Responding to Right-Wing Knuckle Draggers

Eric,

I once had a history professor who insisted that the only lessons that history taught were that the straits of Thermopylae cannot be defended and that one ought not to invade Russia in the winter.

That said, I agree with your analysis. The persistence of leaders to decide to continue the pursuit of folly is seen throughout history.

Bill

Those comments are dead on. Glad you chose to support your arguement that way. Many today just want to yell louder and longer, that solves nothing.

The problem as I see it (and a lot of folks on both sides of the aisle seem to agree) is that the forces initially committed were insufficient to “win” (however you choose to define winning). If that’s the case then either send sufficient force to “win” or willingly accept what can only be called a defeat. As an old soldier I can’t do that. I agree with the comments that we either need to do it right or not do it at all, but at this point not doing it at all is to me an unacceptable option.

Send the forces with some warriors in command. Get rid of the asinine restrictive rules of engagement and kick the ass that needs to be kicked then kick it some more. Tell the Iraqi’s to get their shit together because after we’re done “setting the stage” so to speak, it’s their show and we’re
outta there.

Just for some perspective, during our involvement in Vietnam, not a single year went by with fewer casualties than we’ve incurred during the entire Iraq war. During WWII we could lose 3,000 troops in an afternoon. Of course every one of those deaths is tragic. Nobody knows that better than someone who has had the privilege of commanding soldiers. Even more tragic though would be having them die in vain by “cutting and running” (and let’s make no mistake, that and the defeat that it entails is exactly what Pelosi and company intend).

Let slip the dogs of war. Do it right and be done with it. There is no “silver medal” for the second place finisher.

Gotta go spray some bactine on my knuckles. They’ve been scraping the ground a lot lately.

Mike

I think the 2008 election is going to be one of the most critical ones we’ve seen, not that all presidential elections aren’t critical. I have been a huge critic of the war in Iraq from the very first; on the other hand, I voted for Bush both times. Both times I had misgivings, especially the second time, but one of the main reasons that I voted for him was because I thought he was the lesser of two evils. Now I’m not so sure. Gore, Kerry and Bush were all shockingly weak choices, and we can only hope that the candidates in 2008 are stronger.

The really scary thing about Iraq is that, regardless of what you think about the party in the White House, presumably the president is surrounded by intelligent people. LBJ was, also. However, the short-sighted policies pursued by these folks is almost mind-boggling. How anyone thought that democracy could be force-fed to a region that has never known anything like democracy in thousands of years is beyond me.

Statesmanship is all but dead, and it probably has been for some time. Most of the national and state elections I’ve voted in have been a choice between two equally uninspiring candidates (I live in Missouri, and we have lots of uninspiring candidates). I’ve gone from a serious conservative 20 years ago to very much a moderate, and unfortunately moderates seem to be squeezed out of the political process anymore. I don’t know if a viable third party is the answer, but I’d be willing to try it.

Ladies and Germs….(whacka,whacka,whacka)

You folks write history. You should know better than to bemoan the “current” lack of leadership. Like this is new. The American Civil War is the essence of bullshit politics and strategic misagenation gone to hell. None of those politicals could see beyond the inside of their navels ’cause you know what theirs heads were stuck up. That includes Father Abraham.

Eric: It’s your board, of course. But venting on current events does reap it’s own whirlwind. I happen to agree that Baby Bush screwed the pooch on the whole Iraq deal. But JD has a point about strategic profundity. Islam is in turmoil. Is it worse to have 3000 dead in Iraq in 4 years, or a quadrennial WTC center incident in a major US metropolitan area?

This whole thing could be resolved to our advantage if Baby Bushh would go on TV and announce that we have the answer. We just nuked Tel Aviv. (Oh Gawd; don’t give the schmucks any ideas….) (Whacka, whacka, whacka.)

Just finished watching a very interesting two-hour documentary on the History Channel which covered Reconstruction entitled “Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War.” It seemed well done and discussed much of the south’s post-war violence including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. At one point, the show even referred to some as the “Al-Quaida of their day!”

