Redstate

. . .Mr. Goodman is directly connected to the Crown Princess of the anti-Semitic American left?  Wow--the MSM might actually work up a sweat burying this story.

Oh, did Ms. McKinney bring a gavel and insist that all of the little moonbat witnesses call her "Mr. Chairman?"  It was so cute when Conyers did that at his phony hearing.

Once again--a big "thank you" to the Georgia district who sent this little psycho back to Congress.

Two of the signatories on the "former Intelligence Officers" letter, McGovern and MacMichael, are involved with Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which is a long-time left-leaning bunch of ranters.

Is it a conspiracy theory to have a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory?

Do we need to examine everyone that signed the letter? Larry Johnson is making the media rounds, and is noted as a "registered republican".

So much of this coverage is self-discrediting, and guilt by association only goes so far, but the emphasized quotes are telling - is it inaccurate to argue that Ms. Mckinney's are already "considered conventional wisdom" in much of the middle east, or, say, Leeds? How about North Jersey?

Maybe there is some solace in that Melvin Goodman is a "former CIA official". Maybe Porter Goss is getting the job done. Maybe Josh Marshall will examine this. Maybe not.

I know - it's all Karl Rove's fault.

All kinds of Hmmmms.  And you can read more about the Bush Junta, Cynthia McKinney, and Gore Vidal here.  (This is a Google cached link -- their server has apparently exceeded its bandwidth capability -- so I guess lots of people are reading...)

But even if we dismiss McKinney, let us never fear, because Democracy NOW! is still on the case on behalf of the "progressives."

BTW they're also meeting in Chicago this weekend.  At this very moment, in fact!

There are about 600,000 or so citizens in any given congressional district (am I wrong)?  Let's say about one third of them are eligible voters who actually show up to vote on election day...perhaps I'm being charitable here.  But if those 200,000 people actually voted in Georgia's 4th district (I think it's the 4th district), that means at least 100,001 voters thought Cynthia McKinney was the right candidate for the job.  I find it hard to believe there are that many people in the whole state of Georgia who would think that, but I guess I am mistaken.

Yet another little factoid that makes one say "hmmmm."

Melvin Goodman and Amy Goodman have actually talked to each other, quite extensively, on this subject.  And done an interview together on Democracy NOW!  So for anyone who was thinking of responding that I wasn't making the connection clearly enough, I'll let Democracy NOW!s website speak for itself.

Putting back on my tinfoil hat, but it really appears that there are large number of CIA and ex CIA who have axes to grind with the administration.

What is bothering me is that there really isn't anywhere to get objective truth on this case (except maybe the GJ investigation and I am not convinced the GJ investigation is digging into this the way they should).

There CIA has an axe to grind on both sides (I really think the CIA is need of a good flushing-and I don't care about the stupid civil servants rules).

The media is so deep into this story as an actor in it, that they can't be trusted to tell the truth-especially the big newspapers who have reporters and editors invovled.  The same media that petitioned the court in its defense of Cooper and Miller declaring there was no crime committed (and then they participate in the Rove witch hunt as if a crime had been committed).

The administration obviously may have something to hide.

State may have something to hide.

There is nobody objective invovled in this affair.

*********

WATCH THESE 4 VIDEO CLIPS OF CYNTHIA McKINNEY!

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15246&only=yes

***********

Some key quotes:

1) Iraq was "a scheme that was cooked in a backroom by rich and powerful

WHITE people"; "it's being waged for a small clique of people who are

making a ton of money off of war"

2) encouraged students to be conscientious objectors so the military

"can't get our children", introduced bill to eliminate all military

recruitment money

3) Iraq is not being rebuilt; Bush won't stop until he has rearranged

the map of the Middle East, then he's going to go to China and Russia

I've seen here speak and if you think she's a moonbat, you shoud see her audience.  

If the GOP wanted to use some of its money wisely, they should do anything can to get footage of this "hearing", and then:

  RUN NATIONAL ADS ABOUT IT!

