We Have Met the Enemy and it's Us

We just lost one of the best military commanders of our day, General Stanley McChrystal, the last commander in Afghanistan.  Those of us who love history and learn from it, know that no military, no matter how large or competent, can win without a brilliant military commander.  A good military commander is crucial to winning.  There are many examples:  General David Patreaus in Iraq.  As soon as General Patreaus was appointed to lead the Iraq war, he turned it around and we were successful.  General Norman Schwarzkopf the brilliant commander of the 1991 Gulf War.  It was in no small measure the ability of General Schwarzkopf that the US and coalition forces had such blitzkrieg success.

In World War II, it was the brilliance of Generals Eisenhower, Patton (check out this youTube video on Patton) and the British General Bernard Montgomery that the US and its allies won the war decisively.  On the German side, it was the brilliance of Generals such as General Erwin Rommel that they had the success that they had.  If you study the war in North Africa, you can see the military brilliance of this, one of the greatest military mind of all time.  Another brilliant German commander was General Friedrich Paulus, the commander of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the Eastern Front.  Although the Germans lost this battle, it was not because of the leadership of General Paulus, but the insanity of Adolf Hitler who, basically condemned those who perished there to an avoidable death.  Hitler refused all advice by the commanders on the ground that they could not succeed given the weather, lack of equipment, food, proper winter clothing, and the obstacles that they faced.  Hitler refused to have his forces withdraw and condemned them to death.  The battle of Leningrad is, perhaps the saddest story in military history. Man's inhumanity to man screams out at you when you watch a documentary of this battle.  About two million soldiers and civilians died in 900 days of the siege.  Many starved to death or died of the freezing weather. Among the dead were soldiers from Russia, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania and other European countries.

In Roman days, the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC stands out.  A better equipped,  trained and numerically superior Roman Army was defeated by a lesser army commanded by one of the most brilliant military commanders of all time - Hannibal, the famous Carthaginian General and son of another famous Carthaginian General, Hasdrubal.  The Romans lost most of their 50,000 troops who engaged Hannibal at this site, the worst military defeat the Romans had ever had.  Again,  Hannibal won by his military brilliance over his Roman counterpart, the Roman Consul Varro.  When the battle was over, there were an estimated 60,000 dead bodies on the battlefield.  In comparison, the United States lost 59,000 dead in 10 years of the Vietnam war.  The battle of Cannae was so significant for military strategy that the US Military studies it to this day in the War College.

Back to General McChrystal.  As you are aware, the General was forced to retire after an unflattering article by the leftist magazine, Rolling Stone, called "The Runaway General."  Rolling Stone and their supporters are anti-war and  set out to sabotage the US military.  They caused our best general to leave the field.  As the saying goes:  with friends such as these who needs enemies.  The left is an enemy of the United States.  They only care for their ideology, not for the welfare of the United States - they are the enemy as much as the Taliban.