Bu$h Ordered Attack on Fallujah in April - result: Far Graver than Vietnam

"Far Graver Than Vietnam "

"Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale "

Guardian Unlimited
By: Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday September 16, 2004

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1305441,00.html

. . .

After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base..

. . .

General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

. . .

General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."

. . .

General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."



So this whole mess probably really IS Bush's fault...

If he thinks this war is like Vietnam he is crazy.

I think he means that there is the potential possiblity that this could turn into something worse than vietnam. We might just be beginning to see it if that path does continue. But, yeah, it's nothing like vietnam ... yet.

The total Iraq won't go much higher than 1,000,000.

There is no draft, not kids forced to fight in a war they don't believe in. (unless you count 'retired' national guardsmen and reservists)

Unfortunately, the US is still killing civilians and counting them as soldiers, which is a major war crime, as well as a crime against humanity.

I think you should change the thread title to "One guy thinks Bush ordered attack on Fallujah. He doesn't know for sure, and likes to speculate too much, after talking to one other general who apparently ranks higher and doesn't have to tell him jack about who gave the order." At least that was the impression the article gave me. The guy didn't even state whether he knew for absolute certainity, he said "I think..."

The British press seems like it would be a tahter rough source for American military intelligence, not to mention they are almost completely biased against the war.

Yeah, that's not even close to a fact, just one guy's weakly stated opinion.

[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']I think you should change the thread title to "One guy thinks Bush ordered attack on Fallujah. [/quote]

Actually, I was trying to do that when I created the thread, but ran out of room in the title line.

[quote name='Backlash']Yeah, that's not even close to a fact, just one guy's weakly stated opinion.[/quote]

You mean like those Swift Boat Liars?

Well, they were actually lying. So it's a little different.

.... far worse than vietnam? ...wtf..

I think that people who are saying comparisons to Vietnam are inappropriate are right. Sort of. The problem is that though the US has lost far fewer people on the ground in Iraq, than in Vietnam, the potential consequences of this action are a *lot* more dire than the consequences of Vietnam. Bush has successfully positioned this as us vs. the Islamic World, and has basically worked toward creating an anti-US pan-Islamic cause.

Just like bin Laden's been trying to do for years.

The point being, the instability being created in Iraq could have much more dire consequences than Vietnam. Of course, I wasn't alive during that time, so it's hard for me to say how people perceived it at the time. But fundamentally, failure in Iraq, which we're really quite close to at this point, could be a tremendous disaster, the likes of which we've never seen.

seppo

Odom makes some very good points about the shortcomings and pitfalls of our mission there, but the author of the piece screams bias : Sydney Blumenthal. How could this guy possibly be considered a reporter in ANY sense of the word? If this article had been penned by James Carville, I think we'd all know to take it with a grain of salt.