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TAPS -- Lt. John D. Werntz, USAAF
It is my sad duty to inform you that we have lost one of our Old War Dogs, one of our precious few remaining from WWII, John D. Werntz, and, as a retired professor from Columbia University, one of the most erudite and academically accomplished Dogs in this motley pack. So typical of the warriors from his time, John downplayed the importance of his role in that great conflict. Yet like so many of those who came home to an America finally at peace, minimizing their contributions as they put this horrible war behind them, John had actually been an important participant, a key warrior in a huge, historical, military event, the invasion of France and the conquering of Nazi Germany. and you will find him saying that he did nothing more than help a jumpmaster push a stick of paratroopers out the door over Normandy, failing to mention that while he was performing that supposedly ho-hum task, deadly German flak was bursting within and all around that invading fleet of C-47’s that carried the paratroopers and towed the glider troops who would disrupt German operations and allow the main American forces to break out of the beach heads. Many of the planes around John and his crew went down, but of that he makes no mention. I don’t know the actual attrition figures for John’s unit, the 72d Troop Carrier Squadron of the 434th Group of the 9th United States Army Air Force, but they were substantial in that initial airborne assault and in the subsequent airborne operations that kept our allied invasion forces pressing ever eastward until Germany capitulated. John wrote of his pilots wrestling with the controls of the aircraft trying to maintain formation over hot drop zones but minimized his essential contributions as aircraft navigator to that effort. It matters not your crew position in an aircraft being shot at by antiaircraft guns, the right round kills all of you. But true to his character, the only casualties John ever wrote about on this site were the infantry soldiers that his planes ferried back to hospitals in England. And even in those writings, John was humbled by the sacrifice of those ground soldiers and, as always, downplayed the role he and his fellow airman played in saving the lives of so many of those grievously wounded infantrymen by lifting them out of the combat zone and whisking them back to the intensive care they needed in military hospitals in England. In writing of these medical evacuations, John did cite some members of his unit as heroes: the air evacuation nurses who provided the emergency in-flight medical care those wounded soldiers needed to sustain them until they arrived in England. Somehow or another, I just have this image in my mind of a selfless, young LT. Werntz, back there in the cargo compartment of a C-47, doing everything in his power to support those nurses and their missions of mercy in every way he possibly could. I never met John Werntz and yet I have a tightened throat and tears backing up in my eyes as I write this because this man with whom I exchanged witty, sometimes biting, emails represented to me a personal contact into the Greatest Generation that I am losing in my own family, as all but one has succumbed in that final battle. I wish that I could have met John at one very special place: the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Somehow I think that John could have made a visit there something very special with his wit and insights. I would urge anyone reading this, if you have a WWII veteran in your family, take them to see their memorial. You will never regret the sacrifice of time and money. Just do it! Your reward will be the joy in their faces in seeing the tribute their country has belatedly bestowed upon them. My greatest regret at this very moment is that I did not write this when John could still read it so that he would know how much this veteran of a later war admired his “Aw shucks, I didn’t do anything,” humility. I know, all too well, that is the mark of a real warrior. Russ Vaughn *** Bill Faith adds: I won't pretend to have Russ's gift with words but I was also saddened to learn yesterday of the death of a true friend. A brief excerpt from the email I received from his niece: Just a short note to tell you that Old War Dog John Werntz a/k/a "John "72nd TCS" Werntz" died yesterday, June 22, 2008. In circumstances typical to elderly individuals, John took a fall, fracturing his pelvis. He was taken to hospital in Scranton, Pa. where they operated on him, inserting a pin in his hip. Shortly after, he was transferred to a facility in Wilkes Barre, Pa. As he was suffering from both a heart condition and emphysema, the slippery slope was also very short. I did manage to spend the afternoon with him on Friday and, although he had been in some pain, he was deep in a drug induced sleep when I left. The staff informed his best friends, [Mr. and Mrs. ""], that he died in peace. Read the bio John sent me when he consented to join become a charter member of the Old War Dogs pack . There's also a slightly different version of his bio on . *** Promoted from the comments:
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Contributed by Russ Vaughn on June 24, 2008 at 12:13 AM in | | | |
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Brace Yourself: Here They Come Again
Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds While the American people are congratulating themselves for their victory over the Bush-Kennedy-McCain National Suicide Act of 2007, a new and tougher fight is on the horizon. According to The Politico, Harry Reid, along with Mad Jack Murtha and his leader, Nancy Pelosi, plan to set a new deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. They have already concluded that the surge, which went operational only last week, has failed. We have lost the war and have no choice but to bug out and leave Iraq to its fate. The Politico article begins like this:
Nancy's choice of deadline date could not be more appropriate--April Fool's Day. Veterans' groups, loyal military families and others who continue to support the war effort face a daunting task, made harder by the recent defections of important Republican senators and the lamentable loss of prestige incurred by amnesty diehards such as President Bush and Senator McCain. We have to whip up a firestorm of phone calls, e-mails, faxes, and face-to-face encounters with wavering pols. Above all, we will need to counter the Copperhead hordes, who will be out in full cry from now until September. Not a pleasant prospect, now that Summer is here, but it is now or never. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on June 29, 2007 at 02:02 AM in , , , , | | | |
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Anyone... Bush? McCain?
Bad news in today's Washington Times:
Story follows-- Have I not been paying attention, or are editorial rooms nationwide suffering from a bad case of spike-overload in the midst of the immigration fiasco?
