Iraq 2003-2007

[Axiomatic]

Doesn't anybody wonder why the surge involved a strategy change, whereby secured areas would, only from that point on, be occupied? This is four years into the engagement, and they are, just at this point deciding to employ proper tactics that had been common knowledge for millennia. The idea that Powell and friends didn't know the futility of expanding beyond your ability to defend is not even on my radar. Forget it. If there's one thing generals know how to do, it's fight a fucking war.

I was a news junkie during that time. I listened to Rush and Hannity, Herman Cain and Boortz a lot, mostly out of habit, but I never knew much about the particulars of strategy being employed. I don't know if it's because details weren't reported or if I just didn't pay attention to that. I still thought of defense as a legitimate function of government, so my attitude was that I don't have access to all the intelligence, so I don't make calls on that kind of thing.

Then I heard that strategy change on a report where someone was explaining the surge. I was shocked to hear it. I don't remember how long I wrestled with that in my head, but I got to the point where I couldn't reject the conclusion that that war had been intentionally prolonged for at least that long.

Can you think of reasons to reject that conclusion?

[Peter1469]

I don't think you understand the surge. I was there for the darkest days of it and then through to its success.

[Axiomatic]

I don't think you understand the surge. I was there for the darkest days of it and then through to its success.

Explain it, then.
That's how I remember it. Everything I've said is true. What I said was reported was reported. The surge itself is not really what I'm interested in. I know that strategy change was part of it. What I want to know is why it (defending areas once they were secured) was not employed over the previous four years.

[Green Arrow]

You have no idea how happy I am to see you posting over here. The battle isn't over yet, my friend, and you're needed to help carry on the fight.

Also, I'm actively watching this thread. I don't understand military stuff except from a "I read books like Vegetius's training manual on the Roman military" kind of nerd stuff, so I'm curious to see what those who do know about military stuff, like yourself, Peter1469, and @Codename Section (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=866) say.

[Peter1469]

Explain it, then.
That's how I remember it. Everything I've said is true. What I said was reported was reported. The surge itself is not really what I'm interested in. I know that strategy change was part of it. What I want to know is why it (defending areas once they were secured) was not employed over the previous four years.

Did you learn all of this from the news?

[Cigar]

I don't think you understand the surge. I was there for the darkest days of it and then through to its success.

It's now 2014, looking back do you still think it was worth it and what do we now have to show for it.

No offense to your service and it's well appreciated, but if you had a chance for a re-do, would you advise Obama to pack our shit a git while the going isn't ever getting better?

[Green Arrow]

It's now 2014, looking back do you still think it was worth it and what do we now have to show for it.

No offense to your service and it's well appreciated, but if you had a chance for a re-do, would you advise Obama to pack our shit a git while the going isn't ever getting better?

Speaking for myself, I would have advised Bush to pack our shit and git shortly after we invaded. Better, I'd have slapped him upside his fool head for even suggesting going to war with Iraq.

[Axiomatic]

You have no idea how happy I am to see you posting over here. The battle isn't over yet, my friend, and you're needed to help carry on the fight.

Also, I'm actively watching this thread. I don't understand military stuff except from a "I read books like Vegetius's training manual on the Roman military" kind of nerd stuff, so I'm curious to see what those who do know about military stuff, like yourself, @Peter1469 (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=10), and @Codename Section (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=866) say.

Thanks. It's good to see you again. I wouldn't say I know much about military stuff. I'd like to think those guys do. We'll see if we can get a good answer to this.

[Axiomatic]

Did you learn all of this from the news?

Probably. I don't know what you mean by all of this. But I didn't come here to talk about that.
Can you think of an alternative explanation to the only one I've found plausible?

[Peter1469]

I never would have occupied Iraq to begin with. But that is because I don't believe in nation building. But as far as it went, the surge was 100% successful- with the caveat that it occurred at the same time as the Sunni awakening. (Hat-tip, US Spec Ops).

But there should never be an idea that a strategic objective- secure the country for democratic elections, for example, translates into forever or you failed. That is just dumb.

It's now 2014, looking back do you still think it was worth it and what do we now have to show for it.

No offense to your service and it's well appreciated, but if you had a chance for a re-do, would you advise Obama to pack our shit a git while the going isn't ever getting better?

[Peter1469]

Probably. I don't know what you mean by all of this. But I didn't come here to talk about that.
Can you think of an alternative explanation to the only one I've found plausible?

I didn't really know what you were referring to. What is a strategy of change?

The US invaded Iraq and destroyed its government and military in under 3 months. Things were going well. The US Army let the local sheiks rule. Then Washington DC sent Bremer in and he demanded a strong central government based on Jeffersonian democracy. That fuckup led to the insurgency against the US in Iraq. (And the rare coalition partner).

That occupation was the problem. We should have left an army general to rule the country the way we wanted them too.

But, your version is just wrong. The army has the same broad pattern of action depending on where the conflict lies on a matrix describing the use of force.

[Axiomatic]

I didn't really know what you were referring to. What is a strategy of change?

The US invaded Iraq and destroyed its government and military in under 3 months. Things were going well. The US Army let the local sheiks rule. Then Washington DC sent Bremer in and he demanded a strong central government based on Jeffersonian democracy. That fuckup led to the insurgency against the US in Iraq. (And the rare coalition partner).

That occupation was the problem. We should have left an army general to rule the country the way we wanted them too.

But, your version is just wrong. The army has the same broad pattern of action depending on where the conflict lies on a matrix describing the use of force.

EDIT: I don't remember saying "strategy of change". If I did, I meant to type "change of strategy".

From the declaration of victory to the implementation of the surge, in 2007, the US military bounced around Iraq securing and then leaving area after area. The surge involved a change in tactics, whereby all areas, once secured, would be occupied, maned, defended.

Irrespective of what you want to do in the capitol, to "secure" another area only to, then, leave it is a complete waste of time and resources. This is not something that should require a lot of explaining. You don't invade an area unless you believe it to be occupied by what you believe to be enemy forces. If that is true when you invade, it is potentially true at any time after your invasion, unless the entire conflict is over. If you, then, leave that area undefended, and go to secure another area, your enemy will resume occupation of the area you abandoned. This is true in every theater.

Logistical strategy is distinct from political strategy. And the difference I'm talking about is not something that would have made an appreciable difference, politically. The only explanation I can see, for not applying normal tactics, necessary to the success of the operation, involves a goal which is antithetical to efficient and timely completion of the project.

[Peter1469]

EDIT: I don't remember saying "strategy of change". If I did, I meant to type "change of strategy".

From the declaration of victory to the implementation of the surge, in 2007, the US military bounced around Iraq securing and then leaving area after area. The surge involved a change in tactics, whereby all areas, once secured would be occupied, maned, defended.

Irrespective of what you want to do in the capitol, to "secure" another area only to, then, leave it, is a complete waste of time and resources. This is not something that should require a lot of explaining. You don't invade an area unless you believe it to be occupied by what you believe to be enemy forces. If that is true when you invade, it is potentially true at any time after your invasion, unless the entire conflict is over. If you, then, leave that area undefended, and go to secure another area, your enemy will resume occupation of the area you abandoned. This is true in every theater.

Logistical strategy is distinct from political strategy. And the difference I'm talking about is not something that would have made an appreciable difference, politically. The only explanation I can see, for not applying normal tactics, necessary to the success of the operation, involves a goal which is antithetical to efficient and timely completion of the project.

Where did you learn this? You don't have a handle on what was done in Iraq or Afghanistan and for why.

[nic34]

Doesn't anybody wonder why the surge involved a strategy change, whereby secured areas would, only from that point on, be occupied? This is four years into the engagement, and they are, just at this point deciding to employ proper tactics that had been common knowledge for millennia. The idea that Powell and friends didn't know the futility of expanding beyond your ability to defend is not even on my radar. Forget it. If there's one thing generals know how to do, it's fight a fucking war.

I was a news junkie during that time. I listened to Rush and Hannity, Herman Cain and Boortz a lot, mostly out of habit, but I never knew much about the particulars of strategy being employed. I don't know if it's because details weren't reported or if I just didn't pay attention to that. I still thought of defense as a legitimate function of government, so my attitude was that I don't have access to all the intelligence, so I don't make calls on that kind of thing.

Then I heard that strategy change on a report where someone was explaining the surge. I was shocked to hear it. I don't remember how long I wrestled with that in my head, but I got to the point where I couldn't reject the conclusion that that war had been intentionally prolonged for at least that long.

Can you think of reasons to reject that conclusion?

Why would you ever have listened exclusively to the propaganda arm of the political party of the president that started it all?

[Axiomatic]

Why would you ever have listened exclusively to the propaganda arm of the political party of the president that started it all?

There were several reasons. I already gave you one. Another is that I was a neocon of sorts, especially when it came to foreign policy. Your question indicates that you think that information disseminated on talk radio is not the same as that which his disseminated through other outlets. But that's false. If you tune in to any news, talk radio station and listen to it for a day, you should notice that it is a franchise of a company which also owns television outlets. CNN, ABC and FOX own most of the stations I listened to at the time. I traveled a lot, so it was a good number of stations. You should also notice that the reports that come around every half hour or so are the same Reuters and AP reports that appear on, and are printed in, all mainstream television outlets and newspapers, read verbatim. The information is exactly the same from all those sources. In addition to that, all you have is commentary. Your use of the word "exclusively", there, is presumptuous and false. Those weren't the only sources I tracked, just the main ones. I told you I was a news junkie. Like a good little brainwashed citizen, I took pride in the fact that I followed "all" sources.

[Axiomatic]

Where did you learn this? You don't have a handle on what was done in Iraq or Afghanistan and for why.

I posted this here because I thought that some of you guys who were there would be able to add some perspective, maybe even tell me something I haven't heard before, but you're not doing that. In fact, I'm starting to get the idea that you know less about it than I do. I assume that, if someone has a reason to believe something, he can tell me what that reason is, so, every time you repeat the assertion that I'm wrong without telling me why I'm wrong, it gives me another reason to believe I'm right, a tentative reason, but an additional one, nonetheless. You're asking me to believe that I have a vivid memory of something that never happened. I need more than "you're wrong" to accept that.

[Peter1469]

It isn't a conspiracy- you hit it: it is laziness. Most outlets just use the AP reports.


There were several reasons. I already gave you one. Another is that I was a neocon of sorts, especially when it came to foreign policy. Your question indicates that you think that information disseminated on talk radio is not the same as that which his disseminated through other outlets. But that's false. If you tune in to any news, talk radio station and listen to it for a day, you should notice that it is a franchise of a company which also owns television outlets. CNN, ABC and FOX own most of the stations I listened to at the time. I traveled a lot, so it was a good number of stations. You should also notice that the reports that come around every half hour or so are the same Reuters and AP reports that appear on, and are printed in, all mainstream television outlets and newspapers, read verbatim. The information is exactly the same from all those sources. In addition to that, all you have is commentary. Your use of the word "exclusively", there, is presumptuous and false. Those weren't the only sources I tracked, just the main ones. I told you I was a news junkie. Like a good little brainwashed citizen, I took pride in the fact that I followed "all" sources.

[Peter1469]

Everyone who deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have, or had security clearances so they do know more about the situation that those who did not.

Regarding the surge, it was not a strategy where
secured areas would, only from that point on, be occupied?. It was two things: the introduction of thousands of troops (20K combat and many more support troops and contractors), and it was the beginning of a counter-insurgency campaign. So while you saw less overt combat action, you saw increased patrols in civilian areas and night time raids of suspected insurgents. It was very aggressive and US causalities remained high until half way through the surge when they dramatically dropped.

The surge gave the Iraqi politicians time to organize and gather more power than the insurgents. It worked, but it was a short term fix- it was never intended to be anything more than that. We gave the Iraqis the opportunity to create their own fate. What they do with it, is up to them.



I posted this here because I thought that some of you guys who were there would be able to add some perspective, maybe even tell me something I haven't heard before, but you're not doing that. In fact, I'm starting to get the idea that you know less about it than I do. I assume that, if someone has a reason to believe something, he can tell me what that reason is, so, every time you repeat the assertion that I'm wrong without telling me why I'm wrong, it gives me another reason to believe I'm right, a tentative reason, but an additional one, nonetheless. You're asking me to believe that I have a vivid memory of something that never happened. I need more than "you're wrong" to accept that.

[Axiomatic]

Everyone who deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have, or had security clearances so they do know more about the situation that those who did not.

Regarding the surge, it was not a strategy where . It was two things: the introduction of thousands of troops (20K combat and many more support troops and contractors), and it was the beginning of a counter-insurgency campaign. So while you saw less overt combat action, you saw increased patrols in civilian areas and night time raids of suspected insurgents. It was very aggressive and US causalities remained high until half way through the surge when they dramatically dropped.

The surge gave the Iraqi politicians time to organize and gather more power than the insurgents. It worked, but it was a short term fix- it was never intended to be anything more than that. We gave the Iraqis the opportunity to create their own fate. What they do with it, is up to them.

The counter-insurgency campaign came to be called "clear, hold and build (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CF4QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA495007&ei=HuEqU-L8JuLj2QW-pIDgBQ&usg=AFQjCNFBhdZxhLlUzdMBNCEjDqoVyJ-sCw&sig2=UbsXi4E8aCoEswCDyrIhAA&bvm=bv.62922401,d.b2I)". Finding that paper was a nightmare because facts from seven years ago are buried under mountains of political nonsense, and I couldn't remember the terminology they used.

1) Clear the area by destroying, capturing, or forcing the withdrawal of
insurgent combatants

2) Hold the area with security forces (ideally HN forces), in order to effectively
reestablish a HN government presence at the local level

3) Build support for the HN government by protecting the populace and
improving economic, social, cultural, and medical needs3


The "clear" and "hold" part is what I'm talking about, and it's really just implementation of the simple principle that it is futile to try to expand beyond your ability to defend. The "hold" part is what they had not done over the previous four years, and what Rumsfeld openly opposed on the grounds that it is their country and it would have been impossible because the resources were unavailable. Now I'm starting to remember the dispute. Their opposition, including one of the generals, kept saying they needed more troops. Rumsfeld kept answering that he wanted to keep a "light footprint". It turned out not to have been impossible, and hindsight shows what anyone with any sense and a cursory knowledge of tactics knows, that it was necessary to accomplish the stated goal. The long delay of its implementation was either a giant blunder, in which case Rumsfeld and whoever else called the shots were incompetent, or it was not a blunder, in which case the delay was intentional.

Now that we've established that the OP is not a bunch of nonsense written by an idiot without a clue, can we get started on trying to think of an answer to my question, please?

I can't bring myself to believe that it was a blunder. Can you give me any reason to believe either that it was a blunder or that there was some justifiable reason to have intentionally delayed completion of the stated goal?

[Peter1469]

My problem is that I fundamentally disagree with the strategy and with the counter-insurgency doctrine- and I told General Petraeus that in a meet and greet. Not that it can't work- if you take a decade to really implement it. But rather that it isn't in the US interest to devote that much time to Iraq.

I don't think that it was a blunder. I think you had competing interests at the top and whoever was in favor at the time got their policies advanced. Thus the different strategies.

In my opinion we should have put a strong man who was pro-US in charge and then consolidated forces at the Balad air base, used Iraq as a staging ground to attack jihadists in the Middle East and left Iraq otherwise alone. We never should have become occupiers; then there never would have been an uprising or need for a surge.



The counter-insurgency campaign came to be called "clear, hold and build (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CF4QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA495007&ei=HuEqU-L8JuLj2QW-pIDgBQ&usg=AFQjCNFBhdZxhLlUzdMBNCEjDqoVyJ-sCw&sig2=UbsXi4E8aCoEswCDyrIhAA&bvm=bv.62922401,d.b2I)". Finding that paper was a nightmare because facts from seven years ago are buried under mountains of political nonsense, and I couldn't remember the terminology they used.

1) Clear the area by destroying, capturing, or forcing the withdrawal of
insurgent combatants

2) Hold the area with security forces (ideally HN forces), in order to effectively
reestablish a HN government presence at the local level

3) Build support for the HN government by protecting the populace and
improving economic, social, cultural, and medical needs3


The "clear" and "hold" part is what I'm talking about, and it's really just implementation of the simple principle that it is futile to try to expand beyond your ability to defend. The "hold" part is what they had not done over the previous four years, and what Rumsfeld openly opposed on the grounds that it is their country and it would have been impossible because the resources were unavailable. Now I'm starting to remember the dispute. Their opposition, including one of the generals, kept saying they needed more troops. Rumsfeld kept answering that he wanted to keep a "light footprint". It turned out not to have been impossible, and hindsight shows what anyone with any sense and a cursory knowledge of tactics knows, that it was necessary to accomplish the stated goal. The long delay of its implementation was either a giant blunder, in which case Rumsfeld and whoever else called the shots were incompetent, or it was not a blunder, in which case the delay was intentional.

Now that we've established that the OP is not a bunch of nonsense written by an idiot without a clue, can we get started on trying to think of an answer to my question, please?

I can't bring myself to believe that it was a blunder. Can you give me any reason to believe either that it was a blunder or that there was some justifiable reason to have intentionally delayed completion of the stated goal?

[Axiomatic]

Alright, the answer, then, is the same as I thought it was, that the reasons for war, given by the government, is not the actual reason, there's no reason to think any war is ever in the best interest of people, so people should not accept any excuse ever given by any government to go to war, should reject all future excuses for war, and should probably go ahead and disband all the governments, since all they seem to ever want to do is destroy everything.

[Bob]

Doesn't anybody wonder why the surge involved a strategy change, whereby secured areas would, only from that point on, be occupied? This is four years into the engagement, and they are, just at this point deciding to employ proper tactics that had been common knowledge for millennia. The idea that Powell and friends didn't know the futility of expanding beyond your ability to defend is not even on my radar. Forget it. If there's one thing generals know how to do, it's fight a fucking war.

I was a news junkie during that time. I listened to Rush and Hannity, Herman Cain and Boortz a lot, mostly out of habit, but I never knew much about the particulars of strategy being employed. I don't know if it's because details weren't reported or if I just didn't pay attention to that. I still thought of defense as a legitimate function of government, so my attitude was that I don't have access to all the intelligence, so I don't make calls on that kind of thing.

Then I heard that strategy change on a report where someone was explaining the surge. I was shocked to hear it. I don't remember how long I wrestled with that in my head, but I got to the point where I couldn't reject the conclusion that that war had been intentionally prolonged for at least that long.

Can you think of reasons to reject that conclusion?

Colin Powell played a very passive role in those wars during Bush 43.

General Tommy Franks is brilliant and his officers cooked up the war plans for both wars.

Study how fast he won in Afghanistan. Then try to grasp that our troops did not do much fighting.

The rather large forces of the rebel Afghanistans, aka northern forces, did the fighting.

Our role was to goad them, feed them, arm them and bomb targets from the air. Naturally the Taliban had no way to defeat our war planes. Franks had less than 1000 men scattered all over that large country. Small compared to our country, but where it is, pretty large.

Franks defeated Saddam Hussein in 3 weeks. Beat the tar out of the man. Franks plan was not for the refugees of Saddam to later, about a year later, to suddenly open up that can of worms.

When Bush announced major combat was over, he told the truth. It was over.

Now about the Surge. A lot has been written about the surge. How wonderful Gen. Petraeus is for coming up with it.

Fine, I don't mind him having credit. However, that plan was over vastly changed conditions.

And it worked. As planned.

[Bob]

My problem is that I fundamentally disagree with the strategy and with the counter-insurgency doctrine- and I told General Petraeus that in a meet and greet. Not that it can't work- if you take a decade to really implement it. But rather that it isn't in the US interest to devote that much time to Iraq.

I don't think that it was a blunder. I think you had competing interests at the top and whoever was in favor at the time got their policies advanced. Thus the different strategies.

In my opinion we should have put a strong man who was pro-US in charge and then consolidated forces at the Balad air base, used Iraq as a staging ground to attack jihadists in the Middle East and left Iraq otherwise alone. We never should have become occupiers; then there never would have been an uprising or need for a surge.

It did work. Bush as I understand him said it would be over when it was over. Obama decided to name a date. And today there still is hell to pay for naming a date to bail out.

Frankly, I prefer reading experts. I believe you are one of them Peter. I have as I told you read Gen. Franks book. I also read General De Long's fine book. De Long cuts to the chase where Franks book spends a lot of time to explain him as an EM and becoming an officer and working his way up the ladder. The actual war part's of his book are not really very long. Adequate for the layman, but not too long.

Petraeus worked for Franks. I think the 101 did a fine job but played the role of infantry mostly. I am not clear if that gave Petraeus an insight in surges or not. Petraeus may be taking all the credit for that tactic. Franks in his book shoved most of the credit to his lower ranking officers. Takes a tall man to pass the credit to those who did the 24/7 work for him.

[Bob]

Peter, since you have done the job, perhaps you may be willing to outline or fill in as much as you wish to, how war fighting happens. I am speaking only of the overall planning. Who does that planning and how is it all pulled together. I think it may help educate those who do not understand command over major units. I feel on my part that having studied several books on war fighting back to Alexander the Great, and our own American Generals, it won't so much be for me as for the forum. I still hope to learn something new as I presume you know a lot more than I know on this topic.

[Axiomatic]

Colin Powell played a very passive role in those wars during Bush 43.

General Tommy Franks is brilliant and his officers cooked up the war plans for both wars.

Study how fast he won in Afghanistan. Then try to grasp that our troops did not do much fighting.

The rather large forces of the rebel Afghanistans, aka northern forces, did the fighting.

Our role was to goad them, feed them, arm them and bomb targets from the air. Naturally the Taliban had no way to defeat our war planes. Franks had less than 1000 men scattered all over that large country. Small compared to our country, but where it is, pretty large.

Franks defeated Saddam Hussein in 3 weeks. Beat the tar out of the man. Franks plan was not for the refugees of Saddam to later, about a year later, to suddenly open up that can of worms.

When Bush announced major combat was over, he told the truth. It was over.

Now about the Surge. A lot has been written about the surge. How wonderful Gen. Petraeus is for coming up with it.

Fine, I don't mind him having credit. However, that plan was over vastly changed conditions.

And it worked. As planned.

Yeah, I know. When I typed that, the memory was a bit fuzzy in my head. I said Powell when I should have said Rummy. I've looked back into it since then, though, and the way I described the situation is correct.

[Bob]

The counter-insurgency campaign came to be called "clear, hold and build (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CF4QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA495007&ei=HuEqU-L8JuLj2QW-pIDgBQ&usg=AFQjCNFBhdZxhLlUzdMBNCEjDqoVyJ-sCw&sig2=UbsXi4E8aCoEswCDyrIhAA&bvm=bv.62922401,d.b2I)". Finding that paper was a nightmare because facts from seven years ago are buried under mountains of political nonsense, and I couldn't remember the terminology they used.

(snip some that Pete may have spoken of.)


The "clear" and "hold" part is what I'm talking about, and it's really just implementation of the simple principle that it is futile to try to expand beyond your ability to defend. The "hold" part is what they had not done over the previous four years, and what Rumsfeld openly opposed on the grounds that it is their country and it would have been impossible because the resources were unavailable.


Here one needs to understand the Mission you lay on Rumsfeld. First the Mission actually was pretty much totally controlled by Gen. Tommy Franks. Franks was a no bullshit General. He was not one bit afraid of Rumsfeld, Bush nor the other Senior Generals. He walked out of a meeting with the Generals who advised Bush in a huff over their interference. They apologized to him.

Franks did not design a war plan to keep America in charge. We wanted to get in and out fast. The idea was to defeat Saddam and stabilize them, they get the hell out. Not hang around to tell them what to do. When Saddam's army fled into the wood work and stayed in hiding, Bremer got blamed for disbanding the army of Iraq, but hell, they went home to sulk or maybe remain in fear. Saddam was so brutal perhaps his army expected it to be the way Americans were too. They were used to being brutalized.

Rumsfeld played a role in planning but really he was damned year not involved. Tommy Franks was promised by Bush that it was Tommy's way or no way. Franks did not want to be blamed for stuff not of his making.




Now I'm starting to remember the dispute. Their opposition, including one of the generals, kept saying they needed more troops. Rumsfeld kept answering that he wanted to keep a "light footprint".

True, he did. But that was Franks plan.
It turned out not to have been impossible, and hindsight shows what anyone with any sense and a cursory knowledge of tactics knows, that it was necessary to accomplish the stated goal. The long delay of its implementation was either a giant blunder, in which case Rumsfeld and whoever else called the shots were incompetent, or it was not a blunder, in which case the delay was intentional.


Wow, some of that is possible. But war is crafted perfectly. Then the enemy has it's say. Had Franks not been so determined to retire as soon as he won, maybe he rather than Petraeus would get the credit for the surge. Franks plans were in my view, flat out brilliant. Rather than think in terms of a blunder, think of change of command. Franks was followed by Generals who clearly changed how things got done. Franks was followed by in my view, a General who never should have got the job to run the show. When he took over, the shit hit the fan.
Peter is the expert in this and I am sure he can explain it better than I can

Now that we've established that the OP is not a bunch of nonsense written by an idiot without a clue, can we get started on trying to think of an answer to my question, please?

I can't bring myself to believe that it was a blunder. Can you give me any reason to believe either that it was a blunder or that there was some justifiable reason to have intentionally delayed completion of the stated goal?

[Bob]

Yeah, I know. When I typed that, the memory was a bit fuzzy in my head. I said Powell when I should have said Rummy. I've looked back into it since then, though, and the way I described the situation is correct.

Did you also read where you would have found out that even though Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense, he mostly was relegated to the sidelines since Franks demanded full authority from Bush and got it?

[Axiomatic]

You seem to be missing the point, Bob, which is



that that war had been intentionally prolonged
Can you think of reasons to reject that conclusion?

[Bob]

You have no idea how happy I am to see you posting over here. The battle isn't over yet, my friend, and you're needed to help carry on the fight.

Also, I'm actively watching this thread. I don't understand military stuff except from a "I read books like Vegetius's training manual on the Roman military" kind of nerd stuff, so I'm curious to see what those who do know about military stuff, like yourself, @Peter1469 (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=10), and @Codename Section (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=866) say.

While I too was in the Army, I was not an officer. Not all officers can handle questions like those above. They are not in that loop. I mean specifics as to why this or that happened.

I also read old war history and have for years. But I love reading the actual commanders books because he has to rely on official documents to tell the truth. If he lies, he will be called on it by officers who know how it is. I recall Col. David Hackworths books which I have some of, and how he told Generals they were full of crap. When you retire, you can say things you can't tell them on duty.

I think to understand Iraq best, one needs two or more books. Schwarzkopf's book and General Fred Franks book. A lot of stuff is said in the media that is not the same as in the General's books. They were there. When they lie, somebody calls them on it. Fred's book can teach you plenty about Tank battles and command. Tommys book will get you inside his mind on current war fighting.

Reminder, Colin Powells name gets brought up as some genius. Powell used the war fighting principles laid out in detail by General William F. Depuy. But democrats don't give him any credit. Powell was informed as Franks worked up his plan, but never told Franks he did not agree with Franks plans. Maybe because Franks demanded total authority, Powell was told to keep quiet by Bush. I am not clear on why Powell largely did not comment.

If all you guys studied are the news reports, you need books.

[Axiomatic]

This conversation goes the same way every time. Someone starts off by challenging my account of events, ignoring the question I ask, only to find out, in the end, my account of events was correct, and then goes on to not offer any reason to reject my initial conclusion which was all I was asking for in the first place. I don't know how many times I need to go through this. I've tried framing and phrasing the question differently, I've tried many things. the result is the same every time. I almost wish I hadn't brought it up, as no one seems to understand the point.

[Bob]

You seem to be missing the point, Bob, which is

Well, you said much more than that.
that that war had been intentionally prolonged
Can you think of reasons to reject that conclusion?


As I accurately reported, the war was over 3 weeks following the start in Iraq. If you go back to check, you will find out that while vandalism was happening, combat wasn't happening.

Franks retired and left Iraq. General Gonzales, I think .... took charge. When he ran things, stuff started going wrong but not until the following year.

So, once the mission changed from.. win, get in get out, to hell, we have to fight them again, of course it was prolonged. I look at it as two wars rather than just one.

[Akula]

We had no business in iraq in the first place.
A waste of resources and lives.
Halliburton and Blackwater (et al) probably think iraq was GREAT idea, though.

[Bob]

This conversation goes the same way every time. Someone starts off by challenging my account of events, ignoring the question I ask, only to find out, in the end, my account of events was correct, and then goes on to not offer any reason to reject my initial conclusion which was all I was asking for in the first place. I don't know how many times I need to go through this. I've tried framing and phrasing the question differently, I've tried many things. the result is the same every time. I almost wish I hadn't brought it up, as no one seems to understand the point.

OK, you are claiming that Peter who was an officer there, is not giving you an answer and that I, not having been an officer, yet with Army experience in fairly high HQ is not giving you what you want, is it possible it is not me and Pete but you?

You asked me if the war was prolonged.

My comment is in my opinion, that Peter may or may not share, is there were two wars.

War 1 was won in fine fashion super fast by General Tommy Franks. Leave out Rumsfeld.

War 2 was under the command of a different General since Franks retired from Iraq. Franks was the commander of Centcom, the grand boss.

Taken that way, it was prolonged. But Saddam's troops actually fought a fairly major war.

The insurgents were pests.

The Surge was to deal with pests.

[zelmo1234]

I posted this here because I thought that some of you guys who were there would be able to add some perspective, maybe even tell me something I haven't heard before, but you're not doing that. In fact, I'm starting to get the idea that you know less about it than I do. I assume that, if someone has a reason to believe something, he can tell me what that reason is, so, every time you repeat the assertion that I'm wrong without telling me why I'm wrong, it gives me another reason to believe I'm right, a tentative reason, but an additional one, nonetheless. You're asking me to believe that I have a vivid memory of something that never happened. I need more than "you're wrong" to accept that.

I think what you are assumes is that we were actually fighting a war, in the classical sense of a War (like WWII for example)

You have to remember that much of the military loyal to Sadam, was not destroyed, they just laid down their arms, took off the uniform and faded back to civilian life.

