CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Two Ways To Rule People

Academic Elephant posts about a young army specialist's philosophical view of governance:

The way I see it, there are two ways to rule people. There’s ruling by inspiration, and there’s ruling by fear. It’s harder to achieve inspiration, but if you can get there in the long run it’s easier because you inspire people to take initiative to do things for themselves. Ruling by fear is easier until that day that people stand up to you, and all your power goes away.

We’re trying to help the Iraqis find their inspiration. The insurgents are trying to rule by fear.

Our soldiers are truly inspirational. Read the whole thing here.

Vote In The 2008 GOP Strawpoll

This is GOP Bloggers' April 2008 Straw Poll.

You get to pick which candidates you find acceptable and which ones you don't to tally who has the largest net positive or net negative support. You can also choose which candidate is your first choice for the GOP nomination in 2008. If you are so inclined you can also provide certain demographic information such as your state, gender, and age bracket.

Truth Is Our Most Powerful Weapon.

Academic Elephant posted her article on the interview she and Jeff had with Rear Admiral Mark Fox.

They talked about the nature of the conflict in Iraq:

There really is no comparison between the enemy we fought in Iraqi Freedom in the air campaign and the enemy we're fighting today...Flash forward four years later: We don't have a conventional military threat. There is a residue of an enormous amount of explosives and ordinance that has been left over from Saddam'a era--Iraq had more conventional ordinance than the United States. It was awash in bombs and ordinance and so there is a seemingly endless supply of old weapons that can be used in these improvised explosives...and there were some non-military people we were fighting in the first round, but now the people we are dealing with are absolutely--they are only interested in terror and creating terror and mayhem. There are no rules of war, there is no sense of morality or restraint in terms of who's a viable target on their part.

And so it's completely different--there's no conventional aspect to this conflict that we're in right now...The foe that we're now fighting has evolved to the point that it's unrecognizable from a conventional point of view. Now you still have to use all the different pieces of modern warfare to be able to do this mission.

They also talked about the information war:

He considers the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon probably the closest comparison, with the enemy "swimming" in a civilian population and waging not just a campaign of violence, but also one of misinformation:

Now I'm in this world of communications it's incredible--the old Mark Twain saw about how a lie can get half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on and that's the case here.

You can point to a number of examples where oh no, there were people who were burned when they came out of a mosque. I mean they were set on fire and they were burned. And so we don't have any people on the scene and we don't know, but it sounds like something awful has happened, and it's not the case.

Not that long ago, maybe six weeks ago, there were 18 children, they were on a soccer field on Fallujiah and there was an explosion. So we say "Oh, no," and we spin on this for 12, 18 hours and then we find out no, that's not the case. There were not 18 children killed on a soccer field.

It's created a tremendous, difficult thing. The truth is ultimately I think our most powerful weapon. And to be committed to really sticking to the truth is the most important thing we can do. That said, being painstaking and finding the truth and recording it a lot less, it's not nearly as sexy as the blood or whatever it is.

There is much, much more. Read the whole thing here.

The Democrats Are A Few Fries Short Of A Happy Meal

The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The California Democratic Party approved a resolution on Sunday calling on Congress to investigate the actions of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and take appropriate action, including impeachment. Meeting in San Diego, the left wing loons also passed a resolution calling for President Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. soldiers from Iraq.

Apparently, the reason the Democrats want the President impeached is because they continue to believe the discredited assertion that we were mislead into invading Iraq:

Delegate Charles Coleman from San Fernando said he believes Bush should be removed from office for lying about the war in Iraq.

Sunday, on CBS'"Face The Nation," Pennsylvania Congressman and Speaker Pelosi's preferred choice for House Majority Leader, threatened to impeach President Bush as a means to "influence" the President to accept the Democrats position that we should retreat from Iraq:

MURTHA: The White House says no. But the White House has said no to everything. They say we’re willing to compromise, and then we don’t get any compromise. We’ve compromised on waivers for the requirements for the troops, which is their own requirements, and also goals instead of requirements for the benchmarks.

So, we’ve already compromised. And we need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken. There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is, and fourth is the purse.
SCHIEFFER: Are you seriously talking about contemplating an impeachment of this president by Congress?
MURTHA: Bob, what I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president.
SCHIEFFER: And that’s one of them?
MURTHA: And one of them’s impeachment, and the fourth one…
SCHIEFFER: That’s an option that is on the table?
MURTHA: … I’m just saying that’s one way to influence a president. The other way is through the purse. And the purse is controlled by the Congress, who’s elected the by the public. In the last election, the public said, we want the Democrats in control.

Last week, Ohio Congressman and presidential wannabee, Dennis Kucinich introduced three articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

On April 20th, the Vermont Senate voted 16-9 to support a resolution urging the initiation of impeachment proceedings in Congress against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. All 16 supporters were Democrats.

The Democrats need a brief lesson on recent history. We were not mislead or lied to about why we went to war in Iraq. Supplanting Saddam's tyranny and oppression with freedom and democracy was one of the rationales put forward in the run up to the liberation of Iraq. Even the New York Times acknowledged this in a February 27, 2003 editorial:

President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night [in an American Enterprise Institute speech] of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a ‘free and peaceful Iraq’ that would serve as a ‘dramatic and inspiring example’ to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East, and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time. President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union made the same case....

There is no justification for the false allegation that the administration lied about the WMDs. Everyone was convinced that Saddam had such weapons and had used them. The intelligence and common wisdom proved to be wrong, but that doesn't equate to a lie. The Bipartisan Senate Select Committee Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. At pages 284-285 the reports states:

Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

[Redacted]

Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.

Besides that report, two other independent investigations came to the same conclusion.

The Robb-Silberman Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction likewise found "no evidence of political pressure." At pages 50-51 the Robb-Silberman report states:

The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments.

The British Butler Report, Review Of Intelligence On Weapons Of Mass Destruction similarly "found no evidence of deliberate distortion." At page 110 the British Butler report states:

Treatment of intelligence material

449. In general, we found that the original intelligence material was correctly reported in [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessments. An exception was the '45 minute' report. But this sort of example was rare in the several hundred JIC assessments we read on Iraq. In general, we also found that the reliability of the original intelligence reports was fairly represented by the use of accompanying qualifications. We should record in particular that we have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence.

The effect of departmental policy agendas

450. We examined JIC assessments to see whether there was evidence that the judgements inside them were systematically distorted by non-intelligence factors, in particular the influence of the policy positions of departments. We found no evidence of JIC assessments and the judgements inside them being pulled in any particular direction to meet the policy concerns of senior officials on the JIC.

The consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction formed in the Clinton administration. The consensus was more than evident in 1998, when President Clinton was threatening to attack Iraq.

President Clinton:

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Secretary of State Madeline Albright:

"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction," Albright said Sunday, addressing a news conference in Jerusalem.

"The chemical weapons Saddam has used and the biological weapons we know he has tested pay no attention to borders and nationalities."

Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser:

He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.

Nancy Pelosi, now Speaker the House, and then a member of the House Intelligence Committee:

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

In a letter to President Clinton, from 27 U.S. Senators:

We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.

In addition to the history lesson, the Democrats need a lesson in Constitutional Law. The Constitution provides for impeachment for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, not to "influence" a president to accept Mr. Murtha's strategy to slowly bleed the war effort to death.

Straight From The Troops

Jeff has posted a masterpiece about how the troops still believe the in mission. Even Paul Harvey praised Jeff's article:

Jeff Emanuel, whoever you are, wherever you are, I wanted to thank you sir.

Nobody since Ernie Pyle has reported this war from the trenches as you are doing. Obviously, you know our guys deserve better.

