Let’s ask Frank Herbert what he thinks, ay?

I saw this today on the web:

“President Barack Obama is considering a scaled-down version of the war plan advanced by his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. officials say.

Such a narrowed military mission would increase American forces to accomplish the commander's broadest goals of protecting Afghan cities and key infrastructure. But with fewer troops, the strategy likely would cut back on McChrystal's ambitious objectives, amounting to what one official described as "McChrystal Light."

So I thought, “Hey, let’s see what Frank Herbert’s novel Dune has to say about this”

“What’s the talk of Rabban in the sinks and villages?” Paul Asked
“They say they’ve fortified the graben villages to the point where you cannot harm them. They say they need only sit inside their defenses while you wear yourselves out in futile attack”
“In a word,” Paul Said, “they’re immobilized.”
“While you can go where you will,” Gurney said
“It’s a tactic I learned from you,” Paul Said. “They’ve lost the initiative, which means they’ve lost the war.”
Gurney smiled, a slow, knowing expression.
“Our enemy is exactly where I want him to be,” Paul Said

Dune was written in 1965 by Frank Hebert. The part of the book that this quote is from is called “Prophet”. Appropriate, wouldn’t you say?

Actually, what my post is about has less to do than how we got here, or shoulda/coulda/woulda, or the reality that someone who voted "present" more often than voting a straight up yes/no can't seem to make a decision, than the fact that tactically, and strategically, it's a mistake to think that we can protect certain "hard points", give up the rest of the countryside to the enemy, and think that we can secure a victory by dropping bombs from 30K feet.

Can anyone say Vietnam?

My point here is that we need to be out in the countryside, engaging the enemy in his house, taking away his sanctuaries, and eliminating his safe areas. Gee, does this sound like any other recent military actions that have been wildly successful for us? Hmmmm, let me see....How short our memory is.

Obama is running so hard from Bush, and blaming him for everything under the sun, that he and all of his Rhodes scholars can't see the lesson plan to victory right in front of them.

I thought that the key to being s successful politician was stealing other people's good ideas, calling them your own, and taking all of the credit for them. Maybe that's not how they do it in Chicago. Too bad. I may not be a smart man, but I know a smart idea when I see it.

In any event, back in 1965, as the Vietnam war was ramping up, Herbert wrote a story, and part of the story included a successful guerrilla campaign. We ignored the lesson then, and we're about to ignore it again. BTW, what's that old line about history repeating itself?