Bush Memoir

[catnipdipper]

I think I recall reading that a shave tail 2nd lieutenant had a life span of about 11 seconds in Nam. I doubt they disapproved many applicants.

[N2SEX46]

This is strange about your CO. Sounds like more military BS to me. I don't think you made a formal application, or someone lost the paper work. Maybe your CO wanted to keep you where you were.

I was quickly made a sergeant, and drew independent duty out of boot camp. I bypassed the normal schools and requirement for gaining rank. After a bad injury in the field and time in a hospital I applied for OCS. I met with a review board conducted by a Major who worked for an outside agency connected with our work. I still remember some of the stupid questions about who was John Birch, and who was Jim Crow. As I left the room I could hear his comment as I was closing the door: "Damn it we have to approve his application, we don't have a choice. He already has a college degree and graduate work."

Until then, I didn't know that the military was required to approve every applicant for OCS with a college degree.

JR

In my case, I really do believe my CO. He was a straight shooter, at least his subordinate officers and us noncoms thought so. I attended a similar board, hoping to go to Signal OCS at Ft Gordon, GA. I wasn't able to get a Top Secret clearance until I was four months from my ETS, and other than a parking ticket and that incarceration in AL, I had a clean record. That's what he based his suggested theory. Funny you mention Jim Crow and John Birch questions. Among other questions, I was given those, too. No, the military was required to give the most careful consideration for college educated soldiers for those applying for OCS, but they did not have to grant selection just because he had a degree. I knew of about a dozen guys in signal, one infantry and two in combat engineers who didn't get selected, even though they had degrees. Also, the same CO said when I received my TS/TSC clearances, I could probably apply for OCS and get selected. I thought what a waste giving me a clearance I'd only use for four months, reupping and still not be guaranteed to attend OCS. I thanked him for offering to put in a good word for me, but I'd had enough of Army life and ETS at Oakland. A few years later, I applied at KU, completed my masters, was in AFROTC and was commissioned on my bachelors degree. I still had to go through my four semesters of ROTC and the summer encampment. I retired as a colonel. BTW: Jr, thanks for your service.

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by JRLawrence

The facts are the facts! I stated what happened. How soon people forget history. Stormin Norman was a great leader. Bush had enough knowledge from his father...

Norman Schwartzkopf retired in August 1991. The facts are the facts. How soon people forget history.

And by the way, Bush retaliated for 9/11 against the WRONG FUCKING COUNTRY by invading Iraq. Hope I cleared things up.

[dirty dog]

Originally Posted by Longermonger

Norman Schwartzkopf retired in August 1991. The facts are the facts. How soon people forget history.

And by the way, Bush retaliated for 9/11 against the WRONG FUCKING COUNTRY by invading Iraq. Hope I cleared things up.

Monger quit twisting facts to fit your agenda, Bush did not invade Iraq in retaliation to the terrorist act on 9/11, and he never said he did. When he made his case for invading Iraq, it was WMD's and the sponsership of terrorism. He invaded Afghanistan because the country would not arrest and surrender Bin Ladin, that invasion was in retaliation for 9/11.

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by dirty dog

Monger quit twisting facts to fit your agenda, Bush did not invade Iraq in retaliation to the terrorist act on 9/11, and he never said he did. When he made his case for invading Iraq, it was WMD's and the sponsership of terrorism. He invaded Afghanistan because the country would not arrest and surrender Bin Ladin, that invasion was in retaliation for 9/11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhR04RkBFhs

"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people
now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida."

State of the Union Address 1/28/2003

Well, that falsehood links Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda. Now all we have to do is somehow link Saddam Hussein to Iraq, then link Al Qaeda to the 9/11 attacks. Duh.

The sheer volume of statements conflating the 9/11 attacks with Saddam's Iraq is beyond the capacity of this thread. You must have been asleep or locked up in prison to have missed it all.

[dirty dog]

I believe that I mentioned this above, "sponsership of terrorism", where did he say that Iraq needed to be attacked for their part in 9/11, he mentioned they sponser Al Qaeda, which they did but they also sponsered the PLO, Hamas, and many others. But the primary reason was WMD's and you know it, you like to use "connections" which fit your agenda.

The bottom line is your made your typical anti Bush (cause I just cant seem to move on) liberal tag line slogan, thats designed to get attention, (by the way do the Liberals teach this somewhere LOL....) The initial response or retaliation was in fact towards the correct country Afghanistan, remember this was in 2001 when the incident occured. That was a retaliation, by the time 2003 came around the motives for the war had moved from revenge for 9/11 to eradicting terrorism and its sponsers which he stated in the same state of the union address you quoted from with this "axis of evil" comment. However in 2001 I was infact incarserated, but I did not miss a thing, you have a lot of time to watch TV and read.

[cmhcfan]

Boy, was I disappointed! When I saw the title "Bush Memoir" I thought this was going to go in a completely different dirrection. I know my "Bush Memoir" would be more about anatomy than politics.

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by dirty dog

...he mentioned they sponser Al Qaeda, which they did...

NO. You still believe that old outdated shit? There was no operational collaboration between Iraq and Al-Qaeda before the start of the Iraq war.

The FBI even interrogated Saddam after he was captured and asked him personally. Saddam stated he did not collaborate with Al-Qaeda because he thought they'd turn on him. He called Bin Laden a zealot.

Don't believe Saddam or the FBI? Then ask the CIA, the Senate, Colin Powell, the 9/11 Commission, the DoD, British Intelligence, Israeli Intelligence, the DIA, etc.

[dirty dog]

Originally Posted by Longermonger

NO. You still believe that old outdated shit? There was no operational collaboration between Iraq and Al-Qaeda before the start of the Iraq war.

The FBI even interrogated Saddam after he was captured and asked him personally. Saddam stated he did not collaborate with Al-Qaeda because he thought they'd turn on him. He called Bin Laden a zealot.

Don't believe Saddam or the FBI? Then ask the CIA, the Senate, Colin Powell, the 9/11 Commission, the DoD, British Intelligence, Israeli Intelligence, the DIA, etc.

Sponsering terrorism is not operational collaboration, come on Monger stop, I never said they provided operational collaboration and you know it, he provided financial support to those who supported Al Qaeda. But regardless, your trying to move this argument away from the fact that your comment was inaccurate and stupid and was in fact the typical kind of slogan used by those who hate Bush and love to use misinformation if it can provide an impact regardless of the truth. In case you forgot your comment was Bush retaliated against the wrong country for 9/11. This is in fact wrong based on the truth. We entered Iraq 2 years after 9/11 and before we entered Iraq the same people you mentioned including Colin Powell who argued before the UN that it was necessary to attack Iraq because of WMD's, whether or not WMD's were found is a different argument for a different time. You, yourself in various other Bush attacks have made the same statement about how we went to war in Iraq over WMD's and never found them. IN the same State of the Union speach which you quoted, the scope of the war which started in 9/11 as revenge was changed to the destruction of world wide terrorism and those who sponser it, Bush named 3 members of the Axis of Evil, remember this speach, where he clearly stated that the goal of the war was changing and this it was going to be a long war fought on many fronts, any of this ringing a bell. I know its a waste of time to even respond to this because there is not a chance in hell that you would ever admit that you were wrong, you will just keep moving the goal line and shift the topic away from another of your "tourette's" outbursts.

[lacrew_2000]

A few years ago, I read a book by an Israeli-American author. Ostensibly, he was writing about Israel's struggles with governments alternating between appeasement and hard-lines with the Palestinians.

But, along the way, he describes the atmosphere of the late 90's middle east. Saddam had been humiliated in the first Gulf War; and, he wanted to save some of his reputation. He started becoming less secular, and started to position himself as a religious saviour of the region. Saved from what? Prior to the time when western nations drew political boundaries in the middle east, the entire region was just considered 'arab lands'....and to this day, many in the region consider themselves to be 'Arab' moreso than 'Saudia Arabian', for example. Their allegiances really pay no attention to political boundaries.

So, many dream of a great re-unification of these lands. How would that happen? The answer always seems to involve one strong leader destroying Israel, and bringing the Arab people together. Saddam decided he wanted to be that leader. His son formed a personal relationship with Assad's son is Syria. The two nations held massive joint military manuevers in Iraq's western desert, as a trial run for an invasion of Israel. Syria started provacative moves in the Golan Heights, to lure Israel into a war (pretext) for an attack.

Other nations in the region weren't so happy about the possibility of Saddam gaining eternal glory and power in the region. Egypt seriously considered an air strike of their own on Israel, to pre-emp Saddam's move. Iran was also worried; and, they ramped up their pursuits of Nukes, so they could be first to destroy Israel.

So that's how it stood in the late 90's. All of these leaders got a little worried when Bush became president, however. Clinton (and Albright) had been pushovers. As 'W''s first year in office progressed, Saddam became convinced he had to act sooner than later, however. He could no longer keep the UN Weapons inspectors away, without response from 'W'. In addition to WMD, the inspectors were also checking for long range artillery, long range rockets, and helicopter gunships...all of which were to be used in the attack on Israel. So Saddam was back in 'do it now' mode...and Egypt and Iran had to follow suit. The summer of 2001 was a very dangerous time in the mideast. Syria gave Iraq operational control over their aircraft for the planned strike (Saddam's own planes had been evacuated to Iran during the Gulf war). This was the last piece of the puzzle, which would allow for a combined arms attack. Egypt watched closely, ready to launch their own air strike...and Iran stirred up an 'Intifada' with the Palestinians, to try to start their own war. It was getting HOT.

Then wham. September 11 happened. This stopped everything. The US was in the mood to fight somebody; and, nobody wanted to be that somebody - so plans to attack Israel would have to be put on the back burner for a while.

Bush knew of the imminent threat against Israel. He also could see the disastrous results of not having a large military presence in the region. What could he do to assure Egypt that Iraq would not become a major power broker inthe region? What could he do to place large numbers of combat aircraft within hours of Iran, to get them to think twice about attacking Israel? How could he keep tens of thousands of troops in the region, to serve as a deterrent to terrorism, stoppage of oil tankers, whatever? How could he stop the Kurdish resistance to Iraq from causing problems with Turkey? How could he ensure that Iraq (which had not allowed UN inspectors in for several years) really would not develop WMD?

It all pointed towards invading Iraq. Bush thought we needed a space to be in the middle east...and he didn't mind taking Saddam's space.

Was it a successful strategy? Well, we have avoided a slaughter in Israel, and all the destabilizing aspects of that (probably $300/barrel oil, trillions in humanitarian aid, cajoling european allies to allow refugee Israelis to settle). We have also avoided another major scale terrorist attack. And, to all the terrorist states in the world, the US got some street cred...we really would invade if we thought you had WMD. Of course, it was at a tremendous cost.

Nobody can predict what would have happened if we had not invaded Iraq. Things could have gone alot of different directions. I think that it would have been impossible for the last 9 years to have elapsed, without us entering a war in the mideast somehow, someway. The entire region was about to boil over.

Anyway, that's story, according to this guy's book. His sources are mostly Israeli intelligence officers. Seems to make sense. I don't buy the "Bush lied about WMD to invade Iraq and impress daddy" theory. I don't think he did it to enrich large companies like Haliburton either. It would be way too obvious. I think Bush honestly believed Saddam had WMD, and was terrified he would use them. The solution to so many problems in the mideast seemed so easy to solve to him - just invade Iraq.

I think its way too early for him to publish his memoir. Its only been two years since he left. I'm always telling people to quit worrying about Bush - we have to look at the current situation. Any decision Obama makes about staying in Iraq should be based on what's happening today, and not predicated on what was/wasn't Bush's fault. Obama has done a very poor job of taking that attitude, and continues to blame Bush for just about everthing...and just when I start to bitch about him always bringing up Bush, Bush goes on a book tour . He is obviously a very divisive figure, and history will decide if his decisions were correct; and, I'd prefer 'W' wait for history to do its job.

[JS42]

Great write up lacrew and very interesting perspective. Of course, the committed, left wing liberals that believe any sinister conspiracy concerning Bush couldn't possibly believe he may of done something that was actually in the best interest of our national security. He was all about greed, helping his rich buddies out, and impressing daddy. Yeah Monger, I'm talking about you.

[john_galt]

This wave is for Lacrew

[kcmark]

The naivete of the right is laughable, if for one moment you belive Saddam was hiding his aircraft in Iran I have land available for sale. Iran and Iraq are mortal enemies and have always been so. They are fundamentally differnt branches of Islam. I suppose you forgot that little war they had with each other after the 79 hostage crisis. The one where we supplied arms to both sides? While a certain ex head of the cia was VP? The one who ran Saddam back in the day as an operative? You know the one his name was Bush? Hence why we knew they were attempting to make WMD. But hey dont take my word for it as a former navy crpyto tech who was stationed in the persian gulf. Oh and just so you know Iranians don't consider themselves Arabs, they are and always have been Persians. But hey I could be wrong and GW Bush may go down in history as the greatest President and statesman that ever lived! Just ask Sarah if she will go along with it, oh wait thats right she know thinks of them as blue bloods. They want her to stay in Alaska so Jeb has his shot!

[dirty dog]

"But hey I could be wrong and GW Bush may go down in history as the greatest President and statesman that ever lived! Just ask Sarah if she will go along with it, oh wait thats right she know thinks of them as blue bloods. They want her to stay in Alaska so Jeb has his shot!"

No one is saying Bush was the greatest President, someone and I wont say it was monger made a statement that was patently false and was called on it. How come when you Liberals are called out on something which is patently wrong you just cant own up to it. Monger succeeded in his goal of moving this debate away from the true issue his comments, I know there is a school you libs have to attend. By the way, I am not on the right nor the left, I am one of the few moderates left in the world. I will and have called bullshit on both side.

[BigMikeinKC]

Originally Posted by catnipdipper

Vito; Martin Van Buren is the all time worst, followed by James Buchanan.

Let's not forget Johnson - the 1st one and Grant.