BF2S Forums 12 Myths of 21st Century War

oug wrote:

Ralph Peters wrote:

It would be a welcome development if negotiations fixed the problems we face in Iraq, but we’re the only side interested in a negotiated solution.

Passive resistance only works when directed against rule-of-law states, such as the core English-speaking nations.

But if we’re unwilling to fight the fraction of humanity that’s evil, ...

oug wrote:

Attempts to try such monsters in a court of law turn into mockeries that only provide public platforms for their hate speech, which the global media is delighted to broadcast. Dead, they’re dead. And killing them is the ultimate proof that they lack divine protection. Dead terrorists don’t kill.
the need to defeat enemies who revel in butchering the innocent, who celebrate atrocities, and who claim their god wants blood.
So these, to point just a few, aren't [insert fart sound]?

Advocating a policy of mass murder isn't in keeping with all the ideas professed about the idealism of US interventions. Harsh teatment of enemies encourages more people to fight back against you.

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 3: Insurgencies can never be defeated.

Historically, fewer than one in 20 major insurgencies succeeded. Virtually no minor ones survived. In the mid-20th century, insurgencies scored more wins than previously had been the case, but that was because the European colonial powers against which they rebelled had already decided to rid themselves of their imperial possessions. Even so, more insurgencies were defeated than not, from the Philippines to Kenya to Greece. In the entire 18th century, our war of independence was the only insurgency that defeated a major foreign power and drove it out for good.

The insurgencies we face today are, in fact, more lethal than the insurrections of the past century. We now face an international terrorist insurgency as well as local rebellions, all motivated by religious passion or ethnicity or a fatal compound of both. The good news is that in over 3,000 years of recorded history, insurgencies motivated by faith and blood overwhelmingly failed. The bad news is that they had to be put down with remorseless bloodshed.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2008-04-21 12:50:44)

oug wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

Thousands of years of bloodshed fighting their brethren. I'd say there aren't many relevant players who care to ever negotiate.

That is irrelevant. Are you suggesting that the peoples of the Middle East are somehow collectively unwilling to negotiate about anything? Because it looks to me like we are putting everything in one big basket and mixing it up. That's not the proper way to come to conclusions about people. Take each case on its own rather. For example: Bin Laden has made his requests pretty clear. Evacuate your troops and stop supporting Israel. Simple. And if the latter were to be clarified and negotiated, I'd say they're valid requests.

oug wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

Poorly worded I'll agree, but the point is clear. Now lets put this back in the context of what he was saying. It doesn’t work where silent protest is answered with a bayonet in the belly or a one-way trip to a political prison. We’ve allowed far too many myths about the “innate goodness of humanity” to creep up on us. Certainly, many humans would rather be good than bad. But if we’re unwilling to fight the fraction of humanity that’s evil, armed and determined to subjugate the rest, we’ll face even grimmer conflicts.

It seems that the US is constantly trying over the last few years to equate itself with their enemy. This is a huge subject and right now I don't have time, but in a few words maybe it would be better to go back to the initial values of this country and see whether current action coincides with them. I hope I can elaborate further later, right now I might not be making any sense...

oug wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

oug wrote:

Attempts to try such monsters in a court of law turn into mockeries that only provide public platforms for their hate speech, which the global media is delighted to broadcast. Dead, they’re dead. And killing them is the ultimate proof that they lack divine protection. Dead terrorists don’t kill.
the need to defeat enemies who revel in butchering the innocent, who celebrate atrocities, and who claim their god wants blood.
So these, to point just a few, aren't [insert fart sound]?

This isn't true?

As above, what is the ultimate goal here? To spread democracy, or simply to kill a few people? Generally speaking, if winning will bring you down to their level, maybe it's not worth it...

CameronPoe wrote:

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 4: There’s no military solution; only negotiations can solve our problems.

In most cases, the reverse is true. Negotiations solve nothing until a military decision has been reached and one side recognizes a peace agreement as its only hope of survival. It would be a welcome development if negotiations fixed the problems we face in Iraq, but we’re the only side interested in a negotiated solution. Every other faction - the terrorists, Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, Iran and Syria - is convinced it can win.

The only negotiations that produce lasting results are those conducted from positions of indisputable strength.

His last line is actually completely and utterly at odds with the situation in Northern Ireland and hence verifiably incorrect. The US is not interested in negotiations. It won't even speak to Syria or Iran. There more interested in engaging in what amounts to a political cock-measuring contest with Iran on the international stage. The sheer bare-faced lies this man is concocting are truly amazing. He's right that a military solution must be reached - a no hold barred civil war between the relevant factions. The US should have nothing to do with that.

This guy's view on matters is so narrow and concentrated. If he was more generic in his approach then perhaps he might have something interesting to say.

CameronPoe wrote:

The US is not interested in negotiations. It won't even speak to Syria or Iran.

CameronPoe wrote:

They're more interested in engaging in what amounts to a political cock-measuring contest with Iran on the international stage.

CameronPoe wrote:

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 6: Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs.

It’s an anomaly of today’s Western world that privileged individuals feel more sympathy for dictators, mass murderers and terrorists - consider the irrational protests against Guantanamo - than they do for their victims. We were told, over and over, that killing Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, hanging Saddam Hussein or targeting the Taliban’s Mullah Omar would only unite their followers. Well, we haven’t yet gotten Osama or Omar, but Zarqawi’s dead and forgotten by his own movement, whose members never invoke that butcher’s memory. And no one is fighting to avenge Saddam. The harsh truth is that when faced with true fanatics, killing them is the only way to end their influence. Imprisoned, they galvanize protests, kidnappings, bombings and attacks that seek to free them. Want to make a terrorist a martyr? Just lock him up. Attempts to try such monsters in a court of law turn into mockeries that only provide public platforms for their hate speech, which the global media is delighted to broadcast. Dead, they’re dead. And killing them is the ultimate proof that they lack divine protection. Dead terrorists don’t kill.

Sentence one - blatant untruth. Who the fuck feels sympathy for a dictator, a mass murderer or a terrorist? Who doesn't find acts of terror appalling? Where does this guy get off spouting nonsense? Principled people feel due process should apply to all under the law and rightly deplore torture - he can fuck off if he thinks I or any of my principled western brethren will have my morals and principles breached for some lowlife scum snapping at our heels. Moral superiority comes from a steadfast adherence to principles.

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 7: If we fight as fiercely as our enemies, we’re no better than them.

Did the bombing campaign against Germany turn us into Nazis? Did dropping atomic bombs on Japan to end the war and save hundreds of thousands of American lives, as well as millions of Japanese lives, turn us into the beasts who conducted the Bataan Death March?

The greatest immorality is for the United States to lose a war. While we seek to be as humane as the path to victory permits, we cannot shrink from doing what it takes to win. At present, the media and influential elements of our society are obsessed with the small immoralities that are inevitable in wartime. Soldiers are human, and no matter how rigorous their training, a miniscule fraction of our troops will do vicious things and must be punished as a consequence. Not everyone in uniform will turn out to be a saint, and not every chain of command will do its job with equal effectiveness. But obsessing on tragic incidents - of which there have been remarkably few in Iraq or Afghanistan - obscures the greater moral issue: the need to defeat enemies who revel in butchering the innocent, who celebrate atrocities, and who claim their god wants blood.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2008-04-21 13:48:48)

CameronPoe wrote:

Pug wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

The US is not interested in negotiations. It won't even speak to Syria or Iran.

I'm just going to say bullshit on two counts.

1) There has been plenty of negotiations, all failed.  why? Reason: #2

2) Refer to the quote re: "indisputable strength".  It seems both the US/Iran/Syria are struggling with the "indisputable" part.  Or to rephrase:

CameronPoe wrote:

They're more interested in engaging in what amounts to a political cock-measuring contest with Iran on the international stage.

In other words - Iran & Syria aren't being "forced" to the table.  Which is exactly what you are saying.

Has any member of the Bush administration sat across a table from Ayatollah Khameini, Bashar Al-Assad or Mahmoud Ahmedinejad? No.

Whereas Ahmedinejad has to resort to sending Bush letters via the Swiss embassy to try to get in contact:

http://www.president.ir/eng/ahmadinejad … ndex-e.htm

PS The indisputable strength line is bullshit. Israel appears to have indisputable strength: they fail at negotiations. The British appeared to have indisputable strength: they had to make many concessions to the IRA - an army they could not defeat - several of whose leading members now run the government in Northern Ireland.

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 9: Our invasion of Iraq created our terrorist problems.

This claim rearranges the order of events, as if the attacks of 9/11 happened after Baghdad fell. Our terrorist problems have been created by the catastrophic failure of Middle Eastern civilization to compete on any front and were exacerbated by the determination of successive U.S. administrations, Democrat and Republican, to pretend that Islamist terrorism was a brief aberration. Refusing to respond to attacks, from the bombings in Beirut to Khobar Towers, from the first attack on the Twin Towers to the near-sinking of the USS Cole, we allowed our enemies to believe that we were weak and cowardly. Their unchallenged successes served as a powerful recruiting tool.

Did our mistakes on the ground in Iraq radicalize some new recruits for terror? Yes. But imagine how many more recruits there might have been and the damage they might have inflicted on our homeland had we not responded militarily in Afghanistan and then carried the fight to Iraq. Now Iraq is al-Qaeda’s Vietnam, not ours.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2008-04-21 15:27:37)

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 10: If we just leave, the Iraqis will patch up their differences on their own.

The point may come at which we have to accept that Iraqis are so determined to destroy their own future that there’s nothing more we can do. But we’re not there yet, and leaving immediately would guarantee not just one massacre but a series of slaughters and the delivery of a massive victory to the forces of terrorism. We must be open-minded about practical measures, from changes in strategy to troop reductions, if that’s what the developing situation warrants. But it’s grossly irresponsible to claim that our presence is the primary cause of the violence in Iraq - an allegation that ignores history.

Ralph Peters wrote:

Myth No. 12: The Middle East’s problems are all America’s fault.

Muslim extremists would like everyone to believe this, but it just isn’t true. The collapse of once great Middle Eastern civilizations has been under way for more than five centuries, and the region became a backwater before the United States became a country. For the first century and a half of our national existence, our relations with the people of the Middle East were largely beneficent and protective, notwithstanding our conflict with the Barbary Pirates in North Africa. But Islamic civilization was on a downward trajectory that could not be arrested. Its social and economic structures, its values, its neglect of education, its lack of scientific curiosity, the indolence of its ruling classes and its inability to produce a single modern state that served its people all guaranteed that, as the West’s progress accelerated, the Middle East would fall ever farther behind. The Middle East has itself to blame for its problems.

None of us knows what our strategic future holds, but we have no excuse for not knowing our own past. We need to challenge inaccurate assertions about our policies, about our past and about war itself. And we need to work within our community and state education systems to return balanced, comprehensive history programs to our schools. The unprecedented wealth and power of the United States allows us to afford many things denied to human beings throughout history. But we, the people, cannot afford ignorance.