SLOW DOWN, YOU'RE NOT WINNING FAST ENOUGH

When you boil down the media's criticism of the war in Iraq, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. From non-military types--indeed, from people who've never paid a second thought about the military other than its role in propping up American colonialism and cultural imperialism--we're now hearing the strains of Vietnam-era criticism. "Quagmire." "Poorly-conceived strategy." Truth is, in part this war is this media generation's Vietnam. It's a big affair, its origins (to them) murky, and has raised the ire of their continental favorite France. If the French are against it, it must be bad. As much as they'll deny it, I believe many in the media are really hoping that our troops get bogged down in the desert, if only so they have this big story to keep reporting about. But they also hate George W. Bush (remember, about 90% of the media surveyed very liberal a few years back) and don't particularly want to see his approval numbers floating ever higher. They don't necessarily want to see any US troops die, but they won't mind the war going just badly enough to discredit the hawks and do damage to Mr. Bush's political fortunes.

But back to the specific criticism. On any given day, you're likely to read or hear a pundit say that our initial "shock and awe" sweep into the desert was too swift, too soon. Our supply lines can't keep up. We're getting harassed in the rear by those cursed fedayeen, and we're getting confused between our head end and our hind end on the battlefield. In short, we moved in too fast.

Then, these same media types will turn and say, basically, what's taking so long? You military warmonger types told us this would be easy, and would be over quickly, but we're still there, Iraq's troops are still fighting back, and it's starting to look like a quagmire. Of course, the military never promised the proverbial cakewalk. That idea came from a bunch of retired generals who are still thinking in the military way of 15 or 20 years ago, but since they're former generals and they're criticizing the military, the media laps them up like thirsty pups.

So on the one hand, we invaded too fast. On the other hand, it's taking too long to win. Slow down, you're not winning fast enough. They're like kids on the long drive to Grandma's house, only worse--slow down Dadday, we're going to get a speeding ticket, are we there yet? Why aren't we there yet? How does one reason with people who can sit there under fresnel lights in front of big teevee cameras and utter both criticisms with a straight, even serious, face? With their brows furrowed just to make themselves look concerned. How does one confront such cognitive dissonance emanating from the most august organs of the fifth estate?

With facts. To date, our aircraft have flown several thousand combat missions over Iraq. To date, not a single Iraqi aircraft has risen to challenge ours. We own the skies of a country on the other side of the world, and can come and go as we please. My partner in crime, Chris Regan, and I were talking about this fact a while ago. I postulated to him that we'll know when we really own Iraq's skies when the AC-130 starts making appearances. The AC-130 Spectre gunship is a nasty brute if you happen to be on its bad side. It's basically a modified four-prop cargo craft, but instead of carrying butter this thing carries an array of guns. Legend says that you could put a silver dollar in anywhere on a football field, then train an AC-130's guns on that field, and you're guaranteed that you'll find that coin with a big hole bitten out of it when you're done. The Spectre delivers a wall of lead on enemy infantry and light armor positions from very close range, and flies slow enough that it can be very thorough. For those reasons--low flight and slow movement--the Spectre is seldom used when there's a chance that the enemy will pop off anti-aircraft fire that can down it. We usually wait to spring the Spectre on an enemy when he has proven stubborn but otherwise unable to resist air power.

Well, the Spectre is now in limited use in Iraq. We own the airspace. Lock, stock and barrel. And when you dominate the air the way we do now, the enemy hasn't a chance outside some catastrophic event or the use of some truly cataclysmic weapon. Or the weakening of war support here at home. But no one, and I mean no one, mentions our air dominance on the cable yack fests. Why do you suppose retired generals fail to mention this?

Here's a guess: They don't know what they're talking about. This may shock a lot of people, but along with many fine generals, we have incompetent generals too. And we have retired generals who have been out of the service long enough, and away from the gadgetry long enough, to be as clueless as a caveman when it comes to figuring out what today's military is capable of. We have generals who are more creatures of politics than of the art of war. And we have generals of one service who know little about, but are publicly commenting on, the doctrines of another service. Ground-pounder army types know how to use terrain, artillery barrages, and an array of firefight tactics to eliminate enemy positions, and they also know quite a bit about using close-air support to shatter enemy convoys and entrenchments. But they often know little about strategic bombing, and the longer they have been away from active duty, the less they'll know about how the military uses its air power today. Some Air Force and Navy flags dismiss the terrestrial branch as a holdover from Napoleon, never mind how impossible it is to hold terrain without a solid mechanized division on the ground. Such retirees should just shut up and stay out for another 9 holes, but the cable nets are hiring every former general in sight, whether they spring from combat or KP duty, because there are 24 hours in a day and they must talk about the war and how it's going and why it's not over yet every second they're on. It's enough to drive sensible people to blogs, where at least you'll hear from a former enlisted grunt who saw a serious cross-section of every branch of the military and who isn't being paid by some cable suit to say dumb things about the war. If I say dumb things about the war, at least I'm saying them for free. Which is probably why I never made general.