Bruner Blog

Don’t know what the problem was, but Blogger.com was not updating posts for the last 24 hours or so, to my and others’ frustration. Let’s see if their Google investment buys them any better customer sevice and they at least let us know what was up this time. I’m not holding my breath, but I have to say it was quite frustrating, now that I’m an obsessed warblogger these days.

Buddy Ken Pasternak writes:

Rick,

Hi there. I read today’s postings, and have this to say to everyone out there who is following the endless media coverage:

Don’t succumb to the media’s incessant desire to jump to conclusions with every event and detail that is reported.

Let’s please remember that the people running this campaign have spent their lives studying war, strategy, tactics, intelligence, and history. There is still no question that we will be victorious in this war, but the rules of engagement we have committed ourselves to means it will take longer than one week.

What the people running this campaign have not spent enough time studying is the media, and the way its audience (us) will react to whatever detail is reported. I believe the biggest problem we have right now is that the people in charge are mismanaging the media, that the embedded journalists are communicating too much, and that there is no way anyone here in the States can put all these disjointed details together to form a big picture conclusion, the way the military leaders in charge can.

While it is difficult, all we can do is trust that the people our country has trained to protect us will do just that, and come home as soon as they can.

Thanks. It’s good to hear it. I wrote Ken and told him it was a sobering comment. He said the metaphor was apt, as we’re all drunk on too much information.

This is a bad idea. Certainly sends a message that we’re occupiers. Call it something local, dumb asses.

Command Post points out a really scary, worst-case scenarios exercise on Strategy Page, dated February 10 and titled Worst Implications If Iraq is Invaded, by Barnett Lerner. Number 3 of 10 is:

Saddam convinces thousands of hard core supporters to fight to the death.

So eminently possible that it ought be taken as a given for planning purposes. If we are not prepared to deal with the aftermath of this state of affairs, someone has been criminally irresponsible.

The whole list is frightening (no duh), and it doesn’t even include Syria hinting of war with us.

No word for several days from our independent journalist friend somewhere in Iraq.

Freaky sand storms of biblical magnitude. Makes one think of the defeat of Kubli Kahn’s attempted invasion of Japan, when his massive army confronted “kamikaze”: the Divine Wind.

Newsday tells the story:

The story begins in 1274, when Kublai Khan conscripted the newly conquered Korean vassal state of Koryo into abetting his first ill-fated military invasion of Japan. The fleet, purported to consist of 900 warships, encountered initial success before abruptly retreating, perhaps wary of Japanese reinforcements or the region’s notoriously stormy seas.

Whatever the cause, some Japanese accounts invoke strong winds that shifted course on Oct. 20 and forced the Mongols into full retreat. So began the first stirrings of the mythic “divine wind” sent by the gods to protect Japan, an otherworldly force the Japanese would eventually call the “kamikaze.”

The invaders returned in 1281, this time with a fleet that some Chinese sources have numbered as high as 4,400 vessels, the majority procured from the conquered Sung Dynasty of southern China. Historians say strengthened Japanese defenses and a failed military rendezvous forced the bulk of the fleet to set anchor off the southwestern Japanese coast, where the invaders lingered for six weeks. It was there, near the tiny island of Takashima, that disaster struck on July 30 when a typhoon devastated the bulk of the fleet. The boats had been chained together to form a flotilla, pooling the fleet’s military resources but effectively bottling up any escape route to deeper water.

Shock and awe? I’m am shocked and awed and how incredibly badly the Pentagon seems to have planned this thing so far. When I backed their horse with great reluctance, I pretty much assumed the U.S. military had thought this thing through and could deliver without any concern on their promise to easily overwhelm Saddam’s forces. And now they’re surprised by how the Iraqis are fighting? Thanks, once again, CIA. Didn’t we learn any lessons from Vietnam? From watching Saddam’s willingness to gas his own people? From the seige of Stalingrad? (Hint: Saddam is a big fan of Stalan)

The reason people are reluctant to show their faith in their “liberation”? They understand apparently much better than we do the depth of Saddam’s evil genius.

It’s times like this I’m really glad for The Onion.