News-Record.com

"What Roberts wrote appears to condone treason for the sake of supporting her liberal viewpoints."

Yeah but she "supports the troops", right?

RIIIIIIIIIGHT ! ! !

I don't disagree with the letter writer, but there seems inconsistancy with a statement that "We wil listen to the Generals" when those same Generals work for the Decider.

Dang few get away with telling the boss he's wrong, especially in this case when the boss is the newly declared Decider. Have you also noticed he's "reading the headlines" these days?

Ya know - this guy is so full of crap - I just don't get how the support remains. OK - there is no alternative, but jeeze folks, at what point does dis-ingenuous become visible to the apparently blind?

Back to the LTE - It reminds me of the many times, during corporate take-over's that I've hear "Our People are our greatest asset", which is followed in about 3 months by lay-offs - I mean "right-sizing" - which always raises the Stock Value and by some coincidence also seems to be a boost in the CEO compensation package.

Common sense tells us that active military personnell MUST obey orders or be punished. They do not have freedom of speech without repercussions. I would like to know what our military in Iraq really feel about the position in which they have been placed.

As to the RETIRED generals speaking, surely they have the right of every American citizen to freedom of speech. Don't you think they know what they are talking about?

I am still amazed at those who think going to Iraq was the right thing to do. I am still amazed at those who think we are "winning". I am terrorified that our leaders will attack Iran.

Despite the claim of leaders who say they are Christian, our military actions are not Christlike. If you support war, do not say it is done in the name of Christ. Say it is done in the name of greed, arrogance, and a desire to control the world.

I often hear it said that we are "over there" killing terrorists to keep them off our soil. I see it as we are removing the need to come to America by providing them easy access to Americans to kill. Does support our troops mean that we want them to kill a lot of people over there but we don't care how many of them die?

"In case some of you readers don't get it, what Roberts is favoring is the ability of the military to exercise control over our civilian leaders."

Doesn't sound like it to me. The generals in question were speaking about the poor decision making that went into the planning for Iraq. I'm not aware of any who questioned the political decision that Iraq must be invaded.

The point here is that military experts should be listened to and given free rein in military matters. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush are all dilettantes in the realm of military expertise. For them to override their experts, who have decades of training and experience in such matters, is a sure recipe for disaster.

This is the same sort of situation you would get into if you learned you had diabetes, and decided to seek help from a faith healer, rather than a licensed doctor.

I ignore Rosemarys lame op-eds on politics even more than I ignore her lame op-eds on her NYC shopping trips.

Kinda odd to hear all this all this praise coming from the liberals for these 6 ex-generals after trashing the military at every turn in the past.

Where was their support for Ollie North when he spoke out against slick willie and the Haitian fiasco?

Dan,
Why do you comment, if you don't read her column?
**********
The retired generals have the same constitutional rights that neoCON and Dan have. As for the statement about active duty military, I believe the writer is trying to say that it will give them confidence to disagree about tactical considerations being made by civilian leaders--Rummy & "W". The liberals have supported the military all along on this, but have gone after the civilian leadership that tears down the military by dismissing their expertise. Bush has allowed Rummy to make scapegoats out of the military, rather than to accept responsibility for having NO PLAN for the peace. The military performed brilliantly, and should be home now. If Bush had not been such an ineffective leader, the blue helmets would be patrolling the streets and we'd have Iran backed in a corner.

Sorry Dan and neoCon, your dogs just don't hunt.

All military leaders must be listened to, not just the ones that disagree with the Commander-in-Chief. Just because the President didn’t decide on these Generals’ recommendation, doesn’t automatically mean he didn’t listen to any Generals’ recommendations. He just made the choice to go with one recommendation and not the other. The Generals who got their noses out of joint are coming out to soothe their big egos. Their behavior, legal or not, is in no way what is expected of an Officer (retired or otherwise) of the U.S. Military.

DD, the retired Generals have every right to express their views however that is not what the forever- off-the- wall Roberts was saying. She subscribes to ACTIVE Generals doing what retired generals have done however they have no authority or right to do so. It is not their job to take an active role in stating disagreement regardless of their feelings. They may offer suggestions when called upon and even at times when not. However they cannot, as Roberts suggests, demand publically anything of those whose authority they are under. I beleive this is what Dan and others were addressing. Unfortunately in this war when the generals are asked for their input but with Rummy, it is never followed ,as I believe you have stated. He needs to go and on that issue I agree totally with the retired generals.

"It is not their job to take an active role in stating disagreement regardless of their feelings."

I disagree, in part. As active generals, I would expect that it would be their duty to voice their opinions on operational issues. If a general disagrees with a political decision, that's a different matter, and I agree they need to put that aside. But that's not what these generals were saying.

They said that the planning made bad assumptions about the needs of the invasion force. Just as politics ahould not be in the purview of generals, military details should not be directed by politics. The Iraq war is a huge example of what can go wrong when that happens. It's as glaring an example of the dangers of letting pols make those decisions as Stalingrad was.

