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Lol...Why is it that they can always find the number 2 guy? How about the number 3 guy or number 5 guy?
This crap is hilarious. I don't believe any of it. I think these defense and Intel knuckleheads just want to protect their fat budgets
I agree. It is all a reason to go fight for...............the dollar like I've been saying the whole time. Folks lap it up so why not keep peddling it???
I will take my first hand assessment of the war, obtained from an on the ground standpoint over your review, which you arrived at by reading a book. I have also read many books on the same subject. Rick Sanchez novel that should've been titled "Why It Wasn't My Fault in 700 Pages or Less", Tommy Frank's book, and many others. I supplement that with pre-surge and surge period experience. Why would I possibly think that simply because I was a Senior NCO that served in many leadership and battle staff positions that I would somehow may have grounds to.opine from a position of experience. Crazy....I know.
Normally, i'd respect your first hand assessment, but since you decided to disrespect the service i rendered to this country, i'm treating your service the same way.
Not only that, but your posts give you away as one of those "my country right or wrong...love it or leave it" types. And based on that, you can't be trusted to give an unbiased opinion. Moreover, you've admitted to voting for Bush, being for the war (something to be ashamed of IMO when you consider the outcome), and now you're running interference for generals that were proved to be incompetent. In other words, i can't trust a right wing sycophant under any conditions. No matter how bad the war would've went, you're loathe to criticize it regardless.
And i've read more than one book on the topic. However, Fiasco is simply put BETTER than everything else i've read. It rarely uses confidential sources, and i've seen nothing substantial to refute the allegations made. It holds up extremely well.
I mean, Rick Sanchez? Sorry, but he's a clown. LOL..i mean, if in your mind the working title should've been Why it Wasn't My Fault, that exposes him enough to be scorned as it is. If anything, his book should've been about him taking full responsibility for his screw ups and his inability to stand up to Rumsfeld. Everything i've read so far paints him as unattached, aloof, and incompetent.
Tommy Franks? You've gotta be kidding. Franks? Another dope that embodies the Peter Principle.
Come on...you're a retired senior NCO and you're heralding generals that rarely if ever stood up to Rumsfeld, sent troops into combat with lame equipment, no strategy, and no questions to the higher ups about an endgame? 4500 troops are dead in Iraq for god knows what (i sure as hell don't know), and you're bringing up Franks and Sanchez?
Tell me...how quick are those flag officers to stand up for an incompetent NCO or even a competent NCO that makes a bad mistake? Let alone one that through either cowardice or a "go along to get along" attitude so as not to ruffle feathers, ends up getting troops killed in a pointless war. Believe me, you'd be toast. And you damn sure wouldn't be retiring with a 6 figure pension like those bozos will.
Whatever man. Nothing those generals have to say is worth listening to IMO. The only ones that i find admirable are General Mattis and General Petraeus.
I agree. It is all a reason to go fight for...............the dollar like I've been saying the whole time. Folks lap it up so why not keep peddling it???
They just killed another number 2 guy a few hours ago.
Normally, i'd respect your first hand assessment, but since you decided to disrespect the service i rendered to this country, i'm treating your service the same way.
Not only that, but your posts give you away as one of those "my country right or wrong...love it or leave it" types. And based on that, you can't be trusted to give an unbiased opinion. Moreover, you've admitted to voting for Bush, being for the war (something to be ashamed of IMO when you consider the outcome), and now you're running interference for generals that were proved to be incompetent. In other words, i can't trust a right wing sycophant under any conditions. No matter how bad the war would've went, you're loathe to criticize it regardless.
And i've read more than one book on the topic. However, Fiasco is simply put BETTER than everything else i've read. It rarely uses confidential sources, and i've seen nothing substantial to refute the allegations made. It holds up extremely well.
