Gen. Ricardo Sanchez: "...we have a crisis in national political leadership"

[babylonsister]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054284.php

Kickin' the Can
09.26.07 -- 1:52PM
By Josh Marshall

I haven't seen much published reference to this speech but it seems we can add retired Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to the list of former Bush appointees and Generals serving under the president who turn out to be thoroughly disillusioned with the president's conduct of the war. This weekend, at a speech in Corpus Christi, Texas, Sanchez said ...

My assessment is that we have a crisis in national political leadership. When will America recognize the danger we face? When will the corrosive partisanship of American politics end and allow for a bipartisan solution to arguably the most dangerous threat our nation has faced in over 60 years?

When asked who he meant by "national political leadership", Sanchez said “the most senior political leadership,” which leaves little doubt he's referring at least to the president and his chief subordinates.

Taken on its own, the statement certainly contains at least some ambiguity. Is this an indictment of the White House or a more general 'pox on all your houses' dig at our collective politics and the failure of those of us at home to unify around a strategy while we've got soldiers in the field fighting and dying.

I found the link to the report of the speech at Scott Horton's site. And just after the quote I just excerpted Horton provides this gloss ...

For three months now, Sanchez has been making off-the-record statements. He eventually came to the conclusion, he says, that Republican politics had trumped the national security interests of the United States in the execution of plans in Iraq. The Bush Administration had not planned to win in Iraq, but simply to keep a war running so Bush could run around and play “war president.” That is as devastating a criticism as any general has made of a president since the days of Douglas MacArthur. Unlike MacArthur’s criticisms, however, it has the advantage of being accurate.

Horton's right. If anything he understates it how devastating a charge that is. Does anyone know more about what Sanchez has been telling people off the record?

[bdamomma]

1. I don't know what to say anymore, but we need to do something.

but after that Kyl-Liebermann Amendment passing people here are really upset, I am going to put a call into my Senators offices and find out if they endorsed war with Iran.

[BridgeTheGap]

2. Most of us (at DU) saw the "crisis" starting with Bush's appointment

by the SCOTA, which was a crisis in and of itself. It went down hill from there.