If Sherman is ever the new modern action principle, Robert E. Lee, as great a general and person as he was, is ever the Lost Cause, in repose. Grant? Grant and Lincoln are the weather and the atmosphere.

I submit that the elevation of compromise over binary choices has yet to be justified. In a human context, both are constrained by limits – situational and absolute.

One of the conceits of the post modern world is that there is another way. Sometimes. But most of the time, not. At least in my experience. Like a petulant child, the modern world dislikes that reality.

But I wish to h^ll Obama would stop bowing.

What I fear, and despise the very concept of, is global government, of which international law is but a precursor, with the ICC in the vanguard. The alternative is independent sovereign nation-states that will experience ‘misalignment’ of self interests leading to war.

So there’s the choice.

I think where we stumble is believing in the idea of a third or middle way; hence Obama’s difficulty with Afghanistan; hence the regular f^ck you Habu outbursts. Be nice wouldn’t it, but I don’t think so.

The only third way I know know of is the balancing act mentioned by Wretchard earlier – maintaining viability until the day of reckoning at which point the only move left is to fight.

But I take comfort in Dave’s (surprisingly?) optimistic statement that we’re going to get out of this period in history. I’m thinking that maybe the insiders are getting control of these situations in ways that aren’t being broadcast to the larger audience.

My headscratcher since 2001 was how an aggressor so primitive encroached this far, physically and mentally, into the western consciousness. I know, I know, they’re “smarter than we think” (or they look I might add) but that no longer cuts it for me. The sad reality is that we were dumber – and less prepared – than anybody thought – military, intelligence, and government. I am thinking that those deficiencies have been mitigated, as per Wretchard’s previous posts about faster feedback loops informing more expeditious western response reactions. That part I think is true. What changes with less alacrity is the ideological overlays. And that is concerning.

And now we’re slouching into the future with a CINC that … isn’t Bush … or Cheney.

There is no American military Commander today that is fit to polish Georgie’s boots.

I see Afghanistan as a trap. Logistics is the king of War. Stalin called artillery the god of battle, but without powder and shot, it’s a weak and puny god.
Standard for a serious insurrection, where every mans hand is turned against the invader is 1 troop per 20 citizens. If the resistance is hard core, but without outside support and some internal help for the invaders, 1 in 40 is considered minimal. If there is just a small minority fighting guerrilla then 1 to 90 is an acceptable ratio.
Figure 20 million ‘gani’s and a medium level of resistance. 20 million divided by 40 is 500,000. Divided by 20 is 1 million. Divided by 90 is about 225,000 or so. None of the established, time honored ratios gives the figure 40,000. So the Army is bullsh1ting POTUS.
Not an unusual thing. JFK didn’t support the Bay of pigs because the Commandant of the Marine Corps BS’d him out of it, thereby putting the screws to the CIA, which was his objective. He also F%^&#D over the Nation he was sworn to protect, but that is a different issue.
The reason the USA has military forces in Afghanistan is to keep the Taliban from providing AQ with a place to plan ops and train warriors to carry out those ops. That mission DOES NOT require nation building.
Not sure nation building is possible or even desirable in the ‘stan. The people don’t want it. So you have a bunch of liberals trying to force democracy on people at gunpoint. Isn’t that sublime? NOT.
So forget the nation building that the ‘gani’s don’t want. Contract with certain warlords for basing rights, build forts and hunt bugs (terrs). Treat the ‘stan as a post AIT course with live fire and targets that move around and shoot back. Then sublet to our allies that want to get their ‘elite’ units blooded. In a few generations the ‘gani’s that get tired of the game can come in and get civilized. Sort of like what we did with the American Indians.

1. No Miranda warning
2. No counsel
3. Trial delayed for years
4. Coercive interrogation
5. Way too much hearsay evidence
6. Incredible pretrial publicity

HMMMMM?

TOKYO — Trying to reassure allies and rivals, President Barack Obama billed himself Saturday as “America’s first Pacific president,” promising the nations of Asia “a new era of engagement with the world based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”
—
Obama spoke extensively of his own roots in the region – his birth in Hawaii, living in Indonesia as a boy, his mother spending nearly a decade working in the villages of Southeast Asia. “The Pacific rim has helped shape my view of the world,” Obama said, speaking in front of 14 alternating U.S. and Japanese flags.

America’s “First Pacific President?”

Related:
And speaking of the Pacific Theater of World War II, as John Hinderaker of Power Line tweets, “Was Truman right to end WWII?
Obama can’t say.”

But its probably safer to say that red chinese penetration of the USA today is more than GRU/KGB penetration of the USA in the early 40′s and less than KGB penetration of western Europe from the 30′s – 70′s.

Hard to tell really. Seems every year some chinese is arrested in the USA for sending some top secret sensitive whatchamacallit to red china.