Plain speaking (Interview with W)

U.S. News ^ | 12/30/2002 | KENNETH T. WALSH

[section9]

Most likely, the "seaborne" attack is a deception, designed to keep Saddam's mind concentrated on Kuwait and away from the Turkish frontier.

A seaborne attack is useless to us, which is why it won't be attempted. The chief targets on D-Day will be the airport around Al-Basrah and the oilfields in the south. Saddam will try to blow these up. However, it will be the chief duty of the 101 and the 82nd: a seaborne assault doesn't do that-not when you can go overland out of Western Kuwait.

The capture of Al Basrah early on puts us on the northern and southern banks of the Euphrates. In our rear will be Shiites, who will use this as a signal to go into open revolt. With our base secure, we can motor up the highway to Baghdad and bypass the marsh country that is the Tigris-Euphrates basin.

At the same time, I believe that mech infantry units and armored cavalry will snake down from Turkey to connect with Ranger and Airborne units that had seized airfields between Mosul/Kirkuk and Baghdad's northern approaches.

Wasting energy on seaborne assault when the same assets will be needed to move freight up the Shatt-Al-Arab waterway to Al-Basrah is silly, and won't be done.

Be Seeing You,

Chris Be Seeing You,

Chris

[RLK]

Sorry you don't like 'W' but he was up close and personal with his dad in the house and if you think he didn't learn anything, you're a fool. But don't take my word for it...look at the record.

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I din't care foor his father either. As far as there being a record, there isn't any of any depth. What you gave me was high school cheerleader hype.

[The Great Satan]

I don't think it will be 18 months! Bush cancelled his trip to Africa that was scheduled for January.

I'm sure Bush has better things to do with his time right now than visit Africa. The central problem of Bush's first administration is: can we remove Saddam Hussein from power, without taking millions of casualties and the total economic loss of our cities from the retaliation promised in the letter to Daschle? Everything is coordinated around that extremely difficult problem -- including the strategic deception which has prevented the economy from cratering over the attendant uncertainty since 9/11. No immediate solution to the problem is at hand. If such a solution were possible, we would simply have taken out Saddam a few days after his attacks on New York and Washington, DC. It will be the work of years before we can move against him with something like impunity. In the mean time, every saber will be rattled, every favor will be called in, every pressure will be applied, without let up or surcease. I therefore wouldn't read much into the latest leak of an invasion plan. There have been many of those over the past 12 months, and there will be many more before the problem of Saddam Hussein is finally resolved.

[Wait4Truth]

democrats like you are really tough to stomach during a time of war.

[Wait4Truth]

Well, I guess I don't agree with you but I certainly appreciate your viewpoint. Always good to hear what others have to say about this war.

[RLK]

THANK THE LORD it wasn't algore at the helm.p -------------------

How right you are. If Owlgore were president who knows what would have happened. We might have come under unopposed invasion from Mexico at the rate of millions per year. The economy might have gone down hill with entire industries shipped off to China. Bill and Hillary Clinton's corruption might have never been confronted and instead we would just move on. What a horrifying senario.

[Wait4Truth]

Thanks for your view, Chris! Appreciated!

[chiller]

Call it a record, or call it an agenda, but call it "what I've been waiting for since the 70's." Rah, Rah, sis coom ba!

I didn't say 'W' copied his father's ideas, he simply saw how the system worked, which prepared him for this job more so than anyone who's held the office.

[RLK]

democrats like you are really tough to stomach during a time of war.

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MY GOD! WE"RE AT WAR! WHO CAN BOTHER TO THINK AT A TIME LIKE THIS!

I was a worker for Goldwater probably before you were born. I voted for Reagan three times.

When the history of this country is written in decades to come, Bush will be recorded as preciding over its destruction with his economic policies, his immigration policies, his failure to confront the left, and his repeating of Bill Clinton's and Kofi Annan's speeches and policies.

[The Great Satan]

Well, I guess I don't agree with you but I certainly appreciate your viewpoint.

Thank you. Click on the link for a few quotes which I think may give you a leg up on understanding the real state of affairs, including even why Bush has been so keen to get Bill Frist running the show in the Senate:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/808877/posts?page=36#36

[speekinout]

would simply have taken out Saddam a few days after his attacks on New York and Washington,

That was bin Laden. Not many accept that there is proof connecting Saddam to 9/11.

[sanjacjake]

He is a good man..and a helluva improvement over the pervert.
No one prepares for Presidency for 20 years....It is
there and when you get it- you do it your way...it sure
as hell is working for President Bush..not just "Bush"
as his assinine critics usually spout....Right man at the
right time...no apologies..just rip out their heart
and jam it up their...a$$. Jake

[wingnuts'nbolts]

I don't care "foor" your remarks either. Why you bother I don't know. Your remarks are worthy of Al, Hillary or Bill, and last, but not least, Senator Murray. Definately in the wrong forum.

