Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
I've read several books on Iraq and they all seem to agree that Bremmer was a tool (never having met the man that's all I have to go by). Bush made the bed in which he slept. Rummy and Cheney had simply eaten so much of their own shyte they thought it was ice cream.
But you can't deny that there was a legitimate argument against the Surge given past events. Certainly a lot of the opposition was political or just people simply tired with war...but opposition alone wasn't necessarily demonstrating a lack of will.
Personally I think many just weren't close enough to the situation on the ground to sense the opportunity as the General was. The results from the Surge appear to have been the result of timing, effort and luck. Had the situation changed slightly (i.e. Sunni resistance) I'd think it could have easily failed. I'm thankful that we had all three.
Why wouldn't any President desperately seek a way out of the longest war in our countries history?
What the article seems to show is that after all the drama, Obama chose to do what the military was advocating rather than what would appease the democratic (and younger voters) base.
The "timetable" issue is a red herring though. One one hand it gives the edge to the enemy and on the other it motivates local forces to take up the slack. I call it a wash...
-spence
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I've figured out where Spence goes when he's gone for a while
REVISIONIST HISTORY CONFERENCES
Education
Professor Exposes Federally Funded ‘Revisionist’ History
Conference
Posted on November 1, 2010
at 4:28pm by Meredith Jessup
Pearl Harbor, 1941
In July, the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored a workshop on “History and Commemoration: The Legacies of the Pacific War in WWII” for college professors in Hawaii. Professor Penelope Blake, a veteran professor of Humanities at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill., was one of 25 American scholars chosen to attend the workshop, but was reportedly disheartened to find the
conference “driven by an overt political bias and a blatant anti-American agenda.”
Professor Blake is now reportedly calling on Congress to implement better oversight over the NEH. In a letter addressed directly to her Illinois congressman, Rep. Don Manzullo, Blake documents conference details and asks him to vote against NEH funding for future events. According to PowerLine, copies of the letter have also been delivered to members of the NEH council and NEH chair Jim Leach.
Full letter follows (emphases hers):
Dear Congressman Manzullo:
As one of twenty-five American scholars chosen to participate in the recent National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Workshop, “History and Commemoration: Legacies of the Pacific War in WWII,” at the University of Hawaii, East-West Center, I am writing to ask you to vote against approval of 2011 funding for future workshops until the NEH can account for the violation of its stated objective to foster “a mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all persons and groups” (NEH Budget Request, 2011).
In my thirty years as a professor in upper education, I have never witnessed nor participated in a more extremist, agenda-driven, revisionist conference,