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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (241098)	3/8/2008 8:03:06 PM
From: Hoa Hao	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793928

As far as I can tell, our military is at war with it self. How do conventional officers/Generals, who are the majority, get promoted in insurgency wars when they came up through the officer ranks as Infantry, tank, artillery, etc specialists?? Then you have the other branches with their fancy toys...

To: unclewest who wrote (241098)	3/9/2008 12:25:07 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793928

I think this particular Executive Branch headed by GWB had another good reason for letting the Military call the shots. He remembers very clearly what happened when LBJ and McNamara decided to oversee every single bullet and shot that our guys made in VN. Exaggeration a bit, yes. But in the end, the Democrats in political power made sure we lost that war. And I think many in the US remember that time as well. Including GWB. The pols let the military call the shots because over 90% of congress doesn't know how to wear a uniform...and never have. I understand what you are saying, BUT I still wonder exactly why the Top Brass were continually brought to the WH and to Congress, and from what you are saying, didn’t tell the President the truth of what they needed, nor what was going on over in Iraq, at least from their POV. How can ANY President cope with that? As far as letting the Iraqi military go home….”with weapons’…..Who exactly allowed that? Weren’t the commanders on the ground paying attention? Many if not most, of the Republican Guards of Iraq, had protected Saddam before the Americans came. Until our Military had time to vete every one of the Iraqi military, why wouldn’t it have made sense to check them out before allowing guns again? I can certainly understand why our Military let Saddam’s Military go home. I totally am surprised to hear our Military let them go WITH weapons. The problem seemed to be there, we didn’t have enough intelligence to check the Iraqi’s out….Who was a “good guy, and who was a bad guy” so to speak. I thought maybe Google Books would have more than snippets of the books you mentioned. Some of the books are now printed in their entirety on Google Books, but neither of yours was mentioned. I did find these FYI…. en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org You wrote: He understood and wrote about our way not being their way and we must let them do it their way as imperfect as it may seem to us. Maybe there always were the religious fanatics, even in Thomas Edward Lawrence’s time. But somehow, it doesn’t seem as if that were so. It’s one thing to have to deal with the Arab mindset, and they to have to deal with ours….. BUT aren’t we facing another mindset altogether with the 1.5 Million Islamists who want to either subjugate us to their will, or kill us. It doesn’t seem to matter much to them, and sadly, most here don’t want to believe that could be true.

To: unclewest who wrote (241098)	3/9/2008 12:55:17 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793928

I have never overseen the building of two buildings separated by several hundred miles. That is akin to maybe a thousandth or a millionth the complexity of what the miliary is doing in Iraq. I have spoken at length with a person who spent a year in Iraq and was the center execution, the project engineer of rebuilding the energy and oil infrastructure. This individual was often the author of what was testified too by the generals in congress. I am certain I am not qualified to be the monday morning water boy for team Iraq. But I am qualified to laugh when I see the self professed experts who are dumber than a bag of hammers. I am also certain that those brave Americans serving here and abroad are a continuation of the greatest humanity has produced.