Of course Blackwater says they acted lawfully--the Gestapo used to say they were acting lawfully also.
Blackwater are a group of gun-happy out of control cowboys who are apparently subject to no laws or rules of any country.

Another legacy of the troika of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

Yeah, and how does a $25K per year Infantry grunt feel about working next to a Blackwater chap who is mucking up any relationship-building that that grunt has been working on - by building schools, hospitals, etc - added to the fact that the Blackwater chap is pulling $200-$300k per year.

Gary, you need to test your theories in Iraq; I suggest a voluntary deployment.

Blackwater has done a good job in Iraq. Very tough circumstances, and they put their lives on the line. Most of them were grunts in the past, so they know the lay of the land. Current grunts can sign up, once discharged, if they want. Most do not, even for the $$$.

The NYT simply can't get over the fact that Bush and Petraeus are succeeding. It is a real burn for the Times. Therefore, the complaints about their (mostly ignored) mutt. Truly pathetic.

Maybe Time, Inc. can gain some credibility by nominating Bush and Petraeus as "Men of the Year".

Wasn't Hitler once named "man of the Year"?

Web Link

"Wasn't Hitler once named "man of the Year"?"

Many were, for both good and evil.

Clearly, Bush/Patraeus would be for the good.

The loser of the decade, in the media department, is the NYT, just like the losers at Stanford, that tried to infringe the right of the Hoover Insitution to invite Rumsfeld. They got cooked on that one. More is coming, folks...the hatriots will will be subject to their own words by those who stood up for freedom and patriotism. It won't be pretty, but it is necessary. Sunlight heals many ills.

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Blackwater has done an excellent job of protecting the State Department. They have not lost one State Department person.

In WW2 we probably killed a million + innocent Germans, Japanese and Italians. Nobody complains about that, they were the great generation.

War is a war and we need rough men between us and the enemy so we can sleep at night.

By the way Blackwater has develop a very effective anti IED vehicle that is street legal in US.

That good news because we will have to deploy it in our cities if the appeasers get there way and the enemy brings the war to our towns and cities and suburbs, which they will.

Arrest,

I picked up on that very descriptive, and accurate, word "hatriot" a few months ago. It describes those that hate Bush so much that they would prefer a defeat for Bush over a victory for the USA and Iraq. No matter what. No patriotism, just hatriotism.

Happily, Iraq is starting to stablize. As long as the left does not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the world will be much better off (except for Al Qaeda).

Given that the Islamists want to obliterate the Western notion of women's rights and Western freedoms, in general, it is astounding how retro the left is. When I was a lefty, I at least had a notion that I was part of a progressive force. I was wrong, but I did not celebrate reactionary forces like religious extremists.

At a more basic intellectual level, the left in the 60's was smarter than the right. Now, the right is smarter than the left. That pathertic affair at Stanford, over Rumsfeld, is an example. Even in my most true-believing lefty days, I welcomed Robert Horn at Stanford. Made me think.

Somehow, the left got into an intellectual populist mind lock. That's why I left, to become (for lack of better words), a neocon. The socialist camp was responsible for millions of murders. The Islamists have the potential of doing even more. And the New York Times is complaining about a stray dog?!!! Unbelievable. Yet, I am forced to believe that it was done. Hatriots.

History will not be kind to the left in this country.

According to Marine Maj. General Michael Lehnert, nine Princeton graduates in the class of 2006 entered the military, compared to 400 in 1956, when there was a draft. Some Ivy League schools had no one enter the military last year. Only one member of the Stanford graduating class had a parent in the military.

Nor do our top schools encourage recruitment. In fact, they often actively discourage it, as may be reckoned by the number of elite campuses from which ROTC is banned ... at the 2006 Stanford commencement ceremony, Maj. General Lehnert, whose son was the lone graduating student from a military family, was struck by how many of the other parents had never even met a member of the military before he introduced himself.

Gary: "As long as the left does not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"

You mean all those left-leaning Repos (the majority) that outnumber their pro-Iraqi-war peers?

"You mean all those left-leaning Repos (the majority) that outnumber their pro-Iraqi-war peers?"

Reality, absoultely. Left is left. Defeatist in the midst of a moral and ethical battle, is defeat. Is that you?

Gary...I cracked up at your post. I, too, am a "neocon". What a lot of folks don't understand is that a "neocon" is a "neoconservative"..a "liberal" who understands that now the liberal ideals are promoted by and defended by the...Conservatives.

A neocon is a former leftist who watched the left march so far left they were no longer liberal.

Then we realized that the promoters of liberty, of freedom of speech, of equality of opportunity, of tolerance, of anti-racism and anti-sexism, defender of independence and individualism...the promoters were CONSERVATIVES...

I don't know about you, but it took me about 5 years to accept this reality and "come out conservative". It was hard to be intellectually honest enough to let down my old bias and accept this reality.

