Ben Connable, a Marine heading back to Iraq for his third tour writes in WaPo:
When I told people that I was getting ready to head back to Iraq for my third tour, the usual response was a frown, a somber head shake and even the occasional “I’m sorry.” When I told them that I was glad to be going back, the response was awkward disbelief, a fake smile and a change of subject. The common wisdom seems to be that Iraq is an unwinnable war and a quagmire and that the only thing left to decide is how quickly we withdraw. Depending on which poll you believe, about 60 percent of Americans think it’s time to pull out of Iraq.
How is it, then, that 64 percent of U.S. military officers think we will succeed if we are allowed to continue our work? Why is there such a dramatic divergence between American public opinion and the upbeat assessment of the men and women doing the fighting?
Open optimism, whether or not it is warranted, is a necessary trait in senior officers and officials. Skeptics can be excused for discounting glowing reports on Iraq from the upper echelons of power. But it is not a simple thing to ignore genuine optimism from mid-grade, junior and noncommissioned officers who have spent much of the past three years in Iraq.
I always prefer to listen to those with boots on the ground to far-off commanders and pols, much less armchair talking heads. Further, we might listen to the Iraqi people themselves, who are overwhelmingly optimistic:
An ABC News poll in Iraq, conducted with Time magazine and other media partners, includes some remarkable results: Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.
Surprisingly, given the insurgents’ attacks on Iraqi civilians, more than six in 10 Iraqis feel very safe in their own neighborhoods, up sharply from just 40 percent in a poll in June 2004. And 61 percent say local security is good — up from 49 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004.
Here’s one I haven’t heard about before and I like what they’re about:
While my wife was in Iraq, I started Operation: A Bit of Home. My wife called me and told me she had to put on 80 lbs. of battle gear, pick up her rifle, and walk 2 miles in 140 degree heat to buy soap and tampons and toothpaste. She told me that the government does not supply any sanitary or entertainment items to our troops. I decided that I would not have my wife doing that. I started shipping boxes to her unit in Iraq, in large quantities.
One day I got a phone call from a place in Baghdad called Freedom Rest. They stated they were the only R&R facility in Iraq for our troops. They get soldiers that have been in combat, on convoys, or high stress dangerous situations and give them 3 days and nights of R&R, good food, a pool, games, a soft bed and goodies. They process hundreds of soldiers in-and-out each day. By supplying hygiene, snack and entertainment items to Freedom Rest, we have directly affected the lives of over 23,000 soldiers.
They told me the government provides basic foods, linens etc., but all hygiene, snack and entertainment items come from donations, and asked if I could help. I am one of the few groups that actually have been asked to send supplies.
I know there are a lot of charities for the troops out there, but these facts set us apart from the rest:
1. We supply a facility for stressed troops, not individuals. We have eliminated the problem of NCOs and officers hording the boxes. We do not send things to the same troops over and over,
2. Our website tells people how to send their own boxes, how to fill out the US Postal forms, gives packing tips and lists of needed items, and most importantly, we give out the address to send it to. We do not post names of individual soldiers, a very dangerous thing to do. If Al Qaeda knows where a National Guard unit is from, and has names, they could potentially find and endanger soldier’s families just by using a phone book!
3. Although the website does accept donations from folks who want us to do all the work, we encourage people to do it themselves, give them the tools, and hope to encourage a sense of civic pride. We do civic presentations and assist groups in completing their “Public Service” obligations.
4. We don’t sell a bunch of overpriced “Boxes” like others do.
We are working with several organizations to help them develop their own programs.
I could go on forever, but if you visit our website, or Google Us, you will find we are legitimate.
A short mention on people’s blogs could do more for us than months of our pounding the streets and working the phones. A link on your mail list or your homepage would work wonders also.
Please visit our website, google us, and tell your friends about us. Every dime of donations goes to shipping and buying needed items. No one is paid, we have no overhead, and we care about the troops. We continue to send even when donations are thin using our personal Credit Cards.
Thank you and please visit www.OperationaBitofHome.com
Supporting the troops means more than placing a yellow ribbon on your car.
Thanks for your support
Ken Meyer
Founder
Operation: A Bit of Home
During Desert Storm we had the wonderful support of “Any Service Member” mail and I don’t think we had to buy a can of shaving creme, a bottle of shampoo, toothpaste, or a stick of deordorant unless we really wanted to, which was good because the AAFES tent or baby BX often was out of…just about everything. For operational and security reasons, “Any Service Member” mail is pretty much gone. These folks seem to have found a way to fill that void. And if you don’t think that a real shower with real soap and some anti-perspirant makes any difference, you have never been the kind of dirty that a week in the desert can get you. You can’t stand the smell of yourself and every part of your body is covered in powdered grit.
Almost any political debate has an element of “dueling citations”, where each party will come up with a brace of “recognized experts” – each with their own analysis of the matter at hand. And those experts will generally spout the results of some survey, or collection of surveys, in an effort to give their argument some gravitas.
However, on matters of public policy, surveys of the general public will frequently diverge widely in their results. And particularly partisan experts can then pick and choose those surveys which tend to reinforce their preconceived opinions. This is nowhere more true than on matters concerning Iraq.
It then becomes necessary for the debater to go to the rigor of critiquing the surveys themselves. Well, if the expert even cites what survey he/she is relying upon for the information (frequently not the case in brief op-ed pieces), the debater is lucky if the information source even makes details of their surveys available to those other than paid subscribers to their service. Then there’s the matter of actually dissembling the raw data and techniques – a bit of real drudgery, even for those of us with the skills to do it.
Well, for the past year or so, Mark Blumenthal, an opinion poll wonk, has been putting out a blog, Mystery Pollster, which gets to the bottom of these things for us. I, for one, couldn’t be more happy about it. In a post from a few days ago, he goes after the recent RT Strategies poll of public opinion relative to the Iraq War. This is quite extended, for a blog post, as Mark goes into excruciating scope and detail. But he writes at a level accessible to the average lay political blog reader.
I’ll just excerpt a particularly “meaty” piece here:
When pollsters move beyond general ratings to more specific questions about policy – as we do in almost every public political poll – we move to shakier ground. Here Americans often lack preexisting attitudes, yet most will work to answer our questions, often forming opinions on the spot based on the text of the question. When that happens, responses can be very erratic and contradictory across polls. Very small variations in wording, the number of answer choices offered or the order of the questions can result in big and often surprising differences in the results.
With that in mind, consider the three RT Strategies questions:
Thinking about the war in Iraq, when Democratic Senators criticize the President’s policy on the war in Iraq, do you believe it HELPS the morale of our troops in Iraq or HURTS the morale of our troops in Iraq? (IF HELPS/HURTS, ASK:) And do you believe it (HURTS/HELPS) morale A LOT or just SOME
44% hurts a lot
26% hurts some
6% helps some
7% helps a lot
17% not sureWhen Democrats criticize the President’s policy in Iraq, do you believe they are (ROTATE) Criticizing the President’s policy because they believe their criticisms will help the United States’ efforts in Iraq, OR, Criticizing the President’s policy to gain a partisan political advantage?
31% believe will help
51% to gain advantage
6% some of both (volunteered)
6% neither (volunteered)
7% not sureAnd thinking about the future of our policies in Iraq, do you believe the U.S. military should…. (ROTATE FIRST TWO, ALWAYS ASK "Set a fixed timetable" last) Withdraw our troops immediately, regardless of the impact OR Withdraw our troops as the Iraqi government and military meet specific goals and objectives OR Set a fixed publicly available timetable for withdrawal.
16% withdraw immediately
49% withdraw when goals met
30% set fixed timetable
3% none (volunteered)
2% not sureA few reactions: First, all three of these questions fall into that second category of issues about which many Americans appear to lack preexisting attitudes. Non-attitudes are most evident on the morale question (something that Armando at DailyKos picked up on). The telltale clue is that 17% were completely unable to answer the question, a sure sign that many more came up with an answer on the spot. The fact that nearly a third chose one of the softer "some" categories (26% hurts morale "some," 6% helps "some") is consistent with that argument. Also consider the respondent who believes such criticism neither hurts nor helps troop morale, but does not realize that "neither" is an o[o[p]tion. Odds are good they will end up in the "hurts a little" category.
On the partisan advantage question, nearly one in five respondents (19%) could not choose between the two offered answer categories. Finally, for reasons that I’ll discuss below, I’d argue that the large number of respondents in the middle category of the future policy question (49%) suggests that it was an attractive choice for those respondents who were simply not sure how to answer.
Now MP is not averse to survey questions that offer new information and push respondents a bit to see where they might stand in debates they have not followed closely. And in this case, the results of the RT "morale" and "criticism" questions are more or less consistent with the similar questions asked elsewhere. For example, a Fox News poll in early November found that 58% of Americans agree that those "who describe U.S. military action in Iraq as a mistake" are "hurting U.S. troops." Only 16% believed they were "helping." The rest had mixed opinions (9%), believed the criticism had no effect (9%) or could not answer the question (8%).
It is also worth noting that Americans tend to dismiss much of the debate in Washington as attempts to gain "partisan advantage," so the results of the RT question are not particularly surprising. For example, back in September (9/8-11), Gallup asked about politics in the context of Hurricane Katrina:
"Do you think Democrats who criticize the way the Bush Administration has handled the hurricane response mainly want to find out what went wrong, or mainly want to use the issue for political advantage?"
