Has it ever happened before, in the history of the world, that almost six years into a major conflict, half of the intelligentsia of a nation fighting the war was not convinced that there was even a war on? Such was the implication of a moment during Thursdays Democratic presidential candidates debate. When asked, Do you believe there is such a thing as a Global War On Terror, candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Christopher Dodd raised their hands. John Edwards, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel kept their hands down.
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One of those tools would be to identify the enemy properly. Republican candidate Mitt Romney did so when commenting on the Democrats debate: I wish theyd have spent more time as a Democratic field talking about the threat of global jihad, talking about what specifically they would do to prevent the nuclear armament of Iran.
The global jihad -- that is what those who would conquer and subjugate us call their activity. For what we are fighting today is not precisely a war on terror. Terror is a tactic, not an opponent. To wage a war on terror is like waging a war on bombs: it focuses on a tool of the enemy rather than the enemy himself. A refusal to identify the enemy is extremely dangerous, as it leaves those who refuse vulnerable to being blindsided by attacks coming from quarters they did not think could possibly be threatening as the White House access granted by both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to now-jailed jihadists such as Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian abundantly attests.
A forthright acknowledgement that we are facing a renewed jihad would go a long way to preventing that sort of diplomatic and intelligence embarrassment. This is not really as far-fetched as it may seem. Jihad terrorists have declared war on the United States and other non-Muslim nations; all the U.S. and Western European countries need to do is identify the enemy as they have identified themselves. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
05/01/2007 11:22 ||
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David Broder said he wouldn't change anything in his April 26 column, which angered many readers and caused 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to write a letter criticizing Broder in Friday's Washington Post.
In that Thursday piece, Broder criticized Harry Reid for saying the Iraq War is lost militarily, compared Reid to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and concluded: "The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader."
Broder was "astonished and delighted" that 50 Democratic senators "spontaneously" came up with the letter.
"I still think the Democrats can do better, and should do better," said Broder, when reached today by E&P. . . . Broder told E&P that he was "astonished and delighted" that 50 Democratic senators and their PR consultants "spontaneously" came up with the letter (adding that he was being "tongue-in-cheek"). The columnist also said he was "not surprised" that his Thursday piece drew such a negative reaction from the 50 senators and most of the many mind-numbed robots readers who flooded washingtonpost.com with comments because Kos ordered them to . . . .
UPDATE: Reader James Somers emails: 'If, in 2005, 50 Republican senators had written a letter to the New York Times excoriating Paul Krugman for criticizing Bill Frist, and conservative blogs had incited their readers to bombard the Times with angry e-mails complaining about Krugman, wouldn't this have just been one more example of the RethugliKKKans' crushing of dissent?"
Well, yeah.
This article starring:
David Broder
Harry Reid
Posted by: Mike ||
05/01/2007 06:11 ||
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#1
Broder stated the truth: "The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader."
In addition he should have said that Harry Reid should STFU and focus on cleaning up the ethics of his land deals.
#4
Speaking truth to power. Oh, wait, that's the left's demagoguery. Remember, its not about principle, its about POWER. Self justifying, self rationalizing. Therefore, one set of rules for me, another set of rules for thee.
There has been some discussion at several sites that link to the Terrorist Death Watch about how the losses suffered by the enemy don't seem to appear to be in a proper ratio to our losses. Don Surber and Free Republic.
I'm going to use the Iraq Coalition Casualties site for my analysis. I may be off by one or two, because the site does not display exactly what I need and I have to hand count some items. But, here goes:
104 American troops killed in Iraq in April 2007
8 were non-hostile deaths
leaving 96
65 were killed by IED's or IED's and small arms fire
leaving 31 killed in direct combat or by artillary
In that same time we killed, as announced on TDW, 174 terrorists.
If you count each American death, the ratio is 1.7 terrorists to 1 American
Eliminate the non-hostile deaths, and the ratio is: 1.8 to 1
Eliminate the IED deaths and the ratio becomes: 5.6 to 1
Why eliminate the IED deaths? IED's eliminate the possibility of our troops responding to the attack and killing any of the enemy. The TDW counts enemy combat losses and our comparison should be like to like.
This analysis treats 2/3's of all deaths from hostile action as not significant to the analysis of the ratio of terrorists deaths to American deaths. You can challenge that assumption, but I would ask that you demonstrate a like to like comparison for your challenge.
#1
So...if we use the 5.6:1 figure, and have something on the order of 3025+/-5 US casualties, that means something on the order of 15-16 thousand terrorist Jihadis having assumed room temperature.
Damn, that's a lot of virgins needed in Paradise at 72 each...
#2
I've looked at the U.S. deaths for the same period as TDW. Average ratio for 2006, with lousy terr death reporting by DoD, is 3.56:1. Average for 2007 is 5.62:1.
Average monthly combat deaths in the period Jan 2006 through April 2007 are 27. Average monthly deaths to IED are 37, and non-hostile deaths average 9 per month.
#3
As an EFFECTIVENESS ratio, shouldn't one compare Coalition killed & captured to AIF killed and captured (and NOT released)? In fact, shouldn't it be Coalition plus IA plus IP killed & captured vs. AIF? And IED deaths should be counted - it's the AIF equivalent of stuff like our air support.
Without doing the arithmetic, it strikes me that the effectiveness ratio is way too low to win this kind of war. In head-on combat the ratio is probably around 20:1, but the AIF generally avoid that kind of fight (they're stupid, but only Mookies boys tend to be THAT stupid, consistently.) How effective one is in that kind of fighting is not all that significant if the enemy chooses not to engage that way.
IF the terrorist DW count is even close to correct, we have to find more efficient tactics. As before the key is intel. I suspect in many areas good intel is drying up because of a general perception that the US is pulling out soon, and no one bets on a horse that's already pulled up lame.
#4
Chuck, that's highly misleading. While our losses are counted in minute detail and each portrait shown on TV, losses on the other side disappear in the "We don't do body counts" black hole. Only a small fraction ever make it to news reports, esp. western news outlets. In 2006, returning mil intel reports had Centcom using 25-26,000 killed and captured (i.e. kicked upstairs to Cropper or Graib, etc.) enemy combatants in each of 2004 and 2005. So project to over 100,000 killed and captured over 4 years just by US forces. Add to that the 10-15,000 (minus 1/3 civilian) killed up till the fall of Baghdad. Those figures do not count unconfirmed kills or wounded that die to be buried in the desert or to magically become "civilian" casualties dumped into a canal.
AFAIK, there are about 15,000 prisoners under US guard. Assuming 1 is released for each prisoner is eventually released for 1 kept, then that gives a recovered kill ratio of 23:1 (80,000:3,500 all causes). Assuming 2 released per 1 captive retained gives a 17:1 ratio. The truth is most likely somewhere in between.
In the toughest battle of Iraq, second Fallujah Nov 2005, after giving the enemy 6 months to fortify, between 2500-3000 enemy were killed and captured for a loss of 100 Americans and Iraqi army. During first Fallujah, Apr 2004, after the murder and mutilation of the 4 contractors, some 800-1100 were killed for the loss of 27 Marines.
Posted by: ed ||
05/01/2007 18:06 Comments ||
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AFAICT, the controversy boils down to a determination by upper management that journos of Armenian descent are too biased to write stories referencing the Armenian genocide. This internal memo seems to specify that the LAT is reversing its previous policy regarding Armenia, and that this is a very recent phenomena.
Reading between the lines, the enemies of the West have worked their way into upper management and are actively attempting to rewrite history.
#3
Once again, the focus ought to be slaughter of Christian Armenians by Muslim Turks. Same trouble, different time. And, the wrong message was transmitted.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
