"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
. ..
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Eisboch" wrote in message
...
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
. ..
The loss in Vietnam was a harbinger.

I'm sure our military forces can take on and defeat any modern
uniformed military force waging traditional warfare, assuming no great
disparity in the order of battle or availability of troops. That is, we
can take on and defeat uniformed, traditionally organized forces that
are smaller than ours, the same size as ours or perhaps somewhat
larger.

What our military cannot do is defeat a large, well-organized,
non-uniformed and non-traditional group or groups of motivated
partisans in areas outside of urban areas. Thus, we flopped in Vietnam
and we're flopping in Iraq, even though we defeated the Iraqi army, and
why the Taliban are re-emerging in Afghanistan, and why the Israelis
are having so much trouble with Hezbollah and Hamas.


So .... assuming for the moment that a well-organized, non-uniformed,
non-traditional group deserves to be defeated (Al Qaeda and Bin Laden
come immediately to mind) ... how do you win? Or do you simply give
up?

All sorts of ideas:

1) If you're a competent leader, you notice that the various groups
causing the trouble have been at each other's throats since before you
got it in your head to "help". You learn from the experiences of other
countries that have had their heads handed to them. You also notice that
sometimes, stability is a good thing, even if you don't like the reason
for it. This last FACT was obvious to past presidents (from both
political parties) who dwarfed your intellectual capabilities. Need I say
more about this?

Thanks for your insight General.

2) If you're a competent leader, you listen to your best military people,
who, from the beginning, told you that we'd be facing a non-traditional
enemy which, depending on the specific city, time of day, and position of
the moon and stars, might have popular support and be impossible to dig
out of their holes.

Like you buddy Johnson did?

3) If you're a competent leader, you realize that the enemy is driven by
the exact same religious zeal that drives your own decisions, and which
also makes you unfit for the office you hold.

What are you talking about?

4) If you're a competent PARENT, you realize that kids are still very
idealistic at age 19. So, you don't tell your underlings to go digging
for happy tra-la-la stories about kids who think it's delightful that
they built a school for some Iraqi kids, and hope these stories will
cause your employers (aka "voters") to enter a trance state and not
notice how badly you screwed up. You notice that when 19 year old
soldiers are interviewed, they don't sound much different than 16 year
olds, in terms of their ability to put your little war in perspective.
Maybe when they're 45, they'll have some perspective.

You are a pessimistic delusional twit.

You forgot arrogant elitist


5) If you're a competent leader, you realize that ripping the Saudis a
new asshole right after 9/11 would've been the right thing to do. Even if
out of spite, they raised the price of oil, the instability created by
your war did the exact same thing. Even if "the rip" involved nothing but
throwing their sorry asses out of the country and cancelling their
country club memberships, it would've been the right thing to do.

Was that before or after we sacrificed the US troops in Saudi Arabia on
Sept. 12?


Seems to me you have to keep trying ... picking away at the core and at
all the supporting elements, learning as you go, modifying tactics and
slowly diminishing the enemy's ability to conduct warfare or terrorism.

Good idea. You do it. Or, send your kids & grandkids. Do it right now.
What the hell? They're expendable, right? Anything to support the
rhetoric.


Diplomacy hasn't worked at all in this environment, despite the best
efforts of world leaders including several US Presidents of both
parties.

Remember the stability mentioned in #1, above? About two years after we
"enclosed" Saddam and began flying endless patrols around his borders, I
read an article in which an Air Force general said, in effect, "We
couldn't ask for a better setup for testing every manner of new weapon
technology". That wasn't diplomacy. That was stability, no different than
the tense situation we juggled with the USSR beginning right after WWII.

So, you are in favor of using live humans to test our military weaponry?
How nice of you to think so little of human life.

You'd better have one hell of a good fairy tale ready for your grandkids,
because if we ever leave Iraq, it will be no different than when we got
there, except that we will have converted people who were curious about
us into people who think we're animals.

I thought you and your ilk wanted us out of Iraq last month?

That is what happens to when one swallows the NYT hook line and sinker.