For the faint of heart, be forewarned that the following is a rant. Skip on by if you so choose.
Oh, for the love of all that is good and holy, Andrew, quit with the speculation about what's happening in Fallujah!
Everyone should quit speculating about what's happening in Fallujah.
And, yes, Wretchard,
that means even you should quit.
To explain, I don't have any issues with anyone spouting off after a
battle is over with. Pull your miniature sand table out of the garage,
throw on your Napoleon waistcoat, slap your three cornered hat on your
head and move your miniature soldiers around as much as you want. Chat
all you want about the results of the battle. I would expect nothing
less from any of you...but do it afterward.
Not during. For God's sake, there are men on the ground in Fallujah
whose lives are on the line. Their lives are wholly dependent upon
there being a proper plan that will not only save them from being
slaughtered, but will also allow them to achieve their objectives.
Worrying and criticizing and rampantly speculating about that plan
while the battle is in process does not do those men any good. While I don't doubt your intelligence or your ability to get things right, I do doubt that---ahem---YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION THAT THEY DO.
Hence, you're automatically off the mark from the get go. Just. Shut.
Up.
Just so I don't get a bevy of replies and emails telling me that I'm
restricting someone's freedom of speech, know that I'd say this to one
of those talking head generals on CNN or FOX. I would have absolutely
no problem with telling some retired four star General to cram his
comments up his arsehole. So, you should know, I really don't have a
problem saying this to a blogger or two.
I come by this opinion honestly, if you were wondering. My mother's
side of the family is very military. In fact, I have a first cousin
who's (currently) a two star General. He may be stationed at the
Pentagon nowadays, but before that he was stationed in Tampa for a few
years, and was also deployed to Qatar for a while. I have copies of
pictures he took of Saddam's Baghdad Palace bathroom---you know, the
one with the golden fixtures that were in the news. In case all of
these CV clues slipped past you, allow me to spell it out for you: he
was on Tommy Franks' CENTCOM staff during the war and he's mentioned on
page 413 of Tommy's book, American Soldier.
One night during the runup to the invasion, the entire family, having
been tipped off, turned on the NBC Nightly News to see Tom Brokaw
interviewing him. Now, my cousin is a smart man. You don't get to be as
high up in the military as he is without being canny as all get out.
Whenever I see him, do I dare pipe up and speculate about the military
and how it's run? No. Not anymore I don't. Why? Because when I did so
in the past, his general response was to smile and then to inform
me---nicely, of course---that I'm full of shit and that no matter how
well informed I thought I might be, I didn't have all the information.
Because he did have all the information. He was in charge
of the information, for God's sake and he would know. As you might
imagine, I have a tendency to keep my mouth shut anymore because I
don't want to look like an ass.
This is what bugs me about anyone's rampant speculation about what is or isn't going on in Iraq. I know Sully, sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, does not have all the information, even if he is reading Stratfor.
Taking a few courses at Harvard that cover Clausewitz does not a
military expert make. Wretchard, while being supportive of the troops
and the war, doesn't have all the information. Even well-informed
speculation is precisely that: speculation. And these are times when
it's dangerous to speculate. There are men and women on the ground in
Iraq; they are beseiged, not by the Iraqis or by the insurgents, but
rather by the media. I would hazard a guess that the attacks that hurt
the most are the ones that come from the American media---of which the
blogosphere, for better or worse, is a part---who do nothing but second
guess their work. While I'm not denying there is a place for legitimate
criticism of the handling of this war, I will stick with my assertion
that until we know the whole story of Iraq (which, dare I mention it,
the media isn't giving us) we have no business speculating on what is
going on over there, let alone making any judgment calls about what
should be done. We don't know. And it hurts our soldiers on the ground
to be second-guessed incessantly by their own media. It doesn't matter
if the respective blogger is pro or anti war: they simply don't have
all the facts to wargame this pig in real time. Hence, all the
hand-wringing over this battle, makes bloggers---and the mainstream
media---sound more like a nervous mother on prom night, waiting for her
kids to return home, imaginging all the horrible things that could
befall them, rather than strategic analysts of the first order. Not
unlike myself when chatting with my cousin, they don't have all the
information. So the best course of action would be to shut the hell up.
Let the soldiers do their job, then when it's all said and done with,
you can throw your rampant speculation out there.
/Rant