Post by: Perd Hapley on March 27, 2007, 03:06:12 AM
Discuss.
Post by: TarpleyG on March 27, 2007, 03:27:36 AM
Greg
Post by: Art Eatman on March 27, 2007, 03:34:41 AM
Our losses are the smallest of any war we've ever been in, for the amount of actual fighting.
So far, we've disrupted the whole Al Qaida deal. We're fighting elsewhere, not here at home. And as long as the Jihadists' attention is focussed on Iraq, they're less likely to blow up bridges, refineries and shoot up shopping malls here in the US.
Pardon my cynicism: For the age group in the military, just as in Vietnam, deaths per 100,000 is more likely from driving a car than from being shot in fighting.
None of the above means that I think the post-combat phase has been properly dealt with insofar as policy and politics, overall, for Iraq. I gotta say, though, that by not being on the scene I don't have alternative answers.
Art
Post by: Manedwolf on March 27, 2007, 04:21:49 AM
I don't know where or when it occurred to me - sometime after 11 Sept. and before we invaded Iraq. But at some point I realized that if we did not see soldiers returning in body bags for the next several years, it would mean one thing: that we weren't actually fighting the terrorists.
Discuss.
Discuss.
That, or we'd shifted to some of the things we should be doing, like carpeting the skies of Afghanistan and Pakistan with Predator drones until we find bin Laden. The world's last view of that beard should be from the nose of a camera-carrying munition.
I would like to know what sending the same troops on the same "patrols" every day to get blown up by the same IEDs by the same people who know where the same patrols go...is accomplishing.
The same for taking a town, leaving it, letting it get infested with insurgents again, come back, re-take it, leave it, repeat, repeat, repeat...
Post by: The Rabbi on March 27, 2007, 04:43:47 AM
Sounded to me like he was pushing for more US casualties.
Post by: Art Eatman on March 27, 2007, 06:14:51 AM
Maybe the guy is saying, if you want more opposition, you need more VIEWS of bodybags; not that you need more casualties.
"I would like to know what sending the same troops on the same "patrols" every day to get blown up by the same IEDs by the same people who know where the same patrols go...is accomplishing."
That's ROE and officers, in-country local. Yeah, it's dumb. Soldier of Fortune magazine has been publishing letters from GIs on this general sort of stuff.
Art
Post by: French G. on March 27, 2007, 06:45:09 AM
Post by: MechAg94 on March 27, 2007, 06:58:51 AM
I was never really upset with the reason we went into Iraq, but I have been increasingly concerned with how we were fighting it. I don't think Americans or US soldiers have a problem with paying the cost, but they want it to be meaningful and accomplish something; not wasted due to bad leadership, politics, or foolish rules of engagement. That Patton movie was close to right: Americans love a winner and can't stand to be a loser (or something like that).
Post by: 280plus on March 27, 2007, 07:14:04 AM
Post by: The Rabbi on March 27, 2007, 07:16:39 AM
Sorry, my mistake. His point was that we need to have more photos of body bags coming back. Some Pentagon policy or other.
Post by: Art Eatman on March 27, 2007, 07:30:26 AM
If there's anything that pushes me toward Fist City, it's some Newsie with his/her (okay, "Its"), "How does it FEE-YUL to know your son (daughter, husband) died (here, there, yonder, however)?"
Art
Post by: The Rabbi on March 27, 2007, 07:49:16 AM
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 27, 2007, 08:00:39 AM
Post by: Manedwolf on March 27, 2007, 09:06:12 AM
What is really disturbing is that there are many more innocent civilians being killed than there is us or the bad guys.
That tends to happen in every war fought not in open plains, but in, around, or above cities.
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On top of that the bad guys are really starting to use innocent childern to do their bidding now.
Shhh. Can't say that, the "moderate muslims" will respond with...uh...deafening silence on the issue.
Post by: 280plus on March 27, 2007, 09:07:12 AM
Post by: Manedwolf on March 27, 2007, 09:08:26 AM
Plus, how many times have we heard "last throes"? And if we keep "reaching turning points", it means we're going in a circle.
Post by: De Selby on March 27, 2007, 09:59:15 AM
They promptly voted to ally themselves with Iran. Now we're scrambling to declare Iranian influence in Iraq an act of war, while at the same time keeping up the facade of "respecting Iraqi democracy."
That's an impossible position to be in. I don't think this war can possibly have a good outcome for the US at this point.
Post by: Art Eatman on March 27, 2007, 12:27:48 PM
Bush and his people just aren't that good at it--not that I think any other woulda-beens or wannabes are any better.
The U.S. is handicapped by our TV mentality and do-good-itis. Start with a problem, throw money and technology at it, and there will be a clear-cut happy ending in 22, 44 or 88 minutes. Plus advertising time. We're not wired up for the long haul in much of anything.
The obvious example is our botch in Vietnam. We messed up bigtime on the political end of it, being totally out-propagandized by our enemies. So, we pulled out, promising the South Vietnamese ongoing financial and materiel support. "Ongoing" was two years. Third year, the NVA won, entering the south with more armor than the Russians had when going into Berlin. It took some twenty years for us to mostly recover from the debacle.
If we pull out now, we're not leaving behind a bunch of cold-blooded rational thinkers like the Asians and the Kremlin. We'd be showing the yellow stripe, insofar as the population of the middle east is concerned. We'd be, in their eyes, proving that we're wussies; all show and no go. That would be an encouragement to bring IEDs out of Iraq and other places, right here to the U.S. And the leaders of those countries are fully aware of that.
The Iranian goal is the *expletive deleted*it Crescent, from Iran to Egypt, with Israel becoming a footnote to history. And full control of all that oil. With the oil money, they can then have all the nukes and delivery systems they want, they believe. It's just a matter of time.
Chess game: How many moves ahead--and countermoves--can you envision?
Art
Post by: Manedwolf on March 27, 2007, 12:30:45 PM
We're playing checkers.
Whereas one plays chess with the endgame in mind, checkers tends to be looking for an opening for a short-term jump.
Post by: De Selby on March 27, 2007, 12:37:56 PM
I see what you're saying about thinking ahead, but I disagree with the particulars. First off, I don't agree that leaving Iraq will bring attacks to the US. I doubt the terrorists care whether or not we're "wussies"; they just care whether or not they can get what they want. If what they want is the US out of the middle east, leaving the middle east is the end of the story. And even after a pullout from Iraq, we can still strike terrorists like we did before...kidnappings, bombings, assassinations, etc. I think a continued program of attacking terrorists and a pullout from Iraq to deprive them of propaganda tools would be more effective than staying in Iraq on the theory that it will prove our metal to them.
But the bigger problem is with the whole strategy of taking down Iraq: If you think keeping Iran out of the Arab world was a worthy goal, it's now clear that taking down Saddam was the worst possible mistake to make. We thought the Iraqis would thank us and elect a pro-US government; now it's obvious that given a choice, the Iraqis are choosing brotherhood with Iran. So the Iraq war handed the Iranians exactly what they needed to get control of their Shia crescent: an Iraq where the people vote on what they want.
I don't think there's any foreseeable reality in which the people of Iraq are anti-Iran. I mean, they elected people to parliament who had bombed US embassies. There's literally no one in Iraq, aside from the Sunni militants who hate us even more than the Iranians, that is anti-Iran.
IMO, this has already gone down as a checkmate for Iran.
Post by: The Rabbi on March 27, 2007, 12:38:33 PM
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 27, 2007, 01:12:36 PM
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staying in Iraq on the theory that it will prove our metal to them.
Over and over and over again, when someone opposes the Iraq war or calls it a mistake, they take any single motive that is offered, "rebutt" it, and think they've won the argument, completely ignoring other, complimentary reasons for the war. Here we go again.
Firstly, "mettle" is under discussion and not "metal."
Secondly, there are numerous reasons to stay in Iraq, other than "proving our mettle." Giving the impression of cowardice is simply a very real consequence, and one that pro-war individuals mistakenly believe will be widely understood. We are too optimistic. Knee-jerk nay-sayers simply refuse to understand the importance of "mettle" to those who would attack us.