Coronado National Forest? Aah, that's small potatoes compared to the need for willing workers with good family values, who set fires that lazy Americans don't want to. The silence from top-level green poseurs is deafening, and disheartening is too weak a word to describe the impact of their indifference on the public. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on June 19, 2007 at 09:42 PM in | | | |
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Petraeus Unleashes the Dogs of War
Yep. Now that the final contingent of the surge is in place as of last week, it seems that Harry Reid was a bit off in his announcement that Gen. Petraeus is "out of touch." Evidently, while awaiting the full buildup, the man in command has been palpating the worst tumors in the patient's belly, and is now going in with axe and hacksaw. The story of the first major offensive of the new campaign is front page, above the fold, in the NYT of Tuesday June 19, 2007. Big stuff. The sequel presents a brief excerpt, but the article must be read in full. It needs no comment here, except to point out that the report is sober and factual. There are no ripe clusters of adjectives such as "misguided, reckless, indiscriminate, appalling" and the like selected from the Gray Lady's thesaurus of condemnation. Is "editorial judgment" no longer an oxymoron? Excerpt follows, with the standard admonition. The report begins as follows:
You already know the admonition: RTWT. Webmaster's note: It looks like John was the victim of a bait 'n' switch at the Times. If you go to the URL he linked and scroll down far enough the text he quoted is still there but it looks like someone decided the original article was far too positive and did a major rewrite. I guess those multiple layers of editors have to justify their existence somehow. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on June 19, 2007 at 01:18 PM in , , , | | | |
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Hilarious?
has a very funny cartoon. Go . |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on June 15, 2007 at 10:43 PM in , , | | | |
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Victory? What Victory?
The Jewish World Review has picked up the latest issue of Professor Daniel Pipes' newsletter--normally available to subscribers only. Find it . His column deals with a burning question, namely--
The lead sentence hints strongly that Israel is on its own in confronting the near-term prospect of the Iranian Holocaust Bomb.
If this unnamed administration source is anywhere near the Sec Def or Condi level, it would seem that the primary emphasis has shifted from victory in the Middle East to withdrawal. Has the message to Iran evolved from "Make nice, not nukes" to "Pretty please, just let us go quietly?" Wiser heads than mine are needed to decrypt that sibylline utterance. Even so, it is safe to conclude that the White House appetite for pre-emption has subsided to somewhere below the level of wishful thinking. The main body of the Pipes offering concentrates on summarizing and analyzing a think-piece by a pair of MIT scholars who examine Israel's capabilities in depth. Can the Israelis actually do it? The short answer is "Yes," provided the government can steel themselves to face the kind of outcry that followed their attack on the Osirak reactor. Their argument is well worth reading. At the end, Dr. Pipes speculates on feasibility, and sees a fly in the ointment, a daunting question that planners of such an operation must face and somehow resolve. In the author's words, without serious comment here--
Is he kidding, or what? Your call. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on June 13, 2007 at 07:59 PM in , , , , , | | | |
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A Modest Proposal II
The front page of the WaPo for Sunday, 6-3-07, has a story regarding the dismaying increase of killings of Americans in Iraq that has accompanied the recent surge. Aspects of the article are equally applicable to the Afghan theater. It begins like this--
The article correctly points to the armor-piercing weapons known as explosively formed projectiles as a major factor in the new killing spree. As mighrt be expected, there is no mention of Iran, which has been identified as the source of these deadly new IEDs. Let it be known that--in the right circumstances--the MSM can bow to administration policy in the way it presents the news. It would seem that the Department of State has ditched the Bush Doctrine in favor of creating the appearance of reaching out to the main state-sponsors of terrorism, Iran and its lackey, Syria. For the time being, at least, aggressive action to protect the lives of American troops is on the back burner. This has to change, and the current modest proposal is intended to suggest a possible mode of defense, which might be termed "Operation Bellwether." The basic technology of robotically-controlled vehicles is already well developed as, for example, in the popular spectacles called demolition derbys. Why not create robotic unarmored Humvees that could precede military convoys by, say, fifty yards or so? To make them irresistible to the IED crowd, they could have generals' stars painted on the sides, and fly flag-rank pennants on the front fenders. Visible personnel could be realistic rifle-toting dummies. On the other hand, why not dress up prisoners in US Army uniforms, and let them serve as decoys? We have an ample supply of Al-Qaeda types in military detention centers. We hear constantly of how badly mistreated they are. Why not put them out of their misery by letting their comrades dispatch them to Paradise? There is ample precedent for this sort of thing. The Red Army in World War II regularly marched Gulag prisoners through German minefields in front of their armed troops. If that practice ever led to prosecution of Russian officers as war criminals, it is a well-kept secret. Admittedly, prisoners captured in combat are different from common criminals. Questions regarding Geneva Conventions--however irrelevant they may be in the light of the actual status of detainees--are sure to arise if the details became known. Strict secrecy would have to be maintained. Operation Bellwether would be a natural for detachments of Special Forces, who are not renowned for blabbing to reporters. The story merits careful reading. It ends with a quotation from a British expert on Iraq, Toby Dodge:
Wouldn't it be nice if these officials and analysts were less resigned to the prospect of losing lots of lives, and more disposed towards the "creative destruction" for which the capitalist world is justly famous? |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on June 3, 2007 at 02:35 PM in , , , , , | | | |
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N.Z. Bear Makes Monkeys of the MSM
Glenn Reynolds has earned a hearty "Thank you" from the public in , in which he links to a remarkable achievement by N.Z. Bear. The latter has broken out the monstrous draft immigration bill--over 300 pages--in a form that makes it readily available to any citizen who has access to the internet. He provides a table of contents, listing topics by subsections, complete with links to every subsection and to individual pages. The beauty of it is that the right-hand sidebar has space for comments. The visitor can read existing comments and append commentary ad lib. At the present writing, one sees only a handful of comments, led off by a link to a scathing example from . That must change, and swiftly. Let your imagination run wild for a moment. The Senate Majority Leader wants to ram the bill through in the absence of any serious debate. It is unlikely that other senators will let him get away with that. If not, the public has an unparalleled opportunity--and a unique challenge--to be heard. Picture it: a few days into the debate, the blogosphere dumps on every senator's desk a copy of N.Z. Bear's version, marked up by us The Great Unwashed, acting as a committee of the whole, and bearing hundreds or possibly thousands of heartfelt critiques. The Bear's achievement in making this possible is unprecedented, even world-changing. We must buckle down to it, citizens. It's a patriotic duty. First, go , to benefit from N.Z. Bear's guidance on how to get the most from his effort. Then, go to read the bill and mark it up. Absent that effort on our part, we'll have only ourselves to blame when the D.C. sausage factory serves up a rotten, stinking mess. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on May 21, 2007 at 02:57 AM in , , , , , | | | |
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This Is Really Too Much
Believe it or not, the Fantasy Factory in Langley, Virginia is about to waste its time and our money on a National Intelligence Estimate assessing the impact of climate change on national security. They did it once at the behest of Al Gore, back when he was Veep. Now they are going to reprise the farce at the instigation of Rep. Eshoo [D., Caliifornia]. Readallabahdit, in the .
