While Obama dithers, soldiers keep fighting the good fight

The story today on military.com is worth linking just for the photo alone, a 4th Infantry Division G.I. caught in mid-air leaping into a muddy canal ditch to escape fire from the Taliban in the hills above an Afghan village.

The G.I.'s built a clinic in the nearby village. The Taliban blew it up. The G.I's return, knowing they will start another fire fight with the Taliban.

But that's what soldiers do, hunt and kill the enemy.

The atmosphere was tense. An attack was expected. Back at the ruined clinic, the squad's Afghan translator had asked if this journalist had a mobile phone. "You should call your loved ones now to say that you care about them. I'm telling you, the walk home from here is not a joke," he said with a nervous smile.

As they left Qatar Kala, with U.S. helicopters buzzing overhead, Goodman split his men into two squads, one along the riverbed and one in an irrigation canal on higher ground.

About 500 yards outside the village gunfire whistled down from the eastern mountainside.

Soldiers dived stomach-down. The rushing canal water soaked boots and uniforms and jammed at least one weapon as Soldiers got up to shoot back...

Gradually the Soldiers made it to safety. The firefight had lasted about four hours. The entire operation, from dawn until the return to base, went on for about seven hours.

The Soldiers were met in front of the bazaar of a friendly village by troops in military vehicles who gave them bottled water. They were caked in drying mud but with no casualties except for two sprained ankles.

Then they headed back to their outpost, which is named Honaker Miracle after two U.S. infantrymen, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Honaker and Pfc. Joseph Miracle, killed in Afghanistan in 2007.

The platoon was later told by its company command that reports suggested up to five Taliban were killed in Tuesday's fighting.

Just another day on the job for our soldiers. Say a prayer for all the men and women in harm's way, defending our freedom daily around the world.

Obama whiffs hardball, plays basketball and dithers on war

Can Obama play hardball with Iran and Russia? Robert Kagan asks the question in the WaPo this morning and gives us a scorecard on how well our Diplomatic Leader is doing thus far. It don't take a rocket surgeon to know the score on that as Obama is Oh-fer-zip.

Is the Pope Baptist? About as much as our rookie President is ready for the big leagues as our Ditherer-In-Chief makes a photo-op visit to Dover Air Force Base to salute the war dead arriving from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile back at the White House where the "debate" over developing a "new strategy" for the war in Afghanistan drags on amongst the "military experts" on staff, R. Emmett Tyrrel reports a new controversy has arisen.

These are vexed times. The country is at war on two fronts. Rogue states are edging toward acquiring strategic nuclear weaponry. We have been through a very serious recession from which we may not emerge into the bright morn of economic health for years. The dollar is frail. The future of national health care, finance and corporate governance is in doubt. Yet that is not all. Over at The New York Times, an issue that continues to torment the bien-pensants is ... Well, let me quote the first sentence of the front-page tocsin that began the controversy Oct. 25: "Does the White House feel like a frat house?"

The proximate cause for this troubling query was that President Barack Obama had hosted "a high-level basketball game with no female players."

Seriously. And speaking of females, one of my feminine heroes, young Hannah Giles, asks a few vexing questions for the so-called mainstream media, who is still studiously ignoring the ACORN scandal she exposed on camera. Here's just a couple of her "suggestions" to the media.

• Baltimore- Why no mention of the toddlers that were in the room while James and I were being counseled on how to manage our underage prostitution ring?

• San Bernardino- The content of this video was largely ignored except for the part where ACORN worker Tresa Kaelke mentions she shot her husband. What about when she told us not to educate our sex-slaves because they won’t want to work for us? Or when we talked about making money off of clients who would physically abuse the girls? What about the whole transport-the-girls-in-a-school-bus-to-avoid-suspicion discussion?

I'd like to say more, but I gotta go to work. God save our nation and our troops because Obama won't, can't and apparently don't even have a clue how to, even if he wanted to. And he don't.

You might be 'dithering' if the Europeans show more guts

Like Jeff Foxworthy's signs that you might be a redneck, you might be "dithering" while Afghanistan burns if even the Europeans are more committed to that war than Obama is. Jamie Fly at The Weekly Standard blog points out this absurdity in NATO Defense Ministers and UN Official Back McChrystal Before Obama

Now, just as the president is publicly agonizing over what the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan should be, some European leaders seem willing to consider making increased commitments to Afghanistan. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is considering increasing the size of the German contingent in the country when the deployment’s mandate is renewed later this year, something that is nothing short of amazing given how publicly unpopular the German presence in Afghanistan is. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last week that he was sending an additional 500 troops to the country.

These increased commitments appear to be based on a recognition that a properly resourced counterinsurgency effort is the only way to achieve success in Afghanistan. The New York Times reported yesterday that “NATO defense ministers gave their broad endorsement Friday to the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.” Kai Eide, the UN special representative for Afghanistan attended the meeting and said “additional troops are required,” also telling the defense ministers that “this cannot be a U.S.-only enterprise.”

...The White House took offense at Vice President Cheney’s statement this week that the president was “dithering” on Afghanistan. Friday’s NATO defense ministerial should put this issue to rest -- even the Europeans have acted with more fortitude than our president.

Thank God for Dick Cheney and Fox News. They keep pointing out the obvious truths about our "dithering" President. Sooner or later, the voters will realize the emperor has no clothes. I'm just praying a miracle will happen and Obama will finally do the right thing and not leave our troops in Afghanistan twisting slowly in the winds of defeat.