What Great Military Mind, Reminds Us Of George W Bush?

[Hubert Flottz]

Decidering America's future thanks to the GOP...



You decide, for a change!

[NI4NI]

1. Beatle Bailey

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Or...

PFC Clueless

[maine_raptor]

3. There is ONLY one.

George Armstrong Custer

"Bring'em on"

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. You beat me to it

That's what I was thinking as well....

[ixion]

7. that's the one...

except this George isn't anywhere close to a battlefield.

[NoPasaran]

11. It's really unfair to Custer

Custer had had a brilliant career as a cavalry leader in the Civil War culminating in the capture of General Lee's supply trains at Appomattox, which led to the surrender of Lee's army, hastening the end of the war.

A better fit for Bush would be John Floyd. Floyd served as Buchanan's Secretary of War. As a Southern sympathizer, during 1860 he made sure that the federal arsenals in Southern states were well-stocked with heavy artillery in anticipation of the day when secession would occur and rebels would seize those installations to equip their armies.

When the war did break out, he threw in with the Confederacy and was given command of a brigade in Western Virginia. His inept performance defending that region against Federal forces advancing from Ohio helped make that area the Unionist state of West Virginia.

Floyd then was sent to Tennessee, where he commanded the garrison at the strategic Fort Donelson. Besieged by Grant, Floyd's forces launched a surprise attack to break out and escape to fight another day. The attack was successful, but Floyd somehow lost heart and ordered his men back to their original lines. Fearing for his own neck if he fell into Federal hands, he made his own escape, turning over command and the responsibility of surrender to another officer.

Treason, incompetence, cowardace... that's my Bush!

[maine_raptor]

15. Custer was a egotistical glory hound

who ignored all military doctrine and split his forces at the Little Bighorn. He even had two gatling guns under his command which he order to stay behind. He attacked a large encampment of "hostiles" without knowing the extent of the forces arrayed against him.

Seems to me that his dividing of his command, use faulty intelligence, and entry into combat without all the power available to him fits what Bush has done in Iraq a bit better, IMHO.

Custer at Appomattox did indeed help hasten Lee's decision, but when he captured the supply train he had a bit of help...........the rest of the Union Army. Don't forget that Sherman was moving North at that time and that was actually a bigger threat to Lee's supply line than Custer.

Yes, Floyd was a loser, but there again, there were so many of the same ilk that it's hard to choose.

As a side note: Look up Edmund Ruffin and see if he doesn't remind you of Rupert Murdoch.

[NoPasaran]

19. Ruffin at least had the decency to blow his head off

When his world collapsed around him.

[maine_raptor]

48. Yea, he gets cred for that.

Now if only history would repeat itself.

[hobbit709]

17. Custer made his reputation

by violating orders, getting lost and lucking out. If he hadn't got lucky, he would have been court-martialed for disobeying his orders. He also graduated dead last in his class at West Point-not the most brilliant.

[atomicdawg38]

51. Custer

was actually a VERY good calvary officer. He made a mistake that proved to be fateful. Admitting less actually robs his enemy the victory they deserve.

[Hubert Flottz]

23. J. Floyd is a classic example of a politician playing commander!

The Rebel government had many political appointees, without prior military experience, who served as Confederate military officers during the American Civil War. Most of them did a fair job, but Floyd was a disaster wherever he went...The Rebels LOST!


R.E. Lee, A Biography

Chapter XXXIV

Politics in WAR: A Sorry Story

Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia at the time of John Brown raid, had dreamed in 1861 of organizing "an independent partizan command, subject only to the general laws and orders of the service,"1 but when the disaffection of western Virginia became apparent, just before Garnett was sent to the Alleghenies, Wise was summoned to Richmond by President Davis, was given a commission as a brigadier general, and was hurried off to the valley of the Kanawha. He had been the champion of the interests of that section in the great battle over representation in the Virginia convention of 1850‑51, and it was believed that his presence in that quarter, as the spokesman of Southern rights, would rally the wavering.2 With only a few untrained staff officers and a handful of troops from eastern Virginia, he went into the disputed territory early in June. By eloquence and personal appeals, he contrived to raise his force during the next seven weeks to some 2850 men, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, whom he organized as a "Legion" and mustered into the Confederate service. Simultaneously, 1800 state volunteers were enlisted or brought from nearby counties to co-operate with him. Most of these men were wretchedly equipped and many of the state volunteers considered that they had entered the ranks solely to protect their own homes against invaders. Undependable as was this force, and inexperienced as were the commander and most of his officers, Wise advanced boldly down the valley of the Kanawha to Charleston. "Every step," he subsequently reported, "was amid the rattlesnakes of treason to the South or petty serpents of jealousy in the disaffection of my own camp." He went so far that first Adjutant General Cooper and then General Lee had to warn him of the danger of being cut off.3 On July 17 p580 Wise had a successful brush with a Federal force at Scarey Creek, near Charleston, but a week later he began to fall back in the face of what he believed to be great odds. As some of the state volunteers passed the homes they had enlisted to defend, they began to drop out of ranks, until nearly 500 of them had disappeared. The rest of the command held together until it halted, about August 3, ragged and exhausted, to refit at White Sulphur Springs, beyond the reach of the enemy.4 It had been an unhappy venture, far less the fault of Wise, who had done his best, than of the administration, which had entirely misjudged conditions in the Kanawha Valley. Wise lost none of his confidence or ambition because of this campaign. Regarding his Legion as essentially an independent command, he cherished hopes of faring forth again, as soon as his men were rested and freshly equipped, to fight new battles and win new laurels. His lack of technical knowledge of war did not deter him in the slightest.