The story continues...
Yes, indeed. The world's oldest institution of representative government--in continuous existence, that is--solemnly voted to enshrine the thoroughly discredited "hockey stick" as a major strategic guideline, and the boss of all our intelligence agencies heartily agrees. Don't they have anything better to do? In the opinion of one disgruntled curmudgeon, it is high time that the Joint Chiefs met to debate a question of grave import: Is the attempt to rescue this nation from the consequences of the frivolity and stupidity of its elected rulers a game that is worth the candle? Or should we simply dissolve the defense establishment and all go fishing? |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on May 12, 2007 at 01:02 PM in , , , | | | |
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Republicans for Bugout
The NYT of Thursday, May 10 ran a story by Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny entitled " ." The lead paragraphs tell the sad tale --
The eleven participants included Rep. John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, who came along as an observer. Prominent among the other six named in the article were three who joined Democrats to vote in favor of the infamous H. Con. Res. 63 [February 16, 2007], expressing disapproval of the Bush-Petraeus surge policy. Just for the record, those three were Tom Davis [VA], Mark Kirk [IL], and James T. Walsh [NY]. The reporters tell us that Tom Davis distinguished himself by informing President Bush that his approval rating had fallen to 5% in one section of his district, the Virginia 11th, a D.C. bedroom community. Would that section perchance be inhabited by swarms of government drones and paid-up members of the ? (Sheer invidious speculation, that.--Ed.) The reporters also note that three of the seven named refused to be interviewed after the meeting. The silent three--consigned to historical oblivion along with the anonymous four--included Mark Kirk, plus Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri and Ray Lahood of Illinois. What's the problem, valiant tribunes of the people? Don't you want the folks at home to know how you stood up to Bush? This story provides little to cheer supporters of the war on jihad. At best, one can smile wanly at the thought that three of the eleven--being notorious doves--are atypical of the Republican party, and four others were so obscure as to be deemed unworthy of mention by the Newspaper of Record. The tenor of the meeting, on the White House side, conformed to the Beltway consensus that the coming summer is make-or-break time. Secretary of Defense Gates made that quite clear--
Message: If things go well by September, we may get really serious about winning and send another 10 brigades. If not, we'll begin to extricate. To venture a prophecy: it is now carved in granite that the Sunni insurgents and Al-Q in Iraq will treat us in late summer to a spectacular display of fireworks, slaughtering Iraqis by the hundreds. The moving finger writes... Webmaster's note: I have some related links, and will be adding more soon, in my . |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on May 10, 2007 at 12:06 PM in , , , | | | |
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Too Darn Dumb to Win?
