November 2, 2022

A proposed MAGA manifesto

Approximately seven weeks ago, on September 1, Joe Biden gave a bizarre speech outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, whose style and content could have been from the 1930s, in another country. Its purpose was to denounce a vaguely defined gro...

September 27, 2019

Dems must go after Trump if they want to protect Joe Biden

The Dems are going after the cop, not the perp.  To do so, they are making their argument with lies. Donald Trump is the new cop in town, the new broom.  He is cleaning out the Augean stables, and what are inside the stables do...

May 21, 2019

One mystery in the Mueller report still needs solving

One hand clapping.  That's the sound after the Mueller report's release.  Why? Because one of the questions we would have hoped to see answered in the report is, what, exactly, was the charge against President Trump; wh...

September 2, 2018

A new strategy to combat the vocabulary of the left

Within living memory, the left slipped into the public discourse a form of argument that is (a) false and (b) much to its advantage: stating opinion as fact. Suppose I say, "New York City is on the East Coast."  That is a fact....

August 3, 2018

Why is Trump fighting the trade war?

Why is Trump fighting the trade war?  Here's why. Critics of Trump's trade policies think everything is okay if we don't do anything.  The chart below shows that everything is not okay if we don't do anything. ...

July 18, 2018

Some questions following the Trump-Putin press conference

1. Was it stupidity or sabotage for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to deliver to the president in a way that they would be released on Friday, one business day before the president's meeting with Putin, indictments on 12 Russian military ...

July 14, 2018

Mueller's new indictment underlines Intelligence Community incompetence

On Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that 12 Russians had been indicted for hacking some voter lists in the last election.  This is meant to be seen as fruit of the Mueller investigation. Let's assume that th...

June 14, 2018

Hillary's Intent: What James Comey Missed

James Mr. Magoo Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Magoo, while acknowledging that Hillary had put the country’s secrets on her home server – i.e., without their protective coding – could find no “intent” in her do...

May 29, 2018

The question nobody is asking about those 'stolen' Hillary emails Papadopoulos supposedly told Downer about

I was just reflecting on the Papadopoulos-Australian high commissioner Downer communication, which was allegedly one of the starting points of the 2016 spying on the Trump campaign. The point at issue was Papadopoulos allegedly saying the Russians...

September 27, 2017

Taking a knee for evil

The Dems have always stayed in power by keeping the black man and woman down.  Up until Martin Luther King, it was Jim Crow.  Then came the Great Society to make welfare a way of life and remove the mission of men in the community – t...

August 24, 2017

Antifa is the new KKK

The Democrats, the liberals, are incorrigible.  After the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party, the KKK, has been hammered by American society and American norms into irrelevance, now the liberals, no longer able to win at the ballot box,...

March 8, 2017

The Obamacare repeal camel

One of the secrets of Washington is that members of Congress do no work on the people's business.  I mean this literally. They work hard at getting re-elected (no sarcasm).  And it is hard and time-consuming work.  You can dress...

March 4, 2017

The Democrats' minuet on Russia

The Democrats seem to be dancing a minuet on Russia, where the players hold hands, step around each other, and end up on the side opposite from which they started. Of course, we understand that the Democrats' alleged concern about contacts bet...

March 3, 2017

Conservatism killed off by its sole focus on economics

Something unexpected has happened with the rise of Donald Trump.  The conservative movement has collapsed. It turns out that the conservative movement was and is uninterested in the welfare of the United States as a nation.  America is j...

February 14, 2017

Trump’s visa pause based on the Constitution

The purpose of President Trump's visa suspension from selected countries is found in the Constitution: Here is the preamble to the Constitution, which states its purpose (emphasis added): We the people of the United States, in order to fo...

January 23, 2017

Mall attendance at the Trump inauguration

Sean Spicer, Trump’s new press secretary, remonstrated the media yesterday for underreporting the attendance at the inauguration.  The press was affronted, because it is pretty clear that Spicer’s claim of record attendance is absurd...

January 4, 2017

Israel's position

Jerusalem isn’t Jewish!  Who knew? There are two other propositions that are now in danger: (1) do bears s--- in the woods? (2) is the pope Catholic?  Let’s hope the Security Council doesn’t get any resolutions on the s...

December 18, 2016

How Trump will 'work with' Congress

Over this weekend, as the Electoral College heads toward its decision on Monday, there are numerous articles on the Web saying that Trump is going to find Washington difficult. That it is not like the campaign. That he will have to deal with a hostil...

November 15, 2016

What it means to say liberalism is dead

In the last 50 years, liberalism would make a gain in culture or law and then lock that gain in with political correctness – that is, it was not morally proper to criticize that liberal advance.  Hence a liberal ratchet, which has brought ...

November 14, 2016

Liberalism's death song

What does the Trump victory mean?  It means that liberalism as a culture, as a governing philosophy, is dead. Like any revolution, it will take time to propagate, time for the old regime to die off (metaphorically).  But it will happen. ...

October 28, 2016

Rigging the election – Fourth James O’Keefe Video Transcript

This is a transcript of the fourth video of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action (PVA), investigating the efforts by the Democrats and by the Hillary campaign in particular, to rig the election. Given the nature of investigative jour...

October 25, 2016

Rigging the Election: James O’Keefe’s Third Video

This is a transcript of the third video of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action (PVA) investigating the covert operations against Donald Trump by the Hillary campaign in particular, and Democratic vote-stealing activities in general. ...

October 24, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s chain of command for dirty tricks

If you put together data from James O’Keefe’s two videos for Project Veritas Action (transcripts here and here), you can see the actual organizational structure used by the Democratic Party for vote-stealing dirty tricks.  This piece...

October 20, 2016

Hillary’s covert operations against Trump

This is a transcript of the second video of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action (PVA) investigating the covert operations behind the Hillary campaign in particular and Democratic vote-stealing activities in general. Given the nature...

October 18, 2016

Viewer’s guide to the latest James O’Keefe Project Veritas Action video

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action (PVA) has an excellent new video out investigating the covert operations behind the Hillary campaign to disrupt Donald Trump’s rallies.   Given the nature of investigative journal...

October 17, 2016

An additional thought on the Trump tape

Active on CNN’s website is a clip of Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) saying, “I’m out” in terms of endorsing Trump – i.e., withdrawing his endorsement.  He cannot explain the Trump tape to his 15-year-...

October 9, 2016

What should our response be to the Trump tape?

We have the state of North Carolina being excommunicated by bien pensant entertainers like rock musicians and sports teams because the legislature does not think it is good for men dressed as women to use the same bathrooms as girls.  And in the...

September 19, 2016

A new phase in the war on jihad

Yesterday, we were hit in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota.  This is what our weakness has drawn in on us.  While there have been Muslim terrorist episodes in the U.S. before, these three have the flavor of opening an offensive, due in p...

July 25, 2016

Too conservative to vote for Trump?

Some of those who think of themselves as "conservatives" have become as smug and self-regarding as liberals.  And for as little reason. How has the conservative movement – if there is one - advanced the conservative argument w...

