Chortle chortle
By Modestly proposed by Jon Swift:
Unfortunately, misconceptions about the Vietnam War and the War in Iraq have led some to criticize McNamara and Rumsfeld, but I think history will show that while they made all the right decisions, the generals and soldiers on the ground did a poor job executing many of their directives so they really shouldn’t be blamed. They also would have done better if they didn’t have to contend with being second-guessed by the liberal media. Rumsfeld revealed some of his irritation at having to be judged by people who are a lot less intelligent than he is when he said at yesterday’s press conference that the War in Iraq is “complex for people to comprehend.” But I don’t think the fact that they had to deal with so many people who just weren’t as smart as they are should be held against them.
Both McNamara and Rumsfeld subscribed to the doctrine of “underwhelming force,” that is, using as few resources as possible in prosecuting a war in order to lose less. That is why Rumsfeld and McNamara both overruled their generals, who believed that more troops were needed, in favor of smaller, nimbler fighting forces. Rumsfeld also didn’t believe in expending a lot of scarce Pentagon funds on such equipment as body armor or armored vehicles, which would just have drained the funds available for sophisticated weapons systems.
The whole thing, I promise, will crack you up.
On a completely unrelated note, blogging on my end will be light for the next few days. Ted Stevens has somehow gotten all the tubes in my house completely clogged with information — it’s not a big truck, you know — and the whole system has gone completely screwy. And because I live in one of the most incompetent states in the union, no one from my internet provider can come with a plunger to clear the tubes until Monday. Unbelievable.