http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,101401,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl

I think Bush is more like Ghandi.

I think its an absolute shame we can't see that Bush and Churchill are so similar. After all they were both hard drinkers.

Oh yeah, maybe its bacause Churchill didn't lie his way into unnecessary war, bungle, the war terribly, or say stupid things like bring it on.

Good grief, where to begin, yet by beginning I regret giving Ollie North credbility as a writer whose drivel is worth reading.

First, if Ollie had studied history, he'd know that in an earlier age, the head of state was actually a military man who lead his countrymen from the front, a place in battle format that Bush knows less than squat about, having passed on his earlier in life opportunity to gain such experience and possible leadership skills. Of course, no modern head of state leads battles or wars anymore, they direct their peleton of generals, and do all the directing safely from the rear. A fact that has made war much safer personally and far more convenient for heads of state. Probably explains why so many wars are begun and waged by megalomaniacs instead of heroic statesmen/generals.

Second, since heads of state safely direct wars from far in the rear, then what really is the point of Bush visiting the troops (that all the rest of his actions - think VA benefits, etc.) when he clearly doesn't give a rat's a$$ about them, using them as the cheap lower socio-economic cannon fodder he knows they are for his megalomaniacal adventure? Could it be politics? Maybe score a few poll points for his sagging popularity at home, even among the ignoramouses that voted for him? Of course Bush is proud of the hard work they're doing on his behalf (which they wouldn't have to be doing if Bush hadn't started this idiotic war), since if they can possibly win this unwinnable fracus he began, it would sure save his political image.

And of course the soldiers are working hard to do a good job, since the probability of living through the hot zone in a war is increased by doing good soldiering instead of poor. As we hopefully learned from Vietnam, soldiers don't fight for their president or even their country. They fight for one another. It's the only thing that makes sense in battle.

Iraq does not equal Vietnam. Who said it does? It's the key similarities between the two conflicts that have relevance to the discussion. Ollie trots off with an aside about Hamburger Hill. I'm not sure why; it was a tragedy for the U.S. By pounding away at it for days, and pouring human and material resources into it, the U.S. took Hamburger Hill -- and then abandoned it after a few days, something that Ollie didn't find worth mentioning.

Ollie strangely and ignorantly contrasts the 400,000 American troops that were in Vietnam in 1969 with the 135,000 in Iraq. Duh! The conflicts really are different, and the U.S. is diverging from former tactics and methods in significant ways. First and foremost, knowing that Americans won't tolerate Vietnam scale casualties when the homeland isn't directly threatened, the U.S. military won't fight that kind of war. And for other reasons as well. Ollie fails to point out that there were many more American troops in Vietnam and Gulf War I because the military handled most of its own logistical, infrastructure, and support services instead of contracting them out to private companies as the Bush administration has done. I bet those support services from the rear, along with the higher ranking officers who never see a day of combat, are still known by the grunts as REMFs (Rear Echelon Mother F)ckers), however. Ollie notes having spent time in both wars; what is he in Iraq? A REMF? I thought he was Colonel Ollie (ret.).

Ollie contrasts casualties between Iraq and Vietnam without making any note of the advancements in battlefield medical technology, not to mention that whatever casualities there are, are seldom far from medical facilities, unlike Vietnam where the wounded could be an hour or more helecopter flight from even a field clinic or hospital. Ollie is so conveniently stupid, you'd think he's a neocon.

About the most significant distinction Ollie notes is that NVA and Viet Cong both wanted to continue living, unlike at least some of the insurgents and jihadists fighting or just plain commiting suicide in Iraq. It cracks me up that he paints American military as couragous, and I'm not denying that they are. But what about the opposition? Aren't they couragous too? NVA certainly were. (A classmate veteran friend of mine thought we should have fought with the NVA, as they were far better and more committed soldiers than the South Vietnamese soldiers who were more interested in stealing chickens and pigs from their countrymen than in fighting, let alone winning their unwinnable war.)

The Vietnamese were not lacking in brutality, just because they weren't into beheading like some Muslims. I guess he's giving props to Buddhism and Atheism then for their lesser brutality; who knows?

A similarity ignored by Ollie between the two wars, and why I think the Iraq conflict isn't winnable is that, just like in Vietnam, there is no battlefield. The U.S. has the resources to win on most any battlefield (one with China being the likely and notable exception). Guerrilla warfare dominated Vietnam, and the tactics best suited to fighting it also assure losing the hearts and minds of the very allies you're trying to "save." The Iraq insurgency isn't identical to guerrilla warfare, but it has more in common with it than it does conventional battlefield warfare. The key similarity between the two is their utter lack of concern for civilian casualties, and in fact civilians are frequently the targets of both the VC guerrilla actions and todays insurgents in Iraq.

I'd give Ollie a D as a writer. True, he can cobble together complete sentences and complete a high school five paragraph theme, even if it's full of bullsh!t. Sard, there are good and credible conservative writers. I don't know why you'd waste the time of day on Ollie North. He's a piece of excrement on his best day.

Golly Vedder, have you forgotten the Crimea and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Churchill had to go sit in the corner for quite a while after that debacle.
I don't think you like Ollie do you Salmo G?
He's not at the top of my personal hero list but he does have some, not so far off the mark, commentary now and then.

Sard,

Since I don't subscribe to that mag or seek out anything by Ollie, I haven't encountered any of his on the mark commentary. Please feel free to C&P one if you should happen upon it, OK? I'm always up for decent conservative writing these days, if only for its rarity due to neocon takeover. I'm sure that if I was even slightly off base in my rebuke of Ollie you would have pointed it out.

I know most people here think I'm pretty much dyed in the wool liberal, but I grew up in redneck hillbilly country in south county. One of my childhood neighbors was a moonshiner, a couple of others were convicted of cattle rustling, another was a rodeo bull rider, a coal miner who could fix absolutely anything electrical or mechanical, and a couple others were the cornerstone of the John Birch Society. There was no lack of disrespect for anything having to do with government. The people I grew up with are as surprised as I am that I ended up working for the gov't.