The Iraq War – A forty Day Party
As a former Reagan Republican, I cannot help but be severely disappointed by the level of incompetence of the present administration. However, it appears there is still a good deal of support among so-called Bush loyalists, a fact that amazes me. Either they are ignoring the mountain of evidence of malfeasance that has been accruing or they pay no attention to the country’s current military and financial situation. Therefore, I will occasionally post a review of one of the many books that chronicle the run-up to and the prosecution of the Iraq War. These are not Left-wing books of anti-Bush propaganda but books written by thoughtful writers, whose only purpose is to present the facts. And to any that bother to read the facts, they are disturbing.
Here is the first review,
COBRA II by Michael Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor
The Bottom Line:
Cobra II provides a good account of the thinking and non-thinking that propelled us into this never-ending war.
While reading Cobra II – when I wasn’t simmering – I got the impression that the strongest military in the world was being controlled and misused by a modern day version of the Keystone Kops. Not that I’m surprised. I and two thirds of the country (God help the other third) knew something was amiss, but many of the things I suspected were laid out in glaring fashion in this interesting text.
It’s like President “What me worry?” was having his arm twisted by Vice President “Darth Vader” undersecretary Darth Maul (Wolfowitz) to throw a forty day party in Baghdad. That’s right the war that has outlasted both World War I and the Korean War and is fast approaching World War II (It has now surpassed it) was expected to be a thirty to fifty day party and then we all go home with smiles on our faces. Perhaps it would have, except for two things.
First, our Defense Secretary, decided he knew more than all his generals combined. He threw out ten years of military planning for the invasion of Iraq, and proceeded to badger his generals to keep reducing planned invasion troop levels to a number he liked. I guess the secretary is into numerology. The number the generals started with was 380,000. The number the S.O.D. accepted was 140,000 – just enough to get us into Baghdad but not enough to get home.
The second thing, which some knowledgeable people foresaw, but not the myopic administration, was that the party might get crashed by some unwanted guests. Who you ask? Why, a bunch of young hot heads driving Toyotas, some wearing towels over the faces, some carrying funny objects on their shoulders or weapons in their arms and all looking for trouble. The first fatality of the war was caused, not by an Iraqi soldier but, a group of these hot heads in a Toyota Pick-up.
Commanders on the ground noticed this effective, unforeseen adversary, utilizing hit and run guerilla tactics and wanted to confront them, but the bigwigs in Cent Com ordered them to bypass these future insurgents and head straight to Baghdad, do not pass Go. Apparently they felt that once Baghdad fell everything. would fall into place. What they got when they took Baghdad was widespread looting. The authors Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor go on to speculate that the fediyeen, which the army was ordered to ignore and bypass on the way to Baghdad, became the backbone for the strong insurgency we now face.
Conclusion
Liberal, Conservative, independent – Right wing, Left wing, it doesn’t matter, reading this book will upset you. The book is not a liberal rag. It does not have a political bias, unless you consider a bias toward incompetence political. It just lays out the facts, often in minute detail. That, in fact is one of the books weaknesses. Cobra II reads like a play by play description of the war to date from the rationale though the planning to the prosecution of the war, with it’s attendant mis-steps. The prosecution portion of the war takes up at least two thirds of the book and unless you are a war junkie and despite some interesting parts begins, after awhile, to all sound the same.
The parts of the book I found most interesting were the initial planning stages and those portions dealing with the dissension that developed between Rumsfeld and Franks and later the turmoil between Franks and the generals in the field. The authors also point out how many of the problems that developed in the initial occupation of Baghdad and the aftermath were anticipated by various sources with suggestions, but were discounted or ignored by the administration. In short, the administration didn’t want to hear anything that might disrupt their vision of a forty day party.
Unfortunately the book only takes us through the war itself and the stirrings of the nascent insurgency. Three years later we are seeing what almost everyone agrees is a low grade civil war, verging on civil war.
Author’s Note; This review was written over a year ago. I would say things are pretty much the same, wouldn’t you?
Career Oppurtunities
CAREER OPPURTUNITIES
Help Wanted:
Urgent; young men needed immediately to fill recent vacancies. Opportunity for education and advancement based upon ability to lead while blindly following orders. Travel around the world, admiring sights of the civilization you are committed to destroy. Meet and live among interesting people whom you despise for their dissimilarity and may be forced to kill. Learn to work with other equally committed individuals to further honorable goals. Make your family proud by killing and maiming hundreds maybe thousands and if you die, be honored as a revered Martyr. Learn to despise mainstream Muslims for their weakness and timidity.