[desertcry]

There is no question in my mind, that after 2 years in office GWB knows how to get, and use power very effectively. He could become the most powerful President in USA history. That is certainly of concern to me, but after 2 years of a most unusual presidency, I have come to trust W. I think he is a sincere, honest, and truly compassionate(his actions in 9.11.01 convinced me so)person. I also believe that when he uses his power, it will be for the good of the American people. I pray that my assessment is right. I also believe that we have no choice, we either rally behind the President, or our enemies(islamist, ultra left wingers, even nations who pretend to be our friends) will finish us off, if we show weakness.

[Imal]

I am very impressed with Dubya, consider his motives honorable, and am glad he is our president right now.

My concerns about potential government excesses are based more on the long view, than worries about GWB becoming a tyrant. Even with dictatorial authority, I think Bush would rule with an even hand. I cannot assume that his successors in the presidency would do the same, however.

We should always be wary of government power grabs, and never so much as when they are made in times of emergency.

[desertcry]

I agree, we were lucky with the bent one. Although many thought of him as very smart, he was just a 5 year old boy in a 50 year old body, and hence not able to consolidate, and use his power effectively for his evil ends. Of course monica helped tremendously.

[RLK]

Your remarks are worthy of Al, Hillary or Bill, and last, but not least, Senator Murray. Definately in the wrong forum.

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I have a sudden flash for you and others here. Some of you think you a conservatives and are here because yo objected to Clinton's pawing the clothes off high school girls in the Oval office. Some of you think Bush is a conservative because he doesn't paw women in the Oval Office. Some of you may think or wigh you are conservatives because you believe in certain theories of economics. Some of you may convince yourselves Bush is a conservative because you would like to believe Bush believes in certain views of economics even thogh he stands with Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton in declaring the U. S. has an obligation to share its wealth with the rest of the world. Many of you believe conservativism consists of not disagreeing with George Bush. Conservativism is far more than that. Conservativism is not what many of you think it is. Many of you here are not conservatives. Not only are you not conservativism, you aren't anything. You think I'm on the wrong forum. It's not me, but you, who are on the wrong forum. If you can't stop thnking like dizzy high school kids your vote ma be useful but you are not conservatives and you are dangerous.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"Each event taking place does not occur within previously thought out considerations, but is a bolt out of the blue requiring instant decisions that should have been thought out years before, but weren't."

This sort of policy making is rather like throwing a pair of dice and saying "just what I wanted" after every roll. It may be considered characteristic of the generation. Pathological reactions based on momentary impressions are about as much as can be expected, and are as much as we can hope for. For some people on this forum, it is considered evidence of the Divine Finger of Providence guiding Bush's hand, because it's the way they make decisions themselves. There is no thought, there is no contemplation, there is no awareness of anything beyond what can be comprehended at a glance, and a generalized silly, condescending, bemused assertion of a transcendent knowledge of the ulterior motivations behind any criticism of the President. There is no in-depth understanding of the principles of the Declaration of Independence or the intellectual, cultural, and philosophical environment in which it was written, or the historical progression that preceded the Declaration or the historical events which proceeded from it.

Obviously nobody reads anything which can properly be called a book, and apparently watching a movie based on a screen adaptation of a book is thought to be the equivalent of actually having read it.

I would argue that Cliff Notes are too hard and tedious for folks to read these days. Very few people seem to be aware that an awareness of the existence of something is not the same as actually understanding it.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Here's a short political fill-in-the-blank /multiple choice test.

The following are excerpts from a March 23, 2002 Washington Times piece by Bill Sammon.

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--------- Urges More Foreign Aid

"MONTERREY, Mexico: -------- yesterday said Americans are duty-bound to 'share our wealth' with poor nations and promised a 50 percent increase in foreign aid, but 'We should give more of our aid in the form of grants, rather than loans that can never be repaid,' he said. 'We should invest in better health and build on our efforts to fight AIDS, which threatens to undermine whole societies.'

"In addition to the moral, economic and strategic imperatives of increasing foreign aid, ------ said, it could also help in the war against terrorism.

"'We will challenge the poverty and hopelessness and lack of education and failed governments that too often allow conditions that terrorists can seize and try to turn to their advantage"

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Who is quoted above?
a) Bill Clinton
b) Al Gore
c) Hillary Clinton
d) Jessie Jackson
e) Reverend Al What's-His-Name
f) Bono and the pop band U2
g) Whoopie Goldberg
h) George W. Bush

Hint: he's very popular here at Free Republic.

[MissAmericanPie]

Yeah, it's very tempting to whip out the list of his dubious "accomplishments". It could take all night to type them in though, I think I listed eighteen or maybe it was twenty eight, road to hell, accomplishments in his first months in office, the list now is pretty boggling.

Trust him? Not in this lifetime. Vote for him again? Never.