Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence
Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.
They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.
Every time you hear Bush or Cheney lash out against Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.
They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.
What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?
What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than sending them off to war without the proper equipment, so that some soldiers in the field were left to buy their own body armor and to retrofit their own jeeps with scrap metal so that roadside bombs in Iraq would only maim them for life and not kill them? And what could be more injurious and insulting than Don Rumsfeld’s response to criticism that he sent our troops off in haste and unprepared: Hey, you go to war with the army you’ve got — get over it.
What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than to send them off to war in Iraq without any coherent postwar plan for political reconstruction there, so that the U.S. military has had to assume not only security responsibilities for all of Iraq but the political rebuilding as well? The Bush team has created a veritable library of military histories — from “Cobra II” to “Fiasco” to “State of Denial” — all of which contain the same damning conclusion offered by the very soldiers and officers who fought this war: This administration never had a plan for the morning after, and we’ve been making it up — and paying the price — ever since.
And what could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in Iraq than to send them off to war and then go out and finance the very people they’re fighting against with our gluttonous consumption of oil? Sure, George Bush told us we’re addicted to oil, but he has not done one single significant thing — demanded higher mileage standards from Detroit, imposed a gasoline tax or even used the bully pulpit of the White House to drive conservation — to end that addiction. So we continue to finance the U.S. military with our tax dollars, while we finance Iran, Syria, Wahhabi mosques and Al Qaeda madrassas with our energy purchases.
Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer. That is the kind of genius Karl Rove is. He is not a man who has designed a strategy to reunite our country around an agenda of renewal for the 21st century — to bring out the best in us. His “genius” is taking some irrelevant aside by John Kerry and twisting it to bring out the worst in us, so you will ignore the mess that the Bush team has visited on this country.
And Karl Rove has succeeded at that in the past because he was sure that he could sell just enough Bush cigarettes, even though people knew they caused cancer. Please, please, for our country’s health, prove him wrong this time.
Let Karl know that you’re not stupid. Let him know that you know that the most patriotic thing to do in this election is to vote against an administration that has — through sheer incompetence — brought us to a point in Iraq that was not inevitable but is now unwinnable.
Let Karl know that you think this is a critical election, because you know as a citizen that if the Bush team can behave with the level of deadly incompetence it has exhibited in Iraq — and then get away with it by holding on to the House and the Senate — it means our country has become a banana republic. It means our democracy is in tatters because it is so gerrymandered, so polluted by money, and so divided by professional political hacks that we can no longer hold the ruling party to account.
It means we’re as stupid as Karl thinks we are.
I, for one, don’t think we’re that stupid. Next Tuesday we’ll see.
He is correct that they think we are stoopid. But the voting public has proved that three times over the last six years so why wouldn;t the idiots continue to think we are stoops? It’s not like they get out much to be around regular people.
Good stuff.
Bad, misleading and wrong stuff.
Kathy, I know you are anxiously awaiting my response, so I will get started right away. Your post is very moving and persuasive, but almost entirely wrong and very misleading. First, let me ask a question. Rewind the clock to February 2003 and let me know if you were in favor of Iraq. I am willing to bet you were against it mainly because you seem sincere in your pacifism. However, the vast majority of the public was in favor of the war because of the many reasons laid out: WMD, 12 years of ignoring peace treaties and resolutions, genocide against Kurds, can’t take a chance that Iraq will step up support of terrorists etc. I won’t rehash the points, but it is a fact that the vast majority believed in these and other reasons for going to war. Democrats and others have since argued that Bush purposefully lied to get the public to believe in the war. If you believe this, stop reading now and don’t waste your time or mine. Because if you believe he lied you would have to believe that almost every other leader (Democrat and Republican) in Washington for the last 12 years was in on the lie as well. They all had access to the same intel and came to the same conclusions. If you don’t think Bush lied, then you would logically assume a sound decision was made in March of 2003 when Iraq was liberated and thus a just war.
As for your point about the number of troops and your reference to “Powell Doctrine”. First off it wasn’t his doctrine; he was just talking about his take on the principles of war. Rummy and Powell both chose to highlight two of the nine principles of war, mass vs. economy of force or in layman’s terms overwhelming force at a specific time and place vs. efficient use of forces available. As we discussed in previous posts, substantially higher numbers of troops simply was not reasonable possibility. The military had roughly about 12 divisions available. Subtracting other deployments you end up with 9 or so divisions to wage war in Iraq. But as you pointed out, there would have to be a post war plan so some type of follow on force would have to be held back to allow for a rotation. That leaves you with about 3-4 division to liberate a country, which yes is sparse, but as demonstrated not an impossibility. The only options would be to wear out those nine divisions by having them stay on station for 2 plus years and then go into a rotation like we currently have. Or institute a draft which would have only delayed things longer because we can’t create an army in a microwave. And if you are looking for someone to blame for our force structure at 2003, you can blame Clinton and Bush Sr. but mostly Clinton because his cuts were much more drastic (yes I know you will call me a Clinton hater, but facts are facts).
Next onto your points about the equipment our military had at the time of the war. First refer to the previous sentence about the dismantling of the military in the 90’s and then take a look at the impacts the 90’s had on not only our military but the military-industrial complex. The downsizing didn’t just hinder our military’s “size” but it also cause industry to downsize and reduce production capability and research funding. The troops that crossed the berm without body armor (including myself) could have easily blamed Rummy. But I also know the makers of the body armor were strained to produce it fast enough, not to mention contracting red tape and logistical problems that hindered employment of equipment. Body armor and “up armored” vehicles weren’t even in the widespread military vocabulary until Afghanistan. Hardly enough time to outfit an entire army. So as cold as it may sound, Rummy was right, you go to war with what you have. Politics drives the military, not vice versa. Plus by the time the shit hit the fan, the problem was largely resolved. Sure units used scrap metal and other improvisations (I would love to tell you stories), but that was winding down when the media screamed about it (I would love to tell you stories about that as well).
