Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and other Related Conflicts in the Middle East (read the rules in the first post)
- Thread starter phrozenflame
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Apparently an American military base in Syria has been struck
Off-topic but useful:
MacGregor is a grifter and a literal armchair general - a colonel who was never given stars because everyone in the Army - except him - recognised his incompetence at that level. Your problem is that Pentagon doesn't need to explain its personnel decisions to the public while MacGregor spent all his retirement arguing his own case in the media.
He could do that because he was also a rabid war cheerleader, and first became a Fox contributor during Bush Jr administration when he backed Rumsfeld's idiotic plan of invading Iraq with a small force - something that the Army rejected, and then had to salvage by providing reinforcements at last minute, when the idiotic plan of an idiotic DefSec was green-lit by an idiotic VP and rubber-stamped by an idiotic POTUS.
Almost everyone who has heard of MacGregor cites his performance during the battle of 73 easting as indication of his expertise however almost nobody realises that the largely irrelevant battle is well-known largely because of MacGregor's embellished narrative of the events that he used to promote himself and his 1997 book.
The engagement was used by American propaganda before, because it had a very suitable Hollywood-like chain of events, but in reality it was a minor engagement at the beginning of a larger battle. lasting throughout the night of 26-27 February1991 where the US VII Corps consisting of elements of several divisions broke through positions of several Iraqi divisions. Over time it became the symbol of the war because MacGregor used it as "proof" that his ideas were correct. And because the ground war was too short and too condensed for any distinct battles to find their way into public imagination the 73 easting played that role.
Except...
American decisive victory in that battle was the consequence of decisive technological advantage. The battle started around 16:00 with twilight in that area on 26 Feb beginning around 17:45 and night around 19:00 and lasted for approximately 6 hours which means that only a quarter of it occurred during daylight and all of it occurred in mild sandstorm conditions. Iraqi vehicles consisting of outdated T-72M, T-62 and T-55 and BMPs had no thermal vision or fire control systems while M1A1 and M2/M3 had both. After the initial surprise encounters units of VII Corps engaged Iraqi units and destroyed them from range during low visibility conditions using superior firepower (120mm vs older tanks).
During the battle of 73 easting MacGregor was the squadron (battalion equivalent in cavalry regiments) operations officer under then-captain McMaster. His planning tasks involved a battalion-sized force.
MacGregor also didn't do anything special and the engagement occurred in extremely advantageous conditions. He nevertheless went on to sell himself as a military genius rejected by the ossified Army bureaucracy. In reality he was never given command precisely because of his irresponsible decisions and his tendency to break established tactics in favour of his own inventions that worked on paper or during controlled exercises but which would end disastrously against a peer adversary (which the Iraqis never were). M1A1s could destroy poorly trained "elite" Republican Guard units because the "elite" status was a relative quality in the Iraqi military. Republican Guard was loyal to the regime so they received T-72M while the army used older tanks. They were nowhere near a match for US 1st Infantry or 1st Armored which were prepared for fighting Soviet shock tank armies.
Not much of a resume if you ask me.
His "Breaking the Phalanx" is also likely the single dumbest book on US Army reform and is the best evidence for MacGregor's lack of comprehension of what the role of the US Army is in US strategic doctrine and how large formations fight.
His idea was to reorganise the entire Army based on the structure of Cavalry regiments which had their own organic aviation. He argued that it made sense because Marine Task Forces were structured in a similar fashion. What he failed to grasp was that USMC were "cavalry" on strategic level capable of fast deployment and combat sustainment in austere conditions while US Army was meant to be the follow-on large-scale force capable of scaling operations over size or time. Big Army was Big Army because that was its intended role. Nobody needed the Army to be like the Marines because the Marines were already filling that role, and better than the Army ever could. MacGregor arguing for that change was damning evidence against his promotion to a position of Big Army general officer.
MacGregor never could imagine anything above the squadron level. This is why his predictions of events in Ukraine were almost always a complete failure of imagination. His entire thinking revolves around small tactics. He thinks large tactics is small tactics on a larger scale. He wanted to micro-manage large operations as if commanding a brigade or division was the same thing as commanding a tank company. It isn't. He was given a staff job because the staff consists of people who plan out operations for companies. But those people are managed by people who can imagine a higher echelon. And that's why only some people make the cut for general.
Another problem of MacGregor was that he was always attempting to force his own ideas which would be disastrous if he was given command of a larger unit. We have proof for that from Ukraine's failed offensive in Summer of 2023 when NATO planners suggested NATO structures and tactics which the Ukrainian formations rejected in favour of their own tactics and structures because the units were composed of old reserve officers and mobilised personnel. This would happen exactly if MacGregor was given general command - he would force his ideas but the lower ranks would not understand them. And that's if his ideas were better than the established tactics to begin with which is also not true in most cases.