It hurts to say this. Harry Reid may be wrong when he says we have lost the war, but he's very nearly right. We are on the verge of losing it. Not for any of the reasons cited by war opponents. We are losing quite simply because the PR efforts of this administration, from the White House through the State Department and Pentagon all the way down to the bottom--the CIA I mean--are hopelessly inept. Consider first President Bush, who consistently blows it. The latest example is the statement he issued to accompany his veto of the Dems' "slow bleed" Supplemental Appropriations Bill. He had a wonderful opportunity to really lay into them. He had a golden chance to hold them up to the public scorn and ridicule that they richly deserve. Instead, he settled for a brief, smirking, namby-pamby statement to the effect that the Dem bill was a "recipe for chaos and confusion." I have a message for you, Mr. President: The typical mouth-breathing couch potato [i.e. the typical American citizen] sees and knows nothing about the war we are in except chaos and confusion. Whose fault is that, Mr. President? Yours. You consistently fail to identify the real enemy, a worldwide resurgence of expansionist Islamic jihadism that began in Lebanon in the early 80's after three hundred years of somnolence. You have failed utterly the test of wartime leadership--to alert the public to the mortal danger that confronts them. Just yesterday, the Bush administration stumbled into stifling the last, best hope of mobilizing public support. Bill Faith has the full story . No need for me to elaborate. Read it and weep. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on May 2, 2007 at 07:30 PM in , , , , | | | |
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Heroism at Virginia Tech (Updated and bumped)
James Taranto, writing in Best of the Web for the WSJ's Opinion Journal of April 17, tells a gripping story of heroism at Virginia Tech. The story relates how a Rumanian-born Holocaust survivor interposed his body between the shooter and his students, giving the students time to escape out the windows. Let him tell it:
Some coincidence. Professor Librescu's exploit--though deserving of the highest civilian honor at the disposal of President Bush [time will tell if he is cognizant]--failed to attract the attention of The New York Times. He is barely mentioned [third paragraph from the bottom] as one of the two faculty victims named:
It is not as if Professor Librescu was some academic mediocrity. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and had enjoyed international repute for his contributions to aeronautical engineering. In the welter of calls for "healing," not to mention the predictable yawps about gun control, it is heartening to learn of the heroism of this man. Doubtless there were other heroes of that awful day, equally consigned to media indifference. CBS, at least, gave us his photo. Add his name to your list of unsung heroes. Urge the to award him the national honors he deserves. *** Webmaster's addendum, 2007.04:19:
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on April 19, 2007 at 01:51 PM in , , | | | |
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McCain Channels Hercules, What's all this about Hercules? Well, if we can believe a front-page item in the of Saturday, April 7, Senator John McCain, in his to-be-announced campaign for the presidency, plans to wade all alone into the fever-swamp of the MSM crusade to discredit the war effort and--like Hercules in the Augean Stables--to clear up the whole foul, stinking mess. The article linked to bears the title "McCain to Stake Bid On Need to Win in Iraq," and is bylined Michael D. Shear, who kicks off with this:
Why on earth, if the senator hopes to convince a skeptical public that there is visible progress in Iraq, did he step on his own message by admitting that he "misspoke" when he proclaimed the good news in ? [ed. note: The reference above to "a television reporter" points to a McCain interview to be broadcast Sunday evening on "60 Minutes" and perhaps watched by millions.] Are his "aides and advisors" asleep at the switch? Michael Shear dilates upon the generally negative response of the media to the Baghdad press conference:
Poor John McCain. The Salem, Oregon broadsheet calls him brainwashed and laments the derailing of the Straight Talk Express. An anonymous "GOP consultant" [working for Chuck Hagel?] chimes in. Has the Arizona Republican got a prayer of winning the GOP nomination? At this moment, it would be foolish to speculate. Recent polling results, however, indicate that a solid majority of Republican voters--the only folks who count in a primary, outside of crossover states--remains loyal to the president and his new policy in Iraq. They are unlikely to punish McCain for standing firm. There are plenty of other reasons why conservatives might want to shun McCain. Like him or not, one has to admire his courage. The man is no weathervane. *** Webmaster's update: 72nd TCS just sent me a link to this with a suggestion that mention it in a post. I responded that Senator McCain may not be an "Old War Dog" but he definitely qualifies as an "old war dog" and I think what he wrote qualifies for mention on this site as well:
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on April 8, 2007 at 12:05 AM in , , , , , | | | |
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Introducing David Hazony
The "Opinion Journal" newsletter of the Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, April 4 had a long article by guest-author David Hazony. Mr. Hazony, who deserves to be better-known to American readers, is the Editor-in-Chief of , which originally published his column . AZURE is a quarterly produced in Israel and bears a strong resemblance to the American monthly . Like Commentary, AZURE specializes in solid, well-written think-pieces. The right-hand sidebar of its home page [cf. initial link above] links to authors covering the entire spectrum of reasoned commentary, ranging from by way of and to . It offers the think-piece maven just the intellectual fare needed to turn many a night of insomnia into brilliant day. Mr. Hazony's article, in particular, makes the startling case that the Iranian mullahs have been and are waging a Cold War against the West, comparable to the Soviet pressures that kept us on tenterhooks for four decades. Given the huge discrepancy in size, population, and military might beween the former Soviet Union and Iran, anyone who lived through that era is bound to regard the analogy at first as more than a bit strained. Even so, the most skeptical reader cannot fail to be impressed by the cogency of the author's arguments in favor of his thesis. The mere excerpts that follow cannot hope to do justice to this presentation. They are presented simply as bait, to entice the reader to Read The Whole Thing.. Mr. Hazony comes on strong right at the outset: NOTE: in what follows, block quotes are taken directly from the Hazony article. Intercalated text, aligned flush left, are comments and other asides from 72nd TCS.
The term "clear vision" crops up again and again as this article progresses. Sadly, in the context of the response of Western leaders to the Islamic extremist onslaught, the author mentions it only to stress its absence among the elites of our world. Continuing, he writes...
Muddled thinking, by contrast, is the Order of the Day in Israel, the EU, and the United States...
At this point, one thing is eminently clear--Mr. Hazony knows exactly what he thinks, and never permits political correctness or pious sentiment to fuzz his message. We now skip past many lines of closely reasoned discourse, to the bottom line. Those who take up and read, and learn how he gets from here to there, will find the effort exceedingly rewarding.
