[OT] Vietnam and modern combat

> Further you were working for a prez that had no
> respect for the military (oddly enough. . . ) and
> overruled/ignored/never asked for advice from his
> senior military leadership.  Unclear mission with
> impossible political constraints.  This does not
> normally happen.
>
> This is certaintly not the case today.

Hmm...
Certainly Bush likes to talk the talk...
Didn't Bush's Administration ignore General Shinseki's warning about the
number of troops needed to occupy Iraq ?
Weren't a lot of warnings and planning suggestions by military,
intelligence
and foreign policy experts ignored ?
Haven't they tried to get away with doing the operations on the cheap,
with
not enough of lots of stuff from spare parts to armoured  Humvees ?
While
there is still lots of money for such absurd projects as "Star Wars"
Missile
defence ? And for Civilian contractors in Iraq messing up anything from
logistics to security ?

And can anybody give a plausible reason why a former Saddam general has
been
intalled as commander of the "Fallujah Brigade", which contains at least
some of the insurgents, apparently with consent from pretty high up ?
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/01/wirq01.
xml

Greetings
Karl Heinz