The ridiculous overreaction to Senator Kerry’s comments – a botched joke at the President’s expense for which Kerry has apologized repeatedly – indicates that the current administration is beyond dysfunctional. The President says it was never stay the course, and then Keith Olbermann shows a compilation of 29 different times Bush used the phrase “stay the course.” This administration CONSTANTLY insults the intelligence of the American people, and they perpetrated the ultimate insult on our troops by sending them into war without a plan for the aftermath. I made this point Thursday on Scott Janz’s blog, but I think it bears repeating in light of further supportive evidence and commentary.
Obviously we had enough troops to deal with the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein. His armed forces had been weakened by 12 years of sanctions and frequent air strikes by U.S. & British planes patrolling the no-fly zones that covered 2/3 of Iraq. But when the Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki stated that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, he was demeaned, insulted and hounded out of service by Cheney, Rumsfeld & the neocon crowd. Who was right? The highly decorated general who served in the Army for 38 years including two tours of duty in Vietnam where he had a foot blown in half by a landmine (Shinseki) vs. the political hack who never served in combat (Rumsfeld). Now even the Army Times editorial board is calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation, but good ol’ Bush just wants to “stay the course” with Rumsfeld at the helm. Bush will probably give him a medal before his term is up, just like the FEMA director. I ask again … who is insulting the American people and our troops???
Then this morning I’m scrolling through the New York Times and I run across Tom Friedman’s editorial column (you need a TimesSelect subscription to read the whole thing). Mr. Friedman is extremely knowledgeable about the Middle East (read his account of his years in Lebanon & Israel in From Beirut to Jerusalem), although recently he’s taken on the topic of globalization (more great reads – Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat). He was initially a supporter of the war, but like many others was convinced by the OVERWHELMING evidence that this administration was completely botching it. Well his column today pretty much echoes the theme of this post – it’s entitled “Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence” and is one of the most impassioned columns I’ve ever seen from Friedman.
Money Quote:
Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.� Because they surely do.
They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.
Finally … lets endanger the American people in a lame attempt to score political points. Let’s help our enemies acquire nuclear weapons technology. Let’s publish nuclear weapon schematics on the web, just to prove that Saddam Hussein was up to no good … 15 years ago!
That’s right, nuclear weapons plans confiscated from Iraq after the Gulf War in 1991 were published on the web for anyone to see by Republican congressmen with the help of the Bush administration (articles here and here). Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda or whoever could just cruise over on the web and copy it down. Yes, Saddam had a nuclear weapons program before the Gulf War, but it was completely dismantled in the aftermath. Posting this information proved nothing regarding the justification for the invasion of Iraq. It only served to endanger our country. So … who is providing aid and comfort to the terrorists???
This administration MUST have a check to its monopoly on power. We can’t get rid of Bush and his cronies directly, but we do have the power to end Republican control of Congress and take away the rubber stamp for all his dysfunctional policies. Vote them out!
4 responses so far ↓
1
blackhelicopter
// Nov 6, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
ALWAYS READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE
2
knightindragonland
// Nov 6, 2006 at 8:00 pm
BH, Umm, I did read the article. Read your own quote … “Experts say that AT THE TIME, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb” AT THE TIME refers to the period immediately following the first Gulf War. 1991. 15 years ago. His program was subsequently dismantled and never rebuilt. No threat. No nukes. No nothing. Of course now the threat is back again because Pete Hoekstra, Pat Roberts and the White House decide to post detailed nuclear weapons schematics on the internet for anyone to see in order to score political brownie points, “proving” that Saddam was up to no good … 15 years ago. All they did was endanger America. You can thank them if a nuke winds up on the American doorstep.
3
b lackhelicopter
// Nov 7, 2006 at 3:29 pm
i did not see anywhere in that article that it was the year 1991. again the left(you) want to twist the words to fit your aganda. 2002 was also a year notes were found and still havent been read through. i can see the headlines now….10/11/04 iraq has nukes and bush did nothing to stop the development of them.
4
knightindragonland
// Nov 7, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Do I have to spell everything out for you, BH???
From the Nov. 3 NYT article …
“But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research BEFORE THE 1991 PERSIAN GULF WAR. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.”
I capitalized the part stating the date of the documents in question, just so you don’t have any further confusion.
Thanks for bringing up yet another example of the Bush administration’s incompetence, by the way. The reason the confiscated documents haven’t been translated is that we STILL don’t have enough Arabic translators in place in our intelligence services FIVE YEARS AFTER 9/11. How do you blame the Dems for that, BH? Bush has the White House and Republicans control both houses of Congress.
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