Re: When even a Republican can see it....

On May 21, 1:07 am, David Friedman <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In article <slrnf529mp.js8.rando...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Randolph Fritz <rando...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That's not at all clear. Even if he cared quite a lot for those things,
the first priority was winning the war. [...]

The Pentagon strategists, with the experience of World War II behind
them, knew what was needed; they were over-ridden by Bush and
Rumsfeld. Apparently Bush's belief in his own rightness was more
important than all the knowlege of his own generals.

My memory of it is that the original criticism was that Rumsfeld was
using too small a force for the job of winning the war against Saddam
Hussein. That turned out not to be true. It was only after that that the
critics shifted to arguing that the force was too small to win the
truth--which seems to be true, subject to some uncertainty as to whether
a larger force could have done the job.

Would you care to use something better than your memory?

*********
(U.S. Central Command OPLAN 1003-98). . . . reflected long-standing
military principles about the force levels that were needed to defeat
Iraq, control a population of more than 24 million, and secure a
nation the size of California with porous borders. Rumsfeld's numbers,
in contrast, seemed to be pulled out of thin air. He had dismissed one
of the military's long-standing plans, and suggested his own force
level without any of the generals raising a cautionary flag.
**********

Culled from the Wikipedia article on Shinseki.

Control a population of more than 24 million, and secure a nation the
size of California with porous borders.

Control a population of more than 24 million, and secure a nation the
size of California with porous borders.

Control a population of more than 24 million, and secure a nation the
size of California with porous borders.

Exactly the problems we've been having since.

But remember, we were supposed to be greeted as liberators and keep
all those warm feelings NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE BLEEPED UP THE
OCCUPATION. So of course troops would never actually be needed to
control a population of more than 24 million, and secure a nation the
size of California with porous borders.

What the experience of WWII was relevant to was the initial stage--and
for that stage Bush and Rumsfeld were right and their critics wrong.

Would you like to actually quote anybody *credible* who didn't think
we could just roll over what was left of the Iraqi forces?

WWII didn't give us useful experience in anything very similar to what
happened thereafter.

Proof? Just what are your credentials on military matters?

Oh that's right, you're David Friedman, man skilled with words who can
slyly subsitute your own uncredentialed opinions in where it suits you
and still claim to be completely objective.

As for the similarity, Truman and Eisenhower didn't bleep up the
Occupation. For instance, they didn't make ideology a criterion for
getting postings Japan and Germany.

.

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