WHY DOES THE ARMY HATE AMERICA SO MUCH?

Those darn pinko Army communists.

A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.

The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point."

It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network.

"[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its parameters should be readjusted," Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security."

)...)

Many of Record's arguments, such as the contention that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was deterred and did not present a threat, have been made by critics of the administration. Iraq, he concludes, "was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al Qaeda." But it is unusual to have such views published by the War College, the Army's premier academic institution.

RNC chief Ed Gillespie paces around his office looking for a way to counter this report...

Record's core criticism is that the administration is biting off more than it can chew. He likens the scale of U.S. ambitions in the war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's overreach in World War II. "A cardinal rule of strategy is to keep your enemies to a manageable number," he writes. "The Germans were defeated in two world wars . . . because their strategic ends outran their available means."

Aha! There it is, Ed! They mentioned German imperial overstretch! Obviously they are comparing Bush to Hitler, how dare they! So it's time for Gillespie to hit the cable-news circuit and make a fuss, right? Those angry lefties in the US Armed Forces!

The last paragraph is also interesting:

The essay concludes with several recommendations. Some are fairly noncontroversial, such as increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, a position that appears to be gathering support in Congress. But he also says the United States should scale back its ambitions in Iraq, and be prepared to settle for a "friendly autocracy" there rather than a genuine democracy.

Hmm, a "friendly autocracy". Kinda like back in, say, the mid-late 1980's, when Iraq was led by . . . Saddam Hussein! We'll start shipping more chemical and biological weapons there, I assume. Of course, the Bushies may have to be prepared to face another possibility in their new toy Iraq: "a bloody civil war".

For now, the Bush policy continues to be "...as long as shit and fan don't meet until 2005".