I know a lot has already been written about last nightÂ’s speech and will be in the coming days but the more I think about it, the more dispiriting it strikes me as being.

Milblogger “CDR Salamander” has a great post on his reaction to the speech that’s well worth your time. A question he posed really struck me.

Here is a question I have for our 4-Stars:

Where in the history of warfare has a time-based strategy worked? When has it ever been determined to be a superior plan for success/victory/mission than a conditions based or effects based plan? Conventional warfare or COIN, when?

That is the heart of what’s wrong with Obama’s “Build up now, pull out in July, 2011” approach. It’s disconnected from reality.

We’ve been in Afghanistan for 8 years now, what exactly is going to be accomplished in the next 20 months or so that will be so miraculously different? And let’s be honest, it’s not even 20 months. What’s the best case for the troops getting there, ready to go and conducting operations? Let’s say it’s May of 2010. That means the timeline is really 14 months. But wait, Obama has another of his “strategic reviews”/Grad Seminars set for December of next year to evaluate how things are going. That means at best the troops have 7-9 months to show improvement. And then what? Is keeping the troop levels the same or even higher an option in the December review? I doubt it.

Suppose things are going well, Obama will say, “We did it, come on home”. If they are going poorly he will say, “We tried, come one home”. Even if somehow McChrystal and the troops can pull off a miracle and get things on a better footing, is anyone really expecting it to last if we draw down? What reason is there to believe that in the next year of so an Afghan Army is going to appear that can hold the gins American troops will undoubtedly make?

Look at the words of the Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual (pdf/pg 24)Â…

Counterinsurgency is a long-term approach and effort requiring support from political and military leaders”

In what way does ObamaÂ’s artificial timetable meet that basic stricture of counterinsurgency? more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:54 AM | Comments (133)
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OK, no, not really.
Check out this animated map and note the acceleration toward the end, there.

Imagine how bad it would have been without the Stimulus, eh?

*coughcoughLYINGSHITBAGScoughcough*

From Dori Monson.

Posted by: LauraW at 06:01 AM | Comments (158)
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Yes, scroll down again. Don't know what's up with the insomnia patrol, but things've been busy here at night. I guess everyone's tired of the same old infomercials.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:22 AM | Comments (69)
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For now, still very good news.

SYDNEY — Australia's Senate on Wednesday defeated the government's plan to implement a carbon pollution trading system to fight global warming, dashing hopes of setting an example for other nations at U.N. climate change talks next week.

Oh they set an example all right. The Australian Liberal Party (conservative, think "classical liberalism") dumped their leader for supporting this nonsense, then they put a halt to it. At least for the time being.

Ah crap. Now I did it. Sorry.

Meanwhile, Dallas Ft. Worth area getting a dusting of global warming this morning.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:12 AM | Comments (46)
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Gregory of Yardale made a hell of a comment in Drew M.'s post on the Eugene Robinson column about health care in the WaPo the other day.

This stimulated (sound of Beavis snickering) an e-mail discussion on what supply-side reforms in health care might look like. Quote and thoughts below the fold... this is on the long side. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 09:10 PM | Comments (57)
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Good evening M&Ms. Welcome to tonight's moronic colloquium.

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time
Okay I agree with most of these having experienced the suckitude of the Pinto and Gremlin personally. But a lot of their post-1990 choices seem to be just PC - there's nothing inherently bad about the Ford Explorer except that its gas mileage isn't so great and it's big and popular which makes it 'evil' to certain people.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (769)
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I'm torn here. This article for The Iowa Republican was written by a former friend of mine, and I was really conflicted about criticizing his point of view. On the other hand, it took me most of the day to get to the point where I'm not simply "channeling my Inner Eddiebear" and addressing his piece with a baseball bat & a laundry basket full of obscenities.

Yes, I referred to Steve Deace as a "former" friend. We still correspond in a civil manner, but when he called me out for "thinking like a politician, and not a Christian" because I dared to support Fred Thompson instead of Mike Huckabee, that was pretty much the equivalent of pouring gas on our friendship and then dancing around the room to "Stuck In The Middle With You". And when a guy goes after Congressman Steve King (R, Straight Outta' the 1950's) for being INSUFFICIENTLY CONSERVATIVE and actively solicits people to primary him, you've got to wonder if the inmates have taken over his asylum, so to speak. But, just because the guy did me wrong, it still doesn't feel right to go after him. I'll have to comfort myself with the knowledge that my differences with him are in areas of public policy, and that speaking my mind is necessary to help frame the debate.

