Another former US Commander speaks out.

[DeepIron]

I knew it Skybird... you are "The Sphinx"...

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by waste gate

For the sake of argument, a question was posed: If enough four-star generals had done that, would it have stopped the war?
“Yeah, we’d call it a coup d’etat,” Colonel Fontenot said. “Do you want to have a coup d’etat? You kind of have to decide what you want. Do you like the Constitution, or are you so upset about the Iraq war that you’re willing to dismiss the Constitution in just this one instance and hopefully things will be O.K.? I don’t think so.”

This is the most telling piece of the arcticle. By design the military are subservant to the national political authority. Are liberals now in favor of overturning this? Sounds like it. The unfortunate aspect for liberals is that they are unarmed by choice, and victims by predilection and birth.

Funny how if you don't like something it's automatically liberal. Kind of narrow Waste Gate.

responsibility:
An act or course of action that is demanded of one, as by position, custom, law, or religion

They don't have to say no. That is wrong. But if more Generals had of honestly supported Gen Shinseki in claiming the goals were untenable would this disaster have happened? Was it right to fire a Army Chief of Staff because he gave a true assessment when asked by congress about his opinion on this invasion? Would the president have still pressed ahead if faced with the reality of his decision?
I leave it with this quote:

“We have an obligation that if our civilian leaders give us an order, unless it is illegal, immoral or unethical, then we’re supposed to execute it, and to not do so would be considered insubordinate,” said Major Timothy Jacobsen, another student. “How do you define what is truly illegal, immoral or unethical? At what point do you cross that threshold where this is no longer right, I need to raise my hand or resign or go to the media?”

It is enough that this is being questioned.

[JALU3]

Well what we do is learn from our mistakes . . . hunker down for the long-haul . . . grow our force size and capability to meet the foreseen needs of the situation . . . and adjust and overcome.
Defeat is not an option . . . the impact of a collapse of the Nation-State of Iraq on the region would have implications that would last dozens of years after that event. All those impacts would be foreseen as a negative on US interests in the region.
As with other situations, the US has the resources, if it chose to focus its resources, to avoid defeat, and achieve a marginal victory . . . if only we would have the willpower to avoid defeat.

[bradclark1]

As with other situations, the US has the resources, if it chose to focus its resources, to avoid defeat, and achieve a marginal victory . . . if only we would have the willpower to avoid defeat.

Okay. Then where would these resources be to focus?

[Ishmael]

Originally Posted by DeepIron

Sounds suspiciously like what the "The Sphinx" would say from the movie "Mystery Men".... Cool....

But we can't just vacate Iraq with Iran standing by to fill the vacuum...

What can be done?

My question is simply this. Why can't we leave? Ultimately it is for the Iraqi people to figure out for themselves. Whether they live in peace or slaughter each other is ultimately their business and their responsibility. If all our troops are doing there is being targets for both sides of a religious civil war, what purpose are they serving there other than to protect oil. We need to remove our troops from Iraq and go back to hunting bin-laden and al-zuahiri in Waziristan, where our troops should have been concentrating the last four years.

But Bush won't do that. His plan is, and always was, to bankrupt the nation, break the military and dump this war off on the next administration so they can blame the next guy for "losing" Iraq.

Here's a clue. Iraq was lost the minute Bush,Cheney, Rumsfeld and their little friends didn;t send enough troops to maintain civil order. If you read Naomi Klein's new book, "The Shock Doctrine", It's hard to escape the realization that chaos in Iraq was their plan all along.

Originally Posted by Ishmael

My question is simply this. Why can't we leave? Ultimately it is for the Iraqi people to figure out for themselves. Whether they live in peace or slaughter each other is ultimately their business and their responsibility. If all our troops are doing there is being targets for both sides of a religious civil war, what purpose are they serving there other than to protect oil. We need to remove our troops from Iraq and go back to hunting bin-laden and al-zuahiri in Waziristan, where our troops should have been concentrating the last four years.

But Bush won't do that. His plan is, and always was, to bankrupt the nation, break the military and dump this war off on the next administration so they can blame the next guy for "losing" Iraq.

Here's a clue. Iraq was lost the minute Bush,Cheney, Rumsfeld and their little friends didn;t send enough troops to maintain civil order. If you read Naomi Klein's new book, "The Shock Doctrine", It's hard to escape the realization that chaos in Iraq was their plan all along.

It isn't quite a simple as 'Why can't we leave'? It goes much deeper than that.

Iran has said it would fill the vacuum created by the US military withdrawal. This is the same Iran whose leader has a belief in the apocalyptic end to man in order to bring about the reign of Allah. This is the same Iran whose leader regularly espouses the destruction of another nation, that nation being Israel. Iran's threats are not idle. The summer of 2006 when Iranian surrogates battled with Israel using Lebanon as the battlefield is a prime example.

