While everyone seems to have shifted their gaze to track Gazans reaping what they've sown, CY commenter Big Country has been busy in Iraq, explaining to State Department VIPS how not to kill themselves and getting bombed... on tequila.

Kinda reminds me of a sandy version of Robert Earl Keen's Merry Christmas From the Family, with body armor.

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From the "a zebra can't change its stripes" department comes this lovely story.

Hamas officials say 271 Palestinians have been killed and 600 wounded since Israel began its aerial assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, but none of the injured have yet left via Rafah.

Egypt has helicopters and doctors on standby at the Rafah crossing.
There are also up to 40 ambulances waiting to go into Gaza to bring out the most seriously wounded. Tonnes of medical supplies have arrived at the nearby airport of El-Arish.

But the Egyptian authorities say that, at the moment, they have no-one to treat.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the wounded were "barred from crossing" and he blamed "those in control of Gaza" for putting the lives of the injured at risk.

The same terrorist organization that Palestinians and leftists worldwide cheer for targeting innocent Israelis for death on a daily basis is now barring their own civilians from getting medical care in hopes of converting their wounded into dead—wailing processions for the media's cameras are the only effective anti-aircraft weapons in Hamas arsenal.

Gazans fail at killing, and when the are killed in response, they kill the survivors. If there has ever been an entire population that is pathological than this one, I'd be interested in knowing who they were. Various Palestinian factions seem intent on this conflict continuing until one side or the other is completely wiped out.

And most times, they don't even seem to care which side.

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Israel has finally responded to extensive rocket attacks targeting their civilians with a surprise series of air strikes yesterday against more than 100 Hamas terrorist targets. Air strikes are continuing today, and Israeli ground forces are massing on the border with Gaza.

I'm sure that many people will think that an Israeli ground invasion is all but inevitable.

I also happen to think that Israel's next phase of strikes was banking on Hamas making just that supposition.

Israel's Saturday attacks went after overt Hamas targets in an effort to rattle their proverbial cages, hitting their most visible signs of power, Hamas security stations, armories, tunnels and training camps.

Hamas, trained and back by Iran just like Hezbollah was in 2006, was prepared and braced for a grinding ground war from fixed positions with concurrent and continuing rocket attacks on Israel, in hopes of winning the traditional Arab "victory," of not being utterly wiped off the face of the earth.

Hamas hoped to stall any Israeli ground invasion by making it as costly as possible by forcing Israeli units into ambushes. Overnight, Hamas rushed their terrorist drones to fighting positions along likely Israeli invasion routes to man tank traps and ambush zones. I strongly suspect IAF planners were counting on just that development.

If I'm right, Israeli Air Force planes have been hitting Hamas fortifications filled with eager young terrorists who died waiting for an invasion that will never come. Hamas was suckered into putting their fighters in combat positions while the IAF simply waited for them to show up for their pre-planned bombing runs.

If Gazans weren't part of a genocide-mad death cult I might feel sorry for them, but then I remember that these same terrorists purposefully target Israeli civilians, and that even their kids dance in the streets when Israeli woman and children are killed by Hamas rockets, and I don't feel too bad, at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:58 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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The Secret Service was apparently taking a nap:

Bush got a size-10 reminder of the fervent opposition to his policies when a man threw two shoes at him -- one after another -- during a news conference with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"This is the end!" shouted the man, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadiya television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

Bush ducked both throws. Neither leader was hit. In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt; Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes after U.S. Marines toppled it to the ground in 2003.

"All I can report," Bush joked of the incident, "is a size 10."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, however, was hit in the eye with a microphone as security guards scrambled to restrain al-Zeidi.

I saw the video of the event in NBC in a breaking news report, and was stunned that the Secret Service was so slow in responding, allowing the journalist to hurl first one shoe, and then another, at least a full second and perhaps several seconds later.

Granted, shoes aren't know to be lethal projectiles, but my point is that from the angle shown, he seems like he would have had time to hurl a grenade before anyone intervened.

I'm sure progressives are having a good chuckle over this, but rather doubt they'll find similar security breaches amusing when Obama takes over in January.

Update: linked added to 2005 grenade attack on Bush, thanks to a reminder by Jeremy in the comments.

Hot Air now has the video.

