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Tuesday night on Countdown, Keith had retired U. S. General Barry McCaffrey on, the MSNBC resident Pentagon shill military expert. According to his asshattiness, what we really need over there to "win" is more armored vehicles. Nothing like pimping for the defense industry while we put our sons and daughters through the meat grinder:
MCCAFFREY:. . . So it‘s been done on the fly, it‘s grossly underresourced, we don‘t have the Iraqis, don‘t have the equipment they need, light armored vehicles, helicopters, AC-130s. We‘re going to have to buckle down and resource the war and try and achieve some minimal objectives in the coming 24 months.
[snip]
MCCAFFREY: Well, you know, I‘ve been banging away on the underresourced aspect of this for two years. I think, you know, (INAUDIBLE) — if it‘s $7 billion a month to fight the war, why, for God‘s sakes, would we think it was unacceptable to pay for 3,000 to 5,000 light armored vehicles, you know, let‘s say $2 billion, so that the Iraqis could replace us?
So I think, again, Secretary Rumsfeld tried to do this thing on the cheap. You know, the argument was always, Well, look, they may—
(INAUDIBLE) end up equipping both sides of a civil war.
That would be the same Rumsfeld he was taking talking points from just a few months ago. But here's the real kicker. McCaffrey makes the following observation in the next breath, as if as an afterthought:
You know, another thought, Keith, come to think of it, it‘s not just equipment or training, it‘s also the political will, the security forces, to fight for a legitimate government. That‘s been sadly lacking in the police case. There are factional militias, murderers, and in the case of the army, in many instances, they‘re really Kurdish troops, peshmerga, or they‘re Shia, or Sunni, and they‘re not taking orders from the national government.
These are really evil people. In one breath, he's pimping more hardware sales for the military, presumably so we can find the pony and "win." Then he points out the very reality that negates everything he's been saying. These pundit generals know we've lost. Everyone knows we have to get out; there's no winning in that civil war. But they go on television and lie to the American people, so some other mother's son can get killed.
This Thanksgiving, families will be getting together all across the country, and they'll be talking about the war. They'll be talking about the elections. And they'll know that television pundits and people like Barry McCaffrey are full of shit.
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fitz!
YESSSSSS!
well, we can’t really have it both ways.
the military was under equipped, this we know as a fact and they are going to have to reload whether or not we stay in Iraq
I can’t fault the general for wanting to equip the troops, however we do it with oversite.
we try to get this equipment for little or no profit, preferably from haliburton
Good post, Pachacutec.
gotta run, pups!
perris @ 3
when I say preferably from haliburton, what I really mean is we get it for free from them, no more money to haliburton but make them deliver on what we’ve already payed to them
Changing gears, what the heck is going on in Pelosi’s head?
http://salon.com/opinion/conas….._hastings/
I know Hastings has been discussed here before, but good grief.
I’m really having some major doubts about her judgement.
“And they’ll know that television pundits and people like Barry McCaffrey are full of shit. “
Some of them will. Whether a large enough segment of the electorate can be convinced of the fundamental “bullshittiness” of the broadcast media is another matter. I’ll believe that when Limbaaaarrrg gets cancelled.
‘Morning, Pach. Thanks for this one; bugs the crap out of me since the troops have been underresourced from the get-go in 2003 and whores like McCaffrey have failed them grossly.
Terry in Maryland — have you actually seen anything from Pelosi’s office or out of her own mouth on Hastings? or Harman, for that matter? While I am generally happy with Joe Conason’s coverage, he does nothing more than reverberate chatter without actual sourcing in the article you linked. Until I see something from Pelosi directly, I am going to withhold opinion; some of what we are seeing could well be buzz generated by Harman and her staff/supporters to put the brakes on Hastings while boosting her own position. Or it could be buzz generated by opposition party — Rove’s famous for whisper campaigns, remember? Even comments in blogs can be used to this end…
I am curious how this military is under equippped… What is all the billions and billions of dollars being spent on?
You can’t expect anyone from the national security state to advocate anything other than … more hardware… and more enemies and wars to fight.
What would an army do without enemies and a mission? In the case of the the USA national security state… they INVENT them.. they stand them up so that they can come along and knock them down and justify their own existence and “greed”. The national security state and all the players are one huge bureacracy which is ALWAYS justifying its existence.
When you think about the real threats out there… does it justify… for example the billions and billions of locks we put on everything? One would think that we live in a world where everyone is going around stealing. Absurd!
Look at the TSA which essentially puts everyone on harrassment status if they want to travel by air. Soon they will be checking our shoes when we drive to the 7 11.
These gas bags are nothing but fear mongers…. and if they would stop taking resources to oppress people and use them to CARE for people’s needs… we would not have the problems we do… created by these power freaks and gun nuts.
Good Morning Pachachutec -
with his legs spread wide and pom poms held high . . .
http://radio.weblogs.com/01204…..02.html#a7
General WarOnDrugs sure loves him some hardware . . .
considering this f**kwad has written two books on addiction – I find the omission of the chapters on Contractor Cash glaring as shit
DefJef @ 10
not equiptment for our boys and girls, they went into this campaign without the gear they needed, without the vehicles they needed
the money isn’t “spent” on equipment or anything military, it’s given away to the friends of this administration in no bid, no performance, profit guaranteed contracts
Rayne @
9
Good point. It could also be Pelosi’s folks sending up a trial balloon to see the reaction to Hastings.
I REALLY hope this is inaccurate or she changes her mind.
perris @ 3
I agree. You can’t fault the military brass for pigging out on their war toys and their conventionl battle plans. The fault lies with the civilian leadeship that should know when, where and how to use conventional force.
The jury’s in on our civilian leadership.
McCaffrey has been sour on the war for a while now. Lately he’s not getting invited to those WH strategy sessions.
It was Einstein who said something to the effect that a problem cannot be solved by the same mindset that created it. That’s why the media should not turn to the NeoCon pundits who instigated this war for answers about what to do about the current chaotic situation. I don’t need to hear what Bill Kristol or Richard Pearle or Tom Friedman have to say about this situation. And McCaffery has been invested in promoting this war from the beginning.
I’m hoping the Democrats, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, will start dictating the narrative of the war.
Ed Deevy @ 15
It took a long long time for Congress to finally cut off the money for the Vietnam war. I seriously doubt Pelosi, et. al., will get there any time soon. And that is, after all, the only real power Congress has over this or any war.
Clue…
We are not in the 18th Century… we don’t array soldiers on battlefields and the commander yells “charge”.
We don’t engage in naval battles a la Lord Nelson…
Time long past for the military to wake up to the reality of war and struggle.
Insurgencies are really the way wars will be fought… using liberation or tribal conflicts. Our military can only shock and awe and bomb some place/enemy back to the stone age.
War college is an oxymoron. We need to get rid of the whole lot of them… the soldies, the contractors who are just draining the nation’s resources.
Time long past study war no more.
I like what Ed Deevy @ 15 writes…
Now that we know the neocons and related kissing cousins were dead wrong… send them away and listen to the people who were DEAD ON… Let THEM propose the solutions for a change.
No accountability is the new american apple pie!
Hmm, when it comes to education and domestic programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security the people on the right scream “Money isn’t the answer, you liberal! You can’t just throw money at a problem!” Yet when its the military benefiting its a-okay. 400 billion dollars a year on a standing army? Totally necessary for the common defense. 500 billion dollars to throw a country into a civil war? Totally worth it! But if you give use just another quarter of a trillion dollars we’ll sort it all out.
I had an interesting conversation with an army reservist last night after dinnner. The reservist unwittingly gave me some insights on how the contractor biz works. I don’t have any proof of any wrongdoing but if I were Henry Waxman, I would look very carefully at whether contractors handling offloading of equipment in Kuwait/Iraq are audited. I got the impression that the foxes are guarding the henhouse.
The General isn’t talking about more shit for us, although we could certainly use better armored vehicles. He’s talking about better equipment for the Iraqi National Army. He’s also talking about the INA having the political will to fight for the country.
The two go hand in hand. If you’re going to ask somebody to put his ass on the line for your vision, as we have with the Iraqis and Afghanis, then you have to give them something to make their survival at least more probable than their death if you are a moral being.
The INA and the Afghan National Army that I work with are both charging around their countries in Ford Ranger pickups, while the Americans they work with are using armored humvees. (Leave aside the fact that the armored humvee is barely adequate.) The indigenous soldiers see the difference between what we have and what we give them. They’re not stupid.
On the other note, we can’t want the Iraqis to have a unified country more than they want it. Well, we can, but it won’t work that way.
McCaffery has been very consistent on this point, and he’s right.
Respectfully, I think you have this wrong.
Every day I thank God that I’m serving in Afghanistan and not Iraq.
lina @ 14
I respectfully and robustly disagree. Commissioned officers swear an oath to defend the Constitution, not Lockheed-Martin or Boeing.
