2012 cant come fast enough

[spence]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Bush absolutely effed up. As did Rummy, Cheney, and Bremmer (tool).

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.

Whether or not we should have been there (we shouldn't have but as Powell said, once you break the china you own it), once we were in and once he realized - very late - that we could win or lose he put his chips on win, rather than doing what the politically easiest thing to do was. While everyone else was crying run and not winnable (Reid, Biden, Pelosi, Hillary, and pretty much the entire Dem party - sans Lieberman) he doubled down on Petraeus, our military, strategy, LUCK, and sticking it out.

The surge worked, no doubt helped out by things that changed on the ground, but it worked. No timetable.

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.

Obama campaigned on making AFG the good and necessary fight but he stumbling over ways to get out. If different sources like Woodward's book is to be believed, the entire administration is a mess in its bickering approach to how to handle AFG other than that they want to get out ASAP and put a foolish timetable on it.

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

[scottw]

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

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,

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by spence

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.

Where were you in the mid 2000s, Spence? There was SIGNIFICANT opposition from every corner, most often from the Democratic Party. This explicitly shows those we are engaged against a lack of political will. This also shows the people we try to bring on board with us as partners that we are not a worthy ally, and could not be trusted to stick it through.

Going into Iraq was stupidly wrong. It was planned wrong, it was managed wrong. Easy to see in hindsight. Like 85% of the rest I believed in the WMD too. But that ship had sailed and all of those options sailed with it over the horizon.

Originally Posted by spence

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.

There were significant missed opportunities from all but again, the opposition from the left did more to make it look like were were bailing.

Originally Posted by spence

Why wouldn't any President desperately seek a way out of the longest war in our countries history?

Because an active anti-west/US AFG will present significant security dilemmas for our nation, our kids, and our grandkids is why. When we are gone from there - and it looks a lot more like when these days than if - we will be fighting elements from AFG/PAK for decades. Probably on our own soil. Political Correctness will probably invite them to our shores for a group hug first .

Originally Posted by spence

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. -spence

- come on Spence, you've read more than that page already, right? Obama, Biden, that next mistake political hack for NSA Donilon? Yeh, we're so screwed.

Originally Posted by spence

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

Bullsheize

[scottw]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Going into Iraq was stupidly wrong. It was planned wrong, it was managed wrong. Easy to see in hindsight. Like 85% of the rest I believed in the WMD too. But that ship had sailed and all of those options sailed with it over the horizon.


Bullsheize

I think this a difficult statement to make because you need to take into account the question of where we'd be today concerning Iraq if we'd not gone in...the only alternative that the opponents offer is that we should have stuck with sanctions, the type that are working so well with Iran...what would the Middle East look like today and more importantly...in the future.... if we'd not gone in? I don't have an answer but I think it's hard to definitively say it should or should not have occured at this point and arguing the point proves nothing. Where would we be if we'd shown more resolve and not had the effort undermined at every opportunity by the opponents?....I'll just never forget "General Betrayus" and the comments from the likes of Hillary "suspending disbelief" Clinton and others as well as the comments of the opponents in the years leading up to the invasion regarding the Hussein regime(that's the Saddam Hussein regime...not the Barak Hussein regime)