Posted on 01/03/2007 6:36:39 AM PST by beckaz
YESTERDAY, the man directly responsible for conducting the war in Iraq received semi-official notice that he'll soon be relieved of his post. It's ironic that the semi-official notice came in a front-page New York Times story, considering how hostile the paper has been to the war effort and the Bush administration generally - and how profoundly angry senior Bush officials are at the Times.
...[SNIP]...
The message: The president has lost confidence in the strategy and tactics designed and implemented by the generals running the war. They have, as the Times put it, "become more fixated on withdrawal than victory."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Also maybe our officers should stop taking "International Relations" classes in Grad school and take history and the classics. Int. Rel. crap is for state dept. types who got us in the messes in the first place.
They should have to take classes with Victor Davis Hanson.
" Bit late IMHO "
Agreed -- ya don't find your Grant until you've fired your McLellan and Meade and Burnside....
"The president has lost confidence in the strategy and tactics designed and implemented by the generals running the war"
IIRC, only a President can promote from field grade to General Officer rank.......one MUST wonder how many of these clowns became General Officers by a stroke of Clintons pen..........
The ignorance illustrated by such a remark is staggering and defies further discussion.
Was it the Generals who held back the military from taking action the first time in Fallujah? What about with Sadr? I wonder how much to blame the administration is for the PC tactics in this war?
Also maybe our officers should stop taking "International Relations" classes in Grad school and take history and the classics. Int. Rel. crap is for state dept. types who got us in the messes in the first place.
I suspect Casey's "withdrawal" approach was based entirely on his growing certainty that the "victory" approach peddled by this administration was based on the mindless babbling of folks in the Beltway and the media who have no idea what the hell they're talking about and have no political support for their approach, either.
But your whole sentence is mindless babble with no context.
FReepers are homeschooling America without even knowing it! ;-) ha ha
good questions, all of them......none of which address what I posted
According to this article, Casey was Rumsfeld's boy, and the POV being rejected here is the one Casey and Rumsfeld campaigned for.
Bush has consistently said he's let the Generals run the show.
Whenever Abizaid and Casey testify on the hill, they endorse and support the current strategy.
No General has reisgned because of PC tactics
I don't think this is a case of McArthur wanting to cross the Yalu.
Where's General Patton when we need him?
When a building is on fire, you don't stand around talking about how best to rebuild it. You have to put the fire out first.
A particularly curious statement, in light of the fact that Podhoretz had long been a supporter of the notion that it was perfectly normal to do nation-building in Iraq -- including the establishment of a constitution in which Islam was enshrined as the official state religion -- while large portions of the country either: (1) were not under any form of civilian or military control; or (2) were relatively calm and peaceful, but didn't consider themselves part of this artificial "country" anymore (e.g., the Kurdish regions).
I'm very interested in hearing about Podhoretz's plan for "putting the fire out."
What Generals do you have a problem with? Undoubtedly Clintoon left his mark but as far as the way in which this war is run, is it really Clintoon's Generals that are holding us back? Or is the Bush administration bowing to Demonrat pressure in the way they haven't fought this war all out?
Is this the mindset of the PC generals, or it is the President who is dictating PC war?
Who is responsible for the asinine PC way this war is being executed?
Honestly I am not trying to be argumentative, I really just want to know who are the persons responsible for the absolutely insane rules of engagement in this ridiculous war.
They didn't listen to Patton or we wouldn't have to deal with Russia offering support to our enemies to kill us! Were Patton and MacArthur ever right or what?!
Well, history says
Kennedy and Nixon both
made military
leaders angry. They
suffered ignominious
political lives . . .
Sad but true. It's obvious these restrictions and the President's/administration's cowardice in regards to calling out the Dems/media is holding our military back. It takes leadership.
stop trying to make something other than what I said the point.
Here is a fact for you:
Between 1993 and 2001 every single officer who went from O-6 to O-7 (as well as all 0-7 to 0-8; 08 to 0-9; and 0-9 to 0-10) was evaluated by and promoted by klinton.
Here is another fact:
The total number of active duty general or flag officers is capped at 302 for the Army, 216 for the Navy, 279 for the Air Force, 80 for the Marine Corps
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_four-star_officers
The bulk of (and all of the highest ranking) General Officers were appointed by klinton.
Both, and that's the problem. I doubt that the Admin ever gave the Generals the PC ROE now in place: they evolved over time as one media-generated 'scandal' after another led to political pressure to 'clean things up' in the military.
This vicious circle-jerk of ever-more restrictive ROE is primarily due to the fact that both the military and the Admin have failed to understand that there is a mean between the ineffective, police-like patrolling our soldiers do now and WWII style city flattening.
That means catching insurgents, introducing their testicles to Mr. Field Telephone, and, when one cell is rounding up, having them all condemned and shot as unlawful combatants.
Another thing the we and the Iraqis should start with is booting almost all the foreign press out of the country and then allowing a few, selected organizations to stay with handlers like Saddam did. They will then 'play ball' like they did with Saddam in order to compete against each other for access, instead of competing against each other for hysterical (and false) headlines like they do now.
Booting most of the press out would be worth 5 divisons alone.
Taking care of the domestic, disloyal opposition (the leakers and their media sock-puppets) would also help a lot. I'm not talking about jailing people for their political opinions, but those who break the law need to be taken down hard.
This admin has shown an incredible lethargy in cleaning up the security agencies after 9/11 and in allowing an essentially treasonous press to do what it wants, including paying terrorist stringers for 'news' (for which they should also be prosecuted). A few well placed and publicized prosecutions of the press for working with terrorists would go a long way towards destroying what credibility they have left, and might make the conglomerates that own them clamp down on their sloppiness.
But the Bush admin seems to have an inappropriate sense of WASP'y politeness combined with the Kool Aid Konstitution left to us by Earl Warren. Lincoln found the generals he needed because he was looking for those who knew what to do to win (no matter how nasty it was). Bush isn't even looking.
What is the deal? I just stand by the fact I don't think all these tactics are from the Generals. Like I said, big screwup in Fallujah the first time and with letting Sadr walk. Not to mention the rules of engagement and these tactics that kill more of our men and women. We are not fighting the war all out and I don't think it's all the Generals fault.
there is no "deal".....you invented your way into something afield from what I said.
fwiw, I am unhappy with the Generals at least as much as I am unhappy with Bush. I see a good reason why the ranking-est Generals are who and what they are. Conversely, Bush has come a long way baby from his original stance toward the US/western counteroffensive to jihad (bring it on).
When you start using peoples names and references of plan's etc. you need to provide a link and/or a little detail, a lot of people who read your statements are not as informed as yourself. I was trying to help you make your statement more understandable to these people.
What makes you think a Patton is needed to combat the gnats we face in Iraq? There are no armies to beat, no tank battles to fight just harassing tactics.
There is no thirst for engagement with the enemy...just the hope they'll quiet down until we can leave with our pride intact.
If the enemy was smart they'd lay low and wait...
Now is the time for a Sherman. We need to CLEAN OUT the hornets nest and persue any/all bad guys across any/all borders until eradicated.
Well, not until now, apparently. Hopefully, it is not too late.
Never happen....I don't think the next Republican
President is out of High School yet....after looking at
all the present group groping for the brass ring???
What do you think??? JK
I know I got sick to my stomach when I heard Rumsfeld say in his emotional farewell at the Pentagon, that the worst day of his six years as secretary of defense occurred when he learned of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. What? Wouldn't the worst day have been 9/11/01 when the building was attacked and innocent people were murdered? When I heard that I was saddened to think that the MSM's constant barrage of attacks had perhaps had a bigger impact in shaping the course of this PC war than we ever thought (or an even worse thought -- was Rumsfeld not who we thought he was all along?).
I would really like to know where all this PC stuff came from? Was it Bush -- or was he ill-served by his advisers?
"let's go door to door and engage the enemy among the civilians, tolerating no civilian casualties, and exposing our people to IEDs and hostile fire by combatants in civilian clothing, and just keep doing this forever"
Obviously the Generals are implementing policies based on the constraints of reality and politics:
1. The only way to not expose our soldiers to IEDs is to keep them on base and/or bring them home. They can only be effective at capturing insurgents if they are out there in harm's way.
2. Tolerating civilian casualties is a great way to be hated more. If we are to succeed against an insurgency, we cannot afford to have people be on their side, so being indifferent to their lives would be a disaster.
3. We don't get to dress the enemy in uniforms - unless we capture them, which we do on a daily basis.
These are not easy choices, but I dont see how these policies have been wrong compared to the alternaitves.
Your rather pointed statements about the conduct of the war begs the question of what better way *you* can think of to win this war, where winning means having Iraq become a stable and secure nation under a free and democratic Government.
If you know this is the wrong way, what is the *right* way???
"Was it the Generals who held back the military from taking action the first time in Fallujah? "
Actually, yes, in the sense that the Generals didnt want to go in in the first place. Fallujah happened in part because the US Army thought it best to let Fallujah be - it went to pot. When the administration wanted to go into Fallujah the generals were at first reluctant. Perhaps they saw how it
would do little good.
Now, the *second* interference, when the marines were chewing up the town, occured because of the UN envoy and Iraqi leaders who complained via Paul Bremer and the administration of 'collective punishment'. In the interests of keeping Sunnis on board the political process, we backed off. They called off and tried to set up a Fallujah brigade as a half-measure. Didnt work.
There is a lesson on the latter point, which is the same lesson Israel should have learned this summer: When you are in a fight, win it - quickly - before the media turns your military victory into a public relations nightmare and you lose politically what you paid in blood for via military means.
It's mind boggling that posters here worry about "PC tactics" while the media repeatedly evokes an image of US abuses, harsh treatment, etc. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle?
"I can always make more generals, but I can't make more horses."-Abe lincoln
In both the Civil War and World War II capable officers made rank quickly in response to how well they performed in combat. Why not jump someone like McMaster up two grades and give him a division to command? Right now we ought to take a chance.
Georgetown, one of the leading schools of "foreign" relations in the U.S., has lately become beholden to Saudi money:
Saudi Gives $20 Million to Georgetown: Prince Says He Wants to Promote Understanding of Islam
Sounds good to me!
Why do I get the feeling that Courtney Massengale is in charge in Iraq, when we really need Sam Damon? Sounds like COL McMaster is more like Sam Damon.
For those who don't recognize these names, they are the key players in Anton Myrer's Once an Eagle, a novel that is used in the curriculum at the Army War College.
General officers have promotion boards and the boards recommend promotions. A promotion to general grade officer must be cleared by Congress, but Congress is usually a rubber stamp for the list of promotions they receive.
I agree, but sometime you have to stop blaming the media and blame who is running the war. The media gives information, but if the President and his cabinet would have given information out more often and understandable than the media would have been cut down in size. I know that the media loves the negative. Well if that is a fact than we should counter attack!!!! I blame the whole bunch to be honest with you.
The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by USMC, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes
War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare by Robert Taber
Mao Tse-tung on Guerilla Warfare by Mao Tse-tung and Samuel B Griffith
They are a great resource and will let you see what we are dealing with is a world wide guerrilla war against Islamo-facism.
the techniques involved in counter insurgency or "anti-guerrilla" warfare were taught to many soldiers and Marines by the British and other allies. We are using them in Afghanistan very effectively and would be doing the same in Iraq if we could control the propaganda portion a little better.
It took the Brits over 20 years to clear up Indonesia....similar timetable for Northern Ireland...patience, intel, killing or removing the fighters, removing monetary and logistical support, killing or detaining all those who support or assist, and finally intel, intel, intel...continuous gathering of information and individuals. The use of ID cards with photo, DNA and fingerprints into large computerized databases that can be accessed in the field is really helping in Afghanistan, or so I've heard.....
If the administration is "profoundly angry" at the Times (and they should be), then they should show it, loud and proud.
you are correct in your general methods for fighting this....look at my prior post to caddie
They talk too much.
I wonder the same thing, also wonder what General Abazaid's roll was in backing out of these conflicts? Is he personally conflicted about this war?
So, did Bush fire Rummy?
I've heard it both ways.
....I can assure you that every night and every day we are hunting down and killing "targets of opportunity".... aggressively...
we no longer do the BS "body count" crap that had us do a ESPN scoreboard of KIA/WIA . Us vs. Them tote-board.
That's not what you do to fight guerrillas... you fight them, kill them and move on to the next one...over and over till you have a whimper of a fight ......then only occasional "massive" battles... maybe in the couple of dozens but never in the thousands or tens of thousands...
don't let the MSM make you think we are "loosing" this war. We are in the midst of "fighting" the war....
We aren't at the end of the war
or even the beginning of the end
but we are at the end of the beginning....... (Churchill)
Until then my contention is we're not fighting, we're sitting and driving...the vast majority of US troops are little more than targets and cops.
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