Generals.... Then and Now..
. (From gab)
'Nuff Said.
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| Home Front: Politix |
| Afghanistan Proves Our Failed Generals No Longer Care About Winning |
| 2021-08-22 |
| [NYPost] To the surprise of only the Biden administration and its top brass, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last week after 20 years of frivolous American adventurism. It was a spectacular failure of American diplomacy, statecraft, intelligence and, most of all, military capability. In short, mission very much not accomplished. But that’s pretty much standard operating procedure for the nearly useless behemoth called the Pentagon, which hasn’t won a war since the kinder, gentler American government changed its name from the War Department to the Defense Department shortly after World War II. If you’re always on defense, you’re losing. Largely thanks to the CIA and special forces, the punitive expedition against the launching pad of 9/11 was swiftly completed, the primitive Taliban scattered, and an example made. But then that soft-headed American notion of mission creep and “nation building” took hold, abetted by a succession of weak presidents and a careerist military utterly unfamiliar with the sweet smell of victory. The result? Thousands of dead Americans and trillions of borrowed dollars down the drain. The demise of a sham “nation” that never existed in the first place. And another military humiliation as the world’s major superpower piteously is reduced to begging Islamic fundamentalists not to abuse our nationals trapped in the country and please, pretty please, don’t be beastly to the Afghan women and, by the way, please put one or two in your cabinet. It’s easy to blame the craven civilian leadership that pushed us into this morass, starting with the naïve and weak-willed George W. Bush; the feckless Barack Obama, and now the senile Joe Biden; only Donald Trump, who rightly criticized the “forever wars” and had put into place a carrot-and-stick approach to resolve the situation, had any grasp of the problem. But the real villains here are the throne-sniffing Pentagon brass who failed in the one mission every commanding general has: to win the damn war. The argument is made that — in Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan — the politicians wouldn’t let them win. But, throughout history, generals who understood the larger strategic situation even when their nominal superiors didn’t — or couldn’t admit it for political reasons — went ahead and won anyway. During the Civil War, Lincoln cycled through general after general until he found Ulysses S. Grant, who frequently rejected his commander in chief’s tactical suggestions, for which Lincoln was ultimately grateful. In World War I, the American Commander “Black Jack” Pershing ignored British and French insistence that his men serve in a supporting role. Under Pershing, the US First Army smashed through the German defenses at Saint-Mihiel in September 1918; two months later, the war was over. With America reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army and Navy came up with an audacious plan to attack Tokyo, and in April of 1942, Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25s were raining bombs on the Japanese homeland. By contrast, the Failure Generals in Iraq and Afghanistan such as David Petraeus, Jim Mattis, Stanley McChrystal, and Mark Milley (currently the embarrassing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), have consistently failed upward despite divulging classified information to their mistresses, sabotaging President Trump’s military policy, and fretting about “white rage” in the ranks. Just last month, Milley was airily dismissing reports of an imminent Taliban victory in Afghanistan, where he once served: “I don’t think the end game is yet written,” the clueless commandant said. He would have been sacked or tendered his resignation by now if a concept like honor still existed among our military brass. But the “defense” industry’s addiction to taxpayer dollars has ensured there will be no end to low-level “unwinnable” conflicts as long as victory is always secondary. Amazingly, losing has become our official war-fighting strategy. What’s needed now is a wholesale rethinking of the uses of the military that returns us to first principles. As William T. Sherman famously said, “War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” It was another American fighting man, the great George S. Patton Jr. — who won his stars on the battlefield and not in the halls of Congress — who best exemplified how winners think. Ordered in March 1945 to bypass the historic city of Trier in the Third Army’s lightning thrust into Germany because it was likely to take at least four divisions, Patton seized the town anyway: “Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?” Until we return to prizing our Shermans and Pattons over Milleys, expect more Afghanistans. |
| Posted by:Elmerert Hupens2660 |
| #18 Commanded by the offspring of Vietnam, dare I say Korean limpdck generals. What a surprise. That the the corrupt military industrial complex. Spit. Federal bribery proving term limits might be the only fix. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2021-08-22 19:35 |
| #17 NATO considered a 'courageous restraint' award for, well, not doing anything. so there's that |
| Posted by: Retard Strength 2021-08-22 14:09 |
| #16 My favorite story about Colonel Harry Summers was that he reportedly was at the negotiating table during the negotiations with Giap and the North Vietnamese. During a break he was reported to have said to Giap directly, something to the effect of "You know, you never once defeated us in any major battle or campaign", to which Giap reportedly replied "That is true, it is also irrelevant..." |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2021-08-22 13:10 |
| #15 I have mentioned this before: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/sukhomlinov-effect.htm The Sukhomlinov syndrome speaks of the need for increasing display of successes/prowess/experience as a symptom of those who need display to assuage professional self doubt. |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2021-08-22 13:05 |
| #14 But no 'Putting up with Woke Bullshit' ribbon? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2021-08-22 10:51 |
| #13 /\ Any chance they can be awarded retroactively to retirees? Will I have to write my own DA Form 638 ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-08-22 10:18 |
| #12 I'm waiting to see the new 'Woke' and 'Inclusion' ribbon designs. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2021-08-22 10:14 |
| #11 Excellent assessment at #8. Far too many "been there" badges. The British Army system of awards and decoration is urgently needed. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-08-22 08:45 |
| #10 ^ The above comment was for #7. #8 posted as I was responding to #7. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-08-22 07:57 |
| #9 ^ More low IQ spital. Assault ships launch amphibious craft. Your complete and total ignorance is on full display, loser. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-08-22 07:54 |
| #8 CF that picture shows the progression from ribbons with meaning to ribbons as a display of one's personnel file, where the wearer has been, how many tours, and events they were around for. In the old days, General Officers(GO) could choose their own uniforms and select which earned ribbons they displayed. Eisenhower was a Lieutenant Colonel in 1936. He was promoted in the then peacetime system. When the Army expanded just before WW2 the peacetime promotion system was set aside and people were 'temporarily' promoted. They carried a Regular Army rank and a Army of the United States rank, a dual system which reverts back when demobilization happens. Those 'temporary' promotions did revert to many in the demobilization. That get us back to the 'cultural' problem in the service. Our group today is the protect of a peacetime promotion system, block checking careerism. It is suppose to be the next best thing to try to identify leaders for time of war. However, when you are in a war, that should determine promotions and rank. However, they never switched back to wartime over 20 years ago. They kept the same old bureaucratic system with the most frequent excuse being what today we refer to as 'equity'. War is not fair. War is not equitable. The actual leaders we needed were the ones who delivered on the battlefield. Well, everyone doesn't get a chance at command. War doesn't care. It's compounded by the size of the service and the GO corps. They didn't have to kick people up the ranks quickly because they had enough sitting around. Check the ratio of GOs to troops in WW2 and the ratio today. Talk about mission creep, we have had rank creep for decades. One of the more influential work in the Vietnam lessons learned examination was On Strategy by Colonel Harry Summers. He makes the point that during the entire war not a single GO resigned/retired in protest on the conduct of the war. We're back to square one. As late as the 80s, the Chief of Staff of the Army was selected by the White House which had a habit of picking officers who came from OCS or ROTC and not West Point. 'Ring Tappers' were usually favored over others for most of the high level GO billets, but the ultimate one was often not open. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2021-08-22 07:52 |
| #7 Those are both light tanks. They're going to swim all the way across the Taiwan Strait? By themselves? They need thousands of amphibious landing craft which they do not possess. How are they going to invade? Taiwan's landing beaches are obvious to everyone and are well-defended for decades. |
| Posted by: Blinky Pholuling8616 2021-08-22 06:25 |
| #6 My last comment was to support Besoeker's comment. Commenter above saying China has no amphibious capabilities see China's ZBD-05 and ZTD-05 beach assault ships. Only low IQ cockroaches like you use name calling (nutbaggery???) because you are clearly too stupid to do your home work and has to spew rude insults to other commenters. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-08-22 02:21 |
| #5 ^ Exactly. May also be why VP Harris is headed that way in the next few days. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-08-22 02:11 |
| #4 /\ If Xi fails to move on Taiwan or other Pacific targets, he's missed a strategic opportunity. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-08-22 02:08 |
| #3 Some say China’s Xi Jinping is about to take Taiwan while we have such weak President and military leaders. I say China’s Xi Jinping is about to take Taiwan AND a couple of US Territories in the Pacific to put a stretegic buffer between the US and China. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-08-22 02:03 |
| #2 Largely thanks to the CIA and special forces, the punitive expedition against the launching pad of 9/11 was swiftly completed, the primitive Taliban scattered, and an example made. Oh thank you Klingons and Klingon funded SOF handmaidens. Absolute, total bullshi* scapegoat article, likely penned in McLean, VA. The military can ONLY do what the feckless bureaucrats in the White House, Foggy Bottom, and McLean permit them to do. US generals a cadre of WOKE 'yes men?' Well of course they are, that's what Washington has cultivated and promoted for decades. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-08-22 01:50 |
#1 Generals.... Then and Now... (From gab)'Nuff Said. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2021-08-22 01:25 |