Iraqi War Arm Chair Quarterbacks

[BruteForce]

Just watched a rented DVD titled "No End In Sight" about the how and why of the current situation in Iraq. I fully expected it to be a left-wing pile on but instead it turned out to be pretty balanced with very little commentary other than by the actual administration people who were involved in the first couple years of the war. 20/20 hindsight makes it easier to see the sequence of dropped balls that lead up to where we are now. Lots of interviews with key players in what was going on "on the ground". Notably absent are top administration officials like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bremmer (sp?) but that's to be expected.

One of the conclusions was that Bremmer disbanded the Iraqi army, he created the environment for the issues we face today. Two million armed men, and now unemployed, added into an already shattered economy set the scene for the anti-American sentiment and security vacuum that fueled the popularity of the militias and handed power to the mullahs who could harness it.

Anyway, recommended viewing no matter what your opinion is of the war.

http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/

[airborne_mp84]

I Got To Check It Out..i Was Deployed For A Year And Some Change From 03 To 04..is It At Blockbuster Video

[Hacklemerc]

I was deployed there about that same time. I'm interested in checking it out. If you enjoy a good read check out "Generation Kill" its follows a company of Marines during the invasion. Good book.

MP84 where were you at over there?

I was at Balad for a bit and then went to Abu Ghraib. Yes I was there while all the prisoner torture crap was going on, no I had no part in it. At the time I was signal, we ran comms for the whole prison. Real fun place.

[quota]

"No end in sight"...
Interesting, thanks. I ordered the DVD.

JP

[sailsmen]

Look at all the USA did that was wrong during 1776, WWI, WWII and the Cold War.

After Pearl Harbor when President Rosevelt assembled the heads of the armed forces and asked them if Japan invades where will our line of defense be they answered Chicago.

450,000 Military Deaths in WWII.

7,500 Military deaths from 1993-2001, a time of peace

~10,000 Military deaths 2001-09, a time of war.

During a war people are killed and things are destroyed, lots of bad things are happening.

[BruteForce]

Look at all the USA did that was wrong during 1776, WWI, WWII and the Cold War.

That's not the point. The point is that THIS war has been grossly mismanaged by the administration. Not the Joint Chiefs. Not the soldiers on the ground. By the Bush administration.

Just watch the movie. Its actually pretty well done.

[sailsmen]

The point is looking back in history what war has not been "grossly mismanaged"?

They are the rare exception.

What we do know is;
a) the USA has not been attacked since 911
b) Al Q. by their own account has been severly damaged
c) Military Deaths are less than expected.

Killing people and destroying things was "well managed" by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and The Emperor.

Volumes have been written about all the faults and mistakes of all the greatest armies and greatest governments.

"The point is that THIS war has been grossly mismanaged by the administration." - Compared to what war and what administration?

Do you honestly think Al Gore would have done things better? Our repsonse when the WTC was bombed the first time was to handle it as a "criminal matter".

The Clinton/Gore's "gross missmanagement" of Somalia litethe fuse resulting in 911. For an unbiased report;
"In September General Powell asked Aspin to approve the request of the U.S. commander in Somalia for tanks and armored vehicles for his forces. Aspin turned down the request. Shortly thereafter Aideed's forces in Mogadishu killed 18 U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 75 in attacks that also resulted in the shooting down of three U.S. helicopters and the capture of one pilot."

Many beleive it was because the Clinton/Gore admin did not want pictures on TV of USA tanks firing on "technicals" in pick ups, because it's not "fair". Compared to this perhaps Iraq is not being so poorly "mismanaged".

I have heard veterans tell the tales of the mess ups and poor equipment. Armored personnel carriers that small arms fire went right thru, torpedos that went deep below their targets, tanks that shots bounced off the enemy, bombs that would not release from the bomber, landing craft that could not get on the beach and planes that had no oxygen. Officers, including Generals that the troops plotted to kill.

A President that gave away half of Europe to the most murderous human to ever live and who was an Ally of Hitler. Some have said because the President was a Communists sympathizer.

Interesting they were talking about a war we won WWII!

http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/aspin.htm

Subject: View From Iraq

Let's 'Surge' Some More
By MICHAEL YON
April 11, 2008
It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.
I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.
The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."
As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.
Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.
Some people charge that we have merely "rented" the Sunni tribesmen, the former insurgents who now fight by our side. This implies that because we pay these people, their loyalty must be for sale to the highest bidder. But as Gen. Petraeus demonstrated in Nineveh province in 2003 to 2004, many of the Iraqis who filled the ranks of the Sunni insurgency from 2003 into 2007 could have been working with us all along, had we treated them intelligently and respectfully. In Nineveh in 2003, under then Maj. Gen. Petraeus's leadership, these men – many of them veterans of the Iraqi army – played a crucial role in restoring civil order. Yet due to excessive de-Baathification and the administration's attempt to marginalize powerful tribal sheiks in Anbar and other provinces – including men even Saddam dared not ignore – we transformed potential partners into dreaded enemies in less than a year.
Then al Qaeda in Iraq, which helped fund and tried to control the Sunni insurgency for its own ends, ***** too many women and boys, cut off too many heads, and brought drugs into too many neighborhoods. By outraging the tribes, it gave birth to the Sunni "awakening." We – and Iraq – got a second chance. Powerful tribes in Anbar province cooperate with us now because they came to see al Qaeda for what it is – and to see Americans for what we truly are.
Soldiers everywhere are paid, and good generals know it is dangerous to mess with a soldier's money. The shoeless heroes who froze at Valley Forge were paid, and when their pay did not come they threatened to leave – and some did. Soldiers have families and will not fight for a nation that allows their families to starve. But to say that the tribes who fight with us are "rented" is perhaps as vile a slander as to say that George Washington's men would have left him if the British offered a better deal.
Equally misguided were some senators' attempts to use Gen. Petraeus's statement, that there could be no purely military solution in Iraq, to dismiss our soldiers' achievements as "merely" military. In a successful counterinsurgency it is impossible to separate military and political success. The Sunni "awakening" was not primarily a military event any more than it was "bribery." It was a political event with enormous military benefits.
The huge drop in roadside bombings is also a political success – because the bombings were political events. It is not possible to bury a tank-busting 1,500-pound bomb in a neighborhood street without the neighbors noticing. Since the military cannot watch every road during every hour of the day (that would be a purely military solution), whether the bomb kills soldiers depends on whether the neighbors warn the soldiers or cover for the terrorists. Once they mostly stood silent; today they tend to pick up their cell phones and call the Americans. Even in big "kinetic" military operations like the taking of Baqubah in June 2007, politics was crucial. Casualties were a fraction of what we expected because, block-by-block, the citizens told our guys where to find the bad guys. I was there; I saw it.
The Iraqi central government is unsatisfactory at best. But the grass-roots political progress of the past year has been extraordinary – and is directly measurable in the drop in casualties.
This leads us to the most out-of-date aspect of the Senate debate: the argument about the pace of troop withdrawals. Precisely because we have made so much political progress in the past year, rather than talking about force reduction, Congress should be figuring ways and means to increase troop levels. For all our successes, we still do not have enough troops. This makes the fight longer and more lethal for the troops who are fighting. To give one example, I just returned this week from Nineveh province, where I have spent probably eight months between 2005 to 2008, and it is clear that we remain stretched very thin from the Syrian border and through Mosul. Vast swaths of Nineveh are patrolled mostly by occasional overflights.
We know now that we can pull off a successful counterinsurgency in Iraq. We know that we are working with an increasingly willing citizenry. But counterinsurgency, like community policing, requires lots of boots on the ground. You can't do it from inside a jet or a tank.
Over the past 15 months, we have proved that we can win this war. We stand now at the moment of truth. Victory – and a democracy in the Arab world – is within our grasp. But it could yet slip away if our leaders remain transfixed by the war we almost lost, rather than focusing on the war we are winning today.
Mr. Yon is author of the just-published "Moment of Truth in Iraq" (Richard Vigilante Books). He has been reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

[sailsmen]

You are right Charles Ferguson is completely "unbiased";

From Charles Ferguson's Blog in his own "unbiased and analytical words" posted on the Huffington Post and well known "unbiased, non-political and analytical news source" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/do-you-know-what-really-h_b_53894.html;


"As the Bush administration tells us that more troops will finally yield victory, the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq seem ever clearer: the mismanaged occupation of a profoundly different nation; the vast lies; the increasing desperation when reality can no longer be denied.

There are, however, two important differences. The first is that for all the mistakes America made in Vietnam, it was a work of genius compared to the occupation of Iraq. If the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, and the entire cast of Saturday Night Live made a war movie together, they couldn't come remotely close to what the Bush administration actually did. What I found even more shocking than the decisions themselves was how they had been made: secretly, in a nearly perfect vacuum of information, by less than 10 people who had virtually no relevant knowledge or experience. Most had never even served in the military, and none had ever been in combat or overseen an occupation.

Email
Print
Buzz up!on Yahoo!The second difference between Iraq and Vietnam, however, is that we can't simply leave. This is not to say that The Surge will work; it won't. But neither will a complete exit; we've dug ourselves -- and the Iraqis -- into too deep a hole.

I received my first dose of Iraqi reality in 2004, when I had dinner with George Packer, who was preparing to write The Assassins' Gate. By the time I began making my film No End In Sight a year later, I thought I understood how bad things were.

But when I started doing serious research, I was simply stunned. Nothing had prepared me for the black comedy of stupidity, arrogance, incompetence, and dishonesty that I uncovered. And so I learned, for example, that when the Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) was established to run postwar Iraq -- only 50 days before the war -- it was given offices that had no computers. When ORHA entered Baghdad a week after the war ended, it had no armored vehicles, only a dozen people who spoke Arabic, and no email, Internet access, or telephones. Baghdad was devastated by unchecked looting; Ahmed Chalabi's private militia went around committing carjackings, one of them literally in front of the administrator of Baghdad and the general in charge of U.S. ground forces.

And then came L. Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Appointed in late April 2003, within a month Bremer made three catastrophic decisions. First, he halted the formation of an Iraqi interim government and instituted a long-term U.S. occupation. Second, he purged the senior levels of the Iraqi government of all members of the Ba'ath Party, including the technocrats and professionals necessary for a functioning government. Third and most fatally, on May 23, 2003 Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army, Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, intelligence services, and secret police, firing over half a million armed men with zero notice and zero severance pay. This in a desperately poor society which, after a decade of economic sanctions, had a 50 percent unemployment rate.

By destroying their livelihoods and honor, Bremer drove these men into the insurgency. Iraqi officers repeatedly approached the U.S. military, the CPA, and the UN, warning that insurgency was inevitable unless their positions were restored. Even after joining the insurgency, former Iraqi officers approached the UN, offering to negotiate. Senior UN diplomats approached Bremer, who refused to speak with them.

Insurgents and criminal gangs began looting the dozens of huge weapons caches left unguarded due to insufficient troop levels and poor intelligence. By late 2003 kidnapping, looting, and carjacking became major industries, Baghdad alone had 700 murders per month, and automatic weapons, mortars, and rocket propelled grenades were sold openly in neighborhood markets.

Yet the Administration lives in a fantasy world. In a recent article in The Washington Post, Bremer still defends his decisions. By far the most astonishing of Bremer's many false and distorted claims is the following: "So, after full coordination within the U.S. government, including the military, I issued an order to build a new, all-volunteer army."

This is a complete lie. What really happened was this:

Immediately after the war ORHA and the U.S. military, concerned about lawlessness and insufficient troop levels, started to recall the Iraqi Army, planning to use it to keep order and to aid reconstruction. ORHA planned to filter returning Iraqi military personnel, to remove Saddam loyalists and assist those leaving the military to reintegrate themselves into civilian life. By early May of 2003, ORHA had obtained registration statements from 137,000 men by working with two groups of senior Iraqi Army officers, comprising *****es as well as Sunnis.

But on May 1, Bremer had started work at the Pentagon. Between May 1 and May 9, Bremer met with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Undersecretary Douglas Feith, and Walter Slocombe, who had been appointed by Rumsfeld to oversee policy towards the Iraqi military. None of them had visited postwar Iraq, none had ever worked in the Mideast, none any experience with occupations or postwar reconstruction. In fact none of them except Rumsfeld, who had been a Navy pilot in the 1950s, had ever served in the military.

Unknown to ORHA, on May 9 these five men in Washington DC simply decided to dissolve the Iraqi Army. On that same day, they ordered General Paul Eaton to build a new, token army from scratch, with a budget of under $200 million. In reaching this momentous decision, they did not consult with the military commanders in Iraq, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ORHA, the State Department, or the CIA, all of whom opposed the decision when they learned of it. Paul Hughes, the Army colonel directly in charge of dealing with the Iraqi Army for ORHA, learned of the decision by watching its public announcement on television on May 23. Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage learned of it the same way, as Armitage states on camera in my film. In short, the process was completely insane.

Let us hope America has learned something from this: that wars and occupations are serious business, and that we must deliberate and plan carefully before undertaking them. For Iraq, and for thousands of dead American soldiers, it is now too late. Now, we must concentrate on avoiding the very worst, preventing genocide and regional war, in the hope that eventually Iraq will stabilize when a new generation tires of killing and extremism.

George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I hope that to some small extent my film, and the books written by George Packer and others, will help us understand -- and remember -- the decisions that brought us here."

[Glenn]

Sailsmen:

I totally support your comments on war. There has never been a war in history that was not mis-managed in some people's minds. Certainly WWII had many, many mistakes and wasted lives, but we made fewer mistakes then Hilter and won the war. I find it difficult to fully accept people's critizism of the war when they have no stake in it. I have a son who is is a LT JG in the Navy finishing his flight training in Pensacola, FL. I have a "dog in the hunt". I ask other people who are against Bush what stake do you have in this war when my son is training to protect your life.

"John McCain for President and let's keep American Free from terrorism.

Glenn :burnout:

[sailsmen]

A close relative got his Wings in Pensacola. A client used to tow the training carrier.

This relative dropped the first Atomic Depth Charge off a carrier, it lacked the Atomic part but had the TNT. He also flew out of Gitmo during the Cuban Missle crisis, I remember seeing him in his flight suit, and took pics of the missles on the decks of the Russian Freighters during the Summer. Had the President asked him if there were Russian Missles in Cuba he would have assumed the President had the proper clearances and replied "sir yes sir".

We could talk alot about all the military mistakes the Johnson and Kennedy admins made.

Best wishes to your son.

Most voters will probably vote for President primarily based on the economy which is ignorant.

Voters should vote for President primarily based on Commander in Chief.

