A brief history of US Intelligence Failures

[alaric]

In the wake of Bush's recent anouncement http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8569843%255E1702,00.html all but admitting that he was wrong about Iraq having WMDs after all...

This interesting article http://slate.msn.com//Default.aspx?id=2094833&MSID=936B8F1ACC754F51A533EB198E276137 outlines some of the other points in our nations history where intelligence failures have lead to wars and the loss of our brave soldiers lives.

Oh, and at last count, this latest intelligence failure has cost 524 American Servicemen their lives so far. Click here for the complete list of the heros who died because of Bush's lies. http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor2.html

Which brings up another interesting question: Why don't we hear the names of those who've made the ultimate sacrafice for our country? Obviously next of kin should be notified first, but don't we have a duty to honor our war dead? Or maybe the bush administration knows that it's much easier for a population to stomach an abstract number than it is to hear the individual names of those who die?

[Mr. Lothario]

     I hate those lists. I always search them for my Army buddy's name, thinking maybe this is the time I'll find it. It's not a fun time.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Personally, I'm against lists like that being published.  Yes, family should be notified first, and then it will be in the local papers, if the family chooses.  But leave it up to the families.  I don't need to see their names to honor them.  We don't need to keep the lists of the dead.  It just reminds me of the opening of the movie Taps, where they read the names of all the fallen in mass every Sunday.  I don't really like the message I get from that.

[Louie Anderson]

I want to see a picture of you Ghostsniper.

[Louie Anderson]

Reveal yourself!

[Brain]

GS, calm down

[BTs_GhostSniper]

I want to see a picture of you Ghostsniper.

This picture of me on PlanetGameRanger is from my last year in the military....circa 1998.

http://www.planetgameranger.com/129827

[Ace]

And now you want the names of the war dead.  You want to say they died because of Bush's lies.  Which means, in effect, you want to use American soldier's deaths for political purposes.  Well, being someone who has served in the military of my country, and being someone who has many friends who have died in the last two years in service to my country, all I can say is that you have no honor.  You have no integrity.  You have no character.  You are nothing.  To use my friends, my comrads at arms, people that I trained with, people that I loved, people that have more honor than you will ever dream of having, for these purposes just makes me sick.  Sometimes I wish I had never defended the freedom that you have known since birth.

Peace.

-SSG John Erich Anderson, U.S. Army/U.S Air Force, 1990-1998, Out.

He never "wanted" to say they died for Bush's lies; he straight up said it. He also said that he wanted to honor those that fought and died for our country. I don't see where Alaric says to make a memorial with bold lettering "THESE MEN DIED BECAUSE BUSH LIED" followed by the names of the servicemen. Why do the two have to go hand in hand in your mind? For someone who purports to love this country so much, you seem to be dead set against anyone voicing an opinion you don't agree with, which coincidentally happens to be one of the major values our great nation was founded upon.

And to think that you would question your time in the military because someone used their freedom of speech to voice their opinion about our government is so ridiculously mind-numbingly hypocritical. That's pretty damn unpatriotic in my opinion.

[alaric]

John,

In case you don't remember, I argued strongly in favor of going into Iraq. This arguement was based on a trust I had in our president that Iraq had the weapons and posed a serious threat to our country.

Now I feel betrayed. I really do believe that Bush lied to us. He looked me right in the eye and lied to me. And if it turns out that he was just plain wrong, then that's almost as bad. How can I trust a president who has either lied to me about something that serious or had such bad information about something so serious.

Bush has clearly failed, both as a political and military leader. It's time to give somebody new a chance.

The articles about intelligence failures are just interesting tidbits from history. It's impossible to draw any useful conclusions from the article as a whole. I just found it interesting is all.

I think it's very important to publish the names of every single American Serviceman who dies as a result of our country's actions. People need to realize the real cost of war is paid by real people. Real people who have real lives. I don't know about you guys, but a name and a face will always be much more real to me than a number.

Bucc, you don't like lists like this because it makes you uncomfortable? Good. That means you're human. They make me feel awful. But I think that's how I'm supposed to feel. I don't want to make it easy for me to ignore what these people sacraficed. Yes, it's hard to hear the names of the dead. It should be. Everytime those lists come in every american should take a moment to read them, to find out who it is that's defending the freedom they are currently enjoying. Only then will they be able to decide if what those soldiers are fighting for is really worth the cost.

John, I really wish you'd come down off your high horse and listen to what I'm saying, not what you want me to be saying. I'm not the one using the names for political purposes, you are. I am simply stating a fact: These fine people had to die because of a decision Bush made. The public supported that decision because of a lie Bush told.

You have no honor, John. As someone who has served in the military, I would hope you would do more to honor your friends than try to forget they ever lived.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

GS, calm down

Sorry Brain....I am generally a pretty mellow, fun-loving guy.

Really I am.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

John,
In case you don't remember, I argued strongly in favor of going into Iraq. This arguement was based on a trust I had in our president that Iraq had the weapons and posed a serious threat to our country.
Now I feel betrayed. I really do believe that Bush lied to us. He looked me right in the eye and lied to me. And if it turns out that he was just plain wrong, then that's almost as bad. How can I trust a president who has either lied to me about something that serious or had such bad information about something so serious.
Bush has clearly failed, both as a political and military leader. It's time to give somebody new a chance.
The articles about intelligence failures are just interesting tidbits from history. It's impossible to draw any useful conclusions from the article as a whole. I just found it interesting is all.
I think it's very important to publish the names of every single American Serviceman who dies as a result of our country's actions. People need to realize the real cost of war is paid by real people. Real people who have real lives. I don't know about you guys, but a name and a face will always be much more real to me than a number.
Bucc, you don't like lists like this because it makes you uncomfortable? Good. That means you're human. They make me feel awful. But I think that's how I'm supposed to feel. I don't want to make it easy for me to ignore what these people sacraficed. Yes, it's hard to hear the names of the dead. It should be. Everytime those lists come in every american should take a moment to read them, to find out who it is that's defending the freedom they are currently enjoying. Only then will they be able to decide if what those soldiers are fighting for is really worth the cost.
John, I really wish you'd come down off your high horse and listen to what I'm saying, not what you want me to be saying. I'm not the one using the names for political purposes, you are. I am simply stating a fact: These fine people had to die because of a decision Bush made. The public supported that decision because of a lie Bush told.
You have no honor, John. As someone who has served in the military, I would hope you would do more to honor your friends than try to forget they ever lived.

I never tried to forget that they died.  I just feel that any political use of their deaths....anything with any politically motivated statements in conjunction with it....is just wrong.

I'm sorry I came down so hard on you.  I do get a little worked up rather quickly over such things.  I don't think you are a fucking cocksucker and I am not really sorry I defended your freedoms.  I do in fact cherish the right of free speech.

I, unlike many people, do not hold the opinion that Bush lied....just my opinion mind you.

And I do things in my own way to honor my friends.  Here are some of the tributes that I have made to a few of them (copy and paste the entire link if it doesn't work clicking on it):

http://www.military.com/HomePage/UserCreatedTributePage/0,10980,717565,00.html

http://www.military.com/HomePage/UserCreatedTributePage/0,10980,719935,00.html

http://www.military.com/HomePage/UserCreatedTributePage/0,10980,720130,00.html

http://www.military.com/HomePage/UserCreatedTributePage/0,10980,719541,00.html

To date I have made over 900 of these tributes in honor of our fallen brethren.

Again, sorry for the harsh things I said to you Alaric.

Friends?

-GhostSniper Out.

P.S.....although my first name is John, I have always gone by Erich.

[alaric]

Apology accepted Erich.

And I'm glad to see we've finally found a way to disagree respectfully.

But I do agree that any political use of a Solider's death is wrong. However, it is important to remember that political forces are what are responsible for every move our military makes. This is just the nature of our government.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that every action the American Government takes is ultimately the American Citizen's responsibility. We are the ones who give the government power and we are the ones who have to evaluate and decide if that government is doing the right thing. And to ignore the outcome of decisions that government makes breaks the system.

I hope that makes sense.

[Supernatural Pie]

As sad as it made me to look through that list (and even worse, all of the non-combat casualties, such as accidental weapon discharges) I couldn't help but be slightly relieved to not find Thomas Proc. (*DAMN Snake)

However, does anyone know where one would be able to find any info on him? If memory serves, he was shot in the ass, but still probably giving his superior officers hell.

P.S. Note my sig.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

However, does anyone know where one would be able to find any info on him? If memory serves, he was shot in the ass, but still probably giving his superior officers hell.

I'm not sure the exact way that the Marine Corps works with their locator service, but most branches of the military have a phone number you can call at any of their installations that is called the Base Locator.  Call your closest Marine Corps Camp and get base information.  Ask them for the Base Locator.  Then ask the locator service if the Marine Corpse has a Nationwide Locator (I know the Army and Air Force have this service, and would assume the Marine Corps and Navy would have something similar).  Once you have the Nationwide Locator, just give them the information on the person you are looking for (usually name, rank, and last duty station will get you what you need).

If you try that and it doesn't work, pm me and I'll tell you another avenue to try.

-GhostSniper Out.

[Cutter]

sure intel isn't always right, but to say the president lied is a bit out of line. you'd also have to say the same about john kerry, wesley clark, bill clinton, members of the security council and the leaders of just about every nation in the civilized world. because for years before the war started it was a well known and much talked about (by those stated above and more) fact. how do we know? simple, we have the reciept. plus saddam used them. the fact that saddam had wmd and went far out of his way to hide them from inspectors for years was never a question before the war. the only question was do we let it continue or put an end to it.

just this week pakistans main nuke scientist fessed up to selling secrets and helping north korea, iran, and libya to build nuclear weapons. a rouge nuclear scientist, sounds like a clancy movie, but it's not. we can only hope that he or any other scientist in his position hasn't sold out to any terrorist groups like al-quada. now we know for a fact that saddam had nuclear ambitions in the past, because israel blew up their plant and a few of iraq's scientists from back then live here now and have told the story. givin the results of the first gulf war (sanctions, no fly-zones, etc.), and the attacks on 9/11, don't you think he'd be looking for a chance to get his shot at america? i would.

basiclly after 9/11 when the president gave his speech about, if you are a terrorist we're gonna hunt you down, if you support them, shelter them, finance them we will get you., or something to that effect. shortly after that speech saddam offered (in public) $15,000 to the families of suicide bombers in israel. shortly after that he raised it to $25,000. not to mention his direct funding (in the millions) of hamas and other known palestinian terrorist groups.
on that alone i would have gone into iraq. all the u.n. violations and his blatant toying with the u.n. inspectors was just further proof that this man was up to something. something that the world could not afford to wait around to witness. the security council all agreed that he had the weapons and he was in violation, some nations chose to act and others didn't.

we haven't found them yet doesn't mean they don't exist. we haven't found usama yet, but that doesn't mean he doesn't exist. how many years was eric rudolph hiding in the appalacians before he was caught? has the war even been a year yet? have patience. if you wanted to hide someting really good from somebody could you do it? how bout if you had your own country?

[c| Spetsnaz.]

U.S. intelligence is practically an oxymoron. We had real and significant intelligence stating Bin Laden was planning a large scale terrorist attack on the continental United States. This blunder would result in the attacks of 9/11. Clinton's fault you say? I beg to differ. Bill Clinton had a far reaching plan to eliminate al Qaeda completed a few weeks before the inauguration of George W. Bush. If it had been implemented then, Clinton would have basically been handing a war over to Bush with the transfer of power, and he decided against that. Clinton trusted Bush to protect American, and the events of 9/11 show this was a disastrous mistake by Clinton. The Clinton anti-al Qaeda plan was then proposed to the Bush regime by Clinton's counter terror expert Richard Clarke, prior to 9/11. However, according to Time outgoing Clinton officials felt that "the Bush team thought the Clintonites had become obsessed with terrorism". Bush was of course hard at work avoiding the daunting problems of this country, in his first 7 months of presidency Bush spent 42% of his time at Camp David , Kennebunkport and Crawford, Texas. August, 6th 2001 CIA director, George Tenet, whom is now being blamed for the Iraq intel debacle, wrote a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." The President did nothing to follow up this memo.

