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Post by fred on Nov 25, 2011 12:26:12 GMT -6
Queenie,
I may be prejudiced because I think DePuy was as close to a water-walker as we are likely to see in our lifetimes-- plus, I worked for the man twice and I was one of those guys, named or otherwise, on his "wish list" for men he wanted in the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam-- but I believe his only real mistake was in overestimating the guts of our politicians... especially when he corrected his ideas about counterinsurgency warfare.
I know of Nagl, Kilcullen, and McMaster(s?), but I have not heard of Gentile. The SF stuff I studied back when included much of the British experience in Malaya, though I do not recall anything from the 1930s Marines. Of course, my ex-wife stole all my manuals, so I can't even refer to them, so I do not know personally.
I know Kilcullen is a pretty bright fellow, but I do not have the manual, so I will take your word on how extreme those guys may be. Obviously, anything can happen, so I wouldn't rule out any type of warfare.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 12:49:16 GMT -6
My only gripe with Nagl is that he thinks we should carve out a big piece of structure devoted to advisory duties and small wars. With a 500K plus or minus Army I don't think we have that kind of luxury., Will can comment better on the Special Operations role, which to me is a lot of bang for a buck. I think though that we need a more balanced force, and a national strategy of strategic containment. Time works wonders in the geo-political world as long as we use it wisely. Becoming tied down here and there with a third, fourth, or fifth of our structure is not a wise use of time or resources. If we try to nation build, due to our more humanitarian outlook, and world view, I believe it to be a fools errand. I think our best course is to retain the ability to strike at will, while at the same time not becoming so fixed to any given piece of terrain. Harder to do than to say I know, but there is always a way.
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Post by fred on Nov 25, 2011 13:22:36 GMT -6
I agree pretty much with your assessment here, and I really take issue with our role as nation-builders. I do not think it is in our best interests and I think the communications structure of today's world tends to confirm that view and works in our favor. Look at what you are seeing in the Middle East. Even Russia may eventually fall prey to a more democratized government.
I detest out futile and idiotic efforts at trying to build up the militaries of many of these countries. Can could work for 1950s Germany doesn't wash for the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan... it didn't work for the South Vietnamese, what makes us think it would do so for multiple-generational camel drivers? And before anybody gets their nose bent out of shape at my "ethnic slur," please think about it and take an honest look at what you are dealing with here. I'm hardly wrong and the spade is what it is... not a tomato. If Saddam Hussein couldn't make his mob a credible fighting force using full-time fear, cajolery, and rivoted Russian hardware, what makes us think we can do it as a part-time, McDonald's-loving, can't-wait-to-get-home militia? Bull! Stay home, young man! There are other, more subtle ways, and we are seeing some of them in play today.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 14:24:37 GMT -6
Fred: I do believe some of our more "enlightened leaders" look at the idea of democracy somewhat like those old Judy Garland - Mickey Rooney movies. Do you remember how they would plod along, then all of a sudden some young teenaged brat would say; "Hey kids lets put on a show" As if by magic the costumes, the lighting, the venue, would all be there. The musicians were perfectly practiced and the dance steps worthy of Busby Berkley, and all the parents would be so proud of the production their kids put on worthy of Broadway.
Those from the American Enterprise Institute and other think factories like the Kagans (boy do those two belong together as man and wife, a marriage made in Neoconland) look at these things as if democracy were a dose of pennacilin that could cure the clap. Tom did not get up one morning in 1776 and say to Ben and John, hey guys lets put on a democracy. It was the sum total of western thought for more that two thousand years that came to fruition in Philly. Those ninth century tribal societies with computers and cell phones have not reached that level of cultural maturity, nor have our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe or the Asian landmass. Yet we still try and continue to fail, because like Judy and Mickey we want to put on a democracy show. Hell our own people don't even understand it. They complain about what goes on in Congress, and not without reason, failing to realize that this is republican democracy. This is what we signed up for, and they bitch and moan, and forget that they, not the legislators, are soverign. If they payed as much attention to exercising their vote as they do to occupying some damned park in NYC then maybe that republican democracy could begin to work for us again. And yet we think societies without our level of sophistication, without that two thousand years of thought and progress can come up with a democracy overnight, just because someone (like us) told them to?
That's about as far on politics as I allow myself to go.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Nov 25, 2011 14:29:41 GMT -6
The problem with nation building Afghanistan and Iraq is that they are not, really nations. Of the two, Afghanistan may have the higher sense of national identity, given the term Afghanistan has been around for a long while.
Both more or less came about from sequential Afternoon Activities of straight line drawing in the British Foreign Office, with the desired result exactly what has occurred. Deliberate division of tribal lands and mineral wealth in order to allow the sparse British forces to play aborigines off against each other. That further divided the peoples and works against progress today. The secular identity has never rivaled the religious and tribal, and the very idea that a party losing an election can turn over full control of the military to its rival makes no sense to them. They cannot imagine arresting a fellow Muslim for killing an American or anyone foreign.
No mushy liberal, this is what Ataturk faced and more or less overcame up in Turkey. He deserves more attention and, dare it be said, appreciation for trying to enforce the concept.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 15:11:21 GMT -6
Good read on things and well said DC.
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Post by fred on Nov 25, 2011 15:47:54 GMT -6
Well, DC is spot-on correct and I agree with you and your political views here. In the meantime, I must pose this question: is Custer still dead?
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 16:04:38 GMT -6
He is with Elvis in Vegas - part time. His brother and nephew were killed by that Indian woman, one with the very last round from her revolver (but the hostiles had plenty of ammo, she said so) and the other stabbed while the woman was holding on to her throughbred that she had just purloined from the United States Cavalry. No mention was made of Saint Tom though. It seems that is the one point on the battlefield she missed, because she was to busy knowing how Gall thought about matters, but at the same time not being privy to the council, thought process, and wisdom of the tribal elders. After all she was only a man killing sure shot, Mary the Ripper horse thief, but not a warrior. She did say however that Reno and Benteen were not in time to help Custer and had they done so they would have been dead (I wonder how old costume shopper let that one slip in). An even bigger surprise was the MacGillicuddy revelations of a few days ago, which if read carefully and litterally throw his garbage where it belongs. So no Custer is not dead. He is dealing Three Card Monte down the street from Keogh's house.
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jag
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Post by jag on Nov 25, 2011 16:11:50 GMT -6
Fred: I do believe some of our more "enlightened leaders" look at the idea of democracy somewhat like those old Judy Garland - Mickey Rooney movies. Do you remember how they would plod along, then all of a sudden some young teenaged brat would say; "Hey kids lets put on a show" As if by magic the costumes, the lighting, the venue, would all be there. The musicians were perfectly practiced and the dance steps worthy of Busby Berkley, and all the parents would be so proud of the production their kids put on worthy of Broadway. Those from the American Enterprise Institute and other think factories like the Kagans (boy do those two belong together as man and wife, a marriage made in Neoconland) look at these things as if democracy were a dose of pennacilin that could cure the clap. Tom did not get up one morning in 1776 and say to Ben and John, hey guys lets put on a democracy. It was the sum total of western thought for more that two thousand years that came to fruition in Philly. Those ninth century tribal societies with computers and cell phones have not reached that level of cultural maturity, nor have our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe or the Asian landmass. Yet we still try and continue to fail, because like Judy and Mickey we want to put on a democracy show. Hell our own people don't even understand it. They complain about what goes on in Congress, and not without reason, failing to realize that this is republican democracy. This is what we signed up for, and they bitch and moan, and forget that they, not the legislators, are soverign. If they payed as much attention to exercising their vote as they do to occupying some damned park in NYC then maybe that republican democracy could begin to work for us again. And yet we think societies without our level of sophistication, without that two thousand years of thought and progress can come up with a democracy overnight, just because someone (like us) told them to? That's about as far on politics as I allow myself to go. Trouble is "the vote" as you call it has been fully corrupted. It doesn't matter who you vote for they virtually are going to do the same damn thing anyway. An example - Back in the 80's they called it Reaganomics, now its the same damn thing that Obama did. And he fully applied the same principles Reagan did to the economic situation as Reagan did, trickle down and all that wall splattered - fan dripping smelly stuff that's supposed to slip down the wall to those with their mouths open at the bottom just waiting to lap it up. Bottom line, it isn't even a two party system. Wasn't ever meant to be that either. But is more like the popular proletariat party of the old USSR, you vote, but you get what they want, not what you want.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 16:19:05 GMT -6
I hear what you are saying, and the solution is to keep voting them out until they get the message. They work for us, not us for them. If every one in this country informed themselves and exercised their only Constitutional duty, those in office would soon learn that it is Main Street and not Wall Street or K Street where the power resides, at least enough power to kick them onto the ash heap and find someone who knows what the word representative means.
You can't expect that damned thing to keep running if we (every damned one of us) is to damned lazy to change the oil now and again.
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Post by fred on Nov 25, 2011 16:32:26 GMT -6
The problem is that you guys are dreamers. No one-- or not enough, anyway-- cares. The following was e-mailed to me the other day, and while I very seldom open these Internet tidbits, this one I decided to look at. Read it carefully:
"You're a 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the central highlands of Vietnam.... It's November 11, 1967. LZ X-ray.
"Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 yards away, that your CO has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.
"As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then-- over the machine gun noise-- you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter. You look up to see a Huey coming in. But... it doesn't seem real because no MedEvac markings are on it. Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.
"He's not MedEvac so it's not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.
"Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load three of you at a time on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety.
"And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!! Until all the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit four times in the legs and left arm. He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day. Some would not have made it without the captain and his Huey.
"Medal of Honor recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died last Wednesday at the age of 70, in Boise, Idaho....
"I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing, but we've sure seen a whole bunch about Lindsay Lohan, Tiger Woods, and the bickering of Congress over health reform."
Whoever wrote that forgot to add the bickering over taxes, spending, the debt ceiling, and the idiots on that so-called super-committee.
That's why things will never change.
Best wishes, Fred.
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jag
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Post by jag on Nov 25, 2011 16:37:59 GMT -6
I hear what you are saying, and the solution is to keep voting them out until they get the message. They work for us, not us for them. If every one in this country informed themselves and exercised their only Constitutional duty, those in office would soon learn that it is Main Street and not Wall Street or K Street where the power resides, at least enough power to kick them onto the ash heap and find someone who knows what the word representative means. You can't expect that damned thing to keep running if we (every damned one of us) is to damned lazy to change the oil now and again. I hear ya QC. And you're correct. But the vote won't change it, in that regard Fred is right. To be honest, I think nothing short of another revolution is going to boot these no goods outta there and put responsible people in their place. I don't see a damn dime's worth of difference between any of the Rep. candidates or Obama. And that's about as far as I'm going in this conversation, except to reiterate the USSR comparison we now possess in full.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 16:50:36 GMT -6
Yes Fred, I got the same e-mail a couple of months ago, several years after Ed Freeman died. He was of course not in the Air Force but rather a platoon leader in MAJ (later LTC) Bruce Crandall's ( also MOH) company of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion. That e-mail though was the work of someone who wished you to feel down and betrayed by our country, as vetted and exposed by another site I frequent. That will be the damned day. Depite her faults that will be the damned day.
The people that sent that e-mail deserved to be spit upon for using the name and deeds of Ed Freeman.
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Post by quincannon on Nov 25, 2011 16:57:36 GMT -6
JAG: And I hear you. I took an oath to the Constitution, not the government, a long time ago. My uniform has been in the closet for 23 years, but that oath is still valid and binding. I will continue to support the Constitutional process and defend it when it needs defending. This is one of those times. We own our allegence to an idea, not a king or president, governor or potentate. When we as a nation have had enough, we will know what to do, but it must be within the confines of the document and idea that binds us together. To do otherwise would mark us as no better than brigands in the same catagory as those we engage on the battlefield this very day.
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jag
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Post by jag on Nov 25, 2011 17:13:14 GMT -6
JAG: And I hear you. I took an oath to the Constitution, not the government, a long time ago. My uniform has been in the closet for 23 years, but that oath is still valid and binding. I will continue to support the Constitutional process and defend it when it needs defending. This is one of those times. We own our allegence to an idea, not a king or president, governor or potentate. When we as a nation have had enough, we will know what to do, but it must be within the confines of the document and idea that binds us together. To do otherwise would mark us as no better than brigands in the same catagory as those we engage on the battlefield this very day. I guess it should come down to the interpretation of this clause then: "Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..."
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