Democrats Oppose the War ...

... but do they even want us to win?

There is an evil, cancerous idea amongst those on the Left™ against the war in Iraq, an idea that conservatives (even those who might oppose the war) don't share. Many liberals want us to lose the war. There are probably several reasons why, but the biggest must be that; if we should win, then their ideological opposition to the war might be delegitimized and President Bush at least partially vindicated.

The most recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of registered voters showed that only 51% of Democrats want the President's plan to succeed and 31% of Democrats want it to fail. Better to have us lose, American soldiers dead, and the Country placed in grave danger than to allow us to win a war.

David Reinhard at The Oregonian (hardly a bastion of Conservatism) has something to say about this, THE WAR AT HOME

Anecdotal evidence, yes, but recently some poll results confirmed this anecdotal evidence. The most recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of registered voters' views was ho-hum in many respects. Bush's approval rating is abysmal, and a solid majority -- 59 percent -- opposes his plan to send more troops to Iraq. But the pollsters probed further and asked respondents if they personally wanted Bush's plan to succeed.

The results were astonishing. Overall, 63 percent of those surveyed said they wanted the plan to succeed. But 22 percent did not. (Another 15 percent didn't know.) American men and women are going off to fight, and perhaps die, and more than one out of five voters wants them to fail. Sorry, this tells us more about their cankered souls than about the war itself. [and they take pride in their "courageous" opinions! +Photi]

Look beneath the overall breakdown and it becomes clear why Democratic lawmakers sat on their hands Tuesday night when Bush talked about the pursuit of victory in Iraq. According to the Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll, only 51 percent of all Democrats want Bush's new plan to succeed. And a full 34 percent of Democrats do not want it to succeed.

That's not 34 percent of Democrats who oppose to the plan or think the plan will not succeed. That's 34 percent of Democrats who root for failure. That's the anti-war, anti-victory base that Democrats on Capitol Hill worry about.

We are in big trouble.

The FBMs

I spent nearly all of my adult life in (first) Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines, and (second) their newer incarnation, Trident submarines. I sailed, in order, USS Tecumseh (SSBN 628)(Gold), USS Benjamin Franklin (SSBN 640)(Decommissioning Crew), USS Florida (SSBN 728)(Blue), and USS Georgia (SSBN 729)(Gold) and her conversion to SSGN 729.

While reviewing some of my old bookmarks I ran across the Goatlocker. I have linked to a very funny post in the past. On that site is a piece by an old shipmate of mine, The Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine.

The Left's War on Free Speech

Dan Riehl has a good piece at Riehl World View.

The Left's War On Free Speech

Dan nails it.

Hillary re: Israel's Security Barrier

With the announcements of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, and Bill Richardson as entrants in the race for President, I remembered a time when Hillary was very pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. That was a long time ago. I decided to check her out on the Security Barrier, and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

On Hillary's website she has posted a document dated April 1, 2004 urging the (worse than useless) United Nations to change its stance on Israel's Security Fence.

Senators Urge United Nations to Reconsider Stance on Israel's Security Fence

Washington, DC - In a letter, today, sent to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Orrin Hatch (UT), Charles Schumer (NY) and Gordon Smith (OR) joined with 75 other Senate Colleagues urging the General Assembly to reject the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision to consider the legality of Israel's security fence. The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot be resolved in the ICJ, but rather must be resolved between the parties.

"Israel's fence is a legitimate response to an onslaught of terrorist attacks against Israelis. The decision to build the security fence has been thrust upon Israel by the Palestinian refusal to crack down on terror. The future of the fence should not be a legal matter, and has no place in the International Court of Justice." Senator Clinton said.

"Every nation in the world has a right to defend itself, a right well established under international law," said Senator Hatch. "We're asking Secretary General Annan to recognize that Israel has this fundamental right, and to reject the politicization of Israel's temporary security fence by placing this issue before the ICJ. It would seem to me that, if the U.N. wants to be seen as supportive of the war on terrorism, the Secretary General will heed our concerns."

"The drive to get the international court to rule on the fence is politics pure and simple. Enemies of Israel want to embarrass her at whatever cost, even if it means destroying the legitimacy of the ICJ in the process. And that is exactly what will happen here if the court intervenes and exposes itself as an instrument of the anti-Israel movement. By building the fence, Israel is taking responsible measures to defend itself again Palestinian terrorism, end of story," Senator Schumer added.

Senator Smith said, "Israel's fence is a response to years of unrelenting terrorist attacks that have claimed over 900 lives. Israel enjoys the right to protect its citizens just as other nations of the world, and the security fence plays a part in this defensive effort."

In the letter, the Senator's stress that, "Israel has no less of a right to defend its citizens than other nations of the world, and the security fence is a major part of this defense effort, particularly since the Palestinian Authority refuses to take any action against terrorism. Israel has reiterated the security needs for this fence, has declared that is not to be seen as permanent, and continues to aspire to political settlement with a Palestinian Authority that can credibly deliver on its commitments to security. The GA's request for an ICJ advisory opinion is a blatant attempt to manipulate the United Nations system for clearly political purposes."

The full text of the letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan is as follows:

Go read their letter to the anti-Semite Kofi Annan. I am, as I said, pleasantly surprised.

