I was down in Fort Benning, GA a few weeks ago (home of the infantry) to visit an old Army buddy and was stunned by the books in the PX. ONE Ann Culter book and the rest was all a bunch of liberal tripe. It was weird to say the least…

I got used to it in the college bookstore during undergrad, but Fort Benning?

watchmen on May 23, 2008 at 8:59 AM

Maybe they stock what their customers buy. That’s the way things usually work anyway.

Did you ever see that episode of Fawlty Towers where they were having guests from Germany and Basil kept bringing up the war? I’m sure that US soldiers stationed in Germany eventually learned not to say and do stupid things that upset the citizens of the host country (There’s that comparison again. Damn, that must get your goat).

Kafir on May 23, 2008 at 8:28 AM

Don’t believe everything you see on sitcoms.

I think most of us here have serious concerns about the Iraqis joining the modern world but Yon’s view of the military situation seems to be correct.

kongzilla on May 23, 2008 at 12:46 PM

That tree is not the one I have the big problem with.

Michael Yon on Iraq – Video
Michael Yon was interviewed on Fox and Friends (see video above) regarding the progress in Iraq. As many of you know, Michael Yon is a journalist and blogger who has made numerous trips to Iraq and chronicled what he has se…

I’m starting to lose my faith in the Army.

“[Gains that there have been in Iraq are] fragile and reversible.”
- General Petraeus

“We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator.”
- General Petraeus

MB4

Anyone in this thread who is or was military knows that you do not celebrate victory while in the middle of a battlefield. Not until you are home and you make sure evil does not show its ugly head again.

Why are there more people proudly serving multiple tours in Iraq and are speaking out for the war to win than there are veterans advocating cut and run, against the war, who most of which only served one tour, some of which turned out to be frauds and never served (a long with their fake war crime claims)? And then you have those who never served who think they know more than you, even though you were “over there”. Their feelings trump the facts you learned and want to reveal.

I think this is causing so much stink because you have not only a veteran, but a Special Forces veteran risking his life as an independent journalist going back to Iraq as often as he can, even raising money to fund his own trips, and his story is not doom, gloom, and defeat that matches the media and liberals’ portrayal. It totally contradicts the media and the Democrappy party, in the middle of a Presidential election year. That is why it causing so much of a stir.

Fifteen hundred years of often vile and vicious ethnic and religious animosity and violence will never be quenched by even the very best efforts of a foolish and ignorant third party; such as our present, misguided presence in Iraq.

J_Gocht on May 23, 2008 at 5:52 PM

That would certainly hold true if one never tried.

[Thomas P.M. Barnett argues](http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/05/nextwaritis.html) that Bob Gates has begun to [shift the Department of Defense's thinking on force structure](http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1240) and…

“Well, what do we win?…”
“…A country that has Sharia enshrined in it’s constitution?
A natural fellow Shiite ally for Iran?
You and he [Yon] can’t see the forest for a few trees.
You see, even if we “win” it’s a boobie prize.
MB4 on May 23, 2008 at 3:54 AM”

I’m not the only one that agrees with the wizened, reasoning of MB4…

“…The above short description of Sunni-Shiite relations seems to indicate that the trend toward conflict is on the rise. This may be attributed to the situation in Iraq, however, this in itself is not enough. The Sunni-Shiite impasse in Iraq is but a reflection of a wider phenomenon, fanned by the traditional Wahhabi view of the Shia as an apostasy. The ascendancy of the Shiites in Iraq in place of a Sunni—albeit evil and Ba’thist— regime only serves to reinforce the above view; the heterodox, even heretical Shiites, the natural allies of Shiite Iran, came to power in Arab Iraq on the points of American bayonets and through an alliance with the secular and non-Arab Kurds, ostensibly in a democratic process, but actually in order to promote the American plan for a Greater Middle East in which the Arabs will be diluted in the non-Arab components (Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Israel) and Islam will lose its status. This development is viewed not only from the most radical wings of the Sunni world, but even in traditional Wahhabi circles in Saudi Arabia, as a strategic challenge not only to the predominance of the Sunnis in Iraq, but to their supremacy in the Muslim world in general…”

Fifteen hundred years of often vile and vicious ethnic and religious animosity and violence will never be quenched by even the very best efforts of a foolish and ignorant third party; such as our present, misguided presence in Iraq.

I got used to it in the college bookstore during undergrad, but Fort Benning?

Well, what do we win?

Getting to stay in a Muslim country where ever time one of our soldiers is caught disrespecting Islam or their evil Koran, an American General has to grovel before a bunch of ungrateful, never satisfied Muslims?

Did you ever see that episode of Fawlty Towers where they were having guests from Germany and Basil kept bringing up the war? I’m sure that US soldiers stationed in Germany eventually learned not to say and do stupid things that upset the citizens of the host country (There’s that comparison again. Damn, that must get your goat).

A country that has Sharia enshrined in it’s constitution?

Because, you know, constitutions can never be amended and the cultures living under them never change. That’s why I’m typing this while sipping a mint julep on the veranda of my plantation watching the darkies pick cotton. Oh, how I do love hearing them sing their sprituals….

A natural fellow Shiite ally for Iran?

Don’t underestimate Arabs’ animosity for Persians.

You seem to be oblivious to anyone from the current administration, or the military, testifying before that pack of jackasses in Congress.

Also, you conveniently forget the alarm Yon was sounding a couple years ago, before Fallujah if I remember right, that the war there could still be lost, without a serious change in tactics. I believe it was even before Petreaus took command.

91Veteran on May 23, 2008 at 2:28 AM

And Yon and you seem to be, to use your words, “oblivious” and “conveniently forgetting”, the overriding matter of what do we win, if we “win”, which has always been my main point.

Well, what do we win?

Getting to stay in a Muslim country where ever time one of our soldiers is caught disrespecting Islam or their evil Koran, an American General has to grovel before a bunch of ungrateful, never satisfied Muslims?

A country that has Sharia enshrined in it’s constitution?

A natural fellow Shiite ally for Iran?

You and he can’t see the forest for a few trees.

You see, even if we “win” it’s a boobie prize.

Well I can certainly understand you not taking my word, particularly with you being a professor and all, but is rather amazing that you ignore General Petraeus and his very un-Yonish giddy “The progress is unbelievable” view.

“[Gains that there have been in Iraq are] fragile and reversible.”
- General Petraeus

“We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator.”
- General Petraeus

MB4 on May 22, 2008 at 11:29 PM

You seem to be oblivious to anyone from the current administration, or the military, testifying before that pack of jackasses in Congress.

Yeah Petraeus didn’t get on the table and dance a jig, and may not have sounded as optimistic as Yon, who you have to admit has spent a considerable amount of time on the ground with the troops in both theaters over what? three years at least?

If Petraeus said anything other than bland, carefully couched words, any incident that happened in either theater from the point of his testimony onward would have been pounced on by the drive-by media and the jackasses in Congress. They would happily hound him right out of the military if they had the chance….after all, didn’t he Betray Them?

Yon’s words are from what he has witnessed over a long period of time…words that have mostly conflicted over a long period of time that goes against the left’s narrative…that the war was lost. Wasn’t that what Dingy Harry said?

Also, you conveniently forget the alarm Yon was sounding a couple years ago, before Fallujah if I remember right, that the war there could still be lost, without a serious change in tactics. I believe it was even before Petreaus took command.

MB4 and the Democrat party gets their wish: American soldiers die by the tens of thousands and are forced into retreat and disgrace.

spmat on May 22, 2008 at 8:44 PM

You are one profoundly disturbed individual.

platypus on May 22, 2008 at 11:26 PM

That won’t work with me as I have already had my dessert.

For what its worth, I don’t know if MB4 has any first hand knowledge. Or third-hand knowledge, for that matter. Personally, I’ll know a lot more after my own first deployment. If MB4 can set aside his Dostoevsky and Voltaire long enough to speak for himself, maybe he’ll tell us which unit he deployed with – since surely he must have spent significant time in Iraq, to know so much more than someone with many months in country like Yon.

Professor Blather on May 22, 2008 at 10:44 PM

Well I can certainly understand you not taking my word, particularly with you being a professor and all, but is rather amazing that you ignore General Petraeus and his very un-Yonish giddy “The progress is unbelievable” view.

“[Gains that there have been in Iraq are] fragile and reversible.”
- General Petraeus

“We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator.”
- General Petraeus

Rodney sez can’t we all just get along?

/sarc

Same line over and over, then the personnal attacks.

dingbat on May 22, 2008 at 6:36 PM

That’s what you have been doing. Don’t you even read what you write?

And to repeat you have a special kind of hate.

patrick neid on May 22, 2008 at 6:47 PM

And to repeat, you are like a not so special kos of huffpo type with that hate schtick of yours.

MB (i.e., Mostly Bull): I just finished reading ‘Moment of Truth in Iraq’, and you, sir, are not fit to walk on the same ground Michael Yon does. You are understandably so deficient on the facts on the ground that you cannot speak with ANY authority whatsoever

You seem to have a profound case of hero worship for him. Reading his book and liking it is one thing, but to take it to that degree is not healthy. I will walk on any ground I like, with or without your royal permission. And talk about being “deficient”, you are so deficient that you seem incapable of doing anything but ad hominem attacks.

that it’s amazing you know how to even log in and comment here.

You sound silly and that it is “amazing” to you says a lot more about you than it does about me.

I’m not a military person either

Well I was.

but it takes little to understand that you, sir, are extremely uneducated.

MsUnderestimated on May 22, 2008 at 7:38 PM

Again you sound silly, put you do seem to have little, very little. I will give you that part.

The Iraqi government and people want the U.S. out of there as soon as we are no longer needed, and that’s OK, I want us out of there too, just as soon as we don’t accidently create another terrorist safe haven.

Another step forward and this time no steps backwards. Very happy to see the Iraqi military actually conducting themselves like a professional military. Big change for them, taking on armed opposition instead of gassing unarmed civilians. Get a few more “W’s” under their belt, get a taste of thinking for themselves and acting in their own best interests…. the possibilities are endless.

Here’s an idea MB4. Change your format. Throw out Mark Twain and get some fresh quotes (takes a half a second to spot him in your posts). And then go for quality over qauntity. Get out, read more. Take a day off from posting and get some perspective. Do you good.

dingbat on May 22, 2008 at 6:50 PM

:)

Is poor old MB4 still sticking with that quoting shtick.

He was doing that well over a year ago. And it was pathetic (yet amusing) even way back then.

Then again, if you saw his attempt at logic earlier (if we have troops in a country, we must be losing!), you can understand the need to quote the thoughts of others.

—————-

For what its worth, I don’t know if MB4 has any first hand knowledge. Or third-hand knowledge, for that matter. Personally, I’ll know a lot more after my own first deployment. If MB4 can set aside his Dostoevsky and Voltaire long enough to speak for himself, maybe he’ll tell us which unit he deployed with – since surely he must have spent significant time in Iraq, to know so much more than someone with many months in country like Yon.

All I know is that I spent last weekend with 45+ soldiers, at least 90% of whom had done at least one tour in Iraq.

And their collective opinion echoed Yon’s. Almost perfectly.

Especially those who’d done tours in 2003 or 2004 and returned more recently. They said the progress in those 3-4 years was actually pretty “unbelievable.”

Take it for what its worth. But its worth more than Mark Twain quotes and logic a third-grader would laugh at.