When I receive calls from satellite dish networks, I just explain what I get for the money….

1)Invasions have to be followed by occupations
2) The Army of occupation needs to be (more or less) separate from the rest of the Armed Forces.
3) A federal system of government is the only thing that will work, a unitary system is doomed from the get-go.
4) The one overhwelming reason to stay in Iraq is to avoid a caliphate.

The sins were sins of ommission, not commission. And in that viewpoint, armylawyer got it right. The rest is routine give and take. If you want a pathological SecDef, research what “Strange” fed to a chemically-dependent JFK and an eager-to-be-deluded LBJ. In cleaning up that mess, success was defined as getting the dead down from 300 a week to a mere 100 weekly while retreating and NOT being routed. (See: Abrams, Creighton W. God Bless Him and Rest His Soul!)

As long as the rules of engagement remain as they are, As long as the JAGoffs get to second guess the combat leaders on every action, no matter how insignificant; As long as the NYT, WaPo, CBS and CNN get to effect strategy and tactics, things are only going to get worse.

Exactly

There is nothing nefarious about this memo, the timing, or anything else. Someone was looking for it for a story, found something they could twist and you guys feel you must make a story about it as well. As far as leaks, now you should find the guy and cut his balls off. That’s an action I can agree with.

Next question.

Subsunk on December 3, 2006 at 11:15 PM

Thank you. Close this thread and let’s move on.

It’s so dumbed down
Was thinking the same thing. It’s like a lib wrote it trying to think like a conservative; hence, as you noted, a lack of a detailed plan.

I was thinking it sounded just like a conservative who has had his ass handed to him and has realized he is bereft of ideas.

On a side note, has anyone floated the idea of moving the Capitol? I mean, this is the historical thing to do when completely changing the political/social/governmental structure of a nation. Seriously, why have the country’s capitol in the heart of the opposition to reconstruction?

MirCat on December 3, 2006 at 6:32 PM

Now this sounds like a conservative!! Bravo!!! That pesky reconstruction thing, that’s the core of all of problems!

However, even if there literally a million new troops available to go to Iraq, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference (other than to provide more targets and increase anti-American feelings everywhere.)

As long as the rules of engagement remain as they are, As long as the JAGoffs get to second guess the combat leaders on every action, no matter how insignificant; As long as the NYT, WaPo, CBS and CNN get to effect strategy and tactics, things are only going to get worse.

….

LegendHasIt on December 3, 2006 at 6:53 PM

I was going to say something about this topic, but LegendHasIt has already said it.

With every leak I email the DOJ the same question: When are you going to invetigate and prosecute the leakers? And I get back the same response. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. — JustTruth101

…the DOJ? Same as the DOS. Same as the Atreides taking over Arrakis. The Harkonnen left embedded assasins behind. The difference is that they aren’t sliding about between walls. They’ve all got nice gigs, wear nice suits, have clearances, and are trusted to do their jobs. The similarity is that they’re blood-sucking Clintonite stooges.

I hate to use a popular-culture reference, especially based on the movies (I never read the books)…but, honestly, since the reports of hooligans gluing down keyboard keys and trashing offices — exaggerated or not (and I suspect not) — this has been the mental image that Clinton-era holdovers and career DOJ and DOS “loyal-to-none” ideologes have given rise to.

That’s not the worst of it. Here’s where we go from barbarism to Nazi-esque extermination of undesirables:

Rest assured that if we pull out of this mess and just become spectators, we will have no choice but to go back in when it goes from bad to worse.

This stuff just happens. Rumsfeld has been making memos to the WH like this the whole time. Dozens of pieces of correspondence go over every day for review. There is a diarrhea of paper. Armylawyer has it correct. You guys need to get a grip. Your government doesn’t work any better than your management team at work. Shit happens and newspapers just pick and choose what they report.

There is nothing nefarious about this memo, the timing, or anything else. Someone was looking for it for a story, found something they could twist and you guys feel you must make a story about it as well. As far as leaks, now you should find the guy and cut his balls off. That’s an action I can agree with.

Next question.

Subsunk

The NY Times …..what can we say. All while a Grand Jury in Alexandria is continuing to meet the Times is still unclassifying the classified for it’s own selfish and agenda driven purposes.
This time a secret memo that Secretary of Defense …

Tomorrow’s New York Times unveils a November 6 memo penned by Donald Rumsfeld entitled “Iraq – Illustrative New Courses of Action.”…

Abu Ghraib was his psy-ops disaster and sword to fall on. Remaining at the helm after it broke, and simply saying “the President wouldn’t let him resign” is just odd.

The history of Abu Ghraid is interesting. The result from it were amazing. The tactic used in Abu Ghraid was suggested by a soldier who suggested that making fun of Arab men masculinity breaks their will. They would do anything to avoid being portrayed in such a light. The commanders in charge gave the soldiers a go-ahead. The commanders were not expecting such madness. This is the reason why no commanders were indicted. Rumsfeld was made aware of the tactic; but he was not shown the procedures. He accepted it because it yeilded intelligence.

easily-avoided bit of “technical” stupidity to be able to be recorded (allowing unrestricted cameras in secure areas is imbecilic when fighting a p.r. as well as military campaign)

It would have been worse if such cameras were not there. The public would have charged him of knowingly performing the act. As for controlling leaks, he cannot effectively do that. Take a look at history.

If Charlie Rangel got his stupid draft when he first wanted it, the first draftees would be coming out of training now.

However, even if there literally a million new troops available to go to Iraq, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference (other than to provide more targets and increase anti-American feelings everywhere.)

As long as the rules of engagement remain as they are, As long as the JAGoffs get to second guess the combat leaders on every action, no matter how insignificant; As long as the NYT, WaPo, CBS and CNN get to effect strategy and tactics, things are only going to get worse.

I’d hate to be an Iraqui; The coming blood bath is going to make the ‘killing fields’ of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam after the weenies made us leave S.E.A. look like a walk in the park.

And once the radical islamists slaughter every moderate in Iraq, they will have an oil rich state to facilitate widespread terrorism throughout the civilized world.

He read too little of the latter (from Herodotus to Mao, Caesar to Black Hawk Down), and showed a growing dearth of the former. Faced with classical tricks of guerrilla attack, he frowned.

War is a contest of imagery as well as of militaries.

He kept the war on an absurd “liberational” mode beyond that initial-misconception’s “rallying” usefulness -which turned out to be immmediately, -when the (number of?) troops failed to secure the country during so-called “looting” (which, in reality, was: strategic weapons theft, critical records destruction, the setting up of caches of money and equipment for any future insurgency, probing the confusion of the advanced guard and penetrating the evident uncertainty of the inflowing “Coalition” troops in order to position moles and insert spies).

Abu Ghraib was his psy-ops disaster and sword to fall on. Remaining at the helm after it broke, and simply saying “the President wouldn’t let him resign” is just odd.

He became a mass of flaws, disruptively ineffectual, and he ended defending himself more than the country.

Rumsfled may be a decent guy, but he should have handed in his desk plaque and left the job after the pictures of “prisoner humiliation” showed that his command was such slipshod condition that it allowed these outrageously self-defeating/enemy propaganda gold mine, and easily-avoided bit of “technical” stupidity to be able to be recorded (allowing unrestricted cameras in secure areas is imbecilic when fighting a p.r. as well as military campaign), and then, equally incompetant, for letting the images get out.

He can do a lot of good and clear up his mixed record to a great extent by devoting the rest of his llfe to post-9/11 veterans affairs.

As one of his old wrestling buddies said:

“You broke it, you own it.”

Let him own to getting vets better health care, stronger education/job assistence, and give them a way to make the meaning of their sacrifice
transcend the current national schizophrenia about the issue of why we fight.

It’s so dumbed down

Was thinking the same thing. It’s like a lib wrote it trying to think like a conservative; hence, as you noted, a lack of a detailed plan.

On a side note, has anyone floated the idea of moving the Capitol? I mean, this is the historical thing to do when completely changing the political/social/governmental structure of a nation. Seriously, why have the country’s capitol in the heart of the opposition to reconstruction?

3. Quid pro quo.

I take this to be the acceptable explanation. He has begun his legacy building.

We will see Rumsfeld interviewed on major talk shows in a much more respectful manner, asked to expand on the thoughts in this memo and his evaluation of why we need a “major adjustment”.

I don’t see this happening at any time. I personally like rumsfeld appraoch–do it the hard way. This memo might be his last words to relieve the administration from the burden of reexplaining why he is not office. I just hate all this leaked stuff.

And I misspoke when I said the big man “picks” those he likes. He picks them in the sense of saying “tell me more” rather than a firm commitment.

As for practicability (or rather, practicality)–you can’t very well expect every memo to the WH to be a full briefing or operational plan. You have to KISS and then elaborate when required. But placing some options below or above the table is a shorthand version of that analysis. The big man is free to say “I know you think X is a bad idea, but tell me why.”

“The guy begged them and screamed for God to save him. But the man started to cut and shrieked ya Allah, ya Allah. Then there was a cracking sound like a sheep being slaughtered. The man pulled off the Amariyah guy’s head. His eyes were still open.”

“How did they know about the patient?” Jawad asked. The answer confirmed what the porter he called Ali had told him. “If you call them and tell them about patients from Anbar, Diyala or Adhamiyah, you get $300. If you help to get rid of one, you get another $300.”

I wonder why the old Testament commanded the Jews to put all of the enemy to the sword?
Is there any difference in barbarity between then and now?

The question has to be asked, who commands the respect of the Iraqis?
Anyone?