"Hearts and Minds" people! This is how Mao took over china... You can win a foreign, guerrilla war one of two ways, either scare the crap out of everyone and reduce them to inaction or win popular support. In a region where personal life takes a backseat to the good of Islam/your cause/your nation, option one doesn't seem possible. We have to win support. We cannot do that by stooping to unjustified violence...not to mention that we would be brought up for war crimes if we did.
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This is a war of propoganda, intelligence and ideology.
Unfourtunately, no-one in the Pentagon or the White House appears to have realised this.
Unfourtunately, no-one in the Pentagon or the White House appears to have realised this.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Collin Powell did but he got fired.Spark wrote:
This is a war of propoganda, intelligence and ideology.
Unfourtunately, no-one in the Pentagon or the White House appears to have realised this.
This is a war of propoganda, intelligence and ideology.doctastrangelove1964 wrote:
Collin Powell did but he got fired.Spark wrote:
This is a war of propoganda, intelligence and ideology.
Unfourtunately, no-one in the Pentagon or the White House appears to have realised this.
Unfourtunately, no-one currently in the Pentagon or the White House appears to have realised this.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
*shrugs* Before they get "emboldened", they'll have to kill their fellow Muslims. Who they kill shouldn't mean anything to us unless it involves American citizens. Therefore, if we pull out of Iraq completely, they'll have to come all the way over here to attack us. We can defend ourselves much better over here than over there. We just need to improve our security protocols.ATG wrote:
Wrong. Leaving means failure. It means defeat. It means fighting a larger, bloodier war when these asshole become enboldened.Turquoise wrote:
If this is all true, why not just pack up and leave?Kmarion wrote:
Now we have bobble-head generals who nod along with the diplomats who want to hold their Versailles Conference before winning the war.
It's past time for our senior leaders to jettison the political correctness and fight to win. But they honestly don't know how anymore. They've been so thoroughly drugged with failed academic theories about counterinsurgency-with-lollipops that they're more concerned with avoiding embarrassments than with killing the enemy.
The bitter truth is that, in the type of conflicts we now face, we must be willing to fight as ruthlessly and savagely as our opponents. We have to play by their moral rules. Stay-at-homes who never served will howl in indignation, but the alternative is defeat.
And is it ever more virtuous to lose to fanatics with apocalyptic visions than to win?
The standard response from the campus commandos is that, if we descend to the level of our enemy's behavior, we'll become as bad as them. That's crap. In World War II, we didn't exactly coddle the residents of Hamburg and Dresden, Tokyo and Hiroshima.
BAGHDAD BLUES
Either way you look at it, there's not much point to staying in Iraq.
Under the current situation, we're too politically correct. If we follow sheer pragmatism (as I suggested), we'd be gone already.
...or you can be smart and not fight these people unless they come over here. Fighting the extremists on Iraq's turf is mostly pointless.Kmarion wrote:
No you can't. War is a battle of will. Who ever is more willing to do whatever it takes will be victorious. It has always been that way. Now in this age of 24/7 around the clock news coverage what has always been prevalent in warfare has be made known to the general public, and deemed unacceptable to the civilized. The idea of a smart bomb to reduce collateral damage is a joke (militarily speaking). Like I said, the enemies will must be broke in order for them to feel defeated.CameronPoe wrote:
You can fight your enemy without stooping to their level. I don't understand your gripe.Kmarion wrote:
If you are unwilling to stand down on your principles and address the horrific acts in a manner that will allow the enemy to understand you might as well fold completely. I'm not advocating it, but rather elaborating on the complexities involved in fighting an enemy that does so unrestricted.
Let me put this more bluntly... which is worse: emboldening our enemy or going bankrupt? I'll take the former any day over the latter. This war is costing us 2 billion a week. We can't stay much longer.fadedsteve wrote:
Exactly!! Leaving doesnt mean failure, IT IS FAILURE! Its surrender, defeat etc.
We cannot embolden our enemies any more than they need to be!! Look at Iran and Syria, they scoff at us anytime they can, look at Iran's posture following the hostage fiasco!!! You thinks things will get better or WORSE if we leave Iraq. . . .
We need to help the Iraqi people defeat these assholes trying to destroy their country! Its imperative that we follow through with our promise!! What credibility do we have left if we adopt the Democrats plan? none. . .
What happens to the innocent people when we leave? mass slaughter is what follows! Just ask the fucking South Vietnamese and the Montenyards people after we bounced from Vietnam! Leaving is foolish and leaves the region in even more chaos then it is in right now. Leaving from Iraq is exactly what the terrorists WANT US TO DO. Its alows them to dig in and enjoy another regime similar to the Taliban. Or even worse becomes an Iranian satellite state. . . .none of these senarios are acceptable in anyway shape or form!
These people will "scoff" at us unless we conquer the whole region. Do you really want us to be responsible for the entirety of the Middle East?
We should be moving away from foreign oil and improving our domestic security. Fuck what our enemies think. If we can set up a situation where they aren't killing us anymore and are instead killing people over there that aren't our citizens, so be it.
Just to let you know, our credibility disappeared a long time ago anyway, when we started supporting dictators and extremists against the Soviets. When we showed that we were willing to ally with anyone as long as they were against the Soviets, we proved just how low we really are.
And again, I HOPE Iran conquers Iraq. They'll have their hands so full with that fiasco that they can kiss their nuclear progress goodbye. Yes, a lot of Iragis will die as a result, but fuck if I care. They're dying today by the hundreds anyway.
Eventually, you'll realize that there are some things about the world that you just can't change. The craziness of the Middle East is one of them. It's time to leave these ridiculous nation building schemes behind.
One of the things they should have done from the beginning was to shut out the media and not allow the embeds. The medias bias has to large an effect on moral to be good for anything. The soldiers there need to be able to do their job with out the second guessing of the pundents here and around the world. The pandering of the senators to the nations around Iraq isn't helping either, and they are just doing it for media attention. Do we honestly need to know how many people were killed each day. It is reported to us with relish, the pundents salivating as they gleefully add up the numbers. I guarantee there are more deaths in the US each day than there are soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan each day. Perhaps the reporters and pundents should start tallying those up as well......
Which is what we're doing...only busybodies and mindless liberals have nothing to do, so they pick on people trying to bring other countries up.CameronPoe wrote:
You can fight your enemy without stooping to their level. I don't understand your gripe.
Haditha, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo?The_Mac wrote:
Which is what we're doing...only busybodies and mindless liberals have nothing to do, so they pick on people trying to bring other countries up.CameronPoe wrote:
You can fight your enemy without stooping to their level. I don't understand your gripe.
What people forget is that this isn't a 'war', it's a policing operation. Willpower will do little for you in such an engagement when you're the alien presence and the enemy is made up of people from the local populace. Northern Ireland is a prime example. The Brits 'got tough and underhand' with internment without trial, torture, collusion in loyalist murders, use of the SAS and heavy handed tactics to ZERO AVAIL. I would take your point if the 'enemy' was Nazi Germany or marauding hordes of 'communist' Chinese but our continued wellbeing and very existence is not even remotely threatened in such a manner.Kmarion wrote:
No you can't. War is a battle of will. Who ever is more willing to do whatever it takes will be victorious. It has always been that way. Now in this age of 24/7 around the clock news coverage what has always been prevalent in warfare has be made known to the general public, and deemed unacceptable to the civilized. The idea of a smart bomb to reduce collateral damage is a joke (militarily speaking). Like I said, the enemies will must be broke in order for them to feel defeated.CameronPoe wrote:
You can fight your enemy without stooping to their level. I don't understand your gripe.Kmarion wrote:
If you are unwilling to stand down on your principles and address the horrific acts in a manner that will allow the enemy to understand you might as well fold completely. I'm not advocating it, but rather elaborating on the complexities involved in fighting an enemy that does so unrestricted.
Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-05-12 20:57:58)
This is Vietnam redux all over again. Time to leave. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
no, i'm enjoying all the masculine chest thumping about victory over an ideaology.
I get the feeling that ever war we wage from now on will be like Vietnam and Iraq because we are not willing to do what is necessary to finish it:
When we leave its going to be messy and ALOT of Iraqi civilians are going to die - maybe as many as the Cambodian killing fields after we left Vietnam (about 3 million people died).
- Go in with 400k troops
- Encircle entire cities, drop leaflets for a week to tell them to get out (filter all those leaving), then B-52 carpet bomb the town, then clean-up what's left...then NEXT city
- Support our troops and give them the benifit of the doubt, always - how many soldiers have died because they hesitated to pull the trigger in fear of getting sued (war is ugly sometimes and people make mistakes, i.e. throw a grenade into a building with terrorists shooting at you, only to kill some women and childen in the building - terrorists use women and children as shields).
- News blackout - for the most part, other than the initial operation (before 'Mission Accomplished' phase), its ok to have embedded reporters, but afterward, with the clean-up, nope.
When we leave its going to be messy and ALOT of Iraqi civilians are going to die - maybe as many as the Cambodian killing fields after we left Vietnam (about 3 million people died).
Last edited by Harmor (2007-05-12 22:48:33)
They don't exist. It never happened. They never happened. Stop talking to me. Leave me alone! NYAAAH!CameronPoe wrote:
Haditha, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo?The_Mac wrote:
Which is what we're doing...only busybodies and mindless liberals have nothing to do, so they pick on people trying to bring other countries up.CameronPoe wrote:
You can fight your enemy without stooping to their level. I don't understand your gripe.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Northern Ireland never had their will broken. Any other questions? .CameronPoe wrote:
What people forget is that this isn't a 'war', it's a policing operation. Willpower will do little for you in such an engagement when you're the alien presence and the enemy is made up of people from the local populace. Northern Ireland is a prime example. The Brits 'got tough and underhand' with internment without trial, torture, collusion in loyalist murders, use of the SAS and heavy handed tactics to ZERO AVAIL. I would take your point if the 'enemy' was Nazi Germany or marauding hordes of 'communist' Chinese but our continued wellbeing and very existence is not even remotely threatened in such a manner.Kmarion wrote:
No you can't. War is a battle of will. Who ever is more willing to do whatever it takes will be victorious. It has always been that way. Now in this age of 24/7 around the clock news coverage what has always been prevalent in warfare has be made known to the general public, and deemed unacceptable to the civilized. The idea of a smart bomb to reduce collateral damage is a joke (militarily speaking). Like I said, the enemies will must be broke in order for them to feel defeated.CameronPoe wrote:
You can fight your enemy without stooping to their level. I don't understand your gripe.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
Sure, as soon as you tell us where they're coming from. It sure as fuck isn't college Republicans. Funny how everybody has the will to wage a war someone else'll be fighting. Oh wait I know, they'll just lower the standards further so that more gang members, white supremacists and other violent felons can know the honor and glory of defending their country. As long as they're not homosexuals of course.Harmor wrote:
I get the feeling that ever war we wage from now on will be like Vietnam and Iraq because we are not willing to do what is necessary to finish it:
Go in with 400k troops
Fantastic idea. Let's make thousands or hundreds of thousands of people homeless with us to thank for it. That'll fucking teach them to be living where we're trying to have a war.Harmor wrote:
Encircle entire cities, drop leaflets for a week to tell them to get out (filter all those leaving), then B-52 carpet bomb the town, then clean-up what's left...then NEXT city
I'm sorry but screw that bullshit. Soldiers are unique within society in that they have the ability to use lethal force beyond mere self-defense. They have the ability to kill pre-emptively even when they have the ability to flee a situation. They can lie in wait to kill. They can use concealment of both themselves and weapons to kill. They can kill in numbers that would shame a serial killer. For this, they can and should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. "War is ugly" is a fucking excuse and it's been used long enough, especially by people who wail and scream "Atrocity!" when the ugliness of war comes to them. I didn't hear any of you fuckers saying "Well, war's ugly." when the WTC fell. I didn't hear you saying it when those Blackwater mercs got to be the guests of honor and the main course at an Iraqi barbecue. I don't hear it when another one of our soldiers gets blown to fuck-all by a roadside bomb. Then and now it's all calls for bloody Old Testament vengeance. Apparently war is only allowed to be hell for other people.Harmor wrote:
Support our troops and give them the benifit of the doubt, always - how many soldiers have died because they hesitated to pull the trigger in fear of getting sued (war is ugly sometimes and people make mistakes, i.e. throw a grenade into a building with terrorists shooting at you, only to kill some women and childen in the building - terrorists use women and children as shields).
Despite the fact that they've been royally fucking it up and they've mostly allowed themselves to be cowed by the administration after Dan Rather got skunked, the news media is supposed to help keep our government honest. Forget this "loose lips sink ships" stuff; the vast majority of the complaints I hear about the media regarding this fucking mess is if they dare to print or run a story that's anything but a "Our soldiers are building schools and hospitals" puff piece. It is not going well. It hasn't been going well since the start. And we, the fucking people who vote for these assholes who okayed it all, have a right to know this. Joe Average American has a right to know if the recruiter trying to sign him up was lying when he said "major combat operations are over" and that Iraq is now safe as suburbs. On top of that, all of us have a right to know what our government is doing period, because they're signing our godsdamn names to it when they're done. You want a government that keeps secrets from you and thinks you're just not sharp enough to handle it or they need to keep information from you that's of no real tactical advantage to the enemy "for your own good"? Find yourself some nice third-world authoritarian dictatorship where the press is only allowed to run pro-government and pro-military news and disseminate propaganda about other nations. This is America and I'd like to think we're still better than that..Harmor wrote:
News blackout - for the most part, other than the initial operation (before 'Mission Accomplished' phase), its ok to have embedded reporters, but afterward, with the clean-up, nope.
Well it's not like our government will admit any responsibility for that anymore than they did for Cambodia, or Chile, or Guatemala, or any other damn country our government has decided to fuck with over the past half-century or so. There are no surprises here: when you go in and dismantle the structure holding a society together and purposely attract other enemies in while making only half-assed attempts to put it back together, people are going to fucking get killed. You'd think we'd have figured this out by now.Harmor wrote:
When we leave its going to be messy and ALOT of Iraqi civilians are going to die - maybe as many as the Cambodian killing fields after we left Vietnam (about 3 million people died).
Last edited by HunterOfSkulls (2007-05-13 02:35:04)
yeah, that takes eight pints and a football match.Kmarion wrote:
Northern Ireland never had their will broken. Any other questions? .
Last edited by Reciprocity (2007-05-13 02:32:20)
Hunterofskulls, what's the ratio of "things going badly/we're loosing" stories to "we're trying to help" stories in the news? Granted that there will be a lot of sad stories...it is a war, after all.
I was talking to a USAF veteran who was in Kirkuk last year. She talked a lot about how nice the most local population was...and also about running firefights that frequently occured. There are two sides of the story, but I usually only see one.
I was talking to a USAF veteran who was in Kirkuk last year. She talked a lot about how nice the most local population was...and also about running firefights that frequently occured. There are two sides of the story, but I usually only see one.
RAIMIUS, nothing sells papers and gets ratings like carnage. Make no mistake, the vast majority of the media owes their allegiance to one thing, profit. They don't give a rat's ass about principles anymore, it's whatever sells. If it's bodies and bombed-out buildings, it runs. If it's happy stories, they'll run that too. I think what's confusing a lot of people is that their internal filters are seeing anything even remotely negative as the harshest criticism possible leveled by traitorous commie pinkos in the secret employ of George Soros and Hillary Clinton. Shit, the administration tried to bury photos of our war dead coming back into Dover and so far the media as a whole has complied outside of that one set of pictures. The decision about whether Americans can handle seeing the price of war should not be left up to the people who made that war happen.
I've wondered for some time where the change happened in how civilians view war. We are fighting an enemy just as evil as Hitler and his ilk. They are focused on killing not just one race which they hate, but whole societies which they view as evil. Even women and children in their own countries of origin are not immune from their brutal suicide attacks. The enemy is equally evil, so where did we lose the will to press on? I have to admit I’ve wavered. Why? Because I see 99% negativity about the war and I don’t get to hear very many stories about the good we are doing. There are atrocities in every war and they have been a reality of the horrors of war for centuries. We must not allow the actions of a few (which are being punished) to discolor our opinion of the brave members of our military. Nor should we allow such events to abandon our support for the mission.
In WW2, it was much different. Certainly a different enemy confronted them, but they also functioned in a different reality. They had no 24 hours media cycle reporting daily numbers of exactly how many brave men were lost and in the same breath condemning their mission. Instead, if there was a battle lost in a key location, it was publicized but there was a positive attitude that remained. The public was confident in our men and their ability to conquer the enemy. The leadership of the Allies in WW2 didn’t fight the war in a politically correct manner that was soft enough for the public to handle. Instead they let the men on the ground, in the air, and on the seas do their job. Their job was to kill the enemy and break the will to fight of those remaining. Period. They did their job well and many brave men sacrificed their lives to ensure the enemy was defeated.
The sooner we drop the notion that we need to run a war in the nicest way possible and let the military do their job, the sooner we’ll have more success in the war. Let’s remember who the enemy is and the cowardly act of mass murder that started this. The enemy continues to function brutally towards the innocent in their own country and abroad. This is not time to be nice. This is the time to take the gloves off and let our military men and women hit the enemy with all the force they are capable of. I don’t know about anyone else here, but I want our men and women to come home after making terrorists and their supporters die for their cause. Not the reverse. This is war, let’s support our troops, support their mission, and pray for their safe return. Stingray out.
In WW2, it was much different. Certainly a different enemy confronted them, but they also functioned in a different reality. They had no 24 hours media cycle reporting daily numbers of exactly how many brave men were lost and in the same breath condemning their mission. Instead, if there was a battle lost in a key location, it was publicized but there was a positive attitude that remained. The public was confident in our men and their ability to conquer the enemy. The leadership of the Allies in WW2 didn’t fight the war in a politically correct manner that was soft enough for the public to handle. Instead they let the men on the ground, in the air, and on the seas do their job. Their job was to kill the enemy and break the will to fight of those remaining. Period. They did their job well and many brave men sacrificed their lives to ensure the enemy was defeated.
