2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

Obviously, poor personal military records are plentiful on both sides of the aisle. I speak of Democrats in decision-making positions in the military. I'd heard vague jokes about Clark's tenure, but didn't know how bad his record was. Appreciate Timber bringing the specifics.

Wasn't it Rommel's wife's birthday?

BTW ... Rommel was at home to celebrate his wife's birthday .. June 6th was the day. And Rommel was not at all happy that OKW held the bulk of effective force not only away from his command but inconveniently disposed to respond to a Normandy, or, possible though less likely, Brittany landing.

timber, It's good to know you can be relied on to be our resource person on wars. Walter is also a very good resource on more than Europe, and he seems to have a broad knowledge base including histories of the US and the UK.

Don't fire all of your smears at once, there, timber.

You'll want some for when Clark actually becomes a candidate.

Yes, c.i., maybe I'll just pitch out my Brittanicas, cancel my library card, turn off the History Channel and never click on another website ever again because we've got timber to tell us everything we need to know about war.

After all, Wesley Clark killed all those children at Mt. Carmel.

And all that oxygen wasted blaming Janet Reno.

( For god's sake... )

edit: removed the profanity

Timber- You are quite correct about Rommel and his dismay at the OKW holding the bulk of the force away from this command where the Wehrmacht might have been able to deal great losses to the D Day invasion if not hurl them back from the beaches.

The German forces( Rommel, as you say, did not agree with this at the time) , as I pointed out, held most of their forces North of the Seine.

I have checked the deployment. 2 Attack Infantry Divisions, 10 Reserve Divisions, and 2 Panzer Divisions whereas the Cherbourg peninsula held 2 attack infanty divisions, 3 Reserve Divisions, and two Panzer Divisions.

Source- Stephen Ambrose's D-Day- P. 86- German Strength in Western Europe

Additionally, Rommel, according to Ambrose, at first, looked towards the Pas-de-Calais.

quote Ambrose

"Rommel's guess was the Pas de Calais. He spent more of this time there than anywhere on his long front, inspecting, prodding, building defenses. AT THE BEGINNING OF MAY< he began to look slightly to the Southwest, telling Lt. General Gerhard Von Schwerin..."We expect the invasion on either side of the Somme Estuary" That would have been, of course, as you pointed out, Timber, much closer to Normandy.

But unfortunately for the Wehrmacht. as Ambrose points out--"But all of the evidence available to the Germans continued to indicate the Pas-deCalais"

P Diddie- You can tell us what we need to know about war. I am sure Timber doesn't want to monopolize the venue.

Just make sure you give your sources so we can check them out.

Wesley Clark is not my choice, and the longer he waits, the worse he looks.

Old Al Sharpton is going to be a voice to reckon with. Interesting that the democrats have two highly visible, very sharp black contenders. Win or lose, they are there to see, and the point has not been lost on a number of voting groups.

War sucks. You sure you need a link?

Wanna learn about war? Volunteer with AI, MSF, HRW, or another human rights organization.
PD, the far right folks don't seem to see war as a bad thing. They still believe in "glory," and "honour." A child whose mother brings him to your refugee camp with his intestines dangling and his lips purple after trodding on a landmine knows nothing of glory.

hobitbob, lemme tell ya about glory ... there ain't much of that involved watching the life fade from the questioning, frightened eyes of a dear freind who's blood is coloring the muddy water a sickening brownish-red all around the two of you as you futiley press your flattened hand against the frothing, spurting hole in his chest. There ain't much in seeing a medevac chopper that just loaded four of your freinds disappear into the flash, smoke, flying dirt and assorted debris of a 120mm mortar round. And there ain't much at all in trying to make sense of coming off a plane, thrilled to be coming home from all of that, even if its on crutches, only to be spit on by an outraged girl your own age screaming "Babykiller" at you. Been there, done that. How about you?

PDid, You can do whatever you wish with your encyclopedia and library card, but you might want to give it some thought before you do that. timber may be a good resource on wars, but there's a whole bunch of other subjects that you may wish to tackle in your encyclopedia and use of your library card. Besides novels, magazines, and newspapers, the some libraries even have computers.

Yeah. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Sure P. Diddie- War sucks- I know it- I was there-
Would you like a list of good books that say war sucks?

Start with "A Rumor of War" by Phil Caputo

I don't read words good.

Pictures, now them's I unnerstand:

Hobibob is absolutely correct. War should be banned. There should be no more wars. I would be happy to sign a petition or work against war. I tried to join the American Legion but they wouldn't let me join because I wasn't over sixty years old.
I wanted to go to Europe to protest against land mines but my wife wouldn't let me.
I have, however, contrbuted a small amount to the Mahatma Ghandi Foundation for World Peace.

P Diddie- Read Caputo- His words are stronger than any picture or, if you insist on pictures, watch the sure to come re-runs of the WTC tragedy two years ago. If you can find an unexpurgated version you can see the poor innocent people jumping to avoid being roasted alive.

I really don't think there is a lot we can do about war, P Diddie.

I wrote a strong letter to President Clinton during the wars in Rawanda and Burundi where 500,000 people were murdered in internecine wars. Many men, women and children had arms and legs cut off by invading soldiers.

Nothing was done.

Do you know why??

Click on this link, massagattos:

Officers Recall Horrors of 9/11

P. Diddie- The picture you showed was horrifying.

Did you ever see the pictures showing the men, women and children murdered by the Nazis in the concentration camps?

How do you like the number 6,000,000?

Well, P. Diddie, war indeed sucks but when we went to defeat Germany in World War II, we stopped the slaughter in the Concentration camps.

I am sure you will agree that the Jewish survivors would say- Yes, war sucks but concentration camps which put innocent men, women and children in the ovens SUCK MUCH MUCH MORE.

Or maybe you think if we did "nice-nice" to Adolf, he wouldn't have murdered those people?

We all hate war. Some of us realize it is sometimes necessary. We didn't acquire our freedom without war, and we havn't maintained our freedom without war.

Would be very nice if it weren't ever necessary. But someone has to keep their head out of the clouds, and keep their eyes on reality.

Everybody enjoys our freedom, but only some are willing to protect and defend it.

So anyway, kids, lets get back to discussing the Democratic Contenders here ... so far, it seems the only folks into that are the media pundits and this thread's participants. Anybody see the clips of Dean and Kerry playing guitar? Good thing they both have day jobs ... though of the two, Dean seemed the stronger musically as well.