You fight with the army you have, not the one you want to have. Colonel MacMaster disagrees and that's why is a colonel - the highest rank you can gain on service time alone.
Ben Hodges does propaganda now because now it's his literal job at CEPA. But Hodges was a decent general and was quite capable as commander of US Army Europe from 2014 to 2017. MacMaster wasn't even a decent colonel. MacMaster is the Pierre Sprey of ground warfare. Eric Shinseki's ideas were criticised but he was supported in his career because his ideas were based on French solutions which were proven extremely effective in 1991. MacMaster was talking nonsense and everyone knew it. Everything the US Army does now is the exact opposite of what he advocated.
MacGregor is a grifter and a literal armchair general - a colonel who was never given stars because everyone in the Army - except him - recognised his incompetence at that level. Your problem is that Pentagon doesn't need to explain its personnel decisions to the public while MacGregor spent all his retirement arguing his own case in the media.
He could do that because he was also a rabid war cheerleader, and first became a Fox contributor during Bush Jr administration when he backed Rumsfeld's idiotic plan of invading Iraq with a small force - something that the Army rejected, and then had to salvage by providing reinforcements at last minute, when the idiotic plan of an idiotic DefSec was green-lit by an idiotic VP and rubber-stamped by an idiotic POTUS.
Almost everyone who has heard of MacGregor cites his performance during the battle of 73 easting as indication of his expertise however almost nobody realises that the largely irrelevant battle is well-known largely because of MacGregor's embellished narrative of the events that he used to promote himself and his 1997 book.
The engagement was used by American propaganda before, because it had a very suitable Hollywood-like chain of events, but in reality it was a minor engagement at the beginning of a larger battle. lasting throughout the night of 26-27 February1991 where the US VII Corps consisting of elements of several divisions broke through positions of several Iraqi divisions. Over time it became the symbol of the war because MacGregor used it as "proof" that his ideas were correct. And because the ground war was too short and too condensed for any distinct battles to find their way into public imagination the 73 easting played that role.
Except...
American decisive victory in that battle was the consequence of decisive technological advantage. The battle started around 16:00 with twilight in that area on 26 Feb beginning around 17:45 and night around 19:00 and lasted for approximately 6 hours which means that only a quarter of it occurred during daylight and all of it occurred in mild sandstorm conditions. Iraqi vehicles consisting of outdated T-72M, T-62 and T-55 and BMPs had no thermal vision or fire control systems while M1A1 and M2/M3 had both. After the initial surprise encounters units of VII Corps engaged Iraqi units and destroyed them from range during low visibility conditions using superior firepower (120mm vs older tanks).
During the battle of 73 easting MacGregor was the squadron (battalion equivalent in cavalry regiments) operations officer under then-captain McMaster. His planning tasks involved a battalion-sized force.
MacGregor also didn't do anything special and the engagement occurred in extremely advantageous conditions. He nevertheless went on to sell himself as a military genius rejected by the ossified Army bureaucracy. In reality he was never given command precisely because of his irresponsible decisions and his tendency to break established tactics in favour of his own inventions that worked on paper or during controlled exercises but which would end disastrously against a peer adversary (which the Iraqis never were). M1A1s could destroy poorly trained "elite" Republican Guard units because the "elite" status was a relative quality in the Iraqi military. Republican Guard was loyal to the regime so they received T-72M while the army used older tanks. They were nowhere near a match for US 1st Infantry or 1st Armored which were prepared for fighting Soviet shock tank armies.
Not much of a resume if you ask me.
His "Breaking the Phalanx" is also likely the single dumbest book on US Army reform and is the best evidence for MacGregor's lack of comprehension of what the role of the US Army is in US strategic doctrine and how large formations fight.
His idea was to reorganise the entire Army based on the structure of Cavalry regiments which had their own organic aviation. He argued that it made sense because Marine Task Forces were structured in a similar fashion. What he failed to grasp was that USMC were "cavalry" on strategic level capable of fast deployment and combat sustainment in austere conditions while US Army was meant to be the follow-on large-scale force capable of scaling operations over size or time. Big Army was Big Army because that was its intended role. Nobody needed the Army to be like the Marines because the Marines were already filling that role, and better than the Army ever could. MacGregor arguing for that change was damning evidence against his promotion to a position of Big Army general officer.
MacGregor never could imagine anything above the squadron level. This is why his predictions of events in Ukraine were almost always a complete failure of imagination. His entire thinking revolves around small tactics. He thinks large tactics is small tactics on a larger scale. He wanted to micro-manage large operations as if commanding a brigade or division was the same thing as commanding a tank company. It isn't. He was given a staff job because the staff consists of people who plan out operations for companies. But those people are managed by people who can imagine a higher echelon. And that's why only some people make the cut for general.