Hamilton 3-25-1788 "Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the excercise of power by a single hand."

My personal opinon is Carville coined the phrase, "it's the economy stupid" as in the electorate is too stupid to know that a sitting President can do very little to influence the economy. Carville's Mantra We will blame the sitting President for the economy since we know he cannot change it and beat him at the polls.

"Congress controls the purse strings because "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law;" (Art 1 Sec 9). This means Congress must pass appropriation bills in order for the Executive Branch to spend any money. The Congress must also pass revenue bills to raise the money for the appropriations.

Taken together, the taxing and spending decisions of the Congress are referred to as fiscal policy."

The President has very little influence over the economy. If the President could control the economy we would always have a great economy. President Roosevelt who was in office for over 12 years could not control the economy. Bush asked the Congress to allow drilling in only one small area ANWAR and refineries to be built and Congress ignored his request.

The President is the Executor of the Executive Branch.

The Presidents primary responsibility is Commander in Chief.

When you go into the voting booth your pick will be for who you will follow into battle;
A) A man who regularly councils w/ a selfconfessed unrepentant terrorist
B) A woman who imagines she was under sniper fire and that her daughter was jogging around the WTC on 911
C) A man who is a decorated veteran and POW.

Why It's Not The Economy
__

By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, February 6, 2008; A19



As the economy weakens and the campaign intensifies, we'll hear more of James Carville's familiar refrain: It's the economy, stupid. Well, it ain't or, at least, shouldn't be. I'm not claiming that Carville is wrong about voting. People vote their pocketbooks. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, the economy overshadows Iraq as the most important issue by 39 percent to 19. What I'm saying is that this sort of voting is shortsighted. It rewards or punishes candidates for something beyond their power.

We have a $14 trillion economy. The idea that presidents can control it lies between an exaggeration and an illusion. Our presidential preferences ought to reflect judgments about candidates' character, values, competence and their views on issues where what they think counts: foreign policy; long-term economic and social policy -- how they would tax and spend; health care; immigration. Forget the business cycle.

True, presidents try to manipulate it. In 1971, President Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls in part to prevent inflation from jeopardizing his reelection. The economy boomed in 1972. But the controls were a time-delayed disaster. When they were removed, inflation exploded to 12 percent in 1974. In 1980, the Carter administration adopted credit controls to squelch raging inflation. The result was a short recession -- a complete surprise -- that probably sealed Jimmy Carter's defeat in November.

History's long view teaches the same lesson. No president tried harder, with good reason, to influence the business cycle than Franklin Roosevelt. When he took office in 1933, unemployment was roughly 25 percent. By executive order and congressional legislation, FDR effectively abandoned the gold standard, adopted deposit insurance, tried to prop up falling farm and factory prices, rescued many defaulting homeowners, regulated the stock market, and embarked on massive public works.

With what result? Well, leaving the gold standard aided recovery. But some economic research suggests that other New Deal measures may have frustrated revival. In any case, all of them together didn't end the Great Depression. World War II did that. In 1939 unemployment was still 17 percent.

No matter. When the economy is good, presidents claim credit; when it's not, their opponents blame them. Political phrasemaking compounds the error by personalizing the process. Hence, "Reaganomics" and "Clintonomics." Among Republicans and Democrats alike, there is much mythmaking.

To his worshipers, Ronald Reagan's great economic achievements were tax cuts and spending restraint. Not so. Reagan's singular feat was supporting Paul Volcker's Federal Reserve in suppressing double-digit inflation, which had destabilized the economy (four recessions between 1969 and 1982). From 1980 to 1983, inflation dropped from 13 percent to 4 percent. This set the stage for the long expansions of both the 1980s and 1990s.

Reagan's cut in tax rates probably helped slightly, but the overall tax burden wasn't much reduced. In 1988, taxes were 18.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), slightly above the post-1950 average until then (17.8 percent of GDP). With a military buildup, spending restraint was negligible. In 1988, federal outlays were 21.3 percent of GDP, only slightly lower than in President Carter's last year (21.7 percent).

Bill Clinton had little to do with the causes of the 1990s' economic expansion: low inflation, low oil prices, a computer and Internet boom, a stock market boom. The claim made for Clintonomics is that paring the federal budget deficit in 1993 provided the essential catalyst by reducing interest rates. But long-term rates in 1994 were actually higher than in 1993. Many forces affect rates aside from the budget deficit: inflation and inflationary expectations, saving behavior, Federal Reserve policy, overall credit demand.

Clinton's contribution was self-restraint. Unlike Nixon and Carter, he didn't meddle with the Fed. He was a "conservative" in a pragmatic way. He knew when to leave well enough alone.

Of course, presidents do affect the economy. But their greatest influence often occurs after they've left office. FDR's enduring legacy was Social Security; Reagan's was low inflation. Some policies that are initially popular turn out to be calamitous. Under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the government followed highly expansionary policies to reduce unemployment. Initially popular, they ultimately spawned high inflation. The converse is also true. The anti-inflationary policies of the early 1980s sent unemployment to 10.8 percent. Reagan's popularity plummeted.

