Monday, September 09, 2013

Great Moments in Obama Administration Military History

Ponder the glories of the smartness and resolve of the Obama administration in foreign policy if they were quoted throughout history.

Julius Caesar: "I came, I saw, I dithered."

John Paul Jones: "I have not yet begun to decide!"

Napoleon: "If you start to take Vienna--take 2 or 3 days and then wrap it up."

Oliver Hazard Perry: "We have met the enemy, and they are people we can do business with."

Napoleon's standing order: "March to the sound of the applause."

Von Clausewitz: "Proportionate, limited strikes, without boots on the ground, are a continuation of politics by other means."

Ulysses S. Grant: "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all weekend."

Nathan Bedford Forrest: "Get there whenever--it doesn't really matter--with the minimum of cruise missiles plausible."

William Tecumseh Sherman: "An unbelievably small strike is Hell."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "When you strike a king, you must degrade his capabilities."

Unnamed chaplain at Pearl Harbor: "Praise the Lord and pass the resolution." (At some level I prefer "Praise The One and parse the dissimulation.")

Stalin: "Quandary has a quality all its own."

George C. Scott as Patton: "I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by sending a message to the other poor, dumb bastard."

Five years into the presidency, and here we are on foreign policy and matters of war.

UPDATE: Dang. Meant to post this tomorrow but posted it to this morning, and it got some hits before I could revert to draft. So here you go. Enjoy. If that's the word.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mad Minerva for the link. If you can't LOL you'll cry, at this point.

UPDATE: And thanks to Stones Cry Out for the link.

UPDATE: Via Mad Minerva, P. J. O'Rourke has fun with quotes, too.