I mean, Rick Sanchez? Sorry, but he's a clown. LOL..i mean, if in your mind the working title should've been Why it Wasn't My Fault, that exposes him enough to be scorned as it is. If anything, his book should've been about him taking full responsibility for his screw ups and his inability to stand up to Rumsfeld. Everything i've read so far paints him as unattached, aloof, and incompetent.
Tommy Franks? You've gotta be kidding. Franks? Another dope that embodies the Peter Principle.
Come on...you're a retired senior NCO and you're heralding generals that rarely if ever stood up to Rumsfeld, sent troops into combat with lame equipment, no strategy, and no questions to the higher ups about an endgame? 4500 troops are dead in Iraq for god knows what (i sure as hell don't know), and you're bringing up Franks and Sanchez?
Tell me...how quick are those flag officers to stand up for an incompetent NCO or even a competent NCO that makes a bad mistake? Let alone one that through either cowardice or a "go along to get along" attitude so as not to ruffle feathers, ends up getting troops killed in a pointless war. Believe me, you'd be toast. And you damn sure wouldn't be retiring with a 6 figure pension like those bozos will.
Whatever man. Nothing those generals have to say is worth listening to IMO. The only ones that i find admirable are General Mattis and General Petraeus.
Really?!?.....Do you really have such a fundamental problem with reading comprehension? It is really that difficult for you? Is your mind wired to automatically skew every sensory input as a barb or threat to your delicate liberal morals? Where in world did you see me laud Sanchez or Franks?!? Sanchez was an incompetent boob. That is why I suggested the title of his book should've been "Why It Wasn't My Fault in 700 Pages or Less." That is all his book was, a cop out, a list of excuses, 700 pages of making the case for the early failures and utter lack of planning for anything after combat operations not being his fault.
Petraeus and Austin were both effective GOs.
I personally don't give a damn what you think of my service. I am not so delicate that I require validation and praise from anyone for anything I have done. You cannot seem to move past an earlier observation I made. As stated, I served for 22 years, and retired as a Senior NCO. Three of those years were spent, at the Army's behest, as a recruiter. During that time, I dealt with a large number of prior service people, either trying to reenlist, or look into the USAR. Without exception, the only ones that displayed an almost irrational level of scorn towards the military all had RE codes of 4 on their DD 214s. That isn't opinion, that isn't speculation, that is fact. I saw it over and over again. When I first retired, I worked for the DoD in the DC area. During a sight-seeing trip one weekend in the area of the National Mall, Lafayette Square, and the White House, I bumped into a group of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Nothing wrong with them protesting, it is their right. When they engaged me in conversation, I experienced the same thing I did in recruiting. The most vocal, and the most angry, all shared one common bond. They were separated for things like positive urinalysis, overweight, APFT failure.
To be completely clear, and remove any possibility of you misconstruing what I say, I am not alleging every former service person with a poor opinion of the military was discharged for nefarious reasons. I am saying that they comprise the majority.
Not sure where you get "my country right or wrong". I will gladly call out things I disagree with. Things like the ever expanding NSA wiretaps, cover ups of things like Benghazi, etc. I opposed many parts of the Patriot Act when Bush signed it. Obama promised transparency, and has instead drastically expanded the provisions of the Patriot Act. I will also freely admit that Bush made some boneheaded calls, in nearly every area. I don't think the decision to go into Iraq, based on intelligence at the time, was one of them. The surge worked, and the situation in Iraq turned around completely in 2007 into 2008.
Really?!?.....Do you really have such a fundamental problem with reading comprehension? It is really that difficult for you? Is your mind wired to automatically skew every sensory input as a barb or threat to your delicate liberal morals? Where in world did you see me laud Sanchez or Franks?!? Sanchez was an incompetent boob. That is why I suggested the title of his book should've been "Why It Wasn't My Fault in 700 Pages or Less." That is all his book was, a cop out, a list of excuses, 700 pages of making the case for the early failures and utter lack of planning for anything after combat operations not being his fault.
Petraeus and Austin were both effective GOs.
I personally don't give a damn what you think of my service. I am not so delicate that I require validation and praise from anyone for anything I have done. You cannot seem to move past an earlier observation I made. As stated, I served for 22 years, and retired as a Senior NCO. Three of those years were spent, at the Army's behest, as a recruiter. During that time, I dealt with a large number of prior service people, either trying to reenlist, or look into the USAR. Without exception, the only ones that displayed an almost irrational level of scorn towards the military all had RE codes of 4 on their DD 214s. That isn't opinion, that isn't speculation, that is fact. I saw it over and over again. When I first retired, I worked for the DoD in the DC area. During a sight-seeing trip one weekend in the area of the National Mall, Lafayette Square, and the White House, I bumped into a group of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Nothing wrong with them protesting, it is their right. When they engaged me in conversation, I experienced the same thing I did in recruiting. The most vocal, and the most angry, all shared one common bond. They were separated for things like positive urinalysis, overweight, APFT failure.
To be completely clear, and remove any possibility of you misconstruing what I say, I am not alleging every former service person with a poor opinion of the military was discharged for nefarious reasons. I am saying that they comprise the majority.
Not sure where you get "my country right or wrong". I will gladly call out things I disagree with. Things like the ever expanding NSA wiretaps, cover ups of things like Benghazi, etc. I opposed many parts of the Patriot Act when Bush signed it. Obama promised transparency, and has instead drastically expanded the provisions of the Patriot Act. I will also freely admit that Bush made some boneheaded calls, in nearly every area. I don't think the decision to go into Iraq, based on intelligence at the time, was one of them. The surge worked, and the situation in Iraq turned around completely in 2007 into 2008.
Fine...my bad on Sanchez. I completely got that wrong by misunderstanding what you were saying. A second read has made it clearer. My apologies.
Look, drop the stuff about what you or I did while in the military. It's unimportant. You certainly implied that I was some sort of dud that got chaptered out, and I'm implying that you were no more than a know nothing cog in the engine carrying out orders. And seeing how you lobbed the first salvo in that argument, I'm sticking to that implication as long as you're sticking to yours.
Neither one of us wrote policy, so leave it at that.
What I really don't get is this: you say you believed in and supported the war in Iraq. Why? Based on what reasoning? The arguments were specious, there was no Al Qaeda connection (as the Bush Administration circumlocutiously implied), and it had
the unfortunate effect of forcing us to lose whatever focus we had on gains made in Afghanistan. We empowered the Shiites in a state right next door to Iran, and actually expected Iraq...a nation with no democratic traditions, to become this blossoming flower of Democracy when the more likely scenario was a low level civil war. I mean, did you REALLY believe that the Sunnis were just gonna walk away from power so easily? You didn't think there'd be an insurgency? Did you think they were all gonna go home and become goat herders?
What were you war supporters thinking? What what was the endgame here?
Truth is, you all had war fever...that's all. There was no long term thinking.
And before you give me the standard line about "the whole world thought he had WMD," that's already proven to be nonsense.
Read James Risen's "State of War...The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." In it, he lays out SEVERAL cases of people, foreign and domestic, that found the whole lead up to the war to be dubious and the intelligence to be extremely questionable. And those people are on the record BY NAME...not as confidential sources.
History proves that the United States is good at getting into wars, and sucks at getting out of those same wars.
That's because people like yourself have no idea when to call it quits, and you're not happy without an enemy to coalesce around.
You hawkish types are also the reason why we still have troops in Japan, Korea, the E.U, Cuba...no dollar amount for the Pentagon is never enough.
Meanwhile, while we're arming everyone and chasing "Al Qaeda" all over the planet, our Chinese competition invests their money actually developing countries and forming long term profitable alliances.
Americans. SMH
AMEN.
Now Trump is getting us out of those wars. Great to see.
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Franks? Another dope that embodies the Peter Principle. 
