You know we’re heading into Twilight Zone territory when The Washington Post AND The Wall Street Journal both agree on something. What do they agree on? The Democrats screwing the pooch on Iraq. From The Post:
A reasonable response to these facts might involve an acknowledgment of the remarkable military progress, coupled with a reminder that the final goal of the surge set out by President Bush — political accords among Iraq’s competing factions — has not been reached. (That happens to be our reaction to a campaign that we greeted with skepticism a year ago.) It also would involve a willingness by the candidates to reconsider their long-standing plans to carry out a rapid withdrawal of remaining U.S. forces in Iraq as soon as they become president — a step that would almost certainly reverse the progress that has been made.
What Ms. Clinton, Mr. Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson instead offered was an exclusive focus on the Iraqi political failures — coupled with a blizzard of assertions about the war that were at best unfounded and in several cases simply false. Mr. Obama led the way, claiming that Sunni tribes in Anbar province joined forces with U.S. troops against al-Qaeda in response to the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections — a far-fetched assertion for which he offered no evidence.
Mr. Obama acknowledged some reduction of violence, but said he had predicted that adding troops would have that effect. In fact, on Jan. 8, 2007, he said that in the absence of political progress, “I don’t think 15,000 or 20,000 more troops is going to make a difference in Iraq and in Baghdad.” He also said he saw “no evidence that additional American troops would change the behavior of Iraqi sectarian politicians and make them start reining in violence by members of their religious groups.” Ms. Clinton, for her part, refused to retract a statement she made in September, when she said it would require “a suspension of disbelief” to believe that the surge was working.
The Journal:
Over the past 12 months, U.S. troops in Iraq have risen every day and gone to work, dangerous work, implementing General David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy. The surge. Across the political spectrum, observers have announced the surge a success. This achievement must be a source of enormous pride to the U.S. soldiers and Marines who have pulled it off.
So what we take away from the four Democratic Presidential candidates’ stunning display of misinformation and false statements about the surge Saturday evening is that they have simply stopped thinking about Iraq. They seem to have concluded that opposition to the war permits them to literally not know what the U.S. or the Iraqis are doing there. As the nation commences the selection of an American President, this is a phenomenon worth noting.
Barack Obama is of a sudden the front-runner, so his view of the surge merits the closest look. His first assertion echoed what has become a standard line by the war’s opponents, that “we have not made ourselves safer as a consequence.” What can this possibly mean? In more than six years there hasn’t been one successful terrorist attack on the U.S., even as places elsewhere were hit or actively targeted.
Then Senator Obama placidly said that the Sunnis in Anbar Province began to help the U.S. “after the Democrats were elected in 2006.” What’s more, the Democrats’ victory showed them they were “going to be left very vulnerable to the Shias.” This obviously means the Democrats would abandon them.
But the Sunni Awakening, as it is called, with its fall in bloodshed, occurred only after the Anbar Sunnis were convinced that the U.S. troops would not abandon them to al Qaeda in Iraq. Sunni sheiks have said explicitly it was the new U.S. policy of sustaining the offensive against AQI that made it possible for them to resist the jihadists. The U.S. military has supported the spread of these “awakening councils” in other areas of Iraq. It is navel-gazing in the extreme for Mr. Obama to suggest U.S. Congressional elections caused this turn.
I’m not really sure what caused The WaPo to suddenly come to the conclusion, a conclusion which many of us have been writing about for quite some time mind you, that the Democrats are hypocrites.
Before The Surge all we heard from them was that we need to try something different, a new strategy, but Bush is too stubborn to do it so we have failed in Iraq. The Surge comes and they say the different strategy is going to fail. The Surge is successful and they tell us its all about the political situation now.
Come on!
Ed Morrissey with a important question:
As the Post noted, both of them tried to push an unconstitutional hijacking of military command from the executive to the legislature. Not only should they answer for their wrong-headedness on policy, but they should also be forced to explain whether they would as President allow Congress to intrude on the role of Commander in Chief so baldly and illegally.
Indeed. I’m guessing the answer to that will be a big no. Once THEY are in power its going to be all about the Executive.
