The ability for the US military to conquer? Ha If we weren't hindered by petty politics and religion, we could reduce the USA to a bunch of smoking rubble within, oh, a year. The one thing we have that you don't, is willpower and determination. Whether one of us dies or one hundred million, we will win.
Actually, I agree with you in one respect - the willpower and determination. I did just post something to that effect, didn't I? Other than that, you're a blithering idiot.
Question: if it were guaranteed that an attack on Iran would cost the republicans any chance of winning in 08, would he still do it? Does he care at all about the republican party at this point?
OK, then are you actually claiming that unleashing "hell on earth", by some convenient means, would have been a competent strategy in Iraq? I thought it was more on the lines of wanting to win something, rather than just prove we could kill people. Originally, and pardon me if this has changed, the war wasn't against Iraq and all its people anyway. Are we supposed to be patting ourselves on the back for not deliberately killing a whole bunch of people we were trying to rescue ? That's a pretty low bar, for competence. Nah,there's some doubt. Sasquatches might exist, too - you can't be sure about these things. I would be willing to make a reasonable wager about finding them anytime in the next five years, though. I would go further - I would bet against any serious physical evidence of their existence turning up - any actual satellite photos, say, or empty storage facilities recently full, or production facilities lately shut down - in the next five years. I not only don't think there were WMDs as described by W&Co, I don't think there was any serious evidence of them. As far as the WMDs, W&Co never made any sense in their claims - they were not believeable, jsut on common sense grounds. And they didn't jsut claim these huge quantities and big time production facilities all over the landscape, they also claimed to know where they were. So not finding them was in itself proof of at least some lying - they didn't know where they were. You'd be penguins, or something. You sure wouldn't be anything like you. Win what?
As are you Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! icaeura, penguins as in us specifically, or mankind altogether? Anything, I use the term "win" as in any challenge that may arise for us
We conquered Baghdad in 21 days using two light divisions...from the other side of the planet. We are good at smashing things with the mailed fist. It is picking up the pieces with the velvet glove that we were ill-prepared for. Tell me, if the best way to defeat an insurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the populace (and thus deprive the insurgency of a support base) how does a scorched earth policy accomplish anything congruent with these objectives?
Please don't use smilies when you're trying to insult someone. It makes you look stupid. So does the "so are you" approach. Now... tell me exactly how the Islamic world, even if united, could overcome the US in a year. Do it. Write it out, here and now, bring your vast military knowledge to play in this forum and lay it all out for everyone. Show us how even a single ship could survive the ocean crossing. Pretty words. So far, though, you've completely failed to overcome just about every obstacle thrown at you. Ironic, really. This one here dreaming of a "united Muslim front" to take over the world when even one country can't stop fighting each other long enough to fight the American invaders. Talking monkeys.
You're working from the assumption that the best way to defeat an insurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the populace. Sure, doing so will reduce the numbers of insurgents through depriving them of a support base. But it will never completely eradicate them. Now... why is it necessary for the US to defeat the insurgency, or even try to fight it? Why is the US in Iraq?
No civil war has only one side, there is always a side that thinks foreign intervention/occupation is a good idea. If you know any different please let me know.
Yes, it would have been. Wars are not won by being nice to people. The US has been trying that since the end of WW2, with a spectacular lack of success. Unless you have some strange personal definition of the word "competent" I'm not aware of. The US has done both, actually. The view that the war in Iraq is being lost is a viewpoint made by those who have forced the conduct of that war themselves. It's a little like putting an Indie 500 driver in a mini and telling him he's incompetent becuase he didn't win. No. That "patting ourselves on the back" for not killing the people we were "trying to rescue" is a primary reason the conflict is proceeding ineptly. Again, all you are doing is judging the US performance in Iraq by your own standards. You're one of these fat guys in the sidelines wearing a sweatshirt and holding a box of popcorn, swearing at a professional sportsman and telling him how he should play the game. I have previously explained why it was necessary to win over the support of the US public to the conflict itself. If you are incapable of seeing for yourself why all the propaganda and hoo ha was necessary prior to the conflict, then by all means, feel free to continue. I am sure about one thing. The Americans have access to vast information networks and satellite imagery, and whole organisations of staff to interpret information. There is no doubt about that - only about their interpretation of the information gathered. You have... well... nothing. A few websites perhaps, a left-wing chatroom in which conspiracy theories are bounced around among those craving justification for them, and a prejudiced viewpoint from which you have arrived at a decision. Now tell me again why your viewpoint is the more believable one? I am not saying that the US had proof of WMD. I am saying I don't know. And neither do you. Now you can either grow a brain and admit your viewpoint is prejudiced and has no factual basis, or not. The choice is yours. You mean, of course, that you don't want to think there were any, and you'll search for information and proof to that end. You'll argue your opinion in the same way those who believe there were WMD in Iraq will argue theirs, and with roughly the same amount of evidence. Which is to say, none. Not to you, perhaps. Others believed them, if for no other reason than that not only did the Americans know that WMD were being developed in Iraq, they could produce the reciepts for the components shipped from America. They did know where they were. They did search them. They found nothing. This, of course, was after the UN teams were turned away and barred from many of them to begin with. Or have you forgotten that part? No, I'm sure you haven't forgotten. It's simply more convenient for you to ignore it. You also completely ignore the fact that in the amount of time it took for both the UN and the US to search Iraq for WMD, Iraq could probably have managed to spirit away and hide a small city behind an SEP field. The US and UN would probably have had more success had they searched for opened cans of pink paint rather than the WMD themselves. What is interesting is that you're trying to say that the US didn't know where the facilities were, when even the UN did, which is why they knew where to search prior to the conflict. Now there's some head in the sand trick. Do tell me how you manage to fool yourself so completely that you're not even aware you've done it.
Oh, I completely agree. I was just laughing at Norsefire, is all. Now please stop showing off your own prejudices by coming to the defence of someone who was being a complete twit, simply because he bangs his head on the ground to the same god you do.
Not eradicate, but neutralize. The only way to defeat an insurgency is to make them not want to fight us anymore, and the closest thing to a victory condition in cointerinsurgency warfare is when the insurgents put down their weapons and go home (or join the government they formerly opposed). An insurgency is a symptom of social, political, and cultural conflicts and it will only disappear once those underlying motivating conflicts are resolved. The notion you are espousing that we need to start cracking some heads in Iraq and victory will soon follow is the polar opposite of the correct thing to do. Not only would it endanger the ones we're trying to protect, but it will exacerbate the causes of the insurgency and create more insurgents than it eliminates. This is all fairly basic COIN doctrine, which you can read about in the USMC Small Wars Manual or USA FM 3-24 (the new COIN manual) if you want to learn more. I have a fair amount of professional experience with implementation as well (albeit at a local level) that I could add here, but the publications should provide a good starting point.
Precisely. Yes. What is the motivating conflict, though? Is it really US occupation, or is there more here which has always been simmering and simply unable to erupt while Saddam had full control of the country? There is something there, isn't there. Saddam ran Iraq with an iron hand, and had control. You're trying to tread lightly with a local population who, even amongst those who agree Saddam had to go, barely tolerate your presence as a necessity for their own agenda. You're never going to win hearts and minds - the cultural divide is too great, and mutual understanding does not exist. You do not understand the religious and political divisions within the country itself. It is unlikely that you ever will completely understand them while this conflict continues. Your options, in reality, are to control and do what you came to do, or get out. The only real question is what you ever hoped to achieve to begin with. Yes. The "correct thing to do", though, isn't working. It never has. It didn't work for you in Vietnam, it didn't in Africa, and it won't here. No country has ever mounted a successful occupation with one hand tied politically behind its back. Seems to me they're already endangered. Being killed by the thousands, in fact, and not by occupying Americans. What will change, precisely? Would those publications be based on your experiences in handling insurgency around the world in recent decades, by any chance?
Well, I was trying to be friendly, but if you don't desire friendliness, then so be it. Easy. Bombings, chaos on the street, civil war, etc. Do you think we've fought our hardest? Bah.... Pfft, and you Americans are getting killed by men in rags with rusty Kalashnikovs......pretty damn strong you are <sarcasm> @Echo: No, you didn't conquer Baghdad. The US army has zero ability to conquer shit, you defeated the Iraqis, whoopee.... But as for conquest, you can't. If you conquered Iraq, why isn't it under control? That is not conquest Us, however, HAVE conquered plenty. Europe, Africa, Asia.....all at one time, at some parts, under Arab control.
Perhaps I prefer to choose how I laugh at twits, especially the ones who misrepresent themselves to make a nonexistent point.
I am not a twit Instead, it's OutBack here that makes up completely ridiculous, false facts for his arguments that is the twit
What stories would those be? The ones concerning Iraqi dissension prior to western invasion? Fine. So do I. Was it the "banging your head" comment? Sorry, but I do find it amusing to watch Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You are a twit. Shut up now, and go tend to your goats. P.S. - I'm not American. Given a choice between them and you, though, I'll wear a stetson and sing "the Star Spangled Banner" until my throat bleeds.
Lol, you're the goat herder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha, you're a slave....lol, are you like Blair, just a slave to the americans?
