The buck stops at the top, with Bush. This situation is yet another manifestation of the abject lack of preparation by the administration. When Bush allowed a former Hussein general to take command of a legal militia and replace the marines around Fallujah, that was an absolutely incompetent decision. I wonder what the average Iraqi who was actually glad to have Hussein deposed thought when he saw us place that thug in power (over armed troops, no less)... I'm sure he thought to himself .oO (Well, I see who's going to be back in power once the Americans leave). Absolute insanity.
This war has been dicked up from the get go.
1. First Bush gave about a 1 year advance notice that we were going to go in -- sure, he went through the UN formalities, but we all knew what was coming. A full year or more for Hussein to plan and prepare -- and it's obvious he learned from the previous war.
2. Then we didn't put enough troops in country.
3. Then we allowed units to dissolve and mix back into the civilian populations during the conflict.
4. Then we allowed the Arab world to perpetuate the myth of "The Holy City" or "The Holy Place" -- what the fuck is a holy city? How can Fallujah be a holy city but not New Fucking York? And how holy a building can a mosque be if the arabs can launch an attack from it and cry "sanctuary?" If they aren't treating it as holy, why should we?
5. Then we allowed Al-Jazeera to continue spewing propaganda and covering the war from its one side -- anti-American. For instance, in all of the terrorist bombing attacks in Iraq, not ONCE did Al Jazeera show a picture of dead kids or even mention that any kids were killed (by the arab terrorists) -- yet their broadcasts and webpages are filled with every single child's death caused by the Americans. You have to shut down that kind of propaganda.
6. Now we've got an overabundance of untrained reservists and national guardspeople, including way too many females, pulling important assignments.
My only argument against this war before it was launched was my concern that strategy, objectives, and means would be dictated by politicians and political generals instead of warriors, and that such a situation, just as in Vietnam, would be the worse case scenario; unfortunately, it has to come to pass.
Now there is no possible exit strategy which will guarantee our objectives -- some are better than others and still have an outside shot, but I am not optimistic.
And throw in the fact that when the Iraqi pipelines are not being sabotagued, we're discovering that the wells have been dicked up to an incredible extent, just as in the former USSR, and that there's massive water seepage i.e. we overestimated Iraqi production capacities.
It's bad and it's only going to get worse.
This war has been dicked up from the get go.
1. First Bush gave about a 1 year advance notice that we were going to go in -- sure, he went through the UN formalities, but we all knew what was coming. A full year or more for Hussein to plan and prepare -- and it's obvious he learned from the previous war.
2. Then we didn't put enough troops in country.
3. Then we allowed units to dissolve and mix back into the civilian populations during the conflict.
4. Then we allowed the Arab world to perpetuate the myth of "The Holy City" or "The Holy Place" -- what the fuck is a holy city? How can Fallujah be a holy city but not New Fucking York? And how holy a building can a mosque be if the arabs can launch an attack from it and cry "sanctuary?" If they aren't treating it as holy, why should we?
5. Then we allowed Al-Jazeera to continue spewing propaganda and covering the war from its one side -- anti-American. For instance, in all of the terrorist bombing attacks in Iraq, not ONCE did Al Jazeera show a picture of dead kids or even mention that any kids were killed (by the arab terrorists) -- yet their broadcasts and webpages are filled with every single child's death caused by the Americans. You have to shut down that kind of propaganda.
6. Now we've got an overabundance of untrained reservists and national guardspeople, including way too many females, pulling important assignments.
My only argument against this war before it was launched was my concern that strategy, objectives, and means would be dictated by politicians and political generals instead of warriors, and that such a situation, just as in Vietnam, would be the worse case scenario; unfortunately, it has to come to pass.
Now there is no possible exit strategy which will guarantee our objectives -- some are better than others and still have an outside shot, but I am not optimistic.
And throw in the fact that when the Iraqi pipelines are not being sabotagued, we're discovering that the wells have been dicked up to an incredible extent, just as in the former USSR, and that there's massive water seepage i.e. we overestimated Iraqi production capacities.
It's bad and it's only going to get worse.
Ricardo's Rants
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