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I'm James Kvaal, the new policy director for President Obama's 2012 campaign. You'll be hearing from me occasionally about the President's policies and those of our opponents, and how we can all help bring about change for our country. Yesterday, we accomplished one major change when President Obama announced that all American troops in Iraq will be home before the holidays. With that action, the Iraq war will end. And one of the President's central promises will have been kept. Both as Americans and as supporters of President Obama, this is something for us to reflect on, and be proud...

For those who don't want either Romney or Perry, even if you'd never vote for either.

Democrat Jim Moran says US military cannot win the war in Afghanistan. Remember when G.W. Bush was president, and it seemed like every other Democrat would declare that the US can’t win the war…whether that was in Iraq or Afghanistan? Well, now that Barack Obama is president, the Democrats are still as anti-war and anti-military as ever, the only difference being that the mainstream media doesn’t report on their statements of comfort and aid to the enemy nearly as much as when Bush was president. On Friday’s "Hardball," Moran, who’s a congressman from Virginia, declared that Afghanistan was not a...

....when paired with its summer 2010 remake, the two movies offer a parable on the transformation of the global economy, the end of the American century and the changing balance of power between the United States and Asia. Between Jackie Chan's sly digs about global warming and Jaden Smith's status as a refugee of the U.S. economy, you can almost feel the world's center of gravity shifting. ... you'll recall that, back then, California was still the promised land, the place where the film's teenage protagonist, Daniel LaRusso, and his mom had moved from New Jersey to start a new...

“The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating,” said President Obama, as he announced deployment of 17,000 more U.S. troops. “I’m absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region, solely through military means.” “(T)here is no military solution in Afghanistan,” says Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Said U.S. Commander Gen. David McKiernan yesterday, U.S. and NATO forces are “stalemated.” Such admissions by our military and political leadership in a time of war call to mind other words heard back in 1951, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur delivered his farewell address to the...

There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him. A year ago, the Arizona senator's team made a crucial strategic decision. McCain would run on his (impressive) personal biography. On policy, he'd hew mostly to conservative orthodoxy, with a few deviations -- most notably, his support for legalization for illegal immigrants. But this strategy wasn't yielding results in the general election. So in August, McCain tried a bold new gambit: He would reach out to independents and women with an exciting and...

I gave up on network news channels back in the '80s. I enjoyed CNN at the start and thought that they did a credible job for several years. They really pi$$ed me off during the '94 campaign when their political guru Bob Franken called the Republican agenda,(the contract for America), The contract on America. That was pure political propaganda. It has gotten much worse since then.

BAGHDAD - The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq rose to 4,000 after four soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, a grim milestone that is likely to fuel calls for the withdrawal of American forces as the war enters its sixth year. The American deaths occurred Sunday, the same day rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide. An Iraqi military spokesman said Monday that troops had found rocket launching pads in different areas in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad that had been used...

Nuff said...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said many interesting things in today's Jerusalem Post interview. Most striking, however, is not a particular remark but the contrast between his (unwittingly?) rather defeatist message and the strength that he ascribes to Israel's current position in the world. Olmert described Israel's position as struggling to implement a two-state solution because the alternative is to be demographically swamped by a one-state solution. He then pointed out that even the "world that is friendly to Israel - not the world comprised of fanatics and extremists - ... speaks of Israel in terms of the '67 borders. It...

In January 2005, Hillary Clinton's "goon squad" at Media Matters for America came after me because I pointed out on a national television broadcast that the New York Democrat was "divorced from reality"(TM) for her statements asserting that Social Security was solvent for the long term and the economy "was on the verge of collapse." In "The Question" posed to President Bush that fateful day, I also noted that Sen. Harry Reid suffered the same separation from logic and fact. On Monday, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader reconfirmed his disconnect from the world everyone else inhabits in making the statement:...

I began by asking myself the question linked inevitably to the survival of the United States as a trusted nation in the 21st century: Why can't America admit defeat? What is it in the American psyche that seems to dictate the necessity to be proven not only right, but superior in dealings with the outside world? I have lived the better part of 40 years in Japan, a country whose nationalistic ardor and patriotic zeal once easily matched that of the U.S. If the Japanese government has not sufficiently apologized for the utter brutality their nation inflicted in Asia and...

This past summer during one of the last episodes of HBO's mega-hit "The Sopranos," A.J., the whiny suicidal son of the show's mafia boss anti-hero, was heard to worry about what he saw as the certain bombing of Iran by President Bush. "You don't know that," his mafia princess sister responded. Though this stray snippet, which was widely noted in reviews of the show, did not offer any clues as to the fate of the fictional leaders of the North Jersey mafia, it may have heralded the beginning of a new twist on what it means to be "anti-war" in...

The numbers are so staggering that they are hard to process mentally and impossible to process logistically: each month some 60,000 Iraqis are voting with their feet against the surge of U.S. forces by fleeing their homes. Since the invasion, more than 2.5 million Iraqis have left for neighboring countries, while 2.2 million have been forcibly displaced within Iraq - too poor to escape the country or blocked from transitioning through more peaceful provinces, which in recent months have erected checkpoints to keep them out. To put it in stark historical terms: the war has created the largest refugee crisis...

Total defeatism seems to be the normative attitude towards Chinese dominion and American and Western collapse in the English language press. People eat up countless breathless reports about China's growing might without a murmur even as American leaders are openly selling out the last vestiges of the nation's defense capacity and economic independence to the enemy. All of this is "justified" by endless appeals to free trade, anti-imperialism, fairness, ancient history, third-worldism, moralism, anti-Americanism, thinly veiled Asian supremacism and every other ideology imaginable. Serious analysis about what these developments mean for us and what to do about them is rare...

LONDON (Reuters) - Six years after the September 11 attacks, a few cautious voices are beginning to suggest the unthinkable -- maybe it is time to consider talking to al Qaeda. The idea will revolt some people and raises obvious questions -- through what channels could such a dialogue take place and what would there be to negotiate? But proponents say al Qaeda has established itself as a de facto power, whether the West likes it or not, and history shows militant movements are best neutralized by negotiation, not war. "No insurgency or terrorism has been defeated by warfare or...

I must say that I sympathize with the bind that Democratic leaders are in somewhat. Defeatism is forced upon them by their base. That's why they have no choice but but to insist that Iraq is going disastrously badly, that it was all a mistake, and that we should get out now. Where they have no choice but to acknowledge that progress has been made, they must insist at all costs that President Bush's policies have had nothing to do with it. It is a matter of political reality. Their base will throw them back into the minority if they...

D for Democrat, D for Defeatist

"One of the things I learned during the war was never to pick up my pen to transmit my own despair."       - Albert Camus So we've got a candidate who is among the most radical ever to stand for the presidency. One who was furthermore at the very center of the most corrupt administration in modern history. Who has a lengthy trail of dubious (to put it mildly) deals and arrangements behind her. Whose record as a senator is conspicuous for lack of any serious accomplishment. Who is, above all, one of the most unappealing personalities to run for...

I don't know if this is a precipice from which there is any return for the party of Pelosi and Reid. These are turncoats in the truest form of the word. These are people who are secretly – and, now, not so secretly – praying for, hoping for and acting in the best interests of victory for Osama bin Laden and his cohorts who would chop off their heads just as fast as they would chop off yours and mine. Imagine political power meaning so much to you that you would sell out your own country – perhaps even the...

It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate. Enter, stage right, the fear of terrorism. Yesterday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” and Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don’t...

Delivered to the United States Senate, Washington, DC, on Tuesday, July 17, 2007.Mr. President, I rise tonight to play my small part in this pointless political play put on by the Senate Majority Leader. It is an insult to the brave men and women in our Armed Forces and to the American taxpayers that we are here tonight for no other reason than for a publicity stunt. Instead of following the script written by "Move On" like my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I want to be honest and frank with the American people. I hear Democrats...

The nation’s anguish over the Iraq war was kept on hold in the Senate yesterday as the Republican minority maintained serial threats of filibuster to buy time for President Bush’s aimless policies. Last week, the House debated and voted along party lines for a timetable for an American troop withdrawal by next spring. But a similar measure was allowed no such decisive expression in the Senate. Instead, the G.O.P. insisted on the approval of a “supermajority” of 60 of 100 senators before putting to a vote a measure that would apply real pressure on the president to shift his disastrous...

