Failure Is Not An Option

'The Crucifixion (detail)' by Matthias Grünewald ca. 1515, Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar

 

"Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life." President Bush, Wednesday, January 10 2007.

Can you say it anymore clearly than that? No, of course you can't. But who is listening?

Nobody!

To those, who realize the need for us to remain in Iraq in order to push back at the Islamofascists, the President is preaching to the already converted. And according to the ostriches among us, he merely continues with his 'fear/war-mongering' and 'sable-rattling' so as to divert attention away from the no longer so secret agenda of turning the United States of America into a fascist dictatorship, or, depending on whether our ostrich got up on the wrong side of the bed, into a evangelical theocracy.

So, no mileage there. Period.

And period again. That's the problem. No matter the eloquence, no matter how persuasive the logic and arguments, the opposition has long abandoned any interest in reason. Were it not so, the safety of unconditional hatred would have to be abandoned, which is of course much too inconvenient, for it is tantamount to popping out the pacifier from a baby's mouth.

The alternative?

As always, leading by example. Back in November I quoted Thomas Barnett admonishing the entire administration for their lack of imagination and flexibility and calling for the creation of a new organization which is able to fulfil our promise most ordinary Iraqis have been hoping and waiting for: freedom from oppression and dictatorship.

Yesterday, the President took Professor Barnett's advice:

We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas – where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.

Which makes it all the more important to properly understand Tom Barnett's vision, so don't miss part-1 and part-2 of the upcoming ten-part series of interviews specifically aimed at explaining it all to us on Hugh Hewitt's show.

We can whip traditionally echelon arrayed opponents, conventional militaries. But then we come under the gun in the insurgency. So again, we’ve got a first half team in a league that insists on keeping score until the end of the game, and our enemies are smart enough to know I’m not going to fight the first half team, that tremendous war fighting force. I’m going to wait until the Americans go into peacekeeping mode, and then I’m going to kill two or three a day, and that’s how I’m going to drive them out. [...]

We lived in kind of hedgehog times in the Cold War, you know, the hedgehog knows one big thing, the fox knows many things. Well, knowing one big thing in the Cold War was enough. You know, containment, mutual assured destruction, let the Soviets size our forces. We discovered on 9/11 we’re not living in a hedgehog world anymore. You’ve got to deal with multiple players, multiple types of players, multiple regions, you know, all sorts of dynamics involving economics and other things. It is a complex world. It requires complex explanations. But I believe it’s essential that we raise a generation of not only informed citizens, but frankly a generation in the national security community of real strategists, real grand strategists, people who think about war within the context of everything else, not just war within the context of war, but within everything else we call globalization, because we’ve outsourced the job of grand strategies to journalists, and op-ed columnists, and that’s just not doing the job.

The left has long failed to set the political course by clearly stating and subsequently adhering to conviction and instead outsourced not only 'grand strategies' to the MSM, but their entire leadership, which is why the Democrats can't make up their mind. If you define your political messages only after polling exhaustively, you'll never lead decisively. Jonah Goldberg elaborates:

Americans are torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war. Some want the war to be a success — variously defined — and some want the war to be over. Conservatives are basically, but not exclusively, in the "success" camp. Liberals (and those further to the left) are basically, but not exclusively, the "over" party. And many people are suffering profound cognitive dissonance by trying to believe these two positions can be held simultaneously. The motives driving these various positions range from the purely patriotic to the coldly realistic to the cravenly political or psychological perfervid. Parsing motives is exhausting and pointless, but one fact remains: "End it now" and "win it eventually" cannot be reconciled. [...]

With last night's speech, President Bush made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than winning it. He may be deluding himself, and his plan may not work, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of saying what his position is, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public. What is maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of "end it" or "win it."

Bush came up with the "surge" plan. Will it work? Nobody knows. But the one thing the American people know about George W. Bush is that he wants to win the war. What the Democrats believe is anybody's guess.

And judging by this morning's raid on the Iranian consulate in Irbil (Northern Iraq), the President is clearly sending a powerful message to both Iran and Syria, backing up his promise to lift restrictions on our troops with immediate actions on the ground; the only language the murdering thugs understand and respect.

2007 will surely be a decisive year, and my friend Michelle Malkin of all people knows that. One helluva brave lady. Stay safe my friend.

Comments

[Alexandra]

Umh Sean hon,

Sometimes I feel like spelling it the German way with an 'h', and sometimes I don't, but then again...hon, your problem with me is not my spelling of a word is it...umh...hon?

[karen]

Hey, Sean?

The modifier IS 'fascist'- regardless of how it's spelled. Broadbrushed? Right.

[Sean Daily]

Um... hon... it's "fascist". Not "faschist". If you're going to broadbrush an entire people and religion, please AT LEAST run it through a spellchecker first.

[Alexandra]

Rene,

I'll remember to put that pearl of wisdom in when I write my next Daily Kos diary. The title - 'The Democratic Wet Dream'.

[Rene ala Carte]

Where is it that you mention that the "opposition" includes 70% of the American people?

I missed that.

[Ghost Dansing]

All the conditions both of you allude to were either created or exacerbated by the strategic blunder the Republicans made in the first place... choosing Iraq as the second "objective" in the war on terror after Afghanistan (actually before Afghanistan was brought to a useful conclusion).

Dubya denied sanctuary to al qaeda (the 9/11 culprits)in Afghanistan by defeating the Taliban an routing the terrorists across borders, and then he handed them a sanctuary in Iraq by destabilizing Iraq, and quite possibly the entire region.

The damage is already done. The real question is whether sanctuary can now be denied in Iraq by military means... professional military and diplomats, and even the Maliki government say "no".

The Republican track record on this and other things has been quite dismal. There expertise is in political manipulation, not providing real security to the American People...

The "Fight now or later" idea is a red herring... we are in a fight whether we like it or not. Iraq has become a great place to bleed America. So far, that is the only thing its become... certainly not the ideal battleground from which to prevail.

Terrorists by definition are not going to fight us nose-to-nose. They are not even doing that in Iraq... our troops are mainly getting nailed by roadside bombs, not massive force-on-force engagements. If you think Saladin's army is going to mass in Iraq to fight the Americans in a tank war in the desert... think again.

Bromides like "I choose Freedom" etc... and nice rhetoric... like saying "I like apple pie"... it doesn't win wars or struggles, and the problem Dubya's loyalists are having is that his (Republican) incompetence has become increasingly undeniable.

[Alex]

We don't have to rehash the President's mistakes to know that he has failed miserably in guiding our country and the free world (which he hopes will one day include Iraq-- a noble dream being overrun by the reality of the nightmare which is Iraq 2007). But to Ghost Dancing and other opponents of Bush's proposed troop surge, what alternative do we have?

GD, you have claimed that withdrawal is the alternative because it frees our troops and our pockets from outstanding commitments to Iraq and, (as you'd have it) the failed state that it is. You suggest that, in redeploying, we are better equipped to face the terrorist threat (the 'threat' is not Bush's fascination-- it's real) because we can improve our image abroad and mobilize more troops to face other emerging threats, which some might contend includes Iran.

But perhaps-- actually, surely-- you are missing the point. We are not facing off against the common Muslim living in Jordan who carries on his life like the rest of us, which presumably means he avoids the suicide belt or bin Laden's propoganda. Nor are we living in an age when running from the enemy behind the banner of 'Peace Now! Fight Later?' will do us any good. The truth is 'Fight Later' will come. This is an enemy which seeks to destroy our way of life; this war is a clash between fundamentalist Islam and All Things Beautiful -- the successes of the West and its dominance over the world domain. It is naive to think that once we leave Iraq, let alone it's backyard, this enemy will stop on the edge of the river; indeed it will mount its horse and follow us. Here's a rude awakening: 9/11 happened on our homeland, in between our borders. And here's something else that might cause a stir-up: we're trying to fight back.

So I guess here is the question (unbiased) that has to be answered, and the government's response to it will determine the future of our country: Strategically speaking, is it more beneficial to U.S. interests to leave Iraq in the hope that we can regather strength and fight under a new focus (which will include a stronger response to Iran and nuclear proliferation and an attempted improvement of our image abroad), or is it more beneficial to stay in Iraq because it has become a major battlefield in the war on terror (al-Qaida among other Islamic terrorist groups have claimed a presence there)?

Fight now or fight later? There is one answer to this question, though. Fight now. Because if we don't, the anti-war proponent's attempts to downplay the threat of the enemy and the course of isolationism which this country is slowly heading towards, will demand by necessity the question of 'Fight Never,' and the American will wonder, "What ever happened to 'fight later?'" Are we going to preserve our existence, or cripple it?

[karen]

:0)- i'd like to think meself as not quite so shallow or brainwashed.

... "One could no longer merely be in the Republican Party without being of the Republican Party. The religious right, as defined within the context of the Republican Party, required that an alternative version of American history be devised to support its theology. This is known as historical revisionism."

We'll see exactly where- in the next 10-15-30 yrs what will be historically said. Revisionism? heh.

Ideologically, i'd rather be on the side of W then forced prostrate East(man, it's East, no?) five x/day. that's the reality we face. It's theology all wound up in mj straight jacket restraint- or Freedom.

I choose Freedom, GDansing. That's what Afghanistan and Iraq are all about. As much America's- as theirs.

[Ghost Dansing]

Karen,

I would simply say you are giving Dubya far too much credit. He and the Republican Party are totally unworthy of your loyalty.

Link

[karen]

If we had left ~well enough alone~, what do you suppose the face of the US would look like today? Do you think we would ever have had to counter Terrorism in the ME- or would we have saved said face by turning a blind eye?

Anyone?

Regardless of how crappy a job our ~incurious~ George has done(pressumably)- would this job have been done better in 2008? Or 2014, etc? We didn't have the foresight(IMhumbleO) to fight such a battle, but oh- how we can rail in hindsight.

I'm still championing W- i still appreciate his ability to throw punches that have effectively captured more top aides in AlQ and even from Iran(in Iraq while on vacation or sabbatical or something, eh?)- while sporting black eyes from the shame and the criticism of (some of) his own people in the very Country he is doggedly trying to protect and i say: "God bless him."

[Gosa Round]

Whatever "true blue" (or bloody red) heart beats in GWBush's chest, he's as mired as well we all are in, "Iraq", "Anti-Islamism", or "Perpetual War", whatever you call it. The fact that there is no "success" in ideological wars seems lost in the croesian battle for more lucre. "Stay the course" means keeping the burn-rate at $8.5B a month, straight into some titan's pocket, and coming out of all of ours. "Stay the course" means keeping oil above $55, a 400% profit for House of Saud, by their own admission, (Prince Bandar), into their royal vaults, and coming out of all of our pockets. At the end of the day, historians will look back and say how wonderful the 1990's were for America, with cheap Iraqi oil flooding the market, and Saddam firmly holding on to the levers of factionalism. Now, one hand full of s--t, and one of dreams, wishing, what's your dream? Wipe Islam off the face of the earth? Pump every drop of oil dry? Then what? Taxpayer-built, privately-held, subsidized-centralized nuclear power? Jail-cell populism? Eating our children?
Where do you think 21,500 "additional" troops are coming from? Mandatory re-ups!
Four tours of duty! Americans? Forced to cut back on trips to the shopping mall. GWBush's very first words after 9/11? "Whatever you do, don't stop shopping...."

[Ghost Dansing]

From recent statements by Dubya and the Republican administration mouthpieces is obvious this Republican administration has lowered its expectations for the outcome in Iraq. The worst-case scenario is the 21,000 troop surge produces little or no impact on the security situation in Baghdad... reinforcing the critical mass of public opinion, and the preponderance of professional opinion, that Iraq is a misconceived, misguided, misled adventure from which we should cut our losses and realign assets to properly prosecute the war on terror... probably starting with the issue of resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

The best that could happen is the "surge" strategy produces a sufficient temporary suppression of violence in the Iraqi capital such that Dubya can claim that he has achieved a secure environment from which the new Iraqi government, police and military can grow... reinforcing the idea (and the truth) that whatever kind of "peace" is achieved in Iraq will be an Iraqi peace. This gives breathing room between now and the 2008 election to begin a disengagement of the American military under the illusion of "success", probably 6-8 months before the election... and the ability to more firmly blame the Iraqis themselves for any perceived "failure". A disengagement will happen, because we are only talking about the prospect of a possible temporary reprieve in Baghdad... American forces cannot sustain higher troop concentrations indefinitely and the issues with the nature of the Iraqi government, Iraqi Forces, militias and insurgents are numerous. Right now we are looking at best at a weak, Shia-dominated, Iran-leaning central government presiding over 2-3 ethnically divided mini-states with their own militias and independent sets of concerns, independent official and unofficial international ties with political issues, money and guns to fuel fighting for decades.

That the condtion to which Dubya's Republican "grand plans" for Iraq have been reduced. Dubya is happy with that, as long as he can save face on the way out the door.

According to MSM accounts, the new mulitnational force commander, Petraeus succeeded in achieving such temporary effects in the Iraqi city of Mosul to the North, a couple years ago. The pattern followed that trouble ensued again after the American troops withdrew. That a similar achievment can be had in Baghdad, and at what cost, depends much on whether the enemy combatants stand and fight, or disappear to safer areas until the American presence subsides.

...That prospect raises the specter of repeating what has happened on several other occasions in Baghdad: Americans clearing neighborhoods house-by-house, only for insurgents and militiamen to reappear when Iraqi security forces take over from the Americans and prove incapable of holding the ground, or compliant with the marauding gunmen. That was the pattern with Operation Together Forward, the last effort to secure Baghdad, which began with an additional 7,000 American troops over the summer, and effectively abandoned within two months when Iraqi troops failed to hold areas the Americans handed over to them.

Another concern is that the target of the new Baghdad plan — Sunni and Shiite extremists — may replicate the pattern American troops have seen before when they have embarked on major offensives — of “melting away” only to return later. Some officers report scattered indications that some Shiite militiamen may already be heading for safer havens in southern Iraq, calculating that they can wait the new offensive out before returning to the capital.

“This is an enemy that will trade space for time,” one officer said.

Shiite neighborhoods present special challenges. Tightly woven networks of militias backed by the government, the areas have been largely off-limits to American forces. An early test will be Sadr City, the largest Shiite enclave in the capital, and the main stronghold for the Mahdi Army militia, led by the renegade cleric, Moktada al-Sadr. American officers say it is far from clear that the Maliki government will permit American troops to operate freely in the enclave.

The number of Americans to be based at the new joint security centers is another matter under debate. At a minimum, according to officers involved in the planning, there will be an American platoon, about 30 to 40 troops, working from each new center, with another platoon patrolling nearby, serving as both a quick reaction force to quell any surge of violence in the area and also to protect the Americans stationed with the Iraqis.

That places American soldiers directly in neighborhoods where, until now, they have appeared only transiently on patrols and raids. Under the new plan, they will work closely with the Iraqi Army and police in an attempt to establish a trust that has been elusive. The approach has been modeled on a successful American campaign effort 18 months ago in Tal Afar, a northern city that saw dramatic drops in violence and is now regarded as one of the few success stories of the American campaign.

The Tal Afar strategy was developed by Col. H. R. McMaster, commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment at the time. Colonel McMaster, who is widely regarded within the Army as one of its most creative counterinsurgency thinker, as well as something of a maverick, has been involved in Pentagon planning for the new Baghdad operation. But unlike Tal Afar, Baghdad is at the heart of the country, with nearly a quarter of Iraq’s population, and American officers say that success here will be far more complex than in the operation masterminded by Colonel McMaster.

Another senior officer involved in developing the new plan said that the new crackdown would have been much easier to implement if it had been adopted earlier. He said that when he returned to Iraq for a second tour in the fall, he was shocked to see how far the American war effort had regressed, something he attributed to muddled strategy. “When I got back three months ago, the hodge-podge called Baghdad was like a Rubik’s cube gone awry,” he said.

In embattled West Baghdad, the plan is to place the new security centers squarely where the sectarian fighting has been fiercest. One of the first centers expected to begin operating is in Ghazaliya, a Sunni enclave that has repeatedly come under assault from Shiite militias.

That seems certain to pose early on the central question that confronts American commanders as they start the plan: will the Maliki government agree to operations aimed at Shiite extremists, or resist them and push for the focus to be laid on Sunni extremists attacking Shiite areas?

American officers say that only time will tell, but that they will be surprised if Mr. Maliki and his top aides change colors, despite the assurances the Iraqi leader is said to have offered President Bush.

U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans 

 

[Ghost Dansing]

Karen, you presume much.

The war is a failure due to a breathtaking strategic blunder and incompetent execution made by rightest Republican ideologues. What I want trully didn't matter at the start, nor does it matter now.

 I'm sorry the young Lieutenant is dead. I would have wanted him have a full career, retire as a General and write memoirs... perhaps criticize incompetent political leadership, though I doubt we'll see anything this corrupt or incompetent again for some time. Perhaps I'm naive in that.

I trully believe Dubya and this Republican administration represents the final foul fruit of the rotted tree of modern Republicanism, and that the American People have finally seen the Republican Party for what it has become; a rightest, corporatist, theocratic anomoly in American history. In 2008, the Republican Party will have a new face, and Conservatives will know that they are Conservatives in a Liberal, Pluralistic, Secular and Democratic Nation... that IS the Conservative position of true Americans. Perhaps America will learn that it needs to be on guard against Rightest totalitarian tendencies, as much as or more than Leftest totalitarian tendencies.

It is interesting you should use "gambling:" language in reference to what "I do". I'm not sure what I have to gamble, however Paul Krugman made some interesting observations in the NYT on 18 January 2007 regarding Dubya's gambit. It's known as "The Texas Strategy" when gambling for big stakes.

Hundreds of news articles and opinion pieces have described  (Dubya's) decision to escalate the Iraq war as a “Hail Mary pass.”

But that’s the wrong metaphor.

(Dubya) isn’t Roger Staubach, trying to pull out a win for the Dallas Cowboys. He’s Charles Keating, using other people’s money to keep Lincoln Savings going long after it should have been shut down — and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars, along the way.

The parallel is actually quite exact. During the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, people like Mr. Keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success. (Dubya)  has kept a failed war going by faking military success.

The “surge” is just another stalling tactic, designed to buy more time.

Oh, and one of the favorite techniques used by the owners of savings and loan associations to generate phony profits — it involved making high-interest loans to crooked or flaky real estate developers — came to be known as the “Texas strategy.”...

...Which brings us to Iraq. The administration has spent the last three years pretending that its splendid little war isn’t a big disaster. There have been the bromides (we’re making “good progress”); the promises (we have a “strategy for victory”); and, as always, attacks on the media for not reporting the good news from Iraq.

Who you gonna believe, the president or your lying eyes?

Now (Dubya) has grudgingly sort- of admitted that things aren’t going well — but he says his “new way forward” will fix everything.

So it’s still the Texas strategy: the war’s architects are trying to keep their failed venture going as long as possible...

...True, (Dubya) can’t win another election with phony claims of success in Iraq, the way he did in 2004. But escalation buys him another year or two to claim that we’re making progress — and it gives him another chance to prove that he’s the Decider, beyond accountability.

And as for pundits who promoted the war and are now trying to sell the surge: for a little while longer they can be Very Important People who have the president’s ear.

Meanwhile, the nation pays the price. The heaviest burden — in death, shattered bodies, broken families and ruined careers — falls on those who serve. To find the personnel for the Bush escalation, the Pentagon must lengthen deployments in Iraq and shorten training time at home.

And the back-door draft has become a life sentence: there is no limit on the cumulative amount of time citizen-soldiers can be required to serve...

...(We will)  pay a financial price for the hundreds of billions squandered in Iraq and, more important, a price in reduced security.

Escalation won’t bring victory in Iraq, but it might bring defeat in Afghanistan, which the administration will continue to neglect. And it has pushed the military to the breaking point.

(Dubya) calls his critics “irresponsible,” saying that they don’t have an alternative to his strategy. But they do: setting a timetable for withdrawal, so that we can cut our losses, and trying to save what can be saved. It isn’t a strategy for victory because that’s no longer an option. It’s a strategy for acknowledging reality...

The Texas Strategy
Paul Krugman
New York Times, 15 January 2007

[karen]

~sigh~
I watch GDansing counter every turn w/experise¬ a little malice.

I ask-"Do you wish the War to fail?"
I ask-"Have you seen Michelle's post of the deceased young 2Lt
and read his own words posted there as to why he joined the
effort in Iraq?"
I ask-"Why is it that you ante every bet given to you?"
I ask-"Why do you so enjoy it?"
I ask-"Has your heart changed even a little concerning the
Iraqi plight and our efforts to bring Democracy there?"

[Ghost Dansing]

 In military jargon, this is called putting lipstick on a pig. There is no sense of irony as Michelle discusses the issues still confronting the coalition military forces four years after Dubya appeared on the deck of an Aircraft Carrier announcing "Mission Accomplished".

I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my doubts about the compatability of Islam and Western-style democracy, but also as a result of the steady, sensational diet of "grim milestone" and "daily IED count" media coverage that aids the insurgency.

I left Iraq with unexpected hope and resolve.

The everyday bravery and consummate professionalism of the troops I embedded with has strengthened my faith in the U.S. military. These soldiers are well aware of the history, culture, and sectarian strife that has wracked the Muslim world for more than a millennium. "They love death," one gunner muttered as we heard explosions in the distance while parked in al Adil. Nevertheless, these troops are willing to put their lives on the line to bring security to Iraq, one neighborhood at a time.

They have teamed with Sunni and Shia, Iraqi civilian and soldier, alike to establish local government structures and security framework districts. "We are not here to build the Iraqi Security Forces," Lieutenant Colonel Steven Miska, deputy commander for the Dagger Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, said. "We're here to grow them. You can't just plant and walk away." Capt. Aaron Kaufman of Task Force Justice added: "It's not a six-month or year-long process, especially when you're talking about training the Iraqi forces."

The troops I met scoff at peace activists' efforts to "bring them home now." But they are just as critical of the Bush administration and Pentagon's missteps—from holding Iraqi elections too early, to senselessly breaking up their brigade combat team, to drawing down forces and withdrawing last year in Baghdad and Fallujah, to failing to hold cities after clearing them of insurgents. They speak candidly and critically of Shiite militia infiltration of some Iraqi police and Iraqi Army units and corruption in government ministries, but they want you to know about the unheralded good news, too.

Every day, Iraqi Army trainees risk their lives and their family's lives to come to work at FOB Justice. Residents of Khadamiyah approach the base with tips. Schools are re-opening; neighborhood councils are sharing intelligence. "All those things are coming together," Capt. Stacy Bare, civil affairs officer, said emphatically.

Michelle's embed tour in Iraq, with her HotAir.com colleague Bryan Preston, was sponsored by the New York Post. Video reports of their Iraq journey can be viewed at HotAir.com.

[Ghost Dansing]

Well I'll tell you Crusader, kicking a beehive then putting all the busy denizens out of work isn't the best strategy under any circumstances.

Is that what the Brits were doing? :) They sure are funny...

Oh Baby, Just You Shut You Mouse 

[Dr Victorino de la Vega]

Hi Alex,

Have you read Nuri Al-Malirkey’s interview in the Italian press?

Now even Bush’s handpicked puppets are criticizing him openly…

Turns out these guys were Teheran’s puppets after all.

And the SCIRI/Al-Hakim crowd is no better- in many ways, they’re actually even more Persianophile than Muqtada and his mad messianic mullahs.

Partitioning Iraq in three homogeneous ethnic-religious pieces and rearming the secular/Westernized Baathist types is the only sensible policy option left: I know the Pentagon’s top brass favor such a course…but are the Neocon weakened enough to finally let the US military undo their Pharisaic follies?

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

G-d almighty GD. You have finally proven beyond a shadow of any doubt whatsoever that you know bugger all about war, militaries or the reasons and methods of soldiering.

You can't even tell when a bunch of British Marines are having a bit of a laugh at your expense.

GD, your job in my infantry platoon is to wash the urinals daily with your toothbrush, then polish the platoon's boots, and finally drop 'em and bend to have your bottie spanked by 'Matron'. Damn you ain't never been anywhere near a combat unit have you?

Oh come on, GD, don't feel bad and inadequate. You'd make a hell of a tea-tiffy and a fine mascot...

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Ah GD, the root causes of terrorism. Now it's unemployment. What was it last year, desparation out of a sense of powerlessness? I got an idea, though it's not really mine: the root cause of terrorism is terrorists.

Funny, where is the Rwandan terrorist organisation? Or the Cambodian, or the ...ah never mind. When will you get it. The root cause of Islamic terrorism is in fact the successes of Islamic terrorism.

By the way, GD, Olmert is now the target of an official criminal investigation. Comments please?

[Ghost Dansing]

Within a hopeful article in the New York Times, the fingerprints of Republican ideologues' contribution to failure in Iraq... breathtaking mistakes and lack of sound judgement at every turn.

The factories went dark after the invasion for a variety of reasons, including an insistence by the initial American occupation authority that once they closed, vibrant free markets would spring into existence to fill the void.

But neither those markets nor the expected commercial and social benefits of the $30 billion American-financed reconstruction program have materialized. So a few officials and local leaders are returning to the shuttered plants in hopes of finding a cheaper way to help the economy and perhaps create jobs to attract young men who might otherwise join the insurgency.

The dusty old plants are more evocative of guys with lunch pails than the big thinkers who once believed that expensive American reconstruction projects would remake the face of Iraq. “Any opportunity to re-employ more people and give the government a chance to get income from these factories is important,” said Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, an Anbar tribal leader, as he toured the porcelain and tile factories in his flowing black-and-gold robes. “Especially in this time when Anbar is experiencing terrorism.”

The sheik added, in reference to the idle Iraqis who put the unemployment rate at anywhere from an estimated 30 percent to 60 percent, “They are normal human beings — they would rather work than make violence.”

James Glanz, NYT, 18 January 2007 

[Ghost Dansing]

You're a real inspiration Crusader.

Here's to You! 

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Come one folks, the US has failed in Iraq. Why? Because the GDs say so, that's why.

Now if only GD could go back in time and save the US from the failures at Iwo Jima, the Bulge, Omaha Beach, or save the Brits from the failures of Operation Dynamo, all will be well.

Here's a thought. Iraq is a war (I don't happen to think it is, as for instance far more people die every year in South Africa due to violent crime, but hey....) and as such, when you push the enemy, errr,... he pushes back.

Anyhow, once the US starts to babble about 'failure', you've lost, since everyone knows the Iraqi 'insurgency' is no match for a modern, highly-trained professional army. But it is clearly more than a match for the pathetic dribbling media.

You know America, you can't choose to lose every bloomin' war you ever get into, and stay a world power for very long. It matters not whether you have the mightiest Armed Forces in the world. If you haven't the psyche to use it, you're wasting your money and our time!

America: shit or get off the G-d damned pot! The rest of us are getting tired of listening to your incessant whining and bitching. You have suffered bugger-all in this war (heck, how many did you lose storming Mount Surabachi? How many did Ethiopia lose kicking the Islamo-Nazis outta Mogadishu?) but your media babble on about how bad it's going. Come on, sheesh. Actually I'd be deeply ashamed that Ethiopia has basically made you look so bad.

Honestly, I'm beginning to fear Canada could conquer you over the softwood lumber dispute! At any rate, if you keep this up, you're going to lose California to a Mexican warlord soon.

[Ghost Dansing]

"And by the way, what the heck does the case of Klingenschimtt have to do with our host's post? She is right on in repeating our president's commitment that "Failure in Iraq is not an option"." Ask your buddy gringoman, RR... he started it. I'm more than willing to discuss Republican failures in Iraq and elsewhere."

Ask your buddy gringoman, RR. I'm more than willing to discuss Republican failures in Iraq and elsewhere.

...(Dubya) has been dutifully making the rounds of TV news shows, trying to make the case that victory in Iraq is “doable.” He thinks the public will support the Surge if he can simply illuminate a few things that we may have been too thick to understand. For instance, he says he needs to “explain to people that what happens in the Middle East will affect the future of this country.” ...

...During his “60 Minutes” interview, Mr. Bush mentioned that he was reading Alistair Horne’s classic history, “A Savage War of Peace,” about why the French suffered a colonial disaster in a guerrilla war against Muslims in Algiers from 1954 to 1962.

The book was recommended to W. by Henry Kissinger, who is working on an official biography of himself with Mr. Horne.

Mr. Horne recalled that Dr. Kissinger told him: “The president’s one of my best students. He reads all the books I send him.” The author asked the president’s foreign affairs adviser if W. ever wrote any essays on the books. “Henry just laughed,” Mr. Horne said...

...I (Dowd)  asked Mr. Horne, who was at his home in a small village outside Oxford, England, what the president could learn from his book.

“The depressing problem of getting entangled in the Muslim world,” he replied. “Algeria was a thoroughly bloodthirsty war that ended horribly and cost the lives of about 20,000 Frenchmen and a million Algerians. There was a terrible civil war. ...De Gaulle ended up giving literally everything away and left without his pants.”

President de Gaulle had all the same misconceptions as W., that his prestige could persuade the Muslims to accept his terms; that the guerrillas would recognize military defeat and accept sensible compromise; and that, as Mr. Horne writes, “time would wait while he found the correct formula and then imposed peace with it.”...

 Maureen Dowd, NYT, 17 January 2007

Dubya's biggest assumption is that he hasn't already failed. The minimum success he could have had in Iraq was to establish a secure environment after the invasion... he didn't accomplish even that, and 20, 000 additional troops at this point is going to do squat diddly. 

"The Missing Partner In Iraq"

 

[RunningRoach]

GD,
Lucid? LUCID??!!

I can fall out of bed at 3:00 AM and immediately have a more lucid discussion than you demonstrate in your posts. And by the way, what the heck does the case of Klingenschimtt have to do with our host's post? She is right on in repeating our president's commitment that "Failure in Iraq is not an option".

RR

[Ghost Dansing]

Ooops... my link went away... Here's another:

"Jews on First!"

[Ghost Dansing]

No need to make a legal case gringoman... that was already done. Just my opinion is all that I expressed, and a quick google will support the facts I tenatively offered... the Navy offered him ways out, but he chose to make it all a media event. The consequences were predictable.

NORFOLK - The jury that convicted a Navy chaplain of disobeying an order recommended Thursday that he forfeit $3,000 in pay and receive a written reprimand.

Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt, a chaplain at Norfolk Naval Station, was found guilty Wednesday in a special court-martial of disobeying a superior officer's order. The Evangelical Episcopal priest had been told in writing in December not to wear his uniform for any media appearances without permission.

The federal charge stemmed from Klingenschmitt's appearance at a news conference in front of the White House on March 30. The chaplain, in his uniform, prayed at the beginning and end of the event.

The news conference protested Navy regulations that chaplains offer nonsectarian prayers outside religious services.

Klingenschmitt, 38, faced a maximum penalty of being restricted to base for two months, forfeiting two-thirds of his salary for a year, and receiving a reprimand. Officers cannot be demoted or fired through a special court-martial, but a federal conviction could spark an administrative review that leads to dismissal.

"That letter of reprimand will be used in two or three months at an administrative separation board to kick me out of the Navy," Klingenschmitt said Thursday. He estimated he would lose

$1.8 million in pension and retirement benefits if he's dismissed.

Klingenschmitt, who was an Air Force major before becoming a chaplain, opted not to settle the charge administratively...

By KATE WILTROUT, The Virginian-Pilot
© September 14, 2006

 For more context, read "Jews on First!"

 

[gringoman]

Correction to comment above...... 'perceived "anti-religious extremist" should read, of course, as "perceived religious extremist." I felt an obligation to GD in making this correction. He might be willing to deliver a Chaplain Klingenschmitt to the Pharisees or the Praetorian Guards, but who could ever conceive of him trying to crucify a pwogwessive?

[gringoman]

GD says, My posts are more lucid than your's or gringoman's RR. :P

Dream on, GD. Do you think that Alexandra, or anyone else, shares your fantasy?

Reminder: I took the trouble to point out that you've attempted a "moderate, non-extremist" crucifixion of Naval Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt. You attempt this without giving a single bit of evidence in his case to support your driving in the nails against your perceived "anti-religious extremist." Of course, you do this with sensitivity and moderation, since you are not "a religious extremist," right, GD?

Now, a little suggestion, GD. Take a look at the comment you just posted. Observe what any court of law with elementary rules of evidence would require. Look at what you present instead of facts concerning the man you cast judgement on, in your "non-extremist" Calvary. "I think...." "probably...." "if...." "I'll bet..."