July 23, 2016

Black lives and the police

Obama and the liberals have shaped the issue of police shootings over the past two years since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (August 9, 2014) as…”Why are the police shooting young black men, many of them unarmed?...

July 16, 2016

A startling conclusion on police brutality

How do you avoid getting shot by the police? Don't resist arrest. When you take on the police, you are taking on the community – perhaps not in a fine-grained way, but that is ultimately the transaction.  A few overly aggressive ...

June 25, 2016

Answering the President's Question

The president put on a trademark performance last week (he is so good at this, you forget why you disagree with him) two days after Orlando, discussing his non-use of the term "radical Islam." He made his argument by asking rhetorical qu...

June 15, 2016

Why did he do it?

The analogy is war, and Omar Mateen is a soldier in this war.  Soldiers of Islam have a different morality from what our side has. But the larger point is that you don't look for the motivation of a soldier when he shoots the enemy. ...

June 7, 2016

How long will citizens put up with riots at their peaceful political rallies?

The public lost the battle in San Jose last Thursday.  But the liberals lost the war. The great and prolific writer of westerns, Louis L’Amour (loo-ee la-moor) was being interviewed some time back and was asked about High Noon,  th...

April 10, 2016

The difference between Cruz and Trump

The difference between Cruz and Trump is that Cruz is a thinker and Trump is a doer. Cruz brings to the party a deep understanding of the text and meaning of the Constitution, and let's assume he knows the 800-year background of it, starting w...

March 23, 2016

What makes ISIS so effective?

Many AT readers will remember the terrific 1967 World War II movie The Dirty Dozen starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Robert Ryan, and a number of instantly recognizable faces. The plot is that Lee Marvin, a major, is commissioned to...

January 27, 2016

Trump has melted the brains of the conservative commentariat

What is Donald Trump doing in his campaign? What is he doing that has melted the brains of the conservative commentariat (which will never recover from its cluelessness about the times in which we are living)? Donald Trump is a practical man of ac...

January 11, 2016

The Clinton Standard: Third World Corruption

It is most likely liberal philosophy that is causing our political leaders -- excepting Donald Trump -- to refuse to defend the country against literal Islam. The refusal of our government to see the plain truth of the matter -- that we are under att...

December 28, 2015

The Polemics of Donald Trump

What Donald Trump is saying is both: true and/or a real-world response to extreme conditions and at the same time is; scandalous. How can this be? What is missing here? Liberal pieties. What Trump is traducing is not the truth, but...

December 11, 2015

'Moderate Muslims' should support Trump's immigration proposal

Once again, Donald Trump has raised a critical issue that everybody else was afraid to touch.  One of the reasons all other politicians were afraid to raise it is because of the obloquy that the "leadership" – the CAIRs – o...

December 9, 2015

Benghazi: Dereliction of duty

Why didn’t we send the cavalry? That has always been the question about Benghazi once the fat was in the fire.  There has never been an answer.  We know that Obama sequestered himself in the White House, and some time that evening ...

December 5, 2015

A soldier, not a terrorist in San Bernardino

With all due respect to the FBI, he's not a terrorist.  He's a soldier.  Big difference. A terrorist is a misfit, an outlier, perhaps mentally ill.  A soldier is a noble figure, sacrificing himself for a cause bigger than he...

November 28, 2015

Liberalism meets its Waterloo

The standing joke about a liberal is… “A liberal is somebody who is so open-minded that he won’t take his own side in a fight.” And so it is proving.  The only problem with Obama being unable to take his own side i...

November 26, 2015

The Alien Nation on Its Way

The Obama administration wants to let in a large number of Syrian refugees.  It varies from 10,000 to 100,000, but since the truth is not in our president, those are probably just waypoints to an unlimited migration from the Middle East – ...

November 2, 2015

Muslim migration and our incurious press

Fences are going up all over Eastern Europe.  This is ironic, since we in America know that fences don’t work.  That is agreed to by both the Democrats and Republicans, with the exception of Donald Trump.  As with all rules, ther...

November 1, 2015

How about this for a debate format?

The RNC should get the press out of the debates altogether.  Having them there puts the candidates in the position of "reporting" to the press like children having to account for themselves.  It gives the press the role of alleged...

October 9, 2015

On immigration: enterprise vs. welfare

There is a subtle and dangerous point about the tidal immigration described in today’s AT blog on Muslim invaders in Europe. We are a "high trust" society. In 99.9999% of the cases in ordinary life, we all get along due to basic Chris...

August 4, 2015

America's First Socialist Fortune

Last Friday, Hillary Clinton released the Clintons’ income tax returns for 2007-2014. They were very much as had been rumored. From 2007 to 2014, the Clintons “earned” $141 million. They paid $56 million in taxes, leaving a ...

July 19, 2015

The Iran deal: what's going on?

There is a lot of talk following the conclusion of the Iran deal about nuclear weapons, inspections, facilities, locations, centrifuges, and timelines.  There is even name-calling.  All great theater. Which obscures the primary function ...

June 30, 2015

The Left vs. Robert E. Lee

With the revulsion against Confederate symbols that has resulted from shooter Dylann Roof's internet picture with the Confederate battle flag, Robert E. Lee has been put in the gunsights of social radicals. Lee was one of the two great ...

June 22, 2015

There is no Crisis in U.S.Trade

Nobody on the conservative side can understand what is going on with the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) trade bill. It is astounding (a) that the text of it is being kept more secret than a Clinton Foundation contribution and (b) that Congressional ...

May 28, 2015

If you had known then...

“So, Mr. Republican Candidate, if you had known then what you know now, would you have gone into Iraq if you had been president?” “Well, George, of course it is the human condition that you don’t know the outcome at the tim...

May 5, 2015

Islamophobia or Islamorealism?

As we move through this period of Islamic assault on Western civilization in general and on the USA in particular , we can more and more appreciate the stamina and fortitude of Winston Churchill as he warned the British public and government over and...

May 1, 2015

Alas, Baltimore

It couldn’t have ended any other way, the black community having been subjected to the most intensive campaign to dissolve its culture in history. How did this come about? To understand that, we have to ask another question. Why did it take ...

April 1, 2015

How to argue the case for Religious Freedom Restoration Acts

Last Thursday, March 26, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the intent of which is to offer commercial vendors a safe harbor if an activity that is requested of them violates their religious b...

March 11, 2015

Hillary's e-mails and our enemies' signals intelligence

Suppose a famous surgeon were being interviewed by, say, Charlie Rose about his career in the operating room.  And in response to a question about how hard it must be to always be washing up, he were to say… “No problem on the wa...

January 12, 2015

The Battle of Paris

The problem with our public intellectuals and politicians is that they cannot believe that everybody does not want to live as we do, and live with our values.  Thus the provenance of the search for "moderate Muslims," meaning Muslims w...

January 8, 2015

A statue in bronze

Often a still photograph is more powerful than a moving picture of the same event.  This is true, for instance, of the iconic still photograph of the Marines stepping the flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima.  If you have seen the film of t...

