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

In article ,
(WalterM140) wrote:

If we had to incur 5,000 casualties in the war on terror, they should
not have been incurred in Iraq.

Well, besides the fact that it's been one of the big financial and
logistical supporters of worldwide terror for a long, long time, and
since it's right in the middle of a bunch of other countries that are
currently in the same nasty business, and since the secondary effects of
kicking out Saddam are really bloody obvious (Libya's change of heart
and the lack of Iraqi funds for Hamas are the two most glaring
examples)...

I don't know why you can't get that.

Because you're just wrong.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

I certainly don't know that -


That's because you're uninformed.

"Vaughn" wrote in message
...

Finally I've got it!


No you don't.



Since actual terrorists are sort of hard to find,
Iraq is some sort of a surrogate for the real thing; a whipping boy so to
speak.
But if we can go anywhere we want to fight this war on terror, (even if it
makes
no sense) then why not choose some place more convenient than Iraq? How
about:
Cuba? Canada? Chicago?


We are fighting terrorists in Iraq.

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On 30 May 2004 12:27:45 GMT, (WalterM140) wrote:


I thought Reagan a very bad president also. I don't think he ever made a tough
decision. And like Bush, he was a puppet of his handlers. The one thing he
can claim is egging his staff on into what became Iran-Contra, while claiming
he would never negociate with terrorists.

Walt


Your opinion, is of course, your's.

Mine too.

But, might you be willing to
consider the greatest tax cut since JFK as an achievment?

Economic conditions in the early 1960s were quite different. Low
inflation, low growth, small deficits, much excess capacity in the
economy. The early 1980s saw large deficits and high inflation.
Different problems require different solutions.

Or, maybe
the reduction of Carter's 21% annual inflation and 18% interest rates
in less than two years to a more realistic 6% inflation and 10.5%
interest as worthwhile?

Richard Nixon imposed wage/price controls in August of 1971 thereby
fostering shortages and inflationary expectations. He then bungled
relations with OPEC and IRAN causing a series of supply-side oil shocks.
It was Gerald Ford who gave us the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons
as the economy spiraled out of control. The notion that Carter created
stagflation is absurd. His policies provided the ultimate remedies.

Maybe the destruction of the Berlin Wall and
the collapse of the Soviet Union might be good things?

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Even as Reagan and the chicken hawks
prattled on about the red menace and squandered treasure on the B1B,
battleships, and Star Wars, the Russian economy declined to the point
that its GNP was less than Italy's. If Bill Casey's CIA had been
focused on gathering and analyzing intelligence rather than mining the
harbors, we could have saved a lot of money--however, since the
Reaganauts put the cost off on to future generations, why should you care?

You might even
want to consider the economic theories of Laffer

It was the high interest policy of Paul Volcker (a Carter appointment)
that brought down inflation. When the recovery finally happened, it was
demand driven, not supply-side. It's no coincidence that as Reagan
became more addled by Alzheimer's he became enamored with kookier ideas.
The Laffer Curve is about as realistic as the death rays that Reagan
imagined could zap incoming warheads.

--the idea that a
reduction in tax rates can lead to an increase in tax revenue because
the money in consumer's hands gets spent to create demand for goods
and services--a better choice than socialistic redistribution of
wealth in my opinion, but then I work for a living.


And, while Iran-Contra was certainly questionable,

A felony's a felony.

you might consider
that it was the result of the Congress first putting anti-communist
forces in the field in Nicaragua and then cutting the funds for their
support after they are in harm's way. While I freely agree that ends
should not justify means, it was a solution to a problem.

It was a series of crimes.


Have you noticed that while everyone says, "we never negotiate with
terrorists", that the first individual that shows up in a terrorist
hostage situtation is the negotiator?

Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages after complaining about European
allies conducting conventional trade. George Shultz, hardly a liberal,
claims to have told Reagan to his face that he traded arms for hostages.
Why did Reagan deny it? Was he a fool or a knave?

Cheers

--mike


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

"Mike Dargan" wrote in message
news:6Dxuc.22383$eY2.3247@attbi_s02...

Richard Nixon imposed wage/price controls in August of 1971 thereby
fostering shortages and inflationary expectations. He then bungled
relations with OPEC and IRAN causing a series of supply-side oil shocks.
It was Gerald Ford who gave us the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons
as the economy spiraled out of control. The notion that Carter created
stagflation is absurd. His policies provided the ultimate remedies.


What policies were those?

Richard Nixon imposed wage/price controls in August of 1971 thereby
fostering shortages and inflationary expectations. He then bungled
relations with OPEC and IRAN causing a series of supply-side oil shocks.
It was Gerald Ford who gave us the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons
as the economy spiraled out of

Nixon made also a capital mistake and scrapped Bretton Woods.
That was a serious blow to the plans of Global Financial Power so Nixon had to
pay the price.

We are fighting terrorists in Iraq.


Really?
I guess US is trying to build 21st century version of Atlantic Wall,this time
stretching from Cyprus to Afghanistan.
But the question is:Will the new Atlantic wall be more effective than the
original?

Denyav wrote:
Richard Nixon imposed wage/price controls in August of 1971 thereby
fostering shortages and inflationary expectations. He then bungled
relations with OPEC and IRAN causing a series of supply-side oil shocks.
It was Gerald Ford who gave us the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons
as the economy spiraled out of


Nixon made also a capital mistake and scrapped Bretton Woods.
That was a serious blow to the plans of Global Financial Power so Nixon had to
pay the price.

Interestng point. However, its significance is probably lost on the
yahoos. They probably think Bretton Woods is a real estate development
on Long Island.

Oddly, despite my disparaging comments about Nixon, his record on civil
rights and the environment was quite good. He appointed quite a few
minorities and women and had much to do with the EPA and OSHA. He
started out with a couple of Supreme Court nominations that were
clinkers (Haynesworth and Carswell!) but then gave us the core of the
Burger Court which turned out surprisingly well.

Some say he was the last liberal President. Too bad he had to be so
paranoid.

Cheers

--mike

"Denyav" wrote in message
...

Really?


Really.