Every dollar wasted on war materiel boondoggles kills: soldiers die because they don’t have proper gear; seniors die for lack of housing and heat; babies die from treatable conditions – all here in the US.
The Pentagon procurement officers who shepherd useless projects through the DOD and Congress choose to sell out their comrades. The procurement officers – right up through senior grade – are on the gravy train, too. They know fat job offers from the war corporations they collude with await them as soon as they retire.
In the most real sense, the Pentagon procurement officers are agents of corporate treason agaist our national welfare.
May they all be stripped of their commissions and sent to street patrol in Sadr City.
Yesterday I was hearing – again – about the F-22: a third of a billion dollars per plane, built to defeat an air force (Soviet) no longer extant, and – oh yeah – they don’t actually work as designed.
The war machine contractors want to build more.
And the uniformed corporate moles who pushed this useless piece of junk: still getting paid, still accruing benefits.
Traitors.
Hunter Morrow @ 19
That’s what bugs me the most. The money this halfwit has flushed down the crapper could have paid for a crash energy independence program and universal healthcare for under 18s.
But that would be socialism.
DefJef says:
November 24th, 2006 at 6:05 am *
I am curious how this military is under equippped… What is all the billions and abillions of dollars being spent on?
Well there’s a question which has eluded my tiny mind until now.
Salaries? – no, those would have gotten paid anyway.
Food, fuel and ammunition? – yeah – but does that cost billions per month?
We keep hearing that the military’s hardware is in really sad condtion, needing repair or replacement, but that’s always framed as a future expense.
Rebuilding the infrastructure – so far as I can tell, nobody’s pying much attention to that lately.
I mean, I read Matt O.’s sutff, but those issues came across as more of some big one-time payments – just where the hell are those billions of dollars, every single month, going?
And I get the impression that McCaffrey’s pretty much one of us. I heard him the other day explaining, passionately and precisely, why going after Iran would the most collosal of all possible fuck-ups.
I’m no military expert, but it is my understanding that there is a widening rift between the Army and the big-ticket item services, the Navy and the Air Force. Out of a finite defense budget the Army wants things for soldiers’ pay and uniforms and stuff like that. And while tanks and howitzers cost money, they are nothing compared to shiny new subs and aircraft carriers and fighters and bombers. The costs of the Iraq war have fallen mainly on the Army and Marines which pit those services against the other services that are even more closely aligned with the defense contractors
I’ve argued several times here that the main problem in Iraq is the name itself, as if by naming something it becomes the thing.
There is no there, there. The various tribes, militias, et al. to not make a nation in the sense that there is a unified polity. What some consider the Iraqi state is a fiction, a fiction confined within the Green Zone.
The notion of arming an Iraqi army founders on this, as was made clear in your comments. The only prospects seem to be either arming all sides in a civil war, picking a side, or doing neither. Doing neither is the default position.
By staying, not choosing sides, there is little chance that one side can prevail. Any faction that gains in strength will be put down. This is a recipe for our continued presence, a presence that is not sustainable. Our own army needs a massive infusion of cash just to return to the readiness levels obtained before the war started.
When we leave, as we must, the regional actors will step into the arena with arms and support for their favored sides. This is inevitable without a serious commitment to diplomacy, a commitment that this administration has demonstrated that it does not have.
Hi, gang. I’m finally free of any fever, after getting food poisoning Tuesday night. I’ll bet I’m the only one around here who lost eight pounds over Thanksgiving.
This kind of post is just silly. He has a point, IMHO it is wrong, but calling him a pimp seems like a cheap way to avoid thinking.
There are facts we can use to point out the futility of his argument rather than just calling him a pimp. You don’t have to dig too deep to show that we are training the opposition in many cases.
kirk murphy @ 22
I don’t disagree there is war-mongering greed all the way up and down the chain. However, I still say the buck stops with the defense approiations committees.
Ooohh. . . I’m gonna resist.
Michael @ 21
if this is what he’s talking about he needs to shut his face.
if he is talking about reloading OUR armed forces, he is of course correct
I want haliburton and everyone else who’s had no bid contracts to be federalized and used to restock our armed forces.
if they squak them to shut their faces too.
I want every tax giveaway to the wealthy to fund our soldiers through college, veterans insurance and ANYTHING every single one of them needs.
I want to talk about states rights and do it by campaigning for every fucking piece of equiptment from states resources returned to that state WITH DIVIDENDS FROM THE TAX GIVEAWAYS TO PEOPLE SO WEALTHY THEY WILL NEVER SPEND IT.
I want to DISABUSE any person whO CLAIMS they are for strong military from EVER VOTING REPUKE LICAN AGAIN
Along the same lines, the NY Times earlier this year ran a store pointing out that, while there were more armored vehicles and other military equipment needed in Iraq, the Pentagon was dragging its heels on providing it.
If memory serves, the military wasn’t sure it wanted to arm people, only to end up on the receiving end of its capabilities. So it wasn’t just for fiscal reasons, but also for strategic reasons that they hesitated to provide that stuff. And, judging by the way things are going, it may be one of the few good decisions the civilian leadership has made.
Pachacutec @ 26
Wow, Pach – welcome and condolences – that does not sound fun.
Pach – food poisoning? oohh, a little slice of hell on earth. Glad you’re feeling better.
Happened to me once on a road trip to see the CSN&Y Reunion Tour back in ‘74.
God I’m old.
Michael @ 21
First, I pray you stay safe.
Second, if the “vision” turns out to be unrealistic and deeply flawed, do you continue to fund it? How do you reverse course?
This is a fascinating take on how we got to this place:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/F…..2Aa01.html
We bought off on the wrong vision. Now what do we do?
I’m not certain if this is the right morning for the suggestion, but I imagine we could put together quite a food poiosoning thread.
We may end up learning where NOT to eat, if nothing more.
[My SF nomination: Gordo’s Mexican food. The outlet on Clement wasn’t even surprised when I brought back my take-out guac because of the huge spider thoughtfully preserved in full anatomic glory - about 2/3 down from the top of the container. Blergh indeed.]
Off topic, but of possible interest:
Russia delivers arms to Iran:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/…..288nm.html
and Polonium 210 has reportedly been found in body of former Russian spy.
lina @ 34
your link tells about the rise and fall of the neo cons
excuse me, this is premature
they own the media right now, they are certainly not dead and we will be villainized with everything we do.
they will rise again, and we had better keep vigil
Pacha – food poisoning ? you poor dear, glad to hear it’s passing. after my only bout with it, I swore I would rather give birth without painkillers than suffer that again – the worst
lina –
I’m with you – just 2 years ago Harper published a story taken directly from publicly available docs on $40B worth of Cold War era hardware being purchased -aaarrgghh! I think most Americans would have an aneurysm if they knew
fyi – Incoming Senate Approp. Chair – Robert Byrd, Incoming House Chair – Jack Murtha
It’s okay. . . I’m back down to my fighting weight. Heh.
The militaires and their seconds accomplished exactly what they wanted with the Iraqi adventure. This is not hard to see.
They wanted to use their toys and then of course start the whining for replacements, more, bigger and better hardware. The “shock and awe” was a transparent exercise .. get all the branches involved in a weapons and sys op dem so they could have so justification for the next round of procurement.
You can’t have .5 trillion dollars of weapons sitting around on not use them… Exercsises help, but just don’t cut it.
Iraq was a demo for the military and reason to ask for more … end of story.
They don’t need to win wars.. they just need to fight them every generation and of course use the interim to build up these forces and make loads of defense contractors rich in the process. Ourlaw profits from military procurements and watch the defense establishment disappear faster than a bat outta hell. It’s money folks.
We don’t need the military we have… not by a long shot.
We don’t have any natural enemies… but we are CREATING them by attacking sovereigns around the world and injecting ourselves in local matters… usually on behalf of some corporate interest… resource extraction, offshore manufacturing… or markets for industrialized products… electric plants, dams, airports, bridges and all sorts of huge projects for the bechtels and halliburtons…
Read: Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins… He lays it out from the inside…
The national security state has been sucking the people’s money for 60 yrs continuosly. It’s sick.
The sad thing is that so many americans work in the defense industry that without it and without a “retooling” those jobs are caput and so you get the flag waving moms who work in bomb factories and think nothing of it… even vietnamese immigrants… it’s a job.. and someone has to and will do it…
It’s all about money folks… it always has been and always will be.
The Boston Review’s Nir Rosen knows the Middle East and its languages better than most (if not all) of the people pushing the Iraq War, and here’s what he has to say about it.
The short version: Bush and Co. have essentially mortally wounded Iraq and destabilized the entire Middle East, and the best — and the only — thing we can do right now that will make any sort of positive difference is to leave, now.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.html
OK – a general wants more equipment. I am sure every general in every war for 6000 years has wanted more equipment.
Then he says that Rummy was wrong and that the Iraqi forces are really just mixes of enemy groups.
And you call him “evil”.
This is why I seldom come to this blog. It is a matter of intellectual honesty. You could just as easily conclude that he is mistaken and his own analysis is bringing him around to a sad truth; that the war really is and was a complete waste.
But you just jump to the most emotional characterization even if you have to cut logical corners to do it.
If you have evidence that he is a lobbyist for defense industry interests then give us a link and criticize him and MSNBC for ignoring a conflict of interest. But I think you have no evidence of that.
I saw this in your Lieberman leadership as well. You had an hostility that went beyond the level of “aggressive play” and actually hurt Lamont sometimes.
The msm loves to talk about the angry left and you give them all the evidence they need.
chuck: don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
McCaffrey and others have been instrumental in selling this war to the American people for the duration, attending off the record briefings at the Pentagon to get their talking points. McCaffrey works in this context for GE, which owns defense contractors and NBC/MSNBC.
If you don’t read this blog, then don’t fucking comment. But around here, the selling of this war and the death and destruction it causes is considered evil, and so you can go hang out at Hot Soup for some more moderate bipartisan horse manure.
Another concern liebertroll.
perris @ 37
I’d say the grand dream of American global hegemony via military strength is dead as a door nail. Dick Cheney’s worst nightmare, i.e., that the U.S. would look weak and ineffectual to the rest of the world, has been realized due to Dick Cheney’s policies and the poor execution of those policies.
Basically, Dick went and fucked himself.
Chuck, I would say any general views the world through a military prism.. they can’t help themselves…
Barry McC is a proponet of militarism and the use of military force to protect our stratgetic interests around the world.
We don’t need to protect them with the barrel of a gun. If “we” need something… I suggest we… BUY IT… trade for it… Do you take to robbing the 7.11 when you need a quart of milk… or anti up the $1?
Thr trouble is these creeps think that the world is “our” oyster and for anyone who disagrees.. they call in their big guns to prove it.
Bad approach.
These thugs are losing war after war… because the only thing that their weapons can do is DESTROY… they can’t change hearts and minds (as if that was their goal) with a weapon.
Bad appraoch.
But these automatons are too dumb and clever to change… because it is about money in the end.
Getting rich by any means is the new apple pie in america… Go for it and stop your whining!
Dick Cheney’s worst nightmare, i.e., that the U.S. would look weak and ineffectual to the rest of the world, has been realized due to Dick Cheney’s policies and the poor execution of those policies.
Basically, Dick went and fucked himself.
Heh… I love good writing.
chuck @ 42
wow – did those rhetorical tricks work on your high school debate team?
You started out framing the question about equipment (the tool with which to acheive a goal).
Pach’s post describes the “evil” of the pundit generals knowing we’ve lost, but blabbing on while other mothers’ sons die.
You then take Pach’s conclusion, append it to your false premise, and attack the straw man you created.
I appreciate why intellectual honesty is a barrier to your participation here.
As long as your comments lack intellectual honesty, you will find this a formidable environment.
lina @ 44
GREAT line and breakdown, however this is NOT the neo con’s only agenda
their agenda is robber baron economics, where the lower class pays all the bills of the upper class, eliminating the middle class almost entirely
they want no taxes for the wealthy, no restricitons on their bussiness, they don’t want to pay thier bills, they want everyone else to pay their bills
that is the true agenda…this militarization was only another method of giving American treasure and Iraqi treasure to the wealthiest people on the planet
we have to get that treasure back from them
. . .let me count the ways
http://archive.salon.com/news/…../15/hersh/
cbl @ 11
General WarOnDrugs wrote two books about addiction? It’s an area in which he has no training or expertise — but why should anyone be surprised? He called the use of medical marijuana for those in cronic pain a “cruel hoax” and “Cheech and Chong medicine,” and said that doctors who prescribe medical marijuana should have their DEA licenses revoked. Obviously, he has no problem at all opining about stuff he is completely ignorant about, so I guess it’s not a problem for him to say that more armor will help us “win” this already-lost war.
Under resourced??? Yeah, lets have more lobster served in the green zone, and more than three flavors of ice cream in the mess halls.
It is give them “cake time in Iraq”, madam Antoinettish style, to keep their thoughts away from needing more armour for their vehicles.These TV pundit generals suck big time..
did the oil stop in Iraq? Are they selling any and where are those profits? Why are Americans asked to provide equipment to the Iraqi army? Are we going to equip them enough to come fly to America and bomb us back???????
I think that a military machine like ours needs lots and lots of maintenance. In order to keep it operational, you need to have enough stuff to rotate in so that the broken stuff can be fixed. This also applies to soldiers. We didn’t, don’t and won’t have enough stuff to do the job properly. Get out.
I thought of a good analogy for this disaster: If you opened a business under incorrect assumptions, and you were losing $1000 a day with no possibility that you would ever make money, what would you do?
A little OT, but of interest to those who think of Berlusconi as Bush’s best ally on Iraq and Plamegate:
Italian right ‘tried to rig poll’
Sound familiar? It seems that there may have been some computerized hanky panky in the recent Italian election.
Paper ballots. Hand counting with lots of poll watchers. Everywhere. Now.
I’ve been on a politics fast, but this post! It’s time for the whole country to start chanting, low and insistent and then bring it up to a roar:
Cindy Sheehan is right!
Pachacutec @ 26
I know where they went, you want them back now?
The war has been exactly what the national security state wantred… the losers are the Iraqis, the american people.
You won’t find Halliburton or CACI bitching about the war… nor their shareholders. To this crowd it was a fun and games laughing all the way to the bank.
Twisted Martini @
53
I have been saying for at least two years that these people telling the American People to stay the course is like those people telling the “little” Enron shareholders not to sell.
edit: Oh, those were/are the same people, aren’t they.
hehe…I never saw that line and it’s a good one…going to use it myself
liz,
as someone illiterate on matters of both oil and economics, have been getting lots of easy to understand (and corroborate) info from these folks the past two years -
http://www.atimes.com/
p.s. doesn’t look like they think much of Dim Son and his retainer Dr. K *g*
day after thanksgiving, no work, a glorious day in lawn guy land new york
going for tennis once again
enjoy firedogs
Are we going to equip them enough to come fly to America and bomb us back???????
But they LOVE us…
Don’t they?
Curious in Central Texas @
36
I would like to add the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium
McCaffrey ranks right up there with Henry Kissinger in the credibility department. McCaffrey. I’ve never trusted this individual. But…of course I don’t think highly of Neil Bush either. Another get rich quick schemer.
Stephen Parrish, CPA @ 63
Poisoning is something that is a personal crime, you have to have access to a person in such a way to provide the poison without the victim being aware. Contaminated cigarettes makes sense. Who would suspect that as a source?
katymine -
not necessarily so -
Pach, after taking a few days off from the toobz, reading your post on paranoia, it ties into my thoughts about so many of the elder rigid Repugs who end up with alzheimer’s disease. Is it their their brains inability to expand in thought process to view outside their strict right view of the world or is it the beginning of alzheimer’s disease/dementia that creates it?
It is as if their brains are within strict steal cages which cannot expand outside the tiny right view of the world and then becomes trapped permanently. And when those brains are forced to view the world outside their cages, it is why they seem to implode.
Banned in Boston:
Any program that starts with “War On….”
Any pundit who says, “At the end of the day…”
There is a CIVIL WAR raging
and NOBODY has the answers…
Jack
I want out of Iraq. And I will not support anyone, regardless of political party, in 2008 for the presidency, who wants to remain in Iraq. I’ve heard all the tired arguments for why ‘we’cannot leave Iraq. And that’s just what these arguments are. “Tired”.
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..ge_attacks
Oklahoma kiddo @ 69
Yes. “Take two and hit to right…”
Let’s go domestic, we are batting .000 internationally…
Jack
Oklahoma kiddo @ 69
you’ll like Jeff Huber’s post today:
http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/
katymine @ 67
It’s not so much a senior onset dementia thing or a matter of age as it is a matter of the cast of one’s personality.
We will always have some proportion of these people among us. We do not, however, have to make them our ruling governing overlords, but to prevent that, we need to articulate and discredit their mindset.
We can use the events of the past few years, in conjunction with the Nixon years, to educate the public, hopefully.
It’s not so much the “politics of personal destruction” as it is the “politics of paranoid destruction.”
katymine @ 67
Gee Katymine, what an interesting question.
Lack of intellectual stimulation is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s.
(translation from jargon – people who continue challenging their minds and learning are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who do not continue – or never started – such activities.)
I wouldn’t wish Alzheimer’s on anyone.
But if the most fervent GOP propgandists really believe the Rove/Norquist lies they’ve been parroting all these years, nature appears to have a wicked sense of humor.
Whether or not Barry is an asshole- the issue of how and when to arm the Iraqi military is a very serious issue. They’re arms to date are AK47s–small arms. They have no artillery, no heavy machine guns, no tanks, and no air support..
This has been a deliberate policy of the US govt. Either they are afraid of arming the Iraqis with serious weapons, or they want the Iraqis to NEED american support- or both.
