Damn good post. I would like to mention that in addition to the policy shift change that there have been some major shake ups in the chain of command, including the new director of intelligence, who is a much better choice than Negroponte (he'll do fine at state) was; and the change to the on the ground commander for Iraq. Gen. Petraious(sp?) is an incredible leader. Yeah, people bitch because he's aggressive and competitive, but what leader at that level isn't? He's also an intellectual, smart as hell, with several degrees, and a great soldier. I met him once a long time ago. He has presence. Like Gen. Hugh Shelton does.
I see him as a future Chairman of the JCS. If there is a man that can implement this, he can. I don't want to see more American dead soldiers than we have already, and being one of the few here that has seen dead American soldiers, trust me that's true. I also cannot sit back and allow this nation to pass on its responsibility to the people of Iraq now. See Gruss, this is where you kind of disappointed me man. You jumped ship. You were of the "we broke it we bought it" mindset, now you're "all retreat and run". What happened? Let's say that none of the cease fire violations occurred, none of the UN resolutions. Let's say all we had to go on was what we saw at the time from Saddam (ejection of inspectors and so forth) and the flawed intelligence. Now I work with these people, saw some of what they saw at that time, not to mention I was still in the military with friends around the world, and we talk. We thought he had shit; analysts thought he had shit. I would still have been for the invasion, and I was for the invasion then. Now, we come to today. We invaded, granted, on flawed intelligence (like that hasn't happened before). How is our responsibility to these people any less? "Oh, we found out that the intelligence was bad, let's just pull out now. Sure, Saddam is dead, but someone strong will emerge and kill the bad guys. He'll be another bad guy, but we just realized, this war stuff sucks!!" 3000 Americans have died in this country, Iraq. Not even a 10th of what was spent in Vietnam. Nothing compared to earlier wars. Yet far too many to cut and run. Far too many to now say it's their problem. They didn't invite us. They fought against us remember? Look at what happened after World War 2. Remember the Marshall plan? There were large scale troop movements around and into Europe at all times, to provide security and training. Rebuilding on a huge scale, far more money was spent (when you account for inflation) than what has been spent in Iraq. Far many more lives expended, far more work done. Decades, of camps and Nazi hunting and reprogramming; put forth to rebuild what was ravaged. Years of military government, military without even the pretense of a puppet regime needed. Look at Japan. Look at Korea, where we still only have a cease fire, and we still have troops stationed. Silly people. Welcome to Empire America. This is what the slow slide left has wrought on our nation. I still however can't see just backing out. Too many of my friends, my brothers, have given their lives for that soil, for this idea. I want to be able to believe that ideas, the intellect and morals and ethics still matter in this world. I have so little left at this point. > -----Original Message----- > From: Casey Dougall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 4:50 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: Bush's Iraq Policy Revealed! > > True True William, I should state I paraphrased it but in the end, and > Bruce, that made no sense. I never said I believe everything I here on the > radio, but I'll state now at least I believe more of NPR than I see on > CNN, > ABC or Any Television news network. > > After reading 3/4's of the report can state that I wouldn't be the only > one > thinking that the president isn't going to go in this direction. It's > stupid > if he doesn't. I could care less about Bush in general but what has > transpired was from HIS and OUR campaign against the past leadership of > Iraq > and the USA needs to deal with it. > > Everyone seems to think the USA is this great, happy go-lucky place where > everyone gets along but in the end if you took away the estimated 700,000 > police officers patrolling our streets you would see the same type of > violence happen here. It took a lot of time for the fear of the police, > courts and justest in general to ingrain it's self into the moral fabric > of > our nation but it would only take months for it to deteriorate if it was > removed. It's going to take a long time in Iraq as well but we need to > assist because they just don't have the forces in-place to do it > themselves. > > No one seems to be safe in Iraq right now and this is the problem. The > paper > from AEI has brought up some good points about population moral and what > happens to people when they feel scared and threatened. I think Baghdad is > used for the sake of America since we know the name of the city but hey, > I'm > sure the additional presence will help more than just training Iraq to > defend itself. > > I loved the part where the report talks about training their military vs > working alongside our military because it hints right on with everything > we've ever learned in any of our lives. Take their current training as > studding in school. It's classroom taught but, you have no real-life > experience and in the end, no-one hires you and you end up working at > McDonald's. > > Seems like the same thing is happening in Iraq. We train their forces, > they > attempt to get the real world experience they need to become exceptional > and > maybe start training their own forces but, they never get to that level > because they have never seen the exceptional. Now they fail, their units > as > a whole fail and the population doesn't respect them. > > There is only the rare few who are the best of the best. When you get down > to it, we've all learned by watching them. Just like Snowboarding or > Golfing > with people who suck, you end up semi-sucking because you are > playing/riding > with them. When the people you are Golfing with or Snowboarding with are > better than you, you get pushed to perform better and this takes your > involvement up the the next level. > > Gotta love this report though... 50 pages, double spaced, filled with > terms > Bush can understand and use next week when he starts talking about his > plan. > > > Casey > > > On 1/6/07, William Bowen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Oh, so because someone on the radio says something, it has to be true? > > > > No, what the NPR report *actually* said was "Now here's something you > > can do. This weekend go to AEI's website, aei.org. Read their Iraq > > proposal carefully and then next week when the President comes out to > > announce his new Iraq strategy compare and contrast, and don't be > > surprised if they look a lot alike." > > > > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6730831 > > > > Oh, it will require that you listen to NPR, hope your ear doesn't fall > > off!! > > > > ;-) > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:223886 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
