Posted by
JDComments on Friday, October 20, 2006 9:44:54 AM
Victor Davis Hanson is a brilliant military historian and writer who is a welcome counterpoint to so many of the so-called "experts" who hold forth on the war in Iraq, spewing nonsense and popular bias as "truth".
Here he answers all those Liberal Monday morning generals who decry our lack of an effective strategy in the War on Terror, presenting our multipronged campaign succinctly and effectively.
I think it is worth pointing out here the difference between strategy and tactics, which is basic to any military planning. Strategy encompasses the overarching goals and comprehensive scenario for achieving them, i.e. defeating Nazi Germany by first attacking at the soft underbelly of Europe [Sicily], and then following with a pincer movement from the Normandy beachheads and Russia. The implementation of the plan, the actual battles, would fall under "tactics" which in any war are constantly being adjusted as real life renders theoretical plans moot. Thus, when the MSM announces a plan to pacify Baghdad has "failed", and things have to be changed, this is just an acknowledgment of a tactical adjustment, and should be treated as such, not as a major reassessment of the war or its aims. The constant harping on the tactics, as well as the daily [sometimes hourly] death tolls, especially in a war where we have had an amazingly low casualty rate by any standard, are just attempts by the Liberal opposition to make mountains out of molehills. The recent discussions about the TET offensive is indeed apt in this instance, for that was a military disaster for the Viet Cong, and should have been hailed as a major victory for our side, but the Media spun it into the opposite, and it is now seen as the turning point of the war. We cannot allow this kind of distortion of the facts to defeat us in Iraq, for the enemy knows that is the only way he can win.