January 2, 2015

Jonathan Gruber, Sorcerer's Apprentice

As reality crashes into Obamacare like a slow motion train wreck, we might ask, “Is there one person who is responsible for this disaster?” Yes. J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer, the great physicist who led the development of t...

December 22, 2014

The Big 4 who cried 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war on police

Who’s responsible for the assassinations of two New York police officers?  The Big 4 who cried “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war on police after the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths.  Obama.  Holder.  Sha...

December 7, 2014

Liberalism and the point of no return

In today’s AT blog, Patricia L. Dickson asked at the end of her post what black leaders could gain from ignoring the facts of Ferguson.  That is equivalent to asking what the Democrats could gain from the same thing. Power. In order ...

December 1, 2014

Two Americas

Why did it take until 100 years after the Civil War, until 1964, to pass a Civil Rights Act? Because the Democratic Party would not take its boot off the neck of the black man until Martin Luther King made the black vote a political force. Dedic...

November 19, 2014

The Republican Predicate

The new Republican control of Congress will have positive benefits for the country and the conservative movement, so we don’t want to be too negative at this point.  And maybe things will get better when some of the new winners get to Wash...

November 6, 2014

So where are we now?

The Republicans are coming to town, but what are they going to do when they get there?  They are going to deregulate and reduce taxes and slow down Obamacare and block amnesty.  But in order to fuel that, they need the attention and support...

September 27, 2014

The Democrats' War on America

Debbie Wasserman Shultz is chair of the Democratic National Committee and spokesperson for the Democratic Party.  She thinks that the Republican Party is conducting a war on women and that individual Republicans – specifically, Governor Sc...

July 13, 2014

A nation of immigrants

We are told by Liberals that we should not be concerned about the current immigrant invasion of the U.S. because, after all, we are a “nation of immigrants.” Not in the way that Libs mean it.  Past immigrants to America have left ...

February 21, 2014

The Polemics of 'Climate Change'

"But the debate is settled.  Climate change is a fact[.]"  That's President Obama, in his most recent State of the Union address. This is an accurate statement of the climate change position.  It is the sentiment behin...

December 2, 2013

Iran's historic imperative

Joachim Fest, Hitler's best biographer, characterized Hitler as the last of the warrior-conquerors, in the mold of Alexander the Great and the other great captains of history.  While Hitler may not have quite seen himself in this mold, he certai...

November 13, 2013

Lessons of Obamacare are exploding all around us

On October 1, 2013, we had the detonation of Obamacare, or, as I like to think of it, Benghazicare.  Not only was the blast greater than expected, but the Benghazicare explosion confirmed the principal ideas developed about Liberalism over the p...

November 11, 2013

Coming soon: BenghaziCare

So it didn't work too well the first time out No one is madder than me about that and I am going to find out who was in charge. When the website is fixed, we're going to have a new rollout with a new name. BenghaziCare • If the resources are...

October 28, 2013

Why didn't we send the cavalry to Benghazi?

60 Minutes had a very good segment last night on the Benghazi attack.  It appears that we need the Brits to tell the story! There is not a lot that one can say about it.  The best thing is to watch the piece on the Web if you haven't alread...

October 26, 2013

The Obamacare Kluge

"You didn't build that" Well, now we know he didn't build it either! The most significant thing about that remark when Obama made it was not its ignorance, nor its political posturing, but its disrespect.  Libs have no respect for the ac...

October 8, 2013

So, are these the people you want running your health care?

We have arrived at something very important, very profound in the last week in the United States of America.  Yes, let's use the full name because this is a problem that goes to the fundamental nature of the country. The government is using ...

October 6, 2013

The people must be punished

The Left claims that their lives are consumed with concern for their fellow man and that their mission in life is to improve its lot.  All it needs to do this is to take your money, your freedom and your soul. We all know who, in literature, off...

September 30, 2013

Nevah gonna negotiate

There is a very interesting quote from Chuck Schumer as Senate Democrats emerged from a private meeting today in an article in The Hill by Alexander Bolton datelined 2:30 PM: "Look, the bottom line is very simple. You negotiate on this, they will...

September 26, 2013

Republicans and the Kobayashi Maru test

Those familiar with the Sacred Texts of Western Civilization (the original 69 episodes of Star Trek for those of you from Rio Linda) know about the Kobayashi Maru.  It is a test at Starfleet Academy designed to be unwinnable, as a challenge to o...

September 25, 2013

Republican Strategy for the Debt Ceiling Crisis

We are coming up on the deadline for raising the debt ceiling of the country. What should Republican strategy be on this issue? In the end, the debt ceiling is going to be raised. The question is whether the Republicans can get something in return. ...

September 22, 2013

Whose spending is it?

As with the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, as this one hoves into view, President Obama is using a somewhat startling argument: [Raising the debt ceiling] "...says you (sic) got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress." Hmmm....

September 14, 2013

Putin doesn't get it

Vladimir Putin in his September 12 op-ed in the New York Times: "I carefully studied his [Obama's] address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States' policy i...

July 29, 2013

'False crisis' over the federal debt?

"False crisis" is the way Treasury Secretary Jack Lew characterized the federal debt yesterday.  Is this true?  Well, it depends on what the meaning of "false" is.  There were probably some in Rome who thought it was a "false crisis" w...

June 16, 2013

Lois Lerner: The Face of ObamaCare

Obama is famous for having brought "The Chicago Way" to national politics, to the character of the presidency.  What does this mean, exactly? In politics, Leftists pursue power while conservatives pursue principle.  I know.  Rolling ...

June 6, 2013

What to Do with the Power of the IRS

In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Monday, we heard from Alexis de Toqueville's "little battalions" of social relationships, political pedagogy, and cultural argument -- i.e., the soul of American civic society.  These are th...

May 24, 2013

London Mayor falling down

We all know about the ghastly murder of British soldier Lee Rigby who was hacked to death in the Woolwich section of London in broad daylight yesterday.  Count on Rush to see what other people haven't seen. Boris Johnson (mayor of London):...

May 24, 2013

IRS Frat Parties

Hearings on the IRS have been going on for only a short time, and yet through them we have come to know a lot about the IRS.  Let's review: * Top management of the IRS is detached.  Whoever is appointed IRS Commissioner, a presid...

May 22, 2013

The IRS storyline after the Senate hearing yesterday

After the Senate Finance Committee hearings on Tuesday May 21, what is the storyline on the IRS targeting Tea Party applications for tax exempt status? Let's list some key events in table form (there is more complete timeline in the May 19 American T...

May 19, 2013

Was there political motivation in IRS activity?

"No." (Answer by Steven Miller, acting Commissioner of the IRS). Whew!  That's a relief. No problemo! But it brings up one of the incidents in the Sacred Texts of Western Civilization (also known as the original 69 episodes of Star Trek). ...

May 15, 2013

The Core Competency of the Democratic Party

It's stealing elections.  That has to be the answer to the IRS caper.  2010 shook the ramparts of the radical Left.  Out of the woodwork came Tea Partiers, either literally or as conservatives for which the Tea Party label was a hold-a...

