there that old guy comes up again, its sad such basic theory is ignored.

It sums it up a lot quicker:
"You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is, never get involved in a land war in Asia.."

I was convinced fairly early on that what we think of as "winning" was vastly different than what our rulers see as winning. Winning, to them, is building and maintaining a stranglehold on power. By that standard, they have succeeded quite well. After all, when has a 24% president ever been able to just order Congress around and have them meekly comply? I rest my case.

So long as we can discern their true objectives, we can better appraise the situation. To do that, we must separate the rhetoric from their actions and analyze what interests benefit.

By the by, the Democrats are making these same mistakes as the neocons. All that "keeping the powder dry," and so on. By prolonging their "opposition" and even siding with their political enemies, they are bleeding legitimacy.

Because the troops were going to be met with candies and flowers, grand strategerist Bushie and his minion Herr Oberfeldmarschall von Rumsfeld had the troops rush to Baghdad and leave all those explosives to be taken and buried in desert for later use as IED's.
First rule of warfare...disarm the enemy as you go along.
When they both expire due to natural causes while in prison at The Hague for war crimes, I hope they are met at the gates of hell by the devil himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocon#Publications

FrontPage

By Jacob Laksin
The Weekly Standard | 10/26/2007

Nagad, Djibouti: Captain Christopher Crim doesn't look much like a global do-gooder. With his menacingly sheered crew cut, his hulking, barrel-chested build, and his barking delivery, he looks and sounds very much like the hardened 10-year veteran of the Marines that he is. But here in a dust-blown village in the outlands of this impoverished East African country, Crim is showing what might be called--ideally, at a safe remove--his soft side.

Broad smile on his soldier's face, Crim looks on as an Air Force band, flown in for the occasion, delights a crowd of curious, barefooted children with what is surely the first version of "Sweet Home Alabama" that has ever been played on this neglected corner of the dark continent. In a few moments, he'll order his Marines to distribute water bottles to the locals and make his way around the village, greeting tribal elders and contending with a swarm of little hands eagerly pawing his Marine fatigues for a hoped-for souvenir.

If this seems like a strange function for a professional warrior, the reason behind the Marines' visit to the village, one of many they have made to such villages in the past few years, may seem more puzzling still. They are fighting terrorism.

Along with some roughly 1,800 Air Force, Army, and Navy servicemen and civilian workers, Crim's Marine battalion is stationed at nearby Camp Lemonier, a former base for the French Foreign Legion that the U.S. government has been renting from Djibouti for $30 million a year since 2003. Today, the base serves as the headquarters for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), a strategic campaign by the U.S. military and its coalition allies to combat terrorism in a region that serves as a critical corridor between Africa and the Middle East. Working in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and even Yemen, CJTF-HOA sees itself as the future of the global war on terror.

The guiding idea is straightforward. Entrenched poverty makes the region prime recruiting ground for jihadist terrorism, while the weakness of local governments makes it a potential safe-haven for Islamic radicals, much as lawless Somalia became a refuge for al Qaeda in the 1990s. Provide the native people with employment, education, and basic social services, the reasoning goes, and you counter the potential appeal of terrorism and nurture pro-American sentiment among future generations. In an age when urban, guerilla warfare has replaced traditional battlefield combat and when the loyalties of local people can decisively shift the momentum--witness the momentous turn of Iraq's Anbar province against the al Qaeda-led insurgency--the operations here in the horn of Africa represent the U.S. military's big-theory answer to the terrorists' asymmetrical tactics. It's not so much preemptive warfare as preventive warfare, and to the extent that the military here seeks to kill, it is to kill with kindness.

It's difficult to overstate the problems in the region. In sun-beaten Djibouti, for example, nearly half the population of approximately 500,000 lives in abject poverty. Getting enough calories in their diet is a daily struggle for some ten percent of the population, with the result that malnutrition, especially among children, runs tragically high. Education is another problem. In 2001, according to World Bank findings, the total primary school enrollment in Djibouti stood at 39 percent, about half the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Factor in the failure of the Djiboutian military to effectively police the borders, easily crossed from the badlands of neighboring Somalia, and you have the makings of the kind of instability in which terrorism thrives.

