Is Bush's War in Iraq A "Brain Fart"? Compliments of Marine General Zinni

[TacticalPeek]

Hope this isn't dupe. From David Corn in The Nation.

Capital Games by David Corn
Is Bush's War in Iraq A "Brain Fart"?
09/26/2003 @ 4:50pm

snip

"Right now, in a place like Iraq, you're dealing with Jihadists that are coming in to raise hell, crime on the streets that's rampant, ex-Ba'athists that still running around, and the potential now for this country to fragment: Shi'ia on Shi'ia, Shi'ia on Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It's a powder keg. I just got back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis there. And what I hear scares me even more that what I read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a strategy is needed, a plan. This is a different kind of conflict. War fighting is one element of it."

Zinni displayed little confidence in Bush and his aides. He said that their Iraq endeavor has landed the United States into the middle of assorted "culture wars" in the Middle East. "We don't understand that culture," he remarked. "I've spent the last 15 years of my life in this part of the world. And I'll tell you, every time I hear...one of the dilettantes back here speak about this region of the world, they don't have a clue. They don't understand what makes them tick. They don't understand where they are in their own history. They don't understand what our role is....We are great at dealing with the tactical problems--the killing and the breaking. We are lousy at solving the strategic problems; having a strategic plan, understanding about regional and global security and what it takes to weld that and to shape it and to move forward."

Do you think Zinni is angry over the war? He did get worked up as he ended his speech:

"We should be...extremely proud of what our people did out there....It kills me when I hear of the continuing casualties and the sacrifice that's being made. It also kills me when I hear someone say that, well, each one of those is a personal tragedy, but in the overall scheme of things, they're insignificant statistically." (Perhaps he had in mind the comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made in June, when he played down attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by saying, "You've got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month; there's going to be violence in a big city.") Zinni continued: "When we put in harm's way, it had better count for something, It can't be because some policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a strategy that isn't thought out."

snip

Just another bedtime story for KKKarl, the future felon.

edit whoops: link http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=977

[Girlfriday]

1. How many prominent Americans....

...have to speak out before we impeach these bastards? :mad:

[BeatleBoot]

2. Impeachment?

Hey now. That's crazy talk.

It ain't like these guys lied about sex or anything.


(sarcasm intended) :beer:

[candy331]

3. John Conyers

said in the Black Caucaus on Friday that voters need to speak out. He saids ones keep asking why don't they do something but the voters are the ones that have to do something. He can sure do a lot of damage in the next 14 months perhaps enough that the nation would not be able to overcome. Can we afford to wait for the next election? The country truly is in "imminent danger".

[Old and In the Way]

4. I'm getting strong vibes that changes are underway.

*CIA wants DOJ to investigate the WH on a national security issue.

*The $87BB budget for Iraq is being exposed as a Republican profiteering operation without precedent.

*The UN pulls out of Baghdad 1 day after Bush's speech.

*England is re-opening the Kelley death investigation.

*Democrat candidates calling for Rumsfield/Wolfiewicz's resignations.

Bush's poll #s are deteriorating and there's nothing he can do to turn it around.

The dictator has no clothes and everyone is beginning to see how ugly he really is.

[Norquist Nemesis]

7. Impeachment...

What they have done to this country is nothing short of treason.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi liburl!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[LittleApple81]

5. It is a brain fart. It always was a brain fart. It will be classified

in history as a brain fart. A lethal, immoral, horrible brain fart to produce profit for the Bush family evil empire and their minions.
I agree with Conyers, 14 more months of this administration is too risky. With the voting machines being fixed there will be no hope... We need to mobilize as he suggested. By the way, if you did not see the US Policy in Iraq forum in the Black Caucus, go to C-Span and get the video. It was a great statement of how bad the situation is.

[TacticalPeek]

8. Al Sharpton Rocked!!!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[BonjourUSA]

12. A brain fart and a piteous old fart soon

Nevertheless, if the next president is a Democrat he will have to leave this trap with honor.

[bpilgrim]

6. Salon: Bush* Abandons Troop Protection Plan

A decision by the White House and a GOP-dominated Congress would leave troop-transport jets vulnerable to missile attack.

Even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made headlines this week by announcing that up to 20,000 fresh troops may be called to Iraq, President Bush and members of the congressional leadership were quietly abandoning a plan to protect troop-transport airliners from missile attack by terrorists or Saddam loyalists.

The measure, first advanced by the Pentagon, would have begun an ambitious program to equip the commercial airliners that are used for troop transport with advanced technology to protect them from the shoulder-fired missiles. Confused by disarray in the administration's plans to protect airliners from missile attack, the House of Representatives slashed the original $25 million request to $3 million. Congressional officials say the Bush administration did nothing to win approval of the full measure -- despite recent missile attacks on U.S. military craft flying near the Baghdad airport.

The outcome shocked many in the Defense Department and, critics said, it clearly could leave troops vulnerable. "I am appalled," said one Defense Department official who asked to remain anonymous. "We are setting ourselves up for a fall. We are paying lip-service to force protection and instead are digging a deeper hole in which to bury our head."

(snip)

No president in recent memory has been a fiercer ally of men and women in uniform. "We will not cut corners when it comes to the defense of our great land," Bush said last year. Even Ronald Reagan, one of the most forceful proponents of a strong military ever to inhabit the White House, never donned a flight suit and flew onto the deck of an aircraft carrier aboard a Navy plane. But this week, officials said, the Bush administration offered no support to protect the troop-transport planes.

"The administration never made the case for why it needed the money," said John Scofield, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee. "It was never clear what they were going to do with the money." An aide to a Republican senator, who asked to remain anonymous, said the full funding would have been approved if Bush had pressed for it. "If the president says that something is important, he will get the funding from this Congress," the aide said. "All he has to do is ask."

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2003/09/27/missiles/index.html

psst... pass the word :bounce:

peace

[TacticalPeek]

10. Kick KKKarl and the ass he rode in on!

:kick:

[PurityOfEssence]

11. Brain diarrhea, brain dysentery, brain cholera

What do you expect from shitheads?

[calimary]

13. Uh - this assumes there IS a brain to begin with.

Methinks it's just a "fart." After all, it's hot air, and it smells very bad. Just like everything else about bush and his cronies.