Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: October 14, 2007 04:48AM

News


Faced with sharp criticism from a former U.S. commander in Iraq, the White House has chosen not to return fire.

Responding to accusations from retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Kate Starr, spokeswoman for the National Security Council said, "We appreciate his service to the country."

Speaking Friday to the Military Reporters and Editors' Conference just a few miles from the Pentagon, Sanchez, who commanded American forces in Iraq for a year after the March 2003 invasion, lashed out at the administration's strategy and competence. He called the Bush plan for war "catastrophically flawed."

"There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," Sanchez said.

The White House chose to answer Sanchez through the NSC spokeswoman, perhaps appropriate because some of Sanchez's harshest criticism was aimed at NSC officials, whom he called incompetent and negligent.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said on Saturday, "Gen. Sanchez is telling [the American people] what they already know and what the Bush administration and George Bush refuse to recognize."

Some analysts have been critical of Sanchez's leadership skills. He was the ranking U.S. officer in Iraq when the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison occurred.

On Friday, Sanchez complained that the news media unfairly accused him of being a liar and a torturer. His assessment of the news media was no higher than his regard for the Bush administration. He said some in the press corps have, without ever having met him, accused him of being "inexperienced" and, "dictatorial and somewhat dense."

Sanchez offered no solution to the problem of Iraq besides saying more skill and resources are needed.

"The president's recent statement to America that he will listen to military commanders is a matter of political expediency," he said.

The White House seemed to have that criticism in mind in its short statement from the NSC spokeswoman, who referred to the present U.S. commander in Iraq: "As Gen. [David] Petraeus and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker have said, there's more work to be done."

But, she did not attack Sanchez. In fact, she never mentioned him by name.

Other retired officers also have been critical of administration decisions. Each time, the White House has decided there is little to be gained from attacking a man who has worn stars on his shoulders.

A senior administration official told ABC News, "There is no point in getting into a fight with him."

Still, the harshness of Sanchez's remarks set him apart.

"There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," Sanchez said. "As a Japanese proverb says, 'Action without vision is a nightmare.' There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight."

Sanchez did not limit his criticism of official Washington to the White House alone.

"The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure," he said, "and the American people must hold them accountable."


[www.abcnews.go.com]

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: October 14, 2007 04:51AM

"There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," Sanchez said. "As a Japanese proverb says, 'Action without vision is a nightmare.' There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight."
- Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: October 14, 2007 09:37AM

southern outlaw, do you carry shovels around with you at all times?

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: October 14, 2007 03:59PM

Sanchez played a key role in creating the strategy he criticises now.

madmex2000 Report This Comment
Date: October 15, 2007 01:45AM

Sanchez didnt say anything before untill now. So he can shut the fuck up now..

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: October 15, 2007 06:02PM

madmex2000 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sanchez didnt say anything before untill now. So
> he can shut the fuck up now..


Mex, I thought you supported anything against the administration and the war in Iraq. Sanchez has been talking against both so you should love him.

Anonymous Smartass Report This Comment
Date: October 16, 2007 02:17AM

What is that on his upper lip?

Is it shit?

southern outlaw Report This Comment
Date: October 19, 2007 09:29AM

dear anon, it is with deep regret that i must inform you that your a fucking spineless nancy boy. no, its no true, we dont carry shovels around with us at all times, ill tell you what some of our female soldiers carry, and all of theme could kick your skinny anonymous ass. we carry pride, dignity, patriotism and a belief, that even though shallow scared little pecker heads like you can speak ill of anyone they chose because of the freedoms afforded to you by an american soldier, we do these things because we believe that they are they right thing to do.we carry our heads high, because even though that at any moment we could see our end, we believe in brotherhood, and our comrades in arms, and we carry with us our families, sons daughters mothers and fathers alike with us where ever we go, in out hearts and in our minds, but most of all, we carry each other, because when it comes down to it, in country, its all we have...we even carry something for you anon, and its not contempt, its not hatred or ill will, its pity....we pity the weak, nameless, spinless little nancy boys who hide behind anonimty, wish someday to be real men and woman, wanting desperately to come out from behind thier mothers apron strings and join the adult side of society instead of hiding in a darkend basement like a coward, casting dispersions upon anything they fear and cant understand.......

if your reading this in english, thank a teacher..
if your reading this without threat of loss to your freedoms, thank a soldier



-S. Outlaw

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: October 19, 2007 11:28AM

Southern outlaw you are so right but you are wasting you words on him. People like that will never understand where their freedom came from. Until war acutally comes to our shores many people in this country will never have any respect for the miliitary man who protects us. War will come to our shores before very long and then they will understand.

duane Report This Comment
Date: October 19, 2007 03:28PM

He's right Outlaw. Good post.

