Bush Advising Clinton
Dean
I suppose some people will find this story very hard to believe, but it perfectly matches the impression I have always had of the President--as a decent, honest, and responsible man who takes the office seriously.
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I wish the candidates would be more frank with the voters. The American people need to get used to the fact that there are going to be some US troops in Iraq for the long haul. It will take some responsible democrats to stop demagoging the issue. Despite what you may think of the president, at the end of his term he will have gotten pretty much everything he wanted in Iraq. In fact he has shaped conditions such that his successor whether democrat or republican will be forced to stay the course in Iraq.
doseprescription of freedom for Iraq at the tune of $ 159 Billion dollars (US).That ought to give Hillary something to think about while George passes her notes on improving her political chances.
Oh well, the political process isn't important for those ppl, anyhow.
Meanwhile, the US can take an 18 year old put him through 18 weeks of basic training and send him off to secure Iraq and the Iraqs haven't had enough training after four years to tell the US guys you can go home.
Such a deal.
I hope your kidding, or if not, you have the sense to refrain from such naive analysis in the future.
18 weeks produces a private. That private needs corporals, sergeants, senior NCO's, and officera above him to function, none of which are cranked out in "18 weeks," and four years is still rock-bottom as far as professional service goes.
The US military has been in Korea 55 years. Can you project any time in the future when the US will end the war with North Korea or when it might be safe enough for the US military to leave ?
Okay, so you back up your failed insight with an apples:orangutangs comparison.
Really, steer clear of discussions about the military if this is your level of knowledge and capability.
Iraq is an exercise in fighting a terrorist insurgency, by both combatting the insurgents directly and training the Iraqis to do it, where Korea is a case of protecting an allied nation from another implicity hostile nation. South Korea has a professional military, but still not capable of standing off a militaristic totalitarian regime such as North Korea.
So now that that non sequitur has been dealt with, are you still standing by your poor analysis of the Iraqi training situation, or are you trying to put that embarassment beind you without admitting to it?
after 50 yearsis not capable of standing off a militaristic totalitarian regime such as North Korea. Why is that ?John, the question was the same question that the President of South Korea asked GWB, their last meeting this year.
Next, Iraq was never sold as:
"... an exercise in fighting a terrorist insurgency."
The goal was getting rid of Saddam and non-existent WMDs.
So in three days of Shock and Awe and after capturing and interning thousands of Iraq military, GWB told them to go home to their families and be good citizens, then George declared military victory on the USS Lincoln May 1, 2003 after a photo-op with him in his F-16 pants suit. We had won after all.
We are now, embarassingly enough at the stage of
an exercise in fighting a terrorist insurgency.
Can you foretell, or can you realize, we will be in Iraq ad infinitum 50 + years as the end goal wasn't victory at all but a permanent presence in Iraq.
Lest you think I am being irrational, please be advised, when I go to the local VA and see persons under the age of 30 that are sightless or limbless, that these are the kind of questions, I ask myself.
Ummm... that whole "Mission Accomplished" bit is really showing it's age, and the naivete of those using it. That banner, and those words, were referring to the carrier battle-group's mission, not the whole operation in Iraq.
Iraq was never sold to the American people, or to anyone else, as a seperate war, something that could be viewed as a stand-alone conflict. It has been, and will continue to be, a theater in the war on terror. It is one area of operations, and although a significant one, it is nonetheless only a portion of a global war we are embroiled in. A war, i might add, that we did not seek nor cause to come about, but which we must win.
As to Korea, those US troops are there to support the ROK, and to act as a trip-wire. It's the same reason we had several divisions in Germany for so many years.
Now, you want to pull out troops? Okay then. Let's start with Europe. Pull out our forces except for shared logistics and support facilities. Let's also deal with the real US quagmire: Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, et al. There is NO reason for a single US serviceman to risk his life for what is a European problem and certainly qualifies as anotherin a long line of failed United Nations experiments.
Iraq? John has it correct. You can train a monkey to carry a weapon. Look at the Taliban, for heaven's sake. However, raising an army isn't a 2, or 4 year program. It is a 10-year to a single generation, just to lay the groundwork. It takes years to develop a competant NCO and Officer corps, to learn the skills, and generate the experience required to lead men into battle and succeed.
