"This Is A New Kind of War" is President Bush's Get Out of Jail Free Card

Vanity (Better than most 'snooze' articles) | 10-27-01 | S.Fleming

[WRhine]

How many of these *we've-already-lost-the-war-even-though-we're-only-weeks-into-the-campaign* loser threads are you folks going to post? Below is my rebuttal:

You expressed my sentiments perfectly. We have just gotten into the mix in Afghanistan and all of sudden there is a plethora of armchair generals permeating FR. All these amateur generals seem to think that they know more than GW and the real generals. LOL. At a minimum they seem to have forgotten what GW and Rummy laid out at the onset of this war on terrorism. At a maximum I don’t know what to think.

[pgkdan]

You've got to be a female...correct?

[pgkdan]

In reading your posts and kayak's, I wouldn't necessarily say that you're the one showing maturity, or making sense.

I wouldn't expect you to. Nothing you've posted on this thread would lead me to believe that you'd be that logical.

[First_Salute]

Link to U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II

One way to understand the Second World War is to appreciate the critical role of merchant shipping... the availability or non-availability of merchant shipping determined what the Allies could or could not do militarily.... when sinkings of Allied merchant vessels exceeded production, when slow turnarounds, convoy delays, roundabout routing, and long voyages taxed transport severely, or when the cross-Channel invasion planned for 1942 had to be postponed for many months for reasons which included insufficient shipping....

[It took 7 to 15 tons of supplies to support one soldier for one year.] The U.S. wartime merchant fleet. . . constituted one of the most significant contributions made by any nation to the eventual winning of the Second World War....

Casualties

The United States Merchant Marine provided the greatest sealift in history between the production army at home and the fighting forces scattered around the globe in World War II. The prewar total of 55,000 experienced mariners was increased to over 215,000 through U.S. Maritime Service training programs...

Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, aircraft, "kamikaze," and the elements. Nearly 7,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12,000 wounded of whom at least 1,100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner. (Total killed estimated 8,380.) Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze, and some starved. 66 died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. 31 ships vanished without a trace to a watery grave.

1 in 26 mariners serving aboard merchant ships in World WW II died in the line of duty, suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services. Casualties were kept secret during the War to keep information about their success from the enemy and to attract and keep mariners at sea. Newspapers carried essentially the same story each week: "Two medium-sized Allied ships sunk in the Atlantic." In reality, the average for 1942 was 33 Allied ships sunk each week...

[[Much more information is available at the website --- see the link at the beginning of this excerpt.]]

R.C.,

Just one example.

[First_Salute]

Much of this burden now falls upon our material air transport command.

[Zviadist]

I guess you must have missed the repeated statements that we will only hit military targets (the stray missle aside)?

Like water supplies and roads? Either wake up or stop lieing. Our targeting there is the same as it was in Serbia: we are trying to turn the people against their government by destroying the civilian infrastructure, with random acts of terror, er, "collateral damage", to keep the people on edge. It didn't work there, but it did create an entire country cynical and hatful towards America. Only the Serbs were generally peaceful people. The ones we have designated for this round of nation building are not so peaceful.

[ohioWfan]

You've got to be a female...correct?

Yes....that's why I think so clearly and logically. And you???

[mercy]

****Only the Serbs were generally peaceful people. *****

Now I understand you.

Our and NATO's intervention in that region, especially on the wrong side, should go down as one of the greatest mistakes in history.

[Zviadist]

Now I understand you.

No, I'm afraid you don't.

But I do agree with you on the Balkans. What you don't see is that it was not an isolated incident, but rather part of a pattern of post Cold War U.S. intervention abroad. If you are really interested in what you are doing in Afghanistan, read a bit on the Conoco planned oil pipeline from the 1980s. You of course know about the Caspian pipeline that is to go through Kososo, don't you? Good business for military contractors (the war) and for big oil and the NWO bureaucrats (the aftermath).

Why do you think we don't care that the Northern Alliance is as bad as the Taliban? We want STABILITY, because that means guaranteed profits for big campaign donors. No one is talking about what could actually work in Afghanistan -- letting them sort out their own government, perhaps a decentralized one. No, we are going to nation-build with new bad guys in place of the current bad guys.

And who gets hurt? The peasants in Afghanistan and our lower-middle class who join the military service. Neither of whom tend to make big campaign donations.

[A Navy Vet]

Lieing? You're out of your mind. End conversation.

[mercy]

Of course a new oil supply under our own control won't do the American people one whit of good. You know, your problem is you are just on the wrong planet. Since leaving is not an option I would suggest living out your last days on a very remote island somewhere with no outside world communication. You will be happier I think.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Great link, FS, thank you. God forbid this war escalates into a war the geographical scale of WWII. I don't even want to think about the size of our military #s compared to active Chinese troops.

If the media gets it and stops providing aid and comfort to the enemy with their fearmongering and Taliban PR, our Pres. can systematically eliminate the major bad guys in Afghanistan, draw international co-terrorists into the fray where we will smoke them out.

We should be using as much smart technology as possible and ignore the Biden, etc. comments. The Taliban monsters don't deserve the honor of facing our troops in hand to hand combat. Why give these murderous thugs, inhumane jerks the satisfaction. They're willing to murder up to 2 million of their own. High tech is the most important weapon we have...along with our ever-present stockpile of nukes. How do you send a massive military campaign by land or sea against individual cells scattered around the world?

[RJayneJ]

Thanks for the nomination! };^D)

[kayak]

See #193 ... this is in response to my #72 ..... just wanted you to see the follow-up ..... :-)

[Jaidyn]

Sorry I couldn't get on sooner but I work 2nd shift. I appreciate that you nominated me and am quite surprised and pleased that someone REALLY heard what I was trying to say. I think so many of us have the same thoughts since Sept. 11 and I tend to be repetitious. I always did think Americans were representative of every nation and hated when those same nations would refer to us as *those crazy Americans* when many of their people made the US their home.