This article originally appears in The American Thinker
Welcome Rush Limbaugh listeners! Always an honor to have Rush give me a mention on his show. How about a little well deserved UN bashing? John Bolton is on the job and giving Kofi and his crew what for! See the latest here.
The first reaction that most Americans had to news that the Jordanian born terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi was killed in a precision bombing raid by the United States Air Force yesterday was one of elation mixed with a grim satisfaction that a huge obstacle to bringing peace and security to Iraq was permanently removed. It was one of those moments that has occurred so rarely in this war; a triumph of good over evil and a clear cut victory for the United States that all Americans should be thankful for.
Not so fast, say many on the left. Former Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was one of the first to try and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of “a growing anti-American insurgency” and that it’s time to get out.“We’re there for all the wrong reasons,” Mr. Kucinich said.
Although the initial reaction to the news by the Democratic party leadership was suitably positive- Senate Minority Leader Reid was particularly fulsome in his praise of the military – as the day went on, a curious thing happened; al Zarqawi shrank in size and importance until by about mid-afternoon, many on the left were asking the question “So where’s Osama?” This Reuters headline was echoed a thousand times on liberal websites and left wing talk radio shows: “Zarqawi found, but bin Laden still eludes US.”
That the media began to spin the story every which way from Sunday was no surprise. In any other context, their desperate attempts to deflect attention from the death of Zarqawi and put the emphasis on the unsuccessful hunt for bin Landen could be seen as a pitiful attempt at comedy, so riotously off kilter their killjoy attitude became by day’s end. It makes one wonder what kind of headlines they would have generated during World War II following the death of Hitler: “German Chancellor dead: No Effect on Quagmire in the Pacific Seen.”
In truth, it became de riguer on the left as the day went on to not only try and downplay the death of al Qaeda in Iraq’s most visible and violent terrorist but to actually posit the notion that the bloodthirsty jihadist was an invention of the US government, that he really wasn’t all that important a cog in the insurgency’s machine of death, and that the Bush Administration used him to try and connect Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. The Huffington Post gave this theme a nice boost:
Well, for one thing, Zarqawi was an invented menace. Before the great “Iraq experiment” in democracy delivered not by necessity but by bullets and bombs (as well as WMD pretexts), Zarqawi was about as popular as Carrot Top. No one knew who he was, kind of like no one knows who else besides Kobe Bryant is on the Los Angeles Lakers. As terrorists go, he was what sportswriters might call a scrub. But once he got in the way of the Bush administration’s crusade on the banks of the Tigris, he quickly became public enemy number one. Or as Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Maliki explained, a “godfather” of terrorism.
Also particularly helpful in this effort was The Atlantic Online which published a curiously sympathetic profile of Zarqawi that had been in the works for weeks entitled “The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi” , a typically earnest liberal effort to “humanize” the enemy while downplaying his significance in the insurgency. The 5,000 word article reminded one of similar efforts to “humanize” death row inmates in the United States by touring their hometown, talking to people who knew them when they were growing up, and trying to get at the “root causes” of their violent actions. The problem, of course, as with death row inmates, is that there are no “root causes” to the actions of people like Zarqawi. They are dead inside; empty husks of humanity without a glimmer of conscience or a flicker of compassion. They are sociopathic monsters who deserve the worst that we can do to them.
Generating sympathy for such a bloodthirsty killer was an admittedly daunting task which is why the press and the left then turned their attention to the notion of Zarqawi’s insignificance and the idea that he was a creation of the Bush Administration’s efforts to make al Qaeda seem more dangerous than it really is. In this, they were aided by the father of one of Zarqawi’s victims, Michael Berg whose son Nick was beheaded by the terrorist in 2004.
Mr. Berg, a genuine pacifist and liberal activist didn’t disappoint. He was widely quoted as comparing George Bush to Zarqawi saying “”His death will incite a new wave of revenge. George Bush and al-Zarqawi are two men who believe in revenge.” Berg is running for Congress on the Green Party ticket in Delaware and one could rightly question not his motives, but the motives of the press in seeking out his sure-fire anti-Bush response. I suppose this is what the press refers to as “balanced reporting.”
But in order to have balance, there have to be two sides presented. By the end of the day, there were two sides alright – the side that said that Bush was a monster and the side that presented the President as incompetent liar. The latter theme was helped along by a story circulated by NBC News that prior to the war, the Bush Administration “failed” to attack and kill the terrorist mastermind:
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,†said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.
The story points out that the military had drawn up strike plans 3 different times to take out Zarqawi’s lab but was blocked each time by a White House who believed that any military action would undercut their efforts to build a coalition to take out Saddam’s whole rotten regime.
Still spinning furiously, the left advanced the theory that Bush’s “rush to war” prevented us from killing Zarqawi in 2002. Leaving aside the notion that killing the terrorist at his lab would have been any more successful than President Clinton’s efforts to kill Osama Bin Laden by bombing his training camp in Afghanistan, one notices the flip-flop by the left immediately; if Saddam had no ties to terrorists, how is it possible that we “missed” anyone? And if he did indeed have ties to terrorist groups, doesn’t that justify the invasion and subsequent liberation of Iraq?
If I were you, I wouldn’t say any of that too loudly in the presence of a liberal. His head is likely to explode.
The clear message by day’s end was that the death of Zarqawi didn’t mean a tinker’s damn. Representative Pete Stark led the charge, calling the killing of the jihadist, in effect, a political ploy:
Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.“This is just to cover Bush’s [rear] so he doesn’t have to answer” for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. “Iraq is still a mess—get out.”
Stark and Kucinich evidently didn’t get the memo on how to react to the good news of al Zarqawi’s death. For in the end, the Democrat’s downplaying this victory could cost them dearly at the polls.
