Would anyone mind if I interrupt this thread’s discussion of military tactics and media coverage to address the OP?
Apos, even if our tactics to date have been a miserable failure, and even if the strategic plan was patently stupid, I would not want either Rumsfeld or Fleischer admitting such to the press at this time.
Whether Rumsfeld and his team made significant errors will be judged in history, particularly as more context gets added to the equation. I don’t want them to admit errors to the press right now. There will be the right time for that.
In the meantime, even if I don’t believe them, I think they should be talking about how well things are going. I mean, isn’t that what Iraqi TV is saying on their side? One of them must be wrong…
Oh my, on preview, I see I stepped into the middle of something. Pardon my counter-hijack.
Azael: My “skepticism” was in reference to his alarmist statements of “how it is,” stated as if he was posting straight from Baghdad and not (as he later clarified) reading an article written underneath Saddam’s thumb."
Well I still can’t see how it’s “alarmist” to point out that non-combatants at home don’t see the dead bodies, or the hospitalized casualities. On the contrary, it’s something any sensible adult ought to know.
As for McDuff’s sources: Radio Four is the talk radio station of the BBC. This would be like your doubting the integrity of NPR news, or the McNeil-Lehrer Report. The newspaper McDuff cited and in which the article you refer to was published is a serious broadsheet newspaper like the New York Times or the Washington Post.
Seriously, considering that the British are our only real allies in this war, and the majority of Britons are probably getting their news from these very sources, I’d think you’d be a bit reluctant to confuse their media with Saddam’s propaganda.
“I’ll take your silence as apology.”
No, take it–when it comes–as a sign that I know when someone lacks the good manners to post in this forum, and has ceased saying anything worth replying to. Your tone is way out of line.
Well now at least now you are making a defensible case Mandelstam, that’s a good sign. I’m not going to quibble with you over the legitimacy of sources, nor will I once again lay out for you where the sources of those sources necessarily come from. This has gone far beyond the auspices of the OP and correcting your assumptions is an excercise in futility. This hijack is over.
AZCowboy, you’re right about them not publicly stating now that their plans were based on massive self-deception, but one would hope that they would at least admit it to themselves. Otherwise we’re already being dragged into the old trap that, if your plans aren’t working, you need to redouble them. What are we seeing so far?
El Jeffe, you would help yourself immensely by acknowledging that Cheney et al. were themselves spinning their war plans, in such a way that people like yourself would be attracted and head toward it like moths to a light bulb, where they get stuck and die. Blaming articles dissecting that spin on the dam’ librul media exposes their, and your, lack of substance.
To all, the success of the war, now or at any other time, can be measured only in comparison to its objectives, right? Well, then, let’s see:
If the objective is simply tank mileage across the sand, then yes, it’s going swimmingly.
If it’s about conquering land and resources and people, more success than failure to date.
If it’s about offing Saddam, jury’s out but evidence is lacking.
If it’s about finding and destroying those WMD’s that the pathetic UN inspectors couldn’t find, there’s been none of that to date (some noticeable spin attempts, though).
If it’s liberating the people of Iraq, there don’t seem to be many of the liberated who are happy about it in comparison to the pissed off.
If it’s about establishing the foundation for a peaceful, democratic Middle East, under the benevolent yet strict hand of the Great White Father, no longer producing the conditions in which terrorists are created, it could hardly be more disastrous.
Am I missing something successful other than mileage?
A selection from Kipling, if I may:
"Take up the White Man’s burden,
And reap his old reward–
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard
…
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you. "
Azael: …nor will I once again lay out for you where the sources of those sources necessarily come from."
There is no need; I read it carefully the first time. And your account of “those sources” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Independent’s article by Robert Fisk was based on a direct eyewitness account of a hospital visit. It is not clear who actually arranged the tour, but that hardly matters since part of Fisk’s role is to cover civilian casualities–a task which he says he disdains. Fisk himself is very conscious of being caught in two-way public relations campaign, and equally critical of both sides. He writes:
" So let’s forget, for a moment, the cheap propaganda of the regime and the equally cheap moralising of Messrs Rumsfeld and Bush, and take a trip around the Al-Mustansaniya College Hospital."
Most of his commentary is devoted to describing the suffering of these casualties, which you yourself claim not to doubt.
I don’t see how can possibly expect to discredit such a simple point, based on an eyewitness account of injuries that you don’t yourself doubt, by suggesting that Saddam’s regime has somehow censored this reporting. (If it did how was Fisk able to call the Iraqi officials’ spin “insufferable” and “cheap”?)
As to Saddam’s role in increasing the rate of civilian casualties, yes, we know that about him, and it is deplorable. But we knew that about him before we decided to mount this invasion, and to do so without the cooperation and approval of important allies and the UN. So Saddam’s infamous behavior can’t entirely exonerate the US or British for what happens to Iraqis who are harmed by US or British bombs. Also, we don’t know that the people in the story were harmed because of Saddam’s inhumane tactics. There are people who have been injured because their houses happened to be near immobile targets such as presidential palaces. And now there are people being harmed because of the urban warfare that is taking place in cities such as Basra.
David Simmons: I wasn’t suggesting that it’s a good thing to outrun your supply lines. I was suggesting that aggression in tank warfare can be a very good thing, and pointed to Patton as an example. He was so aggressive that he once outran his own supply lines. That was obviously not a good thing, and I’m sure Patton would have liked to have better logistics. But he chose to keep going because he recognized the value of aggression.
As for Patton being held back at cost… I can’t remember the exact name of the engagement, but there was a huge pocket of German soldiers that Patton wanted to encircle with the 3rd army. He was overruled because his superiors were worried about him over-extending his supply lines. As a result the Germans escaped, and some say the war lasted several months longer as a result.
In this particular war, it looks like the aggression of the 3rd infantry DID pay off. You know that big convoy of 1,000 vehicles of the Republican Guard that was headed for Najaf? Apparently, the reason they were headed there is because they were trying to recapture the bridge there, which is a crucial strategic asset for the Americans. How come the Iraqis didn’t blow the bridge in the first place? Apparently, the Americans found satchel charges under the bridge, but the Iraqis hadn’t expected the Americans to move so quickly, and had not finished wiring the charges before they were overrun.
And now I’m hearing that that column of 1,000 vehicles was just torn apart by a brigade of Americans that appeared out of the west - the Iraqis were caught by surprise because they didn’t expect Americans to be that far north.
It’s still way too early to say whether this plan turned out to be the ‘right’ one, and hindsight is always 20-20. But so far, it’s clearly outrageous to say that the plan has failed. By all accounts, the coalition is doing a fantastic job.
And there is now a second front in the north - 1,000 paratroopers secured a northern airfield, and American heavy airlift is bringing an armored brigade in through there. This was also part of the original plan (modified after not getting Turkey’s cooperation), and it’s going to force the Iraqis to reconfigure their Baghdad defenses again, which will give the guys in the south more breathing room.
Your arguments are going round and round in circles, dude.
here’s my original quote:
You responded with:
Which seemed, to me, to suggest that you were saying that things aren’t as bad as they seemed in the media. That all wounded civillians, or at least a sizable proportion of them, were propaganda from the Iraqi media. Which is just rubbish, frankly. People die in wars. Children get hit by shrapnel. Rumsfeld and Perle, men who live in a magical fantasy land of their very own, acknowledge this.
And here’s my response:
I’m willing to wait, you see. I’m willing to wait and see if there’s a magical fairytale land of laughs and happiness that is being obscured by Iraqi propaganda, and if there is one, you’ll get $1,000 off me.
On the other hand, if children are dying (and please note I don’t give a flying rat’s ass whether it’s Saddam’s fault or our fault or George Bush’s fault or just because they had a really bad horosope today), the chances are that we’ll hear less about this now than we will after the smoke has cleared and we can get people in there to look at the real damage.
Then you come out with this:
This, all coming from an original accusation where I specifically said that I wasn’t believing the press right now. I never once said I was blindly listening to the press, just that I believed that, like every war in history, the body count will continue to rise even after the bullets have stopped being fired, and you were willing to give George Bush the benefit of the doubt, and, in fact, doubt that there were wounded civillians in hospitals in Iraq. Nice bait and switch, there, but I’m not, ever, claiming that the news we get is accurate, or unbiased, just that I think it’s skewed one way and you think it’s skewed another. If you can give me a good reason to believe that there aren’t going to be many wounded civillians after we’re out of here, especially given that it’s going much slower than we’d hoped, I’d love to hear it. I could do with some good news.
Finally, a lovely little insult:
You think I’m basing my information on ONE ARTICLE?
Get the hell out of town! My strongest source was NO ARTICLES WHATSOEVER. It was a wild-assed guess that if you drop bombs on a town with civillians in it, you’re going to mash some kids heads into a bloody mess under falling masonry.
I put my wild-assed guess against your argument (although whatever the hell that actually is I can’t tell), and I bet $1,000 against a contrite apology that there will be dead kids in Iraq that we don’t hear about until after the smoke has cleared.
That was my whole point. You’ve turned it into something it was never meant to be, and I can’t even figure out what your point is.
