Wow-  What an indictment of the admin's mistreatment of the military.  Did not know that the messed up war plan was actually a SCALED UP version from a 50,000 man plan! The Col. (forgot his name) was a fuckin' idiot!  The generals tried to inject reality and the neocons slammed then at every turn.

I never thought I would be in favour of a seven days in may scenario, but this gave me thought.  A military intervention to suppress the neo-colonial ambitions of clowns like Wolfowitz would have been totalyl justified!

And you "pro military" guys are buying it hook line and sinker.  To see all those talking heads, decorated veterans and GOPers to a man teling the story of a Admin gone amok was so sad.  The pain in their eyes of telling how they let everybody know we were headed straight for this BS situation and were silenced was palpable.

Shinseki deserves a abject apology from Rummy.  Rummy deserves a public execution.

And our present open vulnerability to any real threat sits there like a ticking bomb.

Bribri, FT96, RLTW et al.- I gott a say it again cuz you apparently are off in La -La land-

"IF YOU ARE NOT OUTRAGED_ YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!"

Don't bitch about me when you are having trouble tutoring your grandkids in Mandarin!  You will have earned the commisar's derision!



-- Modified on 10/27/2004 5:34:39 PM

Did the producers of Frontline include interviews with General Franks, General Abizaid, General Myers, SecDef Rumsfeld and some of the field commanders in their documentary? If so, I'm interested in finding a transcript. If not, then there's nothing else to say about it.

RLTW

-- Modified on 10/27/2004 7:40:12 PM

Rumsfeld declined to be interviewed.   The full program and transcripts are at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/


This is a show that everyone should watch.  The main argugment is to show how the civilian Pentagon officials rejected the input of the top miltary leaders in planning for the Iraq war.  We've all seen the consequences of this error.

the forest for the trees if you continue on this path.

My fan club has shown me the light! All the blunders, lies and deceptions by the current admin. mean NOTHING! Oops, the forest just turned to a blur for me again..... LOL.....

It is all about who you would rather have a beer with. Nothing more, nothing less. Unless of course you are undecided. Then it is all about which candidate makes the biggest FALSE promise.






And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander-in-Chief.
   -- Is he referring to his own invasion of Iraq here? Lititz, Pennsylvania, Oct. 27, 2004

And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not the person you want as the Commander-in-Chief.
   -- History repeats in rapid succession... Vienna, Ohio, Oct. 27, 2004

The above quotes copied from:
http://www.dubyaspeak.com/freshdubya.shtml


-- Modified on 10/28/2004 4:59:41 AM

were overruled by civilians in the Pentagon.  

but let's clear something up first. Tommy Franks was the General most responsible for planning the Iraq invasion. Not the civilians at the Pentagon. And not retired (not fired) Generals who were never involved in the planning in the first place.

The President along with the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor set goals for the military actions proposed. The Joint Staff was tasked with planning the overall campaign and designating individual combatant commanders to be responsible for planning to execute their portion of the campaign plan. These plans were submitted back up to the Joint Staff for approval and then once approved, sent to the President for inspection. The entire war plan for Iraq or Afghanistan is extremely complex and elaborate and relies on certain assumptions made by the Intelligence services about the characteristics of the situation in each theatre.

Your last sentence is interesting, "The main argugment is to show how the civilian Pentagon officials rejected the input of the top miltary leaders in planning for the Iraq war.". Yes, I can believe that the producers of the show wanted to convey that very message. I'll read the transcript before I make a final judgement, but my gut feeling is that the story is tilted toward only one POV.

RLTW

Bribri, FT96, RLTW et al.- I gott a say it again cuz you apparently are off in La -La land-

"IF YOU ARE NOT OUTRAGED_ YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!"

Don't bitch about me when you are having trouble tutoring your grandkids in Mandarin!  You will have earned the commisar's derision!



HAve I ever been in favor of this war Sully? I just finished giving you a bit of praise in an above thread. (Bet you never thought i might support you). I've been so outraged about many topics, including war for israel. I find it funny how everyone would rip me a new a-hole for my position.

We won't be speaking mandarin, it will be spanish. For speaking up about the borders, i get called a racist. Funny shit...
The mandarin will be spoke in canada and the northern U.S. What a pathetic country we are, we let the chinese and mexicans freely invade our lands. They are showing no desire to become "americans", they are just looking to expand their empires. Our shitty leadership is letting them.

The main argugment is to show how the civilian Pentagon officials rejected the input of the top miltary leaders in planning for the Iraq war.  We've all seen the consequences of this error.

YOu should say. how "jews" rejected the top military leaders. They have the attitude of; fuck the American people, let them live with the consequences, and pay for the war, israel and our jewish agenda is more important.

