IAP Political Forum

Most know geography has never been a great Bush attribute.  Didn't seem to learn too much about military tactics on that bar stool in Alabama during his period of service.
And this week he has shown he wasn't a very good judge of character when he looked into Putin's eye and decided he was a good and trustworthy man. 

It appears he's done it again. Remember those Naval forces he was sending to assist in Georgia? Once more in ignorance, he appears to have bitten off more than he could
chew, as we real Texan's call such a foul up.  Before he began promising such action, maybe he should have at least consulted his Pentagon. Then this is a bit different than
the "victory" landing on the Lincoln.

Posted on Fri, Aug. 15, 2008

Another flub? Bush vowed Navy aid to Georgia too soon

Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: August 15, 2008 08:12:05 AM

WASHINGTON — President Bush Wednesday promised that U.S. naval forces would deliver humanitarian aid to war-torn Georgia before his administration had received approval from Turkey, which controls naval access to the Black Sea, or the Pentagon had planned a seaborne operation, U.S. officials said Thursday.

As of late Thursday, Ankara, a NATO ally, hadn't cleared any U.S. naval vessels to steam to Georgia through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that connect the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the officials said. Under the 1936 Montreaux Convention, countries must notify Turkey before sending warships through the straits.

Pentagon officials told McClatchy that they were increasingly dubious that any U.S. Navy vessels would join the aid operation, in large part because the U.S.-based hospital ships likely to go, the USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, would take weeks to arrive.

"The president was writing checks to the Georgians without knowing what he had in the bank," said a senior administration official.

"The president got out in front of the planning when he talked publicly about using naval forces," said a second senior administration official. "At that point we need to look at treaty obligations, our bilateral relations with the Turks and others, waterway restrictions and what kind of ships might be appropriate and usable — something like the Comfort or something already in the Med (Mediterranean)."

The U.S. officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, because the issue is diplomatically sensitive or because the administration takes a dim view of officials who reveal its internal deliberations.

The White House and the Turkish Embassy didn't immediately return telephone calls.

Bush's pledge to send aid-carrying naval ships prompted Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to proclaim that U.S. warships would break what he claimed — inaccurately — was a Russian naval blockade of Georgia's Black Sea coast, and that U.S. forces would take control of his country's ports.

While Saakashvili either exaggerated or misunderstood Bush's announcement, a U.S. failure to fulfill the president's pledge could prompt other former Soviet republics and Soviet bloc nations to question whether they can count on U.S. support if Russia targets them.

"We think about Turkey when we realize we need them for something," said Mark Parris of The Brookings Institution, who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey between 1997 and 2000. "This could very well be a case of that."

Bush on Wednesday said he was launching a "vigorous and ongoing" humanitarian mission in which U.S. military aircraft and ships would bring aid to beleaguered Georgia.

The first U.S. C-17 cargo plane arrived in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, with tents and other supplies later that day.

U.S. officials said the Turks hadn't cleared U.S. naval vessels to transit the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

"The Turks haven't been helpful," said a State Department official. "They are being sluggish and unresponsive."

The Russian invasion of Georgia has almost certainly unnerved Turkey because it has huge energy and trade interests in adjacent Central Asia.

Turkey also may be reluctant to jeopardize the $24 billion in annual trade it does with Russia, which provides around 70 percent of its natural gas supplies. The Turkish Navy also shares the Black Sea with Russia's powerful Black Sea Fleet, which in part has prompted Ankara in recent years to restrict U.S. and NATO naval operations and exercises there.

The current situation echoes the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the Bush administration tried to send thousands of U.S. troops into northern Iraq through Turkey — a Muslim nation where most people opposed the war — without first obtaining Ankara's permission.

The Turkish parliament refused to allow the United States to use its territory.

Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this article.

More from McClatchy:

U.S. won't intervene in Georgia, leaving Russia in control

Georgia's bitter defeat plays out on road to capital

Additional articles are on the link.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/48293.html

Perhaps the bandwidth would be better spent condemning the destroying of Georgian territory. With some creative thinking you can probably blame this on Bush too.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24184638-12377,00.html

ps: Obama isn't exactly knocking it out the park with his commentary on the crisis so I would think about sitting on the sidelines with my comments.

No, neue.

Bush is truly stupid to think Turkey would do anything to help us hurt the Russians.

"In 2004, trade between Turkey and Russia was worth some $11 billion. By the end of August 2005, this figure reached almost $10 billion, and it is expected by both Moscow and Ankara to increase to $25 billion by 2007. Russia is Turkey's second-largest trading partner after Germany, while Turkey is Russia's 14th trade partner."
- LINK (http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/turkey-russia-relations/article-134083)

We're asking to ship in aid, not hurt Russia.

... now you're just being coy.

If we send in blankets... do you really think we're not sending in M16's too?

Russia Seizes Arsenal Of US Weapons In Georgia - Military (http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080815%5cACQDJON200808150606DOWJONESDJONLINE000377.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Russia%20Seizes%20Arsenal%20Of%20US%20Weapons%20In%20Georgia%20-%20Military)

Now wait a second...we may be or we may not be. If they are an allay, then it's entirely possible we sold those weapons some time ago.

And if Georgia is still our ally and Russia is still our enemy it would be silly to think we're sitting around twittling our thumbs...

While such as neue regel, enjoy fighting wars with their keyboards, even his choice for Patton's new CIC's supporters can't get their stories straight. Putin has Bush by the short hairs and there is nothing he can do about it. An unfortunate situation, but reality.  One more foulup by the "leader of the free world," when the choice was made to tweak the bear, who is in economic ascendency while the U.S. languishes in dependency by the decision to return to Reagan's "star wars" and provide them to the "bought and bribed" essentially on Russia's borders. It's all connected, but digress.  The "old warrior" has his own problems when his own supporters can't get it straight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKKSg39WjdM&eurl=http://www.americablog.com/

So many words to say nothing.

At least you have the gift of being concise while saying nothing.

thanks!  ;D

LOL, IamMe, I thought a post of a youtube with pictures might be more appropriate than reading a variety of comments related to neue regel's past choice of Bush and current choice of McCain to become the "leader of the free world."  :laugh:

There are ample long opinion pieces that would suffice I might have posted, but reading sometimes is not an attribute of those such as neue regel. 

But I think I'll stay with one more bit of animation showing the folly of neue regels choices, but at a different location. While some like neue regel on other threads concern themselves with the old, like me, living in their Social Security "lap of luxury" this is where the real budget goes. Another example of Patton's CIC's screw ups.  Enjoy or not by turning up the sound and clicking on the link.

http://www.markfiore.com/private_contracting_games

 

Again, more flopping around. Are you trying to make a point or trying to wing intelligence?

Just playing with you neue regel.  :laugh: Where's your sense of humor?  Sometimes, it's a bit of fun to play with lockstep Bush/Cheney/McCain bots.  But looks like not atypically, you've decided to rely on a personal insult instead of dealing the the topic of the post nor the
animations.

I've never noted you to be a reader of really pithy POVs while instead you would prefer to rant about the glories of the policies and practices of GOP politicians who have brought such pitiful results to the Georgians as the Bush screwup that was the topic of the post.

The screw up of the Naval rescue was just classic for Bush. Now you and others would like to
replace him with a militarist "hero" who needs help to even understand the difference in other
locations such as the necessity for Lieberman to take his arm and explain the difference between Shia and Sunni at another screwed up location: Iraq.

Not surprising you would have missed any points that might not reflect positively on the criminal cabal you support or one not all that different you would replace them with.

Since my choices are between two, I will have to likely side with a man with SOMETHING on his resume as opposed to a man whose own supporters can't name a single life accomplishment on his resume.

Or I might stay home.

Actually, neue regel, the post and article referred to Patton's current CIC rather than who might hold that position in the future. Obviously, both of you as I do have a choice to make come November.  Considering the performance to date of the current occupant of the Oval Office, the mess he's made of the whole nation and a number of other ones, a person whose policies and practices would only be a redux, will not be my choice. And instead of resumes
I think I prefer a person who actually has something above the neck rather than one who doesn't appear to have all that much left. 

