Article

2006-12-02 Home Front: WoT

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by .com 2006-12-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [10 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I've won several bets (friendly and "future beers to be named later" variety) with this preposterous commission outcome. A few related ones remain to be settled, when Dubya formally rejects all of the specific recommendations.

Of course the administration should be horse-whipped for ever going along with the whole idea in the first place. It goes way beyond Bush, or Iraq, or Donks vs. Trunks. The US does not use commissions to make decisions on strategy in war - we have elections, and elected officials to do that. The familiar dodges involving base closure and perennial Social Security reform are repugnant but probably now institutionalized - but war strategy? This is insane - even if little comes of it (and as Kristol and Kagan point out, the commission exercise has been yet one more prop used by the media to flog their latest Iraq priorities).

Yet despite Bush's residual steel, I find it hard to imagine any changes in the direction of pursuing anything like victory. If the administration can watch its post-modern "counter insurgency" approach sputter and fail for over a year, helping turn Congress over to a party that may be the most lifeless and pathetic ever to win a US election, without firing anyone or trying anything different, they can probably (incredibly) continue to fiddle-f**k in Iraq now.

Leaks about re-thinking "Sunni engagement" are beyond ironic. There were many whose initial reaction to Sunni engagement was deep concern - and election turnout and unity government did nothing to change matters. Attempting to split and co-opt the Sunni community of course made sense - but as with everything in Iraq we forgot to first "set the conditions" by breaking the will of the die-hard resistance and making life intolerable for those who tolerated al Qaeda. The Sunnis who joined the government could never deliver enough to break the complex grip that fear and violence have back home.

Strategic boldness and tactical lassitude - an odd and unfortunate combination, so far ....

Posted by Verlaine 2006-12-02 01:42|| 2006-12-02 01:42|| Front Page Top

#2 The *real* solution is going to come from the pentagon group led by Colonel McMaster.

And that's theone I trust. He and the 3rd ACR did arguably the best job of it over there of any Army unit. Col McMAster "Gets It". That and he was a young pup when I served with him in GW1, but a damn fine officer. If we had more like McMaster as General Officers I bet that we'd have a lot less of the BS ROE and other hamstringing we have done to ourselves - far more effective meaning far less blood shed on BOTH sides.

Posted by OldSpook 2006-12-02 09:28|| 2006-12-02 09:28|| Front Page Top

#3 FWIW, I think this commission nonsense has two functions:

1. to smoke out the spineless cowards.

2. provide political cover for whoever needs it.

1 is short term, 2 is long term. There was no chance that it's reccomendations were going to be implemented. Sort of like the moynahan commission, WRT welfare reform.

just my $0.02

Posted by N guard 2006-12-02 10:07|| 2006-12-02 10:07|| Front Page Top

#4 Right on all counts, OldSpook and N guard.

McMaster does seem like someone who understands that force and will are still the first topic in war - not jobs and electricity.

I'm hampered by limited info, but I wonder if there's a widespread split in the Army as I saw in the palace in Baghdad, between those with almost a fixation on non-military measures and those who were more practical and realized what people and environment we're dealing with.

Posted by Verlaine 2006-12-02 22:19|| 2006-12-02 22:19|| Front Page Top

23:47 Chuck Simmins
23:24 Zenster
23:21 trailing wife
23:16 gorb
23:08 GORT
23:02 zazz
22:59 Zenster
22:42 wxjames
22:37 Pappy
22:36 twobyfour
22:34 Verlaine
22:30 Pappy
22:19 Verlaine
22:18 .com
22:10 Wheager Unung4824
22:07 BA
22:04 Sock Puppet of Doom
22:02 SR-71
21:57 Frank G
21:54 Zenster
21:45 markawarka
21:44 john
21:38 Frank G
21:37 Zenster