rummy vs brownie

[firsty]

gwb said that michael brown was doing a "heckuva job" about a week before canning him, amidst obvious and flagrant failings on the part of brown to be a competent person.

gwb said that rumsfeld is doing a "very fine job", amidst obvious and flagrant failings on the part of rummy to be a competent person, and with now SIX former generals under rummy calling for rummy's resignation.

my question is this: why the fuck are they still printing quotes from gwb? he's obviously lying about everything he says.

is "heckuva" better than "very fine"? does bush think that rummy is doing as well or better or worse than "heckuva," better or worse than brownie was doing 1 week after katrina?

[stilltrucking]

It is burried now and I cant find it but back in the summer of 2001 june or july I remember reading a piece in The Washington Post that Rumsfeld was going to be replaced because of the chaos he was creating in the DOD. He owes his job to 911. I tried googling for the story but is as if nothing happened before 911

[jimboloco]

Funny ain't it, thatthe retarded generalz, and there are 8,000 of them, sucking down huge pensions, never had the guts to speak out whilst on active duty. Really, these dumb attacks on Rummy are so much posturing and quibbling nonsense, as if it is nothing more than a convenient distraction from the dumbass prez hisself. Why don't these chickenshit retirees call for Bumbya's resignation?

[stilltrucking]

The rumors were all around DC (according to the Washington post) that Rumsfeld was on his way out before 9/11

you got to start somewhere. Just got to keep pulling on the strings and eventually unravel the whole ball of tangled lies.



I thought it was obvious when Tommy Franks bailed out right after we won the war. Lead your people into harms way and then grab your pension. Screw you I got mine.

Some of the generals spoke truth to power and we promptly ignored or replaced.

The one with the unpronounceable name Shiskenilli? Lithuanian born, he called for three hundred to four hundred thousand boots on the ground before the war started. And he was moved aside.

The guy in the budget office that said the war would cost 250 billion he was squelched. Cause this was going to be a profit making war. Aren’t they all?

Way over a million troops have served in Iraq so far in this war. Only about a hundred thousand there at any one time. But over a million have been rotated through so far. I am hoping for the veterans to be the core of the movement for peace. Nine of them are running for congress this year.

Listen
don’t you worry
it is all going to be peachy
cause god is on our side

and that is the way it goes
we fight holy war

[whimsicaldeb]

Jimboloco ... this week's Time magazine is coming out with two articles that address your insights and questions. I'll print them here in full for those who don't have a subscription.

http://www.time.com/time/archive/previe ... 29,00.html

Why Iraq Was a Mistake
A military insider sounds off against the war and the "zealots" who pushed it
By LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)

Apr. 17, 2006
Two senior military officers are known to have challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the planning of the Iraq war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a full-throated critique:

In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem Won't Get Fooled Again. To most in my generation, the song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders, who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture--who became career members of the military during those rough times--the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again.

From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq--an unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long enough.

I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.

With the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't--or don't have the opportunity to--speak. Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.

Before the antiwar banners start to unfurl, however, let me make clear--I am not opposed to war. I would gladly have traded my general's stars for a captain's bars to lead our troops into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And while I don't accept the stated rationale for invading Iraq, my view--at the moment--is that a precipitous withdrawal would be a mistake. It would send a signal, heard around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists' message that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to change my position.

I will admit my own prejudice: my deep affection and respect are for those who volunteer to serve our nation and therefore shoulder, in those thin ranks, the nation's most sacred obligation of citizenship. To those of you who don't know, our country has never been served by a more competent and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that "we" made the "right strategic decisions" but made thousands of "tactical errors" is an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.

What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results.

Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon's military leaders is quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply intimidated, while still others must have believed that the principle of obedience does not allow for respectful dissent. The consequence of the military's quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.

There have been exceptions, albeit uncommon, to the rule of silence among military leaders. Former Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, when challenged to offer his professional opinion during prewar congressional testimony, suggested that more troops might be needed for the invasion's aftermath. The Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense castigated him in public and marginalized him in his remaining months in his post. Army General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, has been forceful in his views with appointed officials on strategy and micromanagement of the fight in Iraq--often with success. Marine Commandant General Mike Hagee steadfastly challenged plans to underfund, understaff and underequip his service as the Corps has struggled to sustain its fighting capability.

To be sure, the Bush Administration and senior military officials are not alone in their culpability. Members of Congress--from both parties--defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility for oversight. Many in the media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before the invasion from wise observers like former Central Command chiefs Joe Hoar and Tony Zinni but gave insufficient weight to their views. These are the same news organizations that now downplay both the heroic and the constructive in Iraq.

So what is to be done? We need fresh ideas and fresh faces. That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach. The troops in the Middle East have performed their duty. Now we need people in Washington who can construct a unified strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve it. It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.

and ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -3,00.html

Sunday, Apr. 16, 2006

The Revolt of the Generals
Here are the complaints against Rumsfeld from a growing list of military chiefs. Guess what Bush thinks
By MICHAEL DUFFY

Army Major General John Batiste sounded like a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld's when the Pentagon chief dropped by the 1st Infantry Division in Tikrit on Christmas Eve 2004. "This is a man with the courage and the conviction to win the war on terrorism," Batiste told a gathering of 250 G.I.s.

But Batiste's true feelings were a little more complex than he was letting on. After joining a growing chorus of retired generals last week calling on Rumsfeld to resign, Batiste told TIME that he was actually seething as the Defense chief came to call. "When I introduce the Secretary of Defense to my troops, I'm going to be a loyal subordinate," he said. "But it was boiling inside me. Every time I looked at him, I was thinking about ... that s_____ war plan, I was thinking about Abu Ghraib, and I was thinking about the challenges I had every day trying to rebuild the Iraqi military that he disbanded."

Batiste, it turns out, wasn't the only one holding his fire. Over the past several weeks, the extent of the military's unhappiness with Rumsfeld has exploded into what is already being called the Revolt of the Generals. Half a dozen retired generals have used newspaper opinion pages--and in the case of Lieut. General Greg Newbold, TIME magazine (see TIME.com)--to break months of silence and call for Rumsfeld's head. That in turn has rekindled the debate about whether the Iraqi invasion was ill-conceived in the first place, and, if so, who is to blame. President George W. Bush issued a defiant defense of his Pentagon boss--if not the larger enterprise itself--from Camp David, where he went to spend Easter: "Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation." General Richard Myers, the recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired General Tommy Franks, the main architect of the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions, also quickly leaped to Rumsfeld's defense.

In Washington such high praise from the President is sometimes the prelude to an execution. And behind the scenes, there are indications that the moment for a shuffle could be approaching, says a former White House official who has worked with Rumsfeld. "There are people in the building who would like to see 'peace with honor,'" the official told TIME, dusting off a reference to the 1968 campaign theme that helped elect Richard Nixon. But a senior White House official insisted that Bush would not be pushed into removing the Pentagon boss. "No one has ever mentioned a timeline for his tenure," he said.

Open revolts by the top military brass against their civilian minders are rare but not unprecedented. General MacArthur objected to Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War and was fired in 1951. The Air Force didn't like the way Lyndon Johnson handpicked bombing targets during the Vietnam War. And Bill Clinton had to back down after he ordered the Pentagon to openly admit homosexuals in 1993 by settling on the narrower "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

But what distinguishes the latest rebellion is that the retired generals are taking on their old boss not over policy or budgets but the operation of an ongoing war. And it is a message that will probably be heard more deeply by voters than the usual criticism from Capitol Hill or editorial boards, particularly because the generals are making essentially the same argument: Rumsfeld was wrong to disband the Iraqi military, has ignored the advice of people with far more battlefield experience and has shown too little concern about the abuses of Iraqi prisoners. The generals also argue that Rumsfeld insisted on too small a force for the invasion, abandoning the doctrine championed by former Secretary of State and four-star general Colin Powell in 1991 after the Gulf War to attack rarely and then only with overwhelming force. Rumsfeld wanted to prove the Powell Doctrine obsolete. Instead, he has probably guaranteed that it will be followed for years.

There is some evidence that the retirees are speaking for other generals still on active duty. "I think," said former U.S. Central Command boss Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine four star, "a lot of people are biting their tongues." But not everyone: some still in uniform have criticized the retirees for speaking up now instead of before the war, when the brass accepted Rumsfeld's demands for a smaller, lighter force. But one consistent part of the indictment is that Rumsfeld made clear he wouldn't listen to views that didn't match his own anyway. Lieut. General Newbold made that point in his essay in TIME last week, when he wrote that Rumsfeld marginalized former Army General Eric Shinseki after the Chief of Staff suggested in a hearing before Congress that much larger forces would be needed following the invasion. "They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda," said Major General John Riggs, who spoke out on National Public Radio last Thursday.

While the military's reproach is the most remarkable, it follows some public criticism of Rumsfeld from the civilian side of the Administration that seems to signal he is no longer feared. Last month, Condoleezza Rice acknowledged "tactical errors, thousands of them" in the conduct of the war. That remark, which Rice later characterized as a figure of speech, led Rumsfeld to respond, "I don't know what she was talking about, to be perfectly honest." And though he bears some responsibility for overstating the case for war before the invasion, Powell took aim at his old rival Rumsfeld too, saying last week, "We made some serious mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and ... it got out of control."

Retired Marine Zinni has said the best outcome would be for Rumsfeld to resign rather than force Bush to fire him. But several well-placed Republicans say that Rumsfeld's fate may be as much in the hands of the Vice President as in the President's. Although Rumsfeld is more responsible than any other man for the rise of Dick Cheney during the 1970s, their roles have since reversed, and now the protégé is protecting the mentor. Between the two of them, Cheney and Rumsfeld have run the Pentagon for almost 12 of the last 32 years. It's the federal agency each knows best, and neither man has any patience for insubordination from men and women in uniform. Cheney began his four-year stint as Defense Secretary in 1989 by publicly scolding Air Force General Larry Welch, who lobbied for missile programs without Cheney's O.K. Not long after, Cheney fired Welch's successor for making unauthorized statements to reporters before the first Gulf War in 1990. "The possibility of Rumsfeld leaving has definitely crossed the President's mind," the former White House official told TIME last week. "The key to it is the relationship with Cheney, and I don't know where that is right now."

But there is also the question of Rumsfeld's ability to function along the Pentagon's polished corridors. A veteran of the highest level E-Ring meetings predicted that Rumsfeld will wonder whether he is hearing what the uniformed officers are really thinking. A natural instinct in that situation, he added, would be to invite fewer military officers to high-level meetings--thus potentially adding to the distance between the uniforms and the civilians.

A friend who recently spent the weekend with Rumsfeld and his wife predicted Rumsfeld would stay for the duration: "They will have to pry him from his stand-up desk with a crowbar." In Cairo last week, Rumsfeld tried to take it all in stride. "If every time two or three people disagreed, we changed the Secretary of Defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round." But Rumsfeld may again be underestimating the strength of an insurgency--this one in his own backyard. Other retired officers are expected to make their views known soon. Which means this Revolt of the Generals has yet to run its course.

With reporting by Perry Bacon Jr., SALLY B. DONNELLY, Mark Thompson/Washington, Matthew Cooper, Mike Allen

As for me ~ I want the 3 of them - the unholy trinity - gone: Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld

With my fingers crossed I say... perhaps this is the beginning of my wish fulfilled.

[whimsicaldeb]

...This is my son's second tour of duty in Iraq. The first lasted 15 months. He isn't - and never has been - one to complain, but when his father asked him in a recent Internet conversation how things were going, Roman's nothing-if-not-honest reply said it all:

"It varies from week to week, Dad. It's never nice," he typed, and then, doing his 20-something best to still be reassuring, added, "... but sometimes it sucks less."

Next line, he changed the subject. Resiliency is not infinite.

I never believed this war was justified, though I was willing to be proven wrong. In fact, I hoped I would be. But as the conflict has worn on, it has become increasingly clear that our leaders rushed to judgment at the start, connected dots that weren't there, and undermined Iraq's fledgling freedom through egregious errors in postinvasion planning - or the lack of it. Our soldiers are paying the price for these mistakes, as are the good people of Iraq, not to mention America's taxpayers. And hope, this spring, is hard to come by.

