Nancy Military Experts -or- Girly-Man Generals

I just read sections of this article at Captain's Quarters. Great article there going on with that posted at the Belmont Club.

WaPo seems to have some special technique for finding pessimists and cowards for military commentators.

"On the strategic level, we were expecting an horrendous month leading up to the Iraqi elections, and that has begun," retired Army Col. Michael E. Hess said.

Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst of Middle Eastern military affairs, said he is especially worried that the insurgents' next move will be an actual penetration by fighters into a base. "The real danger here is that they will mount a sophisticated effort to penetrate or assault one of our camps or bases with a ground element," he said.

You've got to be kidding. This guy actually thinks the insurgents would attack a large US military complex in a frontal assault. Not a chance.

"Twenty-one months" -- the length of the occupation so far -- "is not a long time to tame the tribal warfare expected there," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Rick Raftery, an intelligence specialist who operated in northern Iraq in 1991. "My guess is that this will take 10 years."

Pessimist. 10 Years? Does he honestly think we'll be manning Iraq at this level after a decade.

A byproduct of such a strike is that it tends to drive a wedge between U.S. personnel and the Iraqis who work on the base. "I think that this tells us first that our base facilities are totally infiltrated by insiders who are passing the word on when and where we are most vulnerable to attack," said retired Marine Col. Edward Badolato, a security expert.

Totally infiltrated. No other way they could get the information. Not that one person couldn't have provided that. This still is assuming that this was a precision strike or a placed bomb. Wouldn't it be more prudent to wait for the results of the investigation? Wait, no, that wouldn't be sensational enough of a report.

Oh and this last pessimist is a jewel.

Not all experts were pessimistic. Retired Army Col. John Antal said he expects more spectacular attacks in the coming weeks, but mainly because "the enemy is on the ropes and desperate to stop the elections."

But others were throwing up their hands. "This sure isn't playing out like I thought it would," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Jay Stout, author of a book about the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, in which he fought. He said he is no longer confident about what the U.S. strategy in Iraq should be.

"We have few choices: We can maintain the status quo while trying to build an Iraqi government that will survive, we can get the hell out now and leave them to kill themselves, or we can adopt a more brutal and repressive stance."

His choice? "I don't know the right answer -- I gave up guessing a few months ago."

Throwing up his hands? Why is he even being used if he can't even make a guess. Instead he just implies that the military will need to be repressive. What an ASS.