Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: OKIEDOC
You wrote: "...let a Patton or Black Jack Pershing type of a General take over and run this mess."

Those that you named were great generals all...there are several reasons I quite deliberately suggested Sherman (who BTW spent a good deal of his early army career in your home state...FWIW his memoirs present a very interesting history of the early gold rush days)...

First, he dealt with an enemy that had a good deal of tacit support among the civilian and quasi-civilian populace who were giving aid and comfort to the confederacy, even if not directly involved as combatants...he broke their will and earned their begrudging respect.

The confederate press accounts of Sherman and his troops are eerily evocative of al-Jazeera's accounts of coalition activities, and largely account for his infamy today...Sherman used the inflated, horrendous accounts presented by the press so that the south largely terrorized itself...no need to to commit the atrocities as long as people believed that was in store for them. Truth of the matter is that many of his peers in the confederacy wrote him to look after their families as he increased his area of control in the south.

Finally, after consolidating his hold on Atlanta and beginning his march to Savannah, within the first day or two outside Atlanta, retreating rebel forces emplaced a "torpedo" (essentially an IED) in his primary route, which blew the flesh off the leg of one of his captains. Sherman's response was to round up confederate prisoners, put them at the lead, and let them clear the road. Nowadays, the Geneva convention would prohibit such a thing, except for the fact that the combatants in Iraq are not signatories to it...If after the first IED or two we took, we had started using captured prisoners to clear the roads, I'd be willing to bet we'd have had fewer IEDs, and a number of dead US and Coalition soldiers would still be alive.

Our foes in this fight understand one thing only...and that's brute force. Attempting to reason and negotiate with the irrational is wasted motion. Attempting to win their hearts and minds with anything but bullets and bayonets is futile. At best it fails to achieve anything constructive, and at worst it allows the enemy to consolidate, rearm, and probe and attrit our forces.

128 posted on 06/04/2007 12:03:31 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 119 | View Replies ]


To: Joe 6-pack
I am angry at our government for making me feel inept and helpless in these kinds of situations.

I don’t care who they get but something needs to happen NOW.

134 posted on 06/04/2007 12:31:10 PM PDT by OKIEDOC (Kalifornia, DUNCAN or THOMPSON 08, ELECTION 2008, MOST IMPORTANT OF MY LIFE TIME)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 128 | View Replies ]

To: Joe 6-pack

Solid points; we cannot fight this war because our political sissies are too cowed by the fear of looking cruel or barbaric to the DC cocktail classes.


178 posted on 06/05/2007 5:24:36 AM PDT by giobruno
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 128 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson