Rumsfeld Tells Troops They'll Win Iraq War

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, serving Christmas Eve dinner to U.S. soldiers, told the troops they will persevere and win the war in Iraq, just as generations of Americans prevailed in past conflicts. Rumsfeld told the troops the war that has cost more than 2,150 U.S. lives was a ''test of wills.'' But he added that previous generations of U.S. soldiers faced similar tests and won. Over the roar of helicopters, the secretary said most Iraqis supported the fight for democracy.

''In this fight, the vast majority of Iraqis stand on the side of freedom,'' he said. As U.S. military forces begin to scale back in Iraq, their growing focus on training over combat could lead to a decline in casualties just as the American political season begins to heat up. Rumsfeld's war zone announcement canceling the deployment to Iraq of two brigades is just the beginning of a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces, according to military commanders.


Rumsfeld, who spent the night at the Camp Victory military installation in Baghdad, had breakfast Saturday with a group of American military intelligence collectors and analysts. Rumsfeld has been trying to encourage efforts to tie the U.S. intelligence effort more closely to military and police operations. That meeting was closed to reporters. Before flying from Baghdad to Balad, north of the Iraqi capital, Rumsfeld was given a classified briefing on the military's efforts to minimize the danger to troops from roadside bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. He also saw a display of IED detection and destruction devices, as well as vehicles with modifications designed to protect soldiers from the explosions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051224/ap_on_re_mi_ea/rumsfeld_53

What an evil troll of a man

...he is still gonna get older and older, and eventually he will croak. All of his words, and all of his bullshit, will not stay the hand of time. And the only way he can take his ill-gotten riches with him is to convert it all to cash, burn it, and bury the ashes with him...

Sick bastard. He sacrifices our youth, for what??? I wonder what part of "PEACE ON EARTH" he fails to comprehend?

:applause:


Note: He's already dead. It's just that the worms haven't eaten his carapace yet.

That is Vidkun Quisling on his left.

We're seeing Tuchman's folly theory on full display: losing policy + desperate tunnel vision = deeper disaster. It's a feedback loop for failure.

The best course is to leave immediately, and I mean yesterday. Get out. Throw a big parade. Print up lots of buttons and banners for the "These Colors Don't Run" set. Enlist the lickspittle press corps to tell the sheeple it was a marvelous success.

Just get the fuck out before more lives are ruined.

last night they were focusing of the "unannounced" aspect of his visit and how much bullshit this is if our representatives can't go to iraq without being killed.

And the kicker is that Gwen Ifill made that statement. She usually is kissing RW ass.

That fact ought to be brought up whenever a freeper brings up the "progress being made" meme.

:grr:

I'm still waiting to find out what that means.

like to see that one.

"told the troops they will persevere and win the war in Iraq, just as generations of Americans prevailed in past conflicts."

Wow, and here I always thought we didn't win in Vietnam. Or maybe, the bushies have rewritten history.

That they are now fighting for an Islamic theocracy allied with Iran?

Ayatollah Khomeini is laughing from his grave.

Both real "wars". That's an 0-1-1 record of "perseverance."

Grenada? Gimme a break. Not a "war."

Iraq I? Call that whatever but while it "liberated" Kuwait it did not "defeat" Iraq.

Toss in WWI and WWII, both collective efforts of many nations, and the record is 2-1-1 not exactly a champion sort of performance.

Rummy will be first up against the wall. So of course, he'll say anything to them now.

"In this fight, the vast majority of Iraqis stand on the side of freedom"

If by "freedom" one means "self determination" and freedom from foreign occupation, I think Rummy is better describing the insurgency, than any handjob puppet government that he may have temporarily engineered.

had permission to speak their minds.

Goering predicted victory almost to the very end!

They always come back to it. Losing is a matter of losing one's nerve/will; winning is a matter of mental domination to make the terrorists simply decide not to use terror. Yes, I understand this is "war is politics by other means", a reverse Clauswitz concept. However, it's just as naive to me as the idea that solving poverty will destroy all incentive for conflict. There is such a thing as battlefield reality, and matters of men, materiel, and the physical capability to wage war. That physical capability is being drawn down faster than the US' will to fight. Rumsfeld basically doesn't care; in public, at least.

He can lie to us all he wants but, if he's lying to himself, too, the future may not be so bright.

Don't expect the neocon wealthy to sacrifice anything.

From my commentary today "As Predicted" at www.Earthside.com:

All of the pieces are falling into place for the humiliation of U.S. troops in Iraq and Bush's big occupation plans. Bush, Cheney, the neocons and radical Republicans have been out manuevered ... and defeated. While the resistence causes U.S. military forces to respond by bludgeoning the Sunni civilian population, creating new insugents -- the Shi'ites have taken over the Iraqi army and used the "historic elections" to beat Bush and the Americans at the polls. In other words, it is starting to look like a total rout.

But, as we have often said, this should come as no surprise. A war encouraged, started and prosecuted based on lies, lies, lies ... will always have a bad end.

With the revelations of Bush's illegal spying on U.S. citizens, we have an opening to begin the ultimate accountablity process here in our country. The impeachment effort needs at least your verbal support -- talk to your friends and family, to your Senators and Congress members. The beginning of the end of the worst presidency in American history would be the best Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Solstice present you could ever give yourself and your nation.

How can we fighht an enemy we can't see?

How is this similar to past conflicts? We're not fighting an army, we're fighting a nation's citizens. It's not like the terrorists would or could sign some sort of peace accord. It's not like we can force political success or agreement in Iraq.

This is the guy who wants to rule the world:

"Rumsfeld has been trying to encourage efforts to tie the U.S. intelligence effort more closely to military and police operations."

He's right,we won the war. It's the peace we're losing.

I'm sure he was letting the troops know that in the last defense appropriations bill, Congress has agreed to reimburse their families up to $1100 each for the body armor they bought. Of course, I thought that in the $450 billion or so that the Pentagon got this past year, the Army would have supplied body armor. Apparently not.

...of law enforcement to embrace the necessity of injustice, so with foreign affairs he turns from dealing with emergencies that may arise from the state minding its own business to those of a state with imperial ambition necessarily seeks out or creates to serve as pretexts....

...Government should contrive, then, to let its exactions and especially its punishments seem to come from the people being mulcted and punished, at their behest or with their consent.

Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli's Virtue

Remember that 9/11 changed everything and we are now in an Orwellian world.

Therefore, when we lose in Iraq, we will have won. See how simple it is?

:sarcasm:

‘Freedom prevails,’ Rumsfeld tells U.S. troops

Defense secretary visits American soldiers in Iraq, serves Christmas dinner

Updated: 11:33 a.m. ET Dec. 24, 2005

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MOSUL, Iraq - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrapped up his visit to Iraq at a Christmas Eve dinner with American troops in Mosul, the country’s second largest city and one of its most volatile.

Escorted by Apache helicopters to the U.S. regional headquarters in Mosul, Rumsfeld lent a hand serving troops a dinner of lobster tails and steak.

Addressing troops later, he reflected on a year in which, he said, Iraqi security forces had assumed greater responsibilities.

“When you read things and hear things that express doubt about the future here in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, know that there have always been doubts expressed, there have always been those who have suggested that the cause could not be successful, that the cause would be lost,” he said.

“In fact it was the people who persevered that proved them wrong. The great sweep of human history is for freedom and we’re on the side of freedom.

“In the struggle between freedom and tyranny, freedom ultimately prevails.”


snip


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10546265/

If words could win a war...sigh. The sadness of it all.

Is this stupid fuck on drugs or something?