Just one small reminder when going back to your statement about "winging intelligence," McCain will shortly turn
72 and would be 76 if elected prior to leaving office if he should survive the rigors of being POTUS. only a few days following McCain's upcoming birthday I'll be 73.  I find myself extremely concerned about whether he can continue
to "wing it" for that period of time. Though I'm not running for POTUS, I've never been crashed five aircraft nor been tortured in a Vietnamese prison. Just some food for thought.

Then we can go right back to the discussion of setting an age cap for someone running for President. If you support that, fine. As of today, there is no law limiting one's age for serving.


I've not been able to come up with anything that qualifies Obama, either.

I don't agree that 72 is too old to be President, per se. I mean, Noam Chomsky is 79, and is still one of the shrewdest commentators in world politics. Nor does Obama's youth make him a bad candidate.

Incidentally, can someone walk me through the logic that makes a captured bomber pilot an expert on military strategy?

IamMe, being unable to deal with the actual topic of the thread, neue regel in typical fashion changed the topic to
age.  Nothing unusual is it?

You've got me IamMe. How does crashing five airplanes as a Naval pilot, and surviving in a Vietnamese prison with the last one that was shot down, equate being an expert on foreign policy or becoming a CIC?  It is actually a fallacious issue, put forward by the militarists.  The same ones who elected a former AF pilot, who never saw a day of combat, but spent most of the actual time he claimed to have flown around guarding Houston,TX instead flying a bar stool in Alabama. Oops I've changed the topic again, but you asked. 

Cass wrote...


You brought it up, not me...

He attended the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during 1973–1974.

Core Course Integrating Themes: At the conclusion of the curriculum, students will understand that:

• National security strategy and policy are formulated and implemented within international and domestic political processes and environments that are dynamic, changing and replete with competing interests. As a consequence, policy is often as much an outcome of bureaucratic processes, compromise, and the influence of a dominant personality as it is of 'rational' calculus.

• State resources are limited, requiring policy-makers to set priorities among competing domestic and international interests, and to accommodate the allocation of resources between selected domestic and international objectives. Means and ends must be judiciously matched within strategies designed to accomplish national objectives.

• National security objectives and strategy must be devised and implemented within environments where ethical norms inform and constrain policy-makers’ freedom of action.

• A national security strategy must identify the interests of the nation and the challenges to those interests, and specify the objectives to be met through the use of specific policy instruments, particularly in any use of military force.

• Instruments of policy must be orchestrated within a cohesive strategy that deliberately integrates the selected instruments to achieve specified objectives.

• As a component of national security, military strategy and operations require the development within the Armed Forces of a joint culture that fosters the teamwork essential for deterrence, joint war fighting, and multinational endeavors. Planning and prosecution of joint campaigns and major operations require competency in joint skills, including the ability to orchestrate air, land, sea, space and special operations forces into effective joint teams.

Academic curriculum found here:National War College (http://www.ndu.edu/nwc/)

And Obama doesn't understand these things?

It's not on his resume'.......

(http://logo.cafepress.com/2/3048302.jpg)

It's not on my resume either, but even I understand these axioms of foreign policy, even if I don't agree.

My guess is you havn't read the curriculum....it is a full year in residence course:

Core Program:

All students, including research fellows, normally must complete the core curriculum. The core program averages 9 to 13 class contact hours per week, generally in the mornings, and consists of the following major courses:

6100 - Introduction to Strategy

This course introduces the elements of strategy, critical thinking and strategic analysis to develop and provide the foundational strategic thinking skills required for the balance of the curriculum. Using selected frameworks and examples of strategy, students will begin their year-long examination of the components of national security strategy, the assumptions behind strategic choices, relationships among the instruments of national power, the orchestration of the instruments of power in pursuit of national security objectives and the roles of leadership and ethics in national security strategy.

6200 - War and Statecraft

This course analyzes the distinctive, and multi-faceted, phenomenon of war, to include: its character, conduct, nature, and scope; its military and non-military dimensions; and the ramifications of its use and potential use to achieve political objectives. The course explores key concepts regarding war and how those theoretical underpinnings have affected the design of military strategy. In so doing, the course provides students with a solid theoretical foundation for developing military strategy. Students will study a framework for critiquing—and designing—military strategy that will benefit them in subsequent examinations of military issues in other courses, in the end-of-year strategy applications, and in their efforts to develop strategy after graduation. The course further examines the elements comprising the military instrument of power and how that instrument can be employed in combination with other instruments of statecraft in peace and crisis, as well as in war.

6300 - The Non-Military Elements of Strategy

This course analyzes the non-military tools available to strategists and how those tools flow from the broader elements of national power. Specifically, the course analyzes the nature, purposes, capabilities and limitations of the non-military instruments of power, and investigates and critiques a variety of ways that strategists use these instruments. The course explores how instruments of power differ from but are dependent upon underlying national power, particularly in the areas of economics and information. Discussions reference peace, crisis and war to provide a comprehensive review of the non-military instruments’ role in national security strategy. The course provides detailed information on the non-military tools available to national security strategists, the various uses of those tools, both singly and in conjunction with one another, and helps set the stage for the end-of-year applications in national security strategy course.

6400 - The Domestic Context and U.S. National Security Decision-Making

This course provides the students with an understanding of the complex reality of the domestic context in which American strategists must make decisions. It considers the domestic context from multiple perspectives. It evaluates how broad domestic political and cultural factors, as well as resource and economic constraints, affect policy formulation and execution. The course further examines the structure and process of U.S. national security decisions. Here the course considers both the historical, philosophical and Constitutional foundations of inter-agency and inter-branch processes, and their subsequent evolution and current form. One element of this investigation will be a study of American civil military relations. Finally, the course will focus on individual and group level decision-making, to include a discussion of individual leadership and legitimate dissent within the U.S. national security policy process.

6500 - The Global Context

The purpose of this course is to help students understand the world and emerging strategic challenges from a perspective that is not U.S.-centric. Students will study selected nation-states and international regions, developing a familiarity with the role played by culture and history, as well as the key emerging trends in that region. They will analyze international trends and developments, compare and contrast regional contexts and national perspectives, and recommend how best to prioritize US interests within and across regions. The course will also examine how non-state actors, transnational actors and global trends shape the strategic environment. Students will develop a working knowledge of the international security context that is essential for creating, analyzing and carrying out national security strategy and policy.

6600 - Applications in National Security Strategy

This capstone course integrates and synthesizes the fundamental themes from the entire curriculum. The course will examine a series of strategic national security and homeland security challenges confronting the nation today. Students will work in small groups to assess select transnational security issues, determine U.S. objectives, identify key assumptions, and develop a range of policy options that include evaluations of the risks and benefits of each option. Students will practice the critical thinking skills introduced in course 6100 and select the military instruments (6200) and non military instruments (6300) best suited to these security challenges. Each exercise will also require an assessment of key domestic and national decision making enablers and constraints (6400) as well as a keen appreciation for the global context (6500) in which the U.S. must develop and implement its strategy. Students’ preparations for their field studies (6700) will be integrated into a program that develops specific regional strategies. In keeping with the goal of “putting theory into practice,” students will give oral presentations, field questions from “real world” officials, and produce written options memoranda designed for senior decision makers.

6700 - Field Studies in National Security

The National War College curriculum focuses on strategy at the national level, to include the integration of all elements of national power. It addresses national security policy, the theory and practice of war, the domestic and international context of national security strategy, contemporary military strategy, and joint and combined warfare. In turn, the policy and strategy process takes place in specific political, military, economic, social, geographical, and governmental contexts. It is a process that has bilateral, regional, and global dimensions. Understanding the formulation and implementation of policy and strategy requires in-depth knowledge of the current and prospective foreign policy situation in nations and regions affected by U.S. policies, and even more importantly, an understanding of how such strategic judgments are formulated. The Field Studies program is designed to integrate all the themes of the core courses and meet NWC/JPME objectives by providing a “test bed” for the synthesis of the entire year’s curriculum. These studies provide opportunities for NWC students and faculty to discuss policy issues with political, military, business, media, and academic leaders of other nations that affect the security of their nations and regions as well as the security of the United States. This interaction moves NWC strategic education from the theoretical world to the world of reality. There is no classroom substitute for the intensive learning that comes from face-to-face exchanges and personal experiences gained through discussions and activities overseas.

I'm impressed you "understand the axioms"......I'm sure you understand the axioms of simple mathmatics too......still doesn't make you a mathmatician.

Where did Obama do his full year in residence training again?

You guys can try and wish John McCains service, command, and national security education away all you want....but the ink on his resume' is dry....and Obama's resume here is still blank.

So because Obama hasn't been to war hawk school he is not qualified to run the country. Then neither is 99% of the American population. Sounds quite anti-democratic to me.

It also doesn't qualify McCain in terms of morality, somewhere all US Presidents since Truman have been sadly lacking.

Here's where McCain's vaunted experience led him after the attacks on 9/11:

[By the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001], Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

While pushing to take on Saddam Hussein, Mr. McCain also made arguments and statements that he may no longer wish to recall. He lauded the war planners he would later criticize, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. (Mr. McCain even volunteered that he would have given the same job to Mr. Cheney.) He urged support for the later-discredited Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi’s opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, and echoed some of its suspect accusations in the national media. And he advanced misleading assertions not only about Mr. Hussein’s supposed weapons programs but also about his possible ties to international terrorists, Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks. […]

[A]fter Mr. Bush declared he would hold responsible any country condoning terrorism, Mr. McCain called his leadership “magnificent” and his national security team the strongest “that has ever been assembled.” A few weeks later, Larry King of CNN asked whether he would have named Mr. Rumsfeld and Colin L. Powell to a McCain cabinet. “Oh, yes, and Cheney,” Mr. McCain answered, saying he, too, would have offered Mr. Cheney the vice presidency.

Even during the heat of the war in Afghanistan, Mr. McCain kept an eye on Iraq. To Jay Leno in mid-September, Mr. McCain said he believed “some other countries” had assisted Osama bin Laden, going on to suggest Iraq, Syria and Iran as potential suspects. In October 2001, when an Op-Ed page column in The New York Times speculated that Iraq, Russia or some other country might bear responsibility for that month’s anthrax mailings, Mr. McCain interrupted a question about Afghanistan from David Letterman on that night’s “Late Show.” “The second phase is Iraq,” Mr. McCain said, adding, “Some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.” […]

[W]hen the Czech government said that before the attacks, one of the 9/11 hijackers had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official, Mr. McCain seized the report as something close to a smoking gun. “The evidence is very clear,” he said three days later, in an Oct. 29 television interview. (Intelligence agencies quickly cast doubt on the meeting.) [paste this in your browser to see the source: nytimes.com/2008/08/17/us/politics/17mccain.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin]

In other words, McCain gave every indication that he would have made all of the same errors that Bush made.
This is "experience" our nation can do without. 

Running the country?

Where the hell that come from?

Your changing the conversation and moving the goalposts, and you know it....it is TYPICAL when one is confronted with Obama's lack of ANYTHING even REMOTELY akin to "military" or "strategy" which is where YOU began the conversation:


YOU mentioned military strategy...thought you were being cute with the whole "captured bomber pilot" all the while being completely ignorant of what the National War College is and the fact John McCain attended....then when faced with the curriculum change the question to "running the country".........

You guys are hilarious.

Here's something thats even funnier;
 (http://www.internetweekly.org/images/not_of_this_earth.jpg)

I provided chapter and verse of how McCain's experiences obviously haven't done squat for his judgment (three posts up). He's a Neocon war-monger by temperment, and it's clear that had he been in the White House on 9/11, he would have gone down a very similar path to Bush's. Or even worse.

Like Bush's foreign policy? Vote McCain.

He is a scary man.

I don't see anything hilarious in that.

I think it's worth noting that this is the same institution that trained strategy expert Colin Powell. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_War_College)

Maybe those trained to follow orders unquestionably is what Patton is looking for in a new CIC.
Has everyone forgotten Powell's possibly greatest appearance as he lied to the U.N. fully knowing he was lying with Tenet sitting smugly behind him while he did so. 

When cornered Patton continue to post the same old shit. One would think he might at some point at least come up with something new related to the qualifications of the "old warrior?"
Guess maybe for some it guarantees job security?  But with all of those years already served
someday retirement will come.  Are they hiring medical contractors at huge pay in Iraq like they've hired 180,000 mercenaries in Iraq?  Sometimes for the well indoctrinated, retirement
comes as a real shock. 

Once nore all this goes way far OT, but it avoids a discussion of one more screw up by Patton's current CIC.

Now you all bring in Powell?

Hilarious.

Why not Wesely Clark or ANY other General in the Army, Navy or Air Force?

It still doesn't fill the hole in Obama's EMPTY resume'.....well....except for his 6th Grade Social Studies class.

Duh, IamMe brought up Powell. I never think of Powell without remembering the lies he told for your CIC attempting to getting a U.N. mandate for his illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. BTW, Powell later admitted they were lies.

While working on insulting me at each and every opportunity, because you can't tolerate the
thought that someone even in any way associated with the military, even as a spouse, might disagree with you. Continue, please. You're small potatoes compared to the brass I got used to
arguing with at the Congressional liaison's office at the Pentagon or a large variety of commanders of all branches way above your pay grade while working to get their screw ups
and coverups reversed for troops when they screwed up and violated their own regs and policies.  This not quite ordinary housewife is going to do what I also do quite well, prepare
dinner for the retiree and me. 

Actually since Patton is partly the subject matter of the thread, (and making a thread about another forum member is precident reason to trash it - which he didn't), then I'm thinking the guy can drive the conversation any direction he wants. Patton could start talking about potpourri and still be on topic.


...right. Which is why he said, "Now you all bring in Powell?".


Orating now? I mean who are you speaking to? For that matter who are you listening to?



Ahk

Sure Ahk, orating? In reality the great majority of this thread past the parent statement has been OT. The parent topic is related to Bush's promise to send his Navy into the Black Sea on a rescue mission to Georgia. He screwed
up by not even confirming that ability with his own Pentagon. Bush, known for years at being poor at geography
hadn't a clue what he was doing. 

The action when it was originally posted was a real screw up and relevant to the information at the time.  It has
long since lost any relevance, but wandered and wandered and become more than useless as information and
should have long ago become a dead thread.

It is amusing to note when using written information the criticism is forthcoming related to not stating and opinion
and then when stating an opinion, most especially if it negative and related to a forum "sacred cow," it is also an
incorrect and inappropriate behavior.  However, I will admit using Patton's screen name in the topic title was an
inappropriate action.

Since the topic has long since lost relevance, I will modify and remove Patton's name from the title and if that is
not a satisfactory result, you have the ability to trash it.

Just keep pushing the empty resume formula like it means something. It has never been a requirement before. None of the previous Presidents, at least as far back as Carter (according to my not very scientific search) has attended, and the National War College page on Wikipedia gives Powell as the most famous alumni. The logical reason for this is that, since Obama is young then the "inexperienced" line will stick, for purely psychological reasons, even though it has never been an issue before. It is pure marketing, and nothing else.

As for Powell, do you not think bringing him in gives some insight as to what kind of alumnus the NWC produces (i.e. an amoral war-hawk).

from the original story quoted in the OT -


Contradicting this, we have this story (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/20/navy.georgia.aid/index.html?iref=24hours)

which says:


it would appear the original story is in factual error.  Just sayin.

Gomper if you check the dates of the stories along with the fact that Turkey has now provided permission for the U.S. to deliver the humanitarian supplies, I think you'll find there is a five day difference in the original story and the current CNN one.

Where one was accurate at the time circumstances have changed.  As a result the original story is not in error. Just point that out.

If you look at the story I linked, you will see it states that the ships the Navy plan to use to send the supplies had permission from Turkey to travel into the Black Sea BEFORE the conflict between Russia and Georgia broke out.  So, when Bush ordered the Navy to find a way to deliver relief supplies to Georgia, the Navy already had ships capable of doing so.  This was at the time the originally linked story claimed we had no such ships.  Therefore, the story was in error in its facts at the time it was written. 

I'm not sure what your issue is, but so far I think maybe it is a bit ridiculous or a lack of reading and comprehension. Argue away, but if you read all the CNN information you'll discover, the original plan was to send in warships. Not allowed. Coast guard cutter now scheduled to do the job, but the warship still lacks permission. Send in a row boat, frankly, as Rhett said to Scarlet, I really don't give a damn.  BTW, that was not an exact quote, but a paraphrase.  When you get out of the 6th grade let me know.

What's Texan for 'sticking your foot in your mouth?' The media is so quick to damn Bush's every move, it is them (and you for believing them) who have the egg all over their faces.

Of course, the news cycle has moved on to the story of the day, so the record doesn't really get corrected. So Bush screwed up...when he didn't. He doesn't even waste his time correcting these idiot, lap-dog reporters.

Well, Rhett, clearly you give a damn enough to make this thread. 

I believe you have miss read the CNN story.  There is a Coast Guard cutter (Dallas) AND a NAVY destroyer (USS McFaul) which have permission to transit into the Black Sea and will be used to send supplies.  The USS Mt. Whitney is waiting for permission.
So, yes there is a war ship that has permission to go. 

However, where did you get the idea that "the original plan was to send in warships"?  I only understood that Bush ordered the Navy to find a way to send relief supplies using naval vessels, I cannot find anywhere he insisted it had to be warships. 

The article you posted, and apparently agreed with, assumed there were no such vessels in existence that could accomplish what Bush wanted the navy to attempt, ergo Bush must be an ignorant person to have made the order.  I showed that the article was factually in error.

You reply by trying to change the goal post and bring in this idea of warships only.

So now I have replied and showed that even IF we allowed for your apparently fabricated idea that only warships were in the original plan, you would still be factually wrong.

In closing I would just like to point out that I have done all this without making snide remarks about your reading comprehension or any allusion to what grade you might be in.

I think the bigger story with regards to Georgia is the way that McCain reacted--with beligerent rhetoric and alarmism. It's like he's just salivating at the thought of going to war with Russia, just like he wanted to go to war with Iran, and couldn't wait to attack Iraq.

Vote for McCain if you like war.

The man is scary.

Ironically, McCain and Obama from a policy standpoint seemed to be in lock step on this one.  They both called for diplomatic pressure on Russia to form a cease fire and quick withdrawal of Russian forces monitored by international observers.  Neither called for any sort of war with Russia, and you saying McCain is salivating at the thought of going to war is reacting with belligerent rhetoric and alarmism to his comments, IMHO.

Having said that, I will say that McCain's whole "Today we are all Geogians" was populist clapptrap and absolutely inane.  Again just IMHO.  I suspect we would agree on that.

What really concerns me in this is the German Chancellor calling for NATO to look at admitting Georgia into NATO.  Per the terms of the NATO treaty, an attack on one member is to be considered an attack on all.  In such a scenario if Russia were to do this to Georgia, we would be obligated by treaty to treat it as an attack on the US.  Anyone remember the treaty obligations circa 1914?

Howcome, with McCain's 'full resume,' it is Obama's plan that is being followed in Iraq?

Actually, it's Bush's plan, as he's stated over and over. Bush has said all along that when conditions on the ground are met, off we'll go. Conditions are being met...we shouldn't be all that surprised.

Yeah, it's just a coincidence that "conditions are being met" right after Obama was welcomed in Iraq by the Iraqi Prime Minister saying that he agreed with Obama's timetable. Soon after that the White House decided that "conditions were now being met."

How about that.

Here's Obama's comments:

Some lead. Others follow.