September 30, 2004

IRAQ: WHAT TO DO NOW

HORSEFEATHERS TELLS IT LIKE IT IS—AND SHOULD BE

War, like life, is a work in progress. And like life it is always imperfect. Those who know war know that nothing stays the same for long. Defeats or victories may result in new challenges, new opportunities, and new political constrictions which require reassessment and revision. Only the foolish and the naïve expect unvarying success in the pursuit of war.

The United States fought a short, brilliant war in Iraq that eradicated a large conventional army and its sophisticated defenses. We destroyed the tyrannical regime of Saddam completely, captured him, killed his two corrupt, sadistic and unstable sons who were to become the next generation of tyrants, and captured a large number of powerful members of Saddam’s kleptocratic regime. When we started we thought that would be enough, but we learned quickly that our assumption was incorrect.

We now face a new form of the old enemy and new challenges, and these have led to new understanding and new opportunities.

What have we learned from the political and military experiences of the past year?

WE HAVE NO GOOD SOURCES OF INTELLIGENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

First we learned that our political and military intelligence about the Middle East is inadequate, and that we need to recruit a robust network of Arab spies in every Arab country and train Americans to work with them. (There is almost nothing that money can’t buy—including Arab intelligence.) We must go back and learn how to play the Great Game as the British did in protecting Victoria’s Empire. The weapons have changed since then, but the cynical games of diplomacy and betrayal in dealing with the complex network of sects and partisans in the area have not.

We discovered, too late, that we had no reliable and consistent source of intelligence about Iraq. Even today, notwithstanding some improvement in the situation, there is insufficient, and often unreliable intelligence.

WE ARE ALONE IN THIS FIGHT

We must learn that we have no friends in the Middle East, only enemies and seeming friends, who smile behind our backs at our naiveté and native altruism.

Indeed, the past year has demonstrated vividly that we have no friends even among our friends in the international world. Governments are not people, they have no hearts and no consciences, they know only their own national interests. So let’s try to get over our foreign policy sentimentality—the Saudis are not our friends, the Brits are not our friends, the Canadians are not our friends, not even the Poles.

Throughout history states have made allegiances which endure for varying periods of time, until they are no longer useful to one party or the other and then they are dissolved. And that is true today. Our leaders must learn to rid themselves of their feelings of human compassion, their sincerity, their honesty when operating in the sphere of foreign policy—in war and diplomacy there is no morality.

WE CAN DEFEAT ANY CONVENTIONAL FORCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In a short and brilliant war we had the will and means to defeat a formidable conventional army with relatively few casualties suffered on our part. The Iraqi army was the largest and most advanced Arab army in the Middle East and its defeat did not go unnoticed in Libya, Syria, and especially Iran.

BUT GUERILLA WARFARE IS SOMETHING NO CONVENTIONAL FORCE CAN FIGHT AGAINST AND WIN

In the last year our forces have been stymied by having to fight what amounts to a guerilla war against insurgents made up of leftover dead-end elements of the Baathist regime and foreign operatives from various extreme Arab groups. There are probably also many young men—mujahedeen—in the Sunni triangle armed with automatic weapons who volunteer to fight with the hard core insurgents but who have no specific cause and have been swept up into the insurgency by inertia. None of these fighters are trained warriors but they are canny fighters who shoot and bomb and run away to shoot and bomb another day.

Guerilla wars cannot be won by conventional forces, especially in urban areas where they can find protection anywhere and fade into the background. Their fighting methods are totally at odds with our highly trained and disciplined soldiers and these methods exploit our soft spots. The insurgents use children, women, schools, mosques, to hide in or hide behind without any scruples, thus putting our soldiers at a serious disadvantage.

Guerilla wars are always the wrong wars in the wrong place at the wrong time for our conventional forces.

THE SUNNIS ARE OUR SWORN ENEMIES FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE

The Sunni Triangle contains a large and complex network of Sunni tribes who are dedicated to the memory of Saddam. They are sworn enemies of the United States and anything that they perceive as being connected to America. They are a formidable source for a guerilla army and will continue to be so. The only solution is to destroy their leadership and as many of them as can be found. Perhaps when they are sufficiently chastened they might become more reasonable.

THE SHIA HAVE THEIR OWN AGENDA AND THEIR ALLIANCE DEPENDS ON HOW WE FIT IN WITH THEIR PLANS

The Shia continue to be ambivalent about the Americans. Under the leadership of the cleric Sistani they will play political ball. But their aim is a political majority in the new government. If they feel that the American government does not support their political aims, they may become our enemy.

THE KURDS ARE SOLID ALLIES

The Kurds have been our allies from the beginning. What they want is autonomy. They work, fight, and play well with us and can be counted on.

IRAQ IS NOT, HAS NOT, AND WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE UNIFIED—AND WAR IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF ITS HISTORY

The closest that Iraq has come to national unity in its short history of about 80 years has been during the reign of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The social, cultural, and political forces of the region have been so powerfully centrifugal for the past 1300 years that it required the constant threat of a murderous strong man to hold the elements of the polity together.

Mesopotamia, consisting of three major provinces centered around Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, had been loosely governed by the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire for four hundred years more or less. In no sense did these three great cities with their distinct cultures, sects, religious values and tribal networks think of themselves as unified even though they paid obeisance to one ruler, the Caliph in Constantinople.

The Ottoman Empire, having bet on the wrong horse in World War I, was dissolved in 1918, and the region of Mesopotamia came up for grabs. The bureaucrats of France and England then cobbled together a kingdom for Prince Feisal I and called it Iraq. It had no other reason for its existence as a nation state except to serve the political interests of Great Britain and France. The British, to whom Iraq was mandated by treaty, wanted to pay off their debts to the Arabs and keep the mineral rights of Iraq in their sphere of influence.

The constitutional monarchy with Feisal at its head lasted from 1921 until his death in 1933. And although Iraq officially became independent in 1932, it remained under British protection unofficially through World War II. Shortly thereafter, without Britain’s parental guidance, Iraq became politically unstable. From 1946 for the next twenty years regime followed regime through revolutions, coups, military dictatorships, and assassinations, until one man emerged who was unscrupulous and brutal enough to murder all of his rivals—Saddam Hussein.

Among the ordinary people residing in the three sections of the country there has never been any natural, economic, social or political inclination to unite or to stay united as one integrated nation—the elites notwithstanding. Even during the long reign of the Ottoman Empire there was no unity in Mesopotamia. There was only little allegiance to the Sultan in Constantinople, and what held the provinces together were local loyalties to one’s clan, tribe, village, town, religious sect, or ethnic group.

And furthermore, such local loyalties have, since time immemorial, been the breeding ground of rivalries and wars at all levels—clan, tribe, religious sect, and ethnic group. The Middle East, and Iraq in particular, because of its heterogeneous population, has been a land of violence and war forever. No doubt that is why every man in Iraq must own an assault rifle. It is part of the core culture.

WHAT TO DO NOW: THE HORSEFEATHERS DOCTRINE

Some—John Kerry, Pat Buchanan, and the French—say cut and run, more or less. Some—George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Neocons—say stay till they’re singing Yankee Doodle, more or less: that our God-given mission in history is to bring freedom and democracy to those benighted nations of the world who do not yet have it.

Horsefeathers has another view.

FORGET THE YANKEE DOODLE IDEOLOGY

Sure. We love democracy and the Bill of Rights. But there’s a difference between valuing freedom and democracy highly and making it the condition for exiting a war. History shows that democracy and political freedom evolve over many centuries of political struggle within a state. It took Great Britain twelve hundred years to get to Magna Carta, and then another eight hundred years to get to universal sufferage. It took Switzerland 700 years.

Democracy is a political jewel that is very expensive and costs much struggle and blood. There is no way that it will come to Iraq quickly and without the loss of Iraqi blood. We cannot pay for their freedom with our blood. They must decide to own the priceless asset and fight for it. In a culture that prizes tribalism and Islam over the Rule of Law, democracy will be a long time coming.

So our policy goal must change from bringing democracy to Iraq to fostering democracy in Iraq. That is a political goal that is easily achieved and can be continued indefinitely. We can provide advice, some economic help, and even some special forms of military assistance, but we cannot fight for their everyday democracy. That is the price they themselves must pay for owning their freedom.

LET’S DRINK TO CIVIL WAR—ANOTHER GRAND OPPORTUNITY

Much has been made of various estimates about how things will turn out in Iraq before, during, or after the January election. The worst case scenario seems to be that Iraq might split up into three parts, and/or become embroiled in a civil war. This prospect is often used by some as a reason to stay in Iraq fighting the Iraqi war of independence for the Iraqis. It is also used as a stick to beat the Bush administration for undertaking the Iraq war in the first place.

The fact is that it really doesn’t matter one way or the other. If the three states split up they will be in no different position than they were before Iraq became a nation. During that time they managed to have some degree of peace with one another except for an occasional little war now and then. In those not too distant days there would be some violence between one town and another and then peace would be declared and some degree of equilibrium would occur. And this cycle might repeat itself decade after decade as it has for hundreds of years.

Doubtless the various factions will fight over oil, water and electric power. The Kurds have oil and water, the Shia have oil, and the Sunnis have water and electric power. So each group has something of value that they will fight about and eventually compromise over—that is, if the Americans and the rest of the world mind their own business. Eventually the Iraqis will tire of fighting. It may take months or even years, but eventually they will tire and settle their problems the way they have for many centuries. This does not require the wisdom of Western bureaucracies.

Not only is civil disturbance in Iraq not a catastrophe—from the historical perspective it is business as usual—but it might turn out to be an important diplomatic and military opportunity. For it is in such turbulent and politically shifting times that it is possible to make bargains with various factions to get intelligence and support in exchange for help of one kind or another. Much can be gained in this situation.

STOP BEING GIRLIE-MEN:
STAY THE COURSE BUT CHANGE IT

If John Kerry, Pat Buchanan, and Jacques Chirac can all agree on something—pulling out of Iraq—there must be something really wrong with such an idea. The trouble is that they are looking only at the risks of staying in the region and are blind to the opportunities. There is an alternative to both retreat and remaining in an ideological trap with ever increasing sitting-duck casualties.

If you change our military mission from passive and defensive—from fighting guerillas—to taking the initiative in the form of opportunistic special operations against highly valuable targets, then staying on makes sense as part of the war against terror.

THE KURDS—THE KEY TO THE NEW STRATEGY

The Kurds are Muslim but not Arab. They are well organized. They do not hate Americans, and they are good fighters and worthy allies. Throughout the Iraq war they have been steadfast members of the coalition. They deserve our help and loyalty. If we asked to establish a long-term military base in the heart of the their mountains there is little doubt that they would welcome such an idea. Why? Because it would stabilize their section of the country, protect their region’s oil wells, and protect them from incursions from Turkey, Iran and Syria. It would also bring in welcome dollars to the area in return for supplies and labor.

Establishing a military base in Kurdish Iraq accomplishes many things. It makes good our word to stick it out in Iraq; it allows us to deploy in a more tolerable climate among people who welcome us and who will cherish and protect our presence there as valuable allies. This base would be part of a network of bases in Kuwait and the Gulf, but it would have the advantage of being centrally located and easily accessible to both Iran and Syria, which if we did nothing else would put pressure on those countries and would be a force multiplier in our diplomatic relations.

But such a base could have many other functions.

It could become a center for recruitment and training of Arab speaking spies and operatives to add to our regional intelligence network.

It could be a base for mounting small-scale incursions and special operations that might be needed to accomplish the destruction of nuclear weaponry in Iran, killing terrorist groups and leaders in the Sunni triangle, kidnapping or killing enemies in Syria, and doing all kinds of necessary “wetwork” in a quiet and efficient manner. It would be a center for many kinds of secret observations among our enemies while enjoying the protection of the surrounding Kurdish population.

The nation-states who support our terrorist enemies by word or money or deed must feel threatened and be punished in order to get them to stop their terrorist constituents, and a nearby special-ops base capable of small-scale operations might be the right instrument to accomplish this.

Such a base of operations would allow us to achieve the primary aim of our policy in the Middle East—to make life difficult for those who would harm us. It would be a constant headache to Iran, Syria and Iraqi insurgents. It would give very serious leverage to our diplomatic demands to force the nations that sponsor terrorists to give us intelligence about them, turn them over to us, or inhibit their operations. Imams in Saudi Arabia must be silenced when they teach anti-Americanism, rich men in Syria must be punished if they support anti-Americanism, nuclear advances must be stopped dead in Iran. The terror-supporting nations must worry that someday they will find their leadership quietly disappearing or dying mysteriously, or learn of opposing parties finding new wealth and encouragement out of nowhere, or hear of the palaces of Saudi princes suddenly catching fire for no apparent reason.

We have had such long-term bases in Korea, West Germany and even Cuba where we are totally surrounded by our enemies. Such a long-term base in Kurdish Iraq would provide unusually safe and cheap opportunity to allow our forces to do what they do best—maintain the offensive and do so in the service of a strong diplomatic thrust.

September 29, 2004

VIOLENT UTOPIANS AND RADICAL ISLAMISTS

        Horsefeathers has argued elsewhere that left utopians form unconscious alliances with Islamo-fascist utopians who wish to destroy America. The Bush hatred and inculpation of America on the left can sound as deranged as anything uttered by Middle Eastern sheiks damning Israel, America and Bush the infidel. It is born of the same yearning for utopia and the need for scapegoats--the Jews, Bush, America--to explain why it never arrives. Robert Spencer reminds us in a review of David Horowitz's Unholy Alliance, the convergence of aims is not just unconscious. "...This anti-anti-terrorism is motivated by an anti-Americanism that was born, as Horowitz details, in Communism and the Vietnam-era antiwar movement. Although the revolutionary fact (the Soviet bloc) has been consigned to the dustbin of history, the revolutionary illusion persists, and continues to identify America as the chief obstacle to its utopia. Horowitz quotes another Columbia professor, Nicholas De Genova: "Peace is not patriotic [but] subversive. . . . Peace anticipates a very different world than the one in which we live -- a world where the U.S. would have no place." De Genova, of course, won nationwide notoriety when he declared just before the beginning of the Iraq war: "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military. . . . I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus..."

Horowitz explains that "as long as America continues to maintain the will and ability to protect what radicals regard as the global order of 'social injustice,' all reforms and social advances within the existing structure of American democracy will be illusory." In other words, it won't be enough for the left to elect John Kerry: America itself must be brought down.
See the rest here.

ROP watch

This essay by David Warren is worth reading each time a politically correct utopian insists that Islam means peace. (Hattip to Bernard.)

"A friend writes: "I find that reading the news these days, with hostage beheadings front and centre, is quite depressing. You have to keep up with all of the horrors; doesn't it drive you nuts?"

The repeated imagery of hostages taken, their pleas broadcast internationally on Al Jazeera so that we can fully appreciate their humanity, then videos released in which we can watch the victim scream out his horror, while a hooded man uses a knife to saw through his neck, and other hooded men stand by, shouting, "Allahu akhbar," which means, "God is great!"

Or the imagery of the little Christian children in Beslan, trying to run away from the school in which they were held captive, in which they had drunk their own pee to survive dehydration, running from the bombs set off in the gymnasium, some running with their mothers, and being machine-gunned in the back, by more men shouting, "Allahu akhbar!"
See the rest here

September 25, 2004

THE DEBATES WON'T MATTER: IT'S OVER

        Conventional wisdom among our media punditocracy is that the upcoming Presidential debates will decide the election. This is, in Horsefeathers view, nothing but wishful thinking by the wordsmiths now growing increasingly desparate over their candidate, John Kerry’s, prospects. It’s finished. The fat lady sang a long time ago, perhaps when she saw John Kerry saluting and “reporting for duty." It doesn’t matter that the mainstream media analysts will announce, following each debate, that Kerry has triumphed and begun his comeback. The debates will do nothing to change the dynamics of a race that is already over, except for the allocating of blame. In fact, Horsefeathers suspects that the more debate skills Kerry shows, the worse he’ll do. Kerry is the first PoMo candidate for President. Thanks to the Swift Boat Veterans we know that the central formative event of Kerry’s life, Xmas in Cambodia, described repeatedly in the most vivid terms, never occurred. For our contemporary liberal arts post-modern wordsmiths, reality is “constructed”, and constructed out of words. For them Kerry’s Cambodia story possesses narrative truth sufficient to make it ‘real’, even if for most of us the fact that it isn’t true constitutes an overriding reality. As to debates, particularly loved by liberal arts majors who overvalue words, anyone like Kerry who has been on a debate team learns the essential skill of mustering verbal arguments on both sides of any debate. In fact, standard debate practice involves taking first one side and arguing it passionately, then switching to the opposite side and doing the same. Perfect training to become a John Kerry!
        There were two pillars, now shattered, to John Kerry’s candidacy: 1) his biography: brave warrior, defender of America and 2) the deft, cultured diplomat whose nuanced views and sensitivity would win the affection of the world. What remains of these, less than two months from election day? The first pillar crumbled when people became acquainted with the facts of Kerry’s 4 month, Christmas in Cambodia, magical mystery hat tour of duty- thanks to the Swift Boat Veterans. The second collapsed under the weight of Kerry’s own bloviating arrogance. First he referred to our allies in Iraq as a coalition of the” coerced and bribed”. Then he dispatched his sister to Australia to explain that terrorists attacked them because they supported Bush in Iraq. And finally he chose to attack the Iraqi prime minister, a truly brave man who faces death daily, thus revealing himself to be a small minded coward, willing to say anything to advance his candidacy, even if it raises the incentives for our enemies to kill a an ally. Unlike Spain, Americans won’t elect such a man, no matter how nuanced and clever his words.

September 20, 2004

JOURNALISTIC TRADITION

        While listening to Bob Schieffer on Imus this morning, assuring us of the high standards held by Andrew Hayward, Dan Rather and all the noble truth seekers at CBS I was reminded of how little has really changed about the character of journalists. Small wonder they overwhelmingly support Baron Munchausen for President.

        Samuel Johnson, 245 years ago, approvingly cited Sir Henry Wotton’s definition of a journalist: a man who requires “neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness; but contempt of shame and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary. He who by long familiarity with infamy has obtained these qualities, may confidently tell today what he intends to contradict to-morrow; he may affirm fearlessly what he knows that he shall be obliged to recant…”

September 17, 2004

ANNIVERSARY OF ANTIETAM: THE BLOODIEST BATTLE IN U.S. HISTORY

        Today, Sept. 17, is the 142nd anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day's fighting in American history. Horsefeathers has listened to the weepings and lamentations of our liberal media punditocracy as American casualties pass the 1000 mark in Iraq. By historical standards this is an amazingly low casualty war, but of course utopian Liberalism finds it shocking that people would actually kill and be killed to protect their country. Liberalism long ago became a shared sensibility, a faith, rather than a coherent body of ideas, that requires display of the believers' superior virtue. So when we hear the laments emanating from the Russerts and Rathers, the Brokaws and Stephanopouloses, we are actually witnessing these narcissistic celebrities in acts of revolting self-display. In our therapeutic age, these glib wordsmiths think of themselves as IMPORTANT PEOPLE who must enlighten the rest of us. Their self-righteousness is palpable; after all, they must help us to 'get in touch' with our own deep feelings of sadness and grief. In doing so, they are exhibiting their own higher "sensitivity" by drawing long faces, and pretending to grieve deeply on behalf of all of us, over each battlefield death. One wonders what they'd have made of the following:
        In 14 hours of battle, culminating in a stalemate, Antietam resulted in nine times as many Americans killed or wounded (23,000 soldiers) as took place on June 6, 1944--D-day. More soldiers were killed and wounded at the Battle of Antietam than all Americans killed and wounded in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, and Spanish-American War combined.
        Imagine the depth of anti-Lincoln passions that would have been stirred if there'd been Television news coverage announcing the daily numbers of dead and wounded. Surely Lincoln would have been under tremendous pressure by the MSM to negotiate a settlement, since in their view nothing could be worth such a toll. Look at the battlefield stalemate that resulted from all the carnage. At the end of the day the exhausted armies were left where they started. Yet without the Battle of Antietam there would have been no Emancipation Proclamation and we would not be "one nation, indivisible". How fortunate that the men of Lincoln's time were realists about human nature, not yet infected by utopian fantasies. Today's highly educated, delicately metrosexual media wordsmiths should be forced to memorize the following words by John Stuart Mill:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

September 16, 2004

MARIE ANTOINETTE IN BROOKLYN

"...Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while, at least the kids," said Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry..."

"...Heinz Kerry stopped by a market in the heart of Brooklyn's Caribbean community, where she spoke French with Haitian vendors and shook hands with volunteers busy packing food, clothes and other relief supplies to be shipped to several Carribean islands hit by Hurricane Ivan..."
See the rest here.

September 15, 2004

TRUTH IS THE SAFEST LIE:THE CASE OF NPR

        Horsefeathers had just finished listening to Ray Charles and Norah Jones singing There You Go Again on his car's CD player when he made the mistake of switching for the hourly news to NPR. The bland, androgynous voiced creature reciting the news said that 3 bodies had been found in Iraq and "their heads had been removed." ("Removed: To move from a place or position occupied: removed the cups from the table.
To transfer or convey from one place to another: removed the family to Texas.
To take off: removed my boots."--Dictionary.com)
        How curious, bodies with heads "removed"! Who knows how that might have happened. Perhaps a sudden gust of wind. Could it possibly have been that Jihadi killers had taken their swords to the necks of 3 'infidels' and sawed through the flesh and bone to decapitate them? But, no, that sort of description might offend the multicultural consensus that we're dealing with "insurgents" or "rebels" or even with "revolutionaries". So the heads were simply found 'removed' from their bodies. George Orwell, we need you now.

September 11, 2004

LIBERAL REDNECKS

LIBERAL RED-NECKS: THE COGNITIVE AND MORAL STYLE OF UPPER WEST SIDE POLITICAL FUNDAMENTALISTS

Way back when the South was the Solid South which meant Solidly Democratic and reactionary—when Democratic meant poll-tax and segregation—most voters in the rural South were red-neck “Yaller Dawg Democrats.” A Yaller Dawg Democrat is someone who would “rather vote for a Yaller Dawg than a goddam Republican.”

During the Republican Convention in New York City last week New York Times reporter John Tierney tried to compare the way liberals and conservatives think about politics. And what he found was that in “the neighborhood that has called itself ‘the conscience of the Nation,’” the epicenter of intellectual New York, the home of the chattering classes—the Upper West Side—you found the same cognitive style as in the old red-necked Yaller Dawg South.

He found the folks standing around and about Zabar’s were ignorant about Republicans and conservatives, avoiding any contact and isolating themselves from any kind of communication from them. In addition the Liberals feel that its important to silence those who disagree with them.

Liberals also have extreme and exaggerated ideas about the people they think of as enemies. They demonize conservatives, referring to them as Nazis and fascists, or hold them in contempt as lazy, stupid, and dangerous.

Tierney found the Republicans, even religious Republicans, more tolerant, willing to discuss liberal ideas even though they disagreed with them and less smug than the liberals he interviewed.

If you want to read what fundamentalist thinking is like in the red-neck Upper West Side click here.

This, of course, is not really news. Anyone living amongst liberal red-necks over the past three or four years as Horsefeathers does knows the phenomenon well. It’s only a case of the New York Times finally acknowledging the truth. The irony is that liberals are fond of being the judge and jury of the world. Their greatest pleasure comes from criticizing the morally and intellectually imperfect of the world: the ignorant, the intolerant, the irrational, the unreasonable, the angry—all dominant characteristics, so it seems, of liberal discourse as reported in the New York Times and Horsefeathers.

HORSEFEATHERS QUIZ

(Part one)
Can You Name This Country?

709,000 REGULAR (ACTIVE DUTY) PERSONNEL.
293,000 RESERVE TROOPS.
EIGHT STANDING ARMY DIVISIONS.
20 AIR FORCE AND NAVY AIR WINGS WITH 2,000 COMBAT AIRCRAFT.
232 STRATEGIC BOMBERS.
19 STRATEGIC BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES WITH 3,114 NUCLEAR WARHEADS ON 232 MISSILES.
500 ICBMs WITH 1,950 WARHEADS.
FOUR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND 121 SURFACE COMBAT SHIPS AND SUBMARINES PLUS
ALL THE SUPPORT BASES, SHIPYARDS, AND LOGISTICAL ASSETS NEEDED TO
SUSTAIN SUCH A NAVAL FORCE.

IS THIS COUNTRY:

RUSSIA? NO
CHINA? NO
GREAT BRITAIN? NO
FRANCE? WRONG AGAIN
MUST BE USA? STILL WRONG
GIVE UP?

THESE ARE THE AMERICAN MILITARY FORCES THAT WERE ELIMINATED DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF BILL CLINTON AND AL GORE.

(Part two)

He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle
He voted to kill the M-1 Abrams Tank
He voted to kill every aircraft carrier laid down from 1988.
He voted to kill the Aegis anti aircraft system
He voted to Kill the F-15 Strike Eagle
He voted to Kill the Block 60 F-16
He voted to Kill the P-3 Orion upgrade
He voted to Kill the B-1
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the Patriot Anti Missile System
He voted to Kill the FA-18
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the F117

In short, he voted to kill every military appropriation for the
development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988 to
include the battle armor for our troops.

Who could possibly own such an anti-military voting record? None other than the heroic leader of the Democratic party, John ForAgainst Kerry. No wonder he wants to talk about President Bush's National Guard Service and his own Vietnam fantasies.

September 09, 2004

THE SANDBOX CANDIDACY OF JOHN KERRY: HOW THE DEMS ARE HELPING W. GET RE-ELECTED

        When Rudy Giuliani spoke at the Republican convention he recalled saying to his Police Commissioner amidst the horror of 9-11: “Thank God George Bush is President”. That feeling came to be shared by many grateful citizens. As he rallied New York and the nation and led us into battle, the President's stature as a forceful, mature leader rose. Like any leader, he soon became the target of political brickbats while continuing to lead the fight. Nothing goes as perfectly as utopians wish. There have been critics, including Horsefeathers, who regard the kinder gentler effort to bring Democracy to the Arab world as misguided. Nevertheless we are delighted by our strategic presence in Iraq. The howls of the mullahs and imams tell us we're on the right track. While critical, we still remember with gratitude what the CINC has accomplished in reversing decades of appeasement and in carrying the fight to our enemies.
        It is a mark of the immaturity of the Democratic party that it is unable to criticize without throwing mudpies at the President. The Democrats resemble children having a temper tantrum who see no reason to be grateful to the adults protecting them. In fact, they want to replace those adults with ones who promise more toys. Young children do lack the ability to sustain gratitude beyond the next frustration. If the current Democratic leadership possessed mature political sense they’d realize that the vast majority of the American people, even those who have differences with him, like, admire and are grateful to President Bush. In short, they're adults. They are put off by the snide and petty attacks, the ignorant and smug condescension, the constant refrain of 'liar, liar'. Furthermore, like children, the desparate Democratic strategists have no understanding of human nature. They really think they're inflicting damage with their strategy of arguing that Bush was a rowdy young man who partied hard and was AWOL from the National Guard. Don’t these great political strategists, the Begalas and Carvilles realize that they’re doing the equivalent of citing rowdy Prince Hal to delegitimize King Henry? (That St. Crispens Day speech--nothing but lies.) But we love King Henry's devotion to his men, his wartime leadership-even more-so for his once having been Prince Hal. We identify with his all too human youthful failings because he transformed himself. He doesn’t boast of his noble exploits as a young man. Instead he learns from his youthful mistakes and gracefully assumes the leadership role of an adult. In short, he grows up. Horsefeathers is delighted to see John Kerry's media enablers, the Kitty Kellys, Ben Barneses, and others hard at work throwing infantile mudpies at Prince Hal, while King Henry goes about his job. They present us with a collective case of arrested development. We suspect there are large numbers of Democrats who, like Ed Koch and Zell Miller, don't want a President who represents a constituency of aggrieved whining children, leading our country in World War IV. The adult backlash has begun.

ANOTHER VETERAN ASSESSES OUR OWN BARON MUNCHAUSEN

This e-mail was written by Mike Morrison, who won a Bronze Star in Vietnam, and who is now retired, but wrote speeches for Lee Iacocca for many years. It was sent to his brother Ed.
Thanks to Bruce Kesler for forwarding it.

"I've long thought that John Kerry's war record was phony. We talked about it when you were here. It's mainly been instinct because, as you know, nobody who claims to have seen the action he does, would so shamelessly flaunt it for political gain.

I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (Swift Boats), Kerry's command. Here are my problems and suspicions:

(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected: a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware, so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff, in the hot areas, was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs. Fishy!

(2) Three Purple Hearts, but no limp. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or, he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy!

(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 (rocket propelled grenade) was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin 50's (caliber machine guns), Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retrieves the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong:
(a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go (away) balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a Frisbee after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards, or so, between you and the beach, and begin raking it with your 50's.
(b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a 50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you - just flopping around in the dust, during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring-do in your after-action report). And, we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.
(c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat, in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach, your boat was defenseless. It couldn't run, and it couldn't return fire. It was stupid, and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat, during, or after a firefight. Something is very fishy.

Here we have a JFK "wannabe", who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get a good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy, in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachusetts in 1970, so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress, and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself, a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall (Berlin) came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice, so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well, so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you, or I, never had this guy covering ouR flanks in Vietnam.

I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up. I know in my gut it's wildly inflated. And fishy!"

September 08, 2004

JOHN KERRY: IT'S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE

        Horsefeathers hopes its readers are sharing our enjoyment of the desparate attempts to save the sinking slowboat of John Kerry's candidacy. We hope he continues to return to the topic of Vietnam, so that all the veterans he slandered can enjoy watching his political career devolve to the level of a national joke. Just scroll through some of the comments in earlier postings to see a daily illustration of mindless Folly, Ignorance, and Cant--expressed by contemporary Liberals. The light is slowly dawning: despite their desparate efforts at denial, they've hitched their Bush bashing hopes to a loser. His fraudulent attempt at self-reinvention as a bold warrior was laughed off the election stage even before the convention ended. John Kerry has introduced himself to America and been exposed as a blustering blowhard and braggart who climbed the ladder of political success by dishonoring his fellow veterans. Furthermore, his arrogance in thinking that none would remind him of what he'd done, has now rendered him ludicrous, an object of derision, as he flails out at the President rather than directly answering the Swiftvets. Did he think all had been forgiven? There are some charges, even more serious than the ones concerning his fantasy heroics. They come from the surviving POW's who were subjected to the tender mercies of their North Vietnamese captors.

Capt. James Warner had already spent four years in Vietnamese custody when he was handed a copy of [Kerry's] testimony by his captors. Warner says that for his captors, [Kerry's]statements "were proof I deserved to be punished." He wasn't released until March 14, 1973.

"...Maj. Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who was in Vietnamese custody for 2,284 days, says his captors "repeated incessantly" [Kerry's] one-liner about being "the last man to die" for a lost cause. Cordier was released March 4, 1973.

Navy Lt. Paul Galanti says [Kerry's] accusations "were as demoralizing as solitary (confinement) ... and a prime reason the war dragged on." He remained in North Vietnamese hands until February 12, 1973..."
See the rest of Oliver North's open letter to Kerry here.

        When John Kerry saluted and said he was "reporting for duty" did he understand that his duty would include standing up like a man and apologizing to his fellow soldiers, both the living and the dead? Apparently not.

DISHONORED BY KERRY: REAL WAR HEROS

Horsefeathers is delighted that John Kerry has been unable to foist his tale of warrior gallantry on the American public. Instead of being ashamed of utilizing 3 minor scrapes to bug out on his 'band of brothers', Kerry endlessly boasts of his battle courage and fantasy exploits. In the course of his macho self invention, Kerry regularly promotes himself into the ranks of war heros. He thereby casts doubt on every soldier who honestly earned his medals. Here's a reminder, courtesy of C. Alan Hopewell of some of the men dishonored by Kerry's boasts.

        On June 6, 1944, Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder and his elite 2nd Ranger Battalion fought their way up a thousand feet of sheer coastal cliff at Pointe du Hoc, with grappling hooks and rope, with one goal: Destroy the premier battery of enemy artillery that threatened to wreak havoc on the Allies’ entire D-Day invasion. This mission was without question the most hazardous of the entire invasion. By the time a relief column arrived two days after the invasion’s start — only about 90 of Rudder’s 225 men remained in fighting condition. Though wounded twice, the colonel stayed the course, fighting off five counterattacks until relief arrived at noon on D-Day plus two. Colonel Rudder’s assault force, originally 225, had suffered 70 percent casualties. Directly at the start of the old Military Walk at Texas A&M University, a revered campus location for the Corps, stands a bronze statue in his likeness with a representation of Pointe du Hoc behind him. Major General Rudder’s 22 service medals and other honors gleam from behind glass inside the adjacent building named for him, including the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest military award. Thirteen additional Distinguished Service Crosses were won by the Battalion in taking Pointe du Hoc that day, along with a Presidential Unit Citation.

        None of these were "band aid" medals or earned from political connections. None of the 2nd Ranger Battalion requested to go home after four months and start an "anti-war" movement while still on active duty. Ranger Lt. Robert Edlin turned down the Congressional Medal of Honor, stating that "I must decline that because I don't want to leave my company." Actually, the monstrous guns were not installed as expected from intelligence reports. The press did not perseverate on "being lied to about nonexistent guns" and run endless stories about men killed over "faulty intelligence" or "going in without a plan." The guns were found some distance away, and were still a very real threat, armed and ready to wreak havoc upon the landing craft. The Rangers calmly disabled them with thermite grenades, saving hundreds of lives, and went on to free Europe from terrorism and dictatorship. Rudder himself commanded the 109th during the Battle of the Bulge, and, again, did not quit, thinking the war was now a "quagmire."

C. Alan Hopewell, Ph.D., M. S. Psy.Pharm, ABPP
Diplomate, American Board of Professional Psychology
American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology
Master's Degree in Clinical Psychopharmacology
Major, USAR 1971-1991

September 06, 2004

ISLAMIC BABY KILLERS? NOT IN THE NYTIMES

        The NYTimes, guided by the stylebook of political correctness, tells a romantic tale of careful planning by "Russian rebels". With barely contained admiration for their cleverness, reporters describe these "spectacular" attacks by "militants": "Their tactics, complex and flexible and carried out by guerrillas who control no real territory where they could operate freely, have left the police and security forces guessing where the next attack will be..."        Reading through the Times's story you'd be hard pressed to learn that these were Islamo-Nazi terrorists-cowards who tortured, raped and then shot fleeing young children in the back--allahu akbar. By calling them "militants", "rebels", "guerillas" the Times domesticates and renders a "nuanced" view of the struggle between civilization and barbarism. Now we can go back to discussing really important John Kerry issues--like whether this is the worst economy since Herbert Hoover.

<< Back to Horsefeathers