...

SH>>You are an absolute flaming goddam idiot.

 JB> Indeed.  He and his ilk want Iraq to become Vietnam.  While 
 JB> they were the instruments in the fall of South Vietnam, 
 JB> they also look at it as their glory years.  They long for 
 JB> those times. 

 Iraq is Vietnam in the sand. The fall of South Vietnam was due
 to incompetent military command along with long term political
 failure. It was a failure of original intent. Had we been
 fighting to make life better for the Vietnamese people, and
 acted by that principle, we could well have won the war. Since
 our entire purpose there was to stop communism, for our good,
 not theirs, the decisions were made on that basis, and never
 gained the support of the Vietnamese people.

 The military won every battle when the enemy actually engaged
 them, but Westmoreland could not turn that into security for the
 people. When Creighton Abrams replaced Westmoreland I thought we
 had a real chance. Unfortunately, it was too late, and Abrams
 didn't live long enough to teach the lessons, dying in 1974. I
 recall, when he was appointed, reading that Patton said Abrams
 was the only tank commander who was better than he was. Though I
 also suspect making Abrams COS might have been a mistake, as he
 was taken out of the field where he was needed. Maybe he was
 needed more at the top. That was long ago.

 I do remember reading a British expert in such jungle war saying
 something on the order of there are a dozen ways to win a war
 like this, and only one way to lose it. You chose that one way.

 What you can't seem to see is the reality of "Vietnam in the
 sand" is in Washington, not Iraq. Remember all the complaints
 about the administration micro-managing the war in Vietnam?
 Well, that's far more true of Iraq. From Rumsfeld telling Franks
 he gets a 125,000 men instead of the 380,000 he asked for, to
 Rumsfeld pushing into action his dream of a new army, before it
 was ready.

 Rumsfeld over-ruled the military commanders, and much of the
 current trouble is traceable to that. And that is Vietnam in the
 Sand.

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... The fiasco in Iraq was a "Feith based initiative".
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