Hagel at Home: "Iraq could be worse than Vietnam"

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Hagel, Republican senator from Nebraska, speaking to veterans back home (subscription only link).


Hagel sounds alarm over Iraq


BY JAKE THOMPSON
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER


GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - More than 200 Nebraska American Legion members, who have seen war and conflict themselves, fell quiet here Saturday as Sen. Chuck Hagel bluntly explained why he believes that the United States is losing the war in Iraq.


Sen. Chuck Hagel addresses more than 200 Nebraska American Legion members in Grand Island on Saturday.


It took 20 minutes, but it boiled down to this:


The Bush team sent in too few troops to fight the war leading to today's chaos and rising deaths of Americans and Iraqis. Terrorists are "pouring in" to Iraq.


Basic living standards are worse than a year ago in Iraq. Civil war is perilously close to erupting there. Allies aren't helping much. The American public is losing its trust in President Bush's handling of the conflict.


And Hagel's deep fear is that it will all plunge into another Vietnam debacle, prompting Congress to force another abrupt pullout as it did in 1975.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/26/175537/375

[zulchzulu]

1. Chuck has it correct

I'm glad he's voicing his opinion.

[acmavm]

6. He wants to be President in 2008. He's trying to knock out all the

competition right now.

Yeah, it's good that he's speaking out. But dems are speaking out and have been speaking out. We don't get press play. A republican say what we've been saying all along, gee whiz.

And the press vilified Clarke and O'Neil when they tried telling people what the score was.

I guess the bottom line of what I'm trying to tell you is BEWARE OF CHUCK HAGEL. This guy has an agenda.

Coming to you live from Omaha, Nebraska, this is acmavm telling you that I know my Nebraska politicians. (Research ES&S if you don't believe me.)

[zulchzulu]

14. I've been around the block on Hagel and Diebold

Look at thw 1992 Nebraska election and how Hagel was a "surprise victory"...he used to own part of Diebold and sold his cards....

I know about Chuck.

[Hippo_Tron]

17. You mean 1996 election

And I have to say, I don't see how Chuck Hagel's victory was such a surprise. It's not like it's unheard of for a Republican to win in Nebraska, especially in a presidential election year.

[acmavm]

19. It sure was a big surprise to a lot of his here in Nebraska. He was the

underdog, big time.

Then he went and lied about his connection to ES&S.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. I'll take that into consideration, but...

In all fairness Nebraska is a VERY red state and '96 was a presidential election year. Plus Benator may have been Governor at the time, but it's not like he's an extrordinary politician by any means.

[pdurod1]

29. Top front page billing in todays Sunday Weird Herald...

I also had the pleasure of pulling a brief 4 day stint with ES&S during the general election last November. My observations: Employees were very defensive concerning these Hagel reports and of the recent Coast to Coast AM radio shows (Bell/Noory) concerning this topic. I did NOT however see any firmware/software upgrade definitions being loaded on any hardware. Ideally, I would assume some kind of chain of custody scheme would be in place. Tabulated results have to be transferred securely. Did NOT see this happen either. Seen public tests being performed 50 samples at a time. Need much larger data sets in my opinion with known check samples inserted and verified in the results.

I worked in a sampling lab and maintained the code and oversaw datafiles. This wasn't just about credibility. This was serious shit.

[LightningFlash]

32. You WORKED in ES&S own lab?

Wow that's astonishing. You oversaw their files?!??

Would you ever be willing to sign an affidavit?? There's a huge amount of things to do here, and if it is proven what kind of insecure code they run (IE: the kind that deletes straight-ticket votes, all democratic) then it could completely catapult this issue.

My thoughts... :wow:

[zulchzulu]

26. Yep..1996...

"In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. "

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

[AX10]

43. Nebraska had been electing Democrats to the senate by...

respectable margins since 1972. Hagel broke that 24 year record, but on questionable grounds. Governor Ben Nelson (now Senator) was heavily favored to win. Even though the polls were closing as we inched closer to November(96), Nelson still held the lead. Suddenly, Nelson's 5% lead become a 13% loss. That's a swing of 18%. Similar to what happened to Max Cleland in 2002. There are questions to be answered.

[LightningFlash]

48. Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Diebold!

[mike_c]

2. Hagel's deep fear....

And Hagel's deep fear is that it will all plunge into another Vietnam debacle, prompting Congress to force another abrupt pullout as it did in 1975.

If Congress had done its job in 2002 they wouldn't be facing that prospect now. I hope every one of them that voted for the IWR eventually faces war crimes charges.

[Catch22Dem]

3. That's a tough comparison to make

Sure, politically it could be as bad or worse, but you have to remember, we lost over 50,000 American lives in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese lost something around 3,000,000 if I recall. I don't think we'll ever approach those numbers (I certainly hope we don't) but politically, it could be as bad.

[mike_c]

4. politics is the ONLY thing that congress critters think about....

Hagel's thinking about losing face on a Vietnam scale. He doesn't give a rat's buttocks how many die.

[stevedeshazer]

15. Rumsfeld said the war could last up to 12 more years.

We could easily reach those levels again in that time if we don't stop this madness.

[meganmonkey]

18. A lot of folks think this does look a lot like the early years of Vietnam

Especially adjusting for medical advancements (less deaths, more permanently damaged survivors):

Iraq 2004 Looks Like Vietnam 1966

---snip---
But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966—and in some cases more lethal. Even discrete engagements, such as the battle of Hue City in 1968 and the battles for Fallujah in 2004, tell a similar tale: Today's grunts are patrolling a battlefield every bit as deadly as the crucible their fathers faced in Southeast Asia.

Economists like to quote statistics in "constant dollars," where they factor in historical inflation rates to produce statistics that allow for side-by-side comparison. Warfare is more complex than macroeconomics, but it is possible to produce a similar "apples to apples" comparison for casualties across conflicts. In a recent article for the New England Journal of Medicine, Atul Gawande (a former Slate contributor) concluded that improvements to military medicine since Vietnam have dramatically reduced the rate at which U.S. troops die of wounds sustained in combat. The argument follows a 2002 study that tied improvements in U.S. civilian trauma medicine to the nation's declining murder rate. While firearm assaults in the United States were rising, the murder rate was falling, largely because penetration wounds that proved fatal 30 years ago were now survivable. Thus, today's murder rate was artificially depressed in comparison to the 1960s.

Gawande applied the same methodology to U.S. casualty statistics in previous wars, arriving at a "lethality of wounds" rate for each conflict. In World War II, 30 percent of wounds proved deadly. In Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War, this rate hovered between 24 percent and 25 percent. But due to better medical technology, doctrinal changes that push surgical teams closer to the front lines, and individual armor protection for soldiers, this rate has dropped to 10 percent for Operation Iraqi Freedom for all wounds. For serious wounds that keep a soldier away from duty for more than 72 hours, the mortality rate is now 16 percent. Simply, a soldier was nearly 1.5 times more likely to die from his wounds in Vietnam than in Iraq today.

---snip---

The scale can be further balanced. In 1966, U.S. troops in Vietnam numbered 385,000. In 2004, the figure in Iraq has averaged roughly 142,000. Comparing the burden shouldered by individual soldiers in both conflicts raises the 2004 "constant casualty" figure in Iraq to 3,065 KIA. Further, casualties in Iraq fall more heavily on those performing infantry missions. Riflemen—as well as tankers and artillerymen who operate in provisional infantry units in Iraq—bear a much higher proportion of the risk than they did in Vietnam. In Vietnam, helicopter pilots and their crews accounted for nearly 5 percent of those killed in action. In Iraq in 2004, this figure was less than 3 percent. In Vietnam, jet pilots accounted for nearly 4 percent of U.S. KIAs. In 2004, the United States did not lose a single jet to enemy action in Iraq. When pilots and aircrews are removed from the equation, 4,602 ground-based soldiers died during 1966 in Vietnam, compared to 2,975 in Iraq during 2004.



http://slate.msn.com/id/2111432

[slor]

22. Strategically...it will make Vietnam look like...

a walk in the park. If civil war breaks out, and there is low level sectarian fighting now, it may very well beat the body count of Vietnam. I think when people say "worse than Vietnam", they are talking more about the strategic implications of this. Vietnam did not have oil, and that is a big difference. All that oil, smack dab in a hornet's nest, of our own creation. We can already see strategic implications, in the form of falling recruitment, and potential for out of control oil costs. This was a blunder that will go down in history.

