|
|
 |
|
#41
06-22-2010, 05:29 PM
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
|
|
#42
06-22-2010, 05:31 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
I worked hard for the Obama campaign, and I'm still glad I did. Does the administration disappoint me quite frequently? Of course. They all do. But I am still damn sure that a McCain administration would disappoint me a whole lot more often than the Obama administration ever does. As for Hillary, I think she would pretty much have made most of the same decisions on key issues that the Obama administration has done, so I don't think much would be different. The only thing that might be different would be on health care. Once the polls came out showing that the majority of Americans disapproved of the reform proposal she probably would have dumped it and moved on to something else. In my opinion she has relatively few actual convictions other than to do whatever polls tell her is the most popular (at least that is how she - and her husband - typically campaigned) and I seriously doubt she would have slugged it out for a year while her approval ratings were dropping weekly like Obama did. Especially after the '93 push and what followed in '94, I just can't see her doing that. But, of course, all of this is just pure conjecture.
|
|
#43
06-22-2010, 05:32 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
__________________
"Have the clean racing people run any ads explaining that giving a horse a Starbucks and a chocolate poppyseed muffin for breakfast would likely result in a ten year suspension for the trainer?" - Dr. Andrew Roberts
|
|
#44
06-22-2010, 05:37 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
you're most likely right. no doubt the general felt he was near the end, and wanted to explain his thinking before fading away.
|
|
#45
06-22-2010, 05:38 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#46
06-22-2010, 05:42 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
__________________
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson
|
|
#47
06-22-2010, 05:42 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
The administration responded by launching a review of the entire Afghanistan strategy. At the end of the review the administration embraced most - but not all - of McChrystal's strategy and sent roughly 30,000 more troops to the region. miraja2's suggestion to pull all the troops out and leave Afghanistan was ignored completely.
|
|
#49
06-22-2010, 06:53 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
__________________
The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it - Lou Holtz
|
|
#50
06-22-2010, 06:58 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
__________________
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson
|
|
#51
06-22-2010, 07:00 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
|
|
#53
06-22-2010, 07:10 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
just read this from slate:
Should Gen. McCrystal Keep His Job? Even before "The Runaway General" was posted on Rolling Stone's website, General Stanley McChrystal hit the phones to apologize for the article, which depicts him mocking senior administration officials and dropping scathing remarks about cabinet members. The General was summoned to Washington for a dressing-down, but so far, the White House has kept mum about whether McChrystal will be fired, saying only, "all options are on the table." So the million-dollar question: should McChrystal keep his job? Technically, he could be fired: under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, "any commissioned officer" can be court marshaled for "[using] contemptuous words" against the civilian chain of command. The Atlantic's James Fallows says he should be booted, arguing that McChrystal ran afoul of the military's intolerance for "disrespect and insubordination," and potentially undermined U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. The Washington Post's Jonathan Capeheart agrees, as does Foreign Policy's Tom Ricks, who predicts that he'll be out in a week or so. "Forget about his damaged reputation," Wired staff writes at Danger Room. "By giving these inflammatory interviews to Rolling Stone, General McChrystal has risked the entire outcome of the war." At Firedoglake, Spencer Ackerman concedes that over the last few years, "the pattern of generals not losing their jobs over offenses that would get their subordinates chucked out has relaxed considerably," but still thinks that McChrystal will probably get to stay. "Firing him carries its risks," Ackerman writes. "There's only a year to go before the July 2011 date to begin the transition to Afghan security responsibility and the Kandahar tide is starting to rise. It'll be hard to fire McChrystal without ripping the entire Afghanistan strategy up, and I've gotten no indication from the White House that it's interested in doing that." If he is fired, Small Wars Journal's Robert Haddick speculates that lieutenant general David Rodriguez would be the likely choice to replace him
|
|
#54
06-22-2010, 07:13 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
__________________
The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it - Lou Holtz
|
|
#55
06-22-2010, 07:19 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
http://www.slate.com/id/2257818/
another, longer article. In fact, nowhere in the article is McChrystal or any of his aides quoted as disagreeing with Obama's policy on Afghanistan. It would be a big surprise if they were, as Obama's strategic decision in December 2009—to send 30,000 more troops and to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy—was essentially an endorsement of McChrystal's recommendation. (It should be noted that the article's subheadline—which says that McChrystal "has seized control of the war" because he sees "the real enemy" as "the wimps in the White House"—is grossly distorting and may be responsible for some of the early misreporting before the actual article went online. Hastings said in an interview with NPR that he did not write the headline.) Nonetheless, and this is the damning third point, the fact that it's "just staff officers" talking like this doesn't let McChrystal off the hook. In fact, the story suggests that, on some level (and how serious a level is something for Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to find out), McChrystal's operation is out of control. but this is what jumped out at me: The whole business reflects something else at least as serious—the fractured state of this war and the utter disunity of command. and this is exactly what i meant when i called the rolling stone piece 'depressing'.
|
|
#56
06-22-2010, 07:21 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#57
06-23-2010, 08:14 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Also the fact that the man in charge of Afghanastan likes McChrystal more than any other US person makes him impossible, and irresponsible (though the article was also irresponsible) to fire. That is much more important than insubordination / ego.
__________________
Quote:
|
|
#58
06-23-2010, 08:19 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#59
06-23-2010, 08:22 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#60
06-23-2010, 08:24 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
__________________
Quote:
|
Linear Mode
