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Chasing Two Rabbits

Bush has obviously never really studied military strategy, and takes advice mostly from others even less wise than he. (There actually are a few such. Like William Kristol and Scooter Libby.)

The drooling lot of PNAC apparently refuse to learn anything of military value from the history of Afghanistan. Nor have they read Clausewitz or Sun Tzu.

The most important lesson that they failed to learn was that of WWII and Hitler's decision not to invade England because he really wanted to invade Russia all along and besides the Brits, after Dunkirk, looked like they would be HARD to beat.

Will someone remind me again why soldiers are supposed to vote Republican because they are so good for the military?
 
leftysergeant said:
Will someone remind me again why soldiers are supposed to vote Republican because they are so good for the military?
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Not just the soldier, but his/her family as wll. I heard one gentleman state the reason he is voting for Bush in the fall of 2003, is "because he has a nephew fighting in Iraq". The logic still escapes me to this day ....

Charlie (can't beat the GOP spin machine) Monoxide
 
corplinx said:
And if we stationed 400,000 troops in Afghanistan we would be hearing about how were smothering them when we don't even know if OBL is there or not.

Would people stop linking troop levels in Afghanistan to the capture of OBL as if they knew this was the way to magically capture him in hindsight.
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When was the last time anyone heard from OBL? It's a few years no? we might need to start looking 6 feet underground to find him....
 
leftysergeant said:
Nor have they read Clausewitz or Sun Tzu.
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Oh my god, they haven't read Sun Tzu! That's the key to it all.

Jewels like "If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near."

Seriously, Sun Tzu's Art of War is the most highly overrated tome on warfare. We can all find wise sounding quotes from Sun Tzu, but the truth is most battles go to the stronger side with more boots, guns, planes, and bombs. It is neither required reading nor would I say optional since most of it falls within common sense.

The more you post, the more I doubt your credentials.
 
"Know both your enemy and yourself.."

Rummy told Shinseki that he didn't need more than 150k soldiers to fight the war in Iraq. He said the Iraqis would welcome us.

He based his policies on what he thought the world should be like. He disregarded vital intelligence assessments.

He was willfully ignorant, and thought that his will was all that was needed to turn the advantage.

"When the cat is on the hole, a thousand rats will not venture forth.."

The best defense is NOT always a vigorous offnse.

And this lot is not capable of a good offense.
 
RandFan said:
No kidding, have you seen the presidents high poll numbers lately? That's some spin machine.

Anecdotes are so persuasive.
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I was referring to the GOP spin machine circa Sept 2003.

Like that 1 dentist of of 5 who won't endorse sugar free gum (according to the commercials), I can't understand anyone supporting the president now.

Charlie (thank jebus for 2 term limits) Monoxide
 
corplinx said:
Would people stop linking troop levels in Afghanistan to the capture of OBL as if they knew this was the way to magically capture him in hindsight.
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It might have made the difference. But if we can't argue about this then every past decision cannot be questioned because we can't go back and do it over and see what would have happened. I don't know exactly what would have happened, but it seems likely that more troops or at least the option to add more troops might have been useful and might be useful now. My main point is not that we didn't capture OBL, but that the Taliban are resurgant.
 
corplinx said:
This quote is also from the Military periodical "Duh".
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Yeah. The problem is that the White House doesn't read that either.

If you're suggesting that only idiots read Sun Tzu, because everything he says is obvious to anyone with an IQ in double-digits.... well, I might agree. But what does that say about the US high command, to whom Sun Tzu's insights are not obvious?
 
corplinx said:
This quote is also from the Military periodical "Duh".

It doesnt take Sun Tzu to grok that.
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but nevertheless it would apparently be a quote that Rumsfield should have paid more attention to.....

instead we have the exhibit of the self same Orientalist mindset of Chateaubriand who (in 1810) talks in terms of the orientals requiring conquest to deliver them liberty - and a pervasive mindset that dominated European oriental thought - the theme of europe teaching the orient the meaning of liberty, and of europe knowing what was best for the orientals - (better than they knew themselves) regardless that orientalist scholarship sought only to project the western interpretation, the "idealised" orient, and did little to truly understand the populace as human, as distinct from concept.

You could add Said's Orientalism to the Rumsfield's reading list - then perhaps he could have taken the lessons from history to avoid the play out of European failures on an American level.
 
drkitten said:
Yeah. The problem is that the White House doesn't read that either.

If you're suggesting that only idiots read Sun Tzu, because everything he says is obvious to anyone with an IQ in double-digits.... well, I might agree. But what does that say about the US high command, to whom Sun Tzu's insights are not obvious?
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Good point! Common sense was in short supply. Bush needed some plain easy-to-grok advice in short monosyballics words and simple sentences with no subordinate clauses.

Clearly Bush & Company didn't "know his enemy or himself" because he bit off more than he could chew. And he believed the ravings of some screwball codenamed Curveball, which turned out to have no basis in reality (which was already known in the intelligence community, but somehow they nevertheless deluded themselves into believeing it anyway and used it to sell the war).
 
the most amazing thing with apparently taking with surity the opinions of exiled iraqis, is that they themselves had a vested interest in the overthrow of saddam - so hardly would make the most objective of analysists. We have Chalabi who is very influential in the administration's justification of saddam's overthrow through the INC, who enjoys the position of oil minister and then deputy PM after saddam has been deposed.

The most telling quote, after being asked in 2004 to justify why the INC information had proved to be so wrong, he replied,

"We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/19/wirq19.xml

do not trust a man who has a vested interest in lying to you. Another lesson worth learning.
 
I think you mean this guy:
cheney-elmer-2.jpg
[size=+2]There's something scwewy awound heah![/size]
 
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