As for the post war plan, this is one point I partially agree with you. Yes things have been screwed up but not because of a total lack of a plan. More so because of miscalculations about what the post war Iraqi military would look like. In short there was a plan, just a bad one. Yes they are to blame for that, but you don’t throw the baby out with the dishwater. If you are still reading this you either agree with my assertions in the first paragraph or you ignored my request to stop reading because you were a hopeless anti-Bush-ocrat. If you agree we had a just war then you should agree we need to fix the plan and stay the course to fixing Iraq. Which by the way is happening unbeknownst to the media and anti-Bush crowd? I could go on and on, but I would rather try to wrap things up.
If you want to continue to play politics and say the Kerry’s little joke was nothing compared to the Bush agenda’s failings, I will play your little game and argue. Sure Bush made mistakes but Kerry’s little joke was not a one time mistake or fumbled joke. It was just the tip of the iceberg of Democrat hypocrisy and political spin. Underneath his little joke are 6 terms of his service in the Senate which is marked by military cuts, slandering, tax raises and wishy-washy political jelly fish foreign policy. Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy and the other democrat leaders have done nothing but pass the buck when it comes to facing problems in favor of saving political face and playing to their liberal base. They passed the buck when Reagan was in office and dealing with the Cold War, they hesitantly joined on during Desert Storm, but balked when Sadaam ignored treaties and resolutions; they ignored nK and improved their nuclear refinement capabilities while ignoring weapon improvements and nuclear capability; they agreed with Bush to invade Iraq, then backed down when WMD ‘s weren’t found and claimed he lied and misled them, when they saw the same info. So who is calling who stupid here? Do you honestly think the public is stupid enough to ignore the “level of deadly incompetence exhibited” throughout the past 25 years by the Democrat liberal leadership? Peel the onion back and be honest with yourself, stop claiming Rove spin and deception and apply the same test to the liberals. From my point of view I honestly don’t think the Democrats want to fix or improve Iraq. They have offered no reasonable solutions. Instead the will use it as a political tool to spin them into power and attain their real agenda of government socialism and control through taxation and increased bureaucracy designed to neuter the population into government dependency. Now that is insulting to all Americans not just the troops.
Boy, my comment must need lots of moderation Kathy!
BL,
I’m not sure you are being intellectually honest here. You asked us to stop reading if we believed there was a lie involved. Did previous administrations have concerns about potential WMD in Iraq. I suspect that the answer is almost certainly they did. However, having concerns and presenting the case as solid evidence that supported an imminent threat to our country that justified ending centuries of precedent for not being the first to fire the shot (I know the Spanish American and Mexican Wars are exceptions) are not the same.
You threw in a few bonus reasons that were NOT part of the reasons for war until the WMD justification was discredited. Everyone knows Saddam is a bad guy. Everyone hates the way he treated the Kurds, Shiites and people who looked at him the wrong way. BUT THESE WERE NOT GIVEN AS REASONS TO GO TO WAR. WMD and the threat to America (along with long discredited connections to Al Quaeda) were the reasons. I, for one, refuse to accept your allegations of flip flopping. I made this statement to a Republican friend before the war and it is very close to an exact quote:
“I did not vote for the President. I support what he is doing in Afghanistan. While I did not vote for him, he is my President and he tells me there is a clear threat to this country due to WMD. I choose to believe my President. However, if the WMD is not there, he should be impeached.”
I know you will respond with what an unpatriotic idiot I am. I believed what I said then. It still holds today.
BL, I didn’t write the piece. Thomas Friedman did, and it says so at the top of the post. You’ve accused Democrats of almost everything aside from raping their mothers; I wouldn’t want to give you an excuse to throw plagiarism into the mix.
Bill-
You are correct, previous administrations and leaders did acknowledge the threat posed from Iraq and expressed it in grave terms. However they failed to have the fortitude to take any substantive action. “There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us……….Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.” Those are Bill Clinton’s words not Bush’s. That is why they passed the buck as I stated.
Also the reasons I gave were in fact given as reasons for a free Iraq. And yes pre-emptive strikes are a justifiable reason for war. Also enforcing treaties from previous wars that are not upheld are also reasons for war. All of which support that this was a just war. You may not agree with it, by according to the rules of the game it is a just war.
Yes WMD evidence was the number one reason, but it wasn’t the only one given. To say anything to the contrary is simply not factual. Check out the actual legislation signed by congress and tell me I am not right. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c107:./temp/~c107DrB6QV Then look at all the speeches and you can find numerous other reasons.
Finally, I don’t think I have called anyone here an unpatriotic idiot nor would I call you one for speaking your opinion.
Sorry Kathy, but since you posted it you I assumed two things. First that you agreed with the author. Second that you were commenting on the link since you usually change font and the like when posting someone else’s idea’s or you just refer to the link. Anyway I should have checked the link but I was more interested in what you had to say than someone else I don’t “know”. Don’t worry I will drop the plagerism charges but the maternal rape accusations remain!
“…a free Iraq…”
Wow, thanx for the laff, BL! [wipes tears of laughter from eyes]
Del if that is all you chose to attack in my post, I assume you agree with it. Plus relative to what Iraq was, it is 1000% more free than when Hussein was the head honcho. Not something to laugh at when a million of people now have the simplest of freedoms like a satellite dish or not being able to name your child a name that you want because you are not muslim. Too easy to take those freedoms for granted here in our cushy homes.