... just before we cut and ran.

So says this new book, which is apparently being read by most of the people in charge of our current war.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156013096/103-9475431-0722210?v=glance&n=283155

Quote :

"[...] David Ignatius recently reported in the Washington Post that the "hot book" among top Iraq strategists this season is Lewis Sorley's A Better War, which argues that we were on the verge of winning the Vietnam War just as political pressures forced Richard Nixon to pull out. The war started to go our way in 1972, Sorley contends, when Gen. William Westmoreland retired as U.S. commander, and his successor, Gen. Creighton Abrams, abandoned the "search and destroy" strategy in favor of "clear and hold." Westmoreland had focused on attrition and body counts; Abrams started clearing insurgents out of villages, one by one, then holding each area securely. The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, was seen reading the book in September. It's on the bookshelves of many senior officers in Baghdad. It also caught the eye of State Department counselor Philip Zelikow. Most pertinent of all, Ignatius notes that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice practically quoted from it in her Oct. 19 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "Our politico-military strategy has to be clear, hold and build—to clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely, and to build durable, national Iraqi institutions." The idea—which is similar to the counterinsurgency strategy that Andrew Krepinevich Jr. recently laid out in Foreign Affairs—is appealing in theory. The problem—in Vietnam then and in Iraq now—is the "hold" part. American troops could, and can, "clear" an area of insurgents. But the South Vietnamese army couldn't "hold" it securely—couldn't keep the North Vietnamese army from coming back and retaking it. And neither the American nor the Iraqi army can keep the insurgents from coming back to cities like Fallujah. The Americans lack the numbers, and the Iraqis as yet lack the wherewithal or the training. Until that situation is changed, "clear and hold" is a daydream. [...]"

http://www.slate.com/id/2130492/

11/19/2005 5:45:09 PM

hello ann coulter

11/19/2005 6:25:38 PM

militarily, although we did suffer a significant amount of casualties, we were pushing the gooks around pretty well. Our government had a strict hold on our military though, not allowing them to do what needed to be done. Instead of taking and holding an area, we would take a town, take the next town, and have to come back and take the first town all over again. Chasing our tails, for lack of a better phrase.

there was the whole Russia / China threat looming, which i think kept us from starting from the south and just marching straight to the north, controlling key points and establishing DMZ's, but doesn't really exist in this situation. Iraq doesnt have a communist big brother over his shoulder that we want to avoid war with at all costs.

at any rate, the moral of the story is the same: politics, protests, and partisan bullshit will fuck up a war. it's not so much the military aspect as it is how we fight it from the homefront. it's not the military that didn't learn its lesson from vietnam, its the people and the politicians.

11/19/2005 6:28:53 PM

Quote :

"it's not the military that didn't learn its lesson from vietnam, its the people and the politicians."

11/19/2005 6:57:21 PM

the people elect the politicians

the people support or don't support the politicians

the people are both cindy sheehan and ann coulter... both michael moore and michael savage. the politicians aren't the only ones responsible for the debacle, unfortunately, we have to take some responsibility too

11/19/2005 7:08:01 PM

the Germans were winning WWII also


no reason to bring that up

just felt like it

11/20/2005 1:27:18 PM

omg, after we had narrowed our goals and limited our movements, our kill/death ratio went up.

Those damned liberals had to ruin it for us.

11/20/2005 3:34:19 PM

Quote :

"the Germans were winning WWII also"

Hell yeah, they had a fantastic kill ratio against Stalin's forces.

And just think, if we had listened to Lewis Sorley back in the day, we could still be in Vietnam right now!

How cool would that be? Then nobody would give a damn about Iraq.

11/20/2005 3:56:52 PM

It'd be so incredibly awesome if we hadn't of cut and run in Vietnam.

Our troops would have the shit supported out of them.

11/20/2005 4:06:31 PM

^^^our kill ratio against the Vietnamese was totally one-sided. we beat the shit out of them in that regard.

however, bodycounts have nothing to do with success in warfare. they are often a result of success, but they are not a cause.

and the Germans took a beating tactically as well as strategically. i mean, they did astoundingly well, considering what they were up against, but they weren't "winning" WWII in the sense that we were "winning" in Vietnam.

11/20/2005 4:57:53 PM

^That's the reason this book sucks

11/20/2005 4:59:53 PM

this might be getting off topic, but i was thinking recently about WWI and where that war would have gone if the US had not come in on the western front and the Russians had still dropped out in the east.
would the German losses at the point we came in have been too much for them to overcome even if they were just fighting ?

it just seems like Germany is in both the best and worst area of Europe to attempt to wage war on multiple fronts.

i really need to read up on Euro and US history more in-depth, thats what i get for concentrating in Russia and Asia.

[Edited on November 20, 2005 at 5:05 PM. Reason : .]

11/20/2005 5:04:31 PM

well, i should offer the caveat that you CAN wage attrition warfare, but it's not the preferred method.

but yeah, basically, winning in war is a function of destroying the enemy's will and/or capability to resist...not killing every last one of them. in fact, the more fights you can dodge and still accomplish your goals, the better.

to quote Sun Tzu, "To win 1000 times in 1000 battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

11/20/2005 5:04:50 PM