Things I have heard...

Yesterday I was listening to News & Notes with Ed Gordon on NPR. This is a quite liberal program although I will grant that they do bring in conservative guests as part of their panel often. They were discussing Pat Robertson and his recent foray into international relations with Venezuela when I heard something that blew my mind.One of the guest panelists said (and I have to paraphrase because I don't have a perfect memory) -=Pat Robertson is a kook, just like Rev. Fallwell, the Rev. ******(I missed this name I think it was Butz but who knows), Minister Farrakhan, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson....=- I had just heard an African-American on a liberal radio program refer to not only Louis Farrakhan as a kook, but also Jesse Jackson. My respect for Michael Meyers just went through the roof. I need to go find more things he said because I am ecstatic that a leader in the African American community is identifying these people as what they are. Kooks. (I also happen to agree with him on Robertson and Falwell too)

Michael Yon has written a complete description of the fire fight I mentioned on 22 August in which LTC Eric Kurilla got shot three times. It is a very good article and he has photos of the whole thing. Including this one taken from his blog of Kurilla as the first round hits him.

Kurilla is an old school military leader. Not many field grade officers lead from the front anymore. They will be near by but not taking point, charging down the alley after the bad guys. Why don't they? Well, because it is pretty disruptive for a Battalion to lose it's CO. But when you get a leader like this, the men will follow him anywhere.
Probably the most damning thing in the article is the information that the guy who shot Kurilla had just been released from Abu Ghraib where he had been detained as a suspected participant in an earlier attack.

I responded to a comment on Eddie the Republican's blog today. Some anti war poster came up with the usual questions, the ones I see all the time.

The Iraq War was completely unnecessary, and its initiation was entirely based on lies. Where are the WMD's? Where is the connection with Al Qaida? How is life in Iraq better now than before? Seriously. And wasn't this supposed to have been the next step toward catching Osama bin Laden? Where's he? Probably hanging out with the Bushes at home in Texas.

I get so tired of these. But here is my response:

1. WMDs - May not be any. I'll admit that. The issue is that EVERY intellegence service in the world, including the French, the Germans and the Russians, believed that Hussein had or was activly trying to develop Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. Even Hans Blix, the UN inspector, never said there are no weapons, he said we haven't seen any but we want to go back and keep looking.

2. Al Queda - Very little if any connection between Al Queda and Hussein. But so what? There are LOTS of terrorists that are not Al Queda and Hussein was activly supporting many of them.

3. Life better of Iraq now - NO. It is not at the moment. But this is when you have to look at potential long term benefits over short term benefits. In the long term things can become much much better for the people of Iraq than was possible under the regime of Saddam Hussien. (and I suspect things would have gotten worse when he died and which ever of his sons won the ensuing power struggle took over.)

4. UBL - No, it was not the next step in catching bin Laden. It was an effort to prevent the development of WMDs, deny financing and training facilities for terrorists, and to remove a hugely destabilizing force from the playing field in Southwest Asia. Bin Laden is still hiding somewhere in northwestern Pakistan.

Eddie disagrees with my assesment of #3. But I'll stick with my answer. Until there is running water and electricity, and no car bombs and no gangs of "insurgents" roaming the country, things are not better. They will be eventually, if the anti war folks don't force a premature pullout, but for now, things are still worse in Iraq.

Speaking of Pullouts and exit strategies, here is my exit straegy for Iraq.
We will leave when the war is over and we have won. Not a day sooner.
That sounds a little better than "Stay the course"