Scraps

I asked you questions directly related to Clinton. BiB responded. Your response was to read BiBs response. If his views are not the same as yours, answer the question yourself.

I don't need to re-read it. If someone wants to make a case that Clinton was worse, fine. What you and BIB want to say is that Bush can not be criticized for anything related to Afghanistan and to do so is to blame the troops. All the two of you want to do is say Clinton Bad which hardly differentiates you from the Bush Bad crowd.

That wasn't the question. That was hardly the point I made. Bernsten was but one source and one instance. But hey, why address it? You might actually have to be consistent if you did.

Guess you won't answer the question I posed.

No, he isn't bad. He's not responsible for anything that happens under him.

That the Commander in Chief is responsible for what happens under his command? That principle applies to Captains in the Navy. They are relieved for mistakes happening under their command whether they have the watch at the time of the mistake or not. As for the OPLAN, when do you break from the OPLAN? If your intelligence sources on the ground who paid and are working directly with your surrogate army tells you that your surrogate army is unreliable and not anxious to engage the enemy, is that a good time to break from the OPLAN? We could have a discussion about mistakes in Somalia and who was responsible for what. I'd probably agree with you on many mistakes attributable to Clinton but I believe that is best left to another thread. However, if Clinton was more heavily involved in Somalia, which you describe as a sidebar, than Bush was in Afghanistan, which was a war we had to fight after over 3,000 of our citizens were killed, that doesn't say much positive about either administration.

Typical PPP discussion. Step 1. Ignore the points made, attack the person making the points Step 2. Find a scape goat Step 3. Innoculate the discussion with "Bush Bad" and other assorted one liners. I'm sure the back slap society will be here soon to add some hot pockets and dings for you.

When attacking a critic doesn't work, find someone to fall on his sword, blame it on Franks. Plausible deniability Bush can not be blamed. The buck does not stop at the White House, at least not as long as GWB is president.

Bernsten, Naylor and others. What is wrong with that? Are you saying Bernsten had no interaction with CENTCOM? Are you saying the CIA had no involvement in Afghanistan? Do we have to wait for somone from CENTCOM to make public a criticsims before it is deemed legitimate? Can a soldier criticize his superiors publically? If someone in CENTCOM did reveal issues regarding the disposition of units, wouldn't they be revealing classified information. Wouldn't they then be attacked as traitors? Nice Catch 22. Seems to met that you are trying to build a protective cocoon to protect Bush from legitimate criticism.

Requests for 800 Rangers to block the escape routes from Tora Bora were denied. Requests regarding the number of Apache helicopters were denied. Requests for artillery were denied. Requests for an increase in CIA operatives were denied. With the exception of the CIA issue, these decisions were based on a desire to maintain a small footprint. Still our troops make tactical decisions using the assets on hand. I'd say that is remarkably similar to Somalia, except Clinton gets blamed and Bush skates.

Which one?

Your ilatlicized quote is quite interesting. I'd say that same thing regarding the basis for selling this country on a war. Ken is hiding behind the troops in the Afghan argument. He is saying that any criticism of the Afghan campaign is defacto a criticism of the troops because it is the troops on the ground that are running the operations. If that is true, the same is true for Somalia. It was troops on the ground that decided to make a daytime snatch in the middle of Mogadishu.

So you disagree with KRC then? We are okay to criticize Bush for mistakes in Afghanistan?

Can you show me where the Democrats are criticizing the troops in Afghanistan? Why isn't it legitimate to criticize the administration for failing to provide either troops, equipment or unified command to succesfully prosecute the war in Afghanistan? Is it okay to criticize Clinton for Somalia?

Can't really argue with that, but I B word about both these days.

I didn't think Gale ever made it into the room with the terminal. Didn't he fall and get knocked out trying to get into the ventilation? Maybe he faked it and was more interested in the map?

I assumed that the tunnel the tailies found was to the left of the crossed out hatch. It says "the shaft" on it. Didn't their hatch have an arrow on it? The hatch to the right of the crossed out one says "the bow" on it. Continuing around clockwise, the next hatch seems to have a picture of a woman superimposed on it. The word "baby" seems to be at about the 3 oclock position. Actually the Swan hatch also has an X going through it, though it is drawn differently. All the other hatches tunnels stop at the X, almost as though someone tried to tunnel through but got stopped. The Swan's tunnel does continue past the hatch to the ?, almost as though the tunnel led to the center at one time but later became blocked some how.

