From combat vet Col. Hackworth comes this
perspective:
Never before in our country's history has
an administration charged with defending our nation been so lacking in
hands-on combat experience and therefore so ignorant about the art and
science of war.
Now the increasingly flummoxed Bush team is stealing the page on
Vietnamization from Nixon's Exit Primer, coupled with the same
deceitful tactics he used to get us out of the almost
decade-long Vietnam quagmire: telling lies.
Thirty-five years later, President Bush told
the nation that Iraq had nine fully trained combat infantry battalions.
Just as he was proclaiming the prowess of the Iraqi army, a major in
the Iraqi Training Command told me that the soldiers of the 2nd
Battalion, when committed to their first battle, threw down their
weapons and ran. "Not sure where the president is getting his info,
but we have only one battalion that's good-to-go," he said.
Inquiring minds want to know: Is our president
still being fed bad skinny comparable to the intel incorrectly linking
Saddam to 9/11 or claiming that Iraq was chockablock full of weapons of
mass destruction?
Apparently there are no such minds in the White House.
Bush needs to set up a truth squad directly outside his Oval
Office door quicksmart. Then, whenever the Pentagon plays fast and
loose with the truth, the liars can be immediately rounded up and
punished.
Heavy sigh. The very notion that this White House
is guided by truth leaves me "flummoxed." Leave it to a
patriotic vet to make the mistake of framing the president as
the solution, not the problem. I think he overlooked recently-promoted Karl Rove- one who defines truth to his own liking. When it comes to punishing, Karl is King. All other points are
devastatingly on target.
American soldiers are paying / have paid far too high a price for this incompetence. How can you value the loss of a limb, or the loss of a loved one? A far second impact, but very significant is the massive cost in dollars. It was all done on credit folks. We will all pay. Inflation is in the algorithm going forward.
And who will protect America going forward? Is it any wonder that military recruiting
goals are not being met? Young Americans are
not feeling
particularly patriotic when the leadership is so idiotic.