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.

[Sparta]

Back during the Clinton regime, Hack made some good points about Clinton's perfumed princes like the war criminal Wesley Clark. Now, he's gotten to the point he will oppose anything the Pentagon wants just to get on TV.

[Sparta]

Exactly. If the US hadn't pulled out, the US would've probably won. After Tet, the US switched tactics and were FAR more effective against the NVA than anytime before Tet. The conduct of our politicians was horrendus and near treasonous.

BTW: Thank you for your service and I apologize if I offended you.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

The talking heads call him, not he them. In point of fact, he actually praised the Clinton admin. for selecting good Joint Chiefs, Hugh Shelton,Charles Krulak,et al. Trying to get a radar beam on the guy's politics is like trying to get one on an F117 or a B2, a fool's errand, i certainly don't have a clue!

Concerning Clinton, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

i can remember in my childhood, my father was told "If you vote for Barry Goldwater, American boys will die in Vietnam". By God, they were right. Yea, WE lost that war. We put the politicians in office who appointed their technocrat cabinate members, and promoted lying about it by otherwise honorable commanders, and betrayed the 58,000+ who didn't come home. We allowed the communist b@$^@!%s motivate the anti-war protests that destroyed the moral of our troops and an entire generation. i can't blame Hackworth for being bitter about it, and making certain that the CRS never happens again. We can always learn.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

That was a poor attempt to represent profanity, not a link to anything. i'm new at this, it is the first thread i've ever posted, i hope a bit of grace is in order. Instruction in these matters is welcome

[river rat]

No offense taken....I always attempt to clear up the potential for diverting blame for that clusterfuc@ away from the "politicans" and "socialists/Marxist" in our government...

The warriors we sent, performed...and many died.
The leadership in Washington and the Pentagon, DIDN'T and they survived... some even to this day!

Semper Fi

[montag813]

Who gives a crap about South Korea? They all hate our guts there anyway. Let those commie bastard "students" who riot against us do the fighting and dying. Our "relationship" is a one way street. We build things there and give them jobs, we import Kia's and Hyundai's. They import oil from the Arabs, plastic crap from China, and nothing from us. Now this new punk ass "President" over there is pissed at us too. I say to hell with them. We can nuke the whole peninsula when its all over.

[Sparta]

Imports - partners:
Japan 19.8%, US 18.2%, China 8%, Saudi Arabia 6%, Australia 3.7% (2000)

(South Korea's imports, CIA World Factbook 2002)

As for North Korea, they threaten more than just South Korea, they threaten Japan and the West Coast.

[Polybius]

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

Hackworth's pissing contests with the Pentagon, Air Force, Navy or the Camp Fire Girls are of no interest to me. What I am judging is the man's ability to give a credible opinion on the outcome of a theater wide operation.

I told you what I had read and was referring to and that was his predictions prior to Desert Storm. I still have copies of all the Newsweek magazines leading up to Desert Storm and I have pulled them out of their drawer for this reply.

The cover story for Newsweek magazine for the week of January 21, 1991 was “We Will Win, But…” by “America’s Most Decorated War Hero”.

Here are quotes from Hackworth’s January 21, 1991 Newsweek cover story article article:

“Casualties won’t be 200 Americans dead a week, as in Vietnam. They will be more than 200 dead an hour in the first round.”

“The aircraft arranged in the Gulf are the wrong mix of aircraft”

“The Iraqis should give a good account of themselves in air attacks.”

“The Abrams M-1A1 tank is a fuel guzzler and a real liability in a roadless terrain”

“For the most part, from rifleman to battalion commander, these dedicated (American) soldiers and Marines have never seen war. And in my judgment they haven’t yet been made hard enough physically and mentally to survive the horror of potential combat with Iraq’s veteran Army.”

As it turned out, Iraq was totally routed at a cost of 137 U.S. dead for the entire war.

You and Hackworth still seem to have no concept of modern airpower and still insist on focusing on the Billy Mitchell inter-service pissing contests of the 1930’s.

And, no, Calvinist_Dark_Lord, the Gulf War was not World War II style conflict. In World War II, the Luftwaffe and the RAF fought for weeks to try to gain air superiority during the Battle of Britain. In World War II, the Eighth Air Force lost 50,000 Americans during their campaign to bomb the German homeland. In World War II, the enemy had relative freedom of movement behind the lines.

During the Gulf War, total air supremacy was established from Day One, the Iraqi homeland was bombed with total impunity and the Iraqi Army could do little except bury themselves in the sand and cower. When they did move the Abrams M-1A1 tank that Hackworth thought were a liability slaughtered the remaining tanks, any Iraqis caught moving joined the Highway of Death bloodbath and the American troops that Hackworth believed to be “not hard enough physically and mentally to survive the horror of potential combat with Iraq’s veteran Army” proved Hackworth to be nothing more than a Chicken Little predicting that the sky was going to fall.

Hackworth is 50 years behind the times and you both seem to be more interested in fighting past wars and in fighting silly inter-service rivalries than in learning how wars are fought and won by the U.S. in the year 2002.

[Sparta]

Remember one thing about Hackworth: He says and does anything to get on TV.

[sneakypete]

DAMN! The guy named Kim is prettier than Mad Maddie!

[sneakypete]

What we cannot afford is someone who speaks ill of the MILITARY when their lives are on the line. Criticize politicians if you must (and I put Bill Clinton at the head of this fiasco...what with his stupid agreement and his downsizing of forces) but the bottom line is that Hack is demoralizing any troops who are listening to him. He should shut up.

It's far more dangerous to our military members to ignore reality than it is to face up to it You can't begin to fix a problem until you recogonize that it exists. Thinking nothing but "Happy Thougts" gets people killed for no good reason. That's what happened at Pearl Harbor.

[sneakypete]

There is no defense to American bombs.

I hope you don't really believe that.

[Polybius]

Remember one thing about Hackworth: He says and does anything to get on TV.

That is a shame. If you are going to throw around the label of "America's Most Decorated Military Hero", you should conduct yourself above the level of a Dennis Rodman.

[hinckley buzzard]

The problem with the "perspective of the guy on the ground" is that he has no concept of the overall picture to guide him, and no idea what planning has gone on behind the scenes. In Hackworth's case the problem is compounded by his being out of business for so long.

It's a different world than it was during VietNam. It would be a different war than the Korean War of the early 1950's. We were not ready then, having been massively demobilizing from WW II.

We have been preparing for war on the Korean peninsula since the cease-fire at Panmunjong, and would be ready now.
It's just that "the guy on the ground" has no way of knowing what the Rumsfeld DoD has been factoring into the equation.

My bet is there isn't anything said here, or by observors like Hackworth, that hasn't long since been taken into account by the Bush administration.

After all, it isn't as if North Korea just jumped up ugly in the last six weeks.

[sneakypete]

If you are going to throw around the label of "America's Most Decorated Military Hero",

That's not even accurate. Hackworth is NOT "America's Most Decorated Military Hero",and he knows it. He even knows the name of the man who is.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Hackworth as well as those DoD think tanks were thiniking that a rational human was in command of Iraqui forces. Had he wished to do so, Saddam could have taken the Saudi oil fields within 72 hours after Kuwait, and the result would have been hugh causulties (Tom Clancy makes note of this in the book EXECUTIVE ORDERS). As noted earlier, air power did NOT deliver as promised. You will no doubt note the dismal failure of air power in Kosovo against a smarter enemy, again already noted. It is not unusual for a commander to change his attitudes, Gen. MacAuthur was one of the men who convicted Billy Mitchell, yet was one of the biggest advocates of air power in WWII. i have found nothing in Hackworth's writings and interviews to suggest that combined arms operations are wrong, again, it would be against his experience as a combat commander. Regretably, i must disagree with you concerning the nature of Desert Storm. It was a WWII style "war", more like N. Africa than Europe. Air was meaningless to the combat troops of the European front (although, as you correctly point out, it played hell with the German infasrtucture). The enemy had clearly defined formations and the battle was for ground, unlike Vietnam, unlike Somolia, unlike Afghanistan, et al. Hackworth is not alone in his "crusade", he is just the point man. You may recall both Lt. Gen Hank "the Gunfighter" Emerson (Hack's old brigade commander), and Lt. Gen Hal Moore,(the guy from WE WERE SOLDIERS), both forced out when they stood in the door over politically correct nonsense. Hackworth made the casualty predictions because he was at the time listening to the same pablum that DoD think tanks were feeding the public (again, not entirely their fault, they were assuming an enemy who knew what he was doing). Hackworth admits that he was wrong, and goes into detail why. "...This was not the story Americans were geting from the WhiteHouse, the Pentagon, or CNN. To hear them tell it, we were about to step into the ring with Mike Tyson on a bad hair day. I say ths ruefully because in the beginning I was as wrong as everyone else. Before leaving for the Gulf, I relied heavily on the Pentagon and my contacts within the intelligence community to draw up my assessments, a major mistake...At one point a friend gave me a study done by the Army War College predicting a bloody fight in the desert." HAZARDOUS DUTY, p.31 These are the same people who are advising Rummy, Hmmmm? Regretably, i had to go away for an hour, and there is too much to reply to, but this is representative. Some of these issues were addressed in previous replies

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Korea always was ugly, and always will be the last place anyone would want to fight a war. It is true that Hackworth had a perspective from the guy on the ground, but that is not the only perspective that he has. You may recall that he commanded as high as a batallion in Vietnam. Abrams relieved him after his fourth purple heart in four months (#'s 5-8), because at that time the Army had big plans for him, if he would have just been able to contain the anger, and keep his mouth shut. One did not have to be a genius to see what needed to happen in Korea I. Fortunately Ridgway, and later Van Fleet did do the right thing. Korea II will be different, the ROC have also, like the PDRK had 50 years to prepare. Even the real estate has been placed with a DPRK invasion in mind. Those T-62s and T-72s aren't going anywhere except to hell when ROC A-10s get done with them, after they are halted by rubble from buildings all up and down the Uijjambu (spell?) corridor. My point hours before was then and is now that we should leave the defense of the ROC to the ROC, and come in only if needed.

[SoCal Pubbie]

"riticizing Hackworth isn't doing a thing to reinforce the 2nd Infantry Division..."

I don't know if you meant to when you typed it, but this sentence is right out of the Clinton/Gore playbook. Just substitute "Clinton" for "Hackworth", and "feed a hungry child" for "reinforce the 2nd Infantry Division" and you're spot on.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

You're right. If i'm not mistaken MacAuthur was our most decorated hero. The claim made on Hackworth is that he is our most decorated LIVING hero. For the record, 8 purple hearts is pretty good, but if you count both US army and Confederate Army service, Gen Joseph E. Johnston would have gotten 10. in the case of both men (both heros, i don't question their courage, just their ability to duck!)