An American perspective

TomF

As a welcome change from the unrelieved series of postings from the left wing, I am happy to post a paragraph from what I think is one of the best essays on the conduct of the war to remove Saddam Hussein & Co. that I have seen. It is written from the American point-of-view and is really brilliant reading.

""...our present military faces cultural obstacles never envisioned by an Epaminondas, Caesar, Marlborough, Sherman — or any of the other great marchers. A globally televised and therapeutic culture puts an onus on American soldiers that could never have been envisioned by any of the early captains. We treat prisoners justly; our enemy executes them. We protect Iraqi bridges, oil, and dams — from Iraqi saboteurs. We must treat Iraqi civilians better than do their own men, who are trying to kill them. Our generals and leaders take questions; theirs give taped propaganda speeches. Shock and awe — designed not to kill but to stun, and therefore to save civilians — are slurred as Hamburg and Dresden. The force needed to crush Saddam’s killers is deemed too much for the fragile surrounding human landscape. Marines who raise the Stars and Stripes are reprimanded for being too chauvinistic. And on, and on, and on."

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson032803.asp
History or Hysteria?

daveirl

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lili

well, we will see later but seems for the moment, the coalition isn't percieved like liberators by the iraqi people. i would say that is quite the opposite.

daveirl

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therecklessone

Originally posted by TomF
We protect Iraqi bridges, oil, and dams — from Iraqi saboteurs.

Those naughty Iraqis. Whatever about the oilfields and dams, the destruction of one's own bridges is sound military judgement for an army which is falling back and wishes to deny to its enemy the facilities of the country. Its been used by virtually every retreating army in history...in WW2 it was used by the Red Army and the Wehrmacht for example. As for oil, while it is dreadful for environmental reasons, and also for the future reconstruction of post-war Iraq, it is understandable that the retreating Iraqis would again try to deny to their enemy the resources of the country.

What I find really galling is the indignant attitude of the Coalition whenn faced with Iraqi resistance in the face of invasion. Face i guys, uou f**ked up with your pre-war predictions...I saw on Sky News this evening, on their little infobar, a comment from a US source saying something like "the enemy is different from that we encountered in war games"!!! FFS, talk about naive!

Slightly OT, I do have to say I was astonished to hear the full extent of the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq post-Gulf War 1. The ban on missiles over 150km was understandable, but no night-vision goggles??? What about GPS jamming equipment? Now the discovery of a few here and there is being held up by the US as damning evidence that Saddam has been breaking the embargo. Fine, deny him some of the basics of modern warfare, but don't act surprised when he decides to avoid open warfare, where his troops will be slaughtered, in favour of guerilla warfare and city fighting. Did the US really expect Saddam to dutifully send his troops out into the desert to be destroyed by the un-contested Allied airpower and advanced armour and artillery, then for him to roll over and play dead when his number was up? It appears they did. Bizarre.

Mercury_Tilt

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Éomer of Rohan

our present military faces cultural obstacles never envisioned by an Epaminondas, Caesar, Marlborough, Sherman — or any of the other great marchers. A globally televised and therapeutic culture puts an onus on American soldiers that could never have been envisioned by any of the early captains. We treat prisoners justly; our enemy executes them. We protect Iraqi bridges, oil, and dams — from Iraqi saboteurs. We must treat Iraqi civilians better than do their own men, who are trying to kill them. Our generals and leaders take questions; theirs give taped propaganda speeches. Shock and awe — designed not to kill but to stun, and therefore to save civilians — are slurred as Hamburg and Dresden. The force needed to crush Saddam’s killers is deemed too much for the fragile surrounding human landscape. Marines who raise the Stars and Stripes are reprimanded for being too chauvinistic. And on, and on, and on."

Mr Davis obviously likes misinformation - or else his history is poor. And his geo political analyses are worse.

Consider what he says about the 'onus' on US soldiers, something he bases on TV and media culture - what rubbish! The media in the old British Empire often had the same sort of effect on commanders such as Malborough and Wellington - no civilian casualties, follow the 'Queensberry' rules etc but this misses the point; in those days, there was not the capacity to level a city from the air and thus public responsibility and horror has rightly grown with such capabilities.

