Military analysts, news media, and other armchair generals
Sunday March 30, 2003 at 2:24 pm
How often have you heard that the war plan for Iraq was poorly devised? You've undoubtedly heard that we started with too little force in the arena, we didn't account for the ferocity of the pro-Saddam forces that we would be fighting, and that we've stalled (paused) to regroup and rethink our attack strategy. And all of this is coming from the armchair generals, sitting in news studios across the planet, believing themselves to be better able to judge our success, our approach, our strategy, and our progress. All I know is that I want some of whatever these folks are smoking so I can be as out of touch as they are.
"Did we start the war with enough force?" Newsweek asks. "The blame game begins," they add. "There were both military and political miscalculations in the run-up to the war," the BBC claims. The Washington Post reports, "…former U.S. military officers are blaming Rumsfeld and his aides for the inadequate troop strength on the ground in Iraq." Salon.com leads into one story with "As the war turns sour, hawks blame the messengers."
How could all of these fine folks be so misguided? I have to wonder where all the negativism is coming from. Did someone announce America had lost the war while I wasn't listening?
It's pitiful that all of the armchair generals and major news organizations are trying so hard to show that we have already lost the war, that our battle plan has completely fallen apart, and that they've always known better.
One problem I have with all of this is a simple truth which appears to have been lost on all of these people: they have no clue what's going on.
I doubt they were briefed with the war plan before we moved in, so how do they know we're not right on track?
And this little thing about the "pause" in our battle plan so we can regroup. What the hell is that about? No one has paused.
The truth is that some forces have reached their appointed positions and are waiting for logistics and other forces to catch up. We continue to fly sorties day and night, many units continue their forward movement, and we continue to gain more ground. The fact that some forces are sitting still at the moment while others continue moving is just part of war. No one can guarantee that all forces will reach the same destination at the same time, especially when they're all taking separate paths.
It's ludicrous that there are many people out there who are so full of themselves as to think they know better than the forces on the ground.
All of those actually involved with the war are making it clear that there is no pause.
All of those actually involved with the war are making it clear that troops continue to poor into Iraq as planned (except for the Turkey fiasco, but that's another story).
All of those actually involved with the war are making it clear that the battle plan is on schedule and was built with flexibility so as to accommodate the unknown.
Despite the armchair generals claiming our troops are falling apart, have no food and water and ammunition, have lost their will to fight, and that we are apparently losing the war, the truth of the matter is that we are doing just fine. We're only ten days into the fight, so it would seem that they had the wrong expectations to begin with — not the government or our troops.
No war plan survives the first encounter with the enemy, so we shouldn't be surprised that so many who have second-guessed the plan from the start are now backpedaling in order to cover their own stupidity. Instead of admitting that they guessed wrong (since they had no clue to begin with), they want to start pointing fingers and saying our front is falling apart and that our plan has crumbled.
I happen to think things are going fine. We've taken a significant amount of the country away from the régime, we control 95 percent of the air, and we've started getting humanitarian assistance into the country.
Let's be honest — the worst part of the fight is still ahead. What we've seen thus far was to be expected (I knew that, and I'm not an analyst).
Hey, to all you armchair generals and news organizations who can't admit to being wrong, hate the fact that all you can do is guess and must blame your wrong guesses on someone other than yourselves, do us all a favor.
Shut the fuck up!
jason
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