Tactics and Strategy in Iraq: Can Bush see clearly ahead?

Im gonna do this in a few posts, because im sure there will be some other people here to tell me stuff.

Donkey I am refering to Pre-Revolution. For a time the british parliment actually repealed the taxes, that is the stamp act. For that time the amount of revolutionary actions actually dropped, but then they passed the declaratory act and repassed other taxes, for example the townshed act, which restarted the hatred of the english. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_revolution#Taxation_without_Representation

Commenting upon Senior Chief's position, if the majority of these people that actually want to destroy all non-muslims, which I partially doubt, but will not comment upon here since I dont know, they do not have the capability to do so. We on the other hand have the capability to kill hundreds of millions, and if some of the moral views on this forum represent the US leadership's views, we dont have a moral issue about doing so.
 
WNxRogue said:
Im gonna do this in a few posts, because im sure there will be some other people here to tell me stuff.

Donkey I am refering to Pre-Revolution. For a time the british parliment actually repealed the taxes, that is the stamp act. For that time the amount of revolutionary actions actually dropped, but then they passed the declaratory act and repassed other taxes, for example the townshed act, which restarted the hatred of the english. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_revolution#Taxation_without_Representation
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Pretty far stretch I guess a visual "calm" for 4 years could be called dropping it....
 
Missileer said:
Losers say when a war stops, winners dictate the terms.
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Extremely well put!

Getting back to the subject line:
Something that I think is lost in the translation here is that the President does not plan the strategy in the war, his Generals and Admirals do, you know the guys that study tactics for a living. The President might see what is planned and have comment, but I think he knows his position and experience and trusts his military leaders. The SECDEF does not plan strategy, he is a civilian. The assistant SECDEF doesn't plan strategy. he too is a civilian. The SECNAV, SECAF, SECARMY, do not plan strategy, yes guys, they are civilians too.

It just puts a burr under my saddle when I hear the unknowing blame everything that happens in the world on the President. He takes the blame, as he should, he is the CinC of the military and he is an excellent leader unlike his predecessor. To give Clinton his due, he was a chrismatic person, but his leadership left us hanging when action was needed.

I'm finished ranting now. I'm going to watch the rest of the Chiefs-Chargers game on the NFL Network.
 
WNxRogue said:
First off, what I have said is that the indescriminate bombings of cities and innocents was wrong. All I have stated is that the comment that such bombings is either possible or even advisable at any time, regardless of any terrorists attacks is madness.

My way to fight the "War on Terror" is more long term. I am for political, economic and diplomatic solutions to this issue. What causes terrorism more than religion or whatever? Unhappiness in everyday lives. They may use their religion as a sort of cover, but a majority are unhappy with their everyday circumstances. We need to use means that are effective without war and death. History has show us, that when facing terrorism and insurgencys, pitting force against force, using advanced weapons and soldiers is not the most effective strategy. Look at the Revolutionary War. After the initial hatred of the english, they backed off their taxes and the American Patriots were actually pacified for a time. England then tried to try again, and that is when the revolutionary war broke out. You have to be willing to change their conditions, to look at their issues and consider how we can help them. We must stress to governments around the world that terrorists hurt their country too, and to use the massive amounts of money used on the war on terror to bolister national security in the US, and to aid people all over the world. For example, less than 40% of containers which come into US ports is checked. This could be raised if the money was put forth to do so, but unfortunatly too much is going into the war in Iraq.

Regardless of my opinion on how we should be doing this, I hope that we can all agree that indescrimatly targeting population centers in the hope of getting terrorisms is an extreme that should not happen REGARDLESS of whether we are attacked or not.
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I'm afraid that I must disagree with the premise that it is our responsibility to better the lives of terrorists. You must understand that these people want nothing to do with us, or our money, or our influence. We cannot sit at a table with people who only wish to wipe us off the face of the planet. I will agree that our homeland security measure could and should be tightened. We could also use the money wasted on political campaigns to accomplish that, but that's not likely to happen either (it'd be nice, though).
I don't think I read anything about indiscriminate use of any weapons. On the contrary, I think people have only proposed selective use of these weapons and only when necessary, that is only when we are forced to use them when political, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed. And the phrase "regardless of whether we are attacked or not" is a virtual invitation to attack us. Wartime is not the time to adopt an altruistic position, it is in fact the worst time to do so. War is a dirty, nasty undertaking. I don't pretend to speak for my brothers and sisters in arms but I think any of us that have had the task and the responsibility to wage war will attest to that fact. It's not pretty, it's not glorious, but I'm afraid that it is, at times unavoidable. At times like this our ability to wage war effectively and efficiently is paramount and that ability includes having our entire arsenal at our disposal.
 
Dtop said:
I'm afraid that I must disagree with the premise that it is our responsibility to better the lives of terrorists. You must understand that these people want nothing to do with us, or our money, or our influence. We cannot sit at a table with people who only wish to wipe us off the face of the planet. I will agree that our homeland security measure could and should be tightened. We could also use the money wasted on political campaigns to accomplish that, but that's not likely to happen either (it'd be nice, though).
I don't think I read anything about indiscriminate use of any weapons. On the contrary, I think people have only proposed selective use of these weapons and only when necessary, that is only when we are forced to use them when political, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed. And the phrase "regardless of whether we are attacked or not" is a virtual invitation to attack us. Wartime is not the time to adopt an altruistic position, it is in fact the worst time to do so. War is a dirty, nasty undertaking. I don't pretend to speak for my brothers and sisters in arms but I think any of us that have had the task and the responsibility to wage war will attest to that fact. It's not pretty, it's not glorious, but I'm afraid that it is, at times unavoidable. At times like this our ability to wage war effectively and efficiently is paramount and that ability includes having our entire arsenal at our disposal.
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Here is the quote from Misileer that first set this off " If there is a committed war declared, civilians will unfortunately be eradicated step by step, city by city, country by country, until attrition rate becomes the deciding factor of victory." That is what set of my comments upon indiscriminate usage of weapons. Because as far as im concerned, although this is my personal opinion, weapons of this maginitude should not be used. Period.

Now perhaps you are right about some terrorists not wanting anything to do with our money. But the fact is that most terrorists have personal, political or monetary reasons why they turned to terrorism. These can be solved, in if not all cases, atleast in some. Perhaps instead of creating MORE terrorists like the war in Iraq seems to be doing, we can actually REDUCE the amount of them. Couple this with the tightening of homeland security, and we may gain a measure of security that we simply do not have now.
 
Young Winston said:
OK DTop. Tell us clearly who the enemy in Iraq is at present?
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I am not DTop, nor would I try to put words in his mouth, but from my perspective I can tell you what I see.

In Iraq we have insurgency. That is the name they give when people have been "taken over" by an unwanted force. My questions wouldn't center on what Iraqi's are the insurgents, my question would be: Where are the insurgents from and who is funding them?

You can bet that the money is not coming from Bubba your local neighbor hood Iraqi. Where are they getting the explosives? Where are they getting the training to make IED's.

What you must know is that the linch pin in the region is the rejection of the infidel U.S. that is trying introduce a freedom into a country that has been ruled by a sadistic leader that was willing to kill indescriminately to suit his personal needs.
 
Here is the quote from Misileer that first set this off " If there is a committed war declared, civilians will unfortunately be eradicated step by step, city by city, country by country, until attrition rate becomes the deciding factor of victory." That is what set of my comments upon indiscriminate usage of weapons. Because as far as im concerned, although this is my personal opinion, weapons of this maginitude should not be used. Period.

Now perhaps you are right about some terrorists not wanting anything to do with our money. But the fact is that most terrorists have personal, political or monetary reasons why they turned to terrorism. These can be solved, in if not all cases, atleast in some. Perhaps instead of creating MORE terrorists like the war in Iraq seems to be doing, we can actually REDUCE the amount of them. Couple this with the tightening of homeland security, and we may gain a measure of security that we simply do not have now.
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I always let Misileer speak for himself of course, however I'm sorry but I still don't see where he suggested indiscriminate use of any weapons.
As far as the source of terrorists, I disagree with your assumption that it is our military action in Iraq that is creating more terrorists. As far as I can tell, it is the militant Islamic leaders that are recruiting, training, and equipping new terrorists to use as the means to accomplish their own ends. We can't just pull out, bury our heads in the sand and hope that this situation rectifies itself or that those that live by a code of violence directed at us are going to suddenly have a change of heart and live in some sort of Utopian coexistence with the West (however you choose to define it). I haven't seen any evidence of even the slightest willingness by the terrorists to sit down at any table for talks. In fact, I'd suspect that the only reason they would agree to sit down at a table with us is to have the opportunity to blow it up.
Like anyone else except the terrorists, I'd like to see Iraq stabilized to the point that they are able to handle their own internal affairs and we can bring our military home. Any realistic measure taken toward that goal is OK with me. Giving up and pulling out because things are difficult is not, IMHO a realistic course of action.
 
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You know what I really, really don't understand?
1: Why don't at least some of the Iraqi civilians give the Coilition information on where the death squads are headquartered, there are rewards for such, right?
2: Why don't the insurgents in general see that their attempts to kick the U.S. out WILL result in their country becoming 100% F:cen:ED over by 2020, The insurgents and their leaders can never make for a good government: Iraq seems to be splitting into Sunni VS Shiite, with the Kurds minding their own business, and even within these groups there exists widespread factionalism, if the U.S leaves it won't just be Civil war/religous genocide, but FRATRICIDE. Why don't these people see that in the long run, the U.S will be a good influence on their shared country?
 
Look whether you support the Bush admistartion or not there will never be a clear cut victory against terroisom no matter what by invading Iraq we have only created more of them and only to clear this mess in Iraq is to hand this mess to the UN and SUM of All Fears could happen if Iran gets the bomb start prying to what ever you believe.
 
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warhappy100 said:
Look whether you support the Bush admistartion or not there will never be a clear cut victory against terroisom no matter what by invading Iraq we have only created more of them and only to clear this mess in Iraq is to hand this mess the UN and SUM of All Fears could happen if Iran gets the bomb start prying to what ever you believe.
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So you are saying that because there cannot be a clear cut victory we need to back away from it all now?

I think the point you are missing is that on a world wide basis we are one by one eliminating terrorists. If we, and the rest of the world, do not come together and stand against this threat we are all subject to their acts and will continue to be accepting of the threat of death on a daily basis.

As for the movie, son it' s movie. We can be attacked like that but with the Patriot Act, until the democrats de-nut it, has helped us catch those that would try to pull off such an attack. Remember, it's a stated objective of OBL to kill one million Americans with one single attack. Would you have us roll over and just wait for it to happen?
 
warhappy100 said:
Look whether you support the Bush admistartion or not there will never be a clear cut victory against terroisom no matter what by invading Iraq we have only created more of them and only to clear this mess in Iraq is to hand this mess the UN and SUM of All Fears could happen if Iran gets the bomb start prying to what ever you believe.
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The UN the sum of all fears....You watch to many movies and dont read enough books....

Also I would like to point something out about the Patriot Act, go read it, it has added very little all it really did was modernize the existing laws to better suit the new technology of today....

Seriously 90% of the thing is remove this word add that word, this shall say this instead of that...It really didnt change the foundation of any existing laws...
 
WNxRogue said:
Im gonna do this in a few posts, because im sure there will be some other people here to tell me stuff.

Donkey I am refering to Pre-Revolution. For a time the british parliment actually repealed the taxes, that is the stamp act. For that time the amount of revolutionary actions actually dropped, but then they passed the declaratory act and repassed other taxes, for example the townshed act, which restarted the hatred of the english. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_revolution#Taxation_without_Representation
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Absolutely WRONG. This is a perfect example of why I keep telling people do NOT trust wikipedia. This is all a bunch of BS following the myths about the foundation and origins of the American revolution. Read the following link for the actual events without the colonial spin. :)

http://experts.about.com/e/b/bo/Boston_Tea_Party.htm
 
Wikipedia is what is called a peer-review encyclopedia, which means that changes can not be made to the sites until reviewed by a board of experts on the subject. That is why almost every college in the US accepts wikipedia as a viable source for papers and whatnot.
 
WNxRogue said:
Wikipedia is what is called a peer-review encyclopedia, which means that changes can not be made to the sites until reviewed by a board of experts on the subject. That is why almost every college in the US accepts wikipedia as a viable source for papers and whatnot.
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Do you care to name those experts? Those that have not witnessed events other than reading about them seem to be historical revisionists. They will back something if it fits their agenda.

Have you not seen how the U.S. Constitution has been revised to fit what "modern" Supreme Court Judges think is said or how what they said should be interpeted for today's society?

Wikipedia is a decent source for information but it is just as falable as anyother source of information.
 
WNxRogue said:
Wikipedia is what is called a peer-review encyclopedia, which means that changes can not be made to the sites until reviewed by a board of experts on the subject. That is why almost every college in the US accepts wikipedia as a viable source for papers and whatnot.
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Again... abso:cen:inglutely wrong. There is no one vetting the information put up on wikipedia and most universities do NOT accept it as a legitimate source. Anyone can post anything on the site and the peer review is just that PEERs in other words people just like you and me. To prove this point last year I posted a story on wikipedia which said China was claiming to have invented white people as part of a eugenics programme over a thousand years ago. It remained up until I wrote them and told them to take it down over four months later. Pull yer head out.
 
A. I personally know that the college that I go to, as well as the ones that everyone else that I know of has EVER gone to accepts wikipedia as a viable source. This includes state and private colleges. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Reliability hehe. If you look at the bottom of the page on any wikipedia page, it says the sources that the info is based upon. If u dont like the article, check the sources. All of them that I have seen are viable

B. Senior regardless of the source, it will be scewed based upon the opinion of the people writing it. It doesnt matter who rights any info, it will be changed because of what they think. So wikipedia is just as reliable in this way as every other piece of writing ever done.
 
WNxRogue said:
B. Senior regardless of the source, it will be scewed based upon the opinion of the people writing it. It doesnt matter who rights any info, it will be changed because of what they think. So wikipedia is just as reliable in this way as every other piece of writing ever done.
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By your own admission wikipedia is nor more reliable than the news papers, isn't that what you just said?

What my point is follows:

Tell someone on your immediate right a story. Let it go around the room one time. Have everyone in the room write out the story as they remember it. (You've played this game I'm sure.) Now go a step further and store those sheets of paper with the different accounts fo the story and after 5 years get them back out and have different people read the stories and, without bothering to ask the originator of the story, determine what the story is about and see what you get.

If you've been watching the news lately you can really get a grasp of that effect. It's called revisionist history based on lack of first hand knowledge and personal/political agenda's.
 
WNxRogue said:
Wikipedia is what is called a peer-review encyclopedia, which means that changes can not be made to the sites until reviewed by a board of experts on the subject. That is why almost every college in the US accepts wikipedia as a viable source for papers and whatnot.
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Well oddly enough I have tracked down the study done by Nature comparing Wikipedia to Britanica so happy reading...

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html

The way it comes across Wikipedia is no less reliable than any other encylopedia on the market and is still improving.

Senior Chief said:
I think the point you are missing is that on a world wide basis we are one by one eliminating terrorists. If we, and the rest of the world, do not come together and stand against this threat we are all subject to their acts and will continue to be accepting of the threat of death on a daily basis.
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The number killed is somewhat irrelevant until it exceeds the number of replacements and going by the comments of several officials the insurgency is growing not diminishing, oddly enough wars of attrition rarely if ever work.

Now while I have no doubt that this will be slated as some "liberal thinking" (hell anything not rabidly rightwing on this board is) but I still believe the key is the removal of the leaders these groups while doing as much as possible to reduce their recruiting base and this is not achieved by creating chaos and destruction throughout an entire region.
 
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