Two Stones (Roger And Oliver) Of One Mind On Iraq

November 21, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Iraq War, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

Veteran GOP operative Roger Stone:

There have been many times I’ve regretted [helping George W. Bush win in 2000]. When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all the individual pictures of people who have been killed [in Iraq], I got to think, ‘Maybe there wouldn’t have been a war if I hadn’t gone to Miami-Dade. Maybe there hadn’t have been, in my view, an unjustified war if Bush hadn’t become president.’ It’s very disturbing to me.

Secretary of What?

November 11, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War, Military, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

Anti- War groups like Code-Pink are mounting pressure on Pres.-elect Obama to ax popular Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

A Defense official (D-RI) quoted in The Politico:

“The only reason Barack Obama is president today, the main reason Obama is president-elect, is because of his opposition to the war in Iraq,” and Gates, a former intelligence officer and Cold Warrior, was brought in to fix the war, not end it, a defense industry official said, adding, “He is so far outside the box of what Democrats want.”

I thought Obama was President because of the economy. In any case, I wish we could go back to the days when the position was called Secretary of War. At least the function to manage the military had a little more rhetorical flexibility to defend the periodically inevitable, the dire necessity to wage war even when unpopular.

Where Anti-Iraq Rhetoric Will Get You

November 7, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War, Obama administration | 1 Comment 

One week ago, Robert Kaplan wrote that Iraq will be Obama’s “first test” and insurgents will want to take advantage of America’s Presidential transition, especially as the Pres-elect has made it a campaign promise to leave the fledgling democracy in 16 months. With levels of violence down 90 percent since 2006, the WSJ is reporting a “marked uptick” in Baghdad within the past four days:

The deadliest attack Thursday came near a checkpoint in central Baghdad when two bombs exploded during the morning rush hour, police said. Four people were killed and seven wounded in the blasts.

Another bomb targeting a government convoy injured six people, police and hospital officials said. Police said the convoy was carrying the electricity minister, Karim Waheed. Ministry spokesman Aziz Sultan denied the minister was in the convoy. The police spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release information.

The twin blasts in the capital’s Sunni enclave of Sheik Omar occurred at a checkpoint manned by members of an Awakening Council, the mostly Sunni groups that have joined forces with the Americans against al Qaeda in Iraq.

Nine other people were wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad’s sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, police said.

Maybe there should also be an Iraqi news conference today, with a commitment to continued stabilization, and a promise to take the role of incoming military commander chief with the caution Sen. Obama said Pres. Bush lacked by bringing us to war in the first place.

The Turning Point

November 2, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Rober D. Kaplan writes that should Sen. Obama be elected Tuesday, it will be a dramatic turning point in the Iraq War:

The very issue that Obama wishes to put behind him in order to get on with other challenges, such as Afghanistan and climate change, has the power to drag him down — and it will do so, if he becomes president, precisely because he wants it out of sight. Obama is not emotionally invested in Iraq; he was against the war, and he only grudgingly admitted the success of the “surge.” Biden, for his part, has fervently promised voters that he and Obama will “end this war.”

The problem is that both Iran and Al Qaeda — like all of us — have been listening to both men. And both the jihadists and the mullahs in Tehran are invested in not just an American withdrawal, but a humiliating one at that.

So what could happen? I fear a measurable uptick in violence in Iraq if Obama wins on Tuesday. The uptick will be significant enough to muddy the results of the surge, and the president-elect, rather than respond vigorously, will be tempted to say “I told you so” and thus win the Iraq debate with his Republican critics. The upturn in violence, he will be tempted to argue, only means we need to get out of Iraq even faster.

PyeW.

October 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Bush Administration, Iraq War, Movies, Presidents | Leave a Comment 

Professor Stone and his latest victim

In Oliver Stone’s “W.,” you can see George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) wipe himself after defecating. You see him eating constantly and showing hunks of food oozing between his teeth, spitting it at people as he talks, and nearly choking on a pretzel (true story). The constant sloppy drinking before he turns 40 goes without saying.

Stone and his writer mock Bush’s faith, suggesting that he embraced Christianity after losing his race for the House so he wouldn’t be “out-Texas’ed and out Christian’ed” again. They make up “Dallas”-like dialog between Bush and members of his family designed to show that he was jealous of his brother Jeb and obsessed with invading Iraq to show his father up as well as obtain his affection.

