General Zinni on Sixty Minutes

The war on terror is being fought in Iraq. Why can't you get that?

I certainly don't know that -just- because you and that near moron George
Bush
Jr. say it.

If we seek accuracy, you might begin by noting the George W. Bush is
not a "Jr." (But he does have a Bachelor's from Yale and an MBA from
Harvard.)

That's odd, itsn't it? George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush? Is
that right? So he's not styled as a Junior? Thanks for the correction.

I know that the former SecNav James Webb have said that it is a strategic
blunder, and General Zinni says it was a strategic blunder, and many other
jefes of national policy experience say that.


Just because that moron Bush says it, doesn't make it so. That's the first
lesson you need to learn in order to shrug off your Orwellian reliance on
someone elses' unsupported opinion.


And, using your rationale, just becasue Webb and Zinni say it doesn't
make it so either.


So I'm reduced to accepting your analysis or theirs. Now, I could accept Rummy
and Junior's analysis, and that would, for weight, surely counter a retired 4
star and a guy who was SecDef 15 years ago. The fly in the buttermilk is that
all the jefes currently in power, in my judgment, have shown they don't know
their ass from a hole in the ground.


As I've indicated on several occasions, I can decide for myself. I was
pushing the "Bush administration actions in Iraq a disaster" well before
General Zinni went public.

To General Zinni's great credit, he said today on CCN that he couldn't vote for
Bush as things stand now -- Bush has to fire Rumsfeld and others first.

Now, as I've said, I don't need a general to tell me that Iraq is a ****ing
mess. All I need do is note that the head of the Iraqi Governing Counsel
was
blown up --right outside-- the US enclave to get a glimmer that things are
not
going right. You can do that too.

And, JFK was killed in downtown Dallas in the middle of a police
motorcade. What's your point?

My point would be that 135,000 US soldiers weren't deployed around Dealy Plaza
and hadn't been trying to pacify the place for over a year before JFK arrived.

I -know- you can make these inferences.


You can also -- "look ma, no hands!" make your own determination that when
the
attourney general says we can expect a major terrorist act in this country
before the election, that invading Iraq and incurring 5,000 casualties
didn't
-exactly- bring about the outcome we thought it would.

And, had we not invaded Iraq we would not have a major terrorist
threat today? Seems like 9/11 occured prior to the invasion of Iraq as
well as Khobar, Cole, Beirut, etc.

We would probably still have a terrorist threat, sure. We'd also have 5,000
more troops with which to fight it (as many as half the wounded have rerturned
to duty I know, but the point remains).


What would you do differently to relieve the terrorist threat??


I dunno. I was for the war. Imagine my surprise that the Bush administration
had no plan beyond rolling some tanks up to Baghdad.

One thing that might be a good start would be to slice off the top leaders like
General Marshall did after he was named Chief of Staff in 1940. Get rid of all
that deadwood at the top, cancel all the turf battles and get some people in
there who want to crush these sorry Islamic militants like so many bugs.

Walt