Barack Obama and his Democratic allies have famously done everything in their power to try to lose the Iraqi War while President Bush is in office, but now that everyone with any understanding of the conflict knows that the war is effectively won, Democrats are trying to steal credit for the victory they fought so hard against:

In the last year, though, the U.S. troop surge and the backlash from moderate Iraqi Sunnis against Al Qaeda and Iraqi Shiites against pro-Iranian extremists have brought a new measure of stability to Iraq. There is now, for the first time, a chance — still only a chance — that a reasonably stable democratizing government, though no doubt corrupt in places, can take root in the Iraqi political space.

That is the Iraq that Obama is inheriting. It is an Iraq where we have to begin drawing down our troops — because the occupation has gone on too long and because we have now committed to do so by treaty — but it is also an Iraq that has the potential to eventually tilt the Arab-Muslim world in a different direction.

I’m sure that Obama, whatever he said during the campaign, will play this smart. He has to avoid giving Iraqi leaders the feeling that Bush did — that he’ll wait forever for them to sort out their politics — while also not suggesting that he is leaving tomorrow, so they all start stockpiling weapons.

If he can pull this off, and help that decent Iraq take root, Obama and the Democrats could not only end the Iraq war but salvage something positive from it. Nothing would do more to enhance the Democratic PartyÂ’s national security credentials than that.

If he can pull this of?

Let's be very clear, so that even a historical revisionist like Friedman can understand it.

House and Senate Democrats, including President Elect Barack Obama, did everything in their power to lose the Iraq War, and deserve no credit for any success.

How many times in the past two years have Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and their cohorts attempted to defund our troops and force them into defeat? Forty times? Fifty? Frankly, I lost count somewhere in the mid-forties.

Now Friedman and his fellow defeatists on the left who long derided those of us who wanted to secure victory as "28-percenters," "warmongers" and "murderers" want to try to rewrite history. The Times and their fellow travelers long to rewrite their moral cowardice as a virtue, and give themselves a victory by declaration.

That will not be their legacy.

This will.

Friedman should remember this. His newspaper attempted to subsidize defeat, cutting MoveOn.Org a 61% discount to attack our top general during the surge.

A Times photographer took this picture of a Madhi Army militiaman sniping at U.S. soldiers in July of 2006. Impartially, of course.

Democrats including Barack Obama can salvage nothing from Iraq. They were clearly and proudly on the other side, and the resulting allied victory was a defeat for them as it was for al Qaeda, the insurgency, and Iran.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:53 PM | Comments (83) | Add Comment
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My friend Jose at Barcepundit has been diligently following the latest on the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which now finally seem to to be winding down. The last terrorists appear to have been killed, and the process of putting out fires and recovering any remaining explosives should start winding down in the next 12-24 hours.

Read it all, as there are some major surprises, including claims that same of the attackers were British, and that a concurrent strike at Mumbai's airport was only thwarted by a missed turn.

I'd also strongly suggest reading Bill Roggio's analysis of the attacks at Long War Journal.

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I think so.

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1 I had to look it up 'cause I didn't get it either. Seems to be a gamer/internet prank of sending a mislabled link to a friend. Upon opening the link, you will be treated to a clip of his '80's video, instead of whatever you thought. So....here you thought you were getting the cartoon, and it turned into a "RickRoll"

Posted by: vin at November 29, 2008 05:52 AM (4GWtm)

2 My college-aged son started laughing and I asked why and he told me it was the biggest rick-roll ever. Fortunately he had explained rick-rolling to me before. The only way anyone can top what Cartoon Network did is to have a rick-roll during Obama's Inauguration speech.

Posted by: MikeM at November 29, 2008 09:00 AM (KTOU7)

3 Disrupt the Obama Nation? ROTFL!

Posted by: vin at November 29, 2008 11:33 AM (4GWtm)

4 Yes, the best stunt ever! I was gonna forward the video to friends and family ... But I think I'm the only one that knows WHY it's funny.

Posted by: DoorHold at November 30, 2008 12:47 PM (cKMGI)

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...for their sacrifices and service.

And if you'd like to give thanks to a milbogger deployed far away from home in a combat zone, you can do so here.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

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The Times of India is reporting multiple terror attacks that have taken place in Mumbai, India this evening. The terrorists appear to be targeting sites popular with Westerners, including luxury hotels, a restaurant, and a train station. Some outlets are claiming that the terrorists were asking specifically where the British and Americans were.

As always, early casualty reports vary wildly and should be taken with a healthy degree of skepticism. That said, the latest figures cited are 80 killed and 250+ wounded, with as many as 40 taken hostage.

The attacks seem crude as far as the weapons and tactics used, with small teams—apparently pairs—using hand grenades and fully-automatic AK-47s, along with at least one significant backpack bomb or similar device that detonated in a taxi, ripping it in half.

As I'm watching this, Fox New television is displaying a still photo of what appears to be security camera footage of a young, clean-shaven man wearing a black tee shirt carrying a folding stock AK with two 30-round magazines taped together to facilitate quick reloading, carrying a blue backpack slung over his shoulder.

The head of India's anti-terrorism squad, Hemant Karkare, is among those killed; it is unclear if he was a target, an unfortunate bystander, or responding to the attacks.

More as this develops.

Update: IBNLive claims that fighting is still on-going at 3 hotels, and that there are seven Westerners among 15 hostages. The attacks apparently began between 10:15-10:30 PM.

A report in Canada's National Post says the group claiming responsibility is the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen. They also claimed responsibility for a serial of bombs in Assam that claimed almost 80 lives.

Update: Based upon what we're seeing filter through various media outlets thus far, the sites selected and the coordination of the attacks suggests a well-planned and researched attack, using a minimum number of terrorists per target, using common and relatively inexpensive military small arms.

They seem to be getting maximum effect in terms of disrupting Mumbai and creating carnage and chaos at the outlay of what seems to be less than two dozen total terrorists and the small arms they carried. I have no idea who the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen are, but this strike appears to be the work of professionals with military and intelligence skills.

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Via Hot Air's headlines comes Kathleen Parker's self-serving idea:

Actively pursuing information through print media and participating in high-level conversations -- even, potentially, blogging -- makes one smarter.

The ISI insists that higher-education reforms aimed at civic literacy are urgently needed. Who could argue otherwise? But historian Rick Shenkman, author of "Just How Stupid Are We?" thinks reform needs to start in high school. His strategy is both poetic (to certain ears) and pragmatic: Require students to read newspapers, and give college freshman weekly quizzes on current events.

Did he say newspapers?! Shenkman even suggests government subsidies for newspaper subscriptions, as well as federal tuition subsidies for students who perform well on civics tests. They could be paid from a special fund created by, say, a "Too Many Stupid Voters Act."

Not only would citizens be smarter, but also newspapers might be saved. Announcements of newsroom cuts, which ultimately hurt quality, have become routine. Just this week, USA Today announced the elimination of about 20 positions, while the Newark Star-Ledger, as it cuts its news staff by 40 percent, lost almost its entire editorial board in a single day.

