Obama, Afghanistan, and the Election of 2012

The president says that "now is the time for us to transition," i.e., to end the war in Afghanistan.  The Army Times puts the headline thus: "Obama: Time has come to wind down Afghan war."

The Army Times is typical of the sycophantic, leftist press.  Not a word in the article about the conditions on the ground in the theater of operations, or of the effect a swift pull-out may have upon national security.  Not a syllable in the article that the president's taking the line that "it's time to end the war" might be a way to enhance his chances at reelection.  Lots of filler about Syria and high gas prices.  And FIVE PARAGRAPHS on the Sandra Fluke story and the president's situation in terms of women voters.

There you have it.  Two national disgraces in a single story:  The Army Times and the president of the United States.

On This Present Campaign

Mrs. Bush was first lady from 1989-1993

So, Barbara Bush, former first lady, thinks the ongoing battle for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States is "the worst campaign [she's] ever seen in [her] life."

H'mmmm ...

We are blessed in 2012 to only have to
put up with one of them.

I've always admired Mrs. Bush.  And I'm tempted to agree with her on this.

But in this instance, I would like to suggest to my readers that her observation on the campaign doesn't quite go far enough.  I mean, look, we should be thankful that we aren't also being subjected to a Democrat Party fight, too!

The War Poets (WW1)

The war poets are those whose works were strongly influenced by World War I, known in Britain as the Great War.  In turn, their writings influenced how Britons thought and felt about war and even how the country planned for future war.  The war poets include Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Ivor Gurney, Edward Thomas, Isaac Rosenberg, May Wedderburn Cannan, Robert Graves, David Jones, and others.  Thomas Hardy and A. E. Housman were contemporaries.  However, they are not classified among the war poets, though each devoted one or more poems to war. Hardy, for example, wrote Channel Firing and In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations.’(Greenblatt, 1877 and 1884)  One of Housman’s contributions was Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries. (Greenblatt, 1953)  The writings, even the lives, of the war poets were dominated by the unspeakable horrors of war.

Peter Hart, a British military historian, who compiled a history of the signature battle of that war, the battle of the Somme, wrote somewhat dismissively of the war poets when he penned—

The sheer horror of the Somme [a battle that lasted from July 1 to mid-November, 1916] has for a long time been part of British twentieth century mythology.  The overall context of the Great War has long been forgotten and the teaching of the subject reduced to an adjunct of English literature that can be brutally summarized in just five words: ‘the pity of it all.’  Politicians are portrayed as Machiavellian, but simultaneously weak, generals are stupid, soldiers are brave helpless victims and war poets—war poets are the later-day saints made flesh. (Hart, 528)

If Hart’s observation is accurate, one would expect to find correlation to it in the war poets’ poems themselves.  And, indeed, one does.  Wilfred Owen, for example, takes aim at those, principally politicians, who mouthed platitudes about it being such a “wonderful and great honor to fight and die for your country” in his memorable poem Dulce et Decorum Est. (Owen)

The Tar Heels are the ACC Regular Season Champions

ACC Men's Basketball Standings

(As Of March 3)
School	Conf.	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
North Carolina	14-2	.875	27-4	.871
Duke	13-3	.812	26-5	.839
Florida State	11-4	.733	20-9	.690
Miami	9-7	.562	18-11	.621
Virginia	8-7	.533	21-8	.724
NC State	8-7	.533	19-11	.633
Clemson	8-7	.533	16-13	.552
Maryland	6-9	.400	16-13	.552
Virginia Tech	4-11	.267	15-15	.500
Wake Forest	4-12	.250	13-17	.433
Georgia Tech	4-12	.250	11-19	.367
Boston College	4-12	.250	9-21	.300

Go here for a recap of Carolina's game last night against Duke, which the Tar Heels won convincingly, 88-70.

The United States Military Academy: Its Role in the Nation’s Early Years

From the nation’s founding until the Civil War, nearly a century later, no other American institution played a more significant role in shaping the future of the United States Army.  The United States Military Academy served as the vanguard of the slow and tedious transition of military officership from a craft practiced by a privileged few to a profession shared by a representative cross-sample of Americans.  From its beginning, the Academy had always been a landmark and a guiding light to nation’s armed forces.

West Point campus in modern times

The 1802 Military Peace Establishment Act established the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.[1]  Some of its history, however, preceding its founding.  Located on the west bank of the Hudson River 50 miles north of New York City, the academy’s original purpose was to serve as a Revolutionary War fortress,[2] part of General Washington’s Hudson Highlands defense system.[3]  According to military historian, Rick Atkinson, “during the Revolution, George Washington pronounced the military garrison at West Point ‘the most important post in America.’”^[4]  In his book, The Long Gray Line, Atkinson also described how Washington entrusted the defense of West Point to one Benedict Arnold whose name later became synonymous with treason.  Arnold sold the plans for West Point’s defenses to a British spy, but the whole plot was foiled before any threat to the garrison actually materialized. 

Sylvanus Thayer

After the War of 1812, the nation became a little more comfortable with the idea of maintaining a standing army.  Senior leadership—civilian and military—saw the need to establish a school of professional military officers.  Sylvanus Thayer (Class of 1808[5]) became superintendent in 1817 and, with the backing of President Calhoun, overhauled the school’s academic and disciplinary systems.  His reforms included organizing the corps of cadets into a battalion, establishing an academic board to oversee curricular matters, dividing classes into sections according to merit, and holding semiannual examinations.[6]  Thayer’s superintendency lasted until 1833.[7]

Dennis Hart Mahan

Dennis Hart Mahan (Class of 1834[8]) was among a group of professors recruited by Thayer.  Mahan served as Professor of Civil and Military Engineering and the Art of War from his graduation to his death in 1871, with a six-year interlude during which he studied military engineering and fortifications in France.[9]  Thayer and Mahan followed the French example as they transformed the curriculum at West Point.  Like the French schools they had studied, Thayer and Mahan stressed military engineering, fortifications, and tactics.[10]  Mahan wrote his own textbooks and pioneered the American study of war that based on Napoleon.[11] 

The U.S. Army between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I

World War I recruiting poster

The changes that occurred within the U.S. Army between the turn of the century and the eve of the first world war presaged America’s emergence as a world power. America during these times was increasingly dependent upon its military for the conduct of military-type tasks beyond the continental United States. A significant driver of this increased dependency was increased international (mostly economic) competition. It was felt, particularly by the Roosevelt Administration that this increase in competition between the nations of Europe actually increased the likelihood of war. Hence, the corresponding need for greater U.S. military preparedness.

The Army advanced in terms of professionalism and preparedness in spite of the nation’s long tradition of hostility to these things. Despite its success in the Spanish-American war, it also made great strides in terms of capabilities.

Guiding all its other changes, the Army reorganized as an institution. A war college was established in 1900 which Secretary of War Elihu Root used to form the nucleus of a general staff—the brain of the Army. This led to the passage of the General Staff Act in 1903 and the creation of the position of chief of staff. Under the law, 45 staff officers supported the chief of staff. Some served in Washington “while others served in the headquarters of the Army’s geographic departments, which supervised field forces.” In this one may see, in embryonic form, the rise of today’s geographic combatant commands.

Favorite TV Shows of the Past: McCloud