Is the Bush plan working?

“LONDON, England—One of the ideological architects of the Iraq war has criticized the U.S.-led occupation of the country as "a grave error."

Richard Perle, until recently a powerful adviser to U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, described U.S. policy in post-war Iraq as a failure.

"I would be the first to acknowledge we allowed the liberation (of Iraq) to subside into an occupation. And I think that was a grave error, and in some ways a continuing error," said Perle, former chair of the influential Defence Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon.

With violent resistance to the U.S.-led occupation showing no signs of ending, Perle said the biggest mistake in post-war policy "was the failure to turn Iraq back to the Iraqis more or less immediately.

"We didn't have to find ourselves in the role of occupier. We could have made the transition that is going to be made at the end of June more or less immediately," he told BBC radio, referring to the U.S. and British plan to transfer political authority in Iraq to an interim government on June 30.

Toronto Star”

“That's rich.”

“Damn. Scooped.”

“Missed it by that much, <G>”

“Ronald Reagan defeated communism???

He forgot a few countries.

But then, he forgot his crooked involvement in Central American policy too.

Part of Reagan's "war on communism" was really just a war on the poor of Central America to keep 'em workin' the plantations.”

“Grain of salt: I'm thinking he may be pissed that his boy Chalabi got outed before he had a chance to be installed.”

“"Only a revisionist historian would deny that Reagan's policies were a key factor in the collapse of communism. It wasn't the only factor, but when the Soviet Generals and Bureaucrats admit that it was significant factor, it was."
Miss Anne Thrope
07:24:23 AM
05/26/04

Coming at the end of 30 years of containment policy and economic expansion, his policies at the time made sense and help expediate the fall of the USSR.

That's not what you said, though.”

“That is not what you said either.”

“I think I felt safer when the USSR was intact.”

“CAT FIGHT!”

“Saying Reagan defeated communism is like saying trailtalk forces people to backpack.”

“Reagan showed up just before they rolled the credits. Kinda like Jimmy Stewart's brother in "It's A Wonderful Life".

Look! It's Ronnie -- Home from the Navy!”

“SDI ended the Soviet Union, and it was Reagan's baby. He approved funding for the straw that broke the camel's back and he should get a lot of credit for that.

BTW Bush haters - first quarter GDP revised...UP, thank God for tax cuts.”

“Uh huh, and the Poles and Russians and Romanians, etc had nothing to do with their own liberation from the U.S.S.R.

SDI is nothing but a boondoggle.”

“SDI ENDED THE SOVIET UNION?!

This is a teory I've never heard before. Please elaborate.”

“What you've never heard that? Try asking Gorbi about it. The Soviet Union was bankrupted by it's effort to keep up with us in defense spending. This had been ruining they're economy for decades. SDI was the last straw for them, they had to put so much money into keeping up that their economy and consequently their government collapsed... There was no more money to spend on controlling the Poles, Romanians, Latvians, Lithuanians etc... And the brilliance of it, and the thing liberals seem to conveniently forget is... Reagan had no intention of actually deploying SDI, He knew (like many others at the time) that the key to ending the Soviet Union was too spend until they couldn't keep up. SDI was the ultimate poker bluff.”

“So current missle defense talk is a bluff?”

“No, current missile defense talk is nothing much like SDI, it's a term that's currently thrown around as a substitute because people were already familiar with it.”

“SDI was much more ambitious than what we're talking about doing today.”

“"SDI ended the Soviet Union, and it was Reagan's baby. He approved funding for the straw that broke the camel's back and he should get a lot of credit for that......."

The "straw" you spseak of, came way of the B2 Stealth Bomber. The Rushies dropped the wall and chit themselves, as we rolled out something they could never, considering their economic level, could top, let alone defend against (quickly!).

What happened to the WOT back then, when Reagen first declared war on it? Has the Repub policy toward this been slack for THAT long?”

“The Soviets response to the B2 was certainly part of the collapse, but not nearly on the economic level of their response to SDI.”

“"What happened to the WOT back then, when Reagen first declared war on it? Has the Repub policy toward this been slack for THAT long?"

laqtis
01:34:43 PM


No more slack than the Democrats policy.”

“So, you are talking about SDI, which was approved by the Democrat controlled house and senate during the 80's, right?”

“So current missle defense talk is a bluff?

If you're talking about national missile defense, then yes it is, in a sense. Although eventually it should be effective, the main reason for early deployment is to keep the Chinese off guard. Since no one really knows how effective it will be, to be safe, China now has to sink a bunch of money into upgrading their ICBMs - money that could've been spent on upgrading their navy instead.”

“It's a good thing we have all that "free trade" with China so they can generate tax dollars to fund their answer to GWB's missile defense program.

Uh ohhh, maybe I'm onto something here.......”

“Bison, I've read a pretty good deal about the fall of the USSR, and this is the first time I've seen anyone try to attribute the collapse to one military program. I'm interested in seeing your evidence.”

“Bison -

The Repubs have had a total of almost 16 years to deal with the WOT. The Dems have had half of that.

When Reagan made his declaration of War against Terror back then, one could argue that this would have been more important BACK THEN than it does now.

It was almost 12 years before the Dems got into the White House; a little head start I'd say. I would guess that the WOT back then was pretty hosed. Lots of chit was being taken out, or high jacked.”

“"So, you are talking about SDI, which was approved by the Democrat controlled house and senate during the 80's, right?"

Buddha Bear
01:42:50 PM
05/27/04

Those who voted for it get a share of the credit also.”

“Could it have had anything to do with imperial overreach?

Are there any lessons there for us?”

“Phaedrus - I've read alot about it myself, as a matter of fact I took a course on it in college (during one of the periods that I was a history major). There are probably a hundred different books you can read, as a matter of fact I've never read one that I can think of that didn't at least treat the idea as a viable hypothesis.”

“How did Reagan wage war on terror, by selling weapons to Osama?”

“Comparing the Geopolitics of the 80's to today is ridiculous. Unless someone here wants to claim that they would have forseen how things have changed when so many trained intelligence analysts didn't.”

“Huh. There are a number of papers out there on SDI and the collapse that have evidence from within the former Soviet Union that SDI was, in fact, a big contribution to their market reforms.

News to me! I'm still looking into it, but this is fascinating stuff.”

“Forsee? It seems like anyone who was anti-communist got our support. To forsee one needs to look. They weren't looking into the future, they were looking to fight Rooskies. I bet they didn't care what would happen after we "won".

Let me predict the future here:

1.We arm some one to fight today and it will bite us in the ass

2. We install a puppet regime in Iraq and it will bite us in the ass.

Or have we conveniently forgotten about Puppet Shah? How about the Nicaraguan puppet? How come the word "mimosa" comes to mind? LOL!

How many times do we have to relearn the same crap?”

“And did you have viable alternative plans that you proffered at the time?

Better to have someone on your side who'll bite you in the ass later, than to lose today and not be around to be bitten in the ass.”

“Who was going to listen to me?

Was 9/11 worth fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan? I would say no. Was helping Iraq against Iran worth the two bites in the ass? Hell no.

When will we learn”

“I never have understood this Reagan Cult you guys have going. If they hadn't had Casey for a scapegoat, he would've been out on his ear.

And if his Alzheimer's spontaneously goes into remission, somebody better be there to drive a stake through his heart before Armageddon gets rolling, LOL”

“You should see the cult in DC, gives me the willies! Frikken God on Earth.

BTW - Lincoln & Jefferson have been replaced in their respective memorials with Reagan 1st term & 2nd term, respectively.

Theres talk of changing the Washington Monument into a Giant Reagan.”

“It's no wonder SDI defeated the Russians

”

“Diminutive and constructed of Latex he is.”

“bearmagnet, I'm hip, dude!

For a guy who claimed to be for smaller government, Reagan sure got a lot of BIG buildings named for him.”

“From CNN: "A voice believed to be that of al Qaeda hijack leader Mohamed Atta urged passengers to "stay quiet and you'll be OK" as the hijackers steered American Airlines Flight 11 toward the World Trade Center. The commission investigating the September 11 attacks played tapes of the hijackers, ground control and military controllers in the final day of public hearings into the attacks."


A voice believed to be that of election hijack leader George W. Bush urged Americans to "stay quiet and you'll be OK" as the Neo-con hijackers steered America toward disaster.”

“Yeah, it would of been much different with Gore in office. I wonder who the media would of blamed, Gore or Klinton.

We would of been dropping leaflets over Afghanistan and Iraq that said, "We want to be your friends, please don't hurt us anymore". That would of stopped them dead in there tracks and we wouldn't have to worry about terrorism ever again.”

“Yeah, it was much better to decide to go into a 2nd grade classroom when you learned that a plane had hit the WTC and then to sit there listening to a story about goats for at least five minutes when you learned a 2nd plane had hit and it was clear we were under attack. I would much rather have my commander-in-chief doing that then issuing shoot down orders or anything else that might have saved lives. What a decisive man of action.

”

“He was gettin his learn on.”

“He was whating his hoo-ha?”

“You are a hypocrite bastard. Maybe that's why I dislike you some much.

President Gore would of ran out of that classroom yelling, "The sky is falling! the sky is falling"!”

“Riiiight.

Ultrapecker has a line of sight into the dimensions of the supremely unknowable.”

“Having the words 'Bush' and 'Plan' in such close proximity is always good for a laugh.”