That`s funny Poop but I never saw you defend your previous post. Let me define "can`t see the forest for the trees" for you so you can have another chance to stand up for yourself with something more than a weak "is that right...lol". In a nutshell, you missed the point and continue to supply ammunition to those who would point out the flawed style you use to argue your position. I just thought it was funny that you chose to continue after having been called on it.

 The original post was pointing out that some party faithful cant do anything but knock the opponent instead of rely on their mans record and support his accomplishments. Then, along comes a few posts that say...yeah.... he sure sucks and someone claims you`re just being ironic. Personally I would have said sarcastic but whatever. Having read some of your other enlightened opinions, given rationally and without hate, (note the sarcasm) I pointed out that you proved the point of the original post.

 Irony? Sarcasm? I doubt it. Your political beliefs are certainly well known here and welcomed, at least by me.

Check the transcript or try to catch a re-broadcast of this show.  As Sully pointed out, Rumsfeld initially wanted a war plan that used just 50,000 soliders, totally disregarding what the top generals told him would be required to do the job.  The Frontline interviews highlights the internal conflict that the military commanders faced, with the obligation to carry out orders from their civilian bosses even though the knew that the force levels and war plans were inadequate for task they were being assigned.

There were two people in the Pentagon who spoke publicly of their reservations:  Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinsecki and Army Secretary Thomas White, a retired Brig. General.  They were both fired.

Howdy Funtime partner.  Have not crossed swords with you for a while.  Now that the formalities are over, it's time to punch one of your assertions full of holes.  A study by a non-partisan group that had established academic credentials and had vast experience with doing population surveys found.....TADAHHHH!!!  That second generation children of all immigrant populations were more comfortable speaking english than the language of the country that their ancestors came from.  They were also generally more comfortable with your culture than that of their ancestors.  Sort of knocks a few hairs off your ass, huh?  The young ARE assimilating into OUR culture, not the other way around.
    There was no need for me to read the survey, I knew the most likely outcomes from experience with immigrants and their US born offspring.

For military people to be overruled by civilians, history is replete with such situations.  If Hiltler had listened to his military thinkers, all of Europe could have been in jackboots by now.  If Stalin had always listened to his military people, Russia would have been overrun by the Nazis.  If Johnson had listened to Westmoreland, he would have been more than a one- termer (not counting the Kennedy years that he finished).  If Lincoln had listened to many of his generals, grits would be a staple in everyone's diet in this country.  Fortunately, and sometimes unfortunately, civilian leaders decide counter to the wishes of their military leaders.

English would really speed it up.  And when you go over to Europe, just say your an American.  And if they say what part? You say: You know where I'm ffrom.

And if tey say no I don't.  Then say:  Well why don't you make a guess.

And if they say something really stupid like- Canada?  Just ignore them or shove them if they're a punk rocker.

You are trying to define a phrase that means many things to many people and this being a political discussion I think I will leave the analizing to the true professionals, the media.
And since you have been following my posts so closely you should realize that I have mentioned the "dumbing down of a nation", and the message that statement conveys. I would only be able to sarcastically explain it so you draw your own conclusion as to what I am saying.

Now I would like to know why you do not like the quotes I have posted from W's speeches, also why the other facts that I post about the current admin. are so offensive to you?

hEY STILLTRYIN, when was that study done? 1938? 1956? That study has zero relevance to the present. The majority of mexicans in the L.A. unified school district drop out before their senior year. They are not attempting to further their education or acclimate because they feel "comfortable" speaking their primary language .
Also in past times when immigrants made efforts to be english speaking americans, we were a white country with a handful of negroes and mixed race individuals. We had an identity. Now we have so many mexicans, 30-40 million chinese and growing, and countless other non english speaking, nonwhite immigrants that our once proud American Culture has faded into Balkan like 3rd world multi language\culture shithole, that todays immigrants feel comfortable remaining in the status quo. Hell they don't know if they should retain their spanish, learn chinese, ebonics, maybe a dash of english.

It was good writing to you Still, hope you have a good weekend. Don't put much stock into those jewish "studies". They are designed to mislead. We can't have the one world government that the jew wants with a powerful and homogenous America.

Nothing you have said offends me Poop. I don`t agree with allot of it but I have never been personally offended by you. I really believe you have every right to say anything you want here.

 I also would like to say that I don`t follow your posts closely at all. The fact is that in an attempt to make my point I opened up a few of your posts and copied some of them that I saw as relevant. It didn`t take long and frankly I got tired of looking so I settled on the ones I posted. They just seemed to illustrate the point of the original poster.

Nah, not a racist bone in your body.