As for civilians fighting, a case in point are the “Sammis” in Mogadishu. Sure we dropped a lot of them but they kept coming.
Yes we left Viet Nam unbeaten but we couldn't destroy the Norths will to fight on. If we had left South Korea after the truce, I'm sure the end would have been the same.
Basically, you don't know how the masses will react to a full-blown invasion of their nation.
We were lucky in Afghanistan. There was a strong, well-equipted opposition force waiting to help out when we arrived.
I believe if you will go back and review the facts that you will find that we hit the RG hard in their own barracks and in the field. Their decision to withdraw any distance at all was influenced greatly by their losses.
As for civilians fighting, a case in point are the “Sammis” in Mogadishu. Sure we dropped a lot of them but they kept coming.
We were certainly facing a conglomeration of militia kinds of forces there. No "organized" forces were in existence. We also, thanks to X42 did not have a full menu of capabilities to deal with the situation, e.g. no armored options and a meager air attack capability. The political will to kill our attackers was a direct result of Clintons policy to not turn our meals on wheels program into a full fledged military capability to defeat some two-bit warlords armed with rat scout jeeps and RPGs. Our underequipped forces acquitted themselves well, killing over 1,000 of the attacking rabble despite setting out on a 30 minute raid.
Yes we left Viet Nam unbeaten but we couldn't destroy the Norths will to fight on. If we had left South Korea after the truce, I'm sure the end would have been the same.
You missed my point entirely. Please reread the original post.
Basically, you don't know how the masses will react to a full-blown invasion of their nation.
One never knows for sure. I recounted the history of islamic forces when faced with overwhelming firepower. You need look no further than the Israeli defense to get an idea. In every conflict, the trained iislamic attackers abandoned their positions and vehicles to escape their perceived annihilation. You do not remember our Iraqi opponents surrendering to CNN reporters? You do not remember seeing video of our soldiers pointing surrendering Iraqis to rear positions without supervision because the numbers of surrenders were just too large to deal with?
We were lucky in Afghanistan. There was a strong, well-equipted opposition force waiting to help out when we arrived.
Luck had very little to do with it. That was engineered. Do not forget that there are large groups of dissidents, e.g. Kurds who would like nothing better than to kill a few Iraqis. Saddam has killed off a lot of members of opposing clans who would love to exact revenge under their own islamic codes of (dis)honor. His murders over time number at least in the hundreds of thousands. This does not breed a fierce monolithic loyalty.
Because it was America's will to fight on that was destroyed, and that was destroyed by Americans - basically the same crowd that today wants appeasement with the Arabs and destruction of American society, and of Israel.