Sunday, February 08, 2009

Forgetting 9/11

Pastorius states below we are fools if we ever forget 9/11. And he is very correct. None of us here have.

Our Appeaser in Chief, however. . .

from the Times Online via Gateway Pundit

Obama puts brake on Afghan surge

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has demanded that American defence chiefs review their strategy in Afghanistan before going ahead with a troop surge.

There is concern among senior Democrats that the military is preparing to send up to 30,000 extra troops without a coherent plan or exit strategy.

The Pentagon was set to announce the deployment of 17,000 extra soldiers and marines last week but Robert Gates, the defence secretary, postponed the decision after questions from Obama.

The president was concerned by a lack of strategy at his first meeting with Gates and the US joint chiefs of staff last month in “the tank”, the secure conference room in the Pentagon. He asked: “What’s the endgame?” and did not receive a convincing answer.

Larry Korb, a defence expert at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, said: “Obama is exactly right. Before he agrees to send 30,000 troops, he wants to know what the mission and the endgame is.”

Obama promised an extra 7,000-10,000 troops during the election campaign but the military has inflated its demands. Leading Democrats fear Afghanistan could become Obama’s “Vietnam quagmire”.

If the surge goes ahead the military intend to limit the mission to fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and leave democracy building and reconstruction to Nato allies and civilians from the State Department and other agencies.

The United States has been pushing Britain to send several thousand more troops but there is just as much disagreement and confusion among British defence chiefs over the long-term aim. Gordon Brown is set to receive a full briefing this week.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the army chief who will step down this summer, has insisted that troops need a rest and believes he can send only one battlegroup, senior defence sources said.

General Sir David Richards, his successor, believes that the two extra battlegroups the Americans have asked for is the minimum the UK should send, the sources said.

7 comments:

Michael Travis said...

9-11 was forgotten on 9-17-2001.

Don't believe me? Put that date in a Whitehouse.Gov search.

midnight rider said...

Michael -- I get nothing. If I sspell out the month I get Bush's biography. Something I'm missing?

midnight rider said...

Ok, either I'm an idiot (smart bets that way0 or something is very weird. Still couldn't get anything searching at Whitehouse.gov. so googled. wound up at this site: http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/crsres/terrorism/federal.htm#white

now, every dang link there takes you to the same place: http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/

and you can't get any further.

I know I'm no genius but what am I doing wrong?

Pastorius said...

I think Michael is probably referring to the day George Bush stated that Muslims are our brothers and Islam is a Religion of Peace.

midnight rider said...

That was my thought as well, Pastorius. Although there was also something else that happened in a briefing that day that Bob Kerrey talked about during the 9/11 Commission hearings:

"KERREY: I appreciate that may be wrong but that's how it appears. Because, General Arnold, you in particular on the day, covered yourself in glory. And I think the military performed, under the circumstances, exceptionally well.

And I don't understand why the -- and again, General Myers is the guy to ask because there was a briefing at the White House on the 17th of September. And it feels like something happened in that briefing that produced almost a necessity to deliver a story that's different than what actually happened on that day."

quote from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49429-2004Jun17_3.html

Though I still tend to the Islam is Peace quote.

And still can't figure out why you can't get anywhere once you're in there. Well, maybe I can. . .

Pastorius said...

I can't make heads or tails of Kerry's line of questioning.

Do you have any theories on that?

midnight rider said...

From what I can gather it seems that at this briefing on 9/17/01 they were discussing changing what happened when to explain the lack of American fighters in the air in time to intercept the hijacked jets.

Kerrey is saying you people did the best you could under the circumstances and in the very limited response time you had (c'mon, they didn't have time to scramble fighters before those first two jets hit The Towers) but it sounds like the Generals were afraid of being cast in a bad light for not a quick enough response and wanted to change the official timeline of events. Even by 9/17 rumors were already heavy that it was an inside job & thus the lack of fighters or that fighters actually shot down flight 93. The Generals may have been trying a CYA that was found out about. Kerrey seems to be questioning why bother? You guys did fine all things considered.

This is from the little I could find about that quote. It would be easier if we knew what was exactly said in that meeting but that's not likely to happen.