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Suiting up in 100-lbs of gear and going out to battle with unimaginable resources at your back is not exactly the stuff of warriorhood.

Ok, the author is taking "Warrior" back to its old school definition of people like the Samurai and what not.

Such fanatics who disdain life and live for death can keep the term Warrior, if it has to be so narrow. Give me Soldiers who fight for honor and liberty, and who go home again.

Sorry. They’re more like bandits.
Of course, that’s what Mo’ was: A very successful bandit.

Our guys aren’t “warriors.” They’re soldiers. They can live in and with a polite society. The Taliban can’t.

As for respecting them, yes. Always respect the enemy. If you underestimate him, he’ll kill you. If you overestimate him, you’ll just make a bigger mess of him.

That is true. Never never never never never NEVER NEVER NEVER underestimate your enemy. Before World War II, Americans dismissed the Japanese as midgets who couldn't see well because of their slanty eyes. Turns out, many Japanese soldiers were as big as the Marines they fought, and could see well enough to destroy Pearl Harbor.

I see a resurgent Taliban now that we have a weak President. We destroyed al-Queerda's infrastructure in 2001, but it can come back in a far less centralized manner and, with Uh-bama's tone-deafness in regards to what's really needed in Afghanistan, this could turn into Mr. Mumble's Vietnam.

You do NOT respect your enemy, you have to kill him, and you don't trust him either. WW2, my father's war, he called the Germans "Krauts" the Brits called them "Gerries". My Dad always though that it was too kind. My war, Vietnam, we called them a bunch of names...gooks, slopes, dinks, commie s#$t, to name a few. There's a reason that you call the enemy names. It's to reduce them, in your mind, to a subhuman place so that killing them will be easier. We are not a people that kill indiscriminately, we need a reason, and a damned good one before we kill. Therefore, we mentally, by a name, put them in a subhuman place so we can kill them and have little guilt about it. A derogatory name helps us to do our job.

Been there, done that, and so has my Father, God rest his soul in Heaven.

I have talked to many Vets from Desert Storm and Iraq. "Raghead" is their word of choice. During the Cold war the military called the Russians "Ruskies" or "Ivan". Names, and a derogatory name at that, is necessary because one day you are going to have to kill them. It's for freedom and your country, that's true, but doesn't make your job easier, disrespect of your enemy and dehumanization by a name does. After all, you have to live with yourself afterwords.

The taliban are to be respected the same way the ebola virus is to be respect, for the extreme damage they can do, but not for any warrior ethos they poses. At best, they are homicidal maniacs posing as warriors.

As such, the Citizen Soldiers of the United State will continue to slaughter them in large numbers as long as our leaders possess the political will to let them.

The Samurai, The Knights Templar, and other Warrior classes from history always had some code they attempted to uphold. The taliban have only one one driving motive and rule of conduct... Murder all who oppose them.

Our Soldiers, call them warriors or not, are constrained by an ethos and a code of conduct, and that makes them (IMHO) more warrior than any talib.

A thug, no matter how well trained and indoctrinated is still a thug.

Funny how "100 pounds of equipment" lessens warrior status. The weight carried by the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae was estimated to be 65 pounds. Today's soldiers carry an average of 63 pounds. Average fighting weight loads range between 40-70 pounds throughout history and across cultures.

To state that a warrior's ethos is determined by how primitive his tools or how light his battle weight is ludicrous. Every successful warrior culture adopts the best tools and carries a manageable load.

Anyone who mistakes cannon fodder with a true warrior is a fool. We carry better weapons so that we can kill more of these stupid bastards!