HT Varifrank

I was going to ad this to list I started in the Scott Malensek's review of Flags of Our Fathers. I've decide it warrants its own post.

RBT

*****

If Todays Press covered the “Battle of the bulge”

This just in, We have just received film footage from our contacts with Belgian insurgents fighting against the United States occupation. The footage is of reprisals taken against US troops in the town of ‘Malmedy”. US Officials insist that what they are calling the “Massacre” of US troops is a result of war crimes committed by German Troops under the command of SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper.

Our correspondents in Belgium recently caught up with Standartenführer Joachim Peiper at his field encampment in Belgium and he had this to say in response to charges by the US Government:

“You should recognize that after the battles of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombing. They had seen for themselves in Köln thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for the enemy was such; I swear it and I could not always keep it under control."

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HT The American Thinker

Brilliant minds think alike. See this similar review and analogy between Iwo Jima, the GWOT, and the effect of the MSM on the support and will of the American people.

RBT

Iraq and Iwo
October 26th, 2006

Flags of Our Fathers is a moving piece of cinema that further immortalizes the heroism of the Marines who fought on Iwo Jima. Let’s hope that it can also teach powerful lessons about how to defeat a fanatical enemy, for the story of Iwo Jima bears many parallels to the war in Iraq.

In a manner eerily similar to the way the Pentagon expected Iraq to be like Afghanistan, commanders anticipated the Japanese would employ the tactics they used on Saipan, Tarawa and Peleliu. Instead of reckless and ineffective Banzai charges, the Japanese dug in and waited for the Marines to land.

American casualties were underestimated by a startling 80 percent because only light resistance was expected. The intricate system of tunnels, caves and heavily fortified bunkers that made the campaign so deadly, were virtually unknown to war planners.

Despite the intelligence failures and a horrifying 6,821 Marines killed in just five weeks, there was no shameless politization of the mistakes. Likewise, ghoulish celebrations of the casualty count on American street corners were unthinkable.

[...]

A simple snapshot reminded the American people of the type of bravery a free nation defending herself can produce – and the people responded. The 7th Bond Tour of 1945 featuring the iconic Iwo Jima photo and the three surviving flag raisers put $24 billion in the government’s war chest.

Recently the first Marine was nominated for the Medal of Honor for valor in Iraq. Private First Class Christopher Adlesperger’s real-life exploits make Hollywood action-adventure stars look like Pee Wee Herman.

According to reports, the 20-year old,

“killed at least 11 insurgents. He killed them with his M-16 and with his grenade launcher. He killed insurgents who were heavily armed and who had just killed his close friend Lance Cpl. Erick Hodges. He protected two wounded squad members from attack and saved innumerable Marines.”

Adlesperger survived the encounter but he gave his life a month later while leading a raid on another terrorist stronghold.

Certainly, the media is partly responsible for the fact that America knows Abu Gharib prison guard PFC Lynndie England but few know PFC Adlesperger. However, a lot of the blame falls on the Bush administration for failing to adequately tell the story of our heroes.

[...]

Had the flag raised on Mount Suribachi featured the rising sun rather than the Stars and Stripes, American morale would have been crushed and the tide of the war might have shifted to the Japanese. Had the enemy been victorious in the Pacific, much of the world would have been cast into a period of unfathomable misery.

The stakes are no less today.

Kieran Michael Lalor is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Editor In Chief of MarineCorpsPost.com.

Read it All

HT Dr. Sanity

Dr. Sanity says it all re Victor Davis Hanson's new column. RBT has asked the same question before where is the rage and condemation by the world's feminists of these thugish, male hegmonic, misogynistic, Islamofascist theocracies?

RBT

*****

LIVE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST! It's The Dark Ages Again....

Victor Davis Hanson writes about how easily our pre-modern enemies from the Middle East have brought a stunned postmodern world back into the Dark Ages:

Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans - in fear of radical Islamists - would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?

The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law - sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.

Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.

Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past....
civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?

In the last two days, I have been writing about just one aspect of how the modern-day barbarians would like to take us back to the Middle/Dark Ages--and that is on the issue of women's pervasive oppression under Islam (see here and here). Let me make one last point that even a ditzy former feminist like Yvonne Ridley should be able to appreciate.

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HT Barone Blog

An Interview With President Bush

This afternoon I had the privilege of being one of eight columnists interviewing George W. Bush in the Oval Office. The others were Tony Blankley of the Washington Times, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, Lawrence Kudlow of CNBC, Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinel, Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Byron York of National Review–all conservatives of various stripes. Like many others who have been with Bush in the Oval Office, I have found him to be much more articulate and forceful in that setting than he often is in press conferences or in taking questions from traveling reporters. The interview was on the record, so we are posting an MP3 audio recording (High bandwidth | Low bandwidth) of the whole hour. I think you'll find it compelling listening. It's the closest thing many people will get to spending an hour or so in the Oval Office with the 43rd president.

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***** SCROLL FOR UPDATES *****

Great review of Flags of Our Fathers by Scott Malensek.

The American people need to be reminded of the great sacrifices of our parents and grandparents. The MSM is failing to do this. Some argue the MSM has fallen into the enemy's trap in the War of Information by carrying its propaganda to demoralize the Aemrican people. Why is there a surge of violence in Baghdad where the MSM's cameras are focused before our November elections?

Why aren't we hearing of the bravery of our men and women in harm's way defending our freedom? Do you know the name of the first service person who was awarded the Medal of Valor in Operation Iraqi Freedom?

Wars are never easy, surgical, nor antiseptic. They're downright dirty and ugly. Mistakes will be made and lives will be lost. To win one must continue to engage the enemy, keep it off balance, and exploit its tactical mistakes and weaknesses.

. . . once a war has begun it must be waged as harshly as possibly and as fast as possible to keep the death and destruction as limited as possible.

The Greatest Generation who stood up to rising Evil in the world, chose to shield us from the horrors of their sacrifices to preserve the freedoms we all enjoy. These are freedoms we sometimes take for granted as we sip our coffee lattes as we go about our daily lives.

Those who tear up at the sight of the American flag and the singing of our national anthem understand.

This film reminds us all:

Freedom is not free!

RBT

*****

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

A Review By Scott Malensek

One cannot describe The Battle of Iwo Jima in just a few paragraphs. Similarly, the movie Flags of Our Fathers cannot be described as such. The short, sound-bite review is simple:

* Best war movie ever made
* Extremely graphic (far more than Saving Private Ryan)
* While it’s about heroes, glory, courage, and patriotism, it doesn’t make war look like a fun game at all (just ask Iggy).
* An absolute must see at any price
* Tip: stay for the credits, bring tissues, and plan to go to a bar afterwards to recover

"The right picture can win-or lose-a war." How can a picture lose a war? Almost four generations ago there was war, and things weren't going well in the public's mind at the time. Then along came this moment when some guys raised a flag, and a picture was taken almost by accident at the right moment. The picture turned out to have captured a random act of courage and greatness. This was conveyed to the public through the picture, and support for the war continued until its end; until victory.

The movie involves politics of the day, but it largely ignores the intelligence failures that lead to the 6,825 Americans killed, 19,026 Americans wounded, 18,000 Japanese killed (an additional 4000 Japanese remain missing-either blown to bits or buried in the island someplace today). Those people all died for a putrid 2 mile wide, 5 mile long, triangular shaped volcanic hell called Sulfur Island where nothing grew, where the black ash Earth itself steamed of rotten eggs. Why? For oil; specifically fuel. American bombers needed a staging area to attack the homeland of those who bombed America on December 7th, but it didn’t have to be Iwo Jima. Other islands could have been chosen. It’s just that intelligence reports had Sulfur Island as the easiest target.

Were those deaths in vain? Could they have been avoided? Was WWII really just Roosevelt’s need for a war to help the economy, destroy his political opponents, and get revenge on an Empire that was stealing American markets? The movie largely ignores these questions, and instead demonstrates that Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, Lee, Sherman, Grant, Napoleon, and Washington were all correct in declaring that once a war has begun it must be waged as harshly as possibly and as fast as possible to keep the death and destruction as limited as possible. The movie focuses on the need to fight to win-not fight to merely end a war. History shows us that just ending wars is really only passing them on to our children to fight, and we see this theme of “Finish the job” often in the movie, but only in the context of “win this damn thing,” and not “so we can get out of the Pacific.”

There’s quite a contrast between the journalists of WWII who showed the American people that famous picture and the journalists of today who put enemy propaganda videos of enemy snipers killing American soldiers on TV (See also CNN’s insurgent sniper video). Heroes the likes of which were common on Iwo Jima still serve in the Marine Corps and other services today, but the Rosenthals and Ernie Pyles are long gone so the stories of heroism go even more unrecognized than they did over 60 years ago. The famous photo that is the focus of the movie was a Pulitzer standard once upon a time. That standard has been replaced by photos that do not encourage support for victory. Instead they actually aim to reduce support for fighting America’s enemies rather than encourage support for the pursuit of victory and success by telling the tales of the American fighting man’s courage, conviction, dedication, sacrifice, and hardship.

Then there are subsequent wars where pictures undermined support for a war and sent upon a path of loss and defeat rather than accomplishment and victory.

Vietnam was a war of pictures. Some were TV images. Others were newspaper ones. There were also magazine covers. In Vietnam there was no Iwo Jima photo that instilled pride, hope, and patriotism. Instead we had the images of the Saigon police chief blowing the brains out of a Viet Cong. We had the little girl running naked covered in napalm. The one that I'm old enough to remember was that last CIA chopper flying out of the embassy and abandoning millions of people to a fate of which America had pledged to protect them.

Today, the picture of a dictator’s statue falling is nothing compared to the press coverage that insurgents will get when they rally and fire assault rifles in the air in that same location...after support for the latest war wanes and America pulls out. Of course, one can try and argue that insurgents’ video tape the sniper attacks on GIs and upload their videos of beheadings on to the internet for some sort of fun. OR we can recognize that the right picture, video, or movie can win or lose a war.

Tomorrow's Pulitzer is not a flag raising on a God-forsaken island of sulfur, smoke, ash, and blood. Instead it’s an image of victorious insurgents dancing and firing rifles in the air in the same square where Saddam's statue fell...after a politically-driven American “redeployment” from Iraq.

There’s quite a contrast between the journalists of WWII who showed the American people that famous picture and the journalists of today. Additionally, if journalists only print/market what their readers will buy, then there’s quite a difference between the protest signs of today’s Americans and the Flags of Our Fathers.

Update:

Other bloggers commenting on the lack of objectivity by the MSM in reporting on the GWOT:

Atlas Shrugs:

The Jihad's Most Powerful Weapon: The Media

Michelle Malkin:

A Ca-lame response [NY Times]

The Jawa Report:

NYT Ombudsman Admits They Were Wrong to Leak Classified Information

Powerline:

The Art of Headline Writing

In From the Cold:

REMFs [Rear Echelon Mother F-----s - and combat correspondents]

Today's Reading Assignment [Comments on Michael Yon's article]

Counterterrorism Blog:

[MSM failure to educate the American people who the enemy is]

Knowing the Enemy, Understanding the Enemy

THE CALIPH-STROPHIC DEBATE

Little Green Footballs:

CNN: Giving the Terrorists a Fair Shake

Instapundit:

MARK HALPERIN ON MEDIA BIAS: Is he the Evan Thomas of this election cycle?

ShrinkWrapped:

The MSM and Enemy Propaganda

Flopping Aces:

Will The New Host At CNN Be Tokyo Rose? How About Axis Sally?

Dadmanly:

Media Warriors

The Big Picture:

[A ray of hope - LA Times runs a decent story!]

LA TIMES Recognizes that U.S. Has Been Fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq

Update II:

Hugh Hewitt is carrying Lynn Cheney's interview with CNN' Wolf Blitzer:

"Do you want us to win?" "Where did you get the film?"

Update III:

HT Michelle Malkin

The MSM is AWOL

[Reference John Kerry's latest dissing of our brave men and women going into harm's way in defense of our freedom]

RBT is coming late to this game but Instapundit is linking to Greyhawk at The Mudville Guzette.

RBT

*****

MORE CRITICISM of the military's information war efforts, from Greyhawk of The Mudville Gazette.

Much better work is being done for free by milbloggers -- whom the Pentagon is trying to shut down.

HT Flopping Aces

Those Saddam docs just keep coming up with interesting bits of trivia that you'll never see in the MSM.

RBT

*****

The Saddam Nuclear Threat
Posted by Curt on October 24, 2006 at 14:33

Another important Saddam Document has been translated by Jveritas at Free Republic. This one shows that Saddam was asked to restart the “Degussa Vacuum furnaces”.

These furnaces were used by Saddam in his Nuclear program. The NYT’s, and ironically the authors Judith Miller and James Risen, wrote an article in 1998 describing the program and the furnaces while discussing an Iraqi defector named Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza:

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HT Scott Malensek

I've been doing a little catch-up and posting a few interesting pieces.

Scott just sent me this excellent piece that is a must read.

RBT

*****
December 7, 2008 Terrorism [The New Media Journal]
Raymond S. Kraft
October 24, 2006

December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously.

At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.

On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military time.

In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.

President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.

The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.

"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.

The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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HT Omar at Iraq the Model

Omar was reporting US airstrikes in Baghdad yesterday. Funny didn't hear this from the MSM

RBT

*****

Air Strikes in Baghdad.

Looks like there's something big going on in Baghdad to night.
Flares are filling the skies and fighter jets are striking targets in the city.

In the last 30 minutes I could see several aircrafts launching missiles and within seconds explosions would follow.

[...]

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HT Exit Zero

Amir Taheri on Iraq from the NY Post

RBT

*****

IRAQ: UNITING AGAINST THE JIHADIS

By AMIR TAHERI

October 20, 2006 -- TALK to Iraqis these days, and you'll likely hear one thing: What are the Americans and Brits up to? The worry is that the U.S. and U.K. political mainstreams now regard the Iraq project as a disaster, with cut-and-run, or whistle-and-walk-away, the only options.

Most Iraqis regard the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the dismantling of his machinery of war and oppression and the introduction of pluralist politics to Iraq as an historic success. The issue is how to consolidate that victory, not to snatch defeat from its jaw. Those challenging this historic victory are enemies of both the Western democracies and the Iraqi people.

Iraq today is the central battlefield in the global war between two mutually exclusive visions of the future. Yet the jihadists now know they can't win on that battlefield. After three years of near-daily killings, often in the most horrible manner imaginable, they've failed to alter Iraq's political agenda. Nor have they won control of any territory or even broadened their constituency.

The jihadists have suffered thousands of casualties, with many more captured by Coalition forces and the new Iraqi army and police. Despite more than 120 suicide operations, and countless attacks on civilian targets, the jihadists have been on the defensive since they lost their chief base at Fallujah last year. Their strategic weakness: They can't translate their killings into political gains inside Iraq.

They kill teachers and children, but schools stay open. They kill doctors and patients, but hospitals still function. They kill civil servants, but the ministries are crawling back into operation. They kidnap and murder foreign businessmen, but more keep coming. They massacre volunteers for the new army and police, but the lines of those wishing to join grow longer.

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Michelle Malkin is on the warpath re CNN's support of the enemy in the GWOT.

See her VENT at HotAir and the video of her appearance on the O'Reilly Factor:

CNN's terrorist public relations

Video: Michelle blasts CNN for sniper video on O’Reilly

and if you're interested in supporting American snipers, see her piece:

Support American snipers

Americansnipers.org (formerly Adopt a Sniper) collects items to support our troops.

