Horn of Africa historical (pre-2011): catch all thread

[Ken White]

...just as the strike on Iraq in December 1998 was calculated to distract Americans from the Impeachment proceedings.

Possibly but far from proven.

Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched to bolster partisan reelection prospects the next year.

Doubtful. An alternative is that Bush did it because it needed to be done as his four predecessors had failed miserably at responding anywhere near properly to a series of probes and pricks originating in the ME. Add the fact that he was not at the time convinced he would be reelected and the fact that, were he not, his successor would likely not respond forcefully.

The main lesson Bush II learned from Bush I was to not let a war end too quickly.

Probably true.

Bush 41 suckered Saddam into invading Kuwait (through his emissary April Glaspie) just so he could launch a war to kick him out again.

Speculation, possible but not probable -- Hanlon's razor; When Glaspie told Saddam that the US wasn't concerned with his claim to Kuwait, she almost certainly did not understand the implications of taarof in her response.

Except for the Civil War and the two "World Wars," every American war appears to have been started as a way to help a President get elected to a second term. I could be wrong, though.

Some truth in that. Domestic politics always play a large part. More true is the fact that almost all our wars including those you omit began because someone thought the Americans wouldn't fight over an issue.

...the US police action in sunny Southeast Asia 40-some years ago. But that started as a training mission, advisors only, and American soldiers were training indigenous forces that the Americans mostly held in contempt.

The brothers Kennedy wanted a 'Small War' to prove their toughness and, more importantly by far, to boost the economy. It got outa hand. Hanlon's razor again...

American officers mostly had no respect for Vietnamese officers or civilian leaders.

Depends on who you talk to and what Viet Namese units or elements they worked with. When they were there also palys a huge part in that assessment.

This thread is not going at all like I wanted. I am 100% certain that our Sneaky Petes on the ground in Somalia are gonna get a lot of backup from conventional ground forces, and I'm pretty sure that will happen by this Summer.

Don't you hate it when others don't see your wisdom -- I know I do.

You may be 100% sure, obviously others are less certain.

I was hoping this community could help them from screwing that up.

Other than saying we should not go, we should not send advisers and the idea of going is dumb, what else would you have this community do? Taking your tack; saying 'It's gonna happen' would put it on autopilot -- saying it would be really dumb would seem to me to do more to keep that screwup from occurring.

the crowd on this website is smarter than those OSD policy wonks.

Having worked with some of their predecessors, I'm inclined to think you're probably correct in that.

But y'all seem to think that good ideas can only be found in a white paper or an article in a professional journal. You don't give yourselves enough credit.

Can't speak for others but most white papers I've read have been froth and all the professional journals spout the party line -- they'll publish a little racy material on occasion to establish some street cred but they immediately hop back into hull defilade. My observation in several years here is that you aren't correct in that assessment.

I think that our entree to Iraq and our escalation in Afghanistan were abortions.

I agree to an extent on Iraq but can excuse it a bit as the force did what it was (poorly) trained to do, civilian policy makers excluded. It was a good strategic ploy, poorly executed, initially a cluster but pulled out of the trash can by some hard work by the troops. I agree on Afghanistan, OEF 2 should have been it.

I say that they are two separate campaigns: the first was to get revenge against al-Qaeda, and the second to punish the Afghani people because we didn't satisfy our bloodlust in the first campaign.

I don't believe that is so. I don't think bloodlust had a thing to do with it. I know a bunch of folks that have been there, from Privates to Colonels. No bloodlust in any of them -- nor, I believe was there any in the civilian heirarchy. A stupid idea that we could make things better, yeah -- bloodlust, no.

As a minor aside, they are Afghans, the Afghani is the currency.

If our coming misadventure into Somalia is as badly led as the two current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this blog community doesn't lift a finger to prevent that, well, why even blog here ? Certainly not simply to recount how well you performed when you were knee deep in hand grenade pins.

Badly led is a relative term. The leadership of the forces in both countries the past few years represented the society from which they came. They were products of an institution that is largely shaped by those societal inputs and the next most significant factor, the Congress. So I'd suggest your argument may be with that society and / or that Congress.

Been my observation that any command, any unit has good and bad elements. Some do good, some do not and that varies over time as commanders and units change. I've seen or heard nothing that makes that factor in the current wars a bit different from performance in WW II, Korea or Viet Nam.

As to this community not deigning to "lift a finger to prevent that..." It seems to me that the bulk of those who've bothered to post on this thread do not share your apparent absolute certainty about a commitment to Somalia; most seem to think it's possible but not probable. Thus, there's little need -- in my view, at least -- to raise a finger. Unless saying it would be dumber than dirt to do that at all is not raising the finger high enough...

Re: your question, why even Blog here. That's up to those who write Blog Posts that get on the Blog. This is a Discussion Board not the Blog, though it is an adjunct of the Blog. In both cases, participation is voluntary. No one is forced to Blog or comment here. Dissenting views are welcome as are out of the old box comments but there is no guarantee that everyone posting a response will agree with one who posits an idea or thoughts

For those that do post here, we ask that they be civil and not egregiously insult other poster. Attack the argument, not the person(s) who do not agree with you. Your snarky comment about hand grenade pins was unnecessary and does not aid your position -- though I've seen Green Ramp when there were beaucoup pins and grenades about...