TOP DEM LEADER PROCLAIMS: 'WAR IS LOST'
 

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apodixis PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:00 pm

“I REPEAT - Harry Reid is disparaging his country. That is what I have a problem with.”

Why is it disparaging the country to advocate a different strategy for dealing with the middle east than the current administration has ? It's the job of congress to establish the policies the people want and to direct their management.

"Everything in life is sales. And Harry Reid's sales pitch wouldn't make it in my book.”

Two thirds of the public are not buying the administration's Iraq war policy anymore.

“As with abortion and religion - it is obvious we are never going to see eye to eye here and so any further discussion is fruitless.”

Religion is based on beliefs, which you either have or don’t. But the Iraq war can be discussed as to what is its purpose and what are are the best means to accomplish those goals?

The only purpose I can see for any war is to secure the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of Americans. Is that a statement that all Americans would feel comfortable with ?

If so, then how is the Iraq war going to do that ? Wouldn't a better tactic be to precisely target the Jihadis who are threatening us with harm ?

I’m neither a liberal nor a conservative, but I’ll take a glass of cream sherry, if you’ve got some.




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dithers PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:52 am

apodixis wrote:
“I REPEAT - Harry Reid is disparaging his country. That is what I have a problem with.”

Why is it disparaging the country to advocate a different strategy for dealing with the middle east than the current administration has ? It's the job of congress to establish the policies the people want and to direct their management.

"Everything in life is sales. And Harry Reid's sales pitch wouldn't make it in my book.”

Two thirds of the public are not buying the administration's Iraq war policy anymore.

“As with abortion and religion - it is obvious we are never going to see eye to eye here and so any further discussion is fruitless.”

Religion is based on beliefs, which you either have or don’t. But the Iraq war can be discussed as to what is its purpose and what are are the best means to accomplish those goals?

The only purpose I can see for any war is to secure the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of Americans. Is that a statement that all Americans would feel comfortable with ?

If so, then how is the Iraq war going to do that ? Wouldn't a better tactic be to precisely target the Jihadis who are threatening us with harm ?

I’m neither a liberal nor a conservative, but I’ll take a glass of cream sherry, if you’ve got some.


Again, I've failed to make my point. I have a problem with these four words - The war is lost.

Again, he could have said the same thing but in a positive way that didn't make his country look like a big fat loser. Sheesh, even though Baghdad Bob got to the point of looking ridiculous when he took it too far perhaps Harry Reid could learn something from him.

Harry Reid is already backpedaling and some Dems are distancing themselves from those four words. It's not just me who feels this way about those four words.
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Need2Know PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 7:21 am

dithers you have a right to your opinion and so does Harry Reid. If you think this war is winnable and that we should keep on lying to ourselves, go right ahead. The military and the fighting men and women are not stupid and no senator or congressperson's opinion will change the facts as we all know them. You state very strong opinions but then take issues with people when they counter what you have written. If you are willing to start a thread being critical of what any person says, then be prepared to receive countering opinons on the matter. Many people, the majority of this country included, INCLUDING the majority of military families, are fed up with this campaign that has been a total disaster and has not accomplished ANYTHING to further the cause of freedom for us or for any of our world neigbors. THAT is the real issue many want to keep clouding because a senator had the balls to speak up and say enough is enough. The administration has played with too many lives for too long now and we need an exit strategy NOW; that is MY opinion. I have no problems with you stating what you feel, but don't get offended when others counter that or say you are "misunderstood". I like you very much and I appreciate your thoughts, and it is a very good thing that have the freedom to discuss these and other issues and also have the ability to be critical of our policies and our administration without some henchmen coming in the night and making us disappear. THAT is why I wore the uniform and why so many others have and have died for - but not for what has happened in Iraq.
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dithers PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:05 am

Need2Know wrote:
dithers you have a right to your opinion and so does Harry Reid. If you think this war is winnable and that we should keep on lying to ourselves, go right ahead. The military and the fighting men and women are not stupid and no senator or congressperson's opinion will change the facts as we all know them. You state very strong opinions but then take issues with people when they counter what you have written. If you are willing to start a thread being critical of what any person says, then be prepared to receive countering opinons on the matter. Many people, the majority of this country included, INCLUDING the majority of military families, are fed up with this campaign that has been a total disaster and has not accomplished ANYTHING to further the cause of freedom for us or for any of our world neigbors. THAT is the real issue many want to keep clouding because a senator had the balls to speak up and say enough is enough. The administration has played with too many lives for too long now and we need an exit strategy NOW; that is MY opinion. I have no problems with you stating what you feel, but don't get offended when others counter that or say you are "misunderstood". I like you very much and I appreciate your thoughts, and it is a very good thing that have the freedom to discuss these and other issues and also have the ability to be critical of our policies and our administration without some henchmen coming in the night and making us disappear. THAT is why I wore the uniform and why so many others have and have died for - but not for what has happened in Iraq.


