Thursday, September 20, 2007
More Political Hackery
Whistleblowers Persecuted Under Bush Administration, The Surge Has Failed? - Need Better Writers Than Michelle Malkin & Her Ilk, Stick It To The Democrats, "Support The Troops",
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
America's Fortunate Sons
“How many dead Americans is Saddam worth?” – Dick Cheney, in a recently surfaced 1994 video clip in which he theorized that trying to take over Iraq would lead to a “quagmire.” Spoken like a true believer that he never, ever, ever had the chance of being one. These are America’s fortunate sons.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Facts Not Politics
· State Department experts warned CENTCOM BEFORE THE IRAQ WAR WAS STARTED about lack of plans for post-war Iraq security. (So-called) planning for post-Saddam regime change began as early as October 2001. Ask your dear leader how many civil officials were sent to Iraq to aid in the following areas and why the job was not done: public health and humanitarian needs, transparency and anti-corruption, oil and energy, defense policy and institutions, transitional justice, democratic principles and procedures, local government, civil society capacity building, education, free media, water, agriculture and environment and economy and infrastructure.
· In a declassified State Dept. memo dated Feb. 7, 2003, officials warned of "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns (that) could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally." And that there were "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance between the end of the war and the beginning of reconstruction.
· A fall 2002 report by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency indicated that the U.S. had no hard evidence that Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons.
· This administration led our troops into war without a plan for the
aftermath. However, Desert Crossing, the war game, was conducted by the United States Central Command in 1999 and was led by Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret. – the very same who said it would take several hundred thousand troops to occupy a country the size of Iraq) and tested "worst case" and "most likely" scenarios of a post-war, post-Saddam, Iraq. Highlights are:
o Assumed 400,000 troops may "still be a mess" - (Rumsfeld insisted that the number be sharply reduced).
o Forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal…"fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors."
o A transitional government…would likely encounter difficulty…from a "period of widespread bloodshed in which various factions seek to eliminate their enemies."
o Stressed that the creation of a democratic government in Iraq was not feasible, but a new pluralistic Iraqi government which included nationalist leaders might be possible.
· A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was unlikely. A host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles made such a sale improbable. Among other problems, it would have required 25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.
· The Senate Intelligence Committee found that Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime.
· The former CIA official who coordinated Middle East intelligence said the administration “went to war without requesting - and evidently without being influenced by - any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq.”
· “President Bush’s aides did not forcefully present him dissenting views from CIA and State and Defense Department officials about possible stiff Iraqi resistance. Bush embraced the predictions of some top administration hawks, beginning with Vice President Dick Cheney.”
· Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith inappropriately manufactured “alternative” intelligence reports wrongly linking Hussein with al-Qaida.
· Rumsfeld set up his own little CIA inside the CIA to “get the information they wanted.” Cheney was constantly at the CIA breathing down their necks.
· Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs said that Rumsfeld created an “atmosphere of arrogance” in which military advice on Afghanistan and Iraq was ignored or discounted. As a result, Rumsfeld and his deputies miscalculated badly in planning how Iraq would be secured after Hussein’s ouster. He was forced to retire minus one star after an interview in which he said the Army had been stretched thin and needed thousands more troops.
· As the Iraqi insurgency was escalating in spring 2004, top Pentagon authorities rejected an appeal for more troops from L. Paul Bremer.
· “President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and others continued to describe the insurgency as a containable threat, posed mainly by former supporters of Saddam Hussein, criminals and non-Iraqi terrorists – even as the U.S. intelligence community was warning otherwise.”
· “…Rumsfeld and Franks stifled the free exchange of ideas and shut out the National Security Council. They dismissed concerns about the insurgents and threatened to fire the one general, William Wallace, who dared to state the obvious in public.”
· “Vice President Dick Cheney exerted ‘constant’ pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the panel’s Democratic chairman charged…The pressure was to stall an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq.”
· In 2006, NATO military chiefs asked for 2,500 more troops and air support to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan and they got nothing (our troops are part of the NATO contingent).
· “Five years later, reconstruction is offset by anarchy” in Afghanistan. “When the Taliban was pushed out (in 2001), they were neither replaced by effective government, nor were they replaces by alternative security forces. NATO is now dealing with the consequences of previous failures in policy.”
· The Marine Corps is again recalling members of the Individual Ready Reserve for an involuntary tour of duty. Soldiers’ tours have been extended and others have had to leave for Iraq or Afghanistan early. “Many of us routinely asked for more troops,” said a retired senior general who commanded an infantry division in Iraq.
· Fighting nearly four years in a two-front war has put unprecedented stress on the Army and the Marine Corps. “The idea that 300 million Americans send the same 140,000 people again and again and again into combat is absolutely immoral.” – Frank Schaeffer.
· Scores of Mississippi National Guard troops who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina were refused even 15-day leaves to aid their displaced families.
· Four of Bush’s political appointees at the State Department sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with political operatives. The reorganization of the department’s arms control and international security bureaus produced an “exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters, including the State Department’s top authority on the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
· “Pentagon civilians ascendant. Rumsfeld loyalists elbow military aside. The three military service chiefs have been dropped in the Bush administration’s doomsday line of Pentagon succession, pushed beneath three civilian undersecretaries in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s inner circle.”
· The Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision in a military authorization bill to fire the lawyer who was leading the office of the special investigator for Iraq reconstruction. Investigations had sent American occupation officials to jail and had exposed disastrously poor construction work by companies such as Haliburton and Parson and discovered that the military “did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.”
· Looted munitions are being used to make deadly roadside bombs and will probably continue to support terrorist attacks throughout the region. Some sites are not secure more than 3 ½ years after the war started. The entire country was considered one big “ammo dump” and commanders lack the manpower to secure the sites “without harming the war effort.” (As illogical as that sounds.)
· “We have been shortchanging these returning soldiers ever since the conflict began. Look at the inadequate funding in the Veterans Administration. That’s caused by the fact that there has been a deliberate underestimate of the number of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who will need care.” – a retired military officer.
· The National Guard is less prepared than it has ever been to respond to a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or other crisis.
· The new commander in Iraq also “wrote the book” on counterinsurgency. The army’s new manual calls for about as many troops to occupy Baghdad, alone, as are in the entire country.
· “Wars affect the training of officers…Fort Leavenworth forced to alter curriculum”
· Private donations built a new high-tech facility at Fort Sam Houston specializing in treating amputees, burn victims. The Intrepid Foundation has also built dozens of houses for families of wounded soldiers while they undergo treatment. There is also a charity that tries to provide plane tickets so troops can go home or families can go to Walter Reed because the government apparently cannot provide these services.
· Several government witnesses told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that almost every measure of the performance of Iraq’s oil, electricity, water and sewage sectors has fallen below pre-invasion values...
· “Billions of dollars earmarked for rebuilding Iraq have been diverted from reconstruction projects because of insurgent violence and poor planning by the U.S.”
· In June of ’05, “the NRA and its allies in the House defeated an effort to restrict gun manufacturers’ exports of high-powered .50-caliber rifles. The guns, which can bring down jet airliners, are dream weapons for terrorists.”
· In a declassified State Dept. memo dated Feb. 7, 2003, officials warned of "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns (that) could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally." And that there were "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance between the end of the war and the beginning of reconstruction.
· A fall 2002 report by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency indicated that the U.S. had no hard evidence that Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons.
· This administration led our troops into war without a plan for the
aftermath. However, Desert Crossing, the war game, was conducted by the United States Central Command in 1999 and was led by Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret. – the very same who said it would take several hundred thousand troops to occupy a country the size of Iraq) and tested "worst case" and "most likely" scenarios of a post-war, post-Saddam, Iraq. Highlights are:
o Assumed 400,000 troops may "still be a mess" - (Rumsfeld insisted that the number be sharply reduced).
o Forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal…"fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors."
o A transitional government…would likely encounter difficulty…from a "period of widespread bloodshed in which various factions seek to eliminate their enemies."
o Stressed that the creation of a democratic government in Iraq was not feasible, but a new pluralistic Iraqi government which included nationalist leaders might be possible.
· A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was unlikely. A host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles made such a sale improbable. Among other problems, it would have required 25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.
· The Senate Intelligence Committee found that Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime.
· The former CIA official who coordinated Middle East intelligence said the administration “went to war without requesting - and evidently without being influenced by - any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq.”
· “President Bush’s aides did not forcefully present him dissenting views from CIA and State and Defense Department officials about possible stiff Iraqi resistance. Bush embraced the predictions of some top administration hawks, beginning with Vice President Dick Cheney.”
· Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith inappropriately manufactured “alternative” intelligence reports wrongly linking Hussein with al-Qaida.
· Rumsfeld set up his own little CIA inside the CIA to “get the information they wanted.” Cheney was constantly at the CIA breathing down their necks.
· Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs said that Rumsfeld created an “atmosphere of arrogance” in which military advice on Afghanistan and Iraq was ignored or discounted. As a result, Rumsfeld and his deputies miscalculated badly in planning how Iraq would be secured after Hussein’s ouster. He was forced to retire minus one star after an interview in which he said the Army had been stretched thin and needed thousands more troops.
· As the Iraqi insurgency was escalating in spring 2004, top Pentagon authorities rejected an appeal for more troops from L. Paul Bremer.
· “President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and others continued to describe the insurgency as a containable threat, posed mainly by former supporters of Saddam Hussein, criminals and non-Iraqi terrorists – even as the U.S. intelligence community was warning otherwise.”
· “…Rumsfeld and Franks stifled the free exchange of ideas and shut out the National Security Council. They dismissed concerns about the insurgents and threatened to fire the one general, William Wallace, who dared to state the obvious in public.”
· “Vice President Dick Cheney exerted ‘constant’ pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the panel’s Democratic chairman charged…The pressure was to stall an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq.”
· In 2006, NATO military chiefs asked for 2,500 more troops and air support to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan and they got nothing (our troops are part of the NATO contingent).
· “Five years later, reconstruction is offset by anarchy” in Afghanistan. “When the Taliban was pushed out (in 2001), they were neither replaced by effective government, nor were they replaces by alternative security forces. NATO is now dealing with the consequences of previous failures in policy.”
· The Marine Corps is again recalling members of the Individual Ready Reserve for an involuntary tour of duty. Soldiers’ tours have been extended and others have had to leave for Iraq or Afghanistan early. “Many of us routinely asked for more troops,” said a retired senior general who commanded an infantry division in Iraq.
· Fighting nearly four years in a two-front war has put unprecedented stress on the Army and the Marine Corps. “The idea that 300 million Americans send the same 140,000 people again and again and again into combat is absolutely immoral.” – Frank Schaeffer.
· Scores of Mississippi National Guard troops who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina were refused even 15-day leaves to aid their displaced families.
· Four of Bush’s political appointees at the State Department sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with political operatives. The reorganization of the department’s arms control and international security bureaus produced an “exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters, including the State Department’s top authority on the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
· “Pentagon civilians ascendant. Rumsfeld loyalists elbow military aside. The three military service chiefs have been dropped in the Bush administration’s doomsday line of Pentagon succession, pushed beneath three civilian undersecretaries in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s inner circle.”
· The Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision in a military authorization bill to fire the lawyer who was leading the office of the special investigator for Iraq reconstruction. Investigations had sent American occupation officials to jail and had exposed disastrously poor construction work by companies such as Haliburton and Parson and discovered that the military “did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.”
· Looted munitions are being used to make deadly roadside bombs and will probably continue to support terrorist attacks throughout the region. Some sites are not secure more than 3 ½ years after the war started. The entire country was considered one big “ammo dump” and commanders lack the manpower to secure the sites “without harming the war effort.” (As illogical as that sounds.)
· “We have been shortchanging these returning soldiers ever since the conflict began. Look at the inadequate funding in the Veterans Administration. That’s caused by the fact that there has been a deliberate underestimate of the number of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who will need care.” – a retired military officer.
· The National Guard is less prepared than it has ever been to respond to a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or other crisis.
· The new commander in Iraq also “wrote the book” on counterinsurgency. The army’s new manual calls for about as many troops to occupy Baghdad, alone, as are in the entire country.
· “Wars affect the training of officers…Fort Leavenworth forced to alter curriculum”
· Private donations built a new high-tech facility at Fort Sam Houston specializing in treating amputees, burn victims. The Intrepid Foundation has also built dozens of houses for families of wounded soldiers while they undergo treatment. There is also a charity that tries to provide plane tickets so troops can go home or families can go to Walter Reed because the government apparently cannot provide these services.
· Several government witnesses told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that almost every measure of the performance of Iraq’s oil, electricity, water and sewage sectors has fallen below pre-invasion values...
· “Billions of dollars earmarked for rebuilding Iraq have been diverted from reconstruction projects because of insurgent violence and poor planning by the U.S.”
· In June of ’05, “the NRA and its allies in the House defeated an effort to restrict gun manufacturers’ exports of high-powered .50-caliber rifles. The guns, which can bring down jet airliners, are dream weapons for terrorists.”
Third Front In War On Terror
The following revelation puts my loved ones, who are in the service, in even greater danger. There have never even been enough troops in Iraq.
Just because they enlisted does not mean they are expendable. I believe they have as much right, or more, as anyone to not be placed in danger, recklessly and carelessly, they shouldn't be expected to take on the whole world by themselves and they certainly do not need this administration constantly making things worse and they don't need the people, sitting here back home in their relative security, stirring up more hate.
Back in January, experts warned that the U.S.' involvement in Somalia was perpetuating the belief that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam, not terrorism.
Osama bin Laden, according to TIME (Alex Perry, 7-02-07), had urged followers to "open up shop" there for years, but it was a secular nation with a "historic wariness of Arab interference. No longer."
Observers say that hundreds of foreign jihadists are arriving, forming an alliance with Somalia nationalist rebels, remnants of the overthrown Islamic government, and rebels from the bordering countries.
"A diplomat in Nairobi warns of a 'third front in the war on terror.' The parallels to Iraq, which the U.S. alleged had links to al-Qaeda, only to invade and create them by sowing chaos and anti-U.S. sentiment, are plain."
Just because they enlisted does not mean they are expendable. I believe they have as much right, or more, as anyone to not be placed in danger, recklessly and carelessly, they shouldn't be expected to take on the whole world by themselves and they certainly do not need this administration constantly making things worse and they don't need the people, sitting here back home in their relative security, stirring up more hate.
Back in January, experts warned that the U.S.' involvement in Somalia was perpetuating the belief that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam, not terrorism.
Osama bin Laden, according to TIME (Alex Perry, 7-02-07), had urged followers to "open up shop" there for years, but it was a secular nation with a "historic wariness of Arab interference. No longer."
Observers say that hundreds of foreign jihadists are arriving, forming an alliance with Somalia nationalist rebels, remnants of the overthrown Islamic government, and rebels from the bordering countries.
"A diplomat in Nairobi warns of a 'third front in the war on terror.' The parallels to Iraq, which the U.S. alleged had links to al-Qaeda, only to invade and create them by sowing chaos and anti-U.S. sentiment, are plain."
A Government Of Lobbyists - Not Of People
Michael Grunwald, (TIME – 06-04-07), says that although Michael Baroody withdrew his nomination to run the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it should be noted that Baroody is not a businessman – he is a lobbyist.
“The distinction is crucial to understanding an Administration in which energy lobbyists oversee mining and drilling, timber lobbyists oversee logging and the National Cattleman’s Beef Association has practically moved to the Department of Agriculture. These are Washington people, not corporate people. They make legislation, not payroll.”
He goes on to say that the Denver Post, in 2004, found 100 Bush appointees - not including Dick Cheney who became CEO at Halliburton because they wanted government contracts - regulating industries they used to represent as lawyers or lobbyists.
Halliburton is reportedly moving to Dubai, where I must presume they have plans to reap profits for a very long time to come
“The distinction is crucial to understanding an Administration in which energy lobbyists oversee mining and drilling, timber lobbyists oversee logging and the National Cattleman’s Beef Association has practically moved to the Department of Agriculture. These are Washington people, not corporate people. They make legislation, not payroll.”
He goes on to say that the Denver Post, in 2004, found 100 Bush appointees - not including Dick Cheney who became CEO at Halliburton because they wanted government contracts - regulating industries they used to represent as lawyers or lobbyists.
Halliburton is reportedly moving to Dubai, where I must presume they have plans to reap profits for a very long time to come
Bruce Bartlett is a Highly Respected Conservative
Bruce Bartlett is a highly respected conservative…
…known for his intelligence and for his commitment to conservative principles:
“Today, much is known about the lack of verifiable evidence of Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, and about how the White House bullied those urging caution into reluctant support and thoroughly screwed-up the Iraq occupation.
Among conservatives, another factor is also at work: the growing realization that Bush has never really understood or shared a Goldwater/Reagan vision of the nature of conservative governance. And even those who still cling desperately to the view that Bush is better than the Democratic alternative mostly concede that his performance in office on a wide range of issues has left much to be desired.
Following are just a few examples of Bush's actions that have worn them down:
-- The explosion of spending on Bush's watch, his strong support for numerous "big government" initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the vast expansion of the Medicare program for prescription drugs, and his unwillingness to use the veto to control an orgy of pork barrel spending on his watch. Bush's recent successful veto of the defense supplemental, which yielded a bill close to what he originally asked for, confirms the view that he could have kept wasteful spending under control all along if he had simply made the effort.
-- Bush's extraordinarily poor choices for high-level government positions. The choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court was perhaps his worst decision -- rectified only because conservatives finally protested one of his decisions en masse and forced him to choose the vastly more qualified Samuel Alito instead. But since then we have witnessed the gross incompetence of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the continuing scandal over the unnecessary -- and still unexplained -- firings of several U.S. attorneys; the comically inept actions of former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown during the Katrina disaster; and the forced resignation of Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, a position for which he was totally unqualified in the first place and which was given to him purely as a reward for obsequious loyalty to the president. Space prohibits listing many other such examples.
-- The incredible ineptness with which Bush has pursued conservative goals such as Social Security reform, while he has brought to bear every ounce of power at his disposal to ram though Congress an immigration bill that is viewed as abhorrent by most conservatives… Meanwhile, Bush gives short shrift to his conservative critics, just as he did in the Miers incident. This has led many of his formerly fervent conservative supporters to conclude that he essentially views them and their concerns with total contempt.”
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BruceBartlett/2007/05/29/taking_ron_paul_seriously&Comments=true
Bruce Bartlett is a former senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis of Dallas, Texas. Bartlett is a prolific author, having published over 900 articles in national publications, and prominent magazines and published four books, including Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action.
©Creators Syndicate
…known for his intelligence and for his commitment to conservative principles:
“Today, much is known about the lack of verifiable evidence of Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, and about how the White House bullied those urging caution into reluctant support and thoroughly screwed-up the Iraq occupation.
Among conservatives, another factor is also at work: the growing realization that Bush has never really understood or shared a Goldwater/Reagan vision of the nature of conservative governance. And even those who still cling desperately to the view that Bush is better than the Democratic alternative mostly concede that his performance in office on a wide range of issues has left much to be desired.
Following are just a few examples of Bush's actions that have worn them down:
-- The explosion of spending on Bush's watch, his strong support for numerous "big government" initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the vast expansion of the Medicare program for prescription drugs, and his unwillingness to use the veto to control an orgy of pork barrel spending on his watch. Bush's recent successful veto of the defense supplemental, which yielded a bill close to what he originally asked for, confirms the view that he could have kept wasteful spending under control all along if he had simply made the effort.
-- Bush's extraordinarily poor choices for high-level government positions. The choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court was perhaps his worst decision -- rectified only because conservatives finally protested one of his decisions en masse and forced him to choose the vastly more qualified Samuel Alito instead. But since then we have witnessed the gross incompetence of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the continuing scandal over the unnecessary -- and still unexplained -- firings of several U.S. attorneys; the comically inept actions of former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown during the Katrina disaster; and the forced resignation of Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, a position for which he was totally unqualified in the first place and which was given to him purely as a reward for obsequious loyalty to the president. Space prohibits listing many other such examples.
-- The incredible ineptness with which Bush has pursued conservative goals such as Social Security reform, while he has brought to bear every ounce of power at his disposal to ram though Congress an immigration bill that is viewed as abhorrent by most conservatives… Meanwhile, Bush gives short shrift to his conservative critics, just as he did in the Miers incident. This has led many of his formerly fervent conservative supporters to conclude that he essentially views them and their concerns with total contempt.”
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BruceBartlett/2007/05/29/taking_ron_paul_seriously&Comments=true
Bruce Bartlett is a former senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis of Dallas, Texas. Bartlett is a prolific author, having published over 900 articles in national publications, and prominent magazines and published four books, including Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action.
©Creators Syndicate
This Administration Is A Disgrace
This administration is a disgrace. Plain and simple. I can’t read the paper anymore without turning away; it’s like bad medicine. Thousands of construction projects in Iraq have been refused by the Iraqi national government because Iraq still does not have even the barest bones of a civilization.
Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a relatively heartfelt column of which I must say I largely do agree, except for the politics. The problem is that the only alternative given to withdrawal is the status quo. Until now, the troops and their families are the only ones who have carried the burden and I think if we are to stay it will take an investment on a monumental scale to even have a chance of attaining the kind of success envisioned by the war’s authors. Moreover, I will be the first one to say that the American people, all of them, are indebted to the Iraqi people for that monumental sacrifice.
Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a relatively heartfelt column of which I must say I largely do agree, except for the politics. The problem is that the only alternative given to withdrawal is the status quo. Until now, the troops and their families are the only ones who have carried the burden and I think if we are to stay it will take an investment on a monumental scale to even have a chance of attaining the kind of success envisioned by the war’s authors. Moreover, I will be the first one to say that the American people, all of them, are indebted to the Iraqi people for that monumental sacrifice.
Bush Lied 2007 & Again 2007
“'The facts are not in question,' the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion...'The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report.'”
---------------------
Apparently, the White House is going to lie about it. Or, call it spin - Bush says now that eight benchmarks have been met, eight haven't and two could go either way.
As reported earlier in the week, “In a speech in Cleveland, Bush acknowledged that this week’s report would show little progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq…When Bush outlined the surge plan in January, he offered a hopeful vision of the progress he expected from Iraqi leaders. Six months later, none of the benchmarks that Bush discussed has been accomplished.”
That man has put the troops' lives and well-being, the nation's security and our country’s standing on the line to try to save his own reputation.
----------------------
“A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001
The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.”
----------------------
Also, Musharraf is in big trouble in Pakistan and if that state goes radical then we have a bigger problem than before any of this ever happened.
The people of this country had already forgotten about Afghanistan when they took up the campaign against Iraq.
The execution of both wars has been incompetent and negligent and the warnings about Afghanistan have gone unheeded.
The people apparently believe that we are invincible and so have not even paid attention to the facts on the ground – the resources that were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq were insufficient and now both may be lost.
-----------------------
“The findings could bolster the president's hand at a moment when support on Capitol Hill for the war is eroding and the administration is struggling to defend its decision for a military buildup in Iraq.”
-----------------------
That wouldn't surprise me. Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaida but the people wanted blood and they are probably still scared enough now that they would be willing to believe anything, thinking if they can win in Iraq somehow (without enough troops) they will have done something to al-Qaida, which is reportedly established in SIXTY countries.
And in spite of the fact that al-Qaida "has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it."
************************
Bush Lied 2007 Again:
It is now reported that Bush has presented "newly declassified" data and has "built on" his "oft-repeated assertions" that al-Qaida in Iraq is intimately tied to Osama bin Laden's terror network.
This new data must have fell through the cracks because the recently released National Intelligence Estimate is a consensus opinion of all of our intelligence agencies.
************************
---------------------
Apparently, the White House is going to lie about it. Or, call it spin - Bush says now that eight benchmarks have been met, eight haven't and two could go either way.
As reported earlier in the week, “In a speech in Cleveland, Bush acknowledged that this week’s report would show little progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq…When Bush outlined the surge plan in January, he offered a hopeful vision of the progress he expected from Iraqi leaders. Six months later, none of the benchmarks that Bush discussed has been accomplished.”
That man has put the troops' lives and well-being, the nation's security and our country’s standing on the line to try to save his own reputation.
----------------------
“A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001
The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.”
----------------------
Also, Musharraf is in big trouble in Pakistan and if that state goes radical then we have a bigger problem than before any of this ever happened.
The people of this country had already forgotten about Afghanistan when they took up the campaign against Iraq.
The execution of both wars has been incompetent and negligent and the warnings about Afghanistan have gone unheeded.
The people apparently believe that we are invincible and so have not even paid attention to the facts on the ground – the resources that were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq were insufficient and now both may be lost.
-----------------------
“The findings could bolster the president's hand at a moment when support on Capitol Hill for the war is eroding and the administration is struggling to defend its decision for a military buildup in Iraq.”
-----------------------
That wouldn't surprise me. Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaida but the people wanted blood and they are probably still scared enough now that they would be willing to believe anything, thinking if they can win in Iraq somehow (without enough troops) they will have done something to al-Qaida, which is reportedly established in SIXTY countries.
And in spite of the fact that al-Qaida "has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it."
************************
Bush Lied 2007 Again:
It is now reported that Bush has presented "newly declassified" data and has "built on" his "oft-repeated assertions" that al-Qaida in Iraq is intimately tied to Osama bin Laden's terror network.
This new data must have fell through the cracks because the recently released National Intelligence Estimate is a consensus opinion of all of our intelligence agencies.
************************
Read Em And Weep
“This deck of cards is crashing down and it’s landing heavily on the heads of the soldiers and the Marines who have been deployed again and again while the rest of the country sits back and debates Iraq as an intellectual or emotional exercise.” – Sen. James Webb
As a Missourian, I am here to say where the buck stops – President Bush.
I understand the pressure that presidents are under to protect our country from attack. However, that is why we need a leader. A leader who will consider all of the factors as well as the costs and the consequences.
Analysts and experts specifically stated before the war that the years-long sanctions and previous military attacks on Iraq could have had a very negative effect on the country and the army and that Iraq could very well be in disarray making the possibility of an insurgency much more likely. There was no shortage of people who analyzed all of the possible scenarios before the war started.
Bush made no secret of the fact that he was inexperienced in foreign affairs and so he surrounded himself with the people he thought were the best. They were the “neocons” who had written a paper to overthrow Sadaam many years earlier and they just dusted off that plan and used it as if time stands still in Iraq.
And they put all their money on these exiles (Chalabi - a crook) who had not been in the country for years and who said we would be received as liberators - that was not proven to be true.
It was reported that dissenting views were not "strenuously" presented to the president. Rumsfeld set up his own little CIA inside the CIA to get the "information he wanted." And Cheney was over there DAILY breathing down their necks.
I judged from everything I had read that Iraq at the time of the invasion was relatively at peace - considering the difficulties that were likely to be encountered. Many experts said that Sadaam had been largely "defanged." In fact, there were so many reports cautioning about a quagmire and an insurgency and house-to-house combat and the insufficient number of troops going in that I was literally in shock when they did.
Of course, the U.S. is a superpower and we could probably take on any one. But, they would have to invest much more heavily in equipment than the "lean, mobile, and specialized" army that was the only army that Rumsfeld wanted - not just the only one he had.
And, they would have to have a draft because it appears that people are not so eager to enlist and some are not so eager to reenlist and even officers are not reenlisting at the same rate. It has been reported that the army is “cannibalizing” officers from other branches and some soldiers are doing jobs they were not trained to do.
There have also been reports that new enlistees are not getting the desert training they need before being sent off to combat where they must rely on equipment they are unfamiliar with because all equipment is left behind from former deployments.
“Al-Qaida Connections
WASHINGTON | President Bush contended anew Tuesday that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States are the same as al-Qaida in Iraq.
It was the second time in two weeks that Bush has made the link in an apparent attempt to transform lingering fear of another U.S. terrorist attack into backing for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq.
“Al-Qaida is doing most of the spectacular bombings, trying to incite sectarian violence,” Bush told a business group in Cleveland. “The same people that attacked us on September 11 is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims.”
Al-Qaida in Iraq did not emerge until 2004. While it is inspired by Osama bin Laden’s violent ideology, there is no evidence that the Iraq organization is under the control of the terrorist leader or his top aides, who are thought to be hiding in tribal regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.
Moreover, the two groups have been divided over tactics and strategy.”
----------------------------------------------
The report that says al-Qaida is back in Afghanistan is much more relevant I would think because that is where they train people, there and Pakistan, while our troops in Iraq and the Iraqi people are easy targets.
The war supporters (not troop supporters) are always saying that no one else has a plan. My plan would be to treat the global war on terror for what it is - criminals, extremists who are without a nation state scattered widely throughout the world who would have to be contained by using intelligence and cooperation from the other peoples of the world.
Instead, with his arrogance, Bush has alienated some of the very people we need to rely on. Would you blow NYC to smithereens to wipe out a terrorist on the loose? The war fanatics that are always saying we should indiscriminately bomb the Middle East need to get a grip. That is not going to happen. I don’t know how you could be informed and still think that that is the way to defeat this enemy; “shock and awe” certainly did not do it. And the destruction left behind would bear another crop of extremists.
The right-wing often accuses the other side of moral relativism. How is the above described indiscriminate bombing as well as the ends-justifies-the-means mentality not? Some of us believe that besides being ineffective, we don’t have the right to bring our war on terror to bear on the innocent people of Iraq.
Another favorite scare tactic that the catastrophe-supporters use is to say that al-Qaida wants to see a Democratic president and Congress because they are not as likely to respond in strength if attacked. Gijs de Vries, a former counter-terrorism expert of the Netherlands, said, “One of the time-honored tactics of terrorists is to draw governments into overreacting.” The war in Iraq would certainly qualify for that thousands of American lives as well as $5-6 billion dollars a month – a figure the Bush administration scoffed at before the war.
Also, the calamity-supporters say that we should profile Middle Eastern people at airports and other such venues. It was reported some time ago that al-Qaida was trying to recruit Asians to throw us off, the same with women. That's why you don't profile, that's why you don't assume. You just get it right.
What of the disaster-supporters idea that because of the war in Iraq we haven’t had another terrorist attack? The 9/11 plot reportedly took years to pull off and afterwards security was ratcheted way up. Awareness is way up, too. And it is much easier for them to attack our soldiers right next door.
The tragedy-supporters often ask what would happen upon a precipitous pullout. My hope would be that the terrorists would stop targeting innocent people. As for the sectarian violence and the so-called security vacuum, the Iraqis will just have to sort their differences out or their militias will, just as they are doing now.
Here is a link "In challenging war's critics, administration tinkers with truth" that spells out the different kinds of intelligence that the president is privy to and the way they have repeatedly misled the American people about it.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13185357.htm
As a Missourian, I am here to say where the buck stops – President Bush.
I understand the pressure that presidents are under to protect our country from attack. However, that is why we need a leader. A leader who will consider all of the factors as well as the costs and the consequences.
Analysts and experts specifically stated before the war that the years-long sanctions and previous military attacks on Iraq could have had a very negative effect on the country and the army and that Iraq could very well be in disarray making the possibility of an insurgency much more likely. There was no shortage of people who analyzed all of the possible scenarios before the war started.
Bush made no secret of the fact that he was inexperienced in foreign affairs and so he surrounded himself with the people he thought were the best. They were the “neocons” who had written a paper to overthrow Sadaam many years earlier and they just dusted off that plan and used it as if time stands still in Iraq.
And they put all their money on these exiles (Chalabi - a crook) who had not been in the country for years and who said we would be received as liberators - that was not proven to be true.
It was reported that dissenting views were not "strenuously" presented to the president. Rumsfeld set up his own little CIA inside the CIA to get the "information he wanted." And Cheney was over there DAILY breathing down their necks.
I judged from everything I had read that Iraq at the time of the invasion was relatively at peace - considering the difficulties that were likely to be encountered. Many experts said that Sadaam had been largely "defanged." In fact, there were so many reports cautioning about a quagmire and an insurgency and house-to-house combat and the insufficient number of troops going in that I was literally in shock when they did.
Of course, the U.S. is a superpower and we could probably take on any one. But, they would have to invest much more heavily in equipment than the "lean, mobile, and specialized" army that was the only army that Rumsfeld wanted - not just the only one he had.
And, they would have to have a draft because it appears that people are not so eager to enlist and some are not so eager to reenlist and even officers are not reenlisting at the same rate. It has been reported that the army is “cannibalizing” officers from other branches and some soldiers are doing jobs they were not trained to do.
There have also been reports that new enlistees are not getting the desert training they need before being sent off to combat where they must rely on equipment they are unfamiliar with because all equipment is left behind from former deployments.
“Al-Qaida Connections
WASHINGTON | President Bush contended anew Tuesday that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States are the same as al-Qaida in Iraq.
It was the second time in two weeks that Bush has made the link in an apparent attempt to transform lingering fear of another U.S. terrorist attack into backing for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq.
“Al-Qaida is doing most of the spectacular bombings, trying to incite sectarian violence,” Bush told a business group in Cleveland. “The same people that attacked us on September 11 is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims.”
Al-Qaida in Iraq did not emerge until 2004. While it is inspired by Osama bin Laden’s violent ideology, there is no evidence that the Iraq organization is under the control of the terrorist leader or his top aides, who are thought to be hiding in tribal regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.
Moreover, the two groups have been divided over tactics and strategy.”
----------------------------------------------
The report that says al-Qaida is back in Afghanistan is much more relevant I would think because that is where they train people, there and Pakistan, while our troops in Iraq and the Iraqi people are easy targets.
The war supporters (not troop supporters) are always saying that no one else has a plan. My plan would be to treat the global war on terror for what it is - criminals, extremists who are without a nation state scattered widely throughout the world who would have to be contained by using intelligence and cooperation from the other peoples of the world.
Instead, with his arrogance, Bush has alienated some of the very people we need to rely on. Would you blow NYC to smithereens to wipe out a terrorist on the loose? The war fanatics that are always saying we should indiscriminately bomb the Middle East need to get a grip. That is not going to happen. I don’t know how you could be informed and still think that that is the way to defeat this enemy; “shock and awe” certainly did not do it. And the destruction left behind would bear another crop of extremists.
The right-wing often accuses the other side of moral relativism. How is the above described indiscriminate bombing as well as the ends-justifies-the-means mentality not? Some of us believe that besides being ineffective, we don’t have the right to bring our war on terror to bear on the innocent people of Iraq.
Another favorite scare tactic that the catastrophe-supporters use is to say that al-Qaida wants to see a Democratic president and Congress because they are not as likely to respond in strength if attacked. Gijs de Vries, a former counter-terrorism expert of the Netherlands, said, “One of the time-honored tactics of terrorists is to draw governments into overreacting.” The war in Iraq would certainly qualify for that thousands of American lives as well as $5-6 billion dollars a month – a figure the Bush administration scoffed at before the war.
Also, the calamity-supporters say that we should profile Middle Eastern people at airports and other such venues. It was reported some time ago that al-Qaida was trying to recruit Asians to throw us off, the same with women. That's why you don't profile, that's why you don't assume. You just get it right.
What of the disaster-supporters idea that because of the war in Iraq we haven’t had another terrorist attack? The 9/11 plot reportedly took years to pull off and afterwards security was ratcheted way up. Awareness is way up, too. And it is much easier for them to attack our soldiers right next door.
The tragedy-supporters often ask what would happen upon a precipitous pullout. My hope would be that the terrorists would stop targeting innocent people. As for the sectarian violence and the so-called security vacuum, the Iraqis will just have to sort their differences out or their militias will, just as they are doing now.
Here is a link "In challenging war's critics, administration tinkers with truth" that spells out the different kinds of intelligence that the president is privy to and the way they have repeatedly misled the American people about it.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13185357.htm
Attorney General Gonzales
White House spokesman Tony Snow says that all that the investigation into the fired prosecutors has gotten us is "bupkis." Yes, if bupkis is what you call the U.S. Attorney General when he is squirming on the hot seat and causing this country untold humiliation and all his political supporters just carry on as if nothing is happening.
Snow also has said that the inquiries are “political theater” and amount to nothing more than “character assassination.” For the six years that the Republicans had control of the entire government, they pursued an agenda designed to benefit what they consider to be the only Americans - people that voted for them - the millions and millions of other people were nonexistent.
Somebody should inform these people that there are others out here who have been paying attention and we do not find anything entertaining, at all, about the disgrace these people have brought upon this country – our country, not just “their” country.
This administration cannot be allowed to get away with bringing down the U.S. Department of Justice. Period. They either fork over their witnesses and make them talk or go after Bush and Cheney.
Snow also has said that the inquiries are “political theater” and amount to nothing more than “character assassination.” For the six years that the Republicans had control of the entire government, they pursued an agenda designed to benefit what they consider to be the only Americans - people that voted for them - the millions and millions of other people were nonexistent.
Somebody should inform these people that there are others out here who have been paying attention and we do not find anything entertaining, at all, about the disgrace these people have brought upon this country – our country, not just “their” country.
This administration cannot be allowed to get away with bringing down the U.S. Department of Justice. Period. They either fork over their witnesses and make them talk or go after Bush and Cheney.
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