McCaffrey says sacrifice 3-5000 more troops to "Bust their chops!"

[partylessinOhio]

Just now on Hardball: Barry McCaffrey, Ret. Gen., says we need 150,000 additional troops to send in and clear out Bagdad and BUST THEIR CHOPS - He then said we would lose 3-5000 of our troops. (Lose means DEAD!)

What the hell is wrong with him and others that just seem to be playing a chess game?

McCaffrey is completely nuts in my estimation. War, war, and more war is all these armchair wargamers know.

[MADem]

1. The Arabs were playing chess when we were living it mud huts eating our own lice for snacks

We don't wanna play chess with those folks, they're better at it than we are....

[brettdale]

2. Okay Barry

Everybody you love will be sent to iraq and remember they are just a number or is it a comma?

[zulchzulu]

3. Send him the DVD "Dr. Strangelove"

That statement goes right up there with Chimpy's "Mission Accomplished" ruse.

[brentspeak]

5. self/del

.

[babylonsister]

4. I watched the whole interview and didn't get the impression that

McCaffrey was even supporting the idea of a 'surge'. Maybe he was talking hypothetically?
Now the other guy on there seemed to be all for more military build-up; he saw no problem in increasing the role of the Nat'l Guard and the frequency in which they're deployed.

[niyad]

6. dear goddess in heaven, the man is completely insane-- I would have expected a more

rational comment from a former general.

let's see, we can "bust their chops" when we "double down"--clearly, there is NO sense that these are actual LIVES they are so casually dismissing.

[shain from kane]

7. "Double down", double your losses, another 3,000 dead. Trouble is, no matter

how long you play this war game, you'll never get your original stake back. Dead is dead.

[whistle]

8. That is the Vietnam speak....3000 to 5000 more dead Americans

....no big deal :sarcasm: What a total jerk!

[Hoyt]

9. I don't think that is what he said.

I would hate to stand in the way of any criticism toward the bush administration, but I'm pretty sure that is not what McCaffrey said.

What I heard is that 10,000 or 15,000 more troops in Baghdad will NOT accomplish anything.

After a pause he said, now if we sent in 100-150,000 troops and secured Baghdad and then moved to other areas and "busted chops" that might . . . . . . at that point Matthews was jumping in with "we aren't going to do that" and McCaffery was also saying basically the same thing as the end of his thought.

I think McCaffery was one of the earliest retired generals to jump on bush's failure and I would hate to see him misunderstood. I do wish he hadn't used the phrase "busted chops" because we've already "busted" enough stuff in Iraq and I'm sick of the gungho SOBs who say that crud like Iraq is a high school football game.

[Auntie Bush]

10. That was my impression too and he'll repeat in a few minutes and we can see for ourselves.

[Leilani]

11. That's exactly what he said

The OP is completely misrepresenting what he said.

[capi888]

12. Just heard it too

You are exactly right...he is against sending in more troops or used the guard to fight our fights. He stated that we need to put money in to restoreing the needs of the Iraqie people infrastructor. He was using the fact that we NEED 150,0000 troops to do the job, as a WHAT would be needed to do it Bushies way ..and we don't have them! The beginning of the conversation he stated being against putting in the troops, as it won't work.
AGAIN, said it is about diplomacy and polictical to change the situation.

[fairfaxvadem]

15. you are spot on...

This is exactly what the Brookings Institute was saying, in terms of #s, if we REALLY wanted to secure Iraq, we need to shut the place down entirely and we'd need to double our presences, at least, up to about 350,000 or so soldiers.

I have some quarrels with McCaffery, but here, he was indeed saying that sending 40,000 troops is spitting in the wind. He was saying that's the number of cops on the beat in NYC and Baghdad is the same size. It won't do crap. If we really want to change what's going on, we need to double the troops and take over the entire country, from stem to stern.

He's right on this, Shinseki was right 4 years ago, and no one wants to admit it.

[k_jerome]

13. the McCaffrey I saw was staunchly against adding troops...

and called it a failed policy. Perhaps you were watching bizarro Hardball.

[redstateblues]

14. That headline is taken out of context

[Blue_In_AK]

16. It seemed to me that he was pointing out how truly futile

such a move would be, because I believe he said something after that to imply that even that wouldn't be enough to permanently fix the problem. My take was that he was against any kind of a buildup.