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70 comments on Sunday Open Thread

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Don Sailorman on March 13, 2006 - 8:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I do not know why you are surprised to see an intelligent document from the U.S. Army. I have been fortunate to know large numbers of enlisted noncoms and also many officers of various ranks in all branches of the services for the past fifty years, and on the average I'd say they are somewhat smarter and far more in touch with the real world than are their civilian counterparts.

Note that it is not the generals who screwed up the Vietnam war, it was their civilian superiors. President Eisenhower was smart enough not to touch Vietnam with a ten-foot pole (and seriously pissed off the French by not coming to their rescue at Dien Bien Phu in 1954), but "smart Harvard lawyer" JFK and his McNamara/bean-counter Sec. of Defense and the Dean Rusk brain trust of lawyers got us into what was a disaster and quagmire ten times worse than Iraq.

Before invading Iraq, the highest-ranking Army guy
says, "Hey it is going to take 400,000 American troops to do the job," and so the politocoes force him out because that is not the Gospel accoding to the straight-shooting;-) Cheney and Co., guys who truly are ignorant of military history. I cannot figure out Rumsfeld, who actually served in the military, how he can have said and done the stupid things he has. It is a big puzzle to me. And how could he not have had the honor to resign after the revalations of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners? This is a BNG, Big National Disgrace. Also, why did not Bush have the guts to fire Rummy? Misplaced loyalty? The conventional wisdom is that Bush is dumber than spit and merely a puppet dancing on strings pulled by the Big Money Boys, but I do not think this is the whole story, and I think it will probably take historians fifty or a hundred years to figure out an accurate account of what is actually happening now.

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Donal on March 13, 2006 - 10:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I read that Profumo just died.  He resigned like a good Brit, but Americans seem far less likely to resign in the face of scandal.  I wonder if, not being aristocrats with plenty of land and old money, they simply need the steady income.  

Some days, I'd love to resign and spend more time with my family.  Can't afford it.

Bush is not stupid, but IMO he is willingly being handled by some really sharp, calculating characters that are in every way a lot smarter and better informed than him.  It saddens me, but a lot of people I know, members of my family, see nothing wrong with what the US has done at Gitmo or Abu Ghuraib.  I think their sense of immunity is sort-sighted.

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wkwillis on March 13, 2006 - 11:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The only thing worse than those navy clowns running a land war is for the army clowns running a naval war. God, when I think about the war of 1815 I cringe. It's like, they just don't get it.
Kennedy's knifefighter instincts were perfectly suitable to running a PT boat, and he no doubt would have made a wonderfull privateer captain, but if you want to fight a land war in Asia you have to understand farmers.
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Don Sailorman on March 13, 2006 - 1:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
At West Point from about 1880, among the first 100 Commandmants the first three are:
1. Do not become involved in a land war on the Asian land mass.
2. Do not become involved in a land war on the Asian land mass.
3. Do not become involved in a land war on the Asian land mass.

IMO JFK was an ignorant and arrogant a-hole who tried (egged on by little brother Bobby) to kill Castro at least six times, enthusistically did the dumbest things imaginable, damn near got us into World War III through really stupid mistakes, bungled the Bay of Pigs Invasion bigtime, was the only U.S. president ever to use full-time the services of a high-class pimp, and was so addicted to drugs that he had a hard time reading his speeches.

His image and the whole Camelot thing was a total fantasy created by spin doctors and fawning journalists. IMO he bears most of the problem for us getting inot the Vietnam fiasco.

God rot his soul in hell.

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LJR on March 13, 2006 - 11:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
He got in Marilyn's pants.  Couldn't be all bad.  Had a sense of humor too.  And he was Irish.
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LJR on March 13, 2006 - 11:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Right.  Fifty or a hundred years.  Like anyone will care then.
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