Rumsfeld: from "last throes" to "it could last years"

And.....????

I saw the used car salesman on meet the press. In spite of all that has gone wrong with the action in Iraq he insisted that it was in line with the unpredictability of war. And that he had made no operational or planning errors.
He is one oily little snake.

I now it is difficult for you to form judgements and frame an opinion.

Most A2K political hacks actually read newspapers and watch the Sunday AM News Programs.

The fact that you need to post only an article without an observation by you means you are unable to form an opinion on this matter and seek opinions from others.

Maybe they mean that the undiminished last throes of the insurgency could last for ten years.


It seems to me that this administration finds itself in the unique position of having to sell totally opposite positions for domestic political purposes to be able to say that they are succeeding in Iraq but we still need to stay there because of the violence.


If by some miracle the violence does get down to a level of control and the Iraqi government is able to truly handle all their responsibility on their own, including their prisons and oil, what excuse we will have for maintaining such a large presence through our military bases and huge US embassy that they are building or plan to build. (don't know the status on that)

Don't flatter yourself. I already know what to think of these situations, I don't need or want the opinions of anyone else. I post these things to inspire thought in others, and provide links for people who may otherwise benefit from the articles.

But if it makes you feel better or somehow superior to me by geting into heated arguments on the internet with people you have never known and will never meet...be my guest.

Then why post something we all have either read about or heard about??? Since you have already formed an opinion, which you refuse to share nor do you want to see how others feel about this matter, there is absolutely no point to you posting this article. Then again, pointless is the basis of most of the chatter made by liberals these days.

woiyo
Might I suggest you concern yourself with what you post and not comment on what others should or should not post. As for useless chatter listen to one of Bush's speeches.

This is another subject that came up in the discussion. What will you do about the failures in recruiting for the army? And as usual it was shrugged off as not being a problem.
There is none so blind as he who will not see.


The Army's Hard Sell
By BOB HERBERT
Published: June 27, 2005
The all-volunteer Army is not working. The problem with such an Army is that there are limited numbers of people who will freely choose to participate in an enterprise in which they may well be shot, blown up, burned to death or suffer some other excruciating fate.

The all-volunteer Army is fine in peacetime, and in military routs like the first gulf war. But when the troops are locked in a prolonged war that yields high casualties, and they look over their shoulders to see if reinforcements are coming from the general population, they find -as they're finding now - that no one is there.

Although it has been lowering standards, raising bonuses and all but begging on its knees, the Army hasn't reached its recruitment quota in months. There are always plenty of hawks in America. But the hawks want their wars fought with other people's children.

The problem now is that most Americans have had plenty of time to digest the images of people being blown up in Baghdad and mutilated in Fallujah, and they know that thousands of our troops are coming home in coffins, or without their arms, or without their legs, or paralyzed, or horribly burned.

War in the abstract can often seem like a good idea. Politicians get the patriotic blood flowing with their bombast and lies. But the flesh-and-blood reality of war is very different.

The war in Iraq was sold to the American public the way a cheap car salesman sells a lemon. Dick Cheney assured the nation that Americans in Iraq would be "greeted as liberators." Kenneth Adelman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board said the war would be a "cakewalk." And Donald Rumsfeld said on National Public Radio: "I can't say if the use of force would last five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

The hot-for-war crowd never mentioned young men and women being shipped back to their families deceased or maimed. Nor was there any suggestion that a broad swath of the population should share in the sacrifice.

Now, with the war going badly and the Army chasing potential recruits with a ferocity that is alarming, a backlash is developing that could cripple the nation's ability to wage war without a draft. Even as the ranks of new recruits are dwindling, many parents and public school officials are battling the increasingly heavy-handed tactics being used by military recruiters who are desperately trying to sign up high school kids.

"I started getting calls and people coming to the school board meeting testifying that they were getting inundated with phone calls from military recruiters," said Sandra Lowe, a board member and former president of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District in California.

She said parents complained that in some schools "the military recruiters were on campus all the time," sometimes handing out "things that the parents did not want in their homes, including very violent video games."

Ms. Lowe said she was especially disturbed by a joint effort of the Defense Department and a private contractor, disclosed last week, to build a database of 30 million 16- to 25-year-olds, complete with Social Security numbers, racial and ethnic identification codes, grade point averages and phone numbers. The database is to be scoured for youngsters that the Pentagon believes can be persuaded to join the military.

"To have this national data collection is just over the top," Ms. Lowe said.

Like many other parents resisting aggressive recruitment measures, Ms. Lowe has turned to a Web site - leavemychildalone.org - that counsels parents on their rights and the rights of their children. She described the site as "wonderful."

What's not so wonderful is that this war with no end in sight is becoming an ever more divisive issue for Americans. A clear divide is developing between those who want to continue the present course and those who feel it's time to craft an exit strategy.

But with volunteers in extremely short supply, an even more emotional divide is occurring over the ways in which soldiers for this war are selected. Increasing numbers of Americans are recognizing the inherent unfairness of the all-volunteer force in a time of war. That emotional issue will become more heated as the war continues. And it is sure to resonate in the wars to come.

Now that was funny.

Now, why would they want race and ethnicity in the database?

The propaganda that we are being fed by our own media and our own government has skewed this war so that the fact that the insurgency is actually growing, and they are now killing more of us (us being the coalition forces and the newly trained Iraqis) than we are of them doesn't register. Most people still think that eventually we'll win this thing.

I've got news for you Rumsfeld. We are not only not winning this thing, we are getting our asses kicked! Day by day, there are more and more of them, and less and less of us.

Wake up, please. THE TIDE HAS TURNED AND THE INSURGENTS ARE NOW KICKING OUR ASSES.

Thanks McG. Knew I could count on you to ignore the facts and start with your brilliant debating technique of eye-rolling. Genius.

When you make statements like "THE TIDE HAS TURNED AND THE INSURGENTS ARE NOW KICKING OUR ASSES."....


A eyeroll is all you get.

Why?

The insurgents are winning, in case you haven't noticed. We can barely hold on to a couple of major cities, their strength isn't reduced in the slightest, and attacks continue apace. The IA won't be ready anytime soon. We can't leave, we provoke more violence by staying; talk about being in between Iraq and a hard place...

Cycloptichorn

MASS HYSTERIA THE SKY IS FALLING THE INSURGENTS ARE WINNING.

What exactly are they winning???


What they are doing is making it difficult to "resurrect" whatever economy Iraq will have. This is a law inforcement matter which will go on and on and on and on........ until the Iraqis can police it.

Rumsfeld is not to be criticized for stating the obvious. There are many other things to criticize him for, but this is not it.

My first criticism would be WHY ARE US FORCES INVOLVED IN A POLICE ACTION?

I agree. Why?

Every day which goes on in which we don't wipe the insurgents out, they win more. If they can hold up the gov't formation long enough, it will collapse. The Iraqis will NEVER be able to police their country adequately under the conditions that exist due to our presence.

Thus, we are completely stuck. And it is a win for our enemies and a loss for us, financially, if nothing else.

Oh, and the Americans who get killed pretty much every day over there, it's a loss for them as well.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo - You're not suggesting we need to stay there to "wipe out" the insurgents, are you?

If you are, then should we not take a more aggressive approach to the objective???

I do not want to police this place one more DAY, never mind 12 more years.

GW better have a good speech lined up tomorrow to explain exactly HOW we terminte these insurgents.