Why was Reagan better than Bush?

[Ted Striker]

Yeah, like adding more troops when they are needed.

Oh wait....

Lugar just scolded them this week for being incompetent when they FINALLY adjusted funds to put more towards security. It was apparent to many of the Congressional experts that this should have been done months ago, and Lugar has been saying this since the beginning but nobdoy has listened to him until now.

[Drake Tungsten]

Yeah, like adding more troops when they are needed.

Oh wait....

That's your comeback? Lame, dawg...

The numerous changes in the plan for forming the provisional government and then electing a national government is enough to destroy your point. We don't even need to go into the shifting tactics used in fighting the insurgency.

[Ted Striker]

Those are all stop gap measures that shouldn't have had to have been desparatley RESORTED to if he had solved the overall picture and upped the troop level like everyone was telling him to.

Even now there is no talk about expanding the military to meet its objective.

Next we also have a nice failed example of a "change in plan" when the Marines were ordered into Fallujah and then pulled back by the administration. The Marine commander in charge along with McCain both said it was a totally stupid move.

Now, do you want to try and justify why the administration has only spent 1 billion of the 18 billion that Congress gave them to reconstruct Iraq?

Face it, he's trying to do it on the cheap and it's not working.

For all this talk about his great resolve, this is the biggest half assed effort I think I've ever seen.

[Drake Tungsten]

Those are all stop gap measures that shouldn't have had to have been desparatley RESORTED to if he had solved the overall picture and upped the troop level like everyone was telling him to.

Even now there is no talk about expanding the military to meet its objective.

Next we also have a nice failed example of a "change in plan" when the Marines were ordered into Fallujah and then pulled back by the administration. The Marine commander in charge along with McCain both said it was a totally stupid move.

So you saying that the Bush administration has changed its plans, correct?

Now, do you want to try and justify why the administration has only spent 1 billion of the 18 billion that Congress gave them to reconstruct Iraq?

Hell if I know why; I'm not an expect on the reconstruction efforts in Iraq. I can imagine reasons, but I'd just be talking out my ass if I presented them as anything other than idle speculation.

[Ted Striker]

So you saying that the Bush administration has changed its plans, correct?

It's kinda like when you're in the car and the guy driving doesn't know where he's going and everyone is telling him to stop and ask for directions, but he is so proud that he has to drive around for another 2 hours, thouroghlly exhausting everyone until finally he convinces himself to ask for the damn directions. He should have mapped out the route in the first place.

[Drake Tungsten]

BTW, sorry playa. Again...

Spears surprises family with wedding

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Oops! Pop star Britney Spears did it again and got married for the second time this year -- this time to dancer Kevin Federline in a low-key ceremony Saturday at a private home in Studio City, California, a record-label executive confirmed on Sunday.

"Yes, I can tell you the happy couple got married yesterday," David Frostman of Jive Records, a British spokesman for Spears, told Reuters in London. Frostman declined to provide further details.

Spears, 22, and Federline, 26, surprised their parents with the unexpected ceremony which took place about 7:30 p.m. at the home of a tailor who had custom-made the tuxedos for the groom and other men in the wedding, according to a report on the Web site of Star magazine.

A publicist for the syndicated entertainment television show "Access Hollywood," which also carried a report of the nuptials on its Web site, said that show organizers were with Spears' mother, Lynn, and her younger sister, Jamie Lynn on Saturday until 5 p.m. as they got ready for what they believed to be an "engagement dinner."

"Jamie Lynn died her hair back to its original color of brown and told the show that she couldn't wait to surprise her sister with the new look at the 'dinner,' " the report on the Access Hollywood Web site stated.

Star reported that only 20 immediate family members attended the ceremony. Britney reportedly wore a strapless white dress designed by Monique L'Huillier, with a long veil and tiara, and she carried a bouquet of pink and white roses, the tabloid said. Five bridesmaids and a maid of honor all reportedly wore burgundy and carried red roses.

The couple exchanged rings and danced to Journey's "Lights," the tabloid reported. Guests reportedly dined on chicken fingers, crab cakes, ribs and Waldorf salad.

U.S.-based publicists for the couple were not immediately available to comment on Sunday.

On January 2 of this year Spears married high school sweetheart Jason Alexander in an impromptu ceremony in Las Vegas. But the ill-fated marriage only lasted three days and was annulled on January 5.

Spears and Federline announced their engagement in June. Federline has two children with his former girlfriend, actress Shar Jackson.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/19/spears.marriage.reut/index.html

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, Mondale was a Northern liberal who said he would raise taxes as the economy was just coming out of a recession. Kerry is a Northern liberal who said he would raise taxes as the economy is coming out of a long "recession." Does that make Kerry incompetent?

Kerry is also saying he would lower taxes on those in the middle and lower brackets. His raising taxes would only apply to the top percentage. Mondales was an across the board tax hike, affecting the middle class as much as the rich.

[Drake Tungsten]

He should have mapped out the route in the first place.

They did. Unfortunately, their first plan failed quickly and they had to adjust. That's to be expected, though. This is a massive rebuilding and reform effort in a former totalitarian state, not a Sunday drive. Anyone who thinks they could have planned this out perfectly beforehand is deluding themselves.

[Ted Striker]

Not really.

Again, Lugar and his entire committee has been scolding them from the start. Lugar (a Republican, by the way) has been at this game alot longer than Bush and is the best expert on foreign policy alive today.

Course all of those generals asking for 400,000 guys must have been deluding themselves also.

[Drake Tungsten]

Tommy Franks said Bush had a plan for the postwar. What does he know, though?

[Ted Striker]

As for not having a plan:

"I am very hopeful that the president and his administration will articulate precisely what is going to happen as much as they can, day by day, as opposed to a generalization," he said.

It's not the first time that Lugar has criticized Bush, a fellow Republican. In 2003, Lugar and Sen. Joseph Biden, the committee's top Democrat, warned that the Bush administration had not given enough consideration to what would happen in Iraq after the fighting ended.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-05-24-lugar-bush_x.htm

It's clear they had no plan whatsoever.

[Drake Tungsten]

See above...

[Ted Striker]

Franks and his warplanners expected 150,000 additional international troops to help with peacekeeping operations. They never materialized.

Powell criticized Franks' warplans for Iraq, drawing his ire.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-30-2004/0002222112&EDATE=

[Ted Striker]

Rumsfeld and his people acting like dumbasses (normal behavior):

But it is Franks' struggles to run the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with Rumsfeld breathing down his back that drives the narrative. At one point, Franks even threatened to quit.

"Since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, we'd become accustomed to the demands of Secretary Rumsfeld," Franks writes. "But now even my industrious planners found that the daily barrage of tasks and questions was beginning to border on harassment."

Franks also is unsparing in his criticism of Pentagon officials such as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, whom he derides as the "dumbest ... guy on the planet."

Bush and Rumsfeld ignoring Franks and Colin Powell's advice:

The U.S. General who routed Saddam Hussein's army in three weeks warned before the invasion that a quick victory could lead to a "catastrophic success" because they were not prepared for postwar anarchy in Iraq.
"We will have to stand up a new Iraqi army, and create a constabulary that includes a representative tribal, religious, and ethnic mix," retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks writes in a new autobiography recounting the tense days before the war. "It will take time."

President Bush and Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld agreed, but Franks did not get the "open checkbook" he needed to put Saddam's soldiers on the new Iraqi government's payroll.

"I would continue to argue that there could be no security without civic action," Franks writes in "American Soldier." "Penny wise will surely be pound foolish, I thought. We will spend dollars today ... or blood tomorrow."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/217656p-187192c.html

[Drake Tungsten]

What does that prove, exactly? Don't really see what it has to do with Bush's plan for postwar Iraq (or lack thereof)...

edit: The first post...