Hypocrites!
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._02/022183.php
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The last democrat in office cut our military in half, reduced benefits, now we cant fight two small fronts in two small countries.
I don't see why you think republicans will keep you at war.
I guess you liked Clintons response to 4 terrorist attacks during his {residency. This war should have been started 12 years ago.
Bush Should have finished off Sadam the first time we were there.
Its expensive, and it hurts at home, but I think it is worth it to get this 20 year war over with.
You either didnt read this thread or chose to ignore it.
In case you didnt read it let me lay it out.
"Keep in mind it wasnt too terribly long ago that Democratic politicians simply WERENT SUPPOSED TO SAY THAT PETRAEUS, GATES, AND INTELLIGENCE LEADERS WERE WRONG ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY MATTERS. INDEED, FOR DEMS TO SAY THAT THEY KNEW BETTER THAN PETRAEUS, GATES, AND INTELLIGENCE LEADERS-THAT THEIR JUDGEMENT WAS SUPERIOR TO MILITARY LEADERS'-WAS GROUNDS FOR MOCKERY, IF NOT CONDEMNATION."
So now that the Republicans are disagreeing openly with Petraeus and Gates on quite a few issues should we mock them?
The Republicans complete 360 degree change on "listening to the commanders on the ground" renders them HYPOCRITES.
"We cant fight two small fronts in two small countries". Really? Thats quite a statement and one i dont see backed up by the facts.
"The last Democrat in office cut our military IN HALF" Really?
Anyway, welcome to the site. Nice to argue with someone other than John.
:D
arnoldclab
I also want to see objective evidence of your assertion of a military cut such as you describe.
"I don't see why you think republicans will keep you at war".
Perhaps it's because they lied us into an illegal war. You do know that, right?
"I guess you liked Clintons response to 4 terrorist attacks during his {residency. This war should have been started 12 years ago".
Yes, let's just kick ass. You apparently have not read any of Richard Clarke's books to see what Clinton did. As to your assertion that Saddam should should have been removed during the first Gulf war; you must also not be aware that Bush senior knew (and said) it would be stupid and that Cheney agreed - and that is the exact opposite position Cheney held later when he was fanatical about how Saddam had to be removed. What does it matter that thousands of American and Iraqi deaths will occur. That's life - and politics, huh? Okay with you?
Oh, by the way, you know Bush's incompetence allowed 9/11. You know what that is called, T.......!
Here's some evidence.
by: Cullen Murphy and Todd S. Purdum | Vanity Fair
Richard Clarke, chief White House counterterrorism adviser: We had a couple of meetings with the president, and there were detailed discussions and briefings on cyber-security and often terrorism, and on a classified program. With the cyber-security meeting, he seemed - I was disturbed because he seemed to be trying to impress us, the people who were briefing him. It was as though he wanted these experts, these White House staff guys who had been around for a long time before he got there - didn't want them buying the rumor that he wasn't too bright. He was trying - sort of overly trying - to show that he could ask good questions, and kind of yukking it up with Cheney.
The contrast with having briefed his father and Clinton and Gore was so marked. And to be told, frankly, early in the administration, by Condi Rice and [her deputy] Steve Hadley, you know, Don't give the president a lot of long memos, he's not a big reader - well, shit. I mean, the president of the United States is not a big reader?
August 6, 2001 While vacationing at his ranch, in Crawford, Texas, Bush is given a Presidential Daily Briefing memorandum whose headline warns that the al-Qaeda terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, is "determined to strike in U.S." After being briefed on the document by a C.I.A. analyst, Bush responds, "All right, you've covered your ass now."
Richard Clarke, chief White House counterterrorism adviser: We went into a period in June where the tempo of intelligence about an impending large-scale attack went up a lot, to the kind of cycle that we'd only seen once or twice before. And we told Condi that. She didn't do anything. She said, Well, make sure you're coordinating with the agencies, which, of course, I was doing. By August, I was saying to Condi and to the agencies that the intelligence isn't coming in at such a rapid rate anymore as it was in the June-July time frame. But that doesn't mean the attack isn't going to happen. It just means that they may be in place.
On September 4, we had a principals meeting. The most telling thing for me about the attitude of these people was on the decision that had been pending for a long time to resume Predator [remote-controlled drone] flights over Afghanistan, and to now do what we couldn't have done in the Clinton administration because the technology wasn't ready: put a weapon on the Predator and use it as not only a hunter but a
killer.
We had seen bin Laden when we had it in the Clinton administration, as just a hunter. We had seen him. So we thought, Man, if we could get this with a hunter-killer, we could see him again and kill him. So finally we have a principals meeting and the C.I.A. says it's not our job to fly the Predator armed. And D.O.D. says it's not our job to fly an unarmed aircraft.
I just couldn't believe it. This is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the director of C.I.A. sitting there, both passing the football because neither one of them wanted to go kill bin Laden.
Richard Clarke: That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we've got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him - at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him - like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said - I'll never forget this - There just aren't enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we're, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks.
And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn't seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise. It really didn't, because from the first weeks of the administration they were talking about Iraq. I just found it a little disgusting that they were talking about it while the bodies w December 2001 Osama bin Laden and many of his followers have taken refuge in the mountains of Tora Bora, on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, where an attempt to dislodge and capture them proves unavailing. A decision by Washington has the effect of allowing bin Laden to escape into the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Gary Berntsen, C.I.A. intelligence commander at Tora Bora: We knew he was there - he had fallen into the mountains with about a thousand of his followers. That's why we threw a BLU-82 [the bomb known as a "daisy cutter"] at him. At one point we knew where he was; we allowed food and water to go in to him. And then we came in with a 15,000-pound device. Bin Laden was outside the lethal effects of that blast. I understand he was injured.
I got a message out and made my request for inclusion of what I believed was needed - 800 Rangers. The army of the Eastern Alliance on the north side had blocking positions there, so al-Qaeda couldn't get back out into Afghanistan. But I was always concerned about the Pakistani side. I explained clearly that this was our opportunity to, so to speak, kill the baby in the crib. I was very concerned about them breaking out [south] into Pakistan, because I knew, if they did that, containing this thing would be a significant problem.
Unfortunately, the decision was made at the White House to use the Pakistani frontier force. What the White House didn't understand is that the frontier force had cooperated with the Taliban. So they used individuals who were very, very sympathetic to the Taliban to set up purported blocking positions.
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Hope you read this arno. Because that's what you have to do to know anything real and accurate. If you would like a reading list of objective, reliable and non-ideological sources, just ask.