Without going back over my posts to be certain, I don't believe I've offered any opinion as to whether or not the war has been won or lost or whether or not it was a good idea or whether or not we went into it based on false data or whether or not it's been run well.

Also without going back to check I don't think I've said any of you are wrong for believing as you do or for stating so. I do recall saying that I felt we should wait to hear what Gen. Petraeus has to say this coming week as he's the guy in charge.

Again, N2, I'm not taking issue with anyone's feelings on the war. And when I say I'm misunderstood I don't mean my feelings being hurt type of misunderstood - I mean I am not doing a good job of saying what I mean.

Anybody, including Harry Reid is free to think or say whatever they feel - except when it comes to Harry Reid. He does not have the right to publicy say the war is lost when troops are in the field. If he wants to change the course of the war and bring the troops home he can work toward that goal within the Senate chambers - which is exactly what he is doing. He didn't need to make his public announcement. I'm trying to find the article I read just last night where many Democrats expressed exactly the same sentiments as I have on his speaking those four words.
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yankee-in-france PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:10 am

Thanks for your input, N2K.

Dithers, I'll have a scotch on ice, please.


Dithers said:

"Why do everyone's rebuttals to me here have to be seen through the prism of Bush, or the reasons we went to war or the way it's been run."

YIF said:

-- because he made the decision to go to war and accepted Rummy's strategy as gospel. This is HIS war. I have said this before, but do you not wonder if the Repubs had not taken the shellacking they did last November whether Rummy would still be making the decisions.

Oh, alright, I'll have another. Very Happy
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Need2Know PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:14 am

yankee-in-france wrote:
Thanks for your input, N2K.

Dithers, I'll have a scotch on ice, please.


Dithers said:

"Why do everyone's rebuttals to me here have to be seen through the prism of Bush, or the reasons we went to war or the way it's been run."

YIF said:

-- because he made the decision to go to war and accepted Rummy's strategy as gospel. This is HIS war. I have said this before, but do you not wonder if the Repubs had not taken the shellacking they did last November whether Rummy would still be making the decisions.

Oh, alright, I'll have another. Very Happy


You finished that first one rather quickly, while talking/typing Shocked Very Happy
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yankee-in-france PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:15 am

I was hoping that no one noticed. Razz
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Need2Know PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:21 am

yankee-in-france wrote:
I was hoping that no one noticed. Razz


Are you sipping out of a straw? How late is it in France? Have you had breakfast yet? Laughing
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dithers PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:30 am

Need2Know wrote:
yankee-in-france wrote:
I was hoping that no one noticed. Razz


Are you sipping out of a straw? How late is it in France? Have you had breakfast yet? Laughing


I just finished breakfast and am having to fight thoughts of going down to the kitchen and retrieving that glass of wine I didn't finish last night.
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Need2Know PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:54 am

dithers wrote:
Need2Know wrote:
yankee-in-france wrote:
I was hoping that no one noticed. Razz


Are you sipping out of a straw? How late is it in France? Have you had breakfast yet? Laughing


I just finished breakfast and am having to fight thoughts of going down to the kitchen and retrieving that glass of wine I didn't finish last night.


Glass or bottle? Very Happy
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dithers PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:55 am

edit:

Sorry but I couldn't resize the pic to not blow the margins so just deleted the message.
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yankee-in-france PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 11:30 am

Now, now, it is 18:30 here and I'm doing dinner tonight, and I just poured a glass of wine.

A funny thing, I used to love scotch on ice, but since we moved to France, I stopped drinking it because the wine is fantastic. I poured myself a scotch about two years and OMG, I couldn't drink it. I have tried when I am in the States with friends, and it just doesn't taste right any more. I don't mind a single malt for an after dinner drink, but my scotch drinking days appear to be gone forever, and that's OK.

Take care all and have a good one. Very Happy
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Need2Know PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 11:33 am

yankee-in-france wrote:
Now, now, it is 18:30 here and I'm doing dinner tonight, and I just poured a glass of wine.

A funny thing, I used to love scotch on ice, but since we moved to France, I stopped drinking it because the wine is fantastic. I poured myself a scotch about two years and OMG, I couldn't drink it. I have tried when I am in the States with friends, and it just doesn't taste right any more. I don't mind a single malt for an after dinner drink, but my scotch drinking days appear to be gone forever, and that's OK.

Take care all and have a good one. Very Happy


CHEERS Wink

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dithers PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2007 4:29 pm

Hmmmm. If this story had been run by FOX I'd think it was to bolster the image of the War in Iraq. Given that it comes from CNN I'm left to conclude that it's Liberal CYA time now that they see 'leaving' isn't such an attractive option for one's reputation or the world situation.


Quote:
No safe way for U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn
POSTED: 5:08 p.m. EDT, May 2, 2007
Story Highlights
• Experts paint bleak picture of Iraq if U.S. troops fully withdraw
• Among potential scenarios: al Qaeda terror hub and larger regional conflict
• CNN analyst: "Saudi Arabia will not allow increasing Iranian dominance"
• U.S. general says early pullout would cause "huge vacuum"
Adjust font size:


(CNN) -- Pulling U.S. forces from Iraq could trigger catastrophe, CNN analysts and other observers warn, affecting not just Iraq but its neighbors in the Middle East, with far-reaching global implications.

Sectarian violence could erupt on a scale never seen before in Iraq if coalition troops leave before Iraq's security forces are ready. Supporters of al Qaeda could develop an international hub of terror from which to threaten the West. And the likely civil war could draw countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran into a broader conflict.

President Bush vetoed a war spending bill Tuesday precisely because the Democrat-led Congress required the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn by October 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.

Bush said such a deadline would be irresponsible and both sides are now working on new proposals -- which may have no pullout dates.

A rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops would hurt America's image and hand al Qaeda and other terror groups a propaganda victory that the United States is only a "paper tiger," CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said. (Send us your reaction)

"It would also play into their strategy, which is to create a mini-state somewhere in the Middle East where they can reorganize along the lines of what they did in Afghanistan in the late '90s," Bergen told CNN.com.

It was in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda allied with the Taliban, and were allowed to run terror bases and plan the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.

Bergen says it is imperative that the United States not let that happen in Iraq.

"What we must prevent is central/western Iraq [from] becoming a Sunni militant state that threatens our interests directly as an international terror hub," he said.

Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major-general and military analyst for CNN, agreed that Sunni Muslim fighters who support al Qaeda would seek an enclave inside a lawless Iraq likely riven along sectarian lines into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions.

There would be "increasing attempts by terrorists to establish a training sanctuary in Iraq," Shepperd said.

That's one of the reasons why a fast withdrawal will not happen, whatever the politicians say, the analysts predict. (Watch why a radical Shiite cleric wants U.S. troops out )

"Everyone wants the troops home -- the Iraqis, the U.S., the world -- but no one wants a precipitous withdrawal that produces a civil war, a bloodbath, nor a wider war in an unstable Mideast," Shepperd said, adding that the image of the United States was important too.

"And we do not want a U.S that is perceived as having been badly defeated in the global war on terror or as an unreliable future ally or coalition partner."

Shepperd, a veteran fighter pilot of the Vietnam War, has served as a CNN analyst of the Iraq war since it began. Bergen was one of the first Western journalists to ever meet with bin Laden, and is considered a leading authority on al Qaeda.

Shepperd: Oil sector could suffer
Shepperd said Iraq's neighbors would be drawn into the all-out civil war likely if U.S. forces left too quickly. Iran could move in to further strengthen its influence in southern Iraq; Turkey likely would move against the Kurds in the north; and Saudi Arabia would be inclined to take action to protect Sunnis in western Iraq, he said.

The oil sector could also get hit hard, with Iran potentially mining the Persian Gulf and attempting to close the Straits of Hormuz, putting a stranglehold on oil flow, Shepperd says.

