THE IMMORALITY OF LOSING A WAR
Have Americans lost the will to win wars? Not just in Iraq, but anywhere? Do we really believe that being nice is more important than victory? It's hard enough to bear the timidity of our civilian leaders - anxious to start wars but without the guts to finish them - but now our military leaders have fallen prey to political correctness. Unwilling to accept that war is, by its nature, a savage act and that defeat is immoral, influential officers are arguing for a kinder, gentler approach to our enemies. They're going to lead us into failure, sacrificing our soldiers and Marines for nothing: Political correctness kills. It's all in the Army's new counterinsurgency doctrine laid out in Field Manual 3-24. The doctrine is so dishonest and cowardly that it's message is: Let our troops die, just don't hurt anyone's feelings.
THE COLORADO CANARY
The meta-story regarding the mid-term elections is how the Democrats can't wait to get to the voting booth to inflict electoral doom upon their enemies, while Republicans are so depressed they will either stay home or have to be dragged to the polls.
Maybe, but there's this Colorado canary in the Democrat coal mine that's warbling a contrarian song. In Colorado you can vote up to 30 days ahead of election day by absentee ballot. To do so you must of course request a ballot. The absentee ballots won't be counted until November 7th, but what is known is the number of requests for them. It turns out that the number of requests by registered Republicans is way up from past years while those from registered Democrats is way down. Here's more of the buzz heard in the halls of the Capitol Building three weeks out:
GOOGLE BOUGHT YOUTUBE: GOOD IDEA?
It has been perhaps a year and a half since I first heard of YouTube. The service is not quite two years old and already it's worth $1.6 billion (!) - at least it's worth that much to Google. My gut reaction to Google's pursuit and purchase of YouTube is that it was caught up in a second Internet boom that will undoubtedly go bust. Honestly, how can a business of any kind less than two years old be worth nearly $2 billion? Okay, Google is not driving a truck filled with money to YouTube's doors; this is a stock swap. Even so, value is value. On the other hand, Google may know what it's doing. YouTube has the most coveted online commodity of all: eyeballs - and lots of them. And every single set visits YouTube almost every day to see the latest crazy, unusual, wacky videos. I know kids of friends who do so. Their parents call them iVideots.
IF ONLY DEMOCRATS HATED KIM JONG IL AS MUCH AS GEORGE BUSH
If Democrats went after America's enemies with the relentless ruthlessness with which they attack Republicans, the Axis of Evil would be toast. No sooner had North Korea made its (either botched or faked) nuclear bomb test last weekend than Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Hillary Clinton were blaming it on "the failed policies of the Bush administration." Democrats tend to view foreign policy crises through the narrow prism of their impact on domestic politics. But the villain here isn't Bill Clinton or George Bush. It's Kim Jong Il. And what's important here is not which party controls the House of Representatives. It's whether we can prevent a second Korean War. The Democrats are behaving as if the cost of another Korean War with thousands of American soldiers dead is the price they'd willingly pay to gain control of the House.
IMPLODING IRAN
[This is the text of a speech I am giving on Friday, October 13 to an organization composed of prominent conservative leaders throughout the country called the Council for National Policy. --JW] How many of you here have been members of CNP since the 1980s and remember the critical role the CNP played in generating support for anti-Soviet freedom fighters? Please raise your hand. Keep them up, thanks - now, the rest of you notice who these folks are. Remember them, and after this panel, go up to them and ask them what it was like 20 years ago when the thought of collapsing the Soviet Union seemed completely off the wall. Yet it was the incessant, unrelenting, demand of thousands, millions, of conservatives who belonged to organizations led by members of the Council for National Policy, that enabled the Reagan Administration to support and supply with money, training, and equipment, anti-Soviet freedom fighters. And that turned out to be the key to winning the Cold War. I want to talk to you today about how you, as current members of CNP, can play the same role in winning the war on Islamofascist terrorism by ridding the world of its principal sponsor, the Mullahcracy ruling Iran.