IN a real War You keep killing people and braking stuff until the other side will give you anything that you ask for, under any conditions demanded (Unconditional Surrender) What we did was much more of a police action. So it would be like the police coming to the store where an armed robber took place, looking for the robbers, cleaning up the broken glass and moving on!

IN a real war or what they did with the surge, was the same thing, accept the police officer now stayed in the store, or in the village in the case of Iraq.

And if you think about it, we were fighting the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan on a budget, or trying to go cheap if you will. The surge was expensive. but nation building is very expensive and there is a high chance that the return on investment will be low!

When you add to the fact that the US Military and Politicians would not commit to do some of the things that needed to be done because of trying to keep the image of being a good guy? You have all the issues for the insurgencies rising up and creating the mess that we are still fighting today

[Bob]

We had no business in iraq in the first place.
A waste of resources and lives.
Halliburton and Blackwater (et al) probably think iraq was GREAT idea, though.

That is a matter of personal opinion. But the opinion formed is formed by less than accurate knowledge of events from 1990 forward. It may be based on limited info from papers or TV

Bush actually only pushed the law that Clinton signed to full conclusion.

[Bob]

I think what you are assumes is that we were actually fighting a war, in the classical sense of a War (like WWII for example)

You have to remember that much of the military loyal to Sadam, was not destroyed, they just laid down their arms, took off the uniform and faded back to civilian life.

IN a real War You keep killing people and braking stuff until the other side will give you anything that you ask for, under any conditions demanded (Unconditional Surrender) What we did was much more of a police action. So it would be like the police coming to the store where an armed robber took place, looking for the robbers, cleaning up the broken glass and moving on!

IN a real war or what they did with the surge, was the same thing, accept the police officer now stayed in the store, or in the village in the case of Iraq.

And if you think about it, we were fighting the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan on a budget, or trying to go cheap if you will. The surge was expensive. but nation building is very expensive and there is a high chance that the return on investment will be low!

When you add to the fact that the US Military and Politicians would not commit to do some of the things that needed to be done because of trying to keep the image of being a good guy? You have all the issues for the insurgencies rising up and creating the mess that we are still fighting today

I would agree that pretty much hits it head on.

A lot of citizens see Iraq as one long war. I see it as THE war, won by General Franks who then retired, and piss ants running about mostly planting mines aka bombs.
But when Franks won, as Bush stated, major combat was over.

The rest amounted as you say to more a police action.

The surge was to help the police action.

[Bob]

We had no business in iraq in the first place.
A waste of resources and lives.
Halliburton and Blackwater (et al) probably think iraq was GREAT idea, though.

One more comment on Halliburton. Because Cheney was at one point, the President of that company, for purely political purposes, hacks decided to gang up on Halliburton.

However all you need to do is study how the Feds actually work and end this crap of blaming Halliburton to find the truth. Reference lesson. Study LOGCAP. This is how it actually worked.

As to Blackwater, many of those guys were guys who were war fighters due to their military training and fighting in the wars, yet were out of the military. A lot of people thank them for saving many lives.

I have studied analysis of many wars. And if you think of wars as perfect, think again. No war turns out as planned by Generals.

Grant waged war against Lee and Lee ran him ragged by killing off Grant's troops. Grant was lucky he had many replacements. Lee was not that lucky. Study the wilderness war in the Civil War to see how fucked up it was for Grant for about a year.

[Akula]

Doesn't matter if it was bush, clinton or lincoln...We had no business in iraq.
The whole "reason" was a trumped up fraud. First it was to punish iraq for helping al qaeda do 9/11...Then as the fraud was exposed the "mission" kept changing. Next it was to find WMD...when that charade collapsed it was "regime change"...

When invaders commit an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation they deserve whatever they get.

[Akula]

One more comment on Halliburton. Because Cheney was at one point, the President of that company, for purely political purposes, hacks decided to gang up on Halliburton.

However all you need to do is study how the Feds actually work and end this crap of blaming Halliburton to find the truth. Reference lesson. Study LOGCAP. This is how it actually worked.

As to Blackwater, many of those guys were guys who were war fighters due to their military training and fighting in the wars, yet were out of the military. A lot of people thank them for saving many lives.

I have studied analysis of many wars. And if you think of wars as perfect, think again. No war turns out as planned by Generals.

Grant waged war against Lee and Lee ran him ragged by killing off Grant's troops. Grant was lucky he had many replacements. Lee was not that lucky. Study the wilderness war in the Civil War to see how fucked up it was for Grant for about a year.

That's all fine...Blackwater made money...halliburton made money...ALL the defense contractors made money.General Dynamics, Pratt-Whitney, McDonnel-Douglas, ALL of them... ..but the invasion was illegal.
There is no way you can justify invading iraq.

[Bob]

This conversation goes the same way every time. Someone starts off by challenging my account of events, ignoring the question I ask, only to find out, in the end, my account of events was correct, and then goes on to not offer any reason to reject my initial conclusion which was all I was asking for in the first place. I don't know how many times I need to go through this. I've tried framing and phrasing the question differently, I've tried many things. the result is the same every time. I almost wish I hadn't brought it up, as no one seems to understand the point.
I want to hit this bong one more time.

What do you mean by your statements? You did make comments. Some accurate, some not.

But you asked questions.

We did our best to give you replies to your questions.

I suggest you poll boards. Find out who is expert. Who studies a lot of war history. Ask them first.

Peter is an expert. I like to think of myself as very very well informed, but not the expert Peter is.

[zelmo1234]

We had no business in iraq in the first place.
A waste of resources and lives.
Halliburton and Blackwater (et al) probably think iraq was GREAT idea, though.

Standing up for the contractors, at little (I was one of them in full disclosure) When the military decided to outsource food, training and many other military essentials, you opened the door for this to happen.

Then much of the duties of the MP's could be taken over, and last the USA is really, really concerned that people around the world think we are goo people. In a War there is some really awful things that need to happen to be successful, when you don't want your finger prints on those actions, it was way to short of a jump to get the contractors to do it!

[Bob]

That's all fine...Blackwater made money...halliburton made money...ALL the defense contractors made money.General Dynamics, Pratt-Whitney, McDonnel-Douglas, ALL of them... ..but the invasion was illegal.
There is no way you can justify invading iraq.


Fine, during wars, all kinds of companies make billions.

That is the nature of wars.

But i almost say so what. Congress approved the wars.

Clinton sighed the law to get rid of Saddam.

And you say it was not legal????

You are declaring Clinton's public law is not legal. That Congress had no right to engage in war.

Well, don't that beat all.

Hey, I wish that war never happened. I wish Bush has ignored the public law and just not fought that war. But to say it was illegal, not a fact. Emotion is what you bring to the table. I bring facts.

My emotion wants to fully agree with you. But I am a follower of facts.

[Akula]

Standing up for the contractors, at little (I was one of them in full disclosure) When the military decided to outsource food, training and many other military essentials, you opened the door for this to happen.

Then much of the duties of the MP's could be taken over, and last the USA is really, really concerned that people around the world think we are goo people. In a War there is some really awful things that need to happen to be successful, when you don't want your finger prints on those actions, it was way to short of a jump to get the contractors to do it!

How much does a combat soldier make? How much does a mercenary make. I'll bet the merc makes more...and of course his "employer" gets a cut.
Don't kid yourself. It has nothing to do with "protecting our freedom" or "fighting for our country"....as if iraq could somehow "steal" our freedom.:rollseyes: I don't think there's much chance of an iraqi invasion here, either...LMAO..

It's all about money.

The reason we "needed" mercs was because they don't have to follow ROE and they really don't have to answer for their antics. There isn't a formal chain of command.
You can't tell me that the military can't guard it's own convoys or provide "security" details.

It's all about money and the military-industrial complex..as Eisenhower said.

[Bob]

http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Akula http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=584142#post584142)
We had no business in iraq in the first place.
A waste of resources and lives.
Halliburton and Blackwater (et al) probably think iraq was GREAT idea, though.



Standing up for the contractors, at little (I was one of them in full disclosure) When the military decided to outsource food, training and many other military essentials, you opened the door for this to happen.

Then much of the duties of the MP's could be taken over, and last the USA is really, really concerned that people around the world think we are good people. In a War there is some really awful things that need to happen to be successful, when you don't want your finger prints on those actions, it was way to short of a jump to get the contractors to do it!

Again, I find myself agreeing.

Today soldiers don't get up early and go to the mess hall to cook and do dishes and prepare food.

When I was in the Army, troops did all of that. They stood guard duty. They were told to get into jeeps and patrol.

But is that the best use of troops?

Cops don't go to work to do dishes. They do a job.

The Feds figure it saves them money but lets the troops do the important task of being troops who are better trained than the Army I was in. These current Army guys are very good. They actually learn war by doing. We practiced but much was in the dead of winter because of costs to the Gov. It was cheaper in winter than summer. Why?

Germans had crops out in summer. They had animals running around.

Most of you will never read about this but let me give you some facts when I was in during 62-64

I doubt Peter knows this.

I got this because of my job at a Battalion HQ where I knew the guys actually paying Germans who told me costs.

Say we ran over a chicken, and we ran over hundreds or maybe more. Chickens today cost what?

Pick any number.

Bear in mind, we are talking Government now, and not consumers.

Germans collected $50 per chicken ran over. (to give you comparison, my then army pay was about $80 per month) I later got promoted and on departure from Germany it was just shy of $140 per month)

Germans collected $200 per small tree ran over. APC'S can do one hell of a lot of destruction as can Tanks.

I recall a Tank rolling over a German wagon that we called honey wagons. I don't know what that cost but it easily could cost hundreds of dollars. I saw a home that was partly destroyed when the driver of the tank hit the house. Fences, ripped to shreds. We paid big money for that damage. My source told me the damage per week was about a million dollars.

Command tried to prevent what was called Manuever damage but it did not stop all of it.

[Spectre]

The real reason the Iraq War occurred was that Saddam was regularly violating the terms of the peace agreement, he gave the allies no choice BUT to invade and topple him.

It was not acceptable to have a largely hostile power poised to invade and take over the greatest oil reserves on the planet. That would have been a knife to the throat of the entire west.

Did the subsequent peace live up to the more optimistic expectations of those who, like me, supported the war? No, it did not. Actually, the entire experience has turned me against the enterprise of spreading democracy. I would simply have handed Iraq over to another strong man, a more pro-Western and not as psychotic one, and left.

[Akula]

Fine, during wars, all kinds of companies make billions.

That is the nature of wars.

But i almost say so what. Congress approved the wars.

Clinton sighed the law to get rid of Saddam.

And you say it was not legal????

You are declaring Clinton's public law is not legal. That Congress had no right to engage in war.

Well, don't that beat all.

Hey, I wish that war never happened. I wish Bush has ignored the public law and just not fought that war. But to say it was illegal, not a fact. Emotion is what you bring to the table. I bring facts.

My emotion wants to fully agree with you. But I am a follower of facts.

Just because an american president says it's "ok", that doesn't make it "legal" to invade sovereign nations.

But look..here we (the govt) are complaining about russia invading the ukraine...double standard.

[Bob]

How much does a combat soldier make? How much does a mercenary make. I'll bet the merc makes more...and of course his "employer" gets a cut.
Don't kid yourself. It has nothing to do with "protecting our freedom" or "fighting for our country"....as if iraq could somehow "steal" our freedom.:rollseyes: I don't think there's much chance of an iraqi invasion here, either...LMAO..

It's all about money.

The reason we "needed" mercs was because they don't have to follow ROE and they really don't have to answer for their antics. There isn't a formal chain of command.
You can't tell me that the military can't guard it's own convoys or provide "security" details.

It's all about money and the military-industrial complex..as Eisenhower said.

Nobody says the troops get paid as much. But when I was in the Army, the Army turned us into slaves.

I mean slaves, not some mistake. We were told what to do, when and when to stop. They don't pay slaves as much as they pay contractors.

I suspect most of us agree that the war in Iraq stinks form today's view. But keep in mind what the Congress kept saying. When you think of Bush, think of the president who showed up to work and had a public law to enforce called the Iraq freedom law. Maybe the wording is a bit off. But it was the public law signed by Clinton that stated it was to get rid of Saddam Hussein.

Bush did it fast. I think it was done super fast.

A lot think FDR was full of shit too. Truman caught hell for Korea. Johnson for Vietnam.

This crap has happened in the past and based on the shit pulled by Obama, I expect it again.

Who the hell would imagine we had a president that bombed countries we are not at war with? Yemen on Sat for instance.

Clinton did it to Yugoslavia before that country broke up. Clinton bombed Iraq a lot too. Democrats want us to forget that stuff.

[Spectre]

Just because an american president says it's "ok", that doesn't make it "legal" to invade sovereign nations.

But look..here we (the govt) are complaining about russia invading the ukraine...double standard.

Saddam was under obligation to cooperate with the peace treaty he signed, and he did not, rendering resumption of hostilities inevitable.

[Bob]

Just because an american president says it's "ok", that doesn't make it "legal" to invade sovereign nations.

But look..here we (the govt) are complaining about russia invading the ukraine...double standard.

Well, Congress said it was fine.

Were you this upset when Clinton bombed Yugoslavia for 3 months? Are you pissed that Obama bombed Yemen Saturday? Don't you think Obama is begging for war with Russia?

[Bob]

The real reason the Iraq War occurred was that Saddam was regularly violating the terms of the peace agreement, he gave the allies no choice BUT to invade and topple him.

It was not acceptable to have a largely hostile power poised to invade and take over the greatest oil reserves on the planet. That would have been a knife to the throat of the entire west.

Did the subsequent peace live up to the more optimistic expectations of those who, like me, supported the war? No, it did not. Actually, the entire experience has turned me against the enterprise of spreading democracy. I would simply have handed Iraq over to another strong man, a more pro-Western and not as psychotic one, and left.

I don't know where our opponents get their information from. Probably the left wing news we have poured over us daily by the major news. I notice that they do not tell the truth about Ukraine and totally blow it reference Crimea.

I think they accepted as true what the left media told them about Iraq.

Briefs on wars can run several hours. How can the media inform us in maybe 5 minutes?

[Axiomatic]

OK, you are claiming that Peter who was an officer there, is not giving you an answer and that I, not having been an officer, yet with Army experience in fairly high HQ is not giving you what you want, is it possible it is not me and Pete but you?

You asked me if the war was prolonged.

My comment is in my opinion, that Peter may or may not share, is there were two wars.

War 1 was won in fine fashion super fast by General Tommy Franks. Leave out Rumsfeld.

War 2 was under the command of a different General since Franks retired from Iraq. Franks was the commander of Centcom, the grand boss.

Taken that way, it was prolonged. But Saddam's troops actually fought a fairly major war.

The insurgents were pests.

The Surge was to deal with pests.

Yeah, I considered the possibility that I'm looking at it wrong. It turned out not to be the case. The war was prolonged intentionally. I don't see how calling it two wars changes anything. It's still the same set of forces engaging the same set of other forces. I don't how looking at insurgents as pests sheds any light on the matter. From the perspective of the US government, they were THE enemy. They had always been known as THE enemy. Every general involved knew good and well that you don't defeat a mobile enemy by repeatedly abandoning secured areas for four years.

Peter didn't address the question except to say that he opposes regime change and would have liked to have followed a different plan altogether, which doesn't bear on my initial question.

