War - links
The Surge Worked
The Surge Worked
By JOHN MCCAIN and JOE LIEBERMAN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 11, 2008
It was exactly one year ago Thursday, in a televised address to the nation, that President George W. Bush announced his fateful decision to change course in Iraq, and to send five additional U.S. combat brigades there as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and under the command of a new general, David Petraeus.
At the time of its announcement, the so-called surge was met with deep skepticism by many Americans — and understandably so.
After years of mismanagement of the war, many people had grave doubts about whether success in Iraq was possible. In Congress, opposition to the surge from antiwar members was swift and severe. They insisted that Iraq was already “lost,” and that there was nothing left to do but accept our defeat and retreat.
In fact, they could not have been more wrong. And had we heeded their calls for retreat, Iraq today would be a country in chaos: a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran.
Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001. Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency’s core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst — prompting Osama bin Laden to call them “traitors.”
Jan 15, 2008 - topic(s): Citizenship, War
Podhoretz: ‘America the Ugly’
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on us that took place on this very day six years ago, several younger commentators proclaimed the birth of an entirely new era in American history. What Dec. 7, 1941, had done to the old isolationism, they announced, Sept. 11, 2001, had done to the Vietnam syndrome. It was politically dead, and the cultural fallout of that war—all the damaging changes wrought by the 1960s and ’70s—would now follow it into the grave.
Sep 11, 2007 - topic(s): Citizenship, Human Rights, National, War
Willcox: Why We Still Must Fight
By CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX
September 11, 2007; Page D6
In all the grand speeches and requiem tributes today — commemorating the events of Sept. 11, 2001 — there are likely to be few references to Whittaker Chambers. But Norman Podhoretz rightly reminds us of Chambers in “World War IV,” his bracingly mordant account of the West’s battle against Islamofascism. It is a battle that entered a critical phase six years ago with the carnage in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.
Sep 11, 2007 - topic(s): Citizenship, Human Rights, Religious Liberty, War
NYT Op-Ed: A War We Just Might Win
New York Times
A War We Just Might Win
By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK
Published: July 30, 2007
VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
Jul 30, 2007 - topic(s): Citizenship, War
Read the So-Called “Land Letter” from 2002
October 3, 2002
Dear Mr. President,
In this decisive hour of our nation’s history we are writing to express our deep appreciation for your bold, courageous, and visionary leadership. Americans everywhere have been inspired by your eloquent and clear articulation of our nation’s highest ideals of freedom and of our resolve to defend that freedom both here and across the globe.
Apr 9, 2007 - topic(s): Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Human Rights, National, War, Issues
POLL: Most Americans Want to Win in Iraq
In the wake of the U.S. House of Representatives passing a resolution that amounts to a vote of no confidence in the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq, a new national survey by Alexandria, VA-based Public Opinion Strategies (POS) shows the American people may have some different ideas from their elected leaders on this issue.
Feb 20, 2007 - topic(s): Citizenship, Legislation, National, War
RADIO - Global Warming
Dr. Barrett Duke Guests hosts Richard Land Live! on Saturday January 6, 2007
Updated Jan 24, 2007 to point to the FFF version of the broadcast.
Jan 6, 2007 - topic(s): Family, Sexual Purity, Homosexuality, Life, Cloning, Stem-Cell Research, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Human Rights, Legislation, War, Science, Bioethics, Environment
God’s Country?
Walter Russell Mead
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2006
Summary: Religion has always been a major force in U.S. politics, but the recent surge in the number and the power of evangelicals is recasting the country’s political scene — with dramatic implications for foreign policy. This should not be cause for panic: evangelicals are passionately devoted to justice and improving the world, and eager to reach out across sectarian lines.
Walter Russell Mead is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Further reading for this article can be found at www.foreignaffairs.org/mead_reading.
Dec 12, 2006 - topic(s): Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Human Rights, Persecution, Religious Liberty, War
WA Post: The Gospel According to Jim Wallis
Washington Post Magazine
By David Paul Kuhn
Sunday, November 26, 2006; Page W2
JIM WALLIS IS PREACHING ABOUT A BIBLE TORN APART. Wallis tells the crowd at the Seattle Pacific University chapel that when he was in seminary, a fellow student took hold of an old Bible and cut out “every single reference to the poor.”
“And when we were done, that Bible was literally in shreds. It was falling apart in my hands. It was a Bible full of holes. I would take it out to preach and say, ‘Brothers and sisters, this is our American Bible.’”
Nov 26, 2006 - topic(s): Faith, Apologetics, Bible, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Church and State, Social Issues, War
Iraq Nearly Had A-Bomb?
by Jonathan Gurwitz
Web Posted: 11/14/2006 07:05 PM CST
San Antonio Express-News
“Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional weapons programs after the Persian Gulf War. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.”
New York Times, Nov. 3
Pardon me — what was that?
It looked like another case of the New York Times trying to catch the Bush administration with its intelligence briefs down.
The headline blared: “U.S. Web archive is said to reveal a nuclear primer.” The story, less than two weeks before the midterm election, described the Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal, a controversial government Web site created last March at the behest of congressional Republicans to make public declassified documents seized after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Nov 14, 2006 - topic(s): Citizenship, National, War