Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. -Niccolo Machiavelli There is more than one way to destroy a man.
Of course, but that is more a matter of philosophy than politics. The man who holds too tightly to his beliefs is more susceptible to being destroyed than any other. In that sense, destroying those beliefs is possibly the most destructive thing that can be done to him. Death is not a defeat. It is merely the end of resistance. Destroying the beliefs which make a man what he is, and leaving him full knowledge of his own destruction if he has the acumen to accept it, leaves him nothing with which he might comfort himself. Most men simply do not permit themselves to accept the reality of their own defeat. Any argument proving those beliefs to be false is simply dismissed or ignored. They will react with hostility, rely on outside support, grasp at any straw in order to preserve a sense of self. Death is an easy way out, as is any physical defeat. Suicide is the martyrdom of the self.
Perhaps, but it depends on the belief, I think; I'll write more on this when I have some time to think about it.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Didn't he? He controlled the areas he conquered The US Military may have defeated that of Iraq, but unless they can control Baghdad they haven't conquered anything.
Well? Post#136? The US could have conquered Bhagdad even faster had we not cared about preserving the residents.
Is it that they care about preserving the residents or that there would be too heavy of consequences if they went on some holocaust like extermination.
The fact is this boasting of who's country is stronger is beside the point. "The Transformation of War" by Creveld, a highly respected military strategist, reveals that military might is not everything when it comes to modern warfare. The US may have the most powerful military force in the world, but that didn't allow us to defeat the communist insurgents of Vietnam.
I just read we're building a spiffy new firebase base 4-6 miles from the Iranian border. Maybe we can help the Pentagon name it. Let's see: "Camp Tripwire". "Camp Bringemon". "Camp Grenada" Come on, folks, let's help our intrepid leadership come up with something with sizzle. Edit: oops. Got mixed up there with a previously-built base near Iran's border with Afghanistan Another link about the planned base in Iraq
I already have evidence for how the British got on board - Blair was promised rigged intelligence on the WMDs (W promised to lie officially and publically) - to justify what he already wanted to do, which was join the conquering of Iraq where Britain has long had interests. See the Downing Street Memos. A couple of higher ranking Brits resigned from the government, rather than do that. America has no tradition of resignation over principle, but we lost a couple as well. As far as showing the evidence to me, that's beside the point - they haven't shown it to anyone. None of it. In fact, there is no indication that any such evidence exists. On the one hand, you seem to recognise that governments lie. On the other hand, you turn cartwheels trying to avoid facing the fact that you have been lied to by the US government. The justification for bombing Iran will be lies, as well. edit in: Camp Ripley ? Believe it or not.
Goddamn, dude. Have you been reading any of our posts? I mean really. The burden of proof is on you here. As basically everyone in this thread (excepting yourself) has already understood or pointed out, the US military's invasion of Iraq was nothing short of brilliant. Never before in the history of warfare has such a bold and decisive campaign been waged, so quickly, and with so few friendly casualties. Taking down a regime from the other side of the planet with only two light divisions (one of which was an amphibious division of which I was part) is going to be an operation exemplified in military history classes for many, many years to come. It was the first campaign where the joint services were truly unified in effort, sharing assets and coordinating movements on a digitial battlefield, exploiting technological force multipliers for all they are worth. Every paradigm of so-called "modern" warfare that existed pre-2003 was shattered in the first three weeks of OIF. Oh, but the streets are filled with violence, people are still dying, the government is broken, and infrastructure is not where it should be, you say? Well, all of that is true, but the dozens of insurgent factions in-country are only capable of harrassment. They can pick at our security forces here and there, but not in any grievous or life-threatening manner. They can only hope that over time their annoyance will wear down support of the reconstruction in the American public, granting them a political victory in the form of withrawal of US forces. They are not going to array against the 20+ brigade combat teams and beat us back down Highway 80 to Kuwait. They are not going to force our capitulation with attrition. They are going to exploit the fact that the American public is not satisfied with the way the operation has been handled, leading to the election of political leaders whose agendas are consistent with a removal of (most) US elements from Iraq and a cessation of support for the parliamentary government we have been trying to get off the ground for the past four years. Think of a dog sitting on a carpet infested with fleas. The fleas will never kill the dog. But if they are enough of an annoyance, the dog will go sit somewhere where the fleas cannot bother him anymore. The violence and chaos subsequent to the invasion were largely a result of cultural fault lines that predated any western involvement widening again with the removal of the Ba'athist regime there. Exacerbating this was the fact that the reconstruction was planned in an opposite manner of the invasion: very poorly or not at all, with insufficient funding and manpower to establish basic security and allow a government to take root. This was not a shortcoming on part of the US military. The decisions that led to that condition were made by people wearing business suits, not uniforms. Thus, your hamfisted, half-witted attempts to blame it on the US military are advertisements of your own ignorance of the way the US government and military function, and the way the reconstruction has been hamstrung by events outside the scope of military responsibility. I will leave you with something else to chew on, and be curious to see if you return to us with the same insipid pan-Arabist slag you have been spouting in this thread all along: Why Arabs Lose Wars - Norvell B. De Atkine I take my showers strapped to a waterboard.
Until people remember that it followed extreme sanctions in which 500,000 children died of starvation and was based entirely on lies. That it resulted in the complete destruction of a state, the death of countless innocents (we don't do body counts) and was the forerunner of the death of democracy in America (with Patriot Act, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc) and quite possibly the worst economic fallout of the century.
I think it was Ho Chi Minh - or one of his generals - who said that a soldier in a colonial war would be better off without weapons than without political training. Von Clauswitz's maxim - "War is politics by other means" - cuts both ways. The invasion is over. The US succeeded, dramatically - taking Baghdad in a few weeks. Now is the occupation, or the withdrawal. Either or both could be political victories, either or both could be political defeats. Political defeat is looking more likely - in fact, already accomplished. The military of the US was completely unprepared for either occupation or withdrawal. Military victory only gets you so much of certain things.