Enter the U.S. military. For several years now, the servicemen at Camp Lemonier have assumed roles previously reserved for international NGOs. Army doctors travel throughout the Djiboutian countryside, often going where human-rights organizations can't or won't, to administer basic treatment--no small undertaking in a country where the only two fully-functioning hospitals are located in the capital. Still other military personnel travel across the country to inoculate livestock. Seemingly odd from a Western perspective, it is a gesture whose value cannot be underestimated in a region where animals, so vital to everyday survival, are considered more important than people. The closest the military comes to combat, meanwhile, is training African armies in border-security tactics and counterterrorism strategy.

But make no mistake: This is humanitarian assistance with a clear aim. It is hoped that, in time, the military efforts will give rise to a lasting appreciation for the United States and diminish the attraction of extremist ideologies. Commander Michael Wong, head of the appropriately named division of future plans at Camp Lemonier, puts it this way: "A sheep heard whose animals have been inoculated may not strap a bomb to those sheep." Thus, while al Qaeda is digging road-side bombs in Iraq, the U.S. military is drilling wells for African communities plagued by drought.

There has never been a shortage of critics who resent America's outsize presence on the global stage, but the U.S. military's involvement in Africa has drawn skepticism even from pro-American quarters. To those weary of nation-building ventures, the use of the world's best-trained military for the purposes of what is essentially humanitarian work seems like a dangerous diversion. Thus, the Heritage Foundation's James Phillips warns that "the United States should avoid making a sustained military commitment" in East Africa, cautioning that "Washington cannot afford to bog down its overburdened military forces in naïve nation-building efforts that are inherently risky, expensive, and doubtful."

The point is not lost on senior leaders here in Camp Lemonier. They well appreciate the concern that American forces are being diverted from their mission of fighting terrorism in the Middle East and in Africa. "No question, we do have people here that need killing," says Navy Captain Bob Wright, the director of strategic communications for CJTF-HOA. "But we thought we could get a bigger return by empowering African countries to deal with these threats." Air Force Colonel John Crocker seconds that sentiment. "People use the term 'world policeman' but it's simpler than that," he says. "We have resources, and we need to use them to advance freedom and defend the country. Sometimes that means that shaking hands is better than getting into a fistfight."

It remains to be seen whether the military is right that "winning hearts and minds" is the key to defeating terrorism in Africa. For now, anyone who thinks that the single-minded focus on nation building means that the military has lost its edge can take heart in one of the politically incorrect messages posted in Camp Lemonier's Public Affairs Office. It reads: "If at first you don't succeed, call in an air strike."

Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine. He is a 2007 Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow. His e-mail is jlaksin@gmail.com

It's what they choose to read.

I don't think things turned out like they expected in Iraq.

And some people are loathe to admit that they made a mistake.

I did inhale.

I hate neocons, but its not so black and white. To put in perspective: Sun Tzu was writing about wars between kingdoms of equal strength. That's not the case here.

What do the Second Punic War, the Second World War, and the US Civil War have in common? Both were demonstrations that a war CAN be won by the most idiotically stubborn power, provided it has more resources. This is true even in the face of poor decisions, massive losses, and unforeseen tragedy... and such victories need not be Pyhrric.

In the Second Punic War, Rome had the right to demand legions of men from its colonies, Carthage did not... so its loss of 75% of its navy on one day was never an issue. In the US Civil War, the North had the industry, and a steady supply of Irish immigrants... so its battlefield losses to superior southern generals never mattered. In the Second World War, the US had huge empty factories and millions of unemployed people... just begging for a purpose.

At present, the US has neither raised taxes, nor instituted a (standard) draft for this war. We're a LONG way from being financially exhausted: this war will end because we're morally exhausted. Americans won't abide slaughter in the name of liberty... at least, not for long.

The fall of the British Empire is a counterexample... however, its important to remember that for a long time you had to purchase military rank in Great Britain. That led to legions of inbred morons commanding their military. The vast incompetence of Field Marshall Haig in India, the Boer War, and WWI, is usually overlooked as a major factor of the decline of the UK...

