CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Iran War: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is U.S.

3 March: Enghelab Square, Tehran. Photograph Source: Tasnim News Agency – CC BY 4.0

Let me bury the lede just a bit:

In December of 1862, Union troops under the command of Ambrose Burnside crossed the Rappahannock river by pontoon bridge and occupied the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in an attempt to come to grips with Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee.

That first skirmish of the battle named for the town went rather easily for the Union Forces … who couldn’t help but wonder why.

“Some guessed it was because they had no ammunition to spare,” Shelby Foote relates in his excellent three-volume history of the war, “others that they were afraid of retaliation by ‘our siege guns.'”

“Still another,” Foote continues, “a veteran private, had a different idea. ‘Sh*t,’ he said. ‘They WANT us to get in. Getting out won’t be quite so smart and easy. You’ll see.”

And see they did:  Four days later, the Union troops finally skedaddled back to the other side of the river, minus nearly 1,300 killed in action, nearly........

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