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: October 20, 2007 05:45AM

Uuuhhhhh, outlaw, you are not over there to save our freedom, liberty, and all that stuff, you are there to help (kill) the Iraqi people, Iraq in no way shape or form threatens our liberty.

So let me get this straight, you're over there fighting for all that Patriotic propaganda, but, our liberties are being stripped down by our own government, quit bullshitting, your job is not to keep us free, your job is to do whatever your told, THE END, that's it.

From here on out I'll assume you are for the military policing "the people" right here on our very own streets, you know to help us with freedom, thanks a lot.


Listen to what Patriotism really is, not just a bunch of shit-talking (see your post above for that)

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your Government when it deserves it . - Mark Twain

And I'm sure everyone in the world already knows all about shovels......... that's where soldiers cruising around town in Iraq keep shovels with them at night so when they see someone walking down the road they can blow them away and just drive on by and throw a shovel out so they can say he was shoveling in the road if they get caught......

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: October 20, 2007 10:50AM

Anon we are fighting Al Qaeda over there so we don't have to do it here. As for our civil liberties, I really don't see that they are gone because you still have your freedom to say what you want without being incarcerated. You are here on this site spitting out rubish, which is one of your civil liberties. You can choose any religion you want and if you want to have a few friends over you have he right. Maybe you should stop listening to David Cosby and start using your own mind for original thought.

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: October 21, 2007 05:54AM

jgoin, you are the last one here that should preach about original thought, my original thought is just fine, I'm just like a lot of other humans out there, I already have my own thoughts and if I see a video or read something than backs up my original thoughts I will, of course, promote it, it's what i think.

Do you know what Obectivism is? I'm not really into much Fiction just fact but Objectivism I -kinda- go with.

Read this again, I knew I liked Colin Powell for some reason and yes, he left Bush long ago because he couldn't put up with all the lies....................
..........................................
.....
PJB: Is Terrorism Really a Mortal Threat?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

It may have been politically incorrect to publish the thoughts on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, but what Colin Powell had to say to GQ magazine needs to be heard.

Terrorism, said Powell, is not a mortal threat to America.

“What is the greatest threat facing us now?” Powell asked. “People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?”

History and common sense teach that Powell speaks truth.

Since 9/11, 100,000 Americans have been murdered – as many as we lost in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq combined. Yet, not one of these murders was the work of an Islamic terrorist, and all of them, terrible as they are, did not imperil the survival of our republic.

Terrorists can blow up our buildings, assassinate our leaders, and bomb our malls and stadiums. They cannot destroy us. Assume the worst. Terrorists smuggle an atom bomb into New York harbor or into Washington, D.C., and detonate it.

Horrible and horrifying as that would be – perhaps 100,000 dead and wounded – it would not mean the end of the United States. It would more likely mean the end of Iran, or whatever nation at which the United States chose to direct its rage and retribution.

Consider: Between 1942 and 1945, Germany and Japan, nations not one-tenth the size of the United States, saw their cities firebombed and their soldiers and civilians slaughtered in the millions. Japan lost an empire. Germany lost a third of its territory. Both were put under military occupation. Yet, 15 years later, Germany and Japan were the second and third most prosperous nations on Earth, the dynamos of their respective continents, Europe and Asia.

Powell’s point is not that terrorism is not a threat. It is that the terror threat must be seen in perspective, that we ought not frighten ourselves to death with our own propaganda, that we cannot allow fear of terror to monopolize our every waking hour or cause us to give up our freedom.

For all the blather of a restored caliphate, the “Islamo-fascists,” as the neocons call them, cannot create or run a modern state, or pose a mortal threat to America. The GNP of the entire Arab world is not equal to Spain’s. Oil aside, its exports are equal to Finland’s.

Afghanistan and Sudan, under Islamist regimes, were basket cases. Despite the comparisons with Nazi Germany, Iran is unable to build modern fighters or warships and has an economy one-twentieth that of the United States, at best. While we lack the troops to invade Iran, three times the size of Iraq, the U.S. Air Force and Navy could, in weeks, smash Iran’s capacity to make war, blockade it and reduce its population to destitution. Should Iran develop a nuclear weapon and use it on us or on Israel, it would invite annihilation.

As a threat, Iran is not remotely in the same league with the Soviet Union of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, or Mao’s China, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, or even Mussolini’s Italy.

And why would Tehran, which has not launched a war since the revolution in 1979, start a war with an America with 10,000 nuclear weapons? If the Iranians are so suicidal, why have they not committed suicide in 30 years by attacking us or Israel?

What makes war with Iran folly is that an all-out war could lead to a break-up of that country, with Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis going their separate ways, creating fertile enclaves for al-Qaida recruitment and training.

Yet, while talking common sense, Gen. Powell himself reverted to cliche. “America could not survive without immigration.”

But this is nonsense. From 1789 to 1845, we had almost no immigration, before the Irish came. Did we not survive? From 1925 to 1965, we had almost no immigration. Yet, we conquered the Great Depression, won World War II, became the greatest power on earth and ended those four decades with an Era of Good Feeling under Ike and JFK unlike any we had known before.

Was the America of the 1940s and 1950s in which Colin Powell grew up in danger of not surviving for lack of immigration?

In our time, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Czechoslovakia have split apart. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have broken up into two dozen nations. Terrorism had nothing to do with it. Tribalism had everything to do with it.

Race, ethnicity and religion are the fault lines along which nations like Iraq are coming apart. If America ends, it will not be the work of an Osama bin Laden. As Abraham Lincoln said, it will be by our own hand; it will be by suicide.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: October 21, 2007 11:45AM

“What is the greatest threat facing us now?” Powell asked. “People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?”
===============

But if they had continued after 9/11 they would have destroyed our economy. Our economy took a bad hit with 9/11 and if the attacks had continued our economy would not have so easily recovered. They do not have to kill all of us to destroy us all they have to do is something which will destroy us economically to destroy America. Try to imagine what would have happened if they had taken truck bombs to elementary schools after the airline attacks of 9/11 during the aftermath. Terrorists organizations should never be allowed to gain the power to attack anyone in an organized manner. They should be destroyed anywhere in the world they surface. If terrorists were to acquire nuclear weapons they could effectively destroy millions of people and our economy along with it. If Islamic terrorists were to convert all of Islam to their beliefs they could wreak havoc on America since we have millions of Islamic people living here. There are so many ways terrorists can destroy America and to belive they are not a threat is just what they would like you to believe. You are playing right into their hands.

zxz555 Report This Comment
Date: October 21, 2007 01:21PM

southern outlaw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dear anon, it is with deep regret that i must
> inform you that your a fucking spineless nancy
> boy. no, its no true, we dont carry shovels around
> with us at all times, ill tell you what some of
> our female soldiers carry, and all of theme could
> kick your skinny anonymous ass. we carry pride,
> dignity, patriotism and a belief, that even though
> shallow scared little pecker heads like you can
> speak ill of anyone they chose because of the
> freedoms afforded to you by an american soldier,
> we do these things because we believe that they
> are they right thing to do.we carry our heads
> high, because even though that at any moment we
> could see our end, we believe in brotherhood, and
> our comrades in arms, and we carry with us our
> families, sons daughters mothers and fathers alike
> with us where ever we go, in out hearts and in our
> minds, but most of all, we carry each other,
> because when it comes down to it, in country, its
> all we have...we even carry something for you
> anon, and its not contempt, its not hatred or ill
> will, its pity....we pity the weak, nameless,
> spinless little nancy boys who hide behind
> anonimty, wish someday to be real men and woman,
> wanting desperately to come out from behind thier
> mothers apron strings and join the adult side of
> society instead of hiding in a darkend basement
> like a coward, casting dispersions upon anything
> they fear and cant understand.......
>
> if your reading this in english, thank a
> teacher..
> if your reading this without threat of loss to
> your freedoms, thank a soldier
>
>
>
>
> -S. Outlaw


southern gaylord, you are convincing me with all of this hard man talk that really you are attracted to men but denying it so much that it has the effect of "the lady doth protest too much".

and pride & dignity, in the US army?! Who are you shooting at this week, the British or some other allied force? Idiots. Go home and exercise your dignity in your own back yard.

duane Report This Comment
Date: October 22, 2007 11:26PM

I'm having you anon guys shot when I become president. Fear me, now I'm going to get a snack and listen to the Stylistics.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: October 23, 2007 12:23PM

I will vote for you duane.

duane Report This Comment
Date: October 27, 2007 04:09AM

Thanks man.