Has the Bush Doctrine failed?
 

Analysts say conflicts in the Middle East have halted aggressive US policy, and may hint at end of West's military superiority.

"The United States may find it hard, if not impossible, the analysts say, to again try in the near future to topple a hostile regime. Its military is stretched, its moral standing diminished. Even democracy itself is tarnished, often equated now with car bombs and chaos, rather than peace and prosperity.

The kind of thing people in the administration prided themselves in understanding, namely the use of power, was actually the very thing they proved not to be able to use effectively," said David Holloway of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, which conducts research and training on issues of international security."

"Despite a massive American and Israeli technological edge, including nuclear arsenals, mounting evidence suggests that the age of Western military ascendancy is coming to an end. Muslim radicals have evolved an Islamist way of war that is as complex as it is cunning. As a consequence, in and around the Persian Gulf the military balance is shifting. The failures suffered by the United States in Iraq and by Israel in southern Lebanon may well signify a turning point in modern military history, comparable in significance to the development of blitzkrieg in the 1930s or of the atomic bomb a decade later. Although the full implications of this shift are not clear, they promise to be huge, calling into question basic strategic assumptions that have held sway in the United States and Israel."

"Resistance is a strategy not of conquest but of denial. Wars undertaken with the expectation that they will be short and conclusive -- on the model of the Six Day War or Operation Desert Storm -- instead become open-ended and inchoate. Politically, the Islamist way of war is demonstrating that the West can no longer impose its will on the Middle East. The inhabitants of that region now have options other than submission or collaboration. Both the United States and Israel must grapple with the implications of this fact. Predictably, the initial reaction of both is to look for ways of tipping the military balance back in the other direction."


Of course ueber-neocon Podhoretz disagrees...

More...

I don't know if it's 'the Bush doctrine' that's failed. I believe it's got more to do with the fact that a young nation can't simply walk into an ancient crisis and expect to fix it overnight. Maybe it's just not fixable. Ahhh...the innocence of youth...

If most Americans believe a conflict is just and warranted, we can, will, and do take care of business. It's when a conflict is perceived as unjust and unwarranted that we are not overwhelmingly successful.

I still think that's the most appropriate Vietnam analogy with Iraq: don't fight a war without overwhelming public support.

We tire, is what Americans do. In 1980 I was in grade school and took a (rare) course in International Relations. This was right after the Iranian hostage crisis. The class was packed. The teacher pointed out that, the previous year, almost nobody took the class. It was his theory that Americans have an attention span of about four years for international matters.

This sentence: may find it hard, if not impossible, the analysts say, to again try in the near future to topple a hostile regime

This is a poorly-written sentence because 95% of people will misinterpret it. The American military force is stronger now than it ever has been in history - partly because it's now been used, and is battlefield-hardened with commanders having all sorts of different kinds of experience. There is no question about the ability of the force to topple a hostile regime. It can topple just about anyone, with the use of its little pinky finger. That part of the Iraqi misadventure was the "Mission Accomplished" section.

The US will find it impossible to topple a hostile regime because of political pressures. The world and the American people are against it. Which is what makes the Iraqi misadventure a bigger and bigger mistake. It turns N Korea and even Iran into Somebody Else's Problem.

Up until the next attack on US soil that is.

In hind sight, would it have been better to have evacuated Iraq when W landed on the aircraft carrier, and let the "Iraqis" rebuild and sort things out themselves? We could "shock and awe" them over and over, if we needed to, and we wouldn't be in the middle of this civil war where everybody wants us out anyway.

Which Bush doctrine are you referring to?
If you mean pre-emptive aggression to topple a regime, then the Bush doctrine worked perfectly. That's exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, the Bush folks forgot that when they break other people's toys, they're responsible for fixing them , since we're (the US) is supposed to have the moral high ground (shining beacon on the hill and what not). Sticking the American military's head in the secular/religious buzzsaw that is the Middle East was incredibly stupid, particularly because there was such strong resistance to invasion back here. The only way to win in the Middle East is to do what foreign invaders have always done, invade, conquer, and enforce their rule, no matter what the consequences to the local population. Imperialism being out of favor puts a damper on our ability to do that.

We could have at least gotten their ramshackle infrastructure back up and running, instead of trying to over-ambitiously upgrade it.

Public support goes with the events. The more body bags return, the less support, as Vietnam showed. With the current stream of internet information Guvmint lies and manipulations will be revealed much sooner than 30 years ago. The Tonkin hoax would have been known weeks after it had been used as an excuse.
As the analysts show, the US and Israel army are not suited to the current asymetric warfare and therefore are losing the battle no matter how much technology has been pumped into the army. In fact that's the weak spot, human intelligence has been completely ignored that last decades in favor of War Games. The head of the Arab section of the CIA didn't even speak the Arabic language...
Von Clausewitz already teached us that you can never separate War with Politik in his tripartite conception of war. "These three tendencies," he wrote, "are like three different codes of law, deeply rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another."
http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/ECHEVAR/TRINITY.GIF

In that case Iraq should have much greater legs, since there are about 2,800 coalition body bags so far as compared to over 60,000 in Vietnam.

US public support trailed with the public perception that it was going poorly. The public would still be majority in favor, if the deaths led to the sort of productive changes that were hoped for. In fact it seems like the insurgency has been largely addressed at this point but simply leading everything into sectarian violence is also considered an unacceptable outcome.

I seem to remember opposition to the invasion - that was before any body bags returned.

People do tend to oppose things that are done for no apparent reason...
(Or if the public is treated like it can't be trusted to understand the real reasons.)

World has changed. Vietnams are not possible anymore today. JDAM´s instead of napalm, cluster instead of carpet bombing, asymatric army instead of peoples army. World opinion doesn´t accept high casualties both civillian and military.

Must say that the rate of civillian death in iraq is rapidly approaching the old norms.

Au contraire...the Bush Doctrine is overwhelmingly successful. Oil company and military supplier profits are at historical highs. Bush campaign supporters enjoy unparalleled access to the highest levels of government, and the Sheeple are following their Shepherd to the shearing with relatively little bleating.

How much more successful could his Doctrine be? Or were you talking about what we laughingly call "foreign relations"?

Ding! You win a pony!

That cat, headsplice, is one pony-rewardin' motherfvcker...

So? I like ponies. Don't you?

Are we talking Mongolian bbq?

Tomayto -- tomahto

The reason was and is always apparent to me, indeed it seems escapable only by deliberately burying one's head in the sand: there is no international terrorism without national sponsorship. It is proxy warfare. The GWOT therefore will have campaigns directed against nations as well as nebulous little groups. Campaigns within the larger war, not separate wars as the antivictory lobby tries to cast them.

Frankly, the antivictory lobby makes absolutely no sense to me. They never did, and they aren't in any hurry to start. Rational people do not root against democracy, but evil people and kooks all do.

The anti-Republican partisans are even more ridiculous if less toxic. The Democrats are longwinded in telling us the Republican Administration is flubbing this way, that way, and the other way. But ask the Dems to win the war, and how their strategy would be an improvement on actually winning our objectives in the face of bigoted hostility from foreign parties, and you won't get one single word of response. At best, you'll get some non-answer. This utter incompetence is why I will have nothing to do with the Democratic Party, and why I am convinced they must lose in 2008 if our Republic is to prevail. Compared to the Dems, the Republicans have all the brains and all the courage.

Victory? What victory?
Well, the anti-Republican partisans have no answer, the pro-Rep have no answer, the Dems have no answer, what your answer? Maybe there's no answer?
And see where that has lead to. I savely can say you can forget the brains. BTW who has Junior's brains?

So which party did not have the balls to permit 10th Mountain to go after bin Laden? So which party still does not have the balls to go after bin Laden? So which party lied repeatedly - blamed Saddam for 11 September? Which party lied about not properly equipping troops in Iraq with protective armor because the insurgency did not exist? That repeatedly denied that bin Laden was a threat. And which poster here routinely ignores these facts? Funny. It is the same poster who has been caught repeatedly rewriting history for his personal agenda. Curious. Those are also George Jr's loyal supporters who somehow find solutions always in military crusades. Same loyal supporter who claimed to be militarily educated and yet could not even define the purpose of war.

Let's see. Who insisted we could not rescue Kuwait? Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton, etc. Monday morning military experts. These are people with brains? Well they do think extraordinarily similar to Urbane Guerrilla. Curious similarity.

We have Democratic and Republican extremists. And then we have people who instead learn reality. Urbane Guerrilla has identified one trend. The Democratic party is just to pathetically lead to understand even what they stand for. But then the only part of any party that really does demonstrate a grasp are those who work for America rather than promote party (Democratic or Republican) extremists.

Let's not forget the orginal 'war on terror'
 

From Forbes

So we invade two countries, one where we know our enemy Bin Laden is operating, and one where we know he isn't. We send the bulk of our forces to country number two and leave country number one with just enough to effectively hold the major cities.

As a result, business is booming. GWB is now responsible for a huge upsurge in exports and agribusiness and US consumers can probably expect lower prices.;) I guess capitalism works after all.

It's just too bad we're talking about heroin and not oil.

I think the "analysts" are confused. They are equating the US Military's capabilities with the bumbling of Bush & Rumsfeld. That's like saying a gun isn't effective because they guy holding it can't shoot. The problem is easily fixed by changing the shooter which is a whole lot easier than redesigning the gun. :cool:

Tw, you never did know history and now your delusional nature prevents you from knowing current events. Only liars say that the Administration blames Saddam for 9/11, and you may take that as from the burning bush.

And is or is it not so that the unarmored Humvees were in their stripped and lightweight configuration for long distance mobility, range, and crosscountry speed -- such as was exactly what they needed to run from Kuwait to Baghdad, while catching only disorganized opposition from units under battalion strength as the rest of the Iraqi Army evaporated? Was or was there not a gap of months before the insurgency got organized enough to get going? Frankly, the insurgency still isn't getting traction. It can't leave its home sectors, and it can't stop the new government from taking those provinces over, either. Are the insurgents visibly fighting for Saddam? Nope.

Not define the purpose of the war? Try this, if you can wrap your sick mind around it: win. Our enemies are all antidemocracy activists, seeking to maintain an ancient order of oppression, poverty, and general suckiness, that they may clutch privilege to themselves. You, tw, make common cause with such as these by your rabid anti-Americanism. We need not tolerate control of vital world resources by unfriendlies, not when we can have friendlies in that spot.

You are not a wise man, tw, nor are you a good one, what with what communism has done to your mentality.

Holding views opposed to tw's usually means you're on the side of the Republic, and of the angels.

Heh, now the unarmored Humvees were a clever plan.

Of course it was, so the bouquets of flowers the Iraqis would throw wouldn't overload the suspension.:right:

Yep, and in a few months they would have had the anti-gravity plates installed for long range recon.:nuts:

The military is now so overwhelmed that it cannot even exercise the invasion of Iran. But again, we go right back to the lessons of Vietnam. Same claim was made by those same Curtis LeMay types. As a result, the US was so pathetic militarily that is the USS Pueblo had no airworthy aircraft to come to its rescue off of N Korea. That was the state of the US military all over the world - even in Europe.

And to maintain massive military operations (in Vietnam as in Iraq), the US economy was starved of necessary infrastructure, education, new product development, etc. The US even sold off the world's third largest industrial base - US owned foreign businesses - to pay for war. And as a result of that war, US military suffered for almost 10 years later.


Meanwhile, troops are not being trained for flexible military missions. They are spending time learning how to fight a war that has no hope of victory - that cannot end. Training for an internationally effective military? Of course not. Even standards for military recruits reduced just to meet recruiting quotas.

Degradation of military hardware. Helicopters now requiring something in excess of eight hours maintenance for one hour of flight. Air transports in degraded condition AND assembly lines for new transports closed. This is not what a healthy military looks like.

It is the lesson from Vietnam and the same symptoms apparently in today's overstretched US military. All signs of a military that is becoming increasingly threadbare each year. Deja vue Vietnam.

$400 billion annual budget to the DoD. Then another $100 billion quietly added later just for Iraq - just like during Vietnam. Money must grow on trees - when stagflation then resulted. Its not just the military that is being degraded.

Nope, the rich are richer, the poor are poorer, the Gov't is bigger, the sick are sicker, the war machine is 500% larger, the environment is fucked and none of his strings are tangled.

Not only the US Army is stressed to its limits and on the border of enlistment, also the British Army according their new top soldier.

More...

This is what Richard Clarke told what happen moments after 9/11:
Bush has mentioned 9/11 and Saddam many, many times in such way that the majority of the US public believed Saddam was involved. Suggestion can do a lot.

Furthermore Woodward wrote in his book "Bush on War": already on September 17, six days later, Mr. Bush affirmed, "I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now."

Whoz pantz are on fire now?

