"When U.S. military bases in the restive Sunni city of Tikrit, Iraq, first came under insurgent mortar attack five years ago, American commanders sharply disagreed about how to respond. ... 'Screw brigade,' Col. [Nathan] Sassaman yelled during a mortar attack in August 2003. 'Return fire. Now!' The tale of a renegade soldier ignoring a direct order from a higher-ranking officer didn't come to light during a Pentagon investigation or Congressional probe. It was relayed in a new book by Col. Sassaman, 'Warrior King.' ... The school of thought led by Gen. David Petreus, with its focus on counterinsurgency tactics, economic development and political reconciliation, is currently ascendant. But there is a small number of officers who think that the military has moved too far from its core competency--fighting wars--and they that the U.S. erred by not taking a hard enough approach in Iraq. 'The simple somewhat barbaric truth is that we had to convince the Iraqi people that they should fear us more than they feared the insurgents,' Col. Sassaman writes. He says the military should have responded to insurgent attacks with heavy artillery and should have destroyed any building, including private homes, used by insurgents. ... Sassaman believes his former boss [Gen. Frederick Rudesheim] is an 'arrogant, uncaring, aloof' officer who preferred to stay 'back in the comfort of his elegantly appointed office' rather than accompanying troops on nighttime raids. ... In his book, he also argues that the Golden Dome in Samarra, a revered Shiite shrine should have been demolished by U.S. forces when insurgents began using it as a base to fire rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns", Yochi Dreazen at the WSJ, 11 July 2008.
Imagine if WWII was fought this way. As Michael Savage, radio talk show host, has said many times, "You'd be speaking German or a lampshade". In February 1944 the American Fifth Army faced the Germans at Monte Cassino. The Army Air Force, the Air Force was formed in 1947, bombed the monastery on top of the hill. Why should we be more considerate of an Islamic shrine? Whoever Petreus is he isn't George Patton, who once was asked what is the job of the US Army. Patton replied, "to kill people and break things".
2 comments:
Military brass are no longer soldiers, they are grifters for the MIC. Money procurers, weapons consultants, budget directors, and lobbyists for wealthy war profiteers.
A link pertinent to the last comment I made.
BS:
David Hackworh, now deceased wrote a book titled "About Face", 1990, which might interest you saying some of these things. He referred to the "perfumed prices of the Pentagon" who couldn't fight their collective way out of a paper bag. Also "gold-plated weapons systems" that didn't work as advertised.
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