Leave Washington in the winter, return in midsummer. First you'll be surprised by the heat, then by the humidity. Then you'll be surprised by the certainty. Out in the world, there are shades of gray. Here inside the Beltway, there are black-and-white solutions. And everybody who is anybody has a plan for Iraq. Hillary Clinton has a three-point plan; Barack Obama has a "move the soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan" plan. House Democrats have a plan to take most troops out by next March; Senate Democrats have a plan to take them out by April. Some Senate Republicans want the...

More Republicans have defected to the withdraw-from-Iraq Democrats. They have read the polls that show falling support among the American people for the war in Iraq, and have concluded that continuing to support the war will cost them their Senate or House seat. Is it possible that some of these Republicans have simply consulted their consciences and decided to abandon positions they have held since the beginning of the war? It is possible. But consider this: If the American people continued to support the war, does one reader of this column believe that one Republican defector would have in fact...

Lucky it's not 1942 In another era, Layton's conduct would've been called treason By Peter Worthington Toronto Sun, Monday, July 16, 2007 These days when people such as the NDP's Jack Layton urge, in the normal course of their ideology, that Canada should quit Afghanistan, it is an acceptable political viewpoint. But when they do so the moment Canadian troops suffer casualties, and insist their motivation is concern for the soldiers in harm's way, they are indulging in crass political opportunism. In another era, we would have called it treason. My guess is Layton, for one, doesn't give all...

John McCain, fresh off a trip to Iraq, attacked Democrats yesterday for a "choose to lose" approach to the war, as the Arizona senator tries to find common ground with the Republican primary voters who have deserted him in recent months. "Defeatism will not buy peace in our time," Mr. McCain said in a speech in New Hampshire. It was his first major campaign event since he announced dismal second-quarter fund-raising efforts and his two top national-campaign operatives resigned and took other staffers with them out the door. In an interview on New Hampshire Public Radio, Mr. McCain said he...

The politicians in Washington are dating impending doom. The vote yesterday by the House of Representatives in surrendering to the jihadists in Iraq spells T-R-A-V-E-S-T-Y in just about any dictionary. Our stolidly sturdy troops in Iraq are beginning to get the idea that we, as a nation, are giving up on them, and it's time to let these honorable men and women in uniform know that the public won't allow the politicians to bail on them. The people of this nation cannot give up on our troops – no matter how tempted the politicians become to do just that. We...

We must not break faith David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 I was not there. My sister was however, for she was returning to Toronto from her cottage Sunday evening and turned onto Highway 401, about the longitude of Trenton, Ont. By chance she found herself a half-mile ahead of the hearses for our six Canadian boys, back from Afghanistan. She reports there were firemen with their trucks saluting from almost every bridge along the way to Toronto and people out by their thousands on the bridges and along the highway -- including veterans in...

Aid and comfort to the enemy Calgary Herald: Editorial Published: Friday, July 06, 2007 A peaceful observer might suppose it this country's good fortune to have led such a sheltered national life for 60 years, that the arts of war are so poorly understood by those who seek to lead it. Yet, when impregnable ignorance is broached as a serious contribution to debate on the war in Afghanistan, it is revealed as a national embarrassment. Sadly, both Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton ladled out their share in the wake of news that six Canadian soldiers...

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders planned to brief party members Tuesday on new legislation that would fund the Iraq war through July, then give Congress the option of cutting off money after that if conditions do not improve... White House spokesman Tony Snow on Tuesday called the approach "just bad management." Congressional Republicans immediately dismissed the Democratic proposal as unfairly rationing funds needed in combat and said their members would not support it. Democrats "should not treat our men and women in uniform like they are children who are getting a monthly allowance," said Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, his party's...

WASHINGTON - A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war. The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the president's threatened veto. Neverthe less, the legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats have managed to send to Bush since they reclaimed control of both houses of Congress in January.

