Pace: Mistakes were made at beginning of Iraq war

[Gunny]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If he knew then what he knows now, he might have made some different decisions before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters Friday.


Outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace says he now thinks more troops were needed at the war's start.

"One of the mistakes I made in my assumptions going in was that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Army would welcome liberation, that the Iraqi Army, given the opportunity, would stand together for the Iraqi people and be available to them to help serve the new nation," Gen. Peter Pace said.

more ... http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/14/pace.iraq/index.html

He's hardly the only one that made that incorrect assumption. Arrogance is bred into us.

[Dilloduck]

He's hardly the only one that made that incorrect assumption. Arrogance is bred into us.

You think he is lying--?

[Gunny]

You think he is lying--?

No. I think he is being brutally honest, and saying some things a lot of people don't want to hear on the right or the left. The right doesn't want to hear it because it means they screwed up, and the left doesn't want to hear it because they accuse anyone of saying Arabs don't think like we do of racism.

Nothing racist about it. Their culture is just ass-backward from ours. They don't value what we do, and ideals we take for granted are foreign concepts to them.

Anyone who thinks a bunch of tribal-minded hut-dwellers who have been killing each other for the slightest trivialities for centuries and only took a break when ruthlessly suppressed are going to embrace western-style democracy.

But we, in our blind arrogance, can't fathom the idea that others might not think we're the greatest thing since sliced cheese and WANT to live their little feudal lifestyle without "Big Brother" telling them what they should want.

[Dilloduck]

No. I think he is being brutally honest, and saying some things a lot of people don't want to hear on the right or the left. The right doesn't want to hear it because it means they screwed up, and the left doesn't want to hear it because they accuse anyone of saying Arabs don't think like we do of racism.

Nothing racist about it. Their culture is just ass-backward from ours. They don't value what we do, and ideals we take for granted are foreign concepts to them.

Anyone who thinks a bunch of tribal-minded hut-dwellers who have been killing each other for the slightest trivialities for centuries and only took a break when ruthlessly suppressed are going to embrace western-style democracy.

But we, in our blind arrogance, can't fathom the idea that others might not think we're the greatest thing since sliced cheese and WANT to live their little feudal lifestyle without "Big Brother" telling them what they should want.

I thought it was a pretty straightforeward statement too----refreshing to see something said that wasn't intended to be a spin.

[Gunny]

I thought it was a pretty straightforeward statement too----refreshing to see something said that wasn't intended to be a spin.

The majority of Marines being conservative is more the nature of the beast than anything else. Most aren't very politics-oriented though.

The best way to fix a mistake is to recognize its existence first.

[Psychoblues]

How can you spin a colassal screw up like this WAR ON IRAQ? Pace sat on his thumbs as he saw General after General fired and replaced because they said the very things that needed to be said at the time. And don't for a moment intimate that the majority of Marines are in any way politically conservative. The vast majority of Marines that I deal with daily are quite American, even liberal if you will.

[Psychoblues]

No shit?

You think he is lying--?

What do you think?