who is, Zinni? and as far as bush's advisors being in combat, does Powell count? didn't he spend time in the same rice paddies as zini? what about General Myers? Tommy Franks? any of these guys count?
For 100th time: being a patriot by supporting your COUNTRY and supporting an administration is not the same thing. one can criticize the government leadership and still support the troops and love his country. It's that whole "with us or against us" mindset. Just because I disagree with the current administration does not make me against America.
I have never really understood who "they" are in this quotation. His writing appears to mean that *democrats* feel this way, which is incorrect, slanderous, and just plain crazy. I'd say that most democrats want us to finish the job (now that we've started it) with as little loss of life as possible. 99% of people who opposed the war still wanted us to accomplish the stated goals if Bush sent us there. Even if Dean wants us to bring the troops home, he's not rooting for them to get killed or something in order to help his political position. Again, that's just a hyperbolic and disgusting thing to say about anyone. So again, who are "they" that wish for our defeat? It makes no sense. Politics in our nation continue to descend as we make more and more ridiculous claims about one another's beliefs. It's contagious and sad. Happy holidays.
Powell was in charge of the initial investigation into My Lai and could not find anything wrong... I'm just using Card's definition of unpatriotic and listing examples.
Well to some extent I agree. We are in the shadowy world of nuance here rather than in cavelike darkness or blinding sunlight.
Sorry Mulder but I don't think the world is that simplistic... oh, I know it is on paper but in life things are different. Both praise and criticism can have <b>un</b>intended affects. That is what Card is talking about. He is only criticizing Democratic politicians for their selfish political intentions not their anti-American agenda. You all keep trying to reduce it to that, but I think that is dishonest... if you read what he wrote rather than extrapolating it.
Oh, okay. As long as Card is down with their "anti-American agenda." It's all good. I don't want to vote for no selfish politician, but I sure do want me an anti-American one. Uh huh.
Talk to Card's critics. They are the ones who are putting the words in Card's mouth (or pen/keyboard as it were).
Loved Ender's Game. One of my favorite novels of all time. He's a really great author. Great article too, at least one Dem can see the light of Bush.
who is, Zinni? and as far as bush's advisors being in combat, does Powell count? didn't he spend time in the same rice paddies as zini? And Powell has pretty much disagreed with the rest of the administration virtually every step of the way. (read <I>Bush at War</I> for some inside perspective on the relationships of Bush, Powell, Tenet, Cheney, and Rice)
That is what Card is talking about. He is only criticizing Democratic politicians for their selfish political intentions not their anti-American agenda. You all keep trying to reduce it to that, but I think that is dishonest... if you read what he wrote rather than extrapolating it. Interesting that you talk about extrapolation, when that is exactly what you're doing when trying to decide which Democrats are against the war for political reasons vs. actual beliefs.
When did I ever try to decide any such thing? I spent my efforts here trying to keep people from mis-representing what Card said to suit their own purposes. Card never specifically names a candidate and I don't think I did either. It was a generalized criticism on his part.
Card never specifically names a candidate and I don't think I did either. You said: <I>He is only criticizing Democratic politicians for ...</I> You translated "critics of the war" to "Democratic politicians". You must have had someone in mind, no? If not, why the change from what Card said - he didn't mention Democrats at all.
