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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (91893)	3/27/2007 6:47:21 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Bush never really sent our military to Afghanistan. That was a CIA run operation. Bush failed to give the CIA the military support they needed, which is why Bin ALden and so many others escaped. Then he withdrew most military assets from Afghanistan and sent almost everything to Iraq, which at the time had no terrorists to speak of, no connection to 9-11 and not even any of the huge stockpiles of WMD Bush and his people hyped us about. The real sin of the Bushies in Iraq was not the size of the fighting force, it was the post-invasion planning. There doesn't seem to have been any at all. And since they dissed the UN and other allies and kept them out (wanting to hog all the oil for themselves) they doomed our troops to be overwhelmed. They also failed to ancipate the revival of the old Sunni-Shia rivalry, and the fact that foreign fighters would start coming in, tempted by US targets on their own turf. Afterall the borders were left wide open. Plus they neglected to realize what a danger Iran might be if we freed their people (Shias), took our their enemy Saddam and then started threatening them with Axis Of Evil type slurs. Just a case of total incompetence all around rooted in greed, arrogance, corruption, short-sightedness and incompetent cronyism. Many of the top people were appointed strictly because they were Bushie cronies, not because they were qualified to do anything.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (91893)	3/27/2007 10:55:39 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

1) Disbanding Saddam's army was a terrible blunder. Garner immediately recognized that, and went to Rumsfeld to tell him it was not too late to reverse the decision. Rumsfeld blew him off, obviously considering the decision a good one. Having a stable standing army, with members being paid and fed, would have greatly reduced the immediate instability and looting, and removed a vast source of recruiting both for the insurgency and rising militias. We've essentially spent the time since then attempting to recover from this disasterous mistake, and have made little progress. 2) Logistical/Planning errors. These errors were significant and costly. The logistical errors included the inability to properly supply our troops in the first months, resulting in hardship to the very troops the right claims to support. Some fighting men were going weeks at a time, in combat, on one meal a day and with limited ammunition. The other logistical error was in the arming and protection of our troops. Inadequately armored vehicles, and a lack of personal body armor, was a disgraceful slap in the face of our troops. When families need to spend their own money to buy and ship body armor, and when our troops have to rummage through garbage heaps for metal to strap onto their vehicles, someone screwed up the logistics. 3) There was also incompetence in the planning tasks. It was obvious that there was little or no occupation plan, and the parts that were slapped together were woefully inadequate. Add to that the neocons attempt to create a privatization utopia using ideologues who had little or no experience in their assigned tasks, and it is no wonder that most Iraqis believed that the mistakes of the early occupation were deliberately punitive. They could not believe that the most successful nation on Earth could be incompetent accidentally; it had to be a punishment. Powell and his department fought the neocons tooth and nail. Powell finally bailed because he tired of the BS and incompetence. Powell had warned that we would have an nation ownership problem; he and General Shinseki were right, and Rumsfeld and Dick 'Flowers in the Street' Cheney were wrong. The insurgency is not near its last throes, and there is no end in sight....

To: Brumar89 who wrote (91893)	3/27/2007 11:43:09 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Now it's Bush's chance to veto funding for our troops just to stick to his mindless "stay the course" "victory's around the next morning" endless quagmire non-strategy. Think he'll use the veto pen and deny our troops funding just because he's so damn stubborn he can't even back up his own benchmarks with action?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (91893)	3/27/2007 11:46:02 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

If Bush vetos funding for our troops and continues to refuse to recognize the reality on the ground and respect the Peoples' will, his presidency will he a shortened one and end in total disgrace. Much worse than it ended for Nixon who at least managed to get a library and some degree of respect. Bush may be the first ex-president to just be totally shunned by the whole country, including his own party. The business of the people and congress will next be to remove Cheney, then Bush, and to replace them with responsible competent adults. I wonder who they'll pick as the new President and VP. Can't be anyone worse than who we've got in there now, huh? One thing was made clear today. The new conscience of the GOP is Chuck Hagel. The rest of them seem too scared of their own shadows to do the right thing even when it's glaringly clear what must be done. Bush and Cheney have clearly lost their marbles and are just dragging us deeper and deeper into trouble. I guess they are mentally stuck back in 2002 when their approval ratings were high based on 9-11 and their exploitation of that tragedy which they allowed to happen.