How Desert Storm Destroyed the US Military

US Defense Watch ^ | April 21, 2017 | Ray Starmann

[pboyington]

The US military that won Desert Storm or Gulf War I in 1991 was a spectacular military, a gargantuan industrial age military with high tech weaponry and well trained personnel, that when called upon, achieved victory with the speed of Patton and the elan of Teddy Roosevelt.

Overlooking the vast eight mile carnage on the Highway of Death in Kuwait, destruction that was caused by a US Air Force and Navy that bore almost no resemblance to the two services now, a sergeant in the 7th US Cavalry remarked, “America sure got its money’s worth from those Joes.”

In 44 days, the largest military force assembled by the US and its allies since Normandy destroyed the world’s fourth largest army in a brilliantly led, fabulously executed air and ground war in the sands of the Middle East.

The ghosts of Vietnam were vanquished by men who had experienced the horrors and strategic errors of that war and who inculcated those lessons to the personnel they led.

Both General Colin Powell and the late General Norman Schwarzkopf had both served multiple tours in Vietnam and their experiences there made them highly skeptical of the press and its intentions.

Therefore, no reporters were embedded with combat units during the war.

The world was given a Nintendo video game, sanitized version of a war; while albeit short, had many elements of the nastiness of wars past, but appeared to be nothing more than a high tech cake walk.

Because there were no journalists in the field, the world never saw H.R McMaster, the President’s National Security Adviser, who was then a captain in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, fighting the Tawakalna Division of the Republican Guard at a now famous grid line dubbed the 73 Easting.

On McMaster’s left flank, the scouts from the 4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry were also battling the Tawakalna and the ghosts of the Little Big Horn, at a nameless speck of desert landscape known as Phase Line Bullet.

Later that night, grunts and tankers from the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, hit the Guard at Objective Norfolk and before the night was over, found themselves engaged in close quarters fighting with fanatical Guardsmen in a place most of them want to forget, but can’t. Two days before, the Big Red One had spent the opening hours of the war burying Iraqis in the trenches alive with bulldozers.

On G Day +3, the US 1st Armored Division hammered the Iraqi Al-Medina Division of the Republican Guard at a place now known as Medina Ridge. The Battle of Medina Ridge was to date the largest tank battle since Kursk in 1943.

Yet, the world saw none of those battles being fought as they saw no Marines storming through Kuwait. There were no journalists; hence no video, no film, no photos; nothing to show the world except a few shots of B Roll of the Iraqi Army surrendering to Marines on the border. To the American public, the Iraqis were surrendering en masse, when in actuality the Republican Guard was going down with the ship. For example, the 10,000 man Tawakalna Division was virtually annihilated, including the division commander who died in an artillery barrage on the night of February 26, 1991.

While General Schwarkopf’s power point presentations enlightened the world, the soldiers and Marines found themselves in a Dante’s Inferno, with smoldering vehicles, dead Iraqi soldiers strewn over tank turrets in a man-made darkness of oil fires that smothered any sunlight and the vast remnants of an army, which littered the battlefield: rifles, helmets, sundry equipment and arms and legs that were picked at by packs of roving wild dogs.

War is hell…but the American public never knew.

The day Desert Storm ended, the death of the US military commenced.

The Pentagon, basking in glory and bowing to pressure from the public and crackpot feminists like Patricia Schroeder, started drinking the Kool Aid and they’ve never stopped. The war was a video game, a clean, quick rout. Modern war was now sanitized, where the bad guys would die at stand-off ranges of a mile or two and explode in little black and white pixels on Pentagon TV screens. In fact, war was now so quick and so easy that women should be allowed to serve in the combat arms and Special Forces.

Our victory in Desert Storm became the catalyst for every left wing wacko to hack at the military with a meat cleaver.

Since, 1991, the US military has been slowly coming apart at the seams. Stress cards, open homosexuality, transgenders on active duty, sensitivity training, pregnancy simulators for male troopers, lactation stations in the field, babies born on US ships of war, female graduates of Ranger School, including a 37 year old mother (it’s funny how the women looked so well fed), women in the SEALs, women in Marine infantry units and females in the field artillery (even though most cannot carry a 155mm round) are just some of the insanity that has taken place in the last 26 years, but which snowballed into hell under the Obama administration.

A social revolution engulfed the military, starting with Tailhook and continuing to this day. Warriors were forced out and feather merchants and PC flag bearers were promoted. Girl power was in and masculinity was out. The warrior culture was buried and a new culture was reborn that resembles corporate America, not the US military of yesteryear.

No, General Kennedy, it’s not your father’s army and that’s a problem, a big, festering problem.

And, now, with the world in flames, with ISIS blowing up Europe, with Putin pumping weights in the Artic while he watches his BMP’s on skis roll by, with Kim Jong-Loon on the loose with a toy chest of nukes and missiles and with Iran figuring out that Trump ain’t Barney Fife, the US military needs to be rougher and tougher and more ready for a fight than ever.

And, we ain’t. And, that’s the fact, Jack.

Many are waiting for Mad Dog Mattis to stick a pike in the heart of the military’s social engineering forever.

We are still waiting…

Perhaps, Secretary Mattis is so busy dealing with the thugs on the planet, that he has forgotten that the armed forces that will be engaging the thugs is still in trouble.

Secretary Mattis must once and for all shut down the feminist fantasy of women in the combat arms. There are thousands of jobs for women in the military where they can serve honorably and be promoted, without, in Mattis’ own words, ‘setting themselves up for failure in combat.’

Mattis also needs to get rid of the perfumed princes, and the feckless duds who have infested the senior ranks of the armed forces. I would rather have a sergeant with guts running a division than a two star coward who is more worried about his pension and future job on cable news than the mission and the troops.

The US military is still being led by people who believe that the military is nothing different than working for Google, except that the military has uniforms and weapons. When you eschew the glorious traditions of the military and combine that with ludicrous social engineering, you are setting yourself up for massive failure.

While the US military interpreted the results of Desert Storm incorrectly, the real lessons from that conflict are crystal clear. The US military functioned well in an environment that focused on the mission, not on political correctness, LGBT rights, day care centers on submarines and breastfeeding Rangers.

With our enemies stacking up against us, time is running out to fix the problems which were initially caused by a victory 26 years ago, in a war that has largely been forgotten.

[Billyv]

Yep, we needed and still need the Stormin Norman model, but alas are stuck with the Colin Powell model. Sad, but true.

[doorgunner69]

Well, I was impressed by that article.............

[jazminerose]

Good article, thank you for posting.

[jazminerose]

I’m a little heartbroken to have to let go of Cheney.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

per the article: "The ghosts of Vietnam were vanquished … "

If the ghosts were vanquished, it was only momentarily. Since then we have been back to fighting wars the same have-arsed stupid way.

The turd world people can only be reached by monumental power and brutality. It is all those illiterate inbreds can understand. Any quarter on our part is considered a sign of weakness. The turd worlder adversary needs to be beaten down to a limp, bloody, broken pulp. Their countries need to be reduced to rubble and desolation.

Even educated semi-rational WWII opponents like the Germans and Japanese could only understand one way. They were beyond negotiation. Then why should be believe that our current enemies will negotiate? Does anyone really think you can negotiate with lying camel trading, sheep humping taqiyya speaking illiterates?

We shouldn't even be there in the first place, but if so, then it has to be with a fanatical determination to destroy our enemy.

[NTHockey]

A good place to start is to STOP the redesign of nuclear submarines to accommodate women.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3545482/posts

[Ruger1099]

Bump

[rarestia]

I’m a little heartbroken to have to let go of Cheney.

Cheney represents that blithe old curmudgeon we associated with sage advice and the lack of thought filtering we've all been conditioned to eschew. You don't have to stop liking the man for his personality, but his views are anathema to conservatism.

[Stand Watch Listen]

Comment made by actor Ron Silver (January 20, 1993).. (but to be fair, supported Bush after 9/11)

there were fighter jets flying overhead in honour of the new President, and Silver was initially bothered by this until he thought to himself that the jets were “our planes now.” 

[Theophilus]

Many servicemen would say PowerPoint destroyed out military but not as early as ‘91.

This is my PowerPoint. There are many like it but mine is 97.

My PowerPoint is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I  master my life.

     My PowerPoint without me is useless. Without my PowerPoint, I am  useless.

     I must format my slides true. I must brief them better than the other staff sections who are trying to out brief me.

     I must brief the impact on the CINC before he asks me.  I will.

My PowerPoint and myself know that what counts in this war is not the information. We know that it is the number of slides, the colors of the highlights, and the format of the  bullets that counts.

     My PowerPoint is human, even as I, because it is my life.  Thus I will learn it as a brother.  I will learn its weaknesses, its

strengths, its fonts, its accessories, its formats, and its colors.

     I will keep my PowerPoint slides current and ready to brief.  We will  become part of each other.  We will…

     Before God I swear this creed. My PowerPoint and myself are defenders of my country. We are the masters of our subject.  We are the saviors of my career.

     So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy, but peace (and the next exercise)!

[SE Mom]

What an excellent article. I hope it’s read far and wide at DoD and most importantly, by Mattis.

Truly, by now I’d hoped and expected he would have put a stop to the pc crap.

[Drew68]

Many are waiting for Mad Dog Mattis to stick a pike in the heart of the military’s social engineering forever.

We are still waiting…

Mattis isn't going to roll back the social energy changes that Obama brought to the military because the top brass doesn't want him to.

[Drew68]

Many are waiting for Mad Dog Mattis to stick a pike in the heart of the military’s social engineering forever.

We are still waiting…

Mattis isn't going to roll back the social changes that Obama brought to the military because the top brass doesn't want him to.

[TheNext]

The bottom line result is the Middle East is a disaster.

[ClearCase_guy]

For about 20 years, we’ve been fighting people who live in caves. We just dropped a huge bomb on their tunnels. Killed over 100 of ‘em!!!!

But, in about 20 years of fighting, we haven’t quite managed to win.

If we ever had to fight an industrialized country, I think we’d do a lot worse than many think.

[nathanbedford]

There is a marvelous anecdote probably apocryphal but anyway revealing when staffers of Bill Clinton observed a flyby at the new president's inauguration. The first staffer expressed disgust at the military display. "It is is our Air Force now" reminded another staffer.

The left regards the armed forces much the way they regard the education system, as an ideal Skinner Box within which to condition subjects to their enlightened fundamental transformation. The military is a ready Skinner Box because it is a top-down organization which can impose a remarkable degree of conformity merely by issuing an order. If you want to make society accept gays, have cost free sex, elevate the status of women, or simply bestow marvelous new norms on society, the military offers an instant petri dish if you can get control of it.

No worries on the left that they will be corrupting or weakening an institution vital to national security, the left as a fundamental thesis does not believe in American national security, quite the contrary it believes that American power is an evil which should be controlled. Enervate the military and diminish America, the leftist in a stroke has achieved a win-win.

In my view, it does not matter whether the left was exposed to gory aspects of combat in Desert Storm or not, they were after all exposed to the gritty realities of combat in The Second Gulf War and it did not deter their push to exploit the military to advance their social engineering. It might have disposed the greater society to opposition to women in combat but we must never make the mistake of believing that leftists shrink from sacrificing their own useful idiots when it might advance their agenda.

It is unreasonable to expect Secretary of Defense Mattis to accomplish what the public culture has not been conditioned to accept, witness the decapitation of Bill O'Reilly or the madness at the University of Virginia. Yes, the military is a top-down organization but is unreasonable to expect it to deviate from the cultural momentum now favoring the women's movement. The battle must be won the way the left won it, by conditioning the culture through other institutions such as academia and the media. That is how they gain all their victories. Even though it appears they are imposing top-down imperatives when, for example, the Supreme Court requires the states to sanctify homosexual marriage, the reality is they had won that court case long before the court granted certiorari.

You want to save the military? Reform academia, restructure media.

Do you want to save the justice system?

Contrary to the situation beheld by the Clinton staffers, it is our military now but who owns the drivers of culture?

[SakoL61R]

US Army, ‘83-’10.

Laffin’ at the curse of PowerPoint! Your musings gave me a laugh.
Lest we forget the real culprit that started it all, though.
Harvard Graphics. Honk if you remember....

Just one of those old retired guys now.

[Texas Fossil]

“perfumed princes”

Gen. Weasley Clark

[sauropod]

That’s a phrase David Hackworth used.

[sauropod]

I think that was Ron Silver