I have this vision of atomic bomb hellfire raining on Japan from Russian Tupolov-4 copies of the B-29.
Posted on 01/29/2006 11:45:42 PM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
There is, in short, not a single enemy in existence or on the horizon willing to play the victim to the military we continue to build. Faced with men of iron belief wielding bombs built in sheds and basements, our revolution in military affairs appears more an indulgence than an investment. In the end, our enemies will not outfight us. We'll muster the will to do what must be done--after paying a needlessly high price in the lives of our troops and damage to our domestic infrastructure. We will not be beaten, but we may be shamed and embarrassed on a needlessly long road to victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Begin with the pinhead liberals. They want to call the present administration [with whom I certainly have more than a few differences of opinion] *a bunch of Nazis*?
Fine. Introduce them to the methods the Nazis used against their communist opposition...and throw in some of the post-WWII methodology of the OAS of the French Algerian period as well; the French had to post Sherman tanks around the Chamber of Deputies before those days had run their string.
Too much TV exposure in today's world for drumhead justice.
The TV pukes go second. The protections of the First Amendment do not supersede the penalties prescribed by Article III, Section III.
The circumstances of the Finnish Civil War of 1918, when the Loyalist Finns prevented a Bolshevik takeover of their government, are analogous.
The tragedy of the civil war was compounded by a reign of terror that was unleashed by each side. In Red-dominated areas, 1,649 people, mostly businessmen, independent farmers, and other members of the middle class were murdered for political reasons. This Red Terror appears not to have been a systematic effort to liquidate class enemies, but rather to have been generally random. The Red Terror was disavowed by the Red leadership and illustrated the extent to which the Red Guard evaded the control of the leadership. More than anything else, the Red Terror helped to alienate the populace from the Red cause; it also harmed the morale of the Reds.
The Red Terror confirmed the belief of the Whites that the Reds were criminals and traitors and were therefore not entitled to the protection of the rules of war. As a consequence, the Whites embarked on their own reign of terror, the White Terror, which proved much more ferocious than the Red Terror. First, there were reprisals against defeated Reds, in the form of mass executions of Red prisoners. These killings were carried on by local White commanders over the opposition of White leadership. At least 8,380 Reds were killed, more than half after the Whites' final victory. Another component of the White Terror was the suffering of the Reds imprisoned after the war. The Whites considered these Reds to be criminals and feared that they might start another insurrection. By May 1918, they had captured about 80,000 Red troops, whom they could neither house nor feed. Placed in a number of detention camps, the prisoners suffered from malnutrition and general neglect, and within a few months an estimated 12,000 of them had died. The third aspect of the White Terror was legal repression. As a result of mass trials, approximately 67,000 Reds were convicted of participating in the war, and of these 265 were executed; the remainder lost their rights of citizenship, although many sentences were later suspended or commuted.
I have this vision of atomic bomb hellfire raining on Japan from Russian Tupolov-4 copies of the B-29.
They can never beat our military, and now largely don't even try. They go straight for the political will.
I see Peters message being; -- we cannot reason with fanatics, either secular or religious , -- nor can we defeat them in the military sense.
Thus they must be defeated by political will.
-- This can only be done by putting our own house in order by waging a propaganda war for Constitutionalism, and against ALL types of fanaticism.
But see, if you READ the actual Army Docs (not to mention the Marines' docs) you will see that they emphasize "full-spectrum warfare," which includes political, information, military, social---it IS warfare across all fronts. That's why it's frustrating that someone who should know better---Peters---only has to look at "On Point" (the Army's history and "lessons learned" about Operation Iraqi Freedom) and you can see GOING IN that they knew what the score was.
Peters isn't making the point that Iraq can't be defeated militarily. We can do that. He's saying we can't defeat fanatics & fundamentalism worldwide.
Moreover, it is a MYTH that we "cannot defeat the terrorists militarily."
Muslims, communists, fascists, anarchists, -- fanatics of every stripe still abound in this world. We will never defeat such terrorists in a military sense.
This was the line used about Japan too, but in fact, when they run out of men, you have won.
Japan never ran out of men, it ran out of a will to fight.
No armed force in history---EVER has sustained the % level of losses that the Islamic "insurgents"/terrorists have sustained and won.
There are hundreds of millions of potential Islamic terrorists. Whats their percentage of loss?
There is also a new study of Japan ("Downfall," by Richard B. Frank, that uses Japanese documents) that shows that the A-bomb had several levels of effects. Yes, it had what we all know as a "diplomatic" impact, by convincing the Japanese that any further holding out would be useless. But he shows it also had a MILITARY effect, by showing that even their by-then dispersed military forces were helpless. They already could not get any more kamikaze volunteers. So there is a pretty good argument that when the bad guys all die, you have won "militarily."
All the 'bad guys' in Japan were dead? -- I'd grant that they lost their fanatical devotion to the cause, because we were ready to invade & kill em all; -- can we invade the muslim world & kill em all?
There are not "hundreds of millions" of terrorists.
Wrong, -- I commented above there are hundreds of millions of potential Islamic terrorists. Can we kill em all?
We are proving that every day. They can't even recruit. The Japanese ran out of kamikazes.
Yep, they lost the will to fight, because we were ready in WWII to kill all fascists. Are we ready to initiate WWIII to kill millions of potential Islamic fanatics?
As I say, the new studies don't support you.
Those studies do not apply to the issue at hand, - namely, do we want to start WWIII in order to kill terrorists?
SOME of the generals wanted to fight, but there was widespread understanding that the Japanese military was helpless. Note that Kurita and other admirals turned tail and gave up at Leyte Gulf rather than stage suicidal attacks on the U.S. forces. Hanson argues that, to an extent, the fact that the Japanese were trapped on Okinawa drove their strategy there, but even then, it was the first stage of trying to raise the casualty cost to such a level that we wouldn't pay it.
That's the point that Peters misses: Americans RARELY pay that cost because we quickly figure out other ways to achieve the objective without "dying for your country." Heck, Patton figured that out.
Then we agree, just as I said in my first comments to you: -- I see Peters message being; -- we cannot reason with fanatics, either secular or religious , -- nor can we defeat them in the military sense.
Thus they must be defeated by political will. --- We will indeed "quickly figure out other ways to achieve the objective without 'dying for your country'."
-- This can only be done by putting our own house in order by waging a propaganda war for Constitutionalism, and against ALL types of fanaticism.
. . . it is possible for the media to turn a victory into a bloody defeat
Exactly, -- but only if we let them.. Propaganda can be countered. -- Giving aid & comfort to the enemy in a time of war can be adjudicated.
Nothing in our Constitution gives citizens the right to actively work against its principles, as we are all obligated to its support & defense..
The issue was patience: Americans were running out of it. Already there was resistance by soldiers who had fought in Europe to transfer, and as Stephen Ambrose noted in his "Band of Brothers," at the end, based on the medal and point system, men who had never been interested in medals suddenly thought about them a lot.
Without question, the bomb saved an enormous amount of lives---ours, but some Japanese too. But the final outcome was not in doubt after Leyte, or, perhaps, Midway.
BTW, I address the whole Strategic Bombing Survey in "America's Victories: Why Americans Win Wars . . ." and largely the analysts were far too narrow in their investigation. They asked, "Did the bombing stop German war production?" No, it increased. But what they missed was that the bombers themselves acted like giant roach motels, sucking up the Luftwaffe into air combat (later, un-winnable air combat due to long-range fighter escorts) that "attrited" the Luftwaffe down to nothing. Some 30% of German WAR PRODUCTION was directed at anti-bombing in the WEST, a fact that by itself means that the Battle of Kursk easily could have gone to the Germans without our bombers hundreds of miles away. The Strategic Bombing analysts were looking for evidence we destroyed the Luftwaffe on the ground. Their eyes were too low: we destroyed it in the air.
There is no political will to prosecute traitors. The Justice Department won't touch it. The MSM would crucify anybody who tried. Fifth Columnists will never be properly chastised through the American judicial system as it exists today.
Instead of playing whack-a-mole, Peters would have us think about it differently.
The Battle of the Atlantic and counterinsurgency, part one
Rudyard Kipling
.
A GREAT and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe—
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”
.
Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in “villanous saltpetre!”
And after—ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our ’ologies.
.
A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
.
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—
The odds are on the cheaper man.
.
One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.
.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The “captives of our bow and spear”
Are cheap—alas! as we are dear.
"Begin with the pinhead liberals."
Kind of reminds me of the movie "Red HEat" when Arnold talks how the CHinese got rid of their drug problem..by shooting all the dealers and addicts. Belushi says "Naw, it won't work here...f*ckin' politicians won't go for it" to which Arnie says "Shoot them first".
P.S. Is there any good sites or books that talk about the Finnish CIvil War?
" We praise Nathan Hale's willingness to die for his cause. Now imagine thousands of men anxious to die for theirs. "
" A paradox of our time is that the overwhelmingly secular global media--a collection of natural-born religion-haters--have become the crucial accomplices of the suicide bomber fueled by rabid faith. "
" How many readers of this magazine have participated in a wargame that addressed crippling consumer shortages as a conflict with China dragged on for years? Instead, we obsess about the fate of a pair of aircraft carriers. "
" We have reached the point (as evidenced by the first battle of Falluja) where the global media can overturn the verdict of the battlefield. "
Peters makes some good points in the first half, but the real meat of the article is the second half, on the extreme danger posed by the international press and by anti-Americanism.
Also a fine explanation of why embittered marxists have combined forces with embittered Muslims, because America has succeeded while they have failed, proving their paradises to be false.
This war is about much more then the "Just nuke em" crowd knows.
Correct sir. JDAM kit a couple years ago went for around $18K plus the bomb body which I think still goes for around $2-3 per pound.
A suicide bomber goes into battle once, a guy that plants IEDs will go into battle as many times as he is smart.
I also don't agree with the author's attitude on modern combat as practiced by the U.S. military. His vision is clouded by the expectation of quick and decisive victory the modern U.S. military has made him expect. Suicide bombers and IEDs may inflict casualties everyday, but the number of casualties are exceptionally low compared to what we faced in previous conflicts.
The technology allows the precise application of massive firepower to obliterate enemy we are able to identify. That is being done on a daily basis in Iraq in many new and devestating ways.
Yeah, that's the ticket. Only, I hope they pick him to convince the Marines to commit suicide and not me, 'cause I can't run that fast any more.>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Anyone trying to convince American Marines to commit suicide would be as bold as one biker I was told about some years ago. According to a reliable witness this man was walking around a mall in Charlotte, NC with a t-shirt bearing the message,"God created Hondas to keep N-----s off of Harleys". A foolhardy individual indeed.
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