This would either take McKinney down, embarass the Democrats, or both.

But someone with these kinds of view canNOT be left in Congress. McKinney's views should be endlessly publicized until virtually every citizen in America is aware of them. And appropriately outraged.

The 14th amendment says that apportionment of representatives shall be on the basis of "the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed..." Persons has been interpreted to mean persons, not citizens. So illegal immigrants are included in apportionments. Thus, the number of citizens per representative varies by district. One man, one vote, not one citizen, one vote. An amendment to change persons to citizens has been introduced.

but I feel justified given that Cynthia's is definitely too tight.

But if the backrooms of the administration can cook up support for a war, then the backrooms of the CIA and State can cook up various schemes to thwart a war they don't support, and may have done so.

I find it interesting that both CIA and State have consistently leaked like sieves throughout Bush's administration, and most of the leaks were meant to harm the admin or the war effort (either the broader WOT or the specific Afghanistan or Iraq conflicts within that war).

I also have gotten frustrated with the manufactured outrage over the Plame stuff from the left, while they apparantly don't seem to care at all that people within the CIA and State routinely leak classified documents and information.  They are inconsistent, because in the end this isn't about leaks of classified information, but about trying to bring down Bush or at least throw a lot of mud on him.

I want to see that amendment pass.  Links?

Do you know the exact wording of the amendment?

Along with Conyers

I would support restricting this to citizenship. Obviously the framers of the 14th didn't think so either. However I would be happy to rephrase it as "Citizens and all permanent legal residents".

It should be citizens only.

I don't generally like the kind of hyperbole that claims that Demicrats are on the same page as the terrorists...um, except when it's true.

Here's a lovely quote from nutjob Atatollah Ahmad Jannati, speaking at the prestigious (ahem) Tehran University about the London bombings:

"There exists the possibility that the British government carried out this work, like the possibility [of American involvement] in the September 11 affair, since they themselves stand to benefit the most."

Maybe this guy should move here and start PAC.

are working towards citizenship, and even if they aren't they are here legally, so even if they can't vote, they do have some interest in the outcome of who wins elections.

(and it seems debatable to me that "most" are working towards citizenship), their inclusion would result (as does the inclusion of every beating heart now result) in the possiblility of a Congressional Representative who "represents" only a few voting citizens, thus giving those few citizens excessive representation in the House.  If the PLRs are counted, the undeniable result is the reduction in representation of citizens in the rest of the state.

Someone else, long ago, noted that by today's laws, if the Russians (see how long ago?) invaded Alaska with a big enough force, they could get their own representative in Congress.  (No, I don't know how they'd get to vote.  Perhaps by coercion, or by the promise to vote Democrat.)

I overreached when I said "citizens."  I should have just said "people."  Maybe I was being foolishly idealistic, somehow thinking apportionment of representatives should correspond to the number of actual U.S. citizens in a given area.  My bad.

I'll bet McGovern isn't the only one. Who would have a bigger tinfoil hat than a long-time CIA operative? Guys like that live and breathe conspiracy theories. They probably worked on fifty of the last ten actual conspiracies. Moonbats like Larouche and McKinney must be like magnets to those guys.

difference between counting children, who are citizens but have no right to vote, for purposes of congressional seats and legal immigrants?

Neither group has a say in who is elected, but both are constituents of the representative, and policy can and does affect them.

We are still looking for a signatory that didn't have an axe to grind with Bush BEFORE the outing of Plame.

I'm not aware of anything at all Larry Johnson did before the outing of Plame, aside from winning a national title at UNLV.  But since he seems to be the most vocal of the whole group with respect to this issue, I'm just wondering if the quoted statement applies to him as well.

There is a danger here, in the rush to out all the anti-Bush partisans.  Namely, if the administration did anything improper with respect to intelligence and the CIA in order to make the case for Saddam's nukes, it would be quite reasonable for people associated with the CIA to have opposed the war.  I don't know what else there is to say about Col. Lang, for example, but I don't think opposition to the war automatically makes him a frothing anti-Bush partisan.

