Retreat Happens

I see the reliability of the Iraqi army is going to be the press focus for a while. An 80-man company retreated under fire recently. So of course the previous incident is mentioned a DISTURBING TREND is noticed:

The reports of the latest setback for the Iraqi army come after government officials acknowledged that during fighting last month against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra, more than 1,300 Iraqi soldiers and police deserted or refused to fight.

Latest "setback."

Seriously, don't take your military analysis from our media. They haven't a clue.

Retreats, desertions, surrenders, and defections--and even defeats--during battle are not uncommon. Rest assured, our enemies have suffered worse attrition this way.

Remember the Sons of Iraq? The Awakening? But with these defectors to our side our press tells us the situation is a disaster waiting to happen for us.

We retreat? Disaster for us. They retreat? Disaster for us.

It's almost like the reporters are writing wish-fulfillment pieces rather than news.

Signal Strength

I noted our carrier deployment (thanks to Mad Minerva) in the western Pacific recently that I figured was a precautionary move during Taiwan's elections in case China considered an attack on Taiwan. I didn't think it was routine deployments.

Well, that was the case and the earlier article missed one of the carriers we had out there:

The large display of naval firepower has gone largely unnoticed in the U.S. press, but state-run Chinese news media have called the carrier deployments saber rattling.

The Kitty Hawk strike group is deployed to waters northeast of Taiwan and the Nimitz strike group is in the region southeast of the island, according to defense officials. The Lincoln and its escort warships currently are near Singapore on the way to the Persian Gulf.

A Pacific Command spokesman had no comment, but noted that Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, addressed the Taiwan Strait tension during House Armed Services Committee testimony March 12.

Adm. Keating said he hoped the referendum would fail because "if it passes, China will likely take some significant umbrage at the passage and their response is unpredictable."

"We are prepared for various alternatives at the Pacific Command, military options," Adm. Keating said. "We have forces that are positioning in anticipation of potential activity. I do not foresee it happening, but the Chinese have made it clear to us that they view this referendum with some concern. Should it pass, their response is unpredictable and it could potentially include a military option."

The Lincoln battlegroup had been near Taiwan during the election, too, so we had three carrier battlegroups on station. We apparently didn't think that hosting the summer Olympics would necessarily stay China's hand when it comes to Taiwan.

This deployment demonstrates the increased threat that Chinese military modernization poses as my post linked above discusses. In 1996, we sent two carrier battlegroups to warn off the Chinese who were sending missiles rocketing over Taiwan to intimidate them.

That 1996 deplyment was considered a huge force compared to what we would usually have considered enough of a signal to Chinese air and naval units if they challenged us. Single battlegroups had been the norm for a signal.

This year, we felt we needed three carriers to pose as a credible signal to the Chinese of our will to resist them.

I'm sure it took some planning to put three carriers off Taiwan. And we knew the potential crisis was during a predictable time--the Taiwanese election. How will we get three carriers in position for a crisis China might unleash with no notice?

And how long before we need four carriers to be sure we could survive China's first shot and still hammer them? I guess I will be happier when our light carriers are ready for action with their F-35s to supplement our super carriers.

The Taiwanese need to take note of this trend and increase their forces to buy the increasing amount of time we will need to gather sufficient naval power to blast through the PLAN.

Heck, eventually, if we're serious about defending Taiwan in the face of increasing Chinese power, we will need to deploy air and ground forces on Taiwan itself. Say a fighter wing of F-16s and a Stryker Brigade so that China knows that they can't conquer Taiwan without fighting us.

You Never Know

I've long since given up on trying to connect the dots to anticipate a US strike on Iran's nuclear programs (which would look an awful lot like war). I've been wrong too many times over the last 4 years as I've read about what seemed like indicators for impending war. I gave up.

But there is this:

The United States has agreed to provide Israel with access to its BMEWS (ballistic missile early warning system). The half century old system uses radars and satellites to monitor the planet for ballistic missile launchers (specifically ICBMs, but any large missile launch is detected.) Twice before, in 1991 and 2003, the U.S. allowed Israel to plug into BMEWS (to get warning of Iraqi missile launches). This time around, BMEWS will give Israel warning about any Iranian ballistic missiles headed west.

When you consider that both 1991 and 2003 were years we attacked Iraq and that we worried about Iraq striking at Israel in retaliation to try and build that "let's all just join together and kill Jews" solidarity feeling, letting Israel plug into our missile-launch warning system in 2008 might mean something.

But it just might mean that the Iranians are so loopy that we never know when they'll simply strike first rather than strike back in response to our actions.

Or it might mean that Israel is getting ready to strike Iran.

Or it might mean we just want to put psychological pressure on Iran hoping they believe we are on the verge of attacking unless Tehran backs down over their nuclear programs.

It's hard to say.

Which is why I wonder if our accidental shipment of nuclear triggers to Taiwan was really an accident at all. With Chinese capabilities to invade Taiwan increasing, perhaps we want to install a little bit more uncertainty into Peking's calculations by planting the idea that maybe Taiwan has nukes after all.

It's probably just an error. Governments are more prone to that than clever plots that succeed.

But you never know. It usually only becomes obvious after the fact.

The Wisdom of the Masses Be Damned

I used to trust Wikipedia. With so many people editing, errors really will get weeded out, I figured. The wisdom of the masses would eventually provide a better product.

But some individuals have decided that the wisdom of the masses doesn't apply to their areas of interest:

As I'm writing this column for the Financial Post, I am simultaneously editing a page on Wikipedia. I am confident that just about everything I write for my column will be available for you to read. I am equally confident that you will be able to read just about nothing that I write for the page on Wikipedia.

And why is he confident his Wiki changes won't be read? Because a single person is constantly on the watch for global warming heresy on Wikipedia and immediately removes any sinful changes. And even though one of the author's changes involved confirming an error in the entry with the person wrongly cited as supporting the theme of the entry was not enough to placate the high priestess of that entry.

She repeatedly changes global warming entries to protect them from heretics. No improvement is possible for the delivered Wiki and no editing could possibly improve what is written in stone.

But it is understandable, really. Some people cling to climate change and socialism to explain their personal and professional failures. It's like they're bitter, or something.

And in their arrogance, these bitter guardians of pure thought undermine the very basis of Wikipedia. I've already noticed worries about some entries, and now I think I shall have to reconsider using this source at all.

How can I know if the wisdom of the masses or the arrogance of the individual has guided any particular Wiki entry?

Dead Just Like Che

President Uribe has no regrets for raiding the FARC camp in Ecuador last month or the deaths of Mexican students looking for their 4-credit revolutionary activity distribution requirements:

Uribe told Mexico's Televisa network that the students were seen in a video with the guerrillas, indicating they were in league with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"They were not doing humanitarian work. They were not hostages. So why were they there?" Uribe said. "They were there as accomplices of this activity. They were there as agents of terrorism."

President Uribe defended Colombia from enemies who killed his people. Damn straight he shouldn't apologize. And just because four idiot college students besotted by some Che Guevara fantasy paid for their stupidity with their lives should not change that assessment. Being enrolled in college is no magical shield for escaping the consequences of helping a terrorist drug-smuggling organization.

But hey, now they're just like Che--dead in some stinking jungle camp. You all get "A"s, you morons. Maybe American college students will put your faces on t-shirts. Woo hoo!

More Respect Abroad

Even as we still fight in Iraq with even more troops, the Europeans no longer think we are the biggest threat to stability in the world. Now China is seen as number one (tip to the Weekly Standard):

China has now overtaken the United States as the greatest perceived threat to global stability in the eyes of Europeans, according to the opinion poll commissioned by the Financial Times.

The poll, carried out by the Harris agency between March 27 and April 8 and published on Tuesday, found that 35 percent of respondents in the five largest EU states see China as a bigger threat to world stability than any other state. Last year, that figure was 19 percent, and in 2006 it was only 12 percent. In contrast, the US has slipped back into second place, with 29 percent of the respondents viewing it as the biggest threat, down from 32 percent in 2007.