While Wise was in the Kanawha Valley, Brigadier General John B. Floyd was completing the enlistment of the "brigade of riflemen" that President Davis had imprudently authorized him to raise, to the great impairment of regular recruiting in southwest Virginia, where Floyd resided.5 Floyd was as ambitious as Wise. He had been a lawyer, a politician, a member of the Virginia legislature, and, like Wise, Governor of Virginia. Serving as Secretary of War during most of Buchanan's administration, he had been accused of favoring the South by scattering the regular army and by piling up arms of late models in Federal arsenals located in the disaffected states. A darker charge, inspired by politics, of abstracting government bonds, he had, in January, 1861, successfully met. Floyd was not altogether devoid of native military talent. He possessed no little energy and a world of self-reliance, but he was rash and was to disclose a temperament readily confused in action. While Wise hoped to fire the imagination of the country by leading a partizan corps, Floyd believed his immediate destiny was to carry the war triumphantly down the Kanawha Valley and into Ohio. His troops, on the whole, were p581 much better equipped than those of General Wise, but they lacked good muskets, artillery, and cavalry.6

Just at the time Wise was retreating from the Kanawha Valley, Floyd was sending the last of his troops to the western terminus of the Virginia Central Railroad.7 Floyd himself soon followed his men, prepared for glory and well equipped for publicity, with not less than three newspaper editors on his staff.8 He was satisfied that Wise's forces had made a failure of their campaign, though, he wrote, "they will not allow it to be a retreat,"9 and he was equally sure that he could redeem the evil hour.10 "We will," said he, "have stirring work in the West before a great while, I think."11

On August 6, at White Sulphur Springs, the two ex-governors met for their first council of war. Each came in the memory of ancient political differences, each in a determination to yield nothing to the other. Floyd was the senior and was intent on asserting his authority over his rival. Wise was resolved, at any cost, to retain the independence of his command, with which he claimed the President had vested him. The two clashed as soon as they began consultation. Floyd was anxious for Wise to move forward in co-operation with the advance he was about to make in the direction of the Kanawha Valley;12 Wise immediately protested that his tired soldiers would require at least a fortnight in which to refit. The two parted without a final decision. Foreseeing what was certain to follow, Wise appealed to General Lee to separate his command from Floyd's, but Lee was apprehensive of a Federal advance against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, and as he could not afford to divide the few regiments covering that line, he rejected Wise's appeal and directed Floyd to assume command of all the troops in that territory unless he had orders to the contrary from Richmond.13 Floyd had already renewed his call on Wise to advance, without budging him from White p582 Sulphur,14 and he promptly availed himself of his new authority from Lee to issue an order assuming command of all the forces intended to operate in the Kanawha Valley.MORE...

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/1/34*.html

[formactv]

13. The Injuns had new repeater rifles.

Better than the single shot rifles Custer's men had. Forget the arrows in the picture.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Private

Parts.

Or maybe - General Misconduct.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I have a list:

1. General George Armstrong Custer at Little Big Horn
2. Der Fuhrer Adolph Hitler at Operation Barbosa
3. Captain Peter "Wrongway" Peachfuzz in Rocky and Bullwinkle

[Hubert Flottz]

8. George should be the permanent latrine orderly instead of CiC.

You couldn't trust a fool like that on KP...

[atomicdawg38]

52. I disagree

England was not a threat at the time and was, in all appearances, about to fall or seek a political end to hostilities. So entering a two front war did not apply. It had to do with raw materials and Stalin's willingness to join in the war. I don't see where Hitler had a choice. I would have done the same if I were him. His failure was at Stalingrad and not Barbarosa.

