Category Archives: War Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Capitulation

5 Comments

I have to agree:

Those in Europe or the Obama administration who advocate suspension say waving ‘preconditions’ shows our flexibility and incentives can bring Iran to the table. But, this process literally has been going on since Klaus Kinkel’s critical dialogue in 1992. During this time, Iran has not made a single concession. The European have made several. So too has Washington. Iran looks at the long-term; we can’t simply restart the clock every time a new administration takes office in Washington, Berlin, Paris, or London.

Obama’s aides are smart. They know the consequence of their actions. It’s hard not to conclude that they have made a policy decision to allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to become a nuclear weapons-capable state.

It is indeed. I guess the plan is to leave it up to Israel (who of course they will condemn after they solve the problem).

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Staged?

23 Comments

When I heard about the effusive response from the military to the president’s visit to Iraq, I was dubious about it. It didn’t make much sense, given the polling of them last fall. So is this why there was so much support among the military?

“We were pre-screened, asked by officials “Who voted for Obama?”, and then those who raised their hands were shuffled to the front of the receiving line. They even handed out digital cameras and asked them to hold them up.”

Take a look at the picture at AP and notice all the cameras are the same models? Coincidence? I think not.

Can you imagine the howls of outrage from the left and the press if the Bush administration had pulled something like this?

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Good Show

17 Comments

This worked out better than I expected:

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the official said.

I have to say that I found this grimly amusing:

“The negotiations between the elders and American officials have broken down. The reason is American officials wanted to arrest the pirates in Puntland and elders refused the arrest of the pirates,” said the commissioner, Abdi Aziz Aw Yusuf. He said he organized initial contacts between the elders and the Americans.

Arrest and punish kidnappers? Why, that’s crazy talk. At least in Somalia. Fortunately, now, there’s only one to worry about having to deal with. I would have wrapped the three they killed in pigskin and tossed them to the sharks as an example, but I guess these days, that’s crazy talk, too.

Anyway, congratulations to the US Navy, who did their job. And what the hell was the FBI doing there, anyway?

[Update mid afternoon]

What is a “pirate source“?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The President’s Distractions

6 Comments

Thoughts from Mark Steyn:

Only a week ago, the North Korean missile test was an “annoying distraction” from Barack Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his pledge that America would lead the way in disarming. And only a couple of days earlier the president insisted Iraq was a “distraction” — from what, I forget: The cooing press coverage of Michelle’s wardrobe? No doubt when the Iranians nuke Israel, that, too, will be an unwelcome distraction from the administration’s plans for federally subsidized daycare, just as Pearl Harbor was an annoying distraction from the New Deal, and the First World War was an annoying distraction from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s dinner plans.

…Er, okay. So the North Korean test is a “distraction,” the Iranian nuclear program is a “distraction,” and the seizure of a U.S.-flagged vessel in international waters is a “distraction.” Maybe it would be easier just to have the official State Department maps reprinted with the Rest of the World relabeled “Distractions.” Oh, to be sure, you could still have occasional oases of presidential photo-opportunities — Buckingham Palace, that square in Prague — but with the land beyond the edge of the Queen’s gardens ominously marked “Here be distractions . . . ”

As it happens, Somali piracy is not a distraction, but a glimpse of the world the day after tomorrow. In my book America Alone, I quote Robert D. Kaplan referring to the lawless fringes of the map as “Indian Territory.” It’s a droll jest but a misleading one, since the very phrase presumes that the badlands will one day be brought within the bounds of the ordered world. In fact, a lot of today’s badlands were relatively ordered not so long ago, and many of them are getting badder and badder by the day.

As I’ve noted in the past, the main thing that finally saved the economy from Roosevelt’s tinkering was the “distraction” of World War II, and then his death. It recovered nicely after the war, once the economic sage of Hyde Park could no longer prevent it. I hope that the current president finds lots of distractions from his own plans for the economy.

Technology and Society, War Commentary

Pirate Defenses

22 Comments

So, I was thinking about this while driving to the post office and back. It seems to me that the hardest part of defending a large vessel with a small crew is the inability to detect them before boarding. If the ships don’t show up on radar, the crew needs some other warning system, with a proximity alarm that gives them time to demand hail friend or foe, or blow them out of the water (or off the side of the ship if they’re already climbing). Assuming that they are willing to arm themselves (it doesn’t really take that much to take out one of these pirate boats give sufficient warning), and it’s legal, the only missing element would be the warning system.

So how hard and expensive would it be with today’s technology to rig cameras around the ship with motion detectors, and software to filter out waves? It seems like a pretty easy problem to me. I’d think that most modern digital cameras are smart enough. Give them IR capability, and they’d work through fog.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Arrogance

44 Comments

More projection from a leftist:

Just a few days ago in a meeting with American CEOs of American banks, President Obama’s tone and attitude were rife with the arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision he had just criticized in Europe. A participant in the meeting told Politico that when the CEOs tried to explain that the nature, complexities, and competition of the finance and banking industries required that they continue retention bonuses for their employees, the president became impatient. He interrupted them and said, “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The imagery behind Obama’s threat couldn’t be more obvious: comply with my demands or I will make sure you are harassed, intimidated, and run out of town on a rail. He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Don Corleone couldn’t have said it better.

