What do you think of our current President?

[cougar32d]

ummm.....ok....can't argue that

[lesofprimus]

Cougar, I think u missed Adlers post where he was asking u about ur time in Iraq.... 3 years huh???

[cougar32d]

yes, 3 tours embracing the suck. not 3 years straight though. had some in-between time because i forgot to duck.

[FLYBOYJ]

Bush kept his promise on not raising taxes but fiscal responsibility is non existent. A lot of money was spent recklessly on the "War of Terror" and he expanded the size of government - the exact opposite of the "Contract with America" that was spearheaded by Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. He has put our troops into a "police action" which is the biggest injustice that could be done to them after the rout of the Iraqi Army. I don't hate him but I think he's very stubborn and misguided...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by syscom3

Historically, generals have had a habit of consolidating control over civilians.

Better to have uninformed civilians controlling the military than informed generals taking control of civilians.

Thats how people die and wars are lost. Look at Vietnam and now Iraq.

When you make statements like that is how I know you never served a day in your life for your country...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by cougar32d

yes, 3 tours embracing the suck. not 3 years straight though. had some in-between time because i forgot to duck.

Where at in Iraq?

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Thats how people die and wars are lost. Look at Vietnam and now Iraq.

When you make statements like that is how I know you never served a day in your life for your country...

Better to lose wars that are directed under civilians than to have a general create a dictatorship or escalate a war.

In Vietnam, the generals wanted us to Nuke N Vietnam.

In Cuba, starting a nuclear war not only was an option, but the prefeered option.

In Iraq, the generals didnt listen to their own staff's that said the post war period was going to require lots more troops.

[cougar32d]

mosul 03-04, baghdad 04-early 06

[cougar32d]

i apologize i'm not as eloquent a writer as some of your are but i'll try to put my thoughts down as best i can. a cililian 8000 miles away from the frontlines can't see what the commanders on the ground can (somalia). so how can they be in charge on any level? a good number of my brothers have died all over the world because of policies set by civilians who had no clue or business controlling the military

[timshatz]

Cougar, keep writting. It is nothing more than practice. The more you do, the better you'll get!

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by cougar32d

i apologize i'm not as eloquent a writer as some of your are but i'll try to put my thoughts down as best i can. a cililian 8000 miles away from the frontlines can't see what the commanders on the ground can (somalia). so how can they be in charge on any level? a good number of my brothers have died all over the world because of policies set by civilians who had no clue or business controlling the military

And untold hundreds of millions of civilians have died at the hands of military dominated govts.

[FLYBOYJ]

It's not a matter of the military dominating a civilian government. Its a matter of that civilian government telling the military to win a war and then restricting its resources.

[renrich]

Gentlemen, I would like to try to lend a little perspective to this discussion. When Bush took over the economy was in a recession which was exacerbated by 9-11. Another jolt to the economy was the series of hurricanes one of which closed one of our busiest ports. Bush got a tax cut through congress which benefitted all who pay taxes and today we have and have had an economy with full employment, low inflation, stock market at an all time high. I know Bush should not get credit for all that but he would be blamed if the opposite were true. We have two new supreme court justices that are strict constructionists and the new chief justice is said to have considerable influence over the leftist members of the court. We have not had a terrorist event on our soil since 9-11. Does anyone doubt that there have been many foiled? The military is being reconfigured for the type of warfare we are likely to see in the forseeable future. All of this on Bush's watch. Now, what about the war? To me a military war plan is just a proposal and the enemy always gets a vote. Let us look at history. Does anyone doubt that Roosevelt would have been impeached if we had had an opposition party like the Dems are today and a ravening, feral media like today in 1942, 43? Pearl Harbor, the Philipines, Guadalcanal campaign, The screw ups during Torch, Kasserine Pass, Salerno where many of our men were killed by friendly fire, Anzio, the whole Italian campaign, all the mistakes during Overlord, Patton slapping a soldier, the terrible losses during the strategic bombing campaign before we had escort fighters, Schweinfurt, Regensburg, Tarawa, Peleliu. Iwo, Okinawa, around 50 % of our submariners not coming back. Roosevelt would not have been around in 44 for reelection with the media and opposition party we have today. The enemy always get a vote.

[FLYBOYJ]

In WW2 you didn't have a visual TV media controlled by the liberal left.

[FLYBOYJ]

This is a repost from an earlier post - a great assessment from a Korean and Vietnam War vet.

This is a brutal and honest assessment of Iraq with some comparisons to Vietnam - the guy who wrote this is a retied bird colonel who served in Korea and in Vietnam, I think he make a lot of sense as based on his experience slams everyone...

"We had a pretty corrupt South Vietnamese 'government' to turn over things to, but the reality was that the Tet Offensive was an unmitigated disaster for the Viet Cong. I should know. I did the analysis of the outcome of every engagement in the II Corps AO - the southern half of Vietnam including Saigon - for, first the Corps Commander Fred Weyand, then for Westmoreland and Abrams.

For Tet, in spite of US Media's portrayal was not a military victory, but a Viet Cong defeat everywhere.

It was a US 'political' defeat largely because of media fueling the anti-war movement in the US. Superficially the press, by circulating pictures of Viet Cong at the gates of the US Embassy - 'communicated' that we somehow were overrun everywhere.

But of course it was not the NVA as much as the Viet Cong that were master manipulators of US Media - just as Al Quaeda and its allies are now. THEY understand US Media, and how American react to televised sound bytes better than any Americans do. That if you just blow up a Humvee spectacularly, after inviting the press and its cameraman to the scene, THAT will make the 5 o'clock news for 50 million Americans, while anything that went on anywhere else in Iraq the same day is not covered.
Do that every day through the 'protracted' years of a war, and into the eye and ears of Americans at homw, who expect all wars to be short and sweet, with overwhelming American force against uniformed enemies, and US Will falters, and eventually gives up.

Sure, the US 'lost' the Vietnam War in large part because it - McNamara, Rostow, McGeorge Bundy, Kissinger - totally a Democratic administration - AND the JCS and especially Westmoreland - did not know how to fight a 'National War of Liberation' ala Mao, with protracted rural political subversion, terrorist acts, guerilla war, leading eventually to main force battles - ala the NVA, just as they did with the French leading to Dienbienphu (sp).

But don't under credit Giap and the North Vietnamese. They won as much by the superiority of their bottom up politico-military strategy and tactics
as by our mistakes.

Iraq is de ja vu all over again. We (Rumsfeld, the Neo-Cons, and Bush accepting their 'military' advice - while rejecting Powells and Shinseki's) with a Republican Administration did the same thing all over again.

Now it would have taken far smarter - than Rumsfeld's 'political wisdom' about the Middle East and Iraq in particular, to have made the right political decisions in the first place (like setting out to partitioning Iraq into Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd sub-nations) to lay down what would be politically feasible, and then harness the military to that aim. So the big mistakes were political in the first place, not military.

But once again, the US Military also had forgotten (having rejected in the 80s and 90s) the operational lessons of Vietnam, saying we will NEVER get into another insurgent war again. So even where we had the 3d, 1st Armored, 101st Airborne, 4th Mech, and 1st Cav Divisions and the Marine Expeditionary force, there as soon as the Iraq Army was whipped, I give no slack to them either, ( with the exception of Gen Petreus and Col McMasters and probably a few other Marine and Army battalion commanders who 'got it' and knew what to do) The Army and Marines could have done it better had we had a working Counterinsurgency on the shelf doctrine, training to suit, and commanders ordered to use it. Only the SF and their counterpart Special Operations units were ready for that war.

So as far as I am concerned Iraq was lost by the Administration + US Military + Media influence. Operating against a US Population which wants a Free War Lunch - fought only by volunteers."