If you thought Gen. Zinni was good last night, read this:

Excerpts from a transcript of Gen. Zinni's remarks at Center for Defense Information (CDI) May 12, 2004 banquet.

"The next thing you have to understand about these situations is you’re not going to succeed unless the people on the ground you’re trying to help have a vested interest in succeeding. They’ve got to own the problem. Right now the United States of America owns the problem in Iraq. Nobody else owns the problem. We own the problem. The Iraqis have to own this problem. When I see a truck driver from West Virginia in a fuel truck, I say the Iraqis don’t own the problem yet. If I saw an Iraqi driver in that truck, they own the problem.

If I see an Iraqi soldier on the street standing up, if I see an Iraqi making some political decisions, then I say, they own the problem.

Let me give you a small example.

When went through that, you know, “Weekend at Bernie’s” session with the sons of Saddam. After we got those two guys, I would’ve turned those bodies over to the Governing Council. Immediately.

And I would’ve said to the Governing Council, “You own them.” You can bury them according to Muslim tradition within 24 hours. You can show them on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. You can bury them and tell the people you verified who they are. They’re yours.

What did we do? We kept the bodies. We violated Muslim traditional burial. We showed them out to the world. We owned the problem and that was a small problem that could’ve been put on their back, to begin kind of transferring that monkey. We don’t do enough of that in this business.

You know, we don’t look at the opportunities. We have to make sure they have a vested interest in success. That they don’t look at this as a “pox on both their houses” or “I’m gonna wait this one out to see who wins.”

You don’t want them to be in that position. That’s the first lesson of insurgency that you have to deal with. There are many more, but we don’t have time tonight."

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=2208&from_page=../index.cfm

I love this guy.

Zinni is somebody who actually UNDERSTANDS the situation!

Would this administration listen to him? Noooooooo.

They (from Bush on down) thought they were smarter.

Dumbasses!

This guy has talent we can't afford to waste.

is 5 parts common sense, 1 part "learned," and 4 parts "just giving a damn"....


Zinni clearly knows this. I wonder what proportion of Americans can fulfill at least the last criteria?

portion of the invasion, CNN showed a clip of an American Company of soldiers (101st Airborne, I think) who were given the task of providing protection for an Ayatollah in Najaf.

The locals didn't know why the soldiers were there and blocked the soldiers advance towards the home of the Mullah.

There was a Colonel in charge of the American troops (CNN never identified him) who confronted the crisis by having the troops point their guns at the ground and get down on one knee. He also ordered them to smile. When he realized that he couldn't control the situation, he ordered his troops to turn around and walk away. As the soldiers walked away the Colonel smiled and waved good-bye to the crowd and periodically gave a sign of respect (hand over heart) to the crowd. The soldiers left without incident, injury or violence.

In my opinion, that Colonel deserved a medal. He demonstrated restraint and cultural understanding far beyond anything else I had seen from the other military leaders.

a common sense approach towards understanding.

When traveling/working overseas, I've often had the opportunity to witness the American tourist and see all too much of the "ugly American attitude." But, the people that most surprise me, in terms of how well they typically relate to very distinctly different cultures are quite often the ones we might not predict. Most often those who blend in so naturally are less educated, less "sophisticated," and often from rural America. Common sense and desire.....

There was a writer from GQ on C-Span this morning who also revealed a lot of culture differences. Our military appears to be all braun and little brains, except for a few.

We can't destroy a culture, we can't make them into Americans in a year or five weeks. And which Americans would we make them into anyway - would we select the culture of the northeast, Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Deleware or the CEO class or the teacher class, or the cleaning person class, or Christians, Jews, Buddhist? Or is just our laws that we want to pass to them? Which laws - the ones most people obey or the ones most people ignore or the lawmakers who are mostly frauds when it comes to distinctions between corporations and the people.

How anyone every drempt that we could make over a nation that is a world apart from us.

The writer from C-Span gave an example - if I heard right - a crime victim and a perpetrator are put in prison together. I didn't hear it all, so listen for a rerun - the entire segment appeared to be quite informative and neutral - it mostly dealt with the police and how we're trying to train them in our ways, with our advisors, with our inferior guns (to the ones on the street), and with our tax dollars.

we just can`t walk away from the mess we have made..but..we maybe to late to do anything.

"We"? We haven't made any mess in Iraq. The Bush government has. And it will only get worse for Iraqi's the longer GI's continue to occupy that nation. It's time to pull out and let the Iraqi people determine what kind of economy and form of government they want. The alternative is to try and dictate their future as a colonial power.

So those are the good General's ideas on how best to make the occupation succeed. Is that really what most of us want, the achievement of a successful "nation building" operation that can result in the installation of a friendly "puppet regime" controlled by big oil and other U.S. corporate interests? Read closely what General Zinni and some other critics has actually said and wrote.

It seems to me there are in fact deep divisions and splits among the rulers on how to accomplish a successful occupation and establishment of a U.S. corporate influenced regime in Iraq. Is that what we really want? Is that what the Iraqi people want?

Let the Iraqi people decide what kind of economy and form of government they want. That's not the Bush governments nor the General's "job" in Iraq.

He was Centcom commander 1998-2000.
The Bushies didn't like him because he wouldn't go along with the neo-cons. So long Zinni.

He testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee (I think that's the one) prior to the invasion and said basically "Wrong war, wrong time, wrong place, wrong reason. Do NOT do this."

His remarks at CDI 2 weeks ago are in the context of "OK, we're there now, and we can't go back and change that. Now we have to make the problems their problems. They'll solve them or not. As long as they're OUR problems there is no end in sight."

His observations about "Week-end at Bernie's" is particularly astute.

and they did it to them. So, there have to be stages...we took apart their country and until we walk away, we have to help them get organized and set-up to the best of our capability.

We should have NEVER, EVER entered their space, just as we should not have entered the space in Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Vietnam, Haiti, and just as we shouldn't do, but you know they're planning it - Cuba, maybe Syria, etc.

We should preserve cultures, not destroy them. I think what culture changers have done over the years is abdominable whether for plunder or christianity or in ignorance. The people of a land or country should determine their own evolution of policies.

I despise the arrogance of taking over a people to change them to your own criminal ways.

We're in there and we have to get our of there - with brains.

Not many ex-generals are funny. No wonder he didn't last!

you have time. I think many of us who protested against this war, understood what Zinni is saying in this article. "Strategic Thinking" as opposed to lying, obfuscating and shooting from your hip.

The comparisons to how we got into Viet Nam...the fact that the Iraqi people need to run their country as soon as possible, the disgusting naming of "War on Terrorism," and all the rest of this important article.

Saw that David Horowitz was at the Q & A period and tried to get Zinni into saying he was political, and it backfired on him. :D

I think Zinni will have some tough criticism of everyone including the Media when his book comes out.

It's just an amazing read. And, if only we "the people" could have done something to stop this...if only.. But, it was out of our hands. Glad to hear Zinni say, "We always underestimate the American people." And, in this case the voices of those of us who knew the mistakes in Vietnam and took to the streets in protest, weren't even listened to.
We knew and it makes us sick, just as it does Zinni to see what has come of this.

Thanks for this link. I wouldn't have known about it if you hadn't posted. :-)'s