Thanks for your posts.

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Some folk yammer because fire fighters get everything wet.

Bummer, Gary:

Web Link

BTW, do the "hatriots" you refer to hate Bush as much as the Republicans hated Clinton? Where they "hatriots" also?

You have information that all Muslims want to destroy the US? please provide it for us?

You also say that "Islamists" want to obliterate the Western notion of women's rights. Is that the same as the religious right--that the republicans kowtow to, want to destroy women's rights?

You also state "just like the losers at Stanford, that tried to infringe the right of the Hoover Insitution to invite Rumsfeld"--didn;t the people have the democratic right to protest Rumsfeld appointment?

Finally you are confusing people opposing Bush and his policies, while exercising their rights to free speech, with a lack of patriotism. This seems to be the way that people like you and your right-wing gang related to anyone that dare sto opoose them.
Very sad.

I found Clinton's scalliwaggery amusing, his policies deadly. I selectively criticize Bush policies and reject any attempt to make personalities an issue.

I'm not bummed, Arrest, but thanks for your concern. David Petraeus was a runner up, so he got some notice. Putin faces his own Islamist pressures, and he deals with it, and he is turning Russia into a serious bear again...he deserves the notice. BTW, I never said anything about all Muslims. Not all Muslims are Islamists, who want to use the sword to convert the world to Islam. If you don't get the distinction, well...afraid I can't help you.

I talked to guy last week that frankly told me that he hopes Iraq goes into the tank, so that Bush will be dealt hashly by history. That guy is a hatriot. If the shoe fits, Arrest, so are you. However, if you are saying that you support a successful outcome for Iraq, even though Bush will get historical credit, then you are not. I think patriots, who disagree with a war policy of a president, should be very careful about how they express it in public. The old adage, "Partisanship stops at the water's edge" is a good one. I disagreed with Clinton's war policy in Yugoslavia, but I kept my mouth shut.

The "democratic" expression at Stanford was to stop free expression. Hardly democratic. If that is your view, so be it. Either way, that pathetic petition got crushed.

If a so-called religious right president is elected, again, for president, he will not insist that woment hide their faces. Nor will he insist that a raped woman be lashed, becasue she was with a man alone. Nor will he prohibit the building of mosques. So, no, Arrest, it is not the same. What a foolish statement on your part.

Very sad.

Nevertheless, Merry Christmas.

Gary--some of the things you talk about are happening in Saudi Arabia--that country happens to be Bush/Cheney's best buddies--forget about the fact that most of the 9/11 terrorists came from that country or that they do not allow religious freedom (something the US seems to give plenty of other countries grief about)--there is oil and money to be made by Bush/Cheney and their families so anything goes.

Huckabee, for example, is against women serving in the military, unmarried people living together, the right to choose and wants to quarantine AIDS patients--so the relgious right will not be as extreme as some islamic countries but they will do their best to abrogate rights and freedoms in the name of "jesus"

You say:
"think patriots, who disagree with a war policy of a president, should be very careful about how they express it in public."
Is it unpatriotic to exercise your free speech rights. this another ploy used by the likes of you and your right-wing buddies--"we are at war, be careful what you say--if you disagree with the president and say it in public then you are aiding the enemy and hurting our troops. freedom of speech is only for those that support Bush/Cheney"

You also say:
"The "democratic" expression at Stanford was to stop free expression. Hardly democratic. If that is your view, so be it. Either way, that pathetic petition got crushed."

Sending around a petition is undemocratic? I guess only if it is against Rumsfeld. People who were unhappy let their feelings be known. Hoover is not part of Stanford, so the univeristy had no say in it in the end. Democracy worked, much to your dismay.
Democracy is only for those that agree with the goose-steppers in the White House and their acolytes in PA.

Gary, Merry Christmas to you.

Your post to Arrest hit the nail on the head. Sadly, most like Arrest will not understand. Oh well.

Thanks

The real goose-steppers, today, are on the left. Subject of another discussion.

However, I would like to get back to my original post: Why would the New York Times make a big fuss about a bothersome dog that was inhibiting a security sweep? Why wouldn't they just print a small story saying that their mutt tried to attack security dogs on duty, and it was duly shot... as it should have been.

I was lsitening to NPR the other day, and the interviewer said, "Even the New York Times has said that the surge might be working....". My question is: Why was the word "even" inserted into that question?

PS: A petition to stop free expression is not democratic. If the majority in this country voted to ban the First Ammendment, that would not be democratic, either (other than in the limited technical sense that an election was held). The larger Stanford community had enough sense to see through the leftist agenda that put up that petition, and they crushed it (by refusing to sign it).

I will happily remain one of the "sad" ones, "who will not understand".

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The assertion that we are now succeeding in Iraq is very flimsy.

