Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone

[richlevy]

Well, the war critics among the active military seem to be at a disadvantage.

The last words of the op-ed written by seven soldiers serving in Iraq were courageous and poignant.
"We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."
Sadly, that mission came to an end for two of those soldiers just three weeks after that editorial was published in The New York Times.
Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, and Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, two of the authors of "The War as We Saw It," were killed in Baghdad Monday when the five-ton cargo truck they were riding in overturned.
Another of the authors, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Murphy, was shot in the head while the group was working on the article.
The controversial Aug. 19 editorial gained international attention for its skepticism about the American war effort: "To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched."
The news of their deaths arrived as Gen. David Petraeus was finishing his testimony to Congress about the progress of the military's surge in Iraq.

[richlevy]

I try not to post 2 in a row, but it has been 3 days since my last post on this thread.

Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush And Republicans

In a withering critique of his fellow Republicans, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says in his memoir that the party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles.
In "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," published by Penguin Press, Mr. Greenspan criticizes both congressional Republicans and President George W. Bush for abandoning fiscal discipline.
The book is scheduled for public release Monday. The Wall Street

Mr. Greenspan writes that when President Bush chose Dick Cheney as vice president and Paul O'Neill as treasury secretary -- both colleagues from the Gerald Ford administration, during which Mr. Greenspan was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers -- he "indulged in a bit of fantasy" that this would be the government that would have resulted if Mr. Ford hadn't lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976. But Mr. Greenspan discovered that in the Bush White House, the "political operation was far more dominant" than in Mr. Ford's. "Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences," he writes.

There are a lot of critics of Mr. Greenspan. He had a very important, very high profile job for a very long time. Economics is not a 'hard' science, so his decisions will be second guessed for a very long time.

He does, however, have a reputation for intelligence, honesty, and usually tactful silence. He spent decades trying to say as little as possible in public, knowing the consequences. Now that he is 'out of uniform' and being paid a healthy book advance, he is starting to talk.

A lot of respected former military and intelligence people have come out against Bush's military and intelligence decisions. Now here is one of the most well known economic policy makers in US history saying what many of us already guessed, that there was no long term thinking in the White House when it came to fiscal policy.

This should get interesting. I almost pity the talking head that tries to debate Greenspan.

[tw]

Who do you work for - the people or for a political agenda? These questions are again being asked in Washington as more people in government are found working for a political agenda rather than for America. From the Washington Post of 19 Sept 2007:

State IG Accused of Averting Probes
Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged yesterday in a 13-page letter.

The letter, addressed to Krongard and signed by the committee chairman, Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who released it yesterday, said the allegations were based on the testimony of seven current and former officials on Krongard's staff, including two former senior officials who allowed their names to be used, and private e-mail exchanges obtained by the committee. The letter said the allegations concerned all three major divisions of Krongard's office -- investigations, audits and inspections.

Two former senior officials who allowed their names to be used.

Waxman accused Howard Krongard of:
_ Refusing to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts.
_ Preventing his investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department probe into waste and fraud in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
_ Using "highly irregular" procedures to personally exonerate the embassy's prime contractor of labor abuses.
_ Interfering in the investigation of a close friend of former White House adviser Karl Rove.
_ Censoring reports on embassies to prevent full disclosure to Congress.
_ Refusing to publish critical audits of State's financial statements.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush And Republicans

There are a lot of critics of Mr. Greenspan. He had a very important, very high profile job for a very long time. Economics is not a 'hard' science, so his decisions will be second guessed for a very long time.

He does, however, have a reputation for intelligence, honesty, and usually tactful silence. He spent decades trying to say as little as possible in public, knowing the consequences. Now that he is 'out of uniform' and being paid a healthy book advance, he is starting to talk.

A lot of respected former military and intelligence people have come out against Bush's military and intelligence decisions. Now here is one of the most well known economic policy makers in US history saying what many of us already guessed, that there was no long term thinking in the White House when it came to fiscal policy.

This should get interesting. I almost pity the talking head that tries to debate Greenspan.

This is probably the only book of it's genre that I think I could actually read easily. Greenspan has been around for so long. He's a smart man but an honest one too. Nice piece of history I suppose.

[tw]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

This is probably the only book of it's genre that I think I could actually read easily. Greenspan has been around for so long. He's a smart man but an honest one too. Nice piece of history I suppose.

Read Paul O'Neill's story - George Jr's Secretary of the Treasury. "The Price of Loyalty" was published in 2004. It demonstrates how incompetent the George Jr administration was so early on. Worse, it demonstrates how incompetent a president can be and so many citizens will just deny. Appreciate from that book - as also demonstrated by the Pentagon Papers - how so many will see facts and yet all but deny those facts.

Paul O’Neill was from the same circle of Republicans as Greenspan. The difference – it was not safe for Paul O’Neill to be so honest so early.