Yanking the epaulets off the uniform began in earnest with
the French in World War I. They screwed the pooch so often
that those doing the “good dressing down” started to get
blisters and callouses from pulling off the accouterments!
Scooter Libby was the “Indispensable Man” in the Bush
Administration, and being that he was Vice-President Cheney’s
main man….the thought was…”take him out and Cheney will
fall apart! Well, it was inconvenient, it was a mess, it
was not the prettiest thing you ever saw….but Scooter got
nailed “big time”! The not so loyal opposition wrung their
hands in joy…thinking: “aha…we got that son-of-a-buck
Cheney now!” Well, not much has happened other than the Bush
Administration making sure that Scooter Libby was not going
to serve any hard time and by the end of term….might even
have his record royally expunged!
Then came Karl Rove…the most evil Emperor of the Bush
Administration. The brains of the whole operation the Dems
would have you believe! The opposition hoped upon hope they
could knock Rove right out of the box! They figured, if we
can dust Karl Rove…we will have the Bush Administration lay
prostrate! If their great icon.. “Master Wu” Rove was gone
or caught…the Bush Administration would lay waste. So, when
last week Karl Rove turned in his keys to the Lincoln Bedroom
and the Oval Office….the shock by the Democrat leadership
reminded you of the Captain of the Titanic….when his first
officer told him that they had hit an iceberg! Karl Rove,
almost in tears…President Bush touched but not broken did
offer hugs and a fond farewell to a loyal and devoted soldier
of the Administration.
Then there was the case of Karen Hughes….the indispensable
support element for President Bush. He couldn’t even go the
bathroom without first checking with Karen Hughes..could he?
Then she simply retired just before the last off year election
cycle. The Democrats knew they had Bush on the run….and sure
enough…the Democrats creamed scandal ridden Republicans
without a doubt! It was so bad in fact that shortly after the
election Karen Hughes is doing independent consulting for the
Bush Administration. So, there is a mild possibility that without
Karen….George W. may be less than!
Then the case of the Attorney General…Alberto Gonzales..the
80th AG of these United States. Who knows what number Janet
Reno was..but we still have a problem with WACO and Elian
Gonzales – no relation we believe to Alberto! So, what is the
Democrats major malfunction with AG – AG….How about that for
a coincidence too? How many cases of torture and misconstrued
legal opinion is “the Alberto” supposed to be responsible for?
“All of it!” At least that is what Senator Reid, Lahey and
Schumer would tell you! Nasty Nancy Pelosi too! Oh we know
how intelligent Nancy is….she didn’t get the job as Majority
Leader just because she was a girl…believe us! Anyway, we
are hoping that Alberto will hang in there…just to bug Biden
and Obama through the California Primary!
Then we have the case of Grover Nordquist, Richard Viguerie
and the beloved Pat Robertson! Now this group has been blamed
for everything except the birth of Adolph Hitler. We refuse to
address those that blame them for Prop. 187, Roe v. Wade or the
Dred Scott decision! By all rights, we might have mentioned the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a negative sense..but that
would be not only misrepresenting the issue but changing the
subject!
Finally, “The End Times of the Bush Administration” cannot be
mentioned without the name of one of the key players in all of
it – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld! Oh, how the Dems
blamed the end of civilization on this great man. Rumsfeld was
the worst kind of insider…he knew the limits and abilities of
everyone in Government. What was amazing was his faculty to
listen to different ideas! They Dems had him slated for the
big 666 tattoo…but again, the Bush Administration preempted
their every move! Rumsfeld escaped and served his country and
his President in the noblest of fashion.
We cannot say good-by quite yet to the great people that have
served this Administration without mentioning Tony Snow. Snow
of late has been skewered as a typical “hack for Administration”
and rightly so. We worry about his hair color…we worry about
his pale skin…we worry because he such a nice guy! Good luck
Tony our prayers are with you…wherever and whatever you do!
Oh sure, we could talk about CIA Directors, FBI Directors and
the guys that dump the trash in the White House cafeteria! But
we won’t! We will only say that with approval rating of 24% or
maybe less….we could care less…We love you Laura and George!
You have served well…through great adversity. You have made
great decisions and the real people will always love you, no
matter what Mad Hatter Democrats tries to dance a gig on your
front lawn! Hey, one in four….not bad…..we got less votes
than that for the Water Board! Can’t wait for 2008! Rudy…
you gotta love him!
Now that he’s comparing Iraq to Vietnamn, we know who is really the “Mad Hatter”.
Rumsfeld a great man? Rumsfeld a great listener? Are you SERIOUS?
This man, almost single-handedly, is responsible for the lack of planning for post-invasion Iraq. This is the man who ignored Gen. Shinseki’s recommendations for MANY more troops, especially post-“toppling”. This is the man who thought we’d be in and out of there in a matter of weeks. This is the man who constantly downplayed the seriousness of the insurgency and sectarian strife.
In short, this is the man who had it wrong at every critical moment in the war. Geez, get a grip on reality!
Helloooo!! It’s OK to criticize one of you’re own. This sort of blind, unquestioning, non-objective loyalty does nothing to lend weight to your arguments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
Bush argued that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Southeast Asia three decades ago resulted in widespread death and suffering — just as it would in Iraq. Historians and analysts were quick to refute this Vietnam revisionism.
As Stockman and Bender write in the Globe, political analysts and historians are agog.
“‘I couldn’t believe it,’ said Allan Lichtman, an American University historian, adding that far more Vietnamese died during the war than in the aftermath of the US withdrawal. Lichtman said the rise of the Khmer Rouge, a brutal pro-communist regime, could as easily be attributed to American interference in that country.
“The president’s portrayal of the conflict ‘is not revisionist history. It is fantasy history,’ Lichtman said.
“Melvin Laird, secretary of defense under President Nixon from 1969 to 1973, said Bush is drawing the wrong lessons from history.
“‘I don’t think what happened in Cambodia after the war has anything to do with Iraq,’ Laird said. ‘Is he saying we should have invaded Cambodia? That’s what we would have had to do, and we would have never done that. I don’t see how he draws the parallel.’
“Other historians said Bush bypassed the fact that, after the painful US withdrawal was completed in April 1975, Vietnam stabilized and developed into an economically thriving country that is now a friend of the United States.”
Michael Tackett writes in the Chicago Tribune that Bush’s remarks “invited stinging criticism from historians and military analysts who said the analogies evidenced scant understanding of those conflicts’ true lessons. . . .
“‘This was history written by speechwriters without regard to history,’ said military analyst Anthony Cordesman. ‘And I think most military historians will find it painful. . . . because in basic historical terms the president misstated what happened in Vietnam.’ . . .
“Cordesman noted that human tragedies similar to those that occurred in the aftermath of U.S. involvement in Vietnam already have taken place in Iraq.
“‘We are already talking about a country where the impact of our invasion has driven 2 million people out of the country, will likely drive out 2 million more, has reduced 8 million people to dire poverty, has killed 100,000 people and wounded 100,000 more,’ he said. ‘One sits sort of in awe at the lack of historical comparability.’
“It also struck some historians as odd that the president would try to use a divisive issue like Vietnam to rally the nation behind his policy in Iraq. ‘If we get into a Vietnam argument, the country is divided, but if you are going to try sell this concept that the blood is on the American people’s hands because we left and were weak-kneed in Asia, that is a very tenuous and inane historical argument,’ said historian Douglas Brinkley.”
“The speech was an act of desperation to scare the American people into staying the course in Iraq. He’s distorted the facts, painting all of the people in Iraq as being on the same side which is simply not the case. Iraq is a religious civil war.” — Lawrence Korb, assistant defense secretary under President Reagan and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington.
“Bush is cherry-picking history to support his case for staying the course. What I learned in Vietnam is that U.S. forces could not conduct a counterinsurgency operation. The longer we stay there, the worse it’s going to get.” — Ret. Army Brig. Gen. John Johns, a counterinsurgency expert who served in Vietnam.
