by Jeff HuberI thought Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki showed state fair size baby makers when he told us to start packing our caissons and hit the dusty trail that leads out of Iraq. Then General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the closest thing Pakistan has to …

Continue reading " Omar the Deal Maker "

by Jeff HuberJohn McCain…knows how to win a war.–Sarah PalinMy matriculation at the United States Naval War College left me with an indelible regard for the wisdom of Ernie Pyle’s admonition that in war “nobody really knows what he’s doing.” As a…

Continue reading " Baffle Them with Warfare "

by Jeff HuberYour plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq…the surge worked.–Sarah PalinLike so many neoconservatives, Sarah Palin has an odd notion of what winning and losing wars means when you’re history’s first global hegemon. “Surrender” in Ir…

Continue reading " Mission Accomplished Forever "

by Jeff HuberDoublethink: The power…to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them.–George Orwell, 1984When I think about how they must be preparing Sarah Palin for the vice presidential debate on Thursday night, I flash on the scene in A…

Continue reading " Fibber McCain "

by Jeff HuberIt sounds like the world’s worst army once again took on the world’s best army and lived to fight another day. The BBC reports that on September 25 Pakistani forces opened fire on two U.S. helicopters as they crossed the border from Afgha…

Continue reading " Wackystan "

It sounds like the world’s worst army once again took on the world’s best army and lived to fight another day. The BBC reports that on September 25 Pakistani forces opened fire on two U.S. helicopters as they crossed the border from Afghanistan. Chie…

Continue reading " Friday Preview: Wackystan "

by Jeff Huber(This is a rework/update of two previous pieces that I cobbled together for Military.com, Antiwar.com, etc. It also has some new material, so I hope you enjoy it.)No nation has ever profited from a long war.–Sun TzuSo we’re up to $1.8 tr…

Continue reading " It’s the War Economy, Stupid "

“When the people of Iraq are liberated, we will again have written another chapter in the glorious history of the United States of America.”–John McCain, March 19, 2003 What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Tina Fey? Tina Fey would make a good…

Continue reading " My Obligatory Palin Comparison "

by Jeff HuberNo nation has ever profited from a long war.–Sun Tzu $85 billion to bail out American International Group, huh? That’s on top of $30 billion to keep Bear Sterns out of the soup line, and $200 billion or more to prevent Fannie Mae and Fre…

Continue reading " It’s the Stupid War, Stupid (Update) "

by Jeff HuberPrime Minister Nuri al Maliki wants U.S. troops to leave Iraq. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani wants U.S. troops to stay out of Pakistan. In the former instance we’ll be thrown out of a country after occupying it for six or more years. In …

Continue reading " Here We Go ‘Round the Bananastan, Bush "

by Jeff HuberIn the span of a little over three decades, Bob Woodward of Watergate fame has gone from being a savior of his county’s Constitution to one of his country’s premier bull feather merchants. Bob has yet another book out about the Bush admin…

Continue reading " Y I H+8 Bob Woodward "

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. –Voltaire (1694-1778)Young Mr. Bush announced today that he’ll bring about 8,000 troops home by February 2009. That’s about seven months after the surge was originally suppos…

Continue reading " Mission Accomplished Again. Still. Always. "

U.S. special forces attacked militants in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border on Wednesday, according to a September 3 New York Times article by Pir Zubair Shah, Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez. The militants undergo a remarkable transformation in…

Continue reading " A Boot Up the Bananastan "

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. –Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag ArchipelagoVladimir Putin, who promoted himself from being Russia’s presi…

Continue reading " They Lied with Their Boots On "

Sorry to open with a Jeff Huber-ism, but this is another one that can’t be repeated often enough: if the Bush administration put as much effort into winning its wars at it puts into spinning its wars, it wouldn’t have to spin them. A story titled “Tal…

Continue reading " Spinners and Losers in the Brave New World Order "

It is a senseless policy, apparently meant to intimidate Russia, but why? For the sake of perpetuating international tension so as to strengthen the forces that with Cheney and Bush have been promoting constitutionally unaccountable executive rule in t…

Continue reading " Hegemon Hold ‘Em "

When young Mr. Bush told Vladimir Putin in June 2007 that “The Cold War is over,” we couldn’t have gotten more surefire confirmation that the Cold War was, in fact, alive and kicking. The recent monkey business in Georgia has been in the pipeline sinc…

Continue reading " Warm Beer and Cold War "

On Friday August 15 the Bush administration sent Condoleezza Rice to meet with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as a “show of U.S. support.” Yikes. They sent Condi? Talk about giving somebody the goodbye look. If this were a Marty Scorsese mo…

Continue reading " Hegemon Hijinks "

Vladimir Putin has gone from being Russia’s president to being Russia’s Dick Cheney. As Prime Minister, he still has all the real power but has shed the accountability that goes with being the head of state. So while Putin is undoubtedly the dastard …

Continue reading " The Irony Curtain "

Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to spend $20 billion to double the size of Afghanistan’s army as part of a program designed to bring the country that was once the “crown jewel” of our woebegone war on terror under control. We might be better serv…

Continue reading " Petraeus Goes Bananastan "