Post by: De Selby on March 27, 2007, 01:45:09 PM
If the goal is to keep Iran out of Iraq and have an Iraqi democracy, yes, they have clearly won. That is because any move we make defeats one of those two goals: Either Iraq is a democracy, and they elect an assortment of people with close ties to Iran (even Iranian terrorists), or we keep the Iranians out of Iraq by destroying Iraqi democracy. There is no way to have both, because the majority of Iraqis support Iran and want to connect their country to Iran.
Hence, checkmate on the issue. Any way we turn, we lose out on one of the main goals of the war.
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Firstly, "mettle" is under discussion and not "metal."
Appreciate the correction-I left my dictionary/thesaurus set in the closet.
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Secondly, there are numerous reasons to stay in Iraq, other than "proving our mettle." Giving the impression of cowardice is simply a very real consequence, and one that pro-war individuals mistakenly believe will be widely understood. We are too optimistic. Knee-jerk nay-sayers simply refuse to understand the importance of "mettle" to those who would attack us.
Alright, so in other words, the longer we stay in Iraq, the safer America is, even at the going rate?
Is that your analysis?
I'm sorry if I don't see why that would naturally be widely understood. It looks more to be the case that the terrorists will begin to believe that we are a gang of incompetents the longer we stay in Iraq, than anything else. It also defies reason to believe that people who will blow themselves up to fight US forces in Iraq will be impressed by US 'staying power' in the region.
Scaring the natives with our strength is the wrong way to analyze this war. It's a mindset that belongs in Colonial New Spain, not 21st century Iraq.
Post by: Balog on March 27, 2007, 02:00:51 PM
As for the way we're fighting..... the ROE's (when I was over, which was late 2005-early 2006) were at least livable. Some things really angered me, but it wasn't as bad as the books I've read about Vietnam. I think we put way too much emphasis on avoiding collateral dmage, tho. Example: the Army had an arty battery with the ability to pinpoint the location of the mortars being fired at us, but they weren't allowed to return fire into the city because the Paladins had too much of a kill radius. I think the certain knowledge that if you let your neighbor shoot a mortar at US troops your house would become a smoking pile of rubble would be a pretty good incentive to keep mortars out of your neighborhood.
Post by: Standing Wolf on March 27, 2007, 04:16:20 PM
The entire Middle East isn't worth a single drop of American blood.
Post by: RevDisk on March 27, 2007, 04:31:23 PM
I don't know where or when it occurred to me - sometime after 11 Sept. and before we invaded Iraq. But at some point I realized that if we did not see soldiers returning in body bags for the next several years, it would mean one thing: that we weren't actually fighting the terrorists.
Discuss.
Discuss.
The point of war is not to die gloriously. It's to kill the enemy. Friendly casualties != Progress.
Post by: Tallpine on March 27, 2007, 04:50:40 PM
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I gotta say, though, that by not being on the scene I don't have alternative answers.
Well, just possibly not being on the scene might be an alternative to what the US is doing now
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 27, 2007, 06:26:56 PM
I grow tired of putting fine points on things that people completely misconstrue. So go read my post again, use your brain this time, and edit your post accordingly. Anger.
shootinstudent,
I also tire of arguing about Iraq. I refer you to the earlier comments about long-term chess strategy versus short-term checkers-moves. Irani-Iraqi relations are among the latter. If you really think that a goal of the Iraq war was to establish there some kind of open-ended democracy that could do anything it wanted - even seriously endanger our own interests, then you should be more realistic. There is nothing whatsoever hypocritical in talking about democracy and freedom for Iraq, but then preventing them from aligning themselves with terrorists. It should be understood that anti-terrorism is more important than pro-democratism.
Post by: De Selby on March 27, 2007, 06:48:18 PM
The problem is that "democracy for Iraq" is the last shred of a pretense at a justification for the war. If it's not that, what do you have? "War to benefit America at the expense of Iraqis"....yeah, that's a real good position to be in.
But anyway, there isn't any preventing going on. They already elected the Iranian favorites. They will continue to do so, and there's no anti-Iranian in the country strong enough to become the Mubarak of Iraq.
Which is of course, something our leadership probably should have foreseen along time ago. It was awesome how they held Ali Al Sistani up for the cameras as a man of peace and moderation, leading his country towards democracy....all the while without pointing out the inconvenient fact that he's actually an Iranian himself.
The Iraqi and Iranian governments are already aligned; what's going on now is a mad dash to keep the executive salaries from America flowing while slowly arming and training the sectarian, Iranian supported militias that will rule the country once we leave.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 28, 2007, 03:04:16 AM
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The problem is that "democracy for Iraq" is the last shred of a pretense at a justification for the war. If it's not that, what do you have? "War to benefit America at the expense of Iraqis"....yeah, that's a real good position to be in.
See, stuff like this is why I'm tired of debating the issue. I have to wade through a lot of this garbage, putting your mind right, just trying to help you think about the war in a rational way rather than the way the media has trained you to think about it. Now, I'm not saying there's no rational argument against the Iraq war, just that you're using some irrational ones.
1. The war need not be justified, only explained. Our toppling of Saddam was obviously just. The word "justification" is used to imply that there is something inappropriate about the war that requires some mitigating factor to make it acceptable. This is a lie.
2. Establishing democracy in Iraq is a very weak reason to invade a country, so it would hardly be a worthwhile pretense. If not that, there are many reasons for the war. I'm not going to go through them again. You wouldn't listen or understand anyway. Not because you're stupid, but because you choose not to.
3. Our invasion of Iraq was, beyond any doubt, a blessing to the Iraqi people rather than "at their expense." If they use that blessing to kill each other, that is not our fault. If they cannot unify against foreign terrorists, we are not to blame for that, either.
Post by: Art Eatman on March 28, 2007, 06:06:50 AM
"I see what you're saying about thinking ahead, but I disagree with the particulars. First off, I don't agree that leaving Iraq will bring attacks to the US. I doubt the terrorists care whether or not we're "wussies"; they just care whether or not they can get what they want. If what they want is the US out of the middle east, leaving the middle east is the end of the story."
No. On one of bin Laden's videotapes, he said that our pullout from Somalia was a direct encouragement. He knew then that we had no will. This style of thought process is a mainstay within the Arab world's culture.
"...we can still strike terrorists like we did before...kidnappings, bombings, assassinations, etc."
True, but would we actually do this? But it's only a tactical detail with in my chess-strategy analogy.
"I think a continued program of attacking terrorists and a pullout from Iraq to deprive them of propaganda tools would be more effective than staying in Iraq on the theory that it will prove our metal to them."
Iraq is but part of their propaganda. It may be at the forefront, right now, but it's still only a part. So long as our women wear bathing suits, we dance and drink, we "let" our women be independent, etc., etc., we will remain the "Great Satan". Never, ever forget that. Have we forgotten 1979, and that those sorts of reasons for portraying us as Great Satan have been unending ever since the fall of the Shah?
"But the bigger problem is with the whole strategy of taking down Iraq: If you think keeping Iran out of the Arab world was a worthy goal, it's now clear that taking down Saddam was the worst possible mistake to make."
And where did I say that the Bushies were good chess players?
"IMO, this has already gone down as a checkmate for Iran."
No, because the game is nowhere near over. There may not be a happy ending, and there may not even be an ending in my son's lifetime, but for sure the game will continue.
Art
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 28, 2007, 07:22:36 AM
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On one of bin Laden's videotapes, he said that our pullout from Somalia was a direct encouragement. He knew then that we had no will. This style of thought process is a mainstay within the Arab world's culture.
I believe he's said it more than once. Both in Somalia and in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda credited itself with facing down and chasing away the evil superpower, even though they deserved very little of the "credit." Such incidents are used to recruit and to exhort followers.
You make a good point about the Middle-Eastern mindset. Shame, honor and related concepts are dreadfully important.
Post by: CAnnoneer on March 28, 2007, 08:04:01 AM
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You make a good point about the Middle-Eastern mindset. Shame, honor and related concepts are dreadfully important.