“The president emphasized the violence in the wake of American withdrawal from Vietnam. But this happened because the United States left too late, not too early. It was the expansion of the war that opened the door to Pol Pot and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. The longer you stay the worse it gets.” — Steven Simon, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sen. John Kerry released this statement: “Invoking the tragedy of Vietnam to defend the failed policy in Iraq is as irresponsible as it is ignorant of the realities of both of those wars. Half of the soldiers whose names are on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after the politicians knew our strategy would not work. . . .
“As in Vietnam, we engaged militarily in Iraq based on official deception. As in Vietnam, more American soldiers are being sent to fight and die in a civil war we can’t stop and an insurgency we can’t bomb into submission. If the President wants to heed the lessons of Vietnam, he should change course and change course now.”
——————-
Good comments all. The perceptions
in war become personal stories of
pain and agony and relief. There
is no war in history that did no
harm! In a perfect world there
would be no war, no violence and
certainly no pain or agony for the
victims or soldiers!
Sadly, economics play too much of
a role in all of history. Each time our economy comes under severe
pressure, war is soon to follow.
That is, with the exception of the
Great Depression…which served
no one unless you consider the rich
power structure.
Quoting “expert opinion” also serves little or no purpose. The
many so-called great writers or
minds of history have been nothing
but “empty suits”. David Halberstam comes to mind…..as
the most touted and established
writer of the Vietnam era. His
affidavits too are questionable, if
not verging on nothing but a strong
political hack job. No, there is
little doubt that once a “vacuum
of power” occurs through war or
revolution…there is always a
terrible “payback cycle”. We
can include virtually every conflict in history….in the US
the Great Civil War comes to mind.
The Carpetbaggers and the Ku Klux
Klan….are really no different
than the power vacuums of Alexander
and the Great Greek wars.
No one can doubt, that many millions of Iraqis will perish
should we leave. Noam Chomsky
during our interview in Boston at
the begginning of this year…
said it was academic…..there
would be “ethnic cleansing” if
we leave Iraq! He mentioned:
“It is part of the process!”
We can either turn a blind eye
now….and leave….or then when
we have left completely…and
complain bitterly..that it was
a serious mistake, albeit in retrospect!
Bringing a bit of humor into this
discussion: “Melvin Laird was a
Pimp for Nixon!”….we don’t dare
mention who might has said that!
But he did have a accent…and
answered to HK!
#4
You say that “quoting expert opinion serves little or no purpose”. And then you turn around and quote Noam Chomsky.
The thing is, you want to quote expert opinion when it fits your unalterable preconceived notions…and you want to ignore it when it doesn’t.
Yeah, anyone who follows politics does that. We find expert opinion to support our point of view. The key is to never lose your objectivity and be willing to admit that maybe, just maybe the weight of other arguments truly has some credibility.
But your dismissive statement did nothing to refute the very wide range of thought in #3’s post.
We sense an air of intellectualism
at work here! Always stimulating
Dr. Justice! We never said that
Noam was right about anything..only
that he said it…which is gospel.
If you have a problem with Dr.
Chomsky….you will not be alone
for very long. The give and take
we had with the good Dr. was a
breath of fresh air…compared to
lip syncing from the most notable
talking heads…like Dougy Brinkley, that writes whatever will
sell newspapers…with little or
not idealogue devotion. This is
where the “empty suit” was discovered….and apparently what
you are promulgating! Wasn’t he
the one that said: “I used to be
a conservative until I read Claudio
on the OC-Juice blog!”..but we
could be mistaken…at least we
could consider it a possibility!
#6
If you could stay on topic for a moment…
But that is such rambling I don’t even know where to begin.
You completely missed the point I made about quoting Chomsky. Or maybe you got it but chose to change the subject.
Dr. Justice,
OK, lets engaged in Logic 101..
for a moment. “Ethnic Cleansing
will follow a precipitous pullout
of American Troops!”…general
comment made by both sides of the
ailse…Verified by the withdrawal
in Vietnam, Lebanon and many other
locations around the globe.
The mention of the great Noam Chomsky…..was made to emphasize
the fact that even the Far Left
agrees…the fallout in Iraq will
be worthy of: we believe 3 million
deaths!
So, what were you talking about
again?