Category Archives: US National Defense

Who Says Liberals Are Weak on Homeland Security?

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch — that’s all we conservatives ever do when it comes to discussions of how effective liberals are at protecting the homeland.Why, back shortly after 9/11, when the distinguished journalist Phil Donahue appeared on FOX News Channel to decry “Cowboy” George Bush’s plans to invade Afghanistan rather than simply [...]

The Buck Stops Here? What Buck?

First Barack Obama wanted to be seen as an incarnation of Abraham Lincoln and FDR rolled into one. Now he is channeling Harry Truman, having lifted one of Truman’s most notable lines in his latest speech on the botched Christmas Day terrorist attack, proclaiming that “the buck stops here.”
Presumably, the comment was supposed to make [...]

Ockham’s Razor

The simplest explanation for a phenomenon, ceteris paribus, is to be preferred. Here is my candidate for understanding current American policy regarding Iran:  Barack Obama wants Iran to acquire a a nuclear weapon, indeed several or even many nuclear weapons.  Why?  To teach Israel a lesson and put the fear of God into Israelis.  The President [...]

Tales from the Geopolitical Crypt: Seven Deadly Scenarios by Andrew Krepinevich

Seven Deadly Scenarios can be read and enjoyed almost as a collection of near future science fiction stories, though unlike sci-fi writers, who typically unveil the imagined course of future events elliptically, piece by piece, thus to keep the reader puzzling, author Andrew Krepinevich attacks the shape of things to come straight on, and the [...]

Why wasn’t Hassan discouched?

Mark Steyn points out that Major Nidal Hassan repeatedly urged his army superiors to start criminal investigations of his patients based on supposed facts he teased out in confidential psychiatric sessions. His superiors ho-hummed and haw-hemmed even though he signed his emails “Praise be to Allah” which sounds like an odd way to end a [...]

Is Europe Falling Out of Love with Obama?

An editorial in Der Spiegel by Claus Christian Malzahn suggests that American conservatives are not the only ones growing increasingly restive over the duffer-in-chief’s continued diddling over Afghanistan. Evidently his “friends” across the Atlantic have also begun tapping their fingers nervously and gazing uncomfortably at their watches.
“The world,” Malzahn writes, “has been waiting for clear [...]

Barack Hussein Obama: You Clean Your Room This Instant!

Yesterday, the panel on FOX News’s Special Report with Bret Baier devoted a segment to things that President Obama has done in his first 9 months in office that have pleased conservatives. The panel, consisting of Charles Krauthammer, Mort Kondracke, and Fred Barnes, seemed less hard-pressed to come up with plaudits than Obama and his [...]

What Happened to the “War of Necessity”?

“Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan.”
So said Nancy Pelosi on March 8 of 2007. Soon after, both houses of Congress passed a bill for ending the war in Iraq, arguing that it [...]

CONTENTION OF THE DAY – seizing the high ground?

The Obama administration has an opportunity to turn its decision — which so far seems tentative and even reluctant — into a unilateral display of U.S. strength and confidence, and thereby seize the high ground on arms reduction while warning one of the world’s most recalcitrant proliferators that the game will soon be over. Hopefully, [...]

CONTENTION OF THE DAY – the back burner can blow up the whole kitchen

Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it [...]

Maybe there is greatness in a new generation

Bill Kristol posts an email from a friend.

Time For George Will To Get Out Of Foreign Policy

Here is George Will, our country’s new leading defeatist, in a nutshell (from “Time to Leave Iraq” – Townhall.com):
If, in spite of contrary evidence, the U.S. surge permanently dampened sectarian violence, all U.S. forces can come home sooner than the end of 2011. If, however, the surge did not so succeed, U.S. forces must come [...]

Obama Is Losing the Left

There is a well-known and time-honored test for determining whether a cake is fully baked: You stick a toothpick in it, and if it comes out clean, the cake is done. So how do you tell if a presidency is done (for) or on the ropes? You look first to the pundits who share more-or-less [...]

Hosenball

Colin has called our attention to a piece by Thomas Joscelyn in the Weekly Standard replying to a Newsweek article by Mark Hosenball. In the article Hosenball quotes some recently released documents to argue that the enhanced interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others were unnecessary.
I’ve been studying Hosenball’s article, which contains the [...]

CONTENTION OF THE DAY – Waterboarding, Good for Me and Good for You

Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball says the Inspector General’s report and other recently-released documents pertaining to Bush-era interrogations of top al Qaeda operatives do not show that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques EITs “actually worked.” Hosenball concedes that the detainees gave up a treasure trove of valuable intelligence, but the documents do not “convincingly demonstrate” that [...]

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