"The Bard's Breath" is a Winds of Change.NET feature bringing you art, quotes and verse related to our times every Tuesday and Thursday. We all need a bit more than just news to make it through what's coming next: Spirit. Perspective. Faith. Humour. Reminders of humanity, and horror, and the shape of true victory.
We're on it. Or rather, Chris Muir is:
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Very funny. Except it's turning out to be not so true. They are fighting back.
On any level, the decision to go in with such a light force was risky to the point of insanity.
When jibes are taken at people who talk about U.S. "arrogance," lets not forget the arrogance of Our Civilian Leadership, Rummie and Wolfie and their crew of wonks, who ignored the advice of Tommy Franks and other generals who wanted to stick with the older versions of OPPLAN 1003 (the one being used is reportedly OPPLAN 1003-V).
I saw the 1998 version of OPPLAN 1003, during "Desert Fox." All I can say is that it was much more . . . robust.
Well, my son and his unit are still sitting far away from the fray, which is cool with me and the mommy, and of course I couldn't even think about what a parent of a 3rd ID kid is going through now.
Some are fighting, some are grateful and enthusiastic as the Marines found recently on the road north. Too early to sort it all out definitively - but note the uprising in Basra that British troops are supporting.
Cautions about the force size are well taken, and I'd say that point has been validated. Of course, they should have turned 4ID south the moment the Turks went funny - this blog has noted that the new leadership in Turkey has a prior record, and it ain't good. So close to the bone already, it's a major loss.
If they had done this 2-3 weeks ago, 4ID would almost be ready to tear in and back the force up. The delay will be costly.
As for 3ID and the Cav, they've been magnificent, and don't seem to have taken many casualties. They also have more inherent protection against chemical assault via their vehicles. It's nerve wracking as hell being a parent in this situation, but 3ID parents may be in better positions than many of the other units right now.
Victory!
We are going to win, or at least beat the Saddam regime. No doubt and no alternative, now.
But we will take and inflict more casualties because of not having OVERWHELMING combat power. What ever happened to the Weinberger doctrine?
What happened was the McNamara doctrine redux: We whiz kids know better than you stupid generals.
GEN McCaffrey was on the BBC's "Newsnight" yesterday, and said that Rumsfeld just ignored the generals, said, you generals don't understand the new style of warfare, the "RMA" and are still stuck in WWII thinking.
Who knows, maybe the old robust OPPLANs wouldn't have provided enough "Blut und Ehre" for these guys. Too quick, too easy, not enough to steel our populace, purge our decadence. I'm reminded about something Robert D. Kaplan wrote a few years ago about his fear that America had lost its sense of tragedy, like Europe in 1913.
Thinking more about "arrogance," I would quote the old warrior Norman Mailer in the 3/27 New York Review of Books:
"Real democracy comes out of many subtle individual human battles that are fought over decades and and finally over centuries, battles that succeed in building traditions. The only defenses of democracy, finally, are the traditions of democracy. . . . You can't assume we're going over to show them what a great system we have. This is monstrous arrogance."
So many assumptions here - - in the war plan and in the outcome. An army sergeant would say:
"Assume means making an ass out of you and me"
Also, please ditch this "Victory!" stuff. We want to prevail, of course. But do you really want to start a fashion of people ending letters or greeting each other with "Victory!??"
Which brings to mind Mailer's essay again:
"For those of us who are not going to depend on the power of prayer, we will do well to find the rampart we can defend over what may be dire years to come. Democracy, I would repeat, is the noblest form of government we have yet evolved, and we may as well begin to ask ourselves whether we are ready to suffer, even perish for it, rather than readying ourselves to live in the lower existence of a monumental banana republic with a government always eager to cater to mega-corporations as they do their best to appropriate our thwarted dreams with their elephanine conceits."