As expected, President Bush announced today that tours of duty for American forces in Iraq would be shortened to 12 months from 15. But he gave no indication that there would be significant troop withdrawals before he left office, predicting more sacrifices “for some time to come.” Earlier today, former Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed recent concerns of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (noted in our editorial today) that high troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be sustained without hurting military readiness. Powell said that whichever candidate becomes president next year “will face a military force that cannot continue to sustain 140,000 people deployed in Iraq and the 20 (thousand) odd or 25,000 people we have deployed in Afghanistan and our other deployments.”
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Colin Powell, one of the smartest guys in the Bush administration that the President chose to ignore.
The Powell Doctrine:
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?
It’s always “six more months”.
Although Powell was a good Staff Commander, he never really had what it took to be an operational Commander like Schwartzkopf or Petraeus.
His advice should be weighed and measured, but only in light what operational Commanders have to day.
to day = to say.
For the last few YEARS it has been stall until I can get out of office.
And General Patreaus along with Ambassador Crocker know which side their bread is buttered on so are very willing to stretch it out.
There is NO winning! And there is nothing less than losing going on right now.
For the last few YEARS it has been stall until I can get out of office.
And General Patreaus along with Ambassador Crocker know which side their bread is buttered on so are very willing to stretch it out.
There is NO winning! And there is nothing more than losing going on right now.
Sorry! I saw an error and while waiting for it to post thought I could correct it. All that got me was two posts. I’ll work on that…
Six more months - reassess - benchmarks - reconciliation - political gains - six more months - reassess - benchmarks - reconciliation - political gains…………………
Yada, yada, year after year after year.
We did not buy into an endless war.
We will see the beginning of the end in January 2009.
WSClark,
Cheney says the insurgents are in their last throws so it should be any time now.
Does the Bush regime still think the American people are still naive to believe that Iraq will be successful in recruiting enough soldiers to join the army to fight a civil war against their own family members?
Why has the Bush regime never given any notice of the Saudis funding the Sunni resistance?
And poor dumb John McCain, or as his ads say, “Johm McCain”. He still has no idea who is fighting. He still thinks Sunni Al-Quada is aligned with their sworn enemy Shiite Iran. Judging by the extreme incompetence of the Republican party McCain will have his wish of a hundred year occupation of Iraq.
And George coasts out the door, having left his pile of poopie to be cleaned up by a successor. “The surge is working,” indeed. That’s all it was for: buying time so Dick and George could leave office claiming to have not been the ones whose actions left Iraq in ruins.
The Bush regime claims the surge is working when violence increases or decreases. The “Green zone” was being shelled during the cease fire, imagine how bad life will be for Americans should Muqtada Al Sadr call off the cease fire. The latest flare up was calmed because of Iran.
The actions by the Bush regime are intended to keep the fighting going and kill more Americans.
Sen. Menendez to Amb. Croker during the recent Iraq hearings:
* 43% of population lives in absolute poverty
* prior to war 19% of children suffered malnutrition; today 28%
* last year 75% elementary-aged kids went to school; now 30%
* prior to war 50% lacked access to clean water; now 70%
* only 50 of 142 primary health care centers are open to public
dave - which brings back my question: Are the Iraqi people better off today than they were 5 years ago?
To make matters worse - due to the Bush/Powell/Cheney et.al. policies of invade willy-nilly conditions in Afghanistan (where alQuada was remember?) is rapidly deteriorating.
To answer your question Ben, ask an Iraqi.
*
Baghdad resident: “Five years after the fall (of Saddam’s regime), nothing has been changed. The situation is the same, the same suffering. We were living in darkness, and now we are living in more darkness. The situation is not good, no services, no gasoline, no petrol and nothing. The situation is bad.”
*
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/10/headlines#2
“…buying time so Dick and George could leave office claiming to have not been the ones whose actions left Iraq in ruins.”
—————-
Yeah, they and theirs will always ignore reality and continue the pretense that invading and occupying would have shown rewards — if only. Now, with enough stalling they will get their “if only.” It won’t matter one whit what is done because if it goes poorly (and it probably will!) they’ll have IF ONLY. Yet, after OVER FIVE YEARS while they could do something / anything there is no IF ONLY, just repeat the same failed policies until we can blame it all on someone / anyone else.
Remember when they start with the blame that they did nothing but get America into this disaster and they had NO IDEAS and NO SOLUTIONS!
When bush talks all I think of is Baghdad Bob. Isn’t it sick? The President of the United States is Baghdad Bob!
Crocker’s doing his last stint, going to retire I believe. Same for Petraus, except he’s moving on to greener pastures at the U.N.
Won’t be their problem much longer, so they can stay the course till they get their butts out while covering for bush.
Listen to Regular acting like he knows who the good generals are and who the bad ones are . . .
What? They send you intelligence briefings along with your welfare checks?
The good ones are the ones who agree with him. The bad ones are the ones who tell the truth (like Odom)
Only the good get retired quickly. The bad ones are the yes men that remain.
Or moved to the State Department.
McCain doesn’t rule out preemptive war
Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain said on Wednesday he would not rule out launching preemptive wars against future enemies.
President George W. Bush, in launching his 2003 invasion of Iraq, said it was necessary to forestall possible future attacks from a country that was developing weapons of mass destruction.
None of the weapons he alleged were in Iraq were subsequently found.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_doesnt_rule_out_preemptive_war_0410.html
McBush: It don’t get any different, at least on the Republican side.
Veterans Affairs refuses to provide voter registration for wounded vets.
VA suggests voter registration not held because it’s partisan.
At a quiet 1999 ceremony in MaComb County, Michigan, a plainspoken former Texas governor delivered a patriotic speech to commemorate Veterans’ Day.
But none of the eight veterans interviewed by The New York Times after the ceremony promised George W. Bush their vote.
A new report Thursday reveals that Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake told two Democratic senators his department will not help injured veterans register to vote before the 2008 election.
“VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission,” Peake said in an April 8th letter to Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) acquired by Steven Rosenfeld at Alternet.
Peake refers to a 1993 law that allows government departments to engage in voter registration efforts, Rosenfeld says.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Veterans_Department_not_keen_on_veterans_0410.html
. . . and this is what we elect repubes for? It certainly seems so. It sure follows their mantra: Birth em, then let God sort em out. O, and they get injured fighting for their country? Hell, they’re probably too stupid to vote anyway, right? You all cons got nothin’
JM Walker,
Has the VA ever helped register voters before this administration or did you stop your hate rant long enough to look?
Nathan, Why wouldn’t the VA make the forms available to the injured vets, or are you afraid they might vote for someone other than the party that screwed up the whole war on terrorism?
This is now, Nathan, not 8 years ago, not 5 years ago, but now. Deal with it.
It will take a Democratic President to end this stupidity.
bush and gang intended it NEVER end.
Saw a story on CNN the other day.
A couple snipers were …well sniping.
The US commander was trying to get the Iraqi commander to send in his troops. Back and forth between the interpreter, it went something like this.
US Soldier : Tell him he needs to get his people into that neighborhood and after the snipers.
interpreter: He says he does not have enough men and you should do it because you have more me.
US soldier: He has the same number of boots on the ground that I have! Now tell him to move out!
The Iraqi commander and his troops then went to lunch. After lunch they made a half hearted attempt to go after the snipers and lost a few people in the process.
It will never be over for Iraq. bush didn’t just break it bad. He broke it permanent.
But it needs to be over for the US.
J M Walker,
Appears to me to be a non-story. Forms are filled out all the time, there are AM-Vets, VFW and other organizations IN THE VA CENTERS AND HOSPITALS that help injured Vets do this stuff all the time -
that is, help them fill out paperwork to do whatever.
What a low-life weasel thing to proclaim that nothing is being done to help Vets Votes.
You just spat upon thousands of volunteer Vets who help them every day.
Shameful.
#
Regular
Posted April 10, 2008 at 4:44 pm | Permalink
J M Walker,
Appears to me to be a non-story. Forms are filled out all the time, there are AM-Vets, VFW and other organizations IN THE VA CENTERS AND HOSPITALS that help injured Vets do this stuff all the time -
that is, help them fill out paperwork to do whatever.
What a low-life weasel thing to proclaim that nothing is being done to help Vets Votes.
You just spat upon thousands of volunteer Vets who help them every day.
Shameful.
===============================================
Again, regular comes out with neo-con tripe, but with his lack of ability to think intelligently, that’s no surprise.
JM Walker,
The point is that the VA is remaining neutral on voting. They do not want to become a political tool. The VA wants to help veterans like they are supposed to do.
That is what the director said.
It has nothing to do with the conservatives or Republicans.
You will stop at nothing to try to blame the conservatives. Then you sit there acting indignant about us being intelligent or not?
Give me a break.
“What a low-life weasel thing to proclaim that nothing is being done to help Vets Votes.”
“The VA wants to help veterans like they are supposed to do. That is what the director said.”
As citizens of the United States, our number one obligation is to vote.
The VA director has said that the VA will not help soldiers in their care to register to vote or to help them getting to polling places.
Sound un-American to me.
Again, regular comes out with neo-con tripe, but with his lack of ability to think intelligently, that’s no surprise.
When told the truth about the matter, you couldn’t handle it, because it didn’t fit in your scheme of “blame America First.”
Sad.
““VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission,””
Just how the hell, Nathan, does supplying forms so the injured can register going to “divert substantial resources from our primary mission,”” How freakin’ bogus can he get? It takes, what, 5 minutes to fill out? And that’s diverting funds from an organization in turmoil anyway?
Evidently, you haven’t been keeping up on the news.
If that’s not a copout answer, I don’t know what it.
I don’t know what the military does now, but when I was in, they had VOLUNTEER Voting Officers to handle voting registration and help military members finding out local information from their home town/district.
The same should occur with the VA and as I said before, this is handled by the many Vets that visit the VA centers who help their brothers and sisters. All volunteers.
“The same should occur with the VA and as I said before, this is handled by the many Vets that visit the VA centers who help their brothers and sisters”
Then you haven’t been following the news.
jimmymac posted April 10, 2008 at 7:03 pm
“…because it didn’t fit in your scheme of “blame America First.” ”
jimmymac is a lying troll who lives in a fantasy world.
Like jimmymac’s support of E. G. Beck’s bogus CO2 claims, his lies about the New Orleans levees, etc…
Colin Powell. . .I would bet the advice he offers today is the same advice he gave H.W. Bush. All that resulted in was the first failed occupation of Iraq. Ten plus years of no-fly zones and U.N. resolutions didn’t change the Iraq in any significant way.
Sitting around saying “you can’t” is so easy that liberals do it. I expect a possible solution to the situation from someone of his stature. However none was listed in the two articles linked to this blog item.
Very disappointing.
Well hey “proud man”
My experience here has taught me that you are an OLD man.
And so you have made your fortune on the backs of others. And NOW you want others to fight your battles for you.
No thanks.
“Ten plus years of no-fly zones and U.N. resolutions didn’t change the Iraq in any significant way.”
Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction - they did not attack their neighbors - they were not a threat to the United States.
I would call that significant.
JM Walker,
You want them to change their policy? Fine. As WS Clark would say, I don’t really care.
What I care about is your vain attempt to say this is all the conservatives doing or the Republicans.
That is why I asked you how long this policy has been in place.
So lets talk about being intelligent and honest. You are being neither when you attempt to make this some partisan issue.
Bush’s speech= I have no idead of what I’m doing. Oh well,I’ll let the next guy try to clean it up
“U.S. shifts focus in Iraq to ‘special groups’
The top U.S. commander is shifting the focus away from al-Qaida ”
Jeez, I thought that this was the War on Terror(ism.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24054224/
“As WS Clark would say, I don’t really care.”
So you don’t care if veterans in VA hospitals get a chance to vote, Price?
What - are you afraid that they will vote for a Democrat?
WS
He probably knows they will vote for the person,ie not a Republican, who will bring their brothers and sisters home.
Was it just me or did others notice that Bush used the old trick of 9/11= Iraq? He obviously thinks the American public are idiots. Hey George,didnt work then, Aint gonna work now
You know, it saddens me that we have gotten this far in Iraq with no apparent end in sight, unless a Democrat is elected president and pulls us out.
Had the American people known BEFORE the fact that we would be entering our SIXTH year of War on Iraq, at the cost of 4,000 lives and a trillion + dollars, they would have stormed the White House to prevent it from happening.
I would like to hear one, just one of the right wing gung ho types answer a simple question - how much longer?
Not, as long as it takes, not we will stand down when the Iraqis stand up, not 100 years, not until we win, etc.
A date - when will this national nightmare be over?
Nathan
Posted April 10, 2008 at 4:10 pm | Permalink
JM Walker,
Has the VA ever helped register voters before this administration or did you stop your hate rant long enough to look?
duh
i am nathan
i don’t know much
i love bush
kids die in the wrong country
it don’t bother me
i stand by
actually
i crawl in the dirt
with the worst president this country has ever “elected”
therefore
i am smart
i see lies as truth
i blindly crawl with bush through the mindless stupidity of the war in iraq
facts
don’t matter
logic
don’t understand
bush is so kewl
you’re an idiot
.
I wonder if they had an exact date for the end of WWII?
What would have happened if on that date, the allies still had not stopped Germany?
“Alright boys, it is January 4th 1945 12pm. I know the Germans are in the middle of a counter offensive right now, but this was the date we set several years ago to quit. Pack up the tanks and lets go home.”
How absurd.
“Absurd” Nathan? –
No more absurd than war itself.
And that’s exactly how the First World War ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh month of 1918.
That’s how the Korean War ended.
Your ignorance continues to astound. (Although I should be used to it by now.)
Nathan comparing the situation in Iraq to WWII is apples and oranges. But than you know that…..
Well
At least Nathan’s dad was honest.
He said once that it was vital for the US to maintain a military presence in Iraq…
forever.
Let’s see if we can get Nathan to admit that.
Hey Nathan? How long do we stay? How much do we spend in Iraq?
Or can we get you to be honest and admit that folks like you REALLY want a US presence in Iraq (and all that entails) forever?
On the subject of Colin Powell, I heard last night on the McLaughlin Group a prediction that Colin Powell would be endorsing Barack Obama for president. How likely is that to happen?