Body Parts

Were Saddam Hussein's WMD Moved To Syria Before The Invasion?

The story of the truck convoy moving materials has been known almost since the event; but now satellite photos might have located the depository for Iraq's WMD in Syria. (See my posts from previous years, 1, 2, 3.) The question is now, might Saddam's WMD be sufficiently usable for Syria against Israel?

George W. Bush, Defender of Freedom and Liberator of 60 Million Muslims from Oppression

It takes British newspapers to commemorate the historic achievements of George H. Bush as a war leader.

Happy Victory Day In Iraq. November 22, 2008.

Gateway Pundit has the happy story.

Thank you, President Bush.

A Point-by-Point Refutation of Anti-War Critic's Claims that 'Bush lied'

Randall Hoven examines the law passed by Congress and signed by the President that authorized the President to use force against Saddam Hussein's Iraq ("Who Lied About Iraq?" American Thinker). He also examines the Senate investigations that demonstrate that national intelligence substantiated the statements in the authorization of force law and repeated by the President and his cabinet officers in support of their employment of force against Iraq. Keep this article nearby, so you can turn to it to refute the lies of the anti-war critics and their media accomplishes about the events leading to the war, the law authorizing the war, and subsequent Intelligence evaluations of Saddam Hussein's MWD programs.

Preconditions for the Success of the Surge in Iraq

An excellent, brief review by Randall Hoven in American Thinker of the successes that the US forces, diplomats, and others had in rebuilding Iraqi society and economy, its police, and its military before the surge that were, Hoven argues, preconditions for the success of the surge.

Obama's New, Offensive, Ignorant, Uninformed, Illogical, Contradictory, "Cover His Ass" Judgments on Iraq

Steve Schippert reviews Obama's latest ignorant stumblings at ThreatsWatch: Rapid Recon. You won't hear the MSM point out Obama's newest failures of judgment; so read this article.

Bush Administration NOT Abandoning Iraq By Significant Drawdown

To the contrary, the President is negotiating a long-term security agreement with Iraq that would include maintaining over thirty (that's right, over 30) US bases in Iraq. This is an agreement that the Iraqi government wants. It's not drawdown; it's an effort to provide a permanent military presence with significant force, as in Germany.

Debate Over Timetables for Iraq Withdrawal Bad For US Middle East Policy

McCain has been unable to re-frame the debate between the political parties over the Iraq War. It remains a debate over the issue of timing of withdrawal of US armed forces. All that the surge and the political recognition of the surge's success have done is focus the discussion narrowly on the timing of withdrawal. The issue of withdrawal is a terrible disservice to American interests in the Middle East, which are many and valid. I have discussed the larger, regional issues several times (here, and here).

Here I would like to argue for the importance of (1) making Iraq an American ally and (2) permanent US bases in Iraq.

1. Iraq is our only opportunity to break the chain of radical Muslim terrorism in the northern Middle East. If we do not protect Iraq's freedom and alliance to the US, Iraq will almost certainly fall under the influence of its neighbors, Iran to the East and Syria to the West. We have already, in effect, abandoned Lebanon. Afghanistan would become difficult to keep in the orbit of Western freedom. The result would be an axis of radical, Muslim, terrorist authoritarian regimes, probably possessing the atomic bomb, spreading across the northern Middle East, eager to make trouble.

Such an axis would also further isolate Israel. Caroline Glick recently made the insightful and sensible suggestion that Israel cultivate relations with Iraq. Iraq has not yet descended into the pathology anti-semitism and anti-Israel hatred of the rest of the Middle East. Israel has enormous stores of expertise to assist Iraq. A mutual alliance between the two would only be, however, possible if the US maintains a presence in Iraq.

2. It is all well and good to have several US carrier groups and several Marine divisions in the neighborhood, the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean. But those forces are only useful for temporary intervention. To use US armed forces to protect US and Western interests and to stabilize the region, we need permanent military bases with a significant force of Army troops, able to move east or west to deal with trouble. A significant, long-term, military presence in Iraq, as in Japan and Germany, is required. 

McCain must lay out the larger strategic importance of a permanent US military presence in Iraq and the Middle East. The great problems of our era started because the US withdrew its influence in the Carter and Reagan administrations. Carter wilted before the Iranian revolution and Reagan withdrew the US from Lebanon after the bombing of the Marine barracks. Our lack of fortitude and vision signaled to the Syrians, Iranians, and Palestinians that we would not stand up for freedom and stability against their attacks. They were right. We have an opportunity to correct that mistake now in Iraq. We should not lose it.

Hemet Loses Its Twelfth Soldier, In Afghanistan

Marc Retmier, Navy Medic, died in a rocket attack. He is the twelfth young soldier from Hemet to die in the Middle East wars. He graduated from Alessandro High School in Hemet. We are grateful for his service and express our sadness to his family for their, and his, sacrifice. And we are sad; it's not just words.

Bombing Iranian Revolutionary Guards--A Clintonian Strategy?

If the US is planning, as DEBKAfile asserts, to attack Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, in retaliation for assisting insurgents in Iraq--indeed, for being in Iraq themselves--, wouldn't it make sense to do so before the Revolutionary Guards soldiers have all left those bases for other, more secure, locations? Such circumstances would make any such attack an empty gesture, a reprise of the President Bill Clinton's useless air strikes on Al Qaeda's supposed bases. What purpose would a gesture have? Presumably to tell Iran we mean business when we warn them not to meddle in Iraq. But, all in all, this symbolism would be lost if the bigger signal is that the US doesn't have the balls to take out Iran's nuclear sites. I can't believe President Bush has fallen for the illogic of such a plan; it must have originated in the Department of Futility, ... I mean, State.