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Lawry wrote. The
problems of Americans abroad is not the civilian traveler; it is US government
policies. Civilian travelers can be given 'tips' on etiquette until they are
blue in the face, and it won't amount to a spit in the wind as long as the
neocons and fundies and their ilk are in the governmental driver's seat. I agree. This requires more than corporate
citizens taking cotillion lessons. The Norman Rockwell wing of the
administration should read some of the many books published that detail
American foreign policy as The Ugly American. Before anyone
accuses me of ‘hating America’, let me say we can do better, and we must do
better. I heard this book
“gave cover” or imperative for these disgruntled generals to go public, although
our military-based foreign policy is not relegated to one man, it is endemic in
this administration like no other before it: Cobra II by NYT’s former military reporter in Baghdad
Michael Gordon and ret. Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor. The authors were interviewed
Friday, March 17 and my guess is it flew off the shelves. Cobra II refers to the Army’s code for
the ‘drive to Baghdad”. From the
WaPost Book World review: “The book's
core, however, centers not on Beltway deliberations but on the dash to Baghdad
by the Army and the Marines. The authors do a fine job making one of the most
lop-sided campaigns in memory interesting, but the surprises that the Americans
encounter turn out to be even more compelling. Senior U.S. field commanders
soon realize that their principal enemy is not the Iraqi army but irregular
forces -- many of them foreigners -- employing guerrilla tactics. These are portents
of the full-blown insurgency to come, but no one back in Washington proves
capable of connecting the dots. While U.S. soldiers
and Marines shifted their focus on the fly, the Bush administration failed to
recast its strategy for the postwar endgame. Consequently, once American forces
seized Baghdad, U.S. troop deployments were curtailed and units were instructed
to prepare for a rapid drawdown -- even while the Iraqi police and military
forces that the administration expected to preserve order were being disbanded. While Gordon and
Trainor recount the misjudgments of many senior civilian and military leaders,
Gen. Franks fares the worst. Many of his statements defy explanation, including
his mystifying declaration that "I am not gratified by enough forces on
the ground" and his fondness for terms like "functional
componency" and "strategic exposure." The general's battlefield
guidance is often, well, general; he tells his commanders to take "action
on all fronts," which, as the authors note, is "no better than
issuing no guidance at all." The authors conclude, scathingly, that Franks
"never acknowledged the enemy he faced nor did he comprehend the nature of
the war he was directing." The senior military
leadership in Washington comes off little better; they are depicted as a bunch
of empty suits. Then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B.
Myers, is portrayed as a reflexive team player incapable of expressing an
independent view. The Army chief of staff at the time, Gen. Eric Shinseki,
warned before the war that projected U.S. troop levels were too low to
stabilize Iraq, but the authors report that he failed to press home his case
once his views were dismissed by senior civilian leaders around Rumsfeld and
his then-deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Unfortunately, the
focus of Cobra II (which takes its title from the Army name for the drive to
Baghdad) is limited by Gordon's experiences as a reporter embedded at the
U.S.-dominated coalition's land command during the invasion. The book thus
emphasizes ground combat; the "shock and awe" air campaign, for
example, receives far less attention than it deserves. Moreover, while the
book's subtitle claims to cover the occupation of Iraq, the narrative
essentially ends in the summer of 2003. Finally, key policymakers such as Vice
President Cheney and Rumsfeld declined the authors' requests for interviews;
Franks offered only an hour. Thus the views of those at the center of the war
were often not captured. Still, Cobra II stands as the best account of the war
to date. Publisher’s notes: “Unimpeachably sourced” http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375422621 PBS Interview with
the authors Critical Decisions http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june06/intel_3-17.html NEXT: Overthrow:
America’s century of regime change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/books/review/16lievan.html Another
recommendation is Arthur Schlesinger’s 2004 War and the American Presidency which
address the historical roots of American unilateralism – “the common denominator of both isolationism and
interventionism is precisely unilateralism” - but the critical issue is the permanent state of
war sustained to justify the military industrial industry. kwc Subject: [Futurework] New Guide Tells
Americans How To Behave Abroad |
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