re: "Just Shut Up, Moron...."

Deebow at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") didn't sugar-coat this much.

Money quote(s):

"This is wrong on so many levels that when I saw it, I had to wrap my head in duct tape to keep it from exploding.

Sure the formal liars in formal wear are important, and I know that to some extent, the circle jerking that goes on during these meetings and confabs and seminars is important on some level to ensuring that we maintain some sort of relations with a country that we liberated from a tyrant and asked for no tribute in return. I am disappointed, but not surprised, at the fact that the eggheads in this administration couldn't negotiate some sort of agreement on troop placement and further security arrangements."

Don't worry; the guy who headed up the unsuccessful negotiation team will now be the next U.S. ambassador there.

(I seem to remember something of Soviet military doctrine about reinforcing success. On the other hand, this may be the Peter Principle's revenge.)

"Are soldiers less important than diplomats? HE double toothpicks no. Diplomats can't do their work without the hard work completed by those on patrol, and the American Soldier is the quintessential diplomat."

This was an optical fail. It goes to unstated, even unconscious, assumptions (i.e., biases) about the military, military members, &tc.

(After all, if they'd been successful in life they wouldn't have had to join, &tc.)

And just to turn Deebow's point on its head, there are certainly those who would claim that without the work of diplomat's, there would be no work for soldiers (to clean up their mistakes).

"Even Bill Clinton didn't say things this galactically retarded. And I will echo the sentiments of others on this blog that have pointed out that Satan's Handmaidens in this administration have the thankless job of going out and defend these retraded (sic) statements from a guy who is out of his depth in a parking lot puddle. We need to put this guy on the rocket sled back to Chicago for his extended presidential retirement soonest."

As someone who has done volunteer work with retarded young people, I take serious exception to Deebow's use of the term, even misspelled, as a pejorative with which to label the president's statement. That's unfair and cruel to the cognitively-challenged. (No, I'm not kidding.)

12/14

re: "Obama says 'War on Terror is over' while resurrecting LOST Treaty"

Crush at Blackfive doesn't think much of the new National Security Strategy.

Money quote(s):

"(W)ar as we know it is over. Through soft power, the United States has reinvented conflict into a feel good, region-building contingency operation where soldiers become ambassadors rather than warriors - seeking to win over our enemies rather than defeat them."

Winning hearts and minds (as the saying goes) is a perfectly reasonable way to defeat an enemy, for some values of defeat. After all, any way you make someone no longer an enemy, means he's no longer your enemy. But that's just a couple of arrows in the national quiver, not the whole of our national security toolbox. Or we'll be a very vulnerable one-trick pony.

"(O)ne can't declare war on terrorism (calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies ... [to attain] political, religious, or ideological goals) any more than you can declare war on L-shaped ambushes. I concede that the Global War on Terror is not the best name for our current conflict. But the same argument could be made about World War II. Ultimately, what the war is called is pointless. The important thing is that it is brought to a quick, decisive, and favorable end, and as of yet there is no light at the end of the tunnel."

"This is clearly not a war against Islam. The fact that our leaders continue to bring this up is an insult to everyone's intelligence, and pandering to our enemies. Members of the Islamic religion - the jihadists - are at war with us, whether we acknowledge it or not. But if one were to read the Qur'an, one would find that jihad is a pillar of Islam, not something that was taken out of context by misunderstanders of the so-called "religion of peace" or created by George Bush and Dick Cheney in order to justify their diabolical scheme."

If this was a "war against Islam," it's surely the most incompetently-run war against Islam since the Children's Crusade. Not getting a lot of traction against Islam when we seem to be propping it up more often than not.

&

"The puss-nut diplomats and think tankers that came up with this s--t should be called pirates and turned in to the Russians. Since before Moses was a corporal, civilizations protected themselves by instilling "fear" among those who seek to subjugate or eliminate their culture - as jihadists do today."