DUMB AND DUMBER
This goes to both sides of the aisle. GO TAKE SOME CONTINUING EDUCATION CLASSES!
For the Senate and House Committees, Democrat/Republican alike to have the gall to question the likes of Richard Bolton, Supreme Court Nominees, Donald Rumsfeld with total arrogance, ignorance, and lack of respect.......(excuse me, I don't think they ever gave John Bolton a chance to be questioned (probably too intimidating)) when they know very little of what they speak ..... is a total joke. Their circus act of power has always nauseated me. I am ashamed of the way they grandstand, puffing their feathers with every breath, trying to make themselves appear more intelligent than the questioned. Like the way Kennedy questioned Alito LOL! Hello? The man in a drunken stupor, kills a woman.......then has the nerve to sit on a judicial committee?
Then there is the Jeff Stein interview with Congressman Reyes (incoming Chairman of the House Intelligence Company.....
"And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?
Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...
He laughed again, shifting in his seat.
Why do you ask me these questions at five oÂclock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?
Poquito, I saidÂa little.
Poquito?! He laughed again.
Go ahead, I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.
Reyes: Well, I, uh....
I apologized for putting him on the spot a little. But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now.
It's been 23 years since a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. military personnel in Beirut, mostly Marines.
Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, is close to taking over in Lebanon. Reports say they are helping train Iraqi Shiites to kispiralingin the spiralling civil war.
Yeah, Reyes said, rightly observing, but . . . it's not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It's a heck of a lot more complex."
NOW..........FOR MY LIBERAL FRIENDS...........IT'S JUST AS BAD ON THE REPUBLICAN SIDE....
Trent Lott.....responding to Jeff Stein
Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.
Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?
They all look the same to me, Lott said. "
I think there needs to be a test giving to people serving on committees - or for that matter.....all politicans should be able to pass a test in order to run for office.
America's politicans are a real dumbed down bunch of clowns. Just as highschoolers must take the SAT............Politicans should be tested on Governmental protocol, foreign affairs, American History, and accounting.
Perhaps then, America would get a politican who actually is informed on the topic at hand. Money would no longer be the #1 driving factor in an election.......test scores would. There would be no more long drawn out campaignes, because the politicans would be too busy studying. Then, they might even make some informed decisions, instead of decision based on their party's talking points.
posted by Michele @ 10:22 AM
16 Comments:
A great essay on the situation in Iraq:
The Sunshine Boys Can’t Save Iraq
By FRANK RICH
IN America we like quick fixes, closure and an uplifting show. Such were the high hopes for the Iraq Study Group, and on one of the three it delivered.
The report of the 10 Washington elders was rolled out like a heartwarming Hollywood holiday release. There was a feel-good title, “The Way Forward,” unfortunately chosen as well by Ford Motor to promote its last-ditch plan to stave off bankruptcy. There was a months-long buildup, with titillating sneak previews to whip up anticipation. There was the gala publicity tour on opening day, starting with a President Bush cameo timed for morning television and building to a “Sunshine Boys” curtain call by James Baker and Lee Hamilton on “Larry King Live.”
The wizard behind it all was the public relations giant Edelman, which has lately been recruited by Wal-Mart to put down the populist insurgency threatening its bottom line. Edelman’s vice chairman is Michael Deaver, the imagineer extraordinaire of the Reagan presidency, and “The Way Forward” had a nostalgic dash of that old Morning-in-America vibe. In The Washington Post, David Broder gushingly quoted one member of the group, Alan Simpson, musing that “immigration, Social Security and all those other things that have been hung up for so long” might benefit from similar ex-officio bipartisanship. Only in Washington could an unelected panel of retirees pass for public-policy Viagra.
Mr. Simpson notwithstanding, the former senator who most comes to mind is Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. In the early 1990’s he famously coined the phrase “defining deviancy down” to describe the erosion of civic standards for what constitutes criminal behavior. In 2006, our governmental ailment is defining reality down. “The Way Forward” is its apotheosis.
This syndrome begins at the top, with the president, who has cut and run from reality in Iraq for nearly four years. His case is extreme but hardly unique. Take Robert Gates, the next defense secretary, who was hailed as a paragon of realism by Washington last week simply for agreeing with his Senate questioners that we’re “not winning” in Iraq. While that may be a step closer to candor than Mr. Bush’s “absolutely, we’re winning” of late October, it’s hardly the whole truth and nothing but. The actual reality is that we have lost in Iraq.
That’s what Donald Rumsfeld at long last acknowledged, between the lines, as he fled the Pentagon to make way for Mr. Gates. The most revealing passage in his parting memo listing possible options for the war was his suggestion that public expectations for success be downsized so we would “therefore not ‘lose.’ ” By putting the word lose in quotes, Mr. Rumsfeld revealed his hand: the administration must not utter that L word even though lose is exactly what we’ve done. The illusion of not losing must be preserved no matter what the price in blood.
The Iraq Study Group takes a similarly disingenuous tack. Its account of how the country Mr. Bush called a “grave and gathering danger” in September 2002 has devolved into a “grave and deteriorating” catastrophe today is unsparing and accurate. But everyone except the president knew this already, and that patina of realism evaporates once the report moves from diagnosis to prescription.
Its recommendations are bogus because the few that have any teeth are completely unattainable. Of course, it would be fantastic if additional Iraqi troops would stand up en masse after an infusion of new American military advisers. And if reconciliation among the country’s warring ethnicities could be mandated on a tight schedule. And if the Bush White House could be persuaded to persuade Iran and Syria to “influence events” for America’s benefit. It would also be nice if we could all break the bank in Vegas.
The group’s coulda-woulda recommendations are either nonstarters, equivocations (it endorses withdrawal of combat troops by 2008 but is averse to timelines) or contradictions of its own findings of fact. To take just one example: Even if we could wave a magic wand and quickly create thousands more military advisers (and Arabic-speaking ones at that), there’s no reason to believe they could build a crack Iraqi army and police force where all those who came before have failed. As the report points out, the loyalties and capabilities of the existing units are suspect as it is.
By prescribing such placebos, the Iraq Study Group isn’t plotting a way forward but delaying the recognition of our defeat. Its real aim is to enact a charade of progress to pacify the public while Washington waits, no doubt in vain, for Mr. Bush to return to the real world. The tip-off to the cynical game can be found in a single sentence: “We agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq, as stated by the president: ‘an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.’ ” This studious group knows that even that modest goal, a radical devaluation of the administration’s ambition to spread democracy throughout the Middle East, has long been proven a mirage. The Iraqi government’s ability to defend anything is so inoperative that the group’s members visited the country but once, with just one (Chuck Robb) daring to leave the Green Zone. The Bush-Maliki rendezvous 10 days ago was at the Four Seasons hotel in Amman.
The only recommendations that might alter that reality, however evanescently, come not from “The Way Forward” but from its critics on the right who want significantly more troops and no withdrawal timetables whatsoever. But a Pentagon review leaked to The Washington Post three weeks ago estimates that a true counterinsurgency campaign would “require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police,” not the 20,000 or so envisioned as a short-term booster shot by John McCain.
Since these troops don’t exist and there is no public support in either America or Iraq for mobilizing them, the president can’t satisfy the hawks even if he chooses to do so. Since he’s also dead set against a prompt withdrawal, we already know what his policy will be, no matter how many “reviews” he conducts. He will stay the course, with various fake-outs along the way to keep us from thinking we’ve “lost,” until the whole mess is deposited in the lap of the next president.
But as Chuck Hagel said last week, “The impending disaster in Iraq is unwinding at a rate that we can’t quite calibrate.” It is yet another, even more reckless flight from reality to suppose that the world will stand still while we dally. The Iraq Study Group’s insistence on dragging out its deliberations until after Election Day for the sake of domestic politics mocked and undermined the urgency of its own mission. Meanwhile the violence metastasized. Eleven more of our soldiers were killed on the day the group finally put on its show. The antagonists in Iraq are not about to take a recess while we celebrate Christmas. The mass exodus of Iraqis, some 100,000 per month, was labeled “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world” by Refugees International last week and might soon rival Darfur’s.
