A Cure for the Democratic Blahs (blah-blah-blah-blah!)
From Victor Davis Hanson at NRO:
April 13, 2006, 7:43 a.m.
Dead-end Debates
Critics need to move on.
Dead-end Debates
Critics need to move on.
Currently, there are many retired generals appearing in frenetic fashion on television. Sometimes they hype their recent books, or, as during the three-week war, offer sharp interviews about our supposed strategic and operational blunders in Iraq — imperial hubris, too few troops, wrong war, wrong place, and other assorted lapses.
Apart from the ethical questions involved in promoting a book or showcasing a media appearance during a time of war by offering an "inside" view unknown to others of the supposedly culpable administration of the military, what is striking is the empty nature of these controversies rehashed ad nauseam.
Imagine that, as we crossed the Rhine, retired World War II officers were still harping, in March, 1945, about who was responsible months during Operation Cobra for the accidental B-17 bombing, killing, and wounding of hundreds of American soldiers and the death of Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair; or, in the midst of Matthew Ridgeway's Korean counteroffensives, we were still bickering over MacArthur's disastrous intelligence lapses about Chinese intervention that caused thousands of casualties. Did the opponents of daylight bombing over Europe in 1943 still damn the theories of old Billy Mitchell, or press on to find a way to hit Nazi Germany hard by late 1944?
Click on the title for the whole article!
posted by TheBitterAmerican @ 5:34 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I read this yesterday and included it on my post on fighting insurgencies. I sometimes feel a little depressed by the situation there, but I am not of the mind to quit. Other days I feel very optimistic. (some of those days is when I don't read or watch the news I admit..LOL)
But, having read books about countersinsurgencies, I know the media is focusing on the wrong part of the war. Blood or lack thereof does not indicate whether the war is being won or lost. Battles were being fought in everyone of the "wins" we talk about with huge losses of men, right up until surrender or armistice. I am not so foolish as to believe that dead bodies mean anything beyond the battle is not over. IN an insurgency, I'm not even sure dead bodies or lack of it means that its the end.
There are some countries where the insrugency is "eternal" (like in south america). Its stability and ability to maintain security by the government with social structures secure and operating in even the lowest backwater.
That is the "end" of an insurgency.
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