The Hebrews blame the Joint Chiefs for the Hebrews' end run around the Chiefs!!! Re: We finally know the future: We're staying in the Middle East at least 50 years.
Mort Zuckerman
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Subject: The Hebrews blame the Joint Chiefs for the Hebrews' end run
around the Chiefs!!! Re: We finally know the future: We're staying in
the Middle East at least 50 years.
Date: Sep 12, 2008 8:16 AM
Wow. This is really gonna piss off the js.mil.
Maybe the Pentagon will kick out the Israelis for once and for all,
now.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
==================================
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGU4MDYwNDZiOWY3MmVlZDExM2IyZmU5NWM0M2ZmYjI=
Chief Shame
The bizarre multifront battle for a winning strategy in Iraq.
By Rich Lowry
Editor’s note: This column is available exclusively through King
Features Syndicate.
For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please
contact:
kfsre...@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext 246).
In his classic book on the Vietnam War, Dereliction of Duty, H.R.
McMaster excoriates
the Joint Chiefs of Staff for acceding to President Lyndon Johnson’s
flawed war
plan and his dishonest salesmanship of it. McMaster dubs them “the
five silent men.”
What adjective best describes the equally shameful conduct of the men
of the Joint
Chiefs during the Iraq War? “Silent” is the least damning of the
possibilities.
In his latest insider account of the Bush administration, The War
Within, Bob Woodward
provides a window into the cluelessness of the chiefs and their
seeming disinterest
in victory that will fascinate and appall students of civil- military
relations
for decades to come.
In 2006, it had become obvious to almost everyone that we were failing
in Iraq,
with the exception of top U.S. generals. The general in command on the
ground, George
Casey, and his immediate superior, the head of U.S. Central Command
John Abizaid,
were focused on U.S. troop withdrawals the way Mr. Dick in David
Copperfield is
focused on King Charles’s head.
When President Bush told Gen. Casey in a trip to Baghdad in June 2006
that “we have
to win,” Casey replied, “But to win, we have to draw down.” It
remained his dogged
mantra as Baghdad collapsed all around him.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, commissioned a group of
colonels to
review war strategy for the chiefs. One of their presentations ended
starkly, “We
are not winning, so we are losing.” Woodward writes, “Chairman Pace
had an unusual
sullen look on his face, almost crestfallen, as if to say, ‘How could
I not have
realized this.’”
Good question. Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld had created an
environment that
valued convenient fictions over hard truths, and the chiefs hoped to
muddle through
with the Casey strategy so they could rid themselves of the Iraq War,
and its strain
on the military, as soon as possible.
President Bush had his own revelatory moment when in a meeting with
military experts,
retired Gen. Jack Keane told him, “We don’t have a plan to defeat the
insurgency.”
When Bush set about getting one — the surge — he had to do an end run
around the
chiefs.
He fired Rumsfeld, and replaced Gens. Pace and Abizaid. He kicked Gen.
Casey upstairs
to Army chief of staff in a foolhardy face-saving gesture. Casey had
been pulled
from the field in defeat, and a new strategy was implemented that —
should it succeed
— would expose the folly of his own.
Casey thought the surge was all about domestic U.S. politics. Adm.
Michael Mullen
— the new chairman of the chiefs — thought there was a conspiracy
afoot to blame
the loss of the war on the military. And Abizaid’s replacement at
CENTCOM, Adm.
William Fallon, shared their dim view of the surge.
A bizarre multifront battle ensued, with the new commander in Iraq,
Gen. David Petraeus,
fighting against our enemies with the additional forces of the surge,
and CENTCOM
and the chiefs fighting against the surge. According to Woodward,
“Fallon was determined
to challenge the merit of every personnel request.”
Keane, a mentor to Petraeus, became a back channel between Bush and
Vice President
Dick Cheney and the commander in Iraq. Keane warned Cheney, “The Joint
Chiefs are
more concerned about breaking the Army and Marine Corps than winning
the war.” When
Bush gave Keane a message for Petraeus saying he’d have all the forces
needed to
succeed, Petraeus replied, “I wish he’d tell CENTCOM and the Pentagon
that.”
Astonishingly, Chairman Mullen told Keane, “I don’t want you going to
Iraq anymore
and helping Petraeus.” Mullen worried that Keane was undermining him,
never mind
that Petraeus — who was fighting the war — found Keane’s counsel
useful. It took
interventions by Bush and Cheney to get Keane cleared again to travel
to Iraq.
“Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by
incompetence,” Napoleon
supposedly said. In this war, the chiefs have often made that seem a
false choice.
© 2008 by King Features Syndicate
-----Original Message-----
>From: Kathleen <janmu...@earthlink.net>
>Sent: Sep 9, 2008 6:43 PM
>Subject: We finally know the future: We're staying in the Middle East at
least 50 years.
>
>"While in Iraq, Keane talked to Petraeus about his future. Petraeus's
next assignment -- commander of NATO -- seemed set.
>
>"NATO was important, Keane said, but its time had passed. The international
center of gravity had moved to the Middle East. "We're going to be
here
for 50 years minimum, most of the time hopefully preventing wars, and
on occasion
having to fight one, dealing with radical Islam, our economic
interests in the region
and trying to achieve stability," Keane said.
>
>"This shift would have huge implications for how the U.S. military would
be educated and trained. "We're going to do it anyway because we don't
have a choice," Keane said. "So the issue is: Get over it. Come to
grips
with it." The Army didn't want that. "It wants to end a war and go
home. But that's not going to happen."
>
>-----------------------
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090802839_5.html?nav=hcmodule&sid=ST2008090404206&s_pos=
>
>-----------------------------
>
>Welp. There ya have it.
>
>There would be no reason to be in the Middle East 50
>years if it were not about oil, because, figger,
>the Arabs could handle the likes of Bin Laden.
>
>Or, maybe I should say, Russia can handle the Israelis
>and their bumbling little ops here and there like
>Georgia, the imaginary Syrian nuke site, Lebanon,...
>
>Naan 'leben Quaeda was a sting, like duh 1993 WTC Show.
>
>= = =
>Kinda of a funny way for Bush to not be "micromanaging" a
>war, eh? Doin an end run around the chain of command
>and insisting on the establishment of colonial rule
>in the middle of the Middle East (and insisting we were
>not leaving)?
>
>Clearly the officers actually charged to run the war
>were not aware that Shock and Awe was meant to be
>permanent.
>
>
>This Woodward book is the New Pentagon Papers.
>
>Kathleen M. Dickson