[Bob]

The reason we "needed" mercs was because they don't have to follow ROE and they really don't have to answer for their antics. There isn't a formal chain of command.
You can't tell me that the military can't guard it's own convoys or provide "security" details.

I bet you believe that and are not simply saying it to make yourself feel good. Sadly, not true. Do you really think the Feds have no rules for contractors? That they hire ex post office workers when they can hire military trained people? Good grief. Ask Peter what he would do were he hired as a contractor. His skills as an officer in the military would kick in and he would run the show just like the Army.

Who do you think got hired? Guys that worked on factory lines?

They hired military guys that took orders.

[Bob]

Yeah, I considered the possibility that I'm looking at it wrong. It turned out not to be the case. The war was prolonged intentionally. I don't see how calling it two wars changes anything. It's still the same set of forces engaging the same set of other forces. I don't how looking at insurgents as pests sheds any light on the matter. From the perspective of the US government, they were THE enemy. They had always been known as THE enemy. Every general involved knew good and well that you don't defeat a mobile enemy by repeatedly abandoning secured areas for four years.

Peter didn't address the question except to say that he opposes regime change and would have liked to have followed a different plan altogether, which doesn't bear on my initial question.

So, you are saying that when Saddam was killed, his generals with tanks, artillery, a large infantry fought on?

That flies in the face of facts.

When you plant explosives on a road or next to the road, that is not how our army fights.

Hell, i told you it was prolonged and sure it was intentional. Maybe when I tell you yes, you see the word no. I don't understand you.

You made it black and white.

I wish it had been black and white. Rather than saying we abandoned areas, learn the truth.

We wanted desperately for the Iraqis to appreciate the loss of Saddam Hussein and his henchman, appreciate that they no longer could be rounded up by Saddam's troops and more than that, we wanted them to take it over and figure out how to manage peace.

Do you honestly blame our army who stayed in bases for the bombs on roads by some pests?

We wanted the Iraqis to not see us as their conqueror, but the liberator who picked up Saddam and killed his sons.

What books have you studied that were written by the people who actually waged the war?

[Axiomatic]

I think what you are assumes is that we were actually fighting a war, in the classical sense of a War (like WWII for example)

You have to remember that much of the military loyal to Sadam, was not destroyed, they just laid down their arms, took off the uniform and faded back to civilian life.

IN a real War You keep killing people and braking stuff until the other side will give you anything that you ask for, under any conditions demanded (Unconditional Surrender) What we did was much more of a police action. So it would be like the police coming to the store where an armed robber took place, looking for the robbers, cleaning up the broken glass and moving on!

IN a real war or what they did with the surge, was the same thing, accept the police officer now stayed in the store, or in the village in the case of Iraq.

And if you think about it, we were fighting the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan on a budget, or trying to go cheap if you will. The surge was expensive. but nation building is very expensive and there is a high chance that the return on investment will be low!

When you add to the fact that the US Military and Politicians would not commit to do some of the things that needed to be done because of trying to keep the image of being a good guy? You have all the issues for the insurgencies rising up and creating the mess that we are still fighting today

If you want to explain the whole thing on the assumption that all the information disseminated through the media was true, you probably have it as close as you could get to accuracy. But, at the time, the stated goal was, in so many words, regime change. If that was the goal, the methods employed would have been directed to that end. But, by any measure of efficiency, even by government standards, they were not. When we sum up all of what was actually done, we see a strategy directed to the end of hanging out in Iraq for a while.

[Bob]

I posted this here because I thought that some of you guys who were there would be able to add some perspective, maybe even tell me something I haven't heard before, but you're not doing that. In fact, I'm starting to get the idea that you know less about it than I do. I assume that, if someone has a reason to believe something, he can tell me what that reason is, so, every time you repeat the assertion that I'm wrong without telling me why I'm wrong, it gives me another reason to believe I'm right, a tentative reason, but an additional one, nonetheless. You're asking me to believe that I have a vivid memory of something that never happened. I need more than "you're wrong" to accept that.

What you are claiming is because you read some accounts by the press, you are now an expert.

Why then ask any questions?

Peter was there. As a fairly high ranking officer, the man knows what he is talking about.

I know what I know due to my deep study of those wars from plenty of sources, mostly official stuff rather than the left wing media, and like Peter is now in the Army, I once was. I got out long ago so in the meantime my study of wars and war fighting has ranged from today's wars to some that happened about two thousand five hundred years ago.

I have read Generals, presidents, Sec. of Defenses, VPs, you name it so I have a very good grasp of what took place.

Did I wish it took place?

No. I wish no wars took place.

[Akula]

The real reason the Iraq War occurred was that Saddam was regularly violating the terms of the peace agreement, he gave the allies no choice BUT to invade and topple him.

Oh..I see..we had no choice...That's different. /sarcasm


It was not acceptable to have a largely hostile power poised to invade and take over the greatest oil reserves on the planet. That would have been a knife to the throat of the entire west.

Imperialism is no excuse. What if russia decides the same thing..it isn't "acceptable" for the u.s. to control so much oil so they decide to attack...Would that be ok?


Did the subsequent peace live up to the more optimistic expectations of those who, like me, supported the war? No, it did not. Actually, the entire experience has turned me against the enterprise of spreading democracy. I would simply have handed Iraq over to another strong man, a more pro-Western and not as psychotic one, and left.

Saddam was our guy for years..just like bin laden was. Clearly they were operatives for the cia.

When the u.s. installed and supported shah of iran was finally run out of his country he came to the u.s. to hide...the iranians were pissed off because he got away with decades of murder and took over our embassy and held it for 400 some days...

The shah was a brutal dictator and killed thousand and thousands of his countrymen...but as long as he worked for us and danced when we pulled the strings, he was cool.

When iraq went to war against iran we couldn't have been happier. We gave saddam weapons and intel. As long as he was killing iranians for us he was cool.
Sure he was brutal and killed many of his citizens but as long as he stayed in line we left him alone.

Then when he threatened to retake kuwait..a country that iraq had a historic claim to, suddenly he had to go, despite our ambassador saying that we wouldn't interfere in ME affairs. To saddam that was tacit approval...at least it wasn't DIS approval.

So he retook kuwait and we "had" to invade to "protect" them.


Look at afghanistan and bin laden...When russia invaded afghan we couldn't give the taliban weapons and intel fast enough...as long as they were killing russians for us they were cool.

We made this mess and it's no wonder most people in the ME hate our imperialist guts.

[Akula]

I bet you believe that and are not simply saying it to make yourself feel good. Sadly, not true. Do you really think the Feds have no rules for contractors? That they hire ex post office workers when they can hire military trained people? Good grief. Ask Peter what he would do were he hired as a contractor. His skills as an officer in the military would kick in and he would run the show just like the Army.

Who do you think got hired? Guys that worked on factory lines?

They hired military guys that took orders.

I know (the company formerly known as) blackwater hires ex servicemen and I know why.

[Bob]

If you want to explain the whole thing on the assumption that all the information disseminated through the media was true, you probably have it as close as you could get to accuracy. But, at the time, the stated goal was, in so many words, regime change. If that was the goal, the methods employed would have been directed to that end. But, by any measure of efficiency, even by government standards, they were not. When we sum up all of what was actually done, we see a strategy directed to the end of hanging out in Iraq for a while.

I am not sure about Zelmo, but his accounts are accurate.

The plan as I told you was to get in, get the war over super fast, leave a small footprint to make sure the Iraqi public felt free to have a new government and not deal with pesky piss ants that planted bombs. Fallujah was really the major war later fought but that was just a city.

Our guys were getting blown up. Seldom engaged with any Saddam troops. They were like gangsters. They were more like amateurs to tell the truth. They managed to find explosives and plant them in the ground.

Mines are in many countries. Do you call that war?

[Bob]

http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Bob http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=584190#post584190)
I bet you believe that and are not simply saying it to make yourself feel good. Sadly, not true. Do you really think the Feds have no rules for contractors? That they hire ex post office workers when they can hire military trained people? Good grief. Ask Peter what he would do were he hired as a contractor. His skills as an officer in the military would kick in and he would run the show just like the Army.

Who do you think got hired? Guys that worked on factory lines?

They hired military guys that took orders.



I know (the company formerly known as) blackwater hires ex servicemen and I know why.

Thank you very much. We may now get somewhere.

[Akula]

What you are claiming is because you read some accounts by the press, you are now an expert.

I'm sure every private in the army is briefed daily on the purpose of the war and the days' targets and strategy...then they are briefed on the political situation and why they are there.
Then they probably take a poll and see what the privates want to attack that day and they have a meeting and get clearance...LMAO..

Yes, you were there...we get it. My point is that just because one was in a theater of war fighting, doesn't automatically make them an expert on the entire configuration of events.
You said you've read books by all these politicians...LMAO...the same politicians that sent you to get killed for halliburton, dow, gen dynamic, pratt-whitney, etc...etc...
Here's a secret...Politicians lie...Shocking, I know...and I suspect that when they are writing these books they tend to shade things in a way that makes them look "good". To believe that you are "enlightened" by reading a book that was carefully written and edited by a politician is amusing.

But go ahead and believe what politicians tell you. 5000 u.s. soldiers are dead because of the politicians and their war in iraq.
..and what have we accomplished, again? Can you tell me? Was it worth it?

[Peter1469]

Each level of command from the battalion and up has a large staff of officers that plan the battles. When you look at the modern American officer, after a full 30 years, with luck, he would have commanded for 6 years and most much less. The rest of the time he has been in staff jobs.

These positions cover the range of military affairs and they all work together, as needed, to create the plans for training and combat. They use the Military Decision Making Process.

I don't particularity like it. I prefer to make my own decisions and act quickly. I always managed to get on the red team to avoid the b.s.




Peter, since you have done the job, perhaps you may be willing to outline or fill in as much as you wish to, how war fighting happens. I am speaking only of the overall planning. Who does that planning and how is it all pulled together. I think it may help educate those who do not understand command over major units. I feel on my part that having studied several books on war fighting back to Alexander the Great, and our own American Generals, it won't so much be for me as for the forum. I still hope to learn something new as I presume you know a lot more than I know on this topic.

[Axiomatic]

So, you are saying that when Saddam was killed, his generals with tanks, artillery, a large infantry fought on?

No.



Hell, i told you it was prolonged and sure it was intentional. Maybe when I tell you yes, you see the word no. I don't understand you.

You made it black and white.

Okay, so you agree.

I know there is nuance and there are details in pretty much everything. What I narrowed it down to, here, is the information necessary to draw a particular conclusion. Any information in addition to that is superfluous, for that purpose.




I wish it had been black and white. Rather than saying we abandoned areas, learn the truth.

We wanted desperately for the Iraqis to appreciate the loss of Saddam Hussein and his henchman, appreciate that they no longer could be rounded up by Saddam's troops and more than that, we wanted them to take it over and figure out how to manage peace.

Do you honestly blame our army who stayed in bases for the bombs on roads by some pests?

We wanted the Iraqis to not see us as their conqueror, but the liberator who picked up Saddam and killed his sons.

What books have you studied that were written by the people who actually waged the war?

I don't know what you mean by "we", but "you" did abandon areas. I get the sense, by that language, that you might be personalizing this a bit too much. I understand the stated desires of that administration that you're expressing here. Nonetheless, as I've already said, that "strategy", employed prior to 2007 was known to be ineffective. And it is not just by hindsight, on my part, that I can say that. I knew, at the end of 2006, before the surge began, that the changes being described by descriptions of the surge would have been necessary to accomplish anything, as long as what you want to accomplish does not involve intentionally staying there. Maybe it would help you to understand that counterinsurgency tactics had been studied long before Iraq, and that the "clear hold and build" strategy is nothing new. It was proven at least as long ago as the Malayan Emergency in the 50s.

[Akula]

I am not sure about Zelmo, but his accounts are accurate.

The plan as I told you was to get in, get the war over super fast, leave a small footprint to make sure the Iraqi public felt free to have a new government and not deal with pesky piss ants that planted bombs. Fallujah was really the major war later fought but that was just a city.

Our guys were getting blown up. Seldom engaged with any Saddam troops. They were like gangsters. They were more like amateurs to tell the truth. They managed to find explosives and plant them in the ground.

Mines are in many countries. Do you call that war?

That's how patriots fight a non linear war against invaders to their homeland.
If the u.s was invaded you/we would do the same things.
We had no legitimate business in iraq.

[Peter1469]

One of my side duties was as our unit's foreign claims officer. So I know about the chicken thing. I found a lot of fraud, but paid lots of good claims. And it gets you out and about.


Again, I find myself agreeing.

Today soldiers don't get up early and go to the mess hall to cook and do dishes and prepare food.

When I was in the Army, troops did all of that. They stood guard duty. They were told to get into jeeps and patrol.

But is that the best use of troops?

Cops don't go to work to do dishes. They do a job.

The Feds figure it saves them money but lets the troops do the important task of being troops who are better trained than the Army I was in. These current Army guys are very good. They actually learn war by doing. We practiced but much was in the dead of winter because of costs to the Gov. It was cheaper in winter than summer. Why?

Germans had crops out in summer. They had animals running around.

Most of you will never read about this but let me give you some facts when I was in during 62-64

I doubt Peter knows this.

I got this because of my job at a Battalion HQ where I knew the guys actually paying Germans who told me costs.

Say we ran over a chicken, and we ran over hundreds or maybe more. Chickens today cost what?

Pick any number.

Bear in mind, we are talking Government now, and not consumers.

Germans collected $50 per chicken ran over. (to give you comparison, my then army pay was about $80 per month) I later got promoted and on departure from Germany it was just shy of $140 per month)

Germans collected $200 per small tree ran over. APC'S can do one hell of a lot of destruction as can Tanks.

I recall a Tank rolling over a German wagon that we called honey wagons. I don't know what that cost but it easily could cost hundreds of dollars. I saw a home that was partly destroyed when the driver of the tank hit the house. Fences, ripped to shreds. We paid big money for that damage. My source told me the damage per week was about a million dollars.

Command tried to prevent what was called Manuever damage but it did not stop all of it.

[Bob]

Saddam was our guy for years..just like bin laden was. Clearly they were operatives for the cia

Nope, Neither were. We at no time helped Bin Laden. This myth started by Democrats. They were full of shit then and are today.


Saddam simply was not our enemy since we were anti Iran, and since Saddam fought Iran we desired to not have Saddam as an enemy. But look at the arms Saddam owned and used. Russian stuff. French stuff. He did not have tanks made in the USA. They did not use USA weapons at all.

When the u.s. installed and supported shah of iran was finally run out of his country he came to the u.s. to hide...the iranians were pissed off because he got away with decades of murder and took over our embassy and held it for 400 some days...



Why don't you get to know Iranians to find out what really happened? However one caveat, not all Iranians know the truth. Same as in America. A lot of Democrats piled on that bull shit and some Americans believe it.



I have spent hours talking to both pro Shah Iranians and anti Shah Iranians. You seem to know only bits and pieces of Iranian history. Too bad too. You are making errors. This is the same shit spread by Democrats.

The shah was a brutal dictator and killed thousand and thousands of his countrymen...but as long as he worked for us and danced when we pulled the strings, he was cool.


Well, no doubt that Savak put them in jails and killed them. So what did Ayatollah do? He rounded them up, put them in jail and murdered them. And you think that was an improvement?

When iraq went to war against iran we couldn't have been happier. We gave saddam weapons and intel. As long as he was killing iranians for us he was cool



You can't name any weapons. Give it a shot. i need to laugh

Sure he was brutal and killed many of his citizens but as long as he stayed in line we left him alone.e


Today, Obama uses that same policy. When did you intend to bring that up?

Then when he threatened to retake kuwait..a country that iraq had a historic claim to, suddenly he had to go, despite our ambassador saying that we wouldn't interfere in ME affairs. To saddam that was tacit approval...at least it wasn't DIS approval


I know that bullshit story too. This is fun since I know all of the story back and forth. You seem to accept claims made by Iraq as fully truthful. But dismiss truth heard in this country. I have an excellent book on Iran. An Iranian friend gave it to me. He once supported Ayatollah but learned the hard way so he fled Iran. When he burned American flags, he had great joy. Later in the USA when he told me the story, even I laughed since he had come to love America.

First, Kuwait and Iraq had a border. Clever guy Saddam, decided if he plants trees to mark the border, it shows it. But then he planted many more trees only into Kuwait. When he invaded Kuwait based on some cock and bull tale, the trees had been moved miles from the beginning. The ambassador was taken the wrong way. This country did not give Saddam permission to invade Kuwait.

So he retook kuwait and we "had" to invade to "protect" them.


Makes no sense at all. This is the story told by Democrats. And when we bust them lying, they repeat it over and over.


Look at afghanistan and bin laden...When russia invaded afghan we couldn't give the taliban weapons and intel fast enough...as long as they were killing russians for us they were cool


We did not hand weapons to Bin Laden but sure, we handed Stinger missiles to the "freedom" fighters who fought Russia. Do you happen to recall the invasion of Afghanistan by Russia and how they killed off many of the tribes? Who at the time understood the Taliban. Not even the Media ran them down until it became evident that they were worse for Afghanistan than had been the Russians.

We made this mess and it's no wonder most people in the ME hate our imperialist guts.

Tell you this, a lot of them hate us. I don't see that Libya loves us given what Obama did. Syria can't be our friends. What about Afghanistan? Obama turned that into a cluster fuck. And look what he did to Pakistan. Bombing Yemen as Obama does is the path to friendship. LMAO Do you think Egypt loves Obama?

[Bob]

One of my side duties was as our unit's foreign claims officer. So I know about the chicken thing. I found a lot of fraud, but paid lots of good claims. And it gets you out and about.

In Germany when I was there, to try to mitigate damage, our war games were in winter. Even so, when chickens should have been locked up in the Germans property, we saw them all over the place begging to be killed. It was German fraud or maybe welfare I suppose.

It is next to impossible for large tank units to be out in the country and not raise hell and damage a lot of things.

[Akula]

Tell you this, a lot of them hate us. I don't see that Libya loves us given what Obama did. Syria can't be our friends. What about Afghanistan? Obama turned that into a cluster fuck. And look what he did to Pakistan. Bombing Yemen as Obama does is the path to friendship. LMAO Do you think Egypt loves Obama?

Ok..I'm not going point by point but I'll touch on a couple.
You seem to have a lot of anger about democrats... I'll tell you right now that I despise both parties and know them all to be liars...You can get over that "our side is better" BS. It won't fly with me.

Let's talk about your simplistic view of iraq/kuwait border.

The place was called Persia prior to WWI. There was no iraq,iran, etc....It was all Persia.

After the war the winners arbitrarily drew some new lines on the map to split up their spoils.

That created artificial "nations" made up often of groups that hated each others guts. That never works..look at the Balkans...Czechoslovakia...etc....

When the authority eventually breaks down there comes a period of ethnic cleansing because people who hate each other were forced by gunpoint to co exist.

In fact it'll be the same in america when we collapse. Think hurricane Katrina chaos nationwide. There will be blood.

anyway...
Iraq had a historic claim to kuwait. Arguable? maybe..but no more so than us stealing texas from mexico.

[Bob]

That's how patriots fight a non linear war against invaders to their homeland.
If the u.s was invaded you/we would do the same things.
We had no legitimate business in iraq.

For the sake of hoots and giggles, let's agree that we had no business there.

But don't blame it on Bush.

Bush could not sent a major army, navy, marines and air force there with no approval of Democrats.

Matter of fact, he was even shoved into war by Democrats. Even Clinton left Bush a public law to obey.

[Akula]

For the sake of hoots and giggles, let's agree that we had no business there.

But don't blame it on Bush.

Bush could not sent a major army, navy, marines and air force there with no approval of Democrats.

Matter of fact, he was even shoved into war by Democrats. Even Clinton left Bush a public law to obey.


Christ..bush, clinton, Warren G. Harding, Gerry Ford......who flipping cares?
You all wrapped up in this "our side is better" paradigm. If you can let go of that you'd see that NONE of them have the nations best interest at heart.
Not the democrats..not the republicans.

THEY are responsible for everything that is wrong in this country. BOTH parties are complicit.

[Bob]

Ok..I'm not going point by point but I'll touch on a couple.
You seem to have a lot of anger about democrats... I'll tell you right now that I despise both parties and know them all to be liars...You can get over that "our side is better" BS. It won't fly with me.

Let's talk about your simplistic view of iraq/kuwait border.

The place was called Persia prior to WWI. There was no iraq,iran, etc....It was all Persia.

After the war the winners arbitrarily drew some new lines on the map to split up their spoils.

That created artificial "nations" made up often of groups that hated each others guts. That never works..look at the Balkans...Czechoslovakia...etc....

When the authority eventually breaks down there comes a period of ethnic cleansing because people who hate each other were forced by gunpoint to co exist.

In fact it'll be the same in america when we collapse. Think hurricane Katrina chaos nationwide. There will be blood.

anyway...
Iraq had a historic claim to kuwait. Arguable? maybe..but no more so than us stealing texas from mexico.

Well, don't get the idea that I believe that republicans are hot shit. I vote for them because I can't stand democrats and any other party has no chance.

Let's use horse racing. We have two horses that are loaded with money and top training. The rest of the field are dogs.

You may vote for the dogs, but they are not going to beat either party.
I vote my way to stop Democrats. So you lash out at republicans so I speak for them.

I came close to voting for Ross Perot until the Sumbich boogied out and only later returned claiming he was wanted by the people. Bull crap. He should have never quit and republicans like me would have helped him beat Clinton.

I am well aware of the history of that area so your lesson though appreciated is of no help.

Let's face it. You despised the Shah. Yet your comments do not make it appear you despised Saddam Hussein. Why is that?

OK, I have not defended Polk taking Tex from the Mexicans.

Reading your case, you appear to actually making a case that Iran aka Persia (you are entirely correct there) owns both Iraq and Kuwait.

When Polk took a very large land mass, some 525,000 square miles, and paid off the Mexicans, even with the Mexicans that took care of that. Some Mexicans were angry, but all in all, most Mexicans did not lose a thing and that 15 million dollars paid for things they must have liked to have at the time.

Will this country collapse, I am a bit gloomy and you might be right.

One good thing, due to what Polk did, I live in California rather than Mexiformia. Though they are coming here in droves, perhaps to recover the state.

[Bob]

Christ..bush, clinton, Warren G. Harding, Gerry Ford......who flipping cares?
You all wrapped up in this "our side is better" paradigm. If you can let go of that you'd see that NONE of them have the nations best interest at heart.
Not the democrats..not the republicans.

THEY are responsible for everything that is wrong in this country. BOTH parties are complicit.

There is nobody but them. When actors show up for a play, the audience watches. We don't get to rush to the stage to take the play over.

Sure, both parties are terrible.

But who you think I can vote for that will win?

[Akula]

You really think you can "vote" and fix this country?
This system can't be fixed by using this system. It is broken beyond repair.

Regardless, whoever wins, WE lose.

A day of reckoning approaches.

[Bob]

No.



Okay, so you agree.

I know there is nuance and there are details in pretty much everything. What I narrowed it down to, here, is the information necessary to draw a particular conclusion. Any information in addition to that is superfluous, for that purpose.




I don't know what you mean by "we", but "you" did abandon areas. I get the sense, by that language, that you might be personalizing this a bit too much. I understand the stated desires of that administration that you're expressing here. Nonetheless, as I've already said, that "strategy", employed prior to 2007 was known to be ineffective. And it is not just by hindsight, on my part, that I can say that. I knew, at the end of 2006, before the surge began, that the changes being described by descriptions of the surge would have been necessary to accomplish anything, as long as what you want to accomplish does not involve intentionally staying there. Maybe it would help you to understand that counterinsurgency tactics had been studied long before Iraq, and that the "clear hold and build" strategy is nothing new. It was proven at least as long ago as the Malayan Emergency in the 50s.

Any Army that comes from America will first conquer than pull back to bases for a long time. We are still in Korea, Japan and Germany. We were in France until France ran us out.

I don't know about your withdrawal comments. If by that you mean they did the normal thing, yes they did.

You speak of this event as if the USA planned to conquer Saddam and force the public to live with us for years and years.

That was NEVER the plan.

So why was the plan changed.

As they say about war, you make plans.

The enemy also makes plans. Things change once you encounter the enemy.


i went into detail with you in informing you of the Gen. Franks plan. Why name just him? He told Bush he would refuse to wage either war, unless Bush turned it over to him. Most blame the wrong guys.

Had things worked as planned, the Iraqis would manage the country and not wage war with their fellow citizens.

We made mistakes. Any person that denies we made mistakes is not honest.

I am well aware of counter insurgency. It was used in many other places. Petraeus did not invent it.

But a lot will also say Petraeus made mistakes.

That goes with the job.

Let me see I get your argument and limit it to one thing.

You believe it was done wrong?????

Well, nothing is perfect.

[Bob]

You really think you can "vote" and fix this country?
This system can't be fixed by using this system. It is broken beyond repair.

Regardless, whoever wins, WE lose.

A day of reckoning approaches.

Nope. Do you have any extra tanks or machine guns?

What do you plan to do about the collapse other than tell me it will happen?

[Bob]

http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Bobhttp://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=584108#post584108)Peter, since you have done the job, perhaps you may be willing to outline or fill in as much as you wish to, how war fighting happens. I am speaking only of the overall planning. Who does that planning and how is it all pulled together. I think it may help educate those who do not understand command over major units. I feel on my part that having studied several books on war fighting back to Alexander the Great, and our own American Generals, it won't so much be for me as for the forum. I still hope to learn something new as I presume you know a lot more than I know on this topic.


Each level of command from the battalion and up has a large staff of officers that plan the battles. When you look at the modern American officer, after a full 30 years, with luck, he would have commanded for 6 years and most much less. The rest of the time he has been in staff jobs.

These positions cover the range of military affairs and they all work together, as needed, to create the plans for training and combat. They use the Military Decision Making Process.

I don't particularity like it. I prefer to make my own decisions and act quickly. I always managed to get on the red team to avoid the b.s.


Listen up folks. Peter told you how it works.

Even when I was in Battalion HQ, I was well aware and acquainted with our WAR ROOM and the senior officers who had the job of planning. It has been many years but given the time I might be able to name the S-1 to S-4 we had for most of the time. I did not follow the CO to HQ, but understood that even as a Captain, he still spent time in the War Room and out in the field in the Command APC. I am thinking of the names. I knew all of them. Trouble is, that was more than 50 years ago.

At the level of my job, I kept my eyes open. I love learning jobs and think my CO appreciated me more than he did the dumb cluck he had before me.

We had this dude from Oklahoma who was prejudiced. CO came from Louisiana and was mixed blood with blue eyes. Glenn blurted out one day something about N'gars and CO heard it. That ended his job as Co clerk. I had not wanted the job. I had a bit of fun running around using the Jeep. That ended when I was put into the office.

And the books on this I have consumed. I swear that at time times in my weak moments, I regret not going to OCS since I think I might have attained a high rank. But then I would have ended up in Vietnam so no thanks. I was making plenty of money in construction as well.

Finally, this is exactly why Tommy Franks gave lavish praise to those below him. He never claimed he did it all by himself. But he sure did not want Bush or Rumsfeld telling him his job.

Some Generals would hog all the credit and not praise down to Bat. Level.

[Akula]

Nope. Do you have any extra tanks or machine guns?

No. Why do you ask? Do you?


What do you plan to do about the collapse other than tell me it will happen?

Follow directions, man my position and do my part.

I'll be ok.

What do you plan to do?

[Bob]

http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Bob http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=584210#post584210)
What you are claiming is because you read some accounts by the press, you are now an expert.


I'm sure every private in the army is briefed daily on the purpose of the war and the days' targets and strategy...then they are briefed on the political situation and why they are there.
Then they probably take a poll and see what the privates want to attack that day and they have a meeting and get clearance...LMAO..

Yes, you were there...we get it. My point is that just because one was in a theater of war fighting, doesn't automatically make them an expert on the entire configuration of events.
You said you've read books by all these politicians...LMAO...the same politicians that sent you to get killed for halliburton, dow, gen dynamic, pratt-whitney, etc...etc...
Here's a secret...Politicians lie...Shocking, I know...and I suspect that when they are writing these books they tend to shade things in a way that makes them look "good". To believe that you are "enlightened" by reading a book that was carefully written and edited by a politician is amusing.

But go ahead and believe what politicians tell you. 5000 u.s. soldiers are dead because of the politicians and their war in iraq.
..and what have we accomplished, again? Can you tell me? Was it worth it?

Corrections to the above.
1. I was in the Army in 62-4 and my theater was Germany.
2. Books. i stated I have read books by Generals as well as some lower ranking officers, such as Col. David Hackworth, now dead.

Along with that, I read Bush's book, Cheney's book, Rumsfeld's book and Paul Bremer's book.

I realize you may not trust those books, but that sure beats Woodwards book. At least those books I studied were by those who had the jobs. And this is on modern wars. I have also read other books about other wars and other Generals.

As I recall this, and i am 999. percent sure of it, Clinton hired Halliburton and not Bush. Those other companies are long time suppliers to defense.

Would you write a book that made you look shitty?

Bill Malloy and I used to debate all the time. The man is an author. We had a lot of fun. And he also feels like you that voting is wrong. Not worth your trouble.

At the end, Bill and I were great with each other but he is an author. I am not.

http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Government-Like-nonvoters-manifesto/dp/1553695739


Actually on wars, I prefer to study the Generals and lesser officers rather than the politicians. I did that for the latest wars.

You cite 5000 dead.

When I was a lad, and FDR my president, he lost that many troops in a few hours.

I dunno, that seems to me to be a poor way to discuss wars.

[Bob]

No. Why do you ask? Do you?



Follow directions, man my position and do my part.

I'll be ok.

What do you plan to do?

I have my confederate battle flag but at the moment am not in any of the militias that plan to toss out this government.

[Akula]

I have my confederate battle flag but at the moment am not in any of the militias that plan to toss out this government.

I guess you're trying to be...funny...or something.

[Spectre]

I have my confederate battle flag but at the moment am not in any of the militias that plan to toss out this government.

Those fat-ass Duck Commander types will be crushed within 5/6 hours of declaring independence.

