I know you won't agree with " Hack ", but I know you will enjoy reading this from a " Military Mind "..heh heh
Actually, you can stifle your chuckle, because I have a lot of respect for "Hack". And most especially, I have tremendous respect with regard to his "shining the light" upon the abuses of officers towards their soldiers.
For example:
"Soldiers are living in the dirt, with no mail, no phone, no contact with home, and no break from the daily monotony at all. I practically got in a fist fight with this captain over letting my private send an e-mail over his office's internet. This clown spends his days sending flowers to his wife and surfing the net. Fucking disgraceful and all too typical of today's Army."
This is revolting, and if I were that officer's commander, I'd have him sacked.. The first thing an officer should do upon going into "admin", is to see to the welfare of his men before his own. He'd better not let someone of my mindset catch him enjoying privileges denied to his soldiers. And that's why that soldier also has an "open door" invitation to speak with an officer and/or sergeant major, farther up the chain of command in order to expose these abuses.
But this, lack of spare parts, miserable conditions, and monotony, are nothing new to the life of a soldier. It's incumbent upon a unit's NCO corps to make things happen, and to ensure their men are properly occupied so they don't have time to be bored.
God only knows, the way things are going. At least 30 years.
I DO disagree with him over the length of time required for that quantity of troops to remain in Iraq. US global commitments, as well as our current force structure, prohibit such a long term deployment. And I would not be in favor of anything more than 2 years at this level, and 5 years of anything over divisional size deployments. If we're there that long with such a sizable force, then we've obviously failed to properly deal with the source of much of this problem, economic despair, and Saudi originated Wahhabist militantcy...
Saddam is saying, "I am going to copy Ho Chi Minh and the Taliban and go into a guerrilla configuration."
Ho Chi Minh had the Soviets and China backing him up, as well as essentially an unrestricted supply line cutting through Laos and Cambodia. Who will back up Saddam, and will we permit Syria, Iran, or Saudi Arabia to provide such supplies to Saddam?? The only ideological supporters of Saddam would be the Baathists of Syria. But they are ill prepared/outfitted to provide the kind of support such a long-term insurgency would require.
But if you fight like a G, everything is under the table, in the dark, done by stealth and surprise; there is no great glory -- except the end result. America has never been capable of fighting the G;
I absolutely disagree. There is a long tradition of guerilla warfare within the US, dating all the way back to the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars.. The Confederacy showed remarkable flair for guerilla warfare as well...
What Hack is referring to is the predisposition of the Joint Chiefs to buy big-ticket weapons systems. But that "asshole" Rumsfeld is not nearly as inclined to bow to such a force structure, being rather impressed by the display of US SpecOps within Afghanistan, as well as Iraq (and "other", less public operations against terrorists).
usembassy.it
"In Afghanistan and elsewhere, we've seen the indispensable role that special operations forces have and are currently playing," Rumsfeld said at a January 7 Pentagon news briefing. "Today we're taking a number of steps to strengthen the U.S. Special Operations Command so it can make even greater contributions to the global war on terrorism."
So Rumsfeld would agree with him that "Snake Eaters" are very important.. But they are availble in limited quantities, already heavily deployed, and replacements, additional units, take quite a while to properly train.. Ranger Battalions provide good cadre material for such personnel.
Gen. John Abazid -- a snake eater -- has just come in and admitted this is a classic guerrilla war. What kind of new strategy can we expect to see?
The guy is extremely bright and a fighter -- a very rare combination. Generally the fighters are Rambo types who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. There are on occasions the Rommel and Patton who are brilliant fucking guys who can also duke it out with you, they understand the street fighter. You got that with Abazid.
Absolutely spot on.. Abazid was a wonderful choice and I would have preferred him over Tommy Franks in the first place. But Franks was "buddy-buddy" with both Rumsfeld and Bush, so he stayed in (and did a fair job). Abazid is Arab-American, a no-brainer, and speaks fluent Arabic.. Also, a no-brainer for winning respect and support in that part of the world.
Thus we did not immediately employ locals in police and military activities to get them to build and stabilize their nation.
Hack and I are in total agreement on the above point, and my recorded comments here and on the FADG thread reflect that.. We should have immediately commenced recruiting police officers, even if only temporary officers, who would be retained as merited, or dismissed if found corrupt or with checker pasts. And we should have been prepared to pay them immediately. But I consider this a needless delay, not a show-stopper.
So, you see... I'm not necessarily in disagreement with Hack.. I just don't perceive he's taking in the "bigger picture", namely demographic and economic issues. He sees it from the foot-stompers POV and that's why he wins their respect.. And I give him Kudos for looking out after the average GI..
Hawk |
