"Harry" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Harry ?" wrote in message
m...
On 7/13/10 7:44 AM, BAR wrote:
In ,
says...

You were going to have a mission shift if we went into Afghanistan
in
force. The original plan was a covert hit squad.

Who is "you"? Bush let Rumsfeld dictate a tiny army with no ability
to
have
boots on the ground, despite the recommendations from the military.

The rhetorical you.
We are proving a huge army is not much more effective in the
mountains
than a little hit team.

Most people have no concept of what the military is like and what it
requires.

Sure we do. The military is like a garbage disposal in which you pour
$500
to $600 billion a year and then watch your money go down the drain.

Once we are out of the Bush Recession/Depression, and there are real
jobs
around, we need to cut military spending by half, and, at the same time
raise pay and benefits substantially for a much smaller active duty
force
that would be better suited for the sort of trouble and nonsense we
face
today.

The $300 billion a year we'd save could go to far more important needs,
such as rebuilding infrastructure, funding schools properly, providing
life-long job training for working adults, et cetera.

These days, massive military expenditures get you...nothing.


Helps lifetime senior officers create their own little empires and makes
the
favoured suppliers/contractors filthy rich.

Little buddy, you and I are just alike! We are cowards, so we never
thought of helping to protect our country, but we act like we know about
military procedure, etc.

Don't recall you mentioning serving in the military, Kevin.

wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:19:56 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I think we'd both be surprised by how quickly the military can deploy in
great numbers.

We sure have not seen them do it, ever in my life, unless you count
Granada.
It took 6 months to get into Kuwait and the "surges" take about that
long
They did rush into Somalia without proper support and got their ass
kicked by a street gang. The mountains of Afghanistan is infinitely
harder that Iraq, Kuwait or Somalia. Just keeping 5000 men in food and
ammo takes a significant effort in a place with no airports and not
much flat ground to create drop zone.


We had plenty of time in Afg. There was a fairly long run up to that war. We
started bombing in October.

"D.Duck" wrote in message
news

"nom=de=plume" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:57:04 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


Generals do not get their stars by saying "That's too hard", they get
them by saying "Can do sir"

In any case, they've already gotten their "stars." So, when asked for a
military opinion, it seems to me they've earned the right to be honest.

In that case it is keeping their stars.

Oh come on. So, we shouldn't listen to the military when it comes to
force sizes? Who should decide, maybe Barney?

Finally....someone with a sense of humor.

Hey Barney went after reporters.

In article ,
says...

"Harry" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Harry ?" wrote in message
m...
On 7/13/10 7:44 AM, BAR wrote:
In ,
says...

You were going to have a mission shift if we went into Afghanistan
in
force. The original plan was a covert hit squad.

Who is "you"? Bush let Rumsfeld dictate a tiny army with no ability
to
have
boots on the ground, despite the recommendations from the military.

The rhetorical you.
We are proving a huge army is not much more effective in the
mountains
than a little hit team.

Most people have no concept of what the military is like and what it
requires.

Sure we do. The military is like a garbage disposal in which you pour
$500
to $600 billion a year and then watch your money go down the drain.

Once we are out of the Bush Recession/Depression, and there are real
jobs
around, we need to cut military spending by half, and, at the same time
raise pay and benefits substantially for a much smaller active duty
force
that would be better suited for the sort of trouble and nonsense we
face
today.

The $300 billion a year we'd save could go to far more important needs,
such as rebuilding infrastructure, funding schools properly, providing
life-long job training for working adults, et cetera.

These days, massive military expenditures get you...nothing.


Helps lifetime senior officers create their own little empires and makes
the
favoured suppliers/contractors filthy rich.

Little buddy, you and I are just alike! We are cowards, so we never
thought of helping to protect our country, but we act like we know about
military procedure, etc.

Don't recall you mentioning serving in the military, Kevin.

WTF is "Kevin"? Are you really that stupid?

"Harry" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Harry" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Harry ?" wrote in message
m...
On 7/13/10 7:44 AM, BAR wrote:
In ,
says...

You were going to have a mission shift if we went into
Afghanistan
in
force. The original plan was a covert hit squad.

Who is "you"? Bush let Rumsfeld dictate a tiny army with no
ability
to
have
boots on the ground, despite the recommendations from the
military.

The rhetorical you.
We are proving a huge army is not much more effective in the
mountains
than a little hit team.

Most people have no concept of what the military is like and what
it
requires.

Sure we do. The military is like a garbage disposal in which you
pour
$500
to $600 billion a year and then watch your money go down the drain.

Once we are out of the Bush Recession/Depression, and there are real
jobs
around, we need to cut military spending by half, and, at the same
time
raise pay and benefits substantially for a much smaller active duty
force
that would be better suited for the sort of trouble and nonsense we
face
today.

The $300 billion a year we'd save could go to far more important
needs,
such as rebuilding infrastructure, funding schools properly,
providing
life-long job training for working adults, et cetera.

These days, massive military expenditures get you...nothing.


Helps lifetime senior officers create their own little empires and
makes
the
favoured suppliers/contractors filthy rich.

Little buddy, you and I are just alike! We are cowards, so we never
thought of helping to protect our country, but we act like we know
about
military procedure, etc.

Don't recall you mentioning serving in the military, Kevin.

WTF is "Kevin"? Are you really that stupid?

Not at all, Kevin.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:15:32 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

That's quite a different statement from what you said originally. Sure,
Clinton inspired people to hate. Are you blaming him for it? Seems to me
that the people doing the hating are the ones with the problem.

If anyone is to blame it is the media that poured gasoline on a
smoldering fire. I was just putting a stick in the time line when this
started. Folks on the left don't see it because he was your guy. When
it went the other way your guys went as nuts as the worst "wingnuts"
you were criticizing.

I think you're somewhat right that the media isn't doing their job. Anyone
who takes Fox seriously probably has brain damage. MSNBC is mostly
entertainment, but at least Olbermann doesn't lie.

What? Olberman is just the mirror of Rush. They both have a vein of
truth in their spin but it is mostly spin.
I can't stand more than a minute of either of them.

It's pretty easy to find the many and ongoing lies told by Rush. Feel free
to point out a lie Olbermann told.

I certainly understand people not wanting to listen to either, but you can't
seriously claim that they're similar.


It has swung back the other way now and you think Obama can do no
wrong and the people who are on the other side are nuts.

Not true. He's criticized plenty by Olbermann and many others on the left.
I'm not particularly left wing, except socially.



I haven't heard Olbermann do the "how dare you sir" thing yet and the
same policies are still in effect.

He's come pretty close several times. I think the difference is in the
degree of egregious behavior between the two presidents. He's certainly
disagreed with him and got angry with him more than a few times.

The rhetoric didn't even change much
You have the legitimacy argument
"Bush stole the election" (electoral college deniers)

Which he did by proxy of the Supreme Court. There's little doubt that it
was
a political decision and not a judicial one. Even the language of their
decision say it.

"Obama is allowed to be president" (birthers)

That's just loony tunes. The two are not comparable.


They are both loony tunes, unless you think the SCOTUS is corrupt and
if that is true we are in big trouble.

Neither Obama nor Bush are crazy. Maybe crazy like a fox. SCOTUS made a
major mistake and basically acknowledged as much in their ruling, saying
"this is our decision, but don't use it as precedence." I'm not sure I'd go
so far as to say they're corrupt as a body, but some on the court are
flirting with ethical problems.. Scalia (whom I respect for his intellect)
and Thomas, who's wife is knee deep in right-wing politics. Many
opportunities for a serious conflict of interest.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:20:42 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:19:56 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I think we'd both be surprised by how quickly the military can deploy in
great numbers.

We sure have not seen them do it, ever in my life, unless you count
Granada.
It took 6 months to get into Kuwait and the "surges" take about that
long
They did rush into Somalia without proper support and got their ass
kicked by a street gang. The mountains of Afghanistan is infinitely
harder that Iraq, Kuwait or Somalia. Just keeping 5000 men in food and
ammo takes a significant effort in a place with no airports and not
much flat ground to create drop zone.


We had plenty of time in Afg. There was a fairly long run up to that war.
We
started bombing in October.


We did not have any time. Where are you getting that? They didn't
start until October and that was not in the area around Tora Bora. We
started in the areas where we had local support and we did pretty well
there with our covert forces. We lost OBL in Tora Bora about 2 months
later and that is only 6 miles from Pakistan. There was no way we
could bring in the number of troops to secure that area from half way
around the world before he could run 6 miiles.We dod bounce the rubble
for a couple weeks and hoped we would get lucky. They may have been
able to get the air strikes in faster but that was about all we could
do.
Right now we should be trying to bribe as many of these tribal leaders
with stuff they want and ratchet back the combat mission. We have
reached the point of diminishing returns. They are spending
$300,000,000 a month there according to NBC Sunday morning and that is
ridiculous. You can buy those guys a lot of goats for $300,000,000.
What are we going to do if the next attack comes from Somalia or
Yemen? Dump $300,000,000 a month in there too?
Just to put this in perspective, that $300,000,000 would buy health
care for 300,000 families. (at the Obama care max of $1,000 a month)

We could have brought in many more troops if Rumsfeld had set up the
invasion that way. He didn't.

Honestly, I'm getting more and more disillusioned with the Afg. war. Either
Petraeus turns it around or we should get the heck out, and keep a health
supply of drones and special forces available.

wrote:
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:20:42 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:19:56 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I think we'd both be surprised by how quickly the military can deploy in
great numbers.
We sure have not seen them do it, ever in my life, unless you count
Granada.
It took 6 months to get into Kuwait and the "surges" take about that
long
They did rush into Somalia without proper support and got their ass
kicked by a street gang. The mountains of Afghanistan is infinitely
harder that Iraq, Kuwait or Somalia. Just keeping 5000 men in food and
ammo takes a significant effort in a place with no airports and not
much flat ground to create drop zone.

We had plenty of time in Afg. There was a fairly long run up to that war. We
started bombing in October.


We did not have any time. Where are you getting that?

It's all over the place. BL didn't leave until mid-December.

They didn't
start until October and that was not in the area around Tora Bora. We
started in the areas where we had local support and we did pretty well
there with our covert forces. We lost OBL in Tora Bora about 2 months
later and that is only 6 miles from Pakistan.

6 miles by air.
Maybe 30-40 via slow, arduous, snow-covered mountain paths.
And he was only squeezed into Pakistan by the incompetence of
Franks/Rumsfeld.

There was no way we
could bring in the number of troops to secure that area from half way
around the world before he could run 6 miiles.

Pure bull****. See cite below. Plenty analysis of Tora Bora everywhere.

We dod bounce the rubble
for a couple weeks and hoped we would get lucky. They may have been
able to get the air strikes in faster but that was about all we could
do.

Apologist tripe.
Don't try to change written history.
Tora Bora had undergone air bombardment for a month before Bin Laden
escaped on December 16th.
Bin Laden was there and could have been killed/captured.
Tommy Franks screwed the pooch.
For what reason isn't known. I suspect he was just gun shy.
At that time I think the only American casualty was that CIA agent
killed in the prison breakout.
Franks didn't want our troops killed, and we would have suffered
substantial casualties, no telling how many.
Lousy General. Paying criminals to do his job while he sat in Tampa.
And he denied those 4,000 Marines the honor of killing Bin Laden.
Any one of them had more courage than Franks, and knew what was expected
of them. Franks was unsuitable for command.
If Bush says we'll get Bin Laden dead or alive, he god damned better
make sure his general gets the job done.
Rumsfeld and his entire crew was weak compared to Gates and his.
But there's no changing history. 4000 Marines were there, plenty to get
the job done, but not put to use.
And with the slightest foresight a general should possess, there should
have been many more troops at the ready, and Bin Laden surrounded by
American troops before being chased to Pakistan by ineffective aerial
bombing and the criminal Afghani thugs hired by Franks.
The primary mission in Afghanistan was to kill Bin Laden.
The CIA located Bin Laden, then Centcom screwed everything up from there.
Rumsfeld was probably pulling Frank's strings.
One of the worse Secretarys of Defense. Kicked out far too late.
Utter command failure.
Both Rumsfeld and Franks went out with a whimper, and neither is missed
by anybody as far as I know.
Like GWB. Disgraced.
Not killing Bin Laden at Tora Bora was a huge mistake, and is still
costing us big time. By not sacrificing as needed at Tora Bora, AQ
leadership and morale lived on.
Wonder how many GI's died in Iraq because of that.
Many more than would have been lost at Tora Bora I'd wager.
You and GWB might forget who was behind 9/11 but a lot of us don't.
Bin Laden is just one more GWB mess for Obama to clean up.
Your excuses are bull**** revisionism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/ma...gewanted=print
"One of them was Brig. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of some 4,000
marines who had arrived in the Afghan theater by now. Mattis, along with
another officer with whom I spoke, was convinced that with these numbers
he could have surrounded and sealed off bin Laden's lair, as well as
deployed troops to the most sensitive portions of the largely
unpatrolled border with Pakistan. He argued strongly that he should be
permitted to proceed to the Tora Bora caves. The general was turned
down. An American intelligence official told me that the Bush
administration later concluded that the refusal of Centcom to dispatch
the marines - along with their failure to commit U.S. ground forces to
Afghanistan generally - was the gravest error of the war."


Jim - Anti-revisionist.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:28:58 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

What? Olberman is just the mirror of Rush. They both have a vein of
truth in their spin but it is mostly spin.
I can't stand more than a minute of either of them.

It's pretty easy to find the many and ongoing lies told by Rush. Feel free
to point out a lie Olbermann told.

I don't watch him enough to find a recent example but when I do I
usually find something misrepresented at least once a show.

Like?


I certainly understand people not wanting to listen to either, but you
can't
seriously claim that they're similar.


The only reason you say that is because he says things you agree with,
same for Rush and his listeners.

No. I say that because one lies on a regular basis. The other doesn't lie,
and he corrects his mistakes.



They are both loony tunes, unless you think the SCOTUS is corrupt and
if that is true we are in big trouble.

Neither Obama nor Bush are crazy. Maybe crazy like a fox. SCOTUS made a
major mistake and basically acknowledged as much in their ruling, saying
"this is our decision, but don't use it as precedence." I'm not sure I'd
go
so far as to say they're corrupt as a body, but some on the court are
flirting with ethical problems.. Scalia (whom I respect for his intellect)
and Thomas, who's wife is knee deep in right-wing politics. Many
opportunities for a serious conflict of interest.

I think there may have been a desire to bring that mess to a close ...
before we had President Strom Thurmond. The speaker (Hastert) said he
would not take the job so Strom was going to be our guy on Jan 20.
It was clear that without some decisive action, the lawyers could have
kept the dueling law suits going on that long ... assuming the Senate
didn't do something even more troubling when it came time to poll the
EC.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:31:44 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

We had plenty of time in Afg. There was a fairly long run up to that
war.
We
started bombing in October.


We did not have any time. Where are you getting that? They didn't
start until October and that was not in the area around Tora Bora. We
started in the areas where we had local support and we did pretty well
there with our covert forces. We lost OBL in Tora Bora about 2 months
later and that is only 6 miles from Pakistan. There was no way we
could bring in the number of troops to secure that area from half way
around the world before he could run 6 miiles.We dod bounce the rubble
for a couple weeks and hoped we would get lucky. They may have been
able to get the air strikes in faster but that was about all we could
do.
Right now we should be trying to bribe as many of these tribal leaders
with stuff they want and ratchet back the combat mission. We have
reached the point of diminishing returns. They are spending
$300,000,000 a month there according to NBC Sunday morning and that is
ridiculous. You can buy those guys a lot of goats for $300,000,000.
What are we going to do if the next attack comes from Somalia or
Yemen? Dump $300,000,000 a month in there too?
Just to put this in perspective, that $300,000,000 would buy health
care for 300,000 families. (at the Obama care max of $1,000 a month)

We could have brought in many more troops if Rumsfeld had set up the
invasion that way. He didn't.

They were really trying to avoid an invasion for political reasons
both here and in Kabul.

WHAT??? The whole point of going after Afg. was bin laden. The politics were
go for it in the American public's view. Something like 90% approval.

The plan was for a surgical strike that just took out Bin Laden. It
almost worked. When it didn't we should have pulled back and come up
with another plan. If we had just let him relax a bit he might have
popped up some place where we could get him. In that regard, you have
to look at how Mossad dealt with Black September. That was working
great until they shot an innocent waiter.

It didn't work because Rumsfeld did let his military actually take the lead
and get it done. He micromanaged everything and fired all those who had a
different opinion to the point where nobody would offer one.

We are not the Mossad.


Honestly, I'm getting more and more disillusioned with the Afg. war.
Either
Petraeus turns it around or we should get the heck out, and keep a health
supply of drones and special forces available.

The light will come on for you. You are still young.

I've never been happy about killing people, even bad guys. It's the butt end
of the legal system... when nothing else works.