CELEBRATING COLUMBUS AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Today, October 12, is the 514th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing on Guanahani (now known as San Salvador or Watlings) island in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. Unfortunately, Columbus Day is for most Americans just an excuse for a three-day weekend, which is why it fell on Monday, October 9. What it should be is a commemoration and celebration of Western Civilization - which is why the Left hates Columbus and his holiday. Fortunately, North Korea's botched nuclear bomb explosion shooed the Columbus Day protestors off the newspaper pages and television screens. Thankfully ignored was the usual spectacle of American Indians using the holiday to denounce the White Man and his genocidal war-mongering culture-destroying earth-murdering imperialism, blah blah blah - with White Liberals joining in, masochistically condemning their own civilization. But they will be at it again next year, so let us suggest to them now that they abandon every vestige of the civilization they hate as so evil - for else they are bottomless hypocrites. Not just every material benefit - electricity, the wheel, and all post-Stone Age inventions. Every psychological vestige as well - starting with the very concept of American Indian or Native American or any other collective term. For the reality is that there were no Indians in America when Columbus discovered it.
BRAYING JACKASSES CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO LEAD AMERICA
The BBC reported on October 10 that in the Indian state of Jharkhand, villagers fled their homes to escape a rampaging herd of grief-stricken elephants. "They say the animals are agitated because one of their herd disappeared. Officials say the missing animal became disoriented, and fell into a ditch and drowned over the weekend." There was no mention in the BBC report whether or not the village jackasses were braying with delight at the sight of the distressed elephants. Of course the Indian people are always disturbed when their elephants run amuck, because, since time immemorial they have relied on the strong, intelligent and friendly elephants to do their heavy lifting for them. The donkeys simply do not have the mental or physical capacity to substitute for the prized elephants. Meanwhile in Washington...
NORTH KOREA’S NUKE TEST FLOP
[Note: Written the day after North Korea exploded its "device," an Update with new information is now appended at the end.] The public face of Bush Administration officials regarding North Korea's nuclear test is a mask of utter seriousness, or "grave concern." Behind the mask, folks are laughing their heads off. Meanwhile, the world's dumbest nuclear scientists - namely, those in North Korea - are terrified of what Baby Kim will do to them when he finds out the truth. Essentially, we have a replay of the total fiasco of Baby Kim's headline-garnering missile test launch last July. North Korea's claim to have successfully conducted a test explosion of a nuclear bomb on Monday (October 8) has resulted in even more public hysteria that its missile tests, and even more private laughter. The test shows the entire plutonium stockpile of North Korea is worthless: It's not "weapons grade" so bombs cannot be made ot it. Here's why.
WHEN DO WE TAKE IRAQ’S TRAINING WHEELS OFF?
The time for our soldiers to depart from Iraq is most certainly not now, and seems far away. But the Iraqi army and police are getting larger and more capable with each passing month. I now think the benefits of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of American conventional units exceed the liabilities of doing so. Neither the Iraqi nor the American publics will stand much longer for an indefinite commitment. The deadline should be flexible, but a deadline should be set. The Iraqis aren't ready to stand on their own yet, but at some point the training wheels must come off.
SMUGGLERS’ PARADISE
This is a story about 21st century Persian smugglers and 19th century British soldiers driven crazy by literally going "around the bend." It takes place in one of the world's most inhospitable and strategically critical places in the world - the Strait of Hormuz. This is where the sharp tip of Arabia, known as the Musandam Point, sticks into the Persian Gulf, separating it from the Indian Ocean. The Strait of Hormuz is only 30 miles wide from Musandam Point to the coast of Iran, and through it passes a substantial fraction of the world's crude oil, pumped out of the Saudi, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Iranian, and Emirati oil fields, and into giant supertankers which snake through the Strait in continuous succession. That's where I am right now, writing this overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. The sun is setting, and I can see it lighting up the cliffs of Iran. There's a direct flight from Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. From there I drove through the other Emirates like Sharjah and Umm al Qawain, then up into the wasteland of Musandam to here. I had come to see a Persian smuggling operation running contraband across the Strait by speedboat into Iran. But first, let's talk about those crazy Brits...