Sunday Quick Hits

Robert Kagan, co-author of the surge, discusses presidential candidates' rhetoric regarding the Iraqi's at 'fault' for the expected level of progress in the country. He notes that Iraqis didn't invite al Qaeda, nor do suicide bombings ignite at the hands of the nation's citizens. He ends it on a realistic note:

Defeat will be no more tolerable in January 2009 than it is now. And it won't matter whom we try to blame.

Michael Kinsley whines that there is a war against those who want to defund troops and end the war. Why shouldn't there be? Those who are using the power of the purse to end the cashflow to our men and women in the field should be criticized. They voted to begin it. They should vote to win it.


Members of the 'religion of peace' have plotted again to destroy innocent infidels inside the U.S. I'm interested to find out what their legal status was and how the government figured out the plot. As for credit for stopping the plot, none will go to the administration and its efforts to fight our enemies.

Michael Fumento, a military embed, writes on the situation in Afghanistan.

I've only been in small parts of Iraq and a small part of Afghanistan, but I've seen enough to know that while the Iraq effort is awash with money but lacking in men, the war in Afghanistan is being fought on a shoestring in terms of both. There will be about 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq when the U.S. buildup is complete, but there are only about 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a country larger in both geography and population. A massive concrete blast wall in Iraq is a mere mud wall in Afghanistan.

Agreed. More troops for OIF and OEF. And to think that Democrats voted to withold needed bucks from this war too.