[antimedia] antimedia: If we leave Iraq before finishing the job....

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Posted by antimedia:
If we leave Iraq before finishing the job....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1179091112.shtml


   ....America [1]may never recover. So says Ralph Peters, who puts his
   finger on the pulse of the problem.

     As the generals who led infantry platoons and companies in Vietnam
     fade from the ranks, we face an incongruous situation in which our
     lieutenants, captains and majors are combat veterans, while the
     generals above them never fought in a direct-fire engagement or led
     daily patrols through Indian country.
     Junior officers now have a better grasp of what war means than Army
     generals do. Platoon leaders want to win. The generals want to make
     people happy.
     For two generations, we've trained military leaders to be statesmen
     in uniform, downplaying pugnacity and guts. We sent promising
     officers for Ivy League doctorates (thereby cutting off at least
     one of their . . . um . . . eggs), stressed political assignments,
     and inducted them into the Washington-insider cult of Salvation
     Through Negotiations.
     Now we have bobble-head generals who nod along with the diplomats
     who want to hold their Versailles Conference before winning the
     war.

   This doesn't just affect the generals. Far too many of our enlisted
   men are suffering from the ill effects of poor leadership, including
   being tried for murder for fighting a war!

     We should all pray that this last-ditch effort succeeds. But we're
     paying for a decade-and-a-half of gutting our armed forces and
     sacrificing troop strength to pour money into the pockets of
     unscrupulous - and well-connected - defense contractors. Now
     soldiers die in sewage-flooded alleys while the billion-dollar
     bombers sit and rot.
     And we're paying for ending the draft - not because the military
     wants it (it doesn't), but because we now have two generations of
     political leaders who don't have a clue what it takes to win a war.
     Not only haven't they served in uniform, they disdain those who
     enlist. (Think many soldiers get $400 haircuts like John Edwards?)
     If anything, military service disqualifies you from having a voice
     on wartime strategy in Washington.

   What America doesn't need is men with no military experience at all
   making decisions for our military. The end result is the joke we have
   now, with Congress trying micromanage a war and retired generals
   sniping at those still serving.

     Gen. Petraeus may pull this off - if the let's-take-a-long-vacation
     Iraqis can get their act together. Should he do so, he'll deserve a
     place in the history books as one of the all-time greatest military
     turn-around artists: By historical standards, he'll have less than
     a third of the troops he needs, even after the surge is complete.
     Whatever happens in Iraq, the core lesson isn't that such conflicts
     can't be won - that's nonsense - but that you can't win if you're
     more concerned about placating your critics than about defeating
     the enemy.
     Our troops know how to fight. Their leaders don't.

   We can't continue this. Either men with combat experience rise quickly
   to positions of leadership or our military will suffer greatly, both
   in morale and manpower, as young men, fed up with the insane way we
   now wage war, will opt not to re-enlist.
   The only thing saving us is terrorism. Many of our men and women will
   put up with a great deal of lunacy so long as we are still threatened
   by the nihilist's foul violence.

References

   1. http://www.nypost.com/seven/05112007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/baghdad_blues_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm