Flunking The Art Of War

[Nbadan]

I am a strong advocate of the Sun-Tzu's the Art of War. Although most of it's phylosophy deal with war techniques, it can easily be translated to business and even life on the internet...

Flunking the Art of War
Master Sun-Tzu, President Hu and Bush
By JOHN WALSH

At the very least China's President Hu displayed a sense of humor in presenting a book, of all things, to George W. Bush on his recent visit to the United States. And the choice of Sun-Tzu's fifth century B.C. classic, "The Art of War" was tantalizing. Since Dubya certainly will not penetrate too far into it, I decided to have a look, so that at least one American would honor the Chinese gift by actually reading it. This provided me a rare patriotic surge, much like the rush when I put my tax return in the mailbox.

Sun-Tzu did not disappoint. At almost the very beginning of the second chapter I found a near perfect description of Dubya's ill-fated war on Iraq. To quote:

"Master Sun said: The art of warfare is this:


"In joining battle, seek the quick victory. If battle is protracted, your weapons will be blunted and your troops demoralized. If you lay siege to a walled city, you exhaust your strength. If your armies are kept in the field for a long time, your national reserves will not suffice. Where you have blunted your weapons, demoralized your troops, exhausted your strength and depleted all available resources, the neighboring rulers will take advantage of your adversity to strike. And even with the wisest of counsel, you will not be able to turn the ensuing consequences to the good. There never has been a state that has benefited from an extended war."

Counter Punch (http://counterpunch.com/walsh06072006.html)

The U.S. is on the wrong side of thousands of years of military history. The only options for the U.S. in Iraq now is withdrawal, or send in 100,000's more troops to try and crush the insurgency. That would require some sort of draft.

[exstatic]

If it doesn't have pictures, Dubyah won't even attempt it.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

That's pretty gay. If I had no life and an agenda to push I could find some quotes in that book that back up what our military is doing today in Iraq.

Like I said, if I had no life...

[clambake]

You cannot teach this man to be wise. I'm trying very hard to think of something that bush has done that required wisdom.

[exstatic]

That's pretty gay. If I had no life and an agenda to push I could find some quotes in that book that back up what our military is doing today in Iraq.

Like I said, if I had no life...
Doubtful. This book is about when, where, and how to fight an effective war, and is used by the War Colleges of the respective branches of the service as a teaching tool. There's a reason why it is still in print after several thousand years, and it has nothing to do with clusterfuck justification.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Like I said, you can have fun with quotes out of that book. I've got some spare time right now, so here you go ex and NBADunce....


...for a small force is but booty for one more powerful.

Self explanatory.


Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.

So we're already there, and waiting for the little jihadis to show up from Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc.


"By discovering the enemy's dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy's must be divided."

"Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy's few. And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits."


"Though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force."

And that was about five minutes of scrolling through an ebook.

[Vashner]

If Bush followed the book he would of nuked every islamic city.. so really you can't talk shit about following the Sun Tsu Art of War.... if you can't even stomach a dog barking at a prisioner..

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Like I said, you can have fun with quotes out of that book. I've got some spare time right now, so here you go ex and NBADunce....



Self explanatory.



So we're already there, and waiting for the little jihadis to show up from Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc.




And that was about five minutes of scrolling through an ebook.

But we are already there, and already fighting....that applies to the ideal situation of two armies meeting on an open battlefield...

Also, your last quote can apply, but it does not change the fact that our larger force will still be weakened and demoralized. Also, we haven't even defined "victory" in our Iraqi situation, and again, that quote (to me) applies to a battle on a field or a seige for a single city, not the occupation of an entire country. (A battle, not a war)

[Guru of Nothing]

Old books are lame, especially Asian books.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

you can't talk shit about following the Sun Tsu Art of War.... if you can't even stomach a dog barking at a prisioner..

Damn, that summed it up perfectly.

[Guru of Nothing]

That's pretty gay. If I had no life and an agenda to push I could find some quotes in that book that back up what our military is doing today in Iraq.

Like I said, if I had no life...

That is one smelly fart you might want to walk away from.

[scott]

That's pretty gay. If I had no life and an agenda to push I could find some quotes in that book that back up what our military is doing today in Iraq.

Like I said, if I had no life...


I've got some spare time right now, so here you go ex and NBADunce....

Not that we needed any confirmation.

[Burly_Man]

The Art of War is required reading at most War Colleges and MBA Programs. It is not an esoteric book on the philosophy of warfare, thousands of years ago, it was a practical field guide on fighting in different environments, how to besiege a city, proper use of spies, etc.

It does no good to take quotes from most chapters that deal with tactics in reference to this administration. The first chapter, Calculations covers the most important section being the Rules of Warfare:

These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.

The MORAL LAW causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

HEAVEN signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.

EARTH comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.

The COMMANDER stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerety, benevolence, courage and strictness

By METHOD AND DISCIPLINE are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditu re.

[gtownspur]

If Bush followed the book he would of nuked every islamic city.. so really you can't talk shit about following the Sun Tsu Art of War.... if you can't even stomach a dog barking at a prisioner..


You liberal bitches just got P3wned by Vashner!! :lol :lol

[Burly_Man]

This is what Sun Tzu says about the duty of political leadership before engaging in war:


Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win, because many calculations were made;

before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will not win, because few calculations were made;

many calculations, victory, few calculations, no victory, then how much less so when no calculations?

By means of these, I can observe them, beholding victory or defeat!

[RandomGuy]

Like I said, you can have fun with quotes out of that book. I've got some spare time right now, so here you go ex and NBADunce....
Quote:
...for a small force is but booty for one more powerful.

It’s funny that you bring up this quote. Let’s see how it can be used to describe Bush’s bungling.
Let’s say the “small force” is Bush’s tiny PR effort against the jihadist’s propaganda machine.


Quote:
Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.

Al Qaeda has been in the field and fighting a war of ideas for decades. We just force-marched our asses there after 9-11 smacked us in the face and made us realize that there is a portion of the world who must *might* have it in for us.


Quote:
"By discovering the enemy's dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy's must be divided."

Sounds like a description of an insurgency blending into the background, gathering to strike and then fading away while we look everywhere for them.


Quote:
"Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy's few. And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits."

This is honestly the only quote that actually seems to support us. The US military is very good at overwhelming force applications. I would point out though that much of what the insurgents do parallels this as well.


Quote:
"Though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force."

100,000 US troops against millions of pissed off muslim recruits that were very effectively motivated by Bush’s blundering foreign policy and ignorance.



And that was about five minutes of scrolling through words that don’t quite mean what you think they do. Novice.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

:lol Whatever Randon.


millions of pissed off muslim recruits that were very effectively motivated by Bush’s blundering foreign policy and ignorance.

Where are all these millions of Muslims? Show me the battalions of them swarming our troops worldwide. If there were a million Muslims ready to attack, Iraq would be over already.


Sounds like a description of an insurgency blending into the background, gathering to strike and then fading away while we look everywhere for them.

Glad you overlooked the part about the enemy having to stay disbursed to survive.

Novice.

[xrayzebra]

And these are some reasons the Liberals would give about WWII.
I wont take credit for them. I stole them, but told the man I was
going to and use them here.

Top 11 Things That Anti-War Protesters Would Have Said At the Normandy Invasion on D-Day (Had There Been Anti-War Protesters At Normandy)

11. No blood for French Wine!

10. It’s been two and a half years since Pearl Harbor and they still haven’t brought Admiral Nagumo to justice

9. In 62 years, the date will be 6/6/6. A coincidence? I think not.

8. All this death and destruction is because the neo-cons are in the pocket of Israel

7. The soldiers are still on the beach, this invasion is a quagmire

6. Sure the holocaust is evil, but so was slavery

5. We are attacked by Japan and then attack France? Roosevelt is worse than the Kaiser!

4. Why bring democracy to Europe by force and not to Korea or Vietnam? I blame racism

3. This war doesn’t attack the root causes of Nazism

2. I support the troops, but invading Germany does not guarantee that in 56 years we won't have a President who's worse than Hitler

1. I don't see Roosevelt or Churchill storming the beaches -- they're Chicken Hawks

============================================
I am sure dan and boutons will agree with all the above.

[RandomGuy]

:lol Whatever Randon.

Where are all these millions of Muslims? Show me the battalions of them swarming our troops worldwide. If there were a million Muslims ready to attack, Iraq would be over already..

I noticed you completely side-stepped the issue of the US losing the PR war to concentrate on the irrelevant portion of what I said. But I will humor you.

Millions of pissed off Muslims would only need to be 2% of the global population.
What percent of the global Muslim population did it take to carry off 9-11?
0.000002%

In the vast spectrum of Muslim public opinion on the United states it took 2 millionths of one percent to carry off the most spectacular terrorist event in history.

If we are losing the PR war then the portion of Muslims who are willing to take action on this amorphous hatred will go up. In a normal distribution, the further you go along the bell curve, the number of people in a population (in this case the population of Muslims willing to take action) will go up geometrically with each standard distribution closer to the mean. If we move that line of opinion just a bit more negative, then that has rather drastic logical repercussions in terms of the number of willing recruits.


Glad you overlooked the part about the enemy having to stay disbursed to survive.

Re-read the post. I actually mentioned that very thing. But being temporarily dispersed to avoid the overwhelming force of the USAF is quite different than being able to concentrate and storm individual police outposts (http://news.indiainfo.com/2006/03/21/2103iraqi-police.html) or US patrols, as Sun Zhu recommends against a force with superior firepower. Which is exactly what is happening.

It is a testimony to the training and equipment of US troops that more of them have not been killed in ambushes.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the insurgents are winning and we are losing.

I AM saying that the way this war was conducted and the way that Bush is running things is very counter to most wisdom, if not basic common sense.

[Burly_Man]

And these are some reasons the Liberals would give about WWII.
I wont take credit for them. I stole them, but told the man I was
going to and use them here.

Only Far Right Wing Types are interested in rewriting history.

Top 11 Things That Anti-War Protesters Would Have Said At the Normandy Invasion on D-Day (Had There Been Anti-War Protesters At Normandy)

11. No blood for French Wine!

California Vintages Rule!

10. It’s been two and a half years since Pearl Harbor and they still haven’t brought Admiral Nagumo to justice

Admiral Nagumo was the officer tasked with carrying out the Raid on Pearl Harbor. His Superior was Isoroku Yamamoto. By the summer of 1942, Nagumo had been crushed at the Battle of Midway and defeated at Gudalcanal by February 1943. A few months later, Yamamoto is killed. Nagumo later commits suicide on the island of Saipan during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. I hope this isnt an apology on why Bin Laden hasnt been captured by now.

9. In 62 years, the date will be 6/6/6. A coincidence? I think not.

Nonsensical Post that has nothing to do with liberalism, nor conservatism.

8. All this death and destruction is because the neo-cons are in the pocket of Israel

Neither the neo-cons nor the State of Israel are in existence at this time.

7. The soldiers are still on the beach, this invasion is a quagmire

Which beach? In Normandy, Allied Troops land on June 5th/6th 1944, Paris is liberated August 25th 1944. Less than 3 months. Iraq 2.0 more than 3 years. (please don't compare World War II and Iraq)

6. Sure the holocaust is evil, but so was slavery

Are you of African American or Jewish extraction? If not, please dont try to politicize either event.

5. We are attacked by Japan and then attack France? Roosevelt is worse than the Kaiser!

Vichy France was under the rule of NAZI Germany. It was called Liberation. Iraq was not under the control of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

4. Why bring democracy to Europe by force and not to Korea or Vietnam? I blame racism

Korea and Vietnam were under the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere sponsored by the Japanese at this time. Both were either colonized or recovering. The French had their problems in Vietnam in the 50's. Western Europe was predominantly democratic at this time to begin with. Not a good analogy.

3. This war doesn’t attack the root causes of Nazism

But it eradicated the Nazis. Do you know what the root causes of Islamic Terrorism are? How do you plan on eradicating them?

2. I support the troops, but invading Germany does not guarantee that in 56 years we won't have a President who's worse than Hitler

Nonsensical, logically fallacious post.

1. I don't see Roosevelt or Churchill storming the beaches -- they're Chicken Hawks

Roosevelt was stricken with Polio, a serious, debilitating illness. And, he didnt start a War of Convenience. Churchill was once First Lord of the Admiralty, he was a graduate of Sandhurst and actively sought out wars while on active duty. He was involved in both India and the second Anglo-Boer war.

Bush, Cheney, etc either served in the "Champage Units" or sought deferments because they had "better things to do.

============================================
I am sure dan and boutons will agree with all the above.

[RandomGuy]

And these are some reasons the Liberals would give about WWII.
I wont take credit for them. I stole them, but told the man I was
going to and use them here.

Top 11 Things That Anti-War Protesters Would Have Said At the Normandy Invasion on D-Day (Had There Been Anti-War Protesters At Normandy)

11. No blood for French Wine!

10. It’s been two and a half years since Pearl Harbor and they still haven’t brought Admiral Nagumo to justice

9. In 62 years, the date will be 6/6/6. A coincidence? I think not.

8. All this death and destruction is because the neo-cons are in the pocket of Israel

7. The soldiers are still on the beach, this invasion is a quagmire

6. Sure the holocaust is evil, but so was slavery

5. We are attacked by Japan and then attack France? Roosevelt is worse than the Kaiser!

4. Why bring democracy to Europe by force and not to Korea or Vietnam? I blame racism

3. This war doesn’t attack the root causes of Nazism

2. I support the troops, but invading Germany does not guarantee that in 56 years we won't have a President who's worse than Hitler

1. I don't see Roosevelt or Churchill storming the beaches -- they're Chicken Hawks

============================================
I am sure dan and boutons will agree with all the above.

This is seriously one of the dumbest things I have seen, and that is saying quite a bit. If you really believe that is what "most liberals" would say, you really don't have clue one as to what liberals actually think.

Can you just ONCE not suck up every distortion that you are told in the conservative media, and THINK for yourself? Just ONCE? PLEASE?

Let's pick this monsterously stupid rhetorical abomination apart piece by piece and put a stake in it.

You can't compare modern liberals' distaste for the iraq war with ww2. There is absolutely no basis for comparison.

First off, any modern liberal would rail against a fascist regime such as germany and many liberals, including FDR himself, were pushing for war. It was the CONSERVATIVES who were the head-in-the-sand isolationists.

Yamamoto was the one who planned Pearl Harbor, not Nagumo.

Saying that the lunatic fringe of liberaldom that believes in conspiracy theories speaks for all liberals/anti-war protestors is simply not accurate, and you know it.

I honestly can't bring myself to address the rest of the stupidity other than to say that to compare Bush and Darth Cheney to Roosevelt and Churchill is pathetic.

Roosevelt was a senator during world war one and didn't have to dodge the draft in the national guard, or claim a medical deferrment for the second world war either.

Churchill was hardly the draft dodger that Bush and Cheney were either as he served as in the British army, a war correspondant before WW1, and the freakin First Lord of the Admiralty when that war broke out.

About the only thing Bush has in common with either of these great men is bad grades in school, and there the comparison ends. If he was half the leader that either of them was, I would be a WHOLE lot happier.

Pfft.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

quite different than being able to concentrate and storm individual police outposts or US patrols, as Sun Zhu recommends against a force with superior firepower. Which is exactly what is happening.

Find me where in the Art of War it talks about strapping a bomb to yourself and committing Harry Carey.

I don't see the jihadis overrunning many US posts, at least not without every one of them getting killed in the process. I don't remember anywhere in that book where Sun Tzu says victory comes to those who go kamikaze.

[xrayzebra]

You can't compare modern liberals' distaste for the iraq war with ww2. There is absolutely no basis for comparison.

First off, any modern liberal would rail against a fascist regime such as germany and many liberals, including FDR himself, were pushing for war. It was the CONSERVATIVES who were the head-in-the-sand isolationists.




Because RG, there is considerable similarities between WWII and Iraq.
Germany didn't attack us, France didn't attack us, Italy
didn't attack us, Japan did. But still we fought all these countries as well
as Japan. I used this little post to show the stupity of the statements
Liberals today make. Like, I support our troops, just don't support the
administration. Well for your edification, the President is the Commander
in Chief of the United States Military services. So what they say is
not true. And it is a lie to begin with. They support one
thing and one thing only. Their little regressive agenda and thirst for
power. They, the liberals, have made every effort to destroy the
traditional American way of life. They say we live in society of laws,
that is until they don't agree with it, then it is okay to have disobedience
of the law. They cite the laws of humanity if they think our laws should
be circumvented. You know like Illegal Immigration. They think true
speaking terms being used is degrading. So they use terms like homeless, instead of what
they are: Bums. So give me a break and take your dumb argument back
into your little group and just call us conservatives stupid, bigoted,
and whatever. We know you and will call you on ever dumb thing you
say. We, unlike you, are not brainwashed. I have been thinking for
myself for many, many years. I know the truth. You, like most liberals,
do also, but you just don't like it. It does't fit you notion of the world.

[ChumpDumper]

Find me where in the Art of War it talks about strapping a bomb to yourself and committing Harry Carey.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/6895/harry.gif

[ChumpDumper]

Ok, it's Caray and Carey was an actor, but still....

[RandomGuy]

Find me where in the Art of War it talks about strapping a bomb to yourself and committing Harry Carey.

I don't see the jihadis overrunning many US posts, at least not without every one of them getting killed in the process. I don't remember anywhere in that book where Sun Tzu says victory comes to those who go kamikaze.


For Chumpdumper:

:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao


For both Aggie and 'Dumper:

It's accepted spelling is: Hari Kari

[ChumpDumper]

The more widely accepted spelling is hara-kiri from what I've seen.

Caray is the guy in the pic.

Carey was an actor who had an actor son.

Caray makes for the funniest joke.

[jochhejaam]

Googled in parenthesis

Hara kiri 562,000 for ChumpDumper

Hari Kari 27,800 for Random Guy

And the winner of this weeks spelling bee is ChumpDumper

congratulations CD :lol

http://www.bobfromaccounting.com/6_0205/spellingbee_l1.jpg