"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:31:48 -0400, DSK said:

Dave wrote:
So I take it you're a fan of sticking with conventional weapons of the
past,
and WWII strategies to meet current and future threats.

Yeah right, Dave. Attack that straw man. What did I say, or
do you even know?

Hardly a straw man. The very point you were disputing.

In my initial message I summarized the four generals who wrote the piece.
Here's the full quote:

"Much of the acrimony expressed by Secretary Rumsfeld's military critics
appears to stem from his efforts to 'transform' the military by moving to
a
joint expeditionary force that is lighter and more mobile in the future to
meet the nation's current and future threats. Many senior officers and
bureaucrats did not support his transformation goals -- preferring
conventional weapons of the past like the Crusader artillery piece and
World
War II war-fighting strategies which proved practically useless against
lawless and uncivilized enemies engaged in asymmetrical warfare."

Iraq:

1. Largest tank battle since WWII.

2. Largest movement of military equipment ever.

Lighter, more mobile? Got some news for you. That transformation occured
way before Rumsfeld.

3. The Crusader was a transformational weapon designed to keep up with the
Abrams and be air transportable. Read he
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...d/crusader.htm

It's a far cry from any WWII weapons sytem and is not a weapon of the past.

4. What WWII war-fighting strategies proved useless? Maybe if they looked
more closely at WWII things would be different today. It took over two
months after the flag was raised on Iwo Jima to secure the island. Lots and
lots of asymetric warfare there. What about the impending invasion of Japan?
One can argue that the current situation in Iraq is from a failure to apply
lessons learned in WWII. Things went better in WWII because civilian
populations were bombed, no regard was given to collateral damage. The Iraq
War will take longer than WWII.