Wtc

[Irish_74]

Anyone planning on or already saw World Trade Center??

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

Anyone planning on or already saw World Trade Center??

Nope...no interest. Too painful to watch...and honestly, I struggle with it being our "defining" moment as well. I suspect there will be more to come.

Also, I struggle with our actions afterwards...it feels like we never really took the lesson to heart. People are far too glib about sending our young men and women into battle...

 

[jiggafini19]

Anyone planning on or already saw World Trade Center??

No. I did not see United 93 either.

Every year I watch the 9/11 documentary to honor those who lost their lives. I think we discussed this in another thread a while back.

It is a touchy subject for me and for very personal reasons. I get very angry when I see the footage.

I watched an NFL Films documentary about the FDNY Bravest Football Team about a month ago. I had never seen it previously. It was quite touching and well done, but yet again, my sadness turned to anger once it was over.

I try to steer clear of the subject for 364 days each year.

 

[NDgettysburg]

No. I did not see United 93 either.

Every year I watch the 9/11 documentary to honor those who lost their lives. I think we discussed this in another thread a while back.

It is a touchy subject for me and for very personal reasons. I get very angry when I see the footage.

I watched an NFL Films documentary about the FDNY Bravest Football Team about a month ago. I had never seen it previously. It was quite touching and well done, but yet again, my sadness turned to anger once it was over.

I try to steer clear of the subject for 364 days each year.

I hear ya Jigga....its tough wanting to celebrate my birthday each year since then. I've normally gone upstairs to my bedroom to watch the documentaries on the A&E type networks. My wife doesn't understand it.

 

[tommy]

yea i dont know if i could watch it even though its giving the firefighters credit thats richly desreved let us all prey that this is the worst thing that we have to go through as a nation but with the termoil that is running rampid i tend to think one day we will wake up to another 911 i know its not a christian statement but i think a bomb needs to be dropped

 

[SuperBowlIVBaby]

LMI, would you suggest that we keep our troops locked up at home and only use them to clean up the dead bodies strewn across our land AFTER more terrorist attacks occur on our soil?

Good plan! Are you sure you don't work for the Iranian government. You really scare me!

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

LMI, would you suggest that we keep our troops locked up at home and only use them to clean up the dead bodies strewn across our land AFTER more terrorist attacks occur on our soil?

Good plan! Are you sure you don't work for the Iranian government. You really scare me!

No...that's not at all what I meant. But I can see how you took it that way.

I was refering in my first sentence to the fact that we never finished the job in Afghanistan. Instead we sent in too few people and pulled too many out too soon so we could redeploy them to Iraq. People were far too glib about going in to kick Saddam's ass.

We should have finished the job in Afghanistan and staffed it right the first time.

Meanwhile people at home were happy to beat the drum for action in Iraq which had NOTHING to do with 9/11, while they happily ignored the fact that we are not succeeding in Afghanistan (even today!).

Worse yet, our invasion of Iraq has created more terrorists...

Sad, very sad...

I won't even begin to talk about the Patriot Act...which is quite possibly the least Patriotic law ever passed.

 

[Irish_74]

Nope...no interest. Too painful to watch...and honestly, I struggle with it being our "defining" moment as well. I suspect there will be more to come.

Also, I struggle with our actions afterwards...it feels like we never really took the lesson to heart. People are far too glib about sending our young men and women into battle...

yes, i agree that we (USA) never really took the lesson to heart , and perhaps this movie will rejuvenate what was so soon forgotten ?!?!?

 

[marv81s]

tommy franks told bush and others that he had plenty of troops for the job in Iraq and Afganistan. He was the man in charge of both missions and if he said he had enough manpower, who is Bush to argue. Bush has always said and the commanding generals have all said publically, that they have enough feet on the ground for the mission, and anytime they have asked for more, the powers that be have given them more. The problem in Afganistan comes down to Pakistan in my opinion. Because Pakistan is severely limiting our ability to go get these guys if, I should say when, they cross the bolder into Pakistan and they won't let us go get them when they do this.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

tommy franks told bush and others that he had plenty of troops for the job in Iraq and Afganistan. He was the man in charge of both missions and if he said he had enough manpower, who is Bush to argue.

No. The JCS asked for 350,000 men. The DoD overruled them and asked for 75,000. They met in the middle at 150,000. But to be clear, it was not a question. This is widely known and widely reported.

Bush has always said and the commanding generals have all said publically, that they have enough feet on the ground for the mission, and anytime they have asked for more, the powers that be have given them more.

That is simply not the case. Seriously, I have no idea where you are being fed this stuff.

Just so you know, if a General is asked "did you get what you need?" And he says "No." He gets fired. It's that simple. Just ask Zinni.

The problem in Afganistan comes down to Pakistan in my opinion. Because Pakistan is severely limiting our ability to go get these guys if, I should say when, they cross the bolder into Pakistan and they won't let us go get them when they do this.

The problem with Afghanistan is that we only sent about 15,000 troops and only 5,000 into the area where we knew Al Qaeda to be. Worse yet, we paid local warlords to maintain security and surround areas of Al Qaeda operatives/fighters.

It was a joke and a hack job. It was the result of not wanting to commit the necessary resources to fight the enemy.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan were fought on the cheap. The plans were revised and completed by pencil pushers in the Pentagon, NOT Military Planners.

That is NOT my opinion...that is the way it went.

 

[SuperBowlIVBaby]

LOVEMYIRISH, you seem to have such definitive answers/information about troop allocation, Bush's relationship with his generals, and the intentions of the DoD. SHow us where this public information is and perhaps I might begin to believe you. My guess is that you got this information from some ex-Democratic. disgruntled senator who wrote a book on the subject based on hearsay (or better yet, his blind opinion).

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

LOVEMYIRISH, you seem to have such definitive answers/information about troop allocation, Bush's relationship with his generals, and the intentions of the DoD. SHow us where this public information is and perhaps I might begin to believe you. My guess is that you got this information from some ex-Democratic. disgruntled senator who wrote a book on the subject based on hearsay (or better yet, his blind opinion).

Shineski BEFORE CONGRESS ITSELF estimated 300,000. He was later fired for not towing the DoD line.

Military Planners (including my former boss) were REBUKED for stating needs that exceeded DoD estimations.

******************************************
EXCERT FROM INTERVIEW WITH ANTHONY ZINNI:
Former CENTCOM commander General Anthony Zinni says of course our forces in Iraq have been too small from the start and the US military always knew it would need much larger forces to assert firm control of Iraq after an invasion.

When I was commander of CENTCOM, we had a plan for an invasion of Iraq, and it had specific numbers in it. We wanted to go in there with 350,000 to 380,000 troops. You didn't need that many people to defeat the Republican Guard, but you needed them for the aftermath. We knew that we would find ourselves in a situation where we had completely uprooted an authoritarian government and would need to freeze the situation: retain control, retain order, provide security, seal the borders to keep terrorists from coming in.

When I left in 2000, General Franks took over. Franks was my ground-component commander, so he was well aware of the plan. He had participated in it; those were the numbers he wanted. So what happened between him and Rumsfeld and why those numbers got altered, I don't know, because when we went in we used only 140,000 troops, even though General Eric Shinseki, the army commander, asked for the original number.
******************************************

Here's a telling little Interview: http://www.cfr.org/publication/10483/
Q: What do you think is the impetus driving these generals?

A: Well, all of them either served in the war in Iraq or were intimately involved in the planning of that war. So these were people who all knew what they were talking about. Now what's the motivation? I think, in part, they all are unhappy that they didn't speak up earlier while they were on the job. In good part, they were telling us the reason they didn't speak up, and the reason they think their colleagues didn't speak out against the Rumsfeld decisions, is that Rumsfeld was intimidating them and making it impossible for them to say their piece. And while none of them pointed directly to the fate of General Eric Shinseki, the chief of staff of the Army, they had that very much in mind. You'll remember, Shinseki is the one who told Congress in early 2003 it would take at least 300,000 troops to safely garrison Iraq after a military victory. But he got fired and nobody came to his defense.

*****************************************
Here's a nice interview with Zinni himself:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml
*****************************************
Another interview about it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/fallows.html
"In the tensions existing between the Pentagon and the military, Shinseki seemed a particular target. Explain.

Shinseki's last, say, year and a half in office was a series of apparently calculated and intentional insults from the civilian leadership, especially Donald Rumsfeld. The episode that got the most public attention was when Rumsfeld announced Shinseki's successor as chief of staff, about a year and a half before his term was up. Usually this announcement is made right at the last minute to avoid turning the incumbent into a lame duck.


Three weeks before the war, Shinseki testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Describe what happened.

Shinseki has been, through his career, a real by-the-book guy. So he would not go out of his way to make public disagreements that were clearly going on inside the Pentagon. But in the hearing where Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan was sort of drawing him out on what he expected the troop levels to be, Shinseki finally said, based on his own past experience, that he thought it would be several hundred thousand troops. This became a real arcane term about, what did several hundred thousand mean? But let's say 300,000 and up. His real level, internally, had been in the 400,000 range.

Several days later, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, appeared before a different committee. [He] went out of his way essentially to slap Shinseki in the face, to say there had been some recent estimates that had been wildly off the mark -- using the term, "wildly off the mark." Then he went on to say that it was almost impossible to imagine that it would be harder, and take more troops, to occupy Iraq than it had taken to conquer them; whereas that point, that it would be harder to occupy than conquer, was in fact the central theme the Army had been advancing before the war."

 

[marv81s]

Now I like Zinni for the most part, but lets be totally honest, he is a pretty bitter ex commanding officer who feels that he was ignored. He is a very bitter individual, and nothing short of a politician himself. It has been rightfully said that anybody in the officer ranks above the rank of O-3 is a politician. I have read "Into the Storm" that he co-wrote with Tom Clancy, and Zinni is a person that likes to stand up and see, I told you so!

