Posted on 09/25/2006 6:38:12 PM PDT by John Carey
Three retired U.S. Army Officers address a congressional committee on the war in Iraq in starkly harsh words Monday.
“I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste told a forum conducted by Senate Democrats.
A second military leader, also a retired two-star general, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically.”
A third officer, retired Col. Paul X. Hammes, joined Batiste and Eaton in testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee of the U.S. Senate. The unusual location was chosen, Democrats said, because the Republican leadership in the Senate has not permitted thorough oversight of the war in Iraq from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Chairman Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said majority Republicans had failed to conduct hearings on the issue, adding, “if they won’t … we will.”
All three officers who testified served in Iraq, and Batiste also was senior military assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Batiste, who commanded the Army’s 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, also blamed Congress for failing to ask “the tough questions.”
He said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.
“Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making,” General Eaton said.
(Excerpt) Read more at johnib.wordpress.com ...
ROTFLMAO!
I admit I did not check the category.
I agree with you.
You're absolutely right!
I will say, that in doing a simple Google search on these three persons, there was a preponderance of links to New York Times related articles, and a lot on FRONTLINE, which I have found to be generally biased to the left, not to mention PBS which falls off the left side of the planet.
LOL. Just Google bonyx, you will see that there are so many pretenders to the throne.
--bonyx
WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH he's making changes.
WWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH he's making us get with the program or else! WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
Mods must have just changed the category -- see, the power of FR!
LOL -- that's awful --- is bonyx slang for ebonics?
Did you alert the mod? :)
Churchillbutt does not pimp a blog.
Some agendas are better hidden then others. ; )
"A group of veteran officers are being effectively used as fronts for a powerful and secretive Leftist organization during time of war."
Freedom of speech brings responsibilities with it, and as I said before, the American press has shown itself to be thoroughly untrustworthy with that responsibility. Some do not think that is a problem in war, but I do.
I see this damage caused by the inclination by a "free press" to give intelligence to our enemy as an insidious erosion that is going to eat away at the riverbanks of our national resolve and ability to wage this war until they begin crumbling and falling into that river. If someone don't think information like this is intelligence to an enemy, then they don't understand what information is needed by an enemy to defeat us.
As surely as the media caused the defeat of the USA in Vietnam by relentlessly sapping our national will to fight and sowing division amongst the citizenry with disinformation (Tet Offensive as primary example), it will cause the defeat of our cause in the Middle East with the incessant drumbeat of negativity.
I lived through it once, and vowed never to be a submissive party to it again.
Some people think it is a minor thing, and that the NYT or LAT are free to air whatever information about anything they can glean from their "unnamed sources", even if it means the loss of American lives and a prolongation of the conflict.
I think it is one of the greatest dangers to the Republic, and more so because the bar has been raised so high that there is no such thing as treason anymore. The founders of our nation had a good reason for placing the bar of treason very high, in order to prevent misuse of the charge. But when Jane Fonda and others went to North Vietnam and gave aid and comfort to the enemy without repercussions, that set the bar so high that nothing can go over it.
And here we are today with the NYT giving information to our enemies about how we gather intelligence from them, how we monitor their communications and so on, allowing them to make successful adjustments to diminish our available intelligence. That means my fellow citizens in the military are going to have to stay in the battle longer with less intelligence, and cost me more taxpayer dollars, not to mention the loss of life that is inevitably going to occur in the civilian populace in this country.
Wow -- young lady --- ticked off at tiresome tripe?
Military officers, especially field grade officers and above, have a special and perhaps unique duty and obligation to ensure that civilian rule of law and leadership is in no manner destabilized by either their speech, their actions, or both. Criticism of the civilian leadership by these retired rogue officers is a very dangerous thing that ought not be treated lightly.
It is one thing for these officers to make their opinions known in the proper manner and through the proper channels, it is quite another for them to publicly render opinions opposing civilian leaders who have an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I consider this poster as a purveyor of actions designed to destabilize the civilian rule of constitutional law in our country.
THOSE WHO ARE EFFECTIVE ARE SELDOM WELL LIKED
That's how accountability is handled, my friend.
The media barrages so much bad news at us, many people here are unwilling to accept any bad news at all. The worst blow that they've struck, against both liberals and conservatives, is that it's becoming impossible to have a reasonable discussion on the war(s).
Everyone automatically circles the wagons at the first sign of attack, no matter what the attack is. We laugh at Dems for being so reflexive and predictable, but we do the same thing, too.
Gosh, never thought of that. I thought you and I had some spare letters one day a few weeks ago and came up with bonyx.
It's good guess, however. Better be bonin' up on my bonyx now.
LOL......you got that right! LOLOL.........but you ought to hear what's being said around our dinner table. Veterans all!
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