Just yesterday, an AP-Ipsos poll was released showing support for the war at an all time low. One wonders what that same poll might be saying now that the news of Zarqawis death has spread far and wide as well as the equally good news that the Iraqis have finally gotten their act together and finished forming a government by naming the Defense, and Interior Ministers as well as the chief National Security adviser. I daresay that the American people are a little more upbeat about our prospects for total victory in Iraq now that these two very important pieces are in place.
It won’t be a large bump in the President’s numbers, but it will probably be significant. And this, of course, what all the spinning and backtracking was about in the first place. Any rise in the President’s poll numbers will give the lie to the left’s talking points that Bush is finished. And with the Iraqis now ready to finally try and get a handle on the admittedly grim internal security situation, there is a very real chance that by November, significant improvements will be visible thus undercutting the Democratic critique of the war substantially.
What will the American people make of this effort to downplay such a significant victory? One would think that they would reward the Democrats for their loyalty by refusing to give them the responsibility for winning a war whose prospects for victory took such a large step forward yesterday.
9:28 am
This article is idiotic. Zarqawi’s death will be practically forgotten by November, a minor event in the public consciousness next to the continued slaughter of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. To believe that Zarqawi’s death is a big deal is to misunderstand what’s happening in Iraq; but then to support the war is to misunderstand what’s happening in Iraq.
9:32 am
A Prediction: Here Come the Polls
I beat Rick Moran to the punch by 90 minutes, but he and I are on the exact same wavelength.
9:34 am
“Slaughter” of American soldiers is an outrageous exaggeration and you know it. And now that the Iraqis seem to have finally gotten their act together, I would fully expect the violence against civilians on the part of the irregulars to decrease dramatically.
And I can guarantee that the Republicans won’t let people forget about Zarqawi – nor the lame and inexecusable response of Democrats to the news.
9:41 am
I’m not sure why we even bother to respond to these ultra-moonbat outbursts. In the end, just as you and The American Thinker have pointed out, the majority of the American public will remember these self serving dweebs for what they really are, self serving dweebs.
I’m curious what they would have said about the wonderful job our intel people did in WW II when they were able to pinpoint the movement of the chief architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, Admiral Yamamoto. His plane was blown out of the sky. The war was not immediately won but the military had eliminated one of the key cogs in the Japanese war machine.
It is sad that many on the left, politicians and press, reacted in such a predictable way. Neither they or their party will benefit from their clueless reaction.
You don’t have to like this war or this president to understand that justice was served.
Just like Yamamoto, Zarqawi viciously murdered thousands of people.
9:52 am
“Zarqawi’s death will be practically forgotten by November…”
That was the left’s mantra yesterday and I’m sure it will continue to be. This will not go away, no matter how many times you click your hills together and wish you weren’t in Kansas any more. You will have to live with the idiotic statements that will be made and have already been made by the left. You don’t get it now and my guess is you won’t get it anytime in the near future.
9:55 am
“Slaughter†of American soldiers is an outrageous exaggeration and you know it.”
Let’s go to the American Heritage: slaughter: the killing of a large number of persons. Rick, would you say 2400 persons is a large number? Are you saying you have kill more than, what, 20 persons at once? I mean, does it have to be like Haditha?
“And now that the Iraqis seem to have finally gotten their act together, I would fully expect the violence against civilians on the part of the irregulars to decrease dramatically.”
How, exactly, have the Iraqis gotten their act together, by finally filling out their government? Rick, I almost want to urge you not to make a prediction like this. You’ll only embarrass yourself. I’ll come back in three months and show you how wrong you were.
10:12 am
You know full well that the usage of the term “slaughter” in the context of war is different than anywhere else.
In a ten year period from 1986-97, 688 police officers were killed in this country (http://www.fmew.com/archive/police/index.html). Using your definition, that constitutes a “slaughter” of police. But I don’t hear anyone else saying that police are being “slaughtered” do you?
Of course not. And the casualties in Iraq are relative. On June 6, 1944 2500 Americans died in Normandy. While under your definition that could be considered a slaughter of soldiers, in the larger casualty picture of World War II, it is not.
As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, most of the sectarian violence that has been escalating while they dithered over who would run the national security establishment is carried out by irregular gangs – not the more organized militias. Reining in the gangs will be a lot easier than purging the militia from the police hence my belief that the number of killings – around 70 a day now (and yes, that is a slaughter by any definition) will decrease substantially.
10:19 am
“Rick, would you say 2400 persons is a large number? Are you saying you have kill more than, what, 20 persons at once?”
I’d say that even one innocent death is too much, but tell it to Zarqawi (you may have to wait a while – he’s dogmeat). Where’s your proportional outrage at him? Al-qaeda? Islamist terrorists in general? Are you REALLY comparing that to the deaths of soldiers in the volunteer US military? I thought so – just checking.
“I mean, does it have to be like Haditha?”
When did you get the results of the trial? Oh yeah – It hasn’t even happened yet. You have the facts, though. So did Dan Rather.
“Lets go to the dictionary…”
Slaughter? As in 9-11 was a slaughter of American citizens by the organization whose pinhead leader in Iraq we just delivered on a platter to the Devil? Yeah – 9-11-01 was indeed a slaughter. Sorry you forgot what that word meant.
Karma caught up with him and will catch up to these pigs in time. Kill American civilians, soldiers, contractors, and eventually its gonna catch up. Fear not (or plenty if you are an anti-war activist).
Thanks for showing us which political party you are a member of. I’ll remember not to vote for them. Ever.
