Victor Davis Hanson drops some serious M.O.A.B. s*** on the "commentators" and "experts" who have hysterically transformed overwhelming US military progess into, well, something else. An excerpt:
The commentators need to listen to history. By any fair standard of even the most dazzling charges in military history � the German blast through the Ardennes in spring 1940, or Patton�s romp in July � the present race to Baghdad is unprecedented in its speed and daring, and in the lightness of its causalities. We can nit-pick about the need for another armored division, pockets of irregulars, a need to mop up here and there, plenty of hard fighting ahead, this and that. But the fact remains that, so far, the campaign has been historically unprecedented in getting so many tens of thousands of soldiers so quickly to Baghdad without losses � and its logistics will be studied for decades.
Indeed, the only wrinkle is that our present military faces cultural obstacles never envisioned by an Epaminondas, Caesar, Marlborough, Sherman � or any of the other great marchers. A globally televised and therapeutic culture puts an onus on American soldiers that could never have been envisioned by any of the early captains. We treat prisoners justly; our enemy executes them. We protect Iraqi bridges, oil, and dams � from Iraqi saboteurs. We must treat Iraqi civilians better than do their own men, who are trying to kill them. Our generals and leaders take questions; theirs give taped propaganda speeches. Shock and awe � designed not to kill but to stun, and therefore to save civilians � are slurred as Hamburg and Dresden. The force needed to crush Saddam�s killers is deemed too much for the fragile surrounding human landscape. Marines who raise the Stars and Stripes are reprimanded for being too chauvinistic. And on, and on, and on.
Read it all at National Review Online.
