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America lacks "Grand Strategy" or focus in Iraq

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Contributed by: William Kus on 7/3/2007

America has always had a problem when dealing with it's military on the largest of strategic levels.

I quote from dictionary.com "In military usage, a distinction is made between strategy and tactics.Strategy is the utilization, during both peace and war, of all of a nation's forces, through large-scale, long-range planning and development, to ensure security or victory. Tactics deals with the use and deployment of troops in actual combat."

I like the fact that it mentions that strategy is necessary even during times of peace. Of"all" the nation's forces, not just a couple, not just the reserves. "Long-range planning and development, to ensure security or victory."

None of these things are happening. America lacks the ability of long-range planning. They are great at short term goals to take Baghdad and "Surge" around like that soda of the same name.

Maybe the next will be a troop "Jolt!" or a troop "Red Bull!" next. Catchy names seem to be all thats necessary to make something sound like it will be successful. That's about all the long-planning they put into it.

The tactics may work, but why? Sure they can secure Baghdad, and the rest of the country suffers.

It reminds me of those Hamburger Hill or Pork Chop Hill movies. I guess people begin running out of names for hills that countless people die on.

Only to have the hill abandoned and retaken by the enemy a few weeks later. Sound similar? But the government needs to show that the troops are killing enemies and taking land.

Even if we had 1000000000000 troops to stand on every square inch of Iraq, would that solve everything?

We could solve the problem with 0 troops. That's grand strategy. Not tactics.

Figure out why the US is being attacked. Well it's obvious we are invaders from a Christian country in the heart of Muslim lands. The Pope disses Muslims as do our newspapers and leaders.

Just like in WW2, you have the Airborne troops being in heroic after heroic battles trying to keep things going for the US. I mean all the US troops performed extremely heroicly throughout the war.

The problem is did they have to act that way? Is it one thing to commit troops when necessary, its another to throw the troops at dug in defensive positions because the commanders are too lazy to think of going around.

You may have heard this before, but the war against Germany could have ended two years earlier if Patton had been allowed to capitalize on his numerous breakthroughs.

Instead Patton's gas was given to other people who weren't even moving. Montgomery decided he'd rather sit and build up forces and give the Germans all the time they needed to reinforce their lines to make them almost impenetrable.

It would have been like the Allies invading at the Pais de Callais and not at Normandy. You know attacking right into the most prepared defenses of the Germans. Instead they attacked a much lightly defended area.

They also used an extreme ruse which took into accounts the Germans fear of Patton. And yet Patton wasn't even going to be allowed to fight in the war because he slapped some soldier.

Imagine how many lives could have been saved if the war in europe had ended 2 years earlier? Nobody ever complains about the criminal acts of the US High Command.

But luckily cooler heads prevailed.

Just like in Korea, why were we there as a "police action". We are still there. What for? We can't beat Korea? We afraid of China? What's going here?

What about Vietnam? We couldn't win there. Couldn't bomb the enemy. Lot's of political stuff, you know. From what I understand is we were winning and we pulled out anyway. But then why we were there in the first place.

Why do we hate communism so much but support the hell out of China? Why'd we create the Chinese and Russian allies only to have them become our greatestenemies. Just like Saddam andal-Qaeda.

We made them, we pay and finance them. People talk about DRUG money going to terrorists. No your OIL money goes towards terrorists, buddy. Every gallon you buy goes to fund al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group.

Maybe it wasn't about Communism? Maybe it's just a way for the military machine to be constantly moving. Maybe this keeps people in power, keeps the defense industry in business. Keeps the oil people sitting on mountains of cash.

Anyways, whoever makes the overall decisions have not make any clear cut strategy, just like every war.

The strategy of WW2, Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan are all being decided on purely political motives and not whats best for the US, and especially not what is best for the military.

I sort of agree with civilian oversight of the military, but not when those civilians are pasty faced wimps who are looking only to get more defense contracts and building contracts for the companies they serve on the Board of Directors for.

Like I said, start making it mandatory for politicians and their families to serve in any war they approve.

How can anybody in government be allowed to serve if they have any sort of financial interest invovled with handing out contracts.

People like Rumsfield, Bush, Cheney and the rest of the crooks should be investigated for all of their pushing of contracts to companies that they are part of.

This is not legal in city politics, why are the federal people allowed to push all the contracts towards companies they make money from or people they are intimately involved with?

This at the expense of the military people and the taxpayer. This war is going to bankrupt the country and cause us to be the victims of more 9/11 style attacks.

People think 9/11 was the terrorists starting it out of nowhere. The terrorists had been warning for decadesfor the US toleave the Middle East and stop supporting dictators who kill their own people.

If any of you ever studied Middle East history, you would understand why they hate the US so much and why 9/11 was decades coming. And the US had been warned repeatedly that it would happen.

I'm just saying, the US acts completely oblivious to their foreign policy throughout the Mideast for the last hundred years at least.

The way we partition land in the Middle East as if we owned it. The way we invaded Kuwait and Iraq as if we owned them, thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.

Oh wait we have a dependence for oil that requires bloodshed to maintain.

Much like slavery was OK because it allowed people to live rich, it's ok now to use child labor, illegal immigrant labor or buying oil and other merchandise from people who kill people because it's cheaper than buying it from someone who pays people a regular wage.

Like blood diamonds or anything, it's never ending, we don't care where our stuff comes from. As long as it's cheap and we're happy.

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