Huh?

Ok, I've kind of taken a break from blogging lately, but this just too WTF mate.



And it's actually worse than Obama saying I want to be president of all 57 states. He actually says, "I've been to 57 states, with one to go", then says that he hasn't been to Alaska or Hawaii. Well, if he's been to 57 states, not counting Alaska or Hawaii, what are the other nine that he went to? And how does he have one to go when the next thing he says is that he hasn't been to two.

I know everyone has gaffes, but come on.

Spring

Despite the snow last week, it must finally be spring in Minnesota. We have One, count'em one flower blooming outside.

Excellent

That is the only way I can describe this post on supporting the war on terrorism by Il Duce over at Anti-Strib. He absolutely nails it right here

So there you have it. We did what Americans do, we tried something new. It might not work and it was a hell of a lot harder than we thought, but at least we tried to spread freedom in the Middle East. And for that, I will always be proud to have supported the GWOT, the war in Iraq and GW Bush.

Liberals hate to admit it, but they really wanted us to do nothing. They throw out lines about the UN or Sanctions but we all know than nothing would have changed. And now they are very, very proud that they resisted an attempt to make the lives of millions of people better. This is the sad of modern liberalism. They are proud that they have given up. They resent the fact that we attempted to spread freedom and the only way they can salve their guilt is for us to lose so that they can say I told you so.

That's it. I want to say more about this but there is nothing else to be said about this topic.

What Is Victory

I submitted the following to the Star Tribune. They declined to publish this op-ed, but that's OK. It's too long and really should be broken into multiple parts. This is in response to Wes Davey and others who claim that there is no standard for victory in Iraq. Well to an extent that's true, as there will be no single defining moment that ends our involvement in Iraq. There are however certain conditions that must be met, and it strikes me as deliberately obtuse for the "reality based community" who values nuance to demand a simple (or simplistic) answer to Iraq.

What is Victory in Iraq?

This is certainly a fair question and one that I didn’t address directly in the 556 words of my original article. Though “victory” was a word that I chose, I’m not sure it is a precise enough word for this conversation. The word victory may seem to imply that there will be a single moment in Iraq that we can say, “That’s it. It’s over. We’re done”. The harsh reality is that there will be no USS Missouri moment in Iraq. We are not simply fighting an army that we can defeat on a battlefield then go home. We are attempting to change a society. We are rebuilding a nation. This might not be what many of us expected to do in Iraq. The wisdom of nation building is certainly debatable, but it is what we’re doing. This is something that we have to accept and react to accordingly.

I think the difficult concept here is that we are trying to measure a quality and not a quantity. We cannot simply say that there are 500,000 members of the Iraqi Security Forces and that means we can leave. We have to judge how effective those forces are. Can the Iraqi government effectively train, equip and deploy those forces? If those forces cannot be deployed effectively, it doesn’t matter how many there are. For this reason there can be no predetermined definitive timeline for withdraw. There just can’t. There’s no way to know for sure when the Iraqis will be competent enough to handle their own affairs. In that regard, we really are in a “we’ll know it when we see it” situation. I know that’s not a good answer. It doesn’t have the nice solid feel of saying February 22nd 2009 is the day. It’s not a comforting thought that we don’t know how long we will have troops in harms way. I know. I don’t like it either. But we have to deal with the reality we have and this is it.

That said, there is the legitimate question of what will have to happen in Iraq for us to leave. I think there are two areas that Iraq must progress in before we can reduce our military/security commitments. The first is establishing the rule of law, and the concept of a representative democracy that is accountable to the will of the people. The second is the cultivation of Iraqi Security Forces that can actually provide security for the Iraqi people.

Regarding the first goal, rule of law, this is something that Iraqis are somewhat familiar with having lived under decades of Saddam’s secular rule. What isn’t ingrained yet is the idea of a popularly elected representative government that is accountable to the people. There is a strongman tradition in the Arab world where the government can do pretty much whatever it wants without fear of losing power through the ballot box. That is something that is changing in Iraq. In 2006-07 I talked to many Iraqis who were decidedly unhappy with the government they elected the first time. The Shia found out the hard way that electing parties to office based on religious affiliation does not necessarily produce an effective government. Nor did boycotting the election have beneficial results for the Sunnis. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the government and the people were eager to have new elections in order to get rid of the religious parties. Those elections are due this fall and I am eager to see the results.

