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2004-09-26 Home Front: WoT

America's military faces the most thankless task in the history of warfare.

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Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-26 8:32:59 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 For inciteful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of
a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while
bringing âcivilizationâ to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.

Some excerpts:
Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. âThree special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the
moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe
unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for
conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.

Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermanâs frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction
plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to
population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nationâs humanitarian community.

Posted by Don 2004-09-26 10:38:03 AM|| 2004-09-26 10:38:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Thank God for John Ford. Luckily (and I use the word with all due respect) the entire US Army after the War was made up of fighting Calvary.

Posted by Shipman 2004-09-26 1:04:29 PM|| 2004-09-26 1:04:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 the Army never learned the lesson that small units of foot soldiers were more effective against the Indians than large mounted regiments burdened by the need to carry forage for horses...

Hmmmm. Methinks walking to battle out West is a losing proposition.

Had it not been for a deluge of settlers aided by the railroad, security never would have been brought to the Old West.

Not a bad idea. I think I'll hitch up my covered wagon now. Can anyone point me in the direction of Fallujio? Ben, Hoss and Little Joe, where are you when we need you?

Posted by Zpaz 2004-09-26 1:53:24 PM|| 2004-09-26 1:53:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 [A]s one general officer told me, "you want to whack bad guys quietly and cover your tracks with humanitarian-aid projects." Because of the need for simultaneous military, relief and diplomatic operations, our greatest enemy is the size, rigidity and artificial boundaries of the Washington bureaucracy.

Both this article's title and the bolded sentence above synopsize what we are confronted with for many years to come. In the absence of any credible deterrent or incontrovertible incentive for Islam to change its drift into militancy, we will need to start whacking the bad guys wherever they are. If our allies won't help us, then we need to surreptitiously conduct such operations on their soil. The profound hypocrisy of so many other nations declining to assist with fighting terrorism whilst they simultaneously huddle beneath America's military umbrella repudiates much of their sovereignty.

They cannot at once delcare themselves to be unaligned in fighting terrorism and continue hoping to benefit from America spilling its blood while protecting them. France and Spain are the most egregious examples, but there are many lesser ones. Such fair-weather-friends somehow ignore that America is the central target of terrorism. Spain's own reaction to 3-11 demonstrated this in spades. If America is obliged to shoulder a vast majority of the burden and risk, then much of the decision making process will be wrenched from the hands of those who refuse to actively engage in the fight.

Some of those denied decisions will involve exactly when, where and how we go about disposing of those who present the greatest risk to American security. For European countries to welcome jihadists like Qaradawi means that they forfeit any influence over America's policy of eliminating those same threats. Once the outside world understands the necessity of confining militant Islam to those host countries that sponsor, harbor and finance terrorism, such policy can change. Until then, it's open season on terrorists and terror advocates wherever they are.

Posted by Zenster 2004-09-26 2:21:21 PM|| 2004-09-26 2:21:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Anonymous6334 TROLL 2004-09-26 3:35:29 PM|| 2004-09-26 3:35:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Calm down, 6334, we're NOT going to nuke Mecca. That would turn the entire world (including the Brits and Aussies) against us. It would ruin everything we're working for. It isn't going to happen.

Likewise, a "starvation seige" might be superficially appealing, espeically if one is frustrated, but it's a really, really bad idea. Far better for us to take the slow, methodical, inexorable approach of intel, target, more intel, better target, over-and-over again. Those who oppose us need to see that we're relentless, and those in the middle need to see that we're careful and humane. That's how you win the small wars.

Posted by Steve White 2004-09-26 4:01:47 PM|| 2004-09-26 4:01:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 A6334, has anyone told you today that you're crazy as an outhouse rat?

Posted by John Birch 2004-09-26 4:01:56 PM|| 2004-09-26 4:01:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 I knew you were basically good JB.

Posted by Shipman 2004-09-26 6:54:04 PM|| 2004-09-26 6:54:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Anonymous6334 2004-09-26 3:35:29 PM|| 2004-09-26 3:35:29 PM|| Front Page Top

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