Filing the Army newsletter in a folder marked "Roman in Iraq," I hear again the line from that song that accompanied another costly war nearly four decades ago: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." An apt description, I think, of the chaos that is today's Iraq. Even though I opposed this conflict from the beginning, but as someone who also loves her country and her soldier son, I take no satisfaction now, none, in the failures of this administration, nor in the thought that it's "Me and Bobby McGee," not George W. Bush, telling it like it is. -- Sue Diaz

excerpted from ...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0418/p09s01-coop.html

Commentary > Opinion
from the April 18, 2006 edition

For GIs, some days in Iraq are slightly less worse than others
By Sue Diaz

SAN DIEGO – Some extraordinary human beings wear the uniform of our country. But this spring, as Iraq tumbles toward all-out civil war, I wonder how much more can - and should - we ask of them?

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," I remember Janis Joplin singing back in the early '70s. And if those words to "Me and Bobby McGee" are still true, then the soldiers of my son's unit - Company B, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Division of the 101st Airborne - are among the freest men on earth. Because just before sunrise one day recently in Yusafiyah, Iraq, they lost everything.

A fire sparked by faulty wiring roared through the old potato factory that was serving as their forward operating base 25 miles south of Baghdad. It's in the area known as "The Triangle of Death." But for several months in this current deployment of theirs, Roman and his comrades, some 120 of them, also called it home.

It was the place where, at the end of their day, they'd lay down their weapons, hang up their Kevlar, tug off their boots, and stretch out on their cots. It was where they'd relax, as much as anyone in that part of the world is able to these days, and reread letters from their wives or girlfriends, flip through back issues of Sports Illustrated, listen to MP3s of 50 Cent or Toby Keith, and munch on care-package cookies baked in kitchens they could only remember.

My husband and I learned about the fire weeks after it happened, not from our son, but from a newsletter the 101st Airborne routinely sends to its soldiers' families every few months. After I finished reading it, I e-mailed Roman and asked him about what I had just learned. He answered that someday he'd tell us those stories himself, but for now, he said, all that we needed to know was that he and his men were fine.

The smoke of Yusafiyah has long since cleared. And I'm sifting through piles of papers and folders here on my desk in a springtime attempt to bring order to my life, or at least to my home office. I pick up the newsletter, scan its headline: "Soldiers at Yusafiyah see it all go up in smoke." Renewal here at home is put on hold as I stop to read once again the story of the fire.

"It was shortly before dawn when 2nd Lt. David Halpern woke up and realized his forward operating base was burning down," it begins.

Some of the men were away on missions, but most were asleep. Awakened by shouts of "Fire" and the sight of flames as high as the ceiling, they got out as fast as they could, saving their lives, not their footlockers.

Huddled outside in whatever passes for pj's in a war zone, they heard the exploding pop and crackle of the ammunition stored in the building, and saw AT-4 rockets shoot through the burning roof.

"It was like a fireworks show," one of the soldiers was quoted as saying.

No one was injured in the fire, though this group has known more, much more, than its share of hardship. Since they arrived in November, six of them have been killed in action, 20 wounded. And even as this blaze turned to smoldering ash, insurgents lobbed six mortars at what was left of the compound.

"The fire could have been devastating for somebody else," their commander, Capt. John Goodwin, said. "But because we've been through so much, we were like 'OK, I guess we'll rebuild and move on.' "

An even stronger resiliency comes through in the wry words of 2nd Lt. Halpern: "It was almost comical. We were like, 'Gee, I wonder what I'm going to write in my journal today - oh, wait, my journal burned up.' "

This is my son's second tour of duty in Iraq. The first lasted 15 months. He isn't - and never has been - one to complain, but when his father asked him in a recent Internet conversation how things were going, Roman's nothing-if-not-honest reply said it all:

"It varies from week to week, Dad. It's never nice," he typed, and then, doing his 20-something best to still be reassuring, added, "... but sometimes it sucks less."

Next line, he changed the subject. Resiliency is not infinite.

I never believed this war was justified, though I was willing to be proven wrong. In fact, I hoped I would be. But as the conflict has worn on, it has become increasingly clear that our leaders rushed to judgment at the start, connected dots that weren't there, and undermined Iraq's fledgling freedom through egregious errors in postinvasion planning - or the lack of it. Our soldiers are paying the price for these mistakes, as are the good people of Iraq, not to mention America's taxpayers. And hope, this spring, is hard to come by.