Everybody is a caricature except Laura ( Elizabeth Banks), the elder Bush (James Cromwell), and especially Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), shown strenuously resisting the Iraq War. Along among Bush’s advisers — Rice, Rumsfeld, and Rove are carefully rendered in cardboard — Gen. Powell comes out of “W.” smelling like a member of Barack Obama’s cabinet.

And yet “W.” isn’t really about Bush at all. It’s about the subterranean vein of bloodthirsty imperialism Oliver Stone identifies as an integral part of the American character. In “JFK,” the darkness took the form of shadowy business interests whom Stone falsely said were behind the President’s assassination (in which Stone disgustingly accuses Lyndon Johnson of complicity). In “Nixon,” which didn’t contain a single completely honest moment, the evil gremlins provoked the invasion of Cambodia.

In “W.”, the third film in Stone’s paranoid trilogy, the evil finally has a face. Dark America is personified as Dick Cheney, self-proclaimed architect of a new empire of oil. During a Dr. Strangelove turn in the situation room, Cheney tells the President and his aides that since the U.S., with five percent of the world’s people, consumes a quarter of the world’s energy, the obvious solution is an invasion of Iraq as a prelude to conquering Iran and colonizing the Middle East. “Good meeting,” says Bush, who nonetheless is shown believing that there really are WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein’s fall will bring democracy to the region.

As it may yet do. When Stone was making the movie and planning an autumn release, Iraq was going so poorly that everyone assumed it would dominate the election. It hasn’t, both because of the economy and the success of Bush’s policy over the last year. The Vietnam-obsessed Stone assumed Iraq was going the same direction as South Vietnam and Cambodia. As of now, it isn’t. In this sense, W. looks smarter than “W.”

As for Stone, now that he’s made this mean, boring movie, 129 minutes of relentlessly detailed “Mother Jones” historical and policy analysis, maybe he’ll do us and especially history a favor and lay off the Presidents. After all, no one will want to see Obama going to the bathroom while talking to his wife. Instead, Stone should use his vast influence to get Richard J. Barnett’s early books back into print — the ones about how the United States started the Cold War instead of the Soviet Union — and finish out his career doing the work for which he was truly born: Teaching international relations at Sarah Lawrence.

No Moral Standing

October 27, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Michael Yon on Syrian complaints of border incursion:

The insurgency in Mosul is the last big thorn left in Iraq’s paw. That we struck targets in Syria does not surprise me and I am not appalled. I am appalled that Syria allows these groups to use its territory as a base and conduit to destabilize Iraq. A Syrian government that allows these groups to penetrate Iraq’s borders and murder Iraqis and Americans doesn’t have much moral standing to complain about an incursion into its territory.

Sen. McCain and The Forgotten War

October 23, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Marine Sgt. Jack Eubanks tells National Review’s Byron York about his encounter with Sen. McCain:

“I just gave John McCain my Purple Heart,” Marine Sgt. Jack Eubanks told me a few minutes after McCain finished a speech at a campaign rally in Woodbridge, Virginia Saturday. “I said, ‘I want to give this to you, sir, as a reminder that we want you to keep your promise to bring us home in victory and honor, so it will mean something.’“

“We fought over there, and we want it to mean something,” Eubanks continued. “We don’t want to come back and it just be all for nothing.”

General Odierno and the “Sanctity of Democracy”

October 23, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Max Boot at Contentions:

I too don’t know if the U.S. is “mounting a covert effort of its own to counter the Iranian campaign.” But I very much doubt it. My understanding is that senior administration officials have nixed such proposals in the past for fear of the embarrassment that would result if they were uncovered. They have worried, I am told, that the CIA didn’t have the competence to carry out such a campaign quietly behind the scenes. A muffed effort no doubt would result in nasty headlines about the U.S. supposedly violating Iraqi sovereignty and making a mockery of Iraqi democracy.

If the CIA would indeed botch a covert strategy of a counter-Iranian campaign, then Gen. Ray Odierno’s decision to make public allegations against Iraqi MPs taking bribes can be viewed as nothing else than a stroke of genius. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opportunistically rebuked Odierno’s outing, desperately countering by signaling that the new multinational force commander’s job is on the line. Remember in June, al-Maliki all but publicly endorsed Sen. Obama for the belief that he could attain a troop withdrawal, with the inevitability of security guarantees if the relatively more remote chance that conditions on the ground would deteriorate.