Sensible voters should look beyond the cheery or dreary economy of the moment. They should recognize that if presidents could control the business cycle, recessions would never occur, there would always be "full employment" and inflation would remain forever tame. Instead of judging prospective presidents on what they can't do, voters ought to concentrate on what they can do. There are plenty of real differences among the remaining candidates. But Carville is probably right. For many, it will be the economy, and it will be stupid. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/05/AR2008020502876.html

[sailsmen]

PUBLIC POLICY
Presidents often have little effect on economy, scholar claims

Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
(217) 333-2177; a-lynn@uiuc.edu

7/1/2000


CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Presidents' and presidential candidates' claims to the contrary, U.S. presidents have very little impact on the economic progress of the country they lead.

Indeed, although U.S. presidents often are credited for economic progress and blamed for economic failures, the fact is that in this realm, "to a large extent, they are bystanders."

So says veteran economic observer David F. Linowes, the former chairman of four presidential commissions and the Boeschenstein Professor Emeritus of Political Economy and Public Policy at the University of Illinois. His views appear in his new book, "Living Through Fifty Years of Economic Progress With Ten Presidents: The Most Productive Generation in History, 1946-1996" (JAI Press).

After tracing the business breakthroughs of the last 50 years, Linowes concludes that the real heroes of U.S. economic progress are business organizations and their executives. Over the past five decades, he argues, the private sector has been "the driving economic force." The "triumph of capitalism has made the business corporation one of the most important institutions in our society."

To be sure, Linowes does tip his hat to some presidents and their efforts -- the Truman administration's Marshall Plan, the Federal Highway Act passed on Eisenhower's watch, and JFK's invigorated space program. In general, however, government offers incentives to conduct certain economic activities or it erects barriers. "The effect on economic conditions may or may not be substantial."

In addition to profiling the five Democratic and five Republican presidents who held office during this period of unparalleled productivity, Linowes examined the industries he believes played a major role in growing the economy: Post World War II -- television, conglomerates, computers, tourism; Space Race -- steel, space, housing and advertising; Watergate Era -- oil, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology/genetic engineering, telephones, transportation and automobiles; and USSR Disintegration -- entertainment, higher education and information technology.

Linowes' chapter on Bill Clinton opens with: "The administration had a discontinuous quality to it and often seemed on the brink of disaster." The first lady, Linowes claims, played an unprecedented role in the presidency, "particularly with regard to managing the economy," and she was "a principal player in the budget meetings. When summaries on the economy and briefing books on economic policy were delivered to the president, a second set was made available to the first lady. She considered herself a peer of her husband's advisers and a full participant in the budget process."

Despite the doubts of many, business did well under Clinton, Linowes wrote. "Many companies fared far better than at any period since 1970. Like much of the electorate, corporate America seemed willing to overlook the personal frailties of the president and focus on economic issues as the nation moved toward the new century." http://www.news.uiuc.edu/gentips/00/07pubpolicy.html





In 1995-96 the Controlled Congress shut down the Federal government twice, which is 20% of every dollar in our economy, there was very little the President could do.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9512/budget/budget_battle/index.html

[sailsmen]

Mr Ferguson's Blog is so riddled w/ ilogical assumptions and biased statements the only explanation is his prejudices have completely blinded his ability to reason.

Just read his statements, does he actually think we are totally lacking in critical thinking?

Perhaps he is so surrounded by "yes men" he can state the first emotion he feels as fact and analysis?

[BruteForce]

I never said no other war has had mistakes made. The topic of this film is the management of the Iraq war, specifically the first several years. Try watching the film. It actually makes the point that Bush isn't directly responsible for the errors as he handed off management to Cheney & Rumsfeld. They in turn handed it off to people who did not have the experience nor understanding about what they were into; all the while ignoring what the military was telling them needed to be done.

You spend so much energy refuting something you haven't even taken the time to watch. Just watch the film. Otherwise you speak from a position of ignorance.

[shawn.criswell]

Look at all the USA did that was wrong during 1776, WWI, WWII and the Cold War.

After Pearl Harbor when President Rosevelt assembled the heads of the armed forces and asked them if Japan invades where will our line of defense be they answered Chicago.

450,000 Military Deaths in WWII.

7,500 Military deaths from 1993-2001, a time of peace

~10,000 Military deaths 2001-09, a time of war.

During a war people are killed and things are destroyed, lots of bad things are happening.

You got a point, however: 47,321 people were killed in 2007 here in the United States in just automobile accidents alone, doesn't include murders, suicides, industrial accidents, recreational accidents, etc., etc.,....so who's safe?

[Blk Mamba]

You are right Charles Ferguson is completely "unbiased";

From Charles Ferguson's Blog in his own "unbiased and analytical words" posted on the Huffington Post and well known "unbiased, non-political and analytical news source" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/do-you-know-what-really-h_b_53894.html;


"As the Bush administration tells us that more troops will finally yield victory, the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq seem ever clearer: the mismanaged occupation of a profoundly different nation; the vast lies; the increasing desperation when reality can no longer be denied.