36 find out, 60% use for advantage, 4% unsureSeven years ago, ABC News and the Washington Post asked a similar question about the impeachment of President Clinton with nearly identical overall results:
"Do you think the House voted to impeach Clinton on the basis of the facts of the case, or on the basis of partisan politics?"
36% facts of the case, 61% Partisan politics, 3% no opinionQuestions that push respondents to consider questions for which they do not have pre-existing opinions do have a role in opinion research (one that should not be labeled as a fraudulent "push poll" — but that’s another subject for another day). However, in those instances pollsters need to take care to provide respondents with new information in a way that does not bias subsequent questions. For that reason, I am a bit surprised that RT Strategies asked two questions that mirrored the Bush administration talking points just before asking respondents their preference about prospective Iraq policy. Would the responses to the third question have been different if they followed a question about say, whether Bush "intentionally misled the American people about the presence of weapons?" We will never know, but it certainly seems possible that they would.
To be fair, Gallup asked a very similar question a few weeks ago (11/11-13) with similar results:
"Here are four different plans the U.S. could follow in dealing with the war in Iraq. Which ONE do you prefer? Withdraw all troops from Iraq immediately. Withdraw all troops by November 2006 — that is, in 12 months’ time. Withdraw troops, but take as many years to do this as are needed to turn control over to the Iraqis. OR, Send more troops to Iraq."
19% withdraw now, 33% withdraw within 12 months, 38% take as long as needed, 7% send more troops, 3% unsure.Note that Gallup showed 19% ready to withdraw immediately; RT Strategies show 16%. Gallup shows 52% supporting withdrawal either immediately or within 12 months, RT shows 46% support withdrawal either immediately or on a fixed timetable.
Having said this, I want to caution readers against taking these these prospective policy questions at face value. I also tend to agree with those who argue that the questions on the RT poll are, in essense, the wrong questions, that other measures give a better sense of true, pre-existing opinions on the Iraq War. This is not necessarily a criticism of Riehle and Tarrance, merely a caution that focusing on these three questions alone can give a misleading impression. For example, review the questions asked since Labor Day as posted by the Polling Report and you will find some highly consistent results:
- Approval of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq varied between 32% and 36%, with disapproval between 62% and 65%, as measured by six different pollsters.
- Differently worded questions about the worthiness of the war (asked by Gallup, CBS, ABC/Washington Post and NBC/Wall Street Journal) found between 31% and 40% that found the war worth the cost and between 52% and 60% that said it was not.
- Differently worded questions about whether the decision to go to war was right or wrong (asked by Gallup, CBS and the Pew Research Center), found 42% to 45% who say the US made the right decision in going to war, between 50% and 54% who say we made the wrong decision or should have stayed out.
However, look at the range of questions about prospective policy and the results are all over map. Here is a sampling (full details at the Polling Report):
CNN/USA Today/Gallup (11/30): "If you had to choose, which do you think is the better approach for deciding when the U.S. should withdraw its troops from Iraq: to withdraw U.S. troops only when certain goals are met, or to withdraw U.S. troops by a specific date and stick to that time-table, regardless of conditions in Iraq at that time?"
59% when goals are met, 35% by a specific date, 6% unsureFOX News/Opinion Dynamics (11/ 29-30): "Do you think there should be a publicly announced timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq?" 47% should, 41% should not, 12% unsure
Harris (11/8-13): "Do you favor keeping a large number of U.S. troops in Iraq until there is a stable government there OR bringing most of our troops home in the next year?"
35% wait for stable government, 63% bring home next year, 3% unsureFOX News/Opinion Dynamics (11/8-9): "What do you want U.S. troops in Iraq to do? Do you want them to leave Iraq and come home now or do you want them to stay in Iraq and finish the job?"
36% leave now, 55% finish the job, 9% unsureNBC News/Wall Street Journal (11/4-7): "Do you think that the United States should maintain its current troop level in Iraq to help secure peace and stability, or should the United States reduce its number of troops now that Iraq has adopted a constitution?"
36% maintain level, 57% reduce number, 4% both depends, 4% unsureABC News/Washington Post (10/30-11/2): "Do you think the United States should keep its military forces in Iraq until civil order is restored there, even if that means continued U.S. military casualties; or do you think the United States should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S. military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored there?"
52% keep forces in, 44% withdraw forces, 4% unsureCBS News (10/30-11-1): "Should the United States troops stay in Iraq as long as it takes to make sure Iraq is a stable democracy, even if it takes a long time, or should U.S. troops leave Iraq as soon as possible, even if Iraq is not completely stable?" 43% stay as long as it takes, 50% leave ASAP, 7% unsure
Pew Research Center (10/6-10): "Do you think the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, or do you think the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible?" 47% keep troops, 48% bring home ASAP, 5% unsure
So there we have it: A consistent majority of at least 60% of Americans now disapproves of President Bush’s performance on the Iraq war and believes it not worth the cost. A smaller majority now says that the war was a mistake. The consistency of the results suggests these are real attitudes, not opinions formed on the spot in the response to the language of the question.
The White House has issued this paper on our strategy in Iraq, which the President’s speech today tracked. Glenn Reynolds reminds us of Steven Den Beste’s seminal post from two years ago, and links to TigerHawk, who has been keeping the flame alive.
What I’m not seeing, however, is some tie-in between achievement of objectives and redeployment of troops.
Spirit of America has launched a fundraising campaign that began last week and will run through the end of this year. Bloggers have joined together in the past to get the word out and this time we’re joined by Gen Tommy Franks and Senator John McCain.
Spirit of America’s mission is to extend the goodwill of the American people to assist those advancing freedom, democracy and peace abroad. We provide support to those on the front lines: American military and civilian personnel and people who call to Americans for help in their struggle for freedom and democracy.
Spirit of America is a 501c3 nonprofit supported solely through private-sector contributions. We do not receive funding from the government or military. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible.
Please check out the videos and and the website and see if you can’t help our folks in Iraq and Afghanistan show the people there the true spirit of the American people. You generosity can make a world of difference.
This from South Africa’s News24.com:
Baghdad – The Iraqi army said on Thursday it had seized a number of booby-trapped children’s dolls, accusing insurgents of using the explosive-filled toys to target children.
The dolls were found in a car, each one containing a grenade or other explosive, said an army statement.
The government said that two men driving the car had been arrested in the western Baghdad district of Abu Ghraib.
“This is the same type of doll as that handed out on several occasions by US soldiers to children,” said government spokesperson Leith Kubba.
I don’t generally get around to WestHawk; this is from three weeks ago:
Yesterday the U.S. Department of Defense announced its troop rotation plan for Iraq for mid 2006. Only six Army brigades have been given warning orders for deployment to Iraq in mid 2006 (and only one of these six brigades is from the National Guard). In addition to these Army units, the Marine Corps will continue to support two regimental combat teams (equivalent to a brigade) in Iraq.
This winter and spring there will be 15-17 U.S. brigades in Iraq, including the 4-brigade strong 101st Airborne and 4th Infantry Divisions, 2 brigade-equivalents from the Marine Corps, and a variety of independent brigades (Stryker, armored cavalry regiment, etc.).
Thus, yesterday’s Defense Department announcement is a planned halving in U.S. maneuver units in Iraq between winter and summer.
Read the whole thing.
Hat Tip: Donald Sensing, who cites this as further proof that the Jackasses’ demands for Iraq drawdowns are nothing more than politics.
This from Mark Sappenfield at CSM:
BROOK PARK, OHIO – Cpl. Stan Mayer has seen the worst of war. In the leaves of his photo album, there are casual memorials to the cost of the Iraq conflict – candid portraits of friends who never came home and graphic pictures of how insurgent bombs have shredded steel and bone.
Yet the Iraq of Corporal Mayer’s memory is not solely a place of death and loss. It is also a place of hope. It is the hope of the town of Hit, which he saw transform from an insurgent stronghold to a place where kids played on Marine trucks. It is the hope of villagers who whispered where roadside bombs were hidden. But most of all, it is the hope he saw in a young Iraqi girl who loved pens and Oreo cookies.
Like many soldiers and marines returning from Iraq, Mayer looks at the bleak portrayal of the war at home with perplexity – if not annoyance. It is a perception gap that has put the military and media at odds, as troops complain that the media care only about death tolls, while the media counter that their job is to look at the broader picture, not through the soda straw of troops’ individual experiences.
Yet as perceptions about Iraq have neared a tipping point in Congress, some soldiers and marines worry that their own stories are being lost in the cacophony of terror and fear. They acknowledge that their experience is just that – one person’s experience in one corner of a war-torn country. Yet amid the terrible scenes of reckless hate and lives lost, many members of one of the hardest-hit units insist that they saw at least the spark of progress.
Of course, The Christian Science Monitor isn’t The New York Times. But it’s a start.