Gen. Odierno’s ascension ostensibly gave al-Maliki the opening to flexibly diminish U.S. influence, which the commander cleverly foresaw given that such a move wouldn’t be effective during the reign of the well established and respected Gen. David Petraeus. On the heels of a potential security agreement which would insure U.S. troop presence beyond 2008, rather than run covert operations that could effectively undermine the parliamentary process and blemish America’s intent to spread democracy, he decided to use one of democracy’s most important virtues: free speech. The Iraqi people’s suspicion of Iranian encroachment is well documented, as is their proclivity towards the security that comes along with American troop presence. Ultimately, what Odierno demonstrated to the Iraqi people was that he was committed to the “sanctity of democracy,” transparency in government, and may just have reversed the political trends of Iranian involvement and early withdrawal that could come with a President Obama.

McCain, McCain, And Vietnam

October 22, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Iraq War, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | Leave a Comment 

Boston Globe:

Admiral McCain [Sen. McCain's father] was the subject of Nixon’s ire because he had complained to the White House that Nixon was imposing too many restrictions on his ability to bomb North Vietnam. The admiral soon went into retirement, keeping private his disagreements with Nixon and publicly praising the president’s “Vietnamization” strategy, in which the United States cut back its involvement as control of the war was gradually turned over to the South Vietnamese.

Now, as Senator John McCain seeks the presidency, he often says that the lessons from the Vietnam War helped shape his views on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what is little-noted is that one of his key lessons came from what he perceived as a failure by his father. Senator McCain has excoriated the way his father failed to make public his misgivings about Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy. If the older McCain and other commanders had spoken up, his son believes, it might have changed the course of the war.

Assuming reporter Michael Kranish is being attentive to the nuances of the latter years of the Vietnam War, it’s hard to believe that Admiral McCain really thought that more bombing during 1969-73 would’ve been politically sustainable. The campaigns President Nixon did order in May and December 1972 prompted massive criticism while nonetheless blunting the North Vietnamese invasion that spring and, late in the year, setting in motion the events that led to the Paris Peace Accords and the return of John the younger and his fellow POWs.

As for Vietnamization, whether or not Admiral McCain thought it was a failure, historian Bob Sorley (coming to the Nixon Library on Oct. 24) has argued in A Better War that the policy succeeded, only to be sold out by a Democratic Watergate Congress in 1973-75 which let our allies in South Vietnam run out of bullets. RN would’ve been the first to say that he shared in that debacle by letting Watergate get out of control and losing his leverage over Congress. As a result, Vietnamization wasn’t given a chance to work. The next President’s challenge: An Iraqification that is given a chance.

…And Ken Adelman’s Endorsement

October 21, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008, International Affairs, Iraq War, Nixon Administration figures, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Ken Adelman’s credentials in Republican circles go back four decades. He served in the Commerce Department, then under Donald Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Department of Defense, during the Nixon and Ford administrations respectively. During the Reagan years he headed the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and his advice to the 40th President was indispensable during the summits with Mikhail Gorbachev that helped bring the Cold War to an end.

In 2001 Adelman joined the Defense Policy Board and worked with Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz (whom he’d helped bring into government service) in the planning leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was a strong supporter of the Iraq war during its first years, but after the start of the second Bush term his opinion changed; two years ago he published an article in Vanity Fair arguing that the United States should not have launched the operation, and has since described himself as having moved from being a “neocon” to being a “con-con” (by way of distinguishing himself from the American Conservative “paleocon” crowd).

Yesterday, Adelman dramatically distanced himself from his former colleagues when he informed George Packer of the New Yorker that he would vote for Sen. Barack Obama for President next month, explaining:

Why [am I doing so], since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?

Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment.

When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.

Second is judgment. The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.

That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither [of these] can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.

It is true that Sen. McCain’s initial response to the economic crisis was confusing, since his traditional stand has been in favor of deregulation, and the conflict between the Bush administration and conservative Republicans put him in something of a quandary. But in the weeks since then he and his advisors have given a lot of thought to what will be required in the next four years, and his statements on economic policy, especially during the last debate, reflect this. And where Gov. Palin is concerned, I would guess that Adelman’s objections to her are as much founded on her determined support of the Iraq war as they are on what he perceives as her inexperience. In any event, though Adelman’s announcement is not as earth-shaking as Gen. Colin Powell’s was on Sunday, it does make one wonder who, among prominent Republicans, will next endorse Obama-Biden.

