« HORSEFEATHERS DOCTRINE (CONT.) • Main • »

July 11, 2003

THE COSTS OF POLITICALLY CORRECT WARFARE

Victor Hanson writes: See also Horsefeathers Doctrine (cont.)-below

"...In Iraq, we sought to mitigate damage to the civilian populace. And we understandably wanted to preserve infrastructure — and thus allowed thousands of Baathists to melt back into the civilian fabric without a systematic roundup of their leadership: one that included psychopaths far more numerous than the odious faces in our deck of 52.

While Saddam's elite troops were clearly beaten, they were routed so rapidly and without extreme loss of life that they themselves, along with neutral observers, were not altogether sure that with their defeat would come humiliation and with humiliation readiness to change.

Thousands of them now wonder whether killing an American or two isn't such bad sport, since they got off so easily during the real war — and wager that such magnanimity will still be typical rather than exceptional. The result is that we must now hunt down reprieved diehards one by one, at much greater danger and cost — and kill them individually (let us hope at the rate of 100 or so for every American shot at)...."

Posted at 11:06 AM by

Comments

A.V.Suvorov (A Russian Generalisimus of 18th Century) has this quote attributed to him, "Enemy destoyed or surrounded - success. Territory gained, enemy repulsed - failure" (from "Book for Young Officers" as I recall it now)

We had to compromise between destroying 200,000 or so people for the sake of scaring a couple of thousand, or dealing with these few thousand later. It seems like a necessary and humane choice. However, I think our politics betrayed us from the very beginning where we gave the impression that

1. We would give a lot of autonomy very quickly

2. We would leave as soon as possible, instead of leaving when our job is done.

I think that approach not only left a lot of people in power or positions of authority that it should not have, but also created an expectation among the non-violent Iraqis that they must not speak up or do anything because USA will be gone soon, and the loudmouthed demagogues will be joined by the left over thugs to form a new government. Instead of dismantling *all* of the political and military institutions and rebuilding them from scratch we were hoping "things would just work out" somehow. And that is not the fault of the military, but of the Administration which could not decide how it should sell the war, whether it was a liberation or occupation, whether we want to build a democracy or just remove Saddam.

Posted by: Con Tendem on July 11, 2003 11:38 AM

"The way to combat the West is to appeal to either its generosity of spirit or its guilt in hopes that it will call itself off, and thus hand to terrorists and dictators a stalemate that will soon be seen as a victory of sorts, stolen from the jaws of assured defeat."
HANSON IS RIGHT ABOUT THIS and if we had or will have a wimp Democratic administration it could happen.

"Our duty instead is to remind Saddam's rag-tag murderers that they will only meet the same fate as diehard Waffen SS, Japanese holdouts on Okinawa, foolish attackers at Khesahn — and anyone else who has made the fatal mistake of thinking they would survive a shootout with enraged Americans."
And how. I personally know some of the soldiers and Marines in harm's way in Iraq-when we last spoke I told them to stay clear of that den of backstabbing thugs and gangsters and watch their backs.

We need to bring the bad guys to swift justice and make them wish they had never taken on the American and British military. It is obvious that the rules of engagement must be changed into a much more aggressive mode. But of course better there than here. By fighting there Iraq is a magnet of terrorist resources not to mention that it pulled the plug on a lot of Hammas activities. Does anyone think Hammas has embraced pacificism or are they broke and low on Ammo.?

Posted by: Ricardo Munro on July 11, 2003 01:44 PM

Do you think Sharon and the Likud party will abandon their stance on a "Greater Israel" or have they embraced pacifism? Being an American taxpayer I certainly know their not broke, or for that matter, out of ammo.

Posted by: Stern Gang on July 21, 2003 10:39 PM