If nothing else confirmed me in my belief that I no longer have anything in common with the Democratic party, it’s the sounds of rejoicing from certain factions abroad. The political bedfellows cheering on the Democratic victory are a singularly distasteful, immoral, and dangerous group. Those who vocally supported the Democrats before the election included Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. In the wake of the election, European Socialists are dancing in the streets:
In an extraordinary joint statement, more than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as “the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world” and gloated that they left the Bush administration “seriously weakened.”
In London’s Guardian newspaper, commentator Martin Kettle wrote: “The cheering can be heard not just in America itself but around the planet.”
It’s always a sign that you’ve picked the wrong side when those backing you have brought their own countries to social and economic ruin, and have made them a supine target for a demographic and/or violent takeover by Muslim extremists. It’s also a sign that you’ve backed the immoral horse when Hugo Chavez is cheering you on:
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez said the Democrats won the election thanks to a “reprisal vote.”
If you need me, I’ll be in my office figuring out tax shelters and shopping for burkha patterns.
see ya rumsfeld.
i don’t think my day could get any better.
peace
I want you to hold your breath ’til he’s gone, Dagon…..
We’ll all watch.
see ya rumsfeld.
i don’t think my day could get any better.
peace – dagon
The better news is that Rumsfeld’s replacement is a Brent Scowcroft protege.
In the war between the idealogues and the pragmatists, the pragmatists have won.
err earl,
if i were somehow able to hold my breath for a negative 60 minutes, does that mean that i should actually try breathing harder for that time frame?
effective immediately bucko. try keeping up.
peace
In an extraordinary joint statement, more than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as “the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world” and gloated that they left the Bush administration “seriously weakened.”
Hey, don’t forget TS, Book, he’s rejoicing over the “death of neoconservatism” too.
It’s also a sign that you’ve backed the immoral horse when Hugo Chavez is cheering you on:
Bah, these aren’t signs. These are just icons the Right came up with, to bait and mislead the American people. They aren’t a danger to me, certainly. I should know, I live in America! Idiotic sarcasm aside, the Left has one principle, power, and it isn’t Constitutionally derived power either.
If you need me, I’ll be in my office figuring out tax shelters and shopping for burkha patterns.
I hear Teresa Heinz and those Hollywood Democrats have got tax evasion down with those foreign accounts and tax free interest incomes. Maybe you can get in touch with one of their lawyers and figure out the goods. Cause by golly, Hollywood is cheering right now, and not just for their bank accounts.
It will be a long time before we see a public servant as dedicated and capable as Donald Rumsfeld.
Lest anyone be misled; much of the opposition to DR resulted from his restructuring of the military. Many oxen were gored; and many Generals/Admirals who had ridden those oxen found a ready outlet for their negativity in the media. The somewhat muted outcry started before Iraq, but reached a crescendo because Gen Tommy Frank’s brilliantly conceived invasion plan did not follow the conventional formulae. Has anyone forgotten the parade of retired Generals on TV who were nightly predicting disaster in the desert? Did anyone ever imagine that Sadaam Hussein would be overthrown in a matter of 3 weeks? Does anyone with any realistic knowledge think that the casualty estimates forsaw less than 3,000 KIA within the first month, let alone within 3+ years? (BTW if you don’t know, the media lumps death from natural causes, traffic accidents, and KIA all together).
Now, Rumsfeld is castigated because the Iraqis do not move to self-sufficiency as quickly as we think they should. Weren’t our own Founding Fathers werefortunate that they did not have to build a nation in the current environment? Maybe most of the critics are blithely unaware of just how long it took to establish our Constituion based Republic.
Iraq war notwithstanding–and it is so easy to simplify that situation if you are standing on the sideline–Donald Rumsfeld has done a great service to the country by preparing the Defense structure for the challenges of the 21st century.
As to Iraq, now that they share leadership responsibility, I wait with bated breath to hear Pelosi, Reid, et al outline their brilliant plans for victory. (They do want victory, don’t they?)
I have never seen anyone who could face a hostile press and Congress with the style, grace and humor of Donald Rumsfeld. I expect that he honed such grace under pressure while earning his Navy Wings. Nevertheless, it is exceptional.
Fair winds and following seas, Rummy. We will miss you more than we can know.
You make good points, Oldflyer, but you should know in war, perception and the state of psychology is what matters, not what is really going on.
Rummy’s replacement is a guy Bush’s dad came up with. I just think Bush’s choice of nominees are so predictable and weird. Course, the Left won’t criticize Bush for “nepotism” now, not if they want to get rid of Rumsfield!! Ha.
It would be really funny if Bush made up some fake criticisms from his own people, about how he is so nepotistic for choosing Gates (choice of his father). Bush then tells the media, that this then means Rumsfield has to stay on. Can you imagine the look on the media’s faces? Can you imagine what the media would then start doing to defend Bush against the neopotism charges (Harriet Meyers II), just so they can get rid of Rumsfield?
God, having a predictable enemy can be so fun.
