[quote]hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
[/quote]
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
[quote]hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
The media is hardly the proper forum.
Gee, Hedo, the media is where the entire war has been waged from day one. NOW it isn’t the proper forum? You have no problem with the message but the timing is suspect? If the message isn’t wrong, who cares about the timing? If the goal is to get rid of someone who is making mistakes before they make more, the time would be…right now.
War shouldn’t be waged in the media. I’ve stated from the beginning these guys had ample opportunity to draw the line but chose not to.
I have no problem with them dissenting. Not that I agree 100%. It’s simply too late to fix a problem that happened, two years ago. Speaking out now, too the media, serves no purpose other then self serving.
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
[/quote]
Serves no purpose other than to remove him from power before, say Iran is invaded?
And the media has been a front in this war form the beginning. Embedded reporters, Shock and Awe, the deck of cards, all of was PR designed to win over the CNN crowd.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
[/quote]
Rules of engagment that get people killed.
Fixation on collateral damage.
Sanctuary in mosques.
[quote]ExNole wrote:
hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
The media is hardly the proper forum.
Gee, Hedo, the media is where the entire war has been waged from day one. NOW it isn’t the proper forum? You have no problem with the message but the timing is suspect? If the message isn’t wrong, who cares about the timing? If the goal is to get rid of someone who is making mistakes before they make more, the time would be…right now.
War shouldn’t be waged in the media. I’ve stated from the beginning these guys had ample opportunity to draw the line but chose not to.
I have no problem with them dissenting. Not that I agree 100%. It’s simply too late to fix a problem that happened, two years ago. Speaking out now, too the media, serves no purpose other then self serving.
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
Serves no purpose other than to remove him from power before, say Iran is invaded?
And the media has been a front in this war form the beginning. Embedded reporters, Shock and Awe, the deck of cards, all of was PR designed to win over the CNN crowd.[/quote]
Well it seems Rumsfeld is even more determined to stay. Maybe these Generals aren’t the brilliant strategists they are being made out to be.
Rumsfeld will not make the decision to invade Iran anyway. That is a political decision.
Big tangent but not really relevant to the discussion of retired Generals Monday morning quarterbacking.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
Rules of engagment that get people killed.
Fixation on collateral damage.
Sanctuary in mosques.
[/quote]
How can you be “too” fixated on collateral damage unless the act of doing so truly harms our success in war? If anything, it would seem they are trying to HELP our success by pointing out how we are harming it now. Why shouldn’t this be discussed?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
Rules of engagment that get people killed.
Fixation on collateral damage.
Sanctuary in mosques.
How can you be “too” fixated on collateral damage unless the act of doing so truly harms our success in war? If anything, it would seem they are trying to HELP our success by pointing out how we are harming it now. Why shouldn’t this be discussed?[/quote]
Feel free to discuss it all you want???
You asked the question a “what does any of this have to do with being politcally correct?” as a follow up to a statement I made above it. I listed three examples of political correctness that get people killed.
How can you be too fixated on collateral damage you ask? Fallujah is the prime example in the Iraqi war. Many American Marines died so that property wasn’t damaged too a city that was abandoned to the insurgency.
My opinion, on this thread, was based on what the Generals said and when they said it. I can understand why you guys are introducing these different tangents but they really don’t have anything to do with a “mutiny” that doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere else but in the media.
An interesting piece for context:
EXCERPT:
[i]The officers said that challenges to civilian policy were not new ? similar opposition flared during the Clinton administration, particularly around the issue of gays in the military. But many of the latest condemnations come from officers who served in the Iraq war, and the controversy has split the ranks over whether attacks by those officers so soon after retiring are appropriate.
One current general who has debated the issue with high-ranking colleagues spoke, like others, on condition of anonymity when discussing actions of other officers.
“If every guy that retires starts sniping at their old bosses and acts like a political appointee, how do you think senior civilians start choosing their military leaders?” the general said. “Competence goes out the window. It’s all about loyalty and pliability.”[/i]
[quote]hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
Rules of engagment that get people killed.
