a few notes for a Friday [edited]

[Edited on Sunday, 06-11-2006. See next to last paragraph.]

Here are some odds and ends, jotted down while waiting for the "river of steel" to thin out so I can drive home:

Evidence that some teenagers in the U.S. have the intelligence of a turnip:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MYSPACE_MIDEAST_TRIP?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME

Evidence that some lawyers in the U.S. need to be closely supervised by nannies:
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/08/Tampabay/Rock__paper__scissors.shtml

Evidence that some adults need to be closely supervised by nannies:
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/08/Hillsborough/Teachers_resign_over_.shtml

If you worry that politicians and other talking heads might run out of silly, brainless things to talk about, and that we might be forced to listen to a national debate on serious issues, you are not alone:
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/08/Columns/Maybe_we_can_get_that.shtml

Finally, and I have no URL link for this one: The death by bombing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq may have no measurable effect in Iraq, where they are engaged in tribal warfare that the Hatfields and the McCoys would have been proud of (every act of vengeance begets another act of vengeance).

However, the U.S. Air Force must be extraordinarily proud. I have been reading "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," by NY Times military correspondent Michael R. Gordon & retired Marine General Bernard E.Trainor, who give us a detailed, researched history of the current war in Iraq. Among other things, they report that none of the top 200 Iraqi leaders were killed by air-strikes during the war, or at least until their book went to press this year. You might recall that the war opened hours earlier than planned because of a hot tip that Saddam Hussein would be at a particular location. The Air Force pounded the hell out of that location with bunker-busting bombs and the Navy launched rockets from offshore. Later, they discovered that they'd beaten an open field into submission. No Saddam, no bunkers. And that's been pretty much the story on the quality of intelligence from the CIA and the military intelligence agencies, and the Air Force's belief in "air power."

The Army used to say that a war is not won until the muddy boots of the Infantry stand on enemy soil. That was before Viet Nam, and before Afghanistan, and before Iraq. [And I must add, that is still true today but it is extraordinarily difficult for a trooper to know if or when he can relax. The Marines who apparently went berserk, shooting up the neighborhood after one of their buddies was killed, did what you would expect any young man who is heavily armed, trained to kill, and scared on a 24-7 basis to do under such circumstances. If our troops reacted to all roadside bombings in the same way, would their incidence decrease?]

Here's something I read on another blog and wished I'd written it myself: We were winning in Viet Nam when we pulled out. If we had not pulled out, we would still be winning. But that war would still be going on.