Posted on 12/11/2006 4:39:21 PM PST by SandRat
ping
If there is any similarity between this war and Vietnam it is the armchair quarterbacks trying to run the war from DC instead of letting the military kick a$$ and finish this thing.
Agreed.
"Credit"? "Credit"???" B.S.
Just what do you think W is doing now?
W is taking the "easy way out" and "scapegoating"!
So Steve, you're obviously a 'Bot...you don't speak for us. You never did, Steve. You're no conservative.
Rumsfeld was the only conservative campaigner for defense in W's cabinet.
And W clearly ordered Rumsfeld to continue the defense procurement holiday. To limit all funding increases (until 9-11) to merely inflationary compensatory. And to continue the knee-capping of recapitalization. To decommission the MX's. To decommission half the B-1's. To chop the Navy down to half its size...(already cut down by 250+ ships under Xlinton, and further unilaterally cut by W yet another 65 ships of the line). To ignore the Pentagon's warnings we needed more ships and subs. [We need at least 66 Attack subs] Yet W ordered Rummy to decommission good ships and attack subs...with 15 years in their useful service lives wasted. To decommission aircraft carriers...when the Pentagon has warned we needed more. We need at least 15. To push for further retirements...to investigate justifying going down to only 9 carriers in just another 4 years. To decommission...without any replacement all of our naval air-superiority planes...the F-14 Tomcat. W Ordered Rummy to stonewall, delay and limit the F-22's deployment (the only real air superiority plane we have that can assure dominance)...limiting it to a meager 170-or 180 planes...and NO NAVAL VERSION. Retirement of the S-3 without replacement. No replacement of the lost ASW function that Xlinton killed. And no replacements of the aging KC-135 tankers. W let McCain sabotage KC-135 replacement and squander valuable time. To order the closing of NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain.
Result: Six years of treading water on strategic military procurement.
This was not managerial ineptitude. This was sabotage from the top. I know Rummy. He is among the best managers. He has had to be mortified. This had to be galling...and extremely bitter to him.
And perhaps most egregious of all...no real NMD deployed. Rumsfeld was clearly the most able, articulate, and dedicated advocate for a REAL missile defense. Indeed, the only one on W's team other than Cheney..who has been muzzled in his bunker. Rummy was not for a limited NMD, or ineffectual NMD. An NMD that is so constricted to please our enemies such as the KGB's Putin and the Communist despots in Red China.
But that is precisely what W ordered be done. Leaving in place Xlinton's anemic plan. Xlinton's scheme was always OBVIOUSLY designed to be so ineffectual that it would be easy to politically justify killing it outright later...if the RATs ever resumed control of Congress. (Which they now have). Scapegoating the very idea of NMD as a failure. As a waste of money in the first place...blaming the whole squandry on the IDEA of missile defense...not the deliberately inept execution of a defensive strategy or deployment.
And that goes for Naval NMD as well. W obviously ordered leaving in place Xlinton's limits on our Aegis missiles. So that they were too slow and too range-limited. W refused to fix them despite continued Navy persistence. And Rummy had to go along with W's continued Xlintonian sabotage. E.g., having Deputy Secretary Gordon England appointed ...who then immediately and arbitrarily eliminated without replacement the TBMD program. And refusing to budget the inexpensive fix for Aegis SM-3. The Mark 3 Flight IIa missiles, merely replacing an upper stage on the existing missiles].
With the NMD program restricted so as to be the practical equivalent of "lip-service"...and Not National in scope at all. Hence the complete vulnerability of the U.S. to this day to any of the rogue enemy country's being able to anonymously launch their missiles against the U.S. from ships off our shores.
This vulnerability was all pursuant W's orders. Donald Rumsfeld would never have dithered and dumbed things down.
And Rummy was kept SOLELY to keep pro-defense conservatives on board. The very moment that the last mid-term election was over, despite promises of keeping Rumsfeld to the end of the President's term...the axe dropped. Despite the promises. Despite the clear evidence that Rumsfeld has been effectual in the WOT. The actual war commanders all vindicated him...and disparaged the critics.
But W has obviously made the cold RINO calculation...that he no longer needs any conservatives at all in his Cabinet. And certainly not for defense. A defense he was never going to deploy. It had always been a political ruse to keep his conservative base.
But now he has his pro illegal alien amnesty allies controlling Congress and the Senate. He doesn't need...or want...any conservatives. W has a new "team". Serving, although not appreciated by a new political base. More congenial to his extreme liberal core beliefs which he has had to be covert and euphemistic about. A RAT base.
And Rummy instantly became "dispensable."
W was the one that needs to be thrown under the bus. And he and his ilk ...such as McCain...must have no role whatsoever in the Party in the future. They must be politically removed.
I am praying that Donald Rumsfeld has the courage and sense of duty to the Country to tell-all. How he was recruited for the express purpose supposedly of fixing defense...but obviously lied to and then ordered to hamstring our defenses. Rumsfeld needs to lay bare, and spell out for all conservatives how he was used to give W political cover.
"I am praying that Donald Rumsfeld has the courage and sense of duty to the Country to tell-all. How he was recruited for the express purpose supposedly of fixing defense...but obviously lied to and then ordered to hamstring our defenses. Rumsfeld needs to lay bare, and spell out for all conservatives how he was used to give W political cover."
If he does not, I'm sure you will turn on him as well and blame him for not articulating exactly the position that you have already anchored your unreasonable mind to.
Correct and well said.
No. But I would be disappointed. He is definitely old school.
He might feel honor-bound to keep W's secrets...even though he has proved unworthy of such honor.
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