In his book, Shenkman, founder of George Mason University's History News Network, is tough on everyday Americans. Why, he asks, do we value polls when clearly The People don't know enough to make a reasoned judgment?

Of course, what Parker fails to mention is that The People don't know enough to make a reasoned judgement largely as a result of these same newspapers taking roles as advocates for one political theology instead of acting as unbiased journalists. The public, while underinformed but not nearly as ignorant as today's newroom and editorial board advocacy organizations would like, recognize the naked cheerleading and overt bias of the MSM, and quit buying their product.

Parker, Shenkman, and others with a stake in todays dying media want to legislate a market for a substandard product. Too bad for them, the People aren't as uneducated as they would like.

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Drudge is citing a Russian analyst's prediction of the decline and collapse of the United States into regional mini-states:

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."

The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Developing...

Somehow, I think Panarin's speciality of information warfare is more on display here than his grasp of American laws or global economics. If we go down as he fantasizes, Russia and China, with growing but far less impressive economies, would experience a collapse harder even than our own with far fewer capabilities to rebound due to their stifling economic systems. Oops.

The bright side, of course, as I alluded to in the headline is that this does mean Mitt Romney is once again poised to take advantage of this in his Presidential bid, this time apparently as a Presidential candidate of the United Northern States and/or the Eastern United States, depending on how the boundaries are drawn. Doesn't that double his odds?

That said, I must add that historically, the lower Atlantic States and the northern Atlantic states haven't shared that " distinct and separate mentality" as often as Comrade Pararin seems to think. As I recall, something of a dustup occurred in the 1860s as a result.

OH... and as far as the northern states.... are even Canadians really strongly influenced by Canada?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:19 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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"Be nice. Be Polite. Have a plan to kill everyone you see."

Been there. Done that. Carrying a weapon now, come to think of it.

Update: And while I didn't read this in advance of my experiment, every word holds true:

There is nothing like having your finger on the trigger of a gun to reveal who you really are. Life or death in one twitch — ultimate decision, with the ultimate price for carelessness or bad choices.

It is a kind of acid test, an initiation, to know that there is lethal force in your hand and all the complexities and ambiguities of moral choice have fined down to a single action: fire or not?

In truth, we are called upon to make life-or-death choices more often than we generally realize. Every political choice ultimately reduces to a choice about when and how to use lethal force, because the threat of lethal force is what makes politics and law more than a game out of which anyone could opt at any time.

But most of our life-and-death choices are abstract; their costs are diffused and distant. We are insulated from those costs by layers of institutions we have created to specialize in controlled violence (police, prisons, armies) and to direct that violence (legislatures, courts). As such, the lessons those choices teach seldom become personal to most of us.

Nothing most of us will ever do combines the moral weight of life-or-death choice with the concrete immediacy of the moment as thoroughly as the conscious handling of instruments deliberately designed to kill. As such, there are lessons both merciless and priceless to be learned from bearing arms — lessons which are not merely instructive to the intellect but transformative of one's whole emotional, reflexive, and moral character.

The first and most important of these lessons is this: it all comes down to you.

No one's finger is on the trigger but your own. All the talk-talk in your head, all the emotions in your heart, all the experiences of your past — these things may inform your choice, but they can't move your finger. All the socialization and rationalization and justification in the world, all the approval or disapproval of your neighbors — none of these things can pull the trigger either. They can change how you feel about the choice, but only you can actually make the choice. Only you. Only here. Only now. Fire, or not?

A second is this: never count on being able to undo your choices.

If you shoot someone through the heart, dead is dead. You can't take it back. There are no do-overs. Real choice is like that; you make it, you live with it — or die with it.

A third lesson is this: the universe doesn't care about motives.

If your gun has an accidental discharge while pointed an unsafe direction, the bullet will kill just as dead as if you had been aiming the shot. I didn't mean to may persuade others that you are less likely to repeat a behavior, but it won't bring a corpse back to life.

These are hard lessons, but necessary ones. Stated, in print, they may seem trivial or obvious. But ethical maturity consists, in significant part, of knowing these things — not merely at the level of intellect but at the level of emotion, experience and reflex. And nothing teaches these things like repeated confrontation with life-or-death choices in grave knowledge of the consequences of failure.

There's a certain kind of freedom that comes with the responsibility of carrying arms that is hard to properly express to those who don't. People who have done so have tried to tell me that before, but it isn't something that translates easily to print. Yes, guns can take lives.

But far more often, experience truly bearing arms help hone and reveal character.

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Michael Ledeen notes that a force of 250 insurgents ambushed a column of 30 Marines in Bala Baluk, Afghanistan.

It was a massacre:

"The biggest thing to take from that day is what Marines can accomplish when they're given the opportunity to fight," the sniper said. "A small group of Marines met a numerically superior force and embarrassed them in their own backyard. The insurgents told the townspeople that they were stronger than the Americans, and that day we showed them they were wrong."

During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn't miss any shots, despite the enemies' rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.

"I was in my own little world," the young corporal said. "I wasn't even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target."

After calling for close-air support, the small group of Marines pushed forward and broke the enemies' spirit as many of them dropped their weapons and fled the battlefield. At the end of the battle, the Marines had reduced an enemy stronghold, killed more than 50 insurgents and wounded several more.

20 shots. 20 kills.

Carlos Hathcock, who famously fought a five-day engagement with a company of Vietcong, would have been proud.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:04 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I am not a financial whiz, and have never claimed to be one, but I'm getting sick and tired of footing the bill for those who claim to be financial experts, and who have doomed their companies through mismanagement, poor risk management, and greed.

Citigroup—the same group that conspired with ACORN to provide home loans to illegal aliens—becomes the latest parasite to feed from the public jugular. And make no mistake, dear reader; when the newspapers say that "the federal government" is stepping in to bail out these banks, what they actually mean is that self-interested professional politicians in both parties have decided that they will stick you with the bill for Citigroup's greed and bad business decisions.

Our money. The stuff we earn through our labor, that we carefully invest in improving our homes, that we save for our retirement, that we scrimp and save for our childrens' college education, is being spent by wealthy and corrupt Congressmen and Senators to cover-up the multi-billion-dollar mistakes of their their wealthy and corrupt campaign contributors. It's all about them, and they're telling you that it is your best interests to pay their bills.

Bullsh*t.

How much more are you going to take, my fellow Americans? How much more of your money are you going to let politicians take? How much more debt are you willing to let them pile onto the backs of your children?

Where do you draw the line and tell them, not one more dime.

And what are you willing to do to make them stop.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:22 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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While roughly 6,600 of us have concealed carry permits here in Wake County, none were around yesterday when Fred Ervin robbed a BP gas station and then crossed the street to carjack a woman loading groceries into her car. When Ervin attacked Irene Moorman Bailey to get her keys, other shoppers who stepped in to stop the assault were forced to resort to fowl play:

"The lady was being beaten on the ground. She was lying on the ground and the guy was on top of her – physically hitting her," shopper Randy Owens said.

