[Vision2020] Happy Birthday

[Tom Hansen]

Sunil -

 

The same type of thing happened in Vietnam under Johnson.  Westmoreland lied
about body counts, how the VC were constantly outnumbered, how we were
advancing, how the war would be over soon.  That was during 1967.  Tet '68
changed everything.  It showed that Westmoreland had been lying to Johnson.
Johnson, unlike our current president, resigned as felt that he had lied to
the American people based upon intelligence (and reports) provided to him by
Westmoreland and his (Johnson's) cabinet.  Johnson assumed the moral high
ground, assumed full responsibility, and withdrew from the 1968 election.  I
hated him for withdrawing form the election.  I felt that had he stuck it
out, he would have beaten Nixon and our troops would have been home a lot
sooner than 1975.  

 

Current estimations (discussed last night on a news show, of which the name
escapes me) are that we would require 150,000 troops on the ground in Iraq
for the next two years (at a MINIMUM).

 

How many more body bags are we going to fill before somebody at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC assumes some level of responsibility and
decides it is time to bring our troops home?

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are
dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all
exist very nicely in the same box. 

  _____  

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Sunil Ramalingam
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 2:10 PM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Happy Birthday

 

You call it 'harping,' and you can't point to a historical model because
there isn't one that works to support your theories.  Maybe what you predict
will take place, but they're faith-based, and there's nothing in the past in
that region to suggest that the changes you hope for will occur.  I guess
we'll know in a few years whether history is being made, as you hope, or
repeated, as I suspect.  I think we're re-writing what the English wrought
in the first half of the last century.

If 'democratizing Iraq' was the reason for the war, then we should have had
a national discussion on that very issue.  Congress could have decided if we
should invade another country so that they could be a democracy (I'll set
aside my opinions of the arrogance of that view for now.)  We could have
honestly discussed the costs of such a war.  We could have addressed the
fact that Iraq didn't pose a threat to our security.

That's not the discussion we had, and that wasn't the reason we were given.
Instead the administration focused on intelligence that told it what it
wanted to hear, and ignored the rest.  Liars or incompetents?  Are either to
be trusted?

While I'm harping ( and there I was thinking I was engaging in a dialog), do
you disagree with me on my statements regarding our privatization of Iraq's
economy?  How much are Iraqis benefitting from our grab?

Sunil

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