Posted on 09/18/2014 9:19:46 AM PDT by Lorianne
Ed Morrissey over at HotAir has a great write-up on the new Wall Street Journal story about how President Obama plans to exert a great deal of personal control over Middle Eastern air strikes, so I wont try to reprise his arguments. To briefly recap, heres what the WSJ reported last night about Obamas new strategy:
The U.S. military campaign against Islamist militants in Syria is being designed to allow President Barack Obama to exert a high degree of personal control, going so far as to require that the military obtain presidential signoff for strikes in Syrian territory, officials said.
Heres where it gets spooky. Compare that paragraph to the following quote from the book American Generalship: Character Is Everything: The Art of Command. In it, the author recounts a passage from Gen. William Westmorelands memoirs about how political interference from a know-it-all president severely hampered the American campaign in Vietnam. The parallels are terrifying:
Westmoreland LBJ Outhouse
A controversial new war with no definition of victory, no clear exit strategy, and a naive president who thinks targets should be picked from the Oval Office? What could possibly go wrong?
Hitler had the very same control over the details.
Thank goodness otherwise Rommel would have controlled all of Africa and Europe very quickly.
The parallel is that Haiphong Harbor was a no-bomb zone-—dummies! UNWAR I-
and supply lines to ISIS thru Turkey are a no-bomb zone.
UNWAR for Dummies II.
This Parallel Between LBJs And Obamas War Plans Will Terrify You
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Yep. I’m terrified. But why stop at war plans. Johnson also had plans to create the greatest Welfare State in all of human history. And look at how B. Hussein has exceeded that and more.
Obama will approve lots of actions that get Americans killed, and no actions that will do serious harm to any Muslim terrorist.
Your analogy would be that we will not win in Syria because of Obama's micro-managing.
If I were in the military right now I would do whatever I could to get out.
And I consider myself a hawk.
The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution.
Sun Tzu
I just cannot see O micro-managing. That would mean he has to be close to the Situation Room. That would mean his golfing would be severely curtailed.
I can see him delegating this to someone else. If things go good, O will take the credit. If things go bad, someone else will take the blame. O is not going to put himself in a position where HE is perceived as the responsible party, especially if things go bad.
So it’s kinda like a game of charades — Odumbo can go on pretending to be presidential and the enemy can go on pretending to be afraid...ooohhhh, I get it.
Nothing will happen, nothing will change, and American’s will die.
Pretty much sums it up. Now sssshhhhh, Oprah is on, please sit back and relax and enjoy the decline of a once great nation.
I just cannot see O micro-managing. That would mean he has to be close to the Situation Room. That would mean his golfing would be severely curtailed.
Not terrified, just so bloody thankful that all this started after my son signed his get out of the Corps papers because he said he wanted to go kick some more ... but it was too late. Lost my bro in Nam, lost son’s friends in Afghanistan, screw these rules of engagement. Politicians thinking they are God when they should be fighting under God’s rules of engagement.
By the way, soldiers just married didn’t have to deploy for the first year of their marriage.
It doesn’t terrify me. It cracks me up.
But then, I’m way too old to draft...
Vietnam in the sand.
Obama, all the decisiveness of Carter and twice
the military genius of Johnson...able to leap
congressional obstruction in a single bound!
I agree.
Can we catch Zer0 giving a heads up to his radical Islamic buddies? You can bet that is what will happen.
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