See author page
Once again. US Soldiers and Marines on the MILBLOGs, while going through the AARs of the past few years and understanding what went wrong and adjusting, looked to 2007 and tried to tell the world as best we could that things would change for the better in Iraq. We also knew it would be ignored for a long time by the media (making up stories was more fun for them). We also repeatedly countered the leftist lie that Iraq was a “civil war” as one has to be FROM the nation in “civil war” for it to be a “civil war”. Fighters coming in from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan, means Iraq was not in civil war, it was under attack from jihadists all over the Arab/Persian world.
The war is not over, but AQIM (“Al Qaeda In Mesopotamia”, their own name for themselves) failed miserably in their murderous campaign to install a caliphate in Iraq. Even Saudi Arabia has turned against them and is now hunting Saudi Terrorists within its own borders. Pakistan’s Punjabis and Sinds (lowland tribes of Pak who make up 58% of its population, roughly) want NOTHING to do with Radical Islam and are fighting it. AQ is still a threat, and like many terror groups may always be a residual threat (even the Red Army Faction still has cells). However, as long as we do not retreat into appeasement and blind passivism, AQ and its ilk will most likely remain in decline.
And that is the cost of ensuring no more 9-11s, 7-7s, Madrids, or any average week in Isreal: Eternal vigilance against these jihadists and their enablers.
I must confess to yelling at Charlie Gibson…who left all the Democrats unchallenged, particularly that imbecilic governor of New Mexico who spewed ad infinitum his memorized stump speech lies about Iraq. Charlie should be ashamed to accept such drivel and Richardson should quit the contest due to his abject, almost complete, ignorance.
I just got done reading Obama’s speech on how he wants to fight terrorism. Yawn. More campaign rhetoric, and GROSSLY incorrect statements. Sad. I’d say check it out on his website, but really…you might as well just stick your finger down your throat. It’s the same sensation and same end result
In the last forty year a large number of low-functioning individuals have been brought into the political process, many of them imported. These individuals are often belligerent to the status quo. That and the lowering of educational standards have resulted in a dramatic reduction of the collective IQ of the populace and an increase in the strength of resonance of any “anti-establishment” message. It has therefore become possible to state bold lies by the party that appeals to this segment without any ability to effectively challenge the acceptance of the lie. Unfortunately, this will lead to significant negative consequences.
Twilight Zone territory indeed. Or, perhaps, the Star Trek episode which Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Chekov find themselves in an alien version of Tombstone as the Clantons.
Both analyses show the Democrats are woefully unprepared to assume the executive. If they were to take the WH, everything we’ve done in Iraq would be for naught. The hard work done by ChrisG and many, many others would have been wasted. And, for what purpose? So, other nations and people would think of us better?
AQ is counting on us to quit. In many ways, they’re hoping for a Democratic victory in November that they couldn’t achieve on the battlefield.
David,
Thanks, but the real thanks belongs to men like 1SG Aaron Jagger (my PSG when I was a young 2LT in 1AD), MAJ Doug Sloan (went through ROTC with me), 2Lt Todd Bryant (one of the PLs in 1-34AR/1st BDE/1ID) and many others.
They can never respond to your thanks but the work they did is what is keeping the islamofascists from winning and creating Hell on Earth.
Barack Hussein Obama is a seriously dangerous individual. As a dedicated community organizer (meaning someone who believed that petitions for redress of wrongs from the government are the right way to solve individual problems) working in highly impoverished neighborhoods and a civil rights lawyer representing other community organizers he has demonstrated his belief system that is based on the government dedicated to helping the poorest citizens as the first priority.
He has spoke out about the need to wage only wars that will “earn the respect of the world”. As a persistent critic of the Iraq war fundamentally denying anything positive about it and a sponsor of various bills requiring the most aggressive time-tables from withdrawal he has demonstrated his contempt for the concept of the struggle with world-wide Islamic extremism. As a co-sponsor with McCain of the Amnesty bill as well as the “climate change” bill he has shown himself to be a radical leftist.
The church to which he belongs shows the following description on the home page of its website:
“We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.”
Anybody belonging to a church with this credo cannot possibly be interested in protecting all Americans equally.
Barack Obama’s recent statements on his perception of reality in Iraq only go further to demonstrate how radical this man is.
George Soros and his family gave Obama $60,000, or the maximum of $12,000 per person allowable under the “running against a millionaire exception” rule of the campaign reform legislation in his Senatorial Campaign. George Soros’s politics are well known to all serious students of radicalism and attempts at control of governments. Someone who was groomed this way by Soros and who rose to the national stage after only two years in the Senate has to seem dangerous to all who love freedom.
