Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
A perfect storm for Harry Reid and crew? A hopeful Iraq op-ed, written by two critics of the war, who happen to work at America’s leading left-leaning think tank…
Unfortunately, no amount of evidence will convince the most ardent anti-war activists or reverse politicians like Reid, who has cast his lot with the anti-war left and has a vested political interest in seeing the U.S. fail in Iraq, to support the war effort.
The Democratic leadership is seen to own defeat. If they keep it up, and progress continues, extricating themselves from that perception will be the real “quagmire.”
“They have labored to give themselves a wound.”
Not exactly comparing apples to apples if you’re lumping the Pres in there. He’s a wartime President with a hostile media. I will give that the immigration bill was totally self-inflicted, alas we won’t know the reasoning until the memoirs are written. With the Bush crowd, that may never happen.
The socialist/communist left hate the U.S., the political left loathe the military and cannot get over the fact that their rock star (Clinton) was impeached. The first group seeks our destruction and the second wants revenge and a return to power.
Cap’n
I’m already on record as having an extremely low opinion of politics in general and the Socialist-Democrat Party in particular. Quite frankly, I sort of prefer them to keep beating their collective heads against a brick wall.
At least that way, my ever-shrinking wallet is safe for the time being.
Web Reconnaissance for 07/30/2007…
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back of…
re – The Democratic Party and their “…..properly losing a war” strategy.
It’s the small razor cuts that add up such as this-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901219.html
Bastards and Bastardesses.
b2
When the conversation changes from “the war is lost, it cannot be won” to “we can win, but it wasn’t worth the cost” then you know it will soon be over.
Just watch.
The real reason behind all of this is our collective failure to root out the guilty. McNamara should have been hung after Vietnam, and most D’s after the Soviet collapse. Had we done it then, they wouldn’t be pissing in the punch now.
B2-tks for the link.
[...] Lex / Neptunus Lex [...]
?
“we can win, but it wasn’t worth the cost”
ah, the left’s favorite passtime: moving the goal posts while the ball is still moving thru the air.
and you’re right, that’s exactly what’s going to be said.
Knowing this is not a popular line, I will remind all here that the Republican administration set the expectations game from the start. Namely that we would go in and be able to get out in relatively short order. Now that it is four years later the public patience is used up. That’s present on both sides of the aisle and its not just the Democrats who have been poorly led in both houses of Congress.
And that is, as I see it, the major problem here. “Victory” for the Iraqis requires a long term US troop presence-at a time that that idea is not popular at home. As far as victory or defeat goes I would submit the US won its victory when Saddam went to the gallows. We’ve accomplished what we set out to do. It will be the Iraqis winning or losing-not the US.
And people know that deep down-that inside all of this the Iraqis still are not stepping up the way they should. And no one can promise the American people when the US forces can come home. Without that promise-the anger on both sides is going to continue to build. Its more than just a simple partisan thing.
Mission Accomplished…
Il mondo è tornato ad essere un posto normale. Ricordate, qualche settimana fa, l’editoriale del New York Times (la password per leggerlo cercatela qui) che invocava il ritiro statunitense dall’Iraq? Il giorno dopo, giornali e telegiornali italiani …
Skippy,
I think the Iraqis are stepping up, albeit slower than we’d like. But we’ve burned them once after the first Desert Storm, so it isn’t surprising that they’d be reluctant to believe us this time.
We’re finally proving to be reliable partners in routing the bad guys, and they are finally getting fed up with them too, so cooperation is the new word for the day.
I just hope that all the talk in Washington about giving up doesn’t mess up the good work our troops are doing there and cause more doubt on our resolve to help and support them.
I fully expect to have troops there for the next decade, just as we have had to have troops based all over the world for various reasons. Not a good thing, not a bad thing — just a fact.
I imagine that if I was one of the family members of the many thousands of Iraqi security forces that have died trying to secure their country – and their folks have died in far, far greater numbers than our own – I might take a little umbrage at the notion that they, as a people, aren’t “stepping up.”
It’s an almost attractive calumny, because it allows us to play Pontius Pilate when and if it all falls apart.
But history was as unkind to Pilate as it was to those he governed. And, in fact, those in whose name he governed.
Flawed biblical analogies aside, (33 CE is not the correct analogy-70 CE is) its not the umbrage of the Iraqis that any American should be concerned about. As long as the Iraqis have the yoke of Islam around their neck, their nation will continue to wallow in conflict. Iraqi umbrage is not my concern. American umbrage is.
I will caution folks again that people should not delude themselves, the clock has been ticking on the patience of the American people. Take away all the partisanship and spin, there is still deep down a frustration that “Win we stay-lose we stay”.
The President will get his wish to hand this war off to another administration. However the administration that we get in 2009 is going to be determined by American anger over Iraq.
Better explanation here.
HTML link did not seem to work. http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/2007/07/kombat-kagan.html