Another aspect of having a democratically elected government that we are teaching the Iraqis is the protection of minorities. The concept that the Shia couldn’t just enact whatever laws they wanted because they are the majority and in a democracy majority rules, wasn’t exactly clear to them. Educating the Iraqis on the finer points of democracy at both the governmental and citizen levels is an area where we have not done as much as we should. This is an area where there is no military solution per se, though it has largely fallen on individual military members to take mayors, sheikhs and city council members under their wings to attempt this education.

Secondly, the Iraqi Security Forces need to be able to provide security for Iraq on their own. This process has been underway for nearly five years and is showing measurable success. The recent fighting in Southern Iraq showed something that I didn’t expect to see from the al-Maliki government. That is the Shiite government taking military action against the person that al-Maliki once protected, Moqtada al-Sadr. This is significant on two levels. One, it is a concrete sign to the Sunnis and Kurds that Maliki is now serious about taking on all armed groups regardless of sect. I can’t stress how significant this is. One of the reasons that the Sunnis boycotted the last election and were such violent resisters of us and the Iraqi government, is that Sadr’s militia killed Sunnis but was protected by the Iraqi government while Sunni militias were targeted by the government. It is also a sign that that the Iraqi Security Forces are developing to the point where they are capable of independent operations, something unthinkable only a year or two year ago. No the fighting in Basra didn’t end in a decisive victory, but Iraqi forces weren’t routed either. In my eyes, having seen police units that were afraid to arrest militia members a year ago, just having the Iraqi government conduct independent ground operations against a Shia militia in Basra is a huge accomplishment.

I am not saying that everything in Iraq is great. I’m not saying we haven’t made mistakes. I’m not saying that we won’t make more mistakes. I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with the Iraqi government, and militias, and Iranian influence, and troop levels, and just about every other area you can think of. Yes there are problems, but does the existence problems mean that we just throw up our hands in exasperation and give up? Are we that weak as a nation that we don’t have the fortitude to persevere in the face of adversity?

Absent a conclusive moment that we can look forward to, we have to look at conditions in Iraq, as objectively as we can, and see if they are acceptable and compatible with our goal to leave behind a stable functioning state. I think there are two main areas that the Iraqis have to make progress in before we can remove our military forces. I have laid those out and I believe that demonstrable progress has been made on both of those fronts in the past year. Sectarian deaths are down 90% since last summer. Coalition Forces deaths have dropped 70% over the same time. The Shia led government is conducting military operations against Shia militias, a concrete step demonstrating a reduction in the sectarian nature of the government and towards reconciliation with the Sunni population. Iraq is now paying three-quarters, $9 billion, of its security budget which is up from paying zero not that long ago. But I don’t think that these statistics demonstrating progress should be the determining factor in whether or not the United States stays engaged in Iraq. National policy should not change with the wind, it should be based on principal and what’s best for our country’s future.

Many people say that immediate withdraw from Iraq will improve our standing in the world and help repair poor relations with our traditional allies in Western Europe. Since 2003, less pro-American leaders have been replaced with blatantly pro-American leaders in Germany and France, the two staunchest critics of invading Iraq, our relationship with England appears as strong as ever, and pro-American Silvio Berlusconi was just re-elected in Italy.

If we were to immediately withdraw from Iraq, Iran has said that they will move in to fill the void. Given Iran’s history of supporting violent groups such as Hezbollah and the disastrous results this has had for the Israeli and Lebanese people; Iran’s support of Sunni killing militias in Iraq; and the growing concern in the Sunni Arab world of Iran’s ascending power, I can’t imagine how allowing Iran to set up a puppet government in Iraq is a good thing. Iraq and Iran may be friendly of their own accord. They share a border; they do a lot of trade and business together, and the have some cultural similarities. But if we leave a weak and unstable Iraq behind, it won’t be a relationship of equals. Iran will simply move in and take over.

If we learned nothing from our experience in Southeast Asia and immediately withdraw from Iraq, what does that do to our credibility as a nation? What sort of moral credibility will we have if for a third time we abandon our allies to be slaughtered by the same people they helped us fight. How can we be a beacon of freedom and morality if we repeatedly say to people that our lives are more important than yours, so thanks for helping us but we’re going to go now.

