Besides her views on government coercion, welfare and the 2nd amendment, most of what she says is left leaning to the max.

WARNING: 30 minute rant by, what I sense and gather from her other videos, a libertarian anarchist.

Post script.

Me:

Like I said upthread, setting the record straight on OIF isn’t just about recovering what is most likely a lost opportunity.

It’s about fixing the “defected narrative” of OIF that colors the cultural view of our Iraq veterans’ service.

Here’s a very big addition to that point explaining why it continues to matter to set the record straight on OIF. I know you’ll take this one to heart.

Chris Kyle was a father. Of young children.

Many of our people who were killed in Iraq were dads or moms. Mostly of young children.

Many of our people who came back alive but psychologically and/or physically scarred had, have had, or will have children.

For the kids of our KIAs, especially but not limited to those who were too young to form distinctive memories of their parent, they will only ever know their mom or dad through the cultural context of the mission that took their parent from them. And what did that mission mean? What was it for? This thing that their nation decided was worth more than the life of their mom or dad, being there to raise them.

For the kids of many of our WIAs, they will grow up with the scarring of OIF in/on their parent as a formative part of their upbringing. They, too, will understand their parent in large part through the cultural context of OIF.

Right now, the prevailing cultural context is the “defected narrative” of OIF that people of the Right are backing away from correcting, even though ‘American Sniper’ has opened a passing of window of opportunity to confront it head on with the “correct narrative” of OIF.

For me, setting aside all other reasons, their legacy for their children is enough incentive to spread the “correct narrative” of OIF.

Eric, nice summary of your views. You can cite chapter and verse about why Iraq was legal and desirable better than just about anyone I know.

Thanks. You mean my “correct narrative of OIF” post that I linked per GRA’s request, right? Cuz I haven’t summarized my take on OIF in this thread.

That does not change the fact that it is lost. Selling the American people on putting boots on the ground in the ME is going to be very hard — unless the unthinkable happens.

I agree. The opportunity that was manufactured by the COIN “Surge” and Anbar Awakening and passed from Bush to Obama, with the practical conditions to take the next step, was a singular opportunity.

Like I said upthread, setting the record straight on OIF isn’t just about recovering what is most likely a lost opportunity.

It’s about fixing the “defected narrative” of OIF that colors the cultural view of our Iraq veterans’ service. It’s about neutralizing a false narrative that has been made into a harmful premise that’s actively influencing our politics, even guiding our nation’s course in the mode of its predecessor, the mainstreamed counter-cultural Vietnam War narrative. It’s about shining a judging spotlight on every politician and pundit who lied about OIF, especially the Democrats among them who had shaped the course that Bush faithfully carried forward from Clinton.

On principle, I could accept, grudgingly, if we as a nation made a thoughtful deliberate decision to retire our leader of the free world and go another way. I understand the merits of the alternatives.

What I can’t stand is that America has been tricked into the course change by a false narrative. If we’re going to change course, make it a clean honest break. The change with the Democrats under Obama has been a mess because upholding the Left’s lies about OIF has corrupted the Democrats like virus-filled software.

What I have difficulty understanding is why the Left’s lies about OIF aren’t obvious to everyone else. You praise that I “can cite chapter and verse”. But the only difference between me and anyone else is that I read the primary sources for myself. They’re free on-line. Anyone with internet access can read them and know what I know. It’s simple. The “correct narrative” of OIF is straightforward. Notwithstanding his mistakes in the public presentation, Bush applied the enforcement procedure by the numbers.

You refer back to Korea. It’s an example, but a dated one.

Korea is my go-to reference because I served there and the mission was analogous to Iraq.

Selling a 25 year occupation anywhere today will not fly as things stand now.

I haven’t seen that Truman and Eisenhower sold America on a multi-decade (and still counting) occupation as such. Rather, it was about appreciation of the competition with the enemy and the needs of the mission, which happened to be conditions-based and of indefinite duration. For Iraq, for example, we couldn’t just do the regime change and leave. The purpose of OIF as stated in the law and policy was to make Iraq compliant with the UN mandates – all of them. Regime change was just a preliminary step for the compliance process, which would require years to complete.

You say a similar course as Ike staying with Korea would be an outlier today. But it’s not. It’s normal today. It’s what we’ve been doing for decades. We’re still in Korea and the other post-WW2 Europe and Asia missions. Of more contemporary origin, we’re still rotating troops through Kosovo.

COIN worked in Iraq. It got us over the hump. In 2010-2011, the urgent controversy over OIF had subsided. There was no activist-generated swell of national opposition to extending the US mission in Iraq at that point, post-COIN. It was just Obama making an executive decision that Eisenhower could have made for Korea just as easily, if not more easily. Obama could have stayed the course just as easily as Ike did, too. In 2011, leaving Iraq was not a foregone conclusion driven by national outcry. It was a choice by a President to uphold a “defected narrative” of OIF.

The nation is muddling while we keep trying to wake it up. That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless or that I’ve given up. I’m still trying to be an activist in my own way.

Yes. The collective will to compete or bury our heads, whether for severing our ties with England or staying the course with Iraq, is a function of activism.

You refer back to Korea. It’s an example, but a dated one. When we occupied South Korea we were also occupying Japan and West Germany. It was not an outlier. Our leaders at the time (Truman/Eisenhower) knew the danger from Communism and were willing to put blood and treasure on the line.

Selling a 25 year occupation anywhere today will not fly as things stand now. We Americans are impatient as can be. We want results and we want them yesterday. Most citizens want to concentrate on making money, raising their families, helping those in need, and the many simple pleasures available to them in this incredibly wealthy country. They cannot grasp the intolerant intent and the crafty patience that is in ample supply among radical Islamists. We are asleep. 9/11 woke us up momentarily, but as a nation we’ve hit the snooze button again. Much worse must happen before the sleeping giant is fully awakened. The nation is muddling while we keep trying to wake it up. It’s a time that tries the souls of conservatives and realists. That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless or that I’ve given up. I’m still trying to be an activist in my own way.

Had we stayed with 30-40,000 troops and planned to stay for 25 years or longer, it might have worked.

Korea. It’s not like we’re new at this. The needs of the Iraq mission at the point we left are the leader of the free world stuff we’ve been doing as a matter of course for the better part of a century.

The first was the progs, who wanted to disengage at all costs…

This is where I separate leftists and Democrats and pin the betrayal on the Democrats.

Leftists are to be expected to compete for their side in the activist game. Just as we and the Qutbists understood that Iraq was the key to the contest, the leftists also understood Iraq was the key.

My “correct narrative” of OIF is mainly based on Clinton, not Bush. Clinton worked closely with the senior Democrats, either in Congress or within his administration, on Iraq. The Democrats fully understood the US stakes in Iraq and what getting Iraq right meant to us. For the Democratic leadership on Iraq, Joe Lieberman was the norm, not the exception.

Yet the Left, whom the Democrats were already in bed with with Moveon, etc, made the Democrats an offer, and the Democrats accepted it. They sold out the long-term US interest in Iraq to Left activists to gain the upper hand over the Republicans. When Clinton flipped in opposition to the US course with Iraq that Clinton had set, I knew the Democrats’ betrayal was accomplished, not stopped by the few hold-outs like Lieberman .

Even so, if Clinton’s wife had won the Democratic nomination in 2008, I expect there would be a USFK-type force in Iraq today. But the Democrats made their deal with the Left and selling out the long-term US interest in Iraq as a “strategic partner … profoundly in the national security interests of the United States” (State Dept, 2011) was part of the payment.

The second was the undue influence of Iran on the Shiite dominated government. They elected a government, but it is a corrupt, tribal government. The Sunnis soon realized they were being left out in the cold. ISIS was the result.

I wouldn’t say result. I would say consequence.

Ayad Allawi. Not that Allawi was necessarily George Washington, but at that vital point of Iraq’s development, Allawi was the Shiite with whom the Sunni were willing to cross the historic bridge and buy into the post-Saddam Iraq that was made possible by the COIN “Surge” and Anbar Awakening. But, like the Democrats made their deal against national interest for political advantage, Maliki made his deal, too. The activist game is the only social cultural/political game there.

But all eyes were on the Arab Spring — touted as democracy sweeping the Arab world. No one in State or DOD knew what to make of that either. If they did, their views were not accepted by Barack and Hillary.

While it happened after he left office, Bush had a leader-of-the-free-world policy app set up for the Arab Spring: the Freedom Agenda. Obama dropped it.

I see people talking about going into a Muslim country, kicking their butts, and then getting the heck out. The problem with that is, it doesn’t work. As examples I give you Iraq, Libya, and soon — Afghanistan and Yemen.

Winning a war requires securing the peace. Conceiving war as a sports contest doesn’t work anywhere, Muslim or otherwise. That kind of approach to Iraq in 1991, when incredibly, HW Bush put the peace in Saddam’s hands, locked in the course for 2003.

In the real world contest, the only way to end the game is to lose. To be the champ with the peace on your terms, you have to keep playing.

Your Dad was an important part of it all. Pilots need weather forecasters. The trigger pullers and pilots are helpless without those who back them up. Beans and bullets, av-gas and spare parts, weather forecasters and parachute packers – all a part of the effort.