[kentuck]

23. We have lost more lives in the first two years of this war than we lost...

in the first two years in Vietnam. I think it's starting to look more like Vietnam everyday. We know there is no way to win but there is no way to leave either. That is the realization we came to in Vietnam also. Difference being, in Vietnam War, we had the draft. The same troops did not have to keep going back - although some of us were stupid enough to do it anyway...

[LynnTheDem]

35. We lost 58,000 AFTER TEN YEARS.

We've ALREADY lost more troops in Iraq than we did in the first 5 years of 'Nam.

And we have far superior body armor now, and very far superior medical treatments; if we were at 'Nam's body aromur/medical levels, we'd likely be in the 10,000+ US dead already, according to military medicos.

We've only been in Iraq for 2 years.
Let's compare at the end of 10 years in Iraq.

[Catch22Dem]

49. Right, however

It's hard to imagine Iraq escalating as much as Vietnam did. It's hard to imagine warfare being waged now like it was then. Having said that, a lot of things I couldn't have imagine have indeed transpired, so I guess we shall see.

[LynnTheDem]

50. Yeah I was thinking the same; who thought America would fall to #14

in the world for freedoms & democracy; that the US govt would make torture official policy and promote to AG the lawyer who wrote about the GCs being "quaint" and bush above all laws; that we'd have our very own concentration camp where POWs are held indefinitely without charges; that AI would call us the top torturer; and way too many other things to list. :(

[Cocoa]

5. standing ovation from the Legionnaires

I wonder how a Karl Rove speech would go over with this audience?

The legionnaires gave him a standing ovation at the end of his speech. Carl Marks of Omaha, a Korean War veteran, said: "It sounds like he's conflicted . . . like a lot of us."

Bennie Navratil of Hallam, Neb., whose son left last week for military duty in Afghanistan, said, "I feel he said the right thing: that we can't pull out and something's got to change."

Aboard a plane back to Omaha, Hagel was asked whether he thought Bush was aware that adjustments might be needed in his Iraq policy.

"I don't know," Hagel said.

[EVDebs]

7. Vietnam ended when the money ran out, not the bloodspilling

and when Congress realized it could cut funding for the whole operation. Ambassador Graham A. Martin was calling for more money until the very last day in April 1975.

Also, Sen McCain is self-destructing with comments like how we could be in Iraq for '10, 20 years, that's not so bad'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1582985&mesg_id=1583628

[ginnyinWI]

11. and before Congress cut the funding

the public cut its support for war. So it's a progression starting with we the people. I already sense that the media is feeling freer to speak out, now that it knows most of us are against *'s policy in Iraq.

[Daphne08]

30. Vietnam ended because of public pressure.

I remember it well.

[snowbear]

8. Sounds like a '08 candidate to me..

And if you think about it.. whoever separates themselves from the Bush administration THE MOST will likely be the one who wins their nomination in the end.

By 2008, a "Bush Endorsement" will be the kiss of death.

Like President Clinton said, September 11th gave Bush the opportunity of a lifetime to unite Americans and to unite the world..

But he blew it. Iraq will be the end of whatever support Bush has before long. http://icasualties.org/oif/

I bet Hagel runs as the "anti-Bush".

[indepat]

9. They neither miscalculated, erred nor lied to us

[Dan]

10. he forgot something...

Unlike Vietnam, ...

the difference might be, that win/lose or draw,
I suspect that they (how ever you might define the unknown) might bring that which we visited to them, to us.

[Pirate Smile]

12. I guess this is why Darth Cheney is going after Hagel.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3954790&mesg_id=3954790

[central scrutinizer]

13. That's my hometown!!

I grew up in Grand Island, where diversity means that your neighbor's ancestors came from a different town in Germany in the 1850's and the two families belong to different synods of the Lutheran Church. Nice to see it is making for the news for something other than tornados.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

16. So how come there's no Dems making news delivering this kind of message?

When even "freedom fries" in N.C. is saying we should do a withdrawal timetable?

[slor]

24. My question too!

Are they actually going to let the rethugs become the "Anti-War" party?
Are they busy trying to "frame" the damn message? Let me help you folks...PULL THE TROOPS OUT!

[Ouabache]

31. when dems say it they are traitors

dont ya know that?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

33. The Democratic Party is out of power in the WH, House, and Senate.

Some or much of the voting process may have been corrupted.

How much worse can it get?

What do people really have to lose as a party by coming out for what's right?

If no prominent Democrat comes out for ending the Iraq misadventure because they are afraid of being tarred as weak or a traitor then they leave it only to the Republicans to do it, and have only the option of calling those Republicans weak or whatever, but never having taken the initiative.

What's the point of being the "opposition" party when even completely out of power, the "leaders" won't take the right stand on Iraq?

I understand that these politicians are worried about holding on to their individual seats. But I don't see how the party is supposed to get anywhere like this.

Why shouldn't joe blow ignorant voter who dislikes the war but is too ignorant to understand the corruption of the Repubs vote for Hagel or Lindsey Graham instead of Hilary or whoever the Dems put up? "Hey at least that guy had enough sense to realize that the war was a big mistake we needed to get out of."

There's plenty of Dems who realize that but are too afraid of their shadows to say a damn thing.

[kentuck]

20. In some ways, it is worse already...

In Vietnam, we never felt like we couldn't kick their asses anytime we wanted. In reality, maybe we couldn't but we thought we could. Many times it was simply forbidden. Take a hill one day and give it back the next. But I never sensed the same futility that I sense in the present situation. We are caught in a trap. There is no way out with any honor. We fucked up. Not "we" in the personal sense, but "we" in the national sense. We are in one hell of a mess. There are not a lot of options. Come into my parlor, said the spider...

[Rose Siding]

21. I'm afraid it sounds like he wants to escalate

This is welcome criticism of bush, but the hawk's eye view of Vietnam is regret of not stepping up the overwhelming force, isn't it?

snip>
At the same time, he said, he wants President Bush to win, and he believes that the United States cannot pull out anytime soon.
...
"We still don't have enough troops," he said. "We should have had double or triple the number."

[barb162]

27. Umm, that "not enough troops" bit hit me the same way, escalation

[barb162]

28. At the same time, I remember when the war started and there were

all those generals saying we should have gone in with about three times the troops that went in. Those generals were forced to resign as I recall. Rummy's whole thing was go in lean and mean and the generals were saying BS to that.

[LynnTheDem]

34. MORE US troops have died in Iraq than died during first 5 years of 'Nam.

Yeah, I'd say Iraq could be worse. Let's give it another few years and then compare.

[alcibiades_mystery]

38. Yeah, but that's a bad comparison

Since the number of troops wasn't even close to comparable until late-1965, and by early 1966, KIAs from 1965 were already close to what we have now in Iraq. It took less than a year to reach 2000 KIAs in Vietnam just among the comparably numbered forces. I'd watch out with that comparison, because it's a bit deceptive.

[LynnTheDem]

40. Imo there's nothing deceptive about it...

People say we can't say this is as bad as 'Nam, because 58,000 were killed in Nam and only going on 2000 in Iraq. That is deceptive, because that's over a decade compared to 2 years.

The minute the Iraqis in general say fuck this bullshit and rise up en masse, we could lose 2000 US in a month.

Give Iraq 8 more years.

[alcibiades_mystery]

41. It is deceptive

Because once we had anywhere near 140,000 troops in Vietnam we lost 2500 in under seven months. Almost three hundred were lost in one week in November 1965, just after the troop numbers crested 180,000. Your basis of comparison is off, in other words. Way off. The point here is that while, yes, there was a "low-level" American war going on in Vietnam certainly from 1960, and probably earlier, but intensifying in 1963 and 1964, there was nothing comparable to the Iraq occupation until summer 1965, so that's when you should start your comparison. Remember that those serving in country before the arrival of the Marine Expeditionary Force at Da Nang in March 1965 were not classified as line combat personnel or infantry.

