23-10-2004 21:36									#61
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quote: Q-Cubed - I just came back to this thread because I saw you posted. I enjoy what you write, because it typically is consistant and well thought out. In fact it might qualify for that dirty word - moderate

what did you just call me?

	23-10-2004 21:56									#62
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quote: That might be true. This is quite different, though, from Kerry's constant refrain.

of course it's different from kerry's constant refrain. why? because kerry's refrain is that shinseki was fired, which is utter bollocks.

just because kerry's being a douche and using the good name of shinseki doesn't mean that the administration wasn't filled with asshattery towards shinseki.

robert novak
bruce clark
washington monthly

novak again

ned, there's no "that might be true" about it. rumsfeld announced shinseki's retirement 14 months before it was scheduled, which is unprecedented--and in the words of many pentagonites, made shinseki a lame duck.

shinseki wasn't fired because of his predicitions. he made those predictions after he was reduced to irrelevance because rumsfeld didn't like him.

	23-10-2004 22:03									#63
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quote: I keep wondering why Bush lets Kerry get away with the lie about Shinseki? No one disciplined him or fired him over what he said.

he wasn't disciplined. they did say shinseki was bad with numbers, though, and that his estimate that it would take hundreds of thousands of troops was worthless.

	23-10-2004 22:13									#64
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quote: And I'm still torn on the whole Iraqi invasion issue, it may have been a brilliant move to smoke out the terrorists instead of playing cat and mouse with them all over the globe. On the other hand, did invading Iraq motivate "fence sitters" to join the terrorist groups leaving us with even more enemies to deal with? What I'm afraid of is if we are planning on using Iraq as a staging ground for invasions of Iran and maybe Syria.

I'm much less conflicted on the war itself. I see it as a natural, if ugly, conclusion to Gulf War I (which I opposed, by the way). 9/11 was partly the result of al Qaeda being able to contend in its propaganda that the US was weak -- a paper tiger. One of the festering sores pointing to this weakness was that there was no ultimate consequence for Saddam. Add the Beirut barracks bombing, Somalia, etc. More directly, our presence in Saudi Arabia was due to our choice to not topple Saddam in Gulf War I. For this reason, I see Scowcroft's current stance as ludicrous, for instance, since his policies to let Saddam crush his rivals are what put us in this mess in the first place.

The tough choices that we have had to make over the last two years have been choices between lesser evils. But we have to make them, in order to bring the underlying problems of Gulf War I to some sort of conclusion/solution.

In tactical arena of the terror war, I know it's ugly, but we are pounding targets in Fallujah every day. Some of those bombs kill bona fide terrorists. That should at least be some consolation to those who believe that the war was tactically unwise.

	23-10-2004 22:13									#65
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Q-Cubed, thanks for tracking that down. Now it makes a little more sense, and also follows from the Rumsfeld DOD. Marginalize those who you don't like or disagree with. This means that Shinseki was not per se risking his career, he was just being honest when he had nothing left to lose. Doesn't change my attitude about Rumsfeld or Bush one bit, but it does mean that Shinseki wasn't being heroic and sacrificing his career to save American boys. He still did the right thing, which is rare enough anyway these days, but that does put it in a different context.

	23-10-2004 22:18									#66
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quote: This means that Shinseki was not per se risking his career, he was just being honest when he had nothing left to lose. Doesn't change my attitude about Rumsfeld or Bush one bit, but it does mean that Shinseki wasn't being heroic and sacrificing his career to save American boys. He still did the right thing, which is rare enough anyway these days, but that does put it in a different context.

personally, i like think that shinseki would have said the same thing even if rumsfeld hadn't announced his retirement... but that's just idle speculation and my respect for the first american-asian joint chief.

	24-10-2004 00:10									#67
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I'd wondered about the name, but I wasn't sure.

	24-10-2004 00:31									#68
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Regarding the total dismantlement of the army, that was Defense's **** just as much as Bremer's. Feith and Chalabi were big proponents fo this, and I wouldn't be suprised if they exerted some pressure on Bremer to that effect. Bremer was state's man after all, so he'd be slightly less inclined to make insane policy decisions. And yes, that was a horrendous mistake without a doubt; increasing Iraq's unemployment (especially of people with weapons) by so much, was one of the many pivotal mistakes in the occupation of Iraq.

In any case Bremer's mistakes were legion, and the Bush Administration is far more culpable than Bremer for these mistakes.

	24-10-2004 00:41									#69
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quote: I'm much less conflicted on the war itself. I see it as a natural, if ugly, conclusion to Gulf War I (which I opposed, by the way). 9/11 was partly the result of al Qaeda being able to contend in its propaganda that the US was weak -- a paper tiger.

Not really. The idea of 9/11 was to create a lose-lose scenario for the US. We could either back out of the Muslim world in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, abandoning our satellite states, or we could invade and get in a long quagmire where we'd piss off the Islamic world immensely, possibly leading to revolutions toppling these secular states eventually. The latter scenario was to repeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for us; that's why the 9/11 hijackers didn't bother to use fake names - they wanted a trail leading straight to Kabul.

That ended up not happening in Afghanistan, but the irony is that that's exactly what happened in Iraq.

	24-10-2004 09:27									#70
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quote: , or we could invade and get in a long quagmire where we'd piss off the Islamic world immensely, possibly leading to revolutions toppling these secular states eventually. The latter scenario was to repeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for us;

Right, the Islamic fundies give themselves and the Afghani quagmire a HUGE amount credit for the collapse of the Soviets. Bin Ladin wanted to have the same thing happen to the US. Not the best logic in the world, but its pretty consistent.

	24-10-2004 10:27									#71
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Ned -

quote: Either that, or not finishing the job so that we could withdraw. With Saddam in power, we had no option but to stay.

We had the option to leave after the first Gulf War and leave Saddam with a simple yet clear message - don't invade your neighbors. If we gave him that message prior to his invasion of Kuwait, we could have avoided all this. But George the 1st was wishy washy and amoral so we got bogged down in a quagmire.

	25-10-2004 18:23									#72
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Ned - We had the option to leave after the first Gulf War and leave Saddam with a simple yet clear message - don't invade your neighbors. If we gave him that message prior to his invasion of Kuwait, we could have avoided all this. But George the 1st was wishy washy and amoral so we got bogged down in a quagmire.

Berz, you are obviously an intelligent man as you are leading the Lombardi contest by 4 over all competition. Now, I ask you this. Why did Bush I not finish Iraq off in 1991, but rather left it to UN sanctions to deal with the WMD? Let me give you two possible choices.

1) He was weak, as exhibited by the fact that he went to war against Saddam while Kerry voted against.

2) He had to limit his objectives to keep the coalition together. France, for one, would have vetoed any move on Saddam.

	25-10-2004 18:25									#73
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*points to sig*
*cough*

	25-10-2004 18:27									#74
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Bush said the only mistakes were some of his appointments.

So Bush admits it was all his fault? Great.

	25-10-2004 18:30									#75
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I'm sure that Cheny quote was post 1991 but pre-2000.

	25-10-2004 18:40									#76
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin I'm sure that Cheny quote was post 1991 but pre-2000.

But of course.

	25-10-2004 18:45									#77
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quote: Originally posted by Boshko *points to sig* *cough*

Bosko, maybe.

But the conventional wisdom is that Bush could not persuade the UN to authorize more than ejection from Kuwait. Immediately after the war, Bush called for Saddam's overthrow, indicating what he truly wanted.

	25-10-2004 18:48									#78
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The Cheney quote also shows that statements made to camouflage what really is going on can come back to haunt one.

	25-10-2004 18:52									#79
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Cheney and the most of the Gulf War I crew regretted that they didn't take Saddam out. It's virtually the same group running Gulf War II versus Gulf War I.

	25-10-2004 19:14									#80
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Berz, you are obviously an intelligent man as you are leading the Lombardi contest by 4 over all competition. Now, I ask you this. Why did Bush I not finish Iraq off in 1991, but rather left it to UN sanctions to deal with the WMD? Let me give you two possible choices. 1) He was weak, as exhibited by the fact that he went to war against Saddam while Kerry voted against. 2) He had to limit his objectives to keep the coalition together. France, for one, would have vetoed any move on Saddam.

Don't forget the UN and the legalities of war:
(and by UN I mean the whole wide scope of the organisation, including the security counsel)

Invading a souvereign nation and member of the UN by Iraq could call for the use of force to get Saddam out of Kuwait. And so, after some failed diplomacy, the UN authorized this.

Invading Iraq was, and is, a different matter. The UN thought they had better tools at hand to deal with the remaining threat that Iraq and its chemical weapons posed, and the cease-fire was signed.

IMO, certainly with hindsight, the threat of Saddam was effectively curtailed. There has not been a reason to invade Iraq. Not in 1991, and not now.

	25-10-2004 20:04									#81
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germanos, you do support my point. Bush I could not go after Saddam because the UNSC would not support it.

	25-10-2004 20:07									#82
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And this is why Berz was wrong to say that Bush I did not go after Saddam because Bush I was "weak."

	25-10-2004 20:10									#83
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Which is why, any president that requires UNSC approval to defend American interests is "weak," as most UN Members, including the majority of the permanent members, see the weakening of the US as their primary foreign policy objective.

	25-10-2004 20:10									#84
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Which is why Kerry will be weak president incapable of defending American interests.

	25-10-2004 20:12									#85
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quote: Originally posted by Ned He appears to have been overruled or undermined by State.

State had no say in the number of troops.

	25-10-2004 20:12									#86
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Cheney and the most of the Gulf War I crew regretted that they didn't take Saddam out. It's virtually the same group running Gulf War II versus Gulf War I.

They regretted not having watched a Shja revolt overthrow him, but Powell and most people actually in power at the time, as opposed to lower level apparatchiks did not show much contrition after the fact.

Only Powell and Cheney were in positions of power in 1991, and Powell has been reluctant from day one.

	25-10-2004 20:19									#87
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quote: Originally posted by Ned germanos, you do support my point. Bush I could not go after Saddam because the UNSC would not support it.

I have no problem supporting your point .

However, I have the feeling your point is the UN wouldn't support an invasion of Iraq because France is an ass, while in fact the UN wouldn't have supported such an invasion since it is against the UN-charter itself.

	25-10-2004 20:24									#88
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quote: Originally posted by germanos However, I have the feeling your point is the UN wouldn't support an invasion of Iraq because France is an ass, while in fact the UN wouldn't have supported such an invasion since it is against the UN-charter itself.

Given that the reason for the war was to support the rule of international law, we couldn't conclude that same war by violating it. The problem was less France than it was our Arab allies, who did not want to see Hussein toppled. A weakened Hussein was better for them than a democratic Iraq.

	25-10-2004 20:57									#89
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Which is why, any president that requires UNSC approval to defend American interests is "weak," as most UN Members, including the majority of the permanent members, see the weakening of the US as their primary foreign policy objective.

All UN member see looking after their own interests as their primary foriegn policy objective.

	25-10-2004 21:32									#90
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Which is why, any president that requires UNSC approval to defend American interests is "weak," as most UN Members, including the majority of the permanent members, see the weakening of the US as their primary foreign policy objective.

Who's proposing to do that?