I think I'm about to hurl..

Thank you for not wavering on your stances

In his eternal quest for the Republican presidential nomination, the supposed maverick John McCain has repeatedly reversed long-held positions and compromised purportedly core principles. From the Bush tax cuts, the religious right and immigration reform to overturning Roe v. Wade, proclaiming Samuel Alito a model Supreme Court Justice and bashing France (just to name a few), McCain changed sides as changing political conditions dictated.

But over the past two weeks, McCain’s rapid fire, acrobatic flip-flops have produced whiplash, at least for voters. 10 times since the beginning of June, McCain has retreated from, upended or just forgotten positions he once claimed as his own. On Social Security, balancing the budget, defense spending, domestic surveillance and a host of other issues so far this month, McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” did a U-turn on the road to the White House.

1. Social Security Privatization. John McCain has apparently learned the lesson that the more President Bush spoke about his Social Security privatization scheme, the less popular it became. On Friday, Mr. Straight Talk proclaimed at a New Hampshire event, “I’m not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.” Sadly, McCain and his advisers like ousted HP CEO Carly Fiorina are on record declaring fidelity to the idea of diverting Social Security dollars into private accounts. On November 18, 2004, for example, McCain announced, “Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.” And in March 2003, McCain backed his President, declaring, “As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it - along the lines that President Bush proposed.” As they say, let’s go to the videotape.

2. Raising - and Slashing - Defense Spending. As Steve Benen noted Friday, John McCain was also for boosting American defense spending before he was against it. In the November 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, McCain argued “we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates - far less than what we spent during the Cold War.” But facing the $2 trillion budgetary hole the McCain tax plan is forecast to produce (a sea of red ink even the Wall Street Journal noticed), Team McCain changed its tune. As Forbes scoffed in amazement:

“McCain’s top economic adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, blithely supposes that cuts in defense spending could make up for reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% and the subsequent shrinkage in federal revenues. Get that? The national security candidate wants to cut spending on our national security. Wait until the generals and the admirals hear that.”

3. First Term Balanced Budget Pledge. With its on-again/off-again/on-again promise to balance the budget by January 2013, the McCain campaign executed that rarest of political maneuvers, the 360. During a February 15th rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, “McCain promised he’d offer a balanced budget by the end of his first term.” But just days later, McCain’s senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin announced a deficit-ending target of 2017. In mid-April, Holtz-Eakin proclaimed, “I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction.” McCain, too, signaled the retreat from his first-term balance budget commitment, explaining to Chris Matthews on April 15th that “economic conditions are reversed.”

Apparently economic conditions have improved dramatically since then. On June 6, Holtz-Eakin squared the circle, announcing, “That plan, when appropriately phased in, as it has always been intended to be, will bring the budget to balance by the end of his first term.”

4. The Media’s Treatment of Hillary Clinton. No doubt, John McCain suffers from recurring bouts of selective amnesia. And some episodes take only days to manifest themselves. During his disastrous “green screen” speech on June 3, McCain reached out to Hillary Clinton’s supporters by proclaiming, “The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received.” But by June 7, McCain denied to Newsweek that his media critique never passed his lips, “I did not–that was in prepared remarks, and I did not–I’m not in the business of commenting on the press and their coverage or not coverage.”

5. The Estate Tax. Just days before his contortionist act on Social Security, John McCain reversed course on the estate tax as well. On June 8, 2006, McCain on the Senate floor expressed his agreement with Teddy Roosevelt that “most great civilized countries have an income tax and an inheritance tax” and “in my judgment both should be part of our system of federal taxation.” But after years of battling Republican colleagues dead-set on dismantling the so-called “death tax” and instead promoting a $5 million trigger, on Tuesday John McCain sounded the retreat. Now, he insists, “the estate tax is one of the most unfair tax laws on the books.”

6. FISA, Domestic Surveillance and Telecom Immunity. When it comes to the Bush administration’s program of domestic spying on Americans, McCain has performed similar logical gymnastics. On December 20, 2007, McCain suggested to the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Charles Savage that President Bush had clearly crossed the line. As Wired’s Ryan Singel noted:

“I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is,” McCain said. The Globe’s Charlie Savage pushed further, asking , “So is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?” To which McCain answered, “I don’t think the president has the right to disobey any law.”