May 12, 2013

Your Government at Work

It's been a pretty sobering week, or at least it should have been a pretty sobering week, for those who believe that government is both honest and effective and that therefore Obamacare is going to be a boon to the American public. We have the "vo...

May 4, 2013

Studied Ignorance

Once again, with the atrocity in Boston, we see our government officials at all levels - the president, the administration, the judiciary - feigning ignorance as to the provenance and motivation of the bombers. Keep in mind that the people feigning...

February 25, 2013

A new verb

Vocabulary is important.  It is the means through which we make our argument, through which we move people.  The Left, the Democrats, the progressives and their media and academic constituencies have been very successful at defining the ter...

January 25, 2013

Vocabulary for the Struggle

Give the president credit. His second inaugural was sincere. It came from the heart. Which does not change the fact that the president wants to relive all the failed collectivist clichés of the 20th century. Just one example: For the American people...

January 17, 2013

The Obama Hat Trick: Three Hockey Sticks

While the solution to cutting spending is going to be tough, our spending problem is not hard to understand.  Chart I shows federal spending as a percent of GDP from the Eisenhower administration through estimated numbers for fiscal 2012, which ...

January 11, 2013

Roll Over Beethoven

There's going to be a lot of reelin' and a-rockin' in Washington as we move up to the debt ceiling deadline, a lot of loud sounds pumping out from those stately buildings - the White House, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve - in a cacophony of misinf...

January 5, 2013

The Budget: Where Do We Go from Here?

Whatever one thinks of the sequester agreement, it is only one stage in a campaign on the budget that we are going to have this year.  The next battle will be the debt ceiling.  What are we going to do about that? The first thing to reali...

December 27, 2012

The GOP's Budget Problem

Just how much trouble is the federal budget in?  The coverage by the MSM of the fiscal cliff negotiations is not enlightening on this point.  For reasons that most of us in the American Thinker community and observers such as Thomas Sowell ...

November 27, 2012

The Boehner/Kristol strategy on the fiscal cliff

John Boehner seemed to be wimping out after the election when he said "this is Obama's moment.  We are looking to him for leadership."  But as we contemplate the fiscal cliff negotiations there may well be a barb in that position. Bill Kr...

November 15, 2012

Rendezvous with Destiny

Well, who would have thought it?  Who would have thought that it would fall to us, some of us in our so-called declining years (unless 60 is the new 40) to rescue the Republic?  In our lifetimes, we have had the war in Vietnam, and the Reag...

November 7, 2012

A terrible blow

A terrible blow to the country.  I won't say a blow from which we will not recover because we cannot know that.  But it does have that feel. The torch is passed to Allen West if the Republicans are not their usual clueless selves. Elizabeth...

October 19, 2012

Brass, Lies and Videotape

Truth is not the métier of politics. Not only is the objective of politicians to say what they think we want to hear in order to get elected, but those at the top, such as the president, have the leader's dilemma - their followers want to be led fear...

September 30, 2012

New Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan

There is a disturbing letter from one of our soldiers in Afghanistan to his father published on the website of the estimable Michael Yon. The exact timing of the letter is not clear, but it is apparently very recent.  The date on the website is ...

September 22, 2012

Newt Gingrich on the Islamist Challenge

Newt Gingrich has and excellent analysis on what we face from his book Winning the Future published in 2006: "We have two immediate opponents, the irreconcilable wing of Islam and the rogue dictatorships that empower the radical Islamists. The irrec...

September 9, 2012

Elizabeth Warren and Private Enterprise

Now that the Dem Convention is over, we can reflect on what we heard there.  One of the most remarkable things - really startling - that we heard came from Elizabeth Warren, the Native American who is running for the Senate in Massachusetts....

August 3, 2012

Chick-fil-A, Obamacare and Us

The Chick-fil-A incident should finish off Obamacare.  With Chick-fil-A the beatific mask of the Left slipped and we saw behind it the hideous reality.  What is the Left really about?  Control.  Control. Control Leftist mayors had...

July 18, 2012

Obamanomics 101

On Friday night, in a campaign stop in Roanoke, Virginia, President Obama made what Michael Kinsley has called a gaffe.  In Washington, a gaffe is when you tell the truth, or, in this case, say what you really think: "If you've got a business -...

June 13, 2012

Obama's Spending and the Dog That Didn't Bark

Sometimes the most important thing to notice is a void.  Inspector: "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Sherlock Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Inspector: "The dog...

July 27, 2011

What A Spending Solution Would Look Like

Speaker John Boehner is leading the charge to rescue the country from the uncontrolled spenders.  The increases in social spending in the last 50 years have, until recently, been absorbed by reductions in the percentage of the defense component ...

July 19, 2011

About that astounding turnabout by Obama

I wrote the article "An astounding turnabout by Obama" that was published in American Thinker yesterday.  As I said in the article, I was so surprised by the president's statement that I waited until it was posted in transcript form on the White...

July 18, 2011

An Astounding Turnabout by Obama

Editor's note: Please read About that astounding turnabout by Obama, posted 1/19/11 Something remarkable occurred in President Obama's press conference on Friday (July 15).  It was so astonishing that I was not sure I had heard right, and had to...

June 27, 2011

Have the Democrats Given Up on Governing?

Last year the Democrats had control of both Houses of Congress by large majorities and had their guy as president.  They had complete control of the federal government.  And they didn't pass a budget, probably Congress' most basic responsib...

May 23, 2011

The Budget: How We Got Here

Frequently, in addressing a problem, it is useful to review how one got to the position that one is in.  That is the purpose of this article.  Before we look at the story of how we got to where we are in the budget, let's just review exactl...

May 19, 2011

Grow up, Secretary Geithner

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May 9, 2011

Glide Path to Federal Budget Sustainability

A glide path for federal spending to return the federal budget to break even, which is the same thing as long term sustainability, is possible.  One must look at the budget in terms of percents of GDP.  We are not looking at programs piece ...

May 3, 2011

Osama Bin Laden and his tourist hideaway

I wonder if others were struck as I was by where bin Laden was finally run to ground (hooray!!).  It turns out that Abbottabad, the city in which he was living, is a tourist favorite because of its mild climate and picturesque location (I get th...

May 2, 2011

Obama's Hockey Stick: The Federal Debt

The national debt is calculated in two ways: gross debt and net debt.  Net debt is primarily gross debt net of the various government "trust funds" the largest of which is Social Security.To start, let's look at gross federal debt:The ...

April 26, 2011

Cutting the Federal Budget

Hauser's Law tells us that whatever the tax structure, the federal government can't collect more than 19% of GDP in taxes on a sustained basis -- meaning that either taxpayers will find loopholes to avoid taxes or that the disincentives of highe...

April 20, 2011

Where the Budget Deficit Actually Came From

I found that in thinking about the budget, I did not have a good mental picture of where, exactly, and when, exactly, things had gotten out of line.  So I decided to do a quick analysis of the "big pieces" of the federal budget just to...