May we all survive the affliction personified by Barack Hussein Obama whose goal can only be to destroy the United States as we know it.
The U.S. is working on switchgrass, a native grass of the U.S. as a means of fuel production. Switch grass uses low amount of water compared to corn which uses a high amount of water. The average production is about 1,500 gallons of ethanol per year or about 45,000 miles worth in a 30 mpg vehical. One site was able to produce 11,500 gallons per acre per year.
http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html
Montana plans to use 80 year-old technology to convert some it’s 120 billion tons of coal to gasoline and diesel at the cost of about $35 per 55 gallon drum (right now oil is about $100 a drum and it takes two drums of oil for one drum of gasoline). One plant in South Africa is able to produce an estimated 300,000 barrels (55 gallon drums) of gasoline and diesel a day from coal.
http://governor.mt.gov/hottopics/faqsynthetic.asp
The U.S. neglects Latin America and Africa for the Middle East, because the Middle East has oil (Africa and Latin America have their share of terrorists such as the drug lords that are exported around the world).
Promoting those things along with solar, wind and hydrogen fuel cells should be the Democrats’ idea of security as a follow through about removing troops that, guard our supply of oil, from foreign soil (for the same reason U.S. troops don’t guard foreign salt mines, tulips and spice routes which were resources that people fought over).
What the Democrats have is disjointed and incomplete ideas about U.S. security among other things. Like I said, some of this technology is 80 years old which is long enough to create an alternative energy source that would have increased U.S. security. That’s a long time and the party still doesn’t have the pieces put together. These people aren’t fit to run anything at that pace.
Even at 11,500 gals/acre/yr, we are still looking at A LOT of farmland used for ethanol (a partially oxidized fuel). I need to find the numbers but this probably will not even come close to supplying the US needs even at millions of acres used.
However, many states have large “heavy oil” reserves. States like Michigan have is easily accessible but new refineries must be built to refine it.
Also, solar and wind will not work for some states. So what about them?
As an aside, what is the pollution created by that plant in S. Africa? Will it pass our harsher environmental standards here?
And as for Africa, Nigeria is where and produces what?
And since we get more oil from Venezuela than the Middle East, why have we not invaded there? Why have we not taken the Chinese oil rigs operating just outside our boarders in the Gulf of Mexico?
Maybe, just maybe this is not a “war for oil” but a war to protect us from true evil. But hey, I just fight it, so what do I, and hundreds of other MILBLOGGERs, know?
The reason why the U.S. doesn’t really care about oil rigs is because oil rigs are the most costliest form of getting oil. That and all the other oil rigs would probably shut down if it hit $60-$70 a barrel. The profit then would be lower than the cost. The oil rigs off California’s coast were primarly closed down because the profit wasn’t there.
In the story about coal to oil, there is one or two paragraphs explaining what they do with the excess carbon dioxide. They basically pump it back into the Earth into a shaft such as an abandoned mine or oil well.
I didn’t say the U.S. invaded Iraq for oil. There has always been U.S.military around the Middle East since WWII, especially the Navy, to safe guard the oil supply from first the Germans and then the Soviet Union. After the OPEC oil embago. The U.S. wants to increase the number of bases in The Middle East, yet doesn’t want to put them in Africa where terrorists are hiding and genocide happens. This is to prevent an embargo or somebody else from taking away a future oil reserve.
Canada is actually the number one supplier of U.S. oil with Saudia Arabia and Venezuela as the second and third suppliers. Based on proven reserves, the oil will run out in Saudia Arabia and Venezula by the end of this century. In 200 years, based on proven reserves, there will be no more oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
Note this number is based on current production levels. If more countries used more oil, those reserve numbers will fall. There is also a hint of Middle Eastern countries giving inflated reserves. Even though oil prices are going up, Saudia Arabia cut production by 6% in 2007. We will probably be dead from old age before the fighting starts on the remaining oil.