Powell’s Missed Opportunity

October 21, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Bush Administration, Iraq War, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Our Nixon brother Pat Buchanan has provoked unsurprising outrage by suggesting that race was the principal motivating factor in Gen. Powell’s endorsement of Sen. Obama. But there’s a less-noted foreign policy angle. Buchanan:

There is speculation Powell feels badly used by the neocons who cherry-picked and hyped the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction he presented at the U.N., and that he harbors a distrust of the neocons now reassembling around McCain.

If so, he surely has a case, and should have made it.

An opponent of the Iraq intervention himself, Buchanan speaks with considerable authority on this point.

“Tender Mercies”

October 20, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Max Boot on the draft of a U.S.-Iraqi Security accord:

Since U.S. forces pretty much never leave their bases except on missions (R&R is taken in Kuwait or Qatar or back home-not in Iraq), this effectively ratifies the status quo. That is why some hard-line nationalists in Iraq claim that this provision is inadequate. But it is hard to see how U.S. troops could operate anywhere in the world if they face arrest on possibly trumped-up charges. The Iraqi legal system is still experiencing growing pains, and no responsible American commander could possibly turn over his troops to its tender mercies.

More troubling, from the standpoint of U.S. interests (and Iraq’s long term interests, properly understood), are provisions that limit the ability of U.S. forces to conduct raids and to detain suspects.

Tough Shoes to Fill

October 18, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Abe Greenwald on Gen. Ray Odierno’s recent kerfuffle and on following Gen. Petreaus’s masterful leadership in Iraq:

Gen. Petraeus’s humility, restraint, circumspection, and flair for diplomacy are as much a part of the story of Iraq’s turnaround as, say, his “Anaconda strategy.” Not only does Gen. Odierno have enormous shoes to fill, but he must fill them very discreetly.

Partly the “Political Solution”

October 14, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Iraq War critics often downplay the country’s reduction in violence as a mere military solution to social and political problems, contradictorily, if not expediently, claiming that any responsible reduction in troop levels would lead to immediate de-stabilization. On that note, I encourage readers to look at Max Boot’s profile of Marine reservist Major General Douglas Stone, commander of detainee operations in Iraq. Through a policy of rehabilitation, he has effectively released 13,000 inmates (30%) to Iraqi streets, with repeat criminals only numbering 97, a recidivism rate of 0.7%:

Why the change? A lot of the explanation has to do with the changing dynamics of Iraqi society. Many of the released detainees are Sunnis from Anbar Province. When they went into the clink, they were part of a widespread insurgency that included most military-age males in their neighborhoods. By the time they came out, the insurgency had been defeated, with Al Qaeda terrorists chased out and the local tribes joining the Anbar Awakening. Returning detainees have no reason to take up arms.

But part of the explanation also has to do with a dramatic change in how detainees were handled that is credited to Major General Douglas Stone, a Marine reservist who commanded Task Force 134, which overseas detainee operations, from May 2007 until June 2008.

Under Stone’s guidance, the task force went from simply warehousing prisoners to trying to rehabilitate them, instituting what the military calls “COIN behind the wire”-that is, counterinsurgency operations inside the detention facilities. An important first step was to segregate detainees by level of militancy so that hard-core Al Qaeda fanatics would not have a chance to proselytize among the less-committed.

Moderate Muslim clerics were brought in to “deprogram” detainees who had their heads filled with jihadist propaganda. Classes were set up to teach skills that could be used on the outside, such as how to be a plumber or electrician. Work programs were also instituted so that inmates can volunteer to build furniture or undertake other tasks to earn them money they can send home to their families. Personal visits and even video teleconferences were arranged to keep inmates in touch with their relatives. Regular review boards were convened to consider every detainee’s case, with suspects being allowed to plead their cases before the three American officers who make up each board.

The Cutting Room Floor

October 11, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Entertainment, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Who knew that Oliver Stone had such delicately refined sensibilities that he would decide to cut the theatrical version of his new film W. lest any bad language offend the ears of America’s families?

There’s a heckuva lot to see in “W,” Oliver Stone’s new George Bush biopic that portrays the president as a drunken lout in college and follows him all the way through his handling of the insurgency after the invasion of Iraq.

But there were many other parts Stone filmed that won’t make it to the big screen, including two dream sequences featuring Saddam Hussein, a take on Bush’s born-again conversion to Christianity, and even a scene in which he practices his wobbly pilot skills in a small plane and spins out of control in the desert.

The movie, which screened for critics this week and is receiving mixed reviews, has a final running time of 129 minutes. But Stone decided to save some of the more fantastic and surreal moments for the DVD director’s cut and possibly international versions of the film. Stone says the deleted scenes were cut to tighten the film and keep the action moving, but the actor who plays Hussein also blames it on harsh language, among other reasons.

According to Sayed Badreya, the Arab-American actor who portrays Hussein, Stone dropped two “over-the-top” fantasy sequences in which the Iraqi dictator confronts and cusses out the American president. At a press conference earlier this week, Stone said he had to lose the Hussein scenes because the movie was “too long.”

“When I first went to film the scenes, I knew there was a chance they could get cut because of the way they were written — they were very raw,” Badreya told Politico last weekend. The language, he added, was R-rated, while “W.” producers were aiming for — and eventually received — a PG-13 rating that allows younger audiences into theaters and can add millions more to the final box office tally.

It’s also interesting to learn what an auteur who manufactures assassination plots out of whole cloth and tailors historical figures to suit his conspiratorial obsessions considers “silly”:

One scene in “W.” has Bush watching television and seeing Hussein on the screen cursing at him before Bush chokes on that infamous pretzel. The other imagines Bush flying over Baghdad on a magic carpet while Hussein stands atop a hill, literally rattling a saber and screaming obscenities. 

“We talked about it, and I told Oliver I knew it would be trouble, but he said, ‘Let’s play it and we’ll see,’” recalled Badreya [the actor who plays Saddam Hussein]. “But recently he sent me an e-mail and said that I was right.” 

Badreya says that in his e-mail, Stone wrote that the dream sequences were ultimately deemed “too silly” to fit the movie’s overall tone, and he indicated to Badreya that both could later be included on the DVD or overseas versions. The actor said he put a lot of time into studying Hussein — “I had to get his voice, his style of walking and talking right,” he said. “My responsibility was to play him as a character, not a cartoon.”

The Sound Of The Falling Tree In The Forest

October 11, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Iraq War, News media | Leave a Comment 

Nothing is supposed to succeed like success. But what happens if your success —for whatever reasons— goes unnoticed? Then exactly how successful is it?

An interesting story from Baghdad in today’s Washington Post raises the age old mainstay of Philosophy 101: does a falling tree in an unpopulated forest make a sound.

Under the headline “Western Journalists In Iraq Stage Pullback”, the story reports the sharp decline of the number of foreign journalists. Among the reasons cited are Iraq’s growing stability and the financial strains being faced by some news organizations.  Uncited is the simple lack of interest in reporting good news from anywhere but particularly from Iraq.

Veteran journalists say stories about Iraq, where roughly 155,000 U.S. troops are deployed and where the United States spends approximately $10 billion a month, have become tougher to get on the air and into print. News coverage that once centered largely on the U.S. military experience is shifting, like the country itself, to a story of Iraqis taking the halting, often mundane steps toward building their own government.

The USO: Rightly Some Kind Of Proud

October 3, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Comedy, Entertainment, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

The President was the guest of honor and comedian Robin Williams was the surprise guest at the USO’s annual fundraising gala in Washington on Wednesday. 

As reported by Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts in their “The Reliable Source” column in the Washington Post, Mr. Williams was in superprime form:

“We’re here to raise $750 billion in a telethon for America,” the ever-wired comic riffed when he walked onstage at the Marriott Wardman Park. And from there he was off and running, comparing the government to a junkie: “I just need $900 billion, man. . . . I just ran into some bad subprime.”

Sarah Palin?  ”The difference between her and Dick Cheney: She shoots you, you stay down.” 

Obama vs. McCain?  ”It’s like the Fresh Prince versus Fred Mertz.”

Those California liberals threatening to boycott Chinese products? Impossible! “The Chinese even make the ‘Free Tibet’ stickers!”

Which led to a leering bit about gymnasts. “It’s like horizontal pole dancing. Who invented this? It’s like ‘Daddy needs to watch this alone now.’ ”

He did four-letter words. He did Larry Craig jokes. He was unrepeatably vulgar and un-PC. And the well-bred red-white-and-blue crowd loved it. But seriously, folks: Williams also spoke about how honored he was to perform with the USO for troops overseas — where he said he can be much more blue. (”Makes my material here look Amish.”)

