German Limits on War Are Facing Reality in Afghanistan – NY Times

Here is an article from today’s New York Times on Afghanistan, from the point of view of the German Army soldiers who are fighting there.  It is very insightful and gives a non-American soldier’s view of the war.  The German people are quickly tiring of this war.  Imagine that.

There is an article here from the Times outlining the strains on Pakistani-American relations since the U.S. has started to insist that Pakistan eradicate Taliban fighters in Pakistan who cross the border into Afghanistan without challenge.  There is always two sides to every coin, isn’t there?

In this odd article, the paper mountains of intercepted emails and phone conversations that the FBI has accumulated under the Patriot Act now need to be translated and it is proving impossible.  There are not enough foreign speaking translators to make this a workable proposition.  The story is here.

In this article in the Times, President Obama explained to an audience of military people at Naval Air Station Jacksonville that he will not be rushed into a decision on Afghanistan in order to protect their interests as best he could.  The story is here.

And finally, in this article concerning the famous English victory over the French at Agincourt roughly 600 years ago, it seems that the story we were told about a five to one French to English advantage was mostly English puffery. 

The real number was probably two to one and the French lined up in clay mud…they could not properly manuever in the muck.  English bowmen pretty much massacred the hapless French once they realizd that the French were frozen in place by the location that their idiot generals placed them within.

The French were overcome by their own bad generals.

That is something for us to think about today, isn’t it?  Bad generals are very dangerous and can change the course of history as well as good generals.  Why don’t we all reflect on that today?

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)