Replies

Well it's very different from the IRA isn't it? I mean, from what I've heard there were at the height of it only two thosand IRA fighters. Even so it took decades to put them down. Here you have tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands taking part in the hostilities.

My take is the whole "Army as Urban Police Force" is a total failure. The "New Age" war that everyone from Powell, to Kristol to Condalezza to Rumsfeld want to fight isn't working and won't work.

The way to build a united, peaceful Iraq was to shred them totally. Look at the percentage of German young men killed in WW2. 3.5 million military dead takes the fight out of even angry "moslem youth". This is a pre-requisite for real peace. Look at the dead, on both sides, in the American Civil War. Look at the Japanese dead, including the 80,000 civilians in the two bomb drops.

Sad to say but much more killing was needed. We didn't need to be friends. We needed to be masters. We can be friends with their children or grandchildren, like Japan and Germany. The current generation needs to fear us in their bones, and suffer to the point of complete exhaustion and capitulation. People like Sadr, Sistani and any one else with dreams of power should have been made to exercise some of that deep bowing they are so proficient at the feet of a real American general with blood on his hands.

There is nothing new under the sun. The neos are simply a variation of the "end of History" guys who think they are so clever everything is new. It is not.

Well said.

The only concept they understand and respect is the power of brute force.

I doubt the administration has the will to do what has to be done...

Yet, if we wish to halt the game as it is currently being played, pure, unembellished brute force must be unfurled. No quarter. Make the Israelis look like gentle lambs. We have utterly failed to bring to heal the islamic dog... and it is sheer fear, which ultimately leads to the kind or "respect" that is needed to end the hostilities.

Unfortunately, the will to do what is needed, is totally lacking. Our fear of World Opinion negates such action... and that my FRiend, means a satisfactory conclusion is but an illusion...

My take is the whole "Army as Urban Police Force" is a total failure

I agree. The danger is you'll blunt your amazing army where you should have a secondary force specialising in this to leave your real army freed up for real combat duties.

There is indeed nothing new under the sun....

As to the need for the killings to be effective, the numbers involved and the disparities of power would be so great that America would have looked more of a monster at the end thean the 911 terrorists. Bush resisted total war for good reasons.