Benefits
Job security; for life or until killed.
Income; Living expenses plus little or no salary.
Health care; You’re on your own.
Life Insurance; as a martyr, you will go straight to Heaven, do not pass GO.
Education; In one of our vacation camps, you will learn how to make bombs, kill other humans silently, how to use the weapons of the West against them and become pious.
Advancement; likely as confederates become incapacitated
Fame; See your name in print or mentioned on the air.(If you’re alive)
Requirements
Must be Muslim (Arabs preferred).
Must be willing to relocate.
Must swear unquestioned fealty to your leader.
Must abandon your humanity, if you have it
Must be willing to tear down of destroy a millennium of human accomplishments.
Must never question the wisdom of your orders, even if it includes sacrificing your life.
Must embrace terrorism and chaos to further our nebulous agenda–the right to kill indiscriminately.
Must hate entrenched Muslim Heads of State and their infidel backers.
Must hate progress, especially of Western origin.
Must blame Western Civilization for the plight and stagnation of Islamic society.
Must hate all secular societies and proponents of such.
Must hate all pretentious non Islamic religions even if they worship the same God.
Must hate, Must hate, Must hate, Must hate, Must hate, Hate,
Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate.
Apply to Usama bin Laden c/o Al Qaeda, General Delivery Peshawar, Pakistan.
On a Lighter note: Here’s a funny from one of my favorites, Rodney Dangerfield.
This girl I know calls me up and says, “Nobody’s home. C’mon over.” So I go over and… nobody is home. LMAO
The News Keeps Getting Worse and Worse.
Dateline April 9, 2012, Baghdad, Iraq
“There is lots of news to report today but first we take you now to Beverly Watson in Baghdad where a bold new terrorist event is unfolding. Beverly?”
“Thank you Brian.”
“Starting at two PM Baghdad time, three car bombs were detonated simultaneously this morning in the middle of a celebration of the eighth anniversary of the fall of the Statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad. As police and paramedics approached the scenes of the explosions, rocket propelled grenades were launched at their vehicles destroying them and killing or wounding scores more. Shortly afterwards, as if on cue, rooftop insurgents started raking the remaining bystanders with automatic rifle fire killing or wounding hundreds more and herding the onlookers to a portion of the square where four more bombs went off.”
“At this point no one has been able get to the dead and wounded to provide medical treatment or to assess the damage. Iraqi troops were sent in to confront the insurgents, but have been pinned down. Both the Iraqi soldiers and the insurgents have been taking heavy casualties. Coalition troops with heavy equipment including tanks are en-route to assist the bogged down Iraqis.”
“Of the estimated twenty-five thousand celebrants, it is feared that as many as two thousand may be dead or wounded. That would make this the third largest onslaught of Iraqi civilians since the war began. These casualties are eclipsed only by the three thousand killed and seven thousand wounded in the Baghdad soccer stadium. That was shortly before the mysterious helicopter crash which killed the President and two members of the Cabinet on their flight back from Camp David in 2008. Then there was the twenty-five thousand killed and wounded in the clash between Sunni an Shiite militias which set off the Civil War in the summer of 2007.That was shortly after then Vice President Cheney’s visit and speech to the Iraqi people after and in conjunction with the execution of Saddam Hussein and six of his most vicious henchmen.”
“Back to you Brian.”
“One Question, Beverly. Do you have any idea who or what is behind this attack?”
“No Brian, at this time no one has claimed responsibility but because it occurred during a celebration for the toppling of Saddam Hussein, it is suspected that it was the work of Ba’ath terrorists but with over two hundred active terrorist organizations, no one will know unless one of them claims responsibility.”
“Thank you Beverly.”
“To recap America’s longest declared war, it is entering it’s ninety seventh month (longer than all three declared wars in the Twentieth Century together) and to date has cost America the sum of two trillion dollars, equivalent to $60,000 per American or a quarter million for a family of four. Estimated Iraqi casualties in this this ongoing eight year war and the associated civil war are estimated to be about two million with a half million dead, about twice what Hussein was alleged to have butchered. Coalition casualties exceed sixty thousand with about twenty thousand dead, mostly American.”
“On an unrelated matter, we now take you to Bill Thomas in Caracas, Venezuela?”
“Venezuela has announced that, with the assistance of Iran and North Korea, it now has a nuclear bomb, joining them, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and South Africa as newest members of the Nuclear Club.”
“President Hillary Clinton has been in contact with the Venezuelan President For Life, Hugo Chavez urging him to reconsider, promising substantial foreign aid and further promising to buy Venezuelan crude at two dollars a barrel over the international average price, which is currently a record one hundred and twenty-four dollars a barrel.”
“The Governors of our fifty-first state, Puerto Rico and fifty-second state Cuba as well as our President have also lodged protests with Venezuela over their alleged underground nuclear test on an uninhabited island off the coast of Venezuela, which the Venezuelans claim was nothing more than an earthquake.”
“Back to you Brian.”
“Bill you spoken with President Chavez. Did he give you any idea why his country is going the nuclear route?”
“Yes Brian, he did. He claims the reason is self defense and the country started working on nuclear weapons after the late President Bush had added Venezuela to his Axis of Evil in his 2007 State of the Union address. He said and I quote, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is evil”. He goes on to point out the only member of that dubious list that has been invaded, is Iraq, which didn’t possess a nuclear deterrent and claims if we hadn‘t been bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would have attacked Venezuela.”
“Thank You Bill.”
“Meanwhile, Secretary of State, Obama has been in contact with the mayors of Cleveland, St Louis and Miami where the ongoing riots seem to be petering out. The riots are still going strong in Philadelphia and Gary, Indiana. On the international scene new riots have started in Karachi, Pakistan and Birmingham, England while the violence has finally subsided in Paris where a terrorist plane had knocked off the top third of the Eiffel Tower, causing several hundred deaths last month.”
“When we return, we will discuss whether the reconstituted draft or the astronomical price of gas and oil which reached as high as $8.79 per gallon, precipitated the riots and what the present administration is prepared to do about the ongoing environmental problems, with the Secretary Obama.”
OF COURSE IT’S FICTION, like I had to tell you that, but really, so has what the present administration has been force feeding us since 9/11. Fictional rational to go to war. Inadequate planning, Totally underestimation of the enemy. No exit strategy. Stationing only enough troops to perpetuate a stalemate. Continuously overlooking all the bad news to point out the paltry good news. 3,000 plus dead since the declared end of hostilities.
Regarding my scenario, let’s hope nothing like this ever happens. Impossible you say? I say improbable but not impossible. Prepare for the long long,long haul, unless the new congress throws up their collective hands and says Enough!
I posted this for the first time over two years ago. I suppose it’s safe to say that this fictional scenario is closer to reality than the the crazy upbeat ravings of Administration officials.
Hello world!
My given name is not common knowledge, but I write fiction under the name D.E. or Dee Dawning. Before I began writing books I wrote other things. I wrote reviews, opinions and when things got a little onerous, I wrote humor. I suppose, I still write humor in some of my stories. Over the last few years I have written several things that I would like to share with you. Some humorous and some serious. I call my blog Silly Things and there will indeed be articles and reviews that I hope you will find, if not outright funny, you will at least find clever. But, I am an opinionated person, so expect doses of serious monologue.
Some of my ramblings will be a rant but more often they will be satirical. Some will be tongue in cheek book or music reviews. I hope you enjoy my scribblings and hope to hear from you. Remember, hearing from you gives me the incentive to post more scribblings.
For my first posting I am going to post a letter to the decider from a concerned fictitious supporter.
An Open Letter to President Bush
Dear President Bush, I know that you don’t take kindly to criticism but I think you might have made a teensy weensy mistake when you invaded Iraq. I hate to admit it but it even looks like the French may have been right for once. I know that you and Dick, being former oil men, had our best interests at heart, when you went after that Golden Goose—Oil. You even thought that the oil would pay for our aggression. At least that’s what Rumsfield said. Come to think of it so did Wolfowitz, but I’m afraid your little war only made oil scarcer and now I can’t afford to go no place. It’s too bad Dick wasn’t right when he said the Iraqis were going to throw flowers at us as liberators. He must have been thinking of them newsreels they used to show in the theaters at the end of World War II. Course then we really were liberators. It’s too bad you were wrong when you declared an end to hostilities four years ago, I feel real bad for them fine American boys that ain’t comin back. It’s too bad you were wrong when you told the Reverend Pat Robertson that there weren’t going to be any casualties in Iraq. Funny how so many people keep sayin that there weren’t no terrorists there before we got there. Imagine that?
Another thing is I’m real sorry that WMD thing didn’t pan out for you the way you wanted. They surely had us fooled, didn’t they? Maybe that’ll teach em not to fool us anymore. I hear Iran and North Korea have WMD too. Do you think they is trying to fool us too? I guess they was too strong for us to attack them, seeing as how much trouble we are having with them terrorists in Iraq. I was sure glad to hear the Vice President tell us how the insurgency is in the last throes. It’s good to hear the straight scoop instead of what the papers and TV is always telling us. You’d think they was Al Jezeera or something the way they is always showing our boys getting blown up or something. By the way, Mr. President I really don’t understand why you kept that Mr. Rumsfield around for so long. He seemed to make more mistakes than you. I hear tell he wanted to go into Iraq with only sixty thousand troops. Even I know better than that. Even with the troop strength we got it seems like we got just enough to go in and rout the terrorists in a town by not enough to stay there and occupy it so they don’t come back. Howevr, I understand that if you have more troops there it’s just more targets for the terrorists and it makes the people more unhappy. Of course if we had even less troops there would be even less targets. It seems like the Iraqis and all the Muslims for that matter don’t understand the good you are doing there. What I don’t understand is why you don’t tell them. All them bad clerics is stirring up the young hot heads and we don’t say nutin to em. That’s bad PR. Sorry but it is. I call a spade a spade. It also seems that we don’t send more troops there cause there ain’t no more troops to send. Can’t figure out why that’s the case when your daddy had four times as many troops for Desert Storm. Boy did he kick @ss, huh? Is it true that he says that he didn’t go all the way to Baghdad because it was a powder keg and it might start a civil war and he didn’t want our military to get bogged down there? Well I guess you showed your daddy up, right? We ain’t bogged down and in four years there ain’t no civil war, only civil strife, but it sure is costing a lot of money. I hear half a trillion dollars. I ain’t so good with math but someone told me that’s over two thousand dollars per American or ten thousand per average household. If’n I had that money I could afford gas to go somewhere.
Anyway, it sure is a shame how your second idea isn’t working out either, you know the Democracy thing. I guess them Shia’s are bound and determined to have an Islamic State, you know like that other Axis of Evil, Iran, where the women all dress like nuns. They must be really religious, huh? I hear they’re making trouble for us in Iraq too and so is Syria. You really need to work on your PR with these people. Be less threatening and more flexible. That’s probably why North Korea is so afraid of you, You name them and the two Iras as “Axis of Evil” and then you attack Iraq. Kim Jung Il must be waiting for the other shoe to drop. You must know him pretty good because your always talking about him like you’re on a first name basis. Why else would you disrespect him by not using his title. So since you know him so good, what would happen if you said Kim, or Jung, or Il, whichever is his first name, hey Kim, I’ve got an idea. Your country is in dreadful shape with crop failures and all kinds of bad things and you’re worried that I covet your country. However, you know that I’m a Christian—I’m not supposed to covet another man’s country. Yet, you do need help and our country is bountiful, despite some teeny weensy mistakes I have made, so I’m in a position to help. You know, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Now you’re building WMD. Bombs right? That worries us. Plus you have a million man army, which makes me jealous. Wait, I didn’t say that. I don’t covet your army. I would just like to borrow a half million or so of them. I could really make it worth your while. You see a couple years ago I made an error in judgment, you know a pottery thing, oh never mind, anyway I kinda got us into a war. It seemed easy enough at first but no matter what we tried it only got worse. You know, that 2 ½ thing, typical Government project where it costs twice as much as it was supposed too and takes twice as long as it was supposed to and accomplishes half of what it was supposed to. Only this war is worse. It is costing ten times what is was supposed to and ten times as long and has accomplished nothing, so I could really use your help. Here’s what I can do. You join my coalition of the willing and send five hundred, no make that seven hundred thousand troops to Iraq and I will guaranty the safety of North Korea, buy two nuclear weapons from you a year, pay your troops for you, give you fifty billion dollars a year foreign aid, give you your choice of my daughters for marriage and put your country in the Axis of Good.
You see Mr. President a little PR could go a long way toward extricating you from this messy situation.
Your faithful servant, Humpty Dumpty
Silly Things 