Posted on 10/18/2006 4:11:13 AM PDT by libstripper
October 18, 2006 -- HAVE we lost the will to win wars? Not just in Iraq, but anywhere? Do we really believe that being nice is more important than victory?
It's hard enough to bear the timidity of our civilian leaders - anxious to start wars but without the guts to finish them - but now military leaders have fallen prey to political correctness. Unwilling to accept that war is, by its nature, a savage act and that defeat is immoral, influential officers are arguing for a kinder, gentler approach to our enemies.
They're going to lead us into failure, sacrificing our soldiers and Marines for nothing: Political correctness kills.
Obsessed with low-level "tactical" morality - war's inevitable mistakes - the officers in question have lost sight of the strategic morality of winning. Our Army and Marine Corps are about to suffer the imposition of a new counterinsurgency doctrine designed for fairy-tale conflicts and utterly inappropriate for the religion-fueled, ethnicity-driven hyper-violence of our time.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yesterday when I heard about the things the CIA interrogators could NOT do, I was furious and disgusted.
Then FNC played clips of Democrats who bemoaned the bill as so stringent that it would be considered a "dark day in American history" and realized that spineless as Republicans have become, they're still a better choice than any Democrat alive.
I'm going to go see "Flags of our Fathers" on Friday. I may count how many things our soldiers do in that movie that wouldn't be permitted today.
Why don't we admit finally that it is those same dims that limited what Republicans could put into that bill. If we had more Conservatives in the Senate, the House would have made that bill far more reaching. dims will bring America to her knees if elected. We will lose a major city if that comes to pass.
WE NEED LESS dims!!! Want to win? Throw out the dims!
LLS
In 1996 Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which made it much more difficult for murder defendants to have their habeas corpus appeals heard in federal court.
Clearly habeas corpus suspension is only repugnant when a Republican does it. And I note that it's okay with leftists that murder defendants under Clinton had their habeas corpus protections curtailed, but jihadists under Bush should receive all protections possible.
This is one of the main reasons that I did not believe the war was a good idea. We forget that war is not pretty - it is killing and breaking things. We can't fight with one arm tied behind our back.
bttt
I am beginning to think that a Democrat administration will be necessary to win this war. Republican hearts-and-minds disabilities and Democrat opposition are killing us now. A Democrat will think he is making everything right by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and making some sort of reparations to Mohos all over the place. A Democrat will also dismantle domestic defenses or turn them against Christians and other conservatives. The country will suffer a series of blows on the order of 9-11 or worse. Eventually one of those hits will be nuclear and the Democrat will panic and launch the nukes. He will also use the opportunity to socialize most everything in the country. The war will be won but the system will barely survive if at all.
Good morning Peach!
It really tears at the fabric of logic. jefferson can have $90,000.00 in his freezer... FBI marked bills... 100% proved bribe money... he is still in office and leading in polls for re-election... Weldon is being persecuted by 'toon holdovers in the FBI 3 weeks before an election.
THE ANSWER TO AMERICA'S PROBLEMS... GET RID OF THE dims!
LLS
The only way to change the leftist forced PC war, is to fight one and refuse to let dims destroy America's fighting ability. Now is the time... We won't be around for the next War if dims get back into power. They will surrender everything. We will not have anything left to fight for... and the really weird thing is that our enemies will get rid of the dims first!
LLS
Good morning. All common sense seems to have left this nation.
We'll see what the country is made of come November.
Cut and runners? Or stay and fighters?
Yes, we seem to be fighting a war with lack of common sense. That is, we have multiple layers of rules of engagement where we punish our own when the enemy complains (Pendleton 8), we refuse to use our technology to minimize our own casualities (MOAB, failure to bomb certain buildings being used for weapons storage, and places for the enemy to hide), reconnoiter policies, interrogation policies, etc. IMO, the last time we won a war was in 1945.
I've been advocating the conquest, occupation, and reconstruction of Arabia and Pakistan since 9/11/01. I think sending a small force among millions of hostiles with a muddled mission and inadequate ROEs is disgraceful.
But the War Power of the United States is an intrinsic power of the People, delegated in part to Congress and in part to the Executive.
To wage total war (which is what is required to prevail in Iraq), therefore, necessitates the support of the People. Not all of them, to be sure.
But 51%, with 49% opposed, is insufficient.
Excellent!
That's because Ralph gets it. It's too bad the article has to be excerpted, because it should be required reading. I highly recommend everyone to click on the link and read the whole thing.
In 1949, the Dept. of War was renamed to the Department of Defense. Had to remove that nasty 'war' reference. I think the time has come to rename to DoD to something more appropriate, such as the Dept. of Holding Action.
The responsibility of the DoHA is to engage in an armed conflict, which it has no intention of winning, while the sole purpose is to give the State Dept. enough time to appease our enemies to demonstrate how morally superior we are.
The State Dept. sees a shot fired in our defense as a defeat for diplomacy. State is a far too powerful cabinet position in this admin, IMHO.
Sad but true.
It's bad enough that the people do, but they can be forgiven. They don't live war, study war, and prepare for war. This is largely a failure of the senior leadership, military and civilian.
The military leadership, in large part, have become like horses with ideological blinders on. The officer ranks have become so politicized and PC that most succumb to the indoctrination. Kinder, gentler phrases mouthed for so many years take root, and people start to believe the things they have to say to get promoted. I've known some superbly talented and capable officers who regurgitate the most inane, party line nonsense. That's all well and good in a garrison environment. There, lives aren't on the line. If the main concern of an officer is to keep the number of EO and sexual harassment complaints in the unit to a minimum, he'll do just fine.
In combat, however, not only does PC kill, but it produces defeat. The reason this isn't producing outrage from the senior officers is simple. Today's military places a higher priority on keeping your ass covered than it does winning. Losing by the book is far more acceptable than playing dirty to win.
As far as our civilian leaders go, they own the military. The buck stops with them. President Lincoln wasn't a military man, but he knew failure when he saw it, and wasn't afraid to fire generals until he got the results he wanted. Our own civilian leaders have been far too deferential to failed military policies. Their hands-off approach has left chronic problems unaddressed.
The problem can be fixed. It's a simple attitude problem, not a question of skill and competence. There are still Pattons and MacArthurs in the wings, but the current military culture keeps them neutered, silenced and sidelined.
You make absolutely no sense!
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