Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal perfessor multigeek's Journal: Military actions in the REAL WORLD

Just a little thought for our current situation. We're starting to see the pentagon/white house media machine crank up the volume about our alleged likely cakewalk in Iraq.
Here's a little quote from a book called Infantry in Vietnam that was put out in 1967 under the watching and approving eye of Gen. Westmoreland. You know, good ol' "we'll win the war any day now" Westmoreland.
(Edited for brevity; I've worked hard to avoid any change in meaning.)

Captain Robison had been told repeatedly that the enemy were poorly trained, poorly equipped, and unsophisticated. In reality, Robison found the enemy soldiers to be dedicated, highly motivated individuals who, on occasion, and considering their general lack of formal military education, displayed an amazing degree of careful planning.

We've seen this again and again and again. If it were worth my while I could get you equivalent quotes from the Philippine war (which our combat troops kept dying in from 1901 until the 1930's), assorted Indian wars (don't get me started about the Seminoles, just don't), the war against the Mormons (trust me, they would have kicked US military butt had they so chosen), and so very on and on.
U.S. troops are used to being aggressors with superior arms on somebody else's turf (I'm speaking tactically, no moral component intended or appropriate). Because of this, other military forces tend to give way before us. This makes them look weak and us look both strong and brave. But remember, Mao "retreated" all around China for decades while the Kuomintang and their allies (including us) "advanced" themselves into humiliating defeat.
When a bigger, better armed force invades your homeland, if you are smart, you retreat. And then you let them reach cities, mountains, and other "messy" spots and you kill them with the death of a thousand cuts.
The last time we faced the Iraqis was on our terms, on open ground, on land they weren't invested in keeping. That gave their soldiers a choice between immediate death and obeying a far away, widely loathed commander in chief and his enemy tribe cohorts (most of Saddam's high command is now from his one little home village). The Iraqi military's willingness to give way under such circumstances tells us less than nothing about how they'll act when fighting for their homes, as part of a nearby command structure, on what is more truly their turf, when we have declared that we will give them nowhere to retreat to.
The same can be said of the Saudis (what, you haven't noticed all the "the Saudi's have to go" leaks coming out of DC these days?), the Yemenis, the Mindanao "rebels" (yeah right, they've held the land against Manila for eight hundred years and we call them rebels), Uzbekis, and a half dozen other backward pestholes Bush want to stick us into.
Now don't get me wrong. As far as I'm concerned they *are* backwards pestholes. And I far prefer the thought of our having a military that can shred three opposing forces and get home in time for the Laker's game. But it just doesn't work out like that.

Oh, and for those of you who even after September eleventh still don't get that this little war could kill YOU PERSONALLY, let me tell you a little story (true, unfortunately).
As many of you know, President Kennedy was a bit of a wild boy and prone to a certain lack of, let's call it discretion. Especially among what he thought of as his kind of people. One day, at a dinner party, he explained to the room that the Soviets were believed to have a nuclear bomb in their DC embassy. Yep, the Soviets were not only a nuclear power, they were a nuclear power already deployed to within walking distance of 1600 Pennsylvania.
The story was that they had smuggled it in back some time previous (I think it was thought to have been during the mid-fifties) and had orders to detonate if they ever lost touch with Moscow.
This story came to light a little while back and the initial reaction was dismissive. Only one problem. Since then a trickle of ex-foreign service, and ex-military and so on from the period and later have been speaking up and saying that this knowledge was widespread already by the mid-Johnson period to the point that it was included in briefings.
And that's the enemy we know.
When you go up against hundreds of millions of people, let alone over a billion (if we keep talking about Islam as the enemy then Indonesia alone puts us in deep trouble), some of them will be bright enough and determined enough to do the *really* scary shit.
Personally, I think that we're a lot better off subverting their cultures with McDonalds, women's rights, and Hollywood. Better for everybody.
Off to do some tyranny subverting,
Rustin

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Military actions in the REAL WORLD

Comments Filter:

"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll

Working...