Even with the short period we have been doing this, however, there are indeed some units that are exceeding beyond all expectations, while some other will need more time. It's the way it is.
And beyond the combat units, there is the logistical base. there';s an old saying that is as valid today as it was in Homer's time: Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics. Any army will dissolve without support. Food, water, ammunition, medical support. Army slang is Beans, Bullets, and Bandages. You need people as skilled or more so in those support units as you do in the combat teams.
On top of all that, you need to raise up these support units without taking away talented managers and engineers from the civilian side of the country. Despite the left's glowing effusion for the "good 'ol days" of Saddam, the nation was NEVER as well off as it is now, except, of course, for Saddam and his friends. despite everything AQI has tried to do, progress continues to be made. It ain't America, and it never will be, but what is rising up is a far cry better than it was before we showed up.
Respects,
See, you keep proving me right as to your incompetence on these matters. You made an ignorant statement, which has nothing to do with a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, instead referring to the unrelated subject of the training of the Iraqi forces. If you think this helps your point, maybe you should take some time off away from the internets.
Lest you think I am being irrational, please be advised, when I go to the local VA and see persons under the age of 30 that are sightless or limbless, that these are the kind of questions, I ask myself.
Having served, having come from a family that has served, and having many friends now serving, please, allow me to ask you to keep your violin to yourself. If you go to the VA at all, ghoulishly soaking up the pain of injured veterans to boost your sense of self-righteousness doesn't do anything whatsoever to help them, and all you do is insult them by trying to claim their cause as yours.
As to your ignorance:
South Korea has a professional military, but still after 50 years is not capable of standing off a militaristic totalitarian regime such as North Korea. Why is that ?
I thought I made it quite clear, to anyone with a high-school level of reading comprehension. Here, I'll highlight the relevant words: militaristic totalitarian regime. So long as the Norks have that, and the backing of a major power in their ally China, South Korea is going to need U.S. assistance.
I don't think you're irrational, McKiernan, I think you're utterly ignorant and blinded by your personal politics. I also think, based on the sum of the statements you've made thus far, that you're not really worth debating. You don't know enough to even frame a good argument, which is why you've been all over the map of talking points instead of having a single decent point.
I only had one single decent point which you seem to have missed:
"I see where the Secretary of Defense is calling for another
doseprescription of freedom for Iraq at the tune of $ 159 Billion dollars (US)."And that really told me everything I needed to know about your comments. They had little to do with Iraq, little to do with the topic of the post - that President Bush was meeting with the candidates to explain the situation and give them the best information possible - and everything to do with hating Chimpy McBusHitlerFlightsuit.
Real grown-up like there, McKiernan
Mission Accomplished
Then the White House:
President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended
We are now in an endless stalemate as in K-o-r-e-a ?
It's good information.
McKiernan, you were already told what the banner referred to; and the major combat operations against Saddam's Army ended years ago.
And I doubt this will end up as K-o-r-e-a because (1) there is no D-P-R-K facing us and (2)no P-R-C backing them.
We are not in an endless stalemate in Iraq. As Dean has pointed out here, there are two things well-documented about insurgencies:
1. They last up to ten years.
2. They almost always fail.
The limited cases where insurgencies succeeded, it was because they wore down the will of the opposing side.
Now do you have any original points to make, or are you just outputting the leftroid programming talking points du jour? If sites like "commondreams" are where you get your info, no wonder you're haplessly uninformed.
Yours,
Wince
No, I'm not a leftist. I've never used smear words like your...Chimpy McBusHitlerFlightsuit. I voted for GWB once, that was once too many and have never voted democrat but a few times-- not recently. I've not even accused him of bad strategery. (cough)
I do believe Bush is honorable but also to a large degree mistake prone. Gone to retirement are many top strategist three and four stars Generals as well as Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. You might say we're bogged down in the sands for the next ten to fifty years.
Now, some don't believe its an insurgency at all but more of a civil war both militarily and politically between bickering, irreconcilable Iraqi factions like Sadr and his ilk and toss in some ethnic cleansing while you're at it.
Politically, Bush I and Bush II's public alliances with the Clintons, leaves something to be desired. Bush doesn't seem to recognize a two party system anymore, not that he ever did. But, at least we know who the in-club members are.
So, is it okay for McK to have his own opinions on these matters ?
