thinkprogress.org — Today on MSNBC, retired General John Batiste — former commander of the First Infantry division in Iraq — said Defense Secretary Rumsfeld "served up our great military a huge bowl of chicken feces, and ever since then, our military and our country have been trying to turn this bowl into chicken salad." (Video)
Aug 25, 2006 View in Crawl 4
sydiggAug 26, 2006
"Takes a lot of balls to make a statement like this when your side has lied relentlessly, attacked our freedoms, looted the treasury, destroyed our good name world wide, launched a war against a country that was no threat to us, constantly violates our own laws and declares essentially that they aren't even bound by law, replaces science with lies, and this list could go on indefinitely. Crawl out of your hole mister if you can, and demand your brain back because clearly it has been replaced by some of that chicken s**t."You know what they say about opinions ...yours are devoid of facts and stink to high heaven.
sydiggAug 26, 2006
"Yeah, Fox News really dropped the ball not finding a general that would say everything was going great in the Middle East. I mean if 1000s of them exist how hard could it be to find 1?"Maybe the 1000 generals are busy doing their jobs and is against their code to speak for or against the current adminstration? Has it ever occurred to you the reason some generals retire or quit in the middle of a war? Think about it. Perhaps maybe they were disgruntled while serving and they dIdn't agree with the leadership ...thus early retirement??? If one believe in the mission, why the hell would one retire early? DOH.
allatti2dAug 26, 2006
texastig...Umm, let's see, that was 4 years ago. Nowadays we realize that the "intelligence" was faulty and/or fabricated by the war-mongers. Strangely, the reasons for starting the war to begin with have gone from a "War On Terror" to "Spreading Democracy."So tell me... why did the Bush Regime continue on after the "intelligence" was proven to be false and/or fabricated? Oh yeah, maybe the Regime had something to do with creating that intelligence...
mabhatterAug 26, 2006
most generals don't want a draft.. the quality of troops would be poor and they dont' need "cannon fodder" they need smart soliders that can handle themselves. Drafts work when it's about both sides killing more people.. we're way past that with Iraq, we aren't loosing enough troops to call it a "war" with a straight face.. it's imperialist occupation.. we've overwhelmingly won the real estate, just not the people. Also, drafted troops would mean removing many of the silly rules our voulanteer army has... the first off would be Gays... there'd be lots of "gays" just to get out. Many other military rules are only constitutional because you voulanteer to serve... if you compelled men to serve those rules couldn't be enforced the way they are now... generals would hate THAT even more.
sydiggAug 26, 2006
"Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are brilliant. I think the news they report, as well as being comedic (and what about Prez Bush isn't comedic or tragic??), is very viable as balancing out the mainstream news being fed to us 24/7.Don't be brushing off Stewart and Colbert as not portraying real news just because they're on the comedy channel. They are far smarter than most of the talking heads I've seen on the tube."Your are done ...see above. Next
dspgeekAug 27, 2006
@texastig: Hillary made that speech because she believed the intelligence provided by the White House; too bad most of the stuff was pulled straight from Dick Cheney's ass instead of being real information. Matter of fact, the CIA wanted the WMD stuff pulled from Colin Powell's speech to the UN because the data was so rotten.
unicornbeauty67Aug 28, 2006
You are absolutely right on!! The incompetence shown by Bush and his cronies is so extreme that not only should the brave men and women of the military refuse to take orders from them, but I don't think any of them are even competent enough to have their orders taken in a restaurant!Funny how Bush and company wormed their way around reinstating the draft. This had been a hot button issue during the last election, the election that John Kerry won by popular demand. During the debates reinstating the draft was mentioned a few times and Bush said that if he were reappointed president by the Supreme Court then he would not begin the draft again....low and behold he kept that one promise. But at what cost? Because he chose to keep that one promise out of all the promises he made, he's had thousands of our very brave National Guardsmen activated and they along with those already active duty, have been sent into a war zone that has quickly turned into a civil war in Iraq! Not only have these men and women been activated but they and the already active duty military personnel have had to do tour after tour after tour in Iraq! He's held these men and women past their 'out date' against their will! This is angering in it's own right, but then there is the fact that he's left us in the USA completely unprotected and vulnerable! We count on the men and women of the National Guard in times of disaster. Had Louisiana not been short on Guardsmen then they would have been there to help in the evacuation of New Orleans and other towns hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina last year, saving lives! The families in the mid-west have been having to endure tornado after tornado without the aid of the National Guardsmen and this is costing lives and money! One of Bush 's famous Bushisms, "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." This is crap! Al Quad is not some rag-tag group, they're organized, they have patience and they plan. By "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here," is not only wearing out the troops who live but it is leaving us completely vulnerable to another attack! We need our troops here to protect us! I COMPLETELY SUPPORT OUR TROOPS! These are the bravest men and women around! But Bush and his cronies should be charged with war crimes for the deaths of these brave people and an additional charge of crimes against humanity should be brought against them!
koosebaneAug 28, 2006
General McCaffrey worked under the Clinton administration for several years. I hardly consider him a Bus**te.His report mentions positive and negative. I consider it balanced.You'll have to do better than parroting the "kool aid" line we've all read on the internet a thousand times to refute what was written in this report.
realdccAug 29, 2006
(1) Source?(2) With the military so stretched, using up resources and consuming training material on the field of battle, could there have been some underlying reason for a readiness problem? In early August, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged at a news conference in the Pentagon that the US military has reported a shortage of equipment and a declining capacity of combat readiness after a prolonged war engagement. There are other indicators - <a class="user" href="http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,107179,00.html">http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,107179,00.html</a> :: "Up to two-thirds of the Army's combat brigades are not ready for wartime missions, largely because they are hampered by equipment shortfalls"<a class="user" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5640843">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5640843</a> :: "The war in Iraq is taking a toll on the Army National Guard's readiness for future combat duty. The plight of the Arkansas National Guard is a case in point: It was forced to leave millions of dollars of equipment in Iraq."
duffy40Aug 31, 2006
I was in the 101st at the time, I know people who were in the 1st, the whole freeking army knows what happened with batiste. He was a Political general and was known as a political general for a long time. Think Al Haig. I don't need to research the internet to find out that for along time now the 1st Infantry has been nicknamed the worst infantry division. and there are no bad soldiers, only bad generals. and up to 2/3rd of the brigades have been in that shape for 20 years. Who you going to blame that on
majorityrulesSep 2, 2006
@unicornbeauty67>admitted that Iraq doesn't have any 'weapons of mass destruction,' so if you have knowledge that the rest of us don't, please do share************Heard of Persian Gulf Syndrome? Are you one of those people who believe it was sunshine exposed Diet Coke that gave us PGS.. or perhaps bug spray? Please say no. To answer two of your questions at once, I was there for a long time during the first war, and yes I saw them. Even your French butt buddies say that they had WMDs, but don't know where they are now. Smell some coffee with me for a sec; Iran and Syria.*********>Why don't you tell the parents, siblings, spouses and children of our dead veterans that we get to live as a result of this war because their dead family members might just disagree with that ignorant statement of yours!*********I know a lot of them and they, without exception, support the war. These are heroes and families of heroes. It's people like you who protest at the funerals of servicemen and pretend to yourself that you're doing their families a favor. They abhor you and everyone like you. You spit on the graves of anyone who shed blood to make sure you don't have to. I sit here a disabled vet, in total agreement with our current administration's policy to wage war on terrorism. Thank God we have a military base of operations (Iraq) right in the center of terror central. If Carrie were in office we'd have bases here in the states to deal with the problem, oh.. and roadside bombs here in the states.We've lost around 3000 people in over 3 years, some of them I fought and bled with. That's less people than the first day of most wars. You remain safe because of these brave men and women and cry about their gift to you as if you have sacrificed ANYTHING in your entire life. You are a self serving, ignorant, spoon-fed, pussy.Was that politically incorrect or too intolerant? LEAVE and go to France.. plenty of anal sex and relative truth there for you and all of your liberal friends.