There you have it--clear, cold and bracing--like a shot of vodka taken in the classic Russian manner. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on April 5, 2007 at 12:22 PM in , , , , , , , | | | |
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Straight Talk Express Derailed--by straight talk
On Sunday, Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Indiana's Representative Mike Pence strolled through a Baghdad marketplace as a show of confidence in the improved security resulting from the "clear and hold" tactics introduced there by General Petraeus. Afterwards, these members of Congress held a press conference at which McCain expressed cautious optimism about the progress made so far. The AP account was picked up by some newspapers. As with yesterday's about the imminent exhaustion of funds to pursue the war, the Washington Post did not deem the press conference newsworthy. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and others treated it in the lackluster fashion that customarily greets any favorable news or comment regarding the war in Iraq. The citation that follows is taken from the major Phoenix outlet, The Arizona Republic:
This is typical of the objective reporting that one sees: a brief, flat, recital of the bare facts. The New York Times, by contrast,, weighs in at the outset with a resounding "But," setting the story in the context of the daily horrors generated by the enemy’s all-too-effective media campaign:
The technique is not the least bit subtle, but highly effective. The Newspaper of Record conveys the strong impression that Senator McCain and his colleagues are a bunch of fakers, donning body armor and surrounding themselves with an impenetrable military cordon in order to create an artificial impression of progress in Baghdad. On the left-leaning side of the blogosphere, McCain’s remarks unleashed a storm of sneers, jeers, and vilification, with epithets such as Neverland, delusions and pandering [to wingnuts] rife in the telling. [Too many examples for links. Just GOOGLE "McCain Baghdad" and slog through the muck.] The senator certainly knew what he was in for, and even invited it by taunting the media to their faces, as reported by :
No gift of prophecy is needed to foresee the end of the McCain-Media honeymoon. In truth, it’s here. As a serious candidate for the presidency, he has chosen to speak his mind on the central and most controversial issue of our time. Whatever the impact on his ambitions may be, he has vouchsafed an admirable embrace of principle. He deserves our respect, whether or not he gets our vote. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on April 2, 2007 at 02:31 PM in , , , , , | | | |
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Happy Days Are Here...
NOTE: About 72nd TCS Among those on the inside of both blogs, it is no secret that "72nd TCS" is the screen name in Veteran-American Voices, for short, of former Old War Dog John Werntz. Bill Faith has generously offered to John the opportunity to cross-post [subject to Bill's prior approval] on OWD. The grizzled old mutt, 72nd TCS, is proud and happy to hang around on the fringes of the pack. He greets his former mates with a cheery yip, and looks forward to sniffing out friendships among the recent arrivals. That said... I very nearly choked on this one. From of 3-31, the story bears the title "Army's War Funds Can Last Through July, Report Says" and is written by Carl Hulse and Thom Shanker. Please relax and read on. I am not about to launch into my standard rant: "Thank you, NYT, for telling the Dems exactly how long they need to stall, plus informing the Sunni insurgents and Al-Q jihadists how long they have to hold out in order to win big." The reporters are doing their job--informing the public about the probable consequences of a presidential veto of the supplemental military appropriations bill now headed into a House-Senate conference. Parenthetically, I note that the editors of the Washington Post appear not to have deemed the prospect of imminent exhaustion of funds to support the troops to be at all newsworthy. No trace on the front page, nor in the editorials. "Ho hum, lookee here, Georgetown basketball is going great guns." The reporters discuss those consequences at some length, and the prospects may be bright for political opponents of President Bush, who seem to be rubbing their hands in glee, anticipating an American defeat that will be heard 'round the world. But they are exceedingly gloomy for any level-headed patriot who awaits with dread a country sickened by an epidemic of Carterite malaise that, comparatively, would make the post-Vietnam trauma look like robust health. The return to these shores of defense forces, justifiably convinced that they have been robbed of the victory they earned by their magnificent efforts, does not inspire complacency. Some relevant passages from the Hulse-Shanker article follow.
Actually, the July target is a best-case scenario. It rests upon congressional approval of various gimmicks of budget sleight-of-hand, shifting funds between accounts and skimping on important purchases and maintenance expenditures to free up additional money. Strictly speaking, existing funds will run out by June 1.
Meanwhile, the Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, is still stuck on stupid,taking partisan shots at Bush:
Hagel of Nebraska and Smith of Oregon make it bipartisan? Note that if those two had not defected, the roll-call would have ended in a 49-49 tie, leaving Vice President Cheney to decide the issue. Two brief notes in closing, both dealing with the sad state of DC politics. First, hearing the word "bipartisan" is enough to make the well-informed and even moderately well-heeled citizen fear for the country and clutch wallet and checkbook. Second, the toxic atmosphere chokes us all but our troops -- and the nation's future -- are the main victims. |
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Contributed by 72nd TCS on March 31, 2007 at 01:18 PM in , , , , , , | | | |
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Someplace new you'll want to visit often
Click the image, bookmark the site. You may have noticed already that the pack has gotten a little smaller. There have been some "philosophical differences" behind the scenes for a while now but since and have been decent enough not to air them publicly I'll follow suit. The Gray Dog will be contributing to the new site and to Old War Dogs, some of the Dogs who left the pack will be posting only at the new site, and you may have heard the last of some of the others altogether for all I know. I'll be linking to the new site on occasion and I hope they'll link back to OWD now and then. I'll allude to "philosophical differences" just enough to say I think and are aimed at ecosystem niches sufficiently different to allow both sites to prosper and I wish the new group well. *** Rurik's comment captures my sentiments toward the new site far better than I was able to express them myself:
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Contributed by Bill Faith on January 27, 2007 at 09:19 PM in , , , , , | | | |
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What fools these Senators be
Senator Jay Rockefeller, leading light of the majority in the Senate Committee on Intelligence has delivered himself of his latest parcel of wisdom regarding the War on Terror. His statements regarding the administration's stance on Iran have a flavor of gratuitous sappiness, of utter featherheaded fatuity, that threatens to cause a reasonable, informed citizen to lapse into utter despair. He actually agrees with the administration that Iran is now supplying the terror network in Iraq--Sunni Ba'athist diehards included--with leadership and weapons, including the infamous so-called IEDs that are capable of destroying an Abrams tank and its crew. Nevertheless, he laments that we are not being sufficiently friendly with this avowed enemy. Get this:
Mind-boggling. If he is right that American intelligence agencies still know little about Iran's intentions is the ME, why isn't he calling for the entire lot of them to be fired? Can Israeli or British or for that matter French intelligence feel in the dark about Ahmadinejad's intentions? I vaguely remember some saying about swatting a jackass with a two-by-four to get its attention. Having this hyper-jackass installed as the chairman of a crucial committee at this juncture does not bode well for the future. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on January 20, 2007 at 11:11 AM in , , , | | | |
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Some Valuable Guidance From The New York Times
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Contributed by John Werntz on January 15, 2007 at 04:51 AM in , , , | | | |
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Dems' Plan for America
Today's front page has a long story entitled "Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes Against Bush's Iraq Plan." The succinct lead sentence tells it all--
No way to fault the reporters. They are simply telling it like it is, no fudge, no sludge, no grudge. It is lamentably apparent that the world's oldest and most prestigious political party among the dwindling few remaining democratic republics has lost all contact with reality. In their view, the jihadist war against the West that began in 1979 with taking hostage the Tehran Embassy and has continued with mounting ferocity ever since, has never existed. It is nothing more than a club to beat a Republican president over the head, in the context of an unpopular war that islamic extremism has thrust upon us. "Hot damn," say they, "we can really get the bastard this time." This writer will not sully the pages of OWD with an excerpt, aside from the brief citation above. I defy any American citizen to read that story and come away afterwards with anything but the utmost contempt for the gaggle of vile, sleazy venal pols who make up the congressional Democrats. If you can do it, your stomach is a lot stronger than mine. One last comment: It will be important to remember the names of each and every Senate Republican who joins the Democrats in this sickening endeavor. Their traitor names should be "seared, seared" into the brain of every loyal American. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on January 10, 2007 at 04:15 PM in , , | | | |
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The Big Lie That Shielded Arafat
column in yesterday's Jewish World Review is a real . Poor choice of word, actually. No mature and aware citizen can be shocked any more by evidence of collusion between the government and media to hide the truth from the people. But the story that she tells has to be near the top of anyone's list of Most Sickening Big Lies, right up there with the litany of Vietnam falsehoods and distortions. Briefly, she reveals that a declassified State Department cable--its release by the State Department historian ideally timed in the Christmas season to be widely ignored--establishes that ever since the Nixon Administration the government has had irrefutable proof of Arafat's direct personal involvement in monstrous acts of terror. Whether the actual perps were called Fatah, Black September, or the Aksa Martyr's Brigade, they were all Arafat's boys. Our government pretended for "reasons of state" to be convinced by Arafat's denials. The long excerpt in the sequel relates a single incident of hostage-taking and murder that the cable analyzes. The excerpt is an appetizer. If it interests you, by all means follow the link and regale yourself at the banquet that follows. But be sure to keep a barf-bag handy. By Caroline B. Glick <snip>
<snip>
The "banquet" that rounds out Caroline Glick's article is solid food for thought. She ponders the evil consequences of this gross abandonment of the truth and the good that might have followed if our leaders had pursued the honorable course. As an exercise in editorial comment this brief essay merits the Pulitzer for which it will never even be considered. The coda wraps it all up:
We owe thanks to her for doing the job the media purports to do. Meanwhile, Pilate lives! |
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Contributed by John Werntz on January 3, 2007 at 08:15 AM in , , | | | |
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One Last Try...
...to make myself understood. It seems I have managed to confuse everyone--myself included--about my thinking on this pseudo-topic of "moderate" Muslims. In the first place, I consider the current usage of the term "moderate" to be pure Blitzer-Cooper CNN-speak, typically applied to Republicans like Lincoln Chafee or Colin Powell, whose chief aim in life appears to be to curry favor with the liberal media. As such, it excludes itself from my vocabulary. It seems to me that in a recent received with the Hosannas appropriate to the season, George Mellinger exerts himself in beating the stuffing out of a straw man. When he writes "My friend John says he 'believes or at least hopes' that he can find good moderate Muslims," his friend John is painfully aware that he has not made himself clear. Continued... What I tried to say was that people of Muslim family background and cullture can be valuable allies in the necessary attack on the resurgence of expansionist jihadism that we have suffered from in the past couple of decades. A case in point--some time ago, I to a by a young American blogger called Muslihoon. Here is the brief description of himself that he posts on his .
Does that sound to you like a wishy-washy Muslim, a weathervane Muslim, or any kind of Muslim at all? Nor to me. The reason I recommend him to readers is that he is an ex-muslim anti-jihadist. The second link preceding the block-quote reveals a profound and intimate knowledge of Muslim culture--specifically tribalism--that I wish [oops, wishful thinking again?] formed part of the intellectual equipment of our leadership. Congressman Reyes, recently designated as incoming chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, has created considerable buzz by an interview in which he revealed his woeful ignorance of the enemy we must combat. I wish [there I go again...] that such lamentable lack of basic knowledge were rare among our leaders, from the White House on down, but such is not the case. My point is a very simple one. Politicians, generals, diplomats and the public need to know what we are facing. I happen to believe that ex-Muslims like Muslihoon or Isaac Schrödinger or Muslim dissidents like this country's Free Muslims are a valuable source of such knowledge. Contrary to what George seems to think, I have never advocated hope or wishful thinking as policy. But I would like to point out that Hope, along with Faith and Charity, is a cardinal virtue in the Christian scheme of things. I think that a tendency to reject the aid of Muslim "apostates" and practicing Muslims, such as the American , who are opposed to Islam of the Ahmadinejad variety is not only uncharitable but downright foolish. I share George's sympathy for the downtrodden ordinary citizen of countries such as Iran or Iraq regions such as Anbar, who have no choice but to submit to the locally dominant forces. When I advocate alliances with Muslim dissidents or ex-Muslim anit-jihadists, I do not have some Middle Eastern Piers Plowman in mind. Figures such as Amir Taheri or Irshad Manji are far more influential and potentially more significant. One final note. My very good friend Gray Dog has written extensively in his inimitable style and elsewhere on his attempts to test the tolerance level of the 910 group. Perhaps I am trying something similar in Old War Dogs? Only the Shadow knows... |
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 22, 2006 at 01:46 PM in , , , | | | |
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Mahmoud Invades Mecca?
