[Rhodes22-list] The Silence is Deafening... reply to Bob Keller ... Political?

Sun Jul 13 13:11:35 EDT 2008

Ed,

Just got back from a quick trip to the MS Gulf Coast to handle some
'bidness' issues. Thanks for the cartoon - pretty much the way I see the
election coming down.  McCain isn't going to win over conservatives and the
far left is starting to figure out that "The Chosen One" isn't so special
after-all.  Not only is he a "garden variety" politician, but a typical
Chicago one with a really arrogant streak.  This is fun to watch!

Attached is another update on Iraq.  The progress made there in the last
year has been amazing but it's not over yet.  The Maliki government is doing
some of their own political posturing (they do sincerely want us out and
he's making statements to that effect publicly, but doesn't want us to leave
prematurely). Obambi's painted himself in a corner - if he sticks to his
campaign pledge after re-visiting Iraq he'll look like a fool, and if he
doesn't he'll piss the far left off even more.

What was it B. Shakespeare had to say about deception?

Brad

-----------------------

July 13, 2008 An Army That Learns *By* *David
Ignatius*<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/david_ignatius/>

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army has done something remarkable in its new history
of the disastrous first 18 months of the American occupation of Iraq: It has
conducted a rigorous self-critique of how bad decisions were made, so that
the Army won't make them again.

Civilian leaders are still mostly engaged in a blame game about Iraq,
pointing fingers to explain what went wrong and to justify their own
actions. That's certainly the tone of recent memoirs by Douglas Feith, the
former undersecretary of defense, and L. Paul Bremer, the one-time head of
the Coalition Provisional Authority. These were the people making policy,
yet they treat the key mistakes as other people's fault. Feith criticizes
Bremer and the CIA, while Bremer chides former Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and the military for ignoring his advice that the U.S. didn't have
enough troops.

The Army can't afford this sort of retroactive self-justification. Its
commanders and soldiers are the ones who got stuck with the situation in
Iraq and had to make it work as best they could. And this internal history,
published last month under the title "On Point II," testifies to the Army's
strength as a learning organization. (This study covers May 2003 to January
2005. An earlier volume, "On Point," chronicled the initial assault on
Baghdad.)

The study is blunt about how unprepared the Army was for the postwar
challenges: "The DOD and the Army lacked a coherent plan to translate the
rapid, narrow-front attack (on Baghdad) ... into strategic success. Soldiers
and commanders at nearly every level did not know what was expected of them
once Saddam Hussein was deposed and his military forces destroyed." The
situation in spring 2003 "evoked the aphorism, 'if you don't know where you
are going, any road will get you there.'"

Why was the Army so unready for the insurgency and chaos that followed the
toppling of Saddam? The study rejects the easy (if largely correct) answer
that it was the fault of poor civilian leadership, and focuses instead on
the Army's own shortcomings. The overall commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, "did
not see postwar Iraq as his long-term responsibility," the study says.
"Franks' message to the DOD and the Joint Chiefs was, 'You pay attention to
the day after, and I'll pay attention to the day of.'"

But it turned out that nobody was preparing for the day after. The Army's
chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, argued that more troops would be needed,
but the Joint Chiefs supported Franks' under-resourced war plan. The chiefs
assumed that a reconstituted Iraqi army would help secure the country after
the war, little realizing that Bremer would disband it in May 2003. At that
time, the military still was assuming that most American troops would be
gone by September

The U.S. had a force for "regime removal" but not "regime change," write the
authors, Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese. When the Army began to
understand that it faced a well-organized insurgency, "the transition to a
new campaign was not well thought out." The Army wasn't ready to train Iraqi
security forces, or to handle the thousands of Iraqi prisoners detained in
places such as Abu Ghraib.

But the Army learned from its mistakes. Rather than sulking about the Iraq
mess, commanders made necessary changes. The Army developed a new doctrine
for fighting a counterinsurgency; it learned how to work with Iraqi tribal
leaders; it pursued al-Qaeda into every village of Iraq; it experimented
with soft power, by working closely with Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
"One could easily state that the U.S. Army essentially reinvented itself
during this 18-month period," the historians write.

This study illustrates what's most admirable about the Army. It has
maintained a tradition of intellectual rigor and self-criticism. That's
nurtured in the Army's unique program of midcareer education. It's not an
accident, but part of the Army tradition, that the current commander in
Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, took a doctorate in international relations at
Princeton, or that the former Centcom commander, Gen. John Abizaid, had a
stint as commandant of West Point. This tradition is exemplified, too, in
the decision of Gen. George Casey, the current chief of staff, to publish
this sometimes searing critique of his own service.

Politicians repeat, ad nauseum, philosopher George Santayana's maxim that
"those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." The U.S. Army
is that rare institution in American life that is actually putting this
precept into practice.
 davidignatius at washpost.com <%20davidignatius at washpost.com>

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Tootle <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>
> Bob:
>
> Brad thought that nobody read his posts.  He has apparently sailed off on
> us.  You now have to be the one who keeps us informed henceforth.  Can you
> take the flack from David Bradley, Bill Effros, and all the other flaming
> liberals on this forum? So you noticed their silence?
>
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p18430486/This%2Bone%2Bis%2Bfor%2BBrad.bmp
> This+one+is+for+Brad.bmp
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
> Words are power, words are to persuade, convert, compel. (paraphrase of
> Ralph Waldo Emerson)
>
>
> Bob Keller wrote:
> >
> >
> > Remember that wargoing on in Iraq?  Can't remember the last time I heard
> > anything about it.  Here's why:
> >
> > http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=300324023809577
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Need to know now? Get instant answers with Windows Live Messenger.
> >
> http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_messenger_072008
> > __________________________________________________
> > To subscribe/unsubscribe or for help with using the mailing list go to
> > http://www.rhodes22.org/list
> > __________________________________________________
> >
> >
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p18430486/This%2Bone%2Bis%2Bfor%2BBrad.bmp
> This+one+is+for+Brad.bmp
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/The-Silence-is-Deafening...-tp18429913p18430486.html
> Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> __________________________________________________
> To subscribe/unsubscribe or for help with using the mailing list go to
> http://www.rhodes22.org/list
> __________________________________________________
>