[Bob]

http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Bob http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=584316#post584316)
I have my confederate battle flag but at the moment am not in any of the militias that plan to toss out this government.


Those fat-ass Duck Commander types will be crushed within 5/6 hours of declaring independence.

Guys my age don't need war. War will be waged by our children.

Sure, you know how the politicians are, but long can the youth in the Army bear to do wrong?

[Akula]

As I recall this, and i am 999. percent sure of it, Clinton hired Halliburton and not Bush. Those other companies are long time suppliers to defense.
Yes..those contractors and lots more.
....and did they make a lot of money because we just HAD to invade iraq? I think the answer is "yes, they did".

Do those companies have lobbyists working the congressmen and senators? I think the answer is "yes, they do".
What could they POSSIBLY be lobbying for?
More contracts would probably be a good estimate. Gotta feed the beast.

Why is it so important to you to highlight one politician over the other. "Clinton did it, not Bush".
That's probably the 7th or 8th time you mention THIS politician did THIS not THAT...

Again..who cares? they are all the same. They are the ones responsible for the situation the country is in today. Both parties.




Would you write a book that made you look shitty?

Well no. But by saying that, you acknowledge that there are probably a lot of lies in those books. Good.



You cite 5000 dead.
When I was a lad, and FDR my president, he lost that many troops in a few hours.

I dunno, that seems to me to be a poor way to discuss wars.

WWII was (arguably) a "righteous" war. We were attacked.

The illegal invasion of a sovereign country who has done nothing to you (iraq) is not righteous.

...and for what it's worth WWII was a little bit of a bigger conflict than iraq but wasting the lives of over 5000 u.s. soldiers in an illegal invasion doesn't seem to bother you.

[Bob]

I guess you're trying to be...funny...or something.

Does your plan sound funny to you? You wanted to know my plans.

I told you.

[Spectre]

Here's the ineluctable fact:

As long as the Islamofascists have declared war against you--and make no mistake, they most certainly HAVE--you will be AT WAR.

Get used to it, adapt yourself to this unavoidable fact. You will feel better about it and give up fantasies of 'peace'.

[Akula]

Those fat-ass Duck Commander types will be crushed within 5/6 hours of declaring independence.

What is a 'duck commander' and who is going to crush them/it?

[Spectre]

What is a 'duck commander' and who is going to crush them/it?

Oh jeez! I don't know if I want to do all the tying necessary that can explicate it!:tongue:

[Akula]

Does your plan sound funny to you? You wanted to know my plans.

I told you.


I have my confederate battle flag but at the moment am not in any of the militias that plan to toss out this government.
Why a confederate battle flag? Don't you live in Cali?

I don't have a confederate battle flag and I'm not in a militia.

I'm well prepared and know how to hunt and survive off the grid, so to speak.

I live in an area where hurricanes regularly make landfall. We're used to getting by without electricity and gasoline or stores or ice, etc...
We practice for a couple of weeks every year almost.... whether we want to or not.

[Bob]

Yes..those contractors and lots more.
....and did they make a lot of money because we just HAD to invade iraq? I think the answer is "yes, they did". YES

Do those companies have lobbyists working the congressmen and senators? I think the answer is "yes, they do".

YES
What could they POSSIBLY be lobbying for?
More contracts would probably be a good estimate. Gotta feed the beast. TRUE

Why is it so important to you to highlight one politician over the other. "Clinton did it, not Bush".
That's probably the 7th or 8th time you mention THIS politician did THIS not THAT...

When one points fingers, I like to name names.

Again..who cares? they are all the same. They are the ones responsible for the situation the country is in today. Both parties.




Well no. But by saying that, you acknowledge that there are probably a lot of lies in those books. Good.

That is subjective. We might quit reading books by assuming the authors lie all the time. I note, to inform you, the way the author states they know facts. Memory can deceive. Records by many others at the times, bring material into sharp focus. Franks used records as did the others I named.




WWII was (arguably) a "righteous" war. We were attacked.
It could have been prevented.

The illegal invasion of a sovereign country who has done nothing to you (iraq) is not righteous.

Illegal from the point of view of some of the iraqi's but were you to ask them to take Saddam back, if he was living, they would not want the man. As to this system, it was correctly used.

...and for what it's worth WWII was a little bit of a bigger conflict than iraq but wasting the lives of over 5000 u.s. soldiers in an illegal invasion doesn't seem to bother you.

It does bother me. But it gives me giggles when you don't understand that in one period of a few hours, that many died a number of times. But I notice you say that war was correct. My uncle was killed in the early days of Korea and fought WW2. I care. I may care more than you care. I have skin in the game.

[Bob]

[COLOR=#333333][I]
Why a confederate battle flag? Don't you live in Cali?

It is part of my family heritage, my roots. Just as is the American flag, CA flag, Utah flag.... OK flag, The Carolina's flags, TX flag, Mississipi flag, Arkansas flag....

I don't have a confederate battle flag and I'm not in a militia

I have an american flag that flew on the mast of the sunken AZ and I am not in the Navy. Another is close by that I feel like flying.

I'm well prepared and know how to hunt and survive off the grid, so to speak

Same here. Along with that, I am trained to use hand grenades, fire Army weapons including rocket launchers, .50 and .30 cal machine guns. At my age I hope to not use them in anger.

I live in an area where hurricanes regularly make landfall. We're used to getting by without electricity and gasoline or stores or ice, etc...
We practice for a couple of weeks every year almost.... whether we want to or not.
It is not like that here. If I wanted hurricanes or Tornadoes, I would move east.
My power once was off for 4 or 5 hours. It was hell on the techs to figure out why. They fixed it finally.

[Akula]

It does bother me. But it gives me giggles when you don't understand that in one period of a few hours, that many died a number of times. But I notice you say that war was correct. My uncle was killed in the early days of Korea and fought WW2. I care. I may care more than you care. I have skin in the game.

You like to highlight your experiences and imply that others have no knowledge..pretty arrogant IMO.

My dad was a plankholder on the Indiana and served 2 years on that battleship in WWII...but you care more than I do because YOUR experience is FAR superior...

Losing 5000, 500, 50 or 5 soldiers in an unnecessary, illegal invasion of a sovereign nation is too many.

WWII was different because we were actually attacked and HAD to fight. See the difference?

[Akula]

It is not like that here. If I wanted hurricanes or Tornadoes, I would move east.
My power once was off for 4 or 5 hours. It was hell on the techs to figure out why. They fixed it finally.

There probably won't be many grenades or RPG's laying around, so I may not get to handle one...I'm sure they're VERY VERY complicated and only people who have been in the military could ever figure out how to use them.:rollseyes:

I've never fired a .50 or a .30 machine gun..but again it ain't rocket science...and there will be oathkeepers around to train people who might need it.


Hey, I don't WANT hurricanes, they just come whenever they like. No choice. Be ready or be gone.

You guys have earthquakes, mudslides AND wildfires..no thanks. :)

[Bob]

You like to highlight your experiences and imply that others have no knowledge..pretty arrogant IMO.

My dad was a plankholder on the Indiana and served 2 years on that battleship in WWII...but you care more than I do because YOUR experience is FAR superior...

Losing 5000, 500, 50 or 5 soldiers in an unnecessary, illegal invasion of a sovereign nation is too many.

WWII was different because we were actually attacked and HAD to fight. See the difference?

If that is the impression you get of me, I am not coming across correctly. All I am saying is you quoted numbers but shush me when I quote numbers too.

My experience is more than I told you but that is ok. I did not try to hurt your feelings. I don't get your claim that Iraq was illegal. Congress said it is not illegal.

When Hawaii was bombed, we called it war. But Obama bombs Yemen and Afghanistan and Pakistan yet I don't hear claims it is war, legal or illegal.

But on Hawaii, do you know that was not a state? It was conquered land. Maybe that is what you mean by illegal.

FDR could have prevented it. But sadly, he did not.

[Bob]

There probably won't be many grenades or RPG's laying around, so I may not get to handle one...I'm sure they're VERY VERY complicated and only people who have been in the military could ever figure out how to use them.:rollseyes:

I've never fired a .50 or a .30 machine gun..but again it ain't rocket science...and there will be oathkeepers around to train people who might need it.


Hey, I don't WANT hurricanes, they just come whenever they like. No choice. Be ready or be gone.

You guys have earthquakes, mudslides AND wildfires..no thanks. :)

Maybe then you can explain to me why the Army trained me to use those weapons, grenades, Flame Thrower and all. I must be dumb and the rest of the guys dumb that they had to train us.

Using those guns is more than pulling the trigger. It means we trained to hit targets during daylight and in the dark. We had to learn how to use them to establish killing fields. We had to be tested to see if we could hit the targets at various ranges.

My last quake was 1989 and damage happened to the Bay Area but my property had no damage. Here, no mudslides nor wild fires. We have hills catch fire but not to the point the fire department has much problem putting them out. LA has fires that last a long time. I am in N cali.

[Akula]

Maybe then you can explain to me why the Army trained me to use those weapons, grenades, Flame Thrower and all. I must be dumb and the rest of the guys dumb that they had to train us.

Using those guns is more than pulling the trigger. It means we trained to hit targets during daylight and in the dark. We had to learn how to use them to establish killing fields. We had to be tested to see if we could hit the targets at various ranges.

The VC didn't have any trouble figuring them out.
The Iraqis don't seem to be having much trouble.
The afghanis don't either.
No..They aren't regular army.They weren't trained for years by the "best in the world" and they are, man for man, probably not the "equal" of a well trained american soldier ...but they sure have killed a lot of well trained american soldiers.



My last quake was 1989 and damage happened to the Bay Area but my property had no damage. Here, no mudslides nor wild fires. We have hills catch fire but not to the point the fire department has much problem putting them out. LA has fires that last a long time. I am in N cali.

I was in San Fran. not long ago.We were working at Yoshis on Fillmore.

[zelmo1234]

You really think you can "vote" and fix this country?
This system can't be fixed by using this system. It is broken beyond repair.

Regardless, whoever wins, WE lose.

A day of reckoning approaches.

The system certain has a terminal illness, but as with all cancers, there is hope. The medicine that the doctor has prescribed is men and women of honor and courage to be elected into the cancerous system.

All the foundations that are needed to return to good health are there. unfortunately men and women of honor are not

[zelmo1234]

If you want to explain the whole thing on the assumption that all the information disseminated through the media was true, you probably have it as close as you could get to accuracy. But, at the time, the stated goal was, in so many words, regime change. If that was the goal, the methods employed would have been directed to that end. But, by any measure of efficiency, even by government standards, they were not. When we sum up all of what was actually done, we see a strategy directed to the end of hanging out in Iraq for a while.

If it is your belief that we were looking to have a safe haven for a military base in the region? You are correct!

But you are looking at the situation with eyes that are separated from 911 by more than a decade, not in the shadow of the worst terrorist attack in US history..

It is also possible that you are young? And do not remember the feeling that the nation had. GWB while a terrible President in his own right, was not the only person in the world that believed that Iraq had WMD's, as a matter of fact it was the consensus that Sadam was in possession of these weapons. And Sadam himself was a party in this deception.

So faced with the fact that we did not know the extent of the terrorist network in the middle east, and the fact that the world generally felt that Sadam would be more than happy to supply these weapons to those willing to attack the USA. Your options would have been different than they were today.

To make any conclusions without taking that into account would suggest that one would be trying to tip reality toward supporting there version of the story

[zelmo1234]

Oh..I see..we had no choice...That's different. /sarcasm



Imperialism is no excuse. What if russia decides the same thing..it isn't "acceptable" for the u.s. to control so much oil so they decide to attack...Would that be ok?



Saddam was our guy for years..just like bin laden was. Clearly they were operatives for the cia.

When the u.s. installed and supported shah of iran was finally run out of his country he came to the u.s. to hide...the iranians were pissed off because he got away with decades of murder and took over our embassy and held it for 400 some days...

The shah was a brutal dictator and killed thousand and thousands of his countrymen...but as long as he worked for us and danced when we pulled the strings, he was cool.

When iraq went to war against iran we couldn't have been happier. We gave saddam weapons and intel. As long as he was killing iranians for us he was cool.
Sure he was brutal and killed many of his citizens but as long as he stayed in line we left him alone.

Then when he threatened to retake kuwait..a country that iraq had a historic claim to, suddenly he had to go, despite our ambassador saying that we wouldn't interfere in ME affairs. To saddam that was tacit approval...at least it wasn't DIS approval.

So he retook kuwait and we "had" to invade to "protect" them.


Look at afghanistan and bin laden...When russia invaded afghan we couldn't give the taliban weapons and intel fast enough...as long as they were killing russians for us they were cool.

We made this mess and it's no wonder most people in the ME hate our imperialist guts.

Our assumptions have a ring of truth to them, but the reasons for your conclusions are blinded by what you believe to be the political agenda.

And you have left out a big factor in the reason that many of the Arabian people hate the USA? Israel!

Have you ever been to the middle east?

[zelmo1234]

I know (the company formerly known as) blackwater hires ex servicemen and I know why.

Really, do you know the owner? Have you read his book? Do you know why he was allowed to establish his own military?

Do you know that many of the people that he hires are Spec from other countries. Do you know that the training operation's that he has train most of the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, SWAT teams ect!

Do you know how the family made the money that allowed the son the capital to create this huge company? And do you know how the USA is using this company around the world today? Because we are still using them. Your current President is not leaving the middle east, he is removing the military and replacing with contractors and 10 to 20 times the cost.

The problem here is you have closed your mind to anything that does not fit the nice little box that you have framed your debate in!

[zelmo1234]

How much does a combat soldier make? How much does a mercenary make. I'll bet the merc makes more...and of course his "employer" gets a cut.
Don't kid yourself. It has nothing to do with "protecting our freedom" or "fighting for our country"....as if iraq could somehow "steal" our freedom.:rollseyes: I don't think there's much chance of an iraqi invasion here, either...LMAO..

It's all about money.

The reason we "needed" mercs was because they don't have to follow ROE and they really don't have to answer for their antics. There isn't a formal chain of command.
You can't tell me that the military can't guard it's own convoys or provide "security" details.

It's all about money and the military-industrial complex..as Eisenhower said.


You have your facts in place but your motives are jaded by your political beliefs, (as are each and everyone of ours)

You have NO idea how much more the Mercs make, in some cases depending on the deployment they can make as much in a week as a soldier makes in half a year. So the money is fantastic, and there is little in the line of politics that the person on the ground need worry about. At least under Bush, Obama was different but that is another topic.

but if you are in a country that requires people to be broken and women and children are part of the network that is causing you trouble, and you don't want the world to see your soldiers attacking a religion? what are you going to do.

And you are correct in your assumption that Iraq cold not take the freedom away from the USA by force, But look how much freedom was taken away by a bunch of goat farmers from the middle east in the 911 attack.

In the hindsight of today the decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan are easy! In the shadow of the 3500 people that had been killed? It was not so easy.

Now I believe that if I was made king for a day with the Intel (terrible Intel I admit) I would have made similar decision.

However I, like Peter do not believe in nation building. but I believe in total and unconditional surrender by a people, religion, cult, or what every you want to call it and I have little regard for what others around the world think about the actions.

So you would be quite shocked at the actions that I would have been willing to take.

This is what you do not understand about the enemy if you will in the middle east. Nothing is off the table for them. they one want to kill those in the west, and the more they kill the better.

[Akula]

I don't get your claim that Iraq was illegal. Congress said it is not illegal.



Oh, well, then..if Congress didn't say it was illegal it must be ok.
Seriously? Maybe we should have told the iraqis and they would have stood down..I mean don't they know that our Congress supersedes ALL laws worldwide.







When Hawaii was bombed, we called it war. But Obama bombs Yemen and Afghanistan and Pakistan yet I don't hear claims it is war, legal or illegal.

Are you still doing this "one party is better than the other" nonsense?


But on Hawaii, do you know that was not a state? It was conquered land. Maybe that is what you mean by illegal.

Arguably, but that's not what I meant. Texas was a conquered land, too...but just because we conquered it doesn't make it "legal"..no matter what Congress says.




FDR could have prevented it. But sadly, he did not.


Gee..why not? Do you think he wanted war?

Do you think big business wanted war?

Who profits the most from war? Business and government...which are really the same entity. What a surprise!


Now you mention a president who purposely allowed an attack to happen so we could go fight in an unpopular war...but you have a hard time believing that a president would purposely mislead the country so we could go illegally invade iraq...essentially start a war.

...and who is profiting the most from these wars? Business and government. Surprise!

[Spectre]

Actually, most big businesses fear and despise war. War is only good for a few businesses.

Akula, what have you been doing here except mindlessly rattling off every ultra-left-wing criticism of the war without looking at the facts?

[Spectre]

Wars should never be fought on the basis of 'popularity'--that idea is a truly terrible one!--but fron necessity and national interest.

[Spectre]

The American people didn't want to get involved in the Second World War: it's now universally acknowledged that was a disastrous attitude that prolonged the war and ultimately made it bloodier than it had to be.

The problem with the US ISN'T that it's warlike, it's that it isn't nearly warlike ENOUGH. To go to war it feels the need to drag irrelevancies into it like 'making the world safe for democracy' and other idealistic rubbish. That's done to get the masses behind the war effort. That's always driven me crazy! What the fuck do the masses know about countries they can't find on a map or issues more complicated that who's the best couple on 'Dancing With the Stars'?!?!

One fights because it's the most sensible option at the moment, not because it's popular!

[Akula]

Actually, most big businesses fear and despise war. War is only good for a few businesses.

Akula, what have you been doing here except mindlessly rattling off every ultra-left-wing criticism of the war without looking at the facts?

I disagree, but explain to me the "necessity" of invading iraq?
All that money and all those lives wasted...for what, again? What was accomplished? Explain how iraq is better off because we invaded.


Do you think the u.s. has the "right" to invade any nation we choose, whenever we choose for any reason (or no reason)?

[kilgram]

I disagree, but explain to me the "necessity" of invading iraq?
All that money and all those lives wasted...for what, again? What was accomplished? Explain how iraq is better off because we invaded.


Do you think the u.s. has the "right" to invade any nation we choose, whenever we choose for any reason (or no reason)?
To protect some industries and to try to control Iraqian oil.

[Spectre]

I disagree, but explain to me the "necessity" of invading iraq?
All that money and all those lives wasted...for what, again? What was accomplished? Explain how iraq is better off because we invaded.


Do you think the u.s. has the "right" to invade any nation we choose, whenever we choose for any reason (or no reason)?
The US has not only the right, but the IRONCLAD OBLIGATION to go to war to protect its own interests or security, and the security of its allies with whom it has treaty obligations. Once Saddam began violating the terms of the peace agreed to after Desert Storm, and did so over and over again despite repeated warning to cease and desist, the US had no alternative but to resume hostilities.

Now, you can win a war, but once you turn the matter back over to local governments, others can lose the peace. That is not something you really have much control over unless you REALLY want to get into the highly expensive and unremunerative business of empire-building.

[Akula]

The US has not only the right, but the IRONCLAD OBLIGATION to go to war to protect its own interests or security, and the security of its allies. Once Saddam began violating the terms of the peace agreed to after Desert Storm, and did so over and over again despite repeated warning to cease and desist, the US had no alternative but to resume hostilities.



Iraq had a historical claim to kuwait...That was none of our business either.

The u.s. has a history of creating false flag incidents as an excuse to attack somebody. Gulf of Tonkin...The battleship Maine...etc...

Israel has had U.N. sanctions placed on them since the 1950's and they ignore them.

As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council since its creation in 2006—the Council had resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined.

Should we invade israel?

If we can invade whoever we want whenever we want for whatever trumped up reason we invent...why is it our business what russia does in the ukraine?

[Spectre]

Iraq had a historical claim to kuwait...That was none of our business either.

The u.s. has a history of creating false flag incidents as an excuse to attack somebody. Gulf of Tonkin...The battleship Maine...etc...

Israel has had U.N. sanctions placed on them since the 1950's and they ignore them.

As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council since its creation in 2006—the Council had resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined.

Should we invade israel?

If we can invade whoever we want whenever we want for whatever trumped up reason we invent...why is it our business what russia does in the ukraine?
The UN is a shameful antisemitic organization run by the world's worst thugocracies, mostly islamic. It is outrageous that it is still permitted to exist and embarrassing that the few decent nations in it still feel compelled to be members. I LIVE for the day that 'bar scene from Star Wars' as Rush so accurately characterized it, ceases to exist.

Iraqi territorial claims on the sovereign nation of Kuwait were not recognized as valid by anyone except...Iraq. So that is a silly argument.

There were no 'false flags' here: Iraq invaded outright and had designs on the entire Arabian Peninsula. It was IMPERATIVE that they be stopped.

[Akula]

The UN is a shameful antisemitic organization run by the world's worst thugocracies, mostly islamic. It is outrageous that it is still permitted to exist and embarrassing that the few decent nations in it still feel compelled to be members. I LIVE for the day that 'bar scene from Star Wars' as Rush so accurately characterized it, ceases to exist.

Yet we pick and choose which sanctions to enforce or ignore according to what israel tells us to do. Your jewish sympathies are noted, though.


Iraqi territorial claims on the sovereign nation of Kuwait were not recognized as valid by anyone except...Iraq. So that is a silly argument.

Prior to WWI "kuwait" was part of the area that is now "iraq" in the land called Persia.
After WWI the "winners" arbitrarily drew some new lines on the map called them countries and "Persia" disappeared. I mentioned all this earlier in better detail.
If you care, look back a few posts.


There were no 'false flags' here: Iraq invaded outright and had designs on the entire Arabian Peninsula. It was IMPERATIVE that they be stopped.

They took back something that was originally theirs that was taken from them without permission.
Like I said earlier..we were cool with saddam being a brutal, monstrous dictator...as long as he was killing iranians for us.

The arabian peninsula is none of our business anyway. Let them sort out their own problems. No more wars for israel.

[zelmo1234]

I disagree, but explain to me the "necessity" of invading iraq?
All that money and all those lives wasted...for what, again? What was accomplished? Explain how iraq is better off because we invaded.


Do you think the u.s. has the "right" to invade any nation we choose, whenever we choose for any reason (or no reason)?

Here is what you would have been faced with if you were in the position of GWB!

#1 you just lost 3500 innocent people in a terrorist attack where the people trained in a lawless Muslim nation.

#2 Sadam had been defying the UN inspectors and making it look like he was moving weapons around his country. And remember they did find some WMD's just not a lot.

#3 Sadam was paying the families of bombers if the killed Americans or Jews.

#4 by all Intel he had training camps and we knew that he had used gas against his own people.

It is your job in this case to keep the people of the USA safe. And you go to the UN and get permission to use force and then you go to congress twice and get permission to us force. (So the truth is that even in the eyes of the international community the Iraq war was not illegal) Now there are a lot of political reason that people want it to be, but according to international law, it is not!

Now there is a military industrial complex, weather you or I like it? that is up to us to choose. There are people that make money off wars, and there are times when this stimulates the economy and can be good for the popularity of Politicians. We are free to feel the way we feel about this.

But I believe in the shadow of 911, it would have been a very hard decision to not got to war with Iraq, and still tell the American people that you had their safety in mind

The war for oil? That is BS because we have been there 12 years now and if he had made a deal with the oil companies and went back on it? WE there would be a lot of politicians that would not be around today!

Big Business play a lot harder than the government

[Spectre]

Oh my! You're very confused! Iraq and Kuwait were parts of the OTTOMAN Empire, which was an ally of Germany in the Great War (remember Lawrence of Arabia). Iraq did not exist prior to 1920 whereas Kuwait had maintained a semi-independent existence from the Ottomans for a long time. Iraq's claims on Kuwait were laughable. This is all easily available info, Akula, I can't Imagine how you managed to fuck it up as badly as you did.

[zelmo1234]

Iraq had a historical claim to kuwait...That was none of our business either.

The u.s. has a history of creating false flag incidents as an excuse to attack somebody. Gulf of Tonkin...The battleship Maine...etc...

Israel has had U.N. sanctions placed on them since the 1950's and they ignore them.

As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council since its creation in 2006—the Council had resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined.

Should we invade israel?

If we can invade whoever we want whenever we want for whatever trumped up reason we invent...why is it our business what russia does in the ukraine?

Again it matters not if you like the fact that countries can go to war or not, it is there right.

It is clear that you are an isolationist, or at least a pacifist

This is a dangerous policy that has lead to the WW's and would lead to that in the future as well. There is good and there is evil, which side is which depends on where you are standing at the time.


To the victor go the spoils. Iraq had no more right to Kuwait, than we do! just like Mexico has no claim to Texas

The political and economic goals of the east and west do not run always run in the same direction, and this causes conflict, most of the time this can be solved peacefully, but not always. and there are mad men that are hell bent on world domination!

Just because you do not like military actions, does not mean that they are not at times necessary!

It appears that you are blinded by your political agenda!

[Akula]

Oh my! You're very confused! Iraq and Kuwait were parts of the OTTOMAN Empire, which was an ally of Germany in the Great War (remember Lawrence of Arabia). Iraq did not exist prior to 1920 whereas Kuwait had maintained a semi-independent existence from the Ottomans for a long time. Iraq's claims on Kuwait were laughable. This is all easily available info, Akula, I can't Imagine how you managed to fuck it up as badly as you did.


Right..Whatever....



The modern state of Kuwait, like most other modern states in the region, was established via the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in one of the first such coordinated international efforts at nation building known then as the Mandate System.
A system by which the various victors of World War One (WWI) divided up the former territories of the vanquished Ottoman Empire that would become modern day Turkey. Each of these European Powers were considered to have a 'mandate' to foster a state. Kuwait was a special case with a long tradition of being an outpost of colonial naval power in the Red Sea and for that reason the European victors of WWI drew the map to include a new nation state that had never existed before, thereby depriving another new state of the majority of its valuable and strategic coast, placing the modern day state of Iraq at a disadvantage. If one looks at the modern map it is easy to see that in an act of contrition the smug conquerors drew in a small slice of coast line for Iraq. The ramifications of this colonial power inspired history are still with us today and indeed account for most the unresolved territorial disputes around the world that threaten world peace. The existence of Kuwait as a distinct separate nation from Iraq has never sat well with the Iraqis but this was not a problem in the early years of Kuwait's existence circa 1900 because Britain was also the mandate power fostering the state of Iraq in its own image, that of a hereditary monarchy.

By early 1961, the British had withdrawn their special court system, which handled the cases of foreigners resident in Kuwait, and the Kuwaiti Government began to exercise legal jurisdiction under new laws drawn up by an Egyptian jurist. On 19 June 1961, Kuwait became fully independent following an exchange of notes with the United Kingdom.
When Kuwait became independent in 1961, Iraq claimed Kuwait, under the rationale that Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman Empire subject to Iraqi suzerainty.

In the 1980s Kuwait, fearful of Iran after the Islamic Revolution in Iran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Revolution_in_Iran), supported Iraq in the Iran–Iraq War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War). Kuwait sent large sums of money to Iraq, amounting to approximately $5 bn. As a consequence of this Iran attacked Kuwait's oil tankers and Kuwait was forced to seek protection from the United States, which sent warships to the Persian Gulf.
The Invasion of Kuwait and annexation by Iraq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait) took place on 2 August 1990. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein)'s primary justifications included a charge that Kuwaiti territory was in fact an Iraqi province, and that annexation was retaliation for "economic warfare" Kuwait had waged through slant drilling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slant_drilling) into Iraq's oil supplies. However, the initial casus belli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli) was claimed to be support for a Kuwaiti rebellion.[66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kuwait#cite_note-locpgw-66) The monarchy was deposed and an Iraqi-backed puppet leader named Alaa Hussein Ali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaa_Hussein_Ali) was installed as head of the "Provisional Government of Free Kuwait (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Kuwait)." Iraq annexed Kuwait on 8 August. The war was traumatic to the Kuwaiti population. The underground resistance was punished by summary executions and torture. Almost all Kuwaitis at the time lost some family member. In addition, half the population, both native and foreign-born fled.[68] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kuwait#cite_note-locpostwar-68)

[zelmo1234]

What is your point ^^^^^^?

[Akula]

Again it matters not if you like the fact that countries can go to war or not, it is there right.

It is clear that you are an isolationist, or at least a pacifist

This is a dangerous policy that has lead to the WW's and would lead to that in the future as well. There is good and there is evil, which side is which depends on where you are standing at the time.


To the victor go the spoils. Iraq had no more right to Kuwait, than we do! just like Mexico has no claim to Texas

The political and economic goals of the east and west do not run always run in the same direction, and this causes conflict, most of the time this can be solved peacefully, but not always. and there are mad men that are hell bent on world domination!

Just because you do not like military actions, does not mean that they are not at times necessary!


It appears that you are blinded by your political agenda!

I'm not a "pacifist" I assure you.

The iraq invsion was unnecessary and a waste of money and lives. It wasn't a "righteous" war. We invaded a sovereign nation who had done nothing to us.
My" political agenda" is for america to act like a civilized, reasonable nation in dealing with others.

[Akula]

What is your point ^^^^^^?

Iraq had a historic claim to kuwait and it was none of our business and the post was in reply to spectre who said I had it all wrong.
I was proving that what I said was, in fact, correct and I supplied the proof.

Did you read it? Why do you disagree?

[Spectre]

Iraq had a historic claim to kuwait and it was none of our business.

I just explained to you why that is ridiculous!:angry:

[zelmo1234]

You and I agree in hind sight about the Iraq war! But the decision were made by people that had a lot more information to go on in the shadow of the fallen towers. The Democrats on the Security council saw the same information! They voted to end the threat.

Was it right NO!

But in that backdrop I can see how the decision was made? Can you!

Now comes the real question! If we did not go to war with Iraq over Security? What did we go to war for? and how did that materialize?

[zelmo1234]

Iraq had a historic claim to kuwait and it was none of our business.
Did you read it? Why do you disagree?

Because that allies won the second WW, Tot he victors go the spoils. They divided up the middle east. Which as you have been shown had sided with Germany!

The new nations are recognized by the UN. the international body of nations

But here is the thing are you saying that if Spain comes over and invades the southwest, because they are the ones that were there first? we should just let them have it?

