My memory of the exercise seems to have been what Paul K Van Riper did after the initial "Sinking" of the US Fleet (I wrote, from memory that it was four carriers that were lost, but in the Wikipedia Article they said only one Carrier was "lost"
. I do NOT think VanRiper had any objections to the raising off the fleet, after he had sunk it the first day. It was a Training Exercise and having the ships stay "Sunk" would NOT help in planning or training. The problems was the restrictions imposed on him that limited what he could do using "obsolete" techniques. i.e. he had to turn ON his AA radar, something the North Vietnamese had learned early on was a call to be hit (Thus only turned them on when they was a high possibility of getting a target). Van Riper was told NOT to guard certain beaches, so Marines could land on them without opposition. etc. The "Red Forces" being forced to rely on radio communications NOT motorcycles and loud speakers in Minarets. These were the restrictions Van Riper opposed for they could be used by an opposing army to any US attack.
Van Riper also objected to the lack of understanding of Iraqi by the officers and men that invaded Iraq. To defeat someone you have to understand that oppornet. It is more then knowing how many tanks he has, it also what he expects in life and how he wants to be treated. In the US, if you attack a Church, you will face opposition but it will be limited, the member of that church will hate you, others will think it was dumb, but the opposition you create will be limited to those directly affected by the destruction of that church. In Iraq if you destroy a Mosque you just destroyed the center of what holds that community together. Destroying a Mosque is like destroying ALL of the Churches/Mosques/Temples in that town, the city hall, the police headquarters and all of the social organizations all at the same time. Everyone in that town will hate you, even people who hated the people who controlled that Mosque,
One way to look at Iraq (and a good part of the Rest of the World outside the "West" is to look at the African American Community and their local Police Station. Would African American Celebrate the bombing of the local Police Station, that is controlled by whites who are suppressing the local African Americans? No, they will oppose such an attack for the Police Station is part of their Community, they may want it to change and stop being "evil" but they do NOT want it destroyed. That is how the people of Iraq viewed their local Mosque, it is the center of their town, to destroy it is to attack what the town stands for and as such they will oppose it.
Look at what Van Riper says about this:
Van Riper's objections were in the nature of the restrictions imposed on him when it came to NOT using electronics. Van Riper's tactics was to concede to the US (Blue forces in the exercise) electronics superiority and rely instead on the support of the people and traditional communication systems (including using the Minarets tied in with every Mosque to send messages to the people by voice command. I notice he had served in Vietnam where a popular supported but low tech army ended up fighting the US Army to a standstill. Being popular with the people that was all the Viet Cong had to do to win. Van Riper was in Vietnam and saw how the low tech could defeat high tech. At the same time the Viet Cong were NOT ignorant of high tech, when it was to their advantage they used it (i.e. the Viet Cong monitored US Radio Transmissions all the time during the Vietnam war even down to platoon and squad level radio transmissions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_K._Van_Riper
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