I am not opposed to a new strategy for Iraq. A new plan or a new vision.

I simply am opposed to FLEEING Iraq. That would cause really bad things to happen for the next 40 years.

So far as I can see this thread has mirrored fruitcakes.

Tenet is highly questionable. Anyone from either side who jumps on this book as proving anything should think a bit more.

The case for Iraq was supposed to be that they had WMD’s and were a threat to us and their own people because of them. So Tenet, who has already taken partial blame for the decision, said it was a slam dunk. How could it be when the WMD’s were never found? It means he and Cheney who kept saying he was sure they had them and he knew where they were, were wrong. The big accusation against Cheney, which the right has consistently refuted, was that he manipulated the intel to fit a foregone conclusion. That turns out to be true. That he just used 9/11 as an excuse to go in. Also true. It also looks like they had no serious debate about any other options.

Uh, it looks pretty bad to me. Maybe Bush let Cheney take over because he had little or no foreign policy experience himself, but that’s not exactly a glowing assessment. In any case, can’t wait to read it.

And by the way will people who have no clue about Vietnam stop referencing it? We won in Vietnam, had a signed cease fire, left promising support for our ally, removed almost all of our troops, then a year later did absolutely nothing as the north invaded the south. Quagmire? Is south Korea a quagmire?

Bwaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha…..

Its not a matter of, “I can’t get out the door cause my arse is too wide”….But rather…”I can’t get out the door because I was wrong in the first place and now in the second place I’m wrong about how to get out”…..Somehow….”I don’t know what I am doing and I’m banging into the walls trying to get out” makes perfect sense.

Admit error, lies and beg for help?…never a neocon. The whole world will be destroyed before that happens.

In the meantime if we have to respond anywhere else, we won’t be able to because we are mired in a quagmire. Like Vietnam was a quagmire, and like the Soviet’s ten-year occupation of Afghanistan was a quagmire. We helped to lure them into it hoping to drain their military and fiscal strength, leading to the defeat of their empire. There were probably Soviets who were saying that they had to stay in Afghanistan until they got their victory. But it was impossible. The terrorists can defeat us by bogging us down there forever instead of protecting our borders or inspecting cargo.

Now, Petraeus is saying that to have any chance we have to keep more troops there even longer. But he doesn’t know if we have any chance, because the Iraqis haven’t done their part. They resent being pressured. Should we just keep our army there -open-ended until someday they may feel like they’re ready? After we’ve spent a trillion dollars and lost even more of our troops?

What we’re saying is force can’t make it work. Its not under our control to make it work. We should stay in the Kurdish region-because they do want it to work.

As for our little war, I’m am against it, but I would suggest that India take care of its own problems before criticizing us. In other words….”you shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house”. There is much about India that needs to grow up.

You often attack the policies of the U.S. and bestow the wonders of India upon us. Frankly its offensive without objectivity. You should remember, that the squirreliest neocon American in America is still more important to me, than you, or any other non-American.

The plan was to go in, defeat Saddam’s forces and look for Wmds. The exit strategy was Democracy.

This is where you come up short in your reasoning. Everything went just fine until………………………………………………We started asking the two sides to be buddies. They refused.

A million troops could not have done this job. Oh well. That was not what the freakin mission was about.

WE DID NOT GO INTO IRAQ TO SET UP DEMOCRACY. That was the exit strategy. That is what we are working on now.

EXIT STRATEGY.

But you guys continue to be bogged down and married to Democracy as the Alpha and Omega. The end all. Because Democracy is failing to take hold in IRaq…Its a failure. Well Democracy might be a failure but the take has become that if Iraq does not become a democracy then Bush is an Idiot, Rumsfeld was an Idiot and everything in Iraq was for naught.

You have listened to the talking points too much.

WE did not go to Iraq to set up Democracy. We went to Iraq to kill terrorists and get rid of WMDS. PERIOD.

Democracy was an exit strategy. ITS taking longer then expected…

YET

IT is still an EXIT strategy. You guys just want to force us out before were ready to leave.

What are you talking about? The country was behind Bush at the beginning of the war- its only now, after bungling it for more than 4 years that only 22% believe Bush is managing it well. And there aren’t enough liberals in the country to make up the other 78%,lol.

It was Rumsfeld and Franks(with Gingrich’s help) who drew up the war plan – the left had no input at all. Rumsfeld believed that we could make up for what we lacked in manpower with technology and wanted to downsize the military-remember the leaner, meaner army? He encountered resistance from General Shinseki who he marginalized, and whose career was ruined. Shinseki wanted 375,000 troops to do the job. Now, they realize too late he was right, and are surging forces. But its 3 years too late, because the sectarian violence is keeping the Iraqis from trusting each other enough to unify.

Stop being a revisionist. Yes, I know its more comfortable to blame every foreign policy failure on the left, but it was Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Casey, Franks and Bremer who made the biggest mistakes here. Petraeus could have had the best chance for success, but he was sent in too late to help us that much.

Some were strategically useful, and some were not.

There ya go.

Many islands we skipped were cut off and left to die. You know like the war on terror. Drying up the funding. Squeezing Iran. Letting them shrivel up and die because they are not being resupplied.

The administration is not fighting this war. The generals are. However the minute we arrived in the Middle east the antiwar has been dictating how to fight this war. Not our generals.

America is killing hundreds of thousands of people the left screams.

So we engaged in the LEFTS POLITICALLY CORRECT WAR. Its caused us to lose the battle in Iraq.

There is no such thing as a politically correct war. Debaathification. Denazification. It worked in Germany. It worked in Japan. Shia 80 percent. Sunni (Baathists)20 percent. It was the right thing to do but of course the antiwar knows better then anyone else on how to NATION BUILD. YOU are experts.

No you only point to failures and say “see were right and Bush is wrong.”

Thats because hes not an expert at nation building either. Again. Democracy was NOT the reason we went into Iraq. Democracy was to be the exit strategy.

But the antiwar has turned it around and said we invaded IRaq to create Democracy. Thats BS and you know it.

Why in WW2 did we attack some Islands and not others.

Because some islands were held by our enemy the Japanese and some were not. Some were strategically useful, and some were not.

Why did we launch an attack in Normandy.

Why was the confederate troops defeated at Gettysburg? Because they did not pick the spot of the battle. The Union did. Lee in his pride determined that the war was here. But he was wrong. It was his biggest blunder of the war and it led to the ultimate defeat of the Confederates. Thankfully.

The CIA is our glaring weakness. The Military is our glaring strength.

You figure the rest out.

George Bush rests his case. This is the type of evidence that GWB, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton and the rest on capitol hill were seeing when the decision to go to war was reached and voted on and approved.

WE had to fight the war on their shores. Not ours. Everyone understands this except the press who wants to sell papers. And the antiwar who….I don’t know what they want to do. Do drugs I guess.

If you read his book with an open mind which I am about a 1/3rd of the way thru you will understand the fear that was in the administration. The fear of Al Queida who had just Destroyed 50 billion dollars worth of property. Killed thousands.

Detonating a Nuke in DC or Baltimore or NYC was a very, very real possibility with Intell to support this conclusion. They had to prevent this. They had to go Balls to the wall. There was no prodding, slow calculated work up to war. It was Attack NOW. Today.

Only history will show you hate mongering people just how effective Bush and Co. were in preventing more attacks on the USA. Until then, you all will be content in your Hate Bush rhetoric. So be it.

We Surrender. Bush Lied.

The book does confirm what I’ve always believed,however, — that removing Saddam was always in this administration’s sights; 9/11 was just a crudely used pretext for the invasion and his removal from power.

(1.) Tenet’s hands are not exactly clean.

(2.) There are days when I can barely summon the energy to read or look at the news. If I’m fatigued about the state of world affairs, then I can only imagine that a lot of people are downright exhausted.

As for Tenet, a short while ago he was being called a stooge by many on the left, but now he’s a hero. Yo guys are no better than the right wingers who decide that a person is credible based solely on whether the person in question is serving their myopic needs.

Isn’t it interesting that all these great patriots save their objections until they have a book deal?

Or can we do something to stop this madness?

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What? Give me a break.

Do we keep on beating our breasts and cry?

Or can we do something to stop this madness?