A Marine sees what defeatists don't: an answer to the defeatist whiners

Here is one who believes steadfast in the mission...100%

For our children...Godspeed to them all!

 

I'll do the honors





Zinni

 

Talk about your arm chair QBs --- i'd love to see you say some of this nonsense to General Zinni's face.



"You had something to say bama?"

---"uh no sir"

"That's what I thought"

 

can we add a "nattering nabobs of negativism" award to andy's thread? bama, thanks for posting this. i read it, and of course it totally contradicts the cassandras in the media and on the BBS, who thrill at every setback, and rush to discredit every success. kinda hard to minimize tho when it comes directly from a pair of the boots on the ground. i have a good friend who's so upset by "the war" that she's in therapy. seriously. i'd email her this, but she's too far gone i think. maybe just send her a train ticket to ottawa instead.

 

We just need to find the resolve to quit wringing our hands over minutae

Ignoring the minutae is what's gotten us into this mess. Not providing security, no post-war planning, assuming rosy scenarios, torturing prisoners, etc. This "war" (or whatever it is at this point) won't be won until you win the hearts & minds. You can't militarily destroy guerrila resistance - it hasn't worked anywhere and won't here. You have to make the Iraqis believe this can work - and so far what they are seeing has got to make them say "what's so great about democracy".

The solution is to actually start paying attention to the minutae beforehand instead of after-the-fact.

 

Lol! You're quoting Clausewitz while defending this war, and saying we're trying to limit civilian casualties?

That's rich.


BTW, and I don't mean to disparage your time as a Marine ( it was the USMC, right?) but I'd imagine the General in question has probably studies On War, and many other similar works, a tad more than yourself. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

How ludicrous. I think if God from on high came down and said, "Bush ****ed it up" ...you would redicule God.


"And I think that will be the first mistake that will be recorded in history, the belief that containment as a policy doesn't work. It's not a pleasant thing to have to administer, it requires troops full-time, there are moments when there ... there are periods of violence, but containment is a lot cheaper than the alternative, as we're finding out now."

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing about the benefits of this strategic move. That the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad, when just the opposite is true, the road to Baghdad led through Jerusalem. You solve the Middle East peace process, you'd be surprised what kinds of others things will work out.

The idea that we will walk in and be met with open arms. The idea that we will have people that will glom on to democracy overnight. The idea that strategically we will reform, reshape, and change the Middle East by this action -- we've changed it all right."

"... I think was one we repeated from Vietnam, we had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support. The books were cooked, in my mind. The intelligence was not there. I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee one month before the war, and Senator Lugar asked me: "General Zinni, do you feel the threat from Saddam Hussein is imminent?" I said: "No, not at all. It was not an imminent threat. Not even close. Not grave, gathering, imminent, serious, severe, mildly upsetting, none of those."

I predicted that the fighting would be over, the organized resistance in three weeks. To Tommy Franks' credit, he did it in 19 days. He beat my prediction. He did a magnificent job, as did our troops. But the rationale that we faced an imminent threat, or a serious threat, was ridiculous."

"Where we felt that we had to lead because we were the only ones that could do it, or it was in our vital national interests, we led. But we had magnificent coalitions.

"We failed... to internationalize the effort."

"I can't understand why there was an underestimation when you look at a country that has never known democracy, that has been in the condition it's been in, that has the natural fault lines that it has, and the issues it has. And to look at the task of reconstructing this country, not only reconstructing it, but the idea of creating Jeffersonian democracy almost overnight, is almost ridiculous, in concept, in the kind of time and effort that was given as an estimate as to what it would take."

"...the biggest one, was propping up and trusting the exiles, the infamous "Gucci Guerillas" from London. We bought into their intelligence reports. To the credit of the CIA, they didn't buy into it, so I guess the Defense Department created its own boutique intelligence agency to vet them. And we ended up with a group that fed us bad information. That led us to believe that we would be welcomed with flowers in the streets; that led us to believe that this would be a cakewalk."

" ...I testified before Congress in 1998, after a grilling from Senator McCain and all those wonderful senators supported the Iraqi Liberation Act, and I told them that these guys are not credible and they are going to lead us into something they we will regret. ...This plan was created by two senate staffers and a retired General. I happened to be the commander of central command, nobody bothered to ask me about how my troops would be used. And they were a little bit upset about me being upset about this. These exiles did not have credibility inside the country or in the region. Not only did they not have credibility, it was clear that the information they were providing us many times was not correct and accurate. We believed in them. We also brought them in with us and deemed them into the governing council and the reception by Iraqis has been, to say the least, has not been great."

