No, you can't. The shoddiness of MSM reporting in Iraq gives new meaning to the Vietnam-era term of derision for soldiers deployed behind the front lines - REMFs.
These MSM REMFs too often dwell on what supposedly went wrong before, except that's not what really matters.
3 comments:
Hello Peter Tork! I'm reading State of Denial by Bob Woodward. I really don't know what to think. I know peace thru strength is the answer, but Rumsfield really stinks according to this read...
gvav1, I've heard criticism of Rumsfeld, but the problem with a lot of them is that they come across as trying to hold onto the old way of doing things. Rumsfeld is excoriated for "not enough troops" in Iraq, even though this ignores the big lesson from Creighton Abrams' tenure as US commander in Vietnam - as US forces were reduced, Abrams used them more aggressively and also to attack not the enemy's forces but the enemy's logistical nose; as a result, the sloppiness that often permeated Westmoreland's "war of the big batallions" approach - areas would be cleared, but US forces would leave and the enemy would infiltrate back into those areas, and often there was unnecessarily vicious fighting - was overcome, areas were cleared and held, the ARVN was vastly improved (one of Westy's great failings was never paying sufficient attention to whipping ARVN into combat shape) and the enemy by 1971 was effectively cleaned out of South Vietnam.
This is the basic approach Rumsfeld has taken in Iraq, and overall, despite the MSM's reporting, it is working, albiet slowly. So when you read Bob Woodward's book, have plenty of salt.
gvav1, Check out this look at US efforts south of Baghdad.
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