The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Looking Forward To Coming Home

by Smitty Ten years on, who could have foreseen passing the anniversary of 9/11 in Afghanistan? But that’s another post, where I’ll share what I think is the best thing written on that topic. Fortune willing, in another week I’ll start the trek home, arriving by the end of the month. It’s no exaggeration to […]

Smitty Home On R&R

by Smitty Back on terra Americana at last! The wife has overhauled major chunks of the house, and it looks great. Also, being in a country with usable bandwidth is a refreshing change. Not to get too self-congratulatory here, but you really have to know too much to get any sort of blogposts going from […]

On the Bright Side, I Doubt the Navy Would Put Smitty in a Luxury Hotel

While I haven’t heard anything today from our fearless Admiral of the Afghan Seas, I presume he’s in some relatively safe and non-luxury billet, while Taliban terrorists are holed up at the best hotel in Kabul: Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Kabul’s Hotel Inter-Continental in a carefully orchestrated attack that began Tuesday night and […]

Obama’s Afghanistan Speech

Frankly, I’m bored with Obama by now, so why blog about his speech, except that he interrupted primetime TV to make it? From the transcript: In the days that followed [the 9/11 attacks], our nation was united as we struck at al-Qaida and routed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, our focus shifted. A second war […]

God Rest CWO4 Christopher R. Thibodeau

by Smitty I just returned from the memorial for Chief Warrant Officer Christopher R. Thibodeau. The 4th Aviation Combat Brigade is all over Afghanistan; he had been operating much to the south. When a fellow flyer, choking, mentioned during the eulogy that he’d found out two days prior to his demise that his wife is […]

Sen. Barbara Boxer Uses Bin Laden’s Death to Promote Afghanistan Pullout

The U.S. special-operations mission that killed Osama bin Laden signals that it is time to end U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Sen. Barbara Boxer said in an e-mail to liberal activists Saturday. “Three days after 9/11, my Senate colleagues and I voted unanimously to authorize the president to use all necessary and appropriate force against […]

Where Have I Been?

by Smitty I’ve been in Mazar-i-Sharif for a couple of weeks. Camp Marmal, as it’s called, is on the east side of town. The Germans actually run this, and it’s highly international. Which means a lot of weird little rules, and lousy internet connectivity. After three tries, I finally found a card that logs me […]

‘USA! USA! USA!’ (I’m Just Saying That Because It Bothers Liberals So Much)

It is unfortunately predictable that the success of the U.S. effort that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan would result in finger-pointing, one-upsmanship and needless politicization. For example, Nate Silver at the New York Times: To state the obvious, this is good news for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. I can’t imagine a single, atomized piece […]

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