Redstate

Posted at 3:04pm on May 14, 2008 Poppies in Iraq and Arabs in Afghanistan: Did Barack Obama “Pull a McCain” in his SpeechTuesday Night ?

No -- What he did was far worse.

By Jeff Emanuel

You could say that Barack Obama "pulled a John McCain" Tuesday night, with his verbal gaffes regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Arabic-speaking translators, and the War on Terror.

You could say that -- but you would be wrong.

“Conflating” Sunni and Shi’a?

Almost two months ago, pundits and politicians alike descended upon Mr. McCain with accusations of confusion, a lack of touch, and even outright dishonesty when the Republican presidential nominee said that al Qaeda fighters in Iraq have been receiving funding, training, and equipment from Iran during the last year-plus of the Iraq War.

Mr. McCain "conflated" Sunni and Shi'a organizations, which clearly "represent opposing sides in the Iraqi civil war[sic]" crowed the liberal web site ThinkProgress. In an ABCNews blog post entitled "Err-Jordan," Jake Tapper wrote that McCain "seemed to step in it" with his assertion that Sunni al Qaeda and Shi'a Iran were working together, asking if the Senator was suffering from "jet lag." (Tapper, who has been one of the better reporters of this campaign season, later posted an opposing viewpoint, if not an outright correction.)

Susan Rice, then still a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, called McCain's assertion "very bizarre," saying that "there is no body of evidence to suggest Iran is aiding Al Qaeda in Iraq" and noting that Mr. McCain had "made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don't know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?"

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Afghanistan | Barack Obama | GWOT | inexperience | Iraq | John McCain | War | zero-sum foreign policy — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:45am on May 13, 2008 Reading War and Decision: Part One

Chapters 1-3: The First Days

By Mark I

From its very first pages, War and Decision, Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, takes the conventional wisdom about the war on terror and throws it out the window. Nothing, literally nothing you know about the way that the Bush Administration planned, decided, and executed the United States’ strategy for fighting and ultimately winning the war can stand up to the scrutiny imposed by this consequential book. In twenty years, when historians start to write a dispassionate history of the Bush Administration and its actions, they would do well to start with Feith’s careful, detailed, and surprising account of the issues, decisions, mistakes, and triumphs that America experienced in the early stages of its war against fundamentalist Islamic extremists.

Throughout her history, America has been fortunate to have great leaders at decisive times: George Washington and the Founders; Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II; Ronald Reagan after the decline of the 1970s. America’s democracy, by design or by Providence, always seems to produce a man for his times to steer the nation through turbulence. In the case of the war on terrorism, there was not so much one man--although George W. Bush will ultimately be judged kindly by history for his principled leadership--as there was a particularly important plane trip. On the day after September 11th, 2001, when America had been brought low from the skies by hijacked airplanes used as weapons, it is both ironic and entirely fitting that the germ of the battle plan that would ultimately bring the terrorists to their knees, would begin to take shape in the belly of a military cargo plane en route from Europe to Andrews Air Force Base.

Read on…

Posted in Afghanistan | Donald Rumsfeld | Douglas Feith | Iraq | National Security | Pentagon | War and Decision | War on Terror — Comments (39)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:47pm on May 12, 2008 The Sadrist/Iraqi Government "Truce" -- A play for peace, or a quick time out to rearm and catch their breath?

Time will tell, but for now the bullets are still flying

By Jeff Emanuel

Note: More background is provided in this Human Events column.

Over the weekend, spokesmen for the Iraqi government and the Sadrist political bloc confirmed what our own lovable fuzzball Moe Lane posted here Friday night: that a cease-fire agreement concerning Sadr City had been reached. A large Shi'a district northeast of Baghdad, Sadr City has been the site of intense fighting between Jaish al Mahdi (JAM, or "Mahdi Army") militants and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and coalition forces for the last six weeks or so. During that time, JAM has lost exponentially more of its fighters than the ISF and coalition forces have.

Sadrist leaders made a series of concessions in their rush to get a peace deal inked -- though whether or not that deal will actually be honored is another question. The deal and the likelihood of its being lived up to are explored below the fold.

Read on.

Posted in Iraq | Mahdi Army | Muqtada al-Sadr | Nouri al-Maliki | Sadr City | War — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:28pm on May 9, 2008 Oh, look. Maliki beat the Sadrists like a red-headed stepchild.

But... but... but... that doesn't fit the Media narrative!

By Moe Lane

And I can almost hear the teeth grinding of Ms. Fadel as she had to write this particular article (via Instapundit):

In big concession, militia agrees to let Iraqi troops into Sadr City
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of "medium and heavy weaponry."

The agreement would end six weeks of fighting in the vast Shiite Muslim area that's home to more than 2 million residents and would mark the first time that the area would be under government control since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. On Friday, 15 people were killed and 112 were injured in fighting, officials at the neighborhoods two major hospitals said.

There's something pleasant about watching a site like McClatchy being forced to deal with objective reality. But enough about them! I have a question each for both of the Democratic candidates for President:

For Barry: Given that, if we had listened to you when you called for our cutting and running from Iraq, this scenario would not only not have happened, but the entire country would have probably collapsed into an inchoate mess - when are you going to actually revise and extend your position on the war so that it reflects conditions in this universe?

No, you may not ask a friend. Frankly, I don't know why you even have advisers, given that they seem to have a half-life of seaborgium. At this rate, I expect that you will soon have them all fitted with explosive collars that will go off whenever the policy positions they espouse go under 50% 60%* in the polls.

For Hill: Given that you are rapidly acquiring a rogues' gallery of left-wing pundits, bloggers, activists, anarchists, Marxists, and just plain insane nutballs that any self-respecting neo-conservative would envy... have you thought about just taking the damn plunge already and rejoining the side of the angels wrt the GWOT? All of those people above are prepared to climb over broken glass rather than vote for you anyway.

Come on. You know that you want to.

*Dammit, Addison. Having an actual sense of humor is fighting dirty.

Posted in Barack Obama | GWOT | Hillary Clinton | Iraq | Sadr | War — Comments (28)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:48am on Apr. 30, 2008 FactCheck.org Agrees - DNC Takes Over Obama's Lies

By California Yankee

On Monday I went after Howard Dean and company for picking up Obama's lies with another less than truthful ad.

Now FactCheck.org has examined the Democrat's latest prevarications and found, once again, that the Democrats' ad "twists" what Senator McCain actually said:

The ad twists the sense of McCain's words by showing images of war, when he was really talking about a peaceful troop presence. Imagine how different the ad would seem if it showed images of, say, American troops walking the streets of Tokyo or Seoul and had included what McCain said about "Americans ... not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

Anyone who didn't already know the fuller version of McCain's answer could easily be fooled into thinking that McCain would be perfectly happy to see the war continue. McCain has said quite clearly that he considers Democratic proposals for a quick withdrawal from Iraq to be "surrender," and so deadly fighting could well continue longer under a President McCain than under either a President Hillary Clinton or a President Obama. But what the DNC ad conveys is the opposite of what McCain said.

Read on, there's more.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | DNC | Economy | Howard Dean | Iraq | John McCain — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:40am on Apr. 26, 2008 Millbank Continues The Post's War Against Feith

By California Yankee

Please excuse the piling on, I know Erick already posted on this, but I am still compelled to add my two cents.

Dana Milbank continues the Washington Post's campaign against Doug Feith's new book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism.

The paper's effort to diminish Feith's book began two weeks ago when Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote a hit piece on Feith's book without waiting for the book to be released or bothering taking the time to read the unedited manuscript of an embargoed book of some 528 pages less than six hours before they managed to obtain less than six hours before they went to press.

It seems a little unethical that Ricks and DeYoung forget to mention that they both have books being sold, books which take a bit of a different view of things than the three Post writers' versions of what is contained in Feith's book.

I feel at least as qualified as DeYoung, Milbank or Ricks to write about Feith's new book. Even though, like the three of them, I have not yet read War and Decision. At least I took the time to talk to Feith about the book and his experiences before writing this. Earlier today I was fortunate enough to participate in a conference call with Doug Feith and other bloggers including some RedState colleagues. As Pejman Yousefzadeh posted, we engaged in an interesting hour-long discussion about the book.

Read on, there is more.

Posted in Biased Media | Dana Milbank | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:53pm on Apr. 25, 2008 A Conference Call With Douglas Feith

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

I had the opportunity to be on a call for about an hour with former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, whose book, War and Decision has now come out. Feith spent the time talking about his book and the observations he makes in it.

Read on . . .

Posted in Douglas Feith | Iraq | War — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:47pm on Apr. 25, 2008 The Basra Awakening

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

This article gives a lot of hope to those who want to see the reconstruction effort succeed in Iraq. It points out the degree to which life has become better in Basra since gangs of gunmen sought to throw Basra into a state of anarchy. It is ridiculous to excerpt--the article should simply be read in whole.

Posted at 4:46pm on Apr. 25, 2008 The Book the Washington Post Doesn't Want You To Read

Because you can't handle the truth

By Erick

The Washington Post has declined to review Doug Feith's War and Decision. On the grounds that Tom Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote about book on March 9th, the paper feels it has been given sufficient coverage in its august pages. The Post is apparently not concerned that Ricks and DeYoung had their unedited manuscript of an embargoed book of some 528 pages (excluding notes and appendices) by their own admission for less than six hours before they went to press, and that in the course of these six hours they conducted interviews with Feith and Bremer and wrote their article as well as quickly flipping through it for the juicy bits--a hectic schedule that explains why their piece ignores large segments of the book and does not mention any of the material Feith publishes for the first time (they condemn the book as including "surprisingly little new" information). This is no matter to the editor of the Post's Book World. That article is good enough for the likes of War and Decision. It counts as their formal review and there is simply no room for further consideration--it would be too repetitious. After all, the Post has its standards.

Or does it?

Read on . . .

Posted in Dana Milbank | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision | Washington Post — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:09am on Apr. 14, 2008 Totten In Iraq

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Michael Totten's Iraq reporting continues to be outstanding and continues to deserve your attention and support. This post is jam-packed with valuable information and insights. Go over and read.

Posted at 4:18pm on Apr. 13, 2008 On Doug Feith's "War and Decision"

By AcademicElephant

Promoted by Dan McLaughlin

[In the interests of full disclosure, Doug is a friend and I am biased in favor of him and of this book - AE.]

Doug Feith’s War and Decision came out on Tuesday. In my opinion, everyone who is interested in the greatest challenge to our country in a generation, the Global War on Terror, should read it.

War and Decision is the first book written by someone who was actually part of the decision-making process in the Pentagon on and after 9/11. Up till now, we have been reading largely second-hand accounts that report on events in which the authors were not directly involved and that are thus heavily reliant on selective sourcing. The result, as we all know, has not been pretty and the debate, particularly on Iraq, has disintegrated into finger pointing and hysteria.

Read On....

Posted in Afghanistan | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision | WMD — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:18am on Apr. 11, 2008 Great VLOG from Juli: Being Dead Would Be Much Sadder, Ray!

By RightMichigan.com

Juli posts vlogs on RightMichigan.com every week discussing whatever gets her going the day she's filming. She's actually the only regular political vlogger in the entire State of Michigan which is pretty cool.

Anyways, this one was too good not to share...

Posted in Blogosphere | Democrats | Iraq | Michigan | Ray Basham | State Senate | Stupidity — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:36am on Apr. 11, 2008 Sistani "Outs" Mookie

By haystack

I almost fell over when I read THIS news gem from Bill Roggio and the Long War Journal:

With the Iraqi government applying pressure to the Sadrist movement and Muqtada al Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq’s senior Shia cleric has weighed in on the issue. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, backed the government’s position that the Mahdi Army should surrender its weapons and said he never consulted with Sadr on disbanding the Mahdi Army. Instead, the decision to disband the Mahdi Army is Sadr’s to make.

Sistani spoke through Jalal el Din al Saghier, a senior leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a rival political party to the Sadrist movement. Saghier was clear that Sistani did not sanction the Mahdi Army and called for it to disarm.

"Sistani has a clear opinion in this regard; the law is the only authority in the country," Saghier told Voices of Iraq, indicating Sistani supports Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and the government in the effort to sideline the Mahdi Army. "Sistani asked the Mahdi army to give in weapons to the government."

Mookie's people just told us 4 days ago that he:

is ready to disband his militia if Shi'ite religious leaders demand it

Well, Mookster? Sistani just demanded it. Either the whole Basra thing is a stunt to garner popularity in the run-up to the provincial elections, or this uprising is..essentially...over and done with. What say you, Mookster? Ready to let Iraq be a country yet?

More below the fold...

Posted in Breaking News | Iraq | Maliki | Mookie fumbles | Sistani | What winning looks like — Comments (32)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:44pm on Apr. 9, 2008 It Is Hard And Complex

The "real" issues at hand in the Iraq conundrum.

By haystack

General Petraeus testified before the Senate yesterday. Ambassador Crocker testified as well. The major headlines seemed more interested in the Presidential nominees and how they, in turn, handled their couple of minutes before the cameras questioning these two men about the status of things in Iraq. Much excitement swirled among the major media outlets, opining about how "Commander in Chiefish" they might have performed. Little was offered on the "specifics" of the news that the General and Ambassador's testimony brought us about the single most divisive issue in modern American history...well, since Viet Nam at least.

I watched it all on CSPAN 2, but since I don't get CSPAN 3 I missed the Foreign Relations circus in the afternoon. I was lucky though because Obama's network - CNN - promised all afternoon they would interrupt ANYONE that might be discussing the day's news when Obama got HIS turn to demagogue. They did, he did, and I remain unimpressed.

This is about Iraq. It's about Afghanistan. It's about the Middle East. It's about terrorism and the long war. It's about Sunni and Shia and Wahabi. It's about Christians and Jews and Muslims. It's about oil. It's about our middle and long-term security interests. It's about our grandchildren and the grandchildren of Arabs and Persians and Israelis. It's about everyone else's grandchildren as well. It's about things that are hard and complicated. Increasingly, however, it's becoming MORE about making it go away by turning our backs on these issues hoping they'll get better on their own (some even believing they will ONLY get better by turning our backs on them); hard and complicated don't go very well in modern America anymore.

It should NOT be about who the next President is. Clearly, however, I am in the minority in this regard.

America still stands at the very same crossroad it has been made to suffer for a very tiresomely long time now: do we stay or do we go?

This is going to be a long one, so if you leave now, leave with something my good friend Jeff Emanuel said...WAY back in October of 2007:

While a long-term view of Iraq, and its future issues, must be considered (with far more care than the nation’s future was thought through at the time of the initial invasion), those tasked with making tactical, strategic, and policy-level decisions on Iraq must not lose sight of the now in favor of analyzing every possible future issue. The decision-making process must not fall victim to the paralysis that can be brought on by over-analysis of future possibilities, lest America’s current effort be inadvertently and fatally undermined.

It's stunning what you might learn should you JOIN the men and women doing the heavy lifting as opposed to jumping in for a quick photo-op and running home for another dull day on Capitol Hill.

More below the fold...

Posted in Anti-War crowd | Defeat | Iraq | Surrender | the long war | War — Comments (26)/ Email this page » / Read More »