Archive for April, 2007
The most disgusting thing I’ve read in years..
27 April 2007I am amazed that this filth was even published in these United States. A “retired diplomat”, by the name of Dan Simpson, has published an op-ed in the Toledo Blade describing his vision for how to “disarm America”. Evidently this man is actually a member of the editorial board! Why does it not surprise me [...]
Kids, It’s OK to fight back!
19 April 2007A great oped by Kevin O’Brien in The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Kids, It’s OK to fight back!
Some schools have zero-tolerance policies that treat a student who defends himself in a fight no differently from the way they treat his attacker. Don’t take matters into your own hands, kids are told. Just let the authorities handle [...]
More thoughts on the massacre and the right, even the duty, of self-defense.
19 April 2007There have been some pretty good posts and op-eds coming out about the tragedy at VT, and the implications on self defense debates. Here are a few I enjoyed.
First from Michelle Malkin:
Wanted: A culture of self-defense
Late last summer, a shooting near campus prompted students to clamor again for loosening campus rules against armed self-defense. Virginia [...]
Unarmed and Vulnerable (OpEd by CCW holder at VT)
17 April 2007A great opinion piece by a concealed carry permit holder who was on campus at Virginia Tech the morning of the shooting.
Please go read the whole thing!
Unarmed and vulnerable
On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything [...]
Gun control rules clear way for VT campus shooter to rampage unchallenged…
16 April 2007It is time to wake up and recognize that disarming law abiding citizens doesn’t make ANYONE any safer!!
Winds of Change.NET: VA Tech Tragedy
When the Virginia legislature failed to overrule VA Tech’s carry restrictions, maintaining the right to carry on university campus under House Bill 1572, proposed by Todd Gilbert from Shenandoah county, VA Tech spokesman [...]
The Dignified Rant: War of the Roses
16 April 2007We are at war and efforts to pretend otherwise are foolish. Or, to use a term of art, “living in the 1990s.”
Back then we certainly didn’t acknowledge we were at war with Islamic fascism. Or even the terrorism spawned by that ideology. Yet our enemies were at war with us all the same.
After nearly six [...]
The Dignified Rant: You Can’t Fire Me! I Quit!
16 April 2007Sadr’s order to his cabinet lackies to resign from Maliki’s government is scary according to this news story:
Cabinet ministers loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resigned on Monday to protest the prime minister’s refusal to set a timetable for an American withdrawal, raising the prospect that the Mahdi Army militia could return to [...]
The Dignified Rant: Why They Hate Us
15 April 2007Don’t bother me about how the jihadis would stop wanting to behead us and blow us up in large numbers if only we would adjust some particular foreign policy a bit to take their feelings into account.
Case in point in Pakistan:
Minister of Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar told a parliamentary committee of her fear on Saturday following [...]
The Dignified Rant: The Will of the International Community
15 April 2007Too many people in the West like to extoll the virtues of the United Nations as the holders of the precious will of the vaunted international community.
Let’s look at one example of how this international community enforces its collective will, shall we?
Darfur is a good place to start. The Deeply Concerned (The Deeply Concerned is [...]
The Dignified Rant: Drive-By Shooting
14 April 2007The Taiwanese are exercising their military (tip to China e-Lobby), including efforts to protect their leadership from Chinese efforts to decapitate the Taiwanese military at the outset of a war:
Taiwan kicked off a month of military exercises on Tuesday designed to test the island’s defences in the event of attack by giant neighbour China, which [...]
The Dignified Rant: MoveOn.fr
14 April 2007The French are a bit down:
The national mood now, as France enters the final week before Sunday’s presidential election, is far less exultant. To Roland Perrossier, whose great-great grandfather fought for Napoleon, the arch has become a symbol of decline.
“It’s a feeling of lost glory,” said Perrossier, sheltering under the arch from a spring squall. [...]
The Dignified Rant: Dots
14 April 2007I knew that people far more qualified than I am would attack the recent reports that allege our intelligence people stated before the Iraq War that there was no Iraq-al Qaeda connection. As if you can ever call an absence of evidence conclusive. And there is in fact evidence despite the recent stories, so this [...]
The Dignified Rant: Suicide is Painless?
