'A failure in generalship' by Cavalier

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'A failure in generalship'

POSTED BY: CAVALIER
UPDATED: Saturday, May 12, 2007 02:57
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Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:33 AM

I just came across this article by a US Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

"ARMY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm."

I have to assume he knows what he is talking about.

I suppose there is no human activity in which mistakes are more likely than warfare. I think almost any mistake is forgivable. Not learning from mistakes is another matter.

Any opinions out there?

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Thursday, May 10, 2007 6:14 PM

PIRATENEWS

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Quote:

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Thursday, May 10, 2007 6:29 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.

I'm not convinced you can lay the blame for the lack of progress in Iraq at the feet of the United States' Generals. I beleive the Secretary of Defense had some ideas about streamlining the armed forces and using overwhelming firepower as a substitute for manpower. In short his ideas did not work. Privatization does not reduce costs- it increases them. And while Shock and Awe gains ground rapidly a general still needs soldiers to hold that ground.

Secondly, the United States did not truly go to war. What I mean is the entire country did not mobilize in a true war effort. There's no "Home Front." If the US was truly at war, GM, Chrylser, and Ford would have made more than enough properly armored Humvees, we probably wouldn't hear stories about a shortage of body armor, and the funding for the war itself would have been inlcuded as part of the budget instead as an "emergency" supplemental spending bill.

It's unfortunate that our troops have been sent to fight a war under false pretenses (WMDs). But as it stands, our government's policies have created a bad situation and now we're obliged to fix it. I am hopeful that General Patreous can turn things around. He seems to have the right qualifications regarding counter insurgency tactics and stratedgy and I like that he is an admirer of T.S. Lawerence. Who managed to mount an effective resistance against the Turks and Germans during WWI.

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Saturday, May 12, 2007 2:57 AM

CAVALIER

I am not blaming “lack of progress” on anyone – I do not know enough.

Colonel Yingling compared Iraq to Vietnam. Another comparison might be Somalia. Good intentions there, too.

That is three examples, and not many counter examples. That suggests to me a systematic problem, not something to be blamed on any single individual or group of people.

The Defence Department is just another government bureaucracy.

There is no obvious reason to expect it to work any better than any other.

So good luck to General Petraeus, but I do not think it fair or reasonable to pin too many hopes on a single man.

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