Category Archives: War

The Battle of Champion Hill

Americana, General U.S. Grant, War

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In May, 2008, five years ago, Michele and I didn’t visit Champion Hill. We got close, we got to Vicksburg, but we didn’t get to Champion Hill. Today, one hundred and fifty years ago, on May 16th, 1863,  Ulysses S. Grant did.

He attacked the Confederate Army of General John Pemberton there. That battle, eventually, led to the fall of the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg, the separation of the South into two unconnected halves, the re-connection of the Midwest with the sea, and – I think – the end of the Confederacy. Lincoln said it best, We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of the far South, and a cotton country where they can raise the staple without interference.

It was one of, if not the greatest, military campaigns in our history. Grant was behind enemy lines  and outnumbered by almost two to one. All this, in an area that was swampy and mosquito infested. When Michele and I were there  – in 2008 on a pilgrimage – we didn’t even want to leave the paved roads. But Grant had been moving constantly since he and his army had crossed the Mississippi on April 3oth, two weeks before.

To distract and confuse the enemy, Grant had ordered two diversionary actions. One of them, Col. Ben Grierson’s raid, was  featured in the New York Times a couple of days ago.  Grierson made a 16 day, 600 mile, raid behind enemy lines. It was audacious, and typical of Grant, and it succeeded in diverting much of the southern cavalry – the eyes and ears of the army at that time – away from Grant’s Army.

When he crossed the Mississippi, Grant was deep in the delta flatlands – the Plantation South – and, as he captured territory, he freed slaves. Later, many of those slaves became Union soldiers, and some were immediately helpful to the Union. Without their help, Grant would have been blind; he didn’t know the country and he had no maps.  As an aside that amuses me, Grant also purchased, according to his son – freed?  liberated? captured? according to others – a horse from the plantation of Joseph Davis, Jefferson Davis’ brother. Grant renamed the horse Jeff Davis and rode him, along with Cincinnati,  for much of the war. End of asides.

Because he couldn’t attack Vicksburg directly, Grant moved east to cut off the city’s supply line. In doing so, he cut off all connection to his own base. Now he was alone, outnumbered, and surrounded. In his memoirs, Grant says, I therefore determined to move swiftly towards Jackson, destroy or drive any force in that direction and then turn upon Pemberton. But by moving against Jackson, I uncovered my own communication [and supply lines]. So I finally decided to have none–to cut loose altogether from my base and move my whole force eastward. I then had no fears for my communications, and if I moved quickly enough could turn upon Pemberton before he could attack me in the rear.

It was a blitzkrieg if I can use that word with an army mostly walking and using muledrawn wagons, oxcarts, and horses pulling buggies. According to Major-General J F C Fuller, an early theorist of modern armored warfare, Grant’s tremendous energy electrified his men, everywhere was there activity….reconnaissances were sent out daily to examine the roads and country, and foraging parties swarmed over the cultivated areas collecting supplies….Nothing was left undone which would speed up the advance, and assist in maintaining it at maximum pressure once the move forward was ordered.

On May 14th, two weeks after he crossed the Mississippi, in country he did not know and without maps, Grant took Jackson, about 60 miles from where he crossed the river, and as he says in his memoirs, his troops hoisted the National flag over the rebel capital of Mississippi. 

One more aside, in the Not everybody appreciates Grant’s humor department, the night after capturing, Jackson, Mississippi, Grant stayed at the best hotel in town, The Bowman House (in the same room that General Joseph Johnson had stayed in, for free, the night before). When the owner demanded payment, Grant’s aide-de-camp said No, but Grant agreed with the hotel owner and insisted on paying for the room…in Confederate money. End aside.

Grant then turned towards Vicksburg  from the east, and 27 miles west of where he slept two days before, he met Pemberton at Champion Hill. Again, Grant in his memoirs, The battle of Champion’s Hill lasted about four hours, hard fighting, preceded by two or three hours of skirmishing, some of which almost rose to the dignity of battle….We had in this battle about 15,000 men absolutely engaged. Our loss was 410 killed, 1,844 wounded and 187 missing. The south lost 4,082 men and were driven back into Vicksburg never to recover.

On our pilgrimage of only one day, we only had time to drive south to the area where Grant crossed the Mississippi and tour the Vicksburg Battlefield itself. Our guide for the day told us that Champion Hill was too far away (maybe he was influenced by our reluctance to leave the road earlier). He didn’t say Keep moving, there is nothing to see there, keep moving but that was the drift. Now I am sorry that I missed it, even if there was nothing to see, and I want to say that I am sorry that I will not be able to attend the 150th Anniversary, but that is not true, if I did go, all I would do is gloat.

But we did have time to get a Chinese dinner in Vicksburg  as is our ritual when traveling, and we did have time to see the Mighty Mississippi. From the bluff overlooking the River, we confirmed, as Lincoln said, that The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.
Vicksburg-2

And Thanks to Michele who really helped write this. 

 

We invaded Iraq 10 years ago

Americana, Politics, War

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“Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out.” President George Bush to three U.S. Senators in March 2002.

“The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.” President George Bush

“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Vice President Dick Cheney.

“[Saddam] is a threat. He’s a murderer and a thug. There’s no doubt we can do this. We’re stronger; he’s weaker. You’re looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I’d be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished,”  Bill Clinton

“Five days or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last longer.” Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

“Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda are regaining ground in Iraq, invigorated by the war next door in Syria and have stepped up attacks on Shi’ite targets in an attempt to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation…After Operation Iraqi Freedom promised to liberate the Iraqi people, Iraq has struggled with a decade that drove the country into sectarian mayhem which killed tens of thousands and the turmoil of a young democracy emerging out of dictatorship. Since the last election in 2010, Maliki’s Sunni and Kurdish critics have accused him of consolidating his own authority, abusing his control of the security forces to pressure foes and failing to live up to a power-sharing deal.” Reuters

“At least 56 killed in Baghdad attacks. Twelve bombs explode in Shia areas on tenth anniversary of US-led invasion of country.”  The Guardian

 

Total United States causalities: 4,487 dead, 31,965 wounded.   

Syria and Jordan

Politics, War

SYRIA-CONFLICT

 

As the Civil War in Syria rages on and is becoming  more entrenched, Jordan just held an election – with scattered protests – in which the King of Jordan put alot of effort into making sure that nothing really changed.  I don’t understand that and I suspect it is because my point of view is different than that of a middle east monarch. King Abdullah, afterall, grew up in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. His – God-given, I suppose –  right to be monarch is even in the country’s name. I grew up in a democracy and my main political influence was a father who was both a Democrat and, more importantly, a democrat.

When I first read about the protests in Syria, in March of 2011, I was sure that Bashar al-Assad would agree to work at setting up a democracy. The autocratic rulers of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt had already fallen and it seemed to me that the writing was on the wall. Now, almost two years later, in his craving to hold on to power, Dictator Bashar al-Assad has killed, atleast, 60,000 people  – more than the 50,000-plus U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam – and driven more than 750,000 of his own people into exile. If I were King Abdullah of Jordan, I would be worried that the same thing could happen to me. I would be jumping through hoops trying to get a real Democracy established so that Jordan doesn’t turn into Syria – or Egypt or Libya – even though the situation is not exactly the same.

Maybe the ruler of Jordan feels safe because, in Syria, the ruling class of Alawites is in the minority. Maybe he thinks that that is the only reason a popular uprising in the streets has morphed into a Civil War. From my point of view – with almost no knowledge of particulars – Jordan might be next. I suspect that I see only all the similarities between Syria and Jordan and King Abdullah sees only the differences. But, more importantly, democracy and change are in my blood and, I suspect, not in Abdullah’s.

I hold George Washington to be a National Hero because he gave up power and, in the United States, the tradition has continued with not only our elected leaders giving up their power to the next elected leader,  but over the years, the ruling class of land-owning, white, men, has given up its exclusive power. In Jordan, the rulers are part of the majority population and they are holding on to their power as tight as they can (but there is an large immigrant population that does not seem to be very happy with this). In Jordan, elections are held but they don’t seem to change anything – although I did read that this year, one big change is that the ballots are actually printed – and I am of the point of view that that this refuse to change will boil over into a bigger problem.

 

 

 

Malala Yousufzai, Gabby Giffords, head injuries, and our wars

Current Affairs, War

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head by a religious fanatic and Gabby Giffords was shot in the head by some-other-kind of fanatic. By all rights, they should be dead but they both seem to be prospering (prospering being a relative term here, I am sure that it has not been a net positive experience).

As an aside, I hold the position the anybody who tries to kill another human being is crazy. That may be my main definition of crazy, any body who thinks they have the right to kill somebody else is crazy. I suspect that alot of PTSD is otherwise sane people being forced to kill other human beings which is why drone pilots, living and working near Syracuse New York, get PTSD. End aside.

How disheartening that must be for the madmen that pulled the trigger on Malala, she is now a world wide celebrity living in England and he is living a life of an hunted animal. And poor, smiley,   Jared Lee Loughner after everybody argued over his sanity – in public – he will be spending life in prison without parole, reading about how terrific Giffords is. The new technology used to save both Malala and Gabby – if I may be presumptuous enough to use their first names – is a collateral benefit of our wars in the Gulf and Afghanistan.

In the Civil War, if somebody was wounded, they had only about a 40% chance of living. Those were the days before anesthesia or antibiotics like penicillin but it was also before IED’s or hollow-point bullets. In World War II, the odds climbed to about 70%. Now, in Afghanistan, it is better than 80%. With Malala and Gabby, it is 100%. Much of this is because of how fast we can get wounded people to help, but it is also because, once we get them to help, the doctors have learned so much about stopping the damage from getting worse and, then, repairing the damage.

It is extraordinary how far these little wars have pushed trauma medicine. I still don’t think they are worth it, though.

Shot schoolgirl treated in the UK

Zero Dark Thirty

Americana, Film, War

Michele and I saw Zero Dark Thirty Sunday night and we liked it alot. I was prepared to not like it, because of the torture controversy, and my general lack of enthusiasm for Hurt Locker (which won six Academy Awards including Best Picture, so what do I know). The best way I can describe the picture is that it is gritty and dense. I have never been to Pakistan – and, apparently, the picture hasn’t either having been filmed in  Jordan and India, which pissed off both the Pakistanis and Indians – but the movie fit my imagined picture of Pakistan exactly.

Driving through the streets of Lahore, it seemed like they were either using thousands of extras or they really were there. I loved Django Unchained  and Argo but, compared to Zero Dark Thirty, they seemed like cartoons shot on a set. Zero Dark Thirty seemed like the real deal. It was thrilling and, at the end, the audience cheered the winning team. Our Team! And I think that may be a problem.

The movie, sort of, presents itself as a documentary or fictionized documentary like Truman Capote’s True Blood. But it is not the real deal. It is not an objective look at what happened and today I am a little hung over from feeling so good while I watched the movie. There are several people who say it better than me, Jane Mayer and Matt Taibbi for example, and I think that I can best serve my point by giving a couple of quotes.

From Jane Mayer: In addition to providing false advertising for waterboarding, “Zero Dark Thirty” endorses torture in several other subtle ways. At one point, the film’s chief C.I.A. interrogator claims, without being challenged, that “everyone breaks in the end,” adding, “it’s biology.” Maybe that’s what they think in Hollywood, but experts on the history of torture disagree. Indeed, many prisoners have been tortured to death without ever revealing secrets, while many others—including some of those who were brutalized during the Bush years—have fabricated disinformation while being tortured. Some of the disinformation provided under duress during those years, in fact, helped to lead the U.S. into the war in Iraq under false premises.

From Matt Taibbi: Mohammed Al-Qatani, the so-called “20th hijacker,” who may have been some part of the inspiration for the “Ammar” character who was tortured in the opening scene, might have been the first detainee to mention the name of bin Laden’s courier. But as Gibney points out, al-Qatani gave that information up to the FBI, in legit, torture-free interrogations, before he was whisked away to Gitmo for 49 days of torture that included such insanities as forcing him to urinate on himself (by force-feeding him liquids while in restraints), making him watch a puppet show of him and bin Laden having sex, making him take dance lessons, making him wear panties on his head, and making him wear a “smiley-face” mask, along with the usual sleep and sensory deprivation, arm-hanging, etc. In other words, the key info may have come before they chucked our supposed standards for human decency.

In the end, nursing my post movie hangover, the, movie makes me a little sad.

and one quote…From Jane Mayer: Knowing the real facts—the ones that led the European Court of Human Rights to condemn America for torture this week—I had trouble enjoying the movie. I’ve interviewed Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen whose suit the E.C.H.R. adjudicated. He turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, an innocent car salesman whom the C.I.A. kidnapped and held in a black-site prison for four months, and who was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled, and hooded.” What Masri lived through was so harrowing that, when I had a cup of coffee with him, a few years ago, he couldn’t describe it to me without crying. Maybe I care too much about all of this to enjoy it with popcorn. But maybe the creators of “Zero Dark Thirty” should care a little bit more.