military historian says iraq biggest blunder in 2014 years..

[Hannibal]

The biggest 'military' blunder since Augustus? A bit of a rhetorical flourish methinks. He can't be thinking purely in military terms, since I'm sure he's aware of far more retarded mishandlings of forces even just considering the 20th century. My guess is he's just pointing out how much of a retard Bush is for starting this war in the first place.

[Ryoki]

Semi related: i found this interview with Seymour Hersh which i thought was nothing much new but a good read anyway. :icon14:


Click for instant interteleportation

[Dr_Watson]

I read some van Creveld shit once... I think it was about German supplies during WWI.

I think he's missing the fact that during Vietnam, the Americans only really ever held Saigon. We made the same mistake the British made during our Revolutionary War trying to hang on to cities when the people in the countryside were the real problem. One's power when holding a city is thinly veiled since once the occupier feel secure enough to leave it, the locals who supported the occupier revert back to whoever they supported to begin with.

exactly, you can't really compare vietnam and korea to anything. Since both wars were winnable, but we weren't trying to win. In both instances, all the US forces were trying to do was hold off the aggressor, which is a stupid idea to begin with, then thow in the almost infinite supply of chinese troops and its a recipe for stailmate and senseless loss of life.

[R00k]

Earth to Rook, it's in the second post in this very thread.

I was hopping threads to escape paperwork yesterday, cut me some slack.

[Foo]

exactly, you can't really compare vietnam and korea to anything. Since both wars were winnable, but we weren't trying to win.

WHAT

[Dave]

I read some van Creveld shit once... I think it was about German supplies during WWI.

I think he's missing the fact that during Vietnam, the Americans only really ever held Saigon. We made the same mistake the British made during our Revolutionary War trying to hang on to cities when the people in the countryside were the real problem. One's power when holding a city is thinly veiled since once the occupier feel secure enough to leave it, the locals who supported the occupier revert back to whoever they supported to begin with.

exactly, you can't really compare vietnam and korea to anything. Since both wars were winnable, but we weren't trying to win. In both instances, all the US forces were trying to do was hold off the aggressor, which is a stupid idea to begin with, then thow in the almost infinite supply of chinese troops and its a recipe for stailmate and senseless loss of life.

Actually the twist during Vietnam is that the Vietnamese and Chinese hated each other... The Russians didn't like the Vietnamese much either. Russia gave the NLF $1.5 bn, China only gave them $670 mn and we spent $112 bn... Just shy of 2% of the amount we paid to fight Vietnam was given by other communist countries to help the NLF. Those figures include all kinds of support, not just raw currency.

The Michael Hunt essay in this pdf is pretty good (you won't find the expediture figures in there though):

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~simpson/hist ... 2intro.pdf

[MKJ]

america never lost a war, they settled

[Underpants?]

Raise the cities to the ground.

I don't usually go for the easy grammar mark but, hey, when life hands you shit you gotta make shit salad.

[Ryoki]

oh i thought that was an intentional spelling error

[Foo]

Raze

[R00k]

I'll never understand why, every couple of decades, our government talks itself into believing that we can go into another country, and force all the indigenous people to believe what we want them to believe, and also believe that we can accomplish this with a relatively small part of our military.

I'm against any intervention of that sort, but if you're serious about doing something like that, then send in every fucking soldier we have right up front and blitzkrieg them. It's like they think our military's reputation alone is going to scare them into submission and into giving up their sovereignty and everything they have.