Richard Clarke's plan to destroy al Qaeda finally made its way to Principals Committee which serves as gate keeper to the Command in Chief, on September, 9th 2001, 11 months after Clinton proposed it and 8 months after Condi Rice saw the plan. This would prove to be far too late.

[seth]

i love it. Very interesting indeed. good job Alaric.

[Mr.Mellow]

Absolutely true, Spetsnaz, and I wish more people knew that. Seems like everyone is always blaming Clinton for leaving the country "unprepared" for a terrorist attack.   Anyways, back on topic. Intelligence reports can never be completely trusted in the first place. Just because there are a few foul-ups doesn't mean the C.I.A./N.S.A./military intelligence services are incompetent fools. Mistakes happen.
Now, in this case, my opinion is that Bush went into Iraq knowing they probably wouldn't find WMD. It's pretty obvious Bush has wanted a shot at Hussein for a while now. Just my $.02.

[Cutter]

yeah spetz apparently clinton had quite a few plans for the next president including the policy he wrote on regime change in iraq. thing is he had 8 years to take care of these problems we all knew about. he went at all of them half-assed or straight up ignored them. as far as usama is concerned he totally dropped the ball when he turned down sudans offer to hand him over to clinton, just as they had done with Ilich Ram?rez S?nchez "the jackal" to the french. clinton turned down the deal. the deal that COULD have prevented 9/11.

america and it's allies were right to go into iraq. were there mistakes made? yes. here are some of the obvious things done wrong.

1. a job not finished yet. iraq was in the plannings before bush was in office. after 9/11 he promised us he'd get the people responsible for 9/11. while he's cut off mass amounts of funds, captured thousands of known al-quada, most of the leadership of al-quada. and crushed the horribly dispicable taliban regime. he still hasn't delivered the man we know is directly responsible for the worst attack on america since pearl harbour. the taliban's leader, al-quada's #1 and #2 guys are still on the loose. i believe iraq simply could have waited until this job was finished. had the president gone into getting those three men like he did with saddam, he could have gone on to another term with ease and gone to iraq, mars, hell wherever he wanted to.

2. halliburton. knowing that just their name alone would raise suspicion about the reasons for war they should have been immediatly banned from any business in iraq, let alone the no- bid deal they got. and it didn't take long for them to fuck up either, some 24 million in overcharges. nj bush, real smart. anybody coulda seen that one coming.

3. the aftermath in iraq. did anybody ever really think the iraqi military would last more than a couple months or even fight for that matter? no. anybody that actually thought iraq might beat our military is certifiable. knowing this, why wasn't much greater planning put into the aftermath of major miltary operations? the war isn't over yet, but the big stuff is. remember saddam had wanted to pull us into his cities for a black hawk down type fight, the dumbass used the movie as a war plan. so did the leadership here think that once our tanks rolled into bagdhad the people would just change the flag, renounce saddam and be a democratic nation? germany and japan turned out alright. what will it take to return the nation of iraq to the people in a better state than how saddam had run it with as little hardship as possible to the people of iraq. who are the true victims of his 30 year riegn of terror. surely all the smart people in washington with all the think-tanks and professers at their disposal can come up with something better than what we see happening in iraq now.

then again we only see the bad on t.v. and it hasn't been a year yet since we even had troops on the ground in iraq. japan and germany didn't become the nations we see them as today in a years time.

so for all these reasons and more i suggest we start campaining for coach Bob Knight as president. i haven't thought of a good vice president yet but i have Kyle Turley penciled in as the sect. of defense.

[kami]

Cutter, comparing Germany and Japan to Iraq is incredibly stupid, really.