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2007.09.04 Politics and National Defense Roundup
Email from frequent Old War Dogs contributor Roberto Prinselaar (USN 1948-1957, USCG 1967-1989). Bill,
I have just had my new book published, and if you may be interested in seeing what it is all about, you can check it out on; You can read about it on http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46230-8. When you reach that site you can also browse the book page by page if you want.
Bob
Check out Bob's Old War Dogs contributions here and his IWVPA page here.
Boomer emails: Ah, Misty. I spent many hours flying low and slow over SVN with Misty. We're talking F-100 and refueling using the drogue (basket). Not the preferred type of air refueling among professional boomers.
The sortie was generally double the length of our others refueling the fighter bombers and provided us with a chance to see some action on the ground not that far below. The mission did allow us some time to take a combat nap between refuelings. Misty would show up, go away, come back and go away again...which made for a long day.
IMO, Vietnam and the memories of, good and bad, will never go away. Fade maybe, but not go away. Rereading Vietnam
The Vietnam analogy looms ever larger in the debate over Iraq, but the U.S. military has memories of that conflict that the public doesn't.
by Robert D. Kaplan ...
[Read the whole thing.]
Below the fold:
- Embracing The Suck
- Al Qaeda In Iraq; How to understand it. How to defeat it.
- Taliban leader involved in SKorean kidnappings killed
- Danes arrest 8 al Qaeda suspects
- UPI reports attack on al-Doura power plant that never happened
- Mystery at Goose Creek update
- Bush's Third Trip to Iraq
- What Exit? Falluja!
- Lebanese Army Kills Abssi, Claims Victory
Quick hits:
Embracing The Suck
Zero Ponsdorf
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told American Muslims gathered in Rosemont to think beyond voter registration drives.
Article here
Encouraging citizens to to vote and run for office is right and proper, but this venue is highly suspect. [The] Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which had just been branded by federal prosecutors in court papers as a U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—the international movement, based in Egypt, dedicated to the creation of a worldwide Islamic caliphate. ISNA, which has not been charged with any crime, was among more than a hundred organizations and individuals who were listed in late May as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation—the Texas-based group now on trial in Dallas for allegedly conspiring to funnel funds to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Source: Jihad Watch
I dunno… sounds like were headed for an Islamic (Sharia) state. Considering the demographics involved it’ll be a Spanish speaking Islamic state eventually.
I’ve mentioned Al-Andalus before.
That state was arguably responsible for the ‘enlightenment’ so maybe it wouldn’t suck. Unless you were among the few that Sharia law considers lesser beings.
[Entire post copied from Veteran-American Voices with the author's permission]
Al Qaeda In Iraq
How to understand it. How to defeat it.
by Frederick W. Kagan (H/T: John Werntz)
Al Qaeda In Iraq is part of the global al Qaeda movement. AQI, as the U.S. military calls it, is around 90 percent Iraqi. Foreign fighters, however, predominate in the leadership and among the suicide bombers, of whom they comprise up to 90 percent, U.S. commanders say. The leader of AQI is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian. His predecessor, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was a Jordanian.
Because the members of AQI are overwhelmingly Iraqis--often thugs and misfits recruited or dragooned into the organization (along with some clerics and more educated leaders)--it is argued that AQI is not really part of the global al Qaeda movement. Therefore, it is said, the war in Iraq is not part of the global war on terror: The "real" al Qaeda--Osama bin Laden's band, off in its safe havens in the Pakistani tribal areas of Waziristan and Baluchistan--is the group to fight. Furthermore, argue critics of this persuasion, we should be doing this fighting through precise, intelligence-driven airstrikes or Special Forces attacks on key leaders, not the deployment of large conventional forces, which only stirs resentment in Muslim countries and creates more terrorists.
Over the past four years, the war in Iraq has provided abundant evidence to dispute these assertions. ...
Some things I'd have at least linked yesterday if I hadn't taken the weekend off:
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