Posted on 11/07/2005 7:07:10 AM PST by Valin
Ping!
I just wanted to point out that, although you responded to me also in this post, I have not espoused any of the views which ZULU has posted - in fact, the opposite is true. I have been trying to tell ZULU he is wrong, albeit not as strongly as you just did!
Please don't lump me in with him on this one. I'm on your side.
"Once again you reveal your ignorance. The military does not take orders from the State Department or bureaucrats. "
Since the time of George Washington the military in the U.S. has been subordinated to the Civilian authority.
I know what I have read on this forum and in books about earlier wars. Could the State Department on its own order the military about? Perhaps not. But as directed by the President they very could. And commanders or beaurocrats in Washington could very well decide to visit a situation in the field and then issue a directive based on instructions from the President and their own observations in the field or conferences with officers on the ground.
"There is no way our military would destroy a city by bombing it to rubble."
We've done it before and we very well should do it again if doing so would spare the lives of American soldiers. If our "war colleges" are teaching otherwise, it would appear political correctness has creeped into areas it should be excluded from.
"We are trying to teach a nation how to justly self-govern."
You can't "teach" democracy. Democracy is learned over a period of time. It took the English several hundred years to learn it which is why America succeeded. Its also why it didn't work in France.
"We found out during World War II that bombing population centerse of German cities did not turn Germans against Hitler as expected. .......It is very counter productive and everyone with even a tiny bit of knowlege knows it."
Most surprising observation. It would have really startled somebody like Sherman. By destroying the will of a people to resist you can win a war. That goes for dealing with insurgents or any kind of non-monarchical government. When we were at war with Hitler we were at war with a people also - a people who embraced an ideology which was hostile to us. I can't understand how you could possibly state that our bombing of NAZI Germany or our bombing of Hieroshima and Nagasaki - the ULTIMATE carpet bombing - failed to produce the results we desired.
"No branch of our services or commander would do it. It is a stupid dumb move.. promoted by ignorant people who don't know what they are doing."
I guess you think the Churchill, the Allied Commanders, and President Truman were "ignorant people who didn't know what they were doing".
You win wars by destroying enemy armies and in situations where you are dealing with guerillas or insurgents, by targeting them and those who support them.
I didn't say we should have carpet bombed Iraq. I DID say we should carpet bomb the border with Syria inside the Syrian line if they don't stop funneling insurgents into Iraaq. I did say we should have bombed Fallujah into rubble instead of sending American soldiers into there in a house to house operation and I stand by that.
Its always interesting to have conversations with people on this forum, even those who you disagree with, as it gives you another perspective on the subject.
But you don't score points in a discussion by insinuating the person you are speaking with has his head up his rump if you disagree with him.
"If you are trying to defeat an insurgency who is hiding out among the "good guys", you do it surgically."
At times this not possible. Its called collateral damage.
And I'm sure that had Patten NOT been able to get around those Germans in any other way than going straight through them, he would have done exactly what I stated.
Yes, collateral damage occurs. But targetting is done with a careful eye to MINIMIZING it. I heard an interview just the other day with a targeting specialist in Iraq. Part of the process is to estimate the potential number of civilian deaths in any given strike; if that number is too high, a different method of reducing the target is chosen. Our weapons are specifically designed for a particular effect, not just to destroy the largest area.
Deliberate, unnecessary damage, for the sake of punishing civilians DOESN'T happen anymore, at least not by design. I won't claim that every soldier plays by every rule all the time - I'm sure that there have been isolated instances of soldiers overstepping the bounds. But no commander worth his salt would order that. And shouldn't.
Your allusions to "political correctness" in our training and doctrine is a dead give-away that you don't understand the way wars are fought. He who does the most damage doesn't win; he who does the best job of defeating the enemy does. Protecting civilian infrastructure and lives isn't "political correctness", it's the best way to prove to the population that you are on their side. When they believe that, they will help you. That's the way you win against insurgents - you take away their support from the population.
I was just entering the debate between you and Zulu. The first name in a ping list is the person to whom I am replying. Other names in the list are typically Freepers participating in the debate. The additional names can be and often are on on both sides of the issue being debated. Sometimes we add peoples names to the list as an invitation for them to participate. Quite often additional names are belong to people who have not even read the thread.
I assumed you would understand that I was replying to ZULU and notifying you that I was participating in the debate. I am sorry you did not take it that way.
No problem! I'm still kinda new here; still learning the protocols!
This has nothing to do with "politically correct", it is a matter of ruthless practicality.
If we do not follow the Geneva Convention, then there is zero chance our enemies will follow the Geneva Convention. (That's part of it, there's more but for now, follow me.)
What our enemies think or do has zero bearing on what our troops believe. The bad guys might have 10,000 tanks, they might have 10 tanks, but our people will make individual decisions based on how many tanks each one of them individually PERCEIVES the enemy to have.
This is a fundamental tenet of warfare, indeed any adversarial situation.
If our people do not think they have a chance at protection from the Conventions of war, they will not fight.
You can counter that our enemies seem to field hordes of recruits without protective benefit, but in doing so, you ignore two concrete realities.