THE Iraq-Vietnam parallels at this juncture are striking. In January 1968, L.B.J. replaced his arrogant failed defense secretary, Robert McNamara, with a practiced Washington hand, Clark Clifford. The war’s violence boiled over soon after (Tet), prompting a downturn in American public opinion. Allies in our coalition of the willing — Thailand, the Philippines, Australia — had balked at tossing in new troops. Clifford commissioned a re-evaluation of American policy that churned up such ideas as a troop pullback, increased training of South Vietnamese forces and a warning to the South Vietnamese government that American assistance would depend on its performance. In March, a bipartisan group of wise men (from Dean Acheson to Omar Bradley) was summoned to the White House, where it seconded the notion of disengagement.
But there the stories of Vietnam and Iraq diverge. Those wise men, unlike the Iraq Study Group, were clear in their verdict. And that Texan president, unlike ours, paid more than lip service to changing course. He abruptly announced he would abjure re-election, restrict American bombing and entertain the idea of peace talks. But as Stanley Karnow recounts in “Vietnam: A History,” it was already too late, after some 20,000 casualties and three years of all-out war, for an easy escape: “The frustrating talks were to drag on for another five years. More Americans would be killed in Vietnam than had died there previously. And the United States itself would be torn apart by the worst internal upheavals in a century.”
The lesson in that is clear and sobering: As bad as things may seem now, they can yet become worse, and not just in Iraq. The longer we pretend that we have not lost there, the more we risk losing other wars we still may salvage, starting with Afghanistan.
The members of the Iraq Study Group are all good Americans of proven service to their country. But to the extent that their report forestalls reality and promotes pipe dreams of one last chance for success in this fiasco, it will be remembered as just one more delusional milestone in the tragedy of our age.
The tragedy of our age are people willing to strap bombs on their back and blow people up.
Unfortnately, we do not fight wars like we use to. Wars that could be won were brutal. American Revolution - people burned in churches; Innocent civilian homes gutted bombed, and supplies for troops stolen.......the enemy had to feel the pain in order to wave the white flag.
Because of all the "Political Correct" war standards - there is never a chance to win.......why? Why wave a white flag when you are not feeling any pain.......
If we want to win the war in terrorism - we have to fight the war to win.......and it would be ugly - but effective. We have the good men, we have the tools......we just lack the guts.
The tragedy of our age are people willing to strap bombs on their back and blow people up.
Unfortnately, we do not fight wars like we use to. Wars that could be won were brutal. American Revolution - people burned in churches; Innocent civilian homes gutted bombed, and supplies for troops stolen.......the enemy had to feel the pain in order to wave the white flag.
Because of all the "Political Correct" war standards - there is never a chance to win.......why? Why wave a white flag when you are not feeling any pain.......
If we want to win the war in terrorism - we have to fight the war to win.......and it would be ugly - but effective. We have the good men, we have the tools......we just lack the guts.
The tragedy of our age are people willing to strap bombs on their back and blow people up.
Unfortnately, we do not fight wars like we use to. Wars that could be won were brutal. American Revolution - people burned in churches; Innocent civilian homes gutted bombed, and supplies for troops stolen.......the enemy had to feel the pain in order to wave the white flag.
Because of all the "Political Correct" war standards - there is never a chance to win.......why? Why wave a white flag when you are not feeling any pain.......
If we want to win the war in terrorism - we have to fight the war to win.......and it would be ugly - but effective. We have the good men, we have the tools......we just lack the guts.
What would you suggest we do with the good men and the tools? What is it we lack the guts to do actually? Please be specific.
I might also add that we do not have as many troops as you like to portray.
From today’s Washington Post:
The Army and Marine Corps are planning to ask incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress to approve permanent increases in personnel, as senior officials in both services assert that the nation's global military strategy has outstripped their resources.