There are, however, two important differences. The first is that for all the mistakes America made in Vietnam, it was a work of genius compared to the occupation of Iraq. If the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, and the entire cast of Saturday Night Live made a war movie together, they couldn't come remotely close to what the Bush administration actually did. What I found even more shocking than the decisions themselves was how they had been made: secretly, in a nearly perfect vacuum of information, by less than 10 people who had virtually no relevant knowledge or experience. Most had never even served in the military, and none had ever been in combat or overseen an occupation.

Email
Print
Buzz up!on Yahoo!The second difference between Iraq and Vietnam, however, is that we can't simply leave. This is not to say that The Surge will work; it won't. But neither will a complete exit; we've dug ourselves -- and the Iraqis -- into too deep a hole.

I received my first dose of Iraqi reality in 2004, when I had dinner with George Packer, who was preparing to write The Assassins' Gate. By the time I began making my film No End In Sight a year later, I thought I understood how bad things were.

But when I started doing serious research, I was simply stunned. Nothing had prepared me for the black comedy of stupidity, arrogance, incompetence, and dishonesty that I uncovered. And so I learned, for example, that when the Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) was established to run postwar Iraq -- only 50 days before the war -- it was given offices that had no computers. When ORHA entered Baghdad a week after the war ended, it had no armored vehicles, only a dozen people who spoke Arabic, and no email, Internet access, or telephones. Baghdad was devastated by unchecked looting; Ahmed Chalabi's private militia went around committing carjackings, one of them literally in front of the administrator of Baghdad and the general in charge of U.S. ground forces.

And then came L. Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Appointed in late April 2003, within a month Bremer made three catastrophic decisions. First, he halted the formation of an Iraqi interim government and instituted a long-term U.S. occupation. Second, he purged the senior levels of the Iraqi government of all members of the Ba'ath Party, including the technocrats and professionals necessary for a functioning government. Third and most fatally, on May 23, 2003 Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army, Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, intelligence services, and secret police, firing over half a million armed men with zero notice and zero severance pay. This in a desperately poor society which, after a decade of economic sanctions, had a 50 percent unemployment rate.

By destroying their livelihoods and honor, Bremer drove these men into the insurgency. Iraqi officers repeatedly approached the U.S. military, the CPA, and the UN, warning that insurgency was inevitable unless their positions were restored. Even after joining the insurgency, former Iraqi officers approached the UN, offering to negotiate. Senior UN diplomats approached Bremer, who refused to speak with them.

Insurgents and criminal gangs began looting the dozens of huge weapons caches left unguarded due to insufficient troop levels and poor intelligence. By late 2003 kidnapping, looting, and carjacking became major industries, Baghdad alone had 700 murders per month, and automatic weapons, mortars, and rocket propelled grenades were sold openly in neighborhood markets.

Yet the Administration lives in a fantasy world. In a recent article in The Washington Post, Bremer still defends his decisions. By far the most astonishing of Bremer's many false and distorted claims is the following: "So, after full coordination within the U.S. government, including the military, I issued an order to build a new, all-volunteer army."

This is a complete lie. What really happened was this:

Immediately after the war ORHA and the U.S. military, concerned about lawlessness and insufficient troop levels, started to recall the Iraqi Army, planning to use it to keep order and to aid reconstruction. ORHA planned to filter returning Iraqi military personnel, to remove Saddam loyalists and assist those leaving the military to reintegrate themselves into civilian life. By early May of 2003, ORHA had obtained registration statements from 137,000 men by working with two groups of senior Iraqi Army officers, comprising *****es as well as Sunnis.

But on May 1, Bremer had started work at the Pentagon. Between May 1 and May 9, Bremer met with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Undersecretary Douglas Feith, and Walter Slocombe, who had been appointed by Rumsfeld to oversee policy towards the Iraqi military. None of them had visited postwar Iraq, none had ever worked in the Mideast, none any experience with occupations or postwar reconstruction. In fact none of them except Rumsfeld, who had been a Navy pilot in the 1950s, had ever served in the military.

Unknown to ORHA, on May 9 these five men in Washington DC simply decided to dissolve the Iraqi Army. On that same day, they ordered General Paul Eaton to build a new, token army from scratch, with a budget of under $200 million. In reaching this momentous decision, they did not consult with the military commanders in Iraq, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ORHA, the State Department, or the CIA, all of whom opposed the decision when they learned of it. Paul Hughes, the Army colonel directly in charge of dealing with the Iraqi Army for ORHA, learned of the decision by watching its public announcement on television on May 23. Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage learned of it the same way, as Armitage states on camera in my film. In short, the process was completely insane.

Let us hope America has learned something from this: that wars and occupations are serious business, and that we must deliberate and plan carefully before undertaking them. For Iraq, and for thousands of dead American soldiers, it is now too late. Now, we must concentrate on avoiding the very worst, preventing genocide and regional war, in the hope that eventually Iraq will stabilize when a new generation tires of killing and extremism.

George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I hope that to some small extent my film, and the books written by George Packer and others, will help us understand -- and remember -- the decisions that brought us here."

You have never served have you?

[Vortex]

Iraq wasnt necessary, Saddam was in a box. Now its the mess GBush1/Powell/Schwartzkopf predicted it would be. No plan after military victory. Blaming Bremmer for disbanding the Iraqi army is misplacing the blame, that decision came from the very top (Cheney/Rice/Perle/Wolfowitz/GBII). Huge error. Criticism of how we got into this lousy war and present Iraq policy is in no way aimed at US military forces who have served admirably. We should have concentrated on putting UBL's head on a stick. 4,000 lost US military men/women and billions of dollars down the tubes for what? And just in case, yes, a Vietnam era vet with over 29 years USG combined mil/civ service.

[sailsmen]

To build the foundation to stop the mfg of BIL and his followers.

Same reason we did what we did in Japan after WWII and Germany after WWII.

What happened in Germany after WWI? Answer WWII.

Trash - I have served the US Military. I have not served in the US Military.

I do not understand the relevance.

We defeat the Military of a murderous Dictator and then we keep ths Military in power? The same Military we just defeated? The same Military that kept a murderous Dictator in power by slaughtering it's own population? The same Military whose officers were a member of the Bath Party whose Constitution required the execution of all those who were not a member of the Bath Party?

What were we to do with this Military let them keep their weapons to use againest us, or each other or the Bathist to maintain power the way they did before we defeated this Military? Would you put them in a concentration camp?

I pose these questions to point out that these "mistakes" are easy to talk about. Whats not being talked about is what would have happened had these "mistakes" not occured? A whole set of different mistakes?

Where were these people experienced in USA Occupation of another country, an Arab country going to come from? WWII ended 58 years before. They could appoint some 88 year old men to the administration, but some would then say they are too old or technology has changed and they have no eperience in occupying an Arab country.

There are those who beleive President Bush "stole" the election and is an illegitemate President. Being an illegitatmte President everthing he does is wrong, all the people he appointed are wrong about everything. They make "unbiased" documentaries and write "unbiased" articles. It is very clear based on his own words the movie's director and producer hates President Bush. Along these same lines is an excellent "unbiased" movie called "Lions for Lamb" directed by Robert Redford, starring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep.

[Glenn]

The whole issue can be condensed into one sentence - "No USA terrorist attacks since 9/11". Bush may have made mistakes like any President during war does, but our country is free of terrorist attacks that would have crushed our economy and throw our country into unbelieveable turmoil. Iran will soon have an atom bomb and our cities will be at great risk. Do you really what Obama as our president who Hamas has endorsed for president. Our President's main responsibility is to protect the country everything else is secondary - liberals will never understand this fact because their main interest is to buy votes with liberal give away programs to insure they stay in power. They do not understand national defense is the number one priority.

Glenn

[Blk Mamba]

To build the foundation to stop the mfg of BIL and his followers.

Same reason we did what we did in Japan after WWII and Germany after WWII.

What happened in Germany after WWI? Answer WWII.

Trash - I have served the US Military. I have not served in the US Military.

I do not understand the relevance.

We defeat the Military of a murderous Dictator and then we keep ths Military in power? The same Military we just defeated? The same Military that kept a murderous Dictator in power by slaughtering it's own population? The same Military whose officers were a member of the Bath Party whose Constitution required the execution of all those who were not a member of the Bath Party?

What were we to do with this Military let them keep their weapons to use againest us, or each other or the Bathist to maintain power the way they did before we defeated this Military? Would you put them in a concentration camp?

I pose these questions to point out that these "mistakes" are easy to talk about. Whats not being talked about is what would have happened had these "mistakes" not occured? A whole set of different mistakes?

Where were these people experienced in USA Occupation of another country, an Arab country going to come from? WWII ended 58 years before. They could appoint some 88 year old men to the administration, but some would then say they are too old or technology has changed and they have no eperience in occupying an Arab country.

There are those who beleive President Bush "stole" the election and is an illegitemate President. Being an illegitatmte President everthing he does is wrong, all the people he appointed are wrong about everything. They make "unbiased" documentaries and write "unbiased" articles. It is very clear based on his own words the movie's director and producer hates President Bush. Along these same lines is an excellent "unbiased" movie called "Lions for Lamb" directed by Robert Redford, starring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep.

Freedom has a different taste, for those who fought for it, and some can see war a little different. But I knew just by the way you wrote.

[airborne_mp84]

I was deployed there about that same time. I'm interested in checking it out. If you enjoy a good read check out "Generation Kill" its follows a company of Marines during the invasion. Good book.

MP84 where were you at over there?

I was at Balad for a bit and then went to Abu Ghraib. Yes I was there while all the prisoner torture crap was going on, no I had no part in it. At the time I was signal, we ran comms for the whole prison. Real fun place.we pushed up from kawaitt through basara and all those other cities into tikrit and then baghdad by the cross sords..yeah i was in balad aka andaconda for a couple days before it was built up..that was one of the first strong holds

[dreydin]

/tag for later

[ParkRanger]

Freedom has a different taste, for those who fought for it, and some can see war a little different. But I knew just by the way you wrote.

Right you are,Trash! For those who have served freedom has a taste that the protected will never savor.

Furthermore , you are either a sheep or a sheepdog (protecting the herd) and most of the people who just talk tough just really need a good sheering. The warrior understands better than most the consequences of double talk and easily recognizes their drivel - usually followed by baa baa.

PR :burnout:

[Blk Mamba]

Right you are,Trash! For those who have served freedom has a taste that the protected will never savor.

Furthermore , you are either a sheep or a sheepdog (protecting the herd) and most of the people who just talk tough just really need a good sheering. The warrior understands better than most the consequences of double talk and easily recognizes their drivel - usually followed by baa baa.

PR :burnout:


Thank You for your eloquence.

[Aren Jay]

Funny but we do not get any of these for our war.

[Dr Caleb]

Funny but we do not get any of these for our war.

We do, and they are equally clueless.

I can't count the number of times people I've spoken with sheep^w people who call Afghanistan an 'occupation'. Yea, our boys are good, but 2500 of them cannot occupy a country.

[Aren Jay]

yeah but that only lasted for the first week or so, and after you say they are as dumb as bricks. What more can you say?

[Dr Caleb]

yeah but that only lasted for the first week or so, and after you say they are as dumb as bricks. What more can you say?

For the first month in A-Stan, they couldn't carry guns because they hadn't done the needed paperwork. They needed to be escorted by the Dutch and French troops.

Now that's an 'invasion' if I ever heard of it. 40 'pickles' without rifles. Bet the Taliban were scared. ;)

[High-C]

Do you really what Obama as our president who Hamas has endorsed for president. Our President's main responsibility is to protect the country everything else is secondary - liberals will never understand this fact because their main interest is to buy votes with liberal give away programs to insure they stay in power. They do not understand national defense is the number one priority.

Glenn

May 09, 2008
Obama Needs a History Lesson

By Jack Kelly (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/jack_kelly/)

In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.
In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."
That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.
<SCRIPT language=JavaScript><!--OAS_AD('Block');//--></SCRIPT>http://ads.forbes.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.cgi/realclearpolitics.com/story/1685256847@BigBanner,LeftBotto m,x110,RightMiddle,x1,Block!Bl ock (http://ads.forbes.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.cgi/realclearpolitics.com/story/1685256847@BigBanner,LeftBotto m,x110,RightMiddle,x1,Block!Bl ock)
I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender.
FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb.
Harry Truman also was president when North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950. President Truman's response was not to call up North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung for a chat. It was to send troops.
Perhaps Sen. Obama is thinking of the meeting FDR and Churchill had with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Tehran in December, 1943, and the meetings Truman and Roosevelt had with Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam in February and July, 1945. But Stalin was then a U.S. ally, though one of whom we should have been more wary than FDR and Truman were. Few historians think the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam, which in effect consigned Eastern Europe to slavery, are diplomatic models we ought to follow. Even fewer Eastern Europeans think so.
When Stalin's designs became unmistakably clear, President Truman's response wasn't to seek a summit meeting. He sent military aid to Greece, ordered the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan, and sent troops to South Korea.
Sen. Obama is on both sounder and softer ground with regard to John F. Kennedy. The new president held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Vienna in June, 1961.
Elie Abel, who wrote a history of the Cuban missile crisis (The Missiles of October), said the crisis had its genesis in that summit.
"There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy's measure in June 1961 and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions," Mr. Abel wrote. "There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America's power. He questioned only the president's readiness to use it. As he once told Robert Frost, he came to believe that Americans are 'too liberal to fight.'"
That view was supported by New York Times columnist James Reston, who traveled to Vienna with President Kennedy: "Khrushchev had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs," Mr. Reston wrote. "He would have understood if Kennedy had left Castro alone or destroyed him, but when Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed."
It's worth noting that Kennedy then was vastly more experienced than Sen. Obama is now. A combat veteran of World War II, Jack Kennedy served 14 years in Congress before becoming president. Sen. Obama has no military and little work experience, and has been in Congress for less than four years.
The closest historical analogue to Sen. Obama's expressed desire to meet with no preconditions with anti-American dictators such as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the trip British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French premier Eduoard Daladier took to Munich in September of 1938 to negotiate "peace in our time" with Adolf Hitler. That didn't work out so well.
History is an elective few liberals choose to take these days, noted a poster on the Web log "Hot Air." The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling. But in a presidential candidate it's dangerous. As Sir Winston Churchill said:
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

[Glenn]

Very well stated - and very true.

Glenn :burnout: