War on Terror
If I were living in Providence’s 9th Ward, I’d be seriously concerned that I might be represented by a City Councilman who believes that a government that kills 100,000 of its own people in a time of “peace” is acceptable (kind of worries you about what his ideas for cost-control on health care might be,…
Michael J. Totten has done incredible work reporting from Iraq. I highly recommend his latest, Anbar Awakens Part II: Hell is Over. There’s so much in his story, but I was particularly moved by this passage: The Iraqis of Anbar Province turned against Al Qaeda and sided with the Americans in large part because Al…
Feeding into the WPRO ad, “Where do bloggers go….”, Dan Yorke brings up an interesting point. Why was there a need for a “Democrat response” to the Presidential speech on the status of the conflict in Iraq? Dan talked to Brown University’s Darrell West about it, and they came to the following conclusions: 1) There…
Despite some disagreement about the specific metrics cited, there really wasn’t much disagreement on the basic accuracy General David Petraeus’ report to Congress on post-surge conditions in Iraq. The important takeaways were…The surge has worked to turn Sunni communities against al-Qaida in Iraq. It is unlikely that the Sunnis by themselves would have had the…
The Politico reports on frustration that anti-war types are experiencing over their marginalized role in mainstream politics. Rabbi Michael Lerner, an “anti-war” leader from Berkeley, California, says that…“The Democrats don’t have – and even the people in the anti-war movement don’t have – a coherent alternative world view from which to base a strategy. That’s…
The New York Times’ version of General David Petraeus much-anticipated recommendation on how to proceed in Iraq is that 1) the surge has been successful enough, both against the enemy and in giving Iraqis the confidence to fight on our side, to allow a draw-down of troops to pre-surge levels, possibly between December and next…
Several interesting reads about Iraq, Vietnam and warriors: Frederick Kagan: Al Qaeda in Iraq – How to understand it. How to defeat it. Victor Davis Hanson: The Former-Insurgent Counterinsurgency Robert Kaplan: Rereading Vietnam (h/t Instapundit) The Kaplan article is a particularly rich piece and worthy of a close reading. Here is what Villainous Company writes…
With a h/t to National Review Online, here is a perspective on the revolt by Iraqi tribes against al Qaeda, with the author – Australian Col. David Kilcullen, who just completed a tour as senior counterinsurgency aide to U.S. commander General David Petraeus – offering this “tentative conclusion:” As we all know, there is no…
Rhode Islander Rocco DiPippo, recently returned from Iraq, makes his Pajamas Media debut today…When detailed pictures of the police stations were dropped on my desk, I looked them over and thought, “How the hell will I get this job get done?” After six months of difficult work, all 17 police stations had been completed, on…
On Sunday, the NY Times published and op-ed by 7 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne in which they explained their reservations about the way the War in Iraq is going. An excerpt: Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist,…