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<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Fortunately for the politicians, the US public is too busy buying SUV's and Cappucino's to notice.

Unfortunately for the soldiers.

<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>
Col Hackworth, is that you?
<img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>



Edited by - tritonal on Sep 17 2003 5:48 PM

LOL, i actually am not a Hackworth fan, he's generally too negative and pessimistic for me. This time he's right though, i havn't even read his recent rants, but i have no doubt he's talking about these same things. It's refriggindiculous.



"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
Tritonal, this kind of nonsense is so widespread over there that the American public would freak if they knew all the details.

Fortunately for the politicians, the US public is too busy buying SUV's and Cappucino's to notice.

Unfortunately for the soldiers.

"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>And thats why I think that OIF will be considered by the majority as a very successful campaign, the "glamour" is over everyone's bored with Iraq now, so nothing gets reported and joe schmoe on the streets thinks everything went hunky dory upto the point where the military screwes up the occupation... what anyone REALLY think the politicians will take any heat?

Hmmm.... I am cynical today.

Overkill??? I'd kill a fly with a howitzer if I had one.

Edited by - Stinger on Sep 17 2003 7:22 PM

_________________
\"One of you is gonna fall and die, and I'm not cleaning it up\"

so why WERE these things left behind? was it a lack of time?( I thought the Army jumped the gun myself(not nessisarily by choice) ) A lack of trashhaulers to get it there? Or was this a "concept war"? did someone(Rummy?) say "lets try this and see if it works" ?

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Rummy thought the Iraqi's would mostly greet us with flowers and blowjobs, and the country would be on its feet in quick order. He was thinking of special forces and maybe two divisions at one point according to one of the news magazines (Franks made him up the force).

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
so why WERE these things left behind? was it a lack of time?( I thought the Army jumped the gun myself(not nessisarily by choice) ) A lack of trashhaulers to get it there? Or was this a "concept war"? did someone(Rummy?) say "lets try this and see if it works" ?

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>I have this pet theory that some bonehead junior staffer, who's never served a day, figured "ah its just a bunch of under equiped arabs, why should we spend the extra money to send over all this useless bolton protection?" and thus the Reactive armor crap was left at home... either that or the Politician Generals were trying to earn some sort of brownie points... I garantee that it wasn't a Bradley commanders idea though.

Overkill??? I'd kill a fly with a howitzer if I had one.

_________________
\"One of you is gonna fall and die, and I'm not cleaning it up\"

My guess was it was Rummy's chance to 'prove' his transformational concepts. William Wallace, the senior commander in country clearly stated on several occasions that the force was half the size he felt neccesary.

US Senior officers are now reporting on condition of anonymity that to get the job done will mean 300,000 men for the occupation.(See thread 'Operation Overstretch').

"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

[quote]

Rumsfield was a Navy Pilot. LOL
---------

He spent 3 years IPing in T-28s in the demanding area of formation flying. That's his spiel. Whoopee doo, he never hit the fleet and not sure he hit the boat either. Blew off the Korean War too, joined up in 54. So he doesn't have much hands on time with actual nuts and bolts in the military.

Jack

<i>Clark Almost Blundered Into World War III, Says Brit General

Gen. Wesley Clark is being praised by Democrats as a man of keen intellect and sound judgment, but a top military commander who served under him in the Kosovo War said he had to overrule the former NATO commander out of fear he was about to start World War III.

When Gen. Clark got word that Russian forces were about to occupy the Serbian airport at Pristina, he ordered British Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson to parachute troops onto the tarmac to confront the Red Army.

Gen. Jackson flatly refused to obey Clark's direct command, reportedly telling the general-turned-presidential candidate, "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you."

Gen. Jackson isn't the only military man who has expressed concern that the would-be president is something of a loose cannon.

At the height of the war Gen. Clark held a news conference, without clearing it with the Pentagon, where he admitted that Slobodan Milosevic had succeeded in sending reinforcements into Kosovo. The comment prompted a call from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton.

According to Thursday's Washington Times, Shelton barked at Clark: "The secretary of defense asked me to give you some verbatim guidance, so here it is. Get your ... face off the TV."
</i>

HBO produced a movie called "The Path to War" It mostly deals with Robert MacNamra convincing LBJ that Vietnam was an easy campagin. Reminds me somewhat of Rummy...Hopefully Rummy's transformational train of thought doesn't learn the same lessons that MacNamra's quatitive mathematical approach yielded, which was 50,000+ KIA's and billions of dollars on what amounted to prolonging the end result from 1965 to 1975.



Edited by - chadrewsky on Sep 20 2003 10:53 AM

IMO
I think the Difference is between this administration and the Johnson administration(whether or not you like this current doctrine) is that this admin. actually wants to win the war.




Edited by - tritonal on Sep 20 2003 2:42 PM

Yeah they seem to want to win it...

But wanting to isn't good enough.
And yes, I feel this administration is better than what the alternative would have been.

Well, the events of 911 would have prompted any President, Demo or GOP, to attack Afghanistan. The Iraq policy is where things would differ. Gore wouldn't have attacked Iraq. However, that would allow more resources to go against Al Qaeda and for Afghanistan. On the otherhand, some feel we had to hit Iraq to send a message to terrorists, start democratizing the Middle East, and gain a pro-west foothold in the Middle East.

Differnet views, but any Pres would have responded. The question is how. The Al Qaeda/Afghanistan strategy, or reshaping the Middle East and hitting it right in the nose.

Edited by - ViperTTB on Sep 20 2003 4:27 PM

I would have invaded afghanistan(for real, with tanks and all), and engaged in a massive air campaign against Iraq.

I would not have invaded Iraq unless i could match the force level of Desert Storm(for the occupation).

"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>I would have invaded afghanistan(for real, with tanks and all), and engaged in a massive air campaign against Iraq. <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

A massive air campaign in Iraq wouldn’t help stabilize the region. It would just make life that much shittier for the Iraqi people.

"One of the serious problems in planning the fight against American doctrine, is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine." -- Admiral Sergei Gorshkov

Imagine if you will, Wesley Clark as the next president of the US. Then imagine, another terrorist attack happening. I can see it now, "which way do I go George? which way do I go?" Whoever informed Wesley that he would make a great president needs to be bitch-slapped!! Scarey, scarey, scarey!!!

Wif
"Instructors do it better"

Instructors do it best!
"Wif"

A massive bombing campaign would have attrited their military and ensured they didn't get nukes.

That's all i cared about. I couldn't give a rat's ass about the Iraqi people.

"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

M21

"People who hate the West more than they love their lives" is a phrase Tom Friedman coined, and that is exactly why caring about the people matters, not out of humanitarian feelings alone, but also natinal interest and defense reasons. It doesn't take a nuke for those people to inflict damage as we sadly saw and failed regimes and hopeless lives provides the people for pyschopaths like Bin Laden to be a jackass.


Edited by - ViperTTB on Sep 22 2003 08:08 AM

One should look at the post the WW2 era where caring for those who we defeated has economically benifited our country imeserably. You can not slaughter and go home then expect a society to rebuild it self as peaceful member of the world stage.

Look at history Sniper the Treaty of Versailles caused the German's to look to Hitler as their savior.

Cough Cough...if we just nuked the Mutha Fuggas, their would be no Bin Ladens.


I think Isreal should just roll right through Palestine, Hang Arafat in a public square.

By 2004 the palistine nation would be the DODO of the 21st century.

Palistine has only proven to be a sore on humanity not a liberator for it.

""People who hate the West more than they love their lives" is a phrase Tom Friedman coined, and that is exactly why caring about the people matters, not out of humanitarian feelings alone, but also natinal interest and defense reasons. It doesn't take a nuke for those people to inflict damage as we sadly saw and failed regimes and hopeless lives provides the people for pyschopaths like Bin Laden to be a jackass."

Those people will exist regardless of what we do. Did you all forget they struck us first, and by our sensibilities- unprovoked?

I say to hell with them all....literally.

Let's see how cocky they are after we raze Baghdad to the ground with massed B-52 incendiary bombings.

5 million dead is a powerful lesson to learn.



"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

Genocide is a pleasant thought to some. I'm not participating in this discussion any furhter. Outta here.

Edited by - ViperTTB on Sep 22 2003 09:16 AM

Did you leave when we firebombed Dresden or Tokyo?

Was that genocide, or war?

In war, things get broken, people most of all. When did you forget that?

See ya later sport.

"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

Half measures produce half the results desired. Sometimes less.

Iraq is a good example of less.

"If we are not victorious, let no man return alive."

Gen George S. Patton

I'll play.

Yes, nuking the Middle East and making it all a big parking lot right now is UNACCEPTABLE.

One of the underlying points of Iraqi Freedom was to eventually democratize the Middle East and make it progressive. Replace a failed, brutal regime with a republic that offers jobs and prosperity for its people. It is called reshaping the Middle East.


Edited by - ViperTTB on Sep 22 2003 09:22 AM