Last year, the story was that our poor image was all Bush's fault and his war in Iraq.

This poll is really about Europeans and not threats to stability. When there is war, Europeans ill equipped to cope with war quake at whatever they see as causing the instability.

So last year Europeans saw our defense of Iraq as destabilizing when without us there fighting, our enemies might win and settle down the region into a sort-of stability. That settling down the region would mean jihadi despotism is irrelevant. Stability is what matters to Europeans regardless of why it is "stable" and doesn't require Europe to exert itself.

And now China is seen as threatening the peace with their Tibet crackdowns. Since we are not involved, we can't be blamed even in the homeland of nuance.

Next year, if we warn China to back off from oppressing Tibetans or suffer the consequences, we'd again be seen as upsetting the stability the Europeans crave so badly.

UPDATE: What really gets me is that the attitude of our Left on this topic. Their take (and their sympathetic media) on this issue is this:

If foreigners don't like us, it is because we've done something to cause that dislike. So we must change ourselves to remove the cause of dislike (or hate, for that matter).

If we don't like foreigners, it is because we are xenophobic and/or racist. So we must change ourselves to eliminate our horrible attitudes toward foreigners which is the cause of our dislike.

UPDATE: Actually, it is pretty amazing that our reputation is going up abroad considering how our Congress under the Nuanced Americans has been eye gouging our friends:

I've pointed out recently how House Democrats have threatened to block Canadian oil imports. The proverbial thumb-in-the-eye of Colombia has also been well-chronicled. Now comes news that House Democrats may soon get the chance to kill the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. That's because Korea has conceded on the one issue that is preventing the accord from coming up for a vote[.]

But it is so much simpler to believe President Bush is the source of our problems.

We've Noticed What is Coming Out

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Peking are supposed to be China's coming out party to celebrate their economic progress and new global status. That's the plan as far as the communist thug rulers in China are concerned.

And foreign disgust with Chinese actions from internal issues to their support of thug states is getting the Chinese upset:

Protests plaguing the global Olympic torch relay, along with mounting criticism of China's handling of domestic unrest by Tibetans, have embittered many Chinese. As foreign leaders discuss whether to boycott the Olympics' opening ceremonies on Aug. 8, Chinese Internet sites are replete with their own mounting calls for boycotts of foreign goods, souring the mood as the nation prepares to host its biggest international event ever.

A mood of angry nationalism has spurred government officials to lash out at foreign critics, trying to stay ahead of public resentment — even fury — that foreigners may spoil the Summer Olympics party with what some see as unwarranted criticism.

Several foreign journalists, including correspondents for USA Today and The Times of London, say they've received death threats.

Fascintating. So we're to celebrate their rise or else? Love and respect us or we'll kill you? That's China's message?

Hey, I'm actually a little jealous. We'd be hip deep in "why do they hate us" BS in similar circumstances. I'd like it if our people had a little more of the Chinese attitude toward foreign criticism. Of course, we're a free country and a force for good in the world while China is a communist party dictatorship and a friend of rogues around the globe. Yet we are defensive and they are offensive. Amazing.

But while it is at least understandable that the Chinese would want to insist we pay proper honor to the middle kingdom, why would our reporters go along with this nonsense?

This author says that it will be our fault if China becomes hostile:

If all politics is local, the Olympic torch relay should be a triumph for the Chinese government. After all, there is nothing more certain to get Chinese backs up than the kind of protests against the flame’s passage through London, Paris and San Francisco in recent days.

We can't point out they are run by evil SOBs or they will act like evil SOBs?

And this guy:

Nationalism is more often aroused by setbacks than success, so the Tibet problems and the possible threats to a triumphal Olympics are stirring it in China.

On the horizon is the possibility that these will combine with high inflation, stagnating exports and trade tensions with the United States to create a perfect nationalistic storm. ...

Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull.

So we have to ignore their outrages because it might anger them?

We just need to tell the truth about that horrible regime in Peking. If they can't handle it, that is their problem and not ours. And keeping silent won't make Peking one bit less horrible. Indeed, it would probably just encourage them to keep going the way they are.

We have no obligation to go along with the triumphal pageant that the cynical killers in Peking want to pull off to bolster their communist party dictatorship.

UPDATE: The Western surrender reflex is a wonder to behold:

Protests and confrontations along the torch route may even incite Chinese xenophobia and nationalism and result in decisions to retreat from its increased openness to and engagement with the West.

"Increased openness to and engagement with the West" is not what China is doing. They are making money selling to us and they are doing this in part by stealing from us by violating patents and copyrights and by using the Internet while filtering out anything they don't like with their Great Firewall. This is called exploiting us not being open or engaging us.

Two decades ago, Chinese people stood in Tiananmen Square to rally for liberty and freedom--and were gunned down in the thousands for their thoughts. I don't believe that the Chinese must be xenophobic and nationalistic. But if we refuse to recognize their government for the thug regime it is that stokes xenophobia and nationalism to maintain support, why would any Chinese people stand up again and risk the wrath of the ruthless men who run China?

Surging?

I still don't understand why observers keep saying the enemy in Afghanistan is resurgent.

And it isn't just that war critics have been saying this since about March 2003.

This article repeats the charge:

While America's attention remains focused on Iraq, violence is escalating in Afghanistan, worrying senior U.S. defense officials and commanders who're struggling to find some 7,000 more American and European troops to combat resurgent Taliban and al Qaida forces.

And what is happening?

There are indications that Islamic militants may have adopted a new strategy of avoiding U.S and NATO forces and staging attacks in provinces that haven't seen major unrest and on easy targets such as aid organizations and poorly trained Afghan police.

Hmm. Yes, attacks are up by the enemy so far this year. But after two spring offensives that left thousands of Taliban dead, the enemy this year has decided to avoid our troops and focus on civilian targets.

Maybe it's just me, but I see this as reacting to getting their asses kicked and not a sign of resurgence.

Target Rich

This article prompts three observations.

First, there is this:

In Sadr City, a police officer said those injured in gunbattles Tuesday included three women and three children. Sadr City is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It is also home to an estimated 2.5 million Shiites.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said sporadic shooting was still going on and it was too dangerous to venture out on the streets.

It's almost as if we have toddler- and women-homing missiles the way our press reports it. It is routine for Iraqis sympathetic to or afraid of our enemies to make these claims after we kill their fighters in action. Our press just passes along these claims with no effort to confirm them.

Second:

The New York Times reported that an 80-strong company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions Tuesday night in Sadr City, leaving a crucial stretch of road undefended for hours despite pleas by American soldiers in the area for them to stay. ...

Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman in Baghdad, called it "a snapshot of one area where U.S. soldiers are in close support of their Iraqi counterparts" and stressed that it is a new army and Iraqi soldiers and national police are taking casualties daily in fighting in other areas.

"This is one company-sized unit, part of a recently formed Iraqi army battalion," Stover said, adding that 65 other Iraqi battalions were operating in Baghdad with "varying degrees of experience and capability."

This failure of a company and the recent failure of the army battalion in Basra from the new 14th division seems to indicate a real problem in the Iraqi military. Oh, not the defections and failures to fight. That's all a part of war. Thirty thousand Iraqi troops broke and ran in 1982 when they tried to defend Khorramshahr from an Iranian counter-offensive. Let's not even speak of how the Iraqi army reacted in 1991 or 2003.

What is notable is what can be inferred from the fact that these new units were thrust into combat even though there are plenty of Iraqi units more seasoned who could have carried out the missions. This seems to show an inability to shift units either because of command inability or logistics failings. Instead of putting new units in quieter areas and using those existing units in Basra or Sadr City where the Iraqis were moving into new territory, the Iraqis just put the newly formed units into the new areas of operation.

