Posted on 12/17/2008 12:13:03 AM PST by neverdem
The announcement that retired Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki will be President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of veterans affairs has energized one of the most enduring myths of the Bush presidency. Among the media coverage in recent days: Gen. Shinseki "clashed with the Bush administration on its Iraq war strategy" (Associated Press). In "questioning the Pentagon's Iraq war strategy" (The Post), Shinseki "warn[ed] that far more troops would be needed than the Pentagon had committed" (New York Times). For his candor, he was "vilified" (Boston Globe) by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Shinseki has a chance during his confirmation hearings to set the record straight: None of those statements is correct.
The source of the Shinseki narrative was testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war. Shinseki and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan had this exchange:
Levin: "General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?"
Shinseki: "In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements. But I think --"
Levin: "How about a range?"
Shinseki: "I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required."
From this impromptu exchange, a legend has grown: Shinseki was a stalwart opponent of the "Rumsfeld" war plan. He voiced those concerns and, after being "snubbed" by Pentagon officials (Los Angeles Times), was forced from office (CBS radio affiliate WTOP-Washington)...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is the dumbest argument the Democrats have made yet. They claim some kind of vindication because they say Shinseki wanted 'several hundreds of thousands' of troops. Of course Obama wanted ZERO! I don't see any logic to the story they are trying to paint. Basically Obama appointed a man that was diametrically opposed to his argument over Iraq.
Frankly, I'm surprised that the Washington Post only took six years to figure this out.
We shall see how honorable the general is when it's time for confirmation.
God bless you, Larry DiRita, and your legendary former boss, Donald Rumsfeld.
Yes, we shall see.
The rats ran against Bush and his relatively unpopular venture in Iraq. McCain supported winning in Iraq. You can't have logic when the drive by media is in the tank for the left. Good election results are dependent on an informed electorate. We don't have an informed electorate. Most of Obama's supporters thought the GOP controlled Congress. The independents and moderates who control the results of elections know didly squat, IMHO.
Wasn’t Shinseki & some General Heebner [sp?] tight with General Dynamics on some sweetheart deal - a wheeled vehicle contract- during the 90s? I know he is tight with Senator Inouye and the Alaska Republican who’s in a corruption mess, Stevens. I had a link on it somewhere.
“I would have to rely on combatant commanders’ exact requirements,” he said.
But pressed by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, to make an off-the-cuff guesstimate, Shinseki said “it would take a significant ground force.”
-- Jamie McIntyre
CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent
Brilliant!
When I was a military officer, I used to say:
"With more manpower, funding, and training, we can make this better."
Wasn't I just amazing!? A genius!?
You still are. ;)
We don’t have an informed electorate.
#####
Key point!
Levin got the answer he wanted from Shinseki — one that was easily portrayed as being at variance with the administration ‘line’. Shinseki’s testimony was unsuccessfully used by the Dem opponents as a cudgel to browbeat the supporters of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It subsequently became part of the pre-Surge, “I told you so” arguments.
A key reality....and likely spells the death of the two party system in this country.
I don’t see any logic to the story they are trying to paint.
&&&
Aha! The central locus of your problem — looking for logic. The Rats don’t need no steenkin’ logic. If logic was part of their lives they would not be liberals to begin with.
Which is exactly what the Bill Ayers and Saul Alinskys, etc have been working towards since the 1960s.
Conservatives abdicated the education of the “masses” and now we have the masses that radicals want.
I don't believe in keeping young minds in a cesspool for the sake of making a political point. I'm willing to fight from within, but not when the vulnerable are affected by my decision to do so. It would be akin to keeping my parent in a government-run nursing home where I knew they had a policy of offing the elderly when they became "too expensive" to the system, simply to advocate a change in the policy as a "consumer" of their services.
No, maica....I have only one word for people with children in government schools. FLEE.
ROTFLOL - That's because the democrats don't operate on LOGIC - they operate on emotion.
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