On Robert Fisk: Fisk is one man who doesn’t like war - his bias is well known, he is there, in Iraq, specifically to report on the horrors of war. But, bias or not, when you read articles like this, you can believe he’s made it up, or that it’s the truth, and there’s not a lot else you can do with it. Maybe he’s made it up. Maybe it’s all lies.
But if it isn’t? Then this is the cost of war. This is the “blood price” that Tony Blair insisted had to be paid. Fisk is providing a service. If we are paying this price, we should at least be honest with ourselves and our world about the cost. No polish, no dishonesty, no glossing over it. Either it is worth this, or it isn’t.
You might think it is worth it. Maybe it is. But we cannot say that until we know what it is, until we know the price that we exact with a war. Shiny words and noble causes mask the reality of war, the reality of blood on the streets.
I’m not saying it is justified or it isn’t, here. No doubt the atrocities under Saddam left blood running down the streets too. But let us not forget that our actions also kill people, and that this is the price that we all have to pay for this war.
Any account of the campaign in France will explain it; Patton’s Third Army drove south and east below the bulk of the German forces in France, then drove north towards the British and Canadian armies at Falaise, encircling the Germans, who thanks to Hitler’s dithering had - unlike Patton - not moved fast enough, and failed to withdraw to a defensive line. The result was the complete destruction of Army Group West. A quarter of a million men were lost to Germany, along with all their equipment.
Say what you will; Patton’s gambit DID work. A slower approach likely would have taken until 1945 to accomplish the same thing at greater cost, and, likely, more German troops removed to Germany and the Low Countries to continue the fight there. Instead of that melancholy scenario, the result was a gigantic, war-breaking victory for the Allies and an unimaginable catastrophe for the Germans.
However, as you point out, the Allies in Iraq are trying the same thing with a much thinner roster than Patton had - plus, of course, Patton was not using his army to do the whole job; he was using his army to pin the Germans up against the British and Canadians, who were both fielding monstrous forces in corps and army strength.
Since Patton’s actions in WWII were originally used by Sam Stone to support the present battle plan for Iraq it seems to me to justify an examination as to whether or not such statements are really all that supportive.
In fact the statement of Stone’s was “…he was famous for pushing the third army through Europe so fast that he outran his supply lines. And it worked brilliantly.” Now, I would maintain that this statement is so ridiculous on the face of it that it hardly is worth refuting. There has never been and never will be a case of an armored force achieving a great victory while out of supplies such as fuel.
The action that RickJay describes, a little incorrectly, was the so-called Falaise Pocket. Patton did not “drive through the bulk of the German army.”
Operation “Cobra,” started with a devastating air attack, (see the cite below) some of which fell on the waiting GIs. A gap in the German line was opened through which the U.S. 1st Army went toward Avranches which taken on July 30. At this point Patton’s newly formed 3rd Army joined in the advance. An American force now threatened to drive into Brittany and, by a left turn, to encircle the Germans in Normandy from the rear. Patton’s 3rd army, as described by Bradley in A General’s Life, turned west having been given the job of cleaning out the Brittany Peninsula, while the 1st Army turned east to circle behind the Germans.
Shortly thereafter it was realized that there was a good chance to trap a large German force and Patton was turned toward the east to help this action. Bradley says that the opportunity arose because, just like at Stalingrad, Hitler refused to let his Generals make an orderly retreat while there was still a chance to do so.
The US forces were to go north and the British/Canadians south and a meeting place was agreed upon. Patton’s group arrived at their place first but the British/Canadian force was held up by a fierce defense. Bradley refused to let Patton go further for fear that the word couldn’t be passed to the British/Canadians in time with the possible result of an accidental battle between allies. This decision was controversial at the time and still is. Total German losses have finally been established as 10,000 Germans killed, and 50,000 taken prisoner.See this site. Just to show that I’m not tilting the wheel, this site is critical of Bradley for stopping Patton from continuing on after reaching the agreed upon meeting place.
None of this indicates a “mad dash” by Patton, outrunning his supply and throwing caution to the winds in order to gain a great victory. And none of it really supports the idea that three infantry divisions are enough to do the job in Iraq.
As to the OP, it seems to me that almost everyone in the administration and many in the military have been infected by GW’s propensity to shoot off his mouth. Whatever happened to the massive opening of the campaign that was supposed to stun and awe is with its immense power?
I still say that the reason military men like to have lots of firepower for offensives is that they realize that they can’t estimate enemy capability all that accurately and like to have plenty of horsepower. It does seem that it might have been prudent when the 4th Infantry Division was not allowed to go through Turkey to wait while they and their equipment were rerouted to Kuwait.