Bush only quit and ran from his military obligations. That's what is called AWOL. A vernacular you probably don't understand.
EXTRA TIDBITS
It's a good thing Teddy Kennedy was never elected president. He quit and ran from a women drowning in a car he drove into a pond. Wow, if he were elected president, that sure would have been embarrassing to Americans.
John Kerry, acting as a swift boat captain, more than once quit and ran (or rather, sailed) from armed conflicts in Vietnam.
Both John Kerry and Al Gore, can you believe it, actually got even lower gradepoint averages at Yale than did George Bush.
Bush messed up though. Instead of getting a real job as an airline pilot after his discharge as a fighter pilot from the Air national guard, Bush went and earned an MBA at Harvard. Gad, what could he have been thinking?
White House press secretary Scott McClellan appeared to step back from that pledge, telling reporters: "If there is new information that comes to our attention we will let you know - if it's relevant to this issue."
During McClellan's Wednesday afternoon briefing, the AWOL question came up again. And seven times, McClellan repeated his mantra-du-jour: "trolling for trash."
That's what this administration and you do best - making irrelevant statements such as "trolling for trash" and "malignancy," and "mythology!"
icant, There's too much stuff out in web-land that shows Bush went AWOL. Wonder why he could never really defend that charge? Because he can't. You call it "mythology," because you can't defend it either.
January 6, 2006
Iraq Facing Hurdles, U.S. General Warns
By ERIC SCHMITT
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, Jan. 4 - The top American operational commander in Iraq has offered a sober assessment of the hurdles facing a new Iraqi government, voicing concerns that sectarian rivalries and incompetence could cripple major ministries and turn newly American-trained Iraqi security forces into militias for hire.
The commander, Lt. Gen. John R. Vines of the Army, warned in an interview on Wednesday that the development of the Defense and Interior Ministries that sustain Iraqi security forces lags behind the fielding and prowess of more than 220,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers.
"The ability of the ministries to support them, to pay them, to resupply them, provide them with water, ammunition, spare parts and weapons is not as advanced as the competence of the forces in the field," General Vines said at his headquarters here outside of Baghdad, as a new wave of violence gripped Iraq this week. "We must make significant progress in that area before they can conduct independent operations."
General Vines cautioned that other important ministries, like oil and electricity, must also strengthen their operations for the security forces to succeed - and for Iraq to prosper politically and economically.
"The reason it's important to look at areas like governance and infrastructure is because oil is the lifeblood of Iraq," said General Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C. "If they don't produce enough income to support their security forces, members of those forces could turn to ulterior purposes and could become militias or armed gangs."
The comments by General Vines, who formerly commanded Special Operations Forces in Somalia and all American troops in Afghanistan, offer perhaps the bluntest public assessment yet by a senior military officer about the challenges facing the American-led military coalition and the fledgling Iraqi government in the coming months.
General Vines cited a string of notable successes over the past year, including the building of the Iraqi security forces into a growing number of units that are taking the lead in securing the country and successfully holding two elections and one referendum in 2005.
But he also warned of potential trouble in the weeks and months ahead, as Sunni Arabs look to a Shiite-dominated government for signs that their voices and needs will be addressed.
General Vines said the fact that Iraqis voted in such large numbers on Dec. 15 was uplifting, but he lamented that the balloting broke down largely along religious and ethnic lines. "The vote is reported to be primarily along sectarian lines, which is not particularly heartening," he said. "There was enormous enthusiasm for the election. But it must be a government by and for Iraqis, not sects. I don't think we can know that yet."
General Vines said it is too soon to gauge how well Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds will succeed in forging an inclusive government that protects all citizens of Iraq. "As the government forms, if we see indicators that there are purges of competent people to be replaced with ideologues in the security ministries, that would be disturbing," he said. "If competent commanders were to be replaced by those whose main qualification is an allegiance to a sect, that would be of concern to us."
At the urging of American commanders and civilian officials, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense has stepped up the recruiting of Sunni Arabs to serve in an army that is now dominated largely by Shiite and Kurdish soldiers. "The M.O.D. must continue to be perceived as a force that protects the population, as opposed to oppressing it," General Vines said. "This is a reason we're watching what happens at the M.O.D. very carefully."
As the operational commander for more than 150,000 American troops and 20,000 coalition forces, General Vines has day-to-day oversight, along with his Iraqi counterparts, over what troops here call the battle space around the country.
In the past several months, General Vines said that the flow of foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq had diminished in part because of nearly 20,000 Iraqi forces now stationed in restive Anbar Province, a series of American military operation in the Euphrates River Valley and increased cooperation from Syria and Saudi Arabia in tightening border controls.
In the weeks leading up to the December election, however, General Vines differed with his boss, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the overall American commander in Iraq, over how and where to assign troops to ensure a peaceful and successful balloting.
According to interviews with several senior Army officers, who were granted anonymity because their bosses' discussions were confidential, General Casey wanted to build up operations along the border between Iraq and Syria, as well as the Euphrates River Valley, to make it harder for suicide bombers to infiltrate and explode themselves in Baghdad during the elections.
But General Vines and his field commanders said the center of gravity was Baghdad and its predominantly Sunni suburbs like Falluja, the officers said. General Vines wanted to position more forces there to increase the Sunni turnout, a major political goal of the Bush administration but also a means to help reduce the insurgency.
The two commanders eventually worked out a compromise to put troops in both places, the senior officers said.
Yeah, we hope they succeed, but they're fighting too many fronts with too small of coalition forces. They haven't even secured the borders where foreign insurgents are entering Iraq.
fascinating article in todays Newstatesman mag
http://www.newstatesman.com/nssubsfilter.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_NS&newDisplayURN=200601090004
which you can read for free if you register.
Are we drifting towards fascism? Hard to know, what would modern facism look like? Army surplus brown shirts or Armani?
I dont think we are in a facist state, but a state of war. Its an insurrection by the fuzzy wuzzies against the imperialists. I'm not an imperialist, but I'm not a religious crazed freedom bomber either.
Foxfyre wrote:Okay Revel. Please explain your experience with the Eisenhower campaign.
Eisenhower was a little before my time and I never was a history buff. I was rolling my eyes because it seems to be habit among some of you to compare this war which was ill thought out and unjustified to other more succesful times as though it will rub off.
It is not partisan to point out all the real negative events that have been a part of this Iraq war debate from the beginning. The administration's performance in Iraq has validated the pre-war critics. Nearly everything the Bush administration has said concerning Iraq has proved to be false. They said Hussein had some of the worlds most dangerous weapons, turned out he had very little, much less the world's most dangerous. They said the Iraqis would treat us as liberators, some are still fighting us to this day and the rest merely tolerate us at best. They said the oil would pay for the reconstruction, it hasn't to say the least, the oil is not even up to pre-war standards; they said they would provide Iraq with the best infrastructure in the region, now they are not going to ask congress for additional money for infrastructure (which more than half was diverted for security and other such issues anyway) they have even failed on that promise and are now claiming it was only ever meant as a jump-start.
Quote:At least $2.5bn earmarked for Iraq's dilapidated infrastructure and schools was diverted to building up a security force. And funds originally intended to repair the electricity grid and sewage and sanitation system were used to train special bomb squad units and a hostage rescue force. The US also shifted funds to build 10 new prisons to keep pace with the insurgency, and safe houses and armoured cars for Iraqi judges, the Post said.
The reconstruction fund was tapped for the hundreds of millions of dollars required to hold elections and for four changes of government. It also helped pay for the tens of millions required to establish a criminal justice system, including $128m to examine several mass graves of Saddam's victims.
While 3,600 projects will be completed by the end of the year, the cost of security accounted for as much as 25% of each project, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction. A US congressional report in October forecast that many reconstruction projects were unlikely to get off the ground because of the spiralling costs of security.
Production on Iraq's national electrical grid remains at 4,000 megawatts, 400 megawatts below pre-war levels, with the average Iraqi receiving less than 12 hours of power a day. Oil production, which was supposed to provide the funds for Iraqi reconstruction, according to the Pentagon's pre-war planning, also remains well below pre-war levels, mainly due to sabotage by insurgents. Iraq's refineries are producing 1.1m barrels of oil a day, compared with 2.6m barrels on the eve of the invasion.
The cut-off to reconstruction programmes adds to increasing speculation that the administration is planning at least a partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq before November's US mid-term election.
It marks a retreat from a promise by Mr Bush in 2003 to provide Iraq with the best infrastructure in the region.
Yesterday, however, a Pentagon official disavowed that ambition. "The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brigadier General William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, was quoted in the Post as saying. "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."
The Post also notes that fewer than 30% of Iraqis were even aware of ongoing reconstruction projects, suggesting the US has failed to extract public relations benefit from any of the reconstruction projects it has completed.
source
Perhaps if they could get the terrorists in Iraq from sabotaging the oil pipelines and refineries such drastic actions would not be necessary. It's good to see that Iraqis, much like Americans, prefer to just complain instead of doing something.
That's rich, blame it on the Iraqis when we couldn't stop the violence with all our resources.
Not blaming anyone, just reminding people here of why the Iraqi's are having the trouble they are. It's not because the Americans are there. It's because of the terrorists trying to spoil everyone's lives.
McGentrix wrote:Not blaming anyone, just reminding people here of why the Iraqi's are having the trouble they are. It's not because the Americans are there. It's because of the terrorists trying to spoil everyone's lives.
The "trouble" in Iraq is not because the Americans are there?
McTag
McTag wrote:McGentrix wrote:Not blaming anyone, just reminding people here of why the Iraqi's are having the trouble they are. It's not because the Americans are there. It's because of the terrorists trying to spoil everyone's lives.
The "trouble" in Iraq is not because the Americans are there?
Strange isn't it, McGintrix doesn't believe top American Military as well as the troops and Iraqi leadership who report that occupying troops in Iraq are a huge contributor to the hostility.
BBB
McTag wrote:McGentrix wrote:Not blaming anyone, just reminding people here of why the Iraqi's are having the trouble they are. It's not because the Americans are there. It's because of the terrorists trying to spoil everyone's lives.
The "trouble" in Iraq is not because the Americans are there?
That is correct. The insurgency/terroists are trying to disrupt the oil and gas flow throughout Iraq as an attempt to disrupt the politicall process and to thwart any aspect of progress from American/coalition efforts.
Do you somehow have it in your mind that America is destroying the pipelines and sabotaging the refineries/gas production facilities? What could lead you to that conclusion?
McGentrix wrote:McTag wrote:McGentrix wrote:Not blaming anyone, just reminding people here of why the Iraqi's are having the trouble they are. It's not because the Americans are there. It's because of the terrorists trying to spoil everyone's lives.
The "trouble" in Iraq is not because the Americans are there?
That is correct. The insurgency/terroists are trying to disrupt the oil and gas flow throughout Iraq as an attempt to disrupt the politicall process and to thwart any aspect of progress from American/coalition efforts.
Do you somehow have it in your mind that America is destroying the pipelines and sabotaging the refineries/gas production facilities? What could lead you to that conclusion?
Please consider the possibility that the insurgents are active because they percieve that the USA is trying to control the oil supply.
Also, that they are unhappy to be invaded and occupied.
Were there any justification for that idea, I may be inclined to consider it. So Far the US has not made any attempt to control 1 drop of Iraqi oil. I believe it is in the US best interest to have Iraq be in charge of Iraqi oil as it is the only resource Iraq has to export and to start paying for its own reconstruction.
As far as being unhappy about being invaded and occupied? TS. The faster the insurgency ends, the fatser the US and coalition forces leave.
McGentrix wrote:Were there any justification for that idea, I may be inclined to consider it. So Far the US has not made any attempt to control 1 drop of Iraqi oil. I believe it is in the US best interest to have Iraq be in charge of Iraqi oil as it is the only resource Iraq has to export and to start paying for its own reconstruction.
As stated recently and referred to in a post here, does anyone seriously believe that the USA would have invaded Iraq if there were no oil there?
McGentrix wrote:
As far as being unhappy about being invaded and occupied? TS. The faster the insurgency ends, the fatser the US and coalition forces leave.
Before the invasion there was- no insurgency.
None that troubled Washington anyway, because they funded its suppression by their ally, Saddam.
So where does that leave your statement?
That has no bearing on the present conversation McT.
Do you think that if the insurgency ended tomorrow, the US was able to finish the infrastructure rebuilding, the Iraqi government was allowed to rule as outlined by their constitution and the oil was allowed to go to the world market that the US would not leave?
McGentrix wrote:That has no bearing on the present conversation McT.
Do you think that if the insurgency ended tomorrow, the US was able to finish the infrastructure rebuilding, the Iraqi government was allowed to rule as outlined by their constitution and the oil was allowed to go to the world market that the US would not leave?
I don't think we would leave, why would we have permanent bases if we were going to just up and leave?
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm
