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2006-08-08 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by ryuge 2006-08-08 07:21|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Piss poor analogy Rummy. Your Hurtgen Forest example simply highlights past leadership absense from the action and failures.

With US forces outnumbered 10 to 1, the first step down the road to this disaster can be traced to the following order:
COMBAT UNITS ARE AUTHORIZED TO BASE DAILY REPLACEMENT REQUISITIONS ON ANTICIPATED LOSSES FORTY EIGHT HOURS IN ADVANCE TO EXPEDITE DELIVERY OF REPLACEMENTS. TO AVOID BUILDING UP OVERSTRENGTH, ESTIMATES SHOULD BE MADE WITH CARE. SIGNED EISENHOWER.

This order was based on the necessity of providing replacements for battle losses in time to insure that the initiative would not be lost in battle situations where the enemy was on the run but might recover if replacements were not quickly available. Unfortunately, the order enabled inept staff officers to bring in replacements at such a fast pace that companies and even divisions could take tremendous losses that only could be acceptable because of this replacement policy. The officers making these decisions were never close enough to the front lines to be in danger themselves so they were always around to continue to make more costly mistakes.

Combat veterans said that only on the rarest of occasions was any officer above the rank of captain or officer from the staff were ever seen.

Posted by Besoeker 2006-08-08 07:41|| 2006-08-08 07:41|| Front Page Top

#2 Besoeker - what planet are you on? The Hurtgen was a close quarters, bloody, no quarter given battle. Forward replacement had little to do with its conduct. This reads like a cheap shot.

Posted by fighter52 2006-08-08 12:58|| 2006-08-08 12:58|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm sure you've noted that the analogy was Thomas', not Rummy's. But aside from that, I think Thomas' point was that the cost to the US of the Iraq operation, in historical context, is not that great. All this, of course, including the true but shopworn caveat that every killed or wounded is a tragic loss for our country and the families involved.

Having said that, I am leery of these historical comparisons if they rely too much on numbers. The key point, which Rummy makes and the clueless or irresponsible among us including elected officials routinely miss, is that this is a battle of wills. WWII had far worse losses, far far far more mistakes and disasters, but was still a test of wills with our enemies.

Posted by Verlaine in Iraq 2006-08-08 13:24|| 2006-08-08 13:24|| Front Page Top

#4 Thanks for the correction Verlaine, hope things are quiet at Victory and elsewhere. Wen I see Rumsfeld's name I can't even think straight anymore. I agree with your historical analysis of the battle 52. My point was "lack of leadership" ... which is what I think Rumsfeld has provided quite all on his own.

Posted by Besoeker 2006-08-08 13:35|| 2006-08-08 13:35|| Front Page Top

#5 "I'm sure you've noted that the analogy was Thomas', not Rummy's"

I note that. Whatever issues I have with Rummy, i respect him far more than I do Cal Thomas.

". But aside from that, I think Thomas' point was that the cost to the US of the Iraq operation, in historical context, is not that great. All this, of course, including the true but shopworn caveat that every killed or wounded is a tragic loss for our country and the families involved.

Having said that, I am leery of these historical comparisons if they rely too much on numbers. The key point, which Rummy makes and the clueless or irresponsible among us including elected officials routinely miss, is that this is a battle of wills. WWII had far worse losses, far far far more mistakes and disasters, but was still a test of wills with our enemies."

But this isnt a war being fought like WW2. No dozens of divisions, aircraft carriers, etc. Its more like the cold war, a shadowy war of covert actions, economics, diplomacy, with the occasional flare up to hot war. In case anyones forgotten, we abandoned Viet Nam, and 14 years later the Berlin wall fell.

Now Im NOT saying we should withdraw now from Iraq - Im heartened we seem to be taking on Sadr, I note that the Iraqi army seems to be improving, and I hope the influx of US troops to Baghdad can restore a greater degree of order to the capital. And yes, this is the central front of the WOT, as much as any other single place is.

BUT - whats happening in Iraq, the number of iraqi deaths, the number of US combat deaths, needs to be seen in the context of Iraq, NOT in the context of World War 2. If the number of Iraqi deaths in Baghdad grows large enough that ordinary Iraqis abandon the central govt entirely, and give all their support to sectarian militias, if Sadr pushes Malike and Sistani aside and establishes in southern Iraq a situation like Hezbollah established in S Lebanon, if KSA and Jordan try to do to Sadr what Israel is doing to Nasrallah, etc, etc it will be little comfort that Baghdad was safer than circa 1943 Shanghai, or that US casualties were less than in the Battle of the Bulge.

Posted by liberalhawk 2006-08-08 13:57|| 2006-08-08 13:57|| Front Page Top

#6 You're not a hawk. You can't handle a fight. You can't handle dead soldiers. You want to make peace at any cost, no ?
You're all phalking lucky I'm not Sec Def. The bodies would be buried in trenches as I went door to door searching for weapons, uniforms, korans, whatever. Only when they lost their appetite for a fight would they be invited to vote, and take responsibility for their future. You don't defeat an enemy with jestures, gut a generation out of them and they usually sober up. A nuke will have a similar effect. Bush, Rummy, Blair, none of them have managed to get the attention of mother Islam long enough to make demands.

Posted by wxjames 2006-08-08 17:09|| 2006-08-08 17:09|| Front Page Top

#7 Good thing you're not Sec. Def. then.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-08-08 17:13|| 2006-08-08 17:13|| Front Page Top

#8 Rumsfeld noted how the enemy uses our media to undermine American resolve, "planning attacks to gain the maximum media coverage and the maximum public outcry."

The main stream media are altogether too willing dupes or dopes. This self-destructive arrogance is difficult to understand. They are a party to publishing fake photographs and stories siding with the enemy. The press would not like the world of islamofacism.

Posted by JohnQC 2006-08-08 17:28|| 2006-08-08 17:28|| Front Page Top

#9 Steve White,

You might not like what WX has to say about his response but like it or not, I think he's pretty much on target with what it will take to win this war. The unfortunate thing is that it will take another 9/11 or worse to make all the people thinking like you realize it.

Posted by mac 2006-08-08 17:52|| 2006-08-08 17:52|| Front Page Top

#10 Gen. Pace added: "Our enemy knows they cannot defeat us in battle. They do believe, however, that they can wear down our will as a nation."

And they are being helped, willingly and cynically, by the Democratic Party and its paid propagandists in the media.

Want a depressing statistic? Try this: Americans are being killed in Iraq at a rate only slightly higher than they are being killed in recreational boating mishaps here at home.

And that's all it has taken, with the Democrats' connivance, to bring America to within a hair's breadth of giving up in Iraq and slinking home with our tails between our legs-- and calling it "responsible redeployment" or some such pablum.

Posted by Dave D.">Dave D. 2006-08-08 18:57|| 2006-08-08 18:57|| Front Page Top

#11 Can't we all just get along?

Posted by Rodney K. 2006-08-08 18:58|| 2006-08-08 18:58|| Front Page Top

#12 Unfortunately none of those in the senators or press at the hearing were self aware enough to realize Gen. Pace's comment was directed at them.

Posted by ed 2006-08-08 19:13|| 2006-08-08 19:13|| Front Page Top

#13 Cal Thomas's analogy is one of the worst I've seen. Hurtgen was probably the worst run and most wasteful US campaign of WWII. Hurtgen was just one WWI-style frontal infantry attack after another. If Iraq is Hurtgen, we are in trouble.

Posted by 11A5S 2006-08-08 19:36|| 2006-08-08 19:36|| Front Page Top

#14 Hurtgen was a complete waste of US lives and strenghts. The US Army should have gone around it where air, armor and artillery dominance could be used and then set the forest on fire with the Germans in it. Bradley should have had his ass kicked for refighting WW1.

Posted by ed 2006-08-08 20:02|| 2006-08-08 20:02|| Front Page Top

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