Medary.com

A reminder from Melvin Laird (via Gateway Pundit) that we didn't lose Vietnam.  We quit.

The truth about Vietnam that revisionist historians conveniently forget is that the United States had not lost when we withdrew in 1973. In fact, we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory two years later when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own. Over the four years of Nixon's first term, I had cautiously engineered the withdrawal of the majority of our forces while building up South Vietnam's ability to defend itself. My colleague and friend Henry Kissinger, meanwhile, had negotiated a viable agreement between North and South Vietnam, which was signed in January 1973. It allowed for the United States to withdraw completely its few remaining troops and for the United States and the Soviet Union to continue funding their respective allies in the war at a specified level. Each superpower was permitted to pay for replacement arms and equipment. Documents released from North Vietnamese historical files in recent years have proved that the Soviets violated the treaty from the moment the ink was dry, continuing to send more than $1 billion a year to Hanoi. The United States barely stuck to the allowed amount of military aid for two years, and that was a mere fraction of the Soviet contribution.

Yet during those two years, South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $297 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973.

Those advocating withdrawal from Iraq have taken to reciting the old saying, allegedly from Benjamin Franklin:  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

But who's doing the same thing?  Who led the charge to cut off Vietnam at the knees, and who's leading the charge to do the same in Iraq?

Truman:

Cold war (containment policy) = win
Korea = draw

Kennedy:
Bay of Pigs = disaster
Cuban Missile Crisis = The last Democrat backbone sighting in human history
Vietnam escalation = disaster

Johnson:
Vietnam escalation = disaster

Carter:
Iran hostage crisis = An Iranian Act of War is responded to with Carter-era malaise and fecklessness
Israel-Palestinian Accord = enabled the Intifada

Clinton:
Bosnia war = modest success
Somalia = Black Hawk Down
Dayton Agreement = Enabled the thug Arafat to maintain power

Let's now look at significant foreign policy initiatives of Republicans:
Eisenhower:
Gary Powers incident = oops! No harm done, really. Soviets drained significant resources into their anti-aircraft systems afterward.
Cold War = executed the policy

Nixon:
Vietnamization = Cleaning up the mess Democrat foreign/military policies made
China = Imagine the world had he not gone?

Reagan:
Iranian Hostage Crisis = Coincidence they were released the same day as Reagan took office?
Cold War = Ended it by out-spending the Russians and proposing "Star Wars."
Grenada = Snuffed out an attempt to create a Mini-Me Cuba

George H.W. Bush:
Kuwait-Iraq War = Possibly the greatest military victory in human history
Panama = Regime change completed, Drug-lord Noriega overthrown.

George W. Bush:
Iraq Liberation = Ultimate outcome still in doubt. People with the same anti-war mindset who were responsible for the failure to win in Vietnam are reprising their role here (which is about the only parallel between the two situations, actually.)


I'm not saying that Republican achievements in foreign/military policy are uniformly successful, but can someone tell me why anything Democrat leaders say regarding foreign/military policy has any credibility at all?

NBA player Bill Russell, speaking on an NCAA Convention panel on gang influences in academics (link goes to a PDF file):

"We have a responsibility to educate these kids," he said, "not just to read and write, but to educate them philosophically and even religiously.  Our duty, the educators', is to correct this culture because the nations with the best standard of living are the most educated places."

It's odd to think that such a statement would be considered notable let alone newsworthy, but we are talking about academia here.

Via Hugh Hewett, a link to a primer on global jihadism written by Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to the President and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.

The entire article is worth the time to read, but the concluding remarks are especially important:

It is the fate of the West, and in particular the United States, to have to deal with the combined threat of Shia and Sunni extremists. And for all the differences that exist between them -- and they are significant -- they share some common features.

Their brand of radicalism is theocratic, totalitarian, illiberal, expansionist, violent, and deeply anti-Semitic and anti-American. As President Bush has said, both Shia and Sunni militants want to impose their dark vision on the Middle East. And as we have seen with Shia-dominated Iran's support of the Sunni terrorist group Hamas, they can find common ground when they confront what they believe is a common enemy.

The war against global jihadism will be long, and we will experience success and setbacks along the way. The temptation of the West will be to grow impatient and, in the face of this long struggle, to grow weary. Some will demand a quick victory and, absent that, they will want to withdraw from the battle. But this is a war from which we cannot withdraw. As we saw on September 11th, there are no safe harbors in which to hide. Our enemies have declared war on us, and their hatreds cannot be sated. We will either defeat them, or they will come after us with the unsheathed sword.

