Opinions Of Military Analysts example essay topic

I selected an article from this past Sunday's Oregonian. As the majority of the articles in the paper are, this commentary is in regards to the "Second Gulf War". Charles Krauthammer gives an excellent and well-educated opinion of the battle plans of the war. He describes the original war plan, or as he refers to it, "Plan A", and how General Franks has done a superb job of adapting the "Plan A" to the level of resistance experienced by our forces in southern Iraq.

This is contrary to the opinions of some news reports that include the opinions of military analysts, retired generals, and even former presidents. The writer states", [... ] this is a campaign of staggering complexity [... ] nonetheless, Tommy Franks' plan has fared better than most". Krauthammer offers the fact that the U.S. Military as " [... ] large, mechanized, integrated and complex [... ] " as it is, is still able to adjust itself tactically to the resistance of the die-hard, Baathist, irregulars in the south. He states this as", [... ] nothing short of astonishing".

Krauthammer also discusses the raised expectations of a "bloodless victory". He claims that it is unfair to say that the administration orchestrated these expectations, but rather only allowed them. He states that the administration's response, or lack thereof, to such expectations was for "obvious and very good military reasons". The writer is unsettled with the genre of several news reports last week that suggested a failed plan. Krauthammer obviously intends to calm the reader by providing an educated outlook as to how our military has been successful thus far in the campaign. His intended audience includes the majority of people who may have seen the reports and possibly concluded that there were miscalculations made by the administration.

The author drew some very obvious conclusions about this war. He plainly stated the fact that regardless of what some sources reported this war was fought at the hands of brilliant military leaders. These great men and women executed a "fluid" battle plan that was readily capable of being changed or modified with relative ease in minimal time. This fortunately proved successful and substantiated Krauthammer's position. It is difficult to disagree with this article. In fact, I don't read this as a opinion column in certain ways.

This is because it is more of a credit to our armed forces and it's leadership with the success experienced by troops. It is educational in the effect that it uses statistics from our past skirmishes in Kosovo and Afghanistan that the audience has either forgotten or was unaware of in comparison to the current conflict. In an indirect way Krauthammer questioned the professionalism of the reporters, agencies, or analysts who may have made certain claims about the war that were possibly inaccurate or proven incorrect later on as the war progressed. I can agree with the statements made by the author.

This is not necessarily due to the facts he presented, but that his arguments tend to be substantiated by the constant news reports coming across the wire from the front lines. It is plainly obvious now that the heavy fighting in Iraq is over. U.S. soldiers do not have to anticipate "moving to contact" against large Iraqi divisions or any organized units of the Republican Guard. These forces have reportedly dissolved into the Iraqi cities, choosing to rejoin society rather than face internment as a prisoner of war, or more likely, death..