Mexico Tries to Help?

Perhaps senior members of the Mexican government are getting a little sensitive about the reputation their country has for corruption, hypocrisy, and plain disregard for law and all civilizational norms. Even better, maybe they have come to the realization that we have such a poor opinion of them and a strong desire to seal our southern border. So they have, this once, decided to help.

Mexico Sends 4 Kingpins to Face Trial in the U.S.

Officials at the Drug Enforcement Agency privately voiced frustration with the Fox administration for not extraditing the drug kingpins to the United States, where they would be unable to run their networks from prison. A similar tactic proved effective in Colombia, Panama and other countries where drugs are produced and shipped.

Mr. Calderón and his attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, did not immediately say why they had switched course. The attorney general's office put out a statement saying simply that the people extradited had run out of appeals against extradition and that Mexico wanted them to face trial in the United States before the time limit ran out on the charges there.

But all are serving sentences or facing trials in Mexico. In the past, the Mexican authorities have said those were barriers to extradition.

Now these monsters are being brought to the U.S. to face real punishment for their crimes, something not possible in Mexico.

The Latest on SSGN

USS Ohio (SSGN 726) with Two Dry Deck Shelters Installed

OK, so it is a bit old, dated Nov. 15^th, but interesting none the less.

SSGN - A Transformational Force for the U.S. Navy

The newer material is simply added to an older article, but it gives an idea of where we are now with the SSGN program. There is a paragraph of news from the future at the bottom of the piece.

I have said it before and am happy to say it again. With the SSGN conversion you, the taxpayer, are getting tremendous bang for your buck and a truly beautiful weapons system.

One thing that you do not read much of in the press about SSGN is this;

Even beyond its baseline mission capabilities, SSGN offers significant opportunities to develop and test new weapon delivery systems, sensors, and operational concepts that could further transform naval warfare. Two examples already envisioned are encapsulated launch of a variety of tactical munitions and deployment of large unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) and off-board sensors. Encapsulated launch will send weapons to the surface for dry-launching, using a standardized buoyant capsule and a common interface for loading and communications. This modular approach to payloads will even allow use of "off-the-shelf" weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles, and decoys in support of joint forces. And, by developing large UUVs that make full use of the seven-foot tubes, they can surpass the range, endurance, and payload of small surveillance platforms and take on new missions - even offensive ones.

This has to do with SACS and was tested during Silent Hammer (an exercise that I was privileged to be a part of).

A Godspeed Wish Seconded

JamesoftheNorthwest at Paradosis is a spy, and he has a couple of nice pictures.

USS John Stennis gets underway in Bremerton on 1/16/07. Photo courtesy of Eye on the Fleet

The Pope and Islam

Every now and then Jamie Glazov at FrontPage magazine.com gathers together people of differing opinions for symposia on various subjects. A recent one is Symposium: The Pope and Islam.

This is a good and interesting read. Thomas Haidon is a Muslim who is forthright about the problems surrounding the practice of his faith. Bat Ye'or is excellent. Sadly, the sole Christian, Serge Trifkovic is marginalized. At the end he give a "no holds barred" explanation of why the God of Orthodox (and orthodox) Christians and the God (Allah) of Islam are NOT the same God, and he is exactly correct.

Trifkovic: Oh, dear: we seem to have strayed not only from the topic but also from common courtesy. So be it, let's get on with it and start with the most important point of all: do we all "believe in the same God"?

Of course we do not.

The formal argument first. It is clear and fairly simple. The Christian God of the Creed is trinitarian: the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen; the Son, our Lord and Savior, eternally begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life. This is the orthodox faith, "which except a man shall have believed faithfully and firmly he cannot be in a state of salvation." The doctrine of the Deity of Christ is essential. Unless the Son is truly God and "one with the Father," Christians would be idolaters. If He were but a prophet, Christians would be foolishly entrusting themselves to a created creature in the vain hope of salvation.

Islam, on the other hand, violently and explicitly rejects and condemns the Christian doctrine of God (Kuran 4:171), the Trinity (5:37), and the deity of Christ (5:72, 5:17), and Allah unambiguously condemns Christians as disbelievers worthy of destruction (9:29-30). Muhammad's insistence that there is a heavenly proto-Scripture and that previous "books" are merely distorted and tainted copies sent to previous nations or communities means that these scriptures are the "barbarous Kuran" as opposed to the true, Arabic one. (Let's leave aside for a minute the puzzling question of how any degree of "distortion" of the Kuran could produce either an Old or a New Testament.) The Muslim Tradition also regards the non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas, and not the New Testament, as the one that Jesus taught. To cut the long story short, orthodox Islam teaches that it alone worships one true God that Judaism and Christianity tell lies about - lies for which Christians and Jews will be punished in hell.

"One God" cannot be trinitarian and infinitely transcendent. Christians and Muslims cannot be both right. Their convergent paths do not lead to the same hilltop.

There is much more, read it all. There is excellent material here, and it is good to finally see that at least one practicing Muslim is aware of our problems with his faith.

I'm Back

I have been unable to post for a time, and for that I apologize. In the meanwhile, I have found a few interesting things to share with you.

New posts soon.