I've been vocally against the war in Iraq before it was ever started. Among the reasons I opposed the war were the dubious outcomes. 1. I don't believe you can force a democracy on a country. I haven't seen enduring democracies unless the people themselves fought for their own freedom. 2. I don't think the Iraqis wanted us there or would trust us to let them have their own government. We'd been bombing them for years. We have a history of supporting repressive dictatorships in the region. Sorry but there is a lot of pent up mistrust of America and her intentions and they seem to believe everything is a CIA plot. 3. I believed that Iraqis would revert to their tribal tendencies. 4. I believed the most likely outcome would be a civil war that turned Iraq into a failed state. Al Qaeda thrives in failed states. A failed state in Iraq has a good chance of destabilizing the region. 5. If Iraq did avoid a civil war, I thought it would most likely become a close ally to Iran. Iran has been kidnapping, torturing and killing Americans for over 20 years without being held accountable. The least likely outcome would be a stable democracy friendly to the US. That having been said, what plan are you talking about that Reid has come up with? From the Senate site Well that's nice but telling someone else to come up with a plan doesn't sound like a plan. What is the Democrats plan? And the Democrats strategy for success is? Well that's a pretty vacuous statement. Every year since the CPA has been disolved has been and will be a significant year of transition. Good for them. So if we just pay our troops a lot of money will that lead to success in Iraq? Great, but to do that, they took money away from reconstruction. This has been and will continue to be a war for the hearts and minds of Iraqis and people in the Middle East. Taking money from the reconstruction acts counter to that goal. Thats nice, but it hardly sounds like a plan for victory in Iraq. Assuming they did so without taking money from some other program related to Iraq, like they did with the body armor, that is good. So how does this lead to victory in Iraq? Aren't most profiteers allready breaking existing laws? Why not enforce the laws allready on the books? That's great. Call for a regional security groups, note the administration has tried but nobody really wants to pick up that hot potato, then say try, try again. I'd support someone if they actually came up with a plan that I thought would work, but I have yet to see a plan. I certainly didn't see one in these documents the Democrats released today.

The can buy garbage trucks.

How am I supposed to tell the difference between them and the Republicans based on what has been presented? The Republicans have been increasing the size of the special forces, they have been hiring more spies into the CIA, they aren't offering a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. What is the difference?

I'm all for increasing the size of the special forces, but that has been happening for a few years under the current administration. Under Carter the Dems were responsible for the "Halloween Massacre". Clinton tied up the Directorate of Operations in so much red tape that it was practically impossible to recruit agents. He also canceled at least 6 operations to kill or capture Al Qaeda operatives at the last minute, after the CIA had allready put boots on the ground in Afghanistan in the 1990s. And now we are supposed to believe that the Dems are going to embrace and build up the CIA?

We are talking about what was said before the war started. Both of your links are from well after the war had started and neither comes up to 5 years. You are right that some of us were saying at least 5 years. I was among them. JSP however was saying less than 1 year, if you believe the administration, and you were saying 2 years.

Where have I been bitching about Americans?

As I recall, you said 2 years. JSP said less than 1 year. Bremmer's book tends to be closer to JSPs account in that the administration expected to have less than 25,000 men in Iraq by the fall of 2003.

Isn't it presumptuous on your part to say what stance I may have had on a topic 5 years ago? I chose to focus on tractors. I chose to focus on tractors because 1. I have some knowledge of them having drive them and large trucks in the past. 2. I've seen or read stories about soldiers uparmoring them in the field. 3. They have account for a disproportionate amount of casulaties. 4. I've read arguments against uparmoring them in the past that have focused on the lamest excuses (i.e. reduced load, wear and tear on the axels, wear and tear on the roads). There are reasons I can think of why this may not be cut and dried easy, but I haven't seen one one mentioned yet. I didn't focus on humvees, jeeps, deuces or any other wheeled vehicles because the ability of those vehicles to handle the weight of armor and perform their mission is completely different from that of a tractor. Each platform will have its own trade offs and I have no inclination to go into all the trade offs for every vehicle that every tom, dick and harry in this thread might think of. Because in the asymetric war we've been fighting in Iraq, the supply lines, made up of tractor trailers, were a favorite target. I believe they made up a disproportionate number of casualties. At the same time, they had inferior equipment in terms of body armor. I'm not sure why you would expect me to focus on C-130s or C-17s except that you may believe I am some liberal who does not recognize that Iraq is a war zone and that I believe that all GIs can and must be made totally safe in a war zone. You and a few others seem to be circling like a pack of hyenas. C-130s and C-17s may well be shot at, but how many have we lost? I think the British may have lost 1, but I can't recall any others. We are shipping more cargo by air than we used to because of the dangers to the land supply convoys.