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said Monday President Bush is in a state of denial over Iraq, "and the new Congress will show him the way." Holding his ground, Bush renewed his staunch opposition to timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals. "I believe strongly that politicians in Washington shouldn't be telling generals how to do their job," Bush said at the White House after meeting with Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Iraq war. "I believe artificial timetables for withdrawal would be a mistake." Reid, D-Nev., said the Democratic-controlled House and Senate will soon...

Sen. Reid, who once voted to authorize the war in Iraq on grounds other than worry over WMD—his 2002 pro-war speech showcased Saddam's violation of the 1991 armistice agreement—assures that the war is lost, and the surge failed before the change of tactics has fully had time to evolve. This is just the latest update of Howard Dean's assurance in 2005 that we couldn't win in Iraq and should go home. What is lost in all these Olympian pronouncements like Reid's,and others like them repudiating the war from its erstwhile supporters like Sen. Clinton, is precisely when and why they...

Mark Levin says criticizing Alberto Gonzales is like clubbing a baby seal, calling him a weak man, incapable of defending himself, much less being able to advance a conservative agenda. The general acceptance among Republicans that Gonzales should go is disturbing to me. Not that I’m a great fan of the AG. It’s just that there are some legitimate questions that Gonzales could shed some light on and perhaps, in the process, turn the momentum from a defensive posture. In other words, if Gonzales is already roadkill, shouldn’t someone suggest making some stew? Here’s my recipe: 1) Mr. Gonzales, why...

Questions about Preterism and it's Reconstruction Ally This article was originally from two timely editorials of The Standard Bearer Vol. 75; No. 10; February 15, 1999 (A Timely Question about Preterism), and Vol. 75; No. 16; May 15, 1999 (The Preterism of Christian Reconstruction). Part I: A Timely Question about "Preterism" by Prof. David Engelsma A reader has asked about "preterism." The question is occasioned by the series of editorials defending (Reformed) amillennialism (Standard Bearer, Jan. 15, 1995 - Dec. 15, 1996). The subject is worthy of editorial treatment. The question and my response follow. QuestionI have read your articles...

How to Survive Really Hard Times In the old days, folks were accustomed to periodically having to live through hard times. They knew how to survive the hard times with the least amount of wear and tear on their families. Nowadays, most folks dont know what hard times really are. Even those folks who think they have it hard right now can usually still depend on some type of government handout or charity assistance, and therefore they dont truly know what hard times really are. My definition of hard times is when things aint what they use to be and...

RUTLAND, Vt. - I spent this past weekend here in Vermont with three courageous members of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War: former Army Sgt. Drew Cameron, former Marine Cpl. Matt Howard and former Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne. It was a remarkable experience, but not because these bright and articulate young veterans had chosen to speak so openly and so directly about the reasons why they favor ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq. IVAW members are speaking up all over this country, more boldly, more aggressively, every day. Rather, it was remarkable because these veterans have come to the...

US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse Elite officers in Iraq fear low morale, lack of troops and loss of political will Simon Tisdall Thursday March 1, 2007 The Guardian An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat. The officers - combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by...

Last week, Joe Biden walked into a Delaware diner, ordered a bowl of tomato soup and blew himself up. Too bad. We need Joe. In an interview with the New York Observer, lasting about as long as the soup, Biden, with raw if refreshing candor, managed to insult or mock seven past or present presidential candidates of a party for whose nomination Joe had just declared. "Democrats nominated the perfect blow-dried candidates in 2000 and 2004," Biden confided to reporter Jason Horowitz, who must not have been believing his good luck, "and they couldn't connect." Not a PC thing to...

You liberal Democrats and the elected traitors you’ve put in office are no less dangerous to this country and our troops than the Muslim whackos that want us dead. We’ve been waiting for your plan to win and the only thing you can come up with is a plan for successful defeat. You cringe every time someone questions your patriotism or support of our military. Fast forward to John Murtha (what a disgrace to the uniform) who is seeking to restrain reinforcements for our military in Iraq or any future action against Iran. The only remaining allies of the terrorists...