For the vast majority of you who don't live in Iowa, Steve is the afternoon drive time talk radio host for WHO (1040 AM). This is a 50,000 watt radio station where Ronald Reagan got his start in broadcasting back in the 1930s. Needless to say, the big reach of this powerful station, combined with Iowa's "First In The Nation" status because of the caucus means that his political influence extends beyond the borders of our state. He's always been a big advocate of conservative values, but his religious awakening of a few years ago really focused his views. About 3 years ago, he switched from sports talk format at a smaller affiliated station to a permanent slot on "The Mothership" where he is free to talk politics 24/7/365.

If you take the "jump" into the extended entry, you'll be faced with a LONG "fisking" of an article written by a BIG Huckabooster from the '08 Iowa Caucus. If you're sick of the issue, maybe you should just skip ahead to a nice, short AGW thread, or even the ONT, where I hear that Maetenloch has finally started to bring enough chewing gum for EVERYONE. Just please don't be "that guy". You know the one: the guy who just has to tell you that "I (voluntarily) read your whole article, and I can't believe that you wasted my valuable time".

The great thing about the blogosphere is that you don't HAVE to read anything you don't want to read. With that said.....here I go.

more...

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 05:51 PM | Comments (55)
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Outrageous? I didn't think so until he poured on further contempt of the troops by stating that Paul Wolfowitz used to go to West Point to "rabble-rouse" -- our troops being the "rabble."

So the "enemy camp" thing I took in a You know what he means way.

And then he had to follow that up with "rabble-rouse." Rouse up the ignorant, wild-eyed rabble. Of West Point.

Posted by: Ace at 05:37 PM | Comments (189)
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Mostly cadets, couple of familiar faces.. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:34 PM | Comments (27)
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What looked like a sure thing a few weeks ago just got voted down in the Australian Senate. There has been a bunch of drama over this bill, including the ousting of the main opposition leader after he started to go along with PM Rudd's plans to send the Australian economy back to the Stone Age.

Now it looks like Rudd and both houses of parliament are in for an early shake-up:

Opponents of the cap-and-trade scheme used their numbers in the Senate after a climate change skeptics took control of the opposition leadership on Tuesday.

The scheme would have been the biggest outside Europe, covering 75 percent of Australian emissions and starting in July 2011. It would have effectively forced polluters to pay for their emissions, requiring them to purchase emission permits from a carbon market.

Senior opposition lawmaker and frontbencher Christopher Pyne said he expected a dissolution of both houses of parliament and an election early in the new year, ahead of polls due around late November.

"I think the election will be on March 6. I think the government will call a double dissolution election if the ETS (emissions trading scheme) is voted down this week," Pyne said.

Ah, Copenhagen, we barely knew ye.

Lousy Editorializing: Y'know, last year I wrote that 2008 would be known as the year when the Global Warming scam started to fall apart. And it did. That's when more American's disbelieved in warming than believed in it. Many people woke up and realized that the big ball of nuclear fire hanging over our heads might have something to do with global temperatures on Earth. And many people looked around and noticed that it's been awfully cold around here lately (for example, we had snow in Malibu for the past two years).

But if it started last year, man, the collapse of the Global Warming con is coming fast now. Almost like a runaway greenhouse gas effect that's just going to ruin everything.

In many places it was was a heinous, unthinkable violation to doubt Global Warming, especially for my generation. I came out as a skeptic to a few of my coworkers last year and they looked at me like I was an alien. But this week I saw doubt in their eyes when another coworker brought up ClimateGate.

The taboo for being a "denier" is lifting. Before you know it, no one who can get away with it will fess to believing in Global Warming. Of course, a lot of politicians will go down kicking and screaming, swearing to their last breath that it's real. They've got too much invested in it being real and many are much too proud to admit they were duped.

But I'm okay with that. As Americans sour about the billions of dollars that have been wasted on Global Warming, they'll go hunting for wasteful fools in Washington.

Obama wants to go to Copenhagen and make a commitment to fighting Global Warming? Let him. Just something else to pin on him in 2012.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:13 PM | Comments (66)
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