Oh, I don’t know. Personally I’m expecting shocking revelations about who was responsible for putting Deal or No Deal on the air.
Subtle and crafty, our enemies are.
This was intended as a satirical comment on the propensity of some apologists to respond to criticism of GW by replying that Clinton didn’t do any better. It apparently missed its mark.
One thing I learned from the military, Don’t blame your predecessor.Whatever the situtation, it is your job now, work on it.
I don’t think it, like crime in general, will ever be solved. If it is kept to a tolerable level that’s all we can expect.
General McCaffrey’s interview was in May. I don’t know if he was shown a bunch of Potemkin Villages in the form of some select units who were doing well in training or what, but I’ve got some later information from a report in the Los Angeles Times from 23 September on the operational effectiveness of some Iraqi army units. It’s now available only to* Times’* registered users but here are some exerpts.
This deals with the much publicized plan to beef up military presence in Baghdad. It would seem that one trouble with giving people freedom is that the use it to pursue their own interests instead of yours. The units McCaffrey saw might have looked good in training but a month after a Baghdad a beefed up security force there was announced the US command can only be “confident” that the requested Iraqi forces needed will show up sooner or later.
This has been addressed numerous times by me and others…
Agreed, there have been a few successes.
The failures in Iraq and with the relief efforts in Katrina coupled with GW’s business failures appear to me to form a pattern of incopetence in planning and execution of projects. It is permissible to disagree with my presumption.
And, last but not least, another example of administration ideology trumping what the actual situation seems to call for. Rumsfeld appears to have decided that he can get is “lean and mean machine” if he sets anarbitrary budget number for the army and forces them to live within it.
I guess it’s always possible to hope. But returning a Republican dominated congress this fall will ensure that GW will continue to run things without oversight and no check on his assumption of power. In fact, it that happens I expect to see an increased grandiousity from the administration.
I got the satire. I just didn’t get that it was wholly facetious. Thanks for the clarification.
And I mischaracterized your remarks, as suggested by John Mace, then I apologize.
No argument there. But Bush is working on it. He may not be doing exactly what you (or I) would do, but he’s doing what he thinks is right.
And when did Bush blame Clinton? Sure, some people have tried to say Clinton didn’t do enough to fight terrorism and ObL during his term, but I don’t think Bush is one of them. (For the record – I’m not one of them, either.) This is an honest question because I think Bush has been pretty good about not blaming his predecessor.
My expectations for the foreseeable future are much like yours. The only reason I have to differ is that “ever” is a long, long time.
You can say that again.
Or maybe the situation is improved, but there are still problems. Regardless, thanks for the link.
I honestly don’t know enough about this to comment intelligently (like that’s ever stopped me before 
). So I’ll have to pass on this issue for now.
What do you think the attack dogs are for?
With the caveat that we would be even safer if our response had not included foreign wars. Terrorism is a law-enforcement problem, not a military problem.
What makes you think they need “fixing.”? You mean this?
Lack of health insurance kills six times as many Americans each year as 9/11 did.
Bush didn’t but a number of his apologists did and do, some of them on this board.
Hey, that’s my line. I only say “ever” with an analogy to crime. I think our earliest records probably refer to some crime or other, and it appears to be with us for the future. Terrorism is criminal.
The link was from my thread called "When they stand up, we will stand down. If there is improvement is doesn’t seem to be visible in operations. I still say this “get your army in shape whenever you can find the time” isn’t going to cut it. A deadline for readiness is needed.
What attack dogs? Is Bush responsible for every Republican who gets out of line or draws a conclusion at odds with his own? If so, who’s responsible for those Democrats who blame only Bush for a problem that’s been brewing for decades? Because I’d like to write a sternly worded letter about correcting that.
Fair enough. I appreciate the clarification.
And by the way, I meant to say thank you for your service.
The hope is that one day, we’ll actually know what the root causes of criminal behavior are, and find some way to stamp that out. Or if that doesn’t work, that we’ll follow Brave New World and just get high all the time.
I have a couple of concerns about this tactic, but the main one is what happens if we set a deadline and they don’t meet it. Do we leave anyway?
[Sorry, that’s a hijack. I’ll try to take it over to your thread.]
Yehyehyehyehyeh! 
Nobody commits crimes if they have soma!
Of course, because there is no way we can avert a civil war in Iraq – it’s already started – and Vietnam should have taught us that the stupidest thing you can do is get caught up in another country’s civil war; also because unconditional withdrawal by a stated deadline is the only way we can prove to the world that we have no long-term imperial designs on Iraq or its oil.
Yes, we leave. And don’t worry about a small hijack. I sometimes wander off the subject myself.
My main concern here is that I see no reason to trust Bush, with his demonstrated record of the inability to organize a successful endeavor, to be good at being an agent for reducing terrorism in the world. In order to do that we need the cooperation of other nations. Despite their opposition to the Iraq war we get cooperation in antiterrorism from European countries because of self interest. However I don’t believe Muslim terrorists can be fought effectively, or successfuly, from outside Islam. We desparately need the good will of Arab, Muslim leaders and they have been largely alienated, starting with the Bush statement shortly after 9/11 that we must launch a “crusade” followed up by the invasion of Iraq. Muslim leaders know as well as anyone else that Iraq had no part in the 9/11 terrorist attack and that leads straight to a hard question about our motive in the invasion.
The invasion was a boneheaded move being made worse by a boneheaded instance on “staying the course.”
We are stuck with Bush for two more years. As I see it the only thing to do is elect a congress with at least one Democratic house. That will at least act as a brake on his unprecedented grab of power based on “national security” although it isn’t going to advance antiterrorism. That means I need to be concerned about the proposition that Bush will be effective in antiterrorism and the seeming acceptance of his claim even though he has never demonstrated much effictiveness in anything else. Except conning people into bailing him out when he messes up.