The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Surge Protectors

1.9.07 @ 12:01AM

FAIR PLAY FOR McCAIN
Re: The Washington Prowler's Rough on Rudy:

I wonder if this article should have been called, "Rough on John." The Spectator has been unfairly one-sided in its treatment of McCain, showing an obvious bias toward Giuliani. I would prefer this printing to give us important information about both candidates so we can make our own decisions, but the Spectator appears to be trying to influence us away from John McCain. This is the kind of reporting I expect from liberal publications that manufacture polls to make their candidates look better rather than allowing people to look at unedited facts to make their own choices.

The only exception to this bias is Ben Stein, who has shown support for Mr. McCain in one of his articles. Interestingly, Ben Stein is easily the most popular writer on staff at the Spectator and certainly one of the wisest men of our time.
-- Adam Jones
Arlington, Texas

PETRAEUS, FALLON OVERHYPED?
Re: Jed Babbin's The A Team?:

As usual I read your analysis with great interest. To tell you the truth I am getting fed up with the president, and I am sure I am not alone in this. I do not understand why it so hard for him to tell the American public or the world for that matter the truth about Iraq and its neighbors. If I think about all that precious time we have squandered away, I can literally cry. I am getting fed up with the platitudes and I am not in the mood to hear more on Wednesday. I do not see why it is necessary to put more troops on the ground if we don't let them fight and kill. That's what war is all about. Sorry if there are any civilians in the cross hairs, but that is nation of war. Maybe we should let the Ethiopians helps us out here!

And then the hype about Petraeus? I find that a bit alarming! In Mike Tucker's book, Hell Is Over: Voices of the Kurds, Petraeus is not the shining knight in armor as you portray in your article. According to the writer, Petraeus did not drive a stake in the insurgency in Mosul in terms of crushing and killing but fired blanks so to speak. He did not listen to the Kurds. According to General Babakher Zebari, now Senior Military and Political advisor to the Iraq Defense Minister, he told the writer that the insurgency in Mosul is nearly as strong as before Petraeus. Petraeus was urged by the Kurds to strike at the Baathists and he did not listen to this Iraqi General and that disarming the Peshmerga in Mosul would open the door to feydayeen Saddam (Iraqi insurgents) I can go on and on and on. Maybe you can shed a light on this. I would appreciate that.
-- Regina Jaegermann
Richmond, Virginia

I agree with Jed's guarded optimism. It appears the President's will to win this campaign is still alive and kicking. I certainly hope he does "change the course". I might also add, that in 1941 Adolf Hitler not only had one of the finest army's in military history, but he also had some of the best "minds" working for him in the
Wehrmacht (von Manstein, von Rundstedt, Guderian, Hoth, and von Blumentritt, to name just a few). In the end, thankfully the Wehrmacht was vanquished despite their preponderance of talent, superior training, and in many cases superior weapons. In the end, the problem was at the top, their senior generals inclusive (Keitel, Jodl, and von Braunstisch).

We lost Vietnam because the political leadership wasn't up the challenge they brought upon themselves. We could lose in Iraq for the simple fact that we allow the enemy the advantage of picking and choosing the battlefield. In this case the real enemy is Iran and Syria. Their minions could simply lay low during the surge, and wait us out. Our unwillingness to cause collateral damage, conduct joint air/special ops strikes into Iran and Syria doesn't bode well. And no matter who is at the helm or manning the CINCs desk, failure will surely result.
-- JP
Mishawaka

As usual, Jed Babbin nails the subject well. The appointment of new, true warriors like Fox and Petraeus may just allow us to turn the tide as far as the Iraq War is concerned and break the back of the insurgency. His 5-point strategy in the latter part of the article is spot-on!

I would like to see Fox and Petraeus take a page (or 2 or 6) from retired Army Col. David Hunt, one of the best military experts at Fox News. Hunt advocates in chapter 7 of his book, They Just Don't Get It, further expansion and better use of our Special Forces (Seals, Rangers, Green Berets and others) in tracking down and exterminating the vermin that are causing the problems currently occurring in Iraq. While I have monumental respect for all our fighting men and women, we need to unleash these professional in order to put an end to the enemy. And target number one should be the fat, ugly boy with bad teeth, Muqtada-al-Sadr, and the rest of his motley crew militia. This dirtbag should have been taken out early on before he was able to put together his sizable band of renegades, and not doing so was a big mistake. Enough of this namby-pamby approach to war, we've handled the insurgents with kid-gloves for far too long a period of time. This is war, and we need to fight it like we want to win it. We fought basically a traditional ground war in toppling Saddam Hussein and now we need to change tactics.

Now we need to take on the terrorist resistance, and to quote Col. Hunt: "Let me put it simply. Kill them all".
-- Jim Bjaloncik
Stow, Ohio

I find it interesting that almost no one in the pro-Fallon camp wants to discuss his active leadership as a charter member of the "China is not a problem" club. This is a stance that is particularly embedded among the flag ranks in the Navy, but there are proponents in the other services also.

On Adm. Fallon's watch as PACOM we have see the Red Chinese launch a huge upgrade and boat building campaign to improve their diesel sub fleet. This upgrade and build has significantly quieted their diesel subs. This build up was totally missed by our intel community and our military until, all of a sudden, we found out as new boats already launched were detected by our forces almost by accident. This at the same time that Red China was buying nuke subs from Russia and the appropriate technology that goes with them. All the while the top echelon of the Chinese military was talking about how they could and would launch missiles that could reach the U.S.

While this has been going on, Adm. Fallon has been out front in promoting high level military to military exchanges with the Red Chinese. According to public reports, the Chinese have been shown entirely too much about our attack submarine fleet and our Aegis Combat Control Centers aboard ships. Also according to public reports, the Chinese have shown our military people little more than Chinese Army troops drilling on the parade ground. According to published reports, Adm. Fallon has directed that the Chinese military visitors be shown just about everything that they request to see, while the Chinese have routinely denied access to what our military has asked to see.

Of course there is a dedicated cadre of "China is not a problem" people at CIA. It is often suggested that this is exactly why the CIA consistently "misses" advances made by the Chinese military. Porter Goss was trying to get rid of or break up this group, instead Bush fired Goss.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, Economics, Business, Religion, Islam, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, NATO, Conservatism