Quote:I have no doubt the Politicians and Diplomats will do little to lessen the need for men such as Franks.
Bit your tongue timber - maybe not in the current atmosphere, but some day the world must mature!
I will hold response and continue praying until after final results are known - too many possible traps. But, one thing is known, the American fighting man is resilient and good.
Timber, had that triple amputee been Tommy Franks would there have been a different outcome?
Gelisgesti, the proposition has little weight. The Triple Amputee is no more or less a person than is General Franks, nor than any other politician or military figure, or civilian. The course of General Franks' life has brought him to military command, for which obviously he is well suited. The courses of the lives of others lead others to other achievement. In all endeavor, there are varying levels of success. Sometimes, success is a subjective, as well as relative, condition.
Timber, sorry my point was unclear .... I meant to address the obvious altruism of the soldier as opposed to the total lack of same by the politician, our guardians of democracy.
Gelisgesti, If Franks had of been the triple amputee, he would have been replaced. The military is not the decision maker of whether to go to war, it is their job to take orders and then carry them out to the best of their abilities. They were consulted as to whether to go to war early on and the military was against this one-for the most part.
The leadership sends us to war - this is a Democracy. We have insulted our military away from making the National and International strategic decision of making war!
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And stop looking at me that way
Timber wrote:
Tommy Franks' plan has been sufficiently flexible as to render the military mission a success of historic proportion. I have no doubt the Politicians and Diplomats will do little to lessen the need for men such as Franks.
The "plan" is a brilliant one but what if time reveals that Rumsfeld, Cheney and John Boyd are the real authors of the plan? Have you noticed that even Gen. Vince Brooks talks about getting inside the enemies decision cycle?
It truly is a brilliant plan and as you say it had the built in flexibility to allow near instant adjustments for variations in the enemies response. Equally significant is the brilliant execution of the plan even with all the constraints of the environment and diplomatic failures. John Boyd must be roaring in his grave.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." - T. Jefferson, 1787
BillW, ya know, I just don't see the Military's role encompassing the decision to go to war. They are charged with the prosecution of war. They should be prepared to prevail in war, but I think it best they be not granted the liberty to do so of their own volition.
And, yes, I imagine "Ghengis John" would be pleased ... but that's an in-joke, I guess. Few will understand the reference.
timber,
Quote:I just don't see the Military's role encompassing the decision to go to war. They are charged with the prosecution of war. They should be prepared to prevail in war, but I think it best they be not granted the liberty to do so of their own volition.
That was point I was making. The USA has been very careful (goes back to the founders) of separating the Military from the decision - ie, civilian control. They have a consulting role, as in this "War", they were pretty adament about not going to war. They seem to be very conservative in this vein, at least as compared to the civilians in this case.
However, when given the order, they response in the fullest!
The U.S. military admitted for the first time last night using cluster bombs in its operations in Iraq.
The bombs, known to cause indiscriminate damage among wide areas, are "available" and being used by "tactical commanders to create tactical effect," said Brig General Vincent Brooks, of the Qatar-based U.S. Central Command.
I am quite sure Timberland and others can give much better technical knowledge of cluster bombs than i can but suffice to say, cluster bombs are in no way descriminate in their targeting and have the serious defect of exploding randomly. Cluster bombs are devasting to any civilian population.
Hopefully now that they've reached Bagdhad the bombings will ease. They'd better get Saddam, otherwise what's it all been for?
Wow -- I was surprised that much of the material in Geligesti's very useful posts was so new to many in this thread. We need to get a good bit more familiar with these guys, their intellectual travels, and their access to power.
One of the hot-button issues: Zbig Bzrezhinski (Carter admin) published a book in the mid-90's which is exciting background reading for those who believe 9/11 was orchestrated internally. He surmises that the American people will not awaken to the necessity for global change unless there is another Pearl Harbor -- an event which would bring people together and behind an administration which would take on this re-ordering.
Some believe that 9/11 was that Pearl Harbor. It's as well to go back and read original documents, testimony, policy papers, interviews before dismissing any of this out of hand, though I don't think the "conspiracy theorists" have nailed it so far.
Those who are familiar with the way the system works tend to know the importance of social and professional ties in Washington and among the members of universities and think thanks which contribute to decision-making in government. Who Bzrezhinksi hangs out with and worked alongside of, Wolfowitz's connections and influences, who Kissinger had as his graduate assistants, etc. etc. -- arcane stuff, seemingly, but terribly important if one wants to understand how a group of guys, some of them intellectual ivory tower sorts and others distinctly more interested in naked power, get together and formulate policy that we (and the rest of the world) have to live with.
The gumballs at the top -- the elected officials, presidents, senators, majority leaders -- are politicians, gladhanders, people-persons who can manage to raise money and get elected. They, in turn, pluck these wonks out of their dusty offices at Stanford, UChi, Woodrow Wilson School, Harvard, inter alia, and turn them into The Advisors and listen to them closely.
These intellectuals jostle each other brutally for primacy just as politicians do. The theories of these ivory tower people are not inaccessible. Their writings are all over the place -- in scholarly journals and also broken down into readable chunks in mags like Harpers and Atlantic. Those of us who occasionally read their papers and who now also have access to the internet can put together a trail of policy development which startle the hell out of people who don't have much contact with the stuff. Sometimes those who follow the theories and juxtapose them with presidential actions are sometimes considered to be conspiracy theorists. But one should be very careful to go back to the original documents before dismissing these connections as spurious.
It's not a good idea to be one of those anti-foreign-entanglements, anti-CFR, anti-UN people who wouldn't touch a copy of Foreign Affairs if it were the last magazine in the dentist's office and who thinks, "Woodrow Wilson School? Must be an enclave of limp-wristed, over-educated liberals..." Don't leave close reading of all this stuff to weird guys in bunkers in Idaho or those who have self-promoting websites! ABOVE ALL, don't imagine that YOUR political party doesn't listen to these theorists -- that they belong to the other side. Most of them move from administration to administration, regardless of whether it's Rep or Dem. It's called "continuity..." You think you see the "huge change" from Clinton to Bush; the mailman sees that Wolfowitz's office has moved from the eighth to the tenth floor.
We are enormously lucky to have access to many of these documents on the 'net. Some are conspiracy cr*p and others are original documents. Use 'em or lose... any remaining control over how our policies, our leadership, our government are formed.
Kara, Max Clelland, senator from Georgia. Gave three limbs in Vietnam and his honor in Georgia.
Let me point out Kara that the guy who ran against him (don't remember his name - don't care to remember his name) ran against Max by questioning his patriotism and his main platform for for the Civil War Rebel battle flag. He is a jerk in the highest order!
Tartarin
Yes Tartarin, all of that information is available for those interested but the trick is and will be to identify the salient points and then form the correct conclusions. Prejudiced mental concepts will continue to produce false conclusions---I do hope you will discard your prejudices.
Cluster Munitions "Cluster Munitions" are of two types: Area Denial, or specifically Anti-Armor. weapons. Their use in proximity to civilians is rae, though frequently civilians may re-enter an area subjected to sub-munitions some time after the battle. A given percentage of the bomblets will fail to detonate as intended and will remain unexploded on the ground, posing hazard. Failure of the firing mechanism renders such unexploded munitions functionally inert statiscally more often than not to significant proportion. However, a number of bomblets dispensed will entail a very much smaller number of failed individual munitions which present probable threat. If the number of bomblets is very large, the danger from residual unexploded ordinence will be proportionately higher.
Anti-Armor submunitions have characteristics which render them considerably less likely to be detonated by accidental civilian interaction than do Anti-Personnel submunitions. The greatest majority of submunitions dispensed have been of the Anti-Armor variant, Though the more focused destructive envelope of an anti-armor device is of less effect on personnel or other soft targets than are specific antipersonnel muntions, a suitable number of anti-armor variants will have the desired effect on non-armor targets, albeit at the expense of greater delivery effort.
Here's a bomb a variant of which you'll likely be hearing a little about, I imagine. As opposed to explosive effect, this uses the big rock principle: it is mainly a ton of satellite-guided dead weight, which, travelling several hundred meters per second, is capable of satisfactory effect on precise targets with very, very little collateral damage. Not very bloodthirsty, but good for specific strikes on high value targets in urban areas.
Inert Bomb
I know all about Max Clelland. Didn't know that was whom you were talking about.
