58 posts tagged “military”

These soldiers are (hopefully) fighting in the name of everything that makes this country great...  including the right to believe whatever or in nothing if you wish.

Here is a guy taking it to the establishment.

It eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.

"I said, 'No, but I believe in Plexiglas,"' Hall said. "I've never believed I was going to a happy place. You get one life. When I die, I'm worm food."

The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, a superior officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists in Iraq. Welborn has denied Hall's allegations.

It is a shame there is this religious undertone in the military.  I understand tradition.  I understand the religious motives of people about to go into battle because of the unforeseen outcome.  But this country is founded on the premise of "freedom of religion" when it comes to our government.  And if some military personnel consider it their duty to berate other members of our military because of their atheist beliefs, this will come to a head in the court system.

My guess is that this will go all the way to the Supreme Court and hopefully the outcome will be a positive one for those who wish to fight for this country and not be criticized for their right not to believe in a god.

Looks like the Iraqis are seeing major progress.

People making arguments against scientists in the global warming skeptic camp because they are funded by big oil won't want to defend this study now as accurate?  Or is this study still defendable?

The Times Online had this story about that Lancet Iraq study:

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

There is no doubt that many Iraqis died as a result of the Iraq invasion.  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, trying to justify the war because there may be *less* dead Iraqis that previously assessed.  But I do find it interesting that Soros financially backed the Lancet study.  If there can be arguments against skeptical scientists who receive funding from oil companies, ergo their climate change conclusions are suspect, then I think the same can be said about this study with regard to Iraqi causalties.

Here is a wikipedia link discussing the Lancet study and here is a link to the NEJM UN/EC/WHO article.  Read them for yourself.  You decide.

Is this just a coincidental case where the science was flawed and it happened to be from a financial source that had political interest in inflated numbers?  Is it a situation where the money *helped* the statistical models?  Or is it still a legitimate estimate of the number of Iraqis that have died due to the invasion and the war?

We all know from a military perspective the surge is working.  But the intention behind the surge is designed to give the Iraqis time to sort out their political differences.  Well, Ed Morrissey talks about the Iraqi government's latest move, de-Baathification, that addresses another one of benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress.

This allows Sunnis to retake their jobs and join the Shi'ites and Kurds in administering government functions, especially in Sunni areas. It gives them a stake in the new, representative government instead of being shut out of it. Sunnis will now have every reason to support the central government in Baghdad rather than attempting to undermine it to get back what they lost in the fall of Saddam, and they won't need to again adopt the fascist Ba'ath principles to do so.

This looks like progress to me. It's progress that wouldn't have come without lowering the violence and removing the provocations and depredations of al-Qaeda in Iraq. That wouldn't have happened at all had we not ramped up our efforts and taken a much more aggressive posture against the terrorists -- and the Sunnis would not have cooperated if we hadn't signaled so strongly that we intended to beat AQI and stick it out.

The Iraqis are stepping up to the plate, albeit slowly.

As Urban Lenny puts it:

Let us remember that a reduction in violence in Iraq was not the goal of the "surge"; rather it was a means to the real goal of the troop escalation: political reconciliation between Iraq's religious and political factions that results in lasting peace and stability for the Iraqi people.

Well, I agree.  And I think you have to say this a continued move in the right direction.  Let us check off another one.

(ii) Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification.

Austin Bay's prediction.

John Batiste and Pete Hegseth via a Washington Post opinion article:

We are veterans of the Iraq war with vastly different experiences. Both of us commanded troops in Iraq. We, too, held seemingly entrenched, and incompatible, views upon our return. One of us spoke out against mismanagement of the war -- failed leadership, lack of strategy and misdirection. The other championed the cause of successfully completing our mission.

Our perspectives were different, yet not as stark as the "outspoken general" and "stay-the-course supporter" labels we received. Such labels are oversimplified and inaccurate, and we are united behind a greater purpose.

It's time to discuss the way forward rather than prosecute the past. Congress must do the same, for our nation and the troops.

The bandwagon is getting bigger and here is the kicker courtesy of Michael Goldfarb:

There are two stories here: 1) A formerly anti-war general flips on supporting the war, and now believes Petraeus has the right strategy; and 2) Batiste has left VoteVets.org, and the antiwar movement, and joined up with the pro-troop, pro-surge, pro-victory Vets for Freedom.

The antiwar movement has lost one of its most powerful voices today, and it will be interesting to see whether they turn on one of their own, or come around to the view, supported by a preponderance of evidence, that the surge is working.

I like those words -- the "preponderance of evidence."  I wonder what is like when those silly things called facts get into the way of arguments.  Maybe we should ask Harry Reid?  Or Murtha?

Captain Ed's assessment of the current positive trend in Iraq and the fallout for the Democrats.

For the past year, the Democrats have portrayed the American effort in Iraq as a failure. Their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, publicly announced that we had lost and that we should immediately retreat. Their leading candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, all but called the commander of American forces in Iraq a liar when he reported on the progress that even the Times now acknowledges as real and obvious.

Democrats have a problem larger than just the message. The substance of their policy remains defeatist. They claim that they want a new strategy in Iraq, all but oblivious that the new strategy adopted in January has proven very successful. Their strategy -- smaller forces, disengaged from a reeling enemy -- would actually return us to the failing strategy of 2006. It would provide al-Qaeda in Iraq and the militias a respite just when they have been pushed to the last extremity.

It boggles my mind that there are people out there selling the American military short on our "defeat" in Iraq -- all for political gain.   If only they stayed on board -- they could have made their election in 2008 much more inevitable.

<sarcasm> Here is a toast to the Democrat's foreign policy vision.  May your policies bring us greater security. </sarcasm>

<reality> And here is a toast to the Iraqis.  May your continued reconciliation and security bring you a brighter future and an enduring American friendship. </reality>

DJ Elliott explains what the real surge is all about.

Security in Iraq improves with an increased long-term security presence; a security presence that will increasingly be shouldered by Iraqi troops. The five US surge brigades were not only brought in to buy the Iraqi government time to sort out the political situation, they were brought in to buy the Iraqi Army time to expand. The five US surge brigades are doing some much needed housecleaning in Iraq's problem areas, freeing up Iraqi Army formations to provide cadre for new forming units, and providing additional training partners for the new Iraqi Army formations thus facilitating the accelerated expansion. The Iraqi Army is replacing the US forces departing Iraqi by the end of 2008 at rate of two Iraqi brigades for one US brigade.

Giving our military the time and the plan to get it done.  Something that definitely falls on deaf ears on the left side of the aisle.  Especially now.  I haven't seen many blog posts calling for withdrawal from Iraq anymore.  Just the sound of crickets.

Absolutely appalling.

The DoD has sent letters telling wounded soldiers and Marines that they have to prorate their bonuses because they didn't complete their enlistment terms. The Pentagon discharged them and wants a refund from those who left their health on the battlefield.

W gets it right when he questions our government's ability to do anything with any semblance of intelligent thought.  I can't even think where to begin on this one.

Peanut Butter and Jelly?  I wonder if our government can even get a glass of water right?