The military is as strong as it has ever been. We have the draft discussion every six months for the last few years and everyone who has brought it up is still wrong.

Jackie's kid was not accepted into the Navy this year, to do machinist type work, because he's weak on advanced algebra. That's the level of selectivity they have.

Also, only liars say that the Administration blames Saddam for 9/11. Nothing I've seen in the thread so far disputes that, especially without cites.

They're very deliberate in their parsing, saying that Saddam didn't "order" 9-11. They'll say something conflating Iraq and 9-11, a reporter will call them on it, and they'll say they never claimed that Saddam "ordered" 9-11.

Technically accurate, perhaps.

The president made that association in his State of the Union address. Then why did we attack Iraq? Oh. President did not take back that Saddam / bin Laden alliance accusation until long after Baghdad fell. Meanwhile Cheney kept insisting Saddam was complicit in 11 September. It was a rare time the President and Vice President publicly said different.

UT, you deny what Richard Clarke wrote in his book?

US military was not meeting recruiting quotas. So they increased number of recruiters and lowered standards. That change has been widely reported. If the army's basic (not advanced) algebra is too difficult, then the kid will need remedial math in a junior college. How did he even get out of high school? It is a growing problem cited recently in the New York Times on 2 September 2006: Sines, cosines, and Pythagorean theorem are not advanced math. It is basic (eigth grade) math. The army was not asking him to solve multiple equations of multiple variables. If rejected for math, then he does not have what should be miminally necessary to graduate high school. He could have chosen infantry - no problem getting into today's army with lower standards. One need not even graduate high school. A machinist stays in green zones. That skill can remain selective. But the army's standards were lowered. The alternative was selective service.

The Navy requires advanced algebra. The lad has a learning disability partly due to the fact that he was born very prematurely and has advanced and chronic ADHD. He graduated from one of the very best public high schools in the area. He does not want to be an Army infantryman. He wants to be a Navy machinist.

There are four major branches of the US military. Perhaps the information you've been reading is only about one branch so that it can maintain the spin you like.

I dispute what Richard Clarke wrote in his book.

Only liars say that the Administration blames Saddam for 9/11. Nothing I've seen in the thread so far disputes that, especially without cites.

So did the White House spokesman when interviewed live on ABC Nightly News. I believe it was Jennings himself who did the interview. That spokesman denied the Richard Clarke conversation. Then Jennings (?) said ABC News had direct confirmation from a US Military officer who was right there and confirmed that same Richard Clark account. Suddenly the White House stopped denying that Richard Clarke conversation.

You can deny it all you want. It goes to your bias. That Richard Clarke testimony is fact AND was confirmed by ABC News from a military officer who was right there when that conversation occurred.

Why would one deny that Richard Clarke conversation? It exposes this president for the liar he really is. Others have trouble with reality when their political agenda is more important than reality. So they deny.

Deny that Richard Clark account all you want. Facts even from ABC News caused the White House to stop denying that conversation. As I recall, it was a live interview. The ABC News reporter was blunt when he stated the conversation was confirmed; causing the White House spokesman then stop talking completely. You could see it in his face - like a deer caught in the headlights.

You cannot be true to yourself and deny that Richard Clarke / George Jr conversation. It represents the George Jr agenda – as defined previously for so many reasons. Extremists liars – also called gun slingers - wanted anything to connect Saddam to 11 September. Any claim to the contrary is nothing more than classic Rush Limbaugh brainwashing. Or do you also believe Armstrong never walked on the moon?

UT, you cannot be honest to yourself and deny that Richard Clarke account. It is a fact that basic and irrefutible. Even the White House reaction - the silence - after that ABC News interview confirms that conversation was correct. But then who do you believe? Clarke who has a good record of honesty - or the White House that lies repeatedly for a political extremist agenda. It says much about your own biases; what you will do to deny George Jr is a liar.

I don't know why tw can't acknowledge this -- probably because it's me telling him, and he'll sell himself to avoid agreeing with me -- but it's still true that there is no real international terrorism without nations as sponsors, and what do the unfriendly regimes do? Sanctuaries, funding, training -- support for terrorists as a means of war by proxy. Exactly what Iraq did, as history shows, and tw won't read. That Iraq mostly did this to attack our friends of late, and not us directly, is really just a quibble.

Only liars say that the Administration blames Saddam for 9/11. Nothing I've seen in the thread so far disputes that, especially without cites.

And when I say cites, interpretations of facial expressions don't count.

While it is true that they never said 'Saddam ordered 9-11', until recently Cheney was still pushing an Iraq-AlQaeda link.

So we have to work on a definition of 'blames Saddam for 9-11'. Since the administrations remarks resulted in a large number of Americans making a connection, I'd say "yes".

Here is an article from 2004 Washington Post.

from caption on photo

Why? Where you also in that room? Do you also dispute what Woodward wrote?

On the March 18, 2003, a day before GW2 started, President Bush made the following statement in a letter to Congress:

"Acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

This was a clear attempt to implicate Saddam's Iraq with the attack on 9/11 and to successfully convince 70% of the American public that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 "attacks".

US would never be able to start a new war without draft. 70% of troops in Iraq are already deployed for their third time.

Clarke is a highly partisan player and has been on both sides of the Al Qaeda/Iraq link. He has a side in this game: to show that his work as leader of the US's main counterterrorism group under Clinton was not poor and did not lead to bin Laden finding more resolve to attack the US.

Iraq's link to terror in general is not disputed. They were a terroristic state which harbored terrorists and paid terrorists. The War on Iraq, rightly or wrongly, was undertaken because of 9/11, and is linked to 9/11, but not because Hussein had anything to do with 9/11.

Despite the semantic confusion, Americans understand that. The entire "two-thirds of Americans" poll hysteria is simply that: hysteria over a little semantic confusion.

And wow, it's now turned magically into 70%. In another year it'll be 75%. Meanwhile you guys are cherry-picking items which seem to prove your point but actually don't, ignoring the bulk of what the administration said.

The bulk of what the administration said is because of 9/11, linked to 9/11, but not because Hussein had anything to do with 9/11.

Of course to hear the bulk, you have to listen carefully sometimes, because the administration is incompetent, and unable to get its message across to the public. This is partly because it is hostile to the media and partly because it only cares enough to convince 51% of the public.

I must not have the right kind of glasses to focus on fuzzy terms like "terroristic" . . .

A step further on that. The anti-Bush league is bent on self-destruction again.

It's not enough for Bush to have been wrong about Iraq as a way to advance the GWOT and to improve the nature of the middle east. It's not enough for the adminstration to be incompetent, they have to be evil too. The anti-Bush league is bent on determining that he lied and misled using the words that they stated out in the open and everyone in the world heard and read.

This is self-indulgent, quickly becomes very petty, is mostly about nonsense, and the voters realize that too. Last time the anti-Bush league brought out their own film full of self-indulgent criticism, and the long-term result was Bush was reelected.

It does appear to be identical to the anti-Clinton league's reprehensible behavior -- and probably is brought on by it, a sort of "our guy was a big fat liar so we need to prove your guy is an even bigger fatter liar" thing going on.

One understands why that would come about but one wishes one of the sides would suddenly decide to be an adult.

After all, now that al Qaeda has started to use some of the same talking points, I spot a really massive possible problem if the electorate happens to notice.

There are several witnesses that Bush had uttered these sentences. You are using the same tactics the White House and GOP are always using; in case someone brings the bad news, kill the messenger without asking questions. Next ask, what bad news?
This semantic confusion was willfully and deliberately created by the White House in order to sell the Iraq war. All these stories about contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda all proved bogus.
Facts are facts, Watson.
Aux contraire, the government is very good in innuendo and telling half truths in order to get the American people into a disastrous war. Before the war the Bushites never, ever denied the link 9-11/Saddam although it was all over the news. Only after a congressional investigation Bush and, reluctantly, Cheney had to admit Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
That's because he played the Iraq and war on terror again. Today people finally realise that the Bush guvmint has nothing achieved to their own goals. There has never been any more terror in the world as it is now.

Bush (and you) might read this book how to really fight the war on terror:
What Terrorist Want".

I always said the Bush guvmint is incompetent, lied and mislead the American people. I'm not religious, so I won't say they're evil.

Facts?

Depends on whether you read articles, or only headlines. Depends on whether you apply critical thinking when you read the newspaper.

That USA Today headline: Poll: 70% believe Saddam, 9-11 link

The second paragraph: Sixty-nine percent in a Washington Post poll published Saturday said they believe it is likely the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks carried out by al-Qaeda.