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Bad news in the Sydney Morning Herald:

POLICE in Mumbai said the 10 men who carried out the terrorist attacks in November were among 30 recruits selected for suicide missions.

The whereabouts of the other 20 were unknown.

Police released the identities and home addresses in Pakistan of the nine gunmen who died during the attack on India's financial centre - a move designed to increase pressure on the Pakistani Government.

It was the first time Indian police had disclosed the larger number of recruits, all of whom it says belonged to the Pakistani militant organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba. Police said there was no reason to believe the other 20 were in India but expressed concern about that possibility.

"Another 20 were ready to die," Deven Bharti, a Mumbai police deputy commissioner, said. "This is the very disturbing part of it."

Considering the effectiveness of the first batch of terrorists in Mumbai. it would be surprising to see them used anywhere else other than another Indian city, though they may take time to scout out any adjustments in India's defenses that resulted from Mumbai's attacks. They also may also chose to hold off on launching additional attacks if they don't want to provoke a war between Pakistan and India that would likely end their ability to use Pakistan as a sanctuary.

Whether they desire a stable base in Pakistan more than success in India seems to be the key question.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Memeorandum is tracking the buzz on a Rabert Kagan op-ed in the Washington Post, where Kagan offers the idea of—more or less—repossessing the parts of Pakistan where terrorist groups operate and placing them under some sort of international control. The proximate cause of his screed is the multi-day assault carried out by terrorists against civilian targets in Mumbai, India that places nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan on a potential course for war.

He's considered an intellectual for this.

Rather than simply begging the Indians to show restraint, a better option could be to internationalize the response. Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security. Establish an international force to work with the Pakistanis to root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas. This would have the advantage of preventing a direct military confrontation between India and Pakistan. It might also save face for the Pakistani government, since the international community would be helping the central government reestablish its authority in areas where it has lost it. But whether or not Islamabad is happy, don't the international community and the United States, at the end of the day, have some obligation to demonstrate to the Indian people that we take attacks on them as seriously as we take attacks on ourselves?

Would such an action violate Pakistan's sovereignty? Yes, but nations should not be able to claim sovereign rights when they cannot control territory from which terrorist attacks are launched. If there is such a thing as a "responsibility to protect," which justifies international intervention to prevent humanitarian catastrophe either caused or allowed by a nation's government, there must also be a responsibility to protect one's neighbors from attacks from one's own territory, even when the attacks are carried out by "non-state actors."

In Pakistan's case, the continuing complicity of the military and intelligence services with terrorist groups pretty much shreds any claim to sovereign protection. The Bush administration has tried for years to work with both the military and the civilian government, providing billions of dollars in aid and advanced weaponry. But as my Carnegie Endowment colleague Ashley Tellis has noted, the strategy hasn't shown much success. After Mumbai, it has to be judged a failure. Until now, the military and intelligence services have remained more interested in wielding influence in Afghanistan through the Taliban and fighting India in Kashmir through terrorist groups than in cracking down. Perhaps they need a further incentive -- such as the prospect of seeing parts of their country placed in an international receivership.

I agree completely with Kagan on the key point: nation-states that cannot control their territory and have effectively ceded control of large portions to terrorist groups or other "non-state actors" also cede their claims of sovereignty. If a nation-state is attacked from within terrorist-controlled territory, they have the moral right—and I would argue, prime responsibility to their citizens—to respond with crushing military force.

But his solution—"seeing parts of their country placed in an international receivership"—must surely be a joke, or the harried keystrokes of a malformed column that was expelled in grotesque stillborn form.

If the international community were serious about contributing to helping settle territories controlled by terrorists, then Afghanistan would be a nation awash in foreign soldiers on peacekeeping duties and aid workers lavishing the bounty of developed nations on the backwards and downtrodden. Of course, that has not occurred. America's military fights with a largely symbolic handful of allies, most cursed with a lack of support from their home nations and hampered by rules of engagement that preclude them of being any practical use. Aid workers are few and far between in Afghanistan and constantly at risk; infrastructure improvements that would help change ancient incubators of extremism are few and far between. Kagan's idea was debunked by years of international apathy before it was ever written.

Being an intellectual, of course, Kagan feels compelled to re-offer this vinegared vintage yet again, hoping that someone will swallow it.

