Michael Yon has published the report from retired Army General Barry R McCaffrey here. In my always humble opinion (ha), the General gives a very honest assessment of the situation here in
There are some great no-kidding quotes in there. Here are some of my personal favorites (with my thoughts in italics. Yes, I felt the need to point that out, just in case someone misread it and thought the general was as sarcastic as me):
- "THE US ARMY IS TOO SMALL AND POORLY RESOURCED TO CONTINUE SUCCESSFUL COUNTER-INSURGENCY OPERATIONS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN AT THE CURRENT LEVEL" Really? You’re kidding me! Do go on . . .
- "We are losing our combat experienced mid-career NCOs’ and Captains at an excessive rate." (cough cough) What - who, me? Gee, I wonder why . . .
- "Their morale is high, they are proud of their service, they have enormous personal courage—however, they see a nation of 300 million people with only an under resourced Armed Forces at war. The US Army at 400,000 troops is too small to carry out the current military strategy." Yes, its called family time. We get none of it when we are deploying every other year.
- "The National Guard and Reserves are too small, are inadequately resourced, their equipment is broken or deployed, they are beginning their second involuntary combat deployments, and they did not sign up to be a regular war-fighting force." This one brought tears to my eyes. Well, not really, but it is so eloquent and . . .TRUE!
and finally, a personal shot at the man I hold responsible for my call-up:
- "Mr. Rumsfeld was an American patriot, of great personal talent, energy, experience, bureaucratic cleverness, and charisma—who operated with personal arrogance, intimidation and disrespect for the military, lack of forthright candor, avoidance of personal responsibility, and fundamental bad judgment." Well said, sir, well said indeed!
That's my summary, but like I said, its a great report, so go read it for yourself!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
A new report on Iraq
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2 comments:
Note the use of the past tense of the verb "to be" in the comment;
"Mr. Rumsfeld was an American patriot..."
One has to wonder if this isn't a case of verbal gauntlet-dropping judo,
an unintended association to Benedict Arnold or simply pre-obituary byline work. Or none of the above?
HI Jason;
General McCaffrey expertly reported the facts and I value his opinion. My hope is that our leaders pay close attention to him and follow his assessments.
To Anonymous;
WHAT!
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