[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

During the drill, the US and its allies will practice their minesweeping skills, and exercise their anti-submarine warfare, long-range maritime reconnaissance, and sea to surface attack capabilities.

Please chime in with your opinion on the following issue:

How many of you out there are tired and have had enough with our conventional warfare approach to these terrorist nations?

How many of you would prefer to see financial warfare declared against them--a total cut-off of aid? (Yes, we give MASSIVE amounts of aid to terrorist nations).

How many of you would prefer to see strictly air power used and special forces used to go after the leaders?

How many of you prefer assassination of leaders, air power, financial warfare and ZERO use of our regular army and Marines?

How many would rather see ZERO use of Army and Marines and threat (and use necessary) of tactical nukes?

I believe we should end this costly conventional war crap. It kills our best, and gains us little. I vote for air power use only, special forces only and assassination squads going after leadership and rulers. If they push the envelope far enough, I would then threaten then, if necessary, use tactical nukes.

Please ping others to vote. Please answer in narrative format but discuss use or nonuse of tactical nukes, special forces only, airpower without ground troops, and yes or no on NO USE OF REGULAR ARMY AND MARINES. It would be very valuable to get a poll on how our members feel on this.

[afnamvet]

How many of you prefer assassination of leaders, air power, financial warfare and ZERO use of our regular army and Marines?

I'll choose this with a side order of 7x24 carpet bombing...Rolling Thunder style if you please.

Almost forgot...NO rules of engagement!

[Luigi Vasellini]

Personally, I think we should tell the Saudis do you want to live or die. All of your oil belongs to us. Then we should kill half of the Saud princes and tell them our oil is now 25 cents a barrel. They are largely responsible for spreading hatred and 9-11!!

[lt.america]

You have to have boots on the ground to effect change in the Middle East. Assassinating leaders only allows some more radical crack pots to step up and if you don't have the force in place, you are helpless to stop it.

[middie]

If we have hostilities with either Iran or Syria it will be a clear indication that we have failed diplomatically and in our leadership of the European and Asian industrialized nations. We have already pretty well established that this administration is incompetent in accomplishing anything except perhaps a tax benefit to the wealthiest (hell, I benefit from the tax legislation, but I recognize how wrong-headed it is).

We're talking about spreading hostilities when we are not capable of properly manning the street fighting and occupation operations we're now engaged in. While we keep the back-door draft of the reserves and Guard going at flank speed, is it rhetorical or just plain obvious to observe that, except for airpower & sea control assets, we couldn't mount a maneuver field operation of any meaningful size to depose an offending government and control the ground? And, to exacerbate the stupidity of it all, the Bush tax cuts are attributed to as the underlying cause for the defense budget for the next fiscal cycle being cut by $15 billion (AF Times, current issue). The Rumsfeld DOD is releasing 3rd-year lieutenants and junior O-3s and is reducing the officer corps with the lame rationale' that he's reorganizing the force to better fit the playing field (AF Times). BravoSierra, if you believe that reason, I've got some great Florida swamp land near my home I'd sell you cheap!

So, we've already denuded our active force, reduced the combat and sealift fleet to the status only slightly more than a large coast guard force, destroyed the Army & Air Force Guard and reserve retention and enlistment, assigned civilian contractor cronies what amount to actual, or surely, quasi and likely, combat roles in which we can be assured they'll bug-out at the first whizz of a rifle shot and refused to make the civilian population at home aware that their economic sacrifice is needed. (Excuse the extra long sentence, I know it's poor writing form). Bush has become Johnson and 2005 has retrogressed to 1969.

The ill-advisedness---no, idiocy, of this scenario is beyond mere incompetence.

[joseph20]

I agree with you, but for the final question that remains from all of your statements: Then what?

In the wake of the chaos that we sow, allow these nations to develop governments that violate the spirit of the Declaration of Independence? Dictatorships, theocracies, etc...?

Keep bombing them from the air, until they surrender by no choice of their own?

[MikefromOhio]

as usual you are wrong and showing what you are, with your typical troll "Let's nuke EVERYONE" BS.

[MikefromOhio]

you are an ABSOLUTE IDIOT if you think tossing nukes around will do anything close to "ending" the WOT.

but then again, we already KNOW you are a troll.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I'd say level anything that looks like it might be used to make a nuclear weapon or lay a mine. Let them read by candlelight for the next 20 years, but absolutely no U.S. ground troops in Iran.