“How, exactly, have the Iraqis gotten their act together, by finally filling out their government? ... You’ll only embarrass yourself. I’ll come back in three months and show you how wrong you were.”
We’ll all be waiting here for that crow we’re supposed to have started eating in 2000. When Saddam and Zarqawi were both in power, plotting their killing sprees and filling mass graves. They’re both gone now, by the way, and there is a soverign elected government there – courtesy of “Bush’s war.” Like I said – we’ll be waiting.
10:26 am
Okay, Rick, words matter, and I’ll concede the point: American soldiers are not currently being slaughtered, although there have been incidents, like the bombing of the mess hall near Mosul, that qualify as slaughter of Americans. They are merely being killed, and injured. And, yes, they’re dying in lower number than in past wars, but one death is too many if the cause is lost, as I believe it is. Rick, I was drawn to your sight by your post on Coulter, which struck me as decent and sharp. I’m always looking for smart conservatives with which to spar. Here’s my point, I have trouble believing that given the depth of the problems in Iraq—a strong homegrown insurgency, shia-sunni violence, crime, violence amomg shiite sects in the formely peaceful south, the unresolved Kirkuk question, and a possibly diminished yet still strong Al Qaeda—a smart, honest conservative like you really thinks that Zarqawi’s death and two political appoitnments are going to turn this war around.
10:33 am
Berg: No Good in Al-Zarqawi’s Death
Father of man believed to be beheaded by al-Zarqawi sees no good in terrorist leader’s death
10:35 am
“We’ll all be waiting here for that crow we’re supposed to have started eating in 2000. When Saddam and Zarqawi were both in power, plotting their killing sprees and filling mass graves.”
Zarqawi in power in 2000? Neither you nor I would have ever heard of Zarqawi were it not for the war in Iraq. That’s right, Bush MADE Zarqawi. I hate terrorism, I hate terrorism with all my heart, and I hate this war because it’s given the loathsome, vile terrorists like Zarqawi such a big boost.
10:39 am
I think both problems you mentioned – the real threat of a Shia independence movement in the south where Sharia law has clamped down on Basra and other cities and where the British barely show their faces as well as the low level civil war brewing between the Kurds and Shias over oil in the north – these are issues that a stronger central government can address and work to solve. It should go without saying that now that Maliki has a full slate of Ministers (and a pushy US Ambassador), I daresay those problems will receive the attention they deserve.
And look for one of the first moves by the PM to grant general amnesty to the Sunni militias despite US pressure not to. I don’t like the idea but it might be the right move. As you probably know, Maliki just released about 2000 prisoners a few days ago which makes me think he’s going to go for full fledged amnesty.
Of course, that won’t take care of AQI as you correctly point out. But military people say (not Rumsefeld who I have continuously supported firing) that AQI isn’t more than 2000-2500 foreign fighters and getting smaller all the time. Read that Atlantic article I linked to for some good background on the jihadists.
The basic answer is that I agree with many sober minded observers that while the situation is grim, this is the kind of thing that can turn things around. It may be a pipe dream to believe much progress will be made before November but we’ll see.
And engaging someone like you – author, pundit, etc. – is always a pleasure. Don’t mind my temper and stop by anytime.
11:41 am
Perhaps Rick should be commended, albeit slightly, for not repeating exactly the absurd Moonie Times mischaracterization of Stark’s comments as a “stunt”. No, Rick prefers “ploy”. A touch milder, but still a completely dishonest misrepresentation of the comment.
It continues”
“Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of “a growing anti-American insurgency†and that it’s time to get out.”
That happens to be simply factually correct. The number I have heard, from many sources, is about 5% of the insurgency is Zarqawi related. And we know, also from many sources, that the Al-Q higherups have been trying to displace him with more “legitimate” Iraqi leaders.
So while we can all rejoice that the world has one less monster in it today, the notion that this will have any significant impact on the insurgency in Iraq seems to be quite a bit of wishful thinking. And, quite frankly, all of us are thoroughly exhausted from taking these wishful-thinking-rides from the right-wingers, all of which have turned out to be illusury.
Further;
“We’re there for all the wrong reasons,†Mr. Kucinich said.
Well, there Dennis is simply expressing the feeling of the majority of Americans.
11:57 am
Rick, RU ready 4 a Rushalanche?
He just mentioned you 5 min ago.
Great work, my man!
11:59 am
Heheheh Rick has arrived!
12:01 pm
Arrived? Hell, he’s arrived, taken a seat, and been served his cocktail already.
12:05 pm
And a double maduro, perhaps?
12:14 pm
Congratulations, Rick!
I heard Rush mention you and this fine article on his show a short time ago.
You certainly deserve the added attention, you have been one of the finest conservative essayists on the Internet for some time.
12:19 pm
After three years of denial the left has been forced to admit that Saddam was supporting and harboring the terrorists training camps and they were in fact making WMD. Funny how their rant to try and downplay the importance of the US/Iraqi forces wiping away some scum caused them to admit they also knew about Saddam’s involvement in terrorism. Now maybe one of the leftie’s will read the captured documents, slip up and admit that Saddam was not only involved in 9-11, but ordered the attack along with others 6 months prior to 9-11. That’s what’s so dangerous just being a leftie, trying to remember all the lies you have to tell is an impossible task, and slip ups are becoming a daily occurance.
1:04 pm
Zarqawi bites the big one
Now that Al Qaeda’s #2 guy has assumed room temperature, the media has wasted no time in ignoring it in favor of drumming up anti-Bush sentiment once again. And the fringe Left can’t stop foaming at the mouth long enough to even acknowledge (or even …
1:39 pm
Rick: Today was at least the 2nd time Rush Limbaugh has plugged one of your pieces.
