Video: Mark Kennedy’s Iraq campaign ad
posted at 10:32 pm on October 24, 2006 by Allahpundit
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It’s getting plenty of buzz. As it should: it’s not every day you watch an ad that ends with the words, “I know it may not be what you want to hear.”
He might as well toss it out there — his campaign’s doing about as well as Iraq is. Click the image to watch.
Josh Trevino and, more starkly, Ralph Peters have columns out today arguing that we lost because we weren’t hard enough on Iraqis. I hear that a lot, but short of killing Muqtada al-Sadr two years ago, I’ve never understood what it meant in concrete terms. Pace said today that the gloves are coming off if we have to take on North Korea, though, so, er, good news, I guess!
Elsewhere, Daniel Pipes advocates withdrawal to the desert followed by a strict laissez faire approach. That won’t work, I’m afraid.
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“we lost because we weren’t hard enough on Iraqis. I hear that a lot, but short of killing Muqtada al-Sadr two years ago, I’ve never understood what it meant in concrete terms.”
Exactly. I hear a lot of “let’s take off the gloves”. I’ve heard it for years. But isn’t the goal to like establish a democracy or something? How does one more forcefully establish a democracy?
I get that we could be brutal in suppressing insurgencies but our goal isn’t to run the place, it’s to establish a self-governing, propserious free society. So how do we get more brutal in blowing up the bad guys without killing/hurting/angering the surrounding Iraqis whose prosperous self-rule is our goal?
Alex K on October 24, 2006 at 10:39 PM
the mistake was going too fast to baghdad. we bypassed a lot of the iraqi brigades, hoping that they’d give up when Saddam was gone. I know hindsight is 20/20, but looking back, engaging and destroying those forces would have made this war a lot shorter.
lorien1973 on October 24, 2006 at 10:57 PM
I watched a video the other day. It was linked to a site whose name I can’t remember. I do remember the content of the video, which was filmed in an Iraqi school. About twenty percent of the children had relatives killed in the war. Most of the children were wearing school uniforms. They wore clean, pure white shirts and blouses.They were scrubbed immaculate clean. During a group recital they spoke perfect english. The lead teacher remarked,”I teach them about beautiful things and about peace and love”. In the schoolyard where laughter could be heard a student was welcomed , by her new classmates. It was evident by their bright eyes and smiling faces that something new was taking root in Iraq.
sonnyspats1 on October 24, 2006 at 11:27 PM
It’s amazing the revisionist history going on. The US, British, Aussies and other allied forces eliminted from power a corrupt, murdering rapist leader of the world’s (what was it) the 4th largest army in the span of a couple months? What do people expect? Send a couple of McDonalds and 40 plus years of brutality will just vanish? Time time time. Maybe if we bang on the bongo, light candles and sing in a circle it be all better.
It took time to eliminate die hard Nazis after WW2 and establish a new working goverment in Germany so it’ll take time in Iraq. Cut and run only works in a bar fight or when you throw pies at a Conservative speaker.
I stumbled across during some reading, “Guerillas never win wars, but their adversaries often lose them.”
-Charles W. Thayer
How true.
Sarcasm, Just one more service I offer.
VikingGoneWild on October 24, 2006 at 11:34 PM
One thing is for sure, he’s got the coolest retro looking logo for a campaign I’ve seen in a long time.
Topsecretk9 on October 24, 2006 at 11:34 PM
I need to put his sign on my lawn. I hope fellow Minnesotans will realize national security is more important than communism.
infidel on October 25, 2006 at 12:18 AM
Good Christ! Saddam was deposed within days, captured within months, America is safer, and Iraqis have held three (three!) free elections. I’m not looking for an amen chorus of “America can do no wrong because we’re GOLDEN GODS!” But it’d be nice if at least the hawks would acknowledge that we do indeed have the testicular fortitude required to pull this thing off.
Yeah, some days I worry. But it’s not over the defeatism on the Left. It’s the pessimism on the Right that has me scared. Nobody seems to remember that, bad as Muqtada is, Sadr City was once called Saddam City, or that when the Marines of the 1/5 rolled into that neighborhood we ran off the Republican Guard and freed a bunch of kids from a political dissident prison. (Yeah, Saddam used to detain the first born children of his Shi’ite political opponents. And here our spoiled brat liberals say Bush is a tyrant! They don’t even know the meaning of the word!)
That the neighborhood is still a slum is not exactly news. It’s always been a violent slum. That kids are no longer jailed there because of their fathers’ opinions? Why the hell isn’t that being reported!? I’m so hopping mad at the way our media have let us down I could just spit. Call it jingoistic, call it naive, but IMO those kids deserve our unwavering support.
/rant
Kadnine on October 25, 2006 at 1:21 AM
Allah, I like your writing. Especially on politics.
However, there’s a reason Ralph Peters is a great military analysist and student of political history and you’re not. If I ever want isight into Battlestar Galactica, you’re my go to guy, but if I want clear thinking on war, I look elsewhere.
You said:
I’ll tell you a little bit of what I think this means even before reading the articles you’ve linked to (I’ve read Ralph Peters for well over a decade, much classical military history, and done my own thinking on this: since childhood).
This is for your ponderance.
What it comes down to is that all people, good and evil, can be very swayed by fear they will be harmed particularly if that reckoning is nigh.
Evil people are swayed by not much else. Often they can’t be swayed at all so must be killed.
It’s too simple to call our enemies blanket evil, but they are our enemies.
When your country went into Iraq you used a tiny percentage of available force. You went out of your way to avoid engaging the Saddam Fedayeen for example. They should have been killed.
You should have used more devestating air power and artillery, damn collateral damage. That’s right. Just ignore it and the press. Demonstrate a total willingness to kill your enemy. This would have caused your enemy great pause (not to mention killed them).
The Iraqi people would still have supported America, eventually, as did the Japanese, Germans, Italians, and southern Americans (during the Civil War: this was a brutal war of anihilation fought decisively by General William Sheridan among others). Those who didn’t support America would have feared her and this is almost as good. War ain’t beanbag. It is domination. Like being at a bar challenged to a fight.
You can play nice and hope your enemy is reasonable, but if he isn’t you’re dead. Or you can immediately call your enemy’s bluff verbally and if your enemy doesn’t back down instantaneously, you without a second’s hesistation dominate him completely until his ability to engage your offensively is destroyed.
Or you can concede or run away, of course, and that may be best in certain circumstances. But engaging him violently, but with limited violence trying not to hurt him too much, is a short path to the hospital. Even if you win, next time he sees you he’ll want a rematch. He should never, ever want a rematch.
Ralph Peters (I peaked at the article) refers to killing known enemies as you became aware of them (again, damn collateral damage), and militias as they were forming rather than trying tribal solutions working with local elders etc. These are some of the concrete necessities he mentioned that you ignored.
In Germany and Japan, once we conquered those countries, we didn’t ask local mayors is it okay if we arrest said SS official or militarist official. We went where we wanted and, having sufferred massive military and civillian casualties, the Germans and Japanese understood fully that resisting was the path to their and their families’ death.
This was the right approach.
Christoph on October 25, 2006 at 1:50 AM
The argument doesn’t not really sum up. Suppose we did what they propose and ended up being in bad situation, they would suggest the opposite. Well, you can’t have it both ways.
Ouabam on October 25, 2006 at 1:52 AM
I don’t write the Battlestar Galactica posts. Bryan does.
Allahpundit on October 25, 2006 at 1:53 AM
Oops, Allah, my bad. Thanks for pointing that out.
The main point, however, I’m sure you can see. My point is that the amount of death and destruction meted out to enemies should make a good man squeamish. Because it should do that or much worse to your enemies’ (intestinal) constitution including their families’.
Then you rebuild. The U.S. only half-assed did the first part, which makes the second part much harder. It was still tough after WW2 and the Nazis were largely destroyed. If you had not destroyed them and cowed the German population, but used precision weapons with the intention of avoiding enemy deaths, collateral damage, and negative media publicity, your ability to control Germany would have been much less and perhaps fatally weakened.
As you’ll see, there was more that could be done than killing this one man… and yes, he should have been killed too.
Christoph on October 25, 2006 at 2:00 AM
Christoph is exactly correct when he says we pulled our punch militarily in Iraq. Had we chosen to, the entire nation of Iraq (and Iran and Syria for good measure) could have been turned into radioactive green glass in less than one day.
And there isn’t a single nation on this planet that could have stopped us, had we chosed to apply our full military power, either.
We chose to fight a “conventional war.” We chose to put troops on the ground and take Baghdad the “hard way.” And we did it in 3 weeks! Christoph is correct that it was done exactly the way it was in order to minimize civilian casualties.
The US military is the most lethal on the planet, and don’t think that our enemies are not aware of it. It is why Libya gave up their WMD program after we conquered Iraq.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said in the article linked to above:
The left and the Democrats (including the 5th Columnist media) are all wrapped up in applying the “Vietnam Quagmire Template” to Iraq. They are either fools or liars for attempting to do so, because these two wars are not even remotely similar.
They have no idea of the raw military power that the USA has at its disposal.
georgej on October 25, 2006 at 2:46 AM
I mistyped a word Allah. I meant to say that you are not a great military analysist and I stand by that. I typed the word political by mistake. This is not what I intended to write.
As I stated:
… I value your political knowledge. It far exceeds mine.
Christoph on October 25, 2006 at 4:28 AM
Fallujah. We showed our unwillingness to drop the hammer. We swept through, we cleaned it up a bit, and then we turned it right back over to people who like it being a terrorist swamp. Even when we went back and did it again, we were nice about it.
When your policy is to not wipe your enemy out, they have eternal hope.
Pablo on October 25, 2006 at 5:08 AM
Don’t think that the meglomanical Elvis impersonator in n. korea won’t use all his weapons on Seoul, S. Korea, when he wants to invade. He will.
tormod on October 25, 2006 at 5:19 AM
“He should never, ever want a rematch” True, or he should’nt even be alive to not want one.
Well, Saddam didn’t want a rematch, but he sure was askin’ for it. Now he’s in prison, scatching marks into the wall to track his number of days inside his new ‘palace’.
As mentioned before, hindsight is 20/20. I would’ve liked us to have had more troops on the ground, the 4th ID coming in from Turkey and more asses kicked along the way, but Tommy Franks has FORGOTTEN more about combat then I have yet to learn so I won’t second guess him. But if I had it my way we would’ve either gone in a lot heavier, but Franks wanted light and fast in order to take the capital city faster which makes sense, however we needed troops behind to mop up along the way. We should’ve done it the ild fashioned way, send the Marines in to kick ass and the Army to hold territory.
Too bad we didn’t have an Iraqi version of the Northern Alliance like we had in Afghanistan, then we could’ve done it with Air Force Combat Controllers calling in air strikes. We still did both wars in about 3 weeks. I want our liberal friends to name another war done that fast. I can only name one, the “6 Day War”.
Tony737 on October 25, 2006 at 6:19 AM
To echo Christoph’s main point…I don’t care if our actions cause our enemies to hate us so long as they fear us more.
But you won’t see this happen in our military because nobody up top is willing to stand up for warfare as it should be performed. Press conferences should go something like this: “Haditha? Yeah, sure was bloody. How about that? Next question.”
Beginning in Vietnam we began to fear bad press more than we fear losing to the enemy, and we’ve been unable to achieve total victory ever since.
That perfect press conference will never happen because we’ve been conditioned to not hate our enemies with sensitivity, cultural, and PC training. (As part of the tail as opposed to the tooth, nobody’s counting on me as a trigger-puller in the traditional sense, but still, I get more of that kind of training than the kind that sends rounds downrange.) This gives us the mindset that in return our enemies shouldn’t hate us and we should do everything in our power to avoid pissing off the people we’re trying to kill. It’s madness. Why should a foreign power avoid fighting a war with the US if our technological advantage makes fighting a war with the US more palatable for them?
James on October 25, 2006 at 8:31 AM
One could argue that the mistake was not taking Baghdad in 1991.
And that is because the American population would not be very tolerant of 50,000 of our troops dying.
I agree with Christoph’s post. very well written.
pullingmyhairout on October 25, 2006 at 9:27 AM
Christoph is correct. To win a protracted engagement you must destroy the enemy’s will to resist, the logistical means to resist and the populace’s desire to support resistance. Dismantling Saddam’s regime and taking Baghdad (the center of gravity for Saddam) so quickly did a lot to destroy the enemy’s will to resist. Unfortunately we terminated major combat operations too early. Our haste to move from finding and killing the enemy to good guy rebuilders was done before the above criteria for success was met which allowed our enemy to get breathing room and grow the insurgency. When war is waged it must be swift, violent and totally overwhelming to your adversary. That ensures your dealing with a more compliant population which allows you to build a secure environment that is conducive to erecting civil and governmental reconstruction projects. Just my two cents.
Trooper on October 25, 2006 at 9:51 AM
After the Blackwater massacre, Fallujah should not have been allowed to remain standing. Getting hard in Iraq means sealing the Syrian and Iranian borders, and cleaning out the Sunni triangle, by siege and carpet bombing if necessary.
For that, however, you would have had to keep the Iraqi army intact, and would have needed overwhelming numbers of U.S. forces.
Kid from Brooklyn on October 25, 2006 at 10:05 AM
Go with Kadnine
With a hyper dictator like Saddam who controlled every decision, it was smart to go straight for the head. That way, the defense was without any worthwhile guidance. Like Hitler, Saddam had a practice of killing off any general whom he thought might be disloyal. Remember that scene in Battle of the Bulge when the German commanders are asking permission to move troops, but Hilter was asleep and his entourage was afraid to wake him up?
