Col Hackworth: Déjà vu All over Again (AWOL drinking from LBJ Well in TX)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Homepage.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=30&rnd=79.87651495180076

While on vacation in Crawford, Tex., Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush must have been drinking from the same well as Lyndon B. Johnson when LBJ got American boots stuck in Southeast Asia’s unforgiving swamps.

In April 1965, as he was secretly signing off on the Vietnam troop buildup that would eventually grow to more than 500,000 American soldiers, LBJ said, "Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Vietnam would bring an end to conflict."

Bush’s assertion that our battered, overstretched combat troops in Iraq would “never retreat” was a major déjà vu moment. And the similarities don’t stop there. Both presidents got into deep doo-doo because they listened to their arrogant defense secretaries and an all-knowing coterie of civilian and uniformed go-along types running the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than some smart, straight-shooting field generals.

<snip>

Wise commanders know when to attack, when to retreat and when to adjust their battle plans. They’re in sync with the drumbeat of the battlefield the way a doctor is with the pulse of his or her patient. Tactics, strategy, enemy strength and intentions dictate maneuvers and courses of action, not the whims of a bunch of clueless chest-beaters still having trouble accepting how dead wrong they were with their post-Saddam plans for rebuilding Iraq.

[ewagner]

1. Well said

Sometimes Hack pisses me off, but I will never deny his loyalty to his troops or his committment to bring them home safely.