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Where to begin? Where to end?

By The Armorer on February 1, 2007 | | Comments (21)

Lex has a nice, thoughtful post up over at his place. Okay, d-uh. Let's try again - Lex has a post up at his place that is a response to Skippy-san. Skippy-san is a serving (retired?) sailor and war sceptic.

Since Lex mentioned me, and someone pointed out the post to me, well, I thought I ought to go read what calumny that double-whammy (sailor *and* aviator) was spreading about yours truly.

So should you. Click here.

Prolly oughta read the comments, too.

I decided to weigh in, since I kinda occupy the middle ground between Skippy and Lex (heh, too hot, too cold, just right... yep. That's me, squishily in the muddle [sic]).

Lex said: …as a serving military officer my loyalties and responsibilities are clear.

So, I said...

My commission remains in effect, if in abeyance, so to speak.

Indeed - as a good staff officer I have offered my opinions when sought. And, sometimes when they weren't, too.

I have volunteered for recall to serve. However, apparently, rotund bearded redleg-historian-simgeeks are not needful to bring the foe to heel.

But if charged to do so, I will implement the decisions made, even those that I don't like, to the utmost of my ability. 'Tis duty, obligation.

This is one thing many in the anti-war left have trouble getting their brains around. They think we should object to participating in wars they don't like, and actively move to undermine them. Of course, they also think we should be jailed if we don't follow orders to participate in wars they think are acceptable. They really don't understand that outside of issues covered under the Conventions and indeed the UCMJ, they *really* don't want us picking and choosing whose orders we'll follow. Down this path lies the time when the decision is made by those who wield the instruments of the state's right to legitimate violence that *they* will make the decisions. And we join the list of Banana Republics.

Skippy understands all that. It’s not like he’s JadeGold, for heaven’s sake.

He still has to buy the first round, however. (this is the whole purpose of responding to them - I've got commitment now from Skippy to buy beer.)

And while I may not have been all that keen on invading Iraq - nor was I all that keen on invading Kosovo.

In fact, oddly enough, considering some of the invective tossed my way about things, I’m not keen on invading anything, generally. I'm much fonder of invading people who have done me clear harm. Unlike many of my fan base, who are all for invading some things. I'm not as averse as you think, I just have some idea of *how much* I don't know about many of the things you really should know before you decide to draw those lines on maps marked "Line of departure." It makes me cautious. I'm not a great fan of pre-emptive war... *but*. We don't live in clearly delimned times.

The *but* is that when the threat to you is one easily observed and tracked, such as a building Wehrmacht in central europe, that's an easier position to take.

When the threat is one that, as the Israelis perceived the Arabs in 1967, one that if they start and you aren't already in place ready to go, will roll you over or cause unacceptable loss - then yes, I can see the case for pre-emptive war.

But, as Iraq pointed out - you have to be careful, because the Unintended Consequences are going to reach out and touch you, and may just kick your butt.

But I do believe in finishing what you start, and making a true honest effort. And not just quitting because it took longer and cost more than you expected. Of course, every project I start at home follows that pattern, so perhaps I’m inured and just responding to a templated expectation.

And I will listen respectfully to people who think that staying there one more day is no different than the Generals sending one more wave into the Tractor Factory at Stalingrad.

The hard question is - and only answerable in the fullness of time - in that wise is: are we the Germans, or the Russians? For the Russians - it was the thing to do. For the Germans...

Armistead, or Meade? Thomas, or Longstreet? Would Reno have turned the tide at Little Big Horn - or did he in fact, do the right thing, rather than just add to the kill total for Crazy Horse and his crew?

That’s why historians can get so annoying. It’s all so clear, after they’ve sifted everything. Hundreds of them. For decades.

Too bad the decision maker is the Man in the Arena, as Teddy put it, and not the Bobblehead on TV, or, dare I say it, blogger.

Just ask Neville Chamberlain what it's like. Or Edouard Daladier.

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21 Comments

By SangerM on February 1, 2007 8:09 AM
very nice...
 
By MajMike on February 1, 2007 8:36 AM
i commented over at Lex's place. squid that he is, i gotta say i'm with him on this one.
 
By BloodSpite on February 1, 2007 9:29 AM
I'm not concerned on the reasons of Iraq so much as the current situation. There never was any question, in my mind at least, that we could usurp Saddam. The question was always a matter of when. That being said the premises that we went about I feel are shaky as well as a quandary. Had we just said "We're taking him out because we're sick and tired of him etc etc and 17 UN Violations" I would have been a much happier Spite. Was it a dangerous ideal we undertook? Absolutely, and something that hasn't been done in over a century, the complete removal of a ruling party and placement of a leader from "the people" to take up the banner. I won't list the hundreds of issue's, chief among them in my view the complete lack of a rebel leader for the people to rally to because of the years of oppression. The rebels were dead. But in the end the bottom line, in my mind, is we have taken the field. Once our soldiers set foot on the field we are honor bound to support them to victory. The American citizens have not heard this call, we have entered no rationing, no drive to help build, nothing like the days of old...say 1943. The citizenship as a whole have become a people of microwave tastes and 30 second attention span. The war should have been done, complete and the whole mess fixed in time for the next commercial featuring Bob and his goofy smile. And that concerns me. Greatly. Ironically Osama, I think was correct when saying we do not have the stomach for war anymore. The once military expansionist empire built upon soldiers, patriots, and adventure's that won the West and the lands that now make up America are gone, and replaced with coach potatoes, Black Hawk Down video games and rhetoric of "Whats in it for me?" It seems my comment has turned in to a rant, and that was not my intention. But it weighs heavy on mind, and I can't help , sardonically mind you not realistically, if our great "empire" like so many before it is coming to a close in the archives of history? Are we doomed to tear our selves apart because of the differences placed upon our ideals? Or are we merely...dare I say it...lazy? I'm with you John. I wasn't crazy about the idea of invasion. The historical precedents are rife with failure and success on such a hit or miss scale you almost have to roll dice to pick your odds. That said Saddam was evil, and evil no matter the name should be removed in my black and white world. I'll end my rant by saying it's not a black & white world no matter how hard I wish it, but merely shades of grey, and in the last year, it's becoming darker.
 
By John of Argghhh! on February 1, 2007 9:34 AM
And MajMike... well, you, you, you can just be wrong. But hey, you started life as a 'tard, er, tanker, so we'll just employ the tyranny of soft expectations regards your opinion... Sanger, by contrast, is just brilliant. And 'Spite, too.
 
By ry on February 1, 2007 10:03 AM
"Unlike many of my fan base, who are all for invading some things." I may resemble that remark. There's reasons for that. Some of them even shared by all the writers so far in this discussion, and some not. But that's a story for a different day. My problem with Skippy-san on this is the 'results' line. This will sound unfair, but it sounds overly fair-weather-fan to me. If we're winning it's okay, but if we're 'losing'/treading water it wasn't worth it? If it had been done spectacularly would Skippy-san be more in favor of it than he is now that it hasn't gone perfectly? I also have a problem with the 'direct democracy' element to Skippy's argument. So should we have let the public decide whether to keep going after showing them a film of Tarawa? The public is fickle. Even the 'direct democracy' of Athens knew enough to make a decision and have unity of command afterwards: Pericles. Look at the results of abandoning Pericles' plan had on Athens? The fickleness is a problem. Most people don't have time to get into the depths of the issue. The time for the democratic decision making was before the war. The full year of talking about it when the fickle public had a chance to research it to death before telling their congress critter how they wanted that critter to vote. Not now. The Greeks did vote during the Anabasis. But they didn't vote in the midst of a battle though. We're in the midst of a battle. Like others, I too am sick of the death and destruction Iraq has wrought. I personally feel responsible for it since I've often written in favor of the invasion. My decisions have resulted in fatherless kids, men who will live forever with the ramifications. I've helped create another generation of people who will sleep little because in some of their nightmares the bullets don't miss. That's the cost of any and all wars. Not just this one. IF that's the complaint, then there's no reason to fight any wars. Failure to accomplish goals is a poor reason to argue against it, post hoc. Maybe pre-invasion but not post. It speaks little to the reasons for going, the morality of going. But the reasoning was sound even if the execution was not. I take pride in that. The reasons, and there were many, made sense. They still make sense. You don't end a cancer by ignoring it. Iraq was the lowest lying fruit. Hard power there(the cutting of tumors, and Iraq was a tumor) and reap the benefits of the soft power it then generates(the chemo and rad treatments---long term change inducers) to influence the rest of the region. BArnett calls this the Big Bang. The soft power that acts as the chemo against the totalitarianism and terrorism generating regimes is in the US interest. If indirect. The reasoning still makes sense. John's objections made sense then and they make sense now(nobody is willing to put the effort in long enough to do the job right. Nobody wants to play the game for all sixty minutes--not in Iraq, and not against the rising threats in the Pacific either. They want a blow out and a mercy rule victory. What they believe was the case of the Balkans campaign.).
 
By 74 on February 1, 2007 10:18 AM
John, a small point of correction. While Lex is still currently serving; Skippy -- not so much any more.
 
By CDR Salamander on February 1, 2007 10:51 AM
Just be careful where Skippy takes you for that beer. Bad for the heart and CINCHOUSE relations...
 
By Maggie on February 1, 2007 11:02 AM
This arguement/discussion is one I have really lost patience with. I never thought we were invading Iraq because Sadaam *had* WMD, we were doing it because we believed he was trying to *acquire* WMD. We knew he was violating the UN sanctions and waiting out the rest of the Free World so he could do what he had been doing before when he *had* WMD. He was sponsoring terrorists, we know that. He was defing weapons inspectors, we know that. He wanted to hurt us and we know that. So the question isn't *did* he have WMD at that moment. The question is did he intend to acquire and use WMD. The answer is yes and I defy anyone to prove me wrong. So now ask yourself how close do you let him get? I like the "gunman in the house" theory. Imagine a man is in his house. He has in the past owned guns. Receipts prove he has in the past bought both guns and ammunition. He has been convicted on solid evidence of crimes involving said guns. At some point all his weapons have been confiscated. He makes statements to many people about reacquiring weapons and committing crimes with them. He refuses to let the police into his house to search even though they have warrants. He tells the police he will never be taken alive. How long do the police wait to storm the house? When they do and they break his door & knock over & break furniture getting to him they find he had no weapons. Are you blaming the police? I'm not. The best evidence available at the time showed Saddam was trying to *acquire* WMD. "W" acted on that evidence. Many mistakes have been made in the execution of this war. Now we come to today. We're there. It is what it is. "W" is still the Decider. He has a man, he has a plan (stole that from BadgersForward). It's criminal to wish them anything but success. Who thinks things would be better in Baghdad if today we pulled back to the borders? Who thinks things would be better in Baghdad if we loaded up and brought everyone back to CONUS? Yeah, that's what I thought. So, while discussion is good and difeerent POVs are good. Skippy wears on me.
 
By John of Argghhh! on February 1, 2007 11:27 AM
Uh-oh, Skippy. You're losing your base. Maggie actually likes, no, make that lusts, sailors!
 
By kat-missouri on February 1, 2007 11:38 AM
Well, I outlined my points on the blog and linked to it. Yep, I'm a war supporter. I thought Saddam should have been gone a long time ago. For many reasons listed above by many folks. And, frankly, I'm worried about where the WMD went to. On top of that, something I said before, besides Iraq being the "low lying fruit" taking pot shots at us from our flanks, if you're going to kill the beast of Islamist Fruitballs, you stab it in the heart. No, they didn't come from Baghdad, but Baghdad is historically the capital of most of the Caliphates these folks think they're going to set up. Nothing like putting a democracy (a Shia dominated, American friendly democracy) right in the heart of ye Olde Caliphate. Of course, I can't tell a lie. While I did expect some AQ folks to show up for the party, I did not expect this insanity. Still, I disagree on abandoning Iraq for many reasons, not the least of which is "finish the job". Abandoning Iraq could lead to the great inter-regional war everyone was pronouncing would begin when we went in, inlcuding the AQ cracks. I don't think that is in our best interests or the worlds for that matter. Even if it doesn't go to direct conflict, war posturing inter-regional states make the area unstable and thus makes oil prices soar, thus making the economy stink for us and the rest of the oil guzzling world. Then there is the whole "abandon Iraq to Iranian hegemony". So they can threaten the Saudis and we're back to putting troops on the ground for long term, thus ticking off the general populace? Or, so they can have a nice voting block in OPEC, decreasing oil production and increasing the price so Iran can get really wealthy and really build up its military and nuclear capabilities? ANd, finally, I really, really don't want to leave the Iraqis to the tender mercies of the nutballs. Not to mention, the number of refugees that would flood out of that country. Or the possibility that it will turn into the local proxy war for all the crazies and the states that sponsor them. Again, creating instability in the region and possibly, as many times said, a nice long term training ground for terrorists who branchout to the local region and beyond. It's just too crazy to contemplate. But, John mentioned "Stalingrad". I've thought about that analogy a lot in the past two years. Largely because we used the same tactics in Fallujah...withdraw to the outskirts, suck the enemy in and then surrounded the city before going in and killing the enemy. It's a harsh tactic. We did it in Mosul, too. It almost sounds like we are about to "Stalingrad" Baghdad. Yes, I'm waiting impatiently for the right moves to bring this to an end, but I am not going to get sucked in to the "all is lost" crowd when it's clear that Iraq is no where near lost on the ground, just in the "hearts and minds" of the American people.
 
By ry on February 1, 2007 12:26 PM
Strategic ambush is one thing, but Stalingrad is something else. Leveling just about everything, every wrecked building becoming a hard point, fighting to the very last man. That's Stalingrad. I hope we aren't doing that. Being smart and bringing them into nice killzones to be crushed in a decisive battle? Si. Stalingrad? No. From a hearts and minds perspective it's way too costly, in my useless opinion. True, Skippy-san is retired. But he's like John. He's got a finger in the pie. Just not wearing dress whites while he does it. I disagree on Skip on his argument. The guy's cool with me in other respects(he's the True Otaku King).
 
By John of Argghhh! on February 1, 2007 12:50 PM
As long as we understand *my* use of Stalingrad was in the manner of reinforcing failure... not as a prescription for Baghdad. Many times, when things are at an equilibrium tactically, it is the *perception* of reinforcing failure that is the killer. Getting 'psyched out' and withdrawing, not because you are actually on the cusp of failing, but because you think you are. Therein lies a great danger with us. Unfortunately, you only know the true answer ex post facto.
 
By fdcol63 on February 1, 2007 1:33 PM
I've tired of rehashing the merits and evils of Iraq War 2, so I'll just say a few general words: Historical events build upon themselves like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, and we expect American leaders to determine policy in reaction to, and hopefully in anticipation of, the actions of other nations. However, Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences will always rule: what can go wrong often does, and some of the best intended plans have negative repercussions downstream that no one can foresee. Failure to act is often just as costly, or more so, as precipitous action in the long-term. We have every right to expect our leaders to learn from history and to make the best, most informed policy decisions they can at any given time. However, it's naive and unrealistic of us to expect leaders to be perfect, error-free, or clairvoyant. Just who among us is? It would be great if we could all just "get along" with no need for war. But we don't live in that Utopia, and human conflict is ever-present. If effective diplomacy were all that was required for peaceful conflict resolution, then our oh-so-"sophisticated", "nuanced", and "intellectually superior" multilateral French, German, Russian, Chinese and European cousins - with their combined centuries of diplomatic experience - would never have needed our assistance in their colonial and world wars, nor would they maintain their own militaries today. All wars are elective. We either choose to do nothing and allow our adversaries to kill or enslave us, or we choose to take whatever action is necessary to defend ourselves and control our own destiny.
 
By SangerM on February 1, 2007 2:01 PM
> Sanger, by contrast, is just brilliant. And 'Spite, too. "now I wonder what he meant by that....?" In order of "coolness" (based on the number of boxtops you get for trading in a branch insignia badge): SOF Cavalry Armor Aviation Infantry (Mech!) Air Assault ADA (not the program language) Engineer (Combat) MEDDAC MI (only the EW/ECM folks) Ordnance Artillery Trans . . . . Anything Air Force (except that Special ops folks) . I forget any? :-)
 
By kat-missouri on February 1, 2007 2:15 PM
Well, as long as you understand, when I say "Stalingrad", I mean the basic tactics of withdrawing from an area, drawing in the forces and then, yes, encircling and isolating them within areas of Baghdad and taking them, either by force or by stealth. No, I don't think we're about to bomb Baghdad to the ground. Not quite "Fallujah" because, yes, I hope we learned how to take apart a city without, you know, "taking it apart". One thing about the tactic of announcing the action is the effect of "dispersal" of the enemy. Which sometimes gives you the ability to round them up under less egregious circumstances but also creates a cycling down effect. Many would end up staying in Baghdad and being taken and there would be a continuing limited force (though re-enforced from, hopefully, a cycling down outside recruitment). Of course, the announcement also serves as the "out" for these forces. I believe it was Sun Tzu that said if you corner an enemy, he may feel the need to fight even more ferociously since he has no way to exit the battlefield and has no onus to negotiate.
 
By KCSteve on February 1, 2007 2:26 PM
Suddenly now I'm hoping that there's a hidden brilliant strategy to the slow and well-announced buildup in Bagdhad. Ever since the announcment most of the 'problem' people have been pre-emptively leaving so as to assure 'victory' for the surge, having reasonable expectations that such would be followed by at least a sizable withdrawal so they can swoop back in. Other elements are doing their best to make any surge 'too costly' so the 'easy victory' part is up in the air. However, I suddenly can't help but wonder if various assets have been assigned to keeping track as best they can of where in 'the South' these undesirables are concentrating themselves. One reason we haven't been able to root them out of the great city of Bagdhad is that it is a great city - far too big and 'fragile' (in terms of collateral damage) for the task. Small villages far out in the desert, however... Probably just wishful thinking on my part, but I have to hope that if I'm smart enough to think of it then the much smarter folks actually out at the sharp end of the stick are too. Oh - and I can't go read the item at Lex's - according to our firewall it's a "Games" site.
 
By MajMike on February 1, 2007 2:51 PM
pull out now and it will be another Julian at the Gates of Ctesiphon situation. snatching that defeat right out of the jaws of victory.
 
By Cassandra, the little fly on the wall on February 1, 2007 4:09 PM
You know guys, I always seem to be too busy with work to participate anymore in these discussions. But I guess I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying 'listening in' on this one. Sometimes by the end of the work day I am just brain dead and have nothing left. Anyway, thanks :)
 
By Maggie on February 1, 2007 4:30 PM
Sanger - LOL at your coolness scale. This is number one!
 
By SangerM on February 1, 2007 4:43 PM
> Getting 'psyched out' and withdrawing, not because you are actually on the cusp of failing, but because you think you are. Tet '68 ring a bell here? Personally, I just don't think we've killed enough of the bad guys yet, and we ought to make up for that by shooting one person from Guantanamo every time Arkin pens another article or Kerry or Carter open their mouths. Then we can all blame them since it'll be their actions that cause all the death. Certainly that seems to be the kind of logic they understand. I'm just disgusted with the lot of them... And I'm not real thrilled with the other side either, but that's like the difference between stepping in mud and stepping in dog crap. The Republicans can be messy, but they don't smell bad, and all it takes to clean things up is a little time. Dems... Well, that's like living in a Saint Bernard Yard, except a St. Bernard is actually useful. ,,,
 
By SangerM on February 1, 2007 4:54 PM
>Sanger - LOL at your coolness scale. Gulp... I just realized I should have DESCENDING order of "coolness." And did you notice I, ahem, didn't have any Navy stuff on there? musta slipped my mnd :-)