Politics Blog

This Marine Corps Captain had a front seat on the bus:

On the 60th anniversary of VJ-Day in 2005, Marine Capt. Randy Stone, a military lawyer serving in Iraq, became a presidential poster boy. Capt. Stone’s two grandfathers fought at Iwo Jima, so President Bush, in a celebratory speech, turned the whole family into a gold-braided rhetorical flourish to depict the continuity of American character and courage from one war to another.

“Captain Stone proudly wears the uniform just as his grandfathers did at Iwo Jima,” said Mr. Bush. “He’s guided by the same convictions they carried into battle. He shares the same willingness to serve a cause greater than himself… Randy says, ‘I know we will win because I see it in the eyes of the Marines every morning. In their eyes is the sparkle of victory.’ “

That was then.

Until he was thrown under the bus:

Capt. Stone is the first of four Marine officers to be charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate “properly” 24 civilian deaths in Haditha in November 2005. Having reviewed the facts – what you might call his politically correct job as battalion lawyer – Capt. Stone determined no further investigation was warranted. In other words, he came to a politically incorrect conclusion. (So did his superiors, but he’s the guy on trial – another story.)

Capt. Stone could get three years in prison.

I just “love” compassionate conservative warfighting, don’t you? There is a whole lot of compassion everywhere except for US Soldiers/Marines.

Michael Savage is right, the President should pardon these men.

— Oak Leaf

Oh, this is just too rich. Democrats worried about terrorism? Surely you jest. The “war” Democrats are willing to fight is political:

Ever since the Vietnam era, Democrats have struggled to overcome a notion the party is not just antiwar but antimilitary.

Uh, it’s not a “notion” that Democrats and their constituents are antimilitary. It’s a fact. Especially when elected Democrats happily go on record saying members of the military are stupid and/or are merceniares.

The article continues,

From antiwar riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago to the failed rescue of U.S. hostages in Iran to pictures of presidential hopeful Michael S. Dukakis in a tank, the party often managed to project hostility or ineptitude toward the armed forces — an image Republicans were happy to exploit.

That began to change about 1992, after the first U.S. invasion of Iraq. Although Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton spent much of his Democratic presidential campaign batting down charges that he dodged the Vietnam draft, he didn’t shrink from using patriotic and pro-military symbolism in his campaign. He selected Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, a Vietnam veteran, as his running mate, in part because of Gore’s vote in support of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Al Gore is a “Vietnam Veteran” as much as I am. Obviously this article is very sympathetic to the idea that the Democratic party can express an adequate amount of “concern for the troops” in order to convince enough of those dumb rubes to vote for them so they can take back the White House. I’m increasingly concerned it is going to work.

— The Ace

Some good news for a change,

By a decisive margin,voters in this north Dallas suburb approved an ordinance Saturday prohibiting landlords from renting apartments to most illegal immigrants.

With all votes counted, the bitterly contested ordinance passed by 67 percent of the vote.

“We are fed up with the federal government’s inaction on immigration,” said City Councilman Tim O’Hare, who sponsored the rental ban. “We are not going to wait. We are going to take care of it.”

Bill Brewer, a Dallas lawyer who has filed two lawsuits against the rental measure and financed much of the campaign against it, said he would ask for a court to enjoin enforcement “very soon.”

That’s right Mr. Brewer, “will of the people” and such is meaningless. Sadly, I’m confident he’ll do all too well in court.

— The Ace

Michael Lind urges Republicans to return to the “Republican wayof war” based on traditional Conservative principles:

Whether a Democrat or a Republican is elected in 2008, the time is ripe for a reassertion of the traditional Republican way of war in America. By that I mean the approach to foreign policy of pre-neo-conservative Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Colin Powell an approach that US President George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives have rejected in favour of a disastrous strategy inspired by cold war Democrats.

Neo-conservatives are far more likely to praise Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy than to quote Eisenhower or Nixon, and with good reason. Most are ex-Democrats, and their foreign policy tradition is based in the “cold war liberalism” of Truman, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. As big-government liberals, cold war Democrats assumed that the US economy could afford both welfare and warfare. They favoured outspending the Soviet bloc at all levels.

What is the Republican way of war?

Call it the Eisenhower-Nixon-Reagan-Powell doctrine a capital-intensive strategy for the traditional American party of capital. The US will rely on superior technology, rather than attempt to match the military manpower of its enemies (Eisenhower). The US will provide alliesand clients with arms, intelligence and aid, but expect them to fight their own battles (Nixon). The US will support freedom fighters, but will not send its own soldiers to liberate them from their oppressors (Reagan). Only when all else fails will the US send its own troops (Powell).

What about President Bush and his plans, he is a Republican!

Nothing could be further from the neo-conservative Bush doctrine. Neo-conservatives reject the logic of the Eisenhower doctrine, arguing that the US should permanently fund the military at cold war levels. They reject the spirit of the Nixon doctrine, arguing that the US in the name of “reassurance” should volunteer to protect allies such as Japan against their enemies such as North Korea. While praising Reagan, the neocons reject his doctrine, holding instead that the US should liberate oppressed nations by means of “regime change” instead of by his less costly alternative of arming indigenous “freedom fighters”. And they reject the Powell doctrine, arguing that it raises the bar for US military intervention too high.

— Oak Leaf

Is Tom Tancredo a liberal, a Democrat a “cut and runner?”

At the forum, Tancredo also disagreed with President Bush’s decision to send thousands of additional troops into Iraq earlier this year.

“We should disengage,” he said “We have to take American troops out of the target, the military target and political target. There is absolutely a role to play for the United States - to make sure al-Qaida does not create a source for terrorist activity. We have to make sure that we do control the situation, but I do believe we need to disengage.”

— Oak Leaf

There is an old axim that you should never start a project that you can not finish. The American People do not have the patience for this:

Insurgencies, such as the one the U.S. is fighting in Iraq, last an average of more than 10 years, according to a database commissioned by the Pentagon.

For the U.S., the good news is that rebels lose more often than they win. Chances for stopping an insurgency improve after 10 years.

Stopping the violence in Iraq will take years, Pentagon leaders have said. However, there have been few efforts to analyze and quantify insurgencies in order to draw conclusions about Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The violence in Iraq is going to go on a minimum for at least three or four more years and in reality another five-plus years,” said Christopher Lawrence, director of The Dupuy Institute, which is conducting the study.

I would suspect this would be a good addition to the Weinberger Doctrine.

— Oak Leaf

Just as the automotive industry is tied to huge pension/health care legacy costs, so is the public school system in Michigan:

The retirement system, which provides pension and health care benefits for about 150,000 school retirees, is riddled with loopholes and sloppy policies costing schools tens of millions of dollars each year. Schools now pay $1,015 per student for retirement costs. Those costs are projected to skyrocket in the next decade, raising the specter of hollowed-out schools or cuts in promised benefits to thousands of state retirees.

The automobile industry can “eventually” jettison the costs through the bankruptcy courts but what can the State do?

— Oak Leaf

A couple years ago before I was put back on active duty, I was in an awkward situation where I had to explain to my little boy what the “MIA Flag” represented. This was extremely difficult as I needed to be “age appropriate” and did not want to explain what Muslims did when they captured American Soldiers. I explained it something like as follows:

“If any of your daddy’s friends in the Army ever get lost, what that flag means is that we will never ever stop looking for them until we find them and if you daddy ever gets lost, his friends will keep looking until they find me.”

Very sadly, I was reminded of this with this mornings news:

BAGHDAD (AP) � Thousands of U.S. soldiers searched Sunday for three Americans who were missing after their patrol came under attack in an explosion that killed four other American soldiers and an Iraqi army translator.

And as they search, they are no doubt being reminded of the “May 10, 2007 letter.”

UPDATE: An Islamic group is taking credit for the capture of the three Americans:

The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, said it had captured several soldiers in the attack, but offered no proof to back upits claim, posted on an Islamic Web site.

These men understand that they died the minute they were captured alive. They understand that is very unlikely that they will be rescued alive. The only “peace” that they can now be given is the final sight and knowledge of American armaments totally destroying where they are being held. Most soldiers post 9/11 have thought out this scenario, myself included. It will give these men final “peace.” The only question should be how large of an area will be destroyed.

— Oak Leaf

I would live to outright print some of the e mails that I receive everyday from friends in SW Asia. Because I can not do that, I have to look for similar sentiment that is out in the open domain. So how is that Iraqi Army doing?

I realise that, by being embedded, I am seeing the country through the eyes of the occupiers. There is no way I can tell the whole story. But what I can do is show the gap between the rhetoric of the government in Baghdad and the reality on the ground. There is no effective administration here and the Iraqi army is a fiction. There are Iraqi soldiers alongside the Americans, but they owe their allegiance to a unit commander who is usually someone known to them previously. They are small bands or gangs of soldiers, not a national force.

— Oak Leaf

Amazing what happens when you let the People vote:

FARMERS BRANCH, Texas — Residents cast ballots Saturday on whether to repeal or approve a ban on landlords renting apartments to most illegal immigrants in their Dallas suburb, the nation’s first municipality to put the matter to a vote.

The ban was being approved by a 3-to-1 margin as early votes were counted.

hat tip: Dallas Larry

— Oak Leaf