Rather than focus on what it costs us to stay in Iraq, we need to focus on what it will cost if we leave.

The Worst Politician Ever?

OK, maybe overdoing it, but I'm fairly young. I don't remember that many awful politicians. Especially politicians who are supposed to be as exceptionally gifted as Barack Obama, but really are just awful. I may update this post with line by line examples of how Barack Obama has contradicted himself, repeatedly, with his statements on Wright. But for now, think about this. Obama is someone who is so smart, with such great judgement, that we don't need to worry about his legislative record.

Then how is it that until today, I knew more about Rev Wright than Obama did, when Obama has known the man for 20 years?

Now that I get to looking around the web, I see that Jim Geraghty has done an excellent job with the cutting and the pasting =here and makes my point here. That darn Jim.

The Pomposity Is Painful

The NY Times outdoes itself yet again with this shamefully ugly and divisive editorial about the now famous North Carolina GOP ad featuring Rev. Wright. The same NY Times that violated its own policy by not just printing MoveOn.org's Gen. Betrayus ad, but by giving MoveOn a deeply discounted rate to boot, of course feels morally superior enough decry a perfectly legitimate political ad. The same NY Times that has repeatedly (mis)reported about the Rev. John Hagee endorsement of John McCain, in both the opinion pages and in "news" articles, as if there is an equivalence between the McCain/Hagee and Obama/Wright relationships.

Obama's loooooong relationship with Rev. Wright. His kinda sorta I-can't-denounce-him-but-I've-denounced-him-already-so-leave-me-alone "distancing". Wright's statement that the so called denouncing was just a politician saying what a politician has to say all make the Obama-Wright relationship fair game. At least to fair minded people. But according to the Times running a very simple ad about Obama and Wright is "Manipulative. Shameful. Race-baiting"... "a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state"... and that "The country cannot afford such divisiveness". But MoveOn.org divisiveness on Iraq is OK. Gotcha.

I understand that McCain wants to run a campaign "on the issues". I get that and applaud him for it. I get that he doesn't want his presidential campaign to engage on personal issues. That's fine. I assumed that part of his reason for publicly coming out against the ad was to garner press clippings like this

Senator John McCain was right to condemn the ad and demand that state Republican Party leaders pull it

Fine. But it also gets press clippings like this

a demand they refused. As of Friday, the state party’s Web site was soliciting contributions to “keep this ad on the air.” The country cannot afford such divisiveness.

Unless Mr. McCain quickly gets control of his party, we fear there will be worse to come. (Just note the it’s- not-my-problem reaction of Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, who set a new low for implausible deniability by claiming that the ad by the G.O.P. in her home state has nothing to do with her own re-election bid.)

And comparisons like this

But that’s not what this ad is about. The assertion that Mr. Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina” is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state. The ad’s claim that its target is actually two Democratic gubernatorial candidates who endorsed Mr. Obama is ludicrous.

This is too familiar. In his 1990 re-election campaign, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina ran the infamous “hands” ad showing two white hands crumpling up a letter while the announcer intones: “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority.” His challenger, Harvey Gantt, a former Charlotte mayor, was, of course, African-American.

So while McCain gets this

Senator McCain was right when he said, of the new ad, that “there’s no place for that kind of campaigning — and the American people don’t want it, period.”

The rest of the party gets this

Now he needs to get his party to listen

The end result being that the NYT still gets to paint Republicans as racists, and use John McCain to do it. Great.

Mainstream Chicago?

According to Obama's website anyway
AYERS AND DOHRN BECAME RESPECTABLE FIXTURES OF THE MAINSTREAM IN CHICAGO

Bill Ayers And Bernadine Dohrn "Became Respectable Fixtures In Mainstream Liberal Chicago Years Ago." Alexander Cockburn wrote in and op-ed for the Las Vegas Review Journal, "Late last week, the Clinton campaign was leaking stories about support for Obama from the former Weather Underground couple Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, both of whom became respectable fixtures in mainstream liberal Chicago years ago." [Las Vegas Review Journal, 3/2/08]







Mainstream. Yep. Every word.