Top Extremist Cleric killed in Pakistan

ok.. which war do we hear about recently where many people are proclaiming for a withdrawl? take your time...its a tough one.

times up. Iraq! where do you think?!


I was just referencing the point made about how killing more people doesnt cause them to lose their will to fight. US soldiers have been killed and its often one of the major points that protestors use as a reason to leave...hence losing their will to fight.

I thought it was a straightforward point.

 

You're missing the fundamental differences regarding how we as Americans view Iraq versus how people who live there and in the region do. For Americans we are fighting a war in a foreign land with nebulous and questionable justification. Someone living in the region though views it as an attack on their home and sees the fight as something more tangible.

 

Most people point to the # of soldiers killed in Iraq, not to say that 3000+ dead soldiers is too high a price to pay in any war, but that it is too high a price to pay in a STUPID war. 1 soldier's death is too high a price to pay in a stupid war.

As Franchise said the deaths from 9/11 did not cause the people in the US to lose their will to strike back against those that attacked us. People supported the Afghanistan campaign, they still support our military efforts in Afghanistan. But most Americans have turned against the war in Iraq because they now know that it was based on bs and it has turned into a military debacle. Sensibly, they don't want to see US soldiers die under these circumstances.

Your point was the opposite of straight forward because you conflated 9/11 and Iraq, just as the Bush administration does. People bought that crap for a while. They don't anymore.

 

Just kill the ones that are openly terrorists first and see how that works out. Start with every known member of Hamas, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, al Queda, the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, the PFLP, etc. Next you can move on to all of the people walking around the Palestinian territories carrying an assault rifle and wearing a green hood. Once all the known terrorists are captured or killed, see if you can use that information to find more. No reason to kill indiscriminately. At the very least, the number of new recruits should go down significantly when there are no visible members of a terrorist organization left.

 

Given how dense many of these places are that would be impossible. You're going to kill a lot of innoncent people just to get a few terrorists.

[Edit] Just to add Israel has tried on occasion the tactic you are recommending and it hasn't worked for them.

 

Japan and Germany in WWII are completely different than the war we are fighting now. As for killing everyone that's not the way its been forever. The Malay Insurgency wasn't defeated by killing everyone neither was the war in El Salvador or the Balkans conflicts. In Vietnam, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Rhodesian Independence and several other conflicts the side that won killed far less of thier enemy than were killed on their side.

 

well i agree with you to a certain point. although clearly there are differences the US did go into iraq and have since treated it with kid gloves. I mentioned this elsewhere, but the military is somewhat restricted in its effectiveness b/c of its overly PC policies. There are too many whistle blowers and protestors just waiting for someones "rights" to get violated, in the middle of a WAR mind you, and then...well you know what happens. its pretty ridiculous. Its hard to fight by the rules when you fight those who have no rules.

exactly. sure you try your best to limit uncessary abuse and death, etc...but ultimately its a freaking war. War isnt pretty. Yes, some "immoral" things happen. Innocent people die..."rights" get violated. these things will happen and as much as you dont like it, its going to be part of any significant war/battle/military operations, or whatever where people are trying to kill eachother. WAR IS UGLY.

I find it somewhat humorous that people love to say "but we are better than that"..no kidding. thats why we have some set of rules of engagement. Being "better" doesnt mean bombs of flowers are dropped or prisoners are politely asked "excuse me, do you know who's making bombs and killing innocent civilians? or you dont want to talk. shoot. ok, let him go"

its no wonder people say we are "losing" the war, people have lost the stomach to do what it takes to win.

pussification of america at its finest

thats going to stir up the slightly leaning left

 

Extrapolating the universal procedure to win a war from one conflict is absurd.

 

The biggest p*****s in this country are the members of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders that prattle on about how we need to take the gloves off to win in Iraq while never risking more than carpal tunnel syndrome themselves.

 

i was describing the situation. I dont believe i called for action. But peace brother...pass the bong.

actually i feel sick...i was actually agreeing with DD

 

BUT IT ALWAYS WORKS ON VIDEO GAMES!!!!

 

Which Roman campaigns would these be? None that I am aware of. They were too interested in making money off of conquored lands. If you kill everybody and wipe out their culture, who will you tax?

Absolute war is essentially a 20th century concept. None of the European campaigns that I know of between the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and World War I involved attempts at total destruction.

I guess the Mongols, Vikings, and Huns operated that way. I think a few Central American pre-Colombian cultures, too. Not really too many others that I can think of.

 

didnt help.

 

economist

 

The problem is that the nature of our conflict is primarily a political exercise that involves winning over other people. The insurgency is dependent upon the support of the populace to be willing to shelter them and provide a pool of people to draw from. When we act brutally we increase the antagonism of the populace as a whole against us and that increases the support of the insurgency. So its not a matter of just being PC but there is a practical purpose for why we need act with restraint and morality.

The issue that we are different than our enemies is important as it defines who we are and why we are fighting in the first place. We have a cultural and society that we love and we don't want to live under a different system. The terrorists military cannot force us to change but our reaction to what the terrorist do can change what we are. In the end if we're going to just accept that if the terrorists do things we are going to do the same then we are selling out the principles for which we fight for.

So there is both an immediate practical reason for not being brutal and there is also a philosophical reason.

You made the point in another thread about how you feel that people are being idealistic and impractical but the to believe that we can defeat a modern insurgency using WWII means is very idealistic and impractical.

 

To follow upon Otto's points the nature of warfare now is very different than the Roman times. If a small number of Carthaginians had access to IED's or used the Roman mass transportation system as a weapon to wreak havoc on Rome things might've been different. For that matter using the ancient equivalent of guerrilla tactics Hanibal almost defeated Rome.

Agree with most of your points but just to point out that Mongols didn't kill everyone either. They killed many and selectively raised cities but even they understood that wiping out whole populations was impractical. Also part of the reason why the Mongol Empire didn't last that long was that they weren't very good occupiers and couldn't handle insurgencies. The Vikings primarily engaged in lightning raids that while bloody didn't wipe out much of the population and that certainly didn't stop the English from fighting them off.