Just learn that Norman has died

Stormin Norman. Being from Tampa I've met him a number of times and he's lived here for over 20 years. He's kinda become a local celeb. One of the last ones. RIP

 

Too bad Norman had to be a part of that "Precision Manufactured", war machine.

 

Stormin Norman was one of the last John Wayne Cowboy generals we've had. He was the patton type that would walk into a room and just take it over and boss around the president. Because of politics involved I don't think we'll see another Norman again. Also he made Colin Powell. He chose him as something really high up where he just kept climbing. Which is funny because we all though Colin Powell would of been the first black president as opposed to Obama. I woulda gone Republican and with Powell over Obama if that had been the race. I don't mean to go overboard but having met him all over town and known him as a celeb my whole life I've always been a lil awestruck with him.

 

That's the bone I have to pick. My wife was reactivated to active duty during Desert Shield/Desert Storm for about eight months total duty. Most of us who had to either fight or suffer the hardships that war caused were pretty angry that Norman's colossal tactical blunder allowed Saddam Hussein to stay in power and ensured that a second war would be necessary to remove him. Eveybody in service then was furious about it.

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1992/920628-lm-wp.htm

Don't get me wrong: I am not anti military. My father served a total of 31 years and my family suffered the hardships that life calls out..... including the pitiful retirement pay my dad received retiring at full colonel (it was so low we qualified for welfare and food stamps).

Both my brothers served in Nam and I missed the window by a year.

The point is that Norman should have to be held accountable for his screw ups if he is to be deified for his accomplishments. And his major screw up meant Hussein held power and we had to go back and finish the first war with a second invasion...... and BTW, the man who was Secty of Defense during GW1 was vice president during GW2 (Dick Cheney).

 

We can only hope so.

A funny aside:

My wife was the commanding officer of a Naval Medical Reserve unit at the time, and it was during that period, the services had enacted a campaign of throwing reservists out if they did not meet certain "fitness" requirements... among them were some ridiculous "body fat" limits that many older reservists did not meet. It was widely understood at the time it was simply a way of discharging older reservists so they would not be able to complete their service and get their retirement pay.

Anyway, as many smart and capable doctors and nurses were being bounced out of the navy medical reserves, Norman was holding press conferences with his 50 pound pot belly pushing through his camos.

My wife still fumes about that.... I just remind her:

rank has it's priviledges.

 

I blame the politicians for that. Their the ones who held em back and worked out a political solution. Norman was ready to take bhagdad and was called off. I'm sure he secretly was as pissed as all of us. Bush's though they were gonna get an ally and didn't because as it turned out other then being a west infatuated dictator he wasn't doing anything wrong. No chemical weapons, no nukes, no nothing all because he wouldn't say he had no nukes which would make him look weak in the ME world. So he kept silent and we gave him an ultimatum to leave or we'd kill em. So we killed him. Not saying he wasn't a bad guy or didn't get what he deserved but I think the whole thing was fast and fishy..... Meanwhile we have iran doing cartwheels saying look at our nuke advancements in our new magazine Al Jezeera Nuclear Edition.

 

I just watched a very comprehensive documentary about the Cuban missile crisis, and one of the remarkable things was how Kennedy resisted the "urgings" of General Lemay to simply "nuke Russia off the face of the earth".... he was nicknamed "Bombs Away Lemay".

The point is, I wonder if people realize how lucky we are that "Cowboy Generals" are becoming less common and that our government was set up so that the civilian sector can reign them in from the brink of insanity.

 

You are mixing up two entirely separate issues:

HW Bush knew that occupying Iraq and "taking baghdad" was insane and would lead to the war we fought later which turned out horribly. His plan was for our forces to decimate Hussein's forces which would then be wiped out by Shia forces coming up from the south. That was going well until Norman allowed Hussein's armies the use of helo gunships which slaughtered the Shia ground forces, which can not fight against air power. Hw's originl plan was perfect, since it would be Hussein being overthrown by a "popular uprising" not by a US occupational invasion force.

You have to remember that HW was barely able to hold together his "coalition" and if it had turned into a US invasion of Iraq, it would have instantly evaporated.

good info: http://www.fpif.org/articles/why_the_us_did_not_overthrow_saddam_hussein

If Schwarzkopf had not blundered on the helo issue, the Shias would have continued to push north and saddam would have died quickly at their hands and the US could not have been blamed for his overthrow.