Up to 7 Generals calling for Red Rummy ouster

[lonestarnot]

Keef tells it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aArn_6Xuk0A8&refer=us

[daveskilt]

1. what about wes clark? does he count?

[Gloria]

2. Randi Rhodes ignored him today, too....but Al Franken mentioned him but

with a caveat...that he really DIDN'T want to include him on the list because of his political activity....Clark is now a politician....I think Franken was intimating that the message was purer without "partisanship" and since Clark ran and is politically active, he's not in the same situation as the others.

Makes sense...but he also said Clark had "joined the others" when we all know that Clark led the way long ago on this....

[MsUnderstood]

4. heard the rw talking points yet?

Local rw radio show had 3 things to say:

1) These generals are politically ambitious so we can't believe them
2) The "book deals" these guys have should have us worried that they can't tell the truth
3) if the generals really did have a problem why didn't they speak up months ago and save theoretically all the soldier's lives.

I should be shocked by the ability for the right wing to constantly talk about supporing the troops while they continue to burn down the soldiers.

[lonestarnot]

8. I think they are talking to dead air.

[tabasco]

16. They probably did speak out earlier!

But when you are told that the decision has been made and given a legal order, it's time to shut up and do your best to accomplish the mission. You can't speak out until you become a civilian, which these guy are now.

The corporate cabal has lied to the people and treated the military like loyal, expendable slaves. Now they are reaping the whirlwind of all their arrogance and corruption!

[Jack from Charlotte]

18. Shinseki.... DID.... speak out and was promptly fired. Zinni mentioned...

this yesterday in an interview. Said Rum-fer-brains didn't even attend Shenseki's retirement ceremony which is unprecedented for a Four Star. Zinni said he'd never forgive Rum for that.

[FrenchieCat]

7. Well some "journalists" got it right!

Looks like journalists outside of the U.S. recognize Wes Clark and his stance....of long ago!

Plus the headlines are so much betta' in other countries!

POLITICS-US:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32918
Rumsfeld's Fall Drags Hawks in Its Wake
Analysis by Jim Lobe
Snip
The current round of attacks on Rumsfeld began last month when ret. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who had been charge of training the Iraqi military during the first year of the U.S. occupation, criticised his former boss in a New York Times column as "incompetent strategically, operationally, and tactically".

His blast was followed last week by an anguished column in Time magazine by ret. Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, the top operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff before the invasion, who, after criticising his own failure to speak out in advance against the attack on Iraq, alluded to the lack of firsthand war experience of many of the hawks.

"My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions -- or bury the results," he wrote.

Other retired generals, including Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the First Infantry Division in Iraq and served top military aide to former Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Maj. Gen. Charles Swannock, Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq; Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs, weighed in with their own critiques, as did two retired generals -- the former chief of the U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni; and former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark -- who had called on Rumsfeld to step down as long as two years ago.

[lonestarnot]

9. Wooodamnhoooo on them!

[Clark2008]

13. Amazing that one STILL has to read foreign newspapers

to get an accurate picture of what's going on inside the United States.

Just this minor point (well, not so minor to us Clark fans) in a story adds so much more to the credibility of the piece as a whole, doesn't it?

[lonestarnot]

3. He was first! Numero Uno!

So does that make eight now?

[daveskilt]

5. what is significant is WHO these generals are

most "retired" generals are colonels who got the golden handshake pention promotion - heres your star now shuffle off into retirement please.

these are big time generals who had command.

the white house spins it as 7 out of 8000. it is 100% of the retired generals who had command in iraq and saw firsthand what a pigs ear rummy made of that. It is zinni the head of central command, clark the supreme allied commander of NATO. this is not my wifes uncle who was an army veterinarian and got a star as he retired, this is not some 105 year old WWII general who thinks he is still in Belgium. These are THE most competent and qualified individuals to make the judgement that Rummy is not fit to lead the US military.

[lonestarnot]

6. Do they issue flak jacket helmets, face masks, entire body armor these

days to people sneak visiting in Iraq? Just wondering if the yellow ass will now have the courage to sneak in again any time soon. He may find himself in friendly fire.

[Gloria]

11. Franken's segment included talking to Norm Ornstein...

(conservative) who actually commented on how important these generals were...that it really was big stuff. He basically countered the spin trying to minimize their actions...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. Ornstein is at the American Enterprise Institute, but he certainly doesn't

seem to come across as "conservative" to me, at least not so far as being on the Republican team.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. I don't know when your wife's uncle got a star as he retired, but having

seen scores of physicians retire at 0-6 (COL or CAPT), I've never seen ONE get a "star on the way to retirement" unless they made flag rank as a part of BEING a flag officer for at least a few years on active duty.

[daveskilt]

17. really? I know a lot of folks that got the star retiring from active duty

[longship]

10. Up to 1,000 generals calling for Rummy to resign.

What? There's not 1,000?

Well, I didn't say there were 1,000. I said there were *up* *to* 1,000.

The art of spin, people. The art of spin.

[janx]

15. Man, this is really heating up!

It seems more and more of them are speaking out.