All of us would prefer years of repose to years of conflict. But history will not allow it. And so it once again rests with this remarkable republic to do what we have done in the past: our duty.

(Of course, that this was written by someone working for Bush is enough to send the Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers to stick their necks deeply into the sand. C'est la guerre.)

The Palatial Abode entered the middle-of-the-first-decade-of-the-Twenty-First-Century this morning, as the nice DirecTV installer guy pulled away in his van at about 11:30 a.m., leaving a DirecTV HR-20 HD-DVR receiver behind, installed, and fully functional.

So, what do those obscure letters and numbers mean? Well, it's basically a satellite TV receiver with a hard disk inside it, which can record up to 200 hours of standard television (or, 50 hours of high definition TV).

So far, so good. I've recorded the movie Heartbeeps (a terrible little thing featuring Andy Kauffman and Bernadette Peters) and also, simultaneously, an hour of CNBC's "Street Signs."

The big, big, big plus is . . . it records.

The major disappointment is that the on-screen guide is significantly slower than the HD-20 receiver (which moved upstairs to be Snookums' Tennesee Lady Vol/Sports Pack-and WE/Oxygen network receiver). But, for the ability to record programs up to two weeks in advance, I'll take that trade. I'd had difficulties with my old VCR tapes (getting eaten by the recorder) as well as my older (2000-vintage) DVD-recorder unit (not recording reliably--that might have been due to bad media but it was really consistently bad).

(I also need to figure out how to re-program the upstairs DirecTV receiver remote to control the TV . . . a minor implementation detail to be sure, but Snookums seems to hate on a visceral level the concept of more than one remote control in any room . . . )

I'll post more if and when I find really neat or really awful things about DirecTV's HD-DVR receiver.

Darrent Williams, a second-year cornerback for the NFL's Denver Broncos, died of a drive-by shooting while in his stretch limosine this morning in Denver.

As always happens when a young person is cut down in the prime of their life, the first question is "why?"

My attention is drawn to an article written by Byron Williams, a pastor from Oakland:

Black culture today, for all intents and purposes, is thug culture.

While not a blanket statement, we would be fooling ourselves if we did not acknowledge that this is the reality for too many young African Americans, regardless of economic status. For every African-American parent who spends painstaking hours trying to invoke messages of responsibility and hard work, there are larger, more influential forces overtly and covertly saying such things are reserved for "whites only."

How did we go from aspiring to excellence to glorifying debased and otherwise degrading behavior? Can this all be blamed on racism or the lack of affirmative action?

Today's so-called black culture finds its roots in prison behavior.

This does not mean that young whites and other groups do not engage in similar practices. What I am witnessing through personal, nonscientific observation is a black community embracing these behaviors so that they become synonymous with who they are. There appears to be no line of demarcation that separates the cultural statement de jour from their reality.

I do not know if Pastor Williams is black or white, although he is writing in a newspaper for the California Bay Area black community.  I do know that he is absolutely right.

Darrent Williams, rest in peace.

Strategy Page looks at the wars and hot spots in the world at the end of 2006:

International terrorism has created a international backlash and a war unlike any other. The only terrorist victories are in the media. On the ground, the terrorists are losing ground everywhere. There least refuges are places like Somalia, a few of the Philippine islands, and tribal regions of Pakistan. They are being chased out of Somalia and the Philippines, while Pakistan is under constant pressure to do the same.

Reading the whole article is educational--not only because it documents how many of the world's current conflicts are between radical Islam and whoever else the Jihadists encounter, but also how the Islamists are defeated every time they're confronted, as in Somalia.

The only way the Islamists win is if Old Media continues its suicidal anti-Western reporting.

These are the actual AP article headlines, via Yahoo News.  Read, and enjoy:

(AP) Poll:  Americans see gloom, doom in 2007.

Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of another terrorist attack next year, more than five years after the Sept. 11 assault on New York and Washington. An identical percentage think it is likely that bad guys will unleash a biological or nuclear weapon elsewhere in the world.
. . .
The telephone poll of 1,000 adults was conducted Dec. 12-14 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.

AP Poll:  Americans optimistic for 2007.

Seventy-two percent of Americans feel good about what 2007 will bring for the country, and an even larger 89 percent are optimistic about the new year for themselves and their families, according to the poll.
. . .
The AP-AOL News poll of 1,000 adults was conducted by telephone from Dec. 12-14 by Ipsos, an international public opinion research company. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Of course, you have to dig through six paragraphs of the more positively-titled article about how bad the Iraq war is going before you come to this paragraph.  Interestingly, this story, and the immediately previous one on the list, appear to refer to the very same poll.

A new occasional feature (call it a Whip if you must):

10:  Here are your 2006 Darwin Award Winners.

(No article quote.  Follow the link.)

9:  You know those movie monsters who ominously reassemble themselves after the hero has blown them to bits?  Kind of like AT&T?

AT&T completed its $86 billion purchase of BellSouth Corp. after federal regulators cleared the way for the U.S. telephone industry's biggest takeover ever.

8:  Totten talks to Lebanese Christians.

“What do you two think of US foreign policy here?” I said.

“We love America, but have doubts,” Jack said. “They let Syria come in here in 1991 for help in Iraq.” Jack was referring to former Secretary of State James Baker, who green-lighted Syria’s invasion and overlordship in Lebanon in exchange for “help” during the first Persian Gulf War. How Hafez Assad lent any meaningful assistance in ousting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait has never been clear. Lebanese were sold to the Syrian wolf for a cheap price indeed, and Aoun constantly harps on this point to his followers.

7:  Barbara Boxer notices CAIR's terror connections.

In a highly unusual move, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California has rescinded an award to an Islamic activist in her home state because of the man’s connections to a major American Muslim organization that recently has been courted by leading political figures and even the FBI.

6:  Fourth Indiana Jones movie on the way.

Harrison Ford will once again play the lead, revisiting a character that his performance in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" made an icon. The 64-year-old Ford said at the inaugural Rome Film Festival in October that he was excited about the project and hoped that he was "fit to continue" to play Indiana Jones despite his age. It's tough to say what effect age will have on the story, but Lucas -- who has kept the plot under wraps -- has divulged that the latest action flick will be a "character piece.

5:  France to publish UFO archive.

According to Reuters, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) will post a database of some 1,600 UFO sightings to the Web in late January or early February. Names, however, will be redacted from the database for privacy reasons.

4:  Wall Street has best year since 2003.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 16.3% for the year, a sharp turnaround after the blue-chip index lost 0.6% in 2005.

3:  Islamists continue attacks on Israel.

Last Tuesday, the Islamic Jihad group launched at least seven Qassam rockets at Sderot in southern Israel. About 10pm the last reached its target - Adir Bassad and Matan Cohen, ninth graders aged about 14, who had no time to reach a bomb shelter.

While surgeons battled to save the children's lives and limbs, residents of Sderot felt increasingly abandoned by the Israeli Government, which continues to seek a peace agreement with the Palestinian territories while as many 60 Qassam rockets have been fired into Israel since a so-called ceasefire was agreed to on November 25.

2:  Ethiopians and Somali Government forces close in on Islamic rebels.

The Ethiopian and Transitional Federal Government occupation of Mogadishu has begun. Shabelle notes that "over thousand Ethiopian troops accompanied by military vehicles" entered Mogadishu, and "hundreds of Mogadishu residents could be seen clapping and handing [wreaths] to the Ethiopian troops." In an opinion piece about how the world views the Somali conflict, SomaliNet says the welcoming of the TFG and Ethiopian forces should not be surprising. "The overwhelming feedback SomaliNet received so far tells a unique story. The majority of the feedbacks we received were pro-courts in the first days of the war. As soon as the government started winning, the mood changed into nationalism, sense of [pride] and the possibility of a long awaited national government. The public loves winners no matter which side."

1:  Saddam assumes room temperature.

As the 42-year-old Hussein coolly puffed on a cigar, names of the plotters were read out. As each name was called, secret police led them away. Some of the bewildered men cried out "long live Saddam Hussein" in a futile display of loyalty.

Twenty-two of them were executed. To make sure Iraqis got the word, Hussein videotaped the entire proceeding and distributed copies across the country. The plot claim was a lie.

So says Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) in the Washington Post:

While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States. Iraq is the most deadly battlefield on which that conflict is being fought. How we end the struggle there will affect not only the region but the worldwide war against the extremists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.

Look up from the morbid body-count of how many U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq and see the world as it is, not how you wish it to be.

Via Instapundit.