Imperial Hubris

Had some time today to read. Wow! It's only because we have a night shoot. This book is a solid account of what's going on in the fight against Al Queda. He thinks we are royally fucking up and wasting a lot of resources, and worse, lying to ourselves about it.

First, we needed to hit back Al Queda right away and really hard to effectively hurt the leadership of the organization. We were too shocked to do so. There was also a short time when brutal measures would have been acceptable to the US population. Now, everyone just whines about civilian casualties and we will not accept a brutal war. We did not adequately plan for a major Al Queda attack because of our own negligence and were unable to hit back right after 9/11. This is a major failure in military planning and governmental leadership. Our leaders failed us. And our leaders continue to either: turn a blind eye to the brutal enemy we face or naively think we are kicking ass by the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We are in trouble in this war because 1/2 of the people in this country and the west don't think we're in a war, and the other 1/2 have no idea how to properly wage it.

I haven't gotten to the section on solutions, yet, but I don't imagine it being a good one.

I'm sad today.