Comments Posted By Quilly Mammoth
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DOES CONFRONTING TERRORISM MAKE IT WORSE?
Why history, Otto?
In 1861 Winfield Scott proposed a strategy for defeating the South. Essentially the plan involved blockading the South and cutting it in half by controlling the Mississippi. Scott, who was Lincoln’s General-in-Chief thought that such a technique would spare many lives. However, Major General George McClellan sent a letter directly to Lincoln which called for a more aggressive approach. McClellan also received a letter from Scott detailing the plan.
Portions of that letter were “leaked†to the papers. A cartoon was published that showed an Anaconda squeezing the South. Hence it’s popular name, and much ridicule. A direct invasion was thus forced, by the perception of popular demand, on Lincoln. (And just as Scott forecast they were not successful.)
It was done for McClellan’s personal political ambition. In the end Scott’s was essentially the strategy that the North used to defeat the South. Forewarned, the campaign to win the Mississippi was far more difficult than it should have been. Forewarned, the largely undeveloped South began an aggressive program of decentralized, domestic munitions manufacture. Which, alng with other reasons, forced generals such as Grant and Sherman to pursue a scorched earth program.
Athens should have defeated Sparta, for many reasons. But Athens continually purged its military leaders because differing political factions used the war for their own profit. Not to mention that Pericles' vision of a stalemated Sparta had been fulfilled. The plague then decimated Athens and the “stalemated†Sparta eventually pulled down Athens’ walls.
The point here is that history is important in the same way that we learn that touching a flame burns. Two very different examples of Containment, but the common thread is the danger that democracies have when its political figures use war for their own personal gain.
PS: Victor Davis Hanson has a great book on the Ionic war called "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War". The parallels with today’s war are amazing.
Comment Posted By Quilly Mammoth On 24.09.2006 @ 23:49
Rick,
Let me just add that the MSM and the Left are not solely to blame for our stalemate in Iraq. There are still great policy issues in several key areas of government that Bush has been unable to resolve. Policies that are often contradictory are being used at the same time by their various partisans. One such is what role should the military take in Nation Building?A great case study can be made by looking at what happened just Southwest of Baghdad when the 48th Brigade(Enhanced), Georgia National Guard, was replaced by the 2 BCT of the 101st. There is a conflict between the policy of Civil Affairs and Find, FIx and F*** the enemy. In this case, the Guardsmen had forged strong bonds with the community...that's what they do... but when the Warriors of the 101st went in the place exploded. They did kill a lot of insurgents, but at what cost?
The type of work that the GAANG did was what Schoonamaker wants, the type of battle the 101st did is what another contingent wants. This sort of conflict should not exist. But it does because open debate cannot be allowed. The Administration is terrified that any such admission of conflict will be used against them politically. The order to "shape up or ship out" cannot be given because the offended will run to the MSM.
Darn...in many ways back to the starting point.
Comment Posted By Quilly Mammoth On 24.09.2006 @ 12:34
I had to use Tokyo Rose and Benedict Arnold because most people have not yet come to understand that Dan Rather and his ilk are no different than Tokyo Rode and that Pelosi, Reid and Fat Ted's quest for personal power at the expense of national security no different than that of a snubbed Benedict Arnold.
It is absurd to imagine that fence sitters would not be pushed to action, joining groups like AQ, during a Low Intensity Conflict. There are literally thousands of studies which indicate that the propaganda war, which must be waged to limit that growth, is just as important as the traditional military mission. This is the so-called "hearts and minds" battle.
Just as in Vietnam we missed that the most powerful weapon that the enemy has in the propaganda war is American Made.
Comment Posted By Quilly Mammoth On 24.09.2006 @ 11:40
What if Tokyo Rose ran the media during the Second World War? What if Benedict Arnold had been the opposition leader in the Continental Congress?
Yes, Bush did make one grave error in his war planning. He ignored some important members of the Axis of Evil...the MSM and the American Left.
If you looked at the amount of coverage that we see of the War in Iraq one would expect there to be hundreds of reporters there. One would be wrong; there are 9 embeds of which nearly half are from military affiliated press outlets. Fauxtography gets front page outlets. The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib gets front page coverage and the, at the time. nearly daily beheadings virtually no coverage at all. Hardly surprising when a lazy press uses stringers with a partisan nature whose reports echo their own feelings.
While the Saudi and Iranian sources/governments pump millions of dollars into Radical Islamic Fundamentalist groups our "Loyal Opposition" constantly calls the President a weak, stupid and evil man.
Is it any wonder that we are losing the hearts and minds battle? If you read MEMRI or any other translation of the daily media reports in the Middle East you'll see that the most powerful tools that the enemy uses to recruit followers are the words of the American MSM and America's Democrat leadership.
In punishing George Bush for Florida 2000 his opponents have quite possibly delivered a great victory to the RIFs. I wonder in four years if they'll think it was worth it...or even acknowledge that the assault on Dubya that began in November of 2000 ends with the spread of Dhimmitude across great swaths of the globe
Comment Posted By Quilly Mammoth On 24.09.2006 @ 10:50
