The Curmudgeon

I WISH I WERE THIS CLEVER

David Wong of Pointless Waste of Time fame lays out both a look at the grim realities of war and a scathing criticism of the armchair generals second-guessing every facet of the Iraq war. His missive is disguised as a "wish list" for the ultimate real-time strategy game. Some highlights of his Ultimate War Sim:

"I want a War Sim where I spend two hours pushing across a map to destroy a 'nuclear missile silo,' only to find out after the fact that it was just a missile-themed orphanage. I want little celebrities to show up on the scene and do interviews over video of charred teddy bears, decrying my unilateral attack. I want congressional hearings demanding answers to these atrocities."

"On the very next level I want to lose half of my units because another 'orphanage' turned out to be a NOD ambush site. I want another round of hearings asking why I didn't level that orphanage as soon as I saw it, including tearful testimony from a slain soldier's daughter who is now, ironically, an orphan."

"I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go."

"I want my Mission Objectives to change every 30 seconds, without anyone letting me know. I want little talking heads to pop up on my screen - commanders, politicians, allies, military intelligence - each giving me different sets of victory parameters, all of them conflicting and many of them written in bullshit ass-covering doublespeak. (OBJECTIVE: Pacify the insurgency with decisive force while minimizing casualties to both sides as not to strengthen the insurgency movement, ensuring that no non-combatants are killed and that all combatants posing as non-combatants are eliminated with extreme prejudice while winning popular support among religious factions who believe your very drawing of breath is a grievous sin against their god...)"

"In my Public Support display let me find out that the news media has run, in the same magazine, one story blasting us for going to war for minerals and another story blasting us for not acting on the continuing mineral shortage back home. There should also be simultaneous stories about the outrageous expense of the war effort, and another about how the troops are under-funded and under-equipped. Set it so that I somehow lose Public Support points with each story."

"I want fat, left-wing documentarians carefully editing only the most incriminating footage, countered only by low-IQ country music singers crooning my praises while in American Flag-colored cowboy hats."

"About every five minutes I want one of my helicopters to crash, completely on its own, for some fucking reason."

Read the rest here.

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HONEST DISAGREEMENT

I'll disclose straight away that I don't agree with their conclusions, but it's nice to see that at least some folks can express a tempered, civil, honest disagreement with the Bush administration's Iraq policy. They say politics stops at the water's edge, and opportunist camera whores like Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd would do well to take note.

UPDATE May 27 2:34pm CDT: Same goes for barking-mad Al "Jazeera" Gore. Gore's rant smacks of opportunism not just because his tone is—to put it modestly—intemperate, but Gore himself as vice-president articulated the policy the current admininstration is pursuing and supplied the same rationales he now denounces as lies.

The transformation of Al Gore from a moderate blue-dog Democrat to an opportunistic, fringe-leftist, stark-raving moonbat is now complete.
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CELEBRATE CULTURAL DIVERSITY AT 6am—WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT

From this piece by Val MacQueen:

Hamtramck, Michigan, a 23,000 strong community known for Polish food, strong Catholic values and the energizing strains of the polka will soon be moving to the strains of a new song- Islam. That is, unless residents defeat the town council’s permission for the Bangladeshi al-Islah mosque to broadcast calls to prayer five times a day.

Each call to prayer lasts around two minutes – so for 10 minutes a day all residents of this small mid-west town will be forcibly exposed to Islam in the name of multiculturalism. The first call will go out at 6 a.m. and the last one at 10 p.m. . .

According to CBS, the Michigan chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee urged tolerance of the issue, loftily condemning the “resentment and negativity” expressed by local residents.

CBS also reported City Council member Shahab Ahmed, who is Bangladeshi and attends al-Islah, said he was surprised the call to prayer turned into a big issue. But he noted that he had previously experienced anti-Muslim sentiment in Hamtramck- particularly during his 2001 council bid following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Here's a thought: maybe people just don't want to be rousted at 6am every day by a ululating loudspeaker—no matter its content—only to be subjected to its pronouncements four more times before day's end.

I have a suggestion to test the theory that "anti-Islam" motivates the community's objections: try belting Bible verses from your infernal loudspeaker 5 times a day, starting at 6am, and see if the reception is any warmer. Or try reading the headlines from the Detroit Free Press. Or playing Echo & The Bunnymen's Greatest Hits. Do you suppose the fine folks of Hamtramck are any more inclined to put up with these intrusions than with Muslim calls to prayer?

But if you conducted this experiment, your "anti-Islam" victimhood tool would be exposed as the debate-stifling bludgeon that it is. So naturally, you won't.

By the way, Mr. Ahmed, if anti-Islam sentiment is so rampant in your community, how did you manage to get elected to the city council?
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"WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION???"

Here is your answer.

Want to take bets the loony left will still deny they existed?

UPDATE May 18 1:44pm CDT... My workplace subscribes to four major newspapers: The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Times and the Financial Times (American Edition). Not one of them mentioned this story on the front page, not even to refer readers to a story on the subject within the back pages of the paper. Consider the lead story in the New York Times: "Hundreds of same-sex couples get married in Massachusetts." The Sun-Times front page verily shouts, "It's Mrs. and Mrs." I hoped maybe some major paper somewhere had this story on the front page of their online edition. Nope. Not New York Times, not the Boston Globe, not the Washington Post, not even the reliably conservative Wall Street Journal.

If concrete evidence of WMDs isn't enough to merit even a passing mention on the front page of the nation's major newspapers, then surely there must be other pressing, major stories occupying the news cycle. Such as "Pessimism deepens over Iraq" (Washington Post online). Or "Martha Stewart Living show on haitus" (Boston Globe online). Or "ABC makes big changes for fall lineup" (Detroit Free Press online). Or "Somali Bantu refugees adjust to new lives here" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online). Or "Tony Randall dead at 84" (Los Angeles Times online).

We have found the most solid evidence of WMDs since inspections ceased and they want to talk about ABC's television lineup and Martha f-ing Stewart. What the hell is wrong with these people?
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MORE WHINING FROM THE PROFESSIONALLY INDIGNANT

Here's a news story sure to make any decent person's blood curdle with anger. That's right, a beer ad that suggests that Latina women tend to be on the attractive side.

"The Latinas are becoming more educated, and they're starting up their businesses. It's like one step forward and two steps backward with this type of billboard," bellyached Louisa Birrueta of the Stockton, CA Mexican-American Chamber of Commerce.

A League of United Latin American Citizens spoksebabe concurred, stating that "to be in the year 2004 and have something like this happen, to put another obstacle in our way, it angers me."

Got it? If we countenance a billboard loosely implying that Latina women are attractive, the next logical step will be to revert to a time when all persons of Latin-American descent do nothing but pick vegetables in the sweltering sun.

I'll grant that the billboard ad is kind of dumb; nonetheless I have a suggestion for the professionally indignant: If you think a billboard such as this constitutes "an obstacle" or "two steps back," don't pretend to speak for the Latin-Americans who are too busy living the American Dream to notice anything so inane.

Hat tip to Suds and Soliloquies for the story.


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IRAQ AND THE WAR ON TERROR

I’m tired of hearing the question and its variations, “What does Iraq have to do with the war on terror?” I’ll take a stab at an answer, just in case the person asking isn’t simply being intellectually obtuse:

• Saddam Hussein was harboring known terrorists, including Abu Abbas, Abdul Rahman Yassin and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi;
  
  
• Saddam Hussein was offering financial rewards to families of Palestinian suicide bombers;
  
  
• Terrorism isn’t confined to Afghanistan or the Palestinian territories; it exists in dozens of countries, including – as we now witness almost daily – Iraq;
  
  
• Iraq was one of the most destabilizing forces in the region, threatening to embroil it once again in regional conflict;
  
  
• Since the invasion of Iraq, Libya has voluntarily abandoned its extensive chemical weapons program;
  
  
• Since the invasion of Iraq, Iran has finally allowed inspections of its nuclear program;
  
  
• Since the invasion of Iraq, Syrian anti-Ba’athists have become emboldened to protest against their government;
  
  
• Since the invasion of Iraq, Syria has signaled its desire to establish diplomatic ties with the United States;
  
  
• Since the invasion of Iraq, the incidence of international terrorism has steeply declined;
  
  
• Since the invasion of Iraq, unapologetic pro-terrorist Pakistan has become at least a cooperative neutral;
  
  
• Because of Pakistan’s cooperation, the CIA was able to uncover and unravel a clandestine nuclear black market that sought to distribute nuclear technology to unstable regimes and terrorist organizations.

Other than that, I reckon the answer is “nothing.”

9/11 was a wake-up call that swatting at mosquitoes is no longer a sufficient response to the danger we face. Dealing with terrorism means draining the swamp that breeds the mosquitoes – that is, a complete reformation of the Middle East. What better way to expedite the process than by eliminating its most despotic regime?

Unfortunately many folks in our “gotta have everything right now” society don’t appreciate the sheer magnitude of the task or the time and resources that will be required to undertake it. Overthrowing the Taliban and walking away is not sufficient to eradicate the vicious cancer of terrorism that is spreading across the globe. So long as the Middle East is ruled by liberty-loathing, kleptocratic mullocracies that severely restrict the flow of resources and information, the problem of terrorism will grow unabated.

These regimes appear to be in no hurry to reform themselves. As a courtesy, we helped one of them along. In doing so, we now have diplomatic and military muscle to encourage the others to get with the program – lest they be next.

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AMERICA'S LORD HAW-HAW

Mikhail Moron, America's own Lord Haw-Haw, seems to have no boundries of decency. Is there any reason why this walking shred of human debris shouldn't suffer Haw-Haw's fate?
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PRO-CHOICE MEANS PRO-ABORTION

This piece by Peggy Noonan is yet another bit of anecdotal evidence that "pro-choice" is increasingly becoming synonymous with "pro-abortion." That the act of abortion has become a political and social empowerment device is positively revolting.
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"WHAT DID HE KNOW, AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?"

This tired old Watergate-era phrase was yet again unearthed from its grave, dusted off and propped up as a political talking point, this time by Joe Biden referencing how long Don Rumsfeld has known about the Army's Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Turns out yesterday's Wall Street Journal was kind enough to a lay out a timeline of who knew what and when. Notable features are as follows:

- The incidents were first reported up the chain of command on January 13th, 2004;

- The Army began its investigation on January 15th;

- The Army issued a press release to that effect on January 17th;

- Criminal charges were announced on March 20th.

This is not the stuff of Nixonian conspiracy, Mr. Biden. The army notified the whole world at least 4 months ago that there were problems with prisoner abuse. I wonder, Joe: could it be that you're engaging in political grandstanding?
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BACK AGAIN

OK, it's been a long time since I posted here. Over a year ago, I said I was back in the blogger saddle. Alas, it was not to be, just yet. I had a lot of personal stuff transpire in my life that made a low priority out of belching my worthless twaddle onto this page for all the web-surfing world to see. (As if more than 10% of my immediate family ever saw this page anyway.) Well, some of that personal stuff has sorted itself out, giving me the time and wherewithal to start blogging again. And judging by the world around us, there will be plenty to spew about in the forthcoming months.
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