re: "The Radical President's Radical Plans for the Pentagon"

Hugh Hewitt at Hewitt Blog ("Join the Hughniverse") blasted backdoor plans to hollow-out the military and navy.

Money quote(s):

"President Obama's plan to slash the size of the American military by at least 10% is dangerous and covered in a deceitful "strategic reassessment," which is a crude attempt to deflect attention from the bottom line of a much shrunken American military.

There is a fiscal crisis, but it isn't because of defense spending but because of entitlements which the president will not discuss in detail much less reform. Dramatic cuts in the number of soldiers, sailors and Marines are a substitute for the hard work of shrinking the payout state and cutting off the president's favored constituents. "

&

"The failure of the Supercommittee and the train wreck of the debt ceiling showdown this past summer has left the House GOP divided and its freshman caucus demoralized and apparently defeated. But the House GOP simply has to rally to save the Pentagon from the president's wildly irresponsible plans."

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"A Harry Reid-led Senate so dysfunctional that cannot even pass a budget in three years ought not to be in charge of the nation's defenses and ought not to be allowed to cooperate in the gutting of the American military.

"Fund the Marine Corps not NPR" should be the theme of a growing pro-defense movement. The Ron Paul-led isolationist slice of the country has seen it voice amplified by the GOP debates, but the Iowa caucus showed again that it is a tiny, tiny part of the GOP and should be pushed aside by the traditional demand of Republicans for a strong and vibrant military defined by a 300 plus-ship Navy and the modern era doctrine of the ability to successfully fight two wars at the same time."

Fast forward to today, with just a few months before sequestration will take effect. All of which was completely predictable back when this can was kicked down the road to today.

"The reporters at the Pentagon didn't even go out and ask what it would mean to, say, the Marines to lose 10 to 15% of their troops, taking the Army from 570,000 to 520,000 and possibly as low as 490,000 and the Marines from 200,000 to at or below 180,000. To say, as the Washington Post did, that "new military strategy, contained in an eight-page document, will guide wrenching decisions on defense cutbacks," isn't reporting."

Well, they're journalists now, not reporters.

(Do try and keep up.)

1/6

re: "The Iraq Fiasco"

Hugh Hewitt at HughHewitt.Com conveyed a sense of frustration.

Money quote(s):

"The outlines of the Iraq fiasco are becoming clear this morning even to the MSM"

I'm still not seeing that, but individual mileage may vary.

"So much good was accomplished for the people of Iraq but at such a terrible price that this sudden retreat is stunning to the people like the veterans who called yesterday and Kagan who, with a few others, helped craft the successful surge strategy which President Bush adopted.

What must Generals Petraeus and Odierno think, and with them the vast majority of the men and women who served in this long war?

Imagine if the U.S. and Great Britain had simply left Berlin three years after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961. How long could the city have withstood Soviet pressure, and what chance would there have been of 1989 ever arriving?"

CAA can think of historical examples where even the myth of domestic political betrayal of military sacrifice has lead to no good result. As Dr. Pournelle often puts it: "Beware the fury of the legions."

10/22

re: "The GOP and Immigration"

Hugh Hewitt at Hewitt Blog summed up what he believes was the 2006 Republican consensus on immigration.

Money quote(s):

"The fence is the "outward expression of an inner conviction" to control immigration. It is hugely important, and the failure to get it built year after year undermines confidence in both parties as both parties promise border security."

A nation which does not control its own borders is not fully sovereign. Loss of border control leads to loss of territorial control and it gets worse from there.

"(A)s there is no reason to prefer illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, there is no reason to prefer foreign students traveling her for the first day of college over those who went to high school here."

10/4

re: "It Is 3 AM And The Phone Is Ringing In The White House "

Hugh Hewitt at the Hewitt Blog is not being too alarmist.

Money quote(s):

"Right now the late '70s are back in reruns with Egypt playing the role of Iran. At a minimum, increase the security at the U.S. Embassy."

Not to be too snarky, but I'm curious what exactly are the sort of measures Mr. Hewitt had in mind for this.

Think about it. Seriously. Airports closed. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in the area where the embassy is located. Tanks in the streets.

Basic questions like what sort of security, where does it come from, how does it get there, is it supportable and for how long?

Trust me, there are people whose professions are to ask, and have the answers, for this sort of thing.

re: "Dramatic And Dark Turn As Obama Stands More Firmly Against The Honduran People And Their Duly Elected Government"

Jude at Hugh Hewitt ("A blog of Townhall.Com") is not sugar-coating it.

re: "On The Wrong Side Of The Right Man"

Jude at Hugh Hewett ("A blog of Townhall.Com") provided some illumination about the new Honduran president.

Money quote(s):

"Roberto Micheletti is the legally elected president of Honduras who counts among his allies the Honduran constitution, the rule of law, the Honduran Congress, the Honduran Supreme Court and Catholic Bishops, plus a majority of the Honduran people, including the business and political classes. Meanwhile, perched in Nicaragua and seeking to overturn the constitutional government of Honduras is ousted president Manuel Zalaya. Among his allies are Marxists, despots and cocaine cartels, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Castro, and ...President Obama."

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"How is it possible for our President to get this one so wrong without having ill will toward Honduras and the desires of a democratic people?

Whether the military over-stepped or not by taking Zelaya out of the country, the transfer of power was legally performed."

re: "Mark Steyn on MJ's entourage, CNN's airport audience, & Afghanistan's tribes, & Obama getting Honduras wrong."

Mark Steyn had a great couple of quotes on Hugh Hewitt's show last month:

Regarding the media:

"(G)iven that the problems the media have at the moment with their sinking audiences, you can understand why, you know, CNN is dying. If it weren’t for airports, if it weren’t for the fact that America’s lousy airline industry somehow thinks it will put you in a better mood if your three hour delay at the gate is accompanied by three hours of Wolf Blitzer, there would be no audience for CNN. And I think that’s essentially, they seized on this thing as a drowning man clutches a straw. And the straw in this case I think is toxic."

The straw.... is toxic.

Beautiful.

Also, regarding Afghanistan:

"The British concluded that they did not want Afghanistan formally within the British Empire simply because they did not have the will to do what would be necessary to make it a civilized part of the world as they understood it. And so they contented themselves with a more or less friendly regime in Kabul, and essentially tribal regions carrying on pretty much as they always had done. And in a sense, that system worked until the overthrow of the Afghan monarchy in the 1970s. Afghanistan didn’t progress, but in a way, it was manageable. It was kind of super-decentralized. The King’s write didn’t really run thirty miles from the palace. And tribal, local tribal chiefs more or less got on with life as they always had done. And I’m not sure anyone has yet come up with a working model for Afghanistan that is any better than that. And trying to impose order on the Helmand Valley in particular, I think is something that as I said, the British felt that even, who had as much imperialist swagger as anybody, felt that that was even beyond them. And I’m not sure the United States, with its general preference for a light footprint, is likely to be any more successful there."

Read to the very end to catch the bit about Honduras.

re: "Estrada On Hunduran Treason"

Jude at Hugh Hewitt ("A blog of Townhall.Com") had a recommendation:

"Estrada grew up in Honduras before coming to America, and his take on what's going on in Honduras right now should be the one piece you read and remember on Zelaya: Honduras' Non-Coup."

re: "When To Use America's Military To End Genocide: A Conversation with Nicholas Kristof"

Hugh Hewitt summarizes a recent interview.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. under Bush used two interventions to topple two regimes in rapid indeed amazing fashion. It proved far less competent in establishing successor governments, though in the past year in Iraq we have seen new tactics bring about extraordinary progress, and we are hoping for the same sort of turning in Afghanistan."

"President Obama has a unique opportunity to establish rules under which the U.S. will move decisively to end slaughter in countries where the U.S. does not need to worry about significant military opposition, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe. Because of the new president's standing in the Third World and because of his party's complete control of the Congress, he has it in his power to lay down the law for Bashir and Mugabe and bring their murderous regimes to an end, and by doing so to send a message to the rest of the continent that dictatorship has its limits, and widespread slaughter as in Zimbabwe and outright genocide as in Sudan will not be tolerated."

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"For the next three-and-a-half-years, the United States means President Obama and the people who influence his decisions. The new president has already approved of the use of deadly force in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and at sea off the course of Somalia. His advisors and those who influence them and him should begin working out a larger framework for deploying the awesome might of the American military where tens of thousands of lives are at stake, none of them American."

re: " "Rightwing Extremism" "

Hugh Hewitt ("among the most visited political blogs in the U.S.") discusses one of the worst intelligence products I've ever had to read.*

Money quote(s):

"The level of analysis is so childish and the conclusions so laughable as to tell us nothing at all except that the government employs some very, very limited "analysts" with big political agendas."

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"When Islamist terrorists strike at Americans or American interests here or abroad, it will be a fair question why DHS was allowed to waste its time and resources on such dribble. "

* I may have mispoken. IIRC, Robert Conquest may have excerpted from various NKVD interrogation reports in his books "Harvest of Sorrows" and "The Great Terror" which would have been even more worthless, except of course as bad examples.

re: "Why The Tea Parties?"

Hugh Hewitt ("among the most visited political blogs in the U.S.") explains why.

Money quote(s):

"There are scores of reasons why a particular tea party protester might show up. Three months into the Obama Administration there is no denying that the president has swung the country hard left from the center-right course that George W. Bush had piloted for eight years. From 1980 until first quarter, 2009, the country had proceeded in a steady center-right direction that even Bill Clinton had generally accepted. With the exception of his commitment to Afghanistan, President Obama has turned the wheel wildly left, and the sudden sharp shift has left millions shaken and confused.The most obvious sign of the radical change is the president's budget and its massive deficits stretching out as far as the eye can see. The "stimulus" bill that wasn't could be understood as a one-time spending frenzy designed along long ago-discredited-but-still-worshipped economic theories of the left, but the budget was different. It commits the country to a doubling of the national debt in five years, and a tripling of it in ten years."

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"Gitmo is going to close, but no word yet on where the terrorists will take up residence.

The market slide has stopped, but the Dow is still down 1,500 points from the night of President Obama's election, and his radical proposals threaten entire sectors of the economy. He fired the head of GM but the company is still headed for Chapter 11 and an uncertain future as a government car-company. The MSM is still in a trance. Even as terrorists are arrested in England, the new Administration is embracing a new language that muffles the threat and downplays the nature of the enemy."