Category Archives: War Commentary

America In Retreat

Charles Krauthammer:

The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture — a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam — is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there’s no cost in lining up with America’s enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.

Proving once again that incentives work.

Useful Advice For The Obama Administration

How to identify “moderate” terrorists.

[Update a few minutes later]

The administration is joining with the “moderates”:

Fresh from announcing his quest for moderate Hezbos, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser for homeland security, John Brennan, has given a speech in which — after the usual pandering to, among other things, Islam’s purported dedication to the “aspiration” that we should all be able to “practice our faith freely” — he referred to his favorite city as “al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great faiths come together.” Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has the clip, here. As explained by the link Hoft provides, “al-Quds Day,” which is now cause for anti-Israeli demonstrations throughout the world, was actually started by Ayatollah Khomeini 27 years ago — as the “Day of the Oppressed.” (The real nasties in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps are called the “al-Quds” forces.)

This administration certainly does go out of its way to give our Israeli allies that warm feeling, doesn’t it.

Indeed. But I think that some of the rubes are starting to catch on.

[Early afternoon update]

Michael Totten explains why the search for “moderate terrorists” is a complete waste of time. Don’t expect tools like Brennan to get it, though.

The Day Has Arrived

Time for solidarity in defense of enlightenment values.

Brendan O’Neill says, though, that we’re missing the real point — that the real cultural enemy isn’t extremist Islam, but the multiculturalists within. But Nick Gillespie explains why it’s important nonetheless. And Mark Steyn has more thoughts.

[Update a few minutes later]

People will see what they want to see.

[Update a while later]

Who decides
what is provocative?

Blaming the Norks

Isn’t this, kind of, you know, an act of war?

The navy ship Cheonan sank on March 26 after an explosion on the vessel as it sailed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea’s west coast.

The Post said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because South Korea had not yet disclosed the results of the investigation, said analyses showed the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo previously obtained by South Korea.

The formal accusation is expected to be announced on Thursday and South Korea will ask the U.N. Security Council to take up the matter, Post sources said.

Do they seriously expect the Security Council to do anything about it? Especially with this White House?

The Absurdity

of the foreign terrorist organization list:

…if you can follow this, we’re in a war on terror against terrorist organizations that are killing and plotting to kill Americans but that our government won’t officially call terrorist organizations.

The “Continuity Irish Republican Army” is on the terrorism list … but not the Taliban.

Note that this is bipartisan stupidity. The Bush administration could have done something about this years ago, and never did.

The MS In MSNBC

Lileks, on the moral superiority of our media and political “elites.” It’s really hard to use that word for them with a straight face.

Hope the attack was caused by one of the several dozen million militia members — also known as “Midwesterners.” After all, that’s the logical extension of being opposed to anything the government does while in control of the Democratic Party: blowing up that oasis of commerce and gaudy free enterprise, Times Square.

Fingers crossed: Oh, if only the attack was caused by someone protesting Arizona’s immigration policy. Such a thing would be misguided, but there’s a lot of anger out there about a law many say harkens back to Nazi Germany, where they rounded up Jews who had entered the Third Reich illegally, and made them return to Israel.

…CNN chatterboxes later ruminated that the fellow had a hard life in the U.S. — couldn’t get a good job, had his house foreclosed on. Granted. But this has happened to many during the Great Recession, and 99.99999% don’t sit down and conclude: “Well, it’s Pakistan for fertilizer bomb training, then.”

Do these people actually think about the stupid things they say?

I fully expect all those being foreclosed on to be put on a terrorist watch list. But we can’t discriminate against those Jihadis. That would be intolerant.