I found some unpatriotic members of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25935-2003Dec23.html White House Faulted on Uranium Claim Intelligence Warnings Disregarded, President's Advisory Board Says By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A01 The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Hussein had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, according to a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings. In the speech Jan. 28, President Bush cited British intelligence in asserting that Hussein had tried to buy uranium from an unnamed country in Africa. The White House later said the claim should not have been made, after reports that the intelligence community expressed doubts it was true. After reviewing the matter for several months, the intelligence board -- chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft -- has determined that there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate" a story, the source said. Instead, the source said, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Hussein's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable. The source said that at the time of the State of the Union speech, there was no organized system at the White House to vet intelligence, and the informal system that was followed did not work in the case of that speech. The White House has since established procedures for handling intelligence in presidential speeches by including a CIA officer in the speechwriting process. The board shared its findings with Bush earlier this month. It is the first government body to complete its inquiry into an episode that buttressed criticism by lawmakers and others that the administration exaggerated intelligence to make the case for war. Word of its findings has also circulated within the White House and on Capitol Hill. The White House declined to comment on the board's findings. The findings of the advisory board do not appear to add many new details about the uranium episode, but they make it clear that the White House should share blame with the CIA for allowing the questionable material into the speech. CIA Director George J. Tenet and deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley have accepted responsibility for allowing the assertion into the address. In May, Bush asked Scowcroft to look into how the alleged Iraqi attempt to buy uranium in Africa -- the claim concerned Niger -- made it into the presidential speech. The intelligence board, made up of 16 members, including former California governor Pete Wilson, former Netscape chief executive Jim Barksdale and retired Adm. David E. Jeremiah, traditionally provides the president private advice on intelligence questions. Scowcroft served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, among others. That request came at the same time that members of the Senate intelligence panel asked the inspectors general of the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department to investigate the matter. The House and Senate intelligence committees are looking into the episode as well. Although the president's intelligence board keeps its findings secret, the Senate panel plans to make public details of its inquiry in a report, which is being drafted and is expected to be released next spring, according to congressional sources. "The whole Niger case will be disclosed and the entire story told because it is not classified," one senior congressional aide familiar with the committee inquiry said yesterday. At the time of the president's speech, the allegation about Hussein's uranium purchase in Africa was already part of the administration's campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. Although at the request of Tenet a reference to Niger had been removed from a speech by Bush the previous October, the White House subsequently wanted to "find something affirmative" for the January speech, one source said. That month, the allegations had already been included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by Bush's four most senior national security officials. The CIA and the State Department had doubts about the purported Niger information because they knew that Hussein already had a stockpile of the same type of uranium that he was supposed to be seeking. In addition, the CIA had sent former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger in February 2002, and he reported that officials in that country had denied the report. More recently, the Iraq Survey Group looking into weapons activities in that country under the direction of David Kay reported in October that it found no support for the report that Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa. In fact, Kay said, the group found that the Iraqis had turned down an offer of uranium from a still-unidentified country. One enduring mystery is which White House official was responsible for promoting the material in question. Senate hearings have indicated there was a disagreement between a CIA analyst and the White House National Security Council staff member about how the material was handled. "One side did not coordinate with the other," said the source familiar with the advisory board's inquiry. The Senate probe has been slowed by disputes between Republicans and Democrats. It will not probe how other intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was used in public statements by administration officials in the run-up to the war, one congressional official said. "But how that intelligence was portrayed [by policymakers] is a subjective thing and not something a committee could agree on," he said. "What was said publicly is available publicly," he added, saying each senator could make his own judgment. It probably will be at least two to three months before the committee releases its report and holds public hearings on the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs, according to congressional sources. The first drafts are not expected before February, when they will first be reviewed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the intelligence panel, and its vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). Then other senators get to read it and make suggestions, a process that could take weeks. Meanwhile, Roberts has tentatively set March for a closed hearing to update the work of Kay's survey group. At that time, or perhaps even before, Kay is expected to resign his position for personal reasons -- although the work in Iraq is expected to continue for at least another year, according to administration sources.
That's not the piece I read. From Card's work: "Ultimately, the outcome of this war is going to depend more on the American people than anything that happens on the battlefield. Are we going to be suckered again the way we were in 1992, when we allowed ourselves to be deceived about our own recent history and current events? We are being lied to and "spun," and not in a trivial way. <b>The kind of dishonest vitriolic hate campaign that in 2000 was conducted only before black audiences is now being played on the national stage</b>; and the national media, instead of holding the liars' and haters' feet to the fire (as they do when the liars and haters are Republicans or conservatives), are cooperating in building up a false image of a failing economy and a lost war, when the truth is more nearly the exact opposite. And in all the campaign rhetoric, <b>I keep looking, as a Democrat, for a single candidate</b> who is actually offering a significant improvement over the Republican policies that in fact don't work, while supporting or improving upon the American policies that will help make us and our children secure against terrorists. We have enemies that have earned our hatred, and whom we should fear. They are fanatical terrorists who seek opportunities to kill American civilians here and Israeli civilians in Israel. But right now, <b>our national media and the Democratic Party are trying to get us to believe that the people we should hate and fear are George W. Bush and the Republicans</b>. I can think of many, many reasons why the Republicans should not control both houses of Congress and the White House. But right now, <b>if the alternative is the Democratic Party as led in Congress and as exemplified by the current candidates for the Democratic nomination</b>, then I can't be the only Democrat who will, with great reluctance, vote not just for George W. Bush, but also for every other candidate of the only party that seems committed to fighting abroad to destroy the enemies that seek to kill us and our friends at home. And if we elect a government that subverts or weakens or ends our war against terrorism, we can count on this: We will soon face enemies that will make 9/11 look like stubbing our toe, and they will attack us with the confidence and determination that come from knowing that we don't have the will to sustain a war all the way to the end." I think those sections I've highlighted more than evidence that Card did in fact talk about Democrats. My God, he is intending to vote Republican because of their unpatriotic ways...