We can not forget, however, that it was Barack Obama himself along with his fellow Democrats who agitated this mob-like frenzy about the banks, the CEOs, and the bonuses. It was Obama who said the bonuses were an “outrage” and a “violation of our fundamental values.” Democrat Barney Frank hauled AIG’s CEO in front of the House Financial Services Committee and interrogated him, demanding to know why he approved the hundreds of millions of dollars of bonuses. Conveniently, Congressman Frank failed to mention that the approval was inside the very stimulus bill Obama championed and the Democrats overwhelmingly voted for.

Funny, that.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

“There’s Nothing We Can Do About It”

23 Comments

This seems to be an own-goal by Gates yesterday. It makes us sound weak, when in fact it isn’t true. There are a number of things we could do about it — the administration just thinks that doing those things are worse choices than doing nothing. As the most obvious example, we could simply bomb and destroy the launch site. We could do this today, or tomorrow, or any day up to the launch. This would absolutely guarantee that North Korea doesn’t do the missile testsatellite launch.

Would it be a good idea? I think so. The regime is in violation of so many UN resolutions, bi- and multi-lateral agreements, etc., that it would be a minor consequence for its criminal behavior over the past decades.

But I can’t imagine this administration, of all administrations, wanting to stir up that hornet’s nest. They’re too busy indulging themselves in the delusion that the reason the rest of the world is unhappy with us is George Bush. And of course, even those countries who were secretly happy to see it, including China, would still be pleased to make political hay over it, churn up international outrage, etc. So it’s probably off the table. But we should say that, instead of implying that we’re impotent.

And just how is it that the NORKs get away with overflight of Japan on a launch? While they are geographically disadvantaged, and can’t get to orbit eastward without doing so, Israel doesn’t use that excuse. If they did, they wouldn’t take the trouble to launch retrograde to avoid overflight of their (hostile) neighbors. North Korea should just have to settle for either hiring someone else to launch, or lease a launch site somewhere else, as any other simililarly-situated nation (e.g., Switzerland) would have to.

Perhaps we might persuade Japan to do something about it, with offers to back them diplomatically. They’re more justified than we are. If they have to shoot down the missile, there’s still a chance that it would come down on their territory. Destroying it on the ground would eliminate this problem. An ounce of prevention, etc…

[Update a few minutes later]

Charles Johnson makes another point that I should have:

This is really a stunning statement. Why didn’t Gates say something like, “We’re not prepared to discuss any plans we may have for dealing with the North Korean missile launch”? To tell them outright that we’re not going to do anything at all is unbelievably stupid. What the hell is going on here?

Was this an explicit decision on the part of the Obama administration, or did he wing it? Either way, confidence is not inspired.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

More On The Oliphant Libel

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From Barry Rubin (yes, he’s one of them):

On the left is a huge figure. On the right is a small figure. The implication that need not be spoken here is that the big figure—the powerful side—must be wrong. Oliphant like many or most Western intellectuals, academics, and policymakers, still doesn’t understand the concept of asymmetric warfare. In this, a weaker side wages war on a stronger side using techniques it thinks can make it win. What are these techniques? Terrorism, indifference to the sacrifice of its people, indifference to material losses, refusal to compromise, extending the war for ever. This is precisely the technique of Hamas: let’s continue attacking Israel in order to provoke it to hit us, let’s target Israeli civilians, let’s seek a total victory based on genocide, let’s use our own civilians as human shields, and with such methods we will win. One way we will win is to demonize those who defend themselves, to put them in positions where they have a choice between surrender and looking bad. This cartoon is a victory for Hamas. But it is also a victory for all those who would fight the West and other democracies (India, for example) using these methods. Remember September 11?

Read the whole thing. This isn’t just a war against Israel. It is a war against civilization.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Thanks, Pat Oliphant

6 Comments

Roger Simon:

Oliphant – whose work I usually find humdrum in the extreme – has done us a favor. Deliberately or not, he has dropped the oldest of phony Leftist pretenses – that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. The poor, diminutive woman and child of Gaza in his cartoon are being eaten alive by a rapacious Jewish star, not by the flag of Israel. It is the religion or ethnic group (you decide), not the state – Jews, not Israelis – performing this supposedly horrific act.

Well, thank you, Oliphant, you racial primitive you. You let the cat out of the bag we always knew was in there. And you did it in the pages of the Washington Post.

It was always a pretty thin excuse.

[Update a few minutes later]

More thoughts from Ron Radosh:

in his new cartoon, Oliphant echoes the kind of propaganda once favored by the Nazis in their racist paper Der Strumer, edited by one of Hitler’s top journalists, Julius Streicher. What Oliphant does is show a headless Nazi-like soldier- an Israeli- goose-stepping Nazi fashion with his sword ready for action. He is ready to inflict a weaponized Star of David on a mother and child in Gaza. The right side of the religious symbol of Judaism is depicted as a shark coming at the hapless victims.

If you think the comparison to the cartoons in Streicher’s rag is going too far, take a look at this cartoon. Or this one: the Jewish “monster” with his claw-like hands trying to take over the world. One might wonder if Oliphant consulted this Nazi archive for inspiration.

He probably didn’t have to. They have modern equivalents in Middle East media.