April 13, 2011

The budget deal cut spending, not the deficit

There is a pretty wide range of reactions to the budget deal including many here on AT.  For the last two days, Rush has unloaded on the deal.  He is not a fan and, of course, he is one of the most astute voices we have.  Still I think...

April 8, 2011

Billions for unions - not a penny for the troops

The Pentagon has announced that paychecks for the military will not be cut during a government shutdown. The military is actively engaged in three wars, the last of which Obama started himself. It is beyond belief that Obama now plans not to pay th...

April 1, 2011

Shutdown? Why are we still discussing the 2011 budget?

The 2011 budget should have been passed by last year's Congress. The 1974 budget law requires that the budget for this fiscal year be passed by October 1 of last year.The Democrats were in power last year. The entire government was under the contro...

November 13, 2010

'Midway' Can Be Both a Condition and a Place

Many readers of American Thinker will recognize Midway as the scene of our first and in many ways our greatest naval victory of World War II. It is not remembered now, but for the first six months of 1942, we were losing World War II. After sinking m...

August 28, 2010

Great prep for Sarah Palin for dealing with the Dems

Is this a great guy or what? PopEater.com:Regrets? Levi Johnston Has But One: Apologizing to Sarah Palin It turns out that the twice-former son-in-law of Sarah Palin is an "aspiring politician" according to PopEater.  He regrets his ap...

August 22, 2010

Conviction Conservatives and the American Renaissance

We are in the midst of a weak economic recovery from a very deep recession, and economic numbers, particularly unemployment, remain poor. What to do? In order to answer that question, we need to reflect on where we are now. Two roads diverged in...

August 20, 2010

Anti-Mosque rally planned for downtown New York on 9/11

A big anti-Victory Mosque rally is being planned for downtown New York City on 9/11.  The speaker's list is growing.  It includes John Bolton, Newt Gingrich and Geert Wilders among others, and has just been joined by Ilario Pantano, the ...

June 29, 2010

How Did the New Deal Work Out?

Since the administration is in the process of trying to "jump-start" the economy with deficit spending, it is useful to review how the policies of FDR actually worked out in terms of economic performance in the 1930s.  The New Deal was...

May 26, 2010

Biden congratulates Brussels for being the new capital of the Free World

NRO has a most amazing video clip of Joe Biden - Vice President Biden - speaking in Brussels recently. In Biden's view, Brussels, not Washington, is the capital of the "Free World!" Brussels as the capital of the Free World? Economically? ...

May 21, 2010

Arizona reductio

If there were a Nobel Prize in Law, it would be awarded to the Left this year, as the Left has had the "final breakthrough" in legal reasoning on Arizona's new immigration law.What is this breakthrough? A reductio ad absurdum: the Left has...

April 12, 2010

Tea Parties targeted by the Dems' Alinsky Attack Machine

Wow. If you think the Tea Party movement doesn't have the Left worried take a look at this!! It is hilarious in terms of projection - accusing other people of what you yourself are doing or thinking.Of course, this is merely an example the Dems' ap...

March 20, 2010

How is Obamacare like the sub-prime mortgage mess?

I wonder if anyone else is struck by the similarity between the collapse of the financial system in the last two years due to finagling in the subprime mortgage market* and the current vote on ObamaCare. Let's look at the parallels.The fast-talking ...

February 28, 2010

Steyn on the Welfare State

The always inestimable Mark Steyn has what is, even by his high standards, an excellent column on NRO . He magnificently summarizes the dilemma of the welfare state; i.e., always depending on being able to access more contributors in succeeding gene...

February 19, 2010

Iraq troop strength drops below 100,000

There is no need for American Thinker to note the number of troops we have in Iraq since the drawdown has been covered so heavily in the mainstream press. But just for completeness, it turns out that we now have 98,000 troops in Iraq, down from a pe...

January 9, 2010

Vastly improved casualty figures in 2009 for Iraq

With the end of 2009, we have the fatality statistics for U.S. forces in Iraq for the year. Any military operation involves pain, maiming, fear, death and courage and for those who are casualties there is no such thing as "light." We all ke...

January 8, 2010

Thomas Sowell's new book a must read

Just in time to refresh us for battle in the coming year, Thomas Sowell has a new book out: Intellectuals and Society. It is a must-read and  follows in the steps of two of his previous books The Vision of the Anointed and A Conflict of Visions...

December 22, 2009

Are we 'Refighting the last War' in Afghanistan?

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May 28, 2009

Would all parties receive fair treatment from Justice Sotomayor?

Judge Sotomayor has demonstrated a troubling self-satisfaction at her ethnic heritage, which she sees as one of her qualifications for high office. Recall her comment that she would render better decisions than a white man.One wonders how, for instan...

March 10, 2009

What the government worker unions know

The government wants to take over the provision of more and more services. Those who know the government best have a warning for the rest of us.The budgets submitted so far by the new Administration show that the central theme of Obamanomics is the e...

September 12, 2008

President Bush - Loneliness of the long distance runner

Now that even Obama has admitted that the surge in Iraq is a success, it is perhaps worth recalling just how alone – except for McCain – Bush was politically when he made that decision in January 2007.  The reaction of the Left was e...

June 13, 2008

Scalia dissents

One of the joys of the Web is the ability to get the Supreme Court’s opinions in real time and, particularly, reading the dissents of Justice Scalia to outrageous left-wing opinions.  So it is with Boumedienne v. Bush, the Supreme Court...

May 26, 2008

General Sanchez speaks

In the narrative on Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, our military commander in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004 -- i.e., the first year of the occupation and the period that overlaps with Paul Bremer's tenure as head of the Coalition Provisional Au...

May 9, 2008

Two excellent histories released as audio books

Audio books have proven a wonderful way for me to multi-task on the computer, while others listen to them driving, jogging, or otherwise engaged in tasks that do not occuppy fully the mind's capacity. Thus the arrival of excellent works in audio form...

April 11, 2008

Important comments from General Keane

Charlie Rose of PBS has post-Petraeus/Crocker interviews with Democratic Senator Jack Reed, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions and retired four-star general and former Vice-Chief of Staff Jack Keane. You can view General Keane's interview here by ...

March 7, 2008

Iraq Stock Exchange Index takes off again

Here is a graph of the Iraq Stock Exchange Index (ISX):Since the beginning of 2008, the ISX is up 9%, a gain which essentially started in the middle of February.  The purple horizontal line identifies the period between the attack on the Golden ...

February 27, 2008

Mark Steyn on multiculturalism

There is a superb piece on Youtube with Mark Steyn riffing  on multiculturalism.  Well worth the few minutes it takes to watch it, but don't be drinking anything while you do!...

February 15, 2008

An open letter to Speaker Pelosi

Madame Speaker:I just heard on the news that you are leading the Democrats out of the House for a break without passing the new intelligence bill. What are you thinking? I am guessing that you didn't know anybody in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Th...

January 3, 2008

U.S. military fatalities in Iraq continued to drop in December

While we stand in awe of the willingness of our troops in Iraq to sacrifice themselves for the Nation, the fewer that are required to do so, the better.  And the news on that front is good.  As can be seen in the chart below, our military d...

December 9, 2007

Shuttle diplomacy

In the 1973 Yom KippurWar in the Middle East, Egypt and Syria caught Israel unawares with a surprise attack and almost penetrated its defenses – the defense of the Golan Heights was essentially “to the last man” on the part of the I...

December 8, 2007

Snapshot of conditions in Iraq

 NPR's Fresh Air program has an interview with the Washington Post's military correspondent Thomas Ricks, whose most recent trip to Iraq ended Novenmebr 10th. Ricks has been an excellent source on the realities of the Iraq War, not lea...

December 2, 2007

Favorable Iraq security trends continue in November

U.S. military fatalities in Iraq were 37, virtually the same as October's 38, and substantially below May's peak for this year of 126.  While each fatality is a tragedy and an immense sacrifice by the Troop and his or her family and friends, tha...

December 1, 2007

Light hurricane season

The hurricane season ended today, December 1.  Whew!  Well, not so "whew!"  Because it was a light season this year, coming in under NOAA predictions:Only two hurricanes hit the U.S.  Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane ...

November 28, 2007

A warning from General Odierno

There is an extremely disturbing item in the current USAID report on Iraq, considering (a) the venue - the principal official reporting vehicle on the Iraq War - and (b) the source - General Odierno, the second-in-command in Iraq and the iron fist to...

November 18, 2007

Further thoughts on Nazis and Christianity

The word Nazi is a contraction of the German for National Socialism, more fully, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (in German Nationalsozialistische Deutsch Arbeiterpartei which is why one of the Nazi badges was the letters NSDAP).  N...

November 17, 2007

Voting with their feet

This week's USAID report  on Iraq has an item on refguees returning to Iraq:The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said ...

November 12, 2007

Attack trends and oil production trends in Iraq

The weekly USAID report on Iraq for November 7 has a most interesting chart on the levels and types of attacks in Iraq on a weekly basis from late 2004 to the present.  Since early June when the surge troops were finally in place, weekly at...

November 3, 2007

Favorable trends in Iraq

While we never want to be casual about our military fatalities in Iraq; still, given the high consequences for the country of the war and the conscious sacrifice of the troops who have volunteered to protect us from our enemies, it is worthwhile to k...

October 14, 2007

Favorable trends in Iraq

We are seeing favorable trends in a variety of figures of importance from Iraq:USAID puts out weekly progress reports on Iraq.  If you click on the most recent report and scroll down several pages to Section 4 - Electricity Overview - you s...

October 10, 2007

David Kilcullen interview

Charlie Rose did a superb job interviewing David Kilcullen, the Australian colonel who was a senior advisor on counterinsurgency to General Petraeus for the first half of this year.  Charlie Rose's program has been a fount of knowledge on Iraq a...

September 9, 2007

When credit is due, take it

On the Fox News Sunday program today, Chris Wallace interviewed Fran Townsend, the White House homeland security advisor.  Toward the end of the interview he turned to Iraq.  Both Wallace and Townsend used idea that by fighting in Iraq we w...

September 1, 2007

Report on Iraq from David Kilcullen

Australian Lt. Colonel David Kilcullen, an expert on insurgency and particularly Islamic insurgency, was part of General Petraeus’ original brain trust at the beginning of the surge.  Now retired and writing under the diminutive “Dav...

August 26, 2007

Iraqi villagers drive-off AQ gunmen

The New York Post carries an AP story today of two villages in Dyala driving off attacks by al-Qaeda with considerable bloodshed - 17 villagers and 10 al-Qaeda gunmen killed.   Louis L'Amour, the great writer of Westerns, always said h...

August 19, 2007

Iraq Stock Exchange up 64% This Year

Amidst the wholly legitimate concerns as to whether Prime Minister Maliki is capable of putting together a truly national government and what the withdrawal from the current government by the Sunni portends , other factors have been pointing in more ...

August 4, 2007

E.J. Dionne Defends Kos

In a remarkable column in the Washington Post yesterday, E.J. Dionne defends Daily Kos and by extension the Yearly Kos convention this weekend to which the Democratic presidential candidates, with the noble exception of Joe Biden, are progressing t...

July 24, 2007

Phone Report By Michael Yon from Iraq

Glenn Reynolds (The Glenn and Helen Show) has a 17 minute phone call with Michael Yon from Baqubah. You can punch on the on-screen player and hear it online. Very very important. Michael Yon adds a lot of perspective and makes an essential contr...

July 23, 2007

Iraq: Progress from the Bottom Up

There is an important post from Michael Yon on Friday describing a reconciliation meeting (my term, not his) in Baqubah led by Col. Steve Townsend, the American commander for that area of operations. Colonel Townsend clarified the purpose of the m...

July 22, 2007

Tactical change in Iraq

Thomas Ricks, whose work on Iraq has been confirmed again and again by events, reports in Friday’s washingtonpost.com that our military leaders are making informal "handshake" deals to release selected detainees back to their communit...

July 20, 2007

Surge in Iraq Stock Exchange continues

The Iraq Stock Exchange Index (ISX) surged another 6.2%, resulting in a year-to-date gain of 33.5%.  This can be seen in the following graph:This appears to be a positive bet on the future by those likely to know most about local conditions.Ther...

July 15, 2007

A crocus in Iraq

It is not the season for crocuses, the harbingers of spring and thus of new life, but we seem to have had one push its head up last week.  The Baghdad Stock Exchange trades twice a week.  In its first session of last week, on July 10, the I...

July 13, 2007

Turnaround in Anbar

One of the success stories that is coming to light as a result of the "mid-term" report the president issued on Iraq this week is the stunning turnaround in Anbar province, generally described as "lost" or "hopeless" las...

July 10, 2007

What is to be done?

It is impossible to understand the current political dynamics of the Iraq War without accepting that from the summer of 2003 to the fall of 2006 - 3 years - the entire venture was essentially adrift.  If one is willing to call the hope that ever...

July 9, 2007

Displacement activity

One of the contributions of anthropology in the last generation has been the concept of "displacement activity."  This is activity that is a substitute for attacking an intruder to the group.  It is usually quite spectacular or al...

July 6, 2007

Reframing the fight against Islamists

The Bush Administration, with its usual half-measures in making its case - our case - in public, had a very flat, pro-forma response to the most recent videotape of al-Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri:Press question at State Department briefing: D...

May 24, 2007

Hydrogen fusion (updated)

James Lewis  is quite correct in describing hydrogen in context as merely a method of energy conversion and transport and not a source of energy.However, there is a context where hydrogen is a source of energy and that is hydrogen fusion, t...

May 19, 2007

Pressing on

In a short press release dated May 15, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq announced the creation of the Iraq Transition Assistance Office by an Executive Order signed by the President on May 9.  This Office replaces the Iraq Reconstruction Management...

May 9, 2007

America and Israel

The Israeli historian Michael Oren is on a tour to promote his new book Power, Faith and Fantasy which is about American involvement in the Middle East over the last 300 years.As part of his narrative, he tells the story of the spiritual intertw...

