Do you care about our military and national security?

[hollodero]

(06-14-2020, 07:08 PM)Dill Wrote: Some quick historical notes: there is considerable contrast between generals like Pierce and Arthur and Garfield, who had full civilian lives first and then were tapped for service under emergency conditions. And really didn't run on their military experience. (Taft was a general??)  

Fair enough. And Taft really didn't serve, but still was made a major general for reasons I did not really quite get and wasn't too interested in.

I mainly responded to the point because you did not list Andrew Jackson. I mean, this guy has to count :) - the other four I listed have quite sophisticated military carees though and at least three of them (Harrison, Taylor and Garfield) were considered war heroes.

(06-14-2020, 07:48 PM)Dill Wrote:
Just a very quick clarification here.  I have seen no evidence that Mullen bought into the Cheney claim that Al Qaeda was in Iraq and working with Saddam Hussein in 2001.

However, you know that there was an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Jordan in 2001, led by Zarkawi. AFTER the US invasion this group moved into Iraq and became known to us as Al Qaeda in Iraq, Jama'at to themselves. They spun up the insurgency and eventually became ISIL.  That is the connection to Al Qaeda that Mullen is referring to in his speech. Part of the surge strategy was to get Iraqis themselves to turn against this group. Mullen understood very well that the invasion of Iraq was a gift to Al Qaeda, expanding their recruitment and giving them a "twofer."

One more clarification: About that advocacy for violent regime change in Iraq. The Iraq invasion happened largely because Bush pulled a bunch of guys from the Project for a New American Century into his administration.
https://www.rrojasdatabank.info/pfpc/PNAC---statement%20of%20principles.pdf  AND because of 9/11.

From 1996 onward, the PNAC had publicly groused that H.W. had stopped short of toppling Saddam in the Gulf War, called that a great mistake, but assumed (correctly) they would never get the country and Congress behind them to "finish the job" unless there were, in the words of their 1997 Report, some "catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."  You know this movement as "neoconservativism"--the Neocons.

Then came 9/11--an OPPORTUNITY to get the job done, if only they could link Saddam to Al Qaeda. Hence all those embarrassing overrides of intel professionals. The creation of the "stovepipe" for funneling their unvetted intel to Congress and eventually the press.  It is EXTREMELY doubtful that Gore would have ever invaded Iraq, or even another Republican NOT so explicitly affiliated with the PNAC. It is doubtful (near impossible, really) that the country could have gotten behind an invasion of Iraq had not 9/11 happened.

Yet for all that, BEFORE 9/11, Bush himself had settled on a very MAGA-like foreign policy. He wanted to build up strong US military at home, but thought the US was spread to far, wasting money on unnecessary foreign wars. He and his base were reacting to "Globalist" Clinton's policing in Bosnia and Kosovo, and they wanted drawdowns in Europe and the Middle East. Bush and they were NOT on board with the PNAC, one reason the Bush team paid little attention to warnings about some terrorist group planning to hijack jets and fly them into buildings.  

Well this analysis goes quite deep. Much of it though amounts to many in the Bush environment really being eager to invade Iraq, they were just afraid they could not get the public behind it. And then an opportunity arose...
...and for how many of these people, shooting an US drone would have served as an opportunity as well? At least to escalate things further? Which is kind of my point, that many folks are just way more eager to go to war than Trump is. Or at least way less wary. Trump called back the attack on Iran, would everyone else have done that too? (Again, putting the idiocy aspect aside.)

Like McCain, rest his soul, but he even started singing Bomb Iran to the tune of Barbara Ann once. And it was not that it was an out of character joke or seemed unfitting to his attitude. And I'd guess many at least in his party could get behing that notion and I guess some on that fred list might too. Trump, not so much.

As for al qaeda in Iraq, maybe Mr.Mullen deserves no scrutiny, but many used that narrative to directly connect Saddam to 9/11 really.