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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (81501)	3/12/2003 11:41:36 AM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

ON WAR # 7: Some German Lessons freecongress.org By William S. Lind March 12, 2003 [ Lind's most recent output, apparently. Rest assured that Lind's "German Lessons" are not the kind most frequently bandied about here. Clip: ] There are several ways of defining levels of war. One is John Boyd's trinity of moral, mental and physical. Another is the more traditional strategic, operational and tactical. One of the reasons Germany lost both world wars was that she thought operational excellence would trump strategic failure. In reality, a higher level of war always trumps a lower. America seems now to have taken this German error and extended it. The present American way of war assumes that superiority at the tactical (or perhaps merely technical) level, manifested in high technology, will overcome massive failures at the strategic and moral levels. Strategically, a war with Iraq will help, not hurt, our real enemies, non-state forces such as al-Quaeda. Morally, we are launching an aggressive war against a weak enemy for no clear reason. Putting the two together leads to self-isolation, which is exactly what happened to Germany. The notion that Wunderwaffe will somehow overcome isolation and strategic failure will prove as viable for Washington now as it did for Germany in 1944-45. Not content with duplicating just one fatal German mistake, we are moving to add a second by getting into a war on two fronts. Our eastern front may be Korea. The situation there is steadily getting hotter, and Washington's response so far has been to pretend it is not happening while saying Kim Jong II is a nut case.

To: Win Smith who wrote (81501)	3/12/2003 12:06:58 PM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<< what is the real reason for this war? Oil? Revenge for Saddam surviving the first Gulf War? Israel? The ordinary Americans I know are wondering, because the reasons stated by the administration just don't add up. Military theory says that, in a democracy, a government cannot successfully wage war unless the war has popular support. In turn, a war cannot obtain popular support if the people do no understand why it is being fought. Today, the people, at home as well as overseas, do not understand why America wants to go to war with Iraq. That is an ominous though so-far disregarded omen for President George W, Bush and his senior advisers. It means they are losing this war before the first bomb is dropped.>>> Mr Lind is confused Let me make it crystal clear why we are going to eliminate Saddam. 1. GWB is above of all a family man- twin daughters, and Politics be damned, he has only two years to try to ensure that they and all other Americans, are not plagued or killed by Terrorists actions for the entire remainder of the 21 st Century. He will gladly, if necessary, give up a 2nd term to do that. Is there something here that people cannot understand? Something immoral? Something illegal?. 2. We are under attack by a declared war by people who have sworn our destruction 3. VX has been used in a Japanese subway, Anthrax has been used on the East coast. The WTC is gone. Who has VX, Saran, and Anthrax and a means of delivery and are they for use inside his own borders.? Saddam. He will not give them up as directed by the UN . We will take them away 4. The President has a sworn duty to protect and defend this country and has been granted by Congress the right to use whatever force it takes. Sig