April 27, 2007

A significant date in the war on terror

 Why does Surrender Harry Reid in particular and the Democrat leadership in general want to, well, surrender in Iraq?  Or to put it differently, why do they think we can surrender in Iraq without consequence?  I think that Tony Bl...

April 17, 2007

Is the USA worthy of its servants?

In an article  in the Washington Post last week, Peter Baker and Thomas Ricks said that three retired generals had turned down an offer to become what the authors called the "Czar" for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, working out of t...

April 13, 2007

Iraq developments

Several developments have occurred in the Iraq narrative in the last few days:1. We now have a book from the Iraqi perspective to join the excellent American books Fiasco by Thomas Ricks, State of Denial by Bob Woodward, Imperial Life in the Emerald ...

April 11, 2007

Seize the opportunity

Clarice Feldman does her usual superb work in exposing Henry Waxman's peddling of lies. One of the things that totally mystifies us supporters of the Bush Administration is its absolute, total, continuous, inexplicable refusal to make its c...

April 6, 2007

Road to Damascus (a poem)

Nancy, with the headscarf and the smileWalking a dhimmi mileOn the Road to Damascus.Nancy, with a heartful of bileWanting Israel to tarry a whileOn the Road to Damascus!In spite of murder you found Bashar so dear?For the people of Hama nary a tear?On...

April 4, 2007

Commentary article on counterinsurgency

The April edition of Commentary magazine has a most interesting article on counterinsurgency, discussing the French experience in Algeria and the strategy developed by a French colonel, David Galula.Galula's subsequent book, Counterinsurgency Wa...

April 1, 2007

The possessed

Putting two children in a car and blowing them up.  Driving a car into a group of boys playing soccer and blowing them up.  The sacrifice of children.  Who does this sound like?  The God of our Fathers?  No.  A twisted d...

March 30, 2007

Tonguetied

The Administration seems determined not to seize opportunities to make its case.  An example: why not tag Iran for its unacceptable behavior in the matter of the British marines?"This is why Iran cannot be trusted with a nuclear weapon....

March 28, 2007

Inflation moderates in Iraq

The Central Bank of Iraq publishes an array of "key financial indicators" on its website.  One of these is inflation, measured on a one-month, six-month and 12-month basis.  Taking the 12-month - annual - inflation rate as th...

March 26, 2007

Nancy Pelosi wants to fight them here

President Bush wants to fight them there.  When you cut through all the clutter, that is the difference between the position of the Speaker of the House and the President.  Mohammed at Iraq the Model thinks we are doing a pretty good j...

March 24, 2007

Report from the Iraq front

General Petraeus has assembled a team of "mavericks" (as they have been characterized by the Washington Post's excellent military reporter Thomas Ricks) to advise him.  His top counter-terrorism advisor is an Australian Colonel, David ...

March 23, 2007

Marvelous essay on "how liberals think"

On March 5, Evan Sayet, a new name to me but apparently a well-known conservative (!) figure in Hollywood, delivered the "speech of the century" (my characterization) at the Heritage Foundation.  It is available on YouTube here....

March 22, 2007

Iraq Stock Exchange continues to surge

The Iraq Stock Exchange appears to trade twice a week.  It has closed for today, (Thursday March 22, 2007).  It surged again yesterday, up 2.27%.  Stocks are, of course, dicey things.  Were the Iraq Stock Exchange more a part of t...

March 18, 2007

Are we winning in Iraq?

Nibras Kazimi thinks so. In a piece posted this week called "Jihadist Meltdown" he all but declares victory:There is always a moment during a raging battle when one side realizes that the field has been won, and the other side collapse...

March 16, 2007

Predicate for a Pardon

The background of the Scooter Libby affair is the collapse of intelligence over the last 15 years.  It is useful to revisit this very briefly in order to put the Libby conviction - and the propriety of a presidential pardon - in perspective.The ...

March 8, 2007

General Petraeus' press conference

General Petraeus had a most illuminating press conference today (March 8, 2007) in Iraq.  It is available on video here....

March 7, 2007

Iraq Stock Exchange Index

The Iraq Stock Exchange maintains a comprehensive index, the Iraq Stock Exchange Index (the ISX).  Stock prices are dicey things, as we have seen on many world markets in the last week.  Still, the ISX is one measure of confidence in the Ir...

March 4, 2007

What we are dealing with

IraqSlogger has a video clip showing the execution of Iraqi captives by al-Qaeda after the usual tiresome pseudo-religious voiceover claptrap.  It is graphic footage at the end of the captives being shot.  One can imagine this is what ...

February 24, 2007

The Battle of Baghdad

There is another excellent post from Mohammed at Iraq the Model dated yesterday (Friday, February 23, 2007).  He has been driving around Baghdad and reports on the increasing presence of the military and the apparent increasing security:The buil...

February 20, 2007

The cavalry arrives

A positive post yesterday (Monday, February 19, 2007) by Mohammed at Iraq the Model on conditions in Baghdad:Although attacks happen here and there, the general feeling is still closer to hope and appreciation of the plan than pessimism. More familie...

February 16, 2007

The command for Iraq

Wednesday, President Bush led off his press conference with a comment which, to my ear, was very significant - very significant.  He began by saying that he had just completed a conversation with General Petraeus in Baghdad, his first since Gene...

February 13, 2007

Bush on C-SPAN

There was a very good interview of President Bush on C-SPAN on Sunday, February 11, 2007 (click on link in Video/Audio Recent Programs section) at http://www.c-span.org/ .  It focuses initially on the Iraq War.  Bush makes good points....

February 10, 2007

Scipio Asiaticus

This morning (Saturday, February 10, 2007), General David Petraeus acceded to the command of the coalition forces in Iraq - MultiNational Force - Iraq (MNF-I).  The hour is late.  The stakes are, as Winston Churchill would have put it, imme...

February 4, 2007

Casualties of War

The sustainability of our effort in Iraq is being questioned in part due to the toll that combat is taking on our forces.  In this regard, it is useful to compare the Iraq War with previous American wars - the Civil War, World War I, World War I...

February 3, 2007

Seven questions for the NIE

The declassified summary of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq (an NIE is the intelligence community's maximum document) is on the Web.  The leading Key Judgment (on Adobe page 6) is as follows:Iraqi society's growing polarizat...

February 2, 2007

Another Leftie embarrasses himself (updated)

The Washington Post online (washingtonpost.com) has an opinion column ("Early Warning") by someone called William Arkin.  In his column of January 30, 2007 ("The Troops Also Need ro Support the American People") Mr. Arki...

February 1, 2007

Charlie Rose debriefs John Burns

Occasionally a combination of the New York Times and PBS produces something positive. Some Charlie Rose programs are available on Google Video online.  A very interesting edition is his debriefing of the New York Times Baghdad correspo...

