But the CIA has got hold of top-secret Al-Qaeda letters proving that Osama wants and need us to stay in Iraq to a) unite Sunnis and Shiites against a common enemy (us), and b) inflame Muslims worldwide into going to Iraq and/or joining Al-Qaeda.

Write to the NYT to counter Bergen’s bull: letters@nytimes.com. (And urge your local papers not to reprint that Op-Ed of his.)

Wednesday, 25 October 2006

In Response To: TELLING? BUSH SAYS HE HAS NO INTENTION OF STANDING IN CROSSFIRE O RIVAL FACTIONS (APHRODITE)

Bush on Iraq: “If We Can’t Win, I’ll Pull Us Out.”
The president talks candidly to a group of conservative journalists.

By Byron York

Everybody knows George W. Bush is determined to win the war in Iraq. What came through in a meeting with conservative journalists in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon, though, was the president’s frustration in not being able to find more meaningful ways to measure progress in the war, and in not being able to make the case more effectively to the American people that progress is, in fact, being made.

http://article.nationalreview……mQwYTgxNjY

Bonnie @
98
Only a year? Pshaw! That’s nothing.

Only a year seems like quite a bit when you move every other year. The wait in DC would have been closer to 3 years, one more than we lived there. Since 1994 we have moved every other year, crossing an ocean 4 times since 1999.

I certainly won’t argue with you though that military housing is downright shameful in places.

LJ/Aquaria, I can only speak to my own experience as an Army wife. Availability of quarters has varied widely by location. Here at Ft. Knox and in Germany, we were able to walk right into quarters. Germany was our first time ever living on post in my husband’s then-17 years of service. At Ft. Bragg and in Hawaii and DC, the waiting list for officer quarters was well over a year.

Only a year? Pshaw! That’s nothing.

I was on the waiting list for 3 years before I was offered a place in the substandard housing unit. Substandard means just what it sounds like. The housing did not meet standards for military housing. It had lead pipes, lead paint, asbestos–stuff like that. Yeah, just the kind of place we all want to live, right?

From discussions with other airmen across CONUS (and I had contact with many, in my AFSC), I was lucky to get a chance at housing that soon. And to have it that good! What base housing was available for the enlisted personnel at one base (that will remain nameless here) looked like it belonged on Tobacco Road. I know. I saw it, and was appalled.

I’m not saying the housing problem happens at every base. But the exceptions pretty much prove the rule.

I can nearly guarantee a few things about those families lined up at Pendleton:

1) They’re the spouses of enlisted personnel, most likely E-4 or lower.

2) These people are not living in base housing.

In the 80s, most of the E-4 and below married service members stationed in California had to live off-base. Most of them were on food stamps.

It was an outrage that these people were serving their country, and they couldn’t afford to eat or have shelter.