Follow along with me. The headline word 70% was actually 69%. (Next year, it'll be 75%.) The headline word believe was actually the poll result "is likely". Critical thinkers will notice that "is likely" is a good step short of "belief".

The article really fails to mention much about the methodology of the poll, except that 100% of responses were from people willing to answer the phone. Still, one might imagine a poll question: "On whether Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks on 9/11, do you think this is very unlikely, somewhat unlikely, somewhat likely, or very likely?"

In 2003, one could imagine 69% casually answering in one of the two "likely" columns even while having a sophisticated understanding of the matter. But even "very likely" falls short of "belief".

Lastly, this paragraph tells us the writer is flailing to write the most anti-administration article possible: "Veteran pollsters say" followed by a complicated narrative having little to do with the poll. Could the writer be more transparent? Who are these veteran pollsters? It all sounds roughly scientific, as if we are dealing with "facts" here -- but isn't it obviously just a flimsy pretext for the writer to throw out a bunch of conjecture?

Nope. No conflation between 9/11 and SH:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1j_GUvrysA
The point being...the Bush Administration rarely comes right out and says that there's a link between the two , they imply that there's a link.

sorry, headsplice.....

70% say SH was involved, and this being a democracy an'all you just got to accept the fact that he was democratically elected to have been ivolved in the 9/11 plot. You cannot deny the will of the people.

I agree, 70% or 69% makes all the difference. The 75% is all yours, never have said that, so try to keep the discussion clean.

The rest of your argumentation is basically semantics. Fact is that a great majority believed Saddam was involved in 9/11. Fact is also, that right after the event itself less than 5% believed Saddam was involved. 2 years later a great majority believed Saddam was, now ask yourself UT, how can that happen?

What do you think about Woodward's quote?

It's not semantics. It's fact. What you are quoting as fact is precisely not a fact.

I understand more about the culture and what American people believe because I actually live in it. You sit there thousands of miles away enjoying your self-indulgent, Monday morning coach opinion about what the American people believe. It's insulting and borderline bigotry and does not actually solve the world's problems. And I'm not going to sit here and argue with it when facts brought to the table are ignored.

Ya! You and your fancy Valhalla opinions! This is the American intenet, you cheese-eater!

The culture of the American White House is to connect 9/11 with Saddam/Iraq, no more no less. With your apparent unbiassed, unbiggotted understanding you know the great majority of the US population firmly believed in the Saddam/Iraq-9/11 connection.

Cheney repeatedly, even after if was revealed as bogus, referred to meetings of Mohammed Atta in Prague with Saddam's secret service.

More Cheney: "Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact."

Asked about polls showing that most Americans believe that Iraq played a role in the 9/11 attacks, Cheney replied, "I think it's not surprising that people make that connection."

You see UT? The devious connections being made all the time. It reminds me of this advertising trick, showing the product a tenth of a second every time in a movie of TV program. People afterwards knew they had seen it, but never knew why.The internet is one of my sources. News, books, newspapers are some others. Too bad that not many other Americans take the time to read what really happened. Too bad you now revert to name calling and emotional outbursts.

Crikey! Now there's an argumentation! Really dunno what to say, Flint Eastwood.

PS UT, do you also dispute what Woodward wrote? You keep on evasing my question.

Say? No, no, no... Now we arm wrestle!

OK, enough is enough, hand bags at dawn!

I don't know what Woodward wrote, I didn't read his book.

The administration can't communicate its way out of a paper bag, yet they are supposed to have subliminally convinced a nation to go to war. They're at 35% approval ratings yet they are supposed to be so wily as to convince even Democrats through innuendo and suggestion. Junior is the most inarticulate President we've had in memory yet he's supposed to have carefully chosen language to scare people into support. 69% of the people were somehow convinced through a Cheney appearance on Larry King Live when 1% of people watch Larry King Live and 69% would have a hard time remembering the vice-president's first name.

Typical, non-book-reading American! Books aren't just for burning, you know...

I read them all the time... I like the ones with pictures!

I did read Woodward's book on John Belushi. Belushi was fiercely against the Soviets entry into Afghanistan and that's why they had him killed! Bastards!

Damn reds and their samurai chef-hate!

You disputed Richard Clarke, so I assume you read his book?

Apparently you forgot the quote I mentioned or you're too lazy to scroll back. Lemme repeat:
So, do you dispute WW, call him a liar, or do you call Bush a liar?
Incorrect, Belushi was linked to al-Qaeda.