I won't defend anyone who thinks a worldwide Zionist conspiracy is behind the whole thing, naturally, but I don't think the entire group becomes guilty by association as a result thereof.  It seems like we are rapidly approaching a definition of "partisan" in which every attack on the administration necessarily becomes a "partisan" attack.

Thus far, from what I can find, Colonel Lang is the most reasonable of the bunch. In particular, his wartime analysis on PBS I found to be very evenhanded.

However, it is also an indisputable fact that he has been critical of the way he perceived that the Bush administration had manipulated the intelligence leading up to the war.

The point of this group was supposedly that they were a bunch of non-partisan intelligence people whose only concern was for the outing of a fellow officer. Clearly, they have been battling the Bush administration all along, and the recent publicity explosion over Plame has just provided them with a handy peg to hang their hat on.

too many people in all this get the "non partisan" label, when they in fact don't deserve it.

We know Wilson and Plame were partisan to some degree (through donations, and Wilson's work for Kerry).

We know that several of the supposedly objective analysts and former CIA types are in fact partisan.

I wouldn't be so irritated, if the media actually noted their bias, at least then I would know that they have a possible axe to grind and therefor may be coloring their opinions, at least I can balance that and decide for myself.

that the reason there are so many CIA people that oppose the President is because he let the CIA take the fall for the intel failure?

There is a danger here, in the rush to out all the anti-Bush partisans.  Namely, if the administration did anything improper with respect to intelligence and the CIA in order to make the case for Saddam's nukes, it would be quite reasonable for people associated with the CIA to have opposed the war.

That is true. What is equally true though, is that such behavior is indistinguishable from that of people who start from partisanship, and proceed to trade on their resumes in order to lie to us. Since the Senate Intelligence Committee caught Mr. Wilson doing exactly that, we know this behavior occurs, and that partisanship can provide the motivation.

We can now look back and find some of these same people selling the same lies that Wilson was out selling before he got caught. But nobody ever bothered with them until now, because they weren't at the center of a media firestorm.

If they would like to be part of that firestorm, however, it is legitimate to go back and see which of them were part of it to start with, i.e. were telling people things that were not so, in the guise of playing "expert."

Whatever dangers there may be in chasing down partisans, they are dwarfed by the dangers of having Intelligence professionals conducting their own foreign policy in defiance of the elected government. If that is what happened here — and it sure looks like it — we need to get to the bottom of it.    

he let the CIA take the fall for the intel failure?

What, was Bush supposed to blame the Federal Trade Commission? There was a whole lot we did not know, that we had paid a fortune to find out. When that kind of performance is turned in by any other agency, heads roll and the agency is criticized. That's Life In The Big City. Why should the CIA be exempt from the same discipline that any other taxpayer-funded activity is subject to?

for the intel matter

The CIA has been crap for years, and Tenet should have been fired the day Bush entered office, but he wanted to play the magnanimous reach out across the aisle uniter not a divider role, and the dems and the CIA bit him in thanks.

However I can understand how they would feel betrayed by the President publicly blaming them.  

I'm not aware of anything at all Larry Johnson did before the outing of Plame

Well, one of the things he did, which you may wish to consider when assessing his credibility and his grasp of world issues, is author a piece for the New York Times on July 10, 2001, called The Declining Terrorist Threat. It seems that I myself dug that puppy out, on 9/11.

In that piece, written while the Atta Boys were in flight school, Mr. Johnson assured us that Americans had little to fear from terrorism, and especially not from Islamic terrorism.

He was basically selling the line that a trumped-up "fear of terrorism" was being used to justify unwarranted military expenditures:

I am not soft on terrorism; I believe strongly in remaining prepared to confront it. However, when the threat of terrorism is used to justify everything from building a missile defense to violating constitutional rights (as in the case of some Arab-Americans imprisoned without charge), it is time to take a deep breath and reflect on why we are so fearful.