 

[marv81s]

I should have just said this, I believe Zinni is very bitter about the way his miliatry career came to an end by the sounds of that book. I don't blame him. But Franks dictated his needs for both fronts at the start of the Afganistan conflict and the Iraq war. Sorry to disappoint you LOVEMYIRISH. Read it in Tommy Franks book, he clearly states that! Bush and his administration didn't take anything away from that to invade in Iraq. I don't want to bash a former jarhead, but Zinni is bitter, and I can't blame him once again!

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

I should have just said this, I believe Zinni is very bitter about the way his miliatry career came to an end by the sounds of that book. I don't blame him. But Franks dictated his needs for both fronts at the start of the Afganistan conflict and the Iraq war. Sorry to disappoint you LOVEMYIRISH. Read it in Tommy Franks book, he clearly states that! Bush and his administration didn't take anything away from that to invade in Iraq. I don't want to bash a former jarhead, but Zinni is bitter, and I can't blame him once again!

Franks said nothing was taken away...yet Shineski does. And he wrote up the plan.

So...who is lying. Zinni THEN Shineski? Or Franks?

Hmmm...

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

I should have just said this, I believe Zinni is very bitter about the way his miliatry career came to an end by the sounds of that book. I don't blame him. But Franks dictated his needs for both fronts at the start of the Afganistan conflict and the Iraq war. Sorry to disappoint you LOVEMYIRISH. Read it in Tommy Franks book, he clearly states that! Bush and his administration didn't take anything away from that to invade in Iraq. I don't want to bash a former jarhead, but Zinni is bitter, and I can't blame him once again!

Zinni and Shineski are BOTH bitter. They were fired for pointing out that they were told to plan, their plan was changed by pencil pushers, then they were punished for saying that to Congress.

There's a shocker.

And you are saying that Franks (the man who gave Bush what he wanted) would be able to accurately state what was NEEDED? The men who submitted the plan to him say they asked for "X" and he says the President saw "Y" because that was the plan?

Cmon, I call Bullshit on that.

Let's also think for a second...the men who planned for Gulf-1 sent 250,000 Americans and 250,000 Allies. That was for a TINY corner of Iraq/Kuwait.

Fast forward 12 years in time to 2003...many men who participated in Gulf-1 drew up a plan for 350,000 troops...and it got reduced to 150,000.

I wonder who did that?

 

[marv81s]

Two different wars with two totally different guys calling the shots. All I am saying is this, Tommy Franks was the commanding general and he has said on many different occassions that he had enough troops for the mission at hand. Him and his team put the plan together and executed it. Why would he lie about it now? Why would a registered democrat which Franks is, lie for a Republican at this point? Zinni's belingerent attitude which he had all his career cost him in the end, plain and simple.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

Two different wars with two totally different guys calling the shots. All I am saying is this, Tommy Franks was the commanding general and he has said on many different occassions that he had enough troops for the mission at hand. Him and his team put the plan together and executed it. Why would he lie about it now? Why would a registered democrat which Franks is, lie for a Republican at this point? Zinni's belingerent attitude which he had all his career cost him in the end, plain and simple.

His team put together the plan. He changed the plan under political direction from Wolfowitz.

Just ask Shineski who was ignored and even punished for telling the truth.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

Two different wars with two totally different guys calling the shots. All I am saying is this, Tommy Franks was the commanding general and he has said on many different occassions that he had enough troops for the mission at hand. Him and his team put the plan together and executed it. Why would he lie about it now? Why would a registered democrat which Franks is, lie for a Republican at this point? Zinni's belingerent attitude which he had all his career cost him in the end, plain and simple.

Here's some info on this issue and Shinseki's role...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki

On February 25, 2003, four months before the end of his term as Chief of Staff of the Army, Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought an occupying force of several hundred thousand men would be needed to stablize postwar Iraq. He was pressed to provide a range by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Below is the exchange:

SEN. LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?

GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements. But I think --

SEN. LEVIN: How about a range?

GEN. SHINSEKI: I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this.

Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, called Shinseki's estimate "far off the mark" and "wildly off the mark". Wolfowitz said it would be "hard to believe" more troops would be required for post-war Iraq than to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
******************************************

So tell me, why would he lie?

And funny enough...he was right.

 

[marv81s]

I think that is a point that has been made over and over again, and even a guy like Rumsfield I believe has said was a mistake on his part. They have admitted that mistake that they underestimated the insurgency and disbanding the Iraqi Army when they did. I concede that point, but General Shinseki conceded that he would have to rely on combat commanders opinion, which I believe told the powers that be, that they had enough to get the job done.

GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements, BUT I THINK

Thats the key word, he thought they needed more. He was right, and your right, but I believe I am right also when I say the combat commanders in the shit, thought they had the numbers to get it done, and so did that Rumsfield and that is who Rumsfield was listening to. Since that time, the man admitted they made a mistake. I think they have learned from it, or I hope to GOD they have. Just by them sending more troops in this month to get more security in Baghdad, but I believe Bush, and maybe I shouldn't, but he has always said if they tell me they need more, then we'll send more, anything they need to get the job done.