Fixation on collateral damage.
Sanctuary in mosques.
How can you be “too” fixated on collateral damage unless the act of doing so truly harms our success in war? If anything, it would seem they are trying to HELP our success by pointing out how we are harming it now. Why shouldn’t this be discussed?
Feel free to discuss it all you want???
You asked the question a “what does any of this have to do with being politcally correct?” as a follow up to a statement I made above it. I listed three examples of political correctness that get people killed.
How can you be too fixated on collateral damage you ask? Fallujah is the prime example in the Iraqi war. Many American Marines died so that property wasn’t damaged too a city that was abandoned to the insurgency.
My opinion, on this thread, was based on what the Generals said and when they said it. I can understand why you guys are introducing these different tangents but they really don’t have anything to do with a “mutiny” that doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere else but in the media.
[/quote]
I gave a perfectly plausible reason as to why they are criticizing him now in public.
The media is where people are tried in this administration. Libby kept his job until his indictment, no one in the administration cared he leaked the info, only that he got caught and put on TV. The first concern about Cheney’s shooting was keeping the media unaware. Delay stepped down not because he was corrupt but because he was bad PR. If someone isn’t publicly exposed they will keep their job regardless of results.
[quote]How can you be too fixated on collateral damage you ask? Fallujah is the prime example in the Iraqi war. Many American Marines died so that property wasn’t damaged too a city that was abandoned to the insurgency.
My opinion, on this thread, was based on what the Generals said and when they said it. I can understand why you guys are introducing these different tangents but they really don’t have anything to do with a “mutiny” that doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere else but in the media. [/quote]
Hedo,
I’m sure you are well aware that there is more going on than pure military operations in Iraq.
Something to do with hearts and minds… perhaps with keeping the population from hating the US?
Anyway, I think you’ll find that the President and the SecDef are willing to sacrifice a few lives in order to help the long term outcome of the war.
That is where the policies you are decrying have come from – and why they are there. Those are the orders that people have to follow whether they like them or not.
This isn’t even what the generals are talking about…
[quote]hedo wrote:
One of my blanket statements? This entire thread is covered in them don’t you think?
Kind of getting circular isn’t it? As I explained before I don’t have a problem with the message but the timing is all wrong and suspect. These messengers are dead to their peers now anyway.
Since you asked I’ll give my two cents on the “warplan”. Initially I liked it. The Thunder Run to Baghdad worked as planned. The military was defeated quickly and without a lot of civilian deaths. The population however was not defeated.
[/quote]
You can’t “defeat the population.” What do you mean by that?
Absolutely.
What, you think Iraq’s a happy little country with just a few bad apples sprinkled in one geographic area? I hope you’re not naive enough to subscribe to that kind of Fox News whitewashing.
And as for America being divided, that’s mostly due to an anti-military (some would say anti-American, I would only go that far with regards to Michael Moore and some of the real crazies) Democratic Party.
But Bush can’t escape blame after relentlessly politicizing the war. Instead of trying to unify the nation against our enemies, he used the war as a political tool to hammer the Democrats (see the union clause in the Homeland Security bill, which was used to label Democrats as unpatriotic and defeat people like Max Cleland).
[quote]vroom wrote:
How can you be too fixated on collateral damage you ask? Fallujah is the prime example in the Iraqi war. Many American Marines died so that property wasn’t damaged too a city that was abandoned to the insurgency.
My opinion, on this thread, was based on what the Generals said and when they said it. I can understand why you guys are introducing these different tangents but they really don’t have anything to do with a “mutiny” that doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere else but in the media.
Hedo,
I’m sure you are well aware that there is more going on than pure military operations in Iraq.
Something to do with hearts and minds… perhaps with keeping the population from hating the US?
Anyway, I think you’ll find that the President and the SecDef are willing to sacrifice a few lives in order to help the long term outcome of the war.
That is where the policies you are decrying have come from – and why they are there. Those are the orders that people have to follow whether they like them or not.
This isn’t even what the generals are talking about…[/quote]
They are talking about Rumsfeld right? That’s what I’ve been trying to stick too.
The rest wasn’t my argument, just answering the questions as they come up.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
Rules of engagment that get people killed.
Fixation on collateral damage.
Sanctuary in mosques.
[/quote]
While I agree with you on Fallujah and how that should have been done right the first time, you’re missing the point. You don’t win these wars by “defeating the population.” That can’t be done short of genocide.
You win, not by making the people love you, but by making them not hate you long enough for you to establish security and deny the insurgents sanctuary. That takes a long time. And because these wars are issues of will (ours and theirs), they are largely fought and won in the media. Tet and thus Vietnam were lose in the media, regardless of the reality on the battlefield. What appears on Al-Jazeera and ABC News does matter, a ton.
I hope everyone reading this thread will at least read this, six paragraphs by a former Marine officer, sums it up pretty elegantly:
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
hedo wrote:
One of my blanket statements? This entire thread is covered in them don’t you think?
Kind of getting circular isn’t it? As I explained before I don’t have a problem with the message but the timing is all wrong and suspect. These messengers are dead to their peers now anyway.
Since you asked I’ll give my two cents on the “warplan”. Initially I liked it. The Thunder Run to Baghdad worked as planned. The military was defeated quickly and without a lot of civilian deaths. The population however was not defeated.
You can’t “defeat the population.” What do you mean by that?
The insurgency came from the population.
They should have been much more firm, martial law should have been tougher. An occupied people will never love you. They need to respect you however. They will respect you out of fear. The military would never support such actions anymore. The civilian leadership would never propose it.
YOu can be tough and then reward the population for good behavior. You can’t ratchet things up once control is lost.
Absolutely.
One way or another they have to feel defeated and that resistance is hopeless.
I think the situation has now been blown way out of proportion and the country divided needlessly.
What, you think Iraq’s a happy little country with just a few bad apples sprinkled in one geographic area? I hope you’re not naive enough to subscribe to that kind of Fox News whitewashing.
And as for America being divided, that’s mostly due to an anti-military (some would say anti-American, I would only go that far with regards to Michael Moore and some of the real crazies) Democratic Party.
But Bush can’t escape blame after relentlessly politicizing the war. Instead of trying to unify the nation against our enemies, he used the war as a political tool to hammer the Democrats (see the union clause in the Homeland Security bill, which was used to label Democrats as unpatriotic and defeat people like Max Cleland).
A strong military leader could fix these issues but I don’t see one on the horizon. I’m talking on the order of a MacArthur or an Eisenhower. Maybe a Stormin Norman in his day. I don’t think the civilian leadership has the support right now for further action and that will cost us in the Middle East in the long run.
fyi - the proper way for a retired general to voice his concernes is to the secretary directly. He could also speak at one of the war colleges, in front of his peers, and have his ideas debated by other leaders. Experienced Generals are always welcomed at these types of forums. These men are hardly worthy of praise. The media is hardly the proper forum.
[/quote]
I didn’t say “can’t defeat the populations” I said they “were not defeated”. If they were defeated then an insurgency would not have happened.
That’s institutional and would not have happened in any warplan that I read about.
The Iraqi population never felt they were defeated. They had hope in the insurgency, hope that one side or the other would prevail and throw out the Americans at some point.
Do you believe the CNN crap that Iraq is about to explode into civil war? Still hasn’t happened. The truth is somewhere in the middle. To believe only what fits into your preconcieved conclusion is simplistic.
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
hedo wrote:
Professor X wrote:
hedo wrote:
Rumsfeld is not the issue. He, by most accounts, defers to senior military leaders when they make a call. The problem is our fixation on being popular and politically correct. That’s institutional and isn’t going to be fixed by the SecDef.
What does any of this have to do with being “politically correct”?
Rules of engagment that get people killed.
Fixation on collateral damage.
Sanctuary in mosques.
While I agree with you on Fallujah and how that should have been done right the first time, you’re missing the point. You don’t win these wars by “defeating the population.” That can’t be done short of genocide.
You win, not by making the people love you, but by making them not hate you long enough for you to establish security and deny the insurgents sanctuary. That takes a long time. And because these wars are issues of will (ours and theirs), they are largely fought and won in the media. Tet and thus Vietnam were lose in the media, regardless of the reality on the battlefield. What appears on Al-Jazeera and ABC News does matter, a ton.
I hope everyone reading this thread will at least read this, six paragraphs by a former Marine officer, sums it up pretty elegantly:
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/six_easy_paragraphs.htm
[/quote]
I’m not talking about genocide either, simply the removal of hope of victory by your opponent.
[quote]hedo wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
hedo wrote:
One of my blanket statements? This entire thread is covered in them don’t you think?
Kind of getting circular isn’t it? As I explained before I don’t have a problem with the message but the timing is all wrong and suspect. These messengers are dead to their peers now anyway.
Since you asked I’ll give my two cents on the “warplan”. Initially I liked it. The Thunder Run to Baghdad worked as planned. The military was defeated quickly and without a lot of civilian deaths. The population however was not defeated.
You can’t “defeat the population.” What do you mean by that?
The insurgency came from the population.
They should have been much more firm, martial law should have been tougher. An occupied people will never love you. They need to respect you however. They will respect you out of fear. The military would never support such actions anymore. The civilian leadership would never propose it.
YOu can be tough and then reward the population for good behavior. You can’t ratchet things up once control is lost.
Absolutely.
One way or another they have to feel defeated and that resistance is hopeless.
I think the situation has now been blown way out of proportion and the country divided needlessly.
What, you think Iraq’s a happy little country with just a few bad apples sprinkled in one geographic area? I hope you’re not naive enough to subscribe to that kind of Fox News whitewashing.
And as for America being divided, that’s mostly due to an anti-military (some would say anti-American, I would only go that far with regards to Michael Moore and some of the real crazies) Democratic Party.
But Bush can’t escape blame after relentlessly politicizing the war. Instead of trying to unify the nation against our enemies, he used the war as a political tool to hammer the Democrats (see the union clause in the Homeland Security bill, which was used to label Democrats as unpatriotic and defeat people like Max Cleland).
A strong military leader could fix these issues but I don’t see one on the horizon. I’m talking on the order of a MacArthur or an Eisenhower. Maybe a Stormin Norman in his day. I don’t think the civilian leadership has the support right now for further action and that will cost us in the Middle East in the long run.
fyi - the proper way for a retired general to voice his concernes is to the secretary directly. He could also speak at one of the war colleges, in front of his peers, and have his ideas debated by other leaders. Experienced Generals are always welcomed at these types of forums. These men are hardly worthy of praise. The media is hardly the proper forum.
I didn’t say “can’t defeat the populations” I said they “were not defeated”. If they were defeated then an insurgency would not have happened.
That’s institutional and would not have happened in any warplan that I read about.
The Iraqi population never felt they were defeated. They had hope in the insurgency, hope that one side or the other would prevail and throw out the Americans at some point.
Do you believe the CNN crap that Iraq is about to explode into civil war? Still hasn’t happened. The truth is somewhere in the middle. To believe only what fits into your preconcieved conclusion is simplistic.
[/quote]
Compared to other modern civil wars, El Salvador (100,000 dead) and Algeria (200,000 dead) in avg deaths per day, Iraq is already worse. There is major sectarian violence, and many experts have already said that what is going on now is already a civil war.
[quote]ExNole wrote:
…
The media is where people are tried in this administration. Libby kept his job until his indictment, no one in the administration cared he leaked the info, only that he got caught and put on TV. … [/quote]
You are 100% wrong. Bush cares nothing for media attention and polls.
