TOO MANY EASY WINS MAKE YOU CARELESS AND DEAD
Their names sing out from a writhing past that will never be silent: Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Beauregard, Johnston, Grant and more than a few others. What they experienced in an "easy and quick" war helped cause a catastrophic conflict less than ten years later.

I'm not some jerk off liberal who is afraid of every future. I welcome the situation in which we now find ourselves and see it as a challenge. My concerns revolve around something else. I look back one hundred and sixty years to the Mexican War. The similarities to the Iraq war are only spiritual. Times change. But the few similarities to the Mexican War and the conclusions drawn by the participants are large and potentially dangerous for our future a decade hence if we are not aware. Our daring strategy and spectacular executions won big. We are right in being proud of the accomplishment. But there are echoes.

Dangerous ones. Let's quiet down and listen to them. Once Mexico was invaded in 1847 we conquered Mexico in barely more than a year. A quick and easy war.

Mexico did not have an inferior army
The Mexican War was won using daring tactics created and executed by General Winfield Scott. An amphibious invasion at Vera Cruz and subsequent march to Mexico City that resulted in an "easy" victory over superior numbers with little loss of American life. Most people look at the war from the Texas border point of view and think the tales of the Alamo with names like Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, William Travis and the like were it. The real war was fought deep inside Mexico and the junior officers in that war, an encyclopedia of later major players in a terrible conflict, would include the likes of Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Beauregard, Grant and more than just a few others. Many of these junior officers and some enlisted ranks took dangerous "lessons" away from the Mexican war; the worst being that war could be quick and easy if you were daring enough. It was also "different" than history ponderously instructed.

This opinion that war was easy and quick helped lead us into the Civil War with it's huge loss of life. That War taught us once and for all that war was anything but "easy". After the "quick and easy" Mexican War far too many Americans in Congress, in the Military, and in the general population thought wars were affairs that ended quickly; that quick hits with daring cavalry tactics coupled with good old American "Know How" could pave the way for easy infantry conquests. Ten years after the Mexican War, nobody thought much about going to war against the South or North. War was quick and not too painful. Let's get it on.

Two similar wars. Two similar endings
There is great similarity between the Mexican War and the Iraq War. In Iraq our amazingly quick armored slashes through an Iraqi defense structured by Russians that were light years out of date created a quick victory. The tactics of Winfield Scott in Mexico used quick cavalry hits into a Mexican army trained in French warfare that were a half century out of date. The Mexicans had greater numbers but inferior technology. They were led by an ego driven second rater and his troops lost confidence in him. The peasants felt they were not fighting "for Mexico". Many saw the Americans as liberators. Therefore once they lost, they lost. They went back home without a continuing fight on our supply lines. The Mexican war was a "cakewalk" because of American technology and tactics; as well as terrible Mexican leadership by a self-centered egotist named Santa Ana. Santa Ana was man who refused to believe news of defeats, eventually blamed his own troops for losing, and suspected that traitors in his officer corps allowed the Americans to win battles. He was out of touch with reality.

We did not beat an inferior army in Iraq. We beat the Russians.
This similarly historic win in Iraq can give us a "war is a cakewalk" mentality that could lead us into a Civil War type of disaster if enough of us believe it. The Russian tactics in Iraq were "old school". As we look at the thousands of tons of ammunition being uncovered by our troops it is easy to see how someone schooled in the Russian defense theories based on past experiences with sieges in Stalingrad and St. Petersburg thought he could stalemate any attack for years. The Russians (and let us not suppose for a moment that we weren't fighting the Russians) thought they were dealing with Napoleon or Hitler. They theorized that spreading enemy troops in an unbearably hot and hostile climate with their supply lines stretched out over hundreds of miles of desert would end in the usual way. Those MIG fighter bombers that were hidden from Hans Blix would sneak into the fray and decimate the supply lines before carrier based American aircraft could stop them. That's the way it was at Stalingrad (they had land based planes 50 miles behind the lines). That's the way it wasn't at Baghdad. The Russians now know that speed kills. And high speed combined with superior technology kills absolutely. Let no one suppose that we beat an inferior army in Iraq. They had the guns and they had the numbers. We beat an inferior battle plan and inferior leadership.

Easy wins can be dangerous
The danger for us in these two "quick" wars is that many of our junior officers and people in political life will think that this is what "wars of the future" will be like. That every leader will be a Saddam or a Santa Ana. Will our current Robert E. Lees and Stonewall Jacksons take lessons from this war that will lose the next one? Lessons that may start the next one? The American public may come to believe that wars are contests where we lose less than a hundred and the enemy loses tens of thousands; wars where we lose a few tanks and helicopters and they lose hundreds of tanks and thousands of tons of ammo but nothing else of value; wars are now "humane" as well as quick. We may develop a "don't push us around or else" attitude toward everyone.

Our elites will be pacified if we conduct "humane"wars
The furor raised by our draft dodging elites over the poor reporters at the hotel, the "treasures" at the museum, and the animals in the zoo are satire in real time. Their idiotic values speak to the "humane" angle of new warfare: soldiers don't count with our elites, only the trinkets and icons of the moment. They will go along with war as long as animals, reporters, and art remain in pristine condition. They will run ads in the New York Times, march around in the streets, stage "puke ins", and lecture our government from stages in foreign countries, but they won't do anything serious.

Combine this thinking with "easy and quick" and you see a potentially dangerous future. If this thinking takes hold, the next war could be like the Civil War, only atomic, totally destructive, and not humane at all. It will be "old school". While we savor our victory we should remember it came about because of vastly superior technology not because of some God given power that nobody else can ever possess. When China has the technology, when Russia gets the technology, there won't be any "cakewalks" to victory. We cannot rely on stupid leadership every time out.

Let's be realistic. Remember, we cannot afford to lose a war with terrorists.

Addendum to above essay
My comments in the above essay regarding the Russian strategy and tactics in the Iraq war deserve a deeper look.

I mentioned that "The Russians (and let us not suppose for a moment that we weren't fighting the Russians) thought they were dealing with Napoleon or Hitler. They theorized that spreading enemy troops in an unbearably hot and hostile climate with their supply lines stretched out over hundreds of miles of desert would end in the usual way. Those MIG fighter bombers that were hidden from Hans Blix would sneak into the fray and decimate the supply lines before carrier based American aircraft could stop them."

That was the plan. The Russians were meeting with France and Germany who were helping Saddam as well. I submit that all the delay at the U.N. was designed to make sure that our forces would only enter the war at the worst time of year, the deadly heat of summer, to assure success of the Russian defense plan. This heat would fit into the Russian plan of long supply lines and troops dying of thirst in the desert perfectly. France and Germany conspired with Russia to create a defeat for us.

Of course what they didn't know was that the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles is as hot as any desert in the world. The Cochella Valley and San Juaquin Valleys are even worse. We had troops training in Death Valley, the Mojave Desert, and Arizona; places that are hotter than Iraq; places where Patton trained his third Army before going to war in the Sahara in WWII. We were ready for that, but the "Axis of Weasels" plan was to make sure we entered at the worst possible time. It is time we realized that France, Russia, and Germany are our enemies now. They really want to get us.

Europe has not changed. They are still an imperial bunch of criminals intent on sacking the rest of the world for their benefit. Their main thrust right now is to keep Africa as poor as possible, to tie them into agricultural agreements that assure continued starvation in parts and dependency upon the EU for any money they earn. They have forced African agricultural countries to sign pledges that they will not grow Genetically Engineered crops of any kind; if they do the EU will refuse to buy anything from them. The excuse given is of a health risk, a risk that does not exist. This means that American seed that would assure the end of starvation in Africa in a single growing season are banned.

If Africa could feed itself France could not sell anything to them. France could not make money out of starving people. That is how low they are. Africa feeding itself would ruin France.

They will do this to every country they get their hooks into. This is what they have been for six hundred years and they haven't changed. They will line their pockets with the production of other countries til the end.