As if Bush & Co. didn't have enough headaches, President Ahmadinejad of Iran threatens to bring on a real migraine. In yesterday's New York Post, Amir Taheri reports on a scheme to disrupt this year's Hajj, or pilgrimage to the holy sites of Mecca. So far, this latest Mahmoud caper has attracted little attention. A print file, more compact and easier to read than the web page, can be found . The continuation below has five brief paragraphs as a teaser, but the column deserves to be read as a whole. Briefly, the article deals with a plan to overwhelm the pilgrimage crowd with Iranians, including military and intelligence people, as well as a rent-a-mob of Persian thugs, and some thousands of Hezbollah fanatics. The plan has ominous echoes of 1987 when Iranian miltants, whipped into a frenzy by Khomeini's rhetoric, rioted around the Kaaba. Hundreds of deaths ensued. There is every indication that Mahmoud is serious. Mr. Taheri writes--
An upcoming violent and exceedingly provocative outbreak of internecine enmity among Muslims should be greeted with grins of Schadenfreude by red-blooded Americans, right? Maybe yes, maybe not. It all depends on whether crazy Mahmoud succeeds in his aim of becoming the acknowledged world leader of Islamofascism. He has already spoken openly of the "clash of civilizations," an inadmissible thought that sends shivers up the spine of every prominent Westerner-- whether leader, pundit, or just plain poobah. Anything that furthers that aim has got to be bad news. Continued... Here is the lead-in to Amir Taheri's column. [The usual RTWT is implicit.]--
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 18, 2006 at 01:26 AM in , , | | | |
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Flower Power at The New York Times
tells us that Andrew Rosenthal--son of the late, great A.M., and currently an assistant managing editor of foreign affairs--will take over the editorship of the editorial page on January 1. A brief sampling of his thinking--as revealed in the interview with Brian Lamb of C-SPAN reported here by Matt Drudge, and of his work in an excerpt to be presented in the continuation--is enough to inspire a KEEP GAIL COLLINS! movement. I hope that Mr. Drudge will accept my apologies for confiscating his entire post, but you must read the whole thing to get the flavor of what an incoherent twerp this Rosenthal is-- Continued... Incoming editorial page editor of the NYT says "it's becoming more likely" that the paper will call for the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, in an interview today with C-SPAN's Brian Lamb for "Q & A", airing Sunday at 8/11 p.m. ET. Andrew Rosenthal assumes the post Jan 1. There it it is. The President's meetings with major political, military, and intellectual figures this week are not a serious effort to devise a workable strategy for the war, just a stunt to avoid having his feet held to the fire by the gratuitously sappy ISG. To get the full impact of his raging nostalgia for the nineteen-sixties, I recommend perusal of this , an OpEd dated August 31, and entitled "There Is Silence in the Streets; Where Have All the Protesters Gone?" No way to excerpt it. The dwindling minority of those--including this writer--who are dismayed by the decline of a once great newspaper can experience the full horror by following the link. The rest can simply use their imagination. A gift for parody would do wonders for the latter exercise. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 16, 2006 at 06:10 AM in , , | | | |
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Another Realist
From the front page of The New York Times, 12-14-2006: Quotation of the Day "I have no doubt that as word of this gets around, millions of African men will want to get circumcised, and that will save many lives." an H.I.V. specialist, on findings that circumcision helps protect against H.I.V.
Hey, put that man on the Iraq Study Group, right now! |
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 14, 2006 at 03:42 AM in , | | | |
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Cinderella Story
H/T The Drudge Report Remember ? He was the former Baghdad bureau chief of CNN who in April of 2003 admitted to having systematically suppressed stories about Saddam's human rights violations in order to maintain access to government sources there, Baghdad Bob being perhaps among the most reliable? This admission led to a flurry of adverse comment in the blogosphere, which quickly lost interest when Jordan claimed that his primary motivation was to protect his Iraqi informants. When he went public, at the World Economic Forum in Davos with accusations he had made previously regarding the alleged targeting of journalists by the US Army, all hell broke loose. That was in February of 2005, and he soon resigned his executive post at CNN. He has kept a low profile ever since, but as reports in the Editor & Publisher of December 13, Mr. Jordan is coming back to electronic journalism in a big way. He's baack, glass slipper and all. He returns not as a TV newsman, but as the guiding spirit of an ambitious new called Iraqslogger. According to Jordan, the inspiration for the name was Donald Rumsfeld's oft-repeated comment that the war in Iraq will be a long, hard slog. Regarding the content and aim of the site, Greg Mitchell quotes him as follows--
No one can accuse the man of thinking small. He proposes to create the world's most authoritative roundup of news, anecdote. opinion--the whole spectrum of information on Iraq. It goes without saying that there will be skeptics who question whether the copperhead can change its toxin to nectar. I believe the blogworld, in the light of Eason Jordan's travails, owes the man and his site a fair reading. Iraqslogger is in beta at present, but will soon emerge in final form. As it stands, it certainly is interesting. One unusual feature is a crawl at the top that points to scheduling of important features and calls for interactive input from readers. The left sidebar, containing sources and links, is broadly eclectic, and has such figures as Michelle Malkin and Bill Roggio as counterweight to Daily Kos and Juan Cole, for example. Last word: do yourself a favor and check it out. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 14, 2006 at 02:57 AM in , , | | | |
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Jimmuh Gets a Well-Merited Comeuppance
H/T: Glenn Reynolds reports the resignation from the Carter Center of Professor Kenneth Klein of Emory University, a long-time associate of Jimmy Carter and the original Director of the Center. It seems that the highly-regarded academic was dismayed by the many untruths and the propagandistic tone of Mr. Carter's latest effusion: Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid. Power Line offers the full text of Professor Klein's resignation statement, which should be read in its entirety. A brief excerpt follows.
*** Bill Faith adds: Don't miss the related cartoon I just posted . |
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 6, 2006 at 02:51 PM in , , | | | |
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Kohlmayer on "brotherly" Dems
After a brief hiatus, to be followed--I fear--by an indefinite period of sporadic blogging, this writer can do no better than to refer to an indispensable by Dymphna at Gates of Vienna. Her article quotes extensively from a by Vasko Kohlmayer in World Defense Review. Mr. Kohlmayer gives us an astonishingly succinct and entirely just analysis of the predictably lamentable consequences of the impending control of Congress by Democrats. His scathing denunciation is on a par with Emile Zola's unforgettable "J'accuse" in the Dreyfus case. One can only hope that he will not, like Zola, be forced to take refuge in another country. Vasko Kohlmayer has copyrighted his column. No excerpt here can be useful without exceeding the bounds of fair use. I urge one and all to whet the appetite by following the link to Gates of Vienna, and then to go absorb the feast at World Defense Review. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on December 3, 2006 at 07:48 PM in , , , | | | |
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Shari'a at the Airport
Note to the reader--Since our well-liked comrade, Zero Ponsdorf, is sorely missed at present, I thought I might depart from my usual drearily sober path, pick up Zero's fallen pennant, and run with it... Daniel Pipes has a column in today's that is certain to raise the hackles of every red-blooded booze-swilling American, not to mention those of us, now teetotallers, who managed to cram a lifetime of drinking into the first half of their lifespan. The issue is somewhat complicated, hence the column ought to be read in its entirety. Briefly stated, Muslim cab drivers at the MSP airport--who happen to be the majority of drivers there--have refused to accept passengers carrying beer, wine, or liquor. It's against their religion, don'tcha know? It seems that the governing body, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, has cravenly caved in to this outrageous demand, and proposes to equip Muslim-driven cabs with a special light that indicates "Booze Streng Verboten." Presence of the light on the cab will permit the shari'a-sodden driver to refuse service while remaining at the head of the taxicab queue. Never mind that this gives an unfair advantage to passengers who conceal their contraband inside their valises instead of manfully lugging it in the transparent shopping-bag that they acquired at the tax-free boutique. Never mind that this establishes Islamic Prohibition as the supreme law of the land. What's next? Will the FAA rule that from now on all licensed long-distance carriers must schedule a certain number of M-D flights--signifying Muslim-Dhimmi--every day? No booze, no jooze, no infidels? No dogs in the hold? Hostesses in burqas? Halal Lean Cuisine? RR must be rolling in his grave. Dr. Pipes recommends that people write to the regulatory commission and lodge a protest. I second the motion. What follows is a copy of the letter I have just submitted. It is in no way intended to be any sort of model, merely an indication of the kind of maddened blurt that ensues when public officials act like fools.
Incidentally, this publicaffairs@mspmac.org is the Commission's email address.
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Contributed by John Werntz on October 10, 2006 at 07:56 PM in , , , | | | |
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Musli on Pakistan's Tribal Area
This post concerns an extraordinary young American who blogs under the pseudonym . His friends and followers, of whom there are many [May his tribe increase!] call him Musli for short. To introduce him to my reader[s] I can do no better than to quote from his "About," omitting a short whimsical passage at the end--
Everyone who has not been fast asleep these past few days is aware of the sharp disagreement between two of this country's Muslim allies: President Karzai of Afghanistan and President Musharraf of Pakistan. Karzai's indignation is easily understood. He cannot accept that Musharraf seems to have offered a permanent haven to the Taliban leadership and thousands of Taliban fighters in south-western Pakistan. In what follows, Musli offers us a remarkable insight into conditions in the Pakistan tribal area that shelters the Taliban remnants. One can only hope that our leaders possess at least a glimmering of Musli's knowledge of the area. The rather extensive quotes that follow are taken from Muslihoon's of October 1, 2006.
[snip]
[snip]
At this point, Musli breaks off from straight exposition to consider the implications of the above facts on the ground for policy in wartime. His thoughts merit careful consideration. The entire essay should be read by anyone who wishes to be well informed. What really counts is what George W. [hijacked religion] Bush and Condoleezza [disturbances] Rice and Donald [stuff happens] Rumsfeld think. Do they or their advisors know what this youthful American of "South Asian" origin knows? Let us hope. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on October 1, 2006 at 02:49 AM in , , | | | |