President Bush enlisted the vernacular to tell the service members present that “I am some kind of proud to be your commander in chief.”  He said that “Morale is the greatest single factor in a successful war.  The moment things began to turn around in Iraq is when the USO deployed Jessica Simpson.”

Maybe that has been the problem all along: if only someone had dispatched Ms. Simpson to the White House in January 2001, perhaps the President would have taken an active role in mobilizing the nation’s morale for the war and the economic crisis and fill in all the remaining blanks between then and now.

Obama Now Says U.S. Is Winning

September 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, DSPQ, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Iraq War, News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

A big but overlooked story from last night’s debate is that Sen. Obama appeared to say for the first time that the U.S. was winning in Iraq. His prior position was that the surge had merely and predictably (though he didn’t predict it at the time) improved the security situation.

Reading the oh-so-20th century national print edition of the New York Times that someone had left behind in Starbucks this afternoon, I saw a reference to Obama’s statement, but the current on-line version of the story omits it. I felt the earlier version of the Times news coverage made Obama sound generally less effective than today’s iteration of the story, but maybe that’s just my DSPQ.

My live blog notes say:

[8]:45 — Obama “doesn’t understand the difference between a strategy and a tactic.” I don’t think McCain is especially vulnerable on this question. The “let us win” anecdote is good. “Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that we’re winning in Iraq.” Obama: “That’s not true.” (So we are winning, Sen. Obama?) McCain is scoring here. Jim should ask him if he’s now acknowledging that we’re winning.

First Impressions After The First Debate

September 26, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Economic issues, Election 2008, International Affairs, Iran, Iraq War, Israel and Palestinians, Media, National Security, News media, Republican Party, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

Overall, I would have to say Sen. John McCain came out ahead.  The decision to devote the first 40 minutes to the economy solved the problem of focus that an all-foreign-policy discussion would have produced, as I commented in my previous post, and it also would normally have been to Sen. Barack Obama’s advantage, given McCain’s missteps last week.  But the Republican candidate handled himself rather well; his only slipup, perhaps, was his offer to commit himself to a spending freeze on everything except defense, veterans affairs, and entitlements, which gave Obama an opening to talk about education and health care.  Neither candidate cared to commit himself to a detailed answer to moderator Jim Lehrer’s repeated query about what large-scale cuts would have to be made because of the proposed bailout.

On foreign affairs, McCain pulled ahead early and maintained his lead.  He spoke with assurance and conviction about his support for the surge, and the difference it made in the war with Iraq.  He also addressed the Pakistan and Russian issues well.  One rather notable feature of this part of the discussion was Obama going out of his way to mention Sen. Joe Biden’s foreign-policy expertise, an indirect swipe at Gov. Sarah Palin.  But the Illinois senator generally played it safe and, as John Taylor pointed out in his liveblogging, was usually on the defensive, as shown by his repeated assurances of his agreement with McCain after the latter had made a point.

The race is far from over; a lot rides on Gov. Palin’s performance next week, and any major gaffes on McCain’s part in the coming debates are sure to be pounced on in the media and blogosphere.  (It seemed evident tonight that ABC and CBS’s commentators were spinning the results of the debate Obama’s way, while at NBC Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw were ready to acknowledge McCain’s strong performance. This forthrightness is one reason NBC is the leader in network news ratings.)  But McCain’s off to a good start.

The First Debate Arrives

September 26, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008, International Affairs, Iran, Iraq War, Israel and Palestinians, Media, National Security, News media, Public Opinion, Republican Party, Russia, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

Late this morning, after several days of uncertainty and with less than ten hours until curtain time, Sen. John McCain finally confirmed that he will appear alongside Sen. Barack Obama at the first of the 2008 presidential debates at the University of Mississippi at 9 pm Eastern tonight.

This debate is to focus on foreign policy, despite that fact that the overwhelming concern of the nation over the last two weeks has been the US economy. It sets me to wondering to what extent the candidates can maneuver questions about the state of the world into permitting answers that will touch, if only briefly, on the state of the pocketbook. The easiest way to do this would seem to be in the course of replying to questions about the relations of Europe and the Pacific Rim nations to the United States. Trade, after all, is a major component of our ties to these nations, and an unhealthy situation on Wall Street and in American exports will affect these ties. But if either candidate starts discussing issues more relevant in the domestic area than in the overseas one, it’s unlikely that moderator Jim Lehrer, an old and experienced hand when it comes to debates, will let them tarry long.

So most likely the questions will focus on the major national-security issues: the continuing threat posed by Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs; unrest in Pakistan; Russia’s recent incursion into Georgia; and most of all the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the battle against terrorism. In these areas McCain has considerable strength. When he spoke quickly and forcefully to condemn Russian bullying, his poll numbers improved. And he has consistently addressed the challenges America faces overseas in terms in language that is clear, reasoned, and reassuring to the American voter.

(In this respect his running-mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, could learn something from him, as her appearance on CBS Evening News last night showed. Though what she said about diplomacy, the war and Mideast affairs was not in itself troubling if viewers listened carefully, and thus not likely to pose an embarrassment tonight, her manner of saying it was unorganized and somewhat rambling. It’s clear that she needs to keep prepping for the vice-presidential debate next week.)

This brings me to the one thing that really stood out when I examined the numbers in the ABC/Washington Post poll this week, which showed Obama leading McCain by 52 to 43 percent among likely voters (or 51-43 if Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are factored in). Starting in mid-July, those polled were asked: Who would you trust more to handle a major unexpected crisis, Obama or McCain?

Until last week, McCain consistently outpolled Obama on this question: 51 to 42 on July 13, 52-41 on August 22, 54 to 37 on September 7. On September 22, at the end of the week that shook Wall Street and Main Street (and a few days after McCain reacted to the news of Lehman Brothers’ collapse by saying that the economy was fundamentally sound) he led Obama by only 47 to 46 percent, a statistical tie.

It’s hard to say whether his dramatic actions this week changed the electorate’s view, or led them to think of Obama as being the man they would less like to see handling a crisis. But tonight’s event represents a chance to McCain to put his strongest assets as a candidate to the foreground and to score some solid and sorely needed points against his opponent. It’s traditionally been the case that the first presidential debate reaches the largest audience and plays the largest role in shaping voters’ perceptions of the candidates, and so what America will see tonight can be a turning point in this election. And both McCain and Obama are well aware of that.

Nothing New

September 18, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Andrew Bajevich of The Atlantic Monthly illustrates a divide on the future and direction of Army strategy. He divides the Army into two camps, crusaders and conservatives, with the former devoted to more focus on winning hearts and minds, self-introspection, improvement against guerilla-style tactics which plagued the military during Iraq and its quagmiric predecessor in Vietnam. The latter emphasizes kinetics, that is overwhelming use of military force for the efficient and abrupt ends to wars (ie: The Powell Doctrine). Bajevich rashly puts General Petreaus in the crusader camp, invoking a new “Petreaus Doctrine” focused less on kinetics and more about social engineering:

The Crusaders’ perspective on Iraq tracks neatly with this revisionist take on Vietnam, with the hapless Sanchez (among others) standing in for West­moreland, and General David Petrae­us—whose Princeton doctoral dissertation was titled “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam”—as successor to General Abrams. Abrams’s successful if tragically aborted campaign in Vietnam serves as a precursor to Petrae­us’s skillfully orchestrated “surge” in Iraq: each demonstrates that the United States can prevail in “stability operations” as long as commanders grasp the true nature of the problem and respond appropriately.

For Nagl, the imperative of the moment is to institutionalize the relevant lessons of Vietnam and Iraq, thereby enabling the Army, he writes, “to get better at building societies that can stand on their own.” That means buying fewer tanks while spending more on language proficiency; curtailing the hours spent on marksmanship ranges while increasing those devoted to studying foreign cultures. It also implies changing the culture of the officer corps. An Army that since Vietnam has self-consciously cultivated a battle-oriented warrior ethos will instead emphasize, in Nagl’s words, “the intellectual tools necessary to foster host-nation political and economic development.”

Although the issue is by no means fully resolved, the evidence suggests that Nagl seems likely to get his way. Simply put, an officer corps that a decade ago took its intellectual cues from General Colin Powell now increasingly identifies itself with the views of General Petrae­us. In the 1990s, the Powell Doctrine, with its emphasis on overwhelming force, assumed that future American wars would be brief, decisive, and infrequent. According to the emerging Petrae­us Doctrine, the Army (like it or not) is entering an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous—with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.

