[Qatar-6]

I don't disagree with the war

I do think WMD is the ball we have to keep our eye on.

However, I don't see how OSD has helped

The strategic decisions were the president's and he made the right ones.

The operational execution has been hampered by excessive and inexpert civilian micromanagement

The gist of this article was to call a retired general, who dared question the operational judgement of these deeply flawed men, anti-semites.

Lame and untrue. I know Gen Zinni and he is not an Anti Semite

[af_vet_1981]

The gist of this article was to call a retired general, who dared question the operational judgement of these deeply flawed men, anti-semites.
Lame and untrue. I know Gen Zinni and he is not an Anti Semite

He is taking the offensive against the President and singling out Jewish members of the administration with a thinly veiled label of neocon. It is reasonable to translate it as Jewish Republican.

His public attacks on the President would make sense if he were a Democrat like Clark, but he is not. I think he is dismayed because he thinks the Bush Administration was not contained by SoS Powell, Sen. Hagel, and Sen. Lugar from toppling an Axis of Evil regime. He probably wants to form an alliance with various Arab regimes at the expense of Israel and pursue a calculated strategy of containment, appeasement, and lobbing a few cruise missiles at tents. I think that is where he is coming from.

After September 11th I don't think the American people will stand for that kind of policy.

[Benjo]

Thanks for your stout defense of General Zinni.

Mowbray's article was despicable in that it attemped to label Zinni an anti-semite for saying what everybody knows, freely talks about and for the most part sees as completely unremarkable--that most of the people who make and shape American policy in the Middle East are Jewish conservative intellectuals (popularly known as "Neocons"). I just read an article by Ari Shavit in Haaretz written last April that said precisely that: "The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history." Just in case anyone has any doubts who Shavit means he gives a partical list: "Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer"

Now Zinni comes along and says the same thing and Mowbray calls him an anti-semite. Obviously that's a low blow and furthermore it doesn't get at what Mowbray obviously really objects to--Zinni's contention that the Neocons don't know what they're doing. But if that's how Mowbray feels, that's what he ought to have attacked Zinni for, instead of smearing such a worthy man with gratuitous charges of anti-Semitism.