he is seeing things through different eyes than mine. his beliefs are different than mine. EXCEPT we both agree on one thing. IRAQ IS A MESS AND IT WILL CONTINUE TO BE A MESS AND WE ARE RESPONSIBLE
A failure in generalship
By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling
"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."- Frederick the Great
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.
These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress. ................
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4 comments:
I read this, and I read about this. I wonder how he got away with writing it and how he expects it to impact his own career. The Emperor Has No Clothes is a good story, but in practice it's quite another thing to actually speak truth to power.
Iraq is a mess. It could be won, convincingly, but we'd have to stomach some serious atrocities to do it.
It could be won, convincingly, but we'd have to stomach some serious atrocities to do it.
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Agreed, if war was NICE, it wouldn't be called WAR, it would be called 'playtime'...
Out President and our people don't have the guts fot it, and if you're not gonna dance, why go??
That "playtime" line is cute and condescending, but adds little to any real discussion of the realities of war.
We engaged in this war in Iraq on the authority of Preemption. That Preemptive Doctrine that Bush and Cheney so proudly declared before the invasion comes with quite a heavy price, however. See, preemption contains the requirement that another nation present a clear, present, and imminent danger to the United States. Notice that language - clear, present, and imminent - is the language used by administration authorities when talking to the public prior to this Preemptive "war."
Turns out Iraq posed no clear, no present, and no imminent danger to the United States of America. Therefore Preemption wasn't justified even by the administration's own rationalized standards.
We aren't fighting a war, texasfred, we're continuing an illegal occupation which followed an illegal invasion. Therefore, the issue isn't whether we have the "guts" to continue the fight, but whether we can stomach the continued crime we've condoned up till now.
rick: every once in a while there is an ABSOLUTELY STARTELING piece in a military periodical. i haven't followed the careers of those that wrote them.
it must be horrid to be an officer in the service now under the command of the emperor with no clothes. i wonder if someone brought the article to the attention of the emperor?
texas fred, i just cannot fathom how ANYONE could support this war. please do NOT take that to mean i don't support the members of our armed services. i sure as shite do. no, i don't have a magnetic yellow ribbon on my bumper (i DO have a sticker that says 'god doesn't want bush to be president' though) that was made in china. i DO send care packages to five deployed service people though. i've never asked them if they 'want to dance' or not. they have NO choice now, do they? we don't talk of such things. i find it in poor taste for me to speak to them of iraq when they are IN iraq (or areas there abouts). upon their arrival home, if they ask me, i sure will share my feelings. i simply thank them for serving and tell them they are in my thoughts and prayers
rick (again) you are so much more articulate than i!!!
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