Bystanders intervened and hit the man in the head with a frozen turkey that Bailey bought, police said.

"I was just grocery shopping, like any other day, and I happened to come out and I saw all this chaos that just had happened," shopper Leanne Sweet said.

"Several people interceded and tried to get him away from her," Owens said.

The man managed to get into Bailey's 2001 Nissan Maxima and hit five other cars while escaping from the parking lot, officers said.

"He backed across and he hit the Cadillac and our car, and hit another car that was parked," Owens said.

"My bumper's cracked and the whole side is dented in," Sweet said.

Officers found Fred Ervin, 30, in Bailey's car, Fuquay-Varina police said. Ervin was taken to WakeMed with a serious head wound. He was listed in fair condition Sunday evening.

When Ervin is released, police said he will face these charges: assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, robbery, driving with a revoked license, hit and run and larceny.

I love my peeps.

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Gail Collins and now Thomas Friedman of the New York Times have both asked President Bush to step down early, ushering in a new era of hopechangegood prior to Obama's January 20 inauguration.

Both offer daft if different excuses for their need to hurry Bush into history, but perhaps they simply want to be able to write about Obama while still a columnist with the fast-failing Times, and they aren't exactly convinced the Old Gray Lady will be above ground when the scheduled transition occurs.

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One man is dead and another is wounded in what may be a gang-related confrontation:

Shots erupted in a packed Seattle-area shopping mall Saturday after an apparent argument between a gunman and two other young men, killing one of the men, creating panic among shoppers and sending police on a store-to-store search for the shooter, authorities said.

The Southcenter Mall in Tukwila was locked down for six hours as police tried in vain to find the gunman. Officer Mike Murphy, a police spokesman, told The Associated Press there were "thousands" of shoppers at the mall when the shooting took place just before 3:45 p.m. He said the gunfire may have been gang-related.

"It's a possibility," Murphy said.

The two injured men were taken to Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, where one of them died. A hospital spokesman said Saturday night the second victim was in critical condition.

The gunman used a pistol and fired multiple shots, Murphy said. He said at least four or five people were detained for questioning, but none of them was the shooter and some had been released. He said some of those detained were witnesses.

My advice remains the same as it was after the Omaha, Nebraska Mall shooting roughly this same time last year.

• Get in.


• Get low.


• Get out.


• Keep moving.

The odds of getting shot in a mall shooting are extremely low, but you can reduce those odds even further by being in a self-aware, ready state (yellow, for Jeff Cooper disciples) and take these common sense steps if you hear or see a similar violent situation developing. There's no need to be paranoid, but after so many events like this in recent years, it is immature to pretend that such events can't happen.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:26 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The Iraq Wars are over, and we have won.

Let me say that again.

WE HAVE WON THE IRAQ WARS.

And yes, I do mean to use the plural, as we have, along with our allies, won three intertwined wars:

Despite a loathing by the media to declare it such, the Iraq wars are effectively over, and we won. The first war was the second invasion of Iraq where U.S. conventional forces deposed Saddam Hussein, killed his heirs, and defeated his military in 2003. We won that one quickly. The second war, an asymmetrical conflict with al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups, emerged from the rubble of the conventional conflict as a media war, where seemingly random IED strikes and vicious terrorist bombings that killed dozens at a time sought to create chaos and defeat the U.S and Iraqi will to win.

I hasten to add that this war was in many ways effective, turning the majority of Americans against the conflict and a President who refused to surrender to terrorism. Despite some serious political and military mistakes, new U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine combined with a Sunni rebellion known as the Awakening Movement to stomp out or co-opt the last significant vestiges of the insurgency. Together as allies, Americans and Iraqis have won this war as well. What remains are isolated terrorists committing regrettable and ultimately pointless attacks of violence that can no longer significantly influence the course of history.

The third war, fought concurrently with the Sunni insurgency, was a proxy war pitting the Shia government and it's coalition backers against EFP-equipped, Iranian-trained Shia militias for the control of Iraq's Shia majority. This was won earlier this year when Iraqi forces commanded by the Prime Minister and backed by American units stormed de facto Iranian strongholds throughout southern Iraq, killing or capturing hundreds of pro-Iranian militiamen and effectively neutering Muqtada al Sadr's Medhi Army.

Like all counterinsurgencies, we couldn't easily see at the time when these foes were effectively finished as a long-term threat, but with the benefit of hindsight and ever-dwindling casualty figures for all sides, it is obvious that the war Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats tried so hard to lose in Congress was won in the sands of al Anbar, the slums of Basra, and the streets of Baghdad.

The Iraq War, as men on the ground on all sides of the conflict will tell you, is over, and we—Americans and Iraqis together— won the right for the Arab world's first democracy to exist despite fierce internal and external opposition.

Because of the nature of insurgencies, our President, the Iraq Prime Minister, and the Generals commanding the coalition military forces will not formally declare the war completed, but there is no longer any violence of violence occurring in Iraq that can be properly be called a war. There hasn't been in months, and the basic conditions for victory—the enemy are dead, vanquished, or turned—have existed since July.

Zombie decided to declare today Victory in Iraq Day. I say, since the conditions are met and they've earned their victory, and should be able to call it by its proper name.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:24 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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Read this article and watch the 12 minutes of edited video. There is some circumstantial evidence here that two U.S. soldiers in an apparent overwatch position were mistaken for insurgents in Ramadi in 2006, and were then killed by a single shot from the main gun of a U.S Abrams tank. Audio in the clip also seems to indicate that the coaxial 7.62 machine gun on the tank also opened up on the position following the discharge of the main gun.

Friendly fire occurs in every war, even though our soldiers try very hard to minimize the risk.

Here, though, it seems that a coverup began to form within 30 minutes of the incident, before the second soldier who died was even evacuated. As his sergeant blamed the incoming fire on a tank in a radio call, he was immediately told by a superior who was not on the scene that the deaths were the result of enemy mortar fire.

That someone then ordered the rushed shredding all documentation related to the men further reeks of a coverup. I suspect we have some Captains, Majors, and perhaps even a Colonel or higher who are involved.

The Army needs to get to the bottom of this, and fast.

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"I could sell a hundred ARs an hour, if I had them."

That was the word from the man behind the counter at my local gun shop yesterday afternoon when I stopped in. As if to put an exclaimation point on his claim, two men added their names to an ever-growing waiting list to purchase AR-15 carbines within minutes of my entering the store.

Two months ago, the first two racks of rifles to great you as you entered Fuquay Gun & Gold would be bristling with AR15 carbines, AK-pattern rifles, and a smattering of SKS carbines. Today, those same worn racks are almost bare except for misfits from the Island of Misfit Martial Toys—a pair of Saiga Ak-pattern shotguns, a .22 caliber AR-clone, and a nearly $900 VZ-58 with the ugliest stock I've ever seen.

