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Interesting! I was at a talk today by a senior RAND analyst
who is very critical of the Bush administration, the neocons and Bush/Iraq. He
too highly recommended Cobra II. Sigh...one more book. But I am looking forward
to reading it. Cheers, Lawry From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole 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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