Archive for the ‘war’ Category

5 Years is all it took

Posted: July 6, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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On Jan 30, 2005 back in the days before I was blogging anywhere Glenn Reynolds put up a post about the Iraqi elections and printed this e-mail:

I’m remembering the coy saying about the French resistance. “If everyone who claimed to be in the resistance really had been, there would have been nobody left to collaborate.”

I make the following prediction: In 20 or 25 years (it might not even take that long) all the people who where saying that the war was wrong and Iraq was wrong will talk about how America brought democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan and how they were a part of it due to their protests and desire for democracy and the end of tyranny. (of course they will not mention that the tyranny that they meant was us.) If the same people who write the current history books write them again be sure that this will happen.

Well it’s been 5 1/2 years and here via Gateway Pundit is Joe Biden:

Vice President Joe Biden said after a three-day trip to Baghdad that the American people will see President Barack Obama’s Iraq policy as a success when the “combat mission” ends on schedule Aug. 31. Biden said the administration “will be able to point to it and say, ‘We told you what we’re going to do, and we did it.’”

“I think America wins,” Biden told POLITICO in an end-of-trip interview at the ambassador’s residence in the sprawling U.S. Embassy complex. “I sound corny, but I think America gets credit here in the region. And I think everybody gets credit, from George Bush to [President Obama].

Now for myself as long as we actually win I don’t care and in fairness given his previous statements the President had great potential to mess things up, and didn’t.

Hot air pundit is quite correct that they are mostly taking credit that they don’t deserve for victory, but it’s a lot better than them getting proper credit for our defeat.

Southern Storm: Amazon Review

Posted: July 3, 2010 by datechguy in amazon reviews, war
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My review of Noah Andre Trudeau’s book Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea is available at Amazon.com here.

This volume is very much worth reading. The only reason I can think of for not buying it at Amazon is that I found a copy in the bargain bins at my local Barnes and Noble for $5. How a book this good ended up in that bin is beyond me.

Two nasty thoughts…

Posted: July 2, 2010 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, opinion/news, war
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…one about the past and one about the present.

Nasty Thought #1: All this draft nonsense:

Do you get the feeling that MSNBC and the left are pushing and talking draft right now because they are afraid of Gen Petraeus? Not afraid of him politically but afraid of him as a general. I have the horrible and uncharitable feeling that they are afraid he will actually win this war.

Success in the war would mean a more powerful US. One more likely to act rather than talk. The concept of the US military as a force never to be used is even more sacred to the left than the first black president. They aren’t in a position to attack Petraeus so the only way to counter him is to get the country talking draft. With a high unemployment rate and college so expensive it is a tempting solution to several social/economic problems but it would scare the britches off of many in the ME generation.

The left has never lost their love of 60’s radicalism, it was their greatest moment, it is their dream to bring it back in living color.

Such an appraisal is not very fair to most of the left and is as I said a nasty thought, but right now it is stuck in my head and won’t come out.

Nasty Thought #2 Al Gore

For years I’ve wondered why Al Gore didn’t assert himself during the Clinton Impeachment stuff. It would have been up to Gore to talk to the president and say it was time for him to go. If he had conventional wisdom says he would have easily won election in 2000 and maybe even in 2004. Not only did he not assert himself but he after the impeachment vote made that ludicrous speech calling Mr. Bill “One of our greatest presidents” (talk about grading on a curve)! In my mind the question has always been: Why did he play along?

I have the nasty feeling that question has now been answered. Does anyone believe for one moment that if the Clintons knew Gore had some ahem “interesting diversions” they wouldn’t have held that over him? Al understood that people judge a Rogue differently than a “strait arrow”. It’s the expectations game. People were not surprised that Clinton was messing around and judged him accordingly, but Gore? He would be judged by his strait arrow image.

Again this is a nasty thought and assumes Gore’s guilt but I can’t get it out of my head.

Are these thoughts a sign I am becoming paranoid or am I just becoming more street savvy? What do you think?

The long way home : Amazon Vine Review

Posted: June 26, 2010 by datechguy in amazon reviews, war
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My review of David Laskin’s latest: The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War is available at Amazon.com here.

Considering the context of the current immigration debate it becomes timely while reminding people of a war all but forgotten.

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