Here are my favorite parts of Jeff's post:

The knowledge that the American military can win this fight appears to be shared by the vast majority of the soldiers here (and it was expressed by every one that I talked to). This doesn’t mean that they enjoy being here – not at all. “This place sucks,” said one soldier. “Sand sucks. I’m exhausted, and I miss home.” Though these latter sentiments are as common and as pervasive as the formerly expressed confidence, they should be taken for what they mean, not twisted to suit an anti-war agenda. Living somewhere away from home for twelve to fifteen months at a time, living in conditions that aren’t exactly five star resort-esque, eating bad food, going a long time between getting showers and clean clothes, and having an opportunity to be killed virtually every day is an unpleasant situation, and can quickly grind people down.

[. . .]

“The sense I get when talking to the other soldiers,” said a public affairs soldier, “is that the worst thing possible would be to give a date when we’re leaving, period. We all want to win, and to accomplish our mission, especially since we’ve put so much into doing it so far. To just up and leave would be terrible.” I asked what effect such statements as Harry Reid’s “the war is lost,” and Nancy Pelosi’s “the war on terror is not in Iraq” have on the troops’ morale and opinions of their mission, and also pointed out the relevance of John Kerry’s 1971 statement to Congress that nobody wants to be “the last man to die for a lost cause,” and asked how that – and the fact that Congress had just passed resolutions mandating troop pullouts in five months – and asked about that affect, as well. The response was, “It’s terrible. I mean, I understand political posturing and all that but it really is terrible. If the war is lost and we need to go home, then why do we need to stay here five more months, when I could die or my friends could die before we go home? The war is either over or it isn’t; this just doesn’t make sense.” The Specialist continued, “What we want is to keep helping the people here. The people at home who say these things, they don’t understand that these are people who have to live here after we leave, whatever the situation is.

[. . .]

Surrender is not an option to the American fighting force – and they know that very well. Abandoning Iraq while the mission is still unfinished is not an option being entertained by any of the soldiers with whom I have spoken to this point; rather, it appears to be solely the purview of those at home who think that they know better than the soldiers themselves what is good for them. What the troops appear to really want is to be given the support and the resources which will allow them to complete their mission – and, more than anything else, the time to do so successfully.

There is much more in Jeff's "Believing in the mission." Go read the whole thing.

Hillary's Virtuous Twang

Presidential wannabee, Hillary Clinton sees her occasional Southern accent as a virtue:

"I think America is ready for a multilingual president," Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C.

The New York senator noted that she's split her life between Arkansas, Illinois and the East Coast.

Observers have long noted Hillary's tendency to speak Southern primarily in front of black audiences. Two recent incidents resulted in a great deal of ribbing in the media and more than a few humorous YouTube video clips.

In early March Hillary made a campaign trip to Selma, Alabama. Speaking at a black church, the Senator tried to fake a southern accent, while apparently quoting from the Gospel hymn "I Don't Feel Noways Tired." It came across as a cheap pandering. You can listen to a short audio clip below and come to your own conclusion.

A week ago, Clinton spoke to the annual convention of Al Sharpton's National Action Network. She again broke into her Southern twang. You can watch the video below:

Hillary's tendency to break into a Southern twang when speaking to black audiences is hardly a virtue. it's just phony.

Edwards Tries To Answer

Here's the video of Edwards trying to answer when asked whom he considers his moral leader:

Having watched Edwards' answer several times I still maintain the pause was way too long and conveyed the message I don't have a moral leader.

Some readers disagree. One comments:

The pause is nothing. He seemed to really think the question through, which I appreciated. And the answer was golden.

Others agree with me. There was this:

That pause is painfully long and awkward.

And this:

Exactly. If he had paused for 10 seconds (that is how long it took him to think!) and then said, "well, it's my Lord," then it'd be a little better.

But he says "I don't think I could identify one person who I consider to be my moral leader." Well, thanks. But it's the next thing he does which is really interesting. When he says "my Lord," he shrugs, as if it is a passing thought. You can tell he's trying to save himself there, because he really doesn't have an answer. It was really, truly sad.

Watch the video and let us know what you think.

Victory In Iraq

In Rear Admiral Fox's office, Jeff and Academic Elephant have discovered what victory in Iraq will look like:

What is needed most, beyond what is being done, is more time.

Read "According to the US military, THIS is what victory in Iraq looks like:

Obama Wins

SurveyUSA conducted a poll on last night's Democratic Presidential candidate debate in South Carolina and found Senator Barack Obama came out on top:

Thirty-one percent gave that honor to Obama. Senator Hillary Clinton took second place, with 24 percent. Fourteen percent of respondents thought Senator John Edwards emerged as a leader among the candidates.

Obama did three times better than Clinton and twice as well as Edwards among South Carolina's Independents. Obama and Clinton tied among Democrats. Edwards and Obama tied among Republicans. Clinton won among white viewers. Of the respondents, 60 percent were white and 36 percent were black.

The debate got a lot of attention from South Carolinians. A third of the South Carolina adults contacted by SurveyUSA listened to the debate. Those who watched were asked who won the debate:

6% Biden
24% Clinton
2% Dodd
14% Edwards
2% Gravel
3% Kucinich
31% Obama
4% Richardson
13% Not Sure

More information on the SurveyUSA poll results, or how the survey was conducted, is available here and here.

The main stream media must not have listened to the same debate. The New York Times reported:

By the end of the night, none of the eight appeared to have distinguished themselves in any appreciable way with the kind of statement or dramatic moment that they might have hoped for; that said, none appeared to have made any campaign-altering mistakes either.

It's peculiar that the same url earlier brought up a story dated the 26th and titled "Democratic Hopefuls Square Off for First Time." Yesterday's article was less nuanced:

It was a night where no candidate appeared to particularly distinguish themselves. Mr. Obama, in particular, was so soft-spoken and reserved that he appeared at times to recede off the stage.

The Washington Post described the Candidates as "balanced:"

The field seems both talented and evenly balanced.

Long Island Newsday was less kind to Obama, saying he stumbled:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a cool, confident performance Thursday night in the first primary debate of the 2008 presidential season, while her fast-gaining opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, seemed to sweat a bit in the national spotlight.

According to McClatchy, the debate failed to alter the campaign:

Absent direct challenges - or any pronounced gaffes - the debate probably did nothing to fundamentally change the shape of the contest with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina leading in the polls and the rest trailing well behind.

Clinton and Biden were asked if they support Senate Majority Leader Reid's comment that the war in Iraq is lost. Both simply didn't answer the question:

"The American people have spoken," Clinton said. "The Congress has voted as of today to end this war, and now we can only hope that the president will listen. … This is not America's war to win or lose."

Look, Brian, this is not a game show," Biden told moderator Brian Williams. "This is not a football game. This is not win or lose."

I watched the last half of the debate. I didn't see a winner. What I saw was another opportunity taken by the Democratic candidates to beat up on President Bush. Something all eight did with abandon. I agree with the Washington Post that Kucinich and Gravel "provided a counterpoint of left-wing idea that drew rebukes for a lack of seriousness from Biden and Obama." The rebukes were well deserved.

Finally, I think Edwards was the biggest loser. As reported by the Chicago Tribune, when Edwards was asked whom he considers his moral leader, he "paused for a long and uncomfortable moment, seemingly at a loss for an answer:"

"I don't think I could identify one person that I consider to be my moral leader," Edwards said. "My Lord is important to me. … My wife … is a source of great conscience for me. My father … "

Watching the debate, that pause was way too long. The message conveyed was I don't have a moral leader." I found it devastating. When video of the long pause comes out on YouTube, it will require a great deal of spin from the Edwards campaign

Jeff Gets An Embed Slot

Jeff has gotten an embed slot with the 1-4 Cavalry of the 1st Infantry Division:

I'll fly out sometime tomorrow via helicopter and join up with the unit for a week of living, eating, sleeping, and operating alongside these combat troops.

Read Jeff's "Finally embedding with the warfighters!!"