What he says about protecting Iraqi oil wells, dams and bridges; I must point out that this has nothing to do with caring about the aftermath of the war or the Iraqi people, maybe something to do with the economic viability of taking over Iraq would be decreased by destroying these things but also, in the two latter examples to with sound strategic reasons; Did not Patton have special divisions as did Monty to halt the destruction of the Dutch dams and the bridges across the Rhine? Of course the US will not destroy such things - they would get in their own way by doing so.

As to taping American POW's and so on, has it not been the policy of American armies in several conflicts - Vietnam and WWII included, to broadcast the voice of a captured enemy officer in a surrender message?

So I was feeling somewhat good again — until I heard the pious sermon on “shock and awe.” In pompous tones the minister was deprecating the war effort, calling down calumnies upon the administration, and alleging the immoral nature of our nation at war. Such a strange man at such a strange time, I thought. His entire congregation, by its own admission, is in danger from foreign terrorists (why else bar the gates?). His church is itself a monument to the utility of force for moral purposes. His own existence as a free-speaking, freely worshiping man of God is possible only thanks to the United States military — whose present mission he was openly deriding at the country’s national shrine.

Read this and tell me what is wrong with it. I don't think I even need to write a commentary to show how utterly decieved this man is by his own lies; that he is prepared to go to mass until he realises that the sermon is not what he wanted to hear, that maybe his God doesn't support the war as some may show from the Bible - this priest owes his existence to the US Army! How dare he actually say what he and his religion believe??

Read all the various pieces in the article linked to by Tom regarding pundits and so on - and maybe you will see that this guy is railing against free speech more than anything.

bonkey

Originally posted by TomF
Shock and awe — designed not to kill but to stun, and therefore to save civilians

...

History or Hysteria?

You tell me - this is the first time I have ever heard of a 2,000 lb satellite guided high-exposive bomb described as a non-lethal weapon designed to "stun".

Maybe you should read the statistics on the fatal range of the ensuing shock-wave, the further "shrapnel" range, etc. etc. etc. and then tell me how this is designed not to kill.

Shock and Awe was designed to yield lower civilian casualties by utilising more accurate weapons systems. The "stun" part was based on the "we will hit them with so much accurate firepower that they will be overwhelmed by our l337 Powahz" theory, which so far seems to have been a hopeless pipedream. Of course, what no-one seems to have recopgnised is that the US developed these weapons for one reason - to penetrate defences which were immune to less specifically-guided munitions. They try to sell them as "humanitarian", but they developed them because they knew you could easily build a bunker which would be impervious to anything bar a direct hit, and that such weapons were necessary to defeat such defences.

"Shock and Awe" was - from what I can see - a PSYOPS term to try and sell war to the public by means of the initial salvo . The primary aim (though least likely to succeed) was to decapitate the Iraqi military. The secondary (and more likely to be successful to a limited degree) was to sell the initial days of the war as being "humanitarian" - cause the US knew that as soon as they started trying to take cities, the deathcounts would rise. So win people over early and then blame the enemy later when it gets messy. I mean, we hear that a market was destroyed. The Iraqis claim it was by two of these "precision" missiles of the coalitions, who in term maintain it was two Iraqi surface-surface missiles. What the coalition dont want anyone to ask them is "even if it was an Iraqi missile, who gave them cause to fire it"???

"Shock and Awe" was a sales proposition to the public, to give hope for a quick and clean war. Its failed. The US are rapidly learning the Blu-82 daisy-cutters dropped on Iraqi regiments in '91 was a far more successful "psychological" tool than the ability to hit a command headquarters with 13m "pinpoint" accuracy, if they didnt already know this.

Back then, they got Spec Ops to leaflet an opposition position saying "you're getting a daisy cutter tomorrow morning", then they'd drop it on them, then drop another set of leaflets saying the same thing. Then they watched them surrender....hardly surprising. When a Blu-82 wasnt available, they used a B52 full of other ordinance in its place.

One explosion, of a Blu-82 dropped in a minefield, produced an explosion where the lethal range of the shockwave for an unprotected individual was in excess of 4 km.

That was "Shock and Awe". That caused entire regiments to start surrendering as soon as the first leaflets were seen.

Unfortunately, when your enemy isnt stuck in open desert, its not so easy to use such tactics again. No wonder the US keep complaining about the dirty tactics of the Iraqi military hiding in cities, thus preventing the tactics which would once-again yield significant surrenders.

So you tell me....history or hysteria.

jc