ican711nm wrote:George Custer also underestimated the magnitude of the threat to his own existence, as well as the hardness of the problem with which he was confronted.
A quaint way to describe someone so out of touch with reality that he would divide his small command, and facing literally thousands of well equipped, experience warriors with 260 troopers, send a message to the effect that he "had the hostiles on the run, and their village in sight." (Quotation marks indicate the silliness of his message, not an exact quote; the text of the message is available, and constitute the last
known words of Custer, an appeal to Captain Benteen to "come on with the trains," meaning the pack animals carrying rations and ammunition. Benteen wisely joined Major Reno and this five troops, so that a force of about 250 managed to survive the battle after being besieged on a "knob" at the height of the valley for three days.) Not only was Custer's assessment of the situation surrealistic (ironically creating an interesting parallel with the Shrub and his Forty Theives of Baghdad), he may well have been suffering from chronic, acute lead poisoning and its attendant dementia. He was also acting in direct contravention of the orders of his superior officer, General Terry, who had ordered him to conform and to join General Terry's column at his earliest opportunity. The "hostiles" (another quaint locution) who destoryed Custer and half the Seventh Cavalry had just come from administering a major drubbing to General Terry's column, which could have greatly profited had Custer obeyed his orders and joined that column.
Quote:But despite George Custer's miscalculations, the problem was solved, was it not, because the U.S. government persevered.
See the above--suggesting that any calculation entered into Custer's "plans," beyond finding and slaughtering as many aboriginals as possible is an exercise in historical fantasy, and displays a complete ignorance of the man, his career and his method. It is also more than a little naïve to suggest that there was a problem which needed to be solved by the United States government. When Custer went into the Black Hills on his "surveying" mission, gold miner wannabes were the only white boys interested in the region. Custer's report, which may well have been a complete fabrication (he brought no samples and provided no maps, an incredible oversight by a West Point-trained officer who was taught to draw maps from his first year), created the impression that there was a great deal of gold in the Black Hills. Given the task of assuring the safety of white "settlers" (none of whom had shown up--these were men looking for gold, or the opportunity to exploit those looking for gold), Phil Sheridan sent General Terry after the chimerical hostiles. They had to march right through the Dakotas into Montana to find them, and then found far more than they had ever wanted to encounter.
All in all, a sterling preformance in creating an anology for the gung-ho, all hat and no cattle cowboy and his buckaroos in the White House setting up their dirty little war in Iraq, and then discovering that there were a hellofa lot more "hostiles" than they bargained for.
Please Mr. Custer
I don't wanna go . . .
Quote:Regardless of the price he paid, Custer was very close to correct about one thing: the malignancy must be exterminated in order for us to survive.
At no time were the Ogala, Miniconjou, Hunkpapa and Lokota Sioux, and their allies, the Cheyenne, even a distant threat to the security and survival of the nation. In 1876, neither the Dakotas nor Montana nor Wyoming were destinations for white settlers. More than thirty years after the Mexican War, they were still headed for California and Oregon. Custer's idiocy made those journeys a good deal more dangerous, and sparked a war on the Great Plains which lasted for another fifteen years, and saw the near extermination of many tribes of aboriginals, and the complete extermination of several bands within those tribes.
Ican't has outdone himself this time. He has not only once again demonstrated that he knows next to nothing about our history (as though we needed to be reminded), but he has inadvertantly provided a wonderful parallel to the lies and miscalculations of which the current administration is guilty, and for which Americans pay in blood every day.
Ground control, major tom is airborne and has switched to Center .... check your binoculars ....
