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Wouldn't a more 21st century approach involve massive air bombardment and the use of every major piece of artillery we can ship over there?
You don't fight insurgencies with massive firepower and manuever warfare. If you can find me an example of large-scale strategic bombing being useful in a counter-insurgency campaign, I'd love to hear about it. You can include massed artillery as well, especially for campaigns that occurred before the advance of strategic bombers.
Oh, and none of this changes the fact that the first thing you did was pathetically go for the ANSWER talking point about "Mission Accomplished." It doesn't exactly give me confidence in your grasp of the situation.
Old school? You mean like using Privateers to hunt down pirates?
No, I mean like the tactics that worked in the Phillipines, Malaya, Kenya, Algeria, El Salvador, etc.
BTW, saw an interview with the guy who wrote Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife and he said that in 2003 the U.S. simply wasn't prepared to do counter-insurgency, period...as in, not just in Iraq, but not anywhere. So I consider our early stumbles to be like the early stumbles in WWII...and we all know how that turned out, don't we?
You seem to be rather limited in the scope of this thing. This isn't just Iraq. This is militant Islam we are fighting and we need to go after EVERY Nation that harbors it without a fight.
Did we invade every island in the Pacific in 1942, or did we take them one or two at a time? Did we invade Normandy, Italy and Africa in 1942, or did we start in one place, kill the Germans there and move on?
Otherwise, this cancer will continue to spread and it WILL kill more of us.
Yes, by all means, let's all whine about a President who not only agrees with what you wrote about going after them whereever they hide, but also has gone six years without another attack as of Tuesday.
Be honest: When you rolled out of bed on September 12, 2001, did you think we'd go six years before another attack, or did you figure we'd be lucky to get six months, six weeks, six days or six hours?
Expending 130,000 rounds to kill one "insurgent" and still losing more of our military personnel doesn't seem like progress to me.
I'd like a source for that 130,000 rounds, but to be quite frank I have to wonder what's going on in your head when you're worried about rounds expended to kill someone who might otherwise schlepp a suitcase bomb or weaponized ebola into the country.
The reason we are losing troops is because we're in a war. Whenever you engage the enemy you will lose troops unless you are on the receiving end of a miracle. The irony is guys like you will whine about ROE, but when we go forth to kick buckets of Al Qaida ass we will lose more troops and then you will whine about casualties. More microwave burrito warfare BS.
Nor does having the asinine ROE that would be better suited to POLICE roles than it would military in a hostile zone.
Can you quote those ROE? If so, can you tell me how many engagements in the current surge have fallen under "police" ROE?
You know what? In '42 we lost 6,000 guys at the Kasserine Pass because we weren't using proper tactics. Instead of whining and going home because those tactics failed we adapted, put in new leadership and the Germans never won a major armor engagement against us again. In Iraq we neeeded new tactics and a new guy, we have them and the enemy is finding that he can run, but it will just ensure that he's tired when he dies.
Petraeus rocks. Drive on, General!
Funny, we appear to be using the ones from Viet Nam instead. Nice attempt at a slam by trying to ad homenim paint me with those traitorous ANSWER retards.
Ok... so you don't like fighting the War on Terror against Terrorist supporting Nations like we did WWII. You don't like using Privateers like we did with Barbary. You seem to think the current "troop surge" is working even though we are still spending a few hundred million per "insurgent" killed.
And you think I don't have a good grasp of the situation?
Did we invade every island in the Pacific in 1942, or did we take them one or two at a time? Did we invade Normandy, Italy and Africa in 1942, or did we start in one place, kill the Germans there and move on?
We aren't even doing that much. This would be like trying the Island hopping by using door-to-door "knock and announce" tactics. If we used your examples, we'd still be trying to get that flag to the top of Mount Suribachi without success.
Can you quote those ROE? If so, can you tell me how many engagements in the current surge have fallen under "police" ROE?
Haven't been keeping abreast of the Haditha incident or any of the other crap our Troops are being charged with have you... If you aren't even that far up to speed, it's no wonder you think things are going perfectly and are incapable of imagining a better solution.
Also, a quick "Google is your friend" search makes it look like my 130k rounds per insurgent killed was a low estimate...