[Akula]

I just explained to you why that is ridiculous!:angry:

..and I just showed you proof that it isn't..
I'm not an imperialist and I don't think we have the right to invade other nations who have done nothing to us.
I'm done.
Maybe we aren't going to agree but I proved my point with evidence.

[Akula]

Because that allies won the second WW, Tot he victors go the spoils. They divided up the middle east. Which as you have been shown had sided with Germany!

The new nations are recognized by the UN. the international body of nations

But here is the thing are you saying that if Spain comes over and invades the southwest, because they are the ones that were there first? we should just let them have it?

Ok..let's play hypothetical games...If russia invaded the us...and re drew all the state and national borders do you think it would be ok? Would you be willing to abide by their new rules or would you resist?

[zelmo1234]

..and I just showed you proof that it isn't..
I'm not an imperialist and I don't think we have the right to invade other nations who have done nothing to us.
I'm done.
Maybe we aren't going to agree but I proved my point with evidence.

When one is trying to get out of a hole it is always good to stop digging? Wise choice!

[Akula]

I'm not in a hole. I just showed you the proof to back up what I said.

Declare victory and gloat if it makes you feel better. I gave hard evidence.

[zelmo1234]

I'm not in a hole. I just showed you the proof to back up what I said.

Declare victory and gloat if it makes you feel better. I gave hard evidence.

And all of that does not matter in todays international law. Like I said What if Spain comes and try's to take back the SW should we let them have it?

Or should we defend it?

[Akula]

And all of that does not matter in todays international law. Like I said What if Spain comes and try's to take back the SW should we let them have it?

Or should we defend it?

If the u.s. lost a war with china and russia and as a consequence the nation was split in half and new boundaries drawn and our wealth and possessions became property of other nations do you think we would just accept that and move on?

[zelmo1234]

If the u.s. lost a war with china and russia and as a consequence the nation was split in half and new boundaries drawn and our wealth and possessions became property of other nations do you think we would just accept that and move on?

If we lost a war in an unconditional surrender? It would be the law of the land! and would we have to accept it!

And if we tried to change that by force! Then China and Russia would have every right to come in and put a stop to it!

Now would we like it? Hell NO! But to the victors go the spoils, it sucks but it is a fact of life

[Akula]

Ok. I can't argue with that.
I'm not as accomodating to invaders. I'd resist...but it's all hypothetical...

[Spectre]

Listen very carefully, Akula:

Apart from being a province within the Ottoman Empire, Iraq has never existed as a country prior to 1920, long after Kuwait had achieved the status of a wealthy, semi-independent state.

[zelmo1234]

Ok. I can't argue with that.
I'm not as accomodating to invaders. I'd resist...but it's all hypothetical...

I would be right there with you resisting to the end! You don't have to like the way things are? but you do need to acknowledge that this is the way that they are!

[Akula]

Listen very carefully, Akula:

Apart from being a province within the Ottoman Empire, Iraq has never existed as a country prior to 1920, long after Kuwait had achieved the status of a wealthy, semi-independent state.

Read post 113 again is all I can say.

[Spectre]

Read post 113 again is all I can say.

No, dude, this is not arguable here.:smiley:

[Akula]

No, dude, this is not arguable here.:smiley:

sure...sure...whatever you say.

[kilgram]

The UN is a shameful antisemitic organization run by the world's worst thugocracies, mostly islamic. It is outrageous that it is still permitted to exist and embarrassing that the few decent nations in it still feel compelled to be members. I LIVE for the day that 'bar scene from Star Wars' as Rush so accurately characterized it, ceases to exist.

Iraqi territorial claims on the sovereign nation of Kuwait were not recognized as valid by anyone except...Iraq. So that is a silly argument.

There were no 'false flags' here: Iraq invaded outright and had designs on the entire Arabian Peninsula. It was IMPERATIVE that they be stopped.

Antisemitic? Lol just because critizise the totalitarian government of Israel?

[Akula]

Antisemitic? Lol just because critizise the totalitarian government of Israel?

israel is ....interesting
They protect their heritage and culture. They don't like people to marry outside the tribe. They have a wall around their borders and no one can just walk in and out as they please...and they catch illegal immigrants and put them in concentration camps and then deport them.

On the down side, they hate christians and call us "goyim" and "unclean".

[Mister D]

israel is ....interesting
They protect their heritage and culture. They don't like people to marry outside the tribe. They have a wall around their borders and no one can just walk in and out as they please...and they catch illegal immigrants and put them in concentration camps and then deport them.

On the down side, they hate christians and call us "goyim" and "unclean".

I couldn't care less what they call us. I do care about Jewish hypocrisy and their advocation of policies for their hosts that they would never consider for Israel.

[kilgram]

israel is ....interesting
They protect their heritage and culture. They don't like people to marry outside the tribe. They have a wall around their borders and no one can just walk in and out as they please...and they catch illegal immigrants and put them in concentration camps and then deport them.

On the down side, they hate christians and call us "goyim" and "unclean".

Is anything positive of this description. Because it sounds pretty Nazi.

[Akula]

I couldn't care less what they call us. I do care about Jewish hypocrisy and their advocation of policies for their hosts that they would never consider for Israel.

Precisely.
To them we're "unclean" and to the muzzies we're "infidels". They both hate our guts. Fine.
Let them solve their differences among themselves and let the chips fall where they may....but of course our zionist occupied government would never allow anything like that.

[Akula]

Is anything positive of this description. Because it sounds pretty Nazi.
nazi?
Protecting your borders are a good thing.
Valuing and protecting your culture is a good thing.
Ejecting people who illegally enter your country is a good thing.
Where's the downside?

[Bob]

In Germany when I was there, to try to mitigate damage, our war games were in winter. Even so, when chickens should have been locked up in the Germans property, we saw them all over the place begging to be killed. It was German fraud or maybe welfare I suppose.

It is next to impossible for large tank units to be out in the country and not raise hell and damage a lot of things.

I have been thinking about this again and we did go to Hohenfels in Germany on one trip that lasted weeks. The weather was very good and it was not winter. I just can't remember if it be 2 weeks or maybe up to 4 weeks. I was in the office all day long since there they have quarters and I did fire the rocket launcher on a demonstration for some Generals one day. I can't say I know much about what the line companies were doing all that time. Maybe the tanks were firing at a range though I do not recall hearing firing. Germany also had Grafenwoehr as another training base but never got to that place. On the range for the rocket launcher, somebody in a jeep was moving back and forth with a rig to tow targets that a few of us had to try to hit on the fly. I managed to totally destroy my target so could only fire a few rounds. That is the one and only time I fired the rocket launcher. Lest you get the wrong idea, the rounds were dummy rounds since nobody was interested in a range accident. The jeep driver or jeep was at risk of some sort.

It may have been that training trip where the gunner of a M-60 tank (then the main battle tank) had shut down the tank systems and got out. He forgot something and dove in head first (this is the story told to me) and reaching into his duffle bag, accidently hit the main power switch. The bags were against the switch that raises and lowers the gun tube and the poor kid had his head crushed by the breech block inside the tank.

I mention this since i am sure a lot of people do not realize the hazards our guys face even if they are not in combat. Back at Schweinfurt, our medical company tried to treat helicopter burn victims and I believe that none survived the crash that time. These troops today still face plenty of risks even when not in some theater of combat. I have no idea what death statistics are during peace time but we do lose troops.

[Bob]

Precisely.
To them we're "unclean" and to the muzzies we're "infidels". They both hate our guts. Fine.
Let them solve their differences among themselves and let the chips fall where they may....but of course our zionist occupied government would never allow anything like that.

I find that as civilians citizens, we get the idea we are well informed. When we are not. I admit to not knowing the accurate story of Israel in the context of the USA interfacing with them. The Muslims in my view believe they have good cause to not like us. It seems to me some Americans are determined that we do that to Israel as well. Some here in this country are apparently pro Palestinian. As I have related, I got to know a retired pilot who flew for one of the Arabs airlines, a Palestinian and try to avoid that topic. He gets super emotional about it is why. I realize some or even maybe many of them lost homes in 1948. Anyway, this guy has homes, both in my city as well as Morocco. He spends a few months at each home.

[Bob]

Listen very carefully, Akula:

Apart from being a province within the Ottoman Empire, Iraq has never existed as a country prior to 1920, long after Kuwait had achieved the status of a wealthy, semi-independent state.

If you chat with enough Iranians, you hear them call themselves ... Persians. Persia was a lot larger than Iran is. I believe the country Iraq was part of Persia.

Today it is easy to forget the era prior to modern times and how some of this was changed by conquest and some by operations such as the UN and so on.

[Bob]

If the u.s. lost a war with china and russia and as a consequence the nation was split in half and new boundaries drawn and our wealth and possessions became property of other nations do you think we would just accept that and move on?

I suppose this country would be disarmed. However in my view, former Justice Stevens wants to speed up that process and published a book of his plans.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/04/excerpt-justice-john-paul-stevens-six-amendments/

[Spectre]

Antisemitic? Lol just because critizise the totalitarian government of Israel?

Anyone that calls the only real democracy in the Middle East a 'totalitarian government' is suffering from a degree of mental illness so profound and incurable that suicide is the only recommended option to end your suffering.

[Spectre]

And yes, we are all very familiar with, and regard with alarm, the resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe almost 70 years after the Holocaust was ended by the defeat of Nazi Germany.

'Never again' has become 'Here is comes again'.

[Bob]

I'm not a "pacifist" I assure you.

The iraq invsion was unnecessary and a waste of money and lives. It wasn't a "righteous" war. We invaded a sovereign nation who had done nothing to us.
My" political agenda" is for america to act like a civilized, reasonable nation in dealing with others.

Maybe you don't understand, but most of us in this country (my opinion) believe a righteous nation treats the citizens decently. Saddam treated his pals terrible. Yes, only if you can accept being scared that were you to not agree with him to save your own life made him a nice guy, can one defend Saddam. Tree shredders were used to show the public they did not matter. Even in his top General group, at meetings, Saddam suddenly stood up and shot them dead. General Sada who wrote a book about what Saddam did with his WMD talks of this in his book. Sada claims that Saddam had WMD that he shipped over the border hoping to recover it later.

It amazes me that the very illegal Saddam Hussein who simply took power, gets respect from posters. I don't get it one bit.

[Akula]

If you chat with enough Iranians, you hear them call themselves ... Persians. Persia was a lot larger than Iran is. I believe the country Iraq was part of Persia.

Today it is easy to forget the era prior to modern times and how some of this was changed by conquest and some by operations such as the UN and so on.

He won't concede a single point. You're wasting your time.

[Akula]

Maybe you don't understand, but most of us in this country (my opinion) believe a righteous nation treats the citizens decently. Saddam treated his pals terrible. Yes, only if you can accept being scared that were you to not agree with him to save your own life made him a nice guy, can one defend Saddam. Tree shredders were used to show the public they did not matter. Even in his top General group, at meetings, Saddam suddenly stood up and shot them dead. General Sada who wrote a book about what Saddam did with his WMD talks of this in his book. Sada claims that Saddam had WMD that he shipped over the border hoping to recover it later.

It amazes me that the very illegal Saddam Hussein who simply took power, gets respect from posters. I don't get it one bit.


None of our business how he treated his people. When he was killing iranians for us we didn't have a problem with him being a brutal dictator to his own people, did we?
"Situational ethics" like that in our foreign policy is why we're hated in the ME.

[Spectre]

If you chat with enough Iranians, you hear them call themselves ... Persians. Persia was a lot larger than Iran is. I believe the country Iraq was part of Persia.

Today it is easy to forget the era prior to modern times and how some of this was changed by conquest and some by operations such as the UN and so on.

Here is a map of the Ottoman Empire around the year 1900, 15 years before it entered the War on the side of the Central Powers. The word 'Iraq' doesn't even appear on it.

I think where a lot of confusion arises is that a lot of modern Iraqis--the majority, I believe--are Shi'a, same as the Persians. But there is little love lost between Persian Shi'ites and Arab Iraqi Shi'ites. Persians regard Arabs as an inferior people. Although the current Iranian government has been very active in the Shi'a areas of Iraq, extending its influence whenever it can.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg)http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg/800px-Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg)
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg)

[zelmo1234]

israel is ....interesting
They protect their heritage and culture. They don't like people to marry outside the tribe. They have a wall around their borders and no one can just walk in and out as they please...and they catch illegal immigrants and put them in concentration camps and then deport them.

On the down side, they hate christians and call us "goyim" and "unclean".

You have never been to Israel have you? I am Christian and have received nothing but thanks and gratefulness for what the Christians in the USA have done to support the Jewish state.

Now go and spread you Christian faith in some of the Muslim countries and you might lose your head? Is that the love you were looking for?

[Akula]

You have never been to Israel have you? I am Christian and have received nothing but thanks and gratefulness for what the Christians in the USA have done to support the Jewish state.

Now go and spread you Christian faith in some of the Muslim countries and you might lose your head? Is that the love you were looking for?

Nevertheless, we're considered "unclean" and "goyim" by them. They view us as inferior.

[zelmo1234]

None of our business how he treated his people. When he was killing iranians for us we didn't have a problem with him being a brutal dictator to his own people, did we?
"Situational ethics" like that in our foreign policy is why we're hated in the ME.

It is never a good idea to stand by and watch the innocent be slaughtered.

If evil is allowed to grow it becomes a massive problem, better to confront it when it is small!

[Akula]

It is never a good idea to stand by and watch the innocent be slaughtered.

If evil is allowed to grow it becomes a massive problem, better to confront it when it is small!
Oh..THAT'S the criteria we should use? Ok.

When do you think we should attack North Korea?
How about Somalia?
Venezuela?
Saudi Arabia?
Iran?
How about Rhodesia?..sorry, I meant zimbabwe. Rhodesia doesn't exist anymore....for SOME reason.
Sudan?
China?
Syria?
Burma?
Uzbekiastan?

We have a lot of work to do, don't we?

[Bob]

http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Bob http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=584361#post584361)
Maybe then you can explain to me why the Army trained me to use those weapons, grenades, Flame Thrower and all. I must be dumb and the rest of the guys dumb that they had to train us.

Using those guns is more than pulling the trigger. It means we trained to hit targets during daylight and in the dark. We had to learn how to use them to establish killing fields. We had to be tested to see if we could hit the targets at various ranges.


The VC didn't have any trouble figuring them out.
The Iraqis don't seem to be having much trouble.
The afghanis don't either.
No..They aren't regular army.They weren't trained for years by the "best in the world" and they are, man for man, probably not the "equal" of a well trained american soldier ...but they sure have killed a lot of well trained american soldiers.
I was in San Fran. not long ago.We were working at Yoshis on Fillmore.

I have never been to Yoshis. I worked some construction jobs in that city and have driven over much of it.

I also appraised homes in that city but tried to only do jobs in the general area of the SF Zoo. I stopped taking assignments since the neighborhoods vary quite a bit.

I forgot to mention that one has to learn to break down weapons and correctly assemble them again and clean them completely. Instructors walk the troops through that step by step.

Now to your commentary. It seems to me you lack experience on military matters.
Not that you can't read books, but to show you what I mean, say you got a horrible sun tan and was laid up in bed.

One can read a book detailing that. But the guy who got the sun burn has experience and knows very well how