If you are to then say "We've lost more troops than in tyhe first five years in Vietnam" it is absolutely deceptive unless you add the qualifier "Though there were far fewer troops in combat status in Vietnam in those first five years." That would make it an honest comparison.

[LynnTheDem]

42. What is deceptive is saying Iraq isn't 'Nam coz we haven't lost 58,000

When in fact 'Nam went on over a decade, and Iraq has only been 2 years.

Let's compare total bodycount when Iraq ends in however many years/decades.

If people use TOTAL DEATHS in 'Nam as their basis for saying Iraq isn't another 'Nam, then they must take into account the fact that in 2 years of Iraq we've lost more troops than in the first 5 years of 'Nam.

The more troops the LESS deaths. Taking that into account, and the vastly improved medical and armor, Iraq is worse.

Your opinion may differ; that's your right. :)

[alcibiades_mystery]

46. That is a completely separate and unrelated issue

Especially since nobody said that.

At the same time, the rate of casualties in Vietnam was much higher than the rate of casualties over the course of the Iraq War when there were comparable numbers of troops. By early 1966 we were seeing weekly killed in Vietnam that match, exceed, and double the monthly killed in Iraq. During the bloody fighting in 1968 it was not uncommon to see 400-500 US KIA's a week. A week! We haven't seen anything like that in Iraq. Not even close. None of this has anything to do with a "ten-year period." I'm talking weekly killed which can be looked at over any given week of the war when comparable numbers were in country.

Now, the other poster who said that Vietnam couldn't be compared at all because the Vietnamese "enemy" had completely different history and training is certainly correct. Not only were the guerilla forces of the NLF more cohesive and better trained by 1965 than the fragmented and multiform Iraqi resistance, but many of the large-scale losses incurred by American troops in Vietnam (say, the Ia Drang campaign of 1965, the Dak To battles of 1967, certain battles of the Tet Offensive like Hue, and extended battles in the A Shau Valley, particularly in 1969) were incurred in fighting with regular regiments of the People's Army of Vietnam, who were certainly better led, armed, trained, and supplied than any Iraqi forces, probably ever.

[LynnTheDem]

47. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, my friend.

:)

[ieoeja]

44. Both are deceptive.

Because we walked into a pre-existing conflict in Vietnam. A more accurate comparison would be Japanese losses for the first two years they occupied Vietnam. In 1965 we did not throw 185,000 troops at a fledgling guerilla force. We threw them at a fully formed guerilla force with 25 years of non-stop warfare experience under their belts.

So lets wait another 23 years then see how many KIAs the Iraqis inflict in a two year period.

Personally, I think it would be relatively small. But I also don't think we're going to hang around 23 years to find out. And if we did, I think reports of exploding school buses full of children here in the United States would be fairly commonplace.

[LynnTheDem]

36. America was warned. By US Military, Republicans, and even bush's daddy.

President GHW Bush, 1998;

"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
http://www.rense.com/general43/quote.htm

Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush:

Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "Our pre-eminent security priority--underscored repeatedly by the president--is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

Norman Schwarzkopf - Four Star General:

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq….(And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52450-2003Jan27?language=printer

Col. David Hackworth (RIP);

"Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster -will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done: stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29786

James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran:

"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."
http://www.sftt.org/article09302002a.html

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.:

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."

Hawks in the Bush administration may be making deadly miscalculations on Iraq, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's Middle East envoy.

"I'm not sure which planet they live on"
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni

Republican Dissent on Iraq
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors:

"Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back…. A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war."
- Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001444.html

Republicans Who Voted Against Iraq Resolution Tell Why
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/11/194543.shtml

TOP REPUBLICANS BREAK WITH BUSH ON IRAQ STRATEGY

Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/11/194543.shtml

Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency:

"Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends…. I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Retired General Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command:

"The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Col. Mike Turner (ret), Schwarzkopf's personal briefing officer during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm:

“The uniformed Joint Staff in the Pentagon strongly opposed this plan early on...The uniformed Joint Staff was overridden, yet in so many horrifying ways this operation resembles Somalia, not Desert Storm...Perhaps we can pull this off, but here's a far worse scenario that's at least as likely...Photos of American soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US. The US is condemned by NATO and the UN...The war ends within a few weeks, but the crisis deepens...”
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/transcripts/2003/mar/030311.turner.html

US Air Force General, Tony McPeak, a four-star general who headed the U.S. Air Force during Operation Desert Storm:

McPeak served four years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff advising Bush’s father and then President Clinton after flying 269 Vietnam combat missions and participating in the Thunderbirds, the elite aerobatic team.

McPeak believes that President Bush should publicly admit personal failure. He claims Bush has botched the crucial process of coalition-building, has not enlisted the United Nations, and has failed to rebuild Afghanistan as a model of reconstruction.
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=57303%3Ehttp://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=57303%20

Retired Envoys, Commanders Assail Bush Team
Administration Unable to Handle 'Global Leadership,' 27-Member Group Asserts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46538-2004Jun16.html

Growing GOP Dissent On Iraq
Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/07/politics/main610787.shtml

[alcibiades_mystery]

37. LOL: Abrupt pullout in 1975?

Yeah, like that's what happened in Vietnam! :rofl:

[EVDebs]

39. If Nixon's treason was bad with 20,000 extra deaths....

then what's behind the current mess will probably mimic that. The original 'October surprise' occurred in 1968 with Nixon; they did it again in 2000's election it seems ...

"That Nixon sabotaged peace to win the 1968 election can no longer be dismissed as speculation, theory, or Nixon-bashing. It's history. It happened.

We're talking high crimes and misdemeanors here. For a citizen, even a candidate, to secretly interfere with and attempt to undermine the affairs of state is treason. More than 20,000 American soldiers and millions of Southeast Asians died as a result of Nixon's and Kissinger's treachery and ambition."

http://www.geocities.com/vastright2/martyjezer.htm

PNAC, anyone ?

[DemoTex]

45. 'Terrorists are "pouring into" Iraq.' Ho Chi Minh Trail redux?

In 1971 I saw a long, brazen NVA convoy in the A Shau valley one night (a month or so after Lam Son 719) that was traveling with lights on. The NVA and their supplies were pouring into Vietnam, too. That was when I really knew that they were coming and that it was over. Even as eye-witness to the evidence, it was still spun and we were still lied too.

In early 1968 a long-range re-con patrol (operating just over the border in Laos) found evidence of a tank-park and reported it to higher command. Those reports were dismissed by the brass in Khe Sahn and Saigon as exaggerated or false.... "You guys are just trying to make yourself look good. The NVA haven't got tanks!" A few days later a USAF re-con aircraft spotted five tanks along HWY 9 and called in an air strike destroying one vehicle. Two weeks after that spotting, the US Army Special Forces Camp (and ASA radio listening post) at Lang Vei, on QL-9 between Khe Sahn and the Laotian border, was over-run by as many as 13 of Giap's Soviet-built PT-76 light re-con tanks.

The battle was epic. ASA radiomen at Lang Vei keyed their microphones and the world heard the PT-76 tanks on the static- and cacophony-filled HF frequency.

Around 0300 NVA tanks rolled on top of the TOC. The NVA controlled the entire camp except for the TOC bunker manned by eight surviving Special Forces troopers and roughly forty indigenous soldiers. The NVA called upon the defenders to surrender. Some of the LLDB and CIDG surrendered to the NVA and were summarily executed. Other SF and CIDG personnel hid in the camp and later escaped, evading capture. The survivors in the bunker requested the relief force from Khe Sanh. Marine commanders refused to comply with the contingency plan.

War correspondent Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches, wrote, "The Marines at Khe Sanh saw the Lang Vei survivors come in. They saw them and heard about them up in their Special Forces compound, holding off all visitors at rifle point, saw their faces and their unfocused stares, and they talked quietly among themselves about it. Jesus, they had tanks. Tanks!....."

http://www.gruntonline.com/TheWar/lang_vei.htm

Raw hubris then. Raw hubris now.


Russian-built PT-76 light re-con tank