But on June 2, McCain adviser Holtz-Eakin put that notion to rest, telling the National Review:

“[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.”

Pressed to explain the glaring inconsistencies, John McCain on June 6 played dumb, deciding that cowardice is the better part of valor. As the New York Times reported, McCain now believes the legality of Bush’s regime of NSA domestic surveillance is unclear and, in any event, is old news:

“It’s ambiguous as to whether the president acted within his authority or not,” he said, saying courts had ruled different ways on the matter. “I’m not interested in going back. I’m interested in addressing the challenge we face to day of trying to do everything we can to counter organizations and individuals that want to destroy this country. So there’s ambiguity about it. Let’s move forward.”

As for immunity for the telecommunications firms cooperating with the White House in what before August 2007 was doubtless illegal surveillance, there too McCain’s position has evolved. On May 23, campaign surrogate Chuck Fish announced that McCain would not back retroactive immunity “unless there were revealing Congressional hearings and heartfelt repentance from those telephone and internet companies.” Subsequently, the McCain campaign swiftly backtracked, claiming its man supports immunity unconditionally.

7. Restoring the Everglades. On June 5, John McCain traveled to the Everglades to win over Floridians and environmentally-minded voters. There he proclaimed, “I am in favor of doing whatever’s necessary to save the Everglades.” Sadly, as ThinkProgress documented, McCain not only opposed $2 billion in funding for the restoration of the Everglades national park, he backed President Bush’s veto of the legislation in 2007. “I believe,” he said, “that we should be passing a bill that will authorize legitimate, needed projects without sacrificing fiscal responsibility.”

8. Divestment from South Africa. During his June 2 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), John McCain called for the international community to target Iran for the kind of worldwide sanctions regime applied to apartheid-era South Africa. Unfortunately, McCain’s lobbyist-advisers Charlie Black and Rick Davis each represented firms doing business with Tehran. Even more unfortunate, John McCain was frequently not among those offering “moral clarity and conviction” in backing “a divestment campaign against South Africa, helping to rid that nation of the evil of apartheid.” As ThinkProgress detailed:

Despite voting to override President Reagan’s veto of a bill imposing economic sanctions against South Africa in 1986, McCain voted against sanctions on at least six other occasions.

9. Fighting Job Losses in Michigan. During the run-up to the Michigan primary, John McCain cautioned workers there in January that he didn’t want to raise “false hopes that somehow we can bring back lost jobs,” adding that it” wasn’t government’s job to protect buggy factories and haberdashers when cars replaced carriages and men stopped wearing hats.” But after getting trounced in Michigan by Mitt Romney and watching the economy deteriorate further, McCain has had a change of heart. As Bloomberg noted on June 5:

Nowadays, the party’s presumptive nominee is singing a different tune, striking a populist pose and saying “new jobs are coming”… …Over the past few months, however, McCain has taken a lesson from Romney, acknowledging recently that “Americans are hurting.” Returning to Michigan last month, the Arizona senator told a local television station that he would fight for new jobs and the state wouldn’t “be left behind.”

Perhaps the good people of Michigan, as John McCain suggested to a Kentucky audience in April, can make a living on eBay.

10. Opposing Hurricane Katrina Investigations. During a June 4th town hall meeting in Baton Rouge, John McCain answered a reporter’s question regarding Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levees by announcing:

“I’ve supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy. I’ve been here to New Orleans. I’ve met with people on the ground.”

As it turns out, not so much. McCain’s revisionist history neglects to mention that in 2005 and 2006 he twice voted against a commission to study the government’s response to Katrina. He also opposed three separate emergency funding measures providing relief to Katrina victims, including the extension of five months of Medicaid benefits. And as ThinkProgress pointed out, “until traveling there one month ago, McCain had made just one public tour of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina touched down in August 2005.”

And so it goes. As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west each day, so too will John McCain change positions. (Like that other law of nature, McCain’s flip-flops are literally becoming a daily occurrence. Since this piece was originally drafted on Saturday, McCain added two new policy turnabouts - on phasing out rather than repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and on requiring a litmus test for his judicial appointees - to his litany of reversals.) As the Pew Research Center recently found, the word Americans now most frequently use to describe John McCain is not “maverick,” but “old.” Given the dizzying pace of his reversals, “opportunist” may soon top that list.