THEY do not have a free press, and THEY are willing to lie to their people, and also to push their people into war at gunpoint.
If we start carpet bombing cities and indiscriminantly wasting civilians, then we either have to adopt the enemy tactics just to field an army, eradicate our free press, or else prepare to lose.
As earlier stated, it is more than just the Geneva Conventions. You cannot ignore certain basic tenets of warfare without losing control of your fighting force. Let them loot, let them rape and pillage, let discipline fail, let them perceive their leaders to act in moral bankruptcy, and they will turn on your and the civilians they have sworn to protect the very first time they don't get their way.
Contrary to some lucid posts in this thread that claim otherwise, this point was not discovered during WWII, or in Vietnam.
It was probably re-discovered as claimed, but it originates at least as far back as Sun Tzu's "Art of War", written 3000 years ago, and still containig the basic tenets of the most modern, successful, and violent military doctrine on earth, Rapid Dominance, also known as Shock and Awe.
Ignore the basic truths there, and you will reap the same cause and effect consequences inherent in ignoring any other Law of Nature.
This is both friendly advice, and also acknowlegement that it makes no difference whether you change your mind or not. Currently, there are not enough people who think like you demonstrated earlier in this thread to chane the course we are on.
If that ever becomes untrue, I don't have to change your (collective) mind(s). I just have to stay out of your way until the wheels that turn the Universe grind you and any other errant theory into dust.
Either you have it now, or you don't, further discussion in the latter case is ordained to be unproductive, I have better things to do, and you seem to have a great many others to argue with.
Going around an enemy, and leaving him in fighting form but able to attack your flank is a stupid maneuver. Now maybe Patton would do that, but only if another unit could secure the area bypassed.
I will take your word for that, but neither does victory. Ever since the end of WW II, we have not won the peace. The US goes from one hotspot to the next, fighting and winning the battles, but losing the peace. Maybe that is because instead of winning friends with tactics, we need to instill fear and respect by showing that we control life and death of all they love. It is what we did to great effect in WWI WWII, and Korea, until Truman pulled Macarthurs choke chain. We negotiated peace in Korea, it is still messed up, did the same in Vietnam and Iraq the first time, and got more wars from both. Using similar tactics of winning over the population, and Iraqization of the military, sounds and looks eerily similar to a war we walked away from in the 70's.
"The US goes from one hotspot to the next, fighting and winning the battles, but losing the peace"
Well, last time I checked, that war with the USSR was going pretty well...... What does that mean, anyway - "losing the peace"? I will opine that it means nothing; that it is a slogan promoted by nay-sayers.
You don't have to believe this, and I doubt that you will, but I certainly believe it to be true. Once again, with feeling: Our fight in Iraq is NOT with the Iraqi people. Our fight was with the baathist regime; now it is with the remnants of that regime, and a relatively small number of untrained, under-equipped, but highly motivated jihadists. You don't gain from broadening the fight by destroying the property and lives of innocents, who you are trying to convince that you are the good guys.
Our soldiers and marines certainly don't have any desire to die doing their jobs. But they recognize, with eyes wide open, that sometimes it happens. Most are prepared for that. That's why they are heroes. Adapting the philosophy that we must protect them at any cost is a defeatist; after all, that is what Cindy Sheehan wants to do, isn't it? We must certainly not waste their lives, but if we are not willing to risk them to do the right thing, we SHOULD go home....
Read about Germantown.
"Adapting the philosophy that we must protect them at any cost is a defeatist; after all, that is what Cindy Sheehan wants to do, isn't it? We must certainly not waste their lives, but if we are not willing to risk them to do the right thing, we SHOULD go home...."
The point I was trying to make was that Fallujah was a hotbed of Baathists and fanatics. Rather than send American troops into that city and conduct a costly house to house search and destroy operation,., it would have been much better to have just bombed the entire city and reduced it to rubble. I think that we done that, a lot of the lunatics running around now in Iraq would have been dead and fewer Amereican soldiers killed.
It was my understanding, and another poster here also stated it, that a large number of civlians had departed Fallujah anyway.
Given two alternatives: destroy the enemy with minimal American casualties and some collateral damage to cvilians, or destroy the enemy with heavy American casualties and fewer but still some civilian casualties, I would opt for the former.
"Given two alternatives: destroy the enemy with minimal American casualties and some collateral damage to cvilians, or destroy the enemy with heavy American casualties and fewer but still some civilian casualties, I would opt for the former."
You would be wrong, especially if part of your mission was specifically NOT to cause civilian casualties and damage.
Incidentally, when you say "heavy American casualties", that is disingenuous at best. Say "more American casualties" and I might agree. There hasn't been an operation yet in Iraq with what could be considered "heavy casualties".
http://www.almc.army.mil/ALOG/issues/NovDec03/Casualty_Estimation_Warfare.htm
I don't think our primary objective in Iraq was nation building.
I thought it was removing Saddam and eliminating his weapons of mass destruction and preventing his support for terrorists - all of which we achieved.
But again, I guess you and I have to agree we disagree on this subject. The life of one American boy in uniform means more to me than a housefull of Iraqis.
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