iraq

Chris Knight's avatar

George W. Bush is the worst President in American history.  In less lucid moments (mostly when hopped-up on allergy medicine) I would write that Barack Obama has been far far worse.  But there would have not been Barack Obama in the White House had Bush the Lesser been a competent leader.

I spent more time than I cared to during the Bush years chronicling and commenting upon that maladministration’s screw-ups, and I sure don’t want to spend any more time on it than I absolutely must (some readers of this blog have commented that I’m too hard on Obama, even “hateful”.  Where were they during this site’s first several years?!).  All I will say for now is this: in regards to the Department of Homeland Security: I told y’all so.  Way back in 2001 even, I wrote in a few places that Bush was giving us something in Homeland Security ...

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My great-uncle Rob was a G.I. who served in the Pacific during World War II. But unless you were family you likely would have never known that. It was something that, like many others who served during that conflict, he never liked to talk about.

Mom told me when I was a child that Uncle Rob had to kill an enemy soldier. I didn’t know until years later that it was during the American invasion of Okinawa. Uncle Rob dived into a foxhole for cover. At almost the same moment a Japanese soldier jumped inside the same foxhole.

The Japanese man said something that Uncle Rob could not understand. My great-uncle killed him without thinking. He beheaded the Japanese soldier with the bayonet of his rifle.

Uncle Rob was one of the kindest, gentlest men that you could ever meet in this world. But from a young age I sensed ...

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Whatever faults there might be with American healthcare, you have to admit: it still kicks ass like nobody else!

Retired U.S. Army Sergeant Brendan Marrocco (right) lost all four limbs to a roadside bomb attack while serving in Iraq in 2009. It’s nothing short of miraculous that Marrocco is the most severely-injured American service member to have survived such an ordeal.

It’s also nothing short of amazing that nine weeks ago Marrocco received a double-arm transplant at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. It will take a few more years of his nervous system getting acclimated – to say nothing of the physical therapy that’ll be involved – but in the end Brendan Marrocco will have two fully-functioning arms and hands again.

From The Guardian article…

Sergeant Brendan Marrocco, 26, of Staten Island, New York, said he was anxious to return to an active life after the successful bilateral arm

...
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Chris Knight's avatar

I hate to say “I told you so” buuuuuuut…

For quite a long time now and most recently five days ago, I have argued that going to war in Iraq would have disastrous long-term consequences and chief among those is that without a “strongman” to hold that country together, Iraq will tear itself apart into sectarian strife. The classic model for my thesis is Yugoslavia: a “nation” that much like Iraq was cobbled together from leftover realms in the aftermath of World War I. And just as Marshal Tito kept the various factions like the Croats, the Bosnians, the Serbs etc. from killing each other, so did Saddam Hussein put a lid on the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds and everyone else from destroying Iraq from within.

That’s NOT any justification for Saddam Hussein, mind you. The man was an evil bastard. It’s just the peculiar dynamic of ...

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On this day, the Iraq War has officially drawn to a close. It began in March of 2003, lasting nearly nine years (more than twice as long as the United States took to fight and win World War II across both the Pacific and European theaters).

The Iraq war cost our own country nearly one trillion dollars. It also cost the lives of more than 4,500 American military personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis (many of whom were innocent civilians not attached to Saddam Hussein’s army).

Now… can anyone finally tell me why it is that we went to war in Iraq in the first place? “Enforcing sanctions” won’t cut it. We lost too many lives and wasted way too much money on this fiasco. What has come of it? An Iraq which will sooner than later tear itself apart across ethnic and religious lines (specifically Sunni, Shiite and ...

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The lesser angels of my nature are wanting to cry out that stuff like this, is enough to make me think – however fleeting and regrettably – that if the “neo-conservatives” of this country were wiped out to a man, that this would have been a much better nation for it.

However, as a Christian, I have to fight against saying that I agree with that urge.

Frank Gaffney, former Assistant Defense Secretary and now with the “Center for Security Policy” (whatever the hell that is) declared on Hardball with Chris Matthews yesterday that in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the Iraq War was begun on false pretenses, “My position is that it’s regrettable that any Americans died. It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die.“

Here’s the video…

I’ve thought for a very long time now that George W. ...

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And to think that all this time, George W. Bush thought that the Iraqis would throw flowers at his feet… not shoes at his head:

An Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference yesterday in Baghdad and called him a “dog”. In most Mid-East cultures, showing someone the soles of your shoes is considered the ultimate – and often mortal – insult.

You know what I can’t help but think about this incident? Theodore Roosevelt was once giving a speech and someone tried to assassinate him. The bullet hit something in Roosevelt’s chest pocket, didn’t penetrate his body at all. T.R. jumped off the podium and commenced to beating the living crap out of the assailant with his bare hands. Now how come “tough guy” George W. Bush didn’t do something like that yesterday?

George W. Bush, “Liberator of Iraq”, having to duck a shoe ...

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Is there anything more pathetic than a person scrambling against time in a vain effort to ensure that history will be kind to him or her?

Perhaps only if that person happens to be a current President of the United States.

George W. Bush was at West Point yesterday, trying to spin his eight years in office as a blazing success. The most foolish man to ever occupy the Oval Office actually defended his policy of pre-emptive war (something that had never been done before in American history) and declared to the assembled cadets that “With all the actions we’ve taken these past eight years, we’ve laid a solid foundation on which future presidents and future military leaders can build.”

The Decider also boasted that the present condition of the United States military is “”stronger, more agile and better prepared” than how he found it when he first took ...

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Lenny Watson was a Marine who was among the first to enter Iraq when the war started over five years ago. In 2004 he lost most of his lower jaw during a grenade attack. His drive to have something palatable to eat during his recovery ended up propelling him into the culinary arts…

The Dallas Morning News has the story of Lenny Watson’s new career.

No, not gonna add any commentary here about the war, and that’s not why I’m posting this here either. I do think this guy has the right attitude though: that being happy is ultimately your own choice to make, regardless of whatever nonsense life throws into your path. It’s a great story, and one worth sharing with others....

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And now the dirty secret of whatever success “the Surge” had rears its ugly head…

Military.com is reporting that ex-rebels in Iraq are demanding more money, or else they will go back to the ranks of Al-Qaeda and begin attacking American forces again. The money that’s been paying the former rebels to begin with has originated with the United States government.

So all this time we’ve either been funding an army of mercenaries that used to be shooting at American personnel, or we’ve been outright bribing them, depending on what your take on the situation is. I don’t know if all of the diminished violence in Iraq can be attributed to this chicanery, but it’s a safe bet that a big chunk of it will be.

I’m reminded again of the last phase of the Roman Empire, when that government was reduced to hiring barbarians to fill the ranks ...

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