" ...I think that lack of planning, that idea that you can do this by the seat of the pants, reconstruct a country, to make decisions on the fly, to beam in on the side that has to that political, economic, social other parts, just a handful of people at the last minute to be able to do it was patently ridiculous.

" ...insufficiency of military forces on the ground. ...Those extra divisions we had in there were not to defeat the Republican Guard, they were in there to freeze the security situation because we knew the chaos that would result once we uprooted an authoritarian regime like Saddam's."

" ...No one can tell me the Coalition Provisional Authority had any planning for its structure. ...Never quite fully manned-up until well into the operation. Never the kinds of qualifications or the breadth, and scope and depth it needed to work the problems down to the grassroots level."

" ...disbanding the Army, this is one I'll never understand... We had always intended if they didn't fight, we'd get rid of the leadership, we'd keep them in tact, we'd provide for some of their training, and we would have the basis for a ready-made force to pick up some of the security requirements. But they were disbanded. "

" ... One thing you learn in this business is, don't say it unless you're going to do it. In this part of the world, strength matters. And if you say you are going to go in and wipe them out, you better do it. If you say you're going to do it and then you back off and find another solution, you have lost face. And we have got to stop the kind of bravado and talk that only leads us into trouble out there. We need to be more serious and more mature in what we project as an image. Our whole public relations effort out there has been a disaster."


Yes, it is a disaster. And you ignore the most important point, in my opinion, that General Zinni made... we didn't have to do this. Bush, with so much help from the advisors that he still relies on, put our country in the fires of an unnecessary war. It's not about what's happening now, it's about what got us into this horrific mess. And if you make such a stink about Clinton and Somalia, as you do, bama, how in the hell can you justify this?

 

I do wish we got more positive news in every walk of life.

News focuses on the negative....too bad.

DD

 

I wish we had a President who wasn't Bad News, DD.


(are we really 2075 miles from Canada? )

 

Yep.....it is time for us to change it.....though.



DD

 

Cool.
Small world.

 

Bama, I have *zero* doubt that America will "win" in Iraq. None.

I just question the cost and the long-term effects.

 

He's preaching to the choir. Tell him to talk the Iraqi non believers. It doesn't matter what we think. *Before* the prison photos got released, we were at an 80 percent disapproval rating among Iraqis. Almost 2/3 want us to leave immediately according to poll numbers I heard on the radio.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22403-2004May12?language=printer

.
.
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In the poll, 80 percent of the Iraqis questioned reported a lack of confidence in the Coalition Provisional Authority, and 82 percent said they disapprove of the U.S. and allied militaries in Iraq.
.
.
.

 

My god, such insubordination in the face of an esteemed general (ret.) of the Corps deserves R. Lee Ermey style screaming and many, many calisthenics.

Briefly addressing your factual points --This one's a freebie; you frequently fail to address mine, especially, when they tend to disprove your pre-fab prejudices; I do believe that I am perfectly justified to respond in IMG tag format but will abstain.

Yes, I know war will not always fall according to plan, unfortunately, the planners themselves failed to account for this, despite nattering nabobs such as myself stridently reminding them otherwise.

Unfortunatlely, not only did they preach a bunch of hype, in public as well as under penalty of law ("We're dealing with a country that can finance its own rebuilding, and relatively soon!" (sworn testimony before congress)), they actually believed their own hype and committed blunder after blunder, which unfortunately has had the direct result of costing thousands and thousands of American and Iraqi lives. It has had the indirect result of indelibly damaging American standing in arab and non-arab countries which will indirectly cost more lives, in all likelihood (note: the bringing of freedom and democracy -- and hence relative benign-ness toward the US in arab lands, as opposed to poverty, repression, desperation and terrorism, was the stated long term object of this war. It has had the opposite effect). Just today, the golden boy, Chalabi (last year at this tiime, the future president of free, pro-american, pro israeli (LMFAO) Iraq), was sacrificed while poor Mr. Bremer tries to cover the leak in the dike with a band aid.

Finally, you fail to realize that what is happening is no longer a war that can be won by sheer military force; hearts and minds are not won behind the barrel of a gun. Are we "winning" in tactical terms by killing more than being killed? Sure. So are the Israelis....quite a victory they have going there. Are we winning in geopolitical terms? No, we are losing. Badly. And that is bad for you and me.

basso pangloss: I'm glad you're heartened; I shan't burst your bubble, by finding some boots on the ground who express a decidedly more nuanced view, or some Iraqis (one of that group of dead-enders that constitutes the 60-80% of the general populace who wants us to get the F out). I suggest you sign on to this germination of freedom flowers, for 200k you could teach some serious latin.

 

"Defeatist Whiner"

 

if zinni is right now, does that mean he was also right a few months ago about wes clarke being unfit to be president?