Re: WHy reading history is important, especially for Officers and Enlisted. (and those who are or were neither)

[Dan McGuire]

On 11 May 2013, pyotr filipivich <ph...@mindspring.com> posted some
news:vqkto8t9ntbmurnb5...@4ax.com:

> This is an email sent by USM General James "Mad Dog" Mattis (Of "I
> come in peace, I did not bring artillery fame, iirc), on the subject
> of "professional" reading for those who fight wars.
> It is also of interest for those who do not fight wars, but face
> the reality which is modern life. There are two cliches in the
> history department: "After all, these are modern times" and "The old
> days were better." And the recognition that History rarely repeats
> herself - usually she lets fly with a frying pan and yells "Why
> weren't you paying attention the first time!?"
>
> General Mattis:
>
>
> Message 1: from General James Mattis, on the matter of professional
> reading, 20 November 2003
>
> �.The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by
> experience (or by your men's experience), i.e. the hard way. By
> reading, you learn through others' experiences, generally a better way
> to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences
> of incompetence are so final for young men.
>
> Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any
> situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed
> (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn't give me all the
> answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
>
> With TF 58, I had w/ me Slim's book, books about the Russian and
> British experiences in AFG, and a couple others. Going into Iraq, "The
> Siege" (about the Brits' defeat at Al Kut in WW I) was req'd reading
> for field grade officers. I also had Slim's book; reviewed T.E.
> Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"; a good book about the life of
> Gertrude Bell (the Brit archaeologist who virtually founded the modern
> Iraq state in the aftermath of WW I and the fall of the Ottoman
> empire); and "From Beirut to Jerusalem". I also went deeply into
> Liddell Hart's book on Sherman, and Fuller's book on Alexander the
> Great got a lot of my attention (although I never imagined that my HQ
> would end up only 500 meters from where he lay in state in Babylon).
>
> Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face
> NOTHING new under the sun. For all the "4th Generation of War"
> intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has
> fundamentally changed, the tactics are wholly new, etc, I must
> respectfully say� "Not really": Alex the Great would not be in the
> least bit perplexed by the enemy that we face right now in Iraq, and
> our leaders going into this fight do their troops a disservice by not
> studying (studying, vice just reading) the men who have gone before
> us.
>
> We have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should
> take advantage of their experience. "Winging it" and filling body bags
> as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the
> cost of incompetence in our profession. As commanders and staff
> officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach
> anything if we don't know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?
> What happens when you're on a dynamic battlefield and things are
> changing faster than higher HQ can stay abreast? Do you not adapt
> because you cannot conceptualize faster than the enemy's adaptation?
> (Darwin has a pretty good theory about the outcome for those who
> cannot adapt to changing circumstance � in the information age things
> can change rather abruptly and at warp speed, especially the moral
> high ground which our regimented thinkers cede far too quickly in our
> recent fights.) And how can you be a sentinel and not have your unit
> caught flat-footed if you don't know what the warning signs are � that
> your unit's preps are not sufficient for the specifics of a tasking
> that you have not anticipated?
>
> Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the
> warfighters
> to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the
> consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an
> independent enemy's will are not allowed that luxury.
>
> This is not new to the USMC approach to warfighting � Going into
> Kuwait 12 years ago, I read (and reread) Rommel's Papers (remember
> "Kampstaffel"?), Montgomery's book ("Eyes Officers"�), "Grant Takes
> Command" (need for commanders to get along, "commanders'
> relationships" being more important than "command relationships"), and
> some others. As a result, the enemy has paid when I had the
> opportunity to go against them, and I believe that many of my young
> guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have
> the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our
> guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
>
> Hope this answers your question�. I will cc my ADC in the event
> he
> can add to this. He is the only officer I know who has read more than
> I.
>
> Semper Fi, Mattis
>
><http://strifeblog.org/2013/05/07/with-rifle-and-bibliography-general-ma
>ttis-on-professional-reading/>
> --
> pyotr filipivich
> Most of the intelligentsia haven't studied history, so much
> as they've absorbed the Correct Position on "History".
>

Libtards only read that which supports their delusions. Opposing facts
are always, "incorrect and unfounded".

"Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate
society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises
them. He gives speeches of peace and love in the world while he promotes
wars as he did in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He plans his next war is with
Iran as he fires or demotes his generals who get in the way."

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-
obama_soviet_mistake-0/

"Study Finds 47% Of Detroit Residents Are Functionally Illiterate"

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/study-finds-47-of-detroit-residents-are-
functionally-illiterate/

http://cbsdetroit.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/basicskillsreport_final.pdf

[Bubba]

On Thu, 23 May 2013, Dan McGuire <dmcg...@mit.edu> wrote:

>On 11 May 2013, pyotr filipivich <ph...@mindspring.com> posted some
>news:vqkto8t9ntbmurnb5...@4ax.com:

snip

>
>"Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate
>society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises
>them. He gives speeches of peace and love in the world while he promotes
>wars as he did in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He plans his next war is with
>Iran as he fires or demotes his generals who get in the way."
>

Any serious military attack against Iran would be like a stranger
walking up to a giant Grizzly Bear in the forest and bonking him on
the head with a wooden stick.

But the zionists' military-industrial complex has always loved to
destroy, occupy and rebuild, all for fun and profit, so not even
provoking world war three is out of the question if they think that
doing so would be survivable and profitable.

Remember, it's always about money with those people.

--
Bub

[Gunner Asch]

So you are calling Obama the Muslim..a Zionist?????


--
"You guess the truth hurts?

Really?

"Hurt" aint the word.

For Liberals, the truth is like salt to a slug.
Sunlight to a vampire.
Raid� to a cockroach.
Sheriff Brody to a shark
Bush to a Liberal

The truth doesn't just hurt. It's painful, like a red hot poker shoved
up their ass. Like sliding down a hundred foot razor blade using their
dick as a brake.

They HATE the truth."

[Bubba]

On Thu, 23 May 2013, Gunner Asch <gunne...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 24 May 2013 03:44:35 +0200 (CEST), Bubba <Bub@ba> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 23 May 2013, Dan McGuire <dmcg...@mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>On 11 May 2013, pyotr filipivich <ph...@mindspring.com> posted some
>>>news:vqkto8t9ntbmurnb5...@4ax.com:
>>
>>snip
>>
>>>
>>>"Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate
>>>society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises
>>>them. He gives speeches of peace and love in the world while he promotes
>>>wars as he did in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He plans his next war is with
>>>Iran as he fires or demotes his generals who get in the way."
>>>
>>Any serious military attack against Iran would be like a stranger
>>walking up to a giant Grizzly Bear in the forest and bonking him on
>>the head with a wooden stick.
>>
>>But the zionists' military-industrial complex has always loved to
>>destroy, occupy and rebuild, all for fun and profit, so not even
>>provoking world war three is out of the question if they think that
>>doing so would be survivable and profitable.
>>
>>Remember, it's always about money with those people.
>
>
>So you are calling Obama the Muslim..a Zionist?????

I appreciate the question, and I hope you'll consider my answer to be
honest and unbiased.

The very term "zionist" refers to any human who believes themselves to
be among "God's chosen people," e.g., the Caesars of ancient Rome, and
of more medieval and modern Europe, the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, Jews,
Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Mormons, and yes, the list obviously goes
on and on almost nearly ad infinitum. Anyone can qualify as a "zionist"
if they merely claim to be or otherwise believe themselves to be. Jews
have no copyright, trademark, or service mark, on the label "zionist."

"Zionism" is a very big club, perhaps approaching seven-billion strong,
and yet no two members of it are ever quite in complete agreement with
the other. This inherent disagreement obfuscates the popular "group
think" attributed to zionism. The direct inverse of this view is that
"everyone else in the world is wrong except for me," a very common view
acquired by practically everyone ever born into this troubled world.

Human societies, "civilizations," indoctrinate their children from
their youth to believe in hope, fear, death, morality, conscience,
obedience, government, religion, money, sex, the illusion of rebellion,
and all other devices which control their populations. As long as the
controllers help their slave "subjects" to relieve the daily pressures
of their frustrations, to "vent off steam" as it were, the controllers
remain in control while their slaves remain enslaved and brainwashed.

Killing any one or several of the controllers only has the reverse
effect because for every controller that is killed off, one or several
rise up in fierce competition to take his place, much like the African
lions compete with oft-deadly ferocity. So anyone who seeks vengeance
in militant ways is only doomed to lose and lose big-time. Peaceful
protest movements are guaranteed to fail in possibly lesser ways, or
in bigger ways. The controllers are always in control and they cannot
possibly be universally destroyed short of the Sun going supernova.

Militant Islamists have proven their worth, as they supposedly have
possession of very serious weaponized contagions but have not deployed
them on zionist-occupied western targets. This decades-long failure
of Muslims with the military capability to inflict mass causalities on
the mutual zionist enemy leads me to conclude that they are every bit
as much a coward as the worst zionist "royalty" that ever lived. That
in and of itself proves that "Muslims" and "Zionists" are the same.

If the zionists want to kill every Muslim alive on Earth, you have my
tacit approval because the Muslims have proved themselves zionists in
the way that their so-called "leaders" sit back as rich zionist-bought-
and-paid-for families while the poor masses look on in dismay.

--
Bub

[Gunner Asch]

<snip>

>If the zionists want to kill every Muslim alive on Earth, you have my
>tacit approval because the Muslims have proved themselves zionists in
>the way that their so-called "leaders" sit back as rich zionist-bought-
>and-paid-for families while the poor masses look on in dismay.

While your definition may or may not have been once true..it no
longer is and specifically refers to those who support Israel...IE
Zion. Zionist - Zion..IE...Jeruselem, city of, land of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zion


"A Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to
growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in
Palestine. Modern Zionism is concerned with the support and
development of the state of Israel."

So to cut to the chase....Muslims are anti-zionist, both in fact and
deed.

As the word "gay" once meant happy and joyus...it no longer does in
most common usage. Use it properly or not at all.


Gunner

[Bubba]

On Thu, 23 May 2013, Gunner Asch <gunne...@gmail.com> wrote:

snip

>
>So to cut to the chase....Muslims are anti-zionist, both in fact and
>deed.
>

Words like coward, muslim, zionist, christian, jew, all of these epithets
mean only the same thing. All of them are cowards, first and foremost.

Coward is as coward does. Any other labels are "doublethink" codswallop.

--
Bub

[Gunner Asch]

Right. And you stopped taking your meds when ?

And why?