I’m confident that it won’t take much to overcome the liberal “quagmire” meme, as it is, and always has been, written on tissue paper. Further, the American people have never shied away from sacrificing blood and treasure in the name of liberty – so long as they can be assured that progress is being made. Indeed, had those 2,100 lives been lost on the initial push to Baghdad, we still would have reveled at how “easily” we had accomplished the initial mission. It’s been the daily trickle of death – with no reported signs of progress – which has demoralized the general public.
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
Uncle Jimbo over at Blackfive has a very good piece called Iraq Endgame – Let’s Win the Narrative.
Recommended reading…unless of course you’re one of them long-haired hippy type pinko fags with a commie flag in your garage…then it’s just going to piss you off.
I am currently watching C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. And they are interviewing a couple of wogs from The Daily Telegraph (Alec Russell, Washington Bureau Chief), and Al-Jazeera (Hafez Al-Mirazi, Host – From Washington). The subject is (of course) Iraq. And some viewer called with the question, “have either of you guys ever heard of Salman Pak?”
And these guys are like totally miffed – huffing and scoffing, and acting as though this were a term from outer space.
LMFAO!
Yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) came out with some language on withdrawal more reasonable than what we’ve heard from most of the Jackasses, prior to the vote on the “Murtha Resolution”:
“During the course of the next year, we need to focus our attention on how to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Iraq,” Obama said in a luncheon speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, a forum he had requested. “Notice that I say `reduce,’ and not `fully withdraw.'”
This is a good thing. Unfortunately, he followed it up with more language indicating that he really doesn’t have a clue:
“The administration has narrowed an entire debate about war into two camps: `cut-and-run’ or `stay the course,'” Obama said. “If you offer any criticism or even mention that we should take a second look at our strategy and change our approach, you are branded `cut-and-run.’ If you are ready to blindly trust the administration no matter what they do, you are willing to stay the course.”
If he had been listening to prominent members of the administration and the military, including Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Lt. Gen. John Vines, he’d know that they see our presence in Iraq beginning to come down within a three to six-month timeframe. Ah – some common ground!
The American people do deserve, and are increasingly insisting upon, some sort of forward visibility – a plan, if you will. But establishing time as a primary factor in that plan is foolhardy. It takes a very long time to create a fully functioning contemporary military – much longer than simply training and equipping ground combat units. It is likely that, barring a “cut-and-run” bill passing in Congress, we will have trainer/advisors, medical corps, air support units and the like, in Iraq for several more years. But the word is that Iraq has more than thirty battalions of ground troops which can function with only minor embedded coalition assistance.
What is needed is an objective oriented plan, which says, item-by-item, “once the Iraqi forces have such-and-such a level of capability, at such-and-such a function, then so many of these sorts of our units can come home” – with projections of when each objective is expected to be obtained. And, the funny thing is, I’m sure all this information exists within the administative/military hierarchy. However, knowing the way the military government works, it is likely voluminous, labyrinthine, and fragmented. Were the Administration to put together a team to accumulate all this management groundwork, then simplify and condense it down to a few pages, so the average citizen can grasp it. And then distribute it – along with the caveat that, like any good business plan, it is flexible, as conditions on the ground change, this whole controversy can be quelled.
This from Tom Shanker at the NYTimes:
But in interviews conducted by The New York Times in recent months with more than 200 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines stationed around the world, the sense emerged that the war had not broken the military – but that civilian leaders should not think for a moment that that could not happen.
[…]
While an overwhelming majority of those interviewed said their units had high morale and understood their mission, they expressed frustrations about long and repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those deployments present the most significant problem for these troops, who were interviewed during a military correspondent’s travels in the war zone and around the world.
Even among those who have done tours in Iraq, most soldiers who were interviewed said they were willing to wait and see, at least through another yearlong rotation, before passing judgment. The December vote on a new Iraqi government and efforts to train local security forces offer at least the prospect of reductions in the American force by next summer.
But few wanted to talk about what would happen if, come next year or especially the year beyond, the military commitment to Iraq remained undiminished.
A growing percentage of ground troops are in Iraq or Afghanistan for a second or third tour. The Third Infantry Division, which led the drive to Baghdad in 2003, returned to Iraq this year with 65 percent of its troops having served previous tours.
Many of those returning to the combat zone said the latest tours were different. Bases in Iraq and Afghanistan show the money spent on infrastructure and recreation facilities. The hot food, air-conditioning, Internet facilities and giant gymnasium offered at major bases bolster morale in ways that may not be wholly understood by someone who has not just come off a dusty, dangerous patrol.
[…]
One indicator that military morale remains strong is the numbers of those who re-enlist while deployed.
“Our retention numbers are so high that it’s almost bizarre,” Rear Adm. Pete Daly, commander of Carrier Strike Group 11, said aboard the Nimitz while under way in the Persian Gulf.
Perhaps it is because, as many service members said, decisions about whether to continue with the military life are made not on the basis of what Congress or the president says, but out of the bond of loyalty they have come to share with their comrades in arms.
That does not help the military much when it comes to attracting new recruits. Troublesome questions about the cause in Iraq may be felt more severely among would-be troops than among those already in the military.
Many in uniform say it is the job of the nation’s political leaders to communicate the importance of the mission and the need for national sacrifice to a new generation of soldiers.
And then we have moonbats like this, condemning us for building “permanent” facilities in Iraq – with the obligatory PNAC reference. (Scroll down for my response.)
This from The Age:
US forces have sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaeda members died in a gunfight – some by their own hand to avoid capture.
A US official said that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
[…]
American soldiers maintained control of the site, imposing extraordinary security measures, a day after a fierce gunbattle that broke out when Iraqi police and US soldiers surrounded a house after reports that al-Qaeda in Iraq members were inside.
Three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, according to the US military.
Update: White House spokesman Trent Duffy: “‘highly unlikely, not credible.”
After Rep. Jack Murtha’s (D-PA) explosive comment yesterday that we cut and run, exiting Iraq immediately and surrendering a la Francaise, the US House is this afternoon in the midst of really heated argument. The reason, is that Republicans, wishing to get on the public record just exactly how these folks feel about this, have scheduled a vote for this evening on the question: “Do we terminate the war immediately and recall our troops from Iraq without delay, or do we press on to victory?”
This is one day that I have found real enjoyment in watching C-Span. Republicans are pressing their case, and Democrats are squirming and squealing like the greased pig at the picnic. Of course, aside from Charlie Rangel and a few others who simply don’t care what the American public thinks, no one in his or her right mind wants the American public to know that they want us to surrender the war on terror. No way are these leftist cowards going to vote publicly to just give up and surrender to the islamofascists. This is going to be fun to watch as the evening comes on. I predict a rout in favor of continuing on to total victory.
UPDATE: At nearly midnight, voting in the House is imminent. I have heard many speeches, some bloviating, some with their chests poked out, promoting themselves. But there have been some who have spoken who should be listened to. For instance, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), who was a POW in Vietnam for seven years. When we left him in the Hanoi prison and left our comrades in Vietnam, he was horrified to think that his country had forgotten him and left him and the other POW’s to their fate, abandoned. What a sad chapter in our national history. I hope sincerely that we do not repeat this mistake again. Others who spoke and clearly do not support our troops nearly made me weep for their errors of judgement.
The vote is in progress now, clearly defeated, with something like 3 votes in favor of cutting and running. Those who so voted should be turned out of the house by their constituents, as they do not deserve the office they hold.
There certainly are some things that need to be changed in this war. First, the Pentagon needs to recognize that we need about 40% more troops in the region, a move that would certainly, I believe, shorten our need to be there. Second, we do need the Administration to be more forthcoming in what our plan for victory is. Someone needs to get the MSM to be more balanced in their reporting of what is going on over there, and I would throw out the suggestion that a very loud and strong boycott of the left-leaning, defeatist and one-sided media organizations may be effective. These are only a couple of suggestions intended to get the reader into the thinking mode, Perhaps some of our readers have more suggestions, better ones than I propose, and my intent here is to get you involved and to tell us what you think. Simply commenting to shoot this post in the foot is not productive, and personal attacks on anyone have no place here. Come on, folks. What do you think?
With no time left remaining on the vote, the totals right now are:
In favor of surrender, 3. In favor of staying to victory, 403. Members who did not vote numbered 22. No question where this is going, only three have put their career on the line by voting to cut and run, while the rest of the US House are telling us that they want to stay and finish the mission. Whether or not this is their real, heartfelt choice, we will see in the future what happens. Let’s see how the MSM spins this, and let’s add our voices to the House, in favor of victory.
And you’ll find the entire interview here.
I’m not 100% sure that we’re doing all the right things over there. If we’re just getting around to securing the Syrian Border and we still haven’t secured our own…we got issues. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve got a niece on the ground over there and I think it’s simply ridiculous that more of the good things that have happened simply do not make the news so it fits the entire doom and gloom scenario that the Dems are trying to sell us for upcoming elections.
No, things ain’t all rosy either, but from what I hear from people that have actually been there, it’s not as bad as the news makes it out to be.