As for Tommy Franks, his strategy on a military basis was pretty efficient. But in the larger picture, the worst strategy Bush could have gone with, was the 3 week war. Because without the State Department and the Democrats supporting future reconstruction plans, well, you get what we got. Which was NOT worth the 3 week Short and Victoriosu War, all in all.
Some of those commenting here remind me of the scene in “2001, The Space Odyssey,” when the little apes were dancing around in glee. Not having the capacity to understand things outside of their experience.
Reasonable people can differ on all manner of things, but can appreciate a superior man who, for no personal gain, spent six years battling the imbedded bureaucracy in the military and the ankle biters in the media.
A man like Donald Rumsfeld is on a different plane, all but invisible to this rabble and we owe him a debt of thanks for his outstanding service to our country.
Ymarsakar–you forget that Gates was a Reagan man as much as a Bush 41 man. Reagan would have nominated him for DCI except that everyone in the NCS was tarnished by Iran-Contra.
You are mistaken about Frank’s strategy. It was brilliant even though his war strategy was distorted at the last minute by the fallout of the elections in Turkey, that prevented the 4th Inf Div from entering Iraq from the north and sweeping through the Sunni stronghold as originally planned. From a military point of view this changed the whole dynamic because Kuwait could not support the logistics of introducing another whole division from the South. Even so he achieved stunning success.
Subsequent events were impacted by a number of factors that had nothing to do with Franks. If you recall who departed the scene not long after the invasion was completed. I started to list a litany of factors and questions about the post-invasion events–but deleted them. Still, there are a couple of meaningful points.
1. The war and its immediate aftermath were conducted with the intent to minimize impact on Iraqi infrastructure and society.
2. Both in the conduct of the war and its aftermath, there was a serious effort to be viewed by Iraqis, and the rest of the Arab world, as Liberators- not Conqueors. Every effort was made not to be overly heavy-handed in the aftermath of Sadaam’s overthrow. That was not an unwise postition. Many who would have supported it at the time now criticize with the benefit of perfect hindsight.
3. The development of an organized insurgency was masked by post-war confusion and criminal activity. Perhaps it should have been recognized sooner. Again it is so easy to recognize in hind sight.
4.Once the insurgency was recognized a conscious decision was made to try to counter it with minimal force to avoid antagonizing Iraqis and the fabled Arab street. In retrospect it was a mistake not to come down forcefully on the Sunnis and Sadr at the beginning. I don’t know who drove those decisions, but second guessing is so damn easy. That is why so many people do it.
Finally, I am not convinced that the Iraqi situation will not turn out satisfactorily in the long run. I believe that they, the Iraqis as a whole, have demonstrated their courage and commitment to a united nation. They have accomplished a lot. They have faced up to the foreign intruders, the Sadaamist remmnants and the secterian in-fighting. They just don’t go about things the way we would like for them to, or at a pace that satisfies Americans. But, I believe with continued support they will get there.
Things must be getting interesting when the Left sees someone from the Iran Contra thing as being preferable to Rummy.
You are mistaken about Frank’s strategy. It was brilliant even though his war strategy was distorted at the last minute by the fallout of the elections in Turkey, that prevented the 4th Inf Div from entering Iraq from the north and sweeping through the Sunni stronghold as originally planned.
Any general that has to depend upon some nebulous “if and” condition being met via politics, hasn’t generated useful contingencies.
So either he believed the Sunnis didn’t need to be run through for the war to be a success, or he thought the Turks were a done deal.
From a military point of view this changed the whole dynamic because Kuwait could not support the logistics of introducing another whole division from the South. Even so he achieved stunning success.
From a military point of view, anyone that likes to write down perfect brilliant plans on paper and then finds out in reality things are different, needs to go back to Command college. Franks didn’t care about the logistics, his frontal armored columns were moving so fast, by his orders, that they were running out of fuel and out distancing the supply convoys. Franks already knew he had logistic problems, so there were two solutions to that. Either fast mobilization, which ends the war quickly, and then allows him to solidfy his logistical lines. Or he can move slow, and solidify his logistics while he is fighting. You don’t have to change his overall strategy, to change the tactical and logistical details.
If Franks’ plan relied so heavily on one slice, in order to get rid of the Baath party structure to avoid incipient insurgency fights, then his plan wasn’t brilliant in the first place. He had plenty of time to come up with something else once he knew the Turks wasn’t going on, so either he wasn’t thinking about the future insurgency, or he believed it couldn’t be helped. Bush said he went with what the generals told him, and that was the truth.
Franks’ plan was wrong politically, which means Bush should have changed it. When the military plan is inconsistent with the political one, nothing gets done.
So if you want to increase the standards for Franks’ plan to mean he covered all the political angles, that it was brilliant even with the political ramifications, you are assigning too much power to the general than he himself wielded.
So the only option left, is to recognize that Franks’ plan was the worst plan given the political situation, current and future, that Bush could have chosen. That is no mistake on my part. This is independent of the military question, because the military question, by all observation, stopped when Baghdad fell. There was no military plan for post-invasion, no military general in charge, no martial law, no shoot on sight orders, no nothing. There was no plan, because the military thought the politicians would come in and finish the occupation. Frank’s didn’t plan for the insurgency, because the insurgency was a political problem for the politicians to solve. Remember, this was the post-Clinton Peacetime Army, we are talking. They forgot almost everything they learned about insurgency in Vietnam. Only the Marines kept insurgency warfare alive as an official policy.