Thanks, Wince. Yes I did once vote for Buchanan in a primary where I was assured he wasn't going to win the state.
Does anyone remember Senator Everett Dirksen ? He was known to have said:
"A billion here, a billion there ... Pretty soon you're talking real money."
So while y'all wait out the next ten to 50 years in Iraq, I got to thinking about the person referred to in the post as er (cough)...a man who takes the office seriously.
Unfortunately, the same person does seem to ignore certain parts of the U S Constitution prior to passing that pesky USA Patriot Act..
Tsk Tsk, and that very same fellow took an oath of office to uphold and defend the very same Constitution of the United States of America.
You're forgiven.
But Bush really did have an F-16 pantsuit.
Now don't read the article, it'll mess up the brain.
And an F-16 is an airforce fighter, and can't land on carriers.
So "F-16 pantsuit" really comes across as a bit snide.
I'm just old air force not some fancy navy guy. BTW, a civilian is prohibited by law from wearing a US military uniform and decorations even if they were earned while on active duty many years ago.
Now that is picayune. The law is like that sometimes.
Don't I know. "The law is an ass."
He's not a leftist --- he's just confused. Eject, McKiernan, eject!!! The bogeys are all over you!
Hank Barnes
p.s. Our defense of South Korea for the past 55 or so years, actually, supports our efforts in Iraq. We prevented South Korea from becoming a miserable, Communist wasteland, like its aggressor, North Korea. The boys in the Frozen Chosin did not die in vain.
If we had followed this formula in Vietnam, preserving, not abandonning, the South, history would likely have shined favorably on us.
We're kinda at a cross-roads -- fight to preseve (Korea) or quit (Vietnam).
Making the same (latter) mistake twice -- encouraged by some of the same voices -- ain't so hot an idea, in my estimation.
Of course, I'm a bit of a curmudgeon, and deuced tired of correcting the same old spin, so my grouchieness tends to get the better of me in threads like this.
Okay, McKiernan, so you're a fellow former airman. Good enough for me. I also agree the laws about civilian veterans and uniforms is a bit daft, but at least in the Commander in Chief's case it very likely does not apply.
Incidentally, "civil war" is hyperbole used in respect to Iraq. The numbers backing and supporting the insurgents inside Iraq are too low, and of too many different groups, to make for a successful alternative to the Iraqi government. Also, the cell structue being used, both by al Qaeda and copied from them by other groups, may make it more difficult to roll up their organization at once, but at the same time it means they aren't sufficiently organized to actually win in the long term. Unless we let them by giving up and going home.
As they say, 9/11 changed everything. It woke Bush up to the dangers to the U.S. of living hostile terror-supporting regimes in power, and it woke up the Democrats to the political dangers of allowing a Republican to successfully prosecute a war.
In 2000, Bush was the better choice. In 2004, Bush wasn't a great choice, but he was better than the alternative. In 2008, it may take a Democrat in the White House to get the rest of their party to grow the fark up and help successfully complete our goals in Iraq and the overall War on Terror.
In practice the Constitution has always been a very flexible document - including right after adoption. The Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed by Congress, not overturned by the Courts, for example.
I'm not impressed with the unconstitutionality of the Patriot Act. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid look less constitutional to me. And the Partial-Birth Abortion act even less so, even though I'm pro-life. Congress could consider an abortion to be interstate if the operating table straddles the state line, but otherwise that's about as intrastate a behavior as possible. Not to mention that medical treatment is not really a commercial activity.
But hey, I think Wickard is the third worst Supreme Court decision ever, after Roe and Dred Scott.
Yours,
Wince
That isn't entirely true. Any veteran who holds an honorable discharge may, indeed, wear his uniform for certain occasions. Two other changes have been added within the past couple of years.
First: Veterans have been authorised, and are encouraged, to wear their ribbons and medals and other such decorations upon a suit coat or blazer for Veteran's Day and Memorial Day.
Veterans who have an honorable discharge may now render a military salute, even when in civilian clothes, at those time where the national anthem is played, the colors are presented, and at funerals during the playing of taps. This latter was encompased into Federal law recently by an act of congress and sined by the president. All non-veterans are still encouraged to render homours to the flag via placing their hand or cap over their left breast.
FWIW, as a former Navy Aircrewman, we always called them zoom-bags, though the Navy referred to them as flight suits or flying coveralls, depending upon which set of regs you were reading.
respects,
Perhaps you need to re-read the link. The plaintiff had his entire life effed over because of false charges since 2004.
"Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.
The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.
Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.
"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.
By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."
If you notice that Congress and the President take an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So while we wait 10 to 50 years in Iraq, our Liberties are being endangered.
... twas the founders intent that el presidente of the US of A be a civilian position.
If he in fact has a valid DD 214, he are one.
John, I warned about reading the article on bbs news. I only looked at the picture of GWB and the Navy S-3b Viking which required only two fly-bys in order to find the ship undoubtedly due to the big wavy navy davy waters off the San Diego NAS war zone.
George actually wanted to fly in a F-18 Hornet but that was nixed. Notice the nice big scoop on the bottom to catch the please land-me wire.
Now read this part:
Commander in Chief lands on USS Lincoln
"Bush wanted to swoop onto the deck of the Lincoln aboard an F-18 Hornet, but the Secret Service nixed the idea -- they didn't like leaving the president unguarded in a fighter jet that only has space for the president and a pilot.
...
Officials also told CNN that in preparation for the flight, Bush underwent water survival training, which involves sitting in a simulated cockpit that fills up with water, then spins around, while the person inside has to escape and come up for air. To pilots, the training is known as "panic in a can."
They got that part right.
I forgot to add that Bush is now advising Hillary.
Well, true. . . I wasn't whacking you so much there as the site itself.
The caption for the pic identified it as a flight suit, though, not a pant suit.
And two fly-bys for a distantly former TANG pilot trying out a carrier landing is pretty damned good. It's roughly like criticizing a once-a-year golfer for only getting one hole-in-one in eighteen holes.
Heh, the Dilbert Dunker was one of my favorite parts of the whole water survival course. Several of us incurred a wrathful glare from the Chief running the system when we enquired if we could "go again"...
The real scary one is the Helo trainer. That one simulates the inside of a transport helo, and you go through it twice. It hits the water staright out flat, then rolls over upside down, sometimes forward, sometimes backwards. You are inside with several other folks and you all have to get out and find your way to the surfce. the second time you do it, you have to do it blind folded. None of us wanted to do that a second time.
As to the S-3, they wouldn't have let the President land it anyway, not without being checked out in the aircraft and then carqualed. No way, no how. I spent some time crewing the SENSO position on an S-3, directly behind the pilot. It's a 4-man crew, and the Secret Service wanted the two rear seats for themselves.
Now, letting the Pres have some stick time on the way out to the birdfarm? Yeah, ne sweat. He flew one of the most challenging fighters the USAF ever had, and one that carried nuclear-tipped missiles, so the S-3 would've been easy comparitively.
Respects,
A flight suit with certain devices and patches attached becomes a uniform, by having those devices and patches.
IANAL.
Bet she gets overturned on appeal. There are a large number of exceptions which the courts have found to the Fourth Amendment, and which I agree with. If you consider the original public meaning important, the Fourth Amendment establishes the rules for warrants, which immunized officers of the law from being sued if they conducted an improper search. Officers could search without one, but were then subject to a personal suit and the plantiff could win damages if the search was deemed improper.
I'm not impressed by her quotes either. The rule of law is not in danger. Our real problem is too much rule of law. I'm also sure her Honor is perfectly happy to "amend" the Bill of Rights when she thinks it's a good idea. Bet she wouldn't rule against McCain - Feingold. Bet she would throw prayer out of the schools, in spite of 'the free exercise of' part of our freedom of religion. Those quotes are just rhetoric.
The Constitution is just a piece of paper. A good lawyer will beat a piece of paper every time. Sometimes a good lawyer with a piece of paper can't beat a better lawyer with no piece of paper.
If we want to protect our rights we have to do it. The courts and the Constitution aren't sufficient.
As far our rights go, Wilson, FDR and Truman (among others) trampled them. Bush treads lightly, circumscribed by laws and lawyers to the left, the right, in front, in back, above and below.
Yours,
Wince
And in the latest issue of The Navigator (the USCGAux magazine, sorry - no link), a retired US Navy Commander wore his uniform when his son graduated from the Coast Guard Academy. It depends on the situation, too.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.