[“Delusional Republicans”… Sorry for the redundant language.]

Sarah had a cryptic post the other day that said to Google on “General Riper.” So I did, and Knight-Ridder comes through once again. It’s a long quote, but worth it, especially for you folks out there who like your military history (as I do).

[General Paul] Van Riper told Knight Ridder that in looking at Rumsfeld’s leadership he found three particular areas of inability and incompetence.

So, Riper is one of those retired Generals who are trying to rip Rummy’s soft white underbelly open. Read the whole thing.

And there’s a bonus—midway through, you’ll see why it’s bogus to think that the NSA surveillance program has anything to do with terrorists (i.e., it’s domestic, ratfucking on a grand scale).

First, he said, if any battalion commander under him had created so “poor a climate of leadership” and the “bullying” that goes on in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld he would order an investigation and relieve that commander.

Typical Republican. But at least Rummy doesn’t make up cute little names for people.

“Even more than that I focus on (his) incompetence when it comes to preparing American military forces for the future,” Van Riper said. “His idea of transformation turns on empty buzz words. There’s none of the scholarship and doctrinal examination that has to go on before you begin changing the force.”

Again, typical Republican. They “create their own reality” with buzzwords. (One of the things I will never forgive the right for is polluting the word “scholar” by applying it to the brain whores who work in their think tanks.)

Third, he said, under Rumsfeld there’s been no oversight of military acquisition.

Three for three. Rummy’s a typical Republican. Of course, oversight would get in the way of the snouted ones rushing for the corporate trough, the cronies angling for contracts, and mercenaries. So they don’t do it.

“Mr. Rumsfeld has failed 360 degrees in the job. He is incompetent,” Van Riper concluded. “Any military man who made the mistakes he has made, tactically and strategically, would be relieved on the spot.”

But—but—That would mean holding a Republican accountable!

Believe it or not, those were the hors d’oeuvres. If you really want a military story—a story worthy of Cohen and Gooch’s wonderful Military Misfortune: The Anatomy of Failure in War—keep reading:

One event that shocked Van Riper occurred in 2002 when he was asked, as he had been before, to play the commander of an enemy Red Force in a huge $250 million three-week war game titled Millennium Challenge 2002. It was widely advertised as the best kind of such exercises - a free-play unscripted test of some of the Pentagon’s and Rumsfeld’s fondest ideas and theories.

And you know how the Republicans like their theories…

Though fictional names were applied, it involved a crisis moving toward war in the Persian Gulf and in actuality was a barely veiled test of an invasion of Iran.

It’s a good thing we’re prepared. Or—read on—not.

In the computer-controlled game, a flotilla of Navy warships and Marine amphibious warfare ships steamed into the Persian Gulf for what Van Riper assumed would be a pre-emptive strike against the country he was defending.

Van Riper resolved to strike first and unconventionally using fast patrol boats and converted pleasure boats fitted with ship-to-ship missiles as well as first generation shore-launched anti-ship cruise missiles. He packed small boats and small propeller aircraft with explosives for one mass wave of suicide attacks against the Blue fleet. Last, the general [Riper[ shut down all radio traffic and sent commands by motorcycle messengers, beyond the reach of the code-breakers.

I’ve highlighted that text because it gives the absolute lie to the Republican assertion that the NSA warrantless surveillance is part of the war on terror. Why? Serious terrorists don’t communicate electronically. Bin Laden uses couriers and tapes; Mafi achieftains use notes. Riper’s exercise proves this, the Pentagon knows it, therefore General Hayden knows it, and so does anyone else “serious” inside the Beltway. So who are these clowns trying to fool when they frame Bush’s warrantless surveillance program as a terrorist surveillance program? [Unless by “terrorist” you mean “Democrat,” but that’s crazy talk… Oh, wait…]

At the appointed hour he sent hundreds of missiles screaming into the fleet, and dozens of kamikaze boats and planes plunging into the Navy ships in a simultaneous sneak attack that overwhelmed the Navy’s much-vaunted defenses based on its Aegis cruisers and their radar controlled Gatling guns.

When the figurative smoke cleared it was found that the Red Forces had sunk 16 Navy ships, including an aircraft carrier. Thousands of Marines and sailors were dead.

The referees stopped the game, which is normal when a victory is won so early. Van Riper assumed that the Blue Force would draw new, better plans and the free play war games would resume.

And now, enter the delusional Republicans!

Instead he learned that the war game was now following a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory: He was ordered to turn on all his anti-aircraft radar so it could be destroyed and he was told his forces would not be allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore.

Typical Republicans. They rigged the game! They didn’t like the results, so they changed the rules.

In some ways, the Republicans are bad disciples of Clauswitz, who said that “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” Unfortunately for the Republicans—and the country, and thousands of dead, of course—it turns out that the kind of fraud the Republicans so excel in at election time doesn’t translate at all well to the battlefield. That didn’t prevent them from trying to wargame it, though.

The Pentagon has never explained. It classified Van Riper’s 21-page report criticizing the results and conduct of the rest of the exercise, along with the report of another DOD observer.

Well, sure. “National security”—meaning, a Republican’s career—was at stake!

Pentagon officials have not released Joint Forces Command’s own report on the exercise.

Van Riper walked out and didn’t come back. He was furious that the war game had turned from an honest, open free play test of America’s war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise meant to end in an overwhelming American victory.

Yep, Rummy ran a war game just like Rove runs an election. Funny how things turned out differently, isn’t it?

And to think that the country trusted the lives of its soldiers, and the lives of Iraqis, to the Republicans.

Bullying buzzword-driven scripteed greedheads who never served their country and sent others off to die.

May they rot in the Hell of Their Choice.

Ceterum censeo, Bush delenda est!