13 April 2007One aspect of our current generation of foreign policy “realism” that separates it from the Cold War version is that during the Cold War, realists accepted that we needed to back some unsavory regimes in order to fight the major threat of Soviet communism.
Sure, it would have been nice to have a South Korea fully [...]
The Dignified Rant: Coin of the Realm
13 April 2007I worry that we don’t seem to have a new main battle tank on the drawing board. The Abrams will be around another twenty years but what about after that?
The new family of vehicles known as the Future Combat Systems (FCS) was originally seen as a light 19-ton vehicle that could be flown around the [...]
The Dignified Rant: Missing the Point
12 April 2007Some analysts advocate increasing our power in the Pacific to counter China:
“The United States should sustain and selectively enhance its force posture in East Asia, ensuring it has capabilities commensurate with the region’s growing importance to the U.S. economy and other vital national interests,” the report by a task force of the Council on Foreign [...]
The Dignified Rant: Spring Offensive
12 April 2007The Taliban boasted of a spring offensive, but both the Pakistanis and our forces in Afghanistan seem to be on the offensive against the Taliban instead.
In Pakistan:
“The people of South Waziristan now have risen against the foreigners. They have killed about 300 of them, and they got support from the Pakistan army. They asked for [...]
The Dignified Rant: Target: Democracy
12 April 2007The enemy struck Iraq’s parliament:
A bomb exploded in the Iraqi parliament’s cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone Thursday, killing at least two lawmakers and wounding 10 other people.
On 9/11, our Congress may have been a target. And Islamists hit India’s parliament with a bomb, too, fairly [...]
The Dignified Rant: The Iranian Connection
11 April 2007Even though a number of Americans opposed to winning in Iraq continue to assert that we are helpless to influence events in Iraq, our enemies in Tehran certainly don’t think it is futile to intervene:
Major General William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad Iraqi insurgents are being trained in Iran by people working for that country’s [...]
The Dignified Rant: Remember Who the Bad Guys Are
11 April 2007As we speak of a political settlement that is necessary to win the war in Iraq (a settlement made possible by the military shield we have wielded), let’s not forget that we overthrew the Sunni Arab thug regime and freed the Shias and Kurds. Fouad Ajami has an excellent piece.
Don’t forget that the Sunni Arabs [...]
The Dignified Rant: Staying To Win
11 April 2007Secretary Gates has made an adjustment to our Army’s rotation policy to sustain our troops levels for as long as we need to win the war in Iraq:
Beginning immediately, all active-duty Army soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will serve 15-month tours — three months longer than the usual standard, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday. [...]
The Dignified Rant: Allies Within Europe
11 April 2007I’ve said it many times. Europe as an institution can’t be our friend. European states can be our friends and I value their contributions. It would be to our advantage to stop supporting the European Union and work to get support from individual European states and supportive European citizens within those states.
I know it seems [...]
The Dignified Rant: Credit Where Credit is Due
11 April 2007I complain enough about how the loyal opposition seems to think the real war is the war for the White House. So when a leading member makes some sense, I should recognize it:
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the Senate Armed Service Committee chairman, took issue with an effort by Majority Leader Harry Reid to limit war [...]
The Dignified Rant: New Math
10 April 2007We are constantly told that we have too few troops in Iraq to win. General Shinseki’s claim we’d need several hundred thousand troops is seen as prophetic now by many critics of the war and some supporters, too.
Yet going by the rule (with all its assumptions and flaws) that we’d need troop strength of 2% [...]
The Dignified Rant: A Well Developed Surrender Reflex
9 April 2007Andrew Bacevich pens a strange essay that shows how you can promote retreat and surrender while cloaked in the guise of hard-headed analysis. So eager is he to bug out and quit that he doesn’t even think that critics of the war in Iraq need to explain what they would do instead to win! We [...]
The Dignified Rant: Spinning Toward the Future
9 April 2007The Iranians did make a nuclear announcement in their new year:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony at the enrichment facility at Natanz that Iran was now capable of enriching nuclear fuel “on an industrial scale.”
Asked if Iran has begun injecting uranium gas into 3,000 centrifuges for enrichment, top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani replied, “Yes.” [...]