The US military is not like an old nag that needs to be prodded along when it is time to fight, it is like a raging stallion, needing to be reined in during peacetime...BUT ALLOWED TO RUN DURING TIMES OF WAR. BUSH PREVENTED THIS.
Left to their own devices, military commanders would have kicked in every door in Iraq by now, confiscated any weapons found, and killed anybody who had a problem with it....In other words, securing the peace by picking a fight. All this would have happened before the very predictable national war fatigue set in, and our boys would be back home victorious.
This is how we fought and won WWI and WWII.
Historically, US forces need to have the crap kicked out of them before they understand what war is all about. WW1 - Argonne, WW2 - Kasserine Pass, Korea - Kaesong, just as examples. One thing, US Forces learn VERY quickly on the most Darwinian of arenas, the battlefield.
Now, if you are specifically talking about the USMC, you are right. Marines are ALWAYS ready to fight. 'Every Marine is a rifleman.' It's the citizen-soldier that is ignorant. That changed with an all volunteer army for the most part.
Left to their own devices, military commanders would have kicked in every door in Iraq by now, confiscated any weapons found, and killed anybody who had a problem with it....
Doing this would have set every faction, including the ones that were liberated, against us. Not to mention what additional support would have come from the other Arab/Muslim nations. We'd be alone. That is not the American way of war.
This is how we fought and won WWI and WWII.
WW1 - Democracy vs Imperialism, WW2 - Democracy vs Facism, both were causes where the trumpet sounded and the dogs unleashed and the citizen-soldier understood what was at stake.
We are now in a war that has no borders, or a central nation that can be identified as 'the enemy'. we are fighting on many, fronts, Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, the Phillipines, and areas that are smoldering. This is not a war that will end quickly, or with the defeat of AQ in Iraq. It will not end until the other Muslim countries denounce AQ, criminalize the organization citing death to the operatives, and join coalition forces in it's defeat around the world. So far they haven't.
One thing I have always said, and it still holds today. When US Forces go marching out in crusade, they wear the white hats, and proclaim the crusade of the just. BUT when they get out of sight and out of earshot of the general public, all that white-hat crap comes off. And we fight dirtier than any nation on the planet. That is when the world trembles.
“The buck stops with him”
That’s not the same as “ordering” something. I’m quibbling with your saying that Pres. Bush “ordered” that alSadr be left alone. I don’t believe that to be the case.
I wish he had ordered that alSadr be killed a long time ago. Instead, he’s let his generals on the ground make that decision. Personally, I think Pres. Bush delegates way too much.
btw - Bremer publicly stated that they were going to have al Sadr arrested right before al Hakim was assassinated. In the wake of that, they were hesitant to do anything to alSadr, fearing that it would cause more chaos at the time.
Yes, I wish we had fought this war more like WWII. Maybe if we’d had a Gen. Patraeus in charge in 2003, it would have been.