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01 September 2006

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manowar

This may or may not be complete:

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-Rummy-Dean.mov

Above is direct to Quicktime; parent page, http://crooksandliars.com/ also has WMV.

Mark
Boston

John Howley

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Video_50_year_study_says_conservatives_0711.html

Judy

Crooks and Liars has the video up.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/31/howard-dean-makes-his-countdown-debut/

Jim Montgomery

I have recently discovered your blog and was delighted since I have watched your PBS commentary with great appreciation for many months.

Thank you for your work.

I think the Bush administration has reached the babbling stage, but as a light onto just what they are really planning, has anyone taken a serious look at their actual plans to create an Iraqi military force that they can "stand-up."

Has anyone done any nitty gritty examination of just how much US money is really being spent on this?

Has the Bush admin gone to Congress and actaully asked for a specific amount of money to buy such things as:

Tanks
Airplanes
Helicopters
Trucks
Communications equipment
Medical equipment
Artillery---etc, etc, etc????

If so, how much??

How much would we have to spend to get the Iraqis to the point where they can do at least as well as US forces are doing against the insurgents?

Is this not a good index of seriousness?

And, if we are not planning to buy these things and train the Iraqi's seriously on their use and integration, what are we doing?

Regards,

Jim Montgomery

ikonoklast

It's interesting that Mr. Olberman turned the ubiquitous comparison of the Bush administration with fascism on its head by referencing the British. The simile is usually with the Nazis, of course - Rove as Goebbels, Cheney as a composite Bormann/Krupp, etc. Rumsfeld is turning out to be a pretty fine Goering though ... or maybe he should be called Meier these days? In any event, using an example of historical acts against fascism rather than merely railing against a polity that often appears as inexorable as the juggernaut of the Third Reich strikes a positive and welcome note. More power to Mr. Olberman. There may be hope for the Republic yet.

michael savoca

In a recent Speech to veterans, Secretary Rumsfeld accuses others of that which he and President Bush are guilty. Bush and Rumsfeld… not the war critics… are the appeasers. Before 911 Bin laden authorized war against the US for two major reasons which are cited early in his fatwah. First, because we had forces stationed in the Country of Saudi Arabia, the home of the sacred city of Mecca. The attack against us on 911 was carried out by 19 hijackers 3/4 ths of whom were Saudis. OBL is, was, a Saudi. So what did President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld do. They attacked Iraq which served nicely as a cover and then about a month later quietly withdrew nearly all forces from Saudi Arabia. Bush and Rumsfeld did what Bin Laden demanded. . To this day, we launch no attacks against Iraq from Saudi Arabia. Who’s the appeaser?

The second reason for the fatwah which authorized war against the US , cited by Bin Laden. is the replacement of Sharia law by civil law as Sadam had done in Iraq. Now I have nothing but ill will for both Sadam and Bin Laden, but let’s be clear. When President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld decided to attack and destroy the baath party’s secular government of Iraq and then permitted replacement with a religious government based on Sharia law as it now exists in Iraq, we did what Bin Laden wanted. Again, I ask you…who are the appeasers? President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld, either through their incompetence or by design have appeased Osama Bin Laden and now they have the mendacity to accuse others of their misdeeds. I am sickened by their glib handling of our nations affairs and the blood and treasure it has cost us.

Thanks to President Bush’s and Secretary Rumsfeld’s lack of follow through and decisive action in the mountains of Tora Bora and the war in Afghanistan, Bin Laden remains free to direct further attacks against us.


references

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s843313.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2984547.stm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142602,00.html

Michael Murry

Jim Montgomery might find some interesting thoughts about "standing up" the Iraqi military in an article by Greg Jaffe called "A Camp Divided," which pretty much parallels my own experience as an advsior to the South Vietnamese military thirty-six years ago. A Google search on the article's name will return several links to it, but I'll just supply the following from "Candide's Notebooks":

http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-209.htm

After reading the article, perhaps we could talk more about who has fallen down and who needs standing up.

canuck

John Howley already provided the link to the possible source of the study of John Dean's book. These follow on the same lines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_W._Adorno>Information about the author of the Study The Authoritarian Personalit

http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm>Samples of the F scale By the way, I scored as a Liberal airhead! 2.26. :-) The F scale was not the other measure that was used, but it did play a significant role in the results and became the basis of most of the citicism of it.

http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/news_item.2005-10-27.6168871533>Alan Wolf. 'The Authoritarian Personality' Revisited

Other studies on the http://www.doc.state.ok.us/DOCS/OCJRC/OCJRC95/950725c.htm>Other Authoritarian Personality

http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/ConsevatismAsMotivatedSocialCognition.pdf>Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition 2003 along with follow up study http://www.sulloway.org/ConservatismReply%282003%29.pdf>reply to criticism of this original study

Jim Montgomery

Mr. Murry's suggestion was quite helpful concerning the Jaffe article. I think it just underlines my suspicion that this administration does not have a real military assistance plan in place for Iraq. All they have is the idea that the Iraqi's should replace us. But where are the budgets, the hardware, the consumables and everything else that DOD puts in place when it is really serious about improving another country's military capabilities?

In Viet Nam you could also get your hands on the latest military assistance proposal to Congress. Is there anything similar for Iraq?

Thanks,

Jim Montgomery

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