<snip from neal nuze>
MEDIA MINDLESSNESS

Watching the media for the past few days I'm reminded of a cross-country
trip with a bunch of restless kids in the back seat.  Every 15 minutes you
hear "are we there yet?"  No, we're not there yet, but we're closer than we
were the last time you asked.

Strategic Forecasting LLC had a rather interesting comparison to the D-Day
invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1945.  They were taking Seymour Hirsh of The
New Yorker Magazine to task.  Hirsh writes that the whole Iraq invasion plan
was wrong, there aren't enough troops, nothing is working the way the
Pentagon planned, and it's all Don Rumsfeld's fault.  The analysts at
Strategic Forecasting remind us that the Normandy invasion didn't work all
that well either.  After the allies planned the invasion for one sold year
"Murphy's Law took over. Montgomery couldn't take Caen when he was supposed
to; the landing craft came in all wrong; naval artillery couldn't knock out
shore batteries; men drowned in 10 feet of water. No one was ready for the
hedgerows beyond the beaches."

Strategic Forecasting says that after just 30 days Normandy would have been
judged to be a complete failure and modern era pundits would be calling for
the heads of Eisenhower and Roosevelt.  "But the fact was that Normandy
worked. It did not work out as planned, but real battles never do. Battles
are won not by plans but by the innovation and courage of the warriors, and
by the basic mathematical logic of war."



<end snip>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne R. Boyer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Quotes of the Day


> In a message dated 3/31/03 11:03:17 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> A quotation from General Myers:
>
> > ..This is going to be a tough war, a tough slog yet, and no responsible
> > official I know has ever said anything different once this war has
> > started."
> >
>
> Dear General Myers: The point is that a very large number of high level
> officials were saying things like "cakewalk" BEFORE the war started.  The
> whole idea of military planning involves knowing what is likely to happen
> BEFORE you get up to your neck in it.
>
> I would personally like to nominate VP Cheney for the Quote of the YEAR
award
> for
>
> "The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that
they
> want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the
> United States when we come to do that."
>
> Wayne
>
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