"Oil prices would skyrocket," he said -- perhaps soaring from current prices of about $60 a barrel to more than $100 a barrel, with consequent rises at the gas pump.

And that could bring further trouble, Shepperd added. "Saudi Arabia will not allow increasing Iranian dominance to endanger its regime and oil economy."

On top of that, Iran could speed up its nuclear ambitions, causing a "daunting and depressing scenario" of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Turkey trying to get a nuclear bomb, Shepperd says.

Observers such as Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, say a wider Mideast conflict could be avoided.

But Alterman also fears that an Iraq left without U.S. support could turn into a center for international terrorism and a proxy battlefield for regional powers like Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

"All the surrounding countries would think their interests are much better maintained not by directly sending troops but by continuing to send money and weapons to the people fighting that war," he said.

"In my judgment, it would take decades for such an insurgency to quiet down."

There are 120,000 Iraq soldiers now classified as trained by the U.S. military in Iraq, along with 135,000 police force members. But the head of the Iraqi ground forces, Gen. Ali Ghiran-Majeed, recently told CNN that some of his soldiers don't even get paid, and that on any given day one quarter of the force is on vacation.

For U.S. troops on the ground, the idea of withdrawal is vexing.

"I think it would cause a huge vacuum that the enemies of Iraq -- enemies of the government -- would take advantage of," said U.S. Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, the commander of the Iraq Assistance Group.

Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre is one U.S. soldier who's come to the conclusion the United States cannot win the war, but he says he also fears the consequences of withdrawal.

"We are the buffer right now and when we pull out, the people who support us are going to feel the wrath, and the people who are against us ... they're going to ultimately win. And I think that's unfortunate," he said.

That is a prognosis that concerns many, though Shepperd sees a viable solution for Iraq, albeit one with a U.S. presence there for years to come.

"Done properly we should be in Iraq for years, not in a combat [role], but an embedded advisory role," he said.



http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/02/iraq.scenarios/index.html
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apodixis PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2007 10:03 pm

Great post of a thought provoking article, Dithers.

Did you see O'Reilly's interview with former CIA Director George Tenet tonight ?




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Need2Know PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 6:50 am

The greater question is why are we there in the first place? Ask George Tenet to give you a truthful analysis of what was really going on in this administration leading up to this disaster. Now we are left with cleaning up George Bush and Dick Cheney's war. Howevever anybody wants to paint it, this disastrous undertaking has proven how incompetence outside the military and the power and control games being played in the political arena can have very dire consequences on regular, every day Americans, but especially on the fine men and women of the Armed Forces and their families. This administration lied to us and continues to do so.

Oh, and just a little side not, I heard this morning that the Iraqi governing council is taking a two month vacation Shocked Shocked in the middle of a war and while our troops are trying to save their sorry asses and give them back their country, that pisses me off on too many levels to even rationalize or properly communicate Mad Mad
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dithers PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:10 am

George Bush and Dick Cheney didn't start this war in a vacumn on their own. World consensus was behind the thought that Saddam had WMD's, hence the U.N. resolutions. Others countries as well went to war in Iraq - not just Bush and Cheney. Bush and Cheney also had the backing of the members of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. government.

If you want to find fault it would have to be because they have stayed the course on their convictions.

Crying over spilled milk does no good.
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Need2Know PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:19 am

dithers wrote:
George Bush and Dick Cheney didn't start this war in a vacumn on their own. World consensus was behind the thought that Saddam had WMD's, hence the U.N. resolutions. Others countries as well went to war in Iraq - not just Bush and Cheney. Bush and Cheney also had the backing of the members of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. government.

If you want to find fault it would have to be because they have stayed the course on their convictions.

Crying over spilled milk does no good.


I have a very strong opinion that the deception was there in the very beginning. They KNEW there were no WMD - everything else followed this deception.
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Need2Know PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:21 am

dithers - what is your opinion about the Iraqi government taking two months off while our soldiers are dying?
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dithers PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:25 am

Quote:
N2K wrote:

The greater question is why are we there in the first place? Ask George Tenet to give you a truthful analysis of what was really going on in this administration leading up to this disaster


Oh, this George Tenet? Here's what Christopher Hitchens has to say about him and his truth.

Quote:
A Loser's History - George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, April 30, 2007, at 11:37 AM ET

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background. Further compliments are showered upon him. We discover that his main protector on Capitol Hill, Sen. David Boren, who represented Oklahoma until 1994, had implored President-elect Bush to retain this Clinton-era head of the CIA and if he had any doubts, to "ask your father":

When the younger Bush did, the former President George H.W. Bush said: "From what I hear, he's a good fellow," one of the highest accolades in the Bush family lexicon. Tenet … later led the effort to rename CIA headquarters for Bush, himself a former DCI.

No need to draw a very complex picture here: Tenet knows how the kiss-up and kiss-down game is played. And, for a rather mediocre man, he did well enough out of the arrangement while it lasted. Woodward was even willing to describe him as one who "had developed an understanding of the importance of human intelligence, HUMINT in spycraft." But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I only mean to say that it was a very favorably disposed chronicler who wrote this, in describing Tenet's reaction on the terrible morning of Sept. 11, 2001:

"This has bin Laden all over it," Tenet told Boren. "I've got to go." He also had another reaction, one that raised the real possibility that the CIA and the FBI had not done all that could have been done to prevent the terrorist attack. "I wonder," Tenet said, "if it has anything to do with this guy taking pilot training."

Notice the direct quotes that make it clear who is the author of this brilliant insight. And then pause for a second. The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspirators—the very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: "I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting." Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his "gut" but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies. His ridiculous agency, supposedly committed to "HUMINT" under his leadership, could not even do what John Walker Lindh had done—namely, infiltrate the Taliban and the Bin Laden circle. It's for this reason that the CIA now has to rely on torturing the few suspects it can catch, a policy, incidentally, that Tenet's book warmly defends.

So, the only really interesting question is why the president did not fire this vain and useless person on the very first day of the war. Instead, he awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom! Tenet is now so self-pitying that he expects us to believe that he was "not at all sure that [he] really wanted to accept" this honor. But it seems that he allowed or persuaded himself to do so, given that the citation didn't mention Iraq. You could imagine that Tenet had never sat directly behind Colin Powell at the United Nations, beaming like an overfed cat, as the secretary of state went through his rather ill-starred presentation. And who cares whether his "slam dunk" vulgarity was misquoted or not? We have better evidence than that. Here is what Tenet told the relevant Senate committee in February 2002:

Iraq … has also had contacts with al-Qaida. Their ties may be limited by divergent ideologies, but the two sides' mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggests that tactical cooperation between them is possible, even though Saddam is well aware that such activity would carry serious consequences.

As even the notion of it certainly should have done. At around the same time, on another nontrivial matter, Tenet informed the Senate armed services committee that: "We believe that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear weapons program." It is a little bit late for him to pose as if Iraq was a threat concocted in some crepuscular corner of the vice president's office. And it's pathetic for him to say, even in the feeble way that he chooses to phrase it, that "there was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat." (Emphasis added.) There had been a very serious debate over the course of at least three preceding administrations, whether Tenet "knew" of it or not. (He was only an intelligence specialist, after all.) As for his bawling and sobbing claim that faced with crisis in Iraq, "the administration's message was: Don't blame us. George Tenet and the CIA got us into this mess," I can say, as one who has attended about a thousand postmortems on Iraq in Washington, that I have never, ever, not once heard a single partisan of the administration say anything of the kind. The White House may have thought that it could count on the CIA to present some sort of solidity in a crisis but, as Sept. 11 had already proved, more fool the White House. In the post-Kuwait-war period, there was little political risk in doing what Tenet had always done and making the worst assumption about anything that Saddam Hussein might even be thinking about. (Who but an abject idiot would ever make a different assumption or grant the Baathists the smallest benefit of the least doubt?) But we forget so soon and so easily. The problem used to be the diametrically opposite one. The whole of our vaunted "intelligence" system completely refused to believe any of the warnings that Saddam Hussein was about to invade and occupy Kuwait in 1990. By the time the menace was taken seriously, the invasion itself was under way. This is why the work of Kenneth Pollack (this time titled The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq) was received with such gravity when it was published in 2002. Pollack had interpreted the signals correctly in 1990—and been ignored—and was arguing that another final round with Saddam was inevitable. His book did more to persuade policy-makers in Washington than anything ever said by Ahmad Chalabi. To revisit these arguments is to be reminded that no thinking person ever felt that the danger posed by a totalitarian and aggressive Iraq was a negligible one. And now comes Tenet, the man who got everything wrong and who ran the agency that couldn't think straight, to ask us to sympathize with his moanings about "Iraq—who, me?"

A highly irritating expression in Washington has it that "hindsight is always 20-20." Would that it were so. History is not a matter of hindsight and is not, in fact, always written by the victors. In this case, a bogus history is being offered by a real loser whose hindsight is cockeyed and who had no foresight at all.

http://www.slate.com/id/2165269/pagenum/all/#page_start
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yankee-in-france PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 8:29 am

Need2Know wrote:
dithers wrote:
George Bush and Dick Cheney didn't start this war in a vacumn on their own. World consensus was behind the thought that Saddam had WMD's, hence the U.N. resolutions. Others countries as well went to war in Iraq - not just Bush and Cheney. Bush and Cheney also had the backing of the members of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. government.

If you want to find fault it would have to be because they have stayed the course on their convictions.

Crying over spilled milk does no good.


I have a very strong opinion that the deception was there in the very beginning. They KNEW there were no WMD - everything else followed this deception.


Is there anyone who doubts that Bush wanted to take on Saddam whether it was in the interests of US or not? This guy was obviously itching for the chance to attack Iraq. In Bush at War (I do have the book and can give you a page number), he knew that Iraq was behind 9/11 but he didn't have the proof, but then if you're GWB, who needs proof.

Proof or not, we went to war, and it has gone downhill almost from the moment that "shock and awe" began. Our nation is now bogged down there for God knows how long because of the mistakes of this administration. Yes, they will indeed leave this mess for the next president to deal with. Do they not realize how seriously they have compromised world peace with this arrogant and foolhardy expedition?

And so we are involved in an unwinnable conflict but cannot bring home our armed forces due to further destabilization of the area, but we should accept the situation as it is, increase the troop levels, and keep pouring our nation's hard-earned greenbacks into Bush's folly. Gee, Dithers, isn't this wonderful?
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pax PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 8:37 am

My frustration with Bush and Cheney is that they dismissed critics of the war as unpatriotic, foolish or naive. In fact, they were none of those things.




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dithers PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:04 am

Need2Know wrote:
dithers - what is your opinion about the Iraqi government taking two months off while our soldiers are dying?


I think it's outrageous.
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dithers PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:54 am

dithers wrote:
Need2Know wrote:
dithers - what is your opinion about the Iraqi government taking two months off while our soldiers are dying?


I think it's outrageous.


That being said, why should anyone be surprised if they don't respect us?

The constant drumbeat of negativity from the media and those from the anti-war movement can have no other effect. As I've said so many times - everything in life is sales.

By accentuating the negatives the media and others have taken what could have been an opportunity to have real friends in the region. Yes, it's war and it isn't pretty but there are many positive things that could have been talked about rather than constantly using the words quagmire, occupation, Bush/Cheney = Hitler/Nazis, etc. and otherwise making the Iraqi's sound like a bunch of backward boobs who are unable to govern themselves.

It's called propaganda and advertising and both are proven to work. Too bad the negative message won out over the positive. In the end we are all the losers for it.
Pretty in Blonde



Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 3468

dithers PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:21 am

dithers wrote:
dithers wrote:
Need2Know wrote:
dithers - what is your opinion about the Iraqi government taking two months off while our soldiers are dying?


I think it's outrageous.


That being said, why should anyone be surprised if they don't respect us?

The constant drumbeat of negativity from the media and those from the anti-war movement can have no other effect. As I've said so many times - everything in life is sales.

By accentuating the negatives the media and others have taken what could have been an opportunity to have real friends in the region. Yes, it's war and it isn't pretty but there are many positive things that could have been talked about rather than constantly using the words quagmire, occupation, Bush/Cheney = Hitler/Nazis, etc. and otherwise making the Iraqi's sound like a bunch of backward boobs who are unable to govern themselves.

It's called propaganda and advertising and both are proven to work. Too bad the negative message won out over the positive. In the end we are all the losers for it.


Oh, and how could I have forgotten the biggest piece of negativity, the biggest morale buster, the greatest reason to not respect us - "The War is Lost." Yeah, that will inspire everyone to stay there and work.
Pretty in Blonde



Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 3468

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