[...]

[RBT can vouch for this group]

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HT Regime Change Iran

Interesting article re the Baker-Hamilton short term calm at the expense of the Iraqi people.

RBT

*****

Conclusion First, Debate Afterwards

Michael Rubin, The Weekly Standard reported that on the upcoming report by James Baker and Lee Hamilton on current status of the Iraqi situation how Baker and Hamilton gerrymandered these advisory panels to ratify predetermined recommendations. An excerpt:

Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to President Bush's war on terrorism and emphasis on democracy.

Had commission members embedded with U.S. servicemen on patrol... they might not conclude that the solution in Iraq lies with further engagement of Iran and Syria.

The full text:

Policymakers are abuzz with the explosive recommendations for U.S. policy toward Iraq soon to be released by the Baker-Hamilton Commission: Abandon democracy, seek political compromise with the Sunni insurgents, and engage Tehran and Damascus as partners to secure stability in their neighbor.

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HT Ray Robison via The American Thinker

More on the Saddam Regime Documents from Ray Robison up at The American Thinker

Saddam’s Poisonous Papers
October 22nd, 2006

Just days before the anthrax attacks of 2001 started in the United States, the Saddam regime appears to have received intelligence of an impending attack on its own government. According to a newly translated memorandum, Saddam’s office issued a security alert on September 17th, 2001 for a “poisonous paper” attack. The alert consisted of a warning that “agents” who were instructed by their “Iranian masters” were going to submit personal paperwork to Iraqi government offices that it called “poisonous papers”.

While the memo does not state the nature of the poison, due to the context of the memo it seems to indicate some type of chemical or biological agent would be embedded on the paper, which would then be submitted to government offices. An Arabic linguist informs this researcher that the original Arabic term for “poisonous papers” is not used metaphorically and almost certainly refers to some type of literal deadly agent.

This new information comes from a document captured in Iraq. The Pentagon has released hundreds of Saddam’s documents at an online repository. The document can be found at the Foreign Military Studies Office website. It is in Arabic and our translator “Sammi” provides an original English translation below. The memorandum has two pages with what appear to be official letterhead and stamps.

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HT Spook86 at In From the Cold

OK I'm back home have some work to catch up around the house but I thought this was interesting re Kim Jong-il.

RBT

*****

The Big Fizzle

Much was made last week of Kim Jong-il's apparent "apology" to China over North Korea's recent nuclear test. And, if regional media accounts are accurate, the DPRK's nut-job leader also promised to conduct additional tests, which Pyongyang had threatened in reaction to new U.N. sanctions against his regime.

At the time, Kim's mea culpa was viewed as an effort to curry favor with Beijing (which was angered by North Korea's nuclear test) and attempt to pressure the U.S. into direct talks. It is worth noting that Beijing has never confirmed the apology, and the U.S.--correctly--is continuing the six-party process as the "only" means for engaging Pyongyang.

But there's another reason that North Korea is suddenly acting a bit more conciliatory on the nuclear issue: its first test was a gigantic flop, at least from a technical perspective. U.S. experts now estimate that the DPRK blast had a yield of roughly 200-400 tons of TNT, or only 5-10% of what they hope to achieve with the weapon.

[...]

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Update:

HT Villagers with Torches

Has this interesting related piece re the coordination between the NORKS and Iranians:

BTW..North Korea's July missile launches were meant to test a nuclear command and control system for Iran.

Gertz:

Western intelligence analysts said the North Korean missile launches on July 4 and 5 did not seem connected to Pyongyang's ballistic missile program. They pointed to the aborted flight of the Taepodong-2, meant to have a range of up to 5,000 kilometers.

Instead, the North Korean launch of seven missiles was designed to demonstrate a command and control system. The analysts pointed to the presence of at least 11 senior Iranian engineers at the Taepodong launch pad.

[...]

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