Fears of an Obama administration attempt to raise prohibitive taxes and reinstate bans on so-called "assault weapons" and standard capacity magazines have led to rushes on many kinds of semi-automatic rifles and pistols, especially those with high capacity magazines. Until recently, Obama's transition website indicated his intention to reinstate the ineffective 1994 Assault Weapons Ban that passed under President Clinton and expired in 2004 under President Bush.

Local news reports from other gun shops across the country seem to indicate that a run on military-style semi-automatics and ammunition of all types may continue for months as long-time shooters and new gun purchasers stock up in preparation for what many expect to be one of the most divisive, anti-gun federal governments in years.

Update: Janet Reno's Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton years, Eric Holder, seems to be Obama's choice to be the next Attorney General. It wasn't until Glenn Reynolds highlighted a post at the Volokh Conspiracy that I realized how dangerous of a selection Holder is to gun owners.

Earlier this year, Eric Holder--along with Janet Reno and several other former officials from the Clinton Department of Justice--co-signed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller. The brief was filed in support of DC's ban on all handguns, and ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home. The brief argued that the Second Amendment is a "collective" right, not an individual one, and asserted that belief in the collective right had been the consistent policy of the U.S. Department of Justice since the FDR administration. A brief filed by some other former DOJ officials (including several Attorneys General, and Stuart Gerson, who was Acting Attorney General until Janet Reno was confirmed)took issue with the Reno-Holder brief's characterization of DOJ's viewpoint.

But at the least, the Reno-Holder brief accurately expressed the position of the Department of Justice when Janet Reno was Attorney General and Eric Holder was Deputy Attorney General. At the oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson, the Assistant U.S. Attorney told the panel that the Second Amendment was no barrier to gun confiscation, not even of the confiscation of guns from on-duty National Guardsmen.

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called "assault weapons" (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that "Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence"--a statistic is true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as "children."

After that, Holder's plans for gun owners gets worse.

And as "stace" noted in the comments, Obama's desire to reinstate the ineffectual "assualt weapons" provision of the 1994 crime bill is back on his web site as a goal for his administration.

Update: Even Better! I'm starting to understand why the protégé of a Marxist domestic terrorist would favor someone like Holder. He'd regulate the Internet as well.

Reasonable restrictions seems to be the only way these people can view the Constitution. For our own good, of course.

Final Update: Screening to keep gun owners out of his administration?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (45) | Add Comment
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1 I want one. I'm afraid of guns. They scare me. But some things are more dangerous than a gun in the hands of a free citizen of a democracy. Like a Marxist Socialist in the White House... because Marxists have killed 100,000,000 human beings and are the most murderous politicians in world history, I believe. But an armed citizenry is a protection against mass murder by Marxist Socialist politicians - the most genocidal politicians on the planet, perhaps. See, I used to call those guns "AR's" for "Assault Rifle". But that's not really what they are. They're "C&BS". "Check & Balance Systems". I think we need our Check & Balance Systems now more than ever here in the USA. All sytems must operational and prepared for the exercise of our Constitutional Right. Now, if the Founding Fathers wanted us ARMED against a Government that could go genocidal on us, did they really believe we were supposed to honor politicians in order to honor God?? Do Christians really understand that we are to view Marxist Socialist politicians, for example, as evil?? And protect ourselves?? Because they might try to kill us?? That's what the Founding Fathers were MOST concerned about... because they knew history... and they did not exalt politicians or believe that honoring politicians in office was necessary to be a good Christian. They thought being armed against the Government so officials wouldn't get all power hungry and turn murderuos... and having no trust in the Government... was being Christian. I want a Check & Balance System because it's one of the most effective deterrant against politicians acting like they're God and deserve our worship and think they can take away our Constitution and our Rights... even to life. Politicians are dangerous people that are most prone become very evil and dangerous when the people don't have those Check & Balance Systems against a Government gone Socialist, for example, which is a Government System responsible for 100,000,000 murders of citizens of it's own countries. I pray my fellow citizens are armed to the hilt... and rise up to protect and defend the right to bear arms if this Government tries to take that right away. Because the next step by a Marxist would be genocide, imo, and Obama is a Marxist, imo, based on the facts. Grace.

Posted by: ld at November 20, 2008 12:55 PM (tdrxf)

2 If I had more disposable cash laying around, I'd definitely be stocking up on ammo. Unfortunately, I live in NJ so any restrictive gun measures would probably put the rest of the nation where I'm at now, so there's none that I can buy now anyway that I feel are at risk. But the thought of the rest of the country being like NJ scares the daylights out of me.

Posted by: Mike Gray at November 20, 2008 01:41 PM (kZVsz)

3 Went to Georgia Arms (georgia-arms.com, ammunition supplier) yesterday (National Ammo Day), and couldn't get what I wanted - for example, they were all out of .45 hollow-point. Couldn't get 124 grain 9mm, they only had 115gr. Now, these people go to all the gun shows around, sell bullets by the thousand (go see), and they can't keep up with the demand in the last month. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Posted by: Bill Johnson at November 20, 2008 01:50 PM (5LUFO)

4 Wow, man. You people are delusional. I'm gonna go smoke some dope and fuck your daughter.

Posted by: The Fool at November 20, 2008 02:09 PM (CsI/m)

5 Fool, you are fooling yourself if you think you have a shot. Maybe what you meant is you will go fuck yourself, for that you are in practice. To the decent folks above, you will find Saiga rifles are still a bargain and there is a .308 available.

Posted by: megapotamus at November 20, 2008 02:14 PM (LF+qW)

6 My daughter was taught to beat up smelly, greasy, unwashed hippies like you, Fool. So on that score, you are SOL. I just picked up my FN-FAL in .308 yesterday, been wanting to add one to the collection. This gun is built like a tank. Feels much more "solid" than my AR in the same caliber. Now just gotta start the handloading in earnest.

Posted by: DIAF at November 20, 2008 02:16 PM (M+Vfm)

7 Oh, you boys would be surprised what your daughters do when you're not around. Bwahahahahaha

Posted by: The Fool at November 20, 2008 02:20 PM (CsI/m)

8 Dear "Id": AR stands for "Armalite Rifle", the original manufacturers of the AR-15. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15 by common definition, for a weapon to be considered an "assault weapon" it needs to be a rifle chambered for an intermediate caliber, capable of both semi and fully automatic fire. the media will tell you otherwise, but as usual, they are wrong. it *is* possible to own an assault weapon here in the US, but you must pay all the taxes on one, and live in a state that allows them, such as Arizona. the vast majority of "AR's" sold in the us are semi-automatic only, and therefore are just rifles. as for being afraid or scared of guns, does your car scare you? or your kitchen knives? guns are simply tools that are as safe as anything else in your house or garage, provided you are properly trained, understand how they w*rk, and treat them as you would any other useful but potentially dangerous piece of equipment, like a chain or skill saw..... call up the local shooting range and make an appointment with an NRA certified instructor for a weapons safety course. they are reasonably priced, and you're likely to find that you're a lot less scared when you actually know something about how guns are handled.

Posted by: redc1c4 at November 20, 2008 02:46 PM (vLw7K)

9 By all measn, follow redc1c4's advice and spend as much time as you can at the local shooting range playing make believe soldier boy. And while you're at the shooting range, I'll be smoking dope and introducing your daughter to Mr. Johnson. She's gonna love it.

Posted by: The Fool at November 20, 2008 02:59 PM (CsI/m)

10 Boy, you guys are just suckers. Running out and spending your very hard-earned dollars because the gun industry tells you to. Sheesh. Go ahead...buy all the guns and ammo you want. Knock yourselves out. But trust me folks...if the US Government comes for your guns (which they won't)...you don't stand a chance against a modern-day SWAT team. Obama is not a Marxist, or a socialist and raising taxes a little bit to dig out the economy is not the end of the world.

Posted by: Roger Goldman at November 20, 2008 03:22 PM (uabyl)

11 Forget you Mr. Goldstein, you're delusional if you think Obamamaniac isn't intent on taking my hard earned assault rifle from my cold dead pried apart fingers. Typical lie-beral nonsense, hey look over there, not over here, presto, the A.R. is gone! Poof! Then what are we to do? We're screwn. Concentration camps, that's what. You betcha!

Posted by: Kirk R. at November 20, 2008 03:28 PM (uabyl)

12 Kirk R. Your a moran! I voted Republican my entire life, like my father and his father. Do you want to live in a world without AR like we did from 1994 to 2004!!!11!! JUST WAIT. Maybe if you were in a concentration camp, it would help you think more clearly!

Posted by: Roger Goldman at November 20, 2008 03:33 PM (uabyl)

13 Roger it is seid that those who do not remember there history aro doomed to repite it. A lot tof pepole seid the same thing about Hilter!!!!!

Posted by: Rich in KC at November 20, 2008 04:30 PM (siQqy)

14 And while you're at the shooting range, I'll be smoking dope and introducing your daughter to Mr. Johnson. She's gonna love it. Posted by The Fool at November 20, 2008 02:59 PM Yeah, she'll love the stupified look you'll have on face when you see what does to Mr Johnson. But look on the bright side. At least the dope you were just smoking will help deaden the pain of being gelded.

Posted by: GTJ at November 20, 2008 05:36 PM (Pyq82)

15 Remember, when Barack's ATF or FBI agents come to the door in vests, you know what to do, right? I still think we ought to skip the guns and go right to the fertilizer bombs. I mean, if you really believe that the federal government is now going to be the enemy, why would you stop at these varmint guns? It's gonna take more than that to hold back the inevitable dictatorship that's a-comin' with Obammy in the White House. Right guys?

Posted by: TruePatriot at November 20, 2008 05:36 PM (k+bOm)

16 @GTJ - Yeah, she'll love the stupified look you'll have on face when you see what does to Mr Johnson." Dude, you are SO right. I got baked this afternoon and ran into your daughter at the Walmart. She took me out back behind a loading dock and boy did she surprise me when she began licking that thing like a lollipop. But what really left me with a stupefied expression was when she went for the totally gooey facial at the end, licked Mr. Johnson clean, and then swallowed the entire jism load! Needless to say I was one happy hippie.

Posted by: The Fool at November 20, 2008 07:13 PM (CsI/m)

17 The Fool - in my admittedly limited experience, gooey facials are a fabrication of the pr0n industry, hardly the way a real-world male wants to expend himself. Now, back to the point (so to speak.) I'm not a big gun type, but I'm figuring that it might make sense to pry open the depleted piggybank for that AR15 and that new CTS-V 'cause it's looking more and more like the Congressional loony-bin is going to stage a full-on assault on everything fun, the only question is whether the Obama administration will be out front cheerleading or passively acquiescing.

Posted by: mrkwong at November 21, 2008 12:38 AM (G8Eo0)

18 Heeyuck!

Posted by: Punkin at November 21, 2008 01:30 AM (dbXEu)

19 You're an idiot, Goldman. The organ's of state security are not sufficient to stand up against an armed populace in a state of rebellion, as history has shown in dozens of cases. Also, in the event of such a breakdown of constitutional rule in the U.S, a great deal of the army and police would be on the side of the rebels, civil wars work that way. That's not going to happen today, this year, next year or ten years from now. But fifty years? A hundred? You honestly think you know what history has in store for the republic? Arms in the hands of the people are the final check against tyranny. The FIRST thing any would-be tyrant does is disarm his victims. READ SOME HISTORY, GENIUS.

Posted by: Amos at November 21, 2008 02:48 AM (ckdWX)

20 If one takes a look a the past, Govt's typically institute gun bans before the killing of citizens starts. Ask any Nazi concentration camp survivor how did it start. Secondly, with Mexico's drug lords openly killing their military, police,and citizens like its open season, what do you think they would do to the US if they knew citizens here had no ability to protect themselves? Wait- dont they have gun control there?

Posted by: BroomO at November 21, 2008 06:21 AM (XFksb)

21 That reminds me...I'll be first in line tomorrow morning when the local gun show opens for business.

Posted by: W-K-B at November 21, 2008 07:03 AM (6DvsC)

22 Goldman, You must get your information from the mainstream media. Or you are just ignorant. Obama has surrounded himself with America haters his whole life! I think you are a victim of the " Oh it's all just republicans lie" crowd.This guy has NO experience!And is the number one lib in the senate! I'm sure that he'll try to fill every judicial slot opening no matter how small with socialist's. And people like you will say" Oops ,guess we were wrong" TOO LATE THEN DUMMY!

Posted by: marine43 at November 21, 2008 07:41 AM (mS3ud)

23 Roger Goldman at November 20, 2008 03:22 PM: "...raising taxes a little bit to dig out the economy is not the end of the world." Yeah, we'll tax our way out of the recession. After that, we'll dig our way out of a pit, climb our way off of a tower, and eat our way to a svelte new figure! That's the ticket!

Posted by: Troll Feeder at November 21, 2008 08:47 AM (iP3Ql)

24 A SWAT team is not made of Terminators or Aliens or Predators from a hollycr@p movie. It’s people with good training and good kit provided by the people they have sworn to serve and protect. And they don’t stand a chance against the people armed and in revolt. Just how many SWAT are there? And how many of them are willing to kill the people they swore to serve and protect? Don’t kid yourself and don’t drink the liberal-communist cool aid of the almighty state. Neither the state nor the security forces stand a chance of the people says “ENOUGH!!!” And you will see many LEO, SWAT included and many a soldier of all kinds joining the ranks of a revolution. They don’t live in limbo. They are Americans, too. Only liberal-communists entertain the concept that the people are powerless because that’s how they feel themselves and how they would want the rest of the people to be. Surprise!

Posted by: Jorge Banner at November 21, 2008 09:34 AM (qQL6L)

25 Bob, the AWB is back up on Obama's website now. "They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent." http://change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy_agenda/

Posted by: stace at November 21, 2008 09:37 AM (JO0c/)

26 Anyone that calls the current slew of gun buyers "alarmists" is only fooling himself. The current Democratic party and most of the Republicans in Washington worship the toilet that Kofi Annan used to crap on. They love the UN. It's easy to pick out the ones that don't give 2 cents about your *inherent* gun rights. Its the ones that say, "I love the 2nd Amendment! I think you should be able to hunt!" Alarms should be going off on your crap detector big time. Remember the 2A is there to keep government from making laws about an INHERENT right. A right given to you by your creator, whether that be God or some sort of primordial soup. The 2A does NOT grant you a right.

Posted by: Buddy at November 21, 2008 09:52 AM (D+TTb)

27 In the current economic meltdown, it's not a SWAT team you need to worry about; it's the drug-addled poor people and crystal-meth zombies who are coming to take whatever you've got. We're planning to hug our own little armalite too, but sheesh; we're going to have to get in line along with millions of others. When we have to take all of our money out of the bank, during the run on it, we will need an armory to protect it. ;o}

Posted by: mountainaires at November 21, 2008 10:21 AM (vHTDa)

28 The only "hunting" I see covered in the 2A is the hunting of tyrants and their lapdogs.

Posted by: Claymore at November 21, 2008 10:33 AM (yUnwD)

29 Obama doesn't know his history. Even Fleet Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy Isoroku Yamamoto understood America when he said, "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." There will be hell to pay if Obama and his administration even try.

Posted by: le comat at November 21, 2008 10:58 AM (7jRCm)

30 The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 11/20/2008 A short recon of whatÂ’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

Posted by: David M at November 21, 2008 11:18 AM (gIAM9)

31 SWAT teams tend to do very poorly when they meet with armed resistance. They rely on surprise and intimidation. When those don't work, then it the history of assaulting starts to play out -- you begin losing 4 or more assaulters per defender. Just last week, a SWAT guy was killed by a housewife with a handgun who thought he was a burglar. If you watch for them, you regularly see SWAT getting shot by homeowners that they are raiding. Homeowners who did not know that they were coming, and were completely surprised, often asleep when the invasion begins. Homeowners who do not train regularly with their weapons. Homeowners who do not have a specific intent to defend themselves from the police and are simply reacting and panicking. If faced with the prospect of assaulting a home where the owner knows that they are coming, trains regularly with his weapons, and has a specific intent to protect himself from them, it would be the SWAT guys panicking.

Posted by: Phelps at November 21, 2008 11:35 AM (m7Fyt)

32 " This year will go down in history, for the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and our world will follow our lead into the future!" . . . Adolph Hitler, 1935

Posted by: flathead at November 21, 2008 11:56 AM (qkgvD)

33 Gun grabbing will never go far in this country because the effete, gelded wusses (e.g. Barack Obama) who think this is a great idea, will never be the people who have to carry it out. \ It will be people who believe in the Second Amendment. And they won't do it and the geriatric hippies, pansy eggheads, slimy trial lawyers, race baiting poverty pimps, slacker college students and other drains on society who voted for Obama, aren't going to enforce it either.

Posted by: Brian at November 21, 2008 12:02 PM (YCShX)

34 I live in Virginia where gun ownership is high. That is reassuring to me on many levels. In the first place, if you have followed Australia's experience, crime has RISEN as gun ownership has fallen. Need I say more? Only those who are feeding on liberal pablum would deny that our nation is in grave danger from seditionists within and heaven-knows-what without. Personally, I'm happy to take responsibility for my own safety and freedom over a life of protracted and ever increasing subjugation!

Posted by: Gayle Miller at November 21, 2008 12:05 PM (zX5o+)

35 Obama can have my guns when he pries them from my cold dead hands.

Posted by: southerngrace at November 21, 2008 01:12 PM (m+wgi)

36 flathead: That quote is a fake, IIRC. There are some other quotes about gun control by other members of the Nazi Party (as well as notables like Stalin) that can be verified, however. (Old talk.politics.guns habit. I think it's still on the pro-gun FAQ for that newsgroup.)

Posted by: Patrick Chester at November 21, 2008 02:57 PM (MOvul)

37 i picked up a Ruger P95 about 2 weeks ago and 100 rounds for a starter gun. it was only $360 and 47 for the amo i used the economic stimulus check the Gov sent me to pay for it i might send a letter to Plaosi and Reid thanking them for it

Posted by: insonh at November 21, 2008 05:48 PM (A2jkJ)

38 Goldman you don't know your recent history. An armed population can more than stand up to modern military power - remember Northern Ireland? Guns are illegal there but enough got into the hands of the IRA to cause the British Army many many casualties and the IRA wasn't that organized or that proficient with them either. Our military has no idea how to handle an armed population - look at what is happening in Afghanistan now; the big Army is locked down on large bases while guys like me roam around the country at will because we are not hampered by the Big Army Stupidity Syndrome which strips away all initiative and common sense inside active combat zones. Get a clue mate - owning your own weapon is the first step to becoming a free man.

Posted by: Baba Tim at November 21, 2008 10:09 PM (2A4MS)

39 I have many guns, and boh can have them whenever he wants... bulletts first

Posted by: bite m at November 22, 2008 12:21 AM (I4yBD)

40 Seriously though, a lot of people better pray for my continued good health, or quick death, b'cuz if i ever am diagnosed as terminal, I will start on my own personal list of aesthetic deletion. that's people whom I think the world would be better without. the recent lists of nominees have made that list grow substantially, but i am up to the task...10 in the 10 ring at 200 yrds.

Posted by: bite me at November 22, 2008 12:29 AM (I4yBD)

41 I managed to get one of the last two boxes of .45 hollow-point, but most everything was sold out at Wal-Mart. They didn't have anywhere to send me because everyone else was out too.

Posted by: Karen at November 22, 2008 02:25 AM (47kZo)

42 "And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur -- what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If... if... We didn't love freedom enough. And even more -- we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! ...We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward." Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago."