Noone in their right mind wants to see Iraq "fail." Shrub stirred the hornet's nest for largely capricious reasons, and history will judge Shrub and Co harshly on that count, among others. That said, the milk is spilled, the cat is out of the bag, Pandora's box is opened, what do we do, what do we want?

This whole escapade has butressed the "realpolitik" types who view relations with regimes around the world as which ones serve our country's interests, not if they are democratic, the supposed policy that Shrub and the Neocons espoused. Good riddance to Sadam Hussein, but neither the region nor the country are materially more stable or better now than before he was deposed, what hopeful signs may be there now have come at an obscenely high price to this country in terms of money, people, and our prestige/stature in the world. The goal/vision of democracy is dead on arrival, I question that it ever was the right concept to begin with. Progress?

I respect Patreus, and what he has been able to accomplish, but the cause and effect calculus here has more to it than his efforts. The Iraqis are exahusted, drained in ways we only can imagine in this country, no longer tolerant of interlopers trying to encroach on their lives, be they Islamic agitators or others whose motives for fighting are suspect. Clerics and sheiks are taking back their neighborhoods, kicking out the trouble makers, and Patreus, to his credit, is helping them with that effort. It is a shame he was not called upon to lead this effort when he first proposed it early in the Iraq debacle, but Rummy would have none of it. Gates has been a godsend to the DoD.

This stability does not success make. The Iraqi national government remains in a shambles, I hope they all gain some divine wisdom at the Haj they presently are attending in Mecca. It remains questionable if the constitutional structure in place at present is the right one, let alone sustainable. Personally, I still like the Joe Biden federal model, but pockets of incipient stability do not mean that success can be declared, mission is not accomplished, Mr. Shrub. Progress?

Just as important is are we as a country better off as a result of this huge tilt at windmills? MBA Shrub likely has forgotten most of his Harvard Business School training, but the return on investment for this escapade does not meet any reasonable "hurdle rate." It has done little to stem the jihadists and the war on terror. Some can argue that it actually has fomented more of this, and it will be around for a couple generations as those unhappy Iraqi boys cooling their heels in Syria grow up with little education, less hope for a future, and a strong hatred for the United States, even if it is irrational. Progress?

It has not made the region more stable, it has not led to a re-thinking of the notion of democracy in the likes of Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Our own schizophrenic application of what democracy means in that part of the world is amply demonstrated by the dealing Shrub's people have with Palestine, Pakistan, inter alia. Progress?

And the costs incurred on this crusade are just unconscionable. Shrub and company chose the most expensive, most debilitating, least productive way to achieve the so-called objective of democracy in the Middle East and defeating the war on terror. Such an appalling job performance is so over the top that it defies description. Progress?

So, Gary, I will take you point that some progress is being made, and I am glad that is the case, I would like nothing less. But such progress is at best pyrrhic, and the people responsible for creating this mess and for now still in charge of cleaning it up should be kept at very close quarters until there turn expires. They have consistently demonstrated that they are incapable of behaving responsibly when given the opportunity to do so. Class will be over for them soon, and they should just sit on that little stool in the corner with the appropriate pointed chapeaux upon their heads until the bell rings a year from now, and they are dismissed for good.

The next President will largely spend his time cleaning up the last 8 years of damage. There are no resources left to do anything worthwhile, and this country is so drained right now, all the next occupant of the Oval Office can realistically accomplish is to stop the bleeding, and stabilize the patient. Much like the veterans now patronzing the VA, we are in the beginnings of recovery, and it will take a long time before the country will be fit again, as it was before Shrub got his chance to exercise his compassionate conservatism.

Boomer,

That is a truly remarkakable paen to appeasement and totalitarianism. If you had made it in 1943, Churchill and DBR would have been in your crosshairs. Of course, very few rational thinkers would have listened to you. Very few rational thinkers are now.

Iraq is free of Saddam and his sons. That is like Germany being free of Hitler. Doesn't end the problems, just the essential evil, but it also offers a chance to see light on the horizon.

Oil production in Iraq is now above pre-invasion levels, and it will continue to climb. Iraq is sitting on an immense pool of oil, and this fact will ensure that Iraq has the resources to become a beacon of success in the Mid East. If I was the leader of Iran, I would be getting pretty nervous at this point...A free, nationalistic Iraq is not what I want to see.

Al Qaeda has been ground into the dirt in Iraq. It will not go away, becasue it has been there since the beginnings of Islam. But jihads go up and down, depending on the forces arrayed against them. This current jihad is on its way down, slowly, but surely. Thanks to George Bush.

Bechtel, a company I know something about, pulled out of Iraq a year ago. The oil in Iraq will continue to sit in the ground as long as the Bechtel's of the world cannot do their jobs there. I suppose Haliburton can do the job, they have a good reputation in that industry.

