Teflon Don of Acute Politics is back in the world:

After another long stretch in the plane, we landed in Dallas. The people in Dallas are great- my first glimpse of America included a fire truck spraying an arc of water over the plane to welcome us home. Inside, the terminal was almost bare, but there was a still a small crowd that went to the airport at 6am to greet us. A quick run through immigrations and customs put us back in the world- a place where we are much less soldiers, and much more kids trying to make our cell phones work.

My group flew standby, trying to get home just a few hours quicker. Everywhere we went, we had a few people come up and thank us. In my experience, most of those that did had a relative or friend in the military. Most people payed no more attention to us than to anyone anyone else. No one was rude.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Beware the Crackers.

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On second thought, nevermind. They seem quite intent on imploding it themselves.

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On February 12, Thomas Harding, Defense Correspondent of the U.K. Daily Telegraph, published what many regarded as evidence of the literal "smoking gun" proving Iranian government involvement in Iraq:

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.

The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.

The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops.

Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.

Over the last six months American forces have found small caches of the £10,000 rifles but in the last 24 hours a raid in Baghdad brought the total to more than 100, US defence sources reported.

The find is the latest in a series of discoveries that indicate that Teheran is providing support to Iraq's Shia insurgents.

Other Iranian ordnance, such as explosively-formed penetrators designed to slice through armored vehicles and Iranian-manufactured mortar and artillery shells had previously been captured in Iraq, though with little solid evidence implicating the Iranian government.

Capturing more than 100 of the 800 Austrian rifles shipped to the Iranian government—over twelve percent of their entire purchase—would be the most direct evidence yet of the Iranian government supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons to kill coalition forces.

But the U.S. military says not so much as a single Steyr-Mannlicher HS50 .50-caliber sniper rifle has ever been documented as having been captured from Sunni insurgents or Shia militias in Iraq.

In an exclusive to Confederate Yankee, U.S. Army Christopher C. Garver, Director of the Combined Press Information Center for Multinational Corps-Iraq, stated that no such rifles have ever been confirmed recovered by American military forces in Iraq.

"Ever since that article, we have queried our units to see if anyone can find any evidence of those Steyr-Mannlicher sniper rifles," said Garver.

"To date, we have not found one unit that has any knowledge of that find.

"I can't tell you that this didn't happen -- the possibility that the cache of rifles was destroyed before being completely documented does exist, though the chance of that happening is small -- but we have been able to find no evidence of it."

Independent embedded combat journalist Michael Yon, who has perhaps spent more time in Iraq than any member of the western media, also discounts the likelihood of the Daily Telegraph story as being consistent with his experience in Iraq.

Yon, a former Green Beret weapons specialist, wrote, "I've been on many raids and seen literally tons of munitions captured. RPGs, small arms and machineguns of many sorts, hand grenades of many sorts, surface to air missiles, artillery and mortar rounds by the thousands if not tens of thousands between places like Baquba and Mosul (the largest weapons ASP I have seen was in Baqubah at FOB Gabe), but I have never seen a .50 caliber sniper rifle in Iraq that did not belong to Americans."

Michael Fumento, another independent journalist who has spent time embedded with Coaltion forces in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan, likewise stated, "I heard nothing about the use of .50 cal enemy sniper rifles."

For it's part, Steyr-Mannlicher, the Austrian company that sold the HS50 rifles to the Iranian government and was embargoed by the U.S. and British government as a direct result, posted a press release in March disputing the Daily Telegraph story.

Dozens of media outlets and blogs (including this one) had reported the Daily Telegraph story as proof of Iranian government involvement in Iraq. To date, there is no indication that the Daily Telegraph has issued a retraction for their apparently false claims.

(Author's note: A special thanks to Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner and blogger at Tapscott's Copy Desk, and U.S. Army Col. Steven A. Boylan, PAO for MNF-I Commanding General David Petraeus, for their assistance in researching this story.)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:08 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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President Bush is already working the phones for round two of the illegal alien amnesty bill.

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His defense attorney claims he has "a severe mental illness."

The man accused of striking nine people when he drove a vehicle on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last year has apologized in a letter sent to the court.

In the letter dated May 20 and sent to Orange County Superior Court, Mohammed Taheri-azar said he is "very sorry for the crimes which I committed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on March 3, 2006. I sincerely regret what I did on that day. Please release me from state custody so that I may pursue my goal of living a productive life in California."

Taheri-azar has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and nine counts of felonious assault.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:11 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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"No War For Beer!"

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Hamas is threatening to overrun Fatah positions in Gaza, one day after attacking the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and killing the top Fatah official in northern Gaza, Jamal al-Jediyan.

According to Global Security's handy dandy Civil War Checklist, there are five critieria for a civil war:

civil war: A war between factions of the same country; there are five criteria for international recognition of this status: the contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces, and engage in major military operations.

Does each faction control territory? Check.

Does Gaza have a functioning government? Check.

Do Fatah and Hamas enjoy some foreign recognition? Check.

Do they have identifiable armed forces? Check.

Do they engage in major military operations Check, and with two attacks directed against Haniya in two days and the new threat issued by Hamas against Fatah, the violence is getting more pronounced each day.

At some point, Rueters, AFP, the Assocaited Press, and other news organizations should begin identifying this clear civil war for what it is.

That day, however, is not today.

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Citing "an increasingly lunatic society that is armed more than ever," The U.K. Daily Express is taking the radical step of calling for British citizens to take up arms.

Did I say citizens?

I meant police:

Michael Winner, founder of the Police Memorial Trust which commemorates officers killed on duty, said the dangers faced by PCs everyday are greater than ever.

He said: "We live in an increasingly lunatic society that is armed more than ever. There are knives, there are guns. There are the sorts of weapons out there which were not there when I was a young person.

"The fact that officers are not armed is shocking. Of our 33 memorials, I think 28 officers would be alive if they had been armed."

Victor Bates, whose jeweller wife Marian was killed by robbers in Nottingham in 2003, said: "It is long past the time to arm all our officers."

They're still a very long way from allowing British citizens to defend themselves, but I suppose this could be seen as progress, if you squint.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:17 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Michael Winner and a shopkeeper may be in favour of routinely arming the police, but the police, when polled, are not. Neither are the general population. Like it, don't like it, there is virtually no public call for general armament of the population, massive support for restrictive laws on gun ownership and at best a minority support for the armament of police officers. It isn't as if the police force have no guns, they have plenty, and specially trained handlers who get bussed in when needed. Over here we tend to regard guns as dangerous things that should be kept out of people's hands, no matter who that person is, rather than personal protection. We may be naive, but we've got a pretty low gun crime rate. (Huge burglary rate, of course, but that's the price you pay) You probably find it weird, but to us the sight of an armed policeman generally fills us with unease. The sight of an unarmed policeman would probably fill you with the same feeling.

Posted by: Rafar at June 12, 2007 08:09 AM (kkgmI)

2 All that is understandable, Rafar. The unstated difference in your entire comparison, which shows in the tone of your comment, is that, on your side of the pond, it is collectivist mindset whereas it is individualist on this side. There are no calls here for the general armament of the people and the departmentalization of police here is such that, if a similar condition existed with the police as yours, a proposal for general armament would receive a quizzical look if not downright derisive comment. Each decision on that subject is up to the individual towns and cities, the counties, the 50 states and the federal government for their respective jurisdictions. Here, the value to the Republic of a person's life is set, at its core, by that individual, not by the state. The nation from which we drew our principle that "your home is your castle" has reverted to the principle that 'your home is the state's castle'. The monarchy hasn't been neutered, it's only been replaced by a nondescript entity that still enjoys its little tyrannies. That may, in part, be why an armed constable fills you with unease. We pay no mind to whether a policeman here is armed or not because we do not fear them. CY, its British subjects, not British citizens, but "allowing" is an apt description of where rights are derived from in Britain.

Posted by: dusty at June 12, 2007 12:35 PM (GJLeQ)

3 Rafar, I'd like to associate myself with Dusty's remarks. I was a cop in Vermont, one of our quite rural states. Virtually every house contained at least one firearm, and people who knew how to use them. As a result, gun crime, and person on person crime was quite low. It was -- probably still is -- utterly normal common to see pickups with two high powered rifles hanging against the rear window. This attracts zero alarm, or attention -- unless it's a particularly nice weapon. Once, while on patrol I saw a 12 year old boy trudging down a dirt road with a rifle in the rain. I gave him a lift home. What you will NEVER read in our traditional media is that in jurisdictions where carrying a concealed pistol is legal, andwhere a permit to do so is easy for responsible citizens to get, all crime is much lower, especially gun crime, than in "enlightened" jurisdictions that forbid almost everyone to own, never mind carry where, of course, criminals have unarmed victims provided to them by law. That is sheer insanity. I'll tell you something else. Our female soldiers who have come home from the war are arming themselves in record numbers. Once they have had the experience of having decisive means to defend themselves, and others, they DO not want to give that up. No one in their right mind would.

Posted by: Bill Smith at June 12, 2007 05:21 PM (fN1kG)

4 "The monarchy hasn't been neutered, it's only been replaced by a nondescript entity that still enjoys its little tyrannies. " Painfully true. Daily we allow the state to encroach more and more into our lives. It does allow one moments of low humour (recent calls to put warnings on wine bottles to the effect of "May cause intoxication" for example) but it generally makes me want to throw my hands up. I don't think that it is quite the Stalinist state that you might imagine though There are a few areas of life where I support strong regulation. Gun control is one of them. While the few cases that do occur are big news, it is almost unheard of for people to be involved with gun crime, the gun murder rate is very low and generally restricted to gang related turf battles (even these are a bit pathetic in comparison to the states). BTW, the unease over armed police is mainly because guns are such rare and, frankly, distrusted things over here. Not many of us are afraid of the police. "CY, its British subjects, not British citizens, but "allowing" is an apt description of where rights are derived from in Britain." Well, we say citizens these days, only pedantic duffers (like Mr Winner, for example) would insist on subjects. Bill, I think that the main difference here (and why I don't advocate any particular stance in the US regarding firearms (as if I had the right)) is that the UK is a largely gun-free society. The US is a generally gun saturated society. What works for one would not necessarily work for the other. A while ago I was reading an article from the states about the handgun ban in the UK and how violent crime had increased, drawing a link between the two and basically saying "See, ban handguns and see what happens". The cultural gap was at fault here because the ban on handguns could not have had any effect on violent crime because no-one walked around with pistols for protection, almost all of them were kept in gun clubs and those that weren't were in big lockers in people's houses, hardly where you need them for personal protection. They were never useful for self defence, but the writer wouldn't know that because he laid his assumpitions about US behaviour onto the UK population. Crime has gone up but the handgun ban didn't have anything to do with it. I'm just content to know that the only likely weapon I am going to have to face is a knife. I can deal with knives "Once they have had the experience of having decisive means to defend themselves, and others, they DO not want to give that up. No one in their right mind would." See, that's where you're right in that we think collectively at times, but you mistake collective thinking for a lack of self-interest. You think "Why would I give it up?" I think "I'll happily give it up if it means that my idiot neighbour doesn't have one either".

Posted by: Rafar at June 13, 2007 04:30 AM (kkgmI)

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So says John W. Mashek, retired Beltway journalist of four decades and U.S. News and World Report blogger. I'm sure he was completely objective in his reporting, and didn't develop any strong opinions until he began blogging.

And yet as horrible as the Veep is, Cheney's approval numbers are twice that of Harry Reid.

How disconcerting.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:53 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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If so, I think this guy is shooting for MVP:

Gov. Huckabee, who wants to be President, seems to have no problem with the gulag known as Gitmo. In fact, he says that prisoners would rather be in Gitmo then in the prisons right here in the USA...

[snip]

If Gitmo is better then state prisons in the USA, then we need to shut down every prison in the United States. Gitmo is a gulag, plain and simple. People there are being tortured, and some are dying. There are constant hunger strikes, and no international human rights groups are allowed to monitor the situation down there.

I covered this ground almost two years ago.

