Who was the worst Secretary of Defense?

[dead0man]

Rummy

[dead0man]

The real tragedy of Iraq and Vietnam... and most history, in fact, is that people will learn the wrong lessons.  In both cases, it was how we conducted ourselves, not the action itself, that was at fault.  In both cases, huge mistakes were made after the initial phases, and a real strategy was not mapped out... and then each operation has a laundry list of specific mistakes.

The basic mistake of both wars is that the military was not allowed to run them.  They were ran from the White House and the Senate floor.  They were ran by the protesters and the media.  The politician's job is to tell the military men who to fight, they should then go hands off and let the military decide how and when to do the fighting.

[dead0man]

The real tragedy of Iraq and Vietnam... and most history, in fact, is that people will learn the wrong lessons.  In both cases, it was how we conducted ourselves, not the action itself, that was at fault.  In both cases, huge mistakes were made after the initial phases, and a real strategy was not mapped out... and then each operation has a laundry list of specific mistakes.

The basic mistake of both wars is that the military was not allowed to run them.  They were ran from the White House and the Senate floor.  They were ran by the protesters and the media.  The politician's job is to tell the military men who to fight, they should then go hands off and let the military decide how and when to do the fighting.

The basic mistake of Vietnam is that it was fought in the first place. America had no business in placing its military at the disposal of an insane clique of ex-Trotskyists with a vendetta against the Soviet Union.

Where did I say going to Vietnam or Iraq was a good idea?  We made a mistake by going to Vietnam, we then compounded that mistake by letting hippies and Senators run the war.