because you don't make any sense.
This book that you read, that you interject in every thread that you go into is really not helping your reputation.
You sound confused and limited in your outlook.
You seem paralized.
This conversation has been had, and you continue to cite two books, although you failed to understand them in a way that would help you.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2025864&mesg_id=2026964So again, here are those pesky reviews of Clark's book, for you, AGAIN (Since I imagined you didn't bother reading those the last two times I posted them, when you going on and on about what you think Clark meant in his book)!
Review from the Gardianhttp://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1091... The first 100 pages analyse the recent war in Iraq. Clark commanded US troops in the Iraqi theatre in the early Nineties, and provides useful insights. The true problems for senior commanders are supply lines and troop deployment timetables, not battle tactics. The secret of American military superiority, Clark shows, is, in addition to massive transport capability, a hitherto unheard of degree of co-operation between ground troops and air power. Only recently have the secure communications been developed that allow concepts of 'battlespace' rather than 'battlefield' to become a real-time reality.
He is scathing about the failure by war leaders to plan properly for the post-conflict period. This he attributes to a natural tendency of the American political and military establishment to play to their strengths. A marine in Iraq told me his job was to 'shoot people and blow things up'. Moving beyond that has proved difficult for a conservative Pentagon and civilian leadership suspicious of anything smacking of 'social work'.
The latter part of Clark's book is devoted to a sustained attack on the conduct of the 'war on terror'. Clark says the current administration's bullish unilateralism, dependence on military force, disdain for international law and institutions have been profoundly counterproductive and run against everything that made American great. He says, rightly, that military power should be the last resort and can only succeed when used in combination with diplomatic, social, political, economic, cultural and developmental measures.
America, he says, risks winning individual battles, even campaigns, but losing the war and losing itself. His analysis, manifesto or otherwise, is accurate, timely and important.
Review from Asian Reporterhttp://www.asianreporter.com/reviews/2005/22-05winningm... Drawing on his deep military experience at home and abroad, General Wesley Clark analyzes the U.S. invasion, occupation, and rebuilding of Iraq and its relationship to the struggle against global terrorism in Winning Modern Wars. According to Clark, the American war machine is a dominant force unlike any the world has ever seen, except perhaps the Roman Empire at its apex. Yet the mess in Iraq should be a clear warning that we have much to learn about wielding our power effectively.
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In this age of embedded reporters, Internet bloggers, and instant news, "Public opinion itself has become a weapon of war," Clark explains early on. Winning Modern Wars shows that this supposedly retired general is still ready to fight, delivering a "Take no prisoners" assault on the post-9/11 foreign policy of the Bush administration.
General Clark knows what an effective military force looks like, and has nothing but praise for the amazingly competent American soldiers who delivered the decisive victory over Saddam Hussein. But if success results from the work of soldiers on the ground, it is unfortunately errors at the highest levels of leadership that lead to ultimate failure.
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Worse, the whole fiasco in Iraq was nothing but a grave misjudgment by the Bush administration in the first place. There should have been no need for a postwar plan because there should have been no war in Iraq at all. On top of a laundry list of American mistakes laid out by Clark, including spurning of allies, lack of focus on Al-Qaeda, and coddling of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, President Bush's September, 2003, statement that Iraq constitutes "The central battle in the war on terrorism" encapsulates everything that has gone wrong with the American response to 9/11.
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Most of Clark's criticisms have been raised before, first from protestors on the street and later from disaffected staffers at increasingly higher levels inside the U.S. government. But Clark is no partisan shill, and has real credentials to back up his arguments; he has served as both European Supreme Allied Commander and Director of Strategic Plans and Policy for the Pentagon. The knowledge he displays of the tactics, weapons, and capabilities of the U.S. Army is so thorough that anyone who wishes to understand the campaign in Iraq and the larger war against terror has to sit up and take notice. We can choose to ignore Clark only at our own peril.
"Powell's Books Review"http://www.powells.com/biblio?partner_id=27104&cgi=prod... General Clark criticizes George W. Bush's handling of the American Empire, especially as it concerns the War in Iraq. He argues that the war was conducted with brilliant tactics but flawed strategy and that vital opportunities to go after Al Qaeda were missed. Larger questions of Empire are discussed in concluding chapters, with Clark arguing that the "very idea of a New American Empire in 2003 shows an ignorance of the real and existing virtual empire created since the end of World War II" and calling for a "more powerful but less arrogant" foreign policy.
Review by Intervention Magazinehttp://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?file=art... This is actually three books in one, tied together by the common theme of the leadership failures of the Bush administration. The first three chapters recount the history of America's preemptive strike on Iraq. The next two show how those actions have distracted us so badly from the true battle, against international terrorism. The final chapter could serve as a draft inaugural address, as Clark details his vision of a collaborative American strategy for success in an interdependent world.
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As a veteran leader with a global view, Clark also decries how the Bush administration broke treaties and denied international obligations with impunity. Such a unilateralist approach caused us to lose so much of the international sympathy and support which had arisen after the 9/11 attacks. By casting aside more than fifty years of strategic alliances, we have left ourselves at risk legally, financially, and militarily.
The Nation - Book Reviewhttp://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031208&s=fitzger... Most of Clark's views about the general direction of US foreign policy will sound familiar, for most are shared by the other major Democratic contenders. However, this book is nothing like the goo usually served up in campaign literature, for he is also a very good writer: logical, lucid and concise. Moreover, he has much of interest to say about military operations and the relationship--or lack of it--between specific campaigns and the overall US security strategy. He is well qualified for the task.
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In his final chapter, Clark attacks the Administration's conception of American power and substitutes his own. Last April, he tells us, there was talk in Washington of Iraq as the first stepping stone to a new American empire. As the US armed forces marched on Baghdad, the perception was that the US military had achieved such a degree of superiority over all its rivals that Bush might fulfill his vision of liberating Iraq and transforming the whole of the Middle East under a Pax Americana. But the truth was that the US Army, the only force available, was not suited to this quasi-imperial vision: It was built for warfighting; it lacked staying power abroad and it lacked nation-building skills. Further, the American public had little taste for empire, and the international community had turned against the war. As it is, Clark writes, the Army has become dangerously overstretched, and US foreign policy dangerously dependent upon it. Clark sees the aggressive unilateralism of the Bush Administration as having roots that go back to the reaction to the cultural revolutions of the 1960s.
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In Clark's view, American power resides to a large degree in the "virtual empire" the United States constructed after World War II: that is, among other things, its network of economic and security arrangements, the leverage it had in international institutions and treaty regimes, plus the shared values and reservoir of trust, or "soft power," that permitted past Presidents to lead by persuasion. Clark's forceful book warns that the Bush Administration is undermining this virtual empire and at the same time imperiling the "hard power" Bush counts upon, the power of America's economy and armed forces.