Posthumous battle plans

[spindrifter]

(A set of four essays)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldsworthy29dec29,0,7515071.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Caesar: Diplomacy and power

By Adrian Goldsworthy, British historian ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY is the author most recently of "Caesar: Life of a Colossus."
December 29, 2006


WHAT WOULD Julius Caesar do in Iraq? "He'd win" is the simplest answer. How he would do it is harder to say — after all, just how would a man like that behave in the modern world? We can never know, but his campaigns in Gaul give us a fair idea.

<more>

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ellis29dec29,0,1327970.story?coll=la-opinion-center


Washington: The crying game
How would four of the greatest war leaders in history have handled Iraq?
By Joseph J. Ellis, JOSEPH J. ELLIS is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the author, most recently, of "His Excellency, George Washington."
December 29, 2006


IT'S A RIDICULOUS question: "What would George Washington do about Iraq?" Well, if you plopped him down in Baghdad, he would be utterly lost. He couldn't find Iraq on a map. Show him a cellphone, a helicopter or a Humvee and he wouldn't order them into action, he'd be mesmerized. He is simply unavailable for a conversation about Iraq.

<more>

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-weather29dec29,0,2536448.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Genghis Khan: Law and order
How would four of the greatest war leaders in history have handled Iraq?
By Jack Weatherford, JACK WEATHERFORD teaches anthropology at Macalester College. He is the author of "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World."
December 29, 2006


IN HIS FINAL televised speech to the Iraqi people in 2003, Saddam Hussein denounced the invading Americans as "the Mongols of this age," a reference to the last time infidels had conquered his country, in 1258. But the comparison isn't very apt — unlike the Mongols, the Americans don't have the organizational genius of Genghis Khan.

<more>

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-holzer29dec29,0,4518596.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Lincoln: Focus on the real foe
How would four of the greatest war leaders in history have handled Iraq?
By Harold Holzer, HAROLD HOLZER won a Lincoln Prize for his last book, "Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech that Made Abraham Lincoln President."
December 29, 2006


PRESIDENT BUSH has often cited Lincolnian resolve to justify staying the course in Iraq. He takes inspiration from the knowledge that Abraham Lincoln too endured failure, frustration and dissent, not to mention more American casualties on a single day at Antietam than we've lost in all four years in Iraq. Yet Lincoln still persuaded the North to persevere "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword."

<more>

[Demeter]

1. If We Hadn't Been Pouring Money, Arms, and Really Bad Ideas and People Into Iraq

we could have won, too, maybe.....