Comments Posted By crosspatch
Displaying 41 To 50 Of 70 Comments
THE IMMORALITY OF THE DEMOCRATS' POSITION ON THE WAR
The first treatments that have been applied are Operation Forward Together and expoitation of the Zarqawi intelligence. So far we have had two days of violence in Baghdad at about average levels, and 5 days much quieter than usual. In other words, Forward Together, despite a two-day surge in violence on Friday/Saturday (our time), seems to be working quite well.
Exploitation of intelligence seems to be paying off as we nailed a key Liason between an influential Sunni tribe and al Qaida today.
Don't expect things to magically get better in only two weeks but I will say thing things are looking much brighter than they have in a very long time.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 20.06.2006 @ 20:47
The FIRST thing you need to do is stabilize the patient. That was done two weeks ago. Iraq has had an in-place elected government with all it's ministries staffed for almost exactly two weeks. The clock didn't start counting until then as far as I am concerned.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 20.06.2006 @ 20:42
"GOP’ers are simpletons."
Woah, dude! I'll bet you typed that with BOTH fingers! Awesome!
"Actually, we have hardly anyone in the Former Yugoslavia."
Not the point. The point is that after many years of troops there, I never once heard the Democrats call for an immediate withdrawal or a cut-off of funding for their support. That was a war that absolutely was a civil war that we injected ourselves into. I didn't hear Murtha then ... nor do I hear him now. My point isn't scale so much as it is principle.
The first elected govenment under a constitution written by Iraqis has had it's ministry heads in place for all of two weeks. I would caution people to consider that things take a little longer in real life than they do on, say, Survivor. Basically it has taken us 3 years to get an Iraqi government to the starting gate. I can not believe the moronic logic that leads one to believe that now is the time to even consider leaving. Yes, it is time to consider the PROCESS of how to go about leaving and there was a terrific article in the Washington Post today from Iraq's minister of national security that lays that process out (I don't have the link handy but Austin Bay has a link on his blog). It is well thought out and well considered.
The problem with making a public timetable is that it is a setup for failure. First of all you tip your hand to the enemy of exactly how events are going to unfold and when. In other words, you are delivering to your enemy your strategic plan. Nothing smacks of defeat more than a call to inform the enemy of our plan. Asking for a public timetable is asking for failure.
Also, events might not play according to our timetable. Some things might be ready sooner, others later. We should be flexible and be ready to move forward as events allow and to stand fast when events dictate. That is common sense. To blindly go along a pre-plotted course in spite of events actually happening at the time is more than asinine, it is pure stupidity. That is what frustrates people with half a brain with the Democrats, they propose stupid ideas.
I suppose Democrats take their sick kids to a doctor with a specific timetable for treatment regardless how the child responds to the treatment and when time is up, ready or not, treatment stops. And be careful not to let your jerking knee hit the "but Iraq isn't a child" button because the two situations are analogous. To prescribe a specific timetable for the problems in Iraq is just exactly as stupid as prescribing a specific timetable for treating a human illness. The result in both cases is likely to be disaster.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 20.06.2006 @ 20:05
And one other thing ... notice how the media hyped up the casualties in Baghdad over the weekend when there was a surge but they have been strangely silent the past three days on how quiet things are compared to an average day at the start of the month, or even over the past several months.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 20.06.2006 @ 13:57
We should demand that the troops be brought out of Bosnia first. We have had troops in the former Yugoslavian republics since Bill Clinton promised they would be there for only 18 months. Tell the Democrats that when troops are brought home from Bosnia and Kosovo, we will talk about bringing troops home from Iraq.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 20.06.2006 @ 13:52
LA TIMES OFFERS MORE PROOF WHY NO ONE BOTHERS TO READ IT ANYMORE
OOPS ment George HW Bush
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 16.06.2006 @ 18:15
I remember they did something similar at the end of George W. Bush's administration after we won the Gulf War. They attempted to turn two quarters of GNP contraction into "The worst economy since the Great Depression". It wasn't even officially a recession, let alone even near the Carter economic period.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 16.06.2006 @ 18:15
WHY WE NEED MORE INTROSPECTION FROM THE MEDIA
Example:
Foward Together in Iraq. The first two days were relatively quiet. The second two days saw a resurgance of violence back to about what was normal before the crackdown. Headlines were generally "security crackdown unable to abate violence". The last two days have been quiet again, in a relative sense. Yesterday (running from midnight to midnight Eastern Daylight) there were 14 civilian deaths reported. Much fewer than the average of 30 or so per day. So far today 10 have been reported.
Anyone seen any "Baghdad quieter than usual" headlines today? As I type this, on the Google News home page, top center, is an article from Time "Is insurgency on the rebound?" it asks.
Nope, nothing but doom and gloom out of the press today.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 19.06.2006 @ 17:48
Andy, I agree with you to some extent. In many cases news reporting is a business after a profit. I would hold out NewsCorp as one example. But then you have another side of that coin. The publisher of the New York Times told a college graduating class that he was sorry that he had been unable to change the world to fit the leftist vision. He is also losing money hand over fist. I believe NYT recently let around 500 people go. Profit doesn't seem to me the prime motivator at NYT, agenda does, if you are to believe the words of the publisher and take their financial condition into account.
NPR is another who doesn't care about profit. They are all about agenda. So yes, in some cases it is about a business but in other cases it certainly appears to be about agenda and places like NYT seem to set the tone for other news outlets because of their past journalistic history. The current NYT is burning up that professional capital quickly as they become seen as less of a jounralistic powerhouse and more of a propaganda machine.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 19.06.2006 @ 14:42
Yeah, DEagle ... I am not a good little partisan for either side. I tend to have views that are my own and am willing to debate them on their merits. In fact, I believe you completely misunderstood my remark on RS, but that is a different topic. Anyway, don't expect me to toe any party lines. I like to try to use logic rather than emotion to reach conclusions, that is something that I believe is seriously lacking in both the left and the right these days.
Comment Posted By crosspatch On 19.06.2006 @ 14:29