Any decision to actually arm the Iraqi army would be a significant step.
The Iranians have, I believe, offered to do so.
I was thinking of Charton Heston, Reagon, AZ Gov Evan Mecham all have/had Alzheimer’s. As a healthcare professional, I know that the lack of intellectual stimulation is a risk factor. I have read the Nun’s Study on Alzheimer Disease which clearly showed those nuns who continued to teach, read and be involved in intellectual pursuits had less signs of Alzheimer’s even when their brains on post death exams showed significant signs.
It makes me feel very good that my daily jaunt into the toobz might prevent mental decline.
cbl @
66
I thought it was dioxin.
hi pups -
novel (near-novel. OK. novella) textiles asecendant.
He should be grateful he isn’t connected to the British military. Not enough body armour, boots that melt, guns that jam and not enough food rations are just some of the things he would have seen over the last couple of years.
perris @
6
I’m glad you clarified. Believe it or not, I knew what you meant. After all, we’ve paid them for it; now, they can supply us for as long as we need without expense to the taxpayers – us.
Michael @
21
Michael, I’m curious. What kind of place do you go to get internet access? Do you have a laptop? Are certain websites off limits …I mean politically, news wise?
Coupled with medical factors and genetics. If only doing crosswords and arguing politics with your neighbor were only the answers.
Some key questions that never gets asked on these shows: What is the source of these weapons that are killing our troops and Iraqi citizens? Do they have “Made in the USA” labels on them? Did our failure to properly guard Al Qaqa (spelling?) result in bombs and munitions getting into the hands of the militias? Did we provide arms to the Iraqi National Army, which ended up being smuggled to groups that are currently fighting the U.S.?
Pachacutec @
43
A good example of the anger and invective with which you approach things. Anyone who doesn’t swear and who disagrees with your post is a “concern troll”. a lame way to shut up critics.
Isn’t it possible that he doesn’t like being lied to either and is slowly coming around to what many of us knew all along?
You say the General “works in this context” to support GE. I think you are saying both are part of the military industrial complex? You should just say you hate the whole bunch of them; the whole military. You should make that case – that they all are evil at the core.
What it comes down to is we should never be listening to military leaders on policy. That is not their role. Politicians should be making policy and the military should devise the strategy and tactics to fulfill the policy. We should also be sympathetic with the whole military who were given orders to Iraq for no particular reason other than Bush’s confused mental state.
Oh I almost forgot: Fuck, Fuckin’, Fucker, Fuckwad, motherfucker, dumbfuck, Fuckin fucker.. ahh fuck fuck… ass,,poop, snot
(Gotta maintain my comment cred, if I am ever going to fit in here…)
Make no mistake, its all about the money now, and has been for some time.
When they say “democracy,” what they really mean is capitalism, the more laissez faire, the better. They wanted to turn Iraq into a corporate outpost of US companies.
Bush and company, and McCaffrey, apparently, don’t give a rat’s ass about the troops over there. These are whores in it for their corporate paymasters.
Pach,
Nopt only are people like Barry McCaffrey pieces of shit, McCaffrey was one of the first of our American war criminals, dating back to the first hours of the cease-fire during the 1991 Gulf War:
After the cease fire was declared, McCaffrey’s ordered his unit, the 24th Infantry Division, to push forward to a point where it would be in between the retreating Iraqis forces, who were coming up from the south, and the northern direction they were headed. He did so without explicit orders from his superiors. This put the division in prime position to bump into retreating Iraqi forces and be fired upon by the Iraqis. Such fire from the Iraqis would give the 24th Infantry Division pretext to return fire under the doctrine of self-defense, and this occurred.
McCaffrey claims his division received fire from an Iraqi. Units of the 24th Infantry Division, under McCaffrey’s direction, unleashed a fury of fire, disproportionate force, in return. It used all the assets at its disposal and wiped out the Iraqi forces.
snip
These charges had been made by Army personnel after the war and an Army investigation had cleared McCaffrey of any wrongdoing. Hersh dismissed the findings of the investigation, writing that “few soldiers report crimes, because they don’t want to jeopardize their Army careers.”
Hersh describes his interview with Private First Class Charles Sheehan-Miles:
When I asked Sheehan-Miles why he fired, he replied, “At that point, we were shooting everything. Guys in the company told me later that some were civilians. It wasn’t like they came at us with a gun. It was that they were there — ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time.’” Although Sheehan-Miles is unsure whether he and his fellow-tankers were ever actually fired upon during the war, he is sure that there was no significant enemy fire. “We took some incoming once, but it was friendly fire,” he said. “The folks we fought never had a chance.” He came away from Iraq convinced that he and his fellow-soldiers were, as another tanker put it, part of “the biggest firing squad in history.”
The point is, as Richard Clarke puts it rather succinctly, quoted by Kevin Drum @ washingtonmonthly.com:
“In The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman documented repeated instances when leaders persisted in disastrous policies well after they knew that success was no longer an available outcome. They did so because the personal consequences of admitting failure would be very high. So they postponed the disastrous end to their policy adventures, hoping for a deus ex machina or to eventually shift the blame. There is no need to do that now. Everyone already knows who is to blame. It is time to stop the adventure, lower our sights, and focus on America’s core interests. And that means withdrawal of major combat units.”
Wordsmith @ 82
Actually, wordsmith, the term I used: “risk factor” was imprecise.
The more precise term would have been “independent variable”. Increased intellectual stimulation has statistically significant effects which can not be explained by “medical factors or genetics”.
Indepednet risk factors do not preclude other variables. Thus, attention to this particular variable in no way suggests genetics and other medical conditions are irrelevant in the etiology of Alzheimer’s.
But he does have one decent point. Sufficient numbers of adequately armored vehicles would keep more troops alive and in one piece until we do get out.
Sometimes its not a defense boondoggle, its a military necessity.
kirk murphy @ 89
Yep, exactly. Thus – true enough.
Wordsmith @ 82
I am currently at a rear base. I brought my own laptop. Very little at this particular base is blocked. Mostly porn is blocked. I haven’t found any political sites blocked, except for little green fuckwits, which is blocked for ‘racisim.’
I prefer to not state my current base. I hold political beliefs that are not, shall we say, standard. My commander respects this. I don’t want him to get any backlash anymore than I want any myself, so I am careful about what and where I post. I spend about a third of my time here, and the rest forward where things are very austere.
Pachacutec @
44
Constant reader here (from the very, very early Fitz days), so do I have the right to say you’re being an asshole, Pach? “If you don’t read the blog, then don’t fucking comment”??? Hey, what is the point where someone earns the right to speak up?
The criticism from Chuck was well-earned because you 1) did a Fox News-quality job of cherry-picking the “facts” of the McCaffrey interview and 2) then totally blew the context of the piece.
As Micheal also pointed out, McCaffery was talking about the total absence of basic equipment the Iraqi forces will need to take on the insurgents. As McCaffrey pointed out in the interview (and which you failed to include in your quote) the Iraqi police are forced to use pickup trucks to go anywhere and rely totally on the US for eyes in the sky. They’re sending out their soldiers and police in the bed of a F-150 and almost always without basic body armor. Small wonder that they are “grossly ineffective” (as one recent report described the INP) when they can’t move one foot out of their compounds without being totally exposed to anyone with an AK or even the smallest IED.
That is the factual error you omitted in your post. You blew the context because this segment on Countdown was about the call for more US troops. McCaffrey was making the point that unless you do what you need to make the Iraqi forces effective – starting with having basic protection when they move – adding any US troops will be pointless and counter-effective. Or, to put it in language you might better understand, McCaffery was illustrating another area where the Bush administration has totally fucked up any chances of succeeding in Iraq.
That’s what you missed on just the surface. If you knew something about the current procurement situation, you would also know that McCaffery’s call for thousands more armored Humvee’s for the Iraqi police and army was, in fact, an indictment of the existing military-industrial complex. The shortage of light armored vehicles exists because the Bush DOD has given an exclusive, single-source contract for armored Humvee’s to O’Gara, Hess and Eisenhardt. We can’t get any to the Iraqi’s because OHE can’t supply enough for the US military and Bush won’t give the job to more suppliers. The call to build more is a call to abolish this wasteful and war-profiteering method of procurement.
Finally, while the act of war is often loathsome, your rush to tar all efforts to arm our forces is infantile. We should be always vigilant for waste and the perversion of public policy by defense contractors. But if we are going to put men and women in harm’s way – or if we are asking others to join us in a fight – it is the bare fucking minimum that we provide the best protection we can build. This isn’t about “waving pom-poms and spreading your legs for the war”, as one commenter so tastelessly observed. This is about doing what we can to make sure our troops and our allies get back alive. If you can’t see the difference between the F-22 and providing an armored Humvee to the Iraqi police who are dying by the dozens every day, you really need to re-examine your thinking about what it means to support the troops.