Good work! I had a moonbat to filet and your ammunition will come in handy.
Keep it up!
1:44 pm
Rick Moran Mentioned on Rush Limbaugh Show
Wide Awakes Radio host Rick Moran has a post SPINNING THEIR WAY TO DEFEAT IN NOVEMBER that was mentioned today on The Rush Limbaugh Show. Below is a screen shot from RushLimbaugh.com…
2:31 pm
I question Mike Berg’s ‘’genuine pacifism.’’
Last night a caller to Mark Levin’s radio show said that once during an anti-American, Saddam apologist, commie ANSWER rally a group of Iraqi businessmen tried to get Mike Berg’s attention. They held up their arms, waving the stumps that were left after Saddam put them on trial to excuse his own corrupt economy, and had their hands crudely cut off. A police officer finally walked over to Mike Berg and pointed to the Iraqi men.
Mike Berg turned his back.
He isn’t a pacifist.
He’s on the side of the enemy.
2:52 pm
Cyanide and ricin labs in northern Iraq in 2002. Aren’t they WMDs? Seems as if the lefties have been caught in yet another lie. Also, Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq. Connections to 9/11? You bet. The President told the truth!
4:47 pm
Many think debate about what is considered a slaughter is akin to the “problem of the heap”, “problem of baldness”, and my personal favorite “problem of insanity due to personal politics”(how far left or right does a person have to be certified mentally disturbed).
However, considering that only 2500 have died is no small feat in itself. Consider World War I if you want talk about slaughter look at the Battle or Verdun, the Battle of Somme, and the Battle of Passchendaele. The Battle of Verdun had a total 220,000 deaths for both sides. There were days where there were over twenty thousand deaths.
The Battle of the Bulge in WWII is another example of a single battle that was worse than the entire Iraq war/occupation. The US and Britain had over 10,000 deaths in a span of one and a half months.
While it is terrible that anyone has to die, the difference bewteen the slaughter’s of past battles to the one of the entire Iraq conflict which is over three years old now is staggering.
5:17 pm
Zarqawi was a small time player. The UN helps people regardless of who they are or where they live. Kofi never lies,steals or cheats. These would all have been unquestioned headlines fifteen years ago. I guess we have Al Gore to thank for inventing the internet and the cure for the cold.
Boy am I glad I’m from middle America.
6:38 pm
Well this is one from across the pond!
Death of a hero made in the USA? That’s what we think over here!!
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death is an important development in the history of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, and it proves the old adage, “Those who live by the sword must die by the sword” – or does it?
Well, who supplied the sword in the first place?
You need look no further than Bush and his crony, Intestine Powell.
Way back in the days before the invasion of Iraq, Bush and his child Bliar were scraping the barrel for a really good excuse to invade a country full of oil…… (err, sorry), a country with international terrorist links. The Jordanian Boot Boy Musab al-Zarqawi fitted their scheme (an Arab Muslimand and above all, a nobody with a liking for violence).
The US demonised him, created a hero in the eyes of some, and a sound investment for others such as al-Qaeda who before his rise in popularity, viewed him in much the same way as something they’d just scraped off the sole of their shoe.
He was the product of a political decision to wage a propaganda war to justify the invasion of another country, and was thrust into the position of being able to do what he did by those with no real reason (other than the projection of US power) to invade a sovereign state.
In light of this, one must ask who was responsible for his foul acts, by way of encouragement and support? Maybe Bush, Bliar and Intestine Powell can give us an answer?
(The intestine joke needs a lot of explaining really – it’s a language thing)
7:10 pm
Ray, the intestine thing needs no explaination; what needs an explaination is you, you wanker.
Nice story, though. Nice shiny tin-foil hat ya got there, mate…
8:43 pm
Rick, I’m wondering why your post responses to only the liberals with whom you disagree. We shouldn’t assume from your silence that you agree with, say, Scrapiron, who says Saddam was behind 9-11, should we? It seems a worthy goal to disabuse your fans of their most insane theories, lest we conclude that you approve of such crap. Scrapiron’s claim is the mirror image of the leftists who say 9-11 was an Israeli plot.
10:42 pm
[...] Rick Moran from Right Wing Nuthouse had THIS STORY mentioned by Rush Limbaugh, which was written for The American Thinker. He’s one of many future hosts on WAR. Wild Bill has the screenshot of Rush’s site on HIS SITE, and I’ll show you that. [...]
10:55 pm
In Rick’s defense, David, he can’t spend all day responding to his whacked-out commenters. Maybe he cuts Scrapiron some slack because he’s a regular, who knows.
The fact is, there are moonbats on the right and left and both have populated this comment thread. We know AMZ well, and his origins, rise and fall have been well documented but not widely or accurately reported. Semantic arguments over whether or not he “slaughtered” US troops miss the larger picture entirely. At the time of his deserved demise, he was a waning military power who was increasingly marginalized by his Sunni base of support. His influence as a symbol of fear and hatred was still strong even if he could no longer plan and conduct the spectacular attacks that were his trademark. At the peak of his influence his AQI organization almost single-handedly brought the simmering undercurrents in Iraq into open sectarian civil war – a threat which has diminished somewhat, but has not completely passed. As the Sunni population began to climb the fence separating open resistance and engagement, they increasingly pushed AMZ to the side. His wanton slaughter (yes, he definitely DID slaughter) of Shia and Sunni alike further diminished local support for his organization of primarily foreign fighters. Although the insurgency is still often described as foreign-based, it has morphed over the last year into largely Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. Over the last few months, even AQI tried to reinvent itself as a domestic Sunni group by using fewer foreign fighters and “employing†more Iraqis. Maybe with AMZ gone they will succeed.
