Category Archives: Military
Manning Up
Last week’s news of Bradley Manning’s desire to become a woman brought the typical response from Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. She stomped her feet and insisted that anyone not immediately referring to Manning by the female pronoun should be referred to by the adjective “shitty”.
Kevin D. Williamson at National Review says, “Mr. Manning…is what he is, and no amount of pronoun play, psychotherapeutic doublespeak, or wishful thinking can make it otherwise”.
Manning Score: Williamson Logic – 1, Ryan Name Calling – 0
Sometimes you are what you are. That goes for being a male as well as a traitor. Bradley can be Chelsea but he can’t be a she unless he changes his Y to an X.
Syria Red Line
Who says that President Obama’s words don’t matter. He warned the president of Syria not to gas his own people. A gas attack meant crossing a red line that would trigger a U.S. response. Apparently we’re down with killing 100,000 Syrians by other means.
Anyway, It looks like Assad has jumped the Red Line. Now we have to respond or lose credibility and, according to the polls, the American people have no stomach for another war.
Going it Alone in Syria
Not only that, the British Parliament voted not to help. It’s the first time they’ve denied the Prime Minister a request for military backing since 1782, when Parliament gave up on the American colonies! Maybe Obama should have kept the Churchill bust.
So far our leader says he’ll go ahead without the British, UN, or United States Congress. The French are still in. Freedom Fries any one?
Saddam Red Line
It looks like Obama’s red line in Syria has been crossed again. UN inspectors are testing victims for poison gas. Putin says if gas was used it was the rebels who did it.
The Assad government is supported by Iran and Hezbollah. Al Qaeda looms large among the rebels.
Hezbollah vs al Qaeda in Syria
So it’s Hezbollah vs. al Qaeda. In a Sunday NYT article titled In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins, Edward Luttwak claims the best we can do is hope nobody wins.
Update:
John Kerry now says a chemical attack is “undeniable”.
Al Qaeda on the Run
After retreating from Iraq, Afghanistan, and US embassies around the Muslim world, the president called in the marines – as background props for a Camp Pendleton speech – to announce that the “United States is never going to retreat from the world”. “We don’t get terrorized,” he said.
He also repeated his claim that “the core of Al Qaeda is on the way to defeat”.
Or as the late Osama bin Laden put it, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse they like the strong horse”.
Afghan Plan
President Obama considered Afghanistan the smart war and Iraq a dumb war with smart bombs. In 2009 he joined together a surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan and a plan for withdrawal.
The surge got the boot with a drawdown in 2011. Obama claimed the killing of Osama bin Laden had put al Qaeda on a path to defeat and that the tide of war was receding. Terrorists in Boston, London, Nigeria, Libya, and Syria missed that speech.
Now he’s threatening Hamid Karzai with a “zero option” which would mean the total withdrawal of U.S. troops – same as Iraq.
