"DSK" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:
Hehehe. I suppose that same "careful intel work" led Clinton's military
chief of staff to testify in 1998 that N. Korea did not have an active
ballistic missile program...one week before they launched a Taepodong-1
missile over Japan and into the Pacific.

Well, everybody has their off days.


That's hardly an "off day". Intel said that N. Korea didn't have an active
ballistic missile program...and they couldn't have been more wrong. That
intel was provided by the same folks that you cited for your "proof" that N.
Korea didn't have an active nuclear program under Clinton. If they were
wrong on the missile issue, then they were most likely wrong on the nuke
issue. Of course, guys like you wouldn't believe it until a mushroom cloud
appeared. So when everybody started screaming and questioning about how
there could be such a huge failure in intel, you'd shrug and say "well,
everybody has their off days"?



Like Rummy firing all the generals who said we need more force to occupy
Iraq, and that it would take years to pacify. Or Cheney's announcement
that the Iraq insurgency is on it's last legs.

I think a more apt analogy is how the same folks providing the poor intel to
Clinton also provided poor intel to Bush on the WMD issue in Iraq. "Oh
well, everybody has an off day".


Radiation is hard to hide. Spotting radioactive tailings is one of the few
things satellite spy-eyes are very good at.

You've been reading too much Popular Science. If it were so easy to spot
"radioactive tailings" on a bomb that's never been detonated, then why all
the fear about a suitcase nuke being smuggled into out ports? Afterall, the
satellite spy-eyes are very good at spotting them.



Most sources show that the N. Koreans already had a nuke or two in the
early to mid 90's.

Really? Like what soources?

How about Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin...in a letter they wrote to the
Washington Post:

"Porter Goss, the director of central intelligence, has reported to the
Senate Armed Services Committee (on March 17) that the number of nuclear
weapons North Korea possesses has increased and that there is now "a range"
of estimates above the one or two weapons that may have been produced in the
early 1990s. "

One or two produced in the early 1990's! And we're supposed to believe that
Kim agreed to quit building them because Clinton handed him $4 billion and
asked "please"?

Hillary wrote this piece to pre-empt the almost certain criticism that her
husband will face should a N. Korean nuke ever hit US soil. But in the
article, she admitted that they already had developed nukes under her
husband's watch.

And if that's true, then it's Reagan and Bush Sr's fault, not Clintons.


Whoa. Wait a minute. If N. Korea developed a nuke in the early 90's during
Clinton's watch, and that was Reagan and Bush Sr.'s fault, then why aren't
nukes built in 2003 (Bush's first term) the fault of the administration that
preceded Bush? You're being quite the hypocrite here, Doug.

Yes. We were disgraced and withdrew...

Disgraced? Why?


Because our forces weren't given the chance to finish what they started.
Their CIC pulled them out too soon.

WHAT?!? The only outcome of not pulling out would have been a massacre.

Yes...a massacre of the Somali warlords and their followers. We could have
and should have gone in with armored vehicles and decimated the population
in that region.



The premature withdrawal was a disgrace.


And you say you "support our troops?" Nice.


Our "troops" didn't make the decision to pull out.

No, the theatre command did.

The commander pulled back, not out. Clinton totally withdrew the troops
from the region.

Do you have the slightest clue about C-3 and TO? Don't feel bad, most
civilians don't. But you're criticising actions you don't have the foggiest
idea about.

Let me ask you this:
If the Chief of Staff at Defense Headquarters decides to pull completely out
of Iraq tomorrow, could he do it without the President's consent? No.



To leave those troops in Mogadishu longer would have meant more deaths,
possibly a total loss... a military castrophe unparalleled even by Pearl
Harbor... great leadership, eh NOBBY?


Those troops weren't in danger once they pulled back. They were in danger
because we sent light infantry into a enemy city that had heavily prepared
positions. There was no need to leave the country to protect the men who
made it out of Mogadishu. We could have gone back in with a more
heavily-armored mechanized infantry force and probably not lost a single
man.






... and consequently appeared impotent and weak to the Muslim world.

We've appeared impotent & weak, militarily, to most of the world since
Viet Nam. Appearances aren't everything, fortunately.


Nawww. I think the rest of the World stood up and took notice how
quickly and easily we destroyed the World's 4th largest army in 1991.

And left a brutal, genocidal, terrorist-harboring dictator in place.


That what a huge policy mistake on Bush's part. Of course, the people who
criticized Bush Sr. for stopping short of Baghdad are the same people who
are now criticizing his son for going there.




If the fundamentalist Muslim really thinks we're so weak, why don't they
attack us with military force against military force?


They meant "weak" in the sense that we don't have the guts to finish what
we start once the casualties start to mount.


Casualties are not the goal of a military operation, unless you're a
worshipper of Stonewall Jackson.

Inflicting casualties is most certainly a goal of any force that squares off
against the US military. Here's why, in the words of Dr. Kenneth Allard,
Colonel, US Army (Ret.), and author of "Somalia Operations: Lessons
Learned""



"One of the things that the Taliban have been absolutely blunt in saying to
us was that they, at least, had absorbed the lessons from Somalia. They
understood that the United States lacked staying power. They understood that
the United States substituted technology for courage. They were the ones
that understood how the United States would simply fire Cruise missiles and
then declare a press conference, but when push came to shove, would cut and
run.

The great tragedy of Somalia is that it was, given what those Rangers did,
one of the great feats of arms in American military history. Two
congressional Medals of Honor that were given out as a result of that --
guys that gave their lives, laid down their lives willingly; 82 more that
were wounded.

That is a classic definition of American courage. It is a classic example of
what the American fighting man is capable of doing. Because we withdrew
those troops under pressure, the lesson that was given to the rest of the
world was that the United States can be had. All you need to do is to shed
their blood. And if you do that, they'll cut and run."



(bin Laden, himself, confirmed that this was the case in the 1996 Fatwah
that I've reposted here several times).