The final point I’d like to make is that unlike traditional war, killing the enemy will not win an insurgent war, despite what TV pundit idiots say. The political talking heads on Fox News and others wouldn’t know an insurgency if it bit them in the ass. The lifeblood of an insurgency is not its fighters, but the population that tacitly and openly supports them. Killing the active fighters will limit the insurgency’s impact, operational ability and scope, but force of arms alone can only win battles, not the war. Ultimately, there are two ways to end an insurgency: Pull out and let the powerful kill or ethnically cleanse the weaker population, or, enable conditions to make insurgency a less attractive option than peace. For Iraq, the latter option means engagement in the political process, which the Sunnis are currently still on the fence about.
Compare Iraq to what happened in the Balkans. As sad a chapter as it was, Croatia and Serbia are peaceful today because they ethnically cleansed opposing populations away. No opposing population = no insurgency. If you look at insurgencies throughout history they are sometimes quelled through force of arms, but never eliminated. In the modern era, western nations have, to put it nicely, a poor track record in defeating insurgencies. The only thing that will save us from following in their disastrous footsteps is through a strong, representative Iraqi government. I give Bush credit for not taking the easy road and installing a repressive stooge government like we and the western powers have done so many times before. At least it appears we’ve learned that lesson from history.
11:04 pm
Ray, are you in the same boat as those across the pond that welcomed Hugo Chavez with open arms? The same Chavez who is openly striving to jack up oil prices. The same Chavez who has had noted Anti-Semites advising him. The same Chavez who supports Libya and Iran unconditionally. The same Chavez who supports drug exports and the terrorists groups (FARC)that are funded by them?
david minzer,
You know answer why Rick can’t attack Scrapiron. It is the same reason why the majority of the liberals in America refuse to disown Michael Moore? Saddam did harbor terrorists, but I do agree with you on one thing. If someone has evidence about the direct connection between Saddam and 9/11, please present it.
3:55 am
He shoots, he scores! (bad imitation of Marv Albert). The nuthouse and The American Thinker and soon to be radio personality. A man for all seasons
To Zarqawi. Just loose change, eh? Reads just like pure pablam and ignorance. It was an effing day to celebrate and I did. Just a cursory glance at how few good commanders each generation of any conflict can produce, would cluebat you into Zarqawi’s importance. If this isn’t a tipping point, then you have both eyes wide shut. Not only is he irreplaceable as the leader of the Iraqi insurgency but his death sows absolute despair and doubt in the ranks. As a special bonus, we get his and his sub commanders’ (such as they were) laptops, cell phones and documentation. You can bet your booty that as we speak the Zarqawi leadership and cadres are being rolled up like a rug. After winning that big windfall, there is an extra special bonus, the Ba’athist Sunnis are all in there, too. Nah, no big victory here, move along.
Then there is sheer volume of dreck coming from the left in all those posts before me. Thanks to everyone else who laid the smackdowns before I mosied on in. The yeoman’s work is done.
So I’ll just tackle a little tidbit at the tail end of the comments:
Seriously, you never heard of Vietnam (yes that is not a spelling error, you can read all about it), El Salvador, Nicaraugua (twice) and the Phillippines. Peru demolished the Shining Path and Britain did a bang-up job in Malaya but it was a long war. Most are. The Aussies are doing a twofer, Afghanistan/Iraq and East Timor (second time). They’ll be there with us to the end, when we are victorious and they’ll do the other as local matter with the same result.
That’s just a off the top, but it just further illustrates why there can be no real debate between the left and the right, the real debate is in the big tent on the right. When we argue with you, we get these BS narratives that have no basis in history, fact or reality. Start at the very top and work down and all we see is one ill-informed hyperbolic charge after another, all successfully refuted when there is a mind to. Maybe its because the real truth is the left hampers America in every conflict and always chooses the other side so an alternative reality has to be constantly invented. I mean all the conservatives I know have heard of Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Giap and are familiar with the fact that the US military didn’t lose the war but the left did as if they took their instructions straight from Hanoi, or at least Moscow. None of guerilla armies of the Viet Minh/Cong or the regiments of NVA caused the eventual communist victory, it was the Democrat anti-war party with lots of help from from the same damned media that sold out our ally to the communist hegemon and sullied a generation of America’s Vietnam War Veterans. The left tried its best again in El Salvador, but you had a different President to deal with and you lost that one. Here we are in Iraq, in the heart of the Middle East where the Islamic war is mainly focused in Iraq and guess which side you guy are on? Again.
5:14 am
Dear me Keith,
How much was spent on your educashun?
If thinking as I do makes one a “wanker”, then there are a lot of folk world-wide abusing themselves.
What about some response to the issues? Or that fact that to respond so may require you and others to think and address their prejudices not worth the space?
Finally, I do have a helmet, though not a foil one. It was issued to me and worn on during two years of active service in HM Forces. They even gave me a medal that allows me some right to express a point of view and thereafter to expect some content in a comment about the same, as opposed to nothing like it in your post.
5:56 am
David:
Andy is correct. I would like to respond to each and every commenter but it really isn’t possible. I get more than 200 emails, comments, and trackbacks to this site every day. Scrapiron has annoyed me on more than one occasion – but so has Tano, another regular commenter. And even Andy has gotten my hackles up on occassion, although it’s hard to get too mad at someone who is so reasonable (lol).
In short, I pick and choose who to go to war against – and that has included conservatives on occassion.
12:20 pm
Good people…until we raise the army, and project the power needed to control the region, the rest of this foolish talk is just smoke and mirrors. Reagan would have raised an army.
12:41 pm
“I would like to respond to each and every commenter but it really isn’t possible. I get more than 200 emails, comments, and trackbacks to this site every day.”
Fair enough. I don’t think a blogger can be held responsible for the sentiments of its posters, although I think they need to be challenged by their own side now and again. You see, I’m a fan of internecine debate—it’s healthy—and I actually see more of it on the right these days. When was the last time, for examople, that a liberal blogger took on Atrios?
3:34 pm
Badge,
I don’t want to rehash Vietnam here, but the fact is we lost. Whether it was because of the “democrat anti-war party” or other factors is beside the point. Besides, Vietnam was a civil war, not a true insurgency.
Despite over $6 billion dollars of us taxpayer money, the Salvadoran government never defeated the insurgents. This was despite the atrocities and brutal repression campaign carried out by the government. That conflict finally ended with a peace agreement – not through military action.
The same holds true in Nicaragua – the Communist government never succeeded in wiping out the Contras (who were never a real threat to the government either).
Admittedly an argument could be made in the case of the Philippines, but the shameful acts that America resorted to in order to crush the opposition could not be repeated today. Also, the Philippine war took place at the end of the colonial era, where Western powers were able dominate their colonies for several decades. Two years after the final PI forces surrendered, America granted them independence anyway. Finally, the Islamic insurgency on the south islands was never brought under control and endures to this day.
The Brits in Malaysia used a combination of engagement and a “kinder, gentler†version of ethnic cleansing. The insurgency was ethnically-based in support of the repressed Chinese population. To defeat it, the Brits relocated 4/5ths of the Chinese population to deny the insurgents their base of support. As the conflict dragged on, the Brits forced the new Malay government to grant Chinese voting rights. When Malay was granted independence and the Chinese had voting rights, the reason for the insurgency pretty much died. Again, the insurgency was not militarily defeated.
The defeat of the Shining Path was ultimately due to their rejection by the Peruvian population. Early in the conflict, SP took over large areas of Peru, but they quickly lost any support and sympathy they had in those areas because of their brutal and backwards tactics and ideology. Without any population to support them, the Peruvian security forces eventually captured or killed all the key figures. In this case the military victory was possible only because the insurgency lost popular support.
In all the cases you mentioned, perhaps with the exception of the Philippines, military force alone did not defeat the insurgency, so your examples only further prove my original point.
5:13 pm
Andy,
The reasons why we lost in Vietnam is summed up in this phrase, “War of attrition”. Many have argued including Walter McDougall that the game plan was flawed. McDougall stated that the U.S. was use a prevent defense while we tried to win of the over the populous with public works. You know build schools, roads, and other acts of generosity. We did this instead of invading North Vietnam. It’s messed up, the U.S. won the Tet Offensive, but it was deemed a loss.
6:31 pm
Andy, instead of doing a tedious fisking, I will attempt to address all your points.
In tackling each of the conflicts in my original posting replying to the utter fallacies included in your previous post, you have nicely proved the Clausewitz dictum “... War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.” In fact, it is when the political will fails or peace is accepted that is in contradiction to its own aims, a State has lost at War that it might’ve in fact won on the battlefield. To observe the political outcomes of the insurgencies is to only point out how victories are achieved without the wholesale genocide of the opposing side. To press the point, unlike the anti-war party (and perhaps yourself) President Bush understands well that is the political ground that victory will be secured, not through force of arms alone. That is why this Administration is so focused on the consolidation and maturation of the democratic process in Iraq. But make no mistake, the insurgency in Iraq will be militarily defeated as we and the others mentioned have done many times before as I stated in my response and in refutation to your original remarks.
By all means don’t rehash the Vietnam War. We abandoned an ally to the depredations of the communist hegemon. If the Democrat anti-war party had supported the RVN as we had promised by treaty, word and deed a free and democratic Vietnam would’ve survived instead of its tragic consequences. Repeat, a political party in America, the anti-war Democrat party, snatched defeat from battlefield victory. BTW, you would do much better if you didn’t rely on popular notions about the Vietnam War, especially considering those who have written about it most profusely supported the anti-war movement and their narratives tend to lean on the failed Tet Offensive (well, not failed if you are Uncle Walt Cronkite, eh?) and then trail off as if it had been our defeat and the remaining years of a free South Vietnam were an interlude before their inevitable desultory defeat. It fits the left’s Orwellian treatment of history. Lastly, any war in which the communists were protagonists, cannot generously be called a civil war, whether it is in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia.
8:37 pm
Sorry Ray, but I read nothing in your post but a stupid attempt at humour at the expense of a good man. And stuff your bloody medal, mate; I have a chest full of decorations from 20 years of military service.
I also have a trophy for winning a darts tournament, but that doesn’t make me Eric Bristow…
1:32 am
Badge,
You have yet to demonstrate how insurgencies are defeated solely by militarily means in the modern era. Obfuscation by quoting Clausewitz (actually you misquote him) does not prove anything about fighting insurgencies. My basic premise is that insurgencies cannot be defeated militarily while they have popular support among the population in which they operate. The Army Field Manual on counterinsurgency agrees with me.
