<p>“I would ask you to consider Lieberman’s motivations. Does he have anything to gain by his continuing support of the efforts to stabilize Iraq?”</p>
<p>Leberman’s support to war comes from his love for Israel. Anything that is good for Israel is good for America.</p>
<p>Putting aside partisan recrimnations, our government doesn’t know what’s going on in the Middle East and therefore has no plan to address any perceived American goals or the facts of the domestic situation in that region. The Republican congress signed a blank check ideologically for the war since 2003. The new Democrat Congress, with a few exceptions, doesn’t have much strategy or viable objectives either.</p>
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Okay, back to the same questions. Why would George Tenet lie? Either you believe that the entire intelligence apparatus is part of the SAME huge conspiracy, or you have to assume that there may be information to which the public does not have access.</p>
<p>Personally, I tend to think that most people are incapable of keeping a secret, and conspiracies are doomed to failure. So that leaves me in the camp that says there may be information of which I’m unaware, which led both Clinton and Bush to accept the veracity of what Tenet was saying.</p>
<p>sjmom, I applaud your efforts but remember what you are dealing with on this board. Of course, let’s forget Lieberman or anyone else who doesn’t agree with all the “liberal” military experts on this board. That’s the new liberal attitude, all voices should be heard and respected, unless of course you are opposed to their viewpoint. </p>
<p>Why should we define winning when most of you here don’t want to win, no matter what the consequences. Let’s be honest , you would be against any military action right now, be it Iraq, Iran, North Korea,etc. The execution element is actually irrelevant. For months all we heard was “what about Iran, we should be dealing with that threat and not wasting our time in Iraq”. Yes, now we all know how they would react to any military action in Iran. The only acceptable action is to lob a few cruise missiles – but make sure no one gets hurt.</p>
<p>The biggest joke I hear from liberals is that “I was in favor of the war in Afghanistan but turned against our efforts when we went into Iraq”. I live in Portland and the anti-war groups were out in force the same day we invaded Afghanistan. At least I give them credit – they make their position known and don’t revise it when everyone jumps on the band wagon. They have guts, not like the “weenies” here.</p>
<p>“Let’s be honest , you would be against any military action right now, be it Iraq, Iran, North Korea,etc”</p>
<p>Bingo. Why be a war monger?</p>
<p>To change the subject away from Senator from Israel, Joe Lieberman…</p>
<p>You guys missed the key quote from the Guardian article:</p>
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<p>For those not familiar, “go long” is a part of Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy that requires a substantial military presence for 5 to 10 years, underscoring the fact that the term “surge” is itself a predmeditated lie.</p>
<p>BTW, the Washington Post has an excellent feature on one of the new Baghdad neighborhood outputs in yesterday’s edition:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022802217.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022802217.html</a></p>
<p>“To change the subject away from Senator from Israel, Joe Lieberman”</p>
<p>I will have to use that line :)</p>
<p>Simba, I have a question for you, and it’s not meant to be sarcastic. </p>
<p>When would you go to war? No one LIKES war, least of all the military. But there comes a time when people must take a stand. In WWII, the US didn’t enter the war until forced to by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Info about the Holocaust was getting out, and Hitler’s intentions to dominate Europe were clear, but still this country didn’t step in.</p>
<p>So, under what circumstances would you use the US military?</p>
<p>For the war mongers here, do you think your “winning” justifies all the deaths in Iraq? Where is your God?</p>
<p>Interesteddad, since we still have a US military presence in Europe, Japan and South Korea 50 or 60 years after the conflicts were concluded, 10 -15 years in Iraq would be a swift victory indeed.</p>
<p>padad, we’ll never know what an alternate universe would be like if we hadn’t gone to war with Iraq. For all any of us know, the death toll from a continued development of WMDs, genocide against any civilian group Hussein didn’t like that day, or shooting down jets over the no-fly zone may have dwarfed what’s happened so far.</p>
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Not necessarily - there is quite likely a difference between a “substantial military presence” and the additional troops called for by “the surge”. Suppose the “go long” strategy called for 80,000 troops. It would still be called “substantial” but would also be a substantial reduction from “the surge”. It would also be in line with recommendations of the ISG which also recommended a “go long” strategy of about 80,000 troops as I recall.</p>
<p>And, what would be so terrible about a “go long” strategy. We’ve been “going long” in Korea and Europe for over 50 years and it seems to be working. The Middle East is certainly more strategic than S. Korea.</p>
<p>The Iraqi deaths, for which the US is responsible, will soon (if the number hasn’t already) far dwarf anything Saddam might have considered.</p>
<p>Untold thousands (hundreds of thousands? Who knows? No one seems to care) of deaths due to an unprovoked war. </p>
<p>This is a very good op-ed on the subject:</p>
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<p>“We cannot fully absolve ourselves of those deaths.” I agree.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/01/rescinding_the_bush_doctrine/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/01/rescinding_the_bush_doctrine/</a></p>
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<p>SJMOM:</p>
<p>There have been many books detailing the intelligence failures over the last decades in the Middle East and the dynamics of the relationships among the Saudis, the US, the Iraqi National Congress (Chalibi), the Defense Deparment, the CIA chiefs, and the necons. Tenant is featured heavily in many of the these books.</p>
<p>Start with Bob Woodward’s books, which were sourced from the highest levels of the W. White House. Then, move forward from there.</p>
<p>The dynamics are complex and don’t lend themselves to partisan soundbytes. At least during the Bush administration, Tenant made sure that the CIA told W. and Cheney and Rumsfeld what they wanted to hear. Analysts who offered contradictory intelligence assessment were cut out of the loop.</p>
<p>The Baghdad station chief who wrote the first major assessment that things were out of control in Iraq (in 2002) was relieved of his CIA post. The analysts realized six months after the invasion had ended that the US had not defeated the Baathists, only driven them underground where they were well funded and well organized. Washington didn’t want to hear it because it ran counter to the grandiose scheme of using a relative handful of troops to bring democracy to the welcoming arms of the Iraqis.</p>
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<p>Then Bailey21 you suffer from a complete lack of imagination: from before we went into Iraq, I felt strongly it was a mistake. On the other hand, I always thought going into Afghanistan was justified and a good thing – and the only real problem is that we never finished the job, of moving aggressively enough to get Bin Laden or finish the war. What all this means is I am not a pacifist. I am not anti-war per se. I am anti-stupid war. And Iraq was a dumbass war for us to get involved in, as Bush Sr. knew when he resisted invading Iraq following the expulsion of Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. Spare me your shallow anti-liberal tirades, please.</p>
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But yet the Senate inquiry, the Silberman/Robb commission, and the Iraq Study Group didn’t find any of this. Perhaps they should have relied on “unnamed sources” to get their information.</p>
<p>“Why would George Tenet lie?”</p>
<p>That one is pretty simple. In 1997, he was brought in to cover up for the Clinton genocide - one million people dead, roughly half children under five. More people than died in the genocide in Rwanda. Between 3 and 6 times all the people killed by Idi Ami. European nations calling Clinton/Albright on the carpet for their crimes. </p>
<p>It worked, too. All after the fact. Neither Clinton nor any foreign power had ANY reputable intelligence that Saddam Hussein was producing WMDs or delivery systems form 1992-1996. And then you can read the statements of Lieberman, Biden, Levin and their ilk leading up to the Christmas bombing of 1998, all citing the production of WMDs and technologies to deliver them. All lies, bought by so-called “experienced”, “astute”, and “intelligent” Democratic experts. None of it existed. </p>
<p>This wasn’t an “intelligence failure”, but an “intelligence” success. The Clinton/Tenet lies formed the foundation for Bush’s. Bush kept him on for that purpose. While some of the content changed, what remained the same was that the Democrats were so accustomed to buying the lies from George Tenet, they were prepared to buy more of them.</p>
<p>“genocide against any civilian group Hussein didn’t like that day”</p>
<p>I’m still waiting for them to put Saddam Hussein on trial for the use of poison gas against the Kurds. (But I wouldn’t hold my breath - the execution was well-timed, don’t you think?)</p>
<p>sjmom: The key word in your sentence is," In WWII, the US didn’t enter the war until forced to by the attack on Pearl Harbor"</p>
<p>Iraq or Iran has not attacked US yet.</p>
<p>Bailey, you’re quite mistaken. Part of my anger about Iraq is due to the relative neglect given Afghanistan, where, unlike Iraq, there was a problem before we invaded. However, our total attention paid to Iraq has been desultory and we whine that we don’t get enough international support there whereas if we spent half the dollars and manpower we’ve spent in Iraq in Afghanistan instead, we’d be making damned good progress.</p>
<p>As to the two other largest problems, Pakistan gets finger-wagging from Dick Cheney about the Northwest Tribal areas and nothing more. An Islamist coup in Pakistan with nuclear weapons is actually among the worst scenarios I can think of. And what do we have left to respond with?</p>
<p>And then there’s Saudi Arabia, the cultural and ideological home of Islamist extremism…to which way pay zilch attention.</p>
<p>Btw, it’s audacious for any Bush supporter to mention North Korea since, in essence, they reverted to a policy not far from Clinton’s under terms they could have gotten four years ago. So much for bluster and posturing.</p>
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<p>Comparing US military installations in Europe and Japan to Iraq is so disingenuous that I don’t even know how to respond. The US military in Europe and Japan haven’t had anything to do with WWII for fifty years. They have been a part of the Cold War defense posture focused on the Soviet Union.</p>