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins wonders "whether the clock has already run out." To U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton the new strategy is "a dead end." For the Bush troop request, presidential candidate Joe Biden predicted "overwhelming rejection." (His committee resolution to that effect yesterday passed by three votes.) Presidential candidate Chuck Hagel: "We have anarchy in Iraq. It's getting worse." And not least, Sen. John Warner this week heaved his tenured eminence against the war effort, proposing another "non-binding" resolution against more troops.

The most lasting tragedy of the Vietnam War is that it has legitimized “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”. We are seeing the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy running wild in this war on terror and sadly not only among liberals and their media but also among some conservatives who some of them are right here on this great Free Republic. When Al Qaeda terrorists, or the terrorist regimes in Iran and Syria, or the Iraqi insurgent terrorists whether they are Sunnis or Shia hear the speeches of defeatism coming from liberals and their media, or...

There are times I am so frustrated I want to scream. Such was the case this past week. I was in a gathering of around 20 well-educated and informed conservatives. The topic turned to the Presidential election. Mind you, I had written months ago that we had best find a candidate who agreed with us and then back him to the hilt. If we did so we might be able to move that candidate to the top tier. It has not happened. Moreover, exactly what I predicted would happen has taken place. Some of our group is in every camp....

Republican Reynolds Faces Strong Challenge in NY26 Rematch:In an election in New York's 26th Congressional District today, 9/28/06, Republican incumbent Tom Reynolds and Democratic challenger Jack Davis are in a fierce fight, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WGRZ-TV Buffalo. 40 days to the 11/7/06 election, Reynolds gets 45%. Davis gets 43%. Green Party candidate Christine Murphy gets 8%. This contest is a rematch of the 2004 election, when Reynolds, who was first elected to Congress in 1998, defeated Davis 56% to 44%. Reynolds gets 62% of Republican votes. Davis gets 64% of Democrat votes. 31% of Republicans,...

The latest Keystone Poll finds incumbent Republican Congressman Jim Gerlach locked in a tight battle for re-election with challenger Democrat Lois Murphy. The poll of 431-registered voters conducted by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College finds Gerlach with a 45-to-38 percent edge. When narrowed to likely voters, Gerlach's advantage is down to 44-to-41 percent. Gerlach scored a two point win over Murphy in 2004. Poll respondents list the war in Iraq, the war on terror and healthcare as the top issues. The sixth district covers portions of Berks, Montgomery and Chester counties.

If we are to rise above endless conflict, the Muslim world must see America as something other than the Great Satan As if on cue Tuesday, four men attacked the U.S. embassy in Damascus, Syria, hours after President Bush reminded Americans in his sobering television address that we do have enemies. They are aggressive, committed people who hate the United States and are deadly in the pursuit of that hatred. Military and intelligence efforts by the United States and others have inflicted real harm on the terror networks sponsored by extremist Muslims. Troops and bombs have killed their leaders and...

Last week John Kerry revealed his plan to "redeploy" U.S. forces from Iraq. This plan is different from fellow Defeaticrat Jack Murtha's plan to "redeploy" U.S. forces from Iraq to Okinawa, which Congressman Murtha seems to think is in the general neighborhood of Iraq. Iraq's in the Middle East, Okinawa's in the Far East: C'mon, how far can it be to get from the Far to the Middle? After all, the distance between the farthest fringe of the kook left and the center of the Democratic Party seems to be closing up every week. Anyway, Sen. Kerry doesn't want to...

"Bush polls have fallen to a new low," shout the newspaper headlines or the news anchors on television. "President Bush and Congress have reached their lowest numbers yet," they continue, trying to speculate whether this is caused by the high gasoline prices, the current economy, or the war in Iraq. This is strange since there is good news, mostly hidden by the media, about all three. 1. Recently, the U.S. Energy Department announced the results of a land survey: "We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates: snip...

President Bush's advisers are resigned to the Democratic capture of the White House in 2008, according to senior Republican sources close to the White House. GOP sources said White House strategists have attempted to persuade Mr. Bush that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat and her party’s current front-runner to be the next presidential nominee, cannot be defeated in 2008. Bush strategists said the president should instead focus on seeking to retain the Republican majority in both houses of Congress in 2006 and 2008. "There is nobody in the White House that will openly say we lost the presidency...