Getting rid of a dictator is one thing, Saddam was a scoundrel. One who failed in his occupation effort compared to how long it took to deal with the Nazis and Tojo's Japan. If the objective is to get rid of dictators, I can put together a list of some others who fit that bill, BTW. Must be something else to it, eh? Nation building and imposing a democractic form of government on people being occupied and unaccustomed to such a form of governance is folly.

Don't go there with Al Queda, it is not a monolithic entity, it was not in Iraq before the US invaded, it is a "nom de guerre" for a handful of people who have been in that country, and have very little to do with our good buddy Osama bin Laden, with whom we supposedly are still at war.

Brush up on your domino theory Gary, from the days of Viet Nam. This is just the same song, with some twangy instruments playing the tune to give it a middle eastern flavor.

Boomer,

You might want to brush up on your own history theories.

This affair in Iraq is relatively low cost, both blood and treasure. FDR spent immensely more to take on Germany and Japan. So did Churchill. In case you haven't noticed, we are still occupying Germany and Japan (and S. Korea). We will probably occupy Iraq, in much the same way (bases) for years to come, as we currently occupy Kuwait. It goes with the territory of liberating a country.

I didn't think I needed to spell it out, but perhaps I do: Al Qaeda is just a current name that is used to cover Islamist aggression. Obviously, "Al Qaeda" was not the name of every Islamist group, over the centuries, that cut off heads. However, it is a symbol of those current groups who are using the sword to impose their faith. The defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq is a major blow to those movements. Is that clear enough for you? Duh.

Socialsit movements, like oter religious movements, need to be stopped by force, if necessary. That is why the fight in Vietnam. They, indeed, are like dominoes. Happily, the dominoes fall in the other direction, too, like when Reagan and Thatcher and the Pope pushed back, and the final domino fell on Moscow.

However, I want to hear from the NYT about their doggy story. Why are they whining (or is it whimpering)?

Didn't we lose the fight in Vietnam? But then the dominoes never fell. Vietnam and Laos remain communist to this day.
Chile was a democratically elected socialist government led by Allende--the US led by the arch war criminal Kissinger overthrew the government installed Pinochet and who knows how many of innocents were esceuted.
Does the US have the right to overthrow democratically elected governments in the world. unfortunately reactionaries like Gary believe we do.
Why not invade China then?

the US military did not loose the war in Vietnam they were continuing to win when the anti war new left demoralized the US population to the extent that the politicians decided to pull out.

Leaving millions to die and suffer, just ask any Vietnamese or Cambodian refugee if you want the gory details.

War is diplomacy by other means, diplomacy is working with China-- for now. Diplomacy needs to be backed up by the will to fight.

Prepare for war and make peace

"Relatively low cost in blood, in treasure."

Shall we switch from history to a basic finance class?

Return on investment-negative, still investing, no returns produced to date

Cost/benefit analysis--haven't seen net present value calculations that suggest this is a positive

Alternate use of expenditures considered--none apparent

Sources of funds--heavy borrowing/debt

Cost controls in place?

On budget? What budget?

And throw in a marketing module--brand equity/goodwill of USA: eroded

Well if you want to talk about Cambodia shall we discuss the illegal bombing of Cambodia by the arch war criminal Kissinger that left who knows how many thousands dead and led the groundwork for the Khmer Rouge?

Nice revisionist history on Vietnam, Joan, by the way

Boomer,

ROI in Germany was not even starting to be seen until the mid '50s. Japan even later. S. Korea, only in the late '60s. Not to mention the Marshal Plan, which ran at a deficit for many years. However, the initial investments paid off big time. Iraq, because of its oil resoruces, will become financially independent much sooner, relative to the above countries. Our relatively small investment in Iraq has multiples of return written all over it. Not only, in $$$ but in ethics and goodwill. A free and propserous Iraq has HUGE implications.

Too bad you don't get it. As I said in a previous post, the right has the intelligence these days, and the left is struggling.

Gary, Iraq is not Germany, or Post-WWII Europe.

joan, I can't wait to see your new book "We Didn't Lose in Vietnam, Because I Said So"

We did not lose the military conflict in Vietnam for example we defeated the TET offensive.

We could have bombed Hanoi down to rubble that bounced as we did with Germany and Japan.

The defeat was domestic and political a combination of soviet funded new left treason, naive student activism and lack of guts by he administration to win what was a civil war in the US.

The democratic party is still paying the price for its appeasement posture, they will never be trusted as the party of national security until all those 60s types are in the ground

"Gary, Iraq is not Germany, or Post-WWII Europe."

And Germany is not Japan. S. Korea is not Post WWII Europe (neither is Japan). What is your point? Please make it an intelligent one.

Joan, just like Gary who likens anyone who questions bush as being unpatriotic,you paint everyone who opposed Vietnam as being treasonous.
we "could" have bombed all of Vietnam but we did not for obvious reasons. We did not win in Vietnam and the world did not become communist.