If you can believe the liberal numbers (I read it in Rolling Stone in the mid 1990s), the amount of energy the U.S. uses per year during the 1990s was equal to a solar power grid that was 100 sq miles. With present technology, that number is probably close to the same for 2007. The energy to make that many solar panels could come from biofuels. If each of the continental states put up 1 square miles (including on roofs), that would probably supply the U.S. with 40% of the U.S. energy. 10% of the U.S. energy is from hydroelectric. Alaska could use wind farms with each 3 mega watt 110′ wind tower able to power 1,000 homes. Wind power plants in the U.S create enough energy to power 2.3 million homes. At the present rate of growth, the U.S. would have 20% of it’s energy means met by 2030.
http://www.powerofwind.com/node/7
again, the energy to make these machines could come from bio fuel.
Switch grass vs corn is important. Corn is used in the studies now and is an energy loser. It costs 30% more energy than what corn can provide as energy. Switchgrass is an energy winner because it supplies over 540% more energy than it takes to get the energy from it. This goes from being able to supply 4% (critics’ estimate with corn) to just over 20% with switchgrass.
Right now the U.S. gets 20% of it’s electricity from nuclear power.
This leaves over 100% of today’s energy needs. Any future needs could be offset by more solar panels, more wind farms or more switchgrass being grown and more nuclear power plants. While this is being figured out and more wind machines/solar panels are being made, Montana could continue to turn coal into gasoline and diseal.
When the world does run out of oil, the U.S. will be in a positive position on energy rather than having to fight for it.
This energy plan could be that simple It would create U.S. jobs, create U.S. energy, preserve U.S. drinking water (corn is a water hog) and it’s something that any president could do without spending tax money. Usually alternative energy is even given tax breaks. So the plan has tax breaks for the Republicans, more drinkable water (not going toward corn) and 70%+ non pollution energy for the enviromentalists (80%-90% if you don’t include radioactive waste), 100% self energy sufficiency for the protectionists/isolationists and if the government gets in on it as a revenue source it could even cut the deficit.
Sorry, the “war for oil” comment was a general one, not aimed at you. It is difficult to convey that sense across the written word.
One problem with the “no bases is Africa” is that it is not quite true, as Task Force Horn of Africa has operated for years, but I digress.
I have to find the old article from 321 Energy about competing theories on “peak oil” and it will be tomorrow evening before I can post it here.
I fully agree that corn is a wasteful fuel source and the ethanol it creates is partially oxygenated (burned). It is also a sponge when it comes to water, and is difficult to transport. I hope switch grass works out and better fuel can come from it. I also hope we build more oil refineries using modern technologies and cutting edge systems for greater production and quality control.
There are additional power drivers for electricity generation including geo-thermal plants (the US Army even built and operates one in a depot somewhere). So in a sense, the US Government at that level is gaining money from alternative energy generation already.
The only issue I have is with your last paragraph concerning the environmentalists. While your statement would hold true for the more moderate among them, the more… militant, do not want more energy and surpluses; they want less humans. The radical groups are against everything designed to help create more energy and human growth and can be very destructive about it. These groups (ELF/ALF, Sea Shepperd, and several “population cap” groups) will have to be somehow dealt, preferably by the environmental movement itself.
Other than that I see it working just fine. In addition, rebuilding the power transmission lines to prevent heat loss of long distance electricity travel, better friction controls, and continuing improvements in machine and electronic efficiencies should also reduce waste of energies.
In the mean time, we also need to better drill, refine, and use what oil we have until the new infrastructure and technologies are in place.
Oh I forgot about geothermal energy. Thanks. Tack on another 10% by 2050.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2007-06-06-geothermal_N.htm
There are others including energy generated by waves, energy from manure (India has cooking stoves ran on cow manure)/other biowaste, etc. All of that could make the U.S. an exporter of renewable energy when factored into my earlier equation.
I don’t know if task Force Horn is a military base in the usual sense. It’s a training camp to train Africans. It could even be considered a military academy. I would equate it more with the School of the Americas than a foward base that could attack somebody or defend an area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Joint_Task_Force_-_Horn_of_Africa
I think the majority of environmentalists in the U.S. are more involved with something like the Kyoto treaty and in this plan the U.S. would eventually exceed that sometime mid century. Two of the best population controls are education and jobs. Most first world countries have a population decrease. Some of those increases are just due to immigration (which would shrink if they could get jobs in their own countries). I actually have a plan for even that, but I’m not the one running for office.
Greg,
I do not know if this post will have gotten overrun by the time you see this, but I found the article from 321 Energy. Wondering what you think of their theory on peak oil.
http://www.321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html