Another problem of MacGregor was that he was always attempting to force his own ideas which would be disastrous if he was given command of a larger unit. We have proof for that from Ukraine's failed offensive in Summer of 2023 when NATO planners suggested NATO structures and tactics which the Ukrainian formations rejected in favour of their own tactics and structures because the units were composed of old reserve officers and mobilised personnel. This would happen exactly if MacGregor was given general command - he would force his ideas but the lower ranks would not understand them. And that's if his ideas were better than the established tactics to begin with which is also not true in most cases.
You fight with the army you have, not the one you want to have. Colonel MacMaster disagrees and that's why is a colonel - the highest rank you can gain on service time alone.
Ben Hodges does propaganda now because now it's his literal job at CEPA. But Hodges was a decent general and was quite capable as commander of US Army Europe from 2014 to 2017. MacMaster wasn't even a decent colonel. MacMaster is the Pierre Sprey of ground warfare. Eric Shinseki's ideas were criticised but he was supported in his career because his ideas were based on French solutions which were proven extremely effective in 1991. MacMaster was talking nonsense and everyone knew it. Everything the US Army does now is the exact opposite of what he advocated.
They don’t know what to do. Keeping them up at nights asking how do we hurt Israel without committing suicide.
It's an interesting read on the comments you made against MacGregor because I have read similar charges made on U.S. military forums years ago especially on the book Breaking the Phalanx.
Having said all that, what's your take on Gen.Wesley Clark and especially his somewhat controversial shortened (some say FIRED) tenure as SACEUR during the Kosovo campaign. His relationship with his subordinate Gen.Mike Jackson on the Pristina incident was quite infamous since Jackson refused Clark's order stating quite dramatically that he was not about to start WWIII for trying to stop the Russians from arriving at the site.
US releases $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US weapons and military equipment, months after Congress appropriated
The State Department notified lawmakers on Thursday night that the Biden administration intended to release the billions of dollars worth of foreign military financing to Israel, one of the sources said. The money comes from the $14.1 billion supplemental funding bill for Israel that was passed by Congress in April.______
U.S. won't sanction IDF unit for human rights violations in West Bank
A senior U.S. official said that while Blinken determined the battalion committed gross human rights violations, the information provided by Israel over the last three months showed the IDF remediated the behavior of the battalion and addressed U.S. concerns.The most moral army just bombed a school in Gaza full of refugees, killing over 100 people.
an IDF soldier defending IDF raping Palestinian prisoners.
Some Israeli guy on channel 12 saying raping Palestinians is an appropriate way to take revenge and could serve as a good deterrent.
EDIT:
Max Blumenthal shares some facts about how normal rape is in the IDF and how higher-ups condone rape against women in the IDF. Makes you wonder why so many protesters flocked to defend these IDF rapists, considering the protestors themselves were all IDF at some point. Shared values?
MOD EDIT: WRAPPED GRAPHIC PHOTO IN SPOILER TAG
an IDF soldier defending IDF raping Palestinian prisoners.
Some Israeli guy on channel 12 saying raping Palestinians is an appropriate way to take revenge and could serve as a good deterrent.
EDIT:
Max Blumenthal shares some facts about how normal rape is in the IDF and how higher-ups condone rape against women in the IDF. Makes you wonder why so many protesters flocked to defend these IDF rapists, considering the protestors themselves were all IDF at some point. Shared values?
MOD EDIT: WRAPPED GRAPHIC PHOTO IN SPOILER TAG
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Ben Hodges has been wrong about every single thing he has said since the war began. Literally everything!!!! His posts and comments on TV news, being quoted in print media and giving paid speeches are proof that 1) The US Army does not promote tactical or strategic knowledge or brilliance 2) A US Army commander's team is essential to making his commander successful, so when the commander retires and has no team and must rely solely on his own judgment, this is evident in the stupidity he speaks. To use as an example, Ben Hodges thinks that Russia relies primarily on conscripts for combat troops in Ukraine, which shows how dramatically uninformed they are. Generals who were commanders of US Army Europe and EUCOM, whose main adversary at the time was Russia, and who are now paid consultants rambling on about Russia, should be familiar with the Russian manpower system, specifically how conscripts are and are not used:
Ben Hodges!!! He is a giant joke.
And another thing, stop sending me private messages. I won't reply to you. Thank you!!!!
The bombing of the school is clearly a ploy for Netanyahu to sabotage ceasefire talks. That’s why I never pay attention to the talks because he wants a wider war. He knows the minute there is a ceasefire his govt collapses and he faces prison time. And the west is pushing hard for a ceasefire for narrative. Basically so when Iran and the axis of resistance strikes Israel they’ll blame them for derailing peace talks. That’s what their media will tell the populace. And Iran has already stated they’ll still strike even if there is a ceasefire in place.