Finally:

The ferocity of the Shiite militia response to the government crackdown has surprised Iraqi security forces — which are dominated by Shiites — raising doubts about whether the Iraqis could handle an all-out war without U.S. help.

Well, duh. First of all, the Sadr militias are more formidable because Iran supports them and sends their own people in to lead some of them and fight with them. Yet that still hasn't prevented the Iraqis from defeating them.

Second, obviously the Iraqis can't handle an all-out war without our help. That's been the plan all along. By putting Iraqi infantry into battle we allow them to take over from our troops in many areas. We focused on creating frontline Iraqi infantry and police units--which we have done--while we supply the naval power, air power, and combat support and combat service support for the Iraqi line infantry units even as we train Iraqis to take over these more difficult technical roles. It is not a sign of failure for the Iraqis that we do jobs they are not yet equipped to do.

A target-rich article, to be sure, with the only useful bit of information one I had to deduce from the reporting.

Let the Trials Begin

Called as Seen notes the odd way our Left wants to heal the rifts of our political scene by noting this article about how some on the Left would seek to prosecute the Bush administration for waging war on our enemies.

Hutchison has a great point, but I have a different issue related to the picture illustrating the article. (And I made this comment for the most part in his post.)

I don't think we should--except under very extreme circumstances--torture.

That said, I think that the question of what is torture and what is harsh interrogation is a valid debate.

But if waterboarding is torture as the Left insists it is, why are the Lefties in the photo illustrating the article carrying out their waterboarding demonstration?

Why aren't they being arrested and tried for human rights violations?

I mean, death penalty opponents don't fry one of their members every time they hold a demonstration. And landmine opponents don't detonate them in crowded streets to show how bad they are for innocents. Nor do PETA members slaughter a cow or eat a burger to show how awful meat is.

So why would torture protesters do what they consider torture to one of their own?

It seems to me our Left is routinely waterboarding while our government has used it rarely. Or maybe it really isn't torture. Unpleasant, of course. But waterboarding is not obviously torture under the circumstances.

Just. One. JDAM. That's All I Ask

I guess Afghansitan isn't the good war as far as Ahmadinejad is concerned and he doesn't harbor that much gratitude for the so-called favors we did for Iran by knocking out the Taliban and Saddam:

"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.

Under this pretext, the U.S. "attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then a million people have been killed only in Iraq," Ahmadinejad said in the speech broadcast live on state-run television.

When Ahmadinejad dies, I hope we carry out the deed and he doesn't die peacefully in his bed of natural causes; and I hope that nutball knows it in his last moments alive.

And no, I'm not ashamed to wish this at all.

They Still Don't Get It

I don't understand why our Left insists invading Iraq was a mistake, arguing that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The president never made that connection. And that was never the reason for war with Iraq.

Invading Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban was about retaliating for 9/11. We did that successfully before 2001 was over. And remember that elements of our Left opposed that invasion, too. They wanted ceasefires and international tribunals--anything but military action to defend ourselves.

The Iraq War was all about preventing the next 9/11. The president's state of the union address in January 2002 made this goal clear:

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. (Applause.) And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. (Applause.)

Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch -- yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch.

We can't stop short. If we stop now -- leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked -- our sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom's fight. (Applause.)

We are working with allies to contain North Korea and keep them from exporting nuclear technology and reverse their nuclear programs; working with allies to halt Iranian weapons projects using sanctions while working on missile defense; and we have ended the regime of Saddam Hussein whose hatred for us, support for terrorism, desire for nuclear weapons, and resources made him a prime threat to enable a future 9/11 against us.

The idea that it was a mistake to invade Iraq and take out this threat just because al Qaeda invaded a free Iraq after the fall of Saddam is ridiculous. Why would al Qaeda have invaded Saddam's Iraq which was a friend that hosted jihadis and that even offered a safe haven for some of their terrorists in northern Iraq after we destroyed their Taliban host? Was it therefore a mistake to destroy the Taliban regime since that caused bin Laden to look for a new place to call home and to start his caliphate in Iraq?

