Posted on 03/27/2003 5:36:10 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
The cocky theorists of the Bush Administration, and their neo-conservative gurus, are now faced with reality and history: the treacherous challenge, and the cost in lives and money, of bringing order out of chaos in Iraq.
With sandstorms blackening their TV screens, with POWs and casualties tearing at their hearts, Americans are coming to grips with the triptych of bold transformation experiments that are now in play.
There is the President's dream of remaking the Middle East to make America safer from terrorists.
There is Dick Cheney's desire to transform America into a place that flexes its power in the face of any evil.
There is Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the American military, changing from the old, heavy ground forces to smaller, more flexible units with high-tech weapons.
When Tommy Franks and other generals fought Rumsfeld last year, telling him he could not invade Iraq without overwhelming force, the defence chief treated them like old Europe, acting as if they just didn't get it.
He was going to send a smaller force on a lightning-quick race to Baghdad, relying on air strikes and psychological operations - leaflets to civilians and email and calls to Iraqi generals - to encourage Iraqis to revolt against Saddam.
The Bush Administration was afraid that with too many Iraqis dead, America would lose the support of the world. But some generals worry that by avoiding tactics that could kill Iraqi civilians and "baby-talking" the Iraqi military, America has emboldened the enemy and endangered allied troops.
Despite the vast sums America spends on its intelligence and diplomatic services, US officials often seem clueless about the culture of their adversaries. After Vietnam, Robert McNamara admitted that he and other US war planners had never understood Vietnamese history and culture. America's intelligence services didn't see the Iranian revolution coming, or the Soviet Union's breakup.
It's hard to know why the Bush Administration seems so surprised at Iraqi ruses. As Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military tactician who inspired the "shock and awe" campaign, noted: "All war is deception." Besides, the Iraqis used similar fake surrender tricks in the last Gulf War.
It's also hard to know why the Pentagon is surprised at Iraqi brutality, or at the failure of Iraqi ethnic groups, deserted by America after the last Gulf War, to celebrate their "liberation" by the US, or by the hardened resistance of Saddam loyalists such as the fedayeen, who have no escape hatch this time around.
American war planners were privately experiencing some shock and awe at Iraqi obliviousness to shock and awe, which we can see on TV, as Iraqis crowd into restaurants and onto roofs to watch the bombing.
Miscalculating, the Pentagon delayed trying to take down Iraqi TV until Tuesday night because it hoped to use the network after the war. But that target should have been one of the first so the Iraqis could not have peddled their propaganda, paraded American POWs and shown brazen speeches by Saddam, or Stepford-Saddam, and the mockery of Iraqi officials over the predictions of a quick allied victory.
The Pentagon started last year with an "inside out" strategy that would rely on a quick capture of Baghdad, with US forces then taking over the rest of the country. That was scrapped in favour of the "outside in" strategy that we're now witnessing.
But Saddam responded to America's "outside in" strategy with his own "inside out" strategy.
Tragically for everybody, the Iraqi fiend is still inside, dug in and diabolically determined to kill as many people as he can on the way out.
That's not reality, that's Maureen Dowd.
Bull$#it. They were not surprised. But they certainly let the world know that they were appalled. What'd you expect them to do? Blow it off, as in, "Yeah sure, we knew they'd be brutal, no biggie"? Dumbf**k.
But that would impede the flight charactistics of a perfectly fine bomb.
"Catherine Zeta Jones"
By commenting on foreign affairs and military strategy, Maureen is clearly stretching her alleged "talent" paper thin. Maureen should stick to what she does best: b*tchy celebrity gossip and chit-chat about blow jobs in the Oval Office.
Umm, Maureen? They only do this at our indulgence. What, you want the "shock and awe" of a Dresden or Hiroshima?
But that would impede the flight charactistics of a perfectly fine bomb.
I'm willing to accept that.
Yup! Soon as I saw the headline I thought, "Gee, I wonder what Gen. Douglette McDowd has to say."
But that would impede the flight charactistics of a perfectly fine bomb.
QUOTE OF THE DAY NOMINATION for jriemer!
BTW, dude, you made me spew Mountain Dew on the keyboard :o)
(Witch, Maureen Dowd)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.