I'm not going to pretend to have the answers that will get troops home any sooner, but the first step in "winning" this war, is to let our field commanders and generals "run" the war without beaurocratic interruption... it's rediculous that these Gov't leaders we have with no military or operational experience think they know more than the infield commanders. If they say we need "X" to get this done... then as the CIC, you give them what they need. Should be a rule of thumb that to be president you must've atleast served 4 years in our military... to allow anyone to become president of this country with no military experience, would be like being the president of a bank and hiring someone with no loan experience to head your loan department... wouldn't happen there and it shouldn't happen with a position that's in charge of our military and national security. As for letting OBL escape, Clinton dropped the ball years ago when he could've been killed and avoided all of this BS.
We would still be in Vietnam and Lebanon if this was the way it worked. The general's job is to conduct operations. The Executive's job is to set the national strategy. What is important is that they work together and they just did that. McChystal got a higher percentage of the troops he asked for (70%) than Tommy Franks did from Bush/Rumsfeld in the 2003 Iraq invasion (30%). Clinton tried to kill him twice with missile strikes and this was before 9/11. The whole aim of Bush's Afghan War was to get bin Ladin and Al Qaida. It did a damn good job of toppling the Taliban regime and forcing Al Qaida underground, but it failed to kill or capture the top leadership who are no longer even there. The mission has changed and we must be sure that we need or want a new nation-building mission there. We don't owe these disagreeable, infighting bastards anything. Al Qaida still has to be dealt with, Pakistan and North Korea are nuclear powers with unstable governments, Iran seems determined to provoke some trouble in the Gulf, and Russia and China are both backsliding on us into more adversarial stances. We need to wrap up the Afghan and Iraqi affairs and refit and refresh our military forces for the conflicts that are coming. It doesn't have to be done rashly or instantly but any notion of us staying there for decades is off the table. They got nothing we need that badly.
The general's job is to conduct operations. The Executive's job is to set the national strategy. What is important is that they work together and they just did that. McChystal got a higher percentage of the troops he asked for (70%) than Tommy Franks did from Bush/Rumsfeld in the 2003 Iraq invasion (30%).[/quote] Depends on whether you believe the popular narrative about Vietnam, as told by opportunistic loonies like John Kerry, or the actual history of Vietnam. Because the reality of the Vietnam war is that another two years and it was won. We had already won the conventional war, and we were turning the tide in unconventional war when we surrendered and left the South Vietnamese to rot and the Cambodians to die by the millions. Vietnam is a very, very poor analogue. Nope. Generals develop strategy based on Executive policy (sometimes called Grand Strategy). Can you imagine Barak Obama developing military strategy? Laughable. Yeah. Because of policy. Franks didn't understand Rumsfeld. McChrystal understands his political masters. Plus, the two situations aren't even remotely similar. BL: At the base of all military efforts, you either play to win or you don't. Obama is playing not to lose, which is about the worse thing you can do to the soldiers in the field. :dis:
I've read all of the actual histories of the Vietnam War, amigo. There is not a shred of truth in that paragraph. The war was nowhere close to being won, it was unwinnable and everybody in the country knew it. Tell us which "actual history" of the war suggests this? Stanley Karnow doesn't in "Vietnam: A History", which is the definitive Vietnam War history. "Vietnam - The Ten Thousand Day War", which is the definitive documentary history doesn't say this. Note well that no country ever "surrendered" in the Vietnam War. The war ended with the Paris Peace Accord. Vietnam broke it and invaded South Vietnam after US fighting forces had left. We had not "won the conventional war" and we were not winning the guerilla war. South Vietnam fell to a conventional military invasion from North Vietnam with tanks, planes, and artillery after the US had withdrawn. Our "allies" the South Vietnamese had already largely given up a political fight that they had no stomach for and barely put up a fight. And they have not rotted. Vietnam now has a bustling economy. The internal political struggle in Cambodia was never our fight, our prime concern there was the VC using it as a refuge. The Cambodian genocide happened after the Vietnam War was over and had nothing to do with the US. Vietnam is a very very good analogue for Iraq. We didn't actually lose the Vietnam War militarily. How can you lose a war in which you win every battle? We quit the Vietnam War because it was gaining us nothing for the 58,000 dead young men from my generation and billions of dollars badly needed elsewhere. It was a quagmire guerrilla insurgency with no way for us to win. We have failed to learn the lesson of Vietnam, clearly. Leaving is not losing, in fact the way to "win" an insurgency is to simply leave after you've accomplished what you can. Vietnam has never been a problem for us for almost 40 years now. We are still a superpower and they are still a third world nation. Go back and study the meaning of the term Commander in Chief. :lol: That seems to be your mantra today . . . :hihi: I repeat . . . What constitutes "victory", then? Say, did you hear Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. It was the most warlike speech a that peace prize recipient ever gave. No apologies for American action. No call for peace with our enemies. Multiple reference to the need for and willingness to wage war in the long-term pursuit of international stability and prosperity.
