Syria: a civil war (closed)

[jmm99]

from JMA
Next I would like to comment on that (idiotic) quote from that Marine officer. (I hope he is a Lt at most otherwise the USMC is in a lot of trouble) ... So ignore that idiot Marine officer.

Finding the victim of this defamation takes but a little effort.

First, we find Rick's original post:

Why Syria feels different from Libya
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I've been wondering why I advocated NATO intervention in Libya but don't feel the same way about Syria. I had thought it was because I thought all Qaddafi needed was a good shove, while Syria is more complex.

But I got this note from Billy Birdzell, who was a Marine officer with Special Ops experience and two tours in Iraq who went off and got an MBA (and if you know someone in the DC area who could use that sort of background, let me know and I will forward the note to him). He wrote that, "Killing several thousand Syrians so they don't kill several thousand other Syrians only to leave the nation knowing that several thousand more will die is not protecting anyone."

That strikes me as pretty succinct. It's one thing to provide the means to help finish off a reeling dictator. It is another to wade into a civil war.

Lt. Billy Birdzell turns up in 2004 aka 1st.Lt. William Birdzell, in Dick Camp's Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004, at page 94 (Birdzell .pdf attached).

See also, a related two part article by Col. Camp which starts in Leatherneck Magazine - December 2010; and e.g., Zenith Press, Military Snapshot - A Tank's-eye View in Najaf, Iraq:

Looking through a tank driver's view port down a debris-laden street in Najaf. Note the barrel of the tank's 120mm cannon. Photo courtesy of 1st Lt. William Birdzell, USMC, from Battle for the City of the Dead by Col. Dick Camp.

And, in the April 2007 Marine Gazette, as Capt. William Birdzell for his award winning article. The article was noted at this SWC post:

... April 2007, "For what are we ready?", by Capt William Birdzell

In the conclusion, he notes the five great improvements of the 20th century as amphibious assault, close air support, vertical envelopment, tank blitz, and parachute operations. He credits the Marine Corps with the first three and the Germans with the rest.

Some here may know him personally - It's a small Corps.

I stand by the Marine who was defamed.

Regards

Mike