A very well-written, and must-read, article at Tigerhawk:
Dissenters often (but not always) claim that they “support the troops.” Fairly or not, one often gets the impression that many of them do not really like soldiers and claim that they support them only as a political tactic, to avoid the backlash that followed the anti-war protests during Vietnam. Be that as it may, since our soldiers are fighting for the expressed purpose of preventing the enemy from achieving its victory conditions, it seems to me obvious that one cannot both advocate withdrawal and “support the troops,” at least in this superficial sense. “Supporting the troops” means nothing if it does not mean supporting their principal and motivating endeavor, which is to kill the enemy or otherwise deprive it of its capacity to fight. Advocates of early withdrawal do not “support the troops,” at least as long as most of the troops in question believe in their mission, which seems to be the case even today. Moreover, certain forms of dissent quite explicitly undermine the troops. For example, activists who seek to obstruct military recruitment raise the chances that any given soldier will have a longer tour in the Iraq theater. Preventing the replacement of a soldier is precisely the opposite of “supporting the troops”.
In any case, for a few people on the right the simple fact that anti-war dissent can help the enemy and undermine our soldiers is enough to destroy its legitimacy (it is actually very difficult to find examples of this point of view among influential serious people, but the left keeps claiming that the right says this, so let’s give the left the benefit of the doubt). They are wrong. The American system of government depends on open and public debate about policy. If some of that debate has the unintended consequence of giving hope to the enemy or demoralizing our soldiers, that is an acceptable price to pay. Our soldiers understand that the free society they defend exercises its freedom by arguing over the propriety and conduct of limited wars. They also understand that reasonable Americans can disagree about limited wars without being “unpatriotic,” even if their arguments inflict collateral damage on the war effort.
Read the whole thing
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
Thank you Mr. President for finally saying what needed to be said.
Baldilocks beat this drum two days ago once again proving that she’s erily tuned to Karl Rove’s brain.
Jeff Goldstein’s got a good take.
Bill Roggio interviews Colonel Stephen W. Davis, the Commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team – 2:
Bill: What is the current status of Operation Steel Curtain?
Col Davis: Husaybah has been cleared and secured. Coalition forces are now conducting combat patrols. Construction is underway for basing of Iraqi and U.S. troops to maintain a permanent presence in the city, and provide security. We had a real good plan, but the execution was even better. I am pleased with the results of Operation Steel Curtain.
Read the whole thing.
To: Major Media Orgs
From: Sgt Mom
Re: The Wonderful World of the Military
1. It looks like a number of otherwise reputable and professionally skeptical reporters and media outlets have been shown up… yet AGAIN as a bunch of gullible rubes, by a military veteran telling horrible stories of American-committed wartime atrocities. Well, at least, it was a real veteran this time, somewhat of an improvement as far as these things go. And this person was actually in the country, and in the neighborhood of the incidents which formed the initial inspiration of the atrocities to which he claimed to bear witness. But there were scads of other people there at the same time, none of whom seem to back up his soul-searing accounts of atrocities against Iraqi nationals.
2. This is an improvement, of a dubious sort, as far as telling improbable tales is concerned. In the immortal words of Pooh Bah, being at least verifiably in the right country, and at the right time can constitute “…corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”
3. However, it seems you have not properly assimilated the point of my previous memo, on the subject of military fantasists. Your loss more than mine, I daresay. (And you have obviously not taken to heart the saying about “that, which is too good to be true, probably isn’t.”)
4. To reiterate my main point from my earlier memo: The life military is lived, perforce, cheek by jowl with others. Very little happens in the military world that is not witnessed by others, supported by others, planned by others, reported upon afterwards by others. Practically every significant event to which a military unit is party, amounts to a public forum. Given a specific unit, a specific location, and a specific date, there should rightfully be clouds of other witnesses, to such astonishing and horrific events. That no one else in SSgt. Massey’s unit, or reporters and photographers present at the time, will back his accounts of events speaks volumes. That it took a year for a news story concluding that such substantiation is conspicuously lacking speaks a whole library of them.
5. It would seem that there are indeed two classes of news story in this sad and wicked world. One sort of story is gone over exhaustively, researched extensively, picked apart down to the sub-atomic level, and every participant grilled slowly over an open fire and basted with a skeptical sauce. The other sort is a delicate and precious pearl, gently handled and buffed with flannel, lest it’s luster be dimmed. Frankly, I’d leave the second sort to the celebrity pages, and have the first sort applied equally across the board. At least then, journalism would stand a chance in recovering a portion of the respect in which it was formerly held.
6. Finally I would also be wary of any informant who claims to be a veteran… but says that his DD214 is either classified, or that the military authorities faked it to cover up what he was really doing. Really people— in the news business, skepticism is a virtue when applied across the board.
Sincerely
Sgt Mom
This from Michael Totten’s blog:
It doesn’t look good. The situation here in this country isn’t precisely the rosiest I can imagine. Syria’s Bashar Assad did threaten to “burn Lebanon” if he was forced out. And he was forced out. But Lebanon hasn’t burned yet – not much anyway. A total of four people have been killed here since February. I for one don’t see why a massive terror campaign would start up after the U.N.’s report is released. I don’t see what Syria could possibly gain. Syria, on the contrary, could lose everything.
