 |
|
JimmyCracksCorn
|
|
Macedonia - Sovereign country north of Greece.
Dec 2002
time: 05:32
|
|
...wrong thread
|
|
| |
|
|
|
shawnmmcc
|
|
McNamara, the idiot who put the accountants in charge of the military. The people who replaced the Dupont IMR powder with NATO standard (and cheaper) ball powder to save a few bucks. Resulting in jams in the middle of fire fights, resulting in grunts trying to field strip the damn thing at night in the middle of swamps, resulting in increased casualties (read DEATHS) of aforementioned grunts. Add in stupidities like the F4 without gun armament (because they KNEW missles would replace guns), the Sheridan, ad naseum. While McNamara's DOD did not produce all of the technical screw ups that killed US troops, their glacial reaction and intial denial response contributed substantially to the degree of these foobars.
So you have Rumsfeld, an ex-aviator (at least he served, unlike most of the Bush White House and the current Republican leadership) backing the light infranty division imbeciles in the army. These units have a terrible history, getting chewed up in almost every case they have been deployed in actual war zones. They do poorly against regular infranty, they do poorly against guerillas, they do extremely poorly against any kind of AFV - I repeat, the man is a fool. Though I will grant Ned's comparision to McNamara. 
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ned
|
 |
of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:32
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
McNamara, the idiot who put the accountants in charge of the military. The people who replaced the Dupont IMR powder with NATO standard (and cheaper) ball powder to save a few bucks. Resulting in jams in the middle of fire fights, resulting in grunts trying to field strip the damn thing at night in the middle of swamps, resulting in increased casualties (read DEATHS) of aforementioned grunts. Add in stupidities like the F4 without gun armament (because they KNEW missles would replace guns), the Sheridan, ad naseum. While McNamara's DOD did not produce all of the technical screw ups that killed US troops, their glacial reaction and intial denial response contributed substantially to the degree of these foobars.
So you have Rumsfeld, an ex-aviator (at least he served, unlike most of the Bush White House and the current Republican leadership) backing the light infranty division imbeciles in the army. These units have a terrible history, getting chewed up in almost every case they have been deployed in actual war zones. They do poorly against regular infranty, they do poorly against guerillas, they do extremely poorly against any kind of AFV - I repeat, the man is a fool. Though I will grant Ned's comparision to McNamara. |
I too am not sure about the Stryker. If this is a failure, Rumsfeld will share that characteristic with McNamara who had his share of screw-ups.
However, aside from equiment issues, Rumsfeld clearly is the man behind the very successful operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of the military were highly skeptical in invading Iraq with a total force of, what was it, 60,000 troops? That is about 1/10 the force we had during the Gulf War, but it worked spectacularly well.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
shawnmmcc
|
|
Ned, the man gambled with our troopers lives unneccessarily, for political gain - as in, bring down Saddam a little faster (run Bradlies through a city while shaped charge rounds are extremely available just to hurry things along, and if one or two Bradlies get brewed up, well too bad), or don't make the full committment of troops to Afghanistan. Like Hitler (I am not making Nazi comparisons here, neither he nor the Bush adminstration is Nazi-like at all, I think more of 1890's GB) he has made a series of astute military gambles. There were unnecessary except to keep costs down. I do not accept the argument that it is acceptable to risk GI's lives to let the administration justify a bigger tax cut, or justify making more of it permanent. That's why I hate the new more lighter-faster doctrine. M1 Abrams keep American boys alive (and girls once they let them drive them in combat zones). Light AFV's are dangerous, and Humvee's are death traps, suitable only for transportation duties, not as a substitute for APC's or police vehicles (i.e. what the Stryker was really designed for). Deploying minimal forces and hoping that combined with airpower and irregular forces they can bring down the opposition is again a gamble with the soldier's lives, and an unneccessary one.
What I find most frightening about the man is his willingness to cook intelligence, ignore the experts if they disagree with his fair-haired boys (and they are almost all white, caucasian males), and then minimize the damage done by the stupid, pre-conceived analysis. The military experts predicted almost every problem we have had in occupied Iraq, while his tame analysis group minimized them. So what do they do? They hunt down the career experts who tried to publicize the screw-ups, under the new Homeland Security laws. McNamara's DOD (cooked intelligence - Vietnam, sound familiar) with a vengeance. The only thing we can hope is that the new administrators in place can undo all the ill will we've already created. Plus, Ho Chi Minh while no good guy was not the monster Saddam Hussein was (though somebody I suspect will argue that), so we have more cooperation from the domestic population - for now.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
TCO
|
 |
Richmond, VA
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
McNamara, the idiot who put the accountants in charge of the military. The people who replaced the Dupont IMR powder with NATO standard (and cheaper) ball powder to save a few bucks. Resulting in jams in the middle of fire fights, resulting in grunts trying to field strip the damn thing at night in the middle of swamps, resulting in increased casualties (read DEATHS) of aforementioned grunts. Add in stupidities like the F4 without gun armament (because they KNEW missles would replace guns), the Sheridan, ad naseum. While McNamara's DOD did not produce all of the technical screw ups that killed US troops, their glacial reaction and intial denial response contributed substantially to the degree of these foobars.
So you have Rumsfeld, an ex-aviator (at least he served, unlike most of the Bush White House and the current Republican leadership) backing the light infranty division imbeciles in the army. These units have a terrible history, getting chewed up in almost every case they have been deployed in actual war zones. They do poorly against regular infranty, they do poorly against guerillas, they do extremely poorly against any kind of AFV - I repeat, the man is a fool. Though I will grant Ned's comparision to McNamara. |
Go Dupont@!!!
|
|
| |
|
|
|
shawnmmcc
|
|
Ned, I suspect we are going to disagree on Rumsfeld on the conduct of the two current conflicts. I see what he did as an irresponsible gamble, you as astute risk taking. Unless he gets stuck trying to apply his doctrine somewhere like North Korea, we'll never know for sure. So I really hope we don't get to find out.
Only certain people consider McNamara as one of the "best and brightest." In military circles the McNamara DOD is often used as an excellent example of how not to win a war. Journalists and writers who have a weak grounding in history, or do not understand military matters, might consider him brilliant. I nor many other people who share the criteria I judge by do not. Note I am not agenda driven here. I detest DOD heads in both a conservative and a liberal administation. My criteria is based on the military realities, versus the agenda of the administation in charge.
You haven't dealt with the other issue I brought up. Cooking the books, reference intelligence. I suspect that is both why I really loathe the man, and compare him to McNamara. Believing your own propaganda has probably killed more grunts than anything short of bad generalship, with cost-cutting/shoddy equipment-logistics running close behind in third. The evidence is quite strong he own special intelligence group, whose name slips my mind, went in and not only ignored, but threatened the professional types in the military and civilian intelligence communities. Rumsfeld is a dangerous man, and the sooner he is out, the better as far as I am concerned.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:32.
Apolyton Time is 00:32. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
27-12-2003 06:45
|