Following Iran’s missile tests this week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) slammed Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) position on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, declaring, “This is the same organization that I voted to condemn as a terrorist organization when an amendment was on the floor of the United States Senate. Senator Obama refused to vote.”

The problem with the critique? McCain also missed that vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on September 26, 2007. Records show that Obama was in New Hampshire and McCain was in New York instead of being in the Senate chamber for the vote in question.

Indeed, McCain — the most absent Senator — has missed more than 60 percent of the votes in the 110th Congress.

Oh you bet...please give me 4 more years of war..high gas prices...homes we can't afford...and groceries we can't get due to high prices...Thank God no one killed Bush while in office...that would have left us with Chaney as president...so you bet..please give us 4 more years of the same.....

TSM, how many states are there? HOw much of the Barack votes have been missed or been present? Hmm...lol, attack him all you want lefties, Obama is not a good chioce no matter how much you want him to be.

FSG why? what wrong with thanking him?

Obama is not a good chioce no matter how much you want him to be.

He's not a perfect candidate, but he's a damned sight better than John "one foot in the grave, one foot in his mouth" McCain.

For the second time this week the McCain campaign tried to disentangle itself from embarrassing comments made by surrogates stumping for the Republican presidential candidate.

Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain rejected a statement by his top economics adviser, former Sen. Phil Gramm, who complained that America is "a nation of whiners" and the country is in a "mental recession."

Today the campaign tried to recover from a comment by Carly Fiorina, McCain's most visible woman surrogate and a possible vice presidential pick.

Fiorina, the former chief of Hewlett-Packard, left McCain speechless Monday when she seemed to criticize health insurance companies for covering Viagra for men but not covering birth control for women.

That's going to piss off the religious rightwing McCain has been trying to court.

BS - what's wrong is that as usual, half of the words you type are nothing more than ridiculous propaganda.

gee superman, the problem is that you make mccain sound like he can walk on water or that we should kiss his feet

yes he was in hanoi hilton, but he made it back, lots of others did not, at one point i would have voted for him, and gee i am a liberal,,but he became wishy washy like miget gwbush, and i have changed my mind

ms jenny let me ask you then what was it that you think he went "wishy washy"? what made you change your mind, because i garuntee you most liberal voting against McCain have very different reasons.

Please fill me in, Im pretty sure I can get you back to the right side.

Oh and if I do make McCain seem "holier than thou" I really jsut do that to piss off RF on here. thats my bad. BUt anytime I actually have a serious conversation Im just shot down with emty rhetoric or false attacks. Its not an excuse its just a reason. Ill try not to in the future....

I'd remind there was alot more McCAin did for this country that serve the 5 years as a POW, even though that certianly would have been enough...

"For recognizing the mistakes made in Iraq under Rumsfield" Bush is President.boss of Rumsfield.

"not just abandoning our troops overseas" HUH?

"Thank you for not wavering on your stances " double huh?? Every reasonable person changes and adapt to new information and circumstances.

" the very same that ridaculed the late Tim Russert " As I have never yelled at any public speaker I might just give you this one~ except for the fact that I saw no one here "ridaculed" Mr. Russert.

BUt anytime I actually have a serious conversation Im just shot down with emty rhetoric or false attacks

Dr. Phil called and said you are in need of some serious professional help.

You're shot down with facts and sound arguments.

Obviously you're the only one who doesn't see that.

Thank you, John McCain, for being flexible on domestic policy as different situations arise! Thank you for being non absolutist like your Democratic opponents, particularly, Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama never changes, he never modifies his positions, he never updates according to the times. But you, Mr. McCain, you update, you change, and you meet every new situation on its terms, and only on its terms. Poor Mr. Obama.

Poor, Mr. Jackson, he got himself sucker punched. His fault though. He didn't see it coming. One other thing poor Mr. Jackson didn't see coming. Once Mr. Obama is president, affirmative action is history.

Poor Mr. Whitey, the world has shifted underneath your feet. You think you are voting for one thing but you are really voting for your enemy. Remarkable isn't it? You think because you are white that you have some foam on top of that beer, but, sadly, you don't. Unhappily, your children will be the next generation criminals. They have a FUTURE- as anti-globalists.

