Baghdad's Corrupt Army Has Usual Historic Flaws

One original reason for military parades was to make sure there were physical soldiers in numbers to match the payroll. Big multiple unit parades assured soldiers were not being shuffled from unit muster to unit muster in different uniforms.

It would seem the Iraqi Army has the traditional weakness of corrupt armies with quite a few phantom soldiers on the payroll. But even worse, the soldiers who actually do show up go months without pay while their officers put the money in their own pockets. All of the best recruits are funneled into the Shiite militias, not the regular Iraqi Army.

If we weren't able to establish an effective Iraqi Army during our occupation, I don't see any way we will be able to do it under current, less favorable, conditions. We should be backing the folks with the best track record on both military effectiveness and religious and ethnic toleration, the Kurds.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420008/we-need-new-strategy-iraq-and-syria-charles-krauthammer

Cool Style or Issue Substance?

A recent article talked about how Republicans could get more younger voters because Republicans candidate were cool now.  Cool gets you a hearing, but issues get you a motivated voter. I think Republicans should emphasize that student loans wouldn't have to be forgiven if the government didn't make jobs so scarce by regulating them out of existence. Republicans should also explain that the way Obamacare was designed to work assumed young people were stupid enough to buy overpriced insurance so that "the needy" could be subsidized from what younger and healthier folks were paying. Republicans could further explain that raising the minimum wage puts teenagers out of work, especially minority teenagers.

I was a young voter (relatively) when Ronald Reagan was running in 1980. At that time, the media pundits assumed that young folks like me would not relate to the older generation Reagan. We voted for him in droves because his issues were our issues. His age didn't matter at all.

Liberals win with a divide and conquer strategy. Any of the carefully divided demographic groups that liberals cater to can be solicited for their votes. To get votes, Republicans have to talk to voters. Republican ads have to appear in media with that the target audience sees. Your issues have to be explained in a way that the audience understands. However, you don't have to pander or change positions. In fact, if your message is the same everywhere, it gives credibility to your positions. You must let voters know that you want their votes and that you see them as social equals. 

I think part of a winning presidential campaign in 2016 is mentioning all of the lies Democrats told in the last 8 years in order to get elected and to get their way on legislation. These lies were targeted at demographic groups Republicans can take away from Democrats. For example, not only was Obamacare supposed to let you keep your doctor, it was supposed to be a free lunch. Democrats were careful not to mention that young healthy people were going to pay higher rates to subsidize older and sicker people. Another example is the minimum wage, which Democrats say is designed to help poor people earn enough to support their families. Every time it goes up, more black teenagers lose any chance at part time or summer jobs. Republicans can use these and other whoopers to say they lied to you before, why should you believe their promises now? 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419691/birth-cool-republican-kristin-tate

The Left Sees Almost Everyone As Stupid

The left is absolutely certain that people in general are too ignorant and stupid to know what's good for them. As a result, the government needs to establish guidelines for taking care of the otherwise clueless populace. The irony of leftist certainty on this is that the left shows itself to be clueless and stupid when it takes one size fits all governmental action intended to take care of everybody. What happens is that the government action makes things worse. Obamacare is an example of how it all works. Once the government program fails, leftists want credit for their good intentions and a follow on program to fix the unintended consequences of their previous programs. The cycle repeats until the government impoverishes the people to the point that there are not enough resources to pay for the programs.

While this is a gross oversimplification, it's still essentially true that Rome fell because the people got used to the government handling everything for them instead of doing things for themselves. Bread and circuses both bankrupt the government and corrupt the people. In the meantime, patronage and handouts buy votes. This cycle needs to be broken in 2016 or we are going to live through the bloody failure of Pax Americana.  

US Intelligence Alone Not Good Enough Verification

The whole basis for "Bush lied people died" was that our intelligence is flawless so Bush had to cook the results. Now liberals believe their own propaganda. They believe intelligence alone can tell us how close the Iranians are to a bomb. After all, our satellites can read a license plate from orbit. Liberals are shocked to find out that the license plate can't be read if Jihadis smear mud on it.

The truth is our intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was incorrect.  Everyone, including the CIA, Israeli Mossad, British MI6 and the French DGSE thought they were there. Either they never were there, or they were shipped to Syria before the war started. However, it shows that our intelligence isn't good enough to trust for verifying Iranian compliance. 

Article I was commenting on:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419746/nuclear-concessions-iran-obama-administration