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2005-01-10 Iraq-Jordan
BATTLE LESSONS - What the generals don't know.
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Posted by Steve 2005-01-10 12:45:19 PM|| || Front Page|| [11139 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 I hope the author was not surprised at the initiative and smarts of the junior officer corps. They have actually done something other than receive military training and are not robots. They are smart and they adapt. The crucible of war forces all to adapt. The smart ones just do it faster.
Posted by Remoteman 2005-01-10 1:20:59 PM||   2005-01-10 1:20:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Today's Lieutenants and Captains are Tomorrows Colonels and Generals. Take note China. How is political hackery and civil suppression training your future military leaders for the battlefield?
Posted by Laurence of the Rats  2005-01-10 1:43:05 PM|| [http://www.punictreachery.com/]  2005-01-10 1:43:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Bull Poo ALERT!!!

Whatever else the Iraq war is doing to American power and prestige, it is producing the creative and flexible junior officers that the Army’s training could not.

And pray tell, Mr. Bozo, ...just where did these junior officers acquire the ability to think and act in a creative and flexible manner??

Oh and look how Mr. Bozo's true sympathies are exposed by this statment:

Whatever else the Iraq occupation war is doing to American power and prestige,

Hey BOZO, a better conclusion would read, "despite a lack in specific training for the current conflict such as arabic, IED training etc., the army has a training program that is producing the creative and flexible junior officers who can successfully improvise in any cirucmstances. "

Keep up the good work guys, and don't let this clueless bozo change a thing. Otherwise you'll be training the guys to fight with skills only applicable to the current situation (ie: the last war) and not training them to be able to improvise for ALL conflicts.

why do we have to suffer such fools????
Posted by 2b 2005-01-10 1:46:17 PM||   2005-01-10 1:46:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 I am interested in seeing the political class that arises from this group of junior officers in twenty years. We'll have some incredibly gifted leaders.
Posted by Seafarious  2005-01-10 1:49:48 PM||   2005-01-10 1:49:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 What seafarious said. Whichever party can grab the greatest number of these supremely experienced and talented young leaders will likely dominate national politics in years to come.
Posted by lex 2005-01-10 1:52:46 PM||   2005-01-10 1:52:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 somehow, I don't think they will be gravitating to the logic of the Michael Moore, Barbara Boxer party. But then, I suspect that will be extinct by then.
Posted by 2b 2005-01-10 1:56:52 PM||   2005-01-10 1:56:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Naw, they won't be extinct, they'll go to ground, carefully hoarding a cache of "war atrocity" stories. Us blog historians had best start chronicling the good stories now.

Oh, and we have to win, and win decisively.
Posted by Seafarious  2005-01-10 2:08:11 PM||   2005-01-10 2:08:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 But we knew that.
Posted by Seafarious  2005-01-10 2:08:51 PM||   2005-01-10 2:08:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 sigh..you are absolutely right, Sea. Pol Pot's killing fields, Stalin's mass graves and 60+ million dead did little to discredit the left's stupid ideas in the 60's. And we even ended up with Kerry coming waaay too close to winning the last election.

I feel depressed.
Posted by 2b 2005-01-10 2:15:47 PM||   2005-01-10 2:15:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 2b, I really believe that Bill Clinton was the Democratic Party's high point. Although it looked ugly, GWB did win decisively. And seriously, Kerry, his Party, and their supporters in academia, world politics, and the mainstream media are working as hard as they can to demonstrate their disregard for truth and honor.... not to mention their suicidal willingness to excuse those who wish to kill us all.

Trailing Daughter is in ninth grade. What I hear from her and her friends makes it clear that the idealistic kids in this country (and who isn't at that age?) see the Republican Party as the place where their aspirations for change can be realized. They are the real internet generation, and they get their news from the web. Also, TD and many of her friends moderate sites (much like our own dear Army of Steve, Seafarious, etc), and recognize/handle trollery and similar deviltry. So as they grow up they'll already be immunized against MoveOn/DU/Soros behaviours, which makes them much less likely to accept the ideas/memes/"info" being pushed.
Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-10 2:43:23 PM||   2005-01-10 2:43:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 tw...thanks! That's heartening!
Posted by 2b 2005-01-10 2:49:10 PM||   2005-01-10 2:49:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 ...suicidal willingness to excuse those who wish to kill us all.

I'm keeping that phrase. That describes the LLL's problem in a nutshell.
Posted by Seafarious  2005-01-10 2:49:38 PM||   2005-01-10 2:49:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 I just finished reading General Tommy Franks' book "American Soldier". It is an excellant book and I highly recommend it. He touches on how the training actually does encourage non-conformative thinking.
Posted by Marvin the Martian  2005-01-10 3:41:01 PM||   2005-01-10 3:41:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Who the hell is Baum?
Posted by Captain America  2005-01-10 4:03:55 PM||   2005-01-10 4:03:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Article: They had been taught to avoid fighting in cities at all costs.

This principle is several thousand years old. It doesn't mean don't fight - it means, if possible, fight the enemy in an open area. They were certainly trained for urban operations, which is why their casualties are relatively low. But the principle still stands - urban operations are inevitably high-casualty, unless we adopt rather more draconian tactics - of the kind used during WWII, when perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed during the liberation of Europe.

Article: None had received any but the most rudimentary instruction in the Arabic language or in Iraqi culture.

How stupid can these reporters get? Rudimentary instruction is how this works. These guys are soldiers, not linguists. Learning anything but the rudiments is a full-time job.
Posted by Zhang Fei  2005-01-10 4:09:39 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com]  2005-01-10 4:09:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Seafarious, you flatter me beyond all deserving. And I love it!

2b, I'm going to order the barrel-o-tumeric tomorrow.

It just occurred to me that TD and her classmates are going to be able to vote in the next presidential election. The questions asked at that MTV "Meet the Candidates" show are going to be highly amusing... at least for us Rantburger types....
Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-10 5:40:24 PM||   2005-01-10 5:40:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 TW..my e-mail shows I ordered the barrel-o-tumeric yesterday, but now I can't remember why :-)
Posted by 2b 2005-01-10 10:30:16 PM||   2005-01-10 10:30:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 The image that came to me when reading this article was (don't laugh too hard) the Butterball Turkey hotline. At Thanksgiving, Butterball has a free hotline people can call for advice on cooking a good roast turkey & meal. If Butterball can give phone-in advice why couldn't the military?

Have experts of all kinds standing by to answer questions. Have a badly wounded soldier and no medic? Call in on a cell phone and talk to a trauma nurse or doctor. Your vehicle broke down in the middle of nowhere and you don't have any one who knows how to fix it? Call in and get advice from a top mechanic. Could use older or retired folks with tons of experience to do it.

Posted by SC88 2005-01-10 10:56:03 PM||   2005-01-10 10:56:03 PM|| Front Page Top

18:23 EXPOSE THE SCUM
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23:14 SC88
22:56 SC88
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