War Stories

Yet, we're not a nation bent on military conquest. The last territorial expansion we had as a country that came from a military conflict was the Spanish American War in 1900. However, if look back at countries in the past who were the undisputed military superpower of their day (the Roman Empire, 1600s Spain, Victorian England, etc.), they started to decline when they stopped expanding. If it weren't for World War II and the Cold War, we would have declined as a nation a long time ago with our current geopolitical thinking.

Curious how a four-hour interview, along with a subsequent interview the following year, would only produce these four small excerpts ascertaining Ford’s views on the war in Iraq, particularly since Ford has publicly supported the administration and the war effort. Perhaps these are only the excerpts Woodward wanted published.

Clint Eastwood’s most recent directorial project Flags of our Fathers is a sombre, meditative fact-based war film concerning the battle for Iwo Jima in World War II, and how three soldiers came to be regarded as heroes simply for appearing in a photograph which showed them raising the American flag. This photograph proved to be excellent morale raising propaganda back in the States, and was even turned into a famous memorial statue in Washington DC after the war.

At first, things seemed wonderful for the sodbusters. Grain brought high prices, due in part to demand generated by World War I. Because the market was so good, more and more acres were planted to grain. This effort was aided in part by the advent of the tractor, allowing more land to be planted than ever before. More people came to the area, hoping to make money quickly by growing grain on an acreage.

Krauthammer divides the post-Cold War system of American leadership into three periods: The 1990s, a preeminently peaceful decade in which the U.S. could wade into humanitarian crises at its choosing; the immediate post-9/11 era, the half-decade starting the 21st century in which the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington stirred America to global military exertion; and our current historical era -- post-winter/spring 2005 -- which Krauthammer dates as the "apogee" of American unipolar power.

So the 'conservative' mainstream closed its eyes and ears to any criticism of the Iraq war, until the deterioration of the situation became impossible to ignore.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, was Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show on Tuesday. They didn't do "The Seat of Heat" schtick, but the whole interview was in that vein. Jon Stewart was refreshingly direct in questioning how anyone could possibly draw the conclusion that Bush is doing a good job. Although Kristol never conceded the core issue, he gave some ground on the periphery, and he was as successful at accomplishing his mission as George W. Bush has been at bringing a stable democracy to Iraq. In other words, he got his ass kicked from here to next Thursday. I'll give you the transcript below, interspersed with my commentary.

Indeed, it is unfair to label them simply mercenaries. Militarized corporations do big business, with most security firms being held as divisions as much larger, multi-billion dollar companies: TRW, DynCorp, SAIC, Booz-Allen. And these PMFs are really just filling in the supply gaps created by the end of the Cold War—security threats were atomized, from “US v USSR” to “thy neighbor.” In light of this, and the sudden removal of the lone remaining super power as a security guarantor for vast swaths of the planet, the rise of PMFs, which can be hired for single missions (thus limiting the financial strain on the host country), were a natural choice.

Now there’s a phrase you don’t see much in the news. Seems the Scottish army is suffering a shortage of man-skirts because their military brass hasn’t awarded a contract for the garments, so the brave men in plaid are having to share.

Gibson’s eye for sweeping landscapes and rainforests of Catemaco is strong, allowing the rich blue and yellow skies to mix with the palate of adobe and greenery. Like its material, Apocalypto has a continuously dark theme - much of the action springs through wooded areas, and climaxes through a solar eclipse. James Horner’s haunting instrumental score pervades all dramatic sequences, and the choice of percussion gives a rattling sensation for the chase sequence. On the topic, the film opens with the quote by Will Durant pondering “a civilization that cannot destroy itself without until it destroys itself within.” Gibson bridges this concept with what appears to be a creative analogy to the current Iraq War, and furthermore, war in general. From the introduction of a threat to the Mayans, leading to the sacrifice of strong Mayans for appeasement, and then to the fight for survival by those who stand against this anxiety, Gibson intelligently - and backhandedly - summarizes a philosophical discussion into a chase scene that will dazzle any action aficionado.

There was a tall, thin boy with a whispy moustache disguised
  as an orthodox Jew
On a crowded bus in Jerusalem, some had survived World War Two
And the thunderous explosion blew out windows 200 yards away
With more retribution and seventeen dead along the road to peace

So let's fast forward to present day. The most crushing defeat for the Islamic cause was the end of World War One and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Global Caliphate had already been in retreat from Western colonial powers. Was Islam no longer the True Religion? Could the Prophet (pbuh) not be the exclusive voice of Allah? Unthinkable and intolerable. Islam must eventually rule the world because Allahu ackbar. Then came the worst possible insult. The Western colonial powers set up a Jewish colony in the Fertile Crescent and called it the State of Israel. For the devout believer in the Global Caliphate it was a blessing sent from Allah. It was something Muslims had been lacking for decades, if not centuries: Focus.