Part of the blame can be assigned to 24-hour broadcast news operations too eager to find a dramatic story line in the events of the day and to pundits who repeat myths while ignoring clear empirical data. Politicians of both parties are also guilty. They warn constituents of dire threats and then appropriate money for redundant military installations and new government investigators and agents.

Finally, there are bureaucracies in the military and in intelligence agencies that are desperate to find an enemy to justify budget growth. In the 1980's, when international terrorism was at its zenith, NATO and the United States European Command pooh-poohed the notion of preparing to fight terrorists. They were too busy preparing to fight the Soviets. With the evil empire gone, they "discovered" terrorism as an important priority.

So that's Larry Johnson, and that's his axe. Sixty days before the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, Larry Johnson was saying, "Although high-profile incidents have fostered the perception that terrorism is becoming more lethal, the numbers say otherwise, and early signs suggest that the decade beginning in 2000 will continue the downward trend."

Yeah, right, Larry. You da bomb.

some Adminisration position papers written, pre-9/11, that downplayed the threat of Islamic terrorism?  

Seems a little unreasonable to play Monday Morning Quarterback and then say that he has an axe to grind because he was wrong.

if you knew what was going to happen on this site before hand, and let it happen just so your liberal friends could profit somehow?

How are you flyerhawk? Catching rats or riding a wagon? Get it?

I've written 4 editorial columns over the years here in ATL ripping the berkely Marxist to shreds which i hope helped her to defeat threee years ago.

And we have our powder dry now for 2006. But its actually good to have a few kooks around to remind peopel waht full blown liberal marxist conspiracy kooks sound like.

Want to take this opportunity to unequivocally denounce Mckinney?

Seems a little unreasonable to play Monday Morning Quarterback and then say that he has an axe to grind because he was wrong.

50,000 comedians out of work, and now I understand why: you've got 'em all beat. Tell ya what: I'm gonna have that engraved in stone, and throw it at you the next time I hear anything from you about "no WMDs."

The axe he was grinding was the long-time Democrat mantra that we spend too much on defense. What the excuse was this time hardly matters; it's always something.

And I'm getting more sure about this by the day, that flyerhawk is a mole for Frank Rich.  Everything Flyer talks about winds up drawing one of us out to talk about something that winds up in one of Rich's columns.  My argument with him earlier this week about Plamegate was the first example I saw, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's feeding everything he sees here to the Big Man.  Maybe he's the Big Man himself?

So spending on Anti-Missle Defense was a WMD deterrent.  Gotcha.

Here's a newsflash.  We SPEND TOO MUCH ON THE MILITARY.  More specifically we spend VERY POOORLY on the military.  It is the epitome of the pork barrel trough.

I could care les about McKinney.  She seems like a kook.  But now you guys are going into full character assasination mode on anyone who is on the other side of the ditch on Plame.  That is blind partisanship.

Seems like she is a kook.  She's not exactly a shining star of the Democratic Party.

That would be a much more enjoyable job than mine.

military?

Do you think it too large?  Too many bases?  Too many toys?  Exactly what would you cut from the military budget and why?  How would this cut help/hinder our ability to defend?

There is hope, God. McKinney is an open marxist Berkely-grad conspiratorialist anti-semite racist against whites kook!

A little left of kerry!

Good night ole boy!!

Ski trips for officers who are supposed to be TDY on exercises, for a start. Or some of these uniform redesigns that are so urgent to our success in the field. But it's really not the amount; it's spent in the wrong way because of structural problems that flow from strategic necromancy.

then I can join that complaint, but wasted money doesn't mean "too much money."

I think a whole lot more money goes down the tank for nothing in return with education spending, because of waste-but I would never say we spend too much money on education.  If we started spending more wisely in education I probably wouldn't say "let's cut the budget"

But waste is a problem with any government bureaucracy-the military ain't the only one.

