Prayer for the new little one.
Dear Heavenly Father protect the sweet little Angel from above.
Give her a specail blessing of love as she grows up to be a wonderful blessing to you LORD.
amen
Rhonda Wilburn aka Grandma Ra Ra

Forty Republicans filibustered a bill restoring habeas corpus for supposed “terrorism” suspects. Now, Reichchancellor Bush can pull any one of us off the street under the pretext that we are “terrrorists,” and throw us into the Halliburton gulag, and if anyone should ever fight back, his Blackwater Brownshirts will be there to enforce his reign of terror.

America is finished, thanks to you, Bob. You and that fascist Allard.

Mary, Karl and Alex Adams

I Got Your University; Right Here

Set the Wayback Machine for 23 August 1995: a hot day in the nation’s capitol. But 3000 miles due west on California’s Central Coast, a constellation of events was unfolding that would have a profound effect on Western civilization; plunge it into decades of war. Yet, this cataclysmic upheaval was only part of the plan. Bill Clinton picked up the telephone. It was his Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, calling from a payphone in Monterey. Bill held the receiver at arms length and gazed at the tasteful floral arrangement that adorned the Oval Office. Leon’s disembodied voice filled the room. What now, asked Hillary. It’s that damn college, mouthed Bill. There was, no getting out. Hillary nodded, just tell Leon he’ll get whatever he needs: http://theseedsof9-11.com

Dear Prof. Campos:

Though I am a McCain supporter, and must therefore be counted among the 28% whom you quite unfairly characterize as living in a myopic “bubble” (I am a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rice University, scored 760 on my LSAT, have a JD from Stanford Law School, and would venture I am at least as well informed in history and current events as you), I generally enjoy reading your columns.

They normally reflect a degree of analytical rigor absent from the editorials of those whose political tendencies resemble yours, e.g., Diane Carman, Paul Krugman. They therefore cause me to challenge my own thinking as would be the case were I having a debate with someone of equal intellectual firepower and rigor.

You are correct in your essential point: that the elites of this country, whether on the Establishment left or the Establishment right, too often depend upon the much more patriotic and courageous middle and lower classes to fight their wars.

You are also correct that they would be much less eager to engage in warfare were they or their children the first to go to the front lines. I would be the first to agree that one of the greatest problems this country has is that it has been led by ineffectual Yalies for almost 20 years.

I think, however, there is no logic whatever in your implied assertion that only those who did not shirk from service in Vietnam, or who have otherwise served in a war, are entitled to the opinion that we should not abandon Iraq, now that we have, rightly or wrongly, assumed responsibility for its welfare.

This is an opinion shared by many who have served, or are serving. This is an opinion that is not shared by many who have served, or are serving.

Reasonable, well-meaning men and women differ profoundly on the lessons they draw from history. Chamberlain and Churchill were great men who read history quite differently. Neither lived in a bubble. Chamberlain was quite morally correct in his desire to avoid another pointless slaughter like WW I, just as many Americans now fear that we are engaging in another pointless slaughter like Vietnam.

Only with benefit of hindsight is it possible to know whether Chamberlain or Churchill was correct.

On December 6, 1941, most Americans still sided with Chamberlain, even though Churchill had already been proved correct. The great Democratic demigod, FDR, indisputably lied to the American people to get them involved in WWII, and to keep them fighting in an alliance with our mortal enemy, the USSR, against another mortal enemy, Nazi Germany.

Would the American people have been willing to see their sons slaughtered in France and Belgium if they had known the real reason was not just to defeat Germany, but to help our other enemy, the USSR, avoid defeat, or alternatively, to prevent our other enemy, the USSR, from occupying all of Europe after defeating Germany?

Is the question whether FDR, or W, lied, or whether he did the right thing? I think you and I would both agree FDR did the right thing.

The question remains whether W did. The fact that he shaded the truth to justify invading Iraq is really beside the point. The question is whether it was the correct strategic move.

Again, reasonable minds can differ. There are sound historical grounds and concerns supporting the position of both sides.

Some feel that, as was true in Vietnam, if we have no intention of striking a ruthlessly deadly blow to our enemies where they actually lie (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Syria, Iran), it is a profound betrayal, as was true of Vietnam, to continue to ask brave young soldiers to lay it on the line for a cause in which their leaders do not believe.

I would be the first to say that, if we are going to eventually cut and run, regardless, then we should get the hell out now. Perhaps I am deluded in thinking that will not happen if McCain is elected, and that he will go balls-to-the-wall to destroy the enemy on a scale W and Condi are incapable of imagining.

It was obvious from 1966 on that neither LBJ nor Nixon had any intention of winning in Vietnam by doing what was necessary to bring the enemy ti its knees, e.g., the decisive strategic bombing of Hanoi and VC and NVA sanctuaries in Cambodia, and mining of Haiphong that was recommended early in the war but never undertaken until Linebacker II a/k/a “the Christmas Bombing” of 1972.

Nixon deserved to be impeached, but not for Watergate, which was trivial. He deserved to be impeached because he got elected in 1968 with the promise to end the war decisively, then dithered for four years while another 30,000 American kids died for nothing.

Then, he forced Ho and Le Duc Tho to get serious with the Christmas bombings, declared “peace with honor” rather than pressing for outright victory when it was within his grasp, then shamelessly abandoned (Ford ultimately executed this part of Kissinger’s craven policy) S. Vietnam and Cambodia to murderous Communism.

As a result, hundreds of thousand of people who supported us in S. Vietnam were slaughtered or imprisoned, and 2 million people were slaughtered in the killing fields of Cambodia.

That was why many highly patriotic but nevertheless wise young men were less than eager to serve in Vietnam and avoided it, if they could.

I recall how thrilled we were when one of my brothers got a 4F rating because of a knee badly injured playing football, and how thrilled we were when the next youngest came up with a high lottery number that protected him from being drafted in 1969-70. We were also especially eager that they not serve, because we had already lost our oldest brother, a fighter pilot, in February, 1967.

Though I was always interested in history and military affairs, and am very patriotic, I did not join up, as I had good reason to believe the US Government could not be trusted to use my life wisely. I was right.

Does that mean I am not entitled to an opinion on the Iraq war, whereas others who likewise did not serve, many for good reason, are, simply because they share your views, and not mine? Those, such as I, who will never forgive this country’s leaders for their outrageous mishandling and abandonment of Vietnam, hope against hope that we are not about to repeat that outrage in Iraq.

Some thoughtful people feel that the lesson we should have learned from Vietnam, but which we are failing to apply in the War on Terror, is that there is no kindness in taking vague half-measures to win a war, and that the way to win in Iraq is to fight it with a greater degree of ruthlessness and disregard for the lives of those sympathetic to our enemies.

Perhaps, in the face of a show of true resolve, our enemies will, instead of being emboldened by the cowardly mewlings of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, or the ineffectual dithering of the Bush Administration, cower in fright at the realization that they face an implacable, ruthless enemy that is utterly indifferent to their future security and happiness, and will erase them from the face of the earth, if need be, in order to avenge 9/11 and prevent them from ever thinking again about committing such an atrocity.

I am baffled that leftist Democrats who, for the most part, were highly sympathetic to our enemies in Vietnam (witness their disgusting waving of VC or NVA flags in protests), and did everything possible to avoid service in Vietnam, feel entitled to argue that others on the right who did the same are “chicken hawks” and are not entitled to advocate against abandoning Iraq.

According to this reasoning, neither you nor any of your fellow travelers is entitled to an opinion on the Iraq war, either.

Of course, in using Bob Beauprez as a foil, you set up a straw man, which is a cheap trick unworthy of someone of your considerable intellectual firepower.

Perhaps this is because you find it much more difficult, if not impossible, to attack the reasoning behind ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey’s insistence, or Sen. John McCain’s insistence, that we must not abandon Iraq. Obviously, you cannot attack them with sophistic, and sophomoric, questioning of their personal courage.

Sadly, when people on either side, whether you or Bob Beauprez, who are, for reasons good or bad, blessed with a degree of access to the public forum many equally or more thoughtful people lack, resort to silly ad hominem attacks more worthy of morons such as Al Franken as a substitute for reasoned argument according to historical evidence, they simply “preach to the choir”, and add nothing of consequence to public debate on important subjects.

I am 50. If they would have taken me, I would have served in this war, despite its dangers, because I was outraged at W’s father’s cynical abandonment of the Shiites and Kurds in 1991, and failure to cut Saddam’s throat when he easily could have done so. I was outraged that he had left Saddam in power to serve the same goal Saddam had been promoted for years to serve: to protect the Arabian peninsula from Iran and to help the Turks suppress the Kurds. I wanted to kill as many Arabs as possible to avenge 9/11.

I believed that W intended to expiate his father’s many sins by correcting the outrage his father committing in leaving Saddam in power. I also believed that the WMD threat, which I never took seriously, was just a pretext for what I considered to be very sound policy: seizing a massive strategic foothold in the Gulf from which we could, with overwhelming power, strike our enemies in the region at will.

I felt that W was surrounded by people, such as Shinseki and Rumsfeld, who would prevent him from repeating the mistakes of Vietnam. I was clearly wrong.

The same Wall Street/Yalie ineffectualness that caused his father to dither and choose the status quo over justice has evidently weakened W’s thinking to the point that he is unwilling to recognize that, if this is a true war on terror, it must be fought like he means it, by shifting the balance of terror decisively in our favor through utterly ruthless annihilation of our enemies, wherever they may be, by whatever means necessary. Apparently, he and his family are too close to our enemies in the Arabian Peninsula to conceive of fighting this war as it must be fought.

Germany never killed a single American civilian on American soil, yet, it could be argued, in order to make the world safe for Stalinism (how could we reconcile justifying slaughtering millions of Japanese and Germans as “making the world safe for democracy”, while having a thug every bit as evil as Hitler as an ally, and allowing him to enslave Eastern Europe?), we killed millions of German and Japanese civilians in hideous night and/or day carpet bombings. I am not suggesting that we should not have destroyed the Nazis; I am simply saying that The Good War was not nearly so clear-cut a good cause as commonly portrayed, else we would have turned our nuclear weapons on the Soviets and Chinese Communists before their agents in this country were able to get them the Bomb.

Germany and Japan did not become pacifist democracies because they wished to be, but because their survival depended upon it.

The Arabs and Iranians must be presented with the same choice: peace, or oblivion. We did not invent terrorism, but we’re better at it than anyone else, as survivors of Dresden and Hiroshima will attest. Our enemies in Islam will abjure terrorism only once they realize this, and only once we demonstrate our resolve to use it, if need be, will they “play nice” and stop funding, encouraging, and staffing our enemies in Iraq.

This is where the debate lies: is this a war or not?

If so, why is it not being fought to win?

If not, why DON’T we just get the hell out and let the worthless bastards slaughter each other (as well as all the people who trusted us to follow through on our commitments–something America hasn’t done in many years), then find ourselves having to re-invade, at much greater cost in blood and treasure on all sides, or use pre-emptive nuclear strikes to destroy radical regimes in Iraq and Iran funded, thanks to our lack of resolve, with billions in oil revenue?

If you can fashion a cogent argument for the latter, I’d like to hear it, as, knowing from personal experience the lifelong agony a family experiences upon the death of a soldier in a lost cause, I want to stop the dying of American troops in Iraq as much as anyone.

It seems to me, though, that the only sound argument is that we must instead finally fight the war to win, by ruthlessly eliminating the supporters of our enemies wherever they may be. I would start with every Wahhabist mosque or imam in the world, and with the assassination of every Arab who has contributed significant sums to al-Qaeda. I would follow with destroying every military installation, vehicle, aircraft, ship, or munitions plant in Iran. I would seize every freighter filled with Iranian oil and sell its cargo to pay for our efforts in Iraq. I would seize oil fields in Iran and Saudi Arabia, protect them with a 50-mile killing zone in which anything that moves is destroyed, and declare their revenues to be ours as reparations for 9/11 and its consequences, as well as for Iranian funding of killing of Americans in Iraq.

This is how wars are won. It is very ugly and reprehensible, and requires the forfeiting of one’s immortal soul. I agree, however, with what may be taken as your essential point: if we are unwilling to do what is necessary to win wars, we should never start them.

You are a brilliant man. You are capable of arguing your case without resort to cheap sophistry. I hope you will do so more.

Very truly yours,
Mark E. Brennan
Attorney-at-Law

May God Bless and Keep You!
Dodi