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POPSTrue tests of leadership Continuing the clip: "Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops. As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and Anbari villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse, not better. Three weeks after Senator Obama voted to deny funding for our troops in the field, General Ray Odierno launched the first major combat operations of the surge. Senator Obama declared defeat one month later: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now." His assessment was popular at the time. But it couldn't have been more wrong." And more telling... he always chooses the politically expedient answer.
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POPS"Good Faith" Torture Deemed OK Interesting that they set a subjective standard for torture: viz., if the interrogator thought in "good faith" that the method wouldn't cause long-term mental harm. Note that it didn't require that the method would probably cause long-term mental harm, only that the interrogator didn't believe it would. By defining torture subjectively, the Bush administration: 1. Consigned the definition of torture to belief, thereby making it impossible to adjudicate by objective measures. 2. Totally marginalized the detainee's likely reaction to the method and, thereby, nullified the detainee's humanness and recognition as a rights-bearing being. This kind of sophistry one would expect of a brutal dictatorship.
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POPSThe Democrats' Fairy Tale
And the improvements in Anbar could never have been sustained without aggressive American military efforts — efforts that were more effective in 2007 than they had been in 2006, due in part to the addition of the surge forces. Last year’s success, in Anbar and elsewhere, was made possible by confidence among Iraqis that U.S. troops would stay and help protect them, that the U.S. would not abandon them to their enemies. Because the U.S. sent more troops instead of withdrawing — because, in other words, President Bush won his battles in 2007 with the Democratic Congress — we have been able to turn around the situation in Iraq. And now Iraq’s Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law — one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground by harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation
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POPSOperation Brimstone Operation Brimstone boasts two striking features: 1. It will include for the first time units of the US Expeditionary Combat Command, who are trained to operate in shallow coastal waters and rivers, such as the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf and the small islands around its chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Revolutionary Guards marine units are posted on these islands. The international force will have to control the islands to ensure oil shipping freed passage out to world markets. 2. The Roosevelt’s decks will for the first time host French Rafale fighter jets which will share space with US warplanes, while the only French carrier Charles de Gaulle undergoes maintenance.
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POPSAfghanistan: Obama Sees Problems; McCain Sees A solution The differences are not small ones, and reflect a distinction between the kind of staff-driven, laundry-list mush that sees the immensity of a problem and a leader-driven set of priorities that sees a solution. It is the distinction between Obama's opposition to the Iraq surge and McCain's support for it: not just the courage to make the tough choice, but the clarity to follow the right course. It's also the distinction between winning the war and simply ending it. Thomas Donnelly is the Resident Fellow in Foreign & Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
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POPSLanny Davis: "We were wrong" Thank You, Lannie. It is great to see there are still stand-up people on the left. From article: "Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states?" "And then in early 2007 came the Surge, which so many of us in the anti-war left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong." "The surge did, in fact, lead to a reduction of violence, confirmed by media on the ground as well as our military leaders."
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POPSFacing the Freshwater Crisis As demand for freshwater soars, planetary supplies are becoming unpredictable. Existing technologies could avert a global water crisis, but they must be implemented soon
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POPSGeneral Obama Calls For Shift Of U.S. Forces To Afghanistan Obama, who has made his opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq five years ago a centerpiece of his campaign, was in Baghdad to assess security in Iraq, where violence has fallen to its lowest level since early 2004. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Obama did not mention his pledge to remove U.S. combat troops within 16 months if he takes office in talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. But in comments suggesting Iraq and Obama are not far apart on the timeframe, Dabbagh said Baghdad's goal was for foreign combat forces to leave by the end of 2010 if security conditions allowed. Dabbagh has floated a similar timeframe before. "We cannot give any timetables or dates but the Iraqi government believes the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal of the forces," Dabbagh told reporters. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080721/pl_nm/iraq_dc
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POPSPelosi should look in the mirror This from the woman who has protected a war criminal who, if Bush is ever tried as one or impeached, ought to be tried and impeached/recalled as an enabler, as harboring, protecting aiding and abetting a war criminal. This from a woman who on occasions has appeared to be lusting over or hero worshipping him. This from a woman who also appears to have had a demented school-girl crush on a virtual monster.
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POPSSinger and radio star Jo Stafford dies at 90 Stafford's records of "I'll Walk Alone," "I'll Be Seeing You," "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" and other sentimental songs struck the hearts of servicemen far from home in both World War II and the Korean War. They awarded her the title of "GI Jo."
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POPSSudan Would Be Obama's Iraq; Elitest Foreign Policy Conclusions can be drawn from Obama's elitest foreign policy advisory team, comprised from Hillary and Bill Clinton's own. While condemning Bush's Iraq war, Obama will lead military interventionism into Africa, most likely, if you consider his top adviser's position, who has his ear like the neocons had Bush's ear. Africa will be the place for "regime change" under Obama, to fold it into the plan for world democracy which is driven by the elite. Susan Rice is Obama's Paul Wolfowitz. Dems and Repubs are both military interventionists. Obama like Hillary and McCain is a member of the CFR , the elites pushing global government. Hardly a sharp "change" is it, in direction? See the plan for AFRICOM , for which Obama is most suited to "sell" as needed, as part of the global elite's puzzle.
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POPSThe Failure of the New Yorker Cartoon Look at the huge amount of information that exists in the world. Before you can even start to understand it, you need to decide which parts of it you are going to spend time understanding, and which you will largely ignore. This means taking a glance at a huge quantity of information and forming quick opinions. From this initial scan, some elements will catch your eye. Those are the parts that you will look at in more detail. It will be a very small percentage of the total amount of information available. For the vast majority of the items we come across in an average day, we glance at the head lines, make our snap judgments, and we move on, looking for the item that strikes enough interest to generate a more thorough examination... The New Yorker magazine failed to take this into consideration, and created a cover that communicated the opposite of what they wanted to communicate. Does clipmarks contribute to this?
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