Posted on 10/08/2007 11:20:57 AM PDT by rubeng
But...but..where do they stand on the abortion issue?
You got that right. I, along with you and thousands of us, saw what happens when a government turns its back on someone they support, pull financial support out, pull the troops out. Total loss. No hope to win. Overrun by communist forces. Only here, Iraq will be over run by Islamic terrorists and Iran. Iraq will become just another state within greater Terrorist Iran. Stupid Americans are too worried about ordering their pizza to watch stupid Caveman shows and THE BIG GAME, to worry about their futures. Too worried about real world. Want those free hand outs, free medical care. Like Rush was reporting today, the kid that the Dims used to respond to Bush's Saturday radio address. The kid's family lives in a $400k house, bought $160k in properties, father self employed, mother had no insurance at home, yet when kids were injured in auto accident, family had no private insurance to cover them. Family chose buying big house and property over medical coverage. Yet, Dims think this family who appears to be well off, are perfect example of "the poor children" without medical coverage. The socialization of Amerika has begun. With the election of Hillary, and at this point, seeing how America is acting, like a spoiled 5 year old, Hillary will win the election. The RINOs, republican party, religious right, conservatives, libertarians, etc., are so splintered, that our voting will be all over the place and she will win. The Marxists hold on to Congress, and America is done. Hell, I might move to Canada. It would not be as bad as it is going to become here. But, I will stay. I will fight. I will stay armed. Hillary wants my gun, the bitch can personally come and ask for it. I will gladly give it to her. From my cold dead hand.
It's their primary job.
Ask the O-3 through O-6 what HE thinks. Ask the Seargent Majors and the Staff Seargents.
Hell, who said the Army was required in any conflict with Iran to begin with?
It appears there is a great divide in pocketbook land. Those that have a vision for the future vs the greedy old farts.
I wonder who is stopping the retirement study group from giving away a chunk of Israel? Hmmmmm, Somebody is trying to play a quick game of poker when the game is chess.
Generals have cried for more troops and supplies in every war this nation ever won.
It’s their primary job.
Ask the O-3 through O-6 what HE thinks. Ask the Seargent Majors and the Staff Seargents.
Yep.
>>More importantly, we don’t have the troops.
If it’s just airstrikes on nuclear facilities, and not a land invasion, we have plenty of troops. In the grand scheme of things, the Air Force and Navy aren’t doing much right now.
The incessant BDS-driven attacks on Bush by the Left have created a domestic political environment that prevents taking decisive action on Iran.
Scotty always told Kirk that the engines couldn’t handle the strain.
Must respectfully disagree. Sure seems like he gets the nature of behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
Whether his claims are *true* or not, I cannot say. But he lays out a plausible case that the Vice President and Secretary of Defense are each urging the President to come down on opposite sides of the issue.
I can agree with that. Maybe it’s a “tone of voice” sort of thing....
I do not think the cause is "greed", nor do I think the opposite view is entirely a "vision for the future". I think the so-called "realists", in American Middle East policy circles, are actually not realists at all. They do not really and have never really understood far, far too many things about the Middle East.
Their view of "history" and from it their "world view" of the Middle East does not come from living personal experience of a Middle East person. It (their view) has been constructed primarily through their official relationships, with a lot of help from their Middle East counterparts in the process; counterparts whose goals are entirely centered on their self-appointed leaders retaining power.
Mr. Baker exemplified this disconnect from reality and "realism" in the "Iraq Study Group" report, which he led in the preparation of, where he asserted that we needed a resolution of the situation between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs to help achieve peace in Iraq. The Iraqi people who voted for a government, the Iraqi citizens who have joined that government's security program - including those who died in its service, the Shia and Sunni tribal leaders who reject Mr. Baker's belief (it was one of the propaganda positions of Al Queda and the Sunni militias) know that Mr. baker does not know what he is talking about.
It would be easy, and not entirely wrong, to criticize Baker for presenting that view simply on the basis of his clear conflict of interest during the entire process of the Iraq study group, wherein he remained as a paid "consultant" to the Saudi government at the time. And to include that his greed in retaining that contract leads him to present a Saudi line on many Middle East issues.
My view of Baker is that one problem, that reflects the error in Baker's world view of the Middle East is manifest in that he did not see his situation (during the Iraq study group process) as a conflict of interest and the second one is not that he is doing the Saudis bidding but he simply, and with great error, agrees with them and often ignores or fails to believe that their self-interest dominates over mere presentation of an "informed" Middle East view.
A good example of the grave error in Baker's mis-education and erroneous view of the Middle East is presented by the deal he made with Syria in the run-up to the first Gulf War. He wants one to believe it was needed for the "coalition", as if without Syria publicly agreeing to NOT oppose kicking Saddam out of Kuwait (its sole contribution to the "coalition"), (1)there would not have been the "coalition", (2)the "coalition" would have been more dammed in the Arab and Muslim world than it was, during and more particularly after the Gulf War, even with the Saudis and others behind it, or (3)Syria was capable of impeding the essential mission of the "coalition" - none of which was true. Yet, the Syria dictator was rewarded with a U.S. policy position that was going to not oppose his moves into Lebanon - a move that the Middle East is still reeling from the ramifications of. Mr. Baker was not then nor is he now a "realist" when it comes to the Middle East. He could have and should have promised the dictator in Syria nothing in 1991 and accepted what diplomatic consequences, and problems it would have entailed then, and since. Those problems were minor compared to the results; which his uneducated "realism" has given us, with regard to Syria vis-a-vis Lebanon.
“You’re leaving Cheney out of that triad. Cheney also has a long working history with those 3, particularly with Gates.”
I left him out because he is factually not with them now. Apparently while Cheney had working relationships with the three of them in the past, it is not clear, in that history , that he was on the same page with them, then, on their thinking and policy points of view and it is very clear he has never been on the same page as them on Bush’s policies vis-a-vis Iraq. Maybe, like Bush, he realized, through the 9/11 experience, that the “realists” (Middle East peace and American “peace” with the people of the Middle East, can be achieved by the “stability” of its dictators) had been wrong all along.
And your point is?
ITs simple, I would tell Iran that if you develop nuclear weapons or explode a bomb, you will be threatened with nuclear weapons. ITs your choice. We will not wait for you to develop an arsenal.
Now there’s a reputable source.
Go Darth Cheney!
“Reidel has followed al-Qaida since American intelligence first became aware of the group in the mid-1990s.”
Yes, American intelligence was tardy, and not for the first time; even though American intelligence had many “allies” who not only knew about the philosophical and political origins and funding for “Al Queda” but were “allies” who had nurtured and funded those who provided those origins, since long before the 1990s.
American “intelligence” went through a wholesale internal destruction of our own humit (person to person human intelligence on the ground in the trenches) beginning in the 1970s. By the time of Gulf War one the U.S. had almost no humit of our own on most of the Middle East and zero in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Our “intelligence” was limited to our electronic intelligence and what Middle East and European intelligence agencies were willing to share with us from their actual humit. Mr. Reidel rose through the ranks during this period and for all I know he might even epitomize the problems we currently suffer from because of that period.
“Sure seems like he gets the nature of behind-the-scenes maneuvering.”
That “nature” is known by any student who watches it, it is not in question. The facts are. Simply having an understanding of a context (and having some history to back up that understanding) does not automatically provide credit for the facts you seek to put in that context.
Given the period when Mr. Reidel rose through the ranks in U.S. intelligence circles - when the wholesale destruction of our own human intelligence abilities took place - I am not certain I can even grant him great authority for his experience. His generation of intelligence managers failed (not entirely their fault) on 9/11; but that was only the demonstration of their failure, not the beginnings of it.
That “nature” is known by any student who watches it, it is not in question. The facts are.
Thank you, that was precisely my point.
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