The simple, pragmatic fact of the matter is that no nation wants the responsibilities of another nation's struggles, but they do have every natural right to defend themselves from attack.

What Kagan cannot bring himself to write is that his beloved international community is disinterested in raising up those fractured territories. As a result of their apathy, they condemn these territories and states to be led by rogue actors, and for those within those areas to suffer reprisals. Some will deserve to die. Some will be innocents. Such is the nature of war.

Pakistan has failed to stop non-state actors from using their territory for international terrorism against their neighbors, and has morally forfeited any claims of sovereignty over the rogue regions of their nation. Indian military forces have every moral right to engage terror bases located in eastern Pakistan, as Afghani forces and coalition allies have even moral right to engage terrorist training camps and bases in the west.

This of course, will not assuage those who claim to represent "peace." Though militant Islam has been constantly at war since 632AD, these idealists, unable to understand other cultures do not think as they do, think negotiating is an answer. The militants, quite rightly, view forcing negotiations upon a far stronger power as evidence that their militancy works.

Among the polite and demure, there simply isn't understanding that sometimes, force can only be met with an overwhelming and punishing response. History shows us that terrorism stops when terrorist groups are crushed, are fractured, or are victorious. All three of those conclusions are dictated by violence.

The question is how much more innocent blood civilized societies will see run in their streets before the inevitable and overwhelming violent response that is required is finally deemed necessary.

Update: Ed Morrissey notes another reason to ignore Kagan's suggestion, primarily, how it would be used against Israel.

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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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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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:34 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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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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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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:05 PM | Comments (5) | 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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Though he'd been on a mission all day and was about to drop, Mike Yon just called from Iraq to let me know that the war is over, and we've won. Whatever it is that is left of violence, there isn't combat. Roughly half of the men in the unit of the 10th Mountain Division he was out on missions with are veterans with previous tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in eight months into their deployment in southern Baghdad, they haven't fired a single bullet in combat.

Our soldiers in Iraq have played many roles and worn many hats, but it seems that their primary role now is that of a peacekeeper, providing support to a government and a people that seem increasingly capable of handling their own affairs.

We can declare victory because President Bush wouldn't quit on his troops. If Barack Obama had his way, a triumphant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would have had a chance to have made the same claim over the Caliphate of Iraq.

Glenn Reynolds has more.

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Khar, Pakistan:

A homicide bomber attacked a gathering of anti-militant Pakistani tribesmen Thursday, killing nine and wounding 45 in a northwestern region where the military has clashed with insurgents for months, officials said.

The attack in the Batmalai area of the Bajur tribal region was the latest to target tribal militias that have sprung up — with government backing — to take on Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters nested along the Afghan border.

Pakistan launched an offensive in Bajur three months ago to dismantle what it said was a virtual Taliban mini-state that is a source of militants flowing into Afghanistan.

The Salarzai tribesmen were preparing to stage an assault on local militant hide-outs when the blast occurred, said Iqbal Khattak, a government official. Malik Rahimullah, a tribal elder, said the bomb exploded as soon as armed contingents began to move.

He and officials initially said it appeared that a remote-controlled bomb was used, but later Khattak said mutilated body parts of an apparent homicide bomber were found, and that witnesses said they saw a young man rushing into the crowd before the explosion.

Amir Khan, a tribesman, said the scene was littered with severed limbs and that several tribal elders were among the dead.

After failing in their own efforts against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and related groups, the Pakistani military has attempted to spur a tribal rebellion against these groups akin to the "Awakening" movement in Iraq. These efforts will fail.

Period.

The question is whether or not the war in the tribal areas will spread into a civil war, and how secure Pakistan's nuclear warheads will be in the event of such a conflict.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:03 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It's time for Jack Murtha to apologize to the Marines he smeared. Our veterans deserve nothing less.

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Twenty-five years ago today was the terrorist attack on U.S. Marines in Beirut.

Remember them.

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Why an Iraqi-style Awakening movement in Pakistan is destined to fail.

My latest at PJM.

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Michael Yon's latest dispatchfrom Afghanistan is posted, in which he meets with Afghan fighters, and obtains clues about those fighters that ambushed and killed ten French soldiers in August.

As always, Yon's reporting is reader-funded, so if you like his reporting, please consider contributing.

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