Posted on 11/02/2014 9:34:50 AM PST by Steelfish
A Halfhearted U.S. War Effort In The Middle East
ANDREW J. BACEVICH.
If victory is worth a vastly greater expenditure of lives and treasure, let out all the stops The last 20 years, the U.S. persistently tried to fight wars on the cheap A common thread connects U.S. military operations of the last 20 or more years: We've persistently tried to fight them on the cheap. In gauging the requirements of a prospective campaign, “What do we need to win?” has repeatedly taken a back seat to “What's the minimum we can get by with?”
The Pentagon calls the result Operation Inherent Resolve. A more accurate name would be Operation Halfhearted Effort. - The ongoing air campaign against Islamic State illustrates the point. Having declared that this new threat must be destroyed, the Obama administration refuses to provide the forces needed to do just that. Hence, Washington's unseemly scramble to recruit proxies willing and able to do what the United States won't do: put “boots on the ground.” The Pentagon calls the result Operation Inherent Resolve. A more accurate name would be Operation Halfhearted Effort.
When marketing a new product or running for political office, cheapness seldom offers a recipe for success. In war, that truism applies in spades. There, the urge to economize invites greater long-term costs without anything remotely resembling victory at the far end.
From 2002 to 2003, American generals thought invading Iraq would require half a million troops or so. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld knew — or claimed to know — better and allocated only 148,000. Sufficient to get to Baghdad, that number proved woefully inadequate to control the country. The George W. Bush administration had expected Operation Iraqi Freedom to yield a quick, tidy win. Instead, the Iraq war became the second-longest ...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
And a Bacevich who once wrote something to the effect that “America is not that special” is someone in whom we should take stock? In a newspaper that long ago in a city and state that long ago forwent their sovereignty for manicured lawns and cheap labor to pick strawberries?
Just another hit piece from some liberal minded academic with an axe to grind.
Halfhearted and begrudged. Done with reluctance and tight jaws. It’s hard when politics requires you to bomb your allies and coreligionists.
Half-hearted?
What are we fighting for? To protect Muslim groups we don’t know and can’t trust from other from other Muslims groups we don’t know and can’t trust .... who may or may not be aligned with now or in the future with other Muslim groups we don’t know and can’t trust
At the end of which some undeterminable group of Muslims may or may not like us for some undeterminable amount of time ... meanwhile we’ll be berated for ‘interfering’ in the ME and causing all the mayhem to begin with.
Wow, that’s sounds like something to really get behind whole-heartedly!
“Just another hit piece from some liberal minded academic with an axe to grind.”
In fact Bacevich is a retired Regular Army Colonel who knows a good deal about war, including what it’s like to have a son killed in action. And I’d like to see you source that scurrilous comment you attribute to him so that we can see its context.
“He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Later he held posts in Germany, including the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment; the United States; and the Persian Gulf up to his retirement from the service with the rank of Colonel in the early 1990s”
He is the author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism:
"in every case, the impetus for providing equal access to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution originated among pinks, lefties, liberals, and bleeding- heart fellow travelers. When it came to ensuring that every American should get a fair shake, the contribution of modern conservatism has been essentially nil. "
This guy was a ranger, but now is a professor. He is a liberal Johnny one-note.
Winning gets dirty.
Dirty gets on the internet these days. For goodness sake, that little kid sitting on the streets of Nanking still haunt the Japanese to this day. We are not about to do that.
America does not have the will to win. We have the means, but lack the will as a country.
Scurrilous....haven’t heard that one in a long time. His military bio and loss of his son notwithstanding does not make him the national authority, frankly.
Regardless, I did give you one insight in my mention of an article of his “America is Just not that Special” which was highlighted in politico.com. Likewise there were other references by the LA Times about his comments regarding “Iraq is one tar-baby we should drop”. Still more encouraged acceptance at BillMoyers.com, Harpers, and many others. My particular distrust of him is as a BU professor and in certain cheerleading venues in which his work is presented - not former military and grieving parent.
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