Say what you want about the US military... but for the most part, its a meritocracy. You'll never find anybody as deeply stupid as Douglas Haig above the rank of major...

Although we did have Rumsfeld...

--
http://bexhuff.com
Of COURSE you can trust the US Government! Just ask the Indians.

The Russians won WW2 - we helped.

Only if you ignore Japan in that assessment...

But could America have fought one of those two wars without it's sense of moral authority intact? ... Our feelings about ourselves is a resource, just like any other.

Good point, that's why I said the Iraq war will end when we are "morally exhausted," which will occur sooner than we run out of guns or (potential) soldiers. But, all it takes is a new direction in the war, abolishing torture, getting a few allies, and a sense of progress to renew that resource.

Or, another phony military threat to boost patriotism... such as Iran.

In the book Fiasco, they talked about how after Vietnam the US Army had to fundamentally change how they thought about victory... 10-to-1 kill rates wouldn't guarantee a win anymore. Instead, the important thing to attack is the center of gravity: or, that which enables your enemy to make war.

The problem in Iraq is that very few people understand what the center of gravity is... and even fewer have a military strategy to attack it. Petraus is highly regarded in Fiasco, as one of the few who "gets it," but he can't be everywhere.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi insurgents are quite good at attacking the US center of gravity: just tell the truth about the war. As a whole, the American people can't stomach mass slaughter... and if its always in our face (torture, rendition, Blackwater) we'll tire of it pretty quickly...

--
http://bexhuff.com
Of COURSE you can trust the US Government! Just ask the Indians.

January 08, 2007

by Jeff Huber

http://www.atlargely.com/2007/01/neocon_nation_i.html

Lieutenant General Raymond T. Ordierno, who took over as operational commander in Iraq last month, says that even with additional American troops deployed to Iraq it may take "two or three years" for U.S. and Iraqi forces to turn the tide in that country.

John F. Burns of the New York Times reports that "In his first lengthy meeting with reporters, General Odierno, 52, struck a cautious note about American prospects, saying much will depend on whether commanders can show enough progress to stem eroding support in the United States for the war."

I’m of two minds about Odierno's comment.

On one hand, I'm encouraged to see that Odierno understands that support of the American electorate is necessary to persist in a war that seems to have little hope of achieving an end state that U.S. political leaders have consistently been unable to describe in a coherent manner. On the other hand, I'm concerned that Odierno is falling into the standard disclaimer mode of blaming lack of public support for the failures of the military and its commanders to achieve our foreign policy objectives.

Since the fall of Saigon, military pundits in and out of uniform have tried to lay blame for America's defeat in Vietnam on hippies, the "liberal" press and a limp wrested Democratically controlled Congress. The truth is that we lost Vietnam in Vietnam, thanks to bad generals and politicians who started a bad war for bad reasons and ran it badly for over a decade. Similarly, we're not presently losing our so-called "war" on terror on the home front. We're losing it in two third world sinkholes called Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wisdom of Ages

The ancient Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu said "Every battle is won before it is ever fought."

Sun Tzu also said "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."

And: "When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength."

And: "If the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain."

And: "Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished."

And: "In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them."

And: "It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on."

And: "In war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."

I reckon you get the idea.

We lost this "war" before we started it. The neoconservative cabal headed by Bill Kristol that goaded us into it had no experience of war, didn't know how to conduct one, shattered and destroyed and turned loose the Iraqi Army without considering the consequences of doing so, and underestimated the cost of war. Their misadventure has dulled our weapons, and we're still pursuing an indefinable "victory" after the fact of having fought first and not achieved it.

Kristol and his neo-conspirators seduced us into a distant war that is straining the resources of the state, and yet they seem to have convinced young Mr. Bush into taking steps to prolong it even further.

Our ship of state is bow down in a sand dune. It's time for us to relieve the conning officers who continue to order "full speed ahead."

And it's way past time for us to stop letting them blame us for their failures.

#

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at Pen and Sword.

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