The media has never understood the reasons for our defeat in Vietnam. JFK and LBJ bought into the belief that war was too important to be left to skilled generals. Both LBJ and Nixon thought super bright WHIZ kids or Germans accents named Henry should run our military strategy. Robert MacNamara was the chief WHIZ kid for LBJ. He had run Ford Motor company and knew how to make cars at a profit. He hadn't a clue about how to win wars. Henry Kissenger and Eva Braun have one thing in commmon. They both could understand Hitler wiht out the services of a translator. They were also equally good military strategists.
Time after time in Nam the military view was dismissed and the latest intellectual fad war theory was followed. It was a disastor.
Bush Sr, an experienced combat veteran, did it right in the gulf a decade ago. He defined the goals and told two military pros named Colin Powell and Norm Swartzkoff to get it done. The military will always pick the plan with the highest chance of success at the lowest cost in American lives. That is very natural. The military wants to win and they don't want to die. In case you haven't noticed armies that lose tend to die a lot.
Dubya to no big surprise decided to follow in the footsteps of his Dad rather than LBJ and Nixon. And as it did for his Dad, the strategy of picking good commanders and delegating the autority to fight as they see fit worked. It is the one thing that Lincoln, Roosevelt and the Bush family have in commmon. The Bushes and Roosevelt have a better track record at picking commanders than did Abe Lincoln.
Wining a war is rather simple. It takes ground troops to win a war. The media does understand that fact. What they fail to understand is that if the air attack is good enough the ground attack doesn't have to be all that good. And if there is no air defense, the best ground troops are not worth much of anything. It is the lesson that Hitler taught the world when his airforce backing Franko defeated a better ground force in Spain prior to world war II. They failed to understand that even a corporal named Hitler knew he could not defeat England with out air superiority. Churchill, Eisenhower, and MacArthur have all expounded on the need for air superiority. It did not dawn on teh media that the Taliban had ZERO AIR power after the first day.
The other fact is the media believs that Russian troops and more importantly Russian tactics are a winning formula. They are not. Sadam used Russian tactics and they weren't even close to being match to ours. Again they fail to understand that total air makes total ground easy.
The media is convinced that the Taliban defenders were motivated well trained troops. But they fail to understand that even a supurb ground force can't beat a pretty poor gound force with a superb air force behind it.
Let me put it this way, when Allah goes up against B-52's bet on the B-52s. And as to the media, they are what they always are Clueless. Just remember this true statement about the press. The guys who run the presses could write the news. But the guys that write the news cannot run the presses.
Bush Sr, an experienced combat veteran, did it right in the gulf a decade ago.
I wonder, if he and his advisors had it to do again, would they finish off Saddam? In retrospect, I think we should have at least backed the rebel groups opposed to his regime, as we did with the Northern and Eastern Alliances.
Dubya to no big surprise decided to follow in the footsteps of his Dad rather than LBJ and Nixon. And as it did for his Dad, the strategy of picking good commanders and delegating the autority to fight as they see fit worked.
Right! One mark of a wise leader is his willingness to step back and allow others to do that at which they are best. I shudder to think of a "micro-managing" Gore as President during this time.