Bajevich deference for mutual exclusivity misses the point on two accounts. Firstly, the very idea of employing more boots on the ground implies the use of kinetics to kill and subdue an insurgency that was able to make greater inroads against a lighter American military force. Secondly, the application of social change as apart of the agency of the “soldier’s repetoire” is nothing new. Neither are pro-longed military efforts. Following the Spanish American War, Army Brigadier General Leonard Wood helped bring law and order to Cuba with great attention to political development. As a Harvard trained medical doctor, he led the effort to neutralize breakouts of yellow fever, improved the island’s sanitation system, and nurtured its educational, legal, and political systems for the eventual reality of independence. Similarly in post-war Japan, legendary Army General Douglas MacArthur oversaw the successful reconstruction and the institution of democracy. Hence, the use of force, and the pro-longed strategy of social engineering are historical grounded and mainstays in American military policy. There are no new schools in thought, there are just extraordinary leaders. General Petreaus just happens to be one of them.

Thanks, General Petraeus

September 17, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Biden’s Plan Opposed

September 9, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Dan Senor explains that Biden’s balkanization plan for Iraq without responsible security assurances was opposed by Iraqi leadership.

Not Brought To You By Obama-Biden

September 1, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

H/T to Instapundit for pointing out the story of the day in the New York Times:

RAMADI, Iraq — The American military handed over responsibility for the security of the western province of Anbar, once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency and one of the most violent regions in Iraq, to the Iraqi government on Monday, a long-delayed milestone.

The transfer was made possible, Iraqi and American officials said, by an increase in Iraqi security forces and a reduction of violence largely attributed to the local forces known as Awakening Councils. It is the first handover of a province bordering Baghdad, where there has been intense sectarian conflict. Other provinces that have been shifted to Iraqi control have been in the less troublesome south and in the northern Kurdish region.

The transfer ceremony took place in the center of this city, which two years ago had been destroyed by almost daily battles between the American military and insurgents. Now, Ramadi has been rebuilt, and the number of deaths of American soldiers has fallen virtually to zero.

A life-saving, nation-building breakthrough made possible in part by the surge opposed by both leading Democrats. Wonder if the inexperienced Gov. Palin would’ve voted for it?

Shlaes: Obama Is The New Nixon

August 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Iraq War, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | Leave a Comment 

Amity Shlaes:

“Hope” and “Richard Nixon” don’t usually go together in the same sentence. Yet it is also Nixonian hope that the Obama campaign is evoking with its choice of Senator Joseph Biden for vice president. Nixon, like Obama, ran for president half a decade into an unpopular war. Nixon offered the hope of sane management of that war at a time when the sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, seemed to be abdicating.

In August 1968, Nixon said: “I believe there must be a negotiated settlement. I do not think that you are going to get a negotiated settlement unless you have the strong military and economic and political presence and policy that will encourage the enemy to negotiate.”

Biden On Iraq

August 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Sen. Biden’s speech contained at least one highly questionable proposition: That discussions between the U.S. and Iraq about setting a timetable for a troop withdrawal prove that Sen. McCain was wrong and Sen. Obama was right. As Biden knows, a timetable would be inconceivable without the surge. Shame on Obama-Biden for trying to mislead the American people about a vital question of war and peace.

(An earlier version of this post stated incorrectly that Sen. Biden had favored the surge.)

McMaliki

August 7, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Michael Crowley argues that Sen. McCain is winning on the Iraq issue, since voters think he’d do better than Sen. Obama managing the withdrawal.

The Question of Mil-Blogging

August 4, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

As long as soldiers are not giving up confidential information about their mission and platoon, what’s the harm of blogging their dispatches from the War Zone? They are providing unique and first hand coverage of a war sometimes perverted by the MSMers, who unlike Michael Yon, are largely unwilling to step deep outside the green zone. Such was the case of Matt Gallagher, who was told to shut down his blog by his superiors.

Nixon Speechwriters For Obama

August 3, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Iraq War, Nixon Administration figures, Vietnam | 8 Comments 

Noel Koch, who served on President Nixon’s speechwriting staff, is a member of the steering committee of Vets for Obama. He writes:

It is often said, and correctly, that Iraq is a very different war from Vietnam, but this much they have in common: American lives were wasted in Vietnam and they are being wasted in Iraq. However much American blood is shed in that sour soil, it will not be sweetened sufficiently to nurture up the seeds of democracy.

Obama’s Judgment

July 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Iraq War | 1 Comment 

John Dickerson on why Sen. Obama’s vote against the surge is a legitimate issue: It’s probably the most important thing the relatively inexperienced candidate has ever done:

When he voted against the surge in January 2007, he claimed on more than one occasion that it would lead to increased casualties and sectarian violence. It didn’t. How’d he get that one wrong?