My sense is that bad memories and the usual Middle Eastern paranoia (which is understandable to an extent) is exagerrating most people’s dread of the worst case scenario. In April the fear on the street was that the Lebanese civil war would restart. It didn’t.
Even before the liberation of Iraq, I maintained that Syria would be the primary roadblock to stability. We see that this is true in Lebanon as well. Although I believe their capacity for mischief is being taxed by operations in Iraq. I think this is an issue that can only be addressed militarily.
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Ya gotta love this guy.
Burghardt was wounded.
But with two new young Marines in his ordnance disposal unit – and the insurgent attackers undoubtedly looking on – “I didn’t want them to see the team leader carried away on a stretcher,” he said.
So after the Nebraskans tended to wounds that reached from his boot tops to the small of his back, Burghardt rose to his feet and reached back with a one-finger salute for his attackers.
“I was angry,” Burghardt said.
…
As for Burghardt, he said he wanted to send a message to the insurgents who failed to kill him.
“I knew there was somebody disappointed out there.”
Via Ravenwood who got it from The Smallest Minority who got it from…my local newspapaer?
Mark Tapscott blogs an extended summary by Oklahoma City reporter Jayne Davis, of her book, The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing:
“I later learned that during this same time frame, Al-Hussaini was residing with two former Iraqi Gulf War veterans who provided food-catering services to the commercial airlines at the Boston airport. In the wake of the suicide hijackings of 2001, law enforcement speculated that food services workers might have planted box cutters aboard the doomed flights.
“Hussain Al-Hussaini’s uncanny foreknowledge of a possible dire event slated to take place at Boston Logan Airport, the point of origin for Al-Qaeda’s murderous rampage of 2001, just grazes the surface of the disturbing nexus I have uncovered between 4-19 and 9-11. Was the Oklahoma bombing the silver bullet that could have prevented Black Tuesday?
[…]
“The Oklahoma City bombing, if orchestrated by an Iraqi/Al-Qaeda hit squad, certainly provides a salient rationale for war. How many more Americans would have been marked for death had the United States military not invaded Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, a bloodthirsty broker of terror?
“The fallen heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom did not die in vain to end the proliferation of phantom weapons of mass destruction, but died to prevent another horrifying replay of April 19 and September 11.”
Read the whole thing.
Hat Tip: Our own APV
Over at The Mudville Gazette, Grayhawk gives a pictorial fisking to Daily Kos‘ protest march do’s and don’ts. The t-shirt one is particularly funny.
Pay attention, as well, to the sparse nature of the “crowd”. This “100,000 marched on Washington” is going to become another discredited, but immortal, left-wing meme (I just heard it again on Meet the Press). Honest accounts from the ground are putting the number at well less than 10,000.
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
Jeff Goldstein tears apart a highly biased AP story on the anti-war protests here. But the most telling item is this comment from his reader, Randolph Resor:
This is not only a biased article, it’s also a “fisking”. This was posted on the Washington Post’s Web site at 11 AM today (Saturday), although it’s datelined tomorrow (Sunday). The author has no idea how big the rally is, because she wrote the article before the event began.
This from Glenn Reynolds at InstaPundit:
SPINNING THE PROTESTS: I recommend that readers google the names of people mentioned in the press accounts of this weekend’s antiwar protests. I looked up Brian Becker, who’s mentioned in this Washington Post story by Petula Dvorak. To be fair, Dvorak at least mentions the ANSWER connection, but a quick Google search of Becker’s name finds that he’s been praising the “Iraqi resistance” and denigrating U.S. troops since the beginning. It would appear that he’s not so much “antiwar” as just on the other side.
Normally, I transfer the permalinks in my quotes. But this post has a wealth of them. Rather, I very much encourage you to read the whole thing, and follow the links.
Captain Ed blogs on the ties between the organizations planning anti-Iraq protests this weekend, far-left, and even communist organizations:
None of this comes as a shock to those who have followed this anti-war movement. The funding for the so-called grass-roots groups show remarkable complexity and opacity, but as John J. Tierney points out, most of them do receive at least some of their funding through the Tides Foundation and Soros’ Open Society Institute, the latter of which also indirectly funded John McCain’s Reform Institute as well. ANSWER has a long history of supporting repressive and brutal regimes such as Kim’s and Saddam’s, and have positioned themselves as neo-Stalinists as a result.
No, it is no surprise. ANSWER was the principal organizing force behind the circus-like pre-war protests.