Posted by: maximus otter at November 22, 2008 06:16 AM (plIbI)

43 I think it’s considered chic to refer to “Godwin’s Law” if comparisons to Hitler are made, and that is intended to show how just ridiculous such a comparison is, thereby taking it off the table. But, that dude forecast, in his own writings, just what he was going to do, long before he actually did it. Barry’s made his positions clear a long time ago. As with his predecessor, people simply couldn’t accept that he was serious, that he actually meant it. They probably still wont accept it, even while he does it. After all, he is practically worshiped as the leader of a revealed religion. Perhaps, Jim Jones would be a better comparison. (UPDATE - After posting this on another blog, with that line above, I just learned that someone named Jim Jones is on Obama’s short list for National Security Advisor. You just can't make this stuff up.) -

Posted by: Paul_In_Houston at November 22, 2008 02:38 PM (VuVGB)

44 If faced with the prospect of assaulting a home where the owner knows that they are coming, trains regularly with his weapons, and has a specific intent to protect himself from them, it would be the SWAT guys panicking. Not really. Because their doctrine says they won't be coming in after you. Depending on circumstances they'll just secure the perimeter cut off the water and wait, or if time is an issue they'll call in the Waco Killers (aka FBI HRT.) It is true that armed citizens, singularly or even in small groups, cannot withstand the forces of the government. Offer resistance and you will be killed. The point of being armed is not to survive arrest it is to make your arrest difficult, problematic and very public. The living John Brown was just another abolitionist crank. Dead by the hand of government he became something else entirely.

Posted by: ThomasD at November 23, 2008 12:11 PM (UK5R1)

45 European Resistance was able to stand up to the nazi machine. No SWAT or LEO or National Guard is going to do much better against the American people when the ENOUGH is given. Those who decide to obey the orders of the tyrant will be dealt with. Many won't and will join the ranks of the revolution. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." When Thomas Jefferson wrote that he wasn't talking about any foreign land, he was talking about America.

Posted by: Jorge Banner at November 23, 2008 06:46 PM (P5/sF)

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The new Orange County, CA Sheriff doesn't like citizens having the ability to defend themselves, and may take almost half of the concealed carry permits presently issued from their legal permit holders, for no good reason at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:16 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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U.S. forces have turned over the majority of the country to Iraq security forces with little recognition by a media obsessed with the cost of Sarah Palin's campaign wardrobe. There are units that had shed their once-required body armor because threats of enemy action are so low. Some frontline units have served their tours thus far without firing a single shot.

Despite a loathing by the media to declare it such, the Iraq wars are effectively over, and we won. The first war was the second invasion of Iraq where U.S. conventional forces deposed Saddam Hussein, killed his heirs, and defeated his military in 2003. We won that one quickly. The second war, an asymmetrical conflict with al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups, emerged from the rubble of the conventional conflict as a media war, where seemingly random IED strikes and vicious terrorist bombings that killed dozens at a time sought to create chaos and defeat the U.S and Iraqi will to win.

I hasten to add that this war was in many ways effective, turning the majority of Americans against the conflict and a President who refused to surrender to terrorism. Despite some serious political and military mistakes, new U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine combined with a Sunni rebellion known as the Awakening Movement to stomp out or co-opt the last significant vestiges of the insurgency. Together as allies, Americans and Iraqis have won this war as well. What remains are isolated terrorists committing regrettable and ultimately pointless attacks of violence that can no longer significantly influence the course of history.

The third war, fought concurrently with the Sunni insurgency, was a proxy war pitting the Shia government and it's coalition backers against EFP-equipped, Iranian-trained Shia militias for the control of Iraq's Shia majority. This was won earlier this year when Iraqi forces commanded by the Prime Minister and backed by American units stormed de facto Iranian strongholds throughout southern Iraq, killing or capturing hundreds of pro-Iranian militiamen and effectively neutering Muqtada al Sadr's Medhi Army.

Like all counterinsurgencies, we couldn't easily see at the time when these foes were effectively finished as a long-term threat, but with the benefit of hindsight and ever-dwindling casualty figures for all sides, it is obvious that the war Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats tried so hard to lose in Congress was won in the sands of al Anbar, the slums of Basra, and the streets of Baghdad.

The Iraq War, as men on the ground on all sides of the conflict will tell you, is over, and we—Americans and Iraqis together— won the right for the Arab world's first democracy to exist despite fierce internal and external opposition.

Unable to force a loss in Iraq before taking office and now nearly unable to lose, Barack Obama's allies are already setting their sights on losing the other major conflict engaging our military, attempting to concede Pakistan's tribal areas and Afghanistan to al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamofacist terrorist groups.

Since the beginnings of the buildup that led to the Iraq War, the same far left "war is never the answer (unless we get to build the concentration camps)" set that didn't want us to invade Afghanistan suddenly declared that was the "good" war, that Afghanistan should be our focus, and that getting Osama bin Laden should be the primary, if not singular focus of the entire war on terror.

With Barack Obama now secured as the President Elect, TIME now declares that winning the Af-Pak conflict and getting Osama isn't all that important after all:

The important point of Hayden's Atlantic talk Thursday was that Muslims have turned against bin Laden, realizing that his campaign against the West has ended up killing more Muslims than it has Islam's enemies. Al-Qaeda may be picking up adherents in North Africa and Yemen, preparing its return, but it certainly is no longer in a position to destabilize Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country. And, although Hayden didn't say it, there is no good evidence bin Laden is capable of mounting a large-scale attack. He failed to pull off an October surprise, as many in the FBI and CIA had feared he would.

Despite all this, whether bin Laden is alive or dead is actually pretty irrelevant. Obama has no real choice but to revitalize the search for him, if only for political considerations. If al-Qaeda were to attack in the United States the first months of his term, Obama would end up for the rest of it explaining why he wasn't more vigilant.

But what if bin Laden really is dead, buried under a hundred tons of rock at Tora Bora or so weakened that he might as well be dead? Indefinitely crashing around Afghanistan and Pakistan's wild, mountainous tribal region on a ghost hunt cannot serve our interests. The longer we leave troops in Afghanistan the worse the civil war there will become. One day Obama will need to give up the hunt — declare bin Laden either dead or irrelevant. He has more important enemies to deal with, from Iran to Russia.

I am more than happy to concede that bin Laden is either dead or irrelevant; that is an argument that many on the right and within the military have been making for a very long time. It has been the American left and Democrats in Congress that obsessed with making bin Laden a symbol of the war they argued we should be fighting instead of the war in Iraq. Now that Iraq is won and they have control of both branches of Congress and the White House, they're suddenly attempting to shift the goalposts.

Instead of focusing on winning the war they have been insisting is the "right" war to fight, they're now attempting to trivialize it and minimize expectations of what we can accomplish so that can build the political cover to withdrawal, sans victory. Rest assured... they will find a way to blame President Bush for not winning, instead of accepting responsibility for the loss they are now hard at work trying to engineer.

Certainly, Afghanistan is in far more dire straits than Iraq, but it is a war that can still be won if Democrats decide it is worth committing to win. Sadly, so many of those now in Congress grew up in the 60s and 70s and have a systemic case of Vietnam Syndrome. They don't know how to win. They don't care to win, and in deeply disturbed, self-loathing, and broken parts of their psyche, they don't think we deserve to win wars.

Prepare for defeat, America.

After all, it is the change you elected.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Long-time readers of CY may know "Big Country" from his first-hand reflections of the situation in Iraq as someone who has spent more time in theater than out of it since the war began. He just got back to Baghdad, and shot me the following in an email.

Just touched down 3 +/- hours ago at Sather AB. Dude... INSANELY changed doesn't begin to describe this place. I've landing in Baghdad under fire before and watched random acts of anti-aircraft fire overhead as the locals would try and unsuccessfully utilize old triple a flak guns... I've seen Baghdad under lock and key so to speak throughout 04 and 05. NUTHIN and I do mean NUTHIN can begin to describe the change. Quick observations included the fact that the city was all lit up where it had never been before. Try standing on the runway and not having to worry about random acts of rockets, mortars and suchlike. Try no body armor seen on anyone anywhere since I've been here... This place is so laid back its stupid dude... I'll post more to you and my blog later... but as Yon said "We Won." I'd have to add "In Spades!" to that.

Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:36 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The Guardian is reporting that Hillary Clinton will join the Obama administration as Secretary of State:

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama's advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton's foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

Clinton would be well placed to become the country's dominant voice in foreign affairs, replacing Condoleezza Rice. Since being elected senator for New York, she has specialised in foreign affairs and defence. Although she supported the war in Iraq, she and Obama basically agree on a withdrawal of American troops.

Clinton, who still harbours hopes of a future presidential run, had to weigh up whether she would be better placed by staying in the Senate, which offers a platform for life, or making the more uncertain career move to the secretary of state job.

I would love to know what kind of calculus helped Clinton determine that joining Obama's Administration furthers her higher political aspirations more than staying in the Senate would. Has Hillary given up on a future presidential run, or is she going to try to work an angle from within the administration... perhaps planning on using the position to bolster her foreign policy credentials?

Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:57 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 There is talk now that McCain may serve a future role after his current Senate term expires.

Posted by: Jacko at November 18, 2008 12:21 AM (FK2Ha)

2 It's a feint. Clinton would be an idiot to quit her safe seat and power base in the Senate to become an Obama flunky who could be fired at will. I would guess that the Obama admin is blowing smoke to cover up another motive. I predicted six months ago that she would aim for first woman to become Senate Majority Leader. I have seen nothing to change that assessment.

Posted by: Tully at November 18, 2008 12:23 AM (tUyDE)

3 I don't see how this could work given what we know of the two. Obama is a man who'd seek to win an election by having opponents thrown off the ballot. The Clintons proved themselves ready to be as ruthless as they needed against people who threatened him. If Sec. of State were a token appointment, I can see Obama offering it, but can't see Hillary accepting. I can see Hillary accepting State, but can't see Obama giving it to her. Foreign affairs is the biggest area where Obama will be tested. He will face immediate domestic economic issues, but he is shielded somewhat by coming in after the start of the crisis and the fact Congress has a very big say in the economy. On FA, he is weak and standing alone. Hillary can try to claim any major successes as her own and any major failures as his. Her office would likely leak like a Hoover dam with the gates open if any FA crisis should hit the fan, like Israel. Overall, if she gets the position, I can picture us seeing the a Sec. of State openly breaking with the admin over some major crisis and resigning -- thereafter to immediately start campaigning for 2012.

Posted by: usinkorea at November 18, 2008 05:00 AM (+qACS)

4 Hey, usinkorea, thanks for your idea about breaking with the Administration... it helped codify some thoughts of my own about what Hillary could be up to. I hope ya don't mind, I referenced them on my own little blog.

Posted by: ConservativeWanderer (formerly C-C-G) at November 18, 2008 08:39 AM (Jqe+A)

5 Clinton would at least be a serious choice. Kerry.... not so much. We shall see what we see but I would be pretty surprised at this. SoS is a high enough office to appeal to Hillary I should think but it would mean Barry hugging a viper to his bosom. Hillarity for us but perhaps not for the nation. Still, there are worse (FAR worse) potentials. I've heard Richardson mentioned and with Edwards out for the moment he is officially the second stupidest person in national politics. After Joe Biden.

Posted by: megapotamus at November 18, 2008 11:41 AM (LF+qW)

6 Whether it's real or not I don't know, but I think it would help Hillary for 2016 in the sense that it gives her diversity in her experience. Senate experience plus the diplomacy and foreign policy experience that goes along with being Secretary of State will make a powerful resume. Sadly, I don't see anyone on the conservative side that's primed to be on deck with a similar level of experience either to topple Obama in 2012 or to run against a Hillary-type candidate in 2016.

Posted by: Mike Gray at November 18, 2008 11:50 PM (fBnZs)

7 Mike, if the 2008 election is not a fluke, it seems to have disproved the idea that experience will always win. Let's not be the ones who bury our heads in the sand and ignore the lessons of past elections... let's let the Democrats do that, while we learn from our mistakes.

Posted by: ConservativeWanderer (formerly C-C-G) at November 19, 2008 08:23 AM (Jqe+A)

8 1. This is still a rumor at this stage of the game so it is all speculation so far. 2. You have to consider the question: Who does this rumor help? It certainly does not help Obama, he’s dammed if he does, and dammed if he doesn’t. That leaves…Hillary. Hope she washed her fingerprints off this leaker. 3. In order to scotch Hillary’s ambition to play Brutus at the elbow of Caesar, all Obama has to do is require a full and complete listing of the donors to the Bill Clinton Ego and Legacy Center (a work in progress), and all present and scheduled speaking engagements and fees paid to Big Bill. If they cough them up (Ha, fat chance), it would be trivial to leak them to a hungry media, while declaring Hillary has too many conflicts of interest. If/when they do not cough them up, he can just announce she is unable to be appointed due to “unresolved questions of conflict of interest”. 4. I really expected him to select Gen. Powell as Sec of State. It would allow him to have the only Sec of State that has served both Dem and Repub presidents, he has already passed all the background checks once, he has proven he supports Obama (a confession that has washed away a multitude of sins in Liberal eyes), and another experienced minority in the Inner Circle. Plus as a bonus prize, in the event something goes wrong at State, he can be kicked under the bus as a “Former Bush Administration Official”.

Posted by: Georg Felis at November 19, 2008 10:20 AM (H0Orl)

9 Yeah, I have very similar notions on Powell. He would be competent but that competency may be put to work on unworthy policies. Is it my imagination or is Hillary actually better on GWOT than alleged Republican Powell? If we had followed the Powell doctrine Iraq would have been immediately vacated after Saddam's disposal with results that don't need to be predicted because they actually came true. If Powell was used and tossed as Georg suspects (an entirely plausible scenario) it would be a good hard lesson for him and something like justice given his chicanery on Libby and other GWOT matters. We might actually be in the age when black politicians evolve to merely being politicians. Race loyalty will not trump power politics for Barry; another lesson that needs learning hard and quick.

Posted by: megapotamus at November 19, 2008 10:44 AM (LF+qW)

10 CW, I definitely agree that experience does not always win, and this election was proof of that. However, it only helps and with 8 years to prepare (4 would be better for us, but they have to assume , then padding her resume is a good idea for them. Especially if we can't muster a strong candidate.

Posted by: Mike Gray at November 19, 2008 11:18 AM (XiVKO)

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