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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] The impossible job
  • Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 08:08:26 -0500

By now many or most Americans are getting tired of reading about conditions in Iraq. There is a danger: not learning the lesson and being condemned to repeat the mistake. Many thought that Viet Nam would surely be instructive to future decision makers. We were wrong, of course. Politicians with an agenda make the right noises, phony the photo ops, cavil the caveats, then do the damned deed. We should have a Potential Presidents College where military history is a required subject. Anyone who gets a C grade should be disqualified.

This is a story about the results of failed leadership, about how good men work hard to clean up the dirty messes caused by stupid men and how impossible is the task.

The Fall of the Warrior King

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: October 23, 2005

The body had not yet turned up. Indeed, at that point, early in January 2004, it wasn't clear there was a body at all. Months later, at the trial, the lawyers would still be arguing about it, the puffy, wrinkled corpse that was finally found floating face down in an irrigation canal off the Tigris. But even then, even before the dead man surfaced, it was clear that something had gone wrong on that cold Iraqi night down by the river, something wild by the American military's standards of discipline and force, and the problem had wended its way up the chain of command to the unit's commander, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman. . . .

[It's a long story. Anyone who still thinks the Iraq Invasion was a good idea should read it. Anyone who still thinks that optional wars are ever an answer to anything should read it. Everyone should read it.]





  • [Homestead] The impossible job, Gene GeRue, 10/23/2005

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