wandering hillbilly

pinions of buddy don:
the art of war

thays this book called the art of war thats thousands of years old by a riter name of sun tzu. in it he eggzamines how ye win wars n thangs to avoid to keep frum bankruptin yer folks n overstretchin yer troops n cumin home in disgrace n even losin. in it he gives lots of ways ye kin avoid disaster or on tuther hand, ways ye kin win even if the odds is stacked agin ye. tiz a innerestin read n i advise ye to follow that lank n see whut ye thank. taint long.

thays a jurnlist at the new york times name of milt bearden that read sun tzus book n then wrote a articull bout how the enemy in iraq has eethur read it or studied the way the insurgents in afghanistan beat the russians with it on a counta how thar usin them same tackticks. his articull is called "Iraqi Insurgents Take a Page From the Afghan 'Freedom Fighters'" n tiz also wurth a read. heres a few of the main points:

1. sun tzu sed ye gut to attack the enemies strategy furst thang n thats whut the iraqis dun: "So it was probably no accident that as American forces approached Baghdad, expecting tough street fighting, the bulk of the Iraqi forces melted away. The American troops, forced to shift strategy on the run, have been bedeviled by the consequences of those early chaotic days ever since."
   
2. next ye go after the alliances, lack the un or the red cross or the poles or the italians or the jordanians or iraqi folks that heps our side out by bein po-leece or mayors or iraqi council members.
   
3. thurd thang sun tzu recommends is to attack the army of the enemy, speshly ifn ye kin doot without gittin attacked back, lack usin mortars to attack hotels or stingers anti-aircraft launchers to attack helicopters n such n usin homemade bombs to take out one or two of the enemy here n thar.
   
4. thang bout this is ye git to attack yer enemy n make him reack in ways that makes thang wurse fer his cause on a counta tiz hard to tell who the enemy is so in lookin fer em, yer almos bound to make sum innocent folk suffer n then they turns agin ye. milt bearden points out how the afghani 'freedom fighters' (witch that wuz osama bin ladens bunch that ronald raygun hepped start up) used this tacktick: "For every mujahedeen killed or hauled off in raids by Soviet troops in Afghanistan, a revenge group of perhaps a half-dozen members of his family took up arms. Sadly, this same rule probably applies in Iraq. "
   
5. finely, sun tzu sed ye gut to know yer enemy n know yerself. we cant ritely say we know eethur one verr well. we sartinly dint know whuther they had em them weppons of mass destruckshun (even ifn we did no bettern to use the wurds 'imminent' n 'threat' in the same sentence). we aint sartin whuter the enemy is bitter enders or al queda terrsts or saddams army or jes plane folk who hate to see thar cuntry overrun by forn troops. we dont speak thar lingo or unnerstan thar tradishuns. we dont even seem to member verr well whut the west taught em bout how to make a enemy suffer even when it has cuntrol of the place, lack lawrence of arabia dun, witch everbidy ought read his book "the seven pillars of wisdom."

thays sum bleeves saddam hussein wuz gittin reddy to fite us thisaway frum the verr beginnin. frum how he lost the war in 1991, he had dun figgered thay wuznt no way to beat us hed on. so sum thanks them iraqis stored up thar weppons n planned whar they wood hide n let us in sos they could start usin them principulls agin us. bes articull ive seen on that topick wuz in newsweek, writ by Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks, witch they even called it "Is this Saddam's counterattack?"

but wait, thars more, lack they say in them ads, on a counta whuts a'goin on in pakistan, whar ye mite member thay gut em a guy name of Pervez Musharraf as presdint, witch ye mite member hes one of them folks that bush dint know the name of whenever he wuz given that unfair pop quiz by the reporter when he wuz runnin his camp pain fer presdint (i mean, why should the presdint have to know bout such folk?). ye mite member how he sed twuz sumbidy who had dun brought stabilty to the subcontinet. not by usin democracy, witch thats the latest reasun fer why were a'doin whut were a'doin, but on violence on a counta how Pervez Musharraf tuck cuntrol of the cuntry by usin a miltary coup. so whut could he but up to now?

thays a articull that purty much tries to splain whuts a'goin on over thar in the daily times, a new voice for pakistan, witch the articull is called "Pakistan has legions of Bin Laden followers." dont read thisn ifn ye scare easy on a counta it tells how thangs is fallen apart over thar. the articull starts off with a quote frum our own cato institute: "'In Pakistan, there are legions of bin Ladin followers, plenty of links between government officials and terrorists and nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists. This is not speculation,' according to Leon Hadar, a research fellow at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute." these cato institute folks thanks pakistan is whar the real ackshun in terrism is, not iraq. tiz sum scary stuff.

aint no doubt that we gut the edge in the science of war. questchun is whuther the science of war kin beat the art of war.