I like Ike. We even use the same hair stylist.
From a longer article
I've been thinking about this for a while. The time to worry about things like ethnic cleansing and increased Iranian influence is before you start the war. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.Originally Posted by slate.com
I like Ike. We even use the same hair stylist.
I thought you were making reference to the campaign button, " I Like Ike".
You state in your essay, "The astute strategist senses such obsolescence before it is proven, and uses a burst of creativity to establish new patterns..."
This seems to characterize the friction between the COIN advocates and traditionalists of today's Military
Ike: the wrong man for the Long War?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkAqtILdYaI
Well, I always like the way Ike handled all the displaced persons and their thuggery after the firing had ceased - a whiff of grapeshot can still go a long ways sometimes
Eisenhower is also the man who brought us the idea of massive retaliation and got us started in Southeast Asia (Laos). I'm not a big fan....
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment, by Stephen Ambrose, is a good read along those lines.Originally Posted by tequila
Tequila, I'm trying to track down the source but just can't spend that much time on it - synopsis of recollection from about a month ago or so - essentially once the formal shooting ended, there were literally many, many thousands of displaced persons with no jobs, no resources, no real law and order and they were roaming all over the place trying to survive. It was an admixture of former soldiers, displaced men, deserters - primarily younger men. A jeep with an Officer and a couple of enlisted was accosted by a small group of thugs/survivalists and were barely driven back with pointed guns. Ike then sent out, and as I best recall, 30,000 troops to fan out and stop the thuggery and bring some law and order on top of the occupation mechanism already in place. There wasn't much counseling and nurturing done in the course of reducing thuggery/foraging - a few were shot, some rounded up and temporarily detained and most got the message quicly that rampant foraging would not be tolerated. It didn't drag on for years, hence the reference to Napolean. It reminds me of a prison riot in Korea I read once read where troops without combat experience couldn't handle a big, ongoing riot in a Korean POW camp - some men were pulled from the line and brought in and the rioting stopped quickly.
Whatever the feelings of Iranians at the time, Mossadeq has become a symbol among Iranians of American and British perfidy. I know several Iranians in the U.S. who despise the regime, including a guy who helped organize the anti-Ahmadenijad demonstrations at the UN yesterday, but still sees Mossadeq as a visionary who stood up to Western colonialism. That all the different factions in 1979 from the Communists to the Khomeinists paid tribute to him testifies to the power of his image as a martyr to imperialism if not necessarily the reality.
Americans can barely stomach the French for defying our will over Iraq. Imagine how we would feel if they had launched a coup to install Thomas Jefferson in 1796 - John Adams might be known for something other than a McCullough biography.
But Ken, Uncle Mo was just so Mobutu, ya know? I wish I had a copy of Zairios TV when it would come on and Mo would descend from the clouds as Le Guide...There are a bunch more you could cite aside from Mobutu.
Tom
Iranian (in the US or in Iran) sentiment for Mossadegh -- and that's exactly what it is, sentiment -- if fueled by a heavy dose of Ayatollah produced propaganda over the last 50 years. The internet abounds with it. That's fascinating because that crowd was right in the middle of Ajax on all sides. Khomeini's role, in particular, bears considerable scrutiny...
Lot of myths about that, who did what to who and the effect on the Iranian psyche. Mossadegh doesn't affect most nearly as much as Darius seems to. I spent a couple of years there, still got friends and acquaintances there and here and while the e-mail is sporadic from there, it is remarkably frank.
I don't have any problem with the French for "defying our will" (interesting phrase) over Iraq; the French are the French and they have theuir own drummers, always have. Nothing wrong with that. Nor do I know anyone who fits your 'barely stomach' description. Other than the twits and ignoramuses in the media who babbled about it, that is...
IF is a big word; Harry Turtledove-esque or Newt Gingrich like alternative history is a total waste of time and effort. The reality is we -- and most other nations -- have supported a number of unsavory characters from time to time. The world has gotten better about that sort of thing but it will not go away entirely. Get used to it.
"Law cannot limit what physics makes possible." Humanitarian Apsects of Airpower (papers of Frederick L. Anderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
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