"The new definition of military valour - saying no to politicians"

[bananas]

Ray Taliaferro just mentioned this article on his show.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1745729,00.html

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The new definition of military valour - saying no to politicians

The lesson of Iraq is that allied top brass have a duty to dig their heels in when they recognise a fiasco in the making

Max Hastings
Monday April 3, 2006
The Guardian

Francis Fukuyama's Iraq recantation has received keen attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Like many US conservatives, he now distances himself from what has been done in the neocons' name by the Bush administration. Of course, we welcome every sinner that repenteth, but the people who seem most deserving of respect are those clever Americans who got it right in the first place. Most of my US military acquaintances opposed the invasion. They did not doubt the coalition's ability to defeat Saddam's army swiftly and topple his regime. It was uncertainty about what would follow that rang warning bells. They identified from the outset precisely the difficulties that Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz contemptuously dismissed.

In October 2002, when it became evident that Bush was determined to invade Iraq, the US Army War College's strategic studies institute undertook a study of a prospective occupation. Some bright soldiers and diplomats got together with two military academics, Dr Conrad Crane and Dr Andrew Terrill. The fruits of their labours were published in February 2003, before the first shot was fired.

Re-reading the study today, it seems stunningly prescient. First, it highlighted previous failures to address the problems of occupation, notably after the 1991 Gulf war. A senior commander on the ground, it said, "could get no useful staff support to assess and plan for post-conflict issues like hospital beds, prisoners and refugees, complaining later that he was handed 'a dripping bag of manure' that no one else wanted".

In 2003, the study predicted, after a brief initial honeymoon "suspicion of US motives will increase ... A force initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to the status of invaders ... Regionally, the occupation will be viewed with great scepticism, which may only be overcome by the population's rapid progress towards a secure and prosperous way of life ... The establishment of democracy or even some sort of rough pluralism in Iraq ... will be a staggering challenge". It warned that exile groups, the focus of Pentagon hopes, did not possess the domestic support to form a credible Iraqi interim administration.

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· Max Hastings is the author of Armageddon: the Battle for Germany 1944-1945

[fasttense]

1. I wonder what happened to Military leaders like Patton?

Can you imagine Patton taking Rumsfield's BS? Instead we get scared little generals who are afraid for their careers.