Filing the Army newsletter in a folder marked "Roman in Iraq," I hear again the line from that song that accompanied another costly war nearly four decades ago: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." An apt description, I think, of the chaos that is today's Iraq. Even though I opposed this conflict from the beginning, but as someone who also loves her country and her soldier son, I take no satisfaction now, none, in the failures of this administration, nor in the thought that it's "Me and Bobby McGee," not George W. Bush, telling it like it is.

• Sue Diaz is a freelance writer. She has written a series of articles for the Monitor about her son's military service.

[stilltrucking]

Yeah Toby Kieth
Man,we lite up your world like the 4th of July

Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist
And the eagle will fly and its gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell
And it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you courtesy of the red, white, and blue

Justice will be served and the battle will rage
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage
You'll be sorry that you messed with the US of A
Cause we'll put a boot in your ass it's the American way

I tell you what I saw in 1972 I saw a group of kids with peach fuzz on their faces that were using all the good will they could muster to stop the war. I joined a group called the MCHR, the medical cadre for human rights out of chicago, I dont know what happened to them I can find nothing about them on the net. They were returned combat medics and corpsman who were determined to stop the war. The New Mobe was running the show, a lot of people with hidden agendas if yo ask me. Kind of like some of the people who have gathered around Cindy Sheehan, her best friends are the veterans/. I trusted those veterans more than anyone. This war reminds me of Korea in a way. A silent war, the government does its best to keep it off the front pages.

I still hope I am wrong even after all that has happened up to now. That toby keith; song, her son said they listen to Toby Kieth, I wonder if that song is still popular. Well if it keeps the moral up

Thanks for posting.

I want to see them (Bush Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other un named co conspirators on trial in Nuremberg.

[jimboloco]

But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion,

With the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't--or don't have the opportunity to--speak. Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.

Of course, more, but what is illustrated here is the mechanism of "obedience" that is instilled in the generals as well as the elitism that is inherent in the military system.

Yes, it is true, I resigned my commission, in June, 1972, when my fellow VVAW former Airman Steve Casper was forced to accept an undesireable discharge. Both of us had applied for conscientious objector discharges after returning from Vietnam. Both of us were not granted the CO discharge. Steve walked into his commanding officer's office high on LSD, kissed him, said he loved him. That did it. Me, resigned under the "Air Force Anti-War Officers' clause," an administrative discharge under either general or honorable conditions. They gave me an honorable discharge.

This biz about enlistees pledging to obey their superiors is a bullshit distinction; they also pledge to uphold the constitution and more often than officers by far, enlisted men and women have stood up and dissented, with all the nefarious results, and also strong messages at least to the peace movement and in the case of the Vietnam War, it was dissention among the ranks that strongly forced the deal along with all them hippies and then the Senators, finally, but of course that won't happen today, just a small circle of friends.

As I said before, quibbling about Rumsfield and even if he resigns, will not change anything.

Sorry that her son is in Iraq. I would feel better knowing that he was in Afghanistan, but what the hey. He needs to get out of there and not go back again.

Some guy on Hardball, a former Captain in the military, said that the prospect of mass resignations from the military service is unnacceptable. It's more spin. He also states that the system is designed to have civilian control. Unfortunately, the civilians in control are corrupt. What should have happened is for the ghenerals and admirals on the joint chiefs of staff to issue a stand down command to the services and refuse to issue invasion orders. But ofr course, the stealth bomberpilots wanted to go as well as the Marines landing at Basra and paratroopers dropping into Kurds and Whay to build an airstrip and from Kuwait, couldn't wait, all dressed up and somewhere to go, and the photos of guys smoking cigars in Saddamns palaces, etc., all pumped up to get Saddamn.

What do we do when we are given immoral orders? We refuse and accept the consequences.

And Scarborough still hitting on the French for having biz deals with Saddamn, (who forgot the 70's and eighties when he was our man in Baghdud) as the reason for not supporting the "coalition."

well, let's see where this gets us. Maybe censure at least, and the congress getting back Dumbocratic control.

Toby Kieth, the ultimate chickenhawk bullshitter, but he illustrates the fucking stupid mentality epitomizes it. like when, at grandmother'z funeral post-party uncle Aggie kept bugging me what I thought about the Vietnam War, I finally said "They'd have been better off if we'd just let them alone." and then redneck trucker (why not all truckers are rednecks?) uncle Gene, who voted for Wallace and cigar smoking General Curtis LeMay, suddenly yelled at me in front of the entire extended family, "I have more sense in one cell on my ass than you've got in your entire body!" Fucking Jesus H. Chrizzt.
Oh yeah, it was intense,and I stewed for a New York minute, then yelled back, "WAR WIMPS!" That shut the fuckers up. It was 1984, my grandmother who cursed me the year before, said "The one consolation I have in Jim's (my father) early death is that he never had to live to see you like you are." Fuck her too, fuck you grandmother, may you burn in hell. Somethings are never forgiven, bitch.

[stilltrucking]

as well as the elitism that is inherent in the military system

Not only that, if only that was all that is wrong. Our free press (free if you own one yuck yuck)

is elitist as hell, too many reporters corrupted by power,

they let us down.

Speaking of Kissing your commanding officer, I was reminded of a movie called Greetings.

I suppose I have been a conscientious objector since I was about 12.

Maybe censure at least, and the congress getting back Dumbocratic control.

I like it. I like it better than impeachment. But I could see impeachment happening. If Cheney thinks he needs to trow da dumb bumb out. What a can of worms. Like maggots eating through my brains.

sorry jimbo just my second hand ptsd, I was thinking about my friends with the peach fuzz.

[jimboloco]

wait did you read my tirade against my grannie?

What a can of worms. Like maggots eating through my brains.

sorry jimbo just my second hand ptsd, I was thinking about my friends with the peach fuzz.

second hand ptsd is real, it happened to the families, look what happened to grannie!

Toby Kieth, the ultimate chickenhawk bullshitter, but he illustrates the fucking stupid mentality epitomizes it. like when, at grandmother'z funeral post-party uncle Aggie kept bugging me what I thought about the Vietnam War, I finally said "They'd have been better off if we'd just let them alone." and then redneck trucker (why not all truckers are rednecks?) uncle Gene, who voted for Wallace and cigar smoking General Curtis LeMay, suddenly yelled at me in front of the entire extended family, "I have more sense in one cell on my ass than you've got in your entire body!" Fucking Jesus H. Chrizzt.
Oh yeah, it was intense,and I stewed for a New York minute, then yelled back, "WAR WIMPS!" That shut the fuckers up. It was 1984, my grandmother who cursed me the year before, said "The one consolation I have in Jim's (my father) early death is that he never had to live to see you like you are." Fuck her too, fuck you grandmother, may you burn in hell. Somethings are never forgiven, bitch.

Oh yeah, I don't believe in hell, I forgot. at least after death, we create living hells here.

so Grandma, & Grandpa (who told me, "If you don't cotton to our ways, we don't want you around here!), you croaked when you had a pot of beans on the pressure cooker. I need to smoke a joint, right now, man, and then go get my buproprion er refilled. Jesus, but Bob is in Shreveport, too, and you redneck fuckers don't own the town, oh no. I remember the blessed old black folks at Seciond Mt Zion Church in Cedar Grove. I got their love, man, I don,t need my grandparents anymore. Healed to a new dawn by the old black folks in south Shreveport.

http://www.norespectpublishing.com

[stilltrucking]

Sad story jimboloco, I mean your grand mother. Reminds me of the white us marshal who escorted a little black girl past a white mob so she could attend school in Little Rock. He was a good old boy from the white trash mountains of virginia. His grandmother was a good old girl grand daughter of the confederacy, she would not talk to him for years. Terri Gross who was interview the us marschal on her NPR show FRESH AIR asked him what he did he do about it? He said, "grannies, nothing you can do about it except wait them out" some of us have more times to wait them out. I wonder if your bubbie was as good a cook as mine? I hope so because I expect to be eating dinner with her any day now.

[jimboloco]

I heard that story before. It's true that my mother and step-dad did come around somewhat. She is stillkicking. In 1972, mombo told me "James you'll never be able to get a job!" and "What am I supposed to tell my friends and relatives what you are doing?"
and step-padre said "Never forgive you for what you've done"

yeah they turned somewhat. Harry read NcNamara's book about his regrets (an illconcieved book that went nowhere as he still felt that you should obey orders) and he was glad to see me finally get it together (albeit something that needs daily renewal) and was welcoming during my last visits before his brain tumor and death, 1997, and mombo now a widow, sees the presidunce for what he is, yet even recently she was lauding Harry's daughter Jan's son Bo, who graduated from U Texas at Commerce with masters in music to join the army band, so I sent him, thru Jan, counter-recruiting info, they'd be playing funeral music etc, and he was overweight anyhow, now is a travelling brass man.
I gotta go, thanks amigo.

[stilltrucking]

me too

got to go

I was tryiing to remember you are jimboloco the third I think.

1946 me about five

I have managed to read one book cover to cover this year. About the 1940 election and lindberg defeats Rosevelt, america stats out of the European war. Pearl Harbor never attacked. The Plot Against America. e-dog asked a question why there are no great novels coming out of Iraq. Then he noted the lack of any political fiction except for possibly that novel by Philip Roth.

thanks for the modulation

I found a glittering little piece of Zen the other day
like light reflected off a diamond drop of dew on a fig leaf.

still trying for gonzo sitting

death wish rules again

smoke them if you got them

LSMFT has an obscene meaning these days. everything so pg-13 these days I remember what it meant, and it was about Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco. Nothing at all to do with tits.

.>>>BUSHWACKED a novel about Afghanistan?

[jimboloco]

Letter to the editor, St Pete Times' achivez, man, Sept 5th, 2002, I writ, like,

Re: Lonesome hawk, editorial, Sept. 3.

The editorial stated that the president has no right to command an attack on Iraq without a mandate from Congress and the American people. The president is a constitutional commander in chief of the armed forces, not an absolute commander. If he orders a pre-emptive attack, the military would be in violation if it complied. The armed forces should "stand-down" and cease and desist from any action without legal mandate.

One thing I learned from four years of Air Force ROTC that being excused from civics class could not miss: The military has no right to act without the expressed consent of the civilian government. The War Powers Act is limited to immediate threats and needs a follow- up consensus to continue.

I also learned from my military experience about the tremendous cost of war. Will it become necessary to destroy Baghdad in order to save it?

Saddam Hussein is a petty tyrant, nothing more. He subverts the oil-for-food program as well as an equal amount of income from selling oil on the black market. He feeds the army, nourishes the elite and his power base with products from Jordan and military equipment from Syria.

We need to change the oil-for-food administration with a peacekeeping force from the United Nations and weapons inspectors. American citizens are in Iraq now: Vets for Peace has a water- purification project; Voices in the Wilderness is bringing medical supplies to hospitals; and a Christian Witness protection service is in place from the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren to act as human shields in hospitals, schools, etc. These patriots are real.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. president and general said, "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."

Jimbolocorococo , St. Petersburg

the whole forum, man, like wild, some of them were so assured, like, that saddamnitall had wmd,duh,'zzlkike political fictionz, pre-emtively, oh dominoez.
the storiez not over, man

[jimboloco]

my other grandpa was career army, a skirt chaser and bamboozeler,
born in Jamaica to his mum and a rumrunner, the mom and he split to New York,
where he grew up and was commissioned in the calvary
and luicky sucker, went into Germany post Armistice Day
and commanded some province for a while
I am sure was making the peace and enjoying the Bavarian brew
and he met my other grannie, a rich girl from Massachussetts and they looked so good together(her first beaux, a West Pointer, was KIA in The War), so thankx to that they made moi. Anyhow, she was Christian Scientist and died of congestive heart failure cuz she refuzed to take any digoxin and lasix, coulda still been pissin like a race horze, and he married a sweet nurse who he'd met in New Caledonia as a hospital administrator in WWDos, my gawd. My mombo told me to not talk about the war with him. Shit, he died happy. Both my mean grandparentz got to vote Reagan into power and they both died, him happy and smug, and she as bitter as an unripe sour persimmmon, both absolute caretakerz of their way,
no doubt.
Is there forgiveness? Hell to pay
but I transcended it, a flower growed up thru a crack in the sidewalk, man
weeds agrowin agin

smoke them if you got them

just bought a 1/2 ounze from me slacker step-and-fetchit-sonbro


LSMFT