Military Times calls for Firing of Rumsfeld

[Anonymous]

JES, why do you Bush apologists love to ignore the facts and details? Now in your desparation you want to pass the blame to the Democrats? Are you smoking crack? Unbelievable!!!

For one thing, the congress voted to give the President the authority to use force, it was in no way a vote to go to war. Secondly, and most important, the vote was based on faulty intelligence concocted by the Bush Administration. It is clear that there was never WMD. And all along, nobody in the world except Bush was convinced that there was. Also, in case you just woke up out of a coma, the bi-partisan 9/11 commission concluded that there was no link between Hussein and Al Queda. So without the faulty intelligence reports (aka lies) there is no way that Congress would have supported this.

Furthermore, you are insinuating that Congress is somehow responsible for coming up with a war plan? Are you that ignorant about the government? Do you not have any clue who is at the top of the military chain of command? Bush of course, and therefore he is ultimately responsible for the military, period. Where on the chain of command do you see “congress”?

I thought you were in the military, didn’t they teach you anything about accountability? Bush is in charge and he and only he is ultimately responsible for Iraq.

[JES]

IMO Bush’s comments just before the election that he was planning to keep Rumsfeld until the end helped deliver the Senate to the Democrats. I’m a moderate Republican and it ticked me off to no end. Out of 80+ million votes (or however many were cast…), I have no problem believing that at least 8,000 people in Virginia or 3,000 in Montana decided that their party was out of touch, or as non-Republicans were mobilized by his comments.

Cutting him loose now does not speak to the President’s desire for change or being open to new ideas, but rather to the fact that he was forced to fire him/have him resign due to the election.

[L_Thek_onomics]

“JES, why do you Bush apologists love to ignore the facts and details? Now in your desparation you want to pass the blame to the Democrats? Are you smoking crack? Unbelievable!!!”

Let me join to this one side civilized, other side silly and rude dialog.
I’ve read the post by JES, it’s factual, also no blame game there. If
the Democrats don’t want to take responsibility for their votes, it’s too
bad. They’re in the records. There are some fanatic leftists (i.e.
Deadzone), who denies history and facts. A poor argument supported
by silly words is not an argument. This level of immaturity create a kind
of suspicion” about any argument coming from the left. It’s too bad,
sometimes leftists have reasonable even logical arguments, but they’re
already in the foggy fields of suspicion. Deadzone, your political and
historical knowledge is on the level of kid, who argues “the Titanic sunk, because the Carpathian didn’t come fast enough”.

L Thek

[zk]

L Thek, your last post is hilariously hypocritical. You argue that a poor argument supported by silly words is not an argument. And than you make a poor argument supported by silly words. You call yourself civil and others rude, and then you act rude. You completely ignore deadzone’s comments on what the democrats were actually voting for. Instead of responding to dz’s statements, you call him names (silly, rude, immature, fanatic). How immature, silly and rude is that? I’d be interested to hear some reasoned, logical counterpoints to what dz said. Have you got any?

[L_Thek_onomics]

“I’d be interested to hear some reasoned, logical counterpoints to what dz said. Have you got any?”

No

L Thek

[JES]

deadzone –

You’re not worth my time anymore. I put forward a reasoned statement that is open to discussion or disagreement and I get nothing but personal insults and anger from you. I’m just happy that I unintentionally pushed your emotional buttons and had you bouncing off the walls and talking nonsense.

Read my posts and you’ll see I’m no Bush lover, but I am also trying to be fair about how this war went down. The fact is that 100+ Democrats in the House/Senate voted for the use of force, and right before the war almost all were still for it, or kept their mouths shut. I didn’t see a huge swell of Dems professing that they had now changed their mind around Feb 2003, did you? Intelligence agencies around the world thought the WMD existed, as did the majority of Democrats, including ones that didn’t vote for the war.

-JES

[JES]

ZK –

The argument you raise would be valid if it weren’t for the fact that most of those 100+ Congressmen and Senators never changed their stance, even when war was imminent. If their vote is not indicative of their actual stance, then surely we should have 100+ examples of these guys speaking out against their earlier vote and demanding that we not go to war in early 2003, right? After all, these were the days when we all knew that our troops would be hit with WMD in the ring of fire around Bagdad, so if they were truly against the war why in Gods name didn’t they speak up?

[PerryChase]

The Democrats could not speak up then nor can they speak up now because:

1) GWB bullied them. The country was still reeling from the 9/11 attack and wanted revenge. Speaking up against the war would’ve been ridiculed as speaking up for the enemy.

2) Saying that they changed their minds now would be ridiculed as flip-flopping. The political environment is now such that politicians will try to stay steadfast in order to secure their political future. The reality of life, however, is that you need to apply different solutions to different problems at different times; or perhaps different solutions to the same problems. For that reason, I like the know unknowns lecture by Rumsfeld.

Unfortunately, the public associates “moral clarity” with holding on to your initial position.

This is unfortunate for Bush also because it limits his options on Iraq. He talked so much about the beacon of democracy and prosperity that Iraq would become that anything short of that will be considered a failure.

The Republicans started down the path of black and white, and good vs. evil. Now they have to live with the political environment they created.

I admit, the times leading up to the war all through Mission Accomplished were tough for me. There were very few people I knew (except for my European friends) who shared the belief that the war was a mistake. If you don’t think it’s tough, think of the times in 2003 when every one was “investing” in 2nd and 3rd homes and you were scratching your head wondering how to make it all financially add up.

[PerryChase]

“I was very disappointed,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House.

“If the president had replaced Rumsfeld two weeks ago, the Republicans would still control the Senate and they would probably have 10 more House members. For the president to have suggested for the last two weeks that there would be no change and then change the day after the election is very disheartening.”

[JES]

Perry – So very true, but I suppose it’s not a dissappointment to all! Had he just come out a month ago and said, “My fellow Americans, it has become clear that our policy in Iraq – drawn from optimism and a desire to see the people of Iraq live in freedom – needs to be revised. This revision will require new thinking, new strategies, and as a consequence a new Secretary of Defense,” the GOP would at least control the Senate right now.

[PD]

All of this finger pointing by the democrats and anxious desire to deny any responsibility is appalling. Are we all supposed to believe that the democrats who voted for force in Iraq are a bunch of cowering weenies, beaten down by Bush and forced to vote contrary to their beliefs? Fine. I believe it. You have all convinced me! Your arguments have done a great job of illustrating that Democrats have no backbone. We have now been shown that as a large group, they caved in, abandoned their moral responsibility to do what they believed was right for their constituents and became puppets dancing on strings.

Break out the champagne Perry, you’ve brought me around to your way of thinking!

Perry, I have no doubt that you are well in line with your French friends. They have a history of retreat.

At Belleau Wood, the French turned and ran, encountering Marines marching forward. Confronted by the retreating French (who were fighting to keep their own soil), Marine Captain Lloyd Williams of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines said, “Retreat, hell we just got here.”

[JJGittes]

US Democrats are not the only ones popping champagne corks:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-11-10T140135Z_01_L10266591_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-ELECTIONS-IRAN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061110/ts_nm/iraq_dc_49

[zk]

“All of this finger pointing by the democrats and anxious desire to deny any responsibility is appalling.”

I agree, PD. As I’ve said, I find the democrats’ pansiness in the face of republican bullying to be a huge part of the problem.

What I’m curious about is this: Why do you find the democrats’ finger pointing and anxious desire to deny any responsibility appalling, but you don’t find the republicans’ finger pointing and anxious desire to deny any responsibility appalling?

[PD]

Are the republicans pointing their fingers at the democrats saying everything is their fault? Are the republicans busy denying responsibility for their votes (there are probably one or two, just as there are probably one or two democrats who aren’t trying to cast blame)?

[zk]

“US Democrats are not the only ones popping champagne corks:”

The link following that quote has the clerical leader of Iran saying, “Since Washington’s hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation.”

Clearly that’s just rhetoric. Obviously Iran is in a better position now than they were before bush turned the middle east into what it is today. I’m sure Khamenei is very happy the republicans spent as long as they did in power. And I’m sure he’d rather have had the U.S. continue to focus on Iraq, which the republicans seem more likely to do than the democrats. The U.S. has been trying to mediate the balance of power between Iraq and Iran for decades, and for us to basically destroy Iraq all of a sudden is a dream come true for the Iranian government.

[Author]

Posts