There are indeed prisons in America far worse than Guantanamo Bay, and to label the detention facility there a "gulag" is an abject display of ignorance, showing just how little the excitable author knows about real Soviet gulags, where millions of prisoners were worked, starved, and tortured to death.

Four prisoners have commited suicide at Guantanamo, since 2002, less than one a year, while 400 prisoners in American prisons commit suicide each year.

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Don't worry; there is zero chance of escalation.

Via The Australian:

A Member of the Palestinian Fatah movement was thrown off the roof of an 18-storey building today amid renewed clashes between rival factions across Gaza, as Israel vowed to continue its strikes.

Mohammed Suwerki was kidnapped near the seafront in Gaza moments before he was flung to his death from the roof of a building by fighters loyal to the Islamist Hamas movement, which has been locked for months in a power struggle with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.

It's now a "power struggle."

I've got to hand it to the media. Apparently tired of 13 months of saying that the Palestinian groups are engaged in "factional fighting," the media has come up with a new and interesting way of avoiding the fact that Hamas and Fatah are engaged in a civil war.

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They don't say "EFP" or "explosively-formed penetrator," but based upon how the story is composed and allusions to Iraq, it seems like that is what they are probably talking about here.

A hi-tech bomb, similar to the ones used by militants in Iraq, has been found in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Afghan intelligence sources say the bomb can penetrate heavily armoured vehicles and was set up by a road to target a high-level government convoy.

There is increasing evidence that sophisticated explosives technology is crossing into Afghanistan from Iraq.

Police and government officials say they believe Iran is the source of these so-called "shaped charges".

'Shaped charges'

They have been used widely in Iraq and now it seems they are on the streets of Afghanistan.

These "shaped charges" are designed to explode in a specific direction, to concentrate the force into one point, and their discovery in Kabul is a worrying development for security forces.

To be fair, EFPs are just one kind of shaped charge, and the device found in Kabul may not be an EFP. It is worrisome that the media so quickly tied this device to Iran, and I'd like to know how they made that determination. I suspect that EOD specialists noted characteristics of this device that mimic those devices captured in Iraq to make that determination, but don't know for certain.

Needless to say, it bears watching to see if more charges thought to be of Iranian origin show up in Afghanistan, which could indicate that Iran is attempting to spread its influence eastward.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:27 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's comments yesterday on Face the Nation have drawn him quite a bit of attention:

"We've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers...if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them...He added, "If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."

"They can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."

People from the right and left have been quick to issue judgement on his pronouncement.

On National Review Online, Michael Ledeen states he thinks Lieberman should be our new Secretary of State because of this comments, while a whole host of liberal blogs have taken the opportunity to use these words against the former Democrat (now Independent) Senator, labeling him "a tool," a "neocon," a "warmonger," and far worse.

Sadly, while both the right and left have quickly jumped on their respective and predictable bandwagons to either support the Senator or condemn LiebermanÂ’s comments, I've read precious little issued forth in concern for the American military forces ostensibly being attacked with Iranian weapons, or by militiamen that are rumored to be trained at facilities within Iran.

Shouldn't we be debating whether or not to attack Iran based upon the threats to American servicemen? This simply is not a conversation being had.

It doesn't seem that either side wants to ask the hard questions that must be asked.

We've heard time and again that Iran is shipping precision-made EFPs (Explosively-Formed Penetrators) into Iraq to militias targeting American armored vehicles. We've heard from the military that the homemade EFPs manufactured in Iraq are not made with enough precision to perform properly against American armor, and that only those EFPs made professionally in Iran can cut through the armor of even our main battle tanks.

Shouldn't we in the blogosphere be asking for details, asking the military to completely explain, in excruciating detail, the technical characteristics of these EFPs that identify them as being Iranian in origin? Shouldn't we be asking for this conclusive proof that the Iranian government must be behind the manufacture of such weapons?

We've heard time and again that other Iranian ordnance, from mortar shells to artillery rounds to sniper rifles to surface-to-air missiles, has been captured in Iraq. Shouldn't we be asking characteristics identify these weapons as exclusively Iranian in origin, and then ask if they could be filtering into Iraq in any other way than with the assistance of the Iranian government?