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/zinni.html Listen to an extended excerpt of Gen. Zinni's speech. Comments of Gen. Anthony Zinni (ret.) during a speech before the Florida Economic Club, Aug. 23, 2002: Attacking Iraq now will cause a lot of problems. I think the debate right now that's going on is very healthy. If you ask me my opinion, Gen. Scowcroft, Gen. Powell, Gen. Schwarzkopf, Gen. Zinni, maybe all see this the same way. It might be interesting to wonder why all the generals see it the same way, and all those that never fired a shot in anger and really hell-bent to go to war see it a different way. That's usually the way it is in history. (Crowd laughter.) But let me tell you what the problem is now as I see it. You need to weigh this: what are your priorities in the region? That's the first issue in my mind. The Middle East peace process, in my mind, has to be a higher priority. Winning the war on terrorism has to be a higher priority. More directly, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Central Asia need to be resolved, making sure Al Qaeda can't rise again from the ashes that are destroyed. Taliban cannot come back. That the warlords can't regain power over Kabul and Karzai, and destroy everything that has happened so far. Our relationships in the region are in major disrepair, not to the point where we can't fix them, but we need to quit making enemies we don't need to make enemies out of. And we need to fix those relationships. There's a deep chasm growing between that part of the world and our part of the world. And it's strange, about a month after 9/11, they were sympathetic and compassionate toward us. How did it happen over the last year? And we need to look at that -- that is a higher priority. The country that started this, Iran, is about to turn around, 180 degrees. We ought to be focused on that. The father of extremism, the home of the ayatollah -- the young people are ready to throw out the mullahs and turn around, become a secular society and throw off these ideas of extremism. That is more important and critical. They're the ones that funded Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. That ought to be a focus. And I can give you many, many more before you get down to Saddam and Iraq. Our friends in the region who, a couple years ago, every time we wanted to throw a bomb at Saddam, kept saying, "Why don't you get serious? We'll support you if you take him out. But if you're only going to piss him off and let him rise from the ashes, we don't want to do it." Now that we want to do it, it's the wrong time. He'll drag Israel into the war. The mood on the street is very hostile at this moment. It is the wrong time. You could create a backlash to regimes that are friendly to us. You could create a sense of anti-Arab, anti-Islamic feelings from the West (among people who) misinterpret the attack. We could end up with collateral damage. You could inherit the country of Iraq, if you're willing to do it -- if our economy is so great that you're willing to put billions of dollars into reforming Iraq. If you want to put soldiers that are already stretched so thin all around the world and add them into a security force there forever, like we see in places like the Sinai. If you want to fight with other countries in the region to try to keep Iraq together as Kurds and Shiites try and split off, you're going to have to make a good case for that. And that's what I think has to be done, that's my honest opinion. You're going to have to tell me the threat is there, right now. That immediate, that it takes the priority over all those things I've just mentioned.... I've just hit the tops of the waves. (Person in audience speaks. Laughter.) In fairness to President Bush, because I work for him -- I don't get paid, though -- in fairness to President Bush, President Bush has invited the debate and he allows anyone who has a view to speak to the debate. I mean, within his own administration you hear different views. So I'm encouraged by the fact the debate takes place. It ought to be, and it ought to be public and open. And although it's messy and we're trying to figure out which way to come down on it, I think it's good that it's happening, that Congress is looking into it. That it isn't a party issue. I mean, you have Sen. Hagel and Dick Armey and others, that have taken a position, and other -- Sen. Inohofe and others who have taken another -- even within the parties, you have people on both sides. That's what great about the U.S. So I don't mind the debate. It should be confusing because it's a confusing issue, but in the end the people are going to have to decide, if this -- if the threat is there, and the case is going to have to be made to them. Copyright 2003 NPR · nprhelp@npr.org · ombudsman@npr.org · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · NPR Corrections
