Obama spent the day golfing instead of making his long awaited decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan.

For weeks, President Obama has been indecisively dithering about whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight what he correctly calls a “war of necessity.” General Stanley A. McChrystal’s report, in which he requests more troops, was issued at the end of August.

The Commander in Chief, taking political heat for not having enough women in his inner circle, found golf a more important political expediency than finally making the Afghan decision. There was so much heat that an article in the New York Times began, “Does the White House feel like a frat house?” Obama apparantly needed headlines proclaiming that he golfs with a woman, more than he needed to make the life and death decision as to whether he will send more troops in support of his “war of necessity.”

Obama’s Afghan indecision has gone on for so long, some wonder if Obama has delayed his long overdo decision until after this year’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in order to help struggling Democrat candidates Jon Corzine and Craig Deeds. Others have simply concluded that Obama is ignoring Afghanistan and breaking his vow to fight his “war of necessity.”

(Via AoSHQ) It has been declared a holiday, and for good reason. They’re getting their country… well, ‘back’ is the wrong word; under the Baathists it was never really ‘theirs’ to begin with. But they do take responsibility for their cities and towns now.

Iraqis Celebrate Day of National Sovereignty Marking US Troop Pullback

Iraqis are staging a national celebration to mark the impending June 30th withdrawal of U.S. troops from most cities, towns and villages. Celebrations in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, include music, dance and poetry.

I think that this is a nicely iconic image:

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Governor Sarah Palin recently tweeted:

“Got Fed ok for Adjutant Gen Campbell, Command Sgt Major Choate and me to travel to our Ak Army Natl Guard troops on Wed. Glad to go to them”

The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate’s tweet didn’t say exactly where she would travel to visit the toops. But one has to wonder why she would need permission from the Feds to visit her own state’s Guard troops unless she’s talking… er, tweeting about going overseas to do it. The only other place we can think of that she might need federal permission to visit Alaska Army Guard troops is Fort Greely.  The missile base, however, is a hundred miles from Fairbanks, so a visit to the facility would not involve much in the way of travelling. Also, Gen. Cambell should not need federal permission to visit Greely.

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…as found here: he’s the guy that did this pre-surge interview in 2007 for Salon where he breezily declared that:

• “The U.S. is failing miserably at containing the spread of al-Qaida.”
• “The idea of Western-style democracy in Iraq doesn’t appeal to anyone.”
• “I don’t think any number of new troops is going to help unless we’re going to station troops on every single corner of every single street in every single city in Iraq.”

Yeah, I know: oops.

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Despite taking place in the Information Age, very few of the heroic exploits of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines since September 11, 2001, have made their way into the living rooms of ordinary Americans — at least in any lasting way.

Whether this is the result of changing values among the American people, the general population’s perpetually dwindling attention span, or because there are so many things closer to home our nation is choosing to focus on instead of our service men and women’s gallant deeds and efforts (whether that be a rocky national economy or the latest season of American Idol), the fact is this generation has failed to identify and treasure its incarnations of historic military heroes like Audie Murphy, Jimmy Doolittle, Pappy Boyington, Bill Pitsenbarger, Bud Day, and countless others.

This disappointing reality is not unique to the current decade. Who, for example, can name the most recent pre-global war on terror (GWOT) recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor? The names of Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon — two Army special operations sergeants who received the nation’s highest award for their heroic actions in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 — are utterly foreign to the vast majority of the same American population that can name the latest movie star to file for divorce, the latest starlet to have borne a child out of wedlock, or the latest teen sensation to enter alcohol rehab.

Part of the problem is a lack of reporting on stories of true heroism among the men and women serving this country in war zones around the world. After all, how can people know of the deeds being done by our best and brightest if the news media — whose sole raison d’être is to report on deeds and events — doesn’t the job it exists to do?

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Two years ago this April 19th, Harry Reid declared the war in Iraq “lost.”

“Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything,” Reid, D-Nev., told reporters.

Reid was utterly wrong and has never retracted his remarks. In fact, his remarks were heralded by the Islamofascists we fight and were greeted negatively by the American soldiers and sailors who were and are winning on and off the battlefield in Iraq.

But we should remind Harry Reid of this anniversary. I would encourage each and everyone one of you to send Harry Reid an anniversary card, reminding him of the day, two years ago, he threw our military under the bus for political expedience.

His address is:

Lloyd D. George Building
333 Las Vegas Boulevard
South, Suite 8016
Las Vegas, NV 89101

Hat tip to Jed Babbin for reminding me and egging me on.

Isn’t it just a pain in the neck when there’s an alternative media that prevents strict message control by a staged-photo-op of an administration and its willing mouthpieces in the MSM?

It’s painless for us, of course; rather, that pain is being felt in the necks of those who want to insist that a bow to a Saudi king isn’t a bow, that an omnibus spending bill with 9,000 earmarks is the beginning of earmark and fiscal reform, that indecisively waiting four days while an American ship’s Captain is held hostage on a rubber raft by four Somali pirates (before being bailed out by swift action by the hostage and a SEAL team) is bold, new leadership — and that a staged event with Obama voters only and a bunch of cameras handed out as props is a real sign of soldiers’ devotion to the new, inexperienced, non-military-friendly Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces.

That’s right: courtesy of our friend Dave Hinz at The Minority Report comes the true story of a staged photo-op between a president who cares only about controlled and contrived appearances, and the component of a deployed military that was hand-selected to give him the contrived appearance he and his handlers desired.

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When Barack Obama released, his budget, he claimed that it didn’t contain “gimmicks” and that he cost of the budget was so high because he fully funded Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget and didn’t use gimmicks. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times swallowed the line so completely that she called her story “Obama bans gimmicks, deficits will rise”. (Never mind that the ever skeptical Slate Magazine had a different view) Her second paragraph of her story said:

The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses.

Yet, just a little over a month later, … Barack Obama is asking for more money:

Washington, DC — President Obama today submitted to the Congress a Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 supplemental appropriations request totaling $83.4 billion to fund ongoing military, diplomatic, and intelligence operations.

An overwhelming amount of this money — nearly 95 percent — is to move forward with the President’s agenda of ending the war in Iraq responsibly and his new strategy of refocusing the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

These are things that Obama campaigned on since 2007. But he didn’t plan for them in his budget. His budget assumed that the US would break its agreement with Iraq to pull out (decided before the election), according to Slate:

In this manner, the Obama administration pretends that some of the Bush tax cuts are going to affect the budget years after they are set to expire. It also assumes higher Medicare physician payments than projected under current law requirements. The same is true with the accounting for the Iraq war. The baseline assumes the war will be funded at high levels for the next 10 years, even though Obama is planning to bring 100,000 troops home in the next 19 months.

You would think that would save money. But no. Obama needs more. His budget not only had gimmicks. it just had lies.

The 2008 presidential campaigns will long be remembered as historic.  Of course, one of the most remarkable thresholds crossed was the record breaking financial resources raised and spent through the process.  In fact our fund-raising for McCain-Palin 2008 raised over $450 million, by far the most successful in Republican Presidential campaign history.  The previous record was $260 million, set by Bush-Cheney in 2004.  Much will be discussed over the coming years on how political races should be financed.  With record shattering funds raised by both campaigns and political parties it’s easy to see why.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had the distinct privilege of serving first as a National Finance Co-chairman and then as de-facto National Finance Chairman for Senator McCain these past two years. While I have served on many campaigns, in a variety of different leadership positions, this was the first time I focused most of my energies on finance.   Having spent the past few months reflecting on my time leading the finance team I would like to share a few of my observations, in a short series of posts over the next few days about this historic campaign.  I welcome any and all thoughts that you’d like to share.

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In Iraq a U.S. soldier told Jake Rademacher, “I’d give my life for America any day. Wouldn’t think twice.” Jake himself has two brothers serving in Iraq and he wanted to know why? Why are they doing it? So he packed his camera and embeded himself with his brother’s unit in Iraq to answer that burning question. What makes our soldiers put their lives on the line?

Brothers at War is the result of filmmaker Jake Rademacher’s experience with his own brothers serving in Iraq. This film, executive produced by Gary Sinise, is one of exquisite beauty and deep emotion and, even more importantly, is a salute to the patriotism and bravery of our men and women in uniform. Unlike the products of Hollywood, this film does not treat our soldiers as villains and criminals.

This is an Iraq conflict film worth promoting. Look it up and go see it, won’t you?

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You remember those brutal Iraqis who hung Saddam Hussein by the neck until he was dead and then flashed his postmortem picture from cell phone to cell phone?  Those barbaric ghouls who were incapable of understanding, let alone implementing, the rule of law?

Well, it seems the ghouls have taken a holiday and the legal system in Iraq is picking up steam.  Saddam’s foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, has been acquitted of one of the (many) charges against him.  Aziz is an interesting case–he was generally the lead in contacts between Iraq and the west and while he was complicit in the regime’s crimes, he does not appear to have been a lead actor.  The Iraqi court, rather than being moved by a justifiable desire for vengeance, heard this case on its merits and acted in a level-headed, even merciful manner.

The results of this trial are the fruit of long, hard work on the part of the Iraqis and the Americans who have worked with them for the last six years to rebuild the rule of law in Iraq.  I particularly commend the efforts of Col. Mark Martins, who has overseen this process since 2004 and was the driving force behind the construction of the Palace of Justice where such trials can take place.  This is a result–unimaginable in the days of Aziz’ master–of which they should all be proud.

I read with some interest this article which describes a supposed Blue-on-Blue fight looming over the upcoming reduction of troops:

Congressional Democrats’ misgivings about President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce troop levels in Iraq has set the stage for potentially major conflicts between Capitol Hill and the White House in the months ahead.

Obama’s announcement Friday that he will leave between 35,000 and 50,000 troops in Iraq after August 2010 brought lukewarm responses from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Both leaders have publicly questioned the decision to leave that many troops there indefinitely.

Also causing consternation is the president’s decision to finish the drawdown in 18 months. As a candidate, Obama had promised a complete withdrawal within 16 months.

Being a kind and generous soul who understands that we’re all in this together, on behalf of the neoconservative movement I am here to offer the President a little advice on how to keep antiwar legislators in line. We did it for eight years, after all; two of which were years where our party was ostensibly not the one running Congress. Heck, our best work was done between 2006-2008. So you can believe that we know that we’re talking about.

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You wonder if Maureen Dowd reads her own paper when she writes things like this: “Mr. Obama called W. on Friday to give him a heads-up about the repudiation on Iraq. Robert Gibbs said the call was not at all contentious.” Should someone tell her it wasn’t contentious because it marked  the fulfillment not the repudiation of Bush’s Iraq policy? (Hence, the decision to leave the most troops possible in place through the next election and leave 50,000 there for a while thereafter.)

–Jennifer Rubin. It’s long been a mystery to me as to why Dowd’s trite, lame, desperate attempts at humor, coupled with her complete ignorance of basic facts, haven’t gotten her fired from the New York Times. I suppose it says something about the newspaper that they keep her there; either the Times feels pity for a columnist who likely won’t be able to write anywhere else, or they are blissfully unaware of the damage they are doing to their reputation by keeping Dowd around.

“Bush probably would have given a very similar speech.”

Do read the whole thing, of course, but that line was worth highlighting. As is the following:

At the risk of heading into la-la land, I think Obama should have tipped his hat ever so slightly today to President Bush, Sen. McCain, and other Republicans who had supported the surge strategy, naming them and thanking them. Of course, there’s no telling how Iraq would look today had the surge never happened, but it’s likely that conditions would be pretty grim and that this withdrawal plan would have the smell of defeat to it, rather than the opposite, as it does.

Obama could have caveated this to death — “I opposed Bush’s decision to begin this war, I opposed how he sold it to America, I opposed the way he prosecuted it,” etc. But he could have recognized that Bush’s decision to change strategies in 2007 is in large part why the security situation in Iraq has turned around more than anyone could have hoped, why we can now begin drawing down our forces with a good measure of confidence, and why our troops now feel more and more that their sacrifice is worth it.

Not only would this have been magnanimous, it would have been smart politics. It would have acknowledged the bipartisanship that underlies the decision to begin bringing our troops home by drawing an important line of continuity through our Iraq efforts of the past two years. It would have disarmed Obama’s more hawkish critics on Iraq by conceding their point on the surge and turning it into an argument for the drawdown, which it is. And it would have shown Republicans that Obama is committed not just to a bipartisanship of style but of substance — not just being willing to recognize when the other side has valid points, but actually incorporating them into one’s own thinking.

The President should have taken Brose’s advice. He would have found much to praise in the Bush Administration’s implementation of the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy. On this issue, see also my contribution to the Arena.

Today, President Obama visited Camp Lejeune, N.C., to declare his scheduled end to the war in Iraq on August 31, 2010:

Even though 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq, Obama claims “mission accomplished.”

I know, I know; Obama didn’t actually say “mission accomplished.” But then neither did President Bush, when he declared “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” in front of that banner requested by the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Today, Obama said, “Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.”

Mission accomplished or not, we have been telling you for nearly a year that Obama would leave significant numbers of troops in Iraq and that his 16-month withdrawal timetable wasn’t doable.

In Iraq:

Romance is in the air in Baghdad as war-weary Iraqis celebrate Valentine’s Day after a sharp drop in violence, allowing lovers to cautiously hold hands in parks and to buy gifts for their sweethearts.

Public courtship and more daring clothing for women are increasing after years of growing intolerance, perhaps signaling the Islamic dogma and conservatism that accompanied Iraq’s slide into sectarian slaughter may be losing their grip.

“You cannot imagine how happy I am today,” said Usama Abdul-Wahab Khatab, a recent university graduate nestled beside his girlfriend at a riverside Baghdad park.

Hmmm . . . a “sharp drop in violence” helped bring this about. Perhaps–just perhaps–a “sharp drop in violence” has also helped to bring about a whole host of other beneficial and positive societal changes in the country as well. Naturally, of course, this leads one to speculate on what might have caused the “sharp drop in violence” that has helped bring about all of these beneficial and societal changes, including the increased ability of Iraqis to celebrate Valentine’s Day in a state of relative peace and tranquility.

Curiously enough, the article makes no mention whatsoever of the likely causes of the “sharp drop in violence” that Iraq is experiencing. So I will make mention of them: (1) The surge; and (2) the counterinsurgency strategy. Recall that both were opposed by the President and Vice President of the United States, who have yet to admit that their stances in opposition were in error.

After all, we have a Democrat as President: it’s acceptable to pretend to be for freedom and democracy again.

(Via Holger Awakens, via Tennesseefree.com)

Three things:
1). What do we know about this guy?  Or when it was made?
2). If we had listened to Obama in 2006, this guy would probably be dead right now.
3). Not In Your Name, antiwar movement.
Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

This is a good inside look at the efforts that were made to bring about the surge of troops and the counterinsurgency effort that helped establish the relative peace that now reigns in Iraq–and has reigned for a while now.

We have yet to hear, of course, from President Obama and Vice President Biden, who both decried and denounced the surge during their respective Presidential campaigns and during the general election. How much more successful do the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy have to be before the President and Vice President finally admit error? And with the admission of error, shouldn’t the White House admit as well that any precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would only serve to put at risk all of the gains that have been made in securing and stabilizing the country?

It’s high time for some mea culpas. We had them concerning the Tom Daschle taxcapades. We ought to have them for a far more important issue the President and the Vice President got wrong.

Do y’all recall that strange 2006 “survey” that appeared in the British medical journal The Lancet? The one that claimed that some 655,000 Iraqi civilians (that’s nearly 3% of the total population) had been killed since the 2003 invasion?

And have you noticed how that absurd “study” was a scream-slogan for the unhinged for the past two years?

Well, how about this - the author of that “study” has been officially censured by his professional peers for not meeting either scientific or professional standards in that “work”….

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Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.

Iraqis vote in landmark elections
Iraqis are electing new provincial councils in the first nationwide vote in four years, with the Sunni minority expected to turn out in strength.

After a slow start, correspondents said voting was brisk, including among Sunni Muslims, who largely boycotted the last elections.

The vote is seen as a test of Iraq’s stability ahead of a general election due later this year.

Security is tight and thousands of observers are monitoring the polls.

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