We've heard time and again that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Qods Force is actively engaged in training and equipping militias in Iraq; shouldn't we be pushing for hard evidence of such a connection, and debating whether or not the evidence of such connections is indeed an act of war worthy of a political, economic, or military response?

What precisely is Senator Lieberman asking for? Is he asking for American special operations units to insert into Iran to capture evidence from suspected EFP manufacturing centers? Is he asking for American air assets to attack and destroy the suspected terrorist training facilities at Imam Ali base near Khorram Abad, or for strikes on Revolutionary Guard bases, training facilities, or leadership targets?

We should be asking these questions, but it seems too many in the blogosphere are siloed into their positions, firmly for or against a strike against Iran based not on the threat posed to American, British, and Iraqi forces, but based upon their own domestic political objectives and agendas.

The questions we should be asking should revolve around the mortal threat Iranian weapons and training either do or do not pose to our troops and that of our allies. We should be asking for hard evidence that such weapons and training are being provided by the Iranian regime. We should be pushing the military, the media, and our leaders to provide us as much information as possible, so that we can intelligently discuss whether or not the Iranian government is either directing or allowing actions against our forces in the region, and what an appropriate response to such a threat would be.

But we aren't doing that in the blogosphere, or in the media.

We've chosen our positions, and have determined our support or opposition to actions against Iran based upon very little but our own preconceived notions and political ideologies, and with little regard to the threat posed to our national security, the security of Iraq, and the security of our troops who may be facing Iranian weapons and Iranian-trained militiamen and insurgents.

Should we consider attacking Iranian personnel and facilities for their involvement in Iraq? I, for one, don't have enough information yet to make a judgement for or against such a strike.

I wish my fellow bloggers and members of the media would pressure our politicians and the military to produce the answers we require to develop an informed opinion, though apparently, many don't feel that being informed is necessary at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:30 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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In the Raleigh News & Observer:

Pfc. Eric Hile, 17, graduated from the school in January, but returned from his training to walk across the stage and take his diploma.

He wanted to wear his dress blues under his gown, but Principal Jerry Smith insisted he follow school rules, which require that all graduating students wear khaki pants, a dark tie and a white shirt.

"We have a standard policy," Smith said. "Everyone dresses the same for graduation."

But Elizabeth Hile, Eric's mother, said wearing his uniform is an important show of patriotism.

"I can understand that some kids want to wear shorts and a T-shirt. I get that," Hile said. "But he is a United States Marine. It's a show that he is so proud to be in the U.S. military."

I've been to several high school graduations in North Carolina, and I've never seen school officials enforce graduation dress code policies rigorously. Principal Smith could have very easily granted Pfc. Hile an exception, and I think most here would feel that such an exception in this case is well deserved for a proud young Marine.

Should anyone politely like to tell Principal Smith what they think of his decision, he can presumably be contacted at Clayton High School: (919) 553-4064.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:02 PM | Comments (31) | Add Comment
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JD Johannes makes some predictions about the "surge" in Iraq leading to a wider war before peace is achieved.

I don't think he's probably too far off the mark.

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Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards has posted a six-point outline of his strategy for combating terrorism on his campaign Web site.

Let's take a look at what he's offering, point-by-point.

"Rebalance our force structure for the challenges of the new century"

• Force Structure: The force structure of our military should match its mission. The Administration's mismanagement of the military has not only breached the faith at the highest levels—it has led to a very dangerous situation for our security. We are sending some troops back to Iraq with less than a year's rest. Edwards believes we need to ensure that our force structure is well equipped for the challenges of the new century. We must have enough troops to rebuild from Iraq; to bolster deterrence; to decrease our heavy reliance on Guard and Reserve members in military operations; and to deploy in Afghanistan and any other trouble spots that could develop. As president, Edwards will also double the budget for recruiting and raise the standards for the recruiting pool so that we can reduce waivers issued for recruits with felonies, which have skyrocketed under President Bush.

Stripping the politics out of this statement (if that can actually even be done) and looking solely at the policy, Edwards is suggesting that our troops need a full year's rest between deployments, that our troops need to be "well-equipped," that our standing military needs to be larger, that we need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, and that we need to significantly increase recruiting and standards for those recruits.