More unpatriotic soldiers. Card should give them a pep talk so they would take it like a man. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36979-2003Dec28.html Army Stops Many Soldiers From Quitting Orders Extend Enlistments to Curtail Troop Shortages By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 29, 2003; Page A01 Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Eagle, an expert on enemy targeting, served 20 years in the military -- 10 years of active duty in the Air Force, another 10 in the West Virginia National Guard. Then he decided enough was enough. He owned a promising new aircraft-maintenance business, and it needed his attention. His retirement date was set for last February. Staff Sgt. Justin Fontaine, a generator mechanic, enrolled in the Massachusetts National Guard out of high school and served nearly nine years. In preparation for his exit date last March, he turned in his field gear -- his rucksack and web belt, his uniforms and canteen. Staff Sgt. Peter G. Costas, an interrogator in an intelligence unit, joined the Army Reserve in 1991, extended his enlistment in 1999 and then re-upped for three years in 2000. Costas, a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Texas, was due to retire from the reserves in last May. According to their contracts, expectations and desires, all three soldiers should have been civilians by now. But Fontaine and Costas are currently serving in Iraq, and Eagle has just been deployed. On their Army paychecks, the expiration date of their military service is now listed sometime after 2030 -- the payroll computer's way of saying, "Who knows?" The three are among thousands of soldiers forbidden to leave military service under the Army's "stop-loss" orders, intended to stanch the seepage of troops, through retirement and discharge, from a military stretched thin by its burgeoning overseas missions. "It reflects the fact that the military is too small, which nobody wants to admit," said Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, a leading military sociologist. To the Pentagon, stop-loss orders are a finger in the dike -- a tool to halt the hemorrhage of personnel, and maximize cohesion and experience, for units in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Through a series of stop-loss orders, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year. Hundreds more in the Air Force, Navy and Marines were briefly blocked from retiring or departing the military at some point this year. By prohibiting soldiers and officers from leaving the service at retirement or the expiration of their contracts, military leaders have breached the Army's manpower limit of 480,000 troops, a ceiling set by Congress. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, disclosed that the number of active-duty soldiers has crept over the congressionally authorized maximum by 20,000 and now registered 500,000 as a result of stop-loss orders. Several lawmakers questioned the legality of exceeding the limit by so much. "Our goal is, we want to have units that are stabilized all the way down from the lowest squad up through the headquarters elements," said Brig. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg, director of enlisted personnel management in the Army's Human Resources Command. "Stop-loss allows us to do that. When a unit deploys, it deploys, trains and does its missions with the same soldiers." In a recent profile of an Army infantry battalion deployed in Kuwait and on its way to Iraq, the commander, Lt. Col. Karl Reed, told the Army Times he could have lost a quarter of his unit in the coming year had it not been for the stop-loss order. "And that means a new 25 percent," Reed told the Army Times. "I would have had to train them and prepare them to go on the line. Given where we are, it will be a 24-hour combat operation; therefore it's very difficult to bring new folks in and integrate them." To many of the soldiers whose retirements and departures are on ice, however, stop-loss is an inconvenience, a hardship and, in some cases, a personal disaster. Some are resigned to fulfilling what they consider their patriotic duty. Others are livid, insisting they have fallen victim to a policy that amounts to an unannounced, unheralded draft. "I'm furious. I'm aggravated. I feel violated. I feel used," said Eagle, 42, the targeting officer, who has just shipped to Iraq with his field artillery unit for what is likely to be a yearlong tour of duty. He had voluntarily postponed his retirement at his commander's request early this year and then suddenly found himself stuck in the service under a stop-loss order this fall. Eagle said he fears his fledgling business in West Virginia may not survive his lengthy absence. His unexpected extension in the Army will slash his annual income by about $45,000, he said. And some members of his family, including his recently widowed sister, whose three teenage sons are close to Eagle, are bitterly opposed to his leaving. "An enlistment contract has two parties, yet only the government is allowed to violate the contract; I am not," said Costas, 42, who signed an e-mail from Iraq this month "Chained in Iraq," an allusion to the fact that he and his fellow reservists remained in Baghdad after the active-duty unit into which they were transferred last spring went home. He has now been told that he will be home late next June, more than a year after his contractual departure date. "Unfair. I would not say it's a draft per se, but it's clearly a breach of contract. I will not reenlist." Other soldiers retained by the Army under stop-loss are more resigned than irate, but no less demoralized by what some have come to regard as their involuntary servitude "Unfortunately, I signed the dotted line saying I'm going to serve my country," said Fontaine, 27, the mechanic, who said he spent "20 or 30 days" fruitlessly researching legal ways that he could quit the Army when his contractual departure date came up in February. "All I can do is suck it up and take it till I can get out." The military's interest in halting the depletion of its ranks predates the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. American GIs in World War II were under orders to serve until the fighting was finished, plus six months. Congress approved the authority for what became known as stop-loss orders after the Vietnam War, responding to concerns that the military had been hamstrung by the out-rotations of seasoned combat soldiers in Indochina. But the authority was not used until the buildup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990 when Richard B. Cheney, then the secretary of defense, allowed the military services to bar most retirements and prolong enlistments indefinitely. A flurry of stop-loss orders was issued after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, intensifying as the nation prepared for war in Iraq early this year. Some of the orders have applied to soldiers, sailors and airmen in specific skill categories -- military police, for example, and ordnance control specialists, have been in particular demand in Iraq. Other edicts have been more sweeping, such as the Army's most recent stop-loss order, issued Nov. 13, covering thousands of active-duty soldiers whose units are scheduled for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming months. Because the stop-loss order begins 90 days before deployment and lasts for 90 days after a return home, those troops will be prohibited from retiring or leaving the Army at the expiration of their contracts until the spring of 2005, at the earliest. The proliferation of stop-loss orders has bred confusion and resentment even as it has helped preserve what the military calls "unit cohesion." In the past two years, the Army alone has announced 11 stop-loss orders -- an average of one every nine or 10 weeks. Often in the past year, the Army has allowed active-duty soldiers to retire and depart but not Guard and reserve troops, many of whom have chafed at the disparity in policies. Some Guard troops and reservists complain their release dates have been extended several times and they no longer know when they will be allowed to leave. "We don't ever trust anything we're told," said Chris Walsh of Southington, Conn., whose wife, Jessica, an eighth-grade English teacher, is a military police officer in a National Guard unit in Baghdad. She may end up serving nearly two years beyond her original exit date of July 2002, Chris Walsh said. "We've been disappointed too many times." For many soldiers who had planned on leaving the military, the sudden change of plans has been jarring. Jim Montgomery's story is typical. Montgomery, an air-conditioning repairman in western Massachusetts, did a three-year hitch in the Army in the '90s and then signed up for a five-year stint in the National Guard. His exit date was July 31, 2003, after which he planned to devote himself to getting his electrician's license -- and to the baby he and his wife, Donna, expected in November, their first. "I felt like I'd honored my contract," said Montgomery, 35, a beefy, affable man who holds the rank of specialist E4 in the Guard. "The military had given me some good things -- friendships and the opportunity to take some college courses -- and that's where I wanted to leave it." The Army had other plans. In March, Montgomery's maintenance unit was sent for training to Fort Drum, N.Y. In April it deployed to Kuwait, and since May it has been stationed in southern Iraq. With each move, it became clearer to Montgomery that his July exit date from the Guard would not materialize. The latest he has heard is that the unit may be coming home in April, but even that is uncertain, he said. Last month Montgomery rushed home on a medical emergency when Donna had complications in childbirth. She and the baby are fine now, but Montgomery is frustrated by his cloudy future. "Some guys who are Vietnam vets are with us," he said in an interview at his home in Holland, Mass., shortly before he was to return to his unit in Iraq. "They said even in Vietnam, as difficult as it was there, you knew from the time you hit the ground to the time you returned it was one year -- whereas with this it's really up in the air." Some military officials have acknowledged that stop-loss is a necessary evil. When the Air Force announced it was imposing a stop-loss rule last spring, an official news bulletin from Air Force Print News noted: "Both the secretary [James G. Roche] and the chief of staff [Gen. John P. Jumper] are acutely aware that the Air Force is an all-volunteer force and that this action, while essential to meeting the service's worldwide obligations, is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of voluntary service." More frequently, the military response to griping about stop-loss is bluntly unsympathetic. "We're all soldiers. We go where were told," said Maj. Steve Stover, an Army spokesman. "Fair has nothing to do with it." Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.
What is your purpose in posting information such as this? Are you trying to discredit or besmirch the name of our brave soldiers fighting for our freedoms in the Middle East? Are you trying to get us to believe that the US military is weak and is about to fall apart? I just don't understand you propagating this information as if it speaks for all soldiers. I'd like to see some positive news clips be posted by you. I'd also like to see you read this to the face of the other brave soldiers in Iraq who are risking their lives while you sit and type away your propaganda from the comforts of your home. You probably wouldn't be so quick to post this drivel.
