Al Qu' ida forces retake Fallujah
How many people did we lose there? So we declared victory, made all kinds of statements about how successful US operations were in pacifying and rebuilding the country. Then we pulled out and the whole place has returned to fighting with the big difference that Al Qu'ida is not substantially in charge where they almost did not exist before. When will the Galt-led strike begin?
We learned absolutely no lessons from Vietnam at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives lost or destroyed in some way.
What has been accomplished from a "lead from behind" policy? I posit the following: The destruction of American policy and the lessening of American influence in the world. Obama's legacy has set us back fifteen years and will, in the near future, prohibit us getting involved in some worthwhile causes. Good job American voters.
We learned absolutely no lessons from Vietnam at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives lost or destroyed in some way.
What has been accomplished from a "lead from behind" policy? I posit the following: The destruction of American policy and the lessening of American influence in the world. Obama's legacy has set us back fifteen years and will, in the near future, prohibit us getting involved in some worthwhile causes. Good job American voters.
A policy like that would save us the cost of all the American lives spent to try to free places like Iraq, while maintaining our national security.
A lot of people believe that we should have invaded and conquered Iraq. That is not what Americans do. It’s not who we are, and I do not see where we should debase ourselves for people who call us the “Great Satan” of the world. You want to wallow in your stone age filth, fine, stay that way.
Constitution might as well just do what you suggest. Obamas child the Arab spring in two months destroyed all we had accomplished prior in that war. I think of how futile our soldiers feel being undermined like that and any of the soldiers who did a tour or several over there. What a waste. Treasonous
The reason we have lost this war is because we don't believe in our own ideals. we go over, win, and the first thing we say is set up any laws and govt you want. The first thing they do is set up an Islamic fundamentalist state. If we believed in our own Constitution and values we would say NO! You have to have religious freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free association, the goal of the government is to protect the natural rights of the individual.
But instead we believe in moral and cultural relativism-oh, we can't force freedom down your throats! how bad of us! Cultural relativism is essentially a "racist" concept, in my opinion.
There are two models in US history that have been successful in wars. The WWII model and the Barbary pirate model.
In one case, it's what hiraghm states-you get unconditional surrender. BUT if you do that, the followup is important-you have to setup a system based on natural rights or you will end up with the same problems.
Barbary pirate model-is what Will suggests-bomb but demand.We don't care that it's indiscriminate. We don't do either anymore. Bush did not follow through and ignored our Constitution as the appropriate model in Iraq and afganistan and Obama is guilty of actively aiding the Islamic fundamentalists to take over the middle east region.
That reflects an implicit small-o objectivism in the culture. Human cultures experience such isolated gems. Whether and to what extent they extend and expand that is complicated. I do point out that the first foundation of rationalist-realism (objectivism) in learning was that of that was Pope Sylvester II who, as Guy d'Aurlliac, studied in Spain with Muslim scholars.
All of that being as it may MODERN Islam is not so tolerant, even though, truly, perhaps millions of modern people who accept Islam (as people here in the Gulch announce that they are Christians) do indeed value what we identify as "natural rights." But, again, see the next to khalling.
Using a nuke basically states that all is lost and you are pulling the plug on any resolution.
American invade for a number of reasons. Lately, we have been so full of hubris that we think that we have solutions to everyone's problems. We're like the Dr. Phil of nations; lots of panacea and little cure at an incredible cost in both people and resources.
Here's my solution: If one drop of American blood is spilled in a country we are militarily and financially supporting, we go biblical on them. We act like an empire should act and take all the natural resources for 100 years. We control all elections and put satraps in power who will only do what we say. We reeducate the children and kill anyone who protests. After three generations, we give them a shot at self-governance. Any problems, we reimpose the draconian measures.
I'm not against foreign involvement. I'm against wasted efforts with no end goal possible.
I don't know what a lot of people think. I know that that is what we should have done.
That is not what Americans do? Apparently what Americans do is kiss the ass of every PoS primitive out there and ask him nicely if he'd like cookies with his tea, oh and would he forgive us for not giving ourselves to his whim?
Bull it's not what Americans do. Maybe you forgot the piece of toilet paper the Japanese signed on the deck of the Missouri while crossing their fingers behind their backs, but I haven't. We demanded and we got unconditional surrender. Unconditional. We got it after blowing straight to hell two cities, each in the blink of an eye. And then we went in and ruled until we (mistakenly) judged them civilized enough to rule themselves.
Either we learn to conquer them, or we learn to love the Adhan.
I learned that American troops were and are the best fighting force on the planet, with perhaps the greatest character of Americans.
I learned that an army made up of bush-beaters, led by communists, will lose when it faces the hard line of young American men in uniform.
I learned that America accomplished its military goal in 1968, when the Tet offensive proved to be an utter disaster for the Viet Cong, virtually wiping them out, removing them as a serious participant in the rest of the war. (by the estimate of a founder of the Viet Cong, to our 15,000 losses over the course of Tet, they lost not 100,000, but 300,000, and were no longer capable of taking to the field of combat).
I learned that the biggest threat to our military wasn't the natives of a backward land, but the people sitting in suits in air-conditioned media newsrooms. I learned that the biggest threat to victory was not the NVA regular, supplied and trained by Chinese and Russian experts, but communist sympathizing Congressmen, who would not let us keep our word.
I learned that our chosen allies, trained by us, were able to hold out against 4 armored corps using more men than the Normandy Invasion... until they ran out of supplies because our Congress would no longer fund them.
America is the best equipped military force on the planet. We are the only military that can successfully operate as an expeditionary force.
It's hard to beat an enemy on his own turf regardless of how superior your force unless you are willing to go biblical.
America cannot both fight a war and build an economic and social structure that has any hope of lasting. Win the war first. Rebuild the country second.
Stalemates are not wins regardless of how much PR asserts a win occurred.
We actually won with the bombing. Lee Duc Tho was given surrender orders when he met with Kissinger. But he defied his orders and told Kissinger that they were willing to all die rather than capitulate. At the time, the American public had had enough and there were riots in the streets. Kissinger folded. Lesson: Never fold a winning hand.
Against light infantry forces, America dominates. We still have to see how we would do if faced with an enemy with air power and the command and control in which we excel.
All fighting men are equal. They are motivated or not based on mission. There is nothing in the American fighting man that is not in any foe he must face.
I have applied the same lessons to every war we have been in since Vietnam and am surprised at our hubris when conducting military operations.
War is a political endeavor that includes massive destruction of an opponents ability to sustain infrastructure by denying access to basic needs and eliminating potential fighters.
Wars without a total victory are useless to change the political environment.
What never leaves my mind is what you men came home to, how you were treated. It boggles me to this day to think that those ungrateful excuses for humanity are the ones we have in office now. Thank you for everything you gave and everything you were willing to give over there.
In our system, we have freedom of assembly to show disfavor with the direction the government is taking. States can get together and force the feds to make changes, People can get together and force changes to policy but short of impeachment, cannot change the structure of the government or how elected offices are populated. If enough people feel strongly enough, any form of protest is valid. If I recall correctly, the general populace made it difficult for vets to get jobs or to be hired. It wasn't the radicals it was the people in general. The lies fostered by disinformation so soured the public that rational thought went out the window; people blamed the symbols of the government they could see and that was the returning vets.
that extreme is counter productive and jeopardizes the body politic in whole but people don't think that way. We have been led to believe that situations must be resolved quickly and favorably. Because of that we use PsyOps against the people and issue all kinds of BS intended to move the populace in one direction or another. In Vietnam, we had the Tet offensive that crippled the VC but firmly established the NVA as the dominant combat force in the country. This exposed the total BS government had been feeding the American people.
My father was a WWII vet. He was in the 11th Airborne. He was a huge patriot but after the '68 Tet, he said, "If we are not going to win this thing, we should get out." He was also really pissed that he and others had been so misled by government stories. I imagine that many otherwise patriotic people felt the same way.
I never expected anything other than what we are currently seeing. Muslims and Christians have been at war with each other for several centuries now and the various factions/ tribes over there have been at war with one another forever.
With all that in mind I knew from the moment that we went in that unless we were willing to leave a pacifying force in place for several generations that there could be NO HOPE of a successful outcome. Heck we still have men in Germany and honestly we are much closer to the Germans ethically, ethnically, politically and religiously than we are to the Iraqi’s. How could we have ever thought that something as complex as this issue is could be solved in such a short time?
Lets just pull out of foreign nations all together... If they want to blow themselves up, we let them... We should not police other countries.. Our role is to purchase their oil.. Their role is to produce.. Nothing more, nothing less...
Secondly, I find it historically ignorant for the middle east "wars" issue to be argued from the point of view that we shouldn't be there so long, like the ten years argument. We have been in South Korea for well over 50 years and no one is arguing the wisdom of that. If solving the Middle East issue by being there 30 years or more is what it would take, then that is what it would take. Americans are not ones to walk away from a challenge, despite what Obama and his cronies espouse.
The motto of US Special Forces (Green Beret) is De Oppresso Libre (We liberate the oppressed.) Yet the forces are used not to free oppressed people but to enforce American actions and goals.
I won't applaud anyone for achieving that, because it's the result of our belief that we have a duty, obligation, and right to continually interfere with others. Personally, I think Obama's foreign policy has been to foment the Arab Spring and now the African Winter. He is an anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist, believing that America has become that and he wants this country's influence in the world to suffer.
I sincerely believe that God meant for America to rule the world at the end of WWII. And we blew it, for no better reason than altruism.
Yes, we have a right to interfere with others.
We went into Kuwait because... oil.
We went into Iraq and Afghanistan because Moslems wouldn't stay in their bit of the world and not fly airliners into skyscrapers. We should have conquered Afghanistan because it is a source of rare earths, which we will need until we get off our asses and begin exploiting the solar system.
Sorry, I can't accede to utopian views of the world that regard everyone as equal, every philosophy as equal, which pretend that if everyone just act a certain way the world will be paradise.
The 7th century death cult dominating that part of the world isn't going to sit in their hovels and leave the rest of the world alone. The Moslem goal of global conquest is *not* "internal strife".
Obama put us on the wrong side in Libya and Afghanistan, and I know why, but that doesn't mean we don't have an interest in who rules those two countries, particularly when one faction represents the most virulent and dedicated aspects of Moslem conquest.
I meant to say "Libya and Egypt".
Should we have waited longer before we pulled out? If we had, would it have made any difference? If we had stayed in Iraq longer, could we really afford the negative fiscal impact that further prolonging the war would have had on our nation's economy? Or would it have been better to simply leave Saddam Hussein in power and never go to war in the first place? Honestly, I don't know. The whole thing was a huge mess, and I don't really know whether the alternatives would have been any better.
Are the Muslim Brotherhood any better than some of these dictators?
What is the arbitrary level of "dictatorship" that separates a Saddam Hussein from a, say, Robert Mugabe?
Is the method that Gaddafi was publicly brutalised and sodomised prior to his death condoning the kind of violence which we are endeavouring to eliminate?
However, I'm not condoning the dictatorships and their suppression of human rights.
We stunned the world, showing them what a modern military can do, when we blew through Iraq like crap through a goose.
Where we screwed up was not in invading, but in "winning hearts and minds" rather than breaking arses. We should have gone in there and ruled, not served. Our mission wasn't, or at least shouldn't have been, to bring democracy to the middle east, but to pacify the middle east. To take away their ability and will to take offensive action against us.
We wouldn't have been there for a decade had we done it right.
The question of blame doesn't lie with starting the IRAQI THEATER of the war, but in how we dealt with it once we'd won.
Everything in America is based on centralization We may tout individualism but in reality, we are a top-down structure that abhors individualism on every level because individuality is against any centralization. Everything we do and how are military is structured is based on centralization. I, as a unit officer fighting the huge centralized army, know that I cannot win if I use tactics that the army I'm fighting is the best in the world at utilizing. So I disband my units, have them melt into the populace and fire up warlords and opposing sects to form militias (The same type of militias the founding fathers wanted to use with a regular army at the birth of our republic.) and one one hand cooperate with the invaders and on the other hand fight against them. It will appear as if all is chaos because people steeped in centralization and hierarchical structures have a very difficult time with decentralized forces. They tend to discount them because they don't have the massive appearance of a centralized army.
We can't win in Iraq or anywhere unless we are willing to completely conquer the country, kioll anyone who says a peep about it and keep doing it for three or more generations.
If I wanted to fight American forces, I would decentralize and only kill American military women of color. I would not shoot men and I would not shoot women in general. I would focus on women of color in uniform. Americans would make all kinds of statements about barbarism but be gone in a month. One of the biggest programs our military pushes when we get involved in foreign adventures is women's rights. Those rights are a noble cause and one that should be supported. But during a war, it's hard to enforce social policies.You have to decide which is more important, social engineering or winning a war. This quandary puts us at a disadvantage and we don't even realize it.
The only war worth fighting is the one in which you are willing to carry out any act to win. After you win, you can make all kinds of concessions and be a very fair handed person but until you win be prepared to be a complete bastard and use every tactic that is to your benefit and your enemies detriment.
I'm finding it a great read and would highly recommend it.
Please be specific.
BTW, I also agree that there should have been no war for Obama to inherit.
Is there anything he might have done differently when he got the problem?