2. Both in the conduct of the war and its aftermath, there was a serious effort to be viewed by Iraqis, and the rest of the Arab world, as Liberators- not Conqueors.
If you want to be a liberator, you have to leave right afterwards. If you don’t care about what the high school popularity contest is, then you do what is required, forget the opinions.
The Iraqis expected you, the new conquerors, to take up what Saddam left off. When you didn’t do that, that created the vacuum, which allowed insurgencies to plant IEDs. I don’t think the Iraqis owe America any gratitude for leaving a power vacuum because Americans cared more for being liked as liberators than viewed as conquerors. A competent conqueror is infinitely better than a feckless liberator.
Every effort was made not to be overly heavy-handed in the aftermath of Sadaam’s overthrow.
The faster the invasion, the more heavy handed you were required to be. If you want to be less heavy handed, which I remind you is a political decision for the President, you need a military strategy that is consistent with the political goal. Less heavy handed, requires the “Iraqi Face”. So you can either train up local forces and power brokers via IEDs blowing up Americans, or you can train up local forces while fighting Saddam in a six month guerrila war. Depending upon which you choose, it affects the political end result. By having a short invasion, you were left with nobody to take charge, no politicians, no freedom fighter Massoud leaders, and sure as heck no trained and disciplined Iraqi army. So all that was left was you, the American occupation forces. And if you still refuse to be heavy handed, which your military strategy has ultimately lead you to that predicament, you will have looting and nation wide rampages.
A short invasion, inexorably lead to the situation in Iraq, in the first few months after OIF 1 was completed.
Many who would have supported it at the time now criticize with the benefit of perfect hindsight.
That is why I don’t use hindsight, I use historical consistency. Hindsight is for checking whether I’m right or not after the fact.
I don’t know who drove those decisions, but second guessing is so damn easy.
it is guessing, of course it is easy. What I do is different, several orders of magnitude different.
Finally, I am not convinced that the Iraqi situation will not turn out satisfactorily in the long run.
It would end right now, in 2 weeks, if Bush listed a couple of thousand people to be executed in 24 hours by the American and Iraqi commando units, video taped and released world wide. Purges end resistance, pretty fast. It is not like they don’t know who the bad guys are, Old.
So while you can’t change the past, with Bush being soft on the Sunnis or whatever, you can change the future by learning from your mistakes, and doing what you should have done, except doing it now. Bush hasn’t done so, and so America is pissed off, naturally. Most Americans may not know exactly why they are pissed off, or what solutions are available, but I know exactly why and I have a slate of options that I prefer over other slates of options to solve Iraq. All the solutions that I see, are more effective than what Bush himself has fielded, because it relies upon psychology, the component that is most important in guerrila warfare, aside from logistics. But I have options available, to take care of the logistical problem as well. There are so many options that is available to Bush, that it is curious why Bush seems to be in a dead zone, as if people are preventing him from seeing the obvious.
Subsequent events were impacted by a number of factors that had nothing to do with Franks.
At the end, Old, the military is there to fullfill political goals, through force and martial means. The military was still in control of Iraq afterwards, and Franks, I believe, was still in command. I forget when he resigned and retired. Oh wait, didn’t he resign like right after OIF 1? So who was planning for the occupation? You can’t really say that Franks had nothing to do with the consequences of his own war strategy. Because the events in Iraqi 2003 post May, had everything to do with Franks strategy. Even though the President authorized it, it was still his strategy. You just can’t say that things happened that had nothing to do with Franks. He was the guy on the offensive, he was the one making the enemy react, whatever reactions resulted, was due to the actions Franks took.
Invading Iraq was a major mistake that will hurt the security of our country for many years to come. All because of an uneducated President who allowed himself to be manipulated by insane neo-cons rather than listen to the advice of his own father and friends.
A President who fires his Secretary of Defense the day after the election rather than 6 months before (a move that cost his party the Senate)does not deserve to be President.
A “supposedly conservative party” that……
1)has spent more than any other in history
2)has borrowed more than any other in history
3)has increased the size of our Federal government
4)has taken away habeus corpus
5)has authorized warrantless spying on Americans
6)has engaged in wreckless foreign policy using piss-poor military strategy that would have General’s Lee and Eisenhower rolling over in their graves.
7)has been responsible for awarding government “no-bid” contracts to corporations without holding the companies accountable for the goods and services they promised to provide—Billions and Billions OF TAXPAYERS MONEY given away to corporations that do not deserve them—and 100% refusal to investigate—–THIS IS CALLED THEFT.
8)has been responsible for over the deaths of over 2800 American troops and over one hundred thousand Iraqi citizens
9)has managed to make Saddam Hussein look like a better option.
10)has become the definition of the “Military Industrial Complex”
11)is homophobic and homosexual at the same time
12)uses and abuses the Christian right
…….is a sad, sad, story.
Listening to the Democrats and going to the UN was the top 2 or 3 biggest mistakes, Bush made.