It’s telling you cast your arguments in the light of US political party affiliation, and frankly, it belittles your arguments. For the record, I’ve voted for Bush twice now, but I don’t drink the kool-aid from any political stripe or party. I’m officially an independent and I call shots as I see them and vote for candidates based on their policy positions, not their party affiliation. Blanket statements like “the anti-war†party are meaningless in our two party system since each party must have a variety of viewpoints in its tent. “Anti-war party†is as meaningless a gross generalization as “religious right party.â€
As for Iraq, it’s a classic case where the US military cannot defeat the insurgency militarily. Our military (of which I am a member) knows that. We study counter-insurgency more than anyone and understand intimately from past experience that military operations are only a piece of the solution (unlike conventional warfare where destroying enemy forces is the primary objective). Ultimately the Iraqi population must decide to stop the insurgency by ending support for insurgents. We are holding the line and providing security until the Iraqi government is able to satisfy the needs of the majority of the population. That won’t happen until the Sunnis and other factions get off the fence and finally decide that a political solution is better than supporting the insurgency – an goal which will require a State that represents their interests. From the look of things, that State is at hand. The next few months will tell whether the Sunnis will buy into the process fully or not. If they do, then we’ll see violence decrease because of eroding support for the insurgent fighters and, directly tied to that, the increased effectiveness of our CI operations. Once that happens there will inevitably be some hard-line insurgents to deal with, but without a popular base of support they will be routed and crushed. Similarly, foreign fighters (who are not insurgents) will have no sanctuary in which to hide and plan and conduct operations. As I said in my original comment and on my blog, we are already seeing that sanctuary shrink as AQI tries to morph into a domestic Iraqi organization. They are not doing this because we are killing them, or because they lack foreign fighter recruits to die for Allah – they are doing it because the Sunnis got sick and tired of their bullshit and stopped supporting them. In order to have a base of support, they had to change to become an “Iraqi†organization.
I’m not even going to respond to your Vietnam comments because there is no point in arguing about it and this post is long enough. Goodnight.
11:04 am
Andy,
This is what you wrote and I responded to:
You keep dancing your way around your original statement in your two later posts. Nice two-step there.
Don’t like my translated version of “On War?”
One of the online versions translates the following:
the conception that war is only a part of political intercourse, therefore by no means an independent thing in itself
war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means
It may not be in the original German, but even you can understand the concept.
Yeah okay, you voted for Bush twice but who knows if you’re still wearing your dancing shoes.
Sweet dreams.
1:17 pm
Snatching defeat
Rick Moran has an excellent piece on how the Dems are hanging themselves with their reaction to Zarqawi’s death, perhaps costing themselves any chance to regain the House this November.
As my idol Tony Bruno might say, it’s not defeat, it’s the s…
1:25 pm
Andy-
Well stated. We particularly cannot win without the proper # of troops to set security. Had we invaded with the 500-700k needed to set up a stable infrustructure, we would have gained Iaqi populace “buy in”. Not a doubt in my mind that we would be singing a different tune, and achieving our power projection in a region that threatens our national interests and security. I find it very strange that members of the party of Ronald Reagan still support this incompetence. Basically, the Republicans have become the party of “religious conservatives” rather than the party of a strong defense and fiscal discipline. Make no mistake about it, Ann Coulter defines the party of which I was once a member.
One last time. We will win in the Middle East when we raise an army large enough to fight a regional war. Until then, the rest of these side bar debates are just smoke and mirrors.
3:17 pm
Badge,
I stand by my original statement which you quoted. In hindsight, I probably should have been more thorough in my wording: If you look at insurgencies throughout history they are sometimes quelled through force of arms, but never eliminated by force of arms alone. Take a look at Yugoslavia. Insurgency there was driven underground by force of Arms, but it reappeared with bloody vengeance decades later because the underlying grievances were never resolved. There are other examples in history as well.
My second sentence that you quote is certainly true and here are a few examples: Northern Ireland, Basque Spain, Shri Lanka, Chechnya, Kurds in Iraq, Turky and Iran, Ossetia and Nogorno Karabakh, Kashmir, Pashtuns in Pakistan, Palestine/Israel, Zapatistas in Mexico, FARC, Algeria, Nagaland (India), Nepal. Those are the ones I can name off the top of my head. There are so many in Africa and South America alone that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them. The Russian method of CI as seen in Chechnya is illustrative of the futility of a military-only approach. Apparently, the Russians learned little from Afghanistan. Despite leveling the capital, Grozny, and decimating much of the landscape, the majority of Chechnya remains beyond Russian control and is still part of Russia in name only. The Russians have done about everything wrong they possibly could have in fighting the Chechen insurgency and they will pay a heavy price for their mistakes for years to come. Chechnya is the clearest modern example that military forces alone cannot defeat insurgencies.
The translation you quote is old, but it’s not so different from newer translations that the meaning was lost. I understood your intent and my criticism was admittedly nitpicky.
Finally, just because I voted for Bush doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything, or even anything, he does. I won’t rehash my agreements and disagreements here, but I will say there are some policies I strongly support and others I strongly oppose.
PC VA Beach,
While probably true in the case of Iraq, more troops does not always = better security. Often more troops, especially foreign troops, strengthen an insurgency. Obviously, since we destroyed the entire Iraqi security apparatus at the end of the war, a large number of troops were needed to provide basic police and security functions. I don’t know what an ideal number would have been, but I think 500-700k would probably have been too much, even assuming we were able to field that many at one time (which we were not and are not able to do). If I were to guess I’d probably say 250-300k would have been a good number. One thing to keep in mind is that Turkey’s last-minute decision to prevent us from opening a significant northern front meant that we were understrength for the war’s beginning and the beginning of the occupation. The decision was made, wrongly, that those troops left in transit would not be needed following Saddam’s overthrow. Had they flowed into Iraq to reach the originally planned end-of-conflict strength, we might have been better able to contain the initial phases of the insurgency.
But that is all spilled milk now. Some of the idiot TV talking heads have said we need to dramatically increase or troops now to crush the insurgency and “retake†Baghdad. Even if the now sovereign Iraqi government would support such an increase (which they wouldn’t), the likely result would be greater alienation of the Iraqi people to US forces. The psychological perception of such a large increase would weaken the legitimacy of the newly born Iraqi government in the eyes of everyday Iraqis. So for those and other reasons, I don’t think that course of action is realistic. Our focus has to remain on building Iraqi institutions, especially the police, as well as bringing the majority of the Sunni population fully into the democracy tent.
3:18 pm
PS: I think this horse is sufficiently beaten, so please consider this the probable end of my participation in this comment thread.
4:59 pm
Andy-
You cannot get past the fact that we are running around Iraq putting out fires because we do not have the occupying force size to take and hold the signifigant urban areas, nation build and field a large enough QRF. We had a grace period after the fall of Saddam, and had we filled the void boots on the ground, SOF forces training Iraqi soldiers and Army Coprs of Eng/Navy Seabees hiring Iraqi men to rebuild the infrastructure this would have been a done deal. We still cannot get around the fact that the majority our Shiites, that one, we are stuck with.
You state that we did not have the army to field at the time of the invasion…. true. But if GW had stood on the rubble of the WTC and made a speech that mobilized the nation, with stated goals in recruiting and building, we could have done it easily. That is what I am talking about Andy. We could have gotten back to Reagan levels in less than a year,and pressed foreward from there.
Spilled milk you say. Hell bro, utter icompetence. These jokers have the reverse midas touch. Everything they get their handson turns to mudd. They run the gov like a campaign, they do not govern. Corruption abounds. It is a disgrace.
11:16 pm
Submitted for Your Approval
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote. Council li…
10:44 am
[...] Right Wing Nut House, “Spinning Their Way to Defeat in November†[...]
1:08 am
The Council Has Spoken!
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are Spinning Their Way to Defeat in No…
11:44 am
The Council Has Spoken!
For a special Father’s Day treat, this week the winning Council Post was SPINNING THEIR WAY TO DEFEAT IN NOVEMBER at Right Wing Nut House where Rick Moran made some cogent critiques about the Democrats political strategy, which he thinks
8:13 am
[...] PUNDIT VINCE AUT MORIRE VODKAPUNDIT WALLO WORLD WIDE AWAKES WIZBANG WUZZADEM ZERO POINT BLOG MURTHA: OLD SOLDIERS SHOULD JUST FADE AWAY WHY WE NEED MORE INTROSPECTION FROM THE MEDIA PREVIEW: TEAM USA VS. ITALY THE COWARDICE OF THEDEMOCRATS LA TIMES OFFERS MORE PROOF WHY NO ONE BOTHERS TO READ IT ANYMORE THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN: DOUBLETHINK EDITION JOHN KERRY IS A WEASEL AMNESTY FOR SOME INSURGENTS MAY BE THE PRICE OF VICTORY ONE DAY AT A TIME “A GRAND OLD FLAG” CLASH OF THE TITANS! JASON LEOPOLD’S HEAD EXPLODES TERROR SUSPECTS CHARGE ABUSE IN VATICAN PRISON PREVIEW: TEAM USA VS. CZECH REPUBLIC GUANTANAMO SUICIDES A STAIN ON AMERICAN JUSTICE MORE INVESTIGATION, BETTER REPORTING NEEDED ON HADITHA STORY SOMETHING MISSING THIS WAY COMES LOOSE LIPS SINKING AL QAEDA IN IRAQ? WORLD CUP PREVIEW: BLAME IT ON RIO BOLTON APPLIES THE SCREWS TO THE UN SPINNING THEIR WAY TO DEFEAT IN NOVEMBER COUNTDOWN TO GERMANY: POLITICS AND SPORTS ZARQAWI DEAD: INSURGENCY LIVES UN TO UNITED STATES: CRACK DOWN ON DISSENT OR ELSE… BUSBY-BILBRAY A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT “24″ (65) ABLE DANGER (10) Bird Flu (5) Blogging (86) Books (7) CARNIVAL OF THE CLUELESS (66) CHICAGO BEARS (9) CIA VS. THE WHITE HOUSE (24) Cindy Sheehan (12) Ethics (59) General (282) Government (43) History (57) IMMIGRATION REFORM (11) Iran (26) KATRINA (26) Katrina Timeline (4) Marvin Moonbat (14) Media (84) Middle East (24) Moonbats (47) NET NEUTRALITY (2) Open House (1) Politics (205) Science (15) Space (13) Supreme Court (19) UNITED NATIONS (1) War on Terror (117) WATCHER’S COUNCIL (47) WHITE SOX (1) Wide Awakes Radio (1) WORLD CUP (7) WORLD POLITICS (41) WORLD SERIES (14) Admin Login Register Valid XHTML XFN [...]
5:39 pm
Watchers Council Results
The winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are Spinning Their Way to Defeat in November by Right Wing Nut House, and One Liberal’s Argument for Still Staying in Iraq by A Newer World. Here are your…
9:20 pm
[...] Last week’s contest saw Right Wing Nut House at the top of the heap among the Council members with his post “Spinning Their Way to Defeat in November”. The non-council blogs were very well-represented by A Newer World, who wrote one of the best defenses of our presence in Iraq I’ve ever read from the left, “One Liberal’s Argument for Still Staying in Iraq”. I do not agree with all of his points, but he brings real thought and passion to his argument, which is a welcome change from most folks on the left who only bring the latter. Filed under: [...]
4:48 pm
Watcher’s Council results, June 16/23/30
You’re that far behind? It’s not my fault! On June 30 (nominees, full results) ShrinkWrapped’s The Dance of Escalation and Reaction was voted best Council post. Its non-Council counterpart was a Townhall.com not-really-blog-post-at-all entitled It’...
9:39 pm
Hi boys!00d9ea82497a535f23e97d726f632a83