and to the utter annoyance of my critics . . ."

Via Insty, who adds a comma to the meme—and deletes the word "utter."

But, you know. In a good way.

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'd'you?

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. . . on Hill's unique little dilemma.

But, for crying out loud: can someone tell me what "rat" means in British slang?

Via Classical Values.

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Sez:

In the capital city of the most powerful nation on the planet, the political class spent last week trying to craft a bipartisan defeat strategy, and they might yet pull it off.

Via Insty, who concurs with Steyn that "to everyone else on the planet, it's America's war. And it will be America's defeat."

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Has a list of the top ten myths about the war in Iraq.

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. . . suggests that—contrary to appearances—we are at the "tipping point" in Iraq:

Sadly, it took many thousands of young Sunnis getting abducted by death squads for the Sunnis to understand that in a full-fledged civil war, they would likely lose badly and be evicted from Baghdad. I believe that the Sunnis and insurgents are now war weary, and that this is a turnaround point in the campaign to stabilize Iraq.

Still, major bombings will continue for many years, for Al Qaeda will remain oblivious to all evidence of the insurgency's eventual defeat. The Baathists, and jihadist groups like Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army of Iraq, and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, may be collapsing due to aimlessness and despair, but Al Qaeda still enjoys the clarity of zealotry and fantasy. Right now, they are arm-twisting other jihadist groups to submit to them and are also taking credit for the large-scale fighting that continues in Iraq.

Al Qaeda will continue the fight long after the Iraqi battlefield becomes inhospitable to their cause, and they will only realize the futility of their endeavor after they are defeated on the wider Middle East battlefield and elsewhere in the world.

Via Insty.

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. . . when the sectarianism in this country is so pronounced?

Cassandra:

. . . We're not going to find a way to make Iraq work if the Democratic Party has anything to do with it because 49% of the people who put them in office either don't want us to win the war or "aren't sure" yet whether they want us to win.

It's that simple.

Month after month our media ask why we're unable to bring the violence under control in Iraq. The truth is that most of Iraq isn't awash in Sunni/Shia violence we read about every day from Baghdad.

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. . . to do to the Iraqis and the Iranians what we did to the Vietnamese and the Cambodians?

Do we really want to write the invasion off as a "disaster," pretend the Iraqi people would have been better off getting fed into plastic shredders?

Think about the killing fields. And choose carefully.

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We in the online community have got to stop coining new verbs. But surely we need just one more. What do you call it when someone asserts that we need more of something and less of it at the very same time . . .?

Via Insty, who has some interesting thoughts and links on the surge issue.

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The Anchoress has a roundup of reactions to Bush's speech, and the state of the war right now.

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Ace has some hard-headed thoughts.

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It takes more than twelve weeks to build a military culture from the ground up.

Americans are not patient people, and it's getting worse.

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. . . sees the choice right now as very stark: surge or withdraw.

Remember what happened in Southeast Asia? I say, surge.

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John Hinderaker is skeptical; he points out that "the lions don't have to lie down with the lambs for our interests to be vindicated," and explains:

I am deeply skeptical of the "Goldilocks" theory of victory in Iraq: we have to have just the right number of troops to be successful; not too many, not too few. It's hard to imagine what 149,000 troops can accomplish that 140,000 couldn't--especially if the mission of most of those additional 9,000 is to pacify Baghdad.

Via Insty, who has a few more surge links here.

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He's still a dork.

But apparently he's not suffering too much.

H/t: Ace.

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Don Surber takes a look, and points out that in Iraq, this war beats the hell out of Saddam's "peace" with respect to civilian casualties.

H/t: Insty.

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. . . on Saddam's death: "drink up."

Or, you know—do whatever it is you do to celebrate.

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Well, okay, AP.

By the way, how's that search for Jamil Hussein going? I mean, I trust you guys; I really do. Like I trust CBS.

But I would like to point out that what happened to Mussolini sounded a lot more like "vengeance" to me than what happened to Saddam. Though no less deserved.

H/t: Darleen.

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But the military has been through a lot because of John Kerry: the insistence by the media that his purple hearts were for significant injuries, the continual reference to him as a "war hero." The glossing over his role in Winter Soldier. I know of one former Army LRRP (Vietnam era) who stuck by the Democratic Party during the 1990s despite the torrid affair it was having with gun control, but John Kerry broke him, and he voted for Bush in the last election.

I'm not exactly sure what Kerry expected when he went to Iraq, but it probably wasn't this. Reality must have been a bit of a shock.

More here.

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. . . on how the Iraq Study Group has given the Bush Administration another chance to forge a new path there.

h/t: His Instyness.

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