Subscribe"If WMDs are not found in Iraq, and in large quantity (or at least objective evidence that they were destroyed), then, in terms of American politics, the war was a sham, and the President should be indicted.
-- posted by ParisParamus at 11:57 AM EST on April 29
"Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.
'I think we'll be here forever,' the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.
The Iraqi people suspect the same. Strong majorities tell pollsters they'd like to see a timetable for U.S. troops to leave, but believe Washington plans to keep military bases in their country.
[The Associated Press | March 20, 2006]
"I know it's hard to believe Mr. President, but they have these things now that actually record what you say and are able to play back what they record. Even after a long period of time. Keith Olbermann supplies the evidence." -- video/WMP; video/QT
Today in his speech in Cleveland:Bush: 'First -- just, if I might correct a misperception, I don't think we ever said, at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September 11th and Saddam Hussein.'In days gone by-SOTU-three years ago:Bush: "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda."Now-anyone listening and watching his speech back then would make that connection easily enough since al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 -- don't you think?"
A hunter goes into the woods to hunt a bear. He carries his trusty 22-gauge rifle with him. After a while, he spots a very large bear, takes aim, and fires. When the smoke clears, the bear is gone.
A moment later the bear taps the hunter on the shoulder and says, "No one shoots at me and gets away with it. You have two choices: I can rip your throat out and eat you, or you can drop your trousers, bend over, and I'll do you in the ass."
The hunter decides that anything is better than death, so he drops his trousers and bends over, and the bear does what he said he would do. After the bear has left, the hunter pulls up his trousers again and staggers back into town. He's pretty mad.
He buys a much larger gun and returns to the forest. He sees the same bear, aims, and fires. When the smoke clears, the bear is gone. A
moment later the bear taps the hunter on the shoulder and says, "You know what to do."
Afterwards, the crying hunter pulls up his trousers, crawls back into town, and buys a bazooka. Now he's really mad. He returns to the forest, sees the bear, aims, and fires. The force of the bazooka blast knocks him flat on his back. When the smoke clears, the bear is standing over him and says,
"You're not coming here for the hunting, are you?"
"After three years of war in Iraq, President Bush is trying to get Americans to look beyond the unrelenting violence that dominates news reports and see progress."Wah, wah, wah."
Progress is the buzzword at the White House as Bush headlines a campaign tied to the war's anniversary to buck up public support of the mission."
"The Vietnam War experience can’t tell us anything about the war in Iraq – or so it is said. If you believe that, trying looking through this lens, and you may change your mind..." [Nieman Watchdog | March 08, 2008]As well...
"Former Nixon adviser Alexander Haig said Saturday military leaders in Iraq are repeating a mistake made in Vietnam by not applying the full force of the military to win the war.
'Every asset of the nation must be applied to the conflict to bring about a quick and successful outcome, or don't do it,' Haig said. 'We're in the midst of another struggle where it appears to me we haven't learned very much.' [Associated Press | March 11, 2006]
Norman Podhoretz, who believes that American intervention in the Vietnam War was "an attempt born of noble ideals and impulses," has concluded that "the only way the United States could have avoided defeat in Vietnam was by staying out of the war altogether." His judgment, in retrospect, appears to be as reasonable as any. The United States intervened in the Vietnam War on behalf of a weak and incompetent ally, and it pursued a conventional military victory against a wily, elusive, and extraordinarily determined opponent who shifted to ultimately decisive conventional military operations only after inevitable American political exhaustion undermined potentially decisive US military responses. Even had the United States attained a conclusive military decision, its cost would have exceeded any possible benefit. Vietnam was then, and remains today, a strategic backwater, and the US decision to fight there in the 1960s was driven by a doctrine of containing communism that in the 1950s was witlessly militarized and indiscriminately extended to all of Asia. Bernard Brodie observed in the early 1970s that "it is now clear what we mean by calling the United States intervention in Vietnam a failure. . . . We mean that at least as early as the beginning of 1968 even the most favorable outcome . . . could not remotely be worth the price we would have paid for it."Vietnam in Retrospect: Could We Have Won?
The key to US defeat was a profound underestimation of enemy tenacity and fighting power, an underestimation born of a happy ignorance of Vietnamese history, a failure to appreciate the fundamental civil dimensions of the war, and a preoccupation with the measurable indices of military power and attendant disdain for the ultimately decisive intangibles. In 1965, Maxwell Taylor confessed that "the ability of the Viet Cong continuously to rebuild their units and make good their losses is one of the mysteries of this guerrilla war. We still find no plausible explanation of the continued strength of the Viet Cong." Four years later, Vo Nguyen Giap commented that the "United States has a strategy based on arithmetic. They question the computers, add and subtract, extract square roots, and then go into action. But arithmetical strategy doesn't work here. If it did, they'd have already exterminated us."
The United States could not have prevented the forcible reunification of Vietnam under communist auspices at a morally, materially, and strategically acceptable price.
"Three years of upbeat White House assessments about Iraq that turned out to be premature, incomplete or plain wrong are complicating President Bush's efforts to restore public faith in the military operation and his presidency, according to pollsters and Republican lawmakers and strategists."Wah, wah, wah."
The last two weeks have provided a snapshot of White House optimism that skeptics contend is at odds with the facts on the ground in Iraq."
[Washington Post | March 21, 2006]
"President Bush says he‘s spending his remaining 'political capital' on the war in Iraq . The trouble is, he may have little left....
What became of that political capital? 'I‘d say I‘m spending that capital on the war,' Bush told reporters. 'Social Security — it didn‘t get done,' he added.
With many Republicans putting distance between themselves and Bush on Iraq, it wasn‘t clear where exactly he was spending the capital.
'What political capital does he have? He doesn‘t have any on Iraq,' said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University. 'It was a bogus claim. He was emboldened by his election victory, which he viewed as a referendum on his presidency and on his party.'
[The Associated Press | March 22, 2006]
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posted by lodurr at 9:28 AM on March 20, 2006