Re: Please, Tell Me Why

<USA> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Harry Hope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >"Bush isn't in control," says recently retired Air Force colonel Karen
> >Kwiatkowksi.
> >A former Pentagon officer and Middle East specialist who once worked
> >in the office of the undersecretary of defence for policy, Ms.
> >Kwiatkowski says key areas of government have been "hijacked" by "a
> >network of political appointees in key positions . . . operating
> >outside normal structures and practices."
> >A self-described conservative, she says the neo-cons advocate
> >"perpetual war to promote abstract global morality through military
> >imperialism, propped up by muscular national socialism at home."
> >Some in the military community fear such trends could ultimately lead
> >to the destruction of the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq.
> >It isn't just the almost daily loss of life (which Defence Secretary
> >Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off, after the recent shooting down of a
> >Chinook helicopter, as a "necessary part of the war").

Correctly so


<USA> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Harry Hope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Bush isn't in control," says recently retired Air Force colonel Karen
> >Kwiatkowksi.
> >
> >A former Pentagon officer and Middle East specialist who once worked
> >in the office of the undersecretary of defence for policy, Ms.
> >Kwiatkowski says key areas of government have been "hijacked" by "a
> >network of political appointees in key positions . . . operating
> >outside normal structures and practices."
> >
> >A self-described conservative, she says the neo-cons advocate
> >"perpetual war to promote abstract global morality through military
> >imperialism, propped up by muscular national socialism at home."
> >
> >Some in the military community fear such trends could ultimately lead
> >to the destruction of the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq.
> >
> >It isn't just the almost daily loss of life (which Defence Secretary
> >Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off, after the recent shooting down of a
> >Chinook helicopter, as a "necessary part of the war").
> >
> >Rather, it is the growing unease as a truer picture of misinformation
> >and appalling new facts about military morale come to light.
> >
> >The U.S. Defence Department has forbidden the media from filming
> >returns of "transfer tubes" (the latest euphemism for body bags) lest
> >such images disturb the public.
> >
> >Meanwhile, soldiers' Web logs and e-mails detail complaints by troops
> >of being sent to Iraq with Vietnam-era flak jackets which offer no
> >protection against enemy Kalashnikovs.
> >
> >Until the Senate put a stop to it, injured reservists were charged $8
> >(U.S.) a day for food in hospital, and had to buy their own toilet
> >tissue.
> >
> >And Stars and Stripes, the U.S. armed forces in-house journal, last
> >month reported that half of American soldiers in country are fed up.
> >
> >Not properly trained for the job they are expected to do, they see no
> >end in sight for the war and don't plan to re-enlist.
> >
> >It has not escaped the attention of veterans that the U.S. government
> >recently blocked modest ($1-million) reparations to 37 former POWs
> >from the earlier Gulf war, which had been ordered by a U.S. court to
> >be paid out of Iraqi funds.
> >
> >The trouble, many say, began immediately after Mr. Rumsfeld took
> >office and began a series of secret studies, from which senior
> >military leaders were excluded.
> >
> >The studies called for a revamping of the entire military, and
> >proposed that all the U.S. needed to win a war were Stealth bombers
> >and Special Forces. Sept. 11 and Afghanistan kept dissenters within
> >the Pentagon quiet.
> >
> >But only for a time.
> >
> >Before the Iraq war began, army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki
> >testified before Congress that the occupation of Iraq would require
> >500,000 troops.
> >
> >At the time, he was ridiculed by Mr. Wolfowitz, who to this day seems
> >oblivious to military disenchantment in Iraq.
> >
> >Now, troop morale depends in large part on a clearly scheduled return
> >stateside.
> >
> >Yet, because of the troop shortage predicted by Gen. Shinseki,
> >soldiers have seen their return date postponed again and again.
> >
> >Some troops come home from Iraq and head almost immediately to
> >Afghanistan, South Korea or Bosnia.
> >
> >By early next year, 30 of the U.S. Army's 33 combat brigades will
> >either be in Iraq or on their way to another assignment.
> >
> >None will have been able to spend what should be compulsory time
> >updating their skills at the national training centre at Fort Irwin,
> >Calif.
> >
> >Meanwhile, President Bush refuses to admit that the U.S. Army,
> >currently 485,000 soldiers, needs desperately to be expanded.
> >
> >American soldiers cannot fight a guerrilla war and keep the peace in
> >Iraq.
> >
> >But Mr. Rumsfeld, like his Vietnam-era predecessors, will not admit
> >that he erred when he pronounced that the war would end quickly.
> >
> >None of this bodes well for Mr. Bush in the upcoming election.
> >
> >A few days ago, the 50th casualty of the U.S. First Airborne Division,
> >which is based at Fort Campbell, Ky., arrived home and was honoured
> >with a funeral procession estimated to be 80 kilometres long.
> >
> >In the last contest, Mr. Bush got a large portion of active-duty
> >military and veteran votes.
> >
> >That's unlikely in 2004 unless he can persuade the Ron Rays and Karen
> >Kwiatkowskis that he can secure enough international support so that
> >U.S. troops in Iraq can be scaled back -- without the ignominy of
> >withdrawing with less gained than lost.
> >
> >
> >
> >From The Globe and Mail, 11/27/03:
>
>http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20031127/COMON2
7//?query=bush
> >
> >Truth and other casualties
> >
> >Retracted news stories, hidden body bags, and a deaf ear for
> >experienced soldiers: no wonder morale is down in Iraq, says author
> >MONIKA JENSEN-STEVENSON
> >
> >By MONIKA JENSEN-STEVENSON
> >
> >The week began with horrific reports that two American soldiers had
> >been murdered in Mosul, Northern Iraq, their throats slit and their
> >bodies mutilated.
> >
> >Across North America, the reaction was outrage.
> >
> >"IRAQI INGRATES CURSE US, Show no sympathy for butchered GIs," said
> >the New York Post.
> >
> >Days later, U.S. military officials retracted the story.
> >
> >The two in fact died of gunshot wounds during a robbery.
> >
> >They were not mutilated.
> >
> >For many U.S. vets, the entire incident deepened their malaise.
> >
> >It roused not only memories of atrocities against the bodies of U.S.
> >soldiers in Somalia (those stories had been true), it also increased
> >current doubts, when it comes to Iraq, about what and who to believe.
> >
> >Ron Ray, U.S. Marine Corps colonel (ret.), and a former assistant
> >secretary of defence, says he sees the latest retraction as part of a
> >pattern of misinformation that started long before the hyped-up rescue
> >of Jessica Lynch and the revelation that soldiers had never sent 11
> >identical upbeat letters home.
> >
> >A combat veteran of Vietnam, now a prominent constitutional lawyer,
> >Mr. Ray warned last year, before the U.S.-led war began, of the need
> >for "hard evidence that war in Iraq is required to maintain the
> >security of the United States."
> >
> >As a young lieutenant, he had believed that North Vietnamese torpedo
> >boats attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.
> >
> >"That's why Congress voted to go to war in 1965," he says now.
> >
> >"I survived that war and was studying law when the senior senator from
> >Kentucky, Thruston Morton, told me there had been no attack -- 58,000
> >dead for a lie."
> >
> >In his 1998 book, A World Transformed, George Bush Sr. outlined his
> >reasons for not going after Saddam at the end of the earlier Gulf war:
> >
> >"Extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq . . . would have
> >incurred incalculable human and political costs. . . . We would have
> >been forced to occupy Baghdad . . . [and] rule Iraq. . . . Under those
> >circumstances there would have been no viable exit strategy . . . the
> >U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly
> >hostile land."
> >
> >Yet a top-secret report, drafted by the National Intelligence Council
> >for George W. Bush on Oct. 1, 2002, but now public knowledge, confirms
> >that the U.S. has, once again, been pulled into war by a lie.
> >
> >The report states that Baghdad did not sponsor recent terrorist
> >attacks against America; was not operating in concert with al-Qaeda;
> >and was not at the time a terrorist threat to America.
> >
> >Why did the younger Bush ignore his father's advice?
> >
> >Many military professionals believe he is under the influence of
> >neo-conservative ideologues led by deputy defence secretary Paul
> >Wolfowitz.
> >
> >"Bush isn't in control," says recently retired Air Force colonel Karen
> >Kwiatkowksi.
> >
> >____________________________________________________
> >
> >This whole Bushie-created quagmire is spinning out of control.
> >
> >Harry
>
> Free the Iraqis: stop the Bush regime.
>
> Free the USA: incarcerate the Bush mob.
>
> Those who are mature and informed don't support Bush.
> There is nothing even remotely 'correct' about treason
> such as that of the Bush crime organization.