[Vogon_Glory]

9. Two Other Nominees:

I've got two other nominees. "Chinese" Gordon and Benjamin Braddock.

"Chinese" Gordon was the British general who marched off to Khartoum (In what is present-day Sudan), allowed himself to get besieged, then massacred by the Mahdi's army.

Benjamin Braddock was the British general who marched out of colonial Pennsylvania on Fort Duquesne, and allowed his army to get chopped up by the French and their Native American allies during the French and Indian War.

I would give Braddock and Gordon credit in one respect; both had actually been under fire and hadn't remained in the home counties while they were junior officers. I'd also nominate some of the clueless members of the French general staff from 1939-1940, but I don't know enough about them to make apt comparisons.

[Hubert Flottz]

10. Gordon and Braddock never had a daddy in the CIA or they could

have stayed at home too.

I've NEVER heard of any people, in the history of the planet, who put a man who deserted, or went AWOL for a year during a time of war, in charge of their military. An AWOL Decider, should be deciding in Leavenworth. Bush's Military "Decision", when it was his turn, to serve his country, was to run away from his buddies, after his government had spent thousands of dollars, during a time of war, to teach him to fly a jet fighter plane.

[The Traveler]

47. Massively unfair to Gordon

He was trying to evacuate the people when he was cut off. Though he himself could have doubtless escaped that would have required abandoning thousands to certain death.

Gordon and the Sudan were abandoned by Britain until public dissent forced the mounting of a relief expedition. The relief columns arrived a couple days after he was killed. It was the case of a fairly decent man in a very bad situation who tried to do the right thing and died in the attempt.

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

[bklyncowgirl]

12. George Armstrong Custer--who else

He was an arrogant showboat who loved to play dress up--albeit one with considerable personal physical courage bordering on recklessness--whose early successes led him to think he could do anything. His followers adored him--everyone else despised him.

He was so perfectly convinced of the inferiority of the Indians that he believed that even a tiny force of trained soldiers could defeat a much larger native force.

He blew off reports from his scouts saying that the Indian settlement he was about to attack was far bigger than anything his 7th Cavalry could conceivably handle.

He refused to wait for reinforcements. Of course he had no way of knowing that the same combined Sioux/Cheyenne force had just handed one of the other columns that was supposed to join him for the attack a major defeat.

There are stories that part of his impatience in rushing in was a desire to get all the glory of victory for himself as a stepping stone for a run for president.

Unlike George W. Bush, of course, Custer did put his own life on the line which puts him a step up the evolutionary food chain from our own commander in chief. In terms of arrogance and stupidity they are a good match.

[brokensymmetry]

14. Caligula.

Think about it. Cruel, insane - and ruled absolutely.
He was called "little boots", because
he was liked (at the beginning...) by the common soldiers.

In the end, he made war on Neptune, as I understand it. Had
his soldiers attack the sea. And he took Neptune's treasure -
he had the soldiers collect seashells.

Who knows? Maybe he's Caligula reborn.

[raccoon]

28. You beat me to the punch. nt

[Clark2008]

38. My choice, as well. eom

[hobbit709]

16. Captain William Fetterman

"Give me 80 men and I'll ride through the Sioux Nation" Dec.21, 1866 he got about 5 miles from Fort Phil Kearney, Wyoming.

[TN al]

18. Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby, V.C., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc.

A fictional story from the pen of Mark Twain. It is not a direct parallel as Scoresby is depicted as genuinely likable and Scoresby actually went to a war but the framework is the same.


For those of you who don't know the story, here it is:

http://www.mtwain.com/Luck/0.html

[marmar]

20. Major Payne.....

(for anyone who's seen that Damon Wayans movie)

[Stevepol]

21. Texas General John B. Hood of the CSA.

He was known for attacking at all costs even if the chances for victory were minimal at best. After he was put in charge of the Confederate forces that Johnston had been leading at the end of the war, he almost singlehandedly made sure the Confederate army was torn to shreds. The Confederacy would have lost without him, but he made sure the end would be spectacular and thorough. that's exactly what Bush is doing right now: overseeing the most complete and sepctacular destruction of the US Army in its history. Here's a brief run-down of Hood's tenure as general during that critical juncture.

The Atlanta Campaign spring of 1864
June 22 : Hood attacks at Kolb Farm, halting Sherman's attempt to bypass Kennesaw.
July 17 : After extended skirmishes and withdrawals around the Chattahoochee River and Peachtree Creek, President Jefferson Davis relieves Johnston of command and places Hood in charge with the rank of full General. In a meeting with his men, Sherman instructs them to expect an attack at any moment, given Hood's aggressive nature.
July 20 : Hood attacks and loses at Peachtree Creek
July 22 : Hood attacks the Federal left at Atlanta and loses. General McPherson dies.
July 28 : Hood attacks and loses at Ezra Church
Aug. 31 : September 1- Hood attacks at Jonesboro and loses.

[Hubert Flottz]

24. Braxton Bragg comes to mind too!

A yes man and crony type general, like the ones the GOPers cozy up to now...

[TN al]

25. Perhaps the most Bush like quality of Bragg...

... Grant tells in his memoirs a story that Bragg once had two conflicting responsibilities, wrote out a long argument with himself, and submitted it to his superior for mediation. His superior noted that Bragg had run out of other people to argue with and had started in on himself.

[ChickMagic]

27. Wow

No wonder my junior high in TX was named John B. Hood. We were told he was a big hero, and at that age, we didn't care.

[BushOut06]

22. Sad Sack

[ProfessorGAC]

26. Major Frank Burns, 4077th M*A*S*H* (eom)

.

[Hubert Flottz]

32. ROTF...

Or...

[ProfessorGAC]

33. Which One?

The sarge was pretty sharp. Agarn was just a toady.
The Professor

[IDemo]

29. Captain Queeg

[Neshanic]

30. With his grey hair all fuzzed out on the side, there is a Star Trek episode

that has some guy in it that looks just like him. I can't remeber the episode though...

[opihimoimoi]

31. Nero, Hitler, and those Argentine guys who lost the Falklands War

25 years ago...

[Hubert Flottz]

34. It's a good thing Charles Cong didn't invade Texas...

While Bush was "protecting and defending" it! Bush protected Texas like he's protected our constitution...he's AWOL again when the chips are down!



This Flag Bush will defend...

[opihimoimoi]

36. The Plaid Adder sez read the Emerald City..the real story of how

Bush/Rummy/Cheney fucked it all up by hiring inept peeps much like themselves to run Baghdad....We fucked it up...

I now change my mind...Bush is the WORST of the WORST....His policies threaten Millions if not BILLIONs of Human Lives through ignoring Global Warming and instead going for the Spice/Oil.

[Hubert Flottz]

41. George Bush thinks that a General needs to know how to kiss his

ass and nothing more. Hitler made the same mistakes and Germany paid the price!

[opihimoimoi]

46. Ain't dat da shits...dis GOP brainwashed fools are now starting to

see the coffins coming home and it ain't a purdy sight at all....

So Sad and so needless...

What else can we do but vote Blue and

Encourage all around us to Look, Think and Vote Blue

Humanity is now at the HUMP and of all the peeps in the World,,,,we got a stupid Lemon on Board at the Helm no less.....

Woe unto Mankind....we got a Nero on Board.....

[Hubert Flottz]

49. America's court appointed Nero, is an absolute freakin' ZERO.

His daddy's hand-me-down blood money, amassed from the exploitation and murder of Nazi death camp slaves, at the I G Farben Buna Works at Auschwitz-Birkenau ...made GW Bush a GOPer prince, instead of a trash collector, or a honey dipper.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. William Westmoreland - The light at the end of the tunnel.

[shadowknows69]

37. Hitler and Napoleon come to mind

when they were stupid enough to attack Russia.

[Hubert Flottz]

40. And now Bush want's to invade Iran and North Korea...

China too, if they don't play ball with the Globalist World Bankers and the PNAC/Nazi faithful. Who's next France and Germany?

He can't even win in Iraq and he's bullying still other countries! Bush is as crazy as Hitler and he has far more firepower.

[dipsydoodle]

39. Private Snafu

Acromyn for "Situation Normal All Fucked Up" which in this case seems quite appropriate.

[Hubert Flottz]

43. Ding Ding Ding...I think we have a winner...

Too bad the country has such a loser...Bush is a walking, shit talking, SNAFU(Clusterflopp)

BUSH, is the cream of the GOP crop too...the VERY BEST that they have had to offer America for years! Their very BEST, has proven himself to be a total LOSER!

[Zorra]

42. Colonel Klink? n/t

[Generic Brad]

44. Sergeant Schultz!

"I know nothing!"

[librechik]

45. Alfred E. Newman

[WritersBlock]

50. Bloody Stupid Johnson n/t

[atomicdawg38]

53. Ok my pick

Westmoreland