That future is bleak, dark, and unhappy. As it is for all criminals.

Sage,

1, OK bush is boss of Rumsfield whats your point? I thank John McCain for going against both of them because he knew better on the war. The surge is what was needed, a new strategy, one that could win, if we had done that from the beginning imagine where we would be today.

Help me out what does rumsfield boss Bush, have to do with anything, and does that take away from he fact we should thank McCain for staying true to his principals of serving America?

2. When US troops are overseas fighting and dying, a sitting senator or politician should abandon them, they should be actively trying to stop funding, saying they lost or doing anything else that could lead to higher chances of dying. Like Reid Pelosi, Murtha(that guys is a SOB btw) And more importantly the Dem guy Obama

3. Yes of course every one reasonable takes into account the facts of a situation, like McCain seeing we are losing a war and we need a change, that we are being hurt at the pump so lets now drill, but what every reasonable person also does is have and maintain a set of principals and stick to them, the Dem guy Obama not only doesn't take in to account whats happening on the ground in Iraq and won a primary by saying we are getting out and leaving 23 plus million people to defend themselves, but he has flipped on every other principal the man supposedly had.

So I'm not sure what the huh is for, McCain has always stuck to his principals and taken into account the facts of what happening, I wouldn't thank Obama because he doesn't do either.

4.Well I appreciate the honestly, but i was thanking McCain for not and having his campaign not attack a questioner like Russert. The Obama camp acted like he did such a horrible job just because he didn't do easy questions and when Obama refused to answer he came back and asked again at the debate. Obama unlike McCain camp doesn't like tough questions and did attack Russert credibility and job performance because he didn't use kid gloves.

Sage I know these things to be true, please reply and let me know where I am wrong.

TO TSM,

What fact have you ever presented besides your lack of cleverness and wit?

What fact have you ever presented

How about the fact that you lied about the Iraq benchmarks?

Oh that's right, you consider "efforts towards meeting" to mean they were met.

If nothing else, you have some entertainment value. Like watching Bart Simpson keep getting shocked reaching for the cupcake.

BS: "2. When US troops are overseas fighting and dying, a sitting senator or politician should abandon them, they should be actively trying to stop funding, saying they lost or doing anything else that could lead to higher chances of dying. Like Reid Pelosi, Murtha(that guys is a SOB btw) And more importantly the Dem guy Obama"
 

As opposed to the Commander-in-Chief that put them into harm's way without a declaration of war, leaving them "vulnerable" to having their funding stopped. That kind of stupid behavior should be rewarded (or at least ignored), no? Oh, by the way, what was McCain's position on funding US soldiers while in harm's way in Somalia?

As opposed to the Commander-in-Chief that put them into harm's way without a declaration of war

Not to mention putting them in harm's way without adequate body armor, without adequate armored vehicles, not providing adequate ammunition, allowing the construction of inadequate facilities (how many soldiers have been electrocuted to death while taking a shower?), allowing bad food and water to be served to them (and KBR still got their bonuses), cutting benefits to the soldiers and their families (going as far as kicking their wives and children off of U.S. bases) and so on and so forth.

You have no earthly idea of what you're talking about re adequate body armor, armored vehicles, ammo, etc.

You are led around by the nose by the LSM (and so on and so forth............)

What is your record? Are you just an LSM slurper and Googler?

Give us your bonafides........... a DD-214 even redacted would suffice....

That's what I thought.................

Rumsfeld was doing what he was told to do as far as paring down the military and accomplishing milestones with fewer troops. If he was in error it was in not taking on his superiors.

I happen to know that Rumsfeld is a good man. But you of course can (and will) dispute that.

But the specifics about armored Humvee's, body armor, etc. were completely misconstrued in the press (and subsequently lapped up by the anti-war lapdogs - surprise!)

Again, in VN we used to scrounge big sheets of metal plate to weld on the sides of our first gun trucks (deuce and a half's until they got the 5 ton's for quad 50's) and improvised in all kinds of other ways too. Rumsfeld was spot on when he said you go to war with what you have -- you adapt, improvise, and overcome. It is what it is.......