Correct me if I am wrong, but as I recall history, the idea of our soldiers needing a year between deployments seems to be a modern phenomenon. Our soldiers in the Continental Army did not get year-long rest breaks in the Revolutionary War, the World Wars, or any other conflict in this nation's history until the current war in Iraq. I seem to recall that units were sent into battle, fought, and took brief "R&R" breaks of much shorter durations during a major conflict, sometimes lasting just a few days or weeks, and other times lasting months.

By way of example, World War II's "Band of Brothers," Easy Company, 506th PIR, went through several weeks or months of combat, with several weeks or months of training or R&R between combat deployments.

Most books I've read on military history (most of which were of this time frame) followed similar patterns. Unless pulled from combat for extensive training for a fresh assault, most units I recall reading about rarely, if ever, received a year off after a tour of combat. Is a full year between deployments truly needed?

I'm not the person to answer that question, but I can tell you that I cannot easily find a record of any large unit in any military in world history that consistently got a year off between combat tours. It would seem to me (admittedly as a civilian) that a year's rest would leave troops rusty, and in the kind of counter-insurgency operations we are now fighting where relationships with local communities are key, it means that the troops would have to start over and establish new relationships with every deployment. To me, sending home entire units for a year at a time seems very unwise.

I don't think anyone will argue with Edwards' platitude that our troops need to be "well equipped." How can you argue with that? But the simple fact of the matter is that our soldiers are already by far the best-equipped military in world history. Period. Edwards presumably want to make them bullet-proof, to avoid criticism when soldiers die. But soldiers with enough armor to be impervious to enemy fire are soldiers that lack the mobility to be effective in combat. Well-equipped does not mean making our soldiers over-armored to the point of being ineffective.

I do agree with Edwards on several points, holding the same opinion that our military should be larger than it currently is, and that we should seek higher quality recruits, and spend the extra money to attract them.

Now, on to point two.

"Ensure our intelligence strategy adheres to proven and effective methods"

• Intelligence Strategy: We must aggressively gather intelligence in accordance with proven methods. Valuable information can be gained through interrogation, both about past and future attacks, and we must do everything we can to gather this information to keep us and our allies secure. At the same time, we must avoid actions that will give terrorists or even other nations an excuse to abandon international law. As president, Edwards will immediately address the issues that have become blemishes on America's image in the world by closing Guantanamo Bay, restoring habeas corpus, and banning torture.

Against, once we strip out the politics from this statement we are left with something like policy, and that policy is...don't be evil.

Well, thatÂ’s all well and good if you're running to be president of Google, but the reality of the matter for POTUS is a bit more complex that perhaps "Senator Gone" misunderestimates. I don't know of anyone who advocates wholesale, widespread torture, but for Edwards to intone that waterboarding of senior level operational commanders is wrong if a major attack is imminent, is nothing less than moral abandonment, stating that principles are more important than American lives in any and all circumstances. This is simply wrong.

Further, Edwards betrays a childlike misunderstanding of our enemies if he actually thinks terrorists have ever given any consideration to international law, or that by treating terrorists with kid gloves, we will somehow influence their actions. Frankly, this platitude shows him to be an unserious, lightweight candidate, and perhaps somewhat dangerous.

His "blemishes" comment simply affirms he is far more interested in symbolism than results.

"Hold regular meetings with top military leadership"

• Meetings with Military Leadership: The past few years have brought the biggest crisis in civil-military relations in a generation. The mismanagement of the Pentagon has been so severe that many of our most decorated retired officers are speaking out. As president, Edwards will institute regular, on-on-one meetings with top military leadership. He will also reinstate a basic doctrine of national security management that has been demolished by the Bush Administration: military professionals will have primary responsibility in matters of tactics and operations, while civilian leadership will have authority in all matters of broad strategy and political decisions.

This is apparently meant as a swipe at George W. Bush and Don Rumsfeld, and perhaps one that they deserve.

What it does establish is that Edwards seeks to be very "hands on" if elected. As I recall, that didn't work very well with LBJ. Edwards comment here is, of course, also directed at the fact that many generals have disagreed with how the current war has been fought.

