullahs at the wheel, you can bet this is [Tehran] government-sanctioned." Full Story The hinge of fate in IraqWashington TimesTony Blankley On June 25 the following resolution was tabled in the House: "That this House, while paying tribute to the heroism and endurance of the Armed Forces... in circumstances of exceptional difficulty, has no confidence in the central direction of the war." That would be June 25, 1942. The House would be the House of Commons in London, England. And the government in which no confidence was expressed was that of Winston Churchill. Almost three years into World War II, repeated military failures had induced considerable war fatigue in Britain. In February, Singapore fell to the Japanese with 25,000 British troops being taken prisoner. In March, Rangoon fell. This was vastly damaging to Churchill's prestige in Washington, as Rangoon was the only port through which could be shipped aid to China's Chiang Kai-shek - a very high priority for the United States in Asia. Full Story Britain can't have two best friendsFinancial TimesJohn Bolton Gordon Brown's first Washington visit as Britain's prime minister has prompted tea-leaf reading about the strengths and weaknesses of the US-UK relationship. Momentarily diverting - and probably unavoidable - as the frenzy of speculation is, the real tests lie ahead. Actions ultimately trump semiotics in national security affairs. Moreover, as contentious and important as Iraq is, it is a mistake to think that disagreements on that issue represent a fundamental change in the US-UK relationship. Tony Blair and President George W. Bush disagreed on global warming, as will Mr Brown and Mr Bush, but in neither case does the disagreement reflect a tectonic shift. Full Story |
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Defeatism Defeated?National ReviewThomas Sowell If victory in Iraq was oversold at the outset, there are now signs that defeat is likewise being oversold today One of the earliest signs of this was that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he could not wait for General David Petraeus's September report on conditions in Iraq but tried to get an immediate congressional mandate to pull the troops out. Having waited for years, why could he not wait until September for the report by the general who is actually on the ground in Iraq every day? Why was it necessary for politicians in Washington to declare the troop surge a failure from 8,000 miles away? The most obvious answer is that Senator Reid feared that the surge would turn out not to be a failure - and the Democrats had bet everything, including their chances in the 2008 elections, on an American defeat in Iraq. Senator Reid had to preempt defeat before General Petraeus could report progress. The Majority Leader's failure to get the Senate to do that suggests that not enough others were convinced that declaring failure now was the right political strategy. Full Story The Peculiar PrivateThe American SpectatorJohn Tabin Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp is one peculiar fellow. Beauchamp, we now know, is the author of the New Republic dispatches published under the pseudonym "Scott Thomas," dispatches that have been widely questioned. Beauchamp attended the University of Missouri-Columbia from 2002 to 2004, where he was the editor of a lefty campus magazine called Prospectus. It was there that he first met Elspeth Reeve, the future TNR staffer whom he would later marry. A friend of Beauchamp's told the Columbia Tribune that Beauchamp transferred to the University of Missouri-St. Louis, but that school couldn't find any record of his enrollment. Odd. Beauchamp seems to have joined the Army for an unusual reason. His badly written blog, kept while he was stationed in Germany, contains a declaration that "ill return to america an author," a reference to "wanting to be in [a war] just to write a book," and a confession that, while he feels like he's "a tool for global corporations," he clings to the idea that "this army experience... will add a legitimacy to EVERYTHING i do afterwards, and totally bolster my opinions on defense, etc." Beauchamp, then, seems to have decided to write an antiwar book, and then decided to enlist so that he could write from the perspective of a veteran. Strange. Full Story Saving Soldiers' JobsWashington PostAmy R. Gershkoff For tens of thousands of members of the National Guard and reserves who are called up to serve in Iraq, returning home safely may be the beginning -- not the end -- of their worst nightmare. Reservists lucky enough to make it home often find their civilian jobs gone and face unsympathetic employers and a government that has restricted access to civilian job-loss reports rather than prosecuting offending employers. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects members of the guard and reserves from job loss, demotion, loss of seniority and loss of benefits when they are called to active duty. The act is supposed to protect reservists' civilian jobs for up to five years of military service. But the government has made it difficult for veterans to enforce their legal rights. Service members who return to find their civilian jobs gone also find that the burden is on them to prove that their jobs were taken away as a result of their military service and that there is no other reason that they could have been fired. Full Story A Thin Green Line Outside BaghdadTimeCharles Crain The dusty farming communities southeast of Baghdad have become a key front in U.S. efforts to pacify the Iraqi capital. As militants search for sanctuaries from which they can stage attacks in the city, American troops are looking for ways to block an elusive enemy. As tens of thousands of additional American soldiers began patrolling Baghdad this summer, Madain, to the southeast of the capital, was an obvious fallback position for Sunni and Shi'ite militants. Until this spring, the U.S. presence there had consisted of only a couple of companies that patrolled in Humvees, but a brigade was assigned to the area in anticipation of a rise in insurgent and militia activity in response to the surge. "This whole place used to be sanctuary," says Col. Wayne Grigsby, commander of U.S. forces in the area. Now several thousand Americans are spread across several combat outposts, and they patrol Madain for hours each day. Grigsby's men are confronting enemies whose diversity and ingenuity reflect the variety of armed groups that have proliferated in Baghdad since 2003. Their main focus, says Grigsby, is preventing militants and their weapons from entering the capital. Full Story Surge of Suicide BombersNewsweekRod Nordland and Babak Dehghanpisheh In the video that serves as his last will and testament, the youthful, well-dressed Saudi, known only as "Fatima's Fiancé," is laughing and joking with the cameraman who will record his death a few minutes later. "Pray for Allah to make my mission easy," he says, and waves as he climbs into a maroon sedan, grinning broadly. "May Allah make it easy for you," the cameraman says obligingly, and laughs. The scene cuts away to an earlier interview, where the Saudi announces that when he gets to heaven he plans to marry a woman named Fatima, who was allegedly abused in Abu Ghraib Prison. Then the scene shifts to a highway in Iraq, with a line of 18-wheelers roaring along and a red circle superimposed over the bomber's approaching car. As the music swells and the screen fills with an orange-and-black fireball, the cameraman cries, "Thanks to Allah!" Such scenes are all too easily found on YouTube-and hundreds more like them are never caught on tape. While new figures show that the U.S. death toll dipped to its lowest total all year in the month of July, the number of Iraqis being killed continues to rise: some 1,652 civilians died in July alone. Many if not most of those deaths are the result of what has become an epidemic of suicide bombings. Full Story |
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Tactical Equipment EvaluationSig Sauer P226 9mm PistolIn 1988 the Sig P226 was my dream gun. I was lucky enough to be working for a police department that needed to replace their blued .357 revolvers and they went about it the right way: getting an assortment of pistols to test and then selecting what they felt was the best. For them, the Sig P226 won. Since that time Iíve had numerous conversations with many service veterans - many from the Navy Special Warfare community - and the Sig P226 keeps popping up as the favorite. Let's take a look at the pistol and see what commands such loyalty from those who have "been there and done that".Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/evals/guns/sigp226.htm
Recreational Equipment ReviewCamelBak Trail BlazerCamelBak is a company name that is so well known for its hydration systems that the very term ìcamelbackî has come to be a generic term used to refer to any hydration system. The use is obviously incorrect but shows how well the company penetrated the market early on. Many of their products are used by military and law enforcement units, but this week weíre going to take a look at one of their systems specifically designed for day hikes: the Trail Blazer.Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/recevals/campback/cbtrailblazer.htm |
| CHAPLAINS CORNER |
LOOKING AND SEEING...This morning I was looking back over the past week... and the past career... In the passage of all of the time and in the passage of the past week it is obvious to me and to all who will look and see that most of the problems between people, groups, governments, nations and the world hinge upon fundamental lacks in our world... the lack of respect for the need for law and government... and the lack of respect for those who must take the stand to enforce peace and safety from it's most basic principles to the greatest demands that law and government make upon us. The most often manifestation of this lack of respect starts in the home... the first place where every person should come into contact with basic law, government and mutual respect. It begins when the respect and keeping of rules is not the same for all family members... Or there are no rules at all except self indulgence. If the family rule is dictatorial (whether by father or mother) and the same rules of conduct and respect are not shown to all members of the family to and by all other members of the family, a powerful resentment begins to take root and grow. If the family leader does not follow rules of decency and respect in their own conduct they will find it hard to enforce upon other family members under their responsibility. If a father or mother is not willing to confess that they have made mistakes and apologize, even to their children, they will find it hard to force others under their authority to admit mistakes, apologize and take responsibility for corrections. If children grow under this unevenly applied system they will have a deep resentment for all authority figures from school teachers to law enforcement and on through the whole system. They become problems in the school system by being unruly and disruptive from the beginning. The classic major attribute of these children is self interest above all else. Nothing is as important TO THEM as self... to the destruction and detriment of all other people... and the only people they can get along well with is those people who submit to their dictation. It begins at home, resisting any effort to control or direct them. Often they have a history of conflict and disruption and, too often, wind up dead or in prison if nothing gets their attention strongly enough to cause thought and change. Sometimes they even gain notoriety as performers, writers and singers of songs... pushing their rebellious, disruptive attitude of living... and being adored and worshipped by others who want to follow the same self-centered path. http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2007/article/080607chaplain.htm |
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