Here’s the point, which the show acknowledged: In each and every instance where the “good guys” prevailed (i,e., post-war Arkansas, Tennessee, etc.) , the “bad guys” were ultimately defeated only by the overwhelming use of force. No mamby-pamby negotiations or hand-wringing hopes that if only we changed our ways, then the bad guys would leave us alone. Local pro-Union militias meted out justice and retribution using the same cutthroat tactics as the Klan and other pro-Confederate, white supremacist groups of the day. That’s all they understood…

History often repeats itself. We can debate in a gentlemanly fashion all day why we are in Iraq and whether it was a just, noble idea or not. I think all will agree that major mistakes have been made since the war supposedly ended, including how we sent in “just enough troops to lose.” IMO, another huge error was our belief that we would be greeted as liberators. It now appears that a key tenet held by the locals is “better to live under the bootheel of a Muslim despot than to be liberated by the infidel.”

Personally, I think it’s time to bring the troops home. I believe our intentions were noble and honorable, however, the Iraqi people’s apparent unwillingness or inability to seize what we gave them now makes me question our largesse. If they’d rather settle old scores than build a model democracy, so be it.

Paul

Paul,

I agree with you, but I worry about your last part – if we leave Iraq to its own devices, the threat to our national security is too great. Iraq will become a breeding ground for terrorists that we’d have to deal with all too soon. I agree with giving them a time limit and getting out, and being only interested spectators if they choose to kill each other. But radical Islam must be either contained (which is just as difficult as what we’re facing now) or they must die.

Either the Iraqi government fights the war with us, and they keep doing so, with our support for a limited time, or we’ll have more problems than I’m afraid we can handle. As you also eluded to, force is the only thing that will solve this.

I’m also afraid that the next President is going to be facing the decision of bombing targets in Iran and perhaps other locations. If we get a pantywaist in the White House in a couple years, we’re all doomed. And that’s not just dramatics – I really mean it.

J.D.

And here I expected all these comments to be about rush’s Lancers.:)

I understand frustration with restrictive ROE, limited force, etc.

However, the essence of good CI requires a good deal of counter-intuition, not force.

In the long run, extreme force and brutality do not win the war. Massive anti-partisan actions waged in the USSR and in Poland by the Germans during WWII, for example, did very little to remove the partisan problem in the German rear. Extreme French measures in Indo-China didn’t work either. We are talking about wholesale liquidation, civilian round-ups, 10 for 1 punishment rules, etc.

changing the ROE slightly in Iraq, or even sending 100,000 more troops, will make little difference. We have already lost. Now we are just quibbling over how badly we lose. I have studied too much military history to not recognize that fact.

However, I don’t really understand why so many folks are so terrified of the “monolithic Radical Islamic threat.” No such thing exists. That very lesson can be learned right now, in Iraq, simply by reading the headlines. The various denominations are even right now largely fighting each other, and will continue to do so. Both the Shia and the Sunni are conducting ops against one another, not primarily the US. We are the 800 pound Gorrilla they have to work around. War in the Mideast will certainly be ongoing now, thanks to some really idiotic foreign policy decisions, but it will be largely between Iran and various proxy groups aimed at limiting Iranian spread.

Think the collapse of Yugoslavia here, not Mongol-Horde-ravaging-Europe time.

Unless, of course, you think that the Iranians and Iraqi Shia will somehow be able to defeat a well-supported Sunni/Kurd Insurgency against them, when we could not. If so, I’d like to hear how anyone thinks that might happen, tactics-wise.

Certainly we will face terroristic threats. Conventional ground ops are not the ideal counter to those threats.:)

Dave Powell

JD,

Understood. And one of the big consequences of this war, IMO, is that it has made the international climate more accomodating – either openly or covertly – to allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons.

Trying to find the best course now is very much more difficult, and it may no longer be possible to prevent proliferation in Iran.

Dave Powell