Testimony of General Batiste

Here are two links to some of the most powerful and lucid testimony before Congress I have heard on Iraq. The testimony is being given by Major General Batiste (MG, that’s two stars. He turned down a third star because he refused to put up with this administration’s incompetence).

Let me give you two comparisons to help you realize why we are having the problems we are. Both comparisons have to do with troop strength.

First, what we are doing is the equivalent of playing football 11 on 6 or 7. (Our team has 6-7 players.) How many games do you think you’re going to win playing 11 on 6 or 7? Answer: Not any. Does it matter how good your players are or how good your coaches are? Not unless you have college age men playing junior high school students, which is not the case, so the answer is no. And since we are losing playing 11 on 6 or 7, this administration proposes that we can win if we play more players. So now we are playing 11 on 7 or 8 and expecting a different result.

I spoke with someone not long ago with someone who considered themselves a Republican loyalist. Since he knew me, we were able to have a frank and open minded discussion. He told me it was his perception that since we were actively fighting in Iraq and no new 9/11 incidents had occurred that the US was doing the right things and doing well. In truth, America is on the verge of one of the greatest strategic defeats in our history and by the time we finished, the loyalist had undergone a change in perception.

Here is my other comparison of how we have come to be in the mess we are. Imagine an entrepreneur who wants to build a building to house a retail store. The plan is that the building is to be built in 90 days, stocked in 30 days, and open for business and generating revenue on the 121st day. The entrepreneur has estimated the business will require 30,000 hours of labor and materials and has enough money for that level construction. The money for inventory is borrowed from the bank. The entrepreneur needs the building to be open on the 121st day so sales from the store can begin to replenish his operating capital. Just before construction begins, the entrepreneur learns the building requires 90,000 hours of labor to be completed. The entrepreneur refuses to borrow the money to pay for more hours. Instead, the entrepreneur only does 5,000 hours of construction per month while an alternative solution is searched for. This only prolongs the inevitable result. The entrepreneur runs out of money before the store can be opened and no revenue is generated to replace the investment. I think you can see the parallel with what this administration has done. We never put the proper number of troops on the ground in Iraq to do the job (nor did we do what was necessary to get the proper number of troops) and so we have the result we have today.

However, this is old news. As I have said elsewhere, the fact that there was manipulated intelligence, not enough soldiers were used and planning was poor is old news. The new news we should be interested in is the answer to this question. What are the structural flaws we have in our society, political system and government that allowed these things to occur and how can we correct these flaws?

Here are the links.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGtR0f9sq4Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8fKwsRZDg&mode=related&search=