Bullchit. Why would anybody target a "known" empty camp? In fact the camps were active and full of equipment and supplies, but it became known later that our "allies" in Pakistan tipped off Al Qaida about the incoming strikes after we notified them that their territory was about to be overflown by missiles, which we didn't want them to shoot down. So the rags were able to flee the site before the strike came in. It's why Pakistan doesn't get courtesy warnings about our Predator strikes going on now in Pakistan. Their military is completely infiltrated with islamists and we can't trust them..
Why would anyone save a cum stained dress? People do weird chit for all kinds of weird reasons. It doesn't always make sense. You may be right, but the why would anyone do that argument wont take you far.
Amazon.com: A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (9780156013093): Lewis Sorley: Books And, actually, Karnow does talk about how the tide was turning conventionally toward the end of the war. Yes, I know about the officially negotiated peace settlement. Duhh. However, it was basically an admission of defeat, and I consider it a surrender. By walking out on South Vietnam, we surrendered. Call the Peace Accord what you want. We gave the North Vietnamese exactly what they wanted. Period. In my book - we surrendered. You just made my point for me. The North Vietnamese lost almost every conventional objective they attempted, especially in the later years of the war. And, they were increasingly starting to find it difficult to continue torturing/coercing on the unconventional side. While US troops were starting and succeeding with the same unconventional warfare tactics and strategy (developed by Generals :hihi that, end of the day, allowed the surge to work in Iraq. The North defeated South Vietnam conventionally. They were on their heels against the US forces conventionally. South Vietnam was utterly incapable of defending itself once the US surrendered. So, the ends justify the means? By surrendering to North Vietnam, we extended the Cold War and emboldened countries like Iraq and Iran, as well as those who would eventually become Islamist terrorists. My turn to say - bullchit. The Cambodian genocide is a direct result of the power vaccum left after we surrendered in Vietnam. If America stays, no way the Khmer Rouge does what it did. Add to that statement the fact that the North Vietnamese got exactly what they wanted, and how is that not surrender by another name? No. I have studied Vietnam extensively. My conclusion from Vietnam is the same as Colin Powell's - you don't bring a knife to a gunfight. If you fight, you bring the house and you stay until it's over. We finally learned that lesson in Iraq (almost too late). Which the Left hates so much they won't even acknowledge it. Because, you see, that was a guerrilla quagmire we weren't supposed to be able to win either. That has got to be the most contradictory and outlandish thing you've ever written in our debates. You just said we quit. Now, we "win" because we "simply leave after (we) accomplished what (we could)." But I thought we didn't accomplish anything except kill 58,000 of your generation... George Orwell's Big Brother would be proud of that paragraph. When you are fighting a war. And you quit. And the other side gets exactly what they were fighting for. That is surrender and defeat. Spin it whatever way you want. The definitions hold. You'd be surprised how intimately familiar I am with the relationship between the Commander in Chief and the DoD/JCS. Achieving the military objectives (in a tactical/operational/military strategy sense) and the political objectives (in a grand strategy/policy sense). For an example, see North Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords. Yes, I did. And it was very good and I was very pleased, for the most part. If he follows through on half of that, I will admit to you and anyone else that I have misjudged the Socialist Passivist. He may actually be a Socialist Nationalist. Which is interesting.
Some very misguided folks, mostly with zero military experience, believe that if you blow up a camp, when no one is there, you demonstrate your awesome capability and the poor savages on the other side will simply decide to target someone else. It's such a ridiculous idea that even Clinton apologists can't believe it actually happened.
That is one of the most funniest posts I have ever read. My coke cola actually shot out my nose as I read this!:rofl: Maybe I have a weird sense of humor, I don't know!:lol: I didn't know how to describe it either. It is a strategy but at the same time it is a post. Maybe its the way Bandit worded it but I lost my cookies on this one!:lol:
