WINNING BIG [Required reading for Chicken Littles and Weak Sisters who think we're "losing" the war]

New York Post ^ | 3/24/03 | Ralph Peters

[AHerald]

March 24, 2003 -- IN combat, the ideal leader is the man who remains calm and methodical under fire. Today's 24/7 broadcast news demands just the opposite: raised voices, an atmosphere of crisis and a rush to judgment.

After declaring victory on Friday and Saturday, a number of media outlets all but announced our defeat yesterday, treating the routine events of warfare as if they were disasters.

[Beck_isright]

He is 100% correct. In a 4-6 week campaign, it is too early to get excited. I hope that we do have a plan to engage and obliterate the Republican Guard however. We do not need two years of war crimes tribunals to try all of the officers in these divisions after the war. I'll be more intersted once it comes out what new units are introduced in the coming weeks before the battles around Baghdad begin in ernest.

V

[MEG33]

There are a lot of threads I know that could use this dose of reality.

[AHerald]

What a relief from the past two days of near hysteric defeatism, negativism and uninformed criticism about the war. Good article, clearheaded and informative. Peters knows his stuff.

[goldstategop]

This is a soldier's perspective on the campaign unfolding before us. Its an unbiased and open-minded analytical view of what's happening on the ground and in the air. One wishes media reporters wrote as wisely as this former army officer free of cant and with a strict adherance to the facts at hand. Sure we have suffered in skirmishes here and there but the overall truth is we are setting the momentum and the Iraqis have the hopeless task of trying to slow us down enough that we lose our confidence and concede defeat and slink away. Dream on. If they think they haven't met the American military yet they will soon and they'll find the outcome will be quite different from what they have been promising the world and it won't even be close. Talk about the Mother Of All Wars Saddam or whoever now runs Iraq will wish he had avoided in the first place.

[diamond6]

Very encouraging.

[omniscient]

Thanks. I needed that.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Very encouraging.

Bump.

[MEG33]

Ping

[EternalVigilance]

This thread should be bumped to 10,000 posts today!

[HiTech RedNeck]

Gotcha

[EternalVigilance]

Please, please, please---help us BUMP this thread!!

It is impossible for anyone to state the truth about where we are in this campaign any better than this author has done!!

This is the most critical message that any FReeper, or any American, can hear today...

[HiTech RedNeck]

the Iraqis have the hopeless task of trying to slow us down enough that we lose our confidence and concede defeat and slink away.

The only possible way they could hope to do that would be to unleash an overwhelming WMD in our own land. Think a nuke in NYC with a threat of more in other major cities, or a mail-borne smallpox attack. It may not strictly be a battle against the clock, but methinks we want to ring down the curtain on this regime as fast as we can to limit the window for this kind of desperate, deadly blackmail.

[EternalVigilance]

We are not going to be lured into a "Stalingrad" in Baghdad. Ignore the prophets of doom, who have been wrong consistently. As this column has steadily maintained, we have time, but Saddam doesn't. If we have to sit in a ring around Baghdad for several weeks while the last resistance is dismantled in innovative ways, then that's what we'll do.

Grave dangers lie ahead. Only a fool would underestimate them. But this war is not being run against a clock. The counsel that we must all be patient and let our troops do their jobs remains the best a former soldier can offer.

As long as the American people keep their perspective - which they will - it really doesn't matter how many journalists lose theirs.

[tm22721]

You can shut up the naysayers by pointing out that the max range of a T-72 tank is 1200 yards. The max range of an M1A1 is 2400 yards, it uses depleted uranium shells that cut thru a T-72 like a knife thru butter, and it can fight in the dark.

BUMP

[Iowa Granny]

Thanks for posting this. A GREAT FIND!!

[Iowa Granny]

A "gotta read".

[metesky]

Reality bump.

[PogySailor]

Very good points. I wanted to reach through the tube several times over the past few days and throttle the news reader that was going on about "setbacks", etc.

Good grief, we jest started this campaign on WEDNESDAY!

[livius]

This should be required reading.