If you can't see the US using its blood and treasure for Israel I have another situation to contemplate. Russia. The EU is already concerned about the Russian use of natural gas as a weapon against the EU. Russia has made no secret of its alliance with Iran, albeit an alliance of convenience. Now the US leaves the vacuum in Iraq for Iran, and Russia has an uneasy relationship with the EU regarding energy, what do we have? Does the EU really want the US to withdraw from Iraq at this point? Probably not. Is the world more stable if Iran controls that much of the Mid-East (think HMS Cornwall), not likely.

The scenrio(s) goes even deeper. So no, 'Why can't we leave'?, isn't a realistic option. And any responsible person sees that.

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...511492,00.html

Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control. They are rebelling against Bush and Cheney. Washington Post reporter Dana Priest recently said in an interview that she believed the US military would revolt and refuse to fly missions against Iran if the White House issued such orders.

CENTCOM [US Central Command, the military grouping whose responsibilities include the Middle East] commander Admiral William Fallon reportedly thwarted Cheney's wish to sent a third additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. One paper wrote that he "vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM."

Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, in charge of US forces in Japan, told the Associated Press last week that the Iraq war had weakened American forces in the face of any potential conflict with China. He was quoted as saying, "Are we in trouble? It depends on the scenario. But you have to be concerned about the small number of our forces and the age of our forces."

See this and link it to the still living rumours that that bomber loosing nukes some time ago was indeed on a mission to stockpile nukes in the ME and that part of the Air Force revolted against those orders ( http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=121678 , http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=6909 ) . Of course this was offcially denied, and always will be denied, but the timing of these and other events (the Israelis strike, the rethoric concerning war with Iran, and some other minor details like French and Russian diplomatic activities at that time) remains to be suspicious.

[SUBMAN1]

That is not what I call a top commander. His backgraound is that of a tank commander, and he had no idea how to command troops outside of tank formations. I watched a Frontline report on him and he was supposed to be the clean up and get out commander, and he had no idea how to deal with an insurgency. He was in a position that he shouldn't have been in from the start, and had little experience commanding. The real commanders had already left the battlefield, and he was just supposed to finish a job he had no idea how to finish. He is just blaming everyone for the failure of his career is what I am seeing. I have more on him if anyone is interested.

-S

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

That is not what I call a top commander. His backgraound is that of a tank commander, and he had no idea how to command troops outside of tank formations. I watched a Frontline report on him and he was supposed to be the clean up and get out commander, and he had no idea how to deal with an insurgency. He was in a position that he shouldn't have been in from the start, and had little experience commanding. The real commanders had already left the battlefield, and he was just supposed to finish a job he had no idea how to finish. He is just blaming everyone for the failure of his career is what I am seeing. I have more on him if anyone is interested.

-S

Who are you talking about?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by waste gate

The scenrio(s) goes even deeper. So no, 'Why can't we leave'?, isn't a realistic option. And any responsible person sees that.

I bet that's what a lot of people said about Vietnam before they left anyway...

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I bet that's what a lot of people said about Vietnam before they left anyway...

Was that what was said? Link please.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Was that what was said? Link please.

Remember the good old days of Domino Theory. And how that didn't stop the Americans from leaving when the bodies started piling, and how everything ended up more or less fine in the end?

[Chock]

Was that what was said? Link please

Well it might not have been said, but it was exactly what happened right after Lam Son 719 didn't work out. And once the ARVN lost helicopter support from the US in '75, it was all in the bag for Uncle Ho. If you substitute Dinnerjacket for Ho (and the religious nutters behind him that pull the strings), that's what's in store for Iraq if the coalition pulls out (or more likely, when it pulls out, which I'm fully expecting Gordon Brown to announce for British troops right before he announces an election).

Chock

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Who are you talking about?

Sanchez - He's a simple tank commander, nothing more. This is the guy speaking out in the article.

[Skybird]

that is nonsens, because all high ranking flag officers have started in small, so did Sanchez. Abu Ghraib gave his career a political killing-point, of course.

wikpedia (English) has a short biography of him, however, the far more detailed biography, listing all his assignments and merits, is to be found on the German Wikipedia site:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_S._S%C3%A1nchez

Sounds like a regular career from platoon leader to division commander, with some representative assignments of no small reputations in between.

English Wikipedia quoted him with a japanese proverb: "Action without vision is a nightmare." I like that.

Do I have special interst in or sympathy for the man? No. I just don't like it that somebody is getting a bashing and minimizing of his career just because he is of the "wrong" opinion.