The sooner we drop the notion that we need to run a war in the nicest way possible and let the military do their job, the sooner we’ll have more success in the war. Let’s remember who the enemy is and the cowardly act of mass murder that started this. The enemy continues to function brutally towards the innocent in their own country and abroad. This is not time to be nice. This is the time to take the gloves off and let our military men and women hit the enemy with all the force they are capable of. I don’t know about anyone else here, but I want our men and women to come home after making terrorists and their supporters die for their cause. Not the reverse. This is war, let’s support our troops, support their mission, and pray for their safe return. Stingray out.
Last edited by Stingray24 (2007-05-13 18:08:03)
Seems like it probably came around Korea and Vietnam when the idea of "limited war" became popular. I suppose after the carnage of WWII, people were extremely unwilling to start another war on that scale. And of course nowadays, when people haven't experienced WWII, they see 5 people killed in Iraq and feel like that's the breaking point that will end our army.Stingray24 wrote:
I've wondered for some time where the change happened in how civilians view war. We are fighting an enemy just as evil as Hitler and his ilk. They are focused on killing not just one race which they hate, but whole societies which they view as evil. Even women and children in their own countries of origin are not immune from their brutal suicide attacks. The enemy is equally evil, so where did we lose the will to press on? I have to admit I’ve wavered. Why? Because I see 99% negativity about the war and I don’t get to hear very many stories about the good we are doing. There are atrocities in every war and they have been a reality of the horrors of war for centuries. We must not allow the actions of a few (which are being punished) to discolor our opinion of the brave members of our military. Nor should we allow such events to abandon our support for the mission.
In WW2, it was much different. Certainly a different enemy confronted them, but they also functioned in a different reality. They had no 24 hours media cycle reporting daily numbers of exactly how many brave men were lost and in the same breath condemning their mission. Instead, if there was a battle lost in a key location, it was publicized but there was a positive attitude that remained. The public was confident in our men and their ability to conquer the enemy. The leadership of the Allies in WW2 didn’t fight the war in a politically correct manner that was soft enough for the public to handle. Instead they let the men on the ground, in the air, and on the seas do their job. Their job was to kill the enemy and break the will to fight of those remaining. Period. They did their job well and many brave men sacrificed their lives to ensure the enemy was defeated.
The sooner we drop the notion that we need to run a war in the nicest way possible and let the military do their job, the sooner we’ll have more success in the war. Let’s remember who the enemy is and the cowardly act of mass murder that started this. The enemy continues to function brutally towards the innocent in their own country and abroad. This is not time to be nice. This is the time to take the gloves off and let our military men and women hit the enemy with all the force they are capable of. I don’t know about anyone else here, but I want our men and women to come home after making terrorists and their supporters die for their cause. Not the reverse. This is war, let’s support our troops, support their mission, and pray for their safe return. Stingray out.
Never actually fought in a battle huh?Harmor wrote:
"
Can you really fight a 'fair' war? You realize that Petraeus has never actually fought in battle - he's an administrator, a polician in Military fatigues.
From Wikipedia "In 2003, Petraeus, then a major general, commanded the 101st Airborne Division during V Corps's drive to Baghdad. In a campaign chronicled in detail by Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post's book In the Company of Soldiers, Petraeus led his division through the battles of Karbala, Hilla, and Najaf (where he came under fire during an ambush by Iraqi paramilitary forces). "
The man graduated from West Point, taught at West Point, served in Haiti, Kuwait, Bosnia and Iraq (2 tours), and you're here calling him "a polician (sic) in Military fatigues"? Go watch more WWII movies and come back to tell us what it's REALLY like.
P.S. - I also noticed long ago that Petraeus rhymed with betray us, but it didn't inspire me to deliver an idiotic post on BF2S.
Last edited by fibtech (2007-05-13 19:13:46)
Which is what liberals are staunchly against.Turquoise wrote:
We just need to improve our security protocols.
Yes, because liberals are the ones who booted a huge chunk of our Arabic translators out of the military because they were queer.The_Mac wrote:
Which is what liberals are staunchly against.
I think you're confusing "security" with "fascist Big Brother bullshit". You know, like the geniuses in federal law enforcement that were infiltrating the fucking Quakers looking for signs of terrorist activity. The ones who think a credible terrorist threat is a bunch of guys who can't even afford to buy themselves shoes. The ones who classify "eco-terrorists" as being more dangerous than white supremacists and hand out 28-year prison sentences for burning car lots while they give another guy 11 years for plotting to use sodium cyanide bombs to kill Americans. What we seem to be lacking isn't security but intelligence; both the kind that's gathered and the kind that should be possessed by the people who claim they're trying to keep us safe.
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