Going further back, we defeated the Soviet Union, in part, by stressing their system with the cost of fighting in Afghanistan through support of resistance fighters. Would it have been better to keep the Soviet Union around than to have the problem of the Taliban after we defeated Moscow?

We defeated the Taliban which led al Qaeda to flee Afghanistan and--after we turned Iraq from a friend of al Qaeda to an enemy--invade Iraq. Would it have been better to leave Iraq intact under Saddam who would continue to support terrorism, pursue WMD, and threaten the Gulf states? When you consider that by fighting and beating al Qaeda in Iraq we've broken the spell bin Laden had over the Arab and Moslem street, how would we have accomplished this with special forces and aircraft launching occasional strikes against targets in Pakistan?

And would it really be better to give up now when we are inflicting a global defeat on al Qaeda by smashing them in Iraq and exposing their nature to the Arab world? Would it really be better to let Iran use Iraq as a playground for their own killers?

War is not neat and clean. Which is why it should not be started lightly. But we have achieved much over the last several decades in defeating threats to our nation. And we have freed hundreds of millions from tyranny to give them a chance at freedom. Some are taking the opportunity (Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, for example) while others are throwing it away (Russia, for example).

Once the Taliban were defeated, the war switched from being about 9/11 to being about stopping the next 9/11. That's why it will be a Long War that will not be completed on President Bush's watch.

And the repercussions of halting before victory should be too horrible to contemplate.

UPDATE: And if we halt the Long War, retreating to a law enforcement approach sprinkled with cruise missiles and magical strike forces, this assessment offered to Congress that Washington, D.C. will be nuked may likely be true:

"It's inevitable," said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, who has charted the potential explosion's effect in the District and testified before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "I think it's wistful to think that it won't happen by 20 years."

This scenario is only inevitable if we don't fight.

The Slow Counter Offensive

In the Left's mind, revolution consists of going to a rally, spouting some inane chants, and waving giant puppets. After the bongs are empty, the world then changes for the better, and you wake up bleary but in a better world. Such is revolution in Self-Centered World.

In the real world, revolutionary change takes far longer to develop, and the Arab Spring discussed in 2005 (really, a Moslem spring) is starting to tentatively bud:

The famed and failed Arab Spring of 2005 was, I think, only delayed—and is due to arrive right about now. There are several recent indications that what many thought was happening in the spring of 2005 is occurring in 2008, but in a slightly different form. In fact, with sharia being rejected in Iraq and embraced in, say, London, it seems the “Arab spring” may work out just fine; it’s the Western fall that we have to worry about.

Sparked by our fight against jihadis in Iraq, the slow revolution against Islamo-fascism versust plain old fascism as governing models in the Arab world is continuing despite the horrible toll that the Iraq War is supposedly inflicting on our relations with the Moslem world. I think that it is premature to say the spring is about to arrive. But the old debate is definitely unfrozen. We need to nurture what grows on the land we've plowed.

The Long War is about more than killing terrorists. And strangling the ideology that spawns and supports Islamist terrorism is the longest job of all. And make no mistake, a strategy of cruise missile attacks every few years only perpetuates the problem. We have to change the terms of the debate by giving Arabs the option of freedom if they will fight for it. And if they will fight for it they must know we will help.

How our Left can be so against the promotion of democracy in Iraq and the Arab world is beyond me. I think Arabs are capable of appreciating and wanting democracy rather than enduring and deserving the thug rulers or mullah rulers that are their current choices.

Yet I'm the knuckle dragger? How is our Left "progressive," again?

Reclaiming Our Honor

Even aside from defending our national interests in Iraq, fighting there now will help erase the stain of past betrayals in Iraq. Will the Shias trust us again if we bug out now?

If we betray them a second time, don’t expect a third welcome. They already mistrust our honor after the 1991 bug-out that left them in the hands of Saddam Hussein. And it won’t just be the Iraqis who watch whether we keep our word; the Afghanis, the Saudis, the Jordanians all will take note of another retreat — and they will make their deals with radical Islamist terrorists accordingly.

We also abandoned the Kurds in 1975 in one of those Realpolitik deals that gave Iran a better border deal with Iraq. Will the Kurds think we won't turn on them again if they see us abandon the Shias a second time?

Will anybody trust us as an ally for the next generation? Will any enemy fear us?

Yet another price we pay for that dissent the anti-war side engages in so enthusiastically.

It's almost as if our Left is pursuing exactly what they want to achieve.

We Effed Up. We Trusted Him

We once elected this man as our president:

At a reception in the West Bank town of Ramallah organized by Carter's office, the former president hugged Nasser Shaer, a senior Hamas politician, meeting participants said. Embraces between men are a common custom in Arab culture.

I'd say that customary embrace between two men is at least one man short.

One could weep in frustration at President Carter's actions. When I wonder how low he can stoop, he lowers the bar again.

And I cannot trust the judgment of anyone who admires that man.

UPDATE: Carter lowered the bar:

Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.

"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.

The Israelis are supposed to just accept the near-daily rocket attacks on their towns and cities without responding. Carter doesn't mention that the "starving" Palestinians don't seem too hungry to terrorize Israelis.

But rocketin' Jews is just good ol' boys having fun. Not like those crimes the Jews commit of refusing to feed and light the people trying to kill them.

This man was once our president.

Draining the Swamp

The Iraqi campaign against Sadr and the Iranian-supplied militias in southern Iraq continues in many forms:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has given instructions to ban the interference or presence of any unofficial people at state-run and private gas stations, refineries and oil distribution centers, according to a government statement.

"Anyone who interferes in the supply, pricing and working hours mechanisms or who charges money will be subjected to law," the statement said.

It is widely believed that gas stations and distribution centers, especially in eastern Baghdad and some Iraqi southern provinces, are covertly controlled by Shiite militiamen dominated by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

And the citizens of Basra don't seem upset that government troops are pressuring the Sadr thugs:

The fierce fighting which marked the first week of Operation Sawlat al-Fursan (Charge of the Knights) has given way to slower, more focused house-by-house searches by Iraqi troops, which led on Monday to the freeing of an abducted British journalist.

Residents say the streets have been cleared of gunmen, markets have reopened, basic services have been resumed and a measure of normality has returned to the oil-rich city.

The port of Umm Qasr is in the hands of the Iraqi forces who wrested control of the facility from Shiite militiamen, and according to the British military it is operational once again.

This is a long campaign. But it continues to put pressure on Sadr and the Persian goons who stand side-by-side.

It's Not Me, It's You

Ah yes, the spectacle of seeing how our Left really views average Americans is both revolting and refreshing. Perhaps it explains their, ah, aversion, to victory in war.

Comments here by Lileks:

What annoyed me about the Obama comments was the crude reduction of everything into economic terms, the most dismal prism through which to regard humanity. So the factories close, and the sullen mass of the lowly workers ball their fists, feel a strange sour bolus of resentment bolting up their throat, and think: must – channel – confusing - emotions- into – unreasoning – opposition – to – redefining – marriage. If the factories magically reappear, does everyone sigh with relief, quit church and drop off their guns? I have money! No need for the Magic Carpenter and that poorly-worded amendment. Call off the border patrol, too – there’ll be jobs and upward wage pressure for everyone. It’s not exactly an unusual thesis; I’ve encountered it for years. People cannot possibly believe these crazy things for their own sake; they must be driven to them by external forces.

Believing in nothing, our Left can't believe others might believe in something, apparently. It is a thoroughly Marxist way of looking at things--you must believe in that which gives you another dollar in your pocket and you must believe our socialist policies will give you that buck. Right and wrong have no place in this materialistic way of looking at life.

More analysis here. The logical conclusion of someone with such a view of Americans:

First, the consent of the governed, when their behavior is governed by their false consciousnesses, is unimportant. Second, the public requires the supervision of a progressive elite which, somehow emancipated from false consciousness, can engineer true consciousness. Third, because consciousness is a reflection of social conditions, true consciousness is engineered by progressive social reforms. Fourth, because people in the grip of false consciousness cannot be expected to demand or even consent to such reforms, those reforms usually must be imposed, for example, by judicial fiats.

And of course, my essay on Stupid Americans (these are my people, I proudly say). Do click through to the essay by Orson Scott Card.

When you don't respect the country you live in or think very much of your countrymen, I suppose it should be no surprise that you don't think defending your country is important--or that those who defend it are worthy of respect.

UPDATE: I'd like to clarify that I hardly think that snobbery toward those not in the top 5% income bracket is a unique trait of the left side of the aisle. I've certainly seen conservatives who seem disgusted with many aspects of our culture and seem to take that as an excuse to despise much of American society. And there are clearly those on the right who don't think anything is worth fighting for.

Yet our left seems to harbor such views both individually and together in far greater numbers. Certainly, our media supports the Left in such views and marginalizes the Right, so the impact of the latter is miniscule. And the urge to govern the ignorant masses for their own good seems to reside mostly on the Left. And this latter point is what really irks me about the attitude revealed by both the comments and the varioius defenses of the comment. You are free to look down on whoever you want. Just don't try to tell them that you are really out to protect them from themselves.

And don't pretend to love your country when you only do when it agrees with you or does what you like to do. That isn't love of country--that's love of self.

The Middle Army

This long-term training program by the People's Liberation Army worries me more than any technological advance the PLA displays:

The Chinese have been replacing a lot of officers with NCOs, now that they have more senior, and seasoned, NCOs as well. The NCO schools currently turns out 50,000 graduates a year. Most of these are junior sergeants (the first two, of six, NCO ranks). For the first four grades, you have to serve 3-4 years in a rank before getting promoted. For the highest two ranks, it's 5-9 years. In peacetime, your most senior Chinese NCOs (Sergeant Major in Western parlance) will be guys in their 40s or 50s, with over a quarter century of military experience. In about 20 years, China will have tens of thousands of these Sergeant Majors. These are the NCOs who get things done, in peace or war. Without them, you just have lot of poorly led men with guns. With those trained and experienced NCOs, you have a force that can match anything in the West.

After the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the Chinese began a program of education this middle rank of sergeants to match what they correctly determined was a key strength of our miltiary.

I can hope that there are cultural problems with maintaining this approach long term. Perhaps a totalitarian state cannot really replicate our NCO corps that has hundreds of years of tradition behind it.

But if China can pull this off, they will have laid the foundation to fight us on even terms. Should it come to a fight, of course. That too remains to be seen.

Winning

One of the strange problems of fighting the war in Iraq is that opponents of the war interpret any increase in violence as a sign of our defeat. So when we smash up enemy forces, that upsurge in "violence" is viewed as a sign of defeat.

The Weekly Standard recounts progress in Iraq and notes that the anti-war side doesn't talk about "benchmarks" much anymore:

So we have significant progress within the Iraqi government. We have significant grassroots political development. We have Sunni and Shia Arabs fighting together against both Sunni and Shia enemies that they now see as common foes. We have the central government distributing its funds both to Sunni and to Shia areas. Despite the supposed flaws in the de-Baathification reform law, excellent Sunni commanders who could theoretically have been purged remain in key positions in the Iraqi military and police forces. The only groups that remain outside of the political process are al Qaeda, the Baathist insurgents, and the Iranian-backed Special Groups. If this isn't dramatic progress toward reconciliation, what would such progress look like? One congressman last week had the gall to complain about Iraq's "intransigent political leaders." The more intransigent political class is here in Washington.

Our "reality-based" community in action.

Respect Abroad

I know, I know. President Bush has spoiled our foreign relations and only a different nuanced president can appeal to Europeans again.

So:

Conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi reclaimed power in key U.S. ally Italy on Monday after clinching decisive victories in both houses of parliament.

Clearly, the cleansing power of anticipating a new American president has had an early effect. Or something like that, I'm sure.

UPDATE: Hey, and the communists are out of parliament, too.