nidan

I wasn't sure what to title this and I'm not trying to be contreversial but I have just watched Nova (on Tivo from a week or so ago) and I am horrified at what I have seen. If you can you need to watch this.

Two things so far have struck me.

First the Joint Chiefs of Staff (ie Colin Powell's old job) in testimony before congress (I'm watching the video). Said prior to going into Iraq, note prior not after. That we were not using enough troops (by a factor of 2-3x) to ensure a safe control of the environment, after, we won the war. Turns out he was correct.

Our Sec of Defence disagreed, we now have new Joint Chief of staff and we have a mess. WTF is going on here, are our folks getting killed because we didn't use enough troops ?

Second. This doctrine was 'tested' in a war game in 2002. They brought in a USMC Lt Gen to command the opposing force to see if this doctrine of using less troops and high tech would work.

This guy was pretty smart. He went low tech on them (simulated), used written communications, bombs loaded in infaltables etc. In the first day of the war game he destroyed (simulated) navy ships. The second day and for th rest of the war game, they gave him a script to follow so that their concept would appear to work. Seems to me this is exactly what is being done to use today ?

What is going on here, it seems like our civilian authorities are ignoring the advice being given to them by our military.

I'm not making this up guys, I'm just reporting what I have seen and that includes the video of the testimony to congress.

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DogTv

nidan

The title of the Nova was "Battle Plan Under Fire"

This was very factual and for those who might suggest this had an agenda, most of the images I saw of Iraqis were of people happy to see the US.

The suggestion is that maybe our plan for the battle was motivated by ideology and economica not military strategy

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DogTv

AzCards21

Don't forget arrogance, I think we expected the initial battle to go as planned but probably now wish we had a few thousand more troops involved.

nidan

What I am afraid of is that we have our military trying to implement a plan developed by politicians.

It sure sounded like the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not approve of the froces Rumsfeld was planning on using and then he got replaced. This is the military disagreeing with the politicians, not the media.

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DogTv

PortlandCardFan

Sounds like Vietnam almost!

Ya know.... I really liked Bush but it is really assinine (sp ???) when politicians don't let military leaders win wars.

My other problem is I hate Kerry!!