In addition, the Army will press hard for "full access" to the 346,000-strong Army National Guard and the 196,000-strong Army Reserves by asking Gates to take the politically sensitive step of easing the Pentagon restrictions on the frequency and duration of involuntary call-ups for reservists, according to two senior Army officials.
Now Maddie, I know you are against having soldiers in combat who did not volunteer, and that you are against the draft. Therefore, how does this news sit with you? Are you against using the National Guard for overseas operations, even though most signed up to defend our country? How shall we increase enrollment in the military to handle fighting for other people's freedom (it's on the march, you know)? While we are at it, which other countries do you suggest we “save” at the cost of our taxpayers and our soldiers’ lives? We can better prepare if you let us know ahead of time.
Please grace us with your answers to all of these questions. As much as we all love reading your patriotic ranting, there are actual questions that need to be answered along the way. What are “political correct war standards”, by the way?
still waiting...
I'd be ashamed to defend those views, as well. I don't blame her for staying away from her own blog.
Wow, it's almost been a full week without any answers from Our Lady Maddie. Please explain yourself, Maddie. Your audience awaits the enlightenment.
I'll ask it again:
What would you suggest we do with the good men and the tools? What is it we lack the guts to do actually? Please be specific.
Or just run away from the answers.
The troops do not lack the guts...The people in charge of the war do.
If our troops were allowed to shoot, when necessary instead of filling out paperwork on who, why, and where they want to shoot.....we'd make a dent towards victory.
One has to fight a war that is hard/brutal/nasty/and able to do whatever it takes to win. One has to hurt the enemy enough that they will raise the white flag. Lately, because of the political correct wars that we wage......there is really no need for the enemy to wave a white flag. The enemy just does not feel the pain.
Let our boys loose, tell them to win it........(instead of prosecuting our troops for wartime activity, that is milder than any activity during the Civil, Revolutionary, World War I & II -
I remind Americans to watch some war movies like Brave Heart, Pearl Harbor, Saving Private Ryan, Bridge on the River Kwai, and The Patriot - where children were burned in churches by the British troops.....
Ya, that is how one wins a war....make the enemy feel the pain of war.....
What evidence do you have that the "filling out paperwork before you shoot" fighting style is happening? I've never heard of it. Please let me know. It sounds to me like you're justifying things in your own head.
Plus, if they cannot tell the enemy from the civilian, what should they do? Shoot everybody?
Published December 6th, 2006 by Herschel Smith in Weapons and Tactics, Iraq |
In his article Spinning Haditha, Marine W. Thomas Smith made the following sad but prophetic observation:
… every student of military science understands the ugly nature of insurgencies; where insurgents are un-uniformed, unconventional fighters who move freely throughout the community during the day, and become bushwhackers at night. They routinely use women and children as human shields, and often coerce the latter into the service of operating guerrillas.
This is particularly effective against U.S. forces, because the enemy knows that no matter how much stress they may be under, American soldiers will go to great lengths to avoid killing women and children; and even hesitate (at great risk to themselves) when they see women and children shooting at them.
I followed on to predict that charges of civilian casualties and inappropriate rules of engagement would become a staple of enemy propaganda, that rules of engagement would be modified, and that U.S. troops would become increasingly hesitant to fire on the enemy. Every one of these predictions has come true.
As discussed in Newsweek’s expose on Marine Captain Rob Secher, Captain Secher wrote home that “any time an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force.”
In my article Unleash the Snipers!, I noted that Marines in Ramadi have noted the hindrance the rules of engagement have become to their missison:
The military has also tightened rules of engagement as the war has progressed, toughening the requirements before a sniper may shoot an Iraqi. Potential targets must be engaged in a hostile act, or show clear hostile intent.
The marines say insurgents know the rules, and now rarely carry weapons in the open. Instead, they pose as civilians and keep their weapons concealed in cars or buildings until just before they need them. Later, when they are done shooting, they put them swiftly out of sight and mingle with civilians.
In my article Racoon Hunting and the Battle for Anbar, I noted that Marines from Fallujah report that:
“A lot of us feel like we have our hands tied behind our back,” says Cpl. Peter Mattice, of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment. “In Fallujah, [insurgents] know our [rules of engagement] - they know when to stop, just before we engage.”
Most recently, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who interviewed PGA golf professionals on a tour of Iraq to entertain the troops, we have this sobering report directly from the front:
“One guy told me, ‘I’m hesitant to do the job I was trained for. I don’t want to return fire because I might be on CNN the next day.’ That’s sad. That’s a guy risking his life for us. He doesn’t want his family to see him on CNN being portrayed the way those guys are being portrayed.”
“He said, ‘The hardest thing for a soldier to do, despite all his training, is to return fire when he is fired upon,’ ” Kelly said. “It shows the smallness of the position I’m in, comparably speaking. Fear of failure (in golf) and fear of death, come on, there’s no comparison.”
For those who know about the confused ROE, this should not be surprising. As noted by Newsmax, Rules of Engagement: Can Our Troops Defend Themselves?, the vaccilating and politically correct ROE are described as having changed to the point that our troops are afraid of defending themselves:
Well before the conflict in Iraq and up until apparently this past summer, U.S. combat troops found comforting words in the ROE for the individual fighter facing an unpredictable enemy, seeking to kill him or her through any trick or stratagem:
“Nothing in these ROE limit an individual soldier’s right to defend himself or a commander’s inherent authority and obligation to use all necessary means available and to take appropriate action to defend his unit and other U.S. and friendly forces in the vicinity.”
And these words for the unit leader:
“These rules do not limit a commander’s inherent authority and obligation to use all necessary means available and to take all appropriate actions in self-defense of the commander’s unit and other U.S. forces in the vicinity.”
However, the new standard ROE promulgated this past summer (CJCSI 3121.01B) has individual self-defense described as a subset of unit self-defense.
Furthermore, the new regulation ominously adds some specific wording that says, “as such, commanders may limit the individual right of self-defense.”
One informed source, a former military lawyer, noted to NewsMax that with the new language in place it is problematic to tell soldiers during their training that they have an inherent right to defend themselves. Indeed, the new rule can only add to the bewilderment and suspicion with which some soldiers regard ROE.
Analysis and Commentary
From the beginning of a Marine’s time in the Corps, to the last day that he is active, he lives with the concepts of “fire watch” and “guardian angel.” When Marines are sleeping, deployed on a base, or any other time they are not actively engaged in operations, a “fire watch” is set up, and Marines rotate through this duty. This is a defensive posture, taken twenty four hours a day. The guardian angel is supposed to locate to a position of concealment in order to move in offensive operations against any enemy who would do harm to Marines. Defensive and offensive postures - the two go hand-in-hand and are employed at all times.
The Marine is taught that he is always free to defend himself and other Marines. The protection of Marines is thought- and activity-consuming and is paramount in their tactics. Fast forward to Iraq and current ROE. Now he is taught that commanders may limit the right of individual self-defense. If there were only one or two anecdotal pieces of evidence that Soldiers and Marines felt hamstrung and confused by the current ROE, then this might point to a problem.
I have given the broad outline of a change in ROE, along with four such pieces of anecdotal evidence, and this is only from main stream media reports. Further, while orders flow down in the military, complaints flow up. If Captain Secher felt this way (noting that any time a weapon is fired, an investigation has to be conducted), it is extremely likely that his men felt this way. There certainly is a problem.
Consider the psychology of the warrior. Even if not a single Soldier or Marine had died as a result of hesitation due to ROE (that is, even if this danger is only potential and has not become actualized), the psychology of fear has set in. Not fear of the enemy, but fear of firing a weapon. This fear can cause hesitation, and even the enemy knows the U.S. ROE and can and has taken advantage of them. Hence, there is increased danger for our troops, and they know it.
What we need are robust rules of engagement. What we have are confused Soldiers and Marines, afraid to fire their weapons.
LOOK UP ROE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
That article speaks to the problem they are facing. I'm asking you if they should just start shooting everyone? Is that what you are suggesting?
It's not easy being the good guy, is it?
Still waiting...
ya do what ya gotta do to win
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