HACKWORTH TO SHARE HIS INSIGHT ON NORTH KOREA ON YOUR WORLD IN A FEW MINUTES!!!

Fox News

[Sparta]

The self-proclaimed "America's most decorated soldier" is about to share his insights on the current situation in North Korea.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

In reply to go_star_go, i had stated that pullout should be coupled with ultimatum. They have to sell that s#!t to feed their troops. They also know that OR ELSE...means "no s#!t pal, we're gonna do it" George XLI was percieved as a wimp and he showed the world different, you can bet they don't want to test George XLIII, again, their planners aren't stupid, if it gets that bad, one of them might have the cajones (spell?) to put one right between the "Dear Leader's eyes.

[Always A Marine]

NK will not be allowed to build a nuclear bomb. This plant that they are starting up will be rubble along with the lab that converts spent rods to weapons grade. It will just blow up and it'll be called an accident. Noone will have proof that a B2 did it because noone can track it. There's a reason we moved B2s to Deago Garcia within the past month.

If we could only live in your push-button world, there would be no need for an Army or a Navy or a Marine Corps, or even much of an Air Force. Just a squadron or two of stealth planes and a few platoons of ninjas. Unfortunately we don't, so I'll take your certain pronouncements on the future with a grain of salt.

Sadly, your ignorance of military issues is matched only by your ignorance of geography. If you pull out an atlas, you might observe that Diego Garcia is not quite the ideal base for a strike against North Korea. Sounds good, but it's in the wrong theater or operations.

[eastforker]

The vietcong did it cuz we let them,we could have stopped them but we didn't.We could have won decisively in that war,but the powers that be would not let us,never forget that

[jwalsh07]

I don't count spelling or typo's. I understand you perfectly. :-}

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

AMEN BROTHER!

[Darling Lili]

He's entitled to his opinion but my opinion is that his track record since the Gulf War is not good.

Well, he was right about one thing. I remember after the terrorist attack on the USS Cole, Hackworth went ballistic on TV, slamming the Clinton administration for doing little to nothing about terrorism. He predicted, at that time, that terrorism was going to be THE major force that needed to be dealt with, ASAP.

Now, though, he seems to make no sense when he's on TV. He's all over the place! On one hand, he predicts a bad outcome in Iraq, because he feels that, like Vietnam, "we don't know the enemy" and "we won't have a clear idea of why we're there." (I heard him say this on some Fox show, I can't remember which one.)

THEN, in the next breath, Hackworth predicted the war in Iraq would hardly have started before it was over with, presumably because of OUR strength, and THEIR weakness. Since I doubt he was predicting a Hussein victory here, I can't figure out what, exactly, he meant regarding his concerns for going to war with Iraq.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

You hit the whole crux of the issue and of Hackworth. The political whores made the strategic decisions. The institutional memory is poor, Hackworth called it CRS (can't remember s#!t), and it is pandemic. It isn't about Korea I or Vietnam, it's about the fact that we keep making the same institutional mistakes, and kill lots of our guys. i personally like what Rummy is doing, but he works for the administration. Bush is probably a good man for this, but the political whores are still selling their a$$ in Washington, and fetching a great deal of attention. Hackworth serves his country by those tired old rants, because we cannot afford to forget. Remember, profficiency means repetition.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

i keep wondering why we would bother to do anything with 250,000 troops in Iraq. All we really have to do is tell Saddam that "we are going to inspect site A at 10:00am your time, we suggest that you let us." When they refuse, we drop a fuel-air bomb on the site and say "Well, we really don't need to look at site A any more, now tommorrow morning..." Once again, political reality is overrulling practical reality (ie. common sense). You're right about Hack being all over the map on television, you just can't communicate well in sound bites.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Our Armed forced were smaller than Poland's at the start of WWII and we fought on two front after Japan all but wiped out our Navy. The draft and armament production will tip the scales.

[Polybius]

He is however, more qualified than any of us to pontificate from the perspective of the guy on the ground.

If you read Hackworth's articles prior to Desert Storm, you will find that he predicted a World War One style bloodbath on the ground for U.S. forces.

The man could simply not think beyond the way war used to be in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. He truly believed that Desert Storm was going to be a replay of the World War One style combat seen in the Iran-Iraq War.

In addition, Hackworth is still fighting the Billy Mitchell vs Infantry arguments of the 1920's and 1930's that went out the window when the Germans introduced the LAND-AIR Battle Doctrine to the world in 1939. To quote the Air Force Association editorial linked below, "As almost everyone except Colonel Hackworth seems to realize, modern warfare is a combined-arms proposition."

Shooting Blind: David Hackworth is a distinguished soldier, but his arguments about airpower are old, tired, and wrong.

Hackworth is a highly decorated infantryman and he deserves our respect for that.

However, being an Audie Murphy does not automatically give you the strategic wisdom to be a theater commander and Hackworth's prior predictions have shown him to be rather clueless when it comes to the Big Picture.

[BluH2o]

Let's see what America's publicity whore has to say.

Sparta signed up 2002-11-09.

Look you low life piece of scum when you start talking about my boy "Hack" you had better have your crap together ... and you obviously are clueless. Hack has killed more f***ing North Koreans and Chinese in hand to hand combat than you have years on this planet asshole. A big Semper Fi to one of America's finest ...

[river rat]

I agree.... Hack is stuggling to remain relevant.
It seems he is owed one more Purple Heart - for the shot he must have taken to the head...

He has been wrong for so many years - that it is dangerous to even ask his opinion...

At least some of us old farts - realize we can't refight our war.. Hack has figured that out yet.

I wish he would burn his damned black turtle neck sweaters - and stop being a pain in the ass.

Semper Fi

[Sparta]

Hack's trying to refight his wars with the Pentagon brass. He has truly become a spiteful old man who can't let go of Vietnam. I don't mean to offend you, but we lost Vietnam. It's time to learn the lessons of defeat and move on. Hack's learned the lessons, but he won't move on.

[Dec31,1999]

It's damn time we started using some of the weapons we have in our National Arsenal. When we turn some of these despotic nations into glass sculptures and show the rest of the world that harming an American will cause massive death and destruction, civilization will be better off.

Well, we'd better make sure a given enemy doesn't secretely have the missile to return fire first, don't you agree?

[bigfootbob]

Not necessarily.

[Tenega]

We are in a very dangerous position in South Korea. We have enough forces deployed there to suffer a lot of casualties, but not enough to turn the tide against a DPRK onslaught.

Agreed. As I recall, Hackworth's main achievement as a battlefield commander was in setting up battles his men could WIN without undue casualties. He has a good nose for sucker traps and this is a big one.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

i believe that you will find that Hackworth was criticising WWII tactics that were used in Vietnam. For the record: Desert Storm WAS a WWII style conflict, and an anamolie (sp?) in modern warfare. So, you don't think the Air Force has an axe to grind against Hackworth? All he did was tell the truth about Desert Storm, namely that Buster Glossen promised a 50% destruction of Iraqui Republican Guards within five days, when in fact Air strikes only did 15% of them overall. Considering that Hackworth, as a combat commander in Vietnam had to coordinate airstrikes with arty, i would think he has a pretty good handle on combined arms action, in fact he has advocated for it and criticised closed-mindedness in the seperate services. i don't know what you've been reading, but it's not the same things that i have been reading. i do conceed that Hackworth is still hated by the military establishment, especially the Air Force who is likely to loose the most if there is a cut back on high priced, unneeded, expensive toys.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

The first of eight purple hearts was a head wound that was only prevented from killing him because the blood froze from the frigid temperatures.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

What do you mean become?? the guy has always been like that if his autobiography is correct. Although i seem to have become one of his "designated defenders" today (yucccch!), that was a bit more than i could take!

[river rat]

"...I don't mean to offend you, but we lost Vietnam."

"we"?

You got a mouse in your pocket?

WE, never lost a fire fight...
WE, never gave up a yard...
WE, never lost a position or the right of movement..
WE, took every damned piece of real estate we wanted, and held it for as long as we wanted it.
WE, owned the day and the night.
WE, won each and every time we fought.
WE, were winning when I left the country.
WE, came home -- Those that fought us, became worm food.

No - WE didn't lose... The F-Heads in Washington and the most trusted man in America, in partnership with the South and North Vietnamese lost that one -- NOT the grunts..

Semper Fi