I'd put Rumsfeld's career bonafides up against yours any day BTW........

 TSM said: (how many soldiers have been electrocuted to death while taking a shower?),

Is electrocuted to death something like:

Drowning to death?

Being killed to death?

Reminds me of boot camp when this cabesa de nudillo was explaining the virtues of the  "three prong plug"  to us and said:

"We once had a soldier who was using a buffer and didn't use the three prong plug......... He was electrocuted!

And gentlemen, he DIED too!" 

(I got KP for 12 hours for my reaction to that one)

Is putting volunteer soldiers in harms way with a declaration of war any less risky than putting them in harms way without a declaration of war?

Pardon me, I'm confused.  Or did I miss the point?

Nancy - I think the point is (or, at least what my opinion on this subject is) that a war such as WWII was inevitable, and we had no choice but to go to war with what we had.  The 2003 invasion of Iraq was not an inevitable conflict, and I would challenge anyone to show my concrete evidence to disprove that.  There's absolutely no excuse for our military to have gone into such a conflict so poorly prepared, and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the Bush Administration, who pressed this invasion from the get go (might I add, prior to 9/11!).  The U.S. Army recently admitted to a number of mistakes early on during the invasion - most notably that they didn't have enough troops from the beginning.  Interestingly enough, Rumsfeld pressed the idea that a larger military force would take too much time to organize.  While the decision did rest on military commanders, it's pretty obvious that Tommy Frank's made his decisions on troop levels based off of the whims and desires of Bush. Once again - there was absolutely no reason for us to rush such an invasion.

On  what do you base your opinion that our troops were  "poorly" prepared  FSG?

"Again, in VN we used to scrounge big sheets of metal plate to weld on the sides of our first gun trucks" chiko

And we won that war also?.......hmmmmmm ...Vietraq...hmmmm

There is no excuse for our troops to EVER be poorly prepared or poorly equipped.  Not EVER.  And if they were, whose fault was THAT?   It certainly wasn't Bush's.

Couldn`t be BushCo, must have been someone in charge ..

Well, we certainly couldn't rely on your type to help us Maggie.

Again, we did what we had to do.

And its not the fault of the grunts that we didn't  "win" in VN.

Can you say  "politicians" and  "bureaucrats"  (most of whom were Dems BTW)??

Twinkie fueled Lazy Boy Generals such as yourself certainly have that good ol 20-20 hindsight. Always amazed me!

And it won`t be the fault of the "Grumps" when we lose this one also ? And BushCo already said we won? Might as well lose one in Iran also,, throw in a little Afgan non-war deaths....we sure are using a lot of money and alot of deaths for losing a lot of wars...We must be professional profiteering losers... but some people...Profit....

Chico, I'll spare you a novel and give a few details:

• We invaded with too few troops (The U.S. Army has agreed with this statement)
• We did not plan on a guerilla war (Plenty of military analysts and historians predicted a non-convential war from the get-go)
• Being as this was a pre-emptive invasion, there was no reason that we couldn't have made sure all our troops had body armor provided at no cost to the individual soldier
• As with every other point I've made, if we had taken our time to prepare for the invasion, more emphasis  could have been put on educating our soldiers regarding the customs of the Iraqi People, which would have saved many innocent lives

I'm curious to know, Chico - how many close friends or family do you have that have been in this conflict?  Some of my best friends, and countless thousands of my peers are the ones on the front lines.  I've heard plenty of the realities from the people I grew up with who've fought over there. 

And some just sit in Lazy Boy eating a three tiered diet of ding dongs, ho ho's, and twinkies........

Funny how they have all the answers (after action) 

I have several relatives over there (both Iraq and Afghanistan) right now, one has been 3 times (nephew)

I also have a number of the boy's friends I talk to that have served there. Admittedly the Hispanic side of my family is disproportionally represented in the Armed Forces Combat Arms right now, but I talk to family members and friends alike that are or were there. Not sure what the point is but I think I get a pretty good albeit anecdotal perspective therefrom.

Was that the point of the question?

Almost forgot -- have a grandson who is preparing to go (Army)

(hope he doesn't read this)

Chico - one of my best friends growing up is a Sgt. in the 82nd Airborne.  He's served in Iraq twice, Columbia and now he's on his 2nd tour in Afghanistan.  He was one of the first in Iraq in 2003 (in fact, I went to visit him in Ft. Bragg a few weeks before his deployment).  I've witnessed many changes in this young man - his initial reaction to his deployment was one of excitement and the normal gung-ho attitude of any good soldier.  Years later, while he loves his job, he has a completely different opinion of the politics concerning war.  He has been humbled in ways that I'm sure I never will be.  His opinions are echoed in many others who've had similar experiences.

I state all this because I'm trying to show that I'm not just sitting in a chair talking out my rear-end.  While I do not have first hand experience in this conflict, I'm also not ignorant.  I'm quite confident that I know more about Iraq than half the kids that are over there right now, since our Government doesn't see the importance in culture education (unless you're in Monterey learning Arabic - one of my other best friends was a Marine at the language institute). 

To think that we went into this war fully prepared is a completely ignorant style of thinking.  To say that we "go to war with what we have" is even more ignorant, considering that we have always had the resources to educate and outfit our soldiers properly in this conflict, but due to both improper motives from the Bush Administration, and the politics in Congress, our soldiers did not, and continue to go without all proper tools neccisary to survive.

FSG  ..Perhaps you'd like to explain or give an example on any war declared or undeclared, that we've gone into that you could say we were fully prepared to fight.  WWII?  Korea?  Nam?  Gulf War?

Some seem to forget that Clinton left this country's military sadly lacking and when it was needed..it was still lacking.  You cannot blame that on Bush.  You can blame many things on him, but not that one.

ALCON,

Its difficult to understand things we have not expierenced.  When we have others who tell us thier expierences and read what others have written, we tend to think we have a clear view.  To see how the government and its funding works and accounted for is amazing.

Take for instance the body armor and up-armoered vehicles.  The regular army had what it was designed to have.  And at the same time transforming from what we had learned in the Balkans.  Urban warfare.  Now, the national guard elements were given force structure requirements to meet.  The last I heard, national guard units belong to the States and are funded by the State, not the federal government.  Well, some state governments tend to use the money that should go to guard elements and use for other programs, thereby delaying training and equipment needed by the states.  Yet the guard elements reported to the Defense Department that they are equipped and ready; in reality they werent.

What is our threat? and who decides how to train against that threat.  Is it the military? Is it the civilian inteligence agencies? How do we as a nation determine our course of action? 

Although I do not agree with the reasons why we entered this conflict; I agree with Rumsfeld when he said "We go to war with what we have".

Once a guard unit is mobilized by the federal government (to go to war) they come under federal funds.  What we saw was that guard units were not ready.  But did the Defense Department blame anyone? No; they took them under the fold and prepared them the best they could.

We go to war with what we have only when we MUST go to war.

We HAD to go to war against Hitler and the Japanese who were bent on a world takeover.

We didn't HAVE  to go to "war" with Iraq.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was simply unnecessary.

We could and should have kept our focus on Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Quaeda and maintained sanctions of Iraq while keeping Saddam in check.

And what threat was Saddam other than trying to get the pertroleum exports converted to a Euro based conversion of currency? Those are fighten words there...

But Saber, those of us that were mere cannon fodder (RA & US 11B & C's, USMC most MOS's) weren't in a postion to reason why..........

That is for the legions of genius Arm Chair Generals to now flood the bandwidth with.........

I'm glad that now you have all the answers General Saber (you better confer with your other generals in surrounding Lazy Boys however....... Generals Disorder, Maggie, Mattloch, FSG, etc......... I don't think Chica (Mike) was a general....... oh wait....... I did mention General Disorder didn't I?

Galvandr -- In VN we had US and RA. Draftee's and Enlistee's. On the ground. Others were mostly Enlistee's.

This conflict threw in another dynamic that I'll admit I don't know as much about as I perhaps should -- Nat Guard troops.

I found your comments instructive.

I don't mind being  "instructed" by someone who has some gravitas from which to instruct. Not atall.............

Do you understand where I am coming from with regard to the Lazy Boy Generals on here?

I was teaching one grandson to fight last night on a heavy bag and finally admonished him when he said he wanted to hit someone real instead of heavy bag:  "Its like war when you spar son......... after the first shot all bets (and plans) are off...... it reverts to instinct...... thats why you need to train train train on heavy bag..... then we'll go to boxing gym and spar....... you will then understand...... then and only then......."

But I just get tired to the max of listening to all the 20-20 hindsite generals on here. I guess I just need to let sleeping (while the action was taking place) dogs lie..............

And by way of constant reiteration, the Humvee was never meant to be an armored vehicle. Doing such created all kinds of problems.

But like the gun trucks we had, sometimes you have to  "spar"  with a real opponent before you really know what you need....... hopefully you can improvise........ we did............

Tell that to all the "spar" foddder love ones they trusted to have equipment for the battle, so much for all the defense dept wasted dollars on research and development, just let the ground troops be test dummies...but we won the war...

What would YOU know about it Maggie?

Thats what I thought....................

hopefully you can improvise........ we did............And lost,,keepn my powder dry

Your talcom powder?

That's what I thought....................

Nancy, my points are that we must look beyond the surface to see the real reasons why we go to war.  To answer your specific questions, as it pertains to WWII, we actually began pre-war mobilization in the late 1930's, and stepped up the efforts in 1940 after Germany took over much of Europe.  FDR knew that we'd eventually need to enter the war, but he also knew that he would need justification, hence why many Historians believe that he might have had knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened, yet did nothing (this is speculation, as there's no concrete evidence to back it.. though there are pretty good educated guesses). Even after officially entering the war, it took over 2 years to plan the D-Day invasion.  I'd say overall we were pretty darn well prepared for WWII in comparison with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

I won't even touch Vietnam or Korea, because they were nothing more than Proxy wars with Russia, and had little real justification.

Gulf War I was nothing more than a political move for the U.S., who for the previous decade had supplied technology, arms, chemical and bio-weapons cabalities and intel to Iraq in the hopes that it would prevent the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East.  The U.S. ignored Saddam's known crimes against humanity for it's own political agenda, which did in fact include oil field contracts (You should read one of my earlier blog entries where I outline all of this, straight from the declassified materials I researched on the U.S. Digital National Security Archives, for an Academic paper). 

As for your claim that Clinton left our country lacking in a military sense, I will not deny that Clinton was not the best President from a military standpoint; however to say that he is to blame for the poor planning of the Iraqi invasion is nonsense.  If we really needed to invade Iraq, there was absolutely no reason why we should have rushed it as we did.  A lack of proper time to plan = poor planning = military blunders. Bush's cowboy attitude didn't help either.. "Mission Accomplished" my arse. The simple fact is that Bush had his sights on an Iraqi invasion before he ever stepped foot in the Oval Office - he wanted to finish the job that Daddy had left unfinished (and should have done in Gulf War I when he promised the Shi'ites and the Kurds military support if they rose up against Saddam).

ALCON,

Yes Chico, I do understand, I too was RA.  Although I did not go to Southeast Asia in time of conflict, I was trained by those who did.

And deployed to other conflicts the commander and chief ordered.

Consider this; During WWII, we needed equipment.  What did General Motors do; they revamped thier factories to make vehicles, weapons, and aircraft.  Why?  During this current conflict; when the military said to the private business sector; we need production of armored vehicles because of the current threat; did they respond; no!  Our gov't had to rely on small factories that were slow in production and couldnt meet our demand.  Why?

In 1973 our nation went voluntary military service.  Vietnam had draftees, I served with many.  Fast forward today; this type of conflict is not like WWII / VN simply in the casualty numbers.  Many loved ones lost thier sons and daughters, which in turn cause a different level of concern.  Look at todays casulties, not in the numbers as in the past.  Society doesnt feel the pain with the current numbers.  If the numbers were like WWII / VN; we'd be out of there in  new yourk minute.

I agree with  saber, this was a unecessary deployment. 

But. we are there, and I will still contribute to the fight, you Chico and all who served are my brothers and sisters.

To vote and say what you want freely is devine; and as long as I can, I will ensure we have that right.

FSG...I didn't say Clinton was responsible for any planning regarding Iraq.  Don't put words in my mouth.  You're starting to pick up habits from some of the others on here.

I apologize.  What I should have said is that we had plenty of money going to the military when Clinton left office.