From: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester)
Newsgroups: alt.desert-storm
Subject: Re: Powell
Date: 5 Sep 92 04:43:34 GMT
Reply-To: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Originator: wolfone@doc.cc.utexas.edu

In:
>Article 16894 of alt.desert-storm:
>From: tedrick@triangle.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick)
>Newsgroups: alt.war,alt.desert-storm,alt.politics.bush

>Look, my point is simple. One of the fundamental principles of war is to
>Hit the enemy hard during the pursuit phase of a battle. Now if you may
>be walking into a trap, or overextending your lines of communication, or
>your forces are becoming disorganized, then there may be good reason to
>halt the pursuit. But I can't think of a single battle in history when 
>it profited the victor to halt the pursuit and let the enemy escape, 
>when there was essentially no military risk in continuing the pursuit 
>phase.
>
>This particularly irritates me, because I was ranting and raving on this
>group (ADS), the night before the battle was stopped, about the need to
>throw everything we had into the battle, and to obliterate the remaining
>Iraqi forces (I think the title of the article was "Pour it on!" or 
>something like that if the stuff is archived somewhere). And in a 1985 
>article (Eurocrypt 85) I listed premature halting of a pursuit as one of
>half-a-dozen or so cardinal military mistakes. It's just *never* been
>right to throw away the fruits of victory like that. It has always come
>back to haunt the side that threw away the advantage.
Nothing in history, but there is the old saying from Sun Tzu's Art of War
about not trying to stop retreating armies. Of course, that may be obsolete
in modern warfare.

I agree that we stopped to early because it left too many Iraqi units intact.
It allowed SH to stomp on the rebels in the north and south. I just get tired
of all the people who say we should have stormed Baghdad and overthrew Saddam.
Not that I think he should stay in power (I wish the rebellions had succeeded.)
My main concern was that it seemed that these people hadn't considered what it
would require to occupy Iraq and set up a new government. We would probably
still be there trying to make sense of things while taking casualties from 
native unrest. (The Iraqis may or may not like Saddam, but I doubt they would 
like being occupied either.) It would be a mess. Sorry, end of tirade.

>In any case, after all the abuse that was dumped on my head by pacifists
>at that time for advocating "pouring it on", its particularly galling
>to hear Bush claiming noone at the time wanted the battle to continue.
>I think he's deluding himself and ignoring the facts.
Pacifists rarely study strategy and tactics. They're afraid they'll get 
"infected" w/ militarism. :-)

>Even more irritating is hearing all the bleeding-heart media types
>claiming that the fact that it was becoming a "turkey shoot" was
>reason to call it off. When the battle becomes a turkey shoot,
>that's the very time you need to push your own forces to the limit,
>unless the enemy forces surrender.
Right on! Though some pacifists (Ramsey Clark et al) claim that most of the
Iraqi troops were trying to surrender, I think that point is moot. When you
are accepting surrenders all troops in the location must surrender. If there 
are 20 surrendering soldiers and several others among their ranks are still 
shooting well, I'm sorry but you'll have to keep fighting them.

On another point, did anyone read that piece of literary trash by R. Clark
and others? It was supposed to be the results of the "tribunal" they held
about a year and a half ago (SURPRISE! Bush and the US was found guilty.)
Aren't tribunals supposed to have representatives for the defense as well
as prosecution? Clark et al evidently decided not to burden themselves with
dealing with a defense since I found no reference in the book. Anyway, it can
be found in bookstores. Look at it and shut your bs meter off...it'll overload:)

 
>I wonder if they would have complained about the "Marianas Turkey
>Shoot" during WW2 if they had been there :-)
In that battle, it was a turkey shoot because most of the Japanese pilots were
green cadets. The experienced pilots never wore parachutes so attrition was
high among them. The Japanese pilots weren't retreating, they were attacking
very badly.

>Not that anyone gives a damn what I think (and the feeling is
>mutual I'm sure :-)
You might say that rabbit, you might. :)

>Really, Bush has no business commanding battles (I'm speaking
>of his personality characteristics and lack of military knowledge),
>so the poor guy has really been victimized by all us hawks who urged 
>him on. But he ought to be smart enough to choose good advisors
>and delegate the proper authority to them, then let them run the
>show, as Reagan did. If the battle fails, then off with their heads,
>but during the battle they ought to be allowed to use them :-)
Who are you calling a hawk? I'm an *owl*!!! Later. 
(Gotta get my shields up for any possible flames.)

-- 
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Patrick Chester            |"The earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep
wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu |  all your eggs." Robert A. Heinlein
claypigeon                 |"The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us
(Destroyer Fiend)          |  are going to the stars." Anonymous
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