Iraq
Warfare at the PhD level
Failure is usually easy to spot since mistakes are costly, painful, or at least embarrassing. Success, on the other hand, is easy to overlook. Noticing what works is important in business and in wartime — especially if the war is not going well. I wrote earlier about the success of the 101st Airborne in Mosul, [...]
To Win in Afghanistan, Buy the Opium Harvest
The United States is losing two wars — the war on drugs and the war in Afghanistan. The politics of these wars is complex but the economics is simple: the bad guys make a killing on drugs that are highly profitable only because they are illegal. Our solution has been to try to eradicate the [...]
Complex Farewells
David Petraeus, our finest living general, today resigned his command of Multi-National Force Iraq and assumed command of CENTCOM. He is now the commander of two wars, not one. I admire Petraeus and profiled him here ("David Patraeus, Rock Star General"). I still believe that that he would be an impressive presidential candidate. The current [...]
Deep Shia
Is it just me or are Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats starting to walk backwards on the question of Iraq? Hard to tell, since increasingly the only way to understand the war in Iraq is to listen to what is not being said by national political leaders. Robert Gates is promoting David [...]
Thanks and Praise
The indispensable Michael Yon posts a story (surfaced by Instapundit) and a remarkable photo "worthy of a Pulitizer".I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. [...]
Killer Drones Join the Battle
The Air Force Times reports that on September 1, US Army scouts in Iraq spotted two men planting a roadside bomb. They called in a nearby Hunter unmanned aircraft, which dropped a laser-guided bomb and killed the two men. This is the first confirmed use of a weaponized UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), according to the [...]
"Don't tell me that this is the best America can do."
Last year I got in touch with a friend who had backed Alibris in its very early days. At the time he invested, he warned me that he could be "pathologically intense" and he had occasionally proven his point. A man with Twain’s "pen warmed up in hell", he had written a book that had [...]
Hitchens vs. God and Islamic Jihad
Our crack shot, karate-chopping, head-bashing action-hero Christopher Hitchens calls a spade a damned shovel in today’s Slate. His piece, entitled "Don’t Mince Words: The London car-bomb plot was designed to kill women" begins Why on earth do people keep saying, "There but for the grace of God …"? If matters had been very slightly different [...]
BDS Spreads as Blair Prepares to Step Down
Timothy Garton Ash, one of Europe’s most astute political observers, recently described the extreme reaction of dinner guests to unpopular political leaders. …The sole duty of any self-respecting commentator is to interrogate and then indict Blair – as if he were a cross between Radovan Karadzic, Augusto Pinochet and Adolf Eichmann…As at many a London [...]
"Iraq was not created by God. It was created by Winston Churchill"
Regular know of my fondness for Christopher Hitchens, the leftist turned realist by 9/11. My reviews of Hitchen’s books and writings appear here and here. Now, following my post of Michael Totten’s experience in Kurdistan, comes his wonderful reflection on Kurdistan as the Iraq that might have been. Hitch spent his Christmas vacation in Kurdistan [...]
Partitioning Iraq: One Province Separated, Two to Go
Michael Totten, an American blogging from Iraq, is indispensable for an accurate, reality-on-the-ground, view of the country. Check his essay today on Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan. He describes incredible progress. The first time I drove from the airport into Erbil I felt that I had arrived in a dodgy and ramshackle backwater. This time [...]
David Petraeus, Rock Star General
Throughout the ages, great countries have honored their great warriors. School children are taught the names of our nation’s war heros: John Paul Jones, Ulysses S. Grant, Clara Barton, Billy Mitchell, Alvin York, Jimmy Doolittle, Douglas MacArthur. Great warriors are celebrities — and should be. Can an army general be a celebrity these days? We [...]
No facts were harmed in the writing of this story…….
Last week the New York Times wrote about the US Security situation in Iraq. Then Back Talk fact-checked the article using the easily available data. Now a pop quiz to see if you can determine whether the assertions by the Times are true or false. Assertion #1. "The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all [...]
Fiasco by Thomas Ricks
On vacation, couldn’t wait to get to Thomas Ricks Fiasco, acclaimed by many as the best writing to date on the Iraq war. Ricks is the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of an account of Marine Corps boot camp, Making the Corps. He is not an anti-war writer and is not [...]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Brings Down the Dutch Government
First voting in Kuwait and now Ayaan Hirsi Ali brings down the Dutch government! An excellent day for Islamic women! This is horn-honking, TERRIFIC news. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the Muslim Somalia-born refugee who arrived in Holland, learned Dutch, was elected to Parliament, spoke out against fascist Islam, and collaborated with Theo Van Gogh to [...]
2006: Gulf Arab Women Vote for the First Time
Kuwaiti women show their ID cards as today they become the first Women to vote in any Gulf Arab State. Photo (tip Gateway) taken June 29, 2006 in Roumaithiaon. Says the Boston Herald: "The polls marked a new stage in the U.S. ally’s tentative moves toward greater democracy – and not just because of the [...]
Sexy Saudi Swimwear
Well it’s summer and Publius, bless his public-minded heart, has photos of this season’s finest in Islamic swimwear for those brave strumpets who dare to bare ankle flesh. When Islam finally enters the nineteenth century, I gotta think that these ladies are going to be a lot more comfortable.
"The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army" George Washington, July 2, 1776
I was fortunate to speak recently with David McCullough, author of 1776, John Adams, Truman, a wonderful volume of essays called Brave Companions, and other well rendered bits of US history. McCullough began writing for USIA in Washington, DC when it was run by Edward R. Murrow. He is now the father or grandfather of [...]
"Kill us, but you won't enslave us"
Iraq, The Model, is a brilliant, lively, often funny blog from "Mohammed" in Iraq (hey, if you need a nom de plume in Iraq, that’s gotta be the right one). He patiently explains the ins and outs of Iraqi politics that are, well — Byzantine. He is a warm guy who readers quickly trust and [...]
"If we’re not stupid, and we don’t quit, we can win this thing"
Excellent piece here by George Packer in the New Yorker about how the Army is learning effective counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq. The essay
profiles the experience of Colonel H. R. McMaster and colleagues in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar. Those who have been keeping score at
home know that Tal Afar is one of those towns that we reconquer periodically, but is otherwise a hornet’s nest and a transit point for Syrian and Iranian bad guys.
McMaster, a West Point grad who did a PhD thesis on the failures of senior military and civilian leadership in VietNam, summarizes what the Army is learning:
