House Minority Leader Blasts Bush; GOP Fires Back

kuvasz wrote:

"He is not up to the job. This is not a moral judgment, but a practical one. The world is too complex and dangerous for the pious simplicities and arrogant unilateralism of George W. Bush."

The "Communist" Financial Times

https://registration.ft.com/registration/sub/barrier.jsp?location=http://search.ft.com:80/search/article.html%3Fid%3D040512000157&resource=ftarc

So, Tarantulas, McGentrix, Sofia ... does that mean you are outraged at the Financial Times now too? "Crossed the line"?

Or is it part of an opposition's member of Congress' job to piously refrain from expressing opinions that even stiff-upper-lip business papers come straight out with?

Or is "not up to the job" one of those synonyms for "incompetent" that, though it means the same thing, is OK because it somehow sounds less harsh?

So, Tarantulas, McGentrix, Sofia ... does that mean you are outraged at the Financial Times now too? "Crossed the line"?

I am also neither hostile to Republican administrations nor opposed to the use of force.

I preferred Richard Nixon to George McGovern in 1972 and George Bush Snr to Michael Dukakis in 1988.

This personal history is of no intrinsic importance. But if I find the Bush administration's foreign policy disturbing so must the vast majority of humanity. If I feel Tony Blair has allied the UK too closely, then sympathy for this alliance must be perilously low.

As a result, the position of the US and so of the west is worse in significant respects than it was the day after September 11 2001.

The US was able to defeat the armies of Saddam Hussein, but a civilised occupying army cannot coerce the obedience of a population.

The second error lies in its belief in the irrelevance of allies. A country containing 4% of the world's population cannot impose its will upon the world.

The contempt that has been shown by leading members of the administration for those who disagree with it is now matched by the hostility of those whipped by their scorn.

The more the US plays the unilateral bully, the more its attraction fades.

A war against terrorism is as empty a slogan as one directed against crime, drugs or disease.

As David Scheffer pointed out in the Financial Times last Thursday, the behaviour of the guards at Abu Ghraib is the natural, almost the inevitable, consequence of the position in which the administration has in its pursuit of its war on terrorism put detainees.

In the short history of the war on terrorism, only one institution has shown its effectiveness the US armed forces in "shock and awe" mode. Almost everything else, though, has been a humiliating shambles.

The outcome in Iraq now looks far worse than that. The decision to wage a war of choice, not of necessity, was a great risk. It could be justified only by finding the weaponry Saddam was alleged to have held or by leaving the country, if not a Jeffersonian democracy, at least in a reasonably stable condition.

The world is too complex and dangerous for the pious simplicities and arrogant unilateralism of George Bush.

nimh wrote:

Or is it part of an opposition's member of Congress' job to piously refrain from expressing opinions that even stiff-upper-lip business papers come straight out with?

Which district does the Financial Times represent and who let them become part of government?

I think you are being purposefully dense in missing the point taht was made. Or maybe you're not.

Sofia wrote:

That's a basic difference in 'us' n 'them'. You don't call your President incompetant, especially during war. [..]

Right. It gives aid and comfort to the enemy. [..]

http://www.businessday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1

614963-6096-0,00.html

"I've never read the Financial Times before today, so I'm not angry at them. I've never heard of that author, and what he writes seems to be of little value since it's so dishonest. My problem is with Nancy Pelosi, an elected official, verbally attacking our President. That's wrong."

Martin Wolf wrote:
This personal history is of no intrinsic importance. But if I find the Bush administration's foreign policy disturbing so must the vast majority of humanity. If I feel Tony Blair has allied the UK too closely, then sympathy for this alliance must be perilously low.

"You have quite a lofty opinion of his own importance in the world, don't you?"

Martin Wolf wrote:
As a result, the position of the US and so of the west is worse in significant respects than it was the day after September 11 2001.

I disagree with this, but since you don't support your statement I won't elaborate on mine.

Martin Wolf wrote:
The US was able to defeat the armies of Saddam Hussein, but a civilised occupying army cannot coerce the obedience of a population.

Since most of the Iraqi population is going on with their lives while reaping the enormous benefits of not having Saddam around any more, no coercion is necessary. There are still a few bad guys who need coercion, but their numbers are dwindling rapidly as they go to meet Allah, or whatever passes for hell in the Muslim religion.

There are still a few bad guys who need coercion, but their numbers are dwindling rapidly as they go to meet Allah, or whatever passes for hell in the Muslim religion.

Martin Wolf wrote:
The second error lies in its belief in the irrelevance of allies. A country containing 4% of the world's population cannot impose its will upon the world.

It's still a Coalition, not the US acting alone.

Martin Wolf wrote:
The contempt that has been shown by leading members of the administration for those who disagree with it is now matched by the hostility of those whipped by their scorn.

It's not contempt to disregard verbal attacks by the opposition. In fact, I think the administration comes off looking good for it, by not descending to the level of their opponents.

Martin Wolf wrote:
The more the US plays the unilateral bully, the more its attraction fades.

Coalition. Can you spell C-O-A-L-I-T-I-O-N? Apparently not.

Martin Wolf wrote:
A war against terrorism is as empty a slogan as one directed against crime, drugs or disease.

I disagree with this, as I do with almost everything in this article.

Martin Wolf wrote:
As David Scheffer pointed out in the Financial Times last Thursday, the behaviour of the guards at Abu Ghraib is the natural, almost the inevitable, consequence of the position in which the administration has in its pursuit of its war on terrorism put detainees.

As I point out right now, the events at Abu Ghraib were perpetrated by a small minority of soldiers and do not reflect on the vast majority of military prisons. So the above statement is ridiculous.

Martin Wolf wrote:
In the short history of the war on terrorism, only one institution has shown its effectiveness the US armed forces in "shock and awe" mode. Almost everything else, though, has been a humiliating shambles.

You, sir, are a liar.
Martin Wolf wrote:
The outcome in Iraq now looks far worse than that. The decision to wage a war of choice, not of necessity, was a great risk. It could be justified only by finding the weaponry Saddam was alleged to have held or by leaving the country, if not a Jeffersonian democracy, at least in a reasonably stable condition.

There are many other justifications for the war that have already been met. Saddam is in jail and his sons are dead and the Iraqi people are free. As for the democracy, Rome wasn't built in a day. Democracy is on its way.

Martin Wolf wrote:
The world is too complex and dangerous for the pious simplicities and arrogant unilateralism of George Bush.

And the war on terrorism is apparently too complex and hard to understand for authors like Martin Wolf.

If the man is dishonest, prove him so and cite facts that counter his claims. Do not merely argue that what he says is wrong without backing it up. After all, I can claim that you too are dishonest if the height of the bar is set at merely personal opinion.

Your argument is that as a member of the legislative branch that Pelosi has a responsibility to support the president because he is commander in chief of the armed forces.

Without a hint of recognition by you that he, as a representative example of the business class that generally supports statist military adventures places himself with the majority of world and US opinion that this Iraqi freedom War has gone awry.

It is standard fare with right wing fascists to use such bizarre and sweeping terms that mean nothing. Explain just what one means when they use a phrase such as "enormous benefits"

You are whistling past the graveyard there, Sparky. Still a few bad guys? I assume by your remarks on "coercion" that you mean torture "American Style." Afer all, those 40 or so Iraqis did not die from from falling down in the showers at Abu Ghraib. They were coerced too, coerced to death.

90% of the Iraqis want the US out now and blindly ignoring the facts that the Iraqi population has re-armed themselves and guerrilla attacks are on the increase is prima fascia evidence that we are by our actions in Iraq, to paraphrase the words of Rumsfield, producing new terrorists at a higher rate than we are killing or incarcerating them.

So how is that "numbers are dwindling rapidly?

Yes, point to a coalition of whom? More at the "Coalition of the Insignificant" Great Britain, and who else that is listed as one of the top GDP nations? Togo? The Poles, Spanish, and the "Fighting Hondurans" are all pulling out of the mess over there because they see no reason to stay.

So, your remarks are stillborn in the womb of hypocrisy.

Come on Sparky, who am I to believe on this matter, you or all those US Army officials who said so these past few weeks?

Sorry, but it is you who have exhibited the lack of ability to think in a complex mode. You have bought into the jingoist meme, and you have coupled that flaw with a quite startling ability to deny the facts.

"Battered by the bad news out of Iraq, President George W. Bush decided it was time to stiffen the spines of some anxious Republicans on Capitol Hill last week. So he went to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and held an hour long pep rally in a basement conference room at the Capitol. Many of the 200 House and Senate Republicans in attendance emerged to say they were reassured. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander called it "choir practice." But not for Chuck Hagel.

The 57-year-old Republican senator from Nebraska said the appearance by the president left more than a little to be desired. Bush "talked for an hour and did not take a single question," says Hagel. "He didn't listen, and I think this president needs to listen more. If he had taken questions he would have heard some things that might have been helpful."

The comments were vintage Hagel--calmly stated but brutally frank and increasingly troubling to an unsteady White House. Fellow Vietnam War veteran John McCain has long been the chief maverick among Senate Republicans, but it is Hagel, with his lower profile and sober demeanor, who may now be emerging as a more potent symbol of the angst that congressional Republicans are feeling over the direction of the war in Iraq--and its political consequences.

Hagel, who also sits on the Intelligence Committee, says that Bush "may be more isolated than any president in recent memory" and therefore susceptible to faulty advice. Much of that advice, Hagel says, has come from Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and former Pentagon official Richard Perle. But the problem, in Hagel's view, was compounded by the president's lack of foreign-policy experience.

"I think you've got a president who is not schooled, educated, experienced in foreign policy in any way, versus his father," Hagel says. "I think he was philosophically, intellectually more in tune with the neoconservatives'approach to 'let's go get them, and we'll worry about it later.'

And in Hagel's view, the administration in paying the price for being a bit too sure of itself before the war began. "I have always believed that a good, healthy dose of humility is the best prescription for anything that ails you politically," he says. "In this business of govern-ing there are so many uncontrollables . . . and when those uncontrollables occur you are going to need friends, you're going to need some margins to govern. If you're arrogant, or are perceived as arrogant, you have no margin. And the first time you slip or stumble . . . then it'll be disastrous for you."

'let's go get them, and we'll worry about it later

In a broadside against the Bush administration, Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar on Saturday said the U.S. isn't doing enough diplomatically to stave off terrorist attacks and chided the president for failing to offer concrete plans for Iraq's future.

Lugar said he hasn't seen any plans for the makeup of the new Iraqi government, even though the administration intends to transfer political control of the country to the Iraqis in little over a month.

It's still unclear how much control the Iraqi people will have over the security of the nation as of the June 30 transfer, or how roughly $18.4 billion in reconstruction money will be distributed, the Indiana Republican said.

''I am very hopeful that the president and his administration will articulate precisely what is going to happen as much as they can, day by day, as opposed to a generalization,'' Lugar said at an appearance at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Bush must offer those specifics when he addresses the issue during the next week in a concrete plan that wins the approval of the international community, he said.

kuvasz wrote:
Without a hint of recognition by you that he, as a representative example of the business class that generally supports statist military adventures places himself with the majority of world and US opinion that this Iraqi freedom War has gone awry.

Not everyone marches in lock step with the liberal press's idea of what's going on in the world. And what is "the business class," anyway? Why should I care what classification you put this guy into?

kuvasz wrote:
You are whistling past the graveyard there, Sparky. Still a few bad guys? I assume by your remarks on "coercion" that you mean torture "American Style." After all, those 40 or so Iraqis did not die from falling down in the showers at Abu Ghraib. They were coerced too, coerced to death.

You misinterpret my words in monumental fashion. The bad guys I'm talking about are the foreign fighters doing terrorist acts, and the coercion I'm talking about is KILLING THEM DEAD whenever they appear.

kuvasz wrote:
90% of the Iraqis want the US out now and blindly ignoring the facts that the Iraqi population has re-armed themselves and guerrilla attacks are on the increase is prima fascia evidence that we are by our actions in Iraq, to paraphrase the words of Rumsfield, producing new terrorists at a higher rate than we are killing or incarcerating them.

Apparently you've missed the polls that have been taken in Iraq. Most Iraqis are happy to have the Coalition there and they do not support the people who are attacking them. The Iraqis want peace in their country just like anyone else would, and they appreciate the people who are helping them attain it.

kuvasz wrote:
So how is that "numbers are dwindling rapidly?

The terrorists are being killed off by the dozens. Their numbers are in fact dwindling rapidly.

kuvasz wrote:
Yes, point to a coalition of whom? More at the "Coalition of the Insignificant" Great Britain, and who else that is listed as one of the top GDP nations? Togo? The Poles, Spanish, and the "Fighting Hondurans" are all pulling out of the mess over there because they see no reason to stay.

You can catch a clue about how many countries are Coalition members by clicking here. I'm always happy to educate the clueless.

kvass wrote:
So, your remarks are stillborn in the womb of hypocrisy.

And your response is Limburger in the cheese of discourse.

kuvasz wrote:Come on Sparky, who am I to believe on this matter, you or all those US Army officials who said so these past few weeks?

Slick, you make assertions without evidence the same as everyone else in this thread. Back up your statements with documented proof and people will believe you.

Taguba, in his report: "Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder's] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation," he wrote. "In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment." The report continued, "Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder's report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to 'set the conditions' for MI interrogations." Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors "actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."

As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba's report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.

Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an "imperative" security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo.

"House and Senate members are also focusing on the role of Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was so effective at eliciting useful information from terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he was named last month to run U.S. prisons in Iraq. It was Miller who recommended last September that military intelligence officials have command over prisons and prison guards to improve the intelligence gleaned from interrogations."

"American and Coalition forces knew little about the insurgency: "Human intelligence is poor or lacking . . . due to the dearth of competence and expertise. . . . The intelligence effort is not coördinated since either too many groups are involved in gathering intelligence or the final product does not get to the troops in the field in a timely manner." The success of the war was at risk; something had to be done to change the dynamic.

"The solution, endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents. A key player was Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the detention and interrogation center at Guantánamo, who had been summoned to Baghdad in late August to review prison interrogation procedures. The internal Army report on the abuse charges, written by Major General Antonio Taguba in February, revealed that Miller urged that the commanders in Baghdad change policy and place military intelligence in charge of the prison. The report quoted Miller as recommending that "detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation."

"Miller's concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to "Gitmoize" the prison system in Iraq-to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in Cuba-methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in "stress positions" for agonizing lengths of time. (The Bush Administration had unilaterally declared Al Qaeda and other captured members of international terrorist networks to be illegal combatants, and not eligible for the protection of the Geneva Conventions.)

"Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.

"They weren't getting anything substantive from the detainees in Iraq," the former intelligence official told me. "No names. Nothing that they could hang their hat on. Cambone says, I've got to crack this thing and I'm tired of working through the normal chain of command. I've got this apparatus set up-the black special-access program-and I'm going in hot. So he pulls the switch, and the electricity begins flowing last summer. And it's working. We're getting a picture of the insurgency in Iraq and the intelligence is flowing into the white world. We're getting good stuff. But we've got more targets"-prisoners in Iraqi jails-"than people who can handle them."

"Cambone then made another crucial decision, the former intelligence official told me: not only would he bring the sap's rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap'sauspices. "So here are fundamentally good soldiers-military-intelligence guys-being told that no rules apply," the former official, who has extensive knowledge of the special-access programs, added. "And, as far as they're concerned, this is a covert operation, and it's to be kept within Defense Department channels."

kuvasz wrote:
Sorry, but it is you who have exhibited the lack of ability to think in a complex mode. You have bought into the jingoist meme, and you have coupled that flaw with a quite startling ability to deny the facts.

Actually what I'm denying is your unsupported assertions, Slick. Show me some references for all the BS opinions you've posted and maybe I'll take notice. Otherwise, have a nice day on the strange planet where you live

The terrorists and liberal Democrats are in no way allies but they share a common goal: they both want GWB brought down, humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, destroyed, and out of office.

You can be certain the terrorists view the Democrats who slur and disrespect the President as their allies. It won't stop them from cutting Democrat throats when they get the chance, but they definitely enjoy hate rhetoric thrown at the one guy they hate the most.

The terrorists and liberal Democrats are in no way allies but they share a common goal: they both want GWB brought down, humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, destroyed, and out of office.

You can be certain the terrorists view the Democrats who slur and disrespect the President as their allies. It won't stop them from cutting Democrat throats when they get the chance, but they definitely enjoy hate rhetoric thrown at the one guy they hate the most.