• Jonathan at Crush Liberalism takes a good look inside my heart and says what I'm feeling even better than I could. By that, I'm meaning how we Americans seem to have forgotten Pearl Harbor and the hard lessons learned by an entire generation of Americans in World War 2. Go read it, y'all.

A geographer at Middle Tennessee State was at the heart of the discovery of artifacts from battle where Sergent York won his medal of honor in World War I in France. A team from several institutions found more than 1,400 artifacts in Chatel-Chehery, France during a November expedition.

When things—when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.

My second talk was to an EU-funded conference in Halle, south of Berlin, on “Protest Movements in Europe Since the Cold War”. I told stunned Germans that the Orange Revolution, which 1 in 5 Ukrainians took part in, qualifies it as the largest protest movement in Europe since the end of the Cold War. They were stunned because Germans know little about Ukraine and are nearly completely focused on Russia. This is very different to Austria which I visited in June.

Call of Duty has always been at the forefront of World War two games in recent years, with Single player and Multi-player excelling among its peers every time it comes out. But for once, many gamers wish they would have delayed the release due to ranked matches taking forever to join. But a patch should restore these wounds early next year.

Considering the implications of what I just stated, I am having serious deja vu with our current situation in Iraq in comparison to Vietnam. I was one of those hippie, ‘flower child’ kids who marched and demonstrated against the Vietnam war. I remember what it was like in the last days of the war that had polarized a nation for a decade, ravaged a country thousands of miles away and left the U.S. in a humiliating, devastating defeat (sound familiar?). Kevin Maloney, a U.S. Marine who arrived in Saigon just months before the final evacuation describes what it was like the last day of the evacuation:

A sad anniversary to be sure. It is also the day America entered the modern age. From December 7, 1941 onward, the USA ramped up for war against the Third Reich and the Empire of Japan, and never looked back. Victory was secured 4 years later, and then there was the Cold War.

How strange, how unexpected, to see liberals now embracing that school of foreign policy known as “realism,” given that throughout the Cold War they hated but hated it. Who’d a thunk, during those Cold War years when liberals chastised America for backing dictators, that liberals would someday come around and support none other than James Baker himself? Times are a-changin’.

Historians in Poland have discovered the wreckage of a World War II RAF Halifax bomber along with the remains of its British and Canadian crew.

Earlier today my son emailed some photos of himself and his mates at work in and around Fallujah. If the war in Iraq weren’t a fact, one could be forgiven for thinking that these were pictures of boys at play albeit with very big, expensive toys.

Well, this is just great. Robert Gates, the bumbling idiot in the White House’s choice to be the next Secretary of Defense, has just testified at his confirmation hearing that we’re losing the war in Iraq. Good grief. If you thought they were laughing at us in Teheran before, they must be doubled over now.

Years ago, after much deliberation & research, I made the astute observation that the United States was not winning the war in Iraq. I know. I know. I’m brilliant. Robert Gates, Dubya’s choice for the Pentagon, just came to that conclusion this past Tuesday. He also warned that the Middle East “could” erupt in violence. Hmm. Could? Because the Middle East is just a Tupperware Party right now?

Now let’s see, Bush was right in his steadfast determination to stay the course in Iraq. So now that we know that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was pondering alternative policies and now that the President himself has indicated a willingness to grudgingly accept changes in the way the Iraqi war is conducted, that now makes him righter than right?

If you recall, LTC Shaffer was subsequently promoted from Major to Lieutenant Colonel by the Army in 2004. If you are wondering why this was signed by a Marine, notice that JTF 121 was a Joint Task Force with Army Rangers, Seal Team Six, and JSOC. Those who might not be familiar with the Army regulations should refer to U.S. Army Regulation 670-1:

Sure enough, moments after my son hung up, a story appeared on the front page of the New York Times website: “Marines Get the News from an Iraqi Host: Rumsfeld’s Out. ‘Who’s Rumsfeld?’” The second of a four-part series called “The Struggle for Iraq” by C.J. Chivers, the article described how a U.S. Marine sergeant learned of the resignation from a local Iraqi whose roof had been commandeered as a lookout. The sergeant then told his five marines, one of whom asked, “Who’s Rumsfeld?”

The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, rejected today calls for an international conference to reach a solution to the widening sectarian war in Iraq, saying the Iraqis were working to stanch the bloodshed through their own political process.