How could it have better to be slugging it out city by city with Saddam screaming orders to all his flunkies to get those chemical shells loaded and fired?
naliaka on October 25, 2006 at 10:07 AM
Yes I totally agree. But Bush I loved his coalition so he didn’t go in. I think part of the problem we face is that Iraqi’s distrust us, cuz we promised to liberate them in 1991, but did not. Now we have a whole party (and some in the second) that wants to let them down again. Astonishing.
lorien1973 on October 25, 2006 at 10:14 AM
So I am listening to Bush this morning. He’s giving the POYUS version of what Casey talked about Monday. So far so good. Well, come to find out Malaki has a different view from what has been forth (within 12 to 18 months Iraqi forces will be positioned to take over security); Malaki says he has not agreed to this. WTF????
honora on October 25, 2006 at 12:57 PM
I did not know who this guy was so I went to his website.
I searched his site extensively and finally had to google him to find out he was, indeed, GOP.
Is this not oddball? I have not visited that many candidate web sites… is this common?
RC2 on October 25, 2006 at 1:01 PM
Christoph, that paragraph, that post, and all of your posts on this thread are so dead on it hurts.
Does anyone here really doubt that had we unleashed the full fury of our military forces that we could have completely pacified Iraq in a month’s time?
Instead, we pussyfooted around, placing the prevention of civilian casualties at a higher priorty than winning … and have accomplished neither. This is what always happens when you subordinate winning to any other objective.
There have been so many opportunities where we could have been harder on our enemies in Iraq, and we have passed up virtually every one of them. It has won neither hearts nor minds, nor has it prevented us from making new enemies over there.
Someone else invoked Sherman in this thread, and he had it right when he said:
“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.”
Yeah, a lot of good being Mr. Nice Guy did us.
thirteen28 on October 25, 2006 at 1:05 PM
Senator Mark Kennedy, that has a nice ring to it.
I do have his sign in my yard and only wish I seen more in my area. Get the word out Minnesota, we need Mark Kennedy in office not Amy Klobuchar. Minnesota, VOTE MARK KENNEDY on November 7th. Nothing wrong with the truth, it’s good and “they” need to hear it and listen to it.
celticpugilist on October 25, 2006 at 2:46 PM
It’s very easy to understand. Liberals are pessimists, and will never be happy until they return to power and can become optimists again. Until then, nothing about our country or our global efforts for peace will please them. Aren’t they supposed to be peace-loving? Yet they make war with the very administration working towards a more peaceful world. I would shake my head, but you can’t see that in a post.
Going off topic for just a moment, a few minutes ago I installed Firefox 2.0, the new Mozilla browser, and it makes everything sweeter, including automatic spell check in online forums such as this. Check it out, friends.
Doug on October 25, 2006 at 2:58 PM
Did you notice that this guy kind of looks like Bella Lugosi in that Dracula film him did. Take the last frame of the film, turn it into black & white, and darken it up a bit :)
“Listen to the children of the night, what beautiful music they make”
Confederate on October 25, 2006 at 3:56 PM
Christoph you could have added that at the end of WWII when we went into the towns and villages the sergeant jobs were to remove all weapons from the SS (who were all officers). Geneva convention says only an officer can remove weapons from a captured officer. The SS would resist the sergeant…that is only one would resist, the others lived. They learned very quickly (and brutally) who was in control of there country.
right2bright on October 25, 2006 at 4:56 PM
I can’t quite bring myself to blame GHWB for not going to Baghdad in ‘91, though I wanted it as much as anyone. When we cleaned them out of Kuwait it would have been absolutely fitting to not stop. I can still hear George C. Scott’s Patton bellowing that once they got into Berlin the thing to do was keep going until they reached Moscow.
But the U.N., NATO, and every bed-wetter in Congress had warned the President not to chase the Iraqis more than two miles beyond their border, after they finally agreed to support our rescue of Kuwait. The U.N. even produced a resolution defining the limits of U.S./coalition aggression.
Given that Bush Sr. is a globalist, he couldn’t possibly have done otherwise.
One can only imagine how much different things would be now if he had loosed Stormin’ Norman’s leash 15 years ago.
Freelancer on October 26, 2006 at 2:48 AM
With the wanton disregard for innocent life and ignorance of the consequences of war, I’m glad none of the chickenhawks on this thread hold public office. We wouldn’t even be here if we hadn’t armed Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war.
Constantine on October 26, 2006 at 12:03 PM
Saddam chose war not Bush.
infidel on October 26, 2006 at 1:39 PM
Amen.
Christoph on October 27, 2006 at 4:26 AM
I’d say it was mutual.
Christoph on October 28, 2006 at 4:45 AM
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