I know that trying to skirt the edges of The Pile™ is a pretty thankless job, Flyer, but you do it so WELL!  I have to believe you're getting paid.  Maybe you're just a masochist.

Let's try to stay strongly critical, rather than in character assassination mode. One way is to examine in minute detail the various charges, accusations, conspiracy theories, and various other "statements" questioning the administration.

Here's a very basic example that I've seen once, and since forgotten where, and which is long since lost in the following din. In the Downing Street memos, the headline phrase of much of the criticism was the use of the word "fix" in handling the intelligence. I recall a very brief mention that the British context of the term is different than the American context - namely, in Britain it is more akin to what we would call a focus on something. That kinda changes the context, all the way from defensive to glaringly obvious.

To get a bit more general, I'm waiting for the next critical comment on the entire war effort which claims that Bush was only "wrong". I vaguely recall a few attacks to this effect, and to his credit Kerry tried it in the debates, but it was short-lived and has since returned to the pretty far out "he lied", and the evil implications take off from there.

There are plenty of mistakes to go around, but if the starting point of criticism is that they are based on lies and crimes, it's a hard debate just to get it back to the point where it's a debate about cause, effect, and correction.

Frankly, it would be a full time job to reply in minute detail to the likes of McKinney, but unless more mainstream democrats start offering up "he's wrong, and here's what we should do" criticism, we're stuck arguing with blind partisans across the ditch.

He gets far too little credit for the behind the scenes systemic changes he's starting. He cancelled the whopping artillery program (name: crusader?!), he quickly corrected the Boeing mess, even if prodded by McCain. He's closing bases on pace with prior efforts, he's dropped plenty of strategic change hints - "old Europe".

He's done everything to set up the next round of thoughtful defense cuts - namely, why do we have troops anywhere in Europe east of the Vistula, let alone why we have any in Korea? Why don't we have troops anywhere south of Saharan Africa?

Skiing officers are the same as HUD officials holding conferences in Maui - that's common to government - the defense budget changes have to be strategic, not so with HUD or HHS - I mean what are their strategies anyway?

Nothing about this op-ed calls into question Johnson's credibility regarding covert CIA operatives.  The argument amounts to nothing more than "Johnson was wrong about 9/11, so you shouldn't trust him on anything else," which is a barely serious thing to say.

The conclusion of Johnson's op-ed was that nuclear proliferation poses a greater security threat to the United States than terrorism.  That was true then, and it is true today.

Another point - which you attempt to obscure by implying that Johnson raised a dove-like objection to "military expenditures" across the board - was that the threat of terrorism was hyped in order to justify measures that had little or nothing to do with fighting terrorism, such as missile defense systems.  A fair point.

Was there some kind of consensus in July 2001, that everyone but Johnson was a part of, regarding the upcoming terrorist attack?  Did I, like George Tenet, miss that memo?  Larry Johnson, of course, was retired from the CIA at the time, and he had no way of knowing about a PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The U.S.," nor a briefing entitled "Islamic Extremist Learns To Fly."  But you fault him for not possessing a degree of foreknowledge that was not even shared by those who saw BOTH documents.

Wrong in one thing, wrong in all things.  That is your argument.  Since Larry Johnson failed to see 9/11 coming, he is unqualified to talk about the role of covert operatives at the CIA.  A complete non sequitur.

....but has learned little from.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity - Martin Luther King

Seems to fit Mizz McKinney and her flacks to a tee.

Wrong in one thing, wrong in all things.  That is your argument.

Not hardly. Those of us who have heard Democratic rhetoric concerning military and defense measures for lo these many years know more of it when we hear it. "I'm in favor of a strong defense, but..."

And here it comes, the list of all the reasons why whatever we're doing now is wrong, and we should cut it, stop it, and not pay for it. Always there is the implication that they would do something different and smarter, but when Democrats get into office that isn't what happens. What happens instead is that they weaken the country, which scares people, and then they get voted out. In spite of which they never give up.

It is fine that Larry Johnson is a Democrat. The country needs fewer of them. But let's be clear that when he steps into a heated partisan dispute, he does not get to wear the cloak of objectivity. He's just another ax-grinder vying for attention.

Don't anyone tell her that Mel Gibson found the truth: Jean Luc Picard is a part of this all and we're just in a big holodeck. The Wachowskis *were* on to something...

According to the Reuters story on Yahoo:

Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and registered Republican, accused Bush of flip-flopping on his promise to fire anyone at the White House implicated in the leak and said Americans deserved better.

Johnson was one of a handful of former intelligence agents who testified at a Democratic-sponsored hearing on the leak on Friday. He said he knew Plame from a training program, but only as "Val P" because participants were told that would help protect their identities.

Some of the White House's defenders have sought to minimize Plame's role at the CIA to argue the leak was not a national security issue. "We must put to bed the lie that she was not undercover," Johnson said. "For starters, if she had not been undercover then the CIA would not have referred the matter to the Justice Department."

..let me at least bring my own feather.

Not hardly. Those of us who have heard Democratic rhetoric concerning military and defense measures for lo these many years know more of it when we hear it. "I'm in favor of a strong defense, but..."

I'll play...

I'm in favor of a strong defense, but...when we're paying more every year than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH COMBINED (friend 8and* foe) and we still can't control an 8-mile stretch of highway or send our troops to combat with basic armor, something is dreadfully, indisputably wrong. And throwing money at it won't solve it...indeed part of the problem may be all the money floating in the system attracting corporate leeches of every stripe.

And here it comes, the list of all the reasons why whatever we're doing now is wrong, and we should cut it, stop it, and not pay for it. Always there is the implication that they would do something different and smarter, but when Democrats get into office that isn't what happens. What happens instead is that they weaken the country,

Ah, there it is. The mother of all Known Facts. Do you have even the slightest actual evidence to suggest that the US has been weaker under Dem administrations? Keeping in mind, as Iraq has demonstrated, that money spent does not equal strength.

a former CIA agent and registered Republican

OK, so he's an undercover Democrat. And I just "outed" him. It was easy: he quacks, he waddles, and he has webbed feet. So even though he's wearing a sign that says "I am a dog," I say he's a duck.

we still can't control an 8-mile stretch of highway or send our troops to combat with basic armor, something is dreadfully, indisputably wrong

Oh, horsefeathers. The military is a gigantic enterprise; there are going to be human screw-ups of every kind, every single day. It happens everywhere there are humans. Only in Democrat fantasies do large human organizations operate without mistakes. If continuous error-free performance is now going to be the standard for human behavior, we might as well fire everybody, from everything, right now.

"Look! Look! A flaw! We found a flaw! Look everybody, it's not perfect!" Does that ever become tiresome after a while. And this is what the Democrats offer us instead of ideas: carping. Feh.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

  Maybe you could chalk those up to "mistakes", ''screw ups" or "human error" in 2003.  But it's two years - and close to a TRILLION dollars in furtherr military spending - down the road and they're still there.

I feely admit that there is a bit of Devil's Advocate to some of my arguments.  

But by challenging the people here I feel that I learn more and hopefully other people broaden their horizons a bit.

Anyone who thinks our military priorities are misplaced is automatically a Democrat.  If Donald Rumsfeld says "I don't think we need program X any more," he's a Democrat.  Saying that we should focus more on nuclear proliferation should not be a partisan issue whatsoever.

The idea that Larry Johnson voted for Bush in November 2000, but turned into a partisan Democrat by July 2001, and therefore you can't trust what he says about covert CIA operatives, is completely bizarre.

Do you want all the military equipment that didn't work during Carter categorized for you?

How about the rescue debacle in the desert?

Somalia and no tank support?

selling technology directly convertible to the military applications to the North Koreans?..that SURE made us safer..

— Jean Luc Bond in I Was a French Spy Married to the CIA

that the children ARE citizens. They also have some connection to an adult citizen, unless they're the children of illegal aliens, in which case I revert to my previous argument.

But your question mostly just implies an argument for not counting children.  That would also imply not counting convicts in many states.  Heck, I say don't count Democrats, either. ;-)

The problem is that we GOP'ers have seen it happen all too often. Larry Johnson isn't the first to try it.

Someone launches all sorts of missiles in the Press at the GOP ... and then in the end, after totally trashing one (or all) of the central tenets of the Republican Party, i.e. strong defense, whoever it is claims that he is a "registered Republican" who is only interested in making the GOP stronger.

The thing is; we're not that easily fooled. The fact that someone claims to be a Republican does not automatically mean that he is.

"But it's really not the amount[...]"

Gets far, far too much credit for engineering a supposed transformation of the military. I'm a recently separated veteran, and any significant strategic transformations were old news when Rumsfeld came in. At the same time, they still aren't getting them right.

Some of the strategy is clearly a reply to 9/11 ("old Europe", growing alliance w/ India) and he may or may not have much to do there, but he cancelled Crusader.

What is the "old news" on transformation from the Clinton era. I'm not overly critical of what they did, but not overly praiseful either.

Just seems changing course of the leviathan is noticeable since 2001.

Has been lurching since at least the early 90's. However, the Crusader is a bit of a canard when our ground SIGINT collection assets still rely on enemy forces using open comms. The wisdom of the Crusader decision is still an open question. Personally, the US military still needs to maintain a variety of capabilities, not reorder around a new unifying concept.

The discussion of the so-called RMA (revolution in military affairs) and attendant consequences dates to the early 90s, at least. One example:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/brigade-ibct.htm

I come at this wholly apolitically, by the way. This isn't about Clinton vs. President Bush or SecDef Rumsfeld vs. William Cohen. These changes simply aren't led by civilian administrative authorities, and shouldn't be.

I sorta agree, and sorta don't. It was the "strategic" nature of the change that caught my eye. Technically, I agree that the military needs to initiate moves similar to the one you linked. What I am more concerned about is perhaps the "global strategy" changes this administration has undertaken, and that those really need to be driven by civilian political leadership.

Again, putting politics and personalities aside, and acknowledging much of the following was driven by 9/11, but; w/drawing from the ABM and Kyoto treaties were in the works for a while but implemented since 2000; revising relations with Mexico was an early Bush emphasis (which has been wholly eclipsed since 9/11); NATO expansion (certainly begun in the 1990's era); changed relations with Vietnam and India; actions in Central Asia aside from the WOT; a loudly renewed emphasis on exporting and assisting democracy movements and moving away from supporting "our" totalitarian "friends"; Space-based defense.

When you take the whole list, and you see democrats making noises showing concern about defense budgeting and resources, there's clearly a lot more change there than seems would have been under a gradualist or isolationist GOP administration. Heck, even anti-aids efforts in Africa are now considered a "security" initiative praised across the board.

In many ways Clinton in the 90's was a gradualist about these things, for very good reasons, and Bush has been a reactionary, obviously reacting to 9/11, still in all - the rise of China and decline of Russia happen regardless and some of these changes must follow.

That's where I see Bush and Rumsfeld as praiseworthy.

One another. No disagreement here. I'm just talking about warfighting.

Some disagreements. You mention our posture in Central Asia; I'm not happy about our relationship with Uzbekistan. Our frigidity towards China strikes me as Quixotic, counter-productive, and obsolete. And I think on some occasions we have needlessly made it very difficult for political leaders in democratic nations to support our agenda and still survive elections. Mostly small points of criticism, but had to mention them before I issued a general statement of universal support. Har.

"However I can understand how they would feel betrayed by the President publicly blaming them."

Bottom line: THE CIA DID NOT PERFORM ITS STATUTORY DUTIES.

The CIA betrayed America long before Bush chewed them out for doing so.

Joe Wilson is busy lying about his trip to Niger?

How this mess gets cleaned up is beyond me, to be honest...

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

The military's closing bases (again) - while at the same time, HHS, HUD, and the Education department are not having to make tough choices in various programs and facilities.

Why not ask for a bit of a cut in the Transportation bill to get DD(X) produced in sufficient numbers to replace the Spruance-class destroyers?  

Why not ask the Education Department to do more with less so we can get more F/A-22s and get the FB-22 developed and ready to fly?

How about dumping some of the waste from HUD and being able to keep twelve carriers and at the same time get the Littoral Combat Ship deployed at an appropriate level?

How about trimming the fat from HHS, and using that to reactivate the Iowa-class battleships so our Marines can have some adequate fire support?

How about cutting some fat from farm subsidies, and using that to re-start the Comanche program and getting the V-22 in service to replace those CH-46 deathtraps?

How about getting rid of some pork, and instead using that to up the pay for our troops (a 25% increase would be nice)?

DOD's given up way the heck more than its share of the budget.  Where the heck do you get the notion we're overspending on the military?

"DOD's given up way the heck more than its share of the budget.  Where the heck do you get the notion we're overspending on the military?"

...maybe he's getting it from the guys who are buddy-buddy with people who say "We support the troops when they shoot their officers."

You say, "DOD's given up way the heck more than its share of the budget."

Yet, according to the White House's 2005 budget information, which can be seen here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/overview.html

they have greatly increased defense spending at so many levels:

  (All figures depicting increases are above the 2005 enacted levels.)

Defense, Foreign Assistance, and Homeland Security

    * Raises overall Defense spending by 4.8 percent, or 41 percent since 2001.

    * $35 billion more between now and 2011 to reorganize the total Army forces and increase the number of active Army combat brigades by 30 percent.

    * $3.5 billion more between 2006 and 2011 to implement the Global Posture Initiative, which will increase U.S. responsiveness and allow for the return of 70,000 U.S. troops from Cold War bases.

    * $1.7 billion for unmanned vehicles, which perform hazardous tasks without risking the lives of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.

    * $3 billion, an increase of $1.5 billion, to expand the Millennium Challenge Account for foreign assistance, to encourage sound economic and governance policies in the developing world.

    * $4.2 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a $154 million increase, to address the threat of bioterrorism.

    * $600 million for a Targeted Infrastructure Protection Program in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assist State and local governments in reducing the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, such as chemical facilities, ports, and transit systems.

    * $581 million, a 45-percent increase, for research and development of radiological and nuclear detection systems and countermeasures at DHS, the Department of Energy, and HHS.

    * An increase of $555 million for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an 11-percent increase over 2005 levels, and a 76-percent increase since 2001.

So, how can you say that "DOD's given up way the heck more than its share of the budget. "?

Please explain.

From the CBO website....

In 1962, with Social Security outlays representing only 2.5 percent of GDP and Medicare and Medicaid not yet created, spending for all other government activities accounted for 86 percent of noninterest federal outlays. The largest share was for national defense, which accounted for more than half of noninterest outlays and represented 9.2 percent of GDP.

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3521&sequence=0

also here a chart that shows that defense's part of the federal budget has been stable and non-defense spending is up over 118 percent through three decades.

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/fed_spend.pdf

McKinney seems guano crazy if she's still pushing 9-11 conspiracy theories, but I don't have a problem with somebody (MacMichael) criticizing the Iran-Contra affair, which was clearly a case of plundering the public purse, all while lying about it and making deals with terrorists, and I have no respect for any Republican or Democratic administration that acts in such a manner.  

Aside from that, it's time the Left, the Democrats, and the jilted foreign policy realists move beyond 9-11 and refocus their energy on what the hell we do today.  We couldn't and didn't stop 9-11 because we didn't make the risk assessment involving airline and immigration security pre-9/11 that we obviously do today.