Posted on 03/18/2015 10:28:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
No, he wasn't. Lincoln was a political genius, a person of integrity and held the country together. No, that isn't sarcasm. For some the War Between the States never ended.
Right or wrong on this or that, he’s a demagogue.
Curious about hunting etiquette. How do you let people know you are reapproaching the line without scaring off the birds? I have gone shooting, but never hunted. On the other hand, my son who has a number of years in 82nd Airborne and Special Forces told me in Jan. 2003 that we should have about 500,000 troops for the invasion of Iraq that occurred 2 months later. His 82nd unit was on the ground in Saudi Arabia 6 days after the Iraqui invasion of Kuwait and came home nine months later after fighting in Iraq. Bush’s man on the ground later said we should have had 450,000 instead of 170,000. So, I am sorry if I was wrong about hunting etiquette, but why was such poor after invasion planning executed and how big was Cheney’s participation in this? I find it hard to believe it was not significant.
It’s more important to not put yourself in the line of fire than it is to not scare the birds, you holler. Besides, quail probably won’t startle with a yell from a distance, they are sitting tight.
I seem to recall resistance from Congress for the larger number of troops, but maybe I’m misremembering. However, the number of invading troops was not the issue, the invasion was quickly done - occupation was the issue. To meet the stated goals, prolonged benevolent (as possible) occupation was necessary - and that the dems whined loudly about
My recollection was that Gen. Shinsecki (sp?) was fired because he was urging 350,000 troops. That is why I called my son for his opinion since he had fought there in 1991. The main problem that Bush/Cheney had was that they needed to fight in the spring (started in March) to get the job done because the summer heat really made it impossible, especially if they thought that protective gear would need to be worn for poison gas. A lot of people don’t realize that summer heat of 110 to 115 degrees is not uncommon. Waiting until fall/winter to build up the much large force would have put the war too close to the next elections, so they had to do it in the spring with inadequate forces if they were going to do it at all. Personally, I think they just should have stuck to doing a more complete job in Afghanistan, where my son also did 2 tours.
If I ever go quail hunting I’ll remember your advice. ;-)
This is from Wikipedia - but it coincides with my recollection. It was the occupation forces that were in dispute, although the argument game during the planning of the invasion (which, of course, is when it should occur).
“Shinseki publicly clashed with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the planning of the war in Iraq over how many troops the United States would need to keep in Iraq for the postwar occupation of that country. As Army Chief of Staff, General Shinseki testified to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for postwar Iraq. This was an estimate far higher than the figure being proposed by Secretary Rumsfeld in his invasion plan, and it was rejected in strong language by both Rumsfeld and his Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who was another chief planner of the invasion and occupation.[15] From then on, Shinseki’s influence on the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly waned.[16] Critics of the Bush Administration alleged that Shinseki was forced into early retirement as Army Chief of Staff because of his comments on troop levels; however, his retirement was announced nearly a year before those comments.[17]
“When the insurgency took hold in postwar Iraq, Shinseki’s comments and their public rejection by the civilian leadership were often cited by those who felt the Bush administration deployed too few troops to Iraq.[18] On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid said that General Shinseki had been correct that more troops were needed.[18]”
That’s my recollection too about the required number of troops.
I think a problem was that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were not taking into account postwar insurgency. They were focused on Saddam’s removal and his Baathists only, and probably thought they could then move to ‘nation-building’ phase. Whereas the U.S. needed to dominate Iraq completely, before ‘nation-building’.
“Personally, I think they just should have stuck to doing a more complete job in Afghanistan, where my son also did 2 tours.”
Part of the problem is we tend to be rather reactive in dealing with Islamists and do a half-baked job of fighting them, mostly militarily. And, at times we build alliances with them.
They are so many different factions of them throughout the M.E. and in fact the world, all alphabet soup. We try to differentiate by calling them ‘moderates’, ‘rebels’, ‘extremists’, ‘shi’ites’, ‘sunnis’, ‘pro-west’, ‘anti-west’, etc.. etc..
The Monghols destroyed the Caliphate in Iraq, yet some Monghols actually converted to Islam, Islam spread, expanded its territory and the ideology remains to date. Islamists were driven out of Spain too, though same deal. Then we try to understand the difference between PAESH, AQ, DAESH, Al-Nusra, ISIS, ISIL ........ (I made up the first one).
We get happy ISIS is out of Kobane and is apparently pushed back currently in Iraq, yet the Islamic ideology remains and actually nothing much has changed - it’s a band-aid approach. They’ll bid their time, re-group and eventually re-surface.
How do you fight such a potent (active) ideology, which has over 1.5 billion adherents (spread across east & west), for which Islam is not only an ideology, but also very much a religion (a belief system)?
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