General Zinni on Sixty Minutes

IAC, your use of the "Kumbaya" crack was clearly
racist if unintended, and I thought somewhat beneath you. You surely know
perfectly well that "Kumbaya" is a black South African folk song and introducing
it into the discussion didn't seem warranted to me.

"Kumbaya" is a Christian South African folk song, and is in many
Christian hymn books. Ed didn't insult me by referrring to this
Christian song. Why do you feel insulted because it is also a "black"
song?

Jim Thomas

"Mike Dargan" wrote in message
news:eBduc.16454$eY2.14365@attbi_s02...

Are you getting poli-sci credit for these postings?


No. Do you think I should?

Then more than 5,000 moms would be wrong.


We got back from Desert Storm with every body okay.

About a year later Corporal Larry Hazelwood was murdered in a random act.

He was 22.

I went to the funeral home and saw this fine young man laid out in his coffin
in his dress blues. His mother was so disconsolate that three ladies had to
help her sit in a chair. Her weeping for her dead son was the saddest thing
that I have ever witnessed.

Those 5,000 mothers deserve your sympathy, not your contempt.

Walt

Are you getting poli-sci credit for these postings?


No. Do you think I should?

Presumably, Ed Rasimus thinks you should.

Walt

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

We got back from Desert Storm with every body okay.


There were casualties in Desert Storm.



Those 5,000 mothers deserve your sympathy, not your contempt.


What contempt? I was merely stating a fact.

The Bush administration is arrogant and incompetent. Bush is the -worst-
president we've -ever- had.

Worse than Reagan? Come now, let's not forget the godfather of the
mujahadin. Not so very long ago, most of these terrorists were proxies
for RR and his boy Bill Casey. When they video taped the throat
slittings of Russian draftees, they were freedom fighters.


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

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. But, might you be willing to
consider the greatest tax cut since JFK as an achievment? 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? Maybe the destruction of the Berlin Wall and
the collapse of the Soviet Union might be good things? You might even
want to consider the economic theories of Laffer--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, 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.

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?


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

On 30 May 2004 02:28:58 GMT, (WalterM140) wrote:

Just for Ed:

"The Bush Administration has not made it easy on its supporters. David Brooks
now admits that he was gripped with a "childish fantasy" about Iraq. Tucker
Carlson is "ashamed" and "enraged" at himself. Tom Friedman, admitting to being
"a little slow," is finally off the reservation. Die-hard Republican publicist
William Kristol admits of Bush, "He did drive us into a ditch." The neocon
fantasist and sometime Republican speechwriter Mark Helprin complains on the
Wall Street Journal editorial page--the movement's Pravda--of "the inescapable
fact that the war has been run incompetently, with an apparently deliberate
contempt for history, strategy, and thought, and with too little regard for the
American soldier, whose mounting casualties seem to have no effect on the
boastfulness of the civilian leadership."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i...607&s=alterman

Walt

You know what? I agree with you. The Bush administration has not made
it easy on its supporters! But, you can say the same thing about other
administrations as well. Did Clinton make it easy on his supporters?
George Stephanopolous, one of the early true believers, resigned to
write his memoir "All Too Human" when he discovered his savior had
feet of clay. It's part of the process of politics in America.

Gotta confess though, that the characterization of the WSJ as some
version of Pravda is a bet of hyperbole.

And, let's put the "mounting casualties" thing into perspective this
weekend as we recall 400,000 from WWII and 58,000 KIA from SEA. Any
casualties are regretable, but they are part of the price to be paid
for defense of the things we value. Different folks will set the price
at different levels, but there will always be a price.


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

And, let's put the "mounting casualties" thing into perspective this
weekend as we recall 400,000 from WWII and 58,000 KIA from SEA.

Big difference--

The 5,000 casualties we have now are totally unnecessary.

This is the next hurdle for you to get over, Ed.


Walt

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

Big difference--

The 5,000 casualties we have now are totally unnecessary.


One cannot fight a war without casualties.