Countering Lind-dinistas - if the mission is impossible, don't blame me

[Fuchs]

You do know you sound apologetic?


Let's assume for a while that the mission was impossible.
That would be an even bigger failure than failing in a possible mission!

The top brass' job was to understand the limits of the own institution (to recognize that the mission is impossible) and to inform the political (civilian) leadership about its findings.
Said leadership surely insisted, but that's the moment when a non-failing institution would proceed to simply sacrifice its top brass one after one, as they insist on the finding.
They didn't for career reasons, and the army surely enjoyed all that growth in budget and numbers (all bureaucracies do) - and failed its nation by consuming a huge budgets, inflicting huge long-term costs, sacrificing lives and limbs and achieving close to nothing.


And you surely recognize that the alternative criticism above is not beyond the 3GW crowd's established repertoire, right?


The army cannot escape the blame for its failure; pointing at retired politicians doesn't deflect anything.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Fuchs. I am not apologizing, only offering condolences.

To blame the military is to absolve the civilians ... And those who believe that democracy was possible.

Worse, using it as justification to attack the military is simply unforgivable.

[Fuchs]

Worse, using it as justification to attack the military is simply unforgivable.

Hardly. The military is held in much higher regard in the United States than usual in most developed countries. A dent in its image is hardly unforgivable.

In fact, criticism and questioning the performance, capabilities and ways is very useful. Even criticism that misses a point can be useful in fostering an environment in which actual deficiencies are quickly exposed and remedied.

An army is an armed bureaucracy, and bureaucracies need constant oversight and pressure, or else they go astray on their autopilot which maximises their budget, personnel, and their leadership's comfort.

It's also very typical of bureaucracies to expect and demand respect for their work, and to react appalled to external criticism.



An army is supposed to serve its country (or its dictator).
The U.S.Army has evidently not served the interests of its country in the Iraq occupation, though it fooled itself into believing so and superficially it "served" (just to what end?).
It didn't serve by achieving an outcome better than no war nor did it accomplish its mission nor did it protect the country from the wastefulness of warfare by forcefully insisting on the impossibility of the mission.
It was in no way useful.

A trillion to three trillion dollars, thousands of KIA, ten thousands of cripples and nothing to show for it.


It would be an interesting sociology/psychology research project to identify what it takes to believe that the army did not fail its country grossly in that whole affair.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Hardly. The military is held in much higher regard in the United States than usual in most developed countries. A dent in its image is hardly unforgivable.

In fact, criticism and questioning the performance, capabilities and ways is very useful. Even criticism that misses a point can be useful in fostering an environment in which actual deficiencies are quickly exposed and remedied.

An army is an armed bureaucracy, and bureaucracies need constant oversight and pressure, or else they go astray on their autopilot which maximises their budget, personnel, and their leadership's comfort.

It's also very typical of bureaucracies to expect and demand respect for their work, and to react appalled to external criticism.



An army is supposed to serve its country (or its dictator).
The U.S.Army has evidently not served the interests of its country in the Iraq occupation, though it fooled itself into believing so and superficially it "served" (just to what end?).
It didn't serve by achieving an outcome better than no war nor did it accomplish its mission nor did it protect the country from the wastefulness of warfare by forcefully insisting on the impossibility of the mission.
It was in no way useful.

A trillion to three trillion dollars, thousands of KIA, ten thousands of cripples and nothing to show for it.


It would be an interesting sociology/psychology research project to identify what it takes to believe that the army did not fail its country grossly in that whole affair.

Can you restate all that into a rational counterarguement?

[Fuchs]

Can you restate all that into a rational counterarguement?

It wasn't so much a counterargument as some pushing against a pro-institution bias. The problems with your conclusions begin with your narrative.

[TheCurmudgeon]

It wasn't so much a counterargument as some pushing against a pro-institution bias. The problems with your conclusions begin with your narrative.

If what you are seeing is institutional bias then you are missing the point of the argument. No one could have accomplished that mission. Period. With that said, why are you now attacking the military for failing to do the impossible (OK, improbable)?

I could understand an argument to re-look the civil-military relationship. Perhaps give the military the power to say "No", or give them the ability to go directly to the public with the failings of the administration. But I don't really like either of those, In the end we are a tool of the administrations policy.

[Fuchs]

Humans are still hardcoded for social interaction in clans.
If someone attacks your clan - that's an attack on you.
Someone criticizes your institution - that's (perceived as) a critique of yourself.
The typical reaction is that the clan members rally and fight back.

Critique can be useful even if it's inaccurate, though. It is necessary to tolerate and embrace critique in order to overcome the partisanship and to improve (the own clan).



Here's what you did:

(1) Someone criticised your clan with the allegation of failure.

(2) You respond that your clan is free of guilt because some other clan failed allegedly.



Here's what would be useful:

(1) Someone criticised your clan with the allegation of failure.

(2) You respond by exploiting this reminder about clan imperfection to push for clan improvements, to foster beginner's interest in clan improvement and to create/maintain an environment in which both is standard.