[Rhodes22-list] Politics - Comparison and Contrast

[brad haslett]

Stan,

You must be as busy as I am if you're just now getting
around to responding to this post (almost a month
old).  The point I was trying to make is that one can
develop widely divergent views on current events
depending on which newspaper you read or other media
sources you access.  At one extreme is the "Bush is
Bad/an Idiot/pawn of Haliburton/etc." and at the other
extreme, "Bush Walks On Water".  My personal opinion
is that W is on the leading edge of the bell curve
towards being correct most of the time, except for
spending issues where he seems to have forgotten that
the President has the power of veto.  Liberals should
be pleased with his inability to refuse a spending
bill and his increases in entitlement program funding.
 But, let's get back to the war.  Your assertion that
Bush and his cronies lied to launch the war is an oft
repeated cry of the left, ignoring the published
opinions and positions of such politicians as Clinton,
Kerry, Gore, Biden, and others prior to 9/11 about the
threat of Saddam and WMD.  The sad fact is that the
CIA had extremely poor resources in Iraq.  If ANYONE
can prove that Bush lied, they should be rallying the
troops for an impeachment hearing as we speak.  The
fact that they haven't speaks volumes about the
evidence they really have and their own responisbility
for their previous statements and positions.  Whether
we should have gone to Iraq in the first place
(knowing about WMD with perfect hindsight) is
certainly open for debate, but we're their now and and
it would be foolhardy to abandon the mission.  Few
serious politicians advocate setting a date for
withdrawal.  Bush will be out of office soon enough
Stan, and you'll have your chance to replace him with
a more "enlightened" candidate.  Regardless to who the
next Prez is, our enimies are not going away.  They
declared war on us over twenty years ago but it took
9/11 to wake us up to the seriousness of the problem. 
I realize it is probably like listening to fingernails
scratching a chalkboard to listen to W speak but
here's a link to a 2003 speech that outlines what is
at stake in Iraq.  Remember this speech was made
before the war so one has to discount the references
to WMD - the rest of the speech is quite valid.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030226-11.html

If you haven't committed suicide after that Stan,
here's a good, but long article on the ties between
Saddam and Al Queida.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp

Now I'll get back to whatever it was I was doing.  And
thank-you for your support.

Brad


--- stan <stan at rhodes22.com> wrote:

> thanks Brad,
> 
> No matter which editorials you endorse, the factual
> issue is that the leader 
> of our armed forces landed on a carrier under the
> banner, "mission 
> accomplished" and has since been proven to have been
> deadly wrong.  Many of 
> us do not feel we should be paying this CEO for this
> level of quality work 
> that can only be described as on par with Enron
> management with their claim 
> that as head of Enron they did not know what was
> really happening.  With all 
> the good brains available in this country, the
> standard the American people 
> are getting acclimated to is depressing.  Congress
> was willing to talk 
> impeachment of Clinton for lying and sex.  Why no
> talk of impeachment for 
> Bush for lying and murder.  Of course, with the
> handling of the war based on 
> wishes like "mission accomplished" and "shock and
> awe", instead of an 
> understanding of the underlying facts, an 
> impeachment proceeding should be 
> based on competence required for such an awesome
> position.
> 
> stan/EC
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com>
> To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 9:22 AM
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Politics - Comparison and
> Contrast
> 
> 
> > Here's a good excercise in comparison and contrast
> > (for those of you who have the time).  If only we
> had
> > a competing newspaper in Memphis.  Brad
> > -----------------
> >
> > ROLLIN' ON THE RIVERS
> >
> > By MACKUBIN T. OWENS
> >
> > MAY was a costly month in Iraq: 700 Iraqis and
> some 80
> > Americans died, making it one of the bloodiest
> months
> > of the war. While bombings in Baghdad decreased
> over
> > the last two weeks as the result of a major sweep
> by
> > some 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen, backed
> up by
> > 10,000 troops (Operation Lightning/Operation
> Thunder),
> > insurgent attacks against Iraqi civilians and
> police
> > have resumed.
> >
> > The continuing attacks have generated the usual
> sort
> > of stories in the U.S. press: America is mired in
> a
> > Vietnam-style quagmire. Thus a recent Boston Globe
> > report began by claiming: "Military operations in
> Iraq
> > have not succeeded in weakening the insurgency."
> >
> > But the Globe is wrong. Coalition operations in
> Iraq
> > have killed hundreds of insurgents and led to the
> > capture of many hundreds more, including two dozen
> of
> > Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's top lieutenants.
> Intelligence
> > from captured insurgents, as well as from
> Zarqawi's
> > computer, has had a cascading effect, permitting
> the
> > Coalition to maintain pressure on the insurgency.
> >
> > Vice President Dick Cheney's recent claim that the
> > insurgency was in its "last throes," however, was
> > clearly an overstatement. But while the outcome in
> > Iraq is far from certain - and even a favorable
> one
> > won't come overnight - evidence suggests the
> United
> > States and the new Iraqi government are on the
> right
> > track to ultimate success. To understand why, it
> is
> > necessary to grasp the essentials of the current
> U.S.
> > strategy in Iraq and how it seems to be playing
> out.
> >
> > The Globe's problem, one shared by most of the
> > American press, is the tendency to see events in
> Iraq
> > as isolated. They fail to see the overall
> campaign: a
> > series of coordinated events - movements, battles
> and
> > supporting operations - designed to achieve
> strategic
> > or operational objectives within a military
> theater.
> >
> > No force, conventional or guerrilla, can continue
> to
> > fight if it is deprived of sanctuary and logistics
> > support. Accordingly, the central goal of the U.S.
> > strategy in Iraq is to destroy the insurgency by
> > depriving it of its base in the Sunni Triangle and
> its
> > "ratlines" - the infiltration routes that run from
> the
> > Syrian border into the heart of Iraq.
> >
> > One ratline follows the Euphrates River corridor -
> > running from Syria to Husayba on the Syrian border
> and
> > then through Qaim, Rawa, Haditha, Asad, Hit and
> > Fallujah to Baghdad. The other follows the course
> of
> > the Tigris - from the north through Mosul-Tel Afar
> to
> > Tikrit and on to Baghdad. These two "river
> corridors"
> > constitute the main spatial elements of a campaign
> to
> > implement U.S. strategy.
> >
> > This campaign began last November with the
> takedown of
> > Fallujah.
> >
> > Wresting Fallujah from the rebels was critically
> > important: Control of the town had given them the
> > infrastructure - human and physical - necessary to
> > maintain a high tempo of attacks against the Iraqi
> > government and coalition forces.
> >
> > In and of itself, the loss of Fallujah didn't
> cause
> > the insurgency to collapse, but it did deprive the
> > rebels of an indispensable sanctuary. Absent such
> a
> > sanctuary, large terrorist networks cannot easily
> > survive, being reduced to small, hunted bands.
> >
> > With Fallujah captured, the Coalition continued a
> high
> > tempo of offensive operations. After losing the
> city,
> > Zarqawi apparently tried to reconstitute the
> > insurgency in Mosul, but was unable to do so
> because
> > of continued U.S. pressure. In Mosul as in
> Fallujah,
> > Coalition forces killed and captured insurgents -
> > forcing Zarqawi to move west into Al Anbar
> province.
> > In March, an Iraqi special operations unit
> captured an
> > insurgent camp near Lake Tharthar on the border of
> > Anbar and Salaheddin provinces. Such operations
> forced
> > him back to positions along the Syrian border.
> >
> > Next came the rivers campaign - to destroy the
> > insurgent infrastructure west and northwest of
> > Fallujah, and so shut down those "ratlines" -
> which
> > continues apace.
> >
> > May saw four operations within that campaign:
> >
> > * The first, Operation Matador, was a week-long
> Marine
> > action centered on Qaim, near the Syrian border.
> > Matador sought to kill and capture followers of
> > Zarqawi known to be located there and to interdict
> the
> > smuggling routes they used to move downriver to
> > Baghdad. Some 125 insurgents died in the fighting.
> >
> > * Next came Operation New Market, another Marine
> > operation, in the Haditha area southeast of Qaim.
> > Here, a major highway from Syria crosses the
> Euphrates
> > and then branches north toward Mosul and southeast
> > toward Fallujah and Baghdad. While the insurgents
> did
> 
=== message truncated ===



		
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