Posted on 06/30/2003 6:14:58 AM PDT by shortstop
Post victory? You must be high. There is no victory, the war goes on. They are killing our soldiers almost everyday.
It's not terrorism when soldiers kill enemy soldiers. It IS terrorism when you round up civilians and unceremoniously execute them as you have advocated.
The only thing that scares me is that more people haven't excoriated you for pretending to be a conservative and giving them a bad name.
you: A non-answer.
Not a non-answer, just short-hand for the reasonably well-informed--I made the mistake of assuming you were in that category. Ansar al Islam, an Al Qaeda organization, was operating from an enclave in Iraq. At least one high level prisoner from Ansar al Islam also told of high level meetings with Hussein's government. Al Qaeda prisoners in Gitmo told of Iraqi support for training. Again, indicators.
me: [the war was based on]the nexus between Hussein's WMD programs
you: The ones which have yet to be found? Those weapons?
You're kidding right? It is beyond dispute except for the reality-challenged or the ideologically-blinded that Iraq had WMD. The only question is what happened to them.
his hostility to the US, Most of the world is hostile to us, shall we attack them all?
Look up the word "nexus" that precedes my quote above that you took out of context. It's the combination & connection of factors that count. Hostility toward the US was one of them
me: his unpredictability and willingness to use force (including WMD) in the past,
you: He was entirely predictable.
Read your history. He surprised the Iranians when he attacked. He surprised the Kuwaitis when he attacked. Nobody, not the USA or our allies, predicted those attacks. He used chem against the Iranians & his own people(since you deny Hussein had WMD, perhaps you could explain the thousands of deaths from chemical attacks?) He was unpredictable in 93 when he staged his force forward at the Kuwaiti border again. He attempted to assassinate a former U.S. President. The current and past two Presidents sure couldn't predict what he'd do or how he'd react to economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, or missile & bombing strikes. I'm sure you would have done better.
me: and his unquestionable cooperation with terrorism in the past.
you: Which terrorism? Proof of terrorism against us please
Iraq was the home of the Abu Nidal organisation--ANO was responsible for the deaths of Americans in airport attacks and airplane hijackings. And Abu Abbas was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq--remember Leon Klinghoffer & the Achille Lauro? How about Abdul Rahman Yasin, the only 1993 World Trade Center bombing indictee not in prison--he escaped to Iraq. Hussein was paying for the suicide bombers in Palestine. 500 suicide bombing belts were found in a high school. etc etc Are you really this ignorant?
Yes, carpet bombing does kill civilians...I worded that stupidly.
As far as it not doing anything in the past...two devastating nukes in Japan made them unconditionally surrender. Massive overwhelming power did it. The Japanese had far more balls than these pansy terrorists. They were a worthy adversary. Two very large bombs were the culmination for them to say "we had enough."
Germany had no fight left by the time allied forces made it there. The only reason that Germany did not surrender earlier is because Hitler was stil alive and his generals were scared. Germany was absolutely devastated by bombing. They didn't want anymore.
Carpet bombing of Hanoi was the only time we got the Vietnamese to the peace table.
I don't how how you say it did nothing in the past. Yes, you have to stand on the ground to hold it, but carpet bombing has proven its effectiveness...strategic strikes in and of themselves have not to the extent that unrestricted bombing has against a large force. Panama and Grenada don't stand out on the level of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Wars are won by pounding the enemy into submission and then holding the territory.
I'm not in the mood today to engage in a namecalling contest. Your points are all disputable but I'm going to move on because your namecalling and misrepresentaions of what I have said.
If you grow up, let me know and I'll be happy to point out where you are wrong.
I wish that we had used the overwhelming force that I am advocating right now. Then we probably wouldn't have had to go back there. Also, I don't want my kids to have to go to that crap hole in the future.
Let me tell you what simplistic is; watching a couple civilian airliners flying into the largest building in downtown New York and not wanting to turn around and nuke the crap out of a society that produces terrorists. It is simple to think that we can overcome them with kindness and selective killing. These people are going to be back and they will hit us harder because we have not dropped the hammer. We refuse to confront Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia for one. Screw the UN. B52s with Riyahd and Mecca looking like a parking lot. This feeding of the future terrorists crap is not going to get us anywhere until we beat them into absolute cowardice first.
I don't give a crap about winning hearts and minds. I want them to fear us so damned bad that they will never think about doing a 9/11 ever again.
Let me tell you what I will do. Broken bones, disfigured face, and probably a loss of genitals. I will take my chances with the courts. I guarantee that guy never comes around my house again, providing he lives.
Would I go after his family? No.
But we aren't talking about one person with Iraq. We are talking about a society. It is impossible to selectively remove the bad seed. You make the whole society see the effects of the conduct. Then the whole society wants to avoid the problems in the future.
Yep, that or have little brother thinking about avenging big brothers death. Or wanting to follow in his footsteps.
Actually the threat of overwhelming power did it. Tokyo suffered massive and overwhelming bombing already which they shrugged off, but the idea that we could destroy their cities easily is mostly why they chose to surrender.
What keeps the peace against forces of evil is the threat of overwhelming force, not necessarily the act. The act of force obviously makes the threat more credible, but credibility also requires credible means of force. Nuclear weapons, for example, are no longer credible except in a MAD scenario and we are not suicidal.
The other flaw in your argument is comparing the terrorists to the Japanese. The terrorists may well be "pansies" but the are unfortunately also much less disciplined. When the Japanese government surrendered, most of its fighters surrendered. With Muslim fanatics I don't think that would be the case.
Good point. However, one of the reasons the terrorists hit us is because they know our tactics. "Oh, they won't do anything, or if they do they will do selective strikes, etc.". They didn't believe that we would go after Al-Quada for the twin towers...wasn't that the belief? They though we would cower or launch a couple missiles (Clinton).
My point about carpet bombing is overwhelming force and destruction. No, we should not nuke any country. We are well aware of jetstream and fallout etc... But there are ways of pounding them so bad that you may have well of used a nuke...Daisy cutter and MOAB ring a bell? We can pulverize someone without MAD.
But we won't do that. There is no threat of overwhelming power anymore. Stay away from military targets and you are safe for the most part. The enemy has us figured out better than we have them figured out in many respects.
And our troops are paying the price for politican's moral cowardice and the whims of public opinion polls.
I'm all for the proposals of this article. And I'd see these proposals and raise you 10.
Because I don't care how many of them our troops have to kill, even if it means women and children get in the way. There's only one way to deal with these medieval barbarians, and that is to show them that you are going to be equally ruthless and medieval.
We need a William T. Sherman in charge of things there, and calling the shots, and instead we have Oprah's Book Club calling the shots.
And our boys are dying because of it.
True--we are the most studied military in existence. The Army Center for Lessons Learned found that over half the hits on its web-site were coming from non-US origins.
We bet that high-tech, i.e. airpower, seapower, missiles & satellites, etc would be good enough and it isn't. We have more fighter planes in our military than we do infantry squads. And what we need right now is lots of well trained infantry. That's the only military tool that can go anywhere against anyone and it also has the advantage of being individually precise with its fires. The infantry we have is great, there just isn't enough of it in Iraq.
I agree. We made mistakes like letting legitimate targets flee into Pakistan. When we use force we have to use it effectively and decisively. The problem with Iraq is we decided on regime change, not unconditional surrender. Since the regime change is now accomplished, we need a new mission where massive force would be a good demonstration. I don't think Iraq measures up at the moment, it would be like pounding jello.
Nobody knows--nobody is keeping track right now. It'll all come out through Iraqi channels eventually. "Body count" was important in Viet Nam because our strategy was one of attrition--we would kill so many of the enemy that they would no longer have the will to conduct meaningful military actions against South Viet Nam. We have a different strategy in Iraq in which enemy casualties are not the measure of success.
In Iraq, our strategy, in short, was to prevent a potential WMD attack on the US by eliminating the ruling regime, destroying or gaining control of the WMD, and establishing a new government that is not hostile to the US. It is an offensive strategy that is not dependent for success on the number of enemy killed--you kill or capture those who are trying to stop you from achieving your strategic ends. Whether it is a lot or a few depends on how many resist, how many surrender, and how many just go home. Our success or failure is based on achieving our strategic objectives, not enemy or friendly casualty rates. It is incumbent on the military leadership to achieve those objectives with as little loss of friendly life as possible, with maximum death and destruction to those resisting us, and with only the minimum necessary damage & casualties to innocent civilians. If we don't kill a single Iraqi while they kill 200 of us, but a year from now the country is stabilized & friendly to the US, then we've won. If we kill 10,000 Iraqis and don't lose a single American, but 2 years from now the country is run by Islamist fundamentalists with a resurrected nuclear program, then we've lost.
Bottom line: keep score not by casualties, but by achievement of our goals.
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