Edwards indicates that he will try to listen to most or all generals. If Edwards sincerely means to listen and attempt to assuage the misgivings and differences of opinions among all generals, he will "lead" us into paralysis, and that the bold stokes of a Patton or a Grant will be ignored over a safe, consensus position... a self-imposed Pentagon quagmire. I do not find that encouraging in the least.

"Create a "Marshall Corps" to stabilize weak and failing states"

• "Marshall Corps": Weak and failing states create hotbeds for terrorism and create regional instability that creates security dangers for the U.S. and our allies. As president, Edwards will create a "Marshall Corps" of 10,000 professionals, modeled on the Reserves systems, who will work on stabilization and humanitarian missions. He will also implement new training for future military leadership and create a undersecretary for stabilization and a new senior stabilization position within the Joint Staff.

We've already seen the opposition for such as unit; Iran calls their version the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guard. Edwards wants to impose an opposing Girl Scouts-Lite version of this to spread peace, joy, and puppies. Yea! A slightly more charitable interpretation is that he envisions a cross between the Corps of Engineers and the Peace Corps, or the creation of something like the Navy Seabees, but populated with social workers. I'm not sure what he is actually proposing here, and suspect he isn't sure, either.

"Rebuild equipment"

• Rebuild Equipment. Over 1,000 vehicles like tanks and helicopters have been lost in Iraq, and our equipment is being used at a rate of five to six times its peacetime use. Our forces are not equipped to meet the challenges presented to them. As president, Edwards will re-invest in the maintenance of our equipment so our strategy against terrorists is as effective as possible.
  
  

Edwards has latched onto the concept that stuff gets blown up in war, and he wants to reinvigorate the motor pool. Such insight.

His statement "Our forces are not equipped to meet the challenges presented to them" means one thing to me; as threats emerge, Edwards will constantly push our military procurement branches to rush willy-nilly after the Threat of the Day.

We're being hit with IEDs? Up-armor our Humvees, and buy billions of dollars in new armored trucks (like MRAPS). When the enemy builds larger IEDs, Edwards will rush to upgrade to larger MRAPS or like vehicles, and so on, and so forth, until we are left with battlefield battleships that lack the mobility to go anywhere quickly or stealthily, and by the way, are too expensive to justify sending into combat. And just so you know, EFPs tend to make those inside such heavily armored vehicles more likely to die than vehicles with no armor at all, due to spalling.

We do try to reduce the threats to our soldiers as much as possible of course, which is why our soldiers are the most heavily armored force in terms of both personal and vehicle armor in human history, but Edwards and many other candidates on both sides don't want to deal with the reality that soldiers die in war, nor do they seem to understand that there are many circumstances where armor can and should be sacrificed for mobility and flexibility for soldiers to be effective. I don't think Edwards grasps that concept in the least.

"Create a National Security Budget"

• National Security Budget: The military budget itself also needs substantial reforms to keep us as safe as possible and to deal with 21st century threats. Today, dozens of agencies perform overlapping tasks, and there is no central, overall accounting of all security activities performed by all relevant agencies. We have nuclear proliferation programs in the Defense, State, and the Energy departments, and more than 15 different security assistance programs, running out of both the State Department and the Defense Department. As president, Edwards will implement a new National Security Budget that will include all security activities by the Pentagon and the Department of Energy, and our homeland security, intelligence, and foreign affairs agencies.

Nowhere in this statement does Edwards pointedly say he will consolidate any of these over-lapping programs, he just insists that we need another layer of bureaucracy inserted on top of it. Were Edwards actually willing to consolidate some of these activities and streamline elements, I could actually get behind him on this. that isn't his intention, however. He simply betrays a belief that more government is a more effective government.

Hold on to your wallets.

Update: Captain Ed notes that Edwards' Marshall Corps" is a modern day Children's Crusade, and may face the same results. The NY Sun is similarly harsh.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:13 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Oh, wait a minute. I might have read that too quickly.

It seems that the memo was from 1864, the President was Lincoln, and he told Meade to attack-attack-ATTACK until Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was destroyed, even as "peace Democrats" (gee, this sounds familiar) advocated for surrender and withdrawal.

I wonder if there is some sort of lesson to be learned here.... nah.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:14 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Via WRAL:

According to a recent survey, Fred Thompson, who has not yet announced his presidential candidacy, has jumped into the lead in the North Carolina Republican primary.

The survey, released by Public Policy Polling, shows 37 percent of likely Republican primary voters would vote for the former senator from Tennessee -- a 12 percent increase from May.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped to second place with 25 percent of likely Republican voters. Former Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both garnered 14 percent.

Nine percent of Republican voters said they supported a candidate other than Thompson, Giuliani, McCain and Romney and 1 percent said they were undecided.

Not a bad showing at all, especially from someone who has yet to officially declare.

I must also confess that I'm a bit surprised at the strength of Fred!'s showing, leaping to a twelve-point lead over second-place Rudy Giuliani at a time that I didn't think he yet had made significant media penetration outside of the political junkies in the blogosphere.

In the same poll, John Edwards (30-percent) was leading the Democratic herd ahead of Hillary Clinton (26-percent) and Barack Obama (22-percent), suggesting that the recreational use of crystal meth is far more widespread in North Carolina than was previously believed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:10 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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1 Fred will play amazingly well in the South.

Posted by: iamnot at June 07, 2007 02:29 PM (onj4J)

2 Fred Rocks I just went to imwithfred.com and donated for the first time in my life for a candidate. I also bought everybody in my family a Fred T-shirt at tshirtpoll.com

Posted by: Greg at June 07, 2007 02:43 PM (lJa1y)

3 Thompson/Huckabee is my pick

Posted by: Rich at June 07, 2007 02:50 PM (EblDJ)

4 I'm with Fred! I just added a link to your post to my 2007.06.07 "Forty Four!" Roundup. (I stopped doing daily Fred! roundups and started doing daily Forty Four! roundups after Forty Four's visit with Sean Hannity Tuesday night.)

Posted by: Bill Faith at June 07, 2007 03:08 PM (n7SaI)

5 Fred Thompson is the man. Every conservative should be voting for him...let alone every person in America.

Posted by: Matt at June 07, 2007 03:10 PM (ezZoF)

6 I'm from North Carolina, lived here most my 55 yrs. I'm voteing for Fred Thompson !! Damn the others.

Posted by: Dennis Little at June 07, 2007 03:30 PM (9uGjJ)

7 What no Ron Paul? (j/k) ImwithFred also (but not in NC)

Posted by: Lord Nazh at June 07, 2007 04:47 PM (ViYz5)

8 As a FREDeralist I'm excited to hear this! I just can't wait for Fred's official announcement in July so this virtually unseen tsunami of support will finally be acknowledged as something more than a "flash in the pan". RUN FRED! RUN!

Posted by: Da Coyote at June 07, 2007 05:11 PM (Sb8LT)

9 Well in the home of Johnny Edwrads ( I am truely ashamed of that), its good to see. Go Fred. I like Rudy, Mitt, and Sam too! Good crop for the right. Losers on the left eh?

Posted by: NC Boy at June 07, 2007 06:06 PM (gBi1O)

10 Given the man we have in the White House, can we hold the election today? Because I promise to vote for Fred if we can just end this now.

Posted by: David Terrenoire at June 07, 2007 08:38 PM (tk0b2)

11 Thompson-Hunter! NC must be populated with trial lawyers if they like Edwards that much.

Posted by: Thomas Jackson at June 10, 2007 04:59 PM (A2ZNt)

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Infuriated at Paris Hilton's early release from jail, Sean Mullen of the Moderate Voice uses the opportunity to take a swing at Fred! as well:

There are rumors that the nascient Fred Thompson presidential campaign is interested in bringing her [Hilton] on as a spokesmodel.

I'm not sure where Mullen is intending to go with this.

Is he saying that a tipsy tart like Paris Hilton is the kind of person Thompson associates himself with, and if so, isn't that yet another Scarborough-esque cheap shot at Jeri Thompson, wife of the undeclared Republican candidate?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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