Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Bush doesn't give speeches TO military audiences. He gives speeches IN FRONT OF military personnel. And flags. And carefully-lit buildings. And aircraft carriers with big signs which, no, actually the sailors didn't really put up themselves as the WH claimed at first until they were caught lying.

It is about manipulation. Everything I just posted is about manipulation. It is about falsifying the truth, hiding the truth, and getting you to think a certain way when you are minus the truth.

Of all the things that piss me off about you guys here to whom I am speaking the thing that tops the list is how utterly complacent you are - how happy you seem to be - being manipulated in such a manner.

Bush speaks IN FRONT OF military audiences because his PR people want you to think a certain way.

He is NEVER allowed to present himself in front of normal everyday citizens who might ask him tough questions or yell something negative at him. So YOU will think a certain way about him.

It is fake. It's a big lie. And you guys gobble it up.

Why dont the anti-war,defeatist democrats give speeches in front of military audiences?
Why dont they have the balls to tell soldiers that have actually been in Iraq that we are losing?

Politicians alwats give speeches in front of sympathetic audiences.
There is nothing new about that.
Why are you making a big deal about it now?

Foxfyre was right to be skeptcial, though. Take a look at the numbers behind the numbers.

It is C-BS, afterall

I like that idea Won't see it in my lifetime, though.

I'd tell you what a couple of Marines I know said about Kerry when he visited Iraq, but I'd be banned for using "unsuitable" language

It is my understanding that Mr. Murtha, whom I guess you are referring to, does that quite frequently.

Thomas - This is the last few paragraphs of VDH's essay on "Our-Not-So-Wise Experts". As usual, he's quite elegant in letting us know that we should be respectful of our elders...listen quietly, and then ignore in the same way.

And, another essay from...Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, author of "Transformation of War" (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers.


link

When an anti-war democrat is president, I will give a ****.

BBB


Well, for starters, John Kerry's speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars 8/16/04.

BBB

Mr. b. - are you including the hawkish liberals in that "you guys" scenario?

You know, "those guys" that were the split-ticket voters who gave Bush at least 1 million, perhaps 2 million, of his 3 million-vote victory margin last November. Dismiss them, sir, at your peril.

December 1, 2005
Editorial
Plan: We Win

We've seen it before: an embattled president so swathed in his inner circle that he completely loses touch with the public and wanders around among small knots of people who agree with him. There was Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's, Richard Nixon in the 1970's, and George H. W. Bush in the 1990's. Now it's his son's turn.

It has been obvious for months that Americans don't believe the war is going just fine, and they needed to hear that President Bush gets that. They wanted to see that he had learned from his mistakes and adjusted his course, and that he had a measurable and realistic plan for making Iraq safe enough to withdraw United States troops. Americans didn't need to be convinced of Mr. Bush's commitment to his idealized version of the war. They needed to be reassured that he recognized the reality of the war.

Instead, Mr. Bush traveled 32 miles from the White House to the Naval Academy and spoke to yet another of the well-behaved, uniformed audiences that have screened him from the rest of America lately. If you do not happen to be a midshipman, you'd have to have been watching cable news at midmorning on a weekday to catch him.

The address was accompanied by a voluminous handout entitled "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," which the White House grandly calls the newly declassified version of the plan that has been driving the war. If there was something secret about that plan, we can't figure out what it was. The document, and Mr. Bush's speech, were almost entirely a rehash of the same tired argument that everything's going just fine. Mr. Bush also offered the usual false choice between sticking to his policy and beating a hasty and cowardly retreat.

On the critical question of the progress of the Iraqi military, the president was particularly optimistic, and misleading. He said, for instance, that Iraqi security forces control major areas, including the northern and southern provinces and cities like Najaf. That's true if you believe a nation can be built out of a change of clothing: these forces are based on party and sectarian militias that have controlled many of these same areas since the fall of Saddam Hussein but now wear Iraqi Army uniforms. In other regions, the most powerful Iraqi security forces are rogue militias that refuse to disarm and have on occasion turned their guns against American troops, like Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Mr. Bush's vision of the next big step is equally troubling: training Iraqi forces well enough to free American forces for more of the bloody and ineffective search-and-destroy sweeps that accomplish little beyond alienating the populace.

What Americans wanted to hear was a genuine counterinsurgency plan, perhaps like one proposed by Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., a leading writer on military strategy: find the most secure areas with capable Iraqi forces. Embed American trainers with those forces and make the region safe enough to spend money on reconstruction, thus making friends and draining the insurgency. Then slowly expand those zones and withdraw American forces.

Americans have been clamoring for believable goals in Iraq, but Mr. Bush stuck to his notion of staying until "total victory." His strategy document defines that as an Iraq that "has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency"; is "peaceful, united, stable, democratic and secure"; and is a partner in the war on terror, an integral part of the international community, and "an engine for regional economic growth and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region."

That may be the most grandiose set of ambitions for the region since the vision of Nebuchadnezzar's son Belshazzar, who saw the hand writing on the wall. Mr. Bush hates comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. But after watching the president, we couldn't resist reading Richard Nixon's 1969 Vietnamization speech. Substitute the Iraqi constitutional process for the Paris peace talks, and Mr. Bush's ideas about the Iraqi Army are not much different from Nixon's plans - except Nixon admitted the war was going very badly (which was easier for him to do because he didn't start it), and he was very clear about the risks and huge sacrifices ahead.

A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

I doubt very much Bush's pretty pictures about Iraq is being bought.


Insurgent 'attack' on Iraqi city
Insurgents attacked US bases and government offices in Ramadi, in central Iraq, and then dispersed throughout the city, reports say.
Heavily-armed insurgents fired mortars and rockets at the buildings and then occupied several main streets, residents told news agencies.

Ramadi has been a rebel stronghold for many months.

But the US military played down the scale of the attack, saying it had resulted in no damage or casualties.

US Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool told the AFP news agency the militants had simply fired a rocket propelled grenade at a joint US-Iraqi observation post at 0930 (0630 GMT).

"As of 1400 (1100 GMT), there were no signs of any significant insurgent activity anywhere in the city."

Captain Pool accused the militants of exaggerating the scale of the attack.

"This is clearly a sign of how desperate insurgents have become," he said.

Leaflets

Residents told the Reuters news agency earlier that hundreds of heavily armed men in masks had for a time patrolled the main streets of the city and set up checkpoints.


Leaflets distributed by the men declared that al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group run by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was now in control of the city.

"Its followers will burn the Americans and will drive them back to their homes by force. Iraq will be a graveyard for the Americans and its allies," one leaflet declared.

Residents said there was no noticeable presence of US or Iraqi forces in the city after the attacks.

The attack came as 2000 US Marines and 500 Iraqi soldiers launched an offensive against insurgents in Hit, east of the River Euphrates, not far from Ramadi.

The US military said the town was "suspected to be an al-Qaeda in Iraq safe area and base of operations for the manufacture of vehicle car bombs."

Story from BBC NEWS:

October's estimate of 3.8% third-quarter GDP growth was revised upward yesterday to 4.3%

<Contentedly entrenched in the "spam-free" zone>

Heh.

and the DOW dropped like 80 points, interesting?

It's up 105.59 at this moment

Looking for it to break 11,000 soon

yes really, it's a clear indication that the economy is ----- well it's a clear indication that the economy is something I'm sure.

Giant and successful?

dys, Your skepticism is well established; most government stats and how the market reacts are oxymorons. If there were any semblance between the two, investing in the stock market would not be a gamble. Many have lost their life savings trying to play the market. It can't be done - for most investors. The only tried and true method is to diversify your investments for the long-term.

JG I can only assume you don't follow the stock market. the past 52 weeks has seen the DOW from a low of 9,961 to a high of 11,027 and today at the moment it is at 10,921.
Grand and successful?