Thank you, GD, for demonstrating how you maka a case against the "irrational," and what you mean by "lucid,". Oh, yes, and for showing us what you mean by Chaplain Klingenschmitt, but not of course you, being "politicized."

[Alex]

This is the most AMAZING blog I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I understand that I am comment number 26 or such but I felt the need to comment about your latest blog entry entitled "Failure Is Not An Option." The testosterone driven conflict called "Iraqi Freedom" is now coming to a cancerous end. Saddam is dead, his top aide is dead, there are no weapons of mass destruction to be found, the dem are in power and our President is in deep, deep denial of the next step, especially when Ockhams razor is calling him daily. I honestly was not impressed by his speech to the nation or his speech to the Fort Benning Troops who gave a collective gasp when they found out they would be among the 21,500 soldiers going back. Thanks for a good read.

P.S. I also love the artwork.

Alex ~H~

[Ghost Dansing]

My posts are more lucid than your's or gringoman's RR. :P

Gringoman's single example is simply a matter of certain "christian" sectarians "reaping what they sow".

I think Klingenschmitt got what he deserved... and the military probably gave him a number of "outs" that didn't include dismissal due to the sensitivity of the situation.

As I said, he either took a principled position or was grand-standing... either way he risked the consequences... and regardless how much you two wish to deny it, the so called "christian evangelicals" created the conditions in which this was played-out. There are Christian Evangelicals that seek to emulate Christ in their work... there is typically a hint of at least some humility about them.

These politicized religious extremists are giving Christians a bad name in general...

If this guy had been a Muslim demanding Koran-Centric based prayers in similar venues, you two would have been on the opposite side of the fence. I'll bet Muslim Chaplains have the same rules about specific reference to Allah or the Prophet in similar venues. If not, they should.

The military guidelines are there for a reason... and if you peel back the onion, I'll bet you will find there were, for Klingenschmitt, opportunities to continue on in uniform for his 20 years, having had so much longevity especially in this wartime where the needs of the military are so great. Again... his gambit... his choice.

[RunningRoach]

GD,

Your back to doing nonlinear , cut and paste dunes of donkey dust. You wear me out, literally. I try to follow your posts but they always lead down a dead-enders street. Have a little respect for those out here who have a bit more empathy for people who find themselves in a difficult position. It's real easy to look down upon or have a condecending attitude torward people who have taken a position that you don't accept as being valid. Who the hell are you to judge? By the way are you sporting ovaries or balls? Just curious. Some of your more recent posts lead me to wonder.

Gringoman,

Keep slugging away.

RR

[gringoman]

from GD :"As usual gringoman, you presented the incomplete story with insufficient context and the transparent bias reserved for agitprop."

from gringoman:The only usual thing I see, GD, is that you can't make a case, especially here, when you can't really out-source the job to wiki. Implying that you're not an agit-propper---despite the consistently pwogwessive meme, often bordering on blatant BDR--- might convince some sentient being. Can you possibly name any? You try to wonk on and on with the same old dribble about the nasty evangelicals (who I too may have an issue or three with myself), tossing in a stalwart Jewish legal warrior etc etc. You try desperately to manufacture a case with dross. Look, I don't want to put you down for such a lame attempt, but we're not doing CNN or Wolf Blitzer here. You have a perfect right to your liberal ideology (a condition I too suffered from at one time.) I am not even, right here and now, contesting anything you try to dredge up about the evangelical "menace" to our--or at least your---ACLU-vetted Constitutional rights. Instead, I'm pointing out what a pretentious game of dodge ball you're playing. The issue here is that the 16-year Naval career of Chaplain Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt was destroyed after he refused an order "not to pray in Jesus' name." Instead of tackling the case at hand, you try to manufacture a case out of hand. You're running from Klingenschmitt. You in effect admit that you cannot face it.You haven't produced a single additional fact about his case. Instead you indulge in the most egregious kind of McCarthyism, implicit guilt due to the chaplain's (implied by you) associations. You want us to believe that he must have done this or that or the other with muslims, or Jews, or maybe Catholics, or Secular Sammys. GD, you seem to be sufocating--or trying to suffocate us---with innuendo. You are unable to indict the man, so you give up and flail away at those who ,you want us to believe, are not as Christian as you (if they are truly Christians at all.) It's appalling. I'm surprised at you, GD. (Which means, of course, that I'm trying to give you the benefit of a doubt. I want to concede that you do have a concept of Christian charity, possibly even for a Chaplain Klingenschmitt who you seem ready to demean without evidence.)

This is a free forum. Ask Alexandra. You can impugn this Christian chaplain all you like. Go ahead. Defame. Vilify. Cast aspersions. But please, GD, for the sake of intellectual integrity, if nothing else, try to provide some evidence in support of maligning this man, husband and paterfamilias. Think before you attempt to crucify.Actual evidence concerning Chaplain Klingenschmitt. Not the Democrat Talking Points about "Christian extremists." As I believe you know, a number of Christians monitor these discussions, whether actively participating or not. Do it for them, at least, GD. I feel that Alexandra, too, would look kindly on your putting her bandwidth to such use.

[Ghost Dansing]

correction... sentence didn't make sense...

The real question is, Why shouldn't Klinginschmitt's behavior BE VIEWED as sectarian agitation while pursuing a personal (perhaps political) agenda that disrupts good order and discipline?

[Ghost Dansing]

As usual gringoman, you presented the incomplete story with insufficient context and the transparent bias reserved for agitprop.

Klinginschmitt was "pressing the envelope" at best out of personal conviction, and at worst to gain personal notoriety. Either way, he must accept the consequences of his actions.

Evangelical fundamentalists of a certain type should be suspect in general because they have not only a religious but political agenda that has no place in the Armed Forces.

Mike Weinstein has the right angle on these guys... Chaplains like Kinginshchmitt and whatever organization ordained him would be screaming bloody murder if Catholic Chaplains were "evangelizing" Catholicism at every opportunity, and you darn well know it gringoman.

Just imagine a Jewish Chaplain attempting to drive home the perceived error in Christianity that Jesus was the Messiah at every opportunity... or an Muslim Chaplain making the case for the Prophet every time he opened his mouth.

The real question is, Why shouldn't Klinginschmitt's behavior as sectarian agitation while pursuing a personal (perhaps political) agenda that disrupts good order and discipline?

Just like every other military Officer, the Chaplains need to work within the guidelines, and those who cannot or will not jeopardize their careers... their choice.

Chaplains have latitude when presiding over sectarian liturgical rights in appropriate vestment. When they are wearing the uniform of the Armed Forces of the United States, their job is far more complex than, and responsibilities far greater in scope than that of simple cleric ministering a homogenous sectarian congregation... and in the case of fundamentalist/evangelicals, their proselytizing drive must be substantially curbed in order to minister adequately to a very diverse population of Americans.

Just because they beat their breasts and cry out in loud voices insisting they are Christians does not make it so... perhaps deep down they know there are many reasons real Christians would doubt their claims.

[gringoman]

Under ATB's Recent GD/Wikis, one notes the pwogwessive diatribe against alleged bad Christians (bad because allegedly extreme and un-liberal, evangelically active etc) in the U.S. military's chaplaincy. This recent GD/Wiki was posted subsequent to the gringoman post (above) concerning the militarycorruption.com's report on the destruction of Naval chaplain Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt's career and 16 years of service for the crime of refusing an order "not to pray in Jesus' name."

The GD/Wiki post failed to include this "crime" in its litany of alleged Christian "extremism" in the U.S. military. Other Christians here have not taken note either (or commented accordingly), which suggests a passive acceptance of the GD/Wiki.

Ergo, the observer is tempted to conclude either that (1) the "crime" of Lt. Klingenschmitt, i.e. refusing an order "not to pray in Jesus' name", is too ipso facto egregious to mention or comment upon, or (2) it does not fit well enough into the pwogwessive meme on who is persecuting who in the U.S. military today---not well enough
to warrant mention.

[Ghost Dansing]

Here it is... Dubya the predictable.

"Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully," Bush said. "But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. "

Paraphrased: "I've created and untenable situation, but nobody knows how to fix it so they have to just let me continue screwing up... and, oh by the way, I'm going to lie straight in your face about there having been no alternative ideas presented at every stage and hope you don't notice".

link

[Ghost Dansing]

Regarding "Failure is Not an Option", the L.A. Times had a fascinating article on 12 January that is pretty much spot on.

"How Republicans Win if We Lose in Iraq", Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, 12 January 2007

...During the first years of the Iraq war, any resemblance to Vietnam was the result of the Bush administration's disastrous miscalculations. But today, the Iraq war is looking more and more like the Vietnam War because that's exactly what suits the White House.

Writing on this page Thursday, Jonah Goldberg praised President Bush for telling Americans that "he will settle for nothing less than winning" in Iraq. Sure, Goldberg acknowledged, Bush "may be deluding himself," but at least he's "trying to win."...

No, he's not.

It's clear that Bush knows perfectly well there's no possibility of "winning" anymore, so apparently he's seeking in Iraq exactly what Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sought in Vietnam before the 1972 election: a face-saving "decent interval" before the virtually inevitable collapse of the U.S.-backed government.

By 1971, Nixon and Kissinger understood that "winning" in Vietnam was no longer in the cards — so they shifted from trying to win the war to trying to win the next election. As Nixon put it in March 1971: "We can't have [the South Vietnamese] knocked over brutally … " Kissinger finished the thought " … before the election." So Nixon and Kissinger pushed the South Vietnamese to "stand on their own," promising we'd support them if necessary. But at the same time, Kissinger assured the North Vietnamese — through China — that the U.S. wouldn't intervene to prevent a North Vietnamese victory — as long as that victory didn't come with embarrassing speed.

As historian Jeffrey Kimball has documented, Kissinger's talking points for his first meeting with Chinese Premier Chou En-lai on the topic of Vietnam included a promise that the U.S. would withdraw all troops and "leave the political evolution of Vietnam to the Vietnamese." The U.S. would "let objective realities" — North Vietnamese military superiority — "shape the political future." In the margins of his briefing book, Kissinger scrawled a handwritten elaboration for Chou: "We want a decent interval. You have our assurance."

The "decent interval" strategy worked. By declaring that "peace was at hand," Kissinger took the wind out of antiwar Democrat George McGovern's sails, and Nixon won reelection. And though Nixon himself later fell to the Watergate scandal, the Republican Party successfully used the "decent interval" to cast the Democratic Party in the role of spoiler.

In December 1974, tired of hemorrhaging funds to prop up the failing South Vietnamese government, the Democrat-controlled Congress finally pulled the plug on further U.S. financial support. The following April, Saigon fell, just as Kissinger and Nixon had privately predicted. But enough time had elapsed for Republicans to pin the blame on South Vietnamese missteps and, most important, on the perfidy of the Democratic Party...

...Bush's "surge" is the "decent interval" redux. It's too little, too late, and it relies on the Iraqis to do what we know full well they can't do. There is no realistic likelihood that it will lead to an enduring solution in Iraq. But it may well provide the decent interval the GOP needs if it is to survive beyond the 2008 elections.

The surge makes Bush look, as Goldberg suggests, like he really wants to win, even as he refuses to take the necessary and honest steps to mitigate the terrible damage we've already done. The surge buys time — and meanwhile, the Democratic Party is placed in the same untenable position it was in during the last stages of the Vietnam War.

If it backs Bush's feckless plan, it loses credibility with the voters, who hate the war. But if it opposes the escalation, it will be attacked for undermining the military. Ann Coulter offered a preview last week: "Democrats want to cut and run as fast as possible from Iraq, betraying the Iraqis who supported us and rewarding our enemies — exactly as they did to the South Vietnamese."

The Democrats need to break out of the script the White House has written for them and remind Americans that the war in Iraq is a dangerous distraction from other pressing threats to U.S. security, such as nuclear proliferation and the rise of militant Islam worldwide. They need to emphasize that withdrawal from Iraq isn't about "defeat" — it's about shifting our troops, our money and our energy to the real challenges that the Bush administration is ignoring or exacerbating...

Frank Rich at the NYT has some interesting things to say on the issue today as well: 

..."Mr. Bush doesn’t even have the courage of his own disastrous convictions: he’s not properly executing the policy these guys sold him. In The Washington Post on Dec. 27, Mr. Kagan and General Keane wrote that escalation could only succeed “with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops” — a figure that has also been cited by Mr. McCain. (Mr. Kagan put the figure at 50,000 to 80,000 in a Weekly Standard article three weeks earlier. Whatever.) By any of these neocons’ standards, the Bush escalation of some 20,000 is too little, not to mention way too late.

The discrepancy between the policy that Mr. Bush nominally endorses and the one he actually ordered up crystallizes the cynicism of this entire war. If you really believe, as the president continues to put it, that Iraq is the central front in “the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” then you should be in favor of having many more troops than we’ve ever had in Iraq. As T. X. Hammes, an insurgency expert and a former marine, told USA Today, that doesn’t now mean a “dribble” (as he ridicules the “surge”) but a total of 300,000 armed coalition forces over a minimum of four years.

But that would mean asking Americans for sacrifice, not giving us tax cuts. Mr. Bush has never asked for sacrifice and still doesn’t. If his words sound like bargain-basement Churchill, his actions have been cheaper still. The president’s resolutely undermanned war plan indicated from Day 1 that he knew in his heart of hearts that Iraq was not the central front in the war against 9/11 jihadism he had claimed it to be, only the reckless detour that it actually was. Yet the war’s cheerleaders, neocon and otherwise, disingenuously blamed our low troop strength almost exclusively on Mr. Rumsfeld.

Now that the defense secretary is gone, what are they to do? For whatever reason, you did not hear Mr. Kagan, General Keane or Mr. McCain speak out against Mr. Bush’s plan even though it’s insufficient by their own reckoning — just a repackaged continuance of the same “Whac-A-Mole” half-measures that Mr. McCain has long deplored. Surely the senator knows that, as his loosey-goosey endorsement attests. (On Friday, he called the Bush plan “the best chance of success” while simultaneously going on record that “a small, short surge would be the worst of all worlds.”)...

 

[Ghost Dansing]

The Chaplain Corps of the United States Navy consists of ordained clergy who are commissioned Naval officers. They serve not only in the Navy, but in the United States Marine Corps and United States Coast Guard as well.

Navy Chaplains "promote the spiritual, religious, moral, and personal well-being of the members of the Department of Navy." They share in the difficulties and rewards of Navy life. The Chaplain Corps consists of clergy endorsed from ecclesiastical bodies, providing assistance for all sailors. Navy Chaplains come from a variety of religious backgrounds including, but not limited to: Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu.

Unfortunately, there is a cluster of christian sects that are, by disposition toward compulsive evangelism and rigid fundamental literalism in Biblical interpretation, bigoted in their outlook toward the religious life of others and incapable of ministry to the spiritual needs of the Armed Forces without undertones of sectarian harrassment. While aggressively asserting their own Christianity, they are particularly bad examples of Christian virtue, behaving more like modern Pharisees than Christian people of the cloth.

The incident and controversy in the Navy Corp of Navy Chaplains did not happen in a vacuum. Politicized and partisan evangelicals were also accused of coercion at the Air Force Academy...

Read more about the problems certain evangelicals cause in the military here (excerpts follow):

Jews On First! ... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

"I get demonized and canonized," said Mikey Weinstein, whose lawsuit against the Air Force brought attention to the burgeoning theocratic movement in the US military. While the case wends its way through the courts, Weinstein is barnstorming the country, warning of what he regards as aggressive moves by right-wing Protestant evangelicals to Christianize our government and culture. One religious right leader (he doesn't remember which) recently called him the most dangerous man in America. "They call me Satan's lawyer, and an arch secularizer. Secular is good, I keep telling them."

"We have a religious war going on in this country," he said, and "my brother and sister Jews need to wake up." He decried the refusal of Jewish organizations – with the exception of the Anti-Defamation League – to take the threat of the Christocrats seriously and push back. "In many respects," he said, "they think it can't happen here."

Weinstein a former Air Force officer and a registered Republican (who sometimes votes Democratic), was a lawyer for President Ronald Reagan and for Ross Perot. His family has been in the military for generations, has fought in every war since World War I. His youngest son is a cadet in the Air Force Academy; his oldest son and daughter-in-law recently graduated. He is also an Academy graduate. His father graduated from the Naval Academy. He does not waste praise on the Bush administration. 

The case recently gathered renewed attention, in the wake of the Air Force's release February 9th of revised guidelines on religion that delighted the religious right and dismayed supporters of church-state separation. The guidelines replaced interim guidelines from last summer that called for non-sectarian prayers at official events and somewhat limited proselytizing. (Click here for links to both sets of guidelines.)

Then, stunningly, the Air Force filed the revised guidelines with the federal court in Albuquerque that is hearing Weinstein's suit, offering them as evidence that the case should be dismissed. Weinstein told the Associated Press (click here) that the guidelines were actually a gift to his side of the case. ""They completely, thoroughly violate the Constitution of the United States," he said. "We were wondering how we were going to get these in (the court case). Well, here they are. Thank you, Justice Department."

Weinstein told JewsOnFirst that he is suing for two objectives: First, "just to get the Air Force to treat religion versus religion or religion versus no religion with neutrality." And second, "to force the Air Force to ensure that during their duty day Air Force members are "never evangelized or proselytized."

Evangelical coup in the military

Asked what it was about the Air Force that made it more susceptible to religious extremism than the other branches of the military, Weinstein replied that Christian triumphalism infects the entire military. "The Air Force is just the one I caught." He reminds us that some chaplains are suing the Navy over what they call their right to pray to Jesus, while, as Weinstein puts it, they're wearing their government clothes.

He told the PBS News Hour that the Christianizers had "staged an evangelical coup in the military" and were using it as "a mission field."

In his interview with JewsOnFirst, Weinstein said that on almost every one of the hundreds of US military installations there is an Officers Christian Fellowship. (its website slogan is "Christian officers exercising biblical leadership to raise up a godly ministry.") There is a similar network of fellowships for enlisted personnel, he said.

Loving us to death

Asked if he thinks the right-wing evangelicals' support for Israel deters Jews from speaking out, Weinstein replied wryly that these Christians "love us to death." He's alluding to the belief of many Christian supporters of Israel that Jesus will return and "rapture" them to heaven when certain earthly conditions are met, notably the relocation of all Jews to Israel. "I get it all the time," Weinstein said. "I talk to religious right folks all the time and tell them that the rapture is why you love us."

Weinstein does not see the religious right's onslaught as a Christian-Jewish issue, but as one afflicting the whole society. Nevertheless, the Christianizers "don't know what to do with us Jews," he said. "Plan A, they ask us, with a smile, to please accept belief in Jesus. But, inevitably, watch for Plan B, when then stop asking so nicely. Plan B is under way."

He hopes Jews will awaken to see the looming danger. "The most beautiful thing about America is our concept of tolerating diversity. It's a very Jewish concept." But, says Weinstein, it's being bludgeoned and assaulted by the intolerance of the Christianizers.

Also, in 2005 these lines:

Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.

[gringoman]

Alexandra,

The Grunewald painting, "The Crucifixion," is very powerful, but do you realize to what extent it is not politically correct in today's U.S. military? What? How? Evidence? The evidence is by implication. And straightforward surmise. But how? In this military? This U.S. military which is no longer under Commander-in-Chief Slick, but Commander-in-Chief Georgie, with that 'Biblical base' we always hear about? Can it be? Even as they do Wahabbi reach-out with an Islamic chapel at Quantico Marine Base?

Well, there's the recent case of Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt, the Protestant chaplain, whose career was recently destroyed (as reported in militarycorruption.com). Was he trying to convert muslims, or seculars or GD-type progressives and BDS'ers?

Actually no, according to the report. His offense? He defied an order "not to pray in Jesus' name."

He's been drummed out of the Navy after 16 years service, career ruined, with no pension, family in dire straits. No reports, yet, of stigmata on his body.

Details http://www.militarycorruption.com/klingenschmitt3.htm

[Ghost Dansing]

Changes are shifting outside the World... She Never Speaks About the Monsters

[rich]

Tony Blair explains the current situation:

"What was unclear then but is very clear now is that what we were and are confronted with, is of a far more fundamental character than we supposed. September 11 wasn't the incredible action of an isolated group, a one-off strike masterminded by Osama Bin Laden. It was the product rather of a world-wide movement, with an ideology based on a misreading of Islam, whose roots were deep, which had been growing for years and with the ability to mount a radically different type of warfare requiring a radically different type of response. What we face is not a criminal conspiracy or even a fanatical but fringe terrorist organisation. We face something more akin to revolutionary Communism in its early and most militant phase. It is global. It has a narrative about the world and Islam's place within it that has a reach into most Muslim societies and countries. It adherents may be limited. Its sympathisers are not. It has states or at least parts of the governing apparatus of states that give it succour.

Its belief system may be, indeed is, utterly reactionary. But its methods are terrifyingly modern.

It has realised two things: the power of terrorism to cause chaos, hinder and displace political progress especially through suicide missions; and the reluctance of western opinion to countenance long campaigns, especially when the account it receives is via a modern media driven by the impact of pictures.

They now know that if a suicide bomber kills 100 completely innocent people in Baghdad, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of Iraqis who voted for a non-sectarian government, then the image presented to a western public is as likely to be, more likely to be, one of a failed western policy, not another outrage against democracy. In the months after 7/7, we had a debate in Britain as to whether foreign policy in Iraq or Afghanistan had "caused" the terrorism by inflaming Muslim opinion. The notion that removing two appalling dictatorships and replacing them with a UN backed process to democracy, with massive investment in reconstruction available if only the terrorism stopped, could in any justifiable sense "inflame" Muslim opinion when it was perfectly obvious that the Muslims in both countries wanted rid of both regimes and stand to gain enormously, if only they were allowed to, from their removal, is ludicrous. Yet a large part, even of non-Muslim opinion, essentially buys into that view.

So our enemy will see their strategic advantages as terrorism and time. They are not a conventional army. They can't be defeated by conventional means. This is the enemy our Armed Forces face today. The enemy knows something else also. That when they kill our soldiers, it provokes not just understandable grief and anguish, but resulting from that, a questioning of why we are "there"; what it's got to do with "us"; how can the struggle be worth the sacrifice in human terms.

Yet to retreat in the face of this threat would be a catastrophe. It would strengthen this global terrorism; proliferate it; expand its circle of sympathisers. Given the nature of it and how its roots developed, long before any of the recent controversies of foreign policy, such retreat would be futile. It would postpone but not prevent the confrontation.

So from the perspective of our Armed Forces, how do we define this new situation? The battle will be long. It has taken a generation for the enemy to grow. It will, in all probability take a generation to defeat.

The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan; or Indonesia; or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia. The new frontiers for our security are global. Our Armed Forces will be deployed in the lands of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our territory, in environments and in ways unfamiliar to them.

They will usually fight alongside other nations, in alliance with them; notably, but probably not exclusively with the USA.

Hardest of all, in fighting terrorism embedded in failed or failing states, against terrorists indifferent to their own lives as well as the lives of others, our forces will suffer casualties. Their families will be back home, anxious, worried, never knowing whether it will be them who receive the dreaded call.

The battle will be conducted in a completely new world of modern communication and media.

Twenty-five years ago, media reports came back from the Falklands irregularly, heavily controlled. During the first Gulf war, the media had restricted access and we were mesmerised by footage of cameras attached to the end of Cruise missiles. But now war is no longer something read in dispatches. It comes straight into the living room.

Take a website like Live Leak which has become popular with soldiers from both sides of the divide in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Operational documentary material, from their mobile phones or laptops, is posted on the site. These sometimes gruesome images are the unmediated reality of war. They provide a new source of evidence for journalists and commentators, by-passing the official accounts and records.

The combination of all these different dimensions, as I said earlier, transforms the context within which the military, politics and public opinion interact. For their part, the military and especially their families will feel they are being asked to take on a task of a different magnitude and nature. Any grievances, any issues to do with military life, will be more raw, more sensitive, more prone to cause resentment.

Public opinion will be divided, feel that the cost is too great, the campaign too long, and be unnerved by the absence of "victory" in the normal way they would reckon it. They will be constantly bombarded by the propaganda of the enemy, often quite sympathetically treated by their own media, to the effect that it's really all "our", that is the West's fault.

That, in turn, impacts on the feelings of our Armed Forces. They want public opinion not just behind them but behind their mission. They want the "people back home" to understand their value not just their courage.

And the politicians? I believe the risk here is quite the opposite of what most people would think. The parody of people in my position is of leaders who, gung-ho, launch their nations into ill-advised adventures without a thought for the consequences. The reality is we are those charged with making decisions in this new and highly uncertain world; trying, as best we can, to make the right decision. That's not to say we do so, but that is our motivation.

The risk here - and in the US where the future danger is one of isolationism not adventurism - is that the politicians decide it's all too difficult and default to an unstated, passive disengagement, that doing the right thing slips almost unconsciously into doing the easy thing."

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page10735.asp

[Ghost Dansing]

We just have to realize we accepted failure as an option when Dubya was elected...

chill... and wait for change

...

[Ghost Dansing]

 From the WIKI:

Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528) is a highly regarded figure from the German Renaissance. He painted primarily religious works, especially somber and awe-filled crucifixion scenes. The visionary character of his work, with its expressive colour and line, is in stark contrast to Albrecht Dürer's works.

The greatest of his works is the Isenheim Altarpiece, completed 1515, now in the Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar. It contains the Crucifixion, the Temptation of St Anthony, and the Resurrection. Also notable is the Establishment of the Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (1517-1519), Freiburg, Augustinermuseum.

From Something Else:

The success of the Protestant Reformation was due to the fact that reformation was an idea whose hour had come. When Martin Luther first surfaced, there was instant, widespread support for reform, especially in northern Europe. Of course, the motives were not solely theological; political, economic and philosophical factors were also involved. But the basic outline of Luther's radical Augustinianism appealed to a large audience quite prepared to hear it.

A great artistic flowering of Germanic art took place immediately preceding, and in part continued into, the Reformation period -- the culmination of the so-called northern "renaissance." It was an art that virtually prophesied Luther. The north produced a remarkable cluster of genius: Bosch (c. 1453-1516), Grünewald (c. 1470-1528), Dürer (1471-1528), (Cranach (1472-1537), and other fine painters of only slightly lesser power. All of these artists shared in a "Lutheran" vision of humankind totally dependent on grace.

Perhaps the most Protestant painting ever achieved is Grünewald's crucifixion panel on the Isenheim altarpiece, finished in 1515, two years before the Reformation was launched. It is not at all surprising that Grünewald later developed Lutheran sympathies. In this painting the elongated finger of John the Baptist points in naked objectivity from the Scriptures to the mangled, gigantic Christ; the painting bears the inscription, "He must increase but I must decrease."

In a single image Luther's Reformation is summarized. The proclamation of the church must not focus on itself but must be grounded in Scripture, must point to the passion and, as the rest of the altarpiece demonstrates, to the incarnation and resurrection. The figures of the Marys contorted by grief, with the Virgin supported by the mourning apostle, reveal an understandable human response to the death of the beloved Jesus. However, the task of the church is not to re-enact their grief; the church's task is the objective witness of John, symbolized by his impassivity and the pointing finger. It is interesting that Karl Barth, who argued rather unconvincingly against Christian art, expressed great admiration for this painting. The painting's Protestant power seems to have overwhelmed the theologian's puritan principles.

It is deeply ironic that the Reformation should have been accompanied by the virtually prophetic painting of the North, and yet the iconoclastic tendency implicit in the very motto Sola Scriptura would close out the era of great Protestant painting before the middle of the 16th century. Writes Charles P. Cutler in Northern Painting (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968):

. . . art as a vital expression of the German spirit came to an end. No effort by Dürer or by any other painter could stem Protestant iconoclasm. When German artistic expression revived over a century later, it took the form of music, which was acceptable to Protestantism as the old modes of painting were not.

Is Art Helpful to Faith? 

[gringoman]

Yesterday, the President took Professor Barnett's advice:

We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas – where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.

Which makes it all the more important to properly understand Tom Barnett's vision, so don't miss part-1 and part-2 of the upcoming ten-part series of interviews specifically aimed at explaining it all to us on Hugh Hewitt's show.

Alexandra, welcome to Vietnamization! Ma chere, you are making me so nostalgic! These visions! These rich Barnettologies! You know, I can almost taste the nuoc mam.........

IN JANUARY 1969, AS A CIVILIAN WITH MISGIVINGS about U. S. war aims and uneasy about working hand in hand with military forces, I reported dutifully to Danang, the largest city in the First Combat Tactical Zone of Vietnam and the headquarters of the joint Vietnamese-U.S. military I Corps.

The Agency for International Development (AID) had sent me to be the assistant deputy for the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) program in the five provinces that comprised the I Corps area of operations. As U.S. involvement in the war intensified, Washington had created CORDS, an integrated civilian-military organization, to further what we and our South Vietnamese allies called the Pacification Program, an effort to support and strengthen grassroots opposition to the Viet Cong among the peasantry. Although an American three-star general commanded CORDS in Danang, it was a largely civilian operation. The second in command, Alex Firfer, and the third, myself, were AID civilians. Of the 2,000 CORDS personnel in the I Corps area, only 750 were military. These civilians and soldiers worked as integrated teams providing advice to Vietnamese and American unit commanders at the provincial and district levels throughout I Corps.... by Carl R. Fritz, AN AMERICAN CIVILIAN IN THE VIETNAM WAR

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/Amdipl_2/Fritz.html

[rich]

"Jihadists have fought not because they hope to win on the battlefield, but to strengthen the antiwar lobbies in the United States and Britain."

Amir Taheri

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01122007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/how_iraqis_see_ws_new_plan_opedcolumnists_amir_taheri.htm

We have won in Iraq. The question is whether we will pay the price to keep what we have won.

[Liquid]

Iran must be wondering who America is testing THIS for!

[slowtrain]

All the smart people in our think tank institutions and study groups have all concluded that there is no one particular thing that can be done to achieve success in Iraq. It has been said by virtually everyone in charge of one expect of the effort or another, from the soldiers to the generals, from the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of State, that no one can predict the effect of the troop increment or predict victory on account of the troop increment alone. Therefore, increasing our troop level by 21,000 or any number for that matter, must be accompanied by making clear to the region and the world that if we eventually pull out of Iraq without achieving our goal of a stable Iraq, it would not be because America is defeated militarily, it would be because the people we are there to help are so incapable of reconciliation that they would rather sacrifice their children and their future, just because they hate their neighbors more than they love their children. We have to make it clear to the Iraqis and the region as whole, that, though we have a lot at stake in Iraq, the stake is even higher for them. Eventually, we will find other ways of dealing with whoever controls Iraq or whatever comes out of Iraq, be it Iran or Al Qaeda. There is always another way to any objective; we just have to look further and work harder.

Right now, we have essentially constrained ourselves to thinking just within the box. It is high time we began thinking outside the box. We have to be true to ourselves, we owe it our selves, in admitting that there is a possibility that we may not be able to make Iraqis (Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds) to at least accept the proposition of one another’s right to coexist. The adage, “You can take a horse to the stream but you cannot make the horse drink from it”, holds true here as well.

It is prudent that we start developing levels of sensitivity analysis to an outcome in Iraq that may not be what we want or hope for. Such analysis would lead us to start thinking outside the box, in time, to come up with plans to deal with a situation that may result, if Iraq collapses on account of irreconcilable differences between the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. The one thing we cannot afford is to be unprepared or without a plan for another unexpected outcome in Iraq or one deriving from it. I am not against troop increment, but I would be very concerned if that is all there is to go with it and work with. The doctrine of clear, hold, and rebuild sounds very good theoretically, but if the Iraqis themselves (Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds) refuse to be reconciled, there is not much we can do to change the situation, even with additional troops of 21,000 or any number for that matter. We must make clear to them that the only option beside what we offer them (a chance to rebuild their country and to learn to live with their neighbors in peace) is the devil’s alternative.

[Sissy Willis]

He was despised . . . rejected . . . a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

[Tucker Smith]

Guys, at a time like this Bush need lots and lotsa '
'support'. We gotta go 'vote' for him here:

http://corruptlist.com/george_w_bush

[Ghost Dansing]

Dubya defines the problems very well... usually problems of his own making or ones he has exacerbated...

We're talking about competency in dealing with the issues. The better question... harder question is "In what ways has Dubya succeeded in Iraq?"

It is a catastrophe that has done nothing to ameliorate the conditions he contends to address.