point well taken, mr. clean (peters).....your criticism of any further U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan probably resonates with many americans, these days..... as a professing Mennonite Christian, I absolutely hate to be in the position of advocating for more military [``law enforcement``] intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan...... but from the very opening days of those wars, in the months following 9-11, the NAVY [special operations] strategists whose writings I follow, advocated for a very different military approach, then the one that the U.S. ultimately pursued..... basically, the old army and air force belief in permanent fixed land bases, giant infantry divisions and vast logistical trains that often have remained in-country for future generations ( look at permanent U.S. bases in japan, Germany, south korea), well, that ``imperialistic`` army-air force strategy was merely repackaged as ``SHOCK AND AWE``..... this is completely different from the strategy that these NAVY [special operations] strategists advocated, beginning in the autumn of 2001, immediately following the September 11 attacks......in short, after the nation of TURKEY refused to allow the U.S. army to deploy large infantry divisions to attack Iraq, from within turkey`s borders, the U.S. military had to rely upon small groups of army green berets and navy SEALs, who supported local Kurdish forces, by calling-in American air and artillery strikes..... this pattern had been previously followed, in support of the `northern alliance` against the Taliban, in Afghanistan......these ``SPECIAL`` operations were highly successful , but the pentagon chose a profoundly different strategy, in the years that followed......most of the NAVY writers whom I follow, were heavily influenced by the ideas of the former U.S. marine corps commandant, GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK, who advocated for BASING ALL U.S. soldiers and marines on ships, and supporting our local and tribal allies on the ground , with airstrikes from carriers and ``naval artillery`` (missle) strikes from American guided missle cruisers..... marine krulak remembered when our south Vietnamese allies were overrun in 1975, after the u.s. congress refused to give any further military support to south Vietnam, and he also remembered BEIRUT, in 1983, when U.S. marines were left completely exposed to attack in a crude [civillian airport] LAND base, while secure U.S. ships were visible, miles away in the harbor....
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 00:28:41 +0000