And that provides some of the chief reasons why they hate us:
WE MAKE THEM FEEL BAD ABOUT THEMSELVES
It is worth capitalizing. Anybody who has studied even a bit of psychoanalysis knows the extremes to which an ego will push an individual in defending itself and its sense of self-worth. Violence, wild rhetoric, hatred, unbridled militarism and saber-rattling, wild accusations etc. are ultimately a product of their desire to elevate themselves in their own eyes. They are smart enough to know they live in a toilet of their own culture's doing. Our domestic leftist morons and apologists are the ones that only fuel their hatred by offering them the alternative victimological explanations that it is all "white-man's" or "Americans' " or "zionists' " fault rather than their own medieval cultures, tribalism, greed, savagery, and religious enslavement.
Similarly they hate Israel not because it took up a handful of dirt in a sea of sand, but because a small nation built a far more successful society in mere decades than the rest of the region has managed for centuries, and because the same small nation repeatedly beat the crap out of the combined forces of their own toilets in the field of conventional formal warfare. The mere continued existence of Israel is a daily slap on the face and a painful reminder of economic, military, and political inadequacy.
Incidentally, the same capitalized statement is why leftists and socialists hate successful free Americans that believe in the benefit of capitalism and meritocracy.
Standing Wolf is right. Those toilets are not worth a droplet of American blood. Any improvement we subsidize by blood and money should only be extended if it benefits our own security and prosperity. We owe them nothing and never have.
Post by: Tallpine on March 28, 2007, 08:08:50 AM
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The war need not be justified, only explained.
Well, there you go ... there's no arguing with that logic
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 28, 2007, 09:01:41 AM
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The war need not be justified, only explained.
Well, there you go ... there's no arguing with that logic
Sure there is. Point out why invading Iraq was morally or legally suspect. I'm sure you could give us a long list, but that's not the point. My point was that "justification" is a loaded term that implies the war was obviously wrong and needed to be offset by some mitigating circumstance. But what is obviously wrong about one nation toppling a dictator in another nation, when we all agree the Iraqis were opposed to his rule, and the Americans believed he was an insufferable threat to them and to the region?
It is more objective to ask for reasons or explanations, not justifications.
Post by: Manedwolf on March 28, 2007, 09:04:05 AM
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beat the crap out of the combined forces of their own toilets
I'm sorry, that line just struck me as funny.
But yeah, you're right.
And to me, demanding sharia law in far more civilized countries is akin to people from projects moving into a nice housing development via Section 8, and immediately making their new home into into "the new hood" complete with disassembled cars, graffiti tagging and blasting music.
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 28, 2007, 09:13:14 AM
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 28, 2007, 10:12:11 AM
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Being over here has brought a lot of things to light that I suspected was going on but never heard about.
Such as?
Post by: RevDisk on March 28, 2007, 02:16:33 PM
RevDisk,
I grow tired of putting fine points on things that people completely misconstrue. So go read my post again, use your brain this time, and edit your post accordingly. Anger.
I grow tired of putting fine points on things that people completely misconstrue. So go read my post again, use your brain this time, and edit your post accordingly. Anger.
Unless my grasp of the written English language has significantly degraded, I think I read what you wrote. I edit my posts after the fact only to correct grammatical/spelling problem, or if I poorly phrased what I was trying to put across. Usually it's because I mucked up a nested QUOTE tag, actually.
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I don't know where or when it occurred to me - sometime after 11 Sept. and before we invaded Iraq. But at some point I realized that if we did not see soldiers returning in body bags for the next several years, it would mean one thing: that we weren't actually fighting the terrorists.
Discuss.
Discuss.
Let me expand my thinking. US soldier related deaths (ie, soldiers returning in body bags) have zero to do with progress with fighting terrorism. They do happen, and will always happen in war. But unless the body count of friendly forces is extremely high, enough to physically degrade the level of readiness of our forces, it is not directly linked to progress we are making. You could lose 18 guys, kill 1,000 to 1,500 enemies, and it would not necessarily be progress. Fighting the terrorists is nice. Makes for pretty pictures on the TV and all that. Sometimes fighting brings victory. Sometimes it doesn't. Winning a war against terrorism is another discussion altogether.
An example. Libya has publically renounced terrorism, enough so that we have removed them from our "State Sponsor of Terrorism" list.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/66244.htm
As far as the US has announced, no US soldiers have returned in body bags from the sands of Libya since the beginning of the GWOT. But it's hard to deny that it's a significant milestone. They've renounced terrorism and WMD development since Dec 2003. They were removed from the state sponsor list May 2006. It's been a year since said decision with no backsliding. Not saying it'll always be practical or wise to reason with state sponsors of terrorism, but Libya has proven it is possible. Without soldiers returning in body bags.
Sometimes, killing needs to be done. No other choice. Sometimes, results can best be obtained by other means. Not always, but sometimes. I leave you with the words of Sun Tzu. Perhaps cliche, but cliches become cliche for a reason.
III. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM
1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best
thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact;
to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is
better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it,
to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire
than to destroy them.
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles
is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists
in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to
balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent
the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in
order is to attack the enemy's army in the field;
and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.
4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it
can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets,
movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take
up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over
against the walls will take three months more.
5. The general, unable to control his irritation,
will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants,
with the result that one-third of his men are slain,
while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous
effects of a siege.
6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's
troops without any fighting; he captures their cities
without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom
without lengthy operations in the field.
7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery
of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph
will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 28, 2007, 05:12:38 PM
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 28, 2007, 09:42:48 PM
Post by: Art Eatman on March 29, 2007, 05:06:03 AM
The decision makers are always playing "What if?" and I'm calling it "international chess".
I can see several scenarios. For instance, a renewal of the Iraq/Iran war, with a shutdown of the Straits of Hormuz to all shipping except Iranian contracts. Or, more efforts to seriously arm Hezbollah via Syria and even larger attacks on Israel--coupled with *expletive deleted*it efforts to destablize Egypt.
Another what-if is a US pullout from the whole area. My view of that is that an Iran-Venezuela axis to deny oil to the U.S. A Venezuela-Colombia pipeline to sell oil to China instead of the U.S.; the FARC would be friendly to China.
"Nations don't have friends; they have interests." Words to that effect, anyhow. Disraeli? Smart fella.
Art
Post by: Tallpine on March 29, 2007, 05:14:08 AM
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It is more objective to ask for reasons or explanations, not justifications.
I'm sure that Japan had reasons for invading China and bombing Pearl Harbor ...
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 05:34:02 AM
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It is more objective to ask for reasons or explanations, not justifications.
I'm sure that Japan had reasons for invading China and bombing Pearl Harbor ...
And where is that statement going?
Post by: richyoung on March 29, 2007, 06:16:25 AM
As for Pearl Harbor, its called the "McCollum Memo" - it pretty much lines out the steps we took to push Japan into atttacking us.
Post by: Tallpine on March 29, 2007, 06:17:59 AM
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 06:19:49 AM
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 29, 2007, 06:22:05 AM
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 06:56:02 AM
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 06:57:26 AM
Of course there is. I'm just asking how we figured out what the "Arab mindset" is, and what specific features of that mindset we're referring to here.
The fact that there are cultures doesn't mean that any claim about another culture is automatically valid, does it?
Post by: Ezekiel on March 29, 2007, 07:04:57 AM
Take it where-ever you want ... but in the fantasy world that I live in, killing people requires justification, not just reasons or explanations.
Which is, of course, why knee-jerk and radical, right-wing, hawks never want to talk about "justifications."
Of course, they believe we are doves who do, in fact, live in a fantasy world. (sigh)
"Fighting means dying?" Sure, I agree. Of course, I prefer to fight when I am actually in danger. Saddam didn't plan or execute 9/11, had no WMD's, folks are now backing away from the democracy thing, and factionalized Iraqis -- certainly not -- pose no threat to our society.
It's all clustered crap, bolstered by our ineffectualness in implementing a decidedly Imperialist policy.
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 07:07:08 AM
It's becoming almost religious too. Now instead of concrete predictions about how this war will benefit America with a "stable democracy"...we're getting "well, it may not be in our lifetimes, but something good will have to come..."...ie, it's so bad that the only scenarios that involve good things to come are basically afterlife stories.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 07:22:52 AM
Take it where-ever you want ... but in the fantasy world that I live in, killing people requires justification, not just reasons or explanations.
Your fantasy world is where we get ridiculous terms like "justifiable homicide," used when a woman shoots a violent rapist. As if such an act needed to be justified, when in fact it was obviously right in the first place. The same goes for the deposing of a butcher like Saddam Hussein.
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knee-jerk and radical, right-wing, hawks
This from the guy who reflexively spouts "Imperialism" and "No WMDs" every time Iraq is brought up.
Post by: richyoung on March 29, 2007, 07:23:42 AM
fistful,
Of course there is. I'm just asking how we figured out what the "Arab mindset" is,...
Of course there is. I'm just asking how we figured out what the "Arab mindset" is,...
It's not like they are the least bit shy about explaining their view of us as the Great satan, their desire to destroy us, and their willingness to die to do so, all whilst sawing some schlub's head off with a dull Ginsu....
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and what specific features of that mindset we're referring to here.
Respecting only force, and the will to use it. Low value on human life, including their own and their children. Religious fanaticism in cahoots with theocratic fascism. Complete ineptness at conventional warfare at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels, hence their fondness of insurrection-style guerilla campaigns. All-around racial, gender, religious, and culteral bigotry. That should be enough to get you started.
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The fact that there are cultures doesn't mean that any claim about another culture is automatically valid, does it?
Do they have CNN where you live?
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 08:44:19 AM
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It's not like they are the least bit shy about explaining their view of us as the Great satan, their desire to destroy us, and their willingness to die to do so, all whilst sawing some schlub's head off with a dull Ginsu...
Rich, do you not see the conflict between this above, and this below:
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Respecting only force, and the will to use it.
It's odd. In one breath, you assert that they are all willing to die to destroy us. Yet, you seem to be arguing that displays of killing will discourage them. That would only work if we presume that they do mind dying to destroy us.
I would say it's obvioulsy the case that force does not work with these people. The Israelis have been using force for 60 years-the Arabs never got the message. With Saddam, likewise...he was killing people all throughout his reign, and oddly, the Iraqis never got the message to stop resisting Saddam.
So this claim that the Arabs "only understand force" seems to me to be a bit of projection. I think the reality is that we only understand force here in America: we tend to leave alone and refrain from aggression against regimes that are capable of inflicting nasty wounds against us (like North Korea), but will ignore any legal and moral arguments against attacking regimes that we presume to be defenseless (like Arab regimes, for example.)
In sum, I think you're accusing the Arabs of understanding only force because that's the only way you can imagine dealing with different peoples-through force. That means it's you and people like you who only understand force, not the masses of Arabs you seem to have learned about through CNN.
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Do they have CNN where you live?
This should be a truism on a gun-related forum, but CNN is not the be all and end all of answers to big questions.
Post by: Tallpine on March 29, 2007, 09:07:04 AM
I don't understand why we don't just nuke all those evil ragheads into oblivion and then colonize the entire middle east for our own purposes???
You know ... emminant domain and manifest destiny and all that
Post by: Manedwolf on March 29, 2007, 09:17:30 AM
As Tancredo said, Mecca, specifically that cube with the meteorite in it, shouldn't be considered out of the crosshairs.
Consider it mutually assured destruction for the 21st century. We let it be known that if they blow up one of our cities, we blow up THAT one. And there's no way they can stop that. That yes, if we WANTED to, we could give them two days to evacuate, then turn the whole plaza into glass, then air-drop a giant shoe onto the wreckage. We can.
They don't blow up one of our cities, we don't bother it.
Therefore, it's a deterrent.
Post by: Matthew Carberry on March 29, 2007, 09:19:26 AM
The principles are valid but cannot be divorced from their political/cultural context.
Winning a bloodless battle of maneuver only works if everyone involved agrees to pack it in when one side proves their virtuosity. Otherwise, surrounded or not, you still have to be willing and able to go in and kill the bastards or you haven't "won".
Chosin Reservoir. Falaise pocket. Schwarzkopf's "Left Hook".
You can set the other guy up with clever maneuver, but, unless the rules are he has to roll over at that point, you haven't won diddly.
Post by: richyoung on March 29, 2007, 09:20:26 AM
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It's not like they are the least bit shy about explaining their view of us as the Great satan, their desire to destroy us, and their willingness to die to do so, all whilst sawing some schlub's head off with a dull Ginsu...
Rich, do you not see the conflict between this above, and this below:
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Respecting only force, and the will to use it.
It's odd. In one breath, you assert that they are all willing to die to destroy us. Yet, you seem to be arguing that displays of killing will discourage them.
Not displays of killing so much, as actual killing itself - at a rate unsustainable for the malefactors. Being dead tends to discourage bad behavior in the dead guy - if not suppress it entirely.
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That would only work if we presume that they do mind dying to destroy us.
...or if they run out of martyrs....
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I would say it's obvioulsy the case that force does not work with these people.
Alexander the Great, Hannibal, the Roman Empire, any number of pharohs, any number of Persian emporers, the Byzantine empire, the Ottoman Empire, Lawrence of Arabia, Rommel, Patton, and Montgomery would all happily provide you with numerous counter-examples to that laughably false claim.
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The Israelis have been using force for 60 years-the Arabs never got the message.
The Israelis arenst SENDING any message, other than "leave us alone". It is the ARABS that are trying to send a message - and that message is "we will drive you into the sea". Unfortunatley for them, martial incompetance prevents them from paying the delivery charge...
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With Saddam, likewise...he was killing people all throughout his reign, and oddly, the Iraqis never got the message to stop resisting Saddam.
I would submit that most of them "got" the message, hence his longevity in power...
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In sum, I think you're accusing the Arabs of understanding only force because that's the only way you can imagine dealing with different peoples-through force. That means it's you and people like you who only understand force, not the masses of Arabs you seem to have learned about through CNN.
I guess they don't teach history whered you live. Your loss.
Post by: Manedwolf on March 29, 2007, 09:26:01 AM
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I would say it's obvioulsy the case that force does not work with these people.
Alexander the Great, Hannibal, the Roman Empire, any number of pharohs, any number of Persian emporers, the Byzantine empire, the Ottoman Empire, Lawrence of Arabia, Rommel, Patton, and Montgomery would all happily provide you with numerous counter-examples to that laughably false claim.
Funny, the Islamic Courts sure fled out of Mogadishu with their tails between their legs when the Ethiopian Army came in with tanks...
Post by: richyoung on March 29, 2007, 09:48:39 AM
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 09:57:53 AM
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Not displays of killing so much, as actual killing itself - at a rate unsustainable for the malefactors. Being dead tends to discourage bad behavior in the dead guy - if not suppress it entirely.
Uh, how do you kill at an unsustainable rate an enemy that is willing to kill himself for you?
What rate of killing would discourage suicide bombers?
"Running out of martyrs" doesn't happen. It never has-Saddam killed something on the order of a million people, and guess what? They kept coming....and he was hung by the neck as soon as the lynch mob got a chance.
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Alexander the Great, Hannibal, the Roman Empire, any number of pharohs, any number of Persian emporers, the Byzantine empire, the Ottoman Empire, Lawrence of Arabia, Rommel, Patton, and Montgomery would all happily provide you with numerous counter-examples to that laughably false claim.
Wow....Alexander the Great fought Arabs? When?
Hannibal?
The Roman Empire?
The Persians were destroyed by the Byzantines. The Byzantines were destroyed by the Arabs--where's the lesson there?
The Ottomans didn't rule the Arabs by force-and when they tried beginning in the 18th century and onwards, they rapidly lost territory to the Arabs. Heavy handed Ottoman responses to Arab insurrection actually fomented the destruction of the Ottoman empire.
The same goes for Lawrence of Arabia....if it weren't for the Ottomans trying to force the Arabs to play ball, he would've had no audience for his revolutionary mission. So that wasn't a "force shows the Arabs who's boss!" mission either--that was the opposite: Force inspired the Arabs to join the British and fight against Ottoman rule.
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The Israelis arenst SENDING any message, other than "leave us alone". It is the ARABS that are trying to send a message - and that message is "we will drive you into the sea". Unfortunatley for them, martial incompetance prevents them from paying the delivery charge...
Uh, so you don't think the Israelis are using force to try and discourage the Arabs from attacking Israel??? What planet are you from?
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I guess they don't teach history whered you live. Your loss.
In fact they do-that's why I recognize really shallow and unreflective historical claims readily. I think you need to do some real historical research on the list of empires you spouted (it will take years) before citing them to prove points that, in reality, they tend to disprove.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 10:08:34 AM
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 10:11:39 AM
Yeah, dudes in leather jackets and new balance sneakers hanging a guy before a crowd chanting "Muqtada! Muqtada! (al Sadr)" constitutes a lynch mob. Saddam deserved the death penalty, most surely...but he was hung by a sectarian mob chanting sectarian slogans. Lynch mob victims aren't always innocent; likewise, legitimate executions aren't always carried out by legitimate state officials.
Post by: Matthew Carberry on March 29, 2007, 10:22:29 AM
"Lynch mob" by definition implies the absolute lack of genuine state legal proceedings, and thus lack of state-sanction.
Saddam's hanging may have gone sour at the end with idiots acting the fool but it was not extra-legal and thus not a "lynching" by definition.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 10:30:49 AM
Post by: Art Eatman on March 29, 2007, 10:41:26 AM
Look at it this way: Machismo is encoded into Sharia, particularly as regards the superiority of men over women. Machismo also creates a behavior pattern of arrogance toward those to be of lesser station, and servility toward those of higher station.
That we quit at Mogadishu indicated to Arabs--and others--that patience and persistence would have us once again tuck tail and run. It's not that we need to do all that much killing, as it is to make it believable that we won't quit.
Arabs will and have quit at the point of intolerable losses. Witness the 1967 and 1973 invasions of Israel; the Arabs quit.
Another facet, however, is evident from the circumlocutions extant in the Arab language. They are not at all direct in their speech. (Translations to English are made to be direct, but they were not such in the original Arabic.) This circumlocution makes it easy to hide feelings, or to describe defeats as victories, etc., etc. This also allows a workup of emotion that--for example--led to the belief that 1967 wasn't really a loss, and that 1973 would succeed. The old saw about repeating an experiment but having a different result.
When you factor in some of the other comments in posts in this thread, you can put together a package of understanding about what we face with this Jihad.
Art
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 29, 2007, 10:42:05 AM
Well, that's one interpretation, I guess.
Here's another:
"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. "
Care to guess the source?
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 11:03:44 AM
"Fighting means dying" wouldn't apply to a personal, one-on-one self-defense situation. In that case, fighting may be the only thing that saves your life. But when discussing an extended global struggle, it is almost inevitable that some of your guys will die. If no one is dying, that probably means you are not fighting and hence losing.
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 11:25:38 AM
I do know of the famous Bernard Lewis and have read "WWW" as well as Islam and the West. I think Juan Cole did an outstanding review of WWW in particular, which you might be interested in reading here: http://www.juancole.com/essays/revlew.htm A choice quote from the review:
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A final question has to do with Europe, the explicit contrast for the Muslim Middle East in this book. Why does he think things "went right" in the West? I should have thought that the slaughter of World War I, the rise of fascism and communism, the 61 million butchered in World War II, the savage European repression of anticolonial movements in places like Vietnam and Algeria, and the hundreds of millions held hostage by the Cold War nuclear doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" - that all this might have raised at least a few eyebrows among emeriti historians looking for things that went wrong. It is true that the East Asian and European economies have flourished in the past 50 years under a Pax Americana, but this development hardly seems intrinsic to the West as a whole. Political and economic instability relentlessly stalked Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, and it was divided against itself in a bitter ideological battle for much of the second half. That is, even the Western European efflorescence of recent decades took place against the backdrop of a deadly Cold War that could have wiped us all out in an instant. In contrast to the massive death toll racked up by Europeans in the past century, Muslim powers in the second half of the twentieth century have probably killed only a little more than a million persons in war (mainly in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s). The Middle East has its problems and Muslims have theirs. Lewis's analytical views of what those problems are, why they have come about, and how to resolve them, would have been most welcome, given his vast erudition. Instead, he has chosen to play a different role in this book.
I have to admit, I lost a lot of respect for Lewis after he turned from historical scholarship to numerology-predicting August doom based on some odd religious calendar event from centures ago in Iran this past year.
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That we quit at Mogadishu indicated to Arabs--and others--that patience and persistence would have us once again tuck tail and run. It's not that we need to do all that much killing, as it is to make it believable that we won't quit.
Again, this is hardly to do with a special feature of Arab culture. It's been well known for centuries that inflicting military defeats on a western power will cause it to withdraw troops from foreign countries. The problem with "showing that you won't quit" is that we're the ones with troops in their lands--hence, the impetus for wanting to expel those troops will be there and will continue to revive anti-American movements as long as the troops remain, and the people of the Arab lands don't want them.
The Israeli Palestinian conflict is a good model. Originally, communists were the ones opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land-so they fought under the banner of a socialist program for Arabs. When they were destroyed in 1967, they were replaced shortly after by Islamists. And if the Islamists are destroyed, they will be replaced by something else. The source of the problem isn't the ideology-it's the conditions that will continue to produce ideology after ideology aimed at changing the conditions on the ground.
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This circumlocution makes it easy to hide feelings, or to describe defeats as victories, etc., etc. This also allows a workup of emotion that--for example--led to the belief that 1967 wasn't really a loss, and that 1973 would succeed. The old saw about repeating an experiment but having a different result.
I have to disagree here. It's not the Arabic language that made them think the surprise attack in 1967 (a hugely successful surprise attack, I might add) was a victory, or that the loss in 1973 was a victory. It was the fact that the dictatorships in power during these times ran the presses-so they said whatever they wanted.
I do think it's good you brought up these models though, because what settled the wars between Egypt, Jordan, and Israel wasn't more warfare....the 73 war was undertaken just after the disastrous 67 defeat, and it's a virtual certainty that another war would've happened shortly after if Egypt had not been able to claim victory to its own population and then sign a peace treaty.
What settled that chain of wars wasn't force-a peace treaty finally did what even the astounding 1967 success could not do, and that was break the Arabs' will to fight. And on top of it, the stateless actors who do not benefit from treaties are indeed continuing to fight....no amount of force has yet led the Palestinians to quit fighting back, and it's unforeseeable that any amount short of genocide ever will.
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 29, 2007, 11:54:26 AM
So, in answer to this:
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If no one is dying, that probably means you are not fighting and hence losing.
No. Not even. It means that you're fighting the war smartly, and minimizing or even eliminating our casualties while inflicting disproportionately heavy losses on the enemy, eliminating their will and means to fight. We Americans cannot stomach seeing a lot of our young folks in body bags on the evening news, that's become a truism since the end of WWII. So we fight smarter, while limiting our exposure to enemy tactics. Case in point? I cannot begin to figure how many Republican Guard I personally sent to meet Allah with just my first B-52H strike in Desert Storm. I was never privy to the Battle Damage Assesment afterwards. I finished the sortie and was home in time for dinner and the droning AFRTS network TV reruns. That's ZERO casualties on our side, 60,000 pounds of ordnance and the subsequent casualties on their side. Lopsided? Damn straight. If you can't fight fair, then don't enter the fight at all, because you sure as Hell don't want to see the results of a "fair" fight on TV these days.
If you're not seeing a lot of casualties on our side, maybe it's because our side killed the combatants on their side before they could get a shot off, hmm?
Post by: Ezekiel on March 29, 2007, 01:02:47 PM
We'll always require minions for that...
Post by: richyoung on March 29, 2007, 01:29:37 PM
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Not displays of killing so much, as actual killing itself - at a rate unsustainable for the malefactors. Being dead tends to discourage bad behavior in the dead guy - if not suppress it entirely.
Uh, how do you kill at an unsustainable rate an enemy that is willing to kill himself for you?
Math not a strong suite of yours? Maintain conditions so that the the exisiting pool of insurgents is decreasing faster than the local birth rate - kill them faster than they are born. Eventually, math wins out.
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What rate of killing would discourage suicide bombers?
A rate greater than their ability to recruit (kinder, gentler version), or reproduce. The later number will be approximately the number of fertile women, per year.
"
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Running out of martyrs" doesn't happen. It never has-
Beg to differ, old sport. Aztecs, Mayans, Apaches, Neanderthal Man, Carthaginians, the Aiynue,....the list goes on and on....
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Saddam killed something on the order of a million people, and guess what? They kept coming....and he was hung by the neck as soon as the lynch mob got a chance.
How many died in the top ten firebomb/nuke strikes on Japan? That didn;t take decades, and we are LOTS better at it now.
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In fact they do-that's why I recognize really shallow and unreflective historical claims readily.
You might want to finish coloring in ALL the pages of your text books before you sprain your elbow patting yourself on the back.....
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I think you need to do some real historical research on the list of empires you spouted (it will take years) before citing them to prove points that, in reality, they tend to disprove.
I think I need to reserve my comments for the adults...
Post by: De Selby on March 29, 2007, 01:58:34 PM
Yes, comments in support of genocide and comparing modern societies to ancient tribes are "for adults"....but only special adults.
You are naming apples and oranges-->where force worked in your examples, it worked by genocide in similar situations. Where it worked in Japan, it was a war against an Imperial state, not a war to continue occupation of someone else's country. A more approrpiate comparison is Vietnam, where more force was applied than in World War II...yes, more force, more bombs, over a smaller area.
And the more we applied, the more they fought back. Different world, different situation from colonial Mexico (which, incidentally, was conquered through alliances with the natives...one native against another, not by a superman Spaniard.)
Usually though, "force" becomes a euphamism for genocide in these discussions. And my response is: if you wouldn't support building gas chambers and running every single person in the population of your targets through it, you aren't being principled when you call for the same effect by other means.
Post by: Art Eatman on March 29, 2007, 02:51:41 PM
I disagree with you, shootinstudent, on our views of circumlocutions. It's way too reminiscent of bureaucratese and the way that distorts reality. Habitual word games lead to mind games and delusions.
I hadn't heard of Lewis' notions about numerology. But, that doesn't invalidate his analyses of earlier years.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 29, 2007, 02:51:58 PM
richyoung,
Yes, comments in support of genocide
Yes, comments in support of genocide
Genocide. shootinstudent's favorite straw man.
Post by: RevDisk on March 29, 2007, 03:16:08 PM
RevDisk, I think the point they are trying to get across to you is that given the Arab mindset, and the nature of this particular war, if the forces of the West and civilization are unwilling to spend the blood, as well as treasure, to get down and fight them in the mud one-on-one when appripriate, then the West is doomed to loose - regardless how smart the bombs we drop on them are. The poor bloody infantry still has to go root 'em out, and pay in flesh for the priviledge.
Ah. Hrm. Sorta agree, sorta disagree. The Iraqi insurgency very much believes something akin to that. Kill a small number of Americans, stick to lower risk tactics, and wait out the occupation forces. They believe eventually we'll get sick of the whole mess and leave. Probably correct, but who knows.
I see the homegrown Iraqi insurgency as being slightly different than the original terrorists we were hunting pre-Iraq. (For ease of discussion, I'll call 'em Wahhabis) Sure, I'm sure a significant number of Wahhabi are running around Iraq but the reports I read before I left the Army was that the bulk of the insurgents in Iraq are indigenous persons. Wmenorr67 would probably have more current information than I possess, and I'm fairly sure accurate reports on insurgent force composition are classified for political reasons as well as military related ones. There was (probably is) a significant amount of cross training between the Wahhabi and Iraqi Sunni, and between the IRGC and Iraqi *expletive deleted*it. I'd be more shocked if there was no cross training, as militarily speaking, it's common sense to use the enemies of your enemies as proxies.
Thing is, we need to "win" to win. Unfortunately, there is no common concensus of what victory is. That part of our mission has been a bit vague. From what I understand, it's to have a democratically elected stable Iraqi government. Unfortunately, stability is more of a concept than a reality throughout the entire region. The overwhelming majority of the people are very glad to be rid of Saddam and have a democracy. But they are not willing to change things themselves. There is a mild number of Iraqis trying to stabilize the country, and a mild number of Iraqis trying to destabilize the country. Yes, the proportionally low number of insurgents is a reality, but it's countered by the proportionally low number of folks very dedicated to the stability of the current government. The majority are just watching and hoping to avoid the cross-fire.
Thing is, we're spilling a lot of blood and treasure against an enemy we did not need to have. Most of the homegrown Iraqi insurgents have zero intention of invading or attacking US soil. Their perceived enemy is our occupation forces, as well as domestic targets (current regime, rival factions, etc). We went out of our way to add enemies. Spilling blood and treasure you did not need to is generally an unwise idea. "Conservation of assets" and so forth.
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As for Pearl Harbor, its called the "McCollum Memo" - it pretty much lines out the steps we took to push Japan into atttacking us.
Yea, I read plenty on that theory, attempting to instigate a war. Eh, I believe certain folks wanted a war and did what they could. I don't think it was a widespread conspiracy. Then again, intentionally lax security, and the only unreplacable assets (carriers) being conveniently out of port...
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Regarding Sun Tzu -
The principles are valid but cannot be divorced from their political/cultural context.
Winning a bloodless battle of maneuver only works if everyone involved agrees to pack it in when one side proves their virtuosity. Otherwise, surrounded or not, you still have to be willing and able to go in and kill the bastards or you haven't "won".
Chosin Reservoir. Falaise pocket. Schwarzkopf's "Left Hook".
You can set the other guy up with clever maneuver, but, unless the rules are he has to roll over at that point, you haven't won diddly
The principles are valid but cannot be divorced from their political/cultural context.
Winning a bloodless battle of maneuver only works if everyone involved agrees to pack it in when one side proves their virtuosity. Otherwise, surrounded or not, you still have to be willing and able to go in and kill the bastards or you haven't "won".
Chosin Reservoir. Falaise pocket. Schwarzkopf's "Left Hook".
You can set the other guy up with clever maneuver, but, unless the rules are he has to roll over at that point, you haven't won diddly
I'm sure Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus would agree.
Sure, context is everything. But, for every Bastogne, you have a Dien Bien Phu.
Personally, I thought Schwarzkopf was one of the most overrated generals we've had in a while. Anywho, completely off topic, and subject to another discussion.
Post by: roo_ster on March 29, 2007, 04:38:09 PM
The war against Islamic terrorist savagry should have been an Air Force mission, not a Marine and Army land war in Asia.
The entire Middle East isn't worth a single drop of American blood.
Ahh, but the oil they sit on is.The entire Middle East isn't worth a single drop of American blood.
Unless we want to watch mass-starvation and an economic downturn to make the Great Depression seem a mere bump in the road, we (civilization) will have to use oil.
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 29, 2007, 04:50:08 PM
Post by: roo_ster on March 29, 2007, 04:52:48 PM
Lack of patriotism and an unwillingness to fight for one's group/city/country/civilization? Enervating philosophy(ies) that attack the underpinnings of manly and civic and martial virtues? External barbarians who desperately want what the civilized peoples have, but also hate them and want to see them destroyed?
"Where have I seen this before?" (jfruser asks)
* It is not like the ending was going to be a spoiler.
Post by: roo_ster on March 29, 2007, 05:02:45 PM
Zeke you really need to pull your head out. You always seem to say you respect the military and those in it but in the very next breath you decide to insult the whole lot. I take great offense of you calling the MEN AND WOMEN of OUR ARMED FORCES minions. To claim that anyone person in the military is better than another just based on thier position is degrading to each and every one of my BROTHERS AND SISTERS in arms.
wmenorr67:Give his opinion the weight it is due.
Some have drunk heavily at the poisoned well of what we call "higher education" without discernment. Wisdom != Intelligence || Education
Post by: richyoung on March 30, 2007, 06:24:19 AM
richyoung,
Yes, comments in support of genocide and comparing modern societies to ancient tribes are "for adults"....but only special adults.
Yes, comments in support of genocide and comparing modern societies to ancient tribes are "for adults"....but only special adults.
You want to drop the "G" word - fine. Lets all be clear that we are in fact talking about genocide, or near to it - the only thing you have wrong is which way its directed. Read the Koran. Study history. The United States, by means of near-unfettered capitalism, has been responsible for the greatest increases in wealth and improvements in the human condition of all of Western Civilization. Western Civilization, in turn and in toto, has been responsible for the greatest advancement of humanity with respect to any competeing cultures. Islam has been at war with Western Civilization since it came into existence, eventually crushing the last vestige of the Roman Empire at Constantinople, and advancing within 30 miles of Paris up through Spain, and getting darn close to Vienna from up through the Balkans - before being repulsed. The United States has been at war with Islam off and on ever since the United States came into being: The Barbary Coast pirates felt free to prey on non-Muslims: the "shores of Tripoli" refered to in the Marine Corps Hymn were the scene of the young country's first military action - and it was AGAINST Muslims. The failure of .38 calibur round-nosed lead bullets to deter Muslim Morro tribesman hopped up on narcotics and clad in bambo armor led directly to the 1911 pistol. MIx the same mentality that lead to 9/11 with NBC weaponry, and see who 'genocides" who.
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A more approrpiate comparison is Vietnam, where more force was applied than in World War II...yes, more force, more bombs, over a smaller area.
And the more we applied, the more they fought back.
And the more we applied, the more they fought back.
Again, you are simply WRONG. Ask anyone who was IN South Vietnam in ..1970. Or 1971. The Viet Cong had been crushed - in part, as planned by North Vietnam. The VC had been expended in a series of ill-advised offensives, and you could pretty much go wherever you wanted in South Vietnam. It was not until the US CEASED applying force, adn more importantly, cut off our proxie from arms and fuel as part of the ongoing Watergate backlash, that South Vietnam fell. And it fell NOT to revolutionaries in Ho Chi Minh sandals and black pajamas, but rather to multiple divions of tanks and infantry invading from North Vietnam. Since the VC were no longer around, the conquerors didn;t have to share power with them.
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Different world, different situation from colonial Mexico (which, incidentally, was conquered through alliances with the natives...one native against another, not by a superman Spaniard.)
...and Muslims have never scragged other Muslims, right? That whole Iran-Iraq war thing was just a misunderstanding? Divide and conquer sounds good to me.
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Usually though, "force" becomes a euphamism for genocide in these discussions. And my response is: if you wouldn't support building gas chambers and running every single person in the population of your targets through it, you aren't being principled when you call for the same effect by other means.
The story I keep getting is that only an "extreme minority" of the "religion of peace" are causing the trouble - these I would happily commit to the "showers" - and that should be all that is needed.
Post by: Art Eatman on March 30, 2007, 07:15:49 AM
But, no different from me griping about illegal aliens in the U.S. and being accused of hating Mexicans.
It's just a bunch of BS from those who apparently value political power above all else, or money, or who just hate the US because we're rich and have too many personal freedoms, as Clinton said we have. No different from those who were wilfully blind to the serious intent behind such statements as, "We will bury you," from Lil Nikki Kruschev et al. People don't believe Iran's president, either.
"It's all about oil." Damned right. In today's world, oil = civilization. Whoever controls the oil, controls civilization. Try doing without it.
Art
Post by: Ezekiel on March 30, 2007, 07:27:51 AM
Zeke you really need to pull your head out.
(sigh) Whatever.
"Minions." "Cannon-fodder." "Pawns." It's the place on the strategy board for automatonic single-rifle infantry that serves at the will and pleasure of thier King.
I'm not really concerned about what offends you.
That said, I appreciate your opinion.
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 30, 2007, 07:48:24 AM
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I'm not really concerned about what offends you.
But yet you are one of the first ones to bitch when you are offended.
Post by: RevDisk on March 30, 2007, 08:32:13 AM
Zeke you really need to pull your head out.
(sigh) Whatever.
"Minions." "Cannon-fodder." "Pawns." It's the place on the strategy board for automatonic single-rifle infantry that serves at the will and pleasure of thier King.
That's "Legion of Evil Minions", "Demonic cannon-fodder" and "Ruggedly handsome pawns" to you! We all know you're just jealous of our shiney jack boots and "automatonic" rifles.
While I was never infantry branch, I'm familiar enough with infantry units to know they carry additional weapons besides select rifles. Most infantry units I worked with had crewed served weapons, some anti-tank weapons, occassionally a mortar team or three, and a handful of designated marksmen. And everyone is a volunteer, not subject to "the will and pleasure of their King". And oh yea, per the Constitution, no titles of nobility can be issued. But whatdoIknow?
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I'm not really concerned about what offends you.
That said, I appreciate your opinion.
That said, I appreciate your opinion.
Well, you should be. We fashionable storm troopers have very fragile egos when folks label us incorrectly.
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 30, 2007, 08:45:30 AM
Post by: De Selby on March 30, 2007, 09:02:19 AM
I'm not accusing you of that, but look at Rich Young's post. He's made it pretty clear that it's the whole of the religion he's worried about, or else comments like "Read the Quran" and "Islam is at war with western civilization" wouldn't make any sense.
Post by: Bogie on March 30, 2007, 09:16:18 AM
"Tell ya what, Brother Abduhl... I know you don't want to do this, but since I and my friends are true believers, we'll provide handsomely for your wife and children when you go to your 72 virgins. If you don't, we'll kill your wife and children in front of you, and then cut off your hands, your tongue, and blind you. Your choice."
Post by: richyoung on March 30, 2007, 09:34:12 AM
Art,
I'm not accusing you of that, but look at Rich Young's post. He's made it pretty clear that it's the whole of the religion he's worried about,...
I'm not accusing you of that, but look at Rich Young's post. He's made it pretty clear that it's the whole of the religion he's worried about,...
GEez, first history and math, and now reading comprehension....did you go to public school or something? Anyway, in the furtherence of your remedial education, compare and contrast the previous statement of yours, especially the part in bold, with the quote from me following:
"The story I keep getting is that only an "extreme minority" of the "religion of peace" are causing the trouble - these I would happily commit to the "showers" - and that should be all that is needed. "
Notice any incompatibility?
Post by: De Selby on March 30, 2007, 09:39:02 AM
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Lets all be clear that we are in fact talking about genocide, or near to it - the only thing you have wrong is which way its directed. Read the Koran. Study history. The United States, by means of near-unfettered capitalism, has been responsible for the greatest increases in wealth and improvements in the human condition of all of Western Civilization.
Then:
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Islam has been at war with Western Civilization since it came into existence, eventually crushing the last vestige of the Roman Empire at Constantinople, and advancing within 30 miles of Paris up through Spain, and getting darn close to Vienna from up through the Balkans - before being repulsed.
and:
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the "shores of Tripoli" refered to in the Marine Corps Hymn were the scene of the young country's first military action - and it was AGAINST Muslims. The failure of .38 calibur round-nosed lead bullets to deter Muslim Morro tribesman hopped up on narcotics and clad in bambo armor led directly to the 1911 pistol. MIx the same mentality that lead to 9/11 with NBC weaponry, and see who 'genocides" who.
If I did nothing other than replace the word "Muslims" in those blocks of text with the word "Jews", it would read exactly like a piece of neo-Nazi propaganda. So yes, I think it's pretty clear what you're saying here.
Post by: richyoung on March 30, 2007, 10:26:17 AM
Quote from: shootinstudent
If I did nothing other than replace the word "Muslims" in those blocks of text with the word "Jews", it would read exactly like a piece of neo-Nazi propaganda. So yes, I think it's pretty clear what you're saying here.
If I did nothing other than replace 9/11 reporting of "Arab" or "Muslim" with "Hebrew" or "Jew", it would ALSO read like Nazi propaganda. The DIFFERENCE that you fail to acknowldge is that radical islamic fundamentalists ARE TRYING TO DESTROY US. Similarity to propaganda has NOTHING to do with whether something is TRUE or not. Please argue FACTS verses the irrelevancy of how somehting is like propaganda. Anything, true or false, can be used for propaganda.
Post by: CAnnoneer on March 30, 2007, 10:28:28 AM
But we all know that this majority/minority model is a gross simplification. In some areas it might hold (e.g. Iraq, maybe), but in others it certainly does not. The majority had its free elections and they chose to vote for the terrorists. Enough said.
Post by: De Selby on March 30, 2007, 10:32:22 AM
Wait a minute, if the accusations you're making and the language you use to make it looks like Nazi propaganda, you don't think that's at all troubling? Seriously...is the only thing the Nazis got wrong the fact that they targeted Jews instead of someone else?
You're right that a lot of 9/11 reporting was fear-mongering. You should recognize that as a bad thing instead of using its association with 9/11 to put it beyond all criticism.
When we're talking about crimes and killing, we should stick to blaming the people responsible...and by "people" I mean individual people. Radical fundamentalists should be called what they are, criminals and thugs, not taken to represent a whole religion...but that's exactly what you're doing when you allege that this is just par for the course for "Muslims", and that to learn about Osama Bin Laden I should "read the Quran"
Post by: Manedwolf on March 30, 2007, 10:33:05 AM
Quote from: shootinstudent
If I did nothing other than replace the word "Muslims" in those blocks of text with the word "Jews", it would read exactly like a piece of neo-Nazi propaganda. So yes, I think it's pretty clear what you're saying here.
If I did nothing other than replace 9/11 reporting of "Arab" or "Muslim" with "Hebrew" or "Jew", it would ALSO read like Nazi propaganda. The DIFFERENCE that you fail to acknowldge is that radical islamic fundamentalists ARE TRYING TO DESTROY US. Similarity to propaganda has NOTHING to do with whether something is TRUE or not. Please argue FACTS verses the irrelevancy of how somehting is like propaganda. Anything, true or false, can be used for propaganda.
Correct. Jews don't pull this sort of #$%!
Want to defend this sort, shootinstudent?
Or the fact that the "moderate" majority is nearly SILENT about this sort? Where's the condemnation? The distancing?
Post by: De Selby on March 30, 2007, 10:39:38 AM
Why would I defend them? They are nuts.
But similarly, to allege that Christians and Jews don't have nuts is just ridiculous. However, since I don't agree with maligning all Jews and Christians, I don't go around posting pictures of their psychos and asking them to own up to it.
Anyway, if you're interested...there are most definitely pictures of Jews in Jerusalem wearing makeshift armor with signs that say "Burn in Hell sodomites". They were angry about the planned gay parade through the city. You can also find small demonstrations in support of the man who murdered Yitzhak Rabin...
But my opinion on all of those is that it's not just illogical to post about it all the time and demand answers from other Jews-it's actually irresponsible. Western societies in particular are prone to taking any bad thing they can find about Jews and turning it into a witch hunt. Do you think that there might be any similarity to Muslims there? People are willing to believe whatever about them, so when you agitate like this, you just might be encouraging the next gas-station Sikh shooter.
And Christians...well, Fred Phelps turns out crowds at least as large as this little band of Bin Ladenites every where he goes. Does that mean that I can post pictures of Phelps' funeral protests and demand that Christians answer for it?
Post by: richyoung on March 30, 2007, 11:35:04 AM
richyoung,
Wait a minute, if the accusations you're making and the language you use to make it looks like Nazi propaganda, you don't think that's at all troubling?
Wait a minute, if the accusations you're making and the language you use to make it looks like Nazi propaganda, you don't think that's at all troubling?
Not at all. The Nazi's were FALSELY a ccusing Jews of things they DIDN'T do, whereas I am ACCURATELY REPORTING what Muslims not only ACTUALLY DID, but PROUDLY CLAIM CREDIT FOR in their own news and internet organs. Similarity to propaganda has nothing to do with it. Just tlike "truth" may be similar to "lie".
Post by: De Selby on March 30, 2007, 11:37:56 AM
The problem is that you choose to identify them generally as "Muslims." Imagine if I reported the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin as "Jew shoots Prime Minister in plot to topple government"...I think you would rightly say I was being misleading and maligning an entire race of people with my factually accurate, but misleading statement.
You're naming "their" news organs as if there's some one Muslim entity that owns all of this. There isn't, and it's wrong to imply that there is.
Post by: Ezekiel on March 30, 2007, 12:41:51 PM
Hey Zeke, what do you have against the military anyway? And it would be one thing to criticize the military as a whole but to bash on individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines is just unacceptable.
I have nothing personal against militaristic organizations or anyone who is part of one.
But I don't see the harm in calling "minions" and "cannon fodder" what they are.
That's all.
Your opinion is appreciated.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 30, 2007, 01:43:41 PM
Post by: Art Eatman on March 30, 2007, 01:47:37 PM
He wanders around with pretty much the same folks at each charade. The bin Ladenites have equal numbers in city after city, town after town. The Christian weirdlies run their mouths, yeah; but they don't shoot or do the IED thing in countries all over the world. Nor do the Jews, etc., etc., etc. For this particular era, it's the militant Jihadist Islamics who are the primary cause of pointless deaths.
I just get fed up with the unending double standard applied against the good guys. We're supposed to either ignore or find excuses for mullahs teaching, "The Jews will eat your babies!" in the madrassahs, as was done prior to the UN vote on Israel, which contributed greatly to the exodus of Arabs from Israel. (That same BS is still being said...) Palestinians delighted in going into Israeli schools and shooting whomever was available, but we're supposed to ignore that because "their land was stolen". More BS.
And on and on and on.
Hell, people don't even have a clue as to why the CIA worked the Shah vs. Mossadegh deal; they just call the US dirty names about that--and I'm talking about US citizens, here.
I ain't gonna write a book, but if I did I might well call it, "Hell, I was there: Version II". I'm no Elmer Keith, but I know how he felt...People keep re-writing history, and I know better.
Art
Post by: De Selby on March 30, 2007, 02:30:02 PM
Have to disagree, unsurprisingly.
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The Christian weirdlies run their mouths, yeah; but they don't shoot or do the IED thing in countries all over the world. Nor do the Jews, etc., etc., etc. For this particular era, it's the militant Jihadist Islamics who are the primary cause of pointless deaths.
There is no doubt that it is a problem, but it's completely untrue to say militant Islamists are the primary cause of death.
Serb militants single-handedly outkilled every single Muslim terrorist organization in the world in just a couple of years. Likewise, Russian raids on Chechnya have outkilled virtually all religious fanatics, of all stripes, worldwide. The Rwandans, with the aid of Priests and Nuns (seriously...there are already convictiosn on the books) killed about 800,000.
Yes, Bin Laden and his ilk are a serious threat to innocent people everywhere, but it's just plain incorrect to accuse militant Islamists like him of being "the primary cause of pointless deaths." The fact of the matter is, they have been out-killed by a longshot by non-Muslim, non-Islam related conflict.
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(That same BS is still being said...) Palestinians delighted in going into Israeli schools and shooting whomever was available, but we're supposed to ignore that because "their land was stolen". More BS.
May I suggest to you the esteemed Israeli historian, Benny Morris's The Birth of The Palestinian Refugee Problem.
Those claims aren't BS, they're the accepted position by most historians today. I think Morris's book pretty much put the nail in the coffin on claims that the Arabs just packed up and left out of spite.
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Hell, people don't even have a clue as to why the CIA worked the Shah vs. Mossadegh deal; they just call the US dirty names about that--and I'm talking about US citizens, here.
My question to you is: Do you recognize property rights universally? I saw your previous comment about the need to control oil. What I'm interested in knowing is, do you believe that the people who live in the oil-producing regions have a natural right to dispose of their property as they wish? Or do you not recognize anything like natural rights or any other species of property right?
What's your take on intervention in foreign governments, to control resources, against the will of the people living there from a rights perspective?