Help me with the Slick Willy / Haitian thing, Neo - I lost track of Ollie after the Reagan administration used him as the scapegoat for the Iran-Contra Affair.

http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/mediawatch/1994/mw19941101p3.html

Haiti's a disaster - has been for decades - but I'm still not clear how Ollie once declaring we didn't have enough troups, a statement backed by some in the previous Administration, is anything like a Slick Willie fiasco.

I also don't think it's a fiasco when several General's speak out about the current adminstration not having enough troups in the right place - a statement that is patently obvious to all.

Now the current adminstration? THAT'S A FIASCO.

They F'd up - plain and simple - in large part through hubris.

...hubris thinking from these folks ...

http://search.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html

... these Empire Builders who in their youth "had better things to do" than serve their country ... and who now claim to "know more" than those that have served a lifetime of service to America.

Have these "Empire Builders" doen anything but read and write books and shoot off their big mouths while sending your children off to get shot to support their personal Empires of Thought?

Makes me mad.

JDR,
*in my best 'slick willie' voice*...

I guess it depends on what the meaning of "fiasco" is is...

Dude... that was hilarious! LOL

I accept that neo .. however the most commonly used definitions are ... "a complete failure", or "collapse" ... and therefore retract my prior statement that the Bushite Neocon's are a Fiasco ... they're not yet proved as a complete failure - after all, it took 70 years plus Chernobyl to prove Stalin's Legacy a fiasco.

Here's a read I'm hoping to do soon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1564784010/sr=8-1/qid=1146514199/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3593505-4320017?%5Fencoding=UTF8

A Mis-mash of exerpts:

==

There was a moment when there existed the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn't get into it -- with the water they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe. So here was the task: who would dive in there and open the bolt on the safety valve? They promised them a car, an apartment, a dacha, aid for their families until the end of time. They searched for volunteers. And they found them! The boys dove, many times, and they opened that bolt, and the unit was given 7000 rubles. They forgot about the cars and apartments they promised -- but that's not why they dove! Not for the material, least of all for the material promises. [Becomes upset.] Those people don't exist anymore, just the documents in our museum, with their names. But what if they hadn't done it? In terms of our readiness for self-sacrifice, we have no equals.

==

At the morgue they said, "Want to see what we'll dress him in?" I do! They dressed him up in formal wear, with his service cap. They couldn't get shoes on him because his feet had swelled up. They had to cut up the formal wear, too, because they couldn't get it on him, there wasn't a whole body to put it on. It was all -- wounds. The last two days in the hospital -- I'd lift his arm, and meanwhile the bone is shaking, just sort of dangling, the body has gone away from it. Pieces of his lungs, of his liver, were coming out of his mouth. He was choking on his internal organs. I'd wrap my hand in a bandage and put it in his mouth, take out all that stuff.

==

Somewhere I read that 300,000 Soviet troops were sent to deal with this ... fiasco.

imho - Chernobyl is why the Iron Curtain finally fell - Reagan took the credit - but he just happened to be in office when a stressed system had to deal with unheard, unimmagined, and still unfathomable disaster.

Nemo, political was what I was refering to. Of course Generals( active duty) are expected to offer input into military ops but then only when directly in charge or when asked. That is the military way. Retired Generals are no longer involved in ops so their opinion matters little to begin with. They have every right to express and opinion just as you and I do but they should not expect their opinion to override or even have bearing over those of the Generals on the ground currently. They should be careful as to how it is expressed.I actually have an problem with them expecting their opinion to be valued over any other active duty general. They have to realize they are no longer in the chain of command and should stand down until such time as needed. For them to attempt to take a stand on ops issues is like a retired CEO coming back into a company and attempting to tell the current CEO how to run it. It don't work, creates, chaos and friction.

I often had opinions as an NCO as to operations and would often speak those views to the officer in charge but it was done in a manner that was not my attempting to take control but simply a suggestion based often times on knowledge/experience that he did not have. I knew and respected the chain of command.
I am sure that the Generals on the ground in Iraq also know that too and I am sure that they are often disappointed that their suggestions have not been followed or used by the Sec. of Defense. I certainly have faulted him for failure to listen to his eyes and ears on the ground. Because of his attitude time has been wasted and lives lost needlessly.

I must have missed the link between Rosemary Roberts' article and Chernobyl. Anyway, thanks for not blaming Reagan, Bush 43, or Dick Cheney for Chernobyl. This is a major step forward,imo.

JDR,
Thank you for your great information. Seems neoCON just doesn't know, that he doesn't know.

Chernobyl was a precipitating event in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Reagan wasn't the only one standing in line to claim they were responsible for the iron curtain collapse--Jesse Helms wrote a pamphlet titled "Ropes for the Hangman" where he said defense build up, started under Carter, would cripple the Soviets. When the Soviet Union fell, and no one patted him on the back, he just chose homo-sheck-shewels as his new bogeyman. Al Gore invented the Internet, and Jesse Helms ended communism!

World traveler, what does mushy headed, nonsensical rants about Chernobyl and homosexuals have to do with the Roberts article?

... assuming you are talking about my Chernobyl posting when you say "nonsensical rant", I take umbrage, and since you admit to missing the connection, I'll connect the dots. It's simple, I only hope that you don't have the same condition as poor JohnnieBGood ...

Neo said: How can the stupid lib's agree with the treasonist retired generals when the same stupid lib's previously dis-agreed with hero Oliver North on the Clinton Haiti Fiasco.

JDR asked what Clinton Haiti Fiasco.

Neo said: It depends on the meaning of fiasco.

JDR then retracted his previous statements that the Bush admin', a.k.a. NeoCon's Currently Running America, have already Ruined America, and concede it will take time to prove the point.

JDR used as an example the USSR - who had a similar NeoCon movement, this one started by Stalin and finished by Chernobyl.

JDR,
Someone convinced neoCON that Republicans were "conservative". He believes it with every thread of his being. He has found his North Star, his compass and his leader. Therefore, do not waste time trying to debate ignorance.

"There was a moment when there existed the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor"....
How dramatic!!

What the hell does this have to do with 6 ex-generals and Rosemary Roberts?
Just more of the sos but packaged slightly different as to woo the world traveler, et al.

Sorry.... I'm not impressed.

neoCON,
I think you should change your moniker to

NEO-PHYTE

It certainly is fitting for your immature logic.

My God Neo - are you really that dense?

I retracted my statements that the Bush has ALREADY Ruined America, and conceded it will take time to prove (or disprove) the point.

The USSR was given as an example of another NeoCon movement – see below – that eventually failed.

The final straw was Chernobyl – which frankly would stress any economic system.

Exerpts and details from a book of first hand accounts were included because I find the whole thing fascinating.

The Following are direct from Wikapedia, as definitions of the American Neocon Moements, and they can also be easily defended as values held by the former USSR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_the_United_States

supported a militant anticommunism (ok - not that one, though one could argue Socialism vs. Communism))

tolerated more social welfare spending

supported civil equality for blacks and other minorities

less deferential to traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law

less inclined to compromise principles even if that meant unilateral action

a movement founded on, and perpetuated by an aggressive approach to foreign policy

sympathetic to idealistic goals to spread ideals of government, economics, and culture abroad

reject reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish these objectives

an aggressive moralist stance on foreign policy

lesser social conservatism

a much weaker dedication to a policy of minimal government

a greater acceptance of the welfare state.

World traveler, why not toss in your fairy tale about the long handled spoons here?

No,I'm not that "dense", just don't swallow the tripe hook,line,and sinker.

JDR, since you're fascinated by Chernobyl and can't keep it all inside, why not write a lte about the evils of nuclear power and we'll talk about it then?

well perhaps Chernobyl was Tripe (something of no value), but you're probably one of 3 folks in the known universe that think so - and if you really think that, I'll put my seal on the bobble head theory.

Who said I was opposed to "NewClur" power? Like everything, it has pluses and minuses .. but Chernobyl has to be at the top of the minus'.

PS. No critique on the NeoCon / USSR comparison? you're slippin' boy!

Rosemary is stuck on stupid ( or worse ).Same theme.. Generals must speak/act out. Several weeks ago, in her regular Bush bashing column, she implied that it might be a good thing if someone did to our current President what certain German General High Command officers ( the Kreisau Circle ) tried to do to Hitler when Wehrmacht Col. Claus von Stauffenberg placed a bomb under the table where Hitler was seated at a staff meeting inthe " Wolfs Lair ". It failed as did the other 41 attempts on Hitlers life. But for this derranged woman to suggest what she did is plain CRAZY. I doubt she would take back a word.
That was another time but apparently she is deluded into thinking there is some moral equivilance.Sheesh

JDR, I never said Chernobyl was tripe. Just your bringing it up here.
You seem to pick a subject that fascinates you and squeeze it into any thread. Then when someone questions this, you resort to petty insults about being "dense". This apparently delights the world traveler, (that doesn't take a whole lot,to be sure) but it has no affect on me. I am used to the liberals and their snipping, whinning ways.

"No critique on the NeoCon/USSR comparison"?

To be honest with you, I never read that part. I have pretty much learned to hit the high spots of your posts as once the subject line is read, I can pretty much surmise what will be said.

.. so you read the subject line, assume you can accurately surmise what will be said, then further assume everything you don't read is the sos but packaged slightly different ... and then wonder what the hell does this have to do with XYZ.

I confess to being really good at going off on tangents, but they usually loop back. Your being stuck on the Ptolemaic system of planetary motion will assure you never get to the moon, cause going off on tangents that loop back is exactly how America got there - repeatedly.

One man's whine is another's wine.

JDR,

Have a nice day...

I'll enjoy my wine, you enjoy yours.

I'm glad to hear there is at least one thing in life you can enjoy...

I was beginning to wonder.

JDR, why even exert the effort?

Shalom

Why exert the effort to do what Darryl? To 'convert' someone? That is not why why jdr presents us with his tangents. He is trying to show us what a well read and all knowing chap he is. It's not about trying to convince me or anyone else to accept the left leaning/socialist views he holds. It's all about showboating.

All imo of course!!!

BTW Darryl, when was the last time you smiled? 1999? Just curious. Those of you on the left seem to be a miserable lot.... even when things go your way you guys seem to find some misery to wallow in in every situation.