January 25, 2007

Encouraging signs in Iraq

Nibras Kazimi has a column in today's (Thursday January 25, 2007) New York Sun titled "Turnaround in Baghdad."  His thesis is that we are making real progress in Iraq:The wider Sunni insurgency - the groups beyond Al Qaeda - is being s...

January 24, 2007

General Petraeus' assessment of U.S. mistakes in Iraq

As part of his testimony in his promotion hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee today (Tuesday January 23, 2006), General Petraeus submitted answers to a series of questions from the senators.  The entire document is available here....

January 22, 2007

Two thoughts on the Duke case

The Weekly Standard has an excellent review of the Duke case in its January 29 edition, also available online ("Duke's Tenured Vigilantes").  In it, Charlotte Allen, the author, reviews the disgraceful conduct of the principal players ...

January 19, 2007

How do we know if we are winning or losing in Iraq?

How do we know if we are winning or losing in Iraq?  We know that the MSM has a very dangerous model - "if it bleeds, it leads."  The definition of "news" is biased toward the unpleasant and the bizarre.  That may b...

January 15, 2007

Positive signs in Iraq

A look at the price of the Iraqi dinar through today, Jan. 15, shows that it keeps moving up. If you go to the Central Bank of Iraq site and scroll down to the bottom you will see the most recent data.  Note the explosion in dollar value of...

January 13, 2007

A thought for Condi

Since Barbara Boxer, by her own criterion of personal family involvement, has no standing to be involved with the Iraq War, why bother to answer any more questions from her on that subject?...

January 10, 2007

There's something happening here

The Iraqi dinar continues its sharp move upward to its current record valuation (the new dinar was introduced in October 2003).  And now, as cen be seen from the data on the website for the Central Bank of Iraq, the volume of dollars traded...

January 10, 2007

A missing piece

A good speech by Bush tonight.  We all hope this will work.  There are a lot of things going right in Iraq, including some economic progress, and including forcing the Islamic radicals to throw their forces into the Iraq battle rather than ...

January 8, 2007

Iraqi dinar continues its surge

The Iraqi dinar continues its recent surge, now up 11% from its early September value.  As anyone familiar with financial markets knows, it is not in their nature to go in one direction indefinitely, so we must be prepared for a reverse move at ...

January 6, 2007

A soldier's thoughts

This column  by a returned reservist speaks for itself.  An excerpt:By any measure of logic I should resign my commission, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. I still believe in the war. And I feel if my country needs me again, I ...

January 1, 2007

What is the balance sheet on Iraq?

We must evaluate the situation in Iraq in terms of the interests of the United States.  If we accept the point of view of our enemies, or even of Iraqis, we are faced with an impossible situation because our enemies want us to lose, and we canno...

December 27, 2006

The question of combat fatigue

Strategy Page has an analysis  of the factor of combat fatigue in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  An excerpt: The bottom line is that the stress of combat has a cumulative psychological effect on soldiers. Today, after ...

December 27, 2006

Is the Iraqi economy crashing through here?

Are we watching a John Ford western taking place in Iraq, where the private economy is in the role of the cavalry, riding to the rescue?  In a column today in the New York Post called "The Boom Outside Baghdad"  Amir Taheri contri...

December 24, 2006

Do they know something in Iraq that we don't?

Here is a chart on the Iraqi dinar taken from the safedinar.com website. The time scale is January 24, 2004 - December 24, 2006.  What the chart says is that the Iraqi dinar has increased in value on the market by 9% from August 24, 2006 to Dece...

December 22, 2006

Rotation and Victory

It has been announced recently that John Abizaid, our top general in Iraq, will retire early next year.  By all accounts, Abazaid is now and has been an exemplary soldier, a servant of the Republic.  But.....a thought does occur in the mind...

December 10, 2006

ISG's solipcism

The Assessment section of the Iraq Survey Group Report (ISGR) is very good, very hard-hitting.  It reflects what certainly seems to be unpleasant conditions in Iraq.  However, Iraq Report here on AT makes the very important case that c...

December 7, 2006

First Thoughts on the Iraq Study Group Report

Forget the Executive Summary which is a collection of platitudes and wish-lists.  If the assumptions in the Executive Summary were true - for instance that Iraq's neighbors see themselves as having a stake in a stable and successful Iraq - the...

December 5, 2006

Chafee's legacy

Well, at least, as Nixon might have put it, we won't have Lincoln Chafee to kick us around any more.  But to turn down John Bolton!  What can he have been thinking?  To deny appointment to an advocate for American policy as effe...

November 29, 2006

Winston Churchill and the PM of Iraq

Today the American president is meeting with the prime minister of a beleagured ally, beset by a vicious foe that is grounded in pure evil. What if someone like Winston Churchill were Prime Minister of Iraq? Very likely we would be hea...

November 26, 2006

The role of victory

A surprising thing seems to have happened in the recent two military engagements of our side against the Islamic radicals – the Israel/Hezb’allah War and the Iraq War.  Neither Israel nor ourselves defined our objective in our respec...

November 19, 2006

Primer on Islamic imperialism

One of the alleged sins held against the West by Islamic radicalism - which has declared war on us through Osama bin Laden's fatwa issued in 1998 in London - is imperialism: the imperialism of the Dutch, the British and the French from the 17th to ...

November 12, 2006

What We Could Lose

I have been diagnosed with the neuromuscular disease myasthenia gravis.  I got that diagnosis in May.  Making a long story short, about three weeks ago, the MG started to get much more acute.  Since my limited experience up to that tim...

August 22, 2006

Renascence of the Third Reich

Who would have thought it twenty years ago? In the first decade of the 21st century the most important world political movement is  based on something recently thought to be as dead as the dinosaurs — the Third Reich. There has always been...

July 26, 2006

A Few of the Basics of War

The world's media are once again filtering warfare through their idiosyncratic perspectives. Most of them are shocked to discover that civilians are injured when terrorists locate military facilities in apartment houses, mosques, and other civil...

July 24, 2006

Kofi's War

Israel is being set—up in the world's media to meet an impossible standard. To its critics, if Israel does not instantly destroy all of Hizbullah and its fixed installations (and that 'instant' has now already passed) and do it without taking a...

June 16, 2006

The big difference between Vietnam and Iraq

A couple of days ago Senator Kerry clarified his position  on the Iraq War.  At the Democrats' Take Back America strategy conference, in Washington, he said that his vote for the war was a mistake and that we should bring the troops home....

April 18, 2006

Rumsfeld's Enemies and the White Flag of Surrender

There is a story that in the early days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general with the eyepatch, who is regarded as the father of the IDF and who was then Defense Minister, offered his resignation to Golda Meir because he was s...

December 29, 2005

NSA surveillance and the contrapositive

In applied mathematics, there is a technique of proving a theorem called 'taking the contrapositive.'  When you take the contrapositive, you don't prove that the theorem is true, you demonstrate that the consequences of its being untrue are impo...

December 1, 2005

Sustaining the narrative

The ongoing conflict in Iraq is the first war in modern history that has been fought with the virtually unanimous opposition of the mainstream press.  Yes, the press came to be in opposition in the Vietnam War, but the administration of that day...