Libby would still be working if he were not indicted.
The media pressure on Rumsfeld will not drive him out but it may make our enemies think they are winning.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
ExNole wrote:
…
The media is where people are tried in this administration. Libby kept his job until his indictment, no one in the administration cared he leaked the info, only that he got caught and put on TV. …
You are 100% wrong. Bush cares nothing for media attention and polls.
Libby would still be working if he were not indicted.
The media pressure on Rumsfeld will not drive him out but it may make our enemies think they are winning.[/quote]
Bullshit. I can’t stand this ridiculous stance as if no one should say anything against anyone in the administration because it may cause our enemies to think they are winning. That is simply another way of saying anyone who opposes is somehow “unpatriotic”. You come across as an unthinking political party drone. I hope some of you realize that our actions right now have more to do with your kids and their children than who wins the big political party game right now. No one will give a shit about your current version of Republican vs Democrat in 30 years.
[quote]hedo wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
hedo wrote:
One of my blanket statements? This entire thread is covered in them don’t you think?
Kind of getting circular isn’t it? As I explained before I don’t have a problem with the message but the timing is all wrong and suspect. These messengers are dead to their peers now anyway.
Since you asked I’ll give my two cents on the “warplan”. Initially I liked it. The Thunder Run to Baghdad worked as planned. The military was defeated quickly and without a lot of civilian deaths. The population however was not defeated.
You can’t “defeat the population.” What do you mean by that?
The insurgency came from the population.
They should have been much more firm, martial law should have been tougher. An occupied people will never love you. They need to respect you however. They will respect you out of fear. The military would never support such actions anymore. The civilian leadership would never propose it.
YOu can be tough and then reward the population for good behavior. You can’t ratchet things up once control is lost.
Absolutely.
One way or another they have to feel defeated and that resistance is hopeless.
I think the situation has now been blown way out of proportion and the country divided needlessly.
What, you think Iraq’s a happy little country with just a few bad apples sprinkled in one geographic area? I hope you’re not naive enough to subscribe to that kind of Fox News whitewashing.
And as for America being divided, that’s mostly due to an anti-military (some would say anti-American, I would only go that far with regards to Michael Moore and some of the real crazies) Democratic Party.
But Bush can’t escape blame after relentlessly politicizing the war. Instead of trying to unify the nation against our enemies, he used the war as a political tool to hammer the Democrats (see the union clause in the Homeland Security bill, which was used to label Democrats as unpatriotic and defeat people like Max Cleland).
A strong military leader could fix these issues but I don’t see one on the horizon. I’m talking on the order of a MacArthur or an Eisenhower. Maybe a Stormin Norman in his day. I don’t think the civilian leadership has the support right now for further action and that will cost us in the Middle East in the long run.
fyi - the proper way for a retired general to voice his concernes is to the secretary directly. He could also speak at one of the war colleges, in front of his peers, and have his ideas debated by other leaders. Experienced Generals are always welcomed at these types of forums. These men are hardly worthy of praise. The media is hardly the proper forum.
I didn’t say “can’t defeat the populations” I said they “were not defeated”. If they were defeated then an insurgency would not have happened.
That’s institutional and would not have happened in any warplan that I read about.
The Iraqi population never felt they were defeated. They had hope in the insurgency, hope that one side or the other would prevail and throw out the Americans at some point.
[/quote]
What you’re talking about, to put it in simplest terms, is more troops, i.e. more security, which probably wouldn’t have prevented the insurgency but would have dramatically lessened its size and impact. And the blame for not using enough troops falls DIRECTLY at the feet of Rumsfeld and his “transformational agenda.” There is no way around that.
Much more than I believe that Fox News crap, I saw the old CPA spokesman, this asshole Dan Senor, on the Colbert Report recently, laughing it up about how most of Iraq was great, things were just a little unsettled in the middle. When the middle of the country and the capital, THE CAPITAL, are in rebellion, it is not a secure situation. It’s great that the country didn’t get torn in three immediately after the Samarra bombing, but that’s not the end of the story.
Do I think there’s a civil war going on? Not in the strictest sense, but again, you, like the worst Bush apologists, are playing with semantics. When people are being shot in the tens daily for their ethnicity or religion, when the police and army are embryonic and militias run the streets, whether or not it’s “a civil war” is kind of irrelevant. There is, in one Pentagon euphemism, “a high level of domestic violence” going on, and large scale ethnic cleansing.
If we withdrew tomorrow, I have little doubt that there would be an outright civil war.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
ExNole wrote:
…
The media is where people are tried in this administration. Libby kept his job until his indictment, no one in the administration cared he leaked the info, only that he got caught and put on TV. …
You are 100% wrong. Bush cares nothing for media attention and polls.
Libby would still be working if he were not indicted.
The media pressure on Rumsfeld will not drive him out but it may make our enemies think they are winning.[/quote]
I hate this simple-minded bullshit about being defeatist or making our enemies think they’ll win. This war is going to be won or lost in America as much as in Iraq, and having a blatantly incompetent Secretary of Defense whose predictions are constantly proved wrong and who failed to understand the insurgency from day one does immense damage to public support for the war.
Here’s another thing I doubt you’re thinking about: Rumsfeld doesn’t care too much about winning, in the sense of leaving behind a stable, democratic Iraq. This is a man who despises nation-building, as reflected in the priorities of his Pentagon (read where the money goes in the QDR sometime), and his own speeches, even on the eve of the war. He should have been the last person put in charge of a war in Iraq.
It’s an open secret in Washington that Rumsfeld is bored with Iraq. Yes, bored, he wants to get back to “transforming the military”, and this is slowing down the realization of his vision. Wait and see what’ll happen: we’ll draw down forces over the next year or so, do our best to prevent outright civil war, declare victory over Saddam and Al Qaeda both, and head home. And the people that will suffer will be the Iraqis, just like the South Vietnamese did 30 years ago.
I may be proven wrong, but I doubt it.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
ExNole wrote:
…
The media is where people are tried in this administration. Libby kept his job until his indictment, no one in the administration cared he leaked the info, only that he got caught and put on TV. …
You are 100% wrong. Bush cares nothing for media attention and polls.
Libby would still be working if he were not indicted.
The media pressure on Rumsfeld will not drive him out but it may make our enemies think they are winning.
Bullshit. I can’t stand this ridiculous stance as if no one should say anything against anyone in the administration because it may cause our enemies to think they are winning. That is simply another way of saying anyone who opposes is somehow “unpatriotic”. You come across as an unthinking political party drone. I hope some of you realize that our actions right now have more to do with your kids and their children than who wins the big political party game right now. No one will give a shit about your current version of Republican vs Democrat in 30 years.[/quote]
I don’t follow. The media will not force Rumsfeld out. It has been shown that Bush does not follow their opinions.
There is no question that our enemy follows our media and plays to our news cycles. They admit it, it is part if their planning. That is why all the bombings occur where they can be easily reported.
There is no question that Rummy being forced out would be percieved as a victory for our enemies.
If Rummy was incompetent I would say kick his ass out. That certainly does not appear to be the case.
Most of the criticism leveled at him is vague because it is baseless.
They don’t like him because he is forcing long over-due change that they don’t like.
When these jackass generals are forced to outline why they don’t like him they come up with bullshit.
Rummy did not chose to invade Iraq. That was Bush’s call.
Disbanding the Iraqi army was the only call.
It was dominated by the Sunni. They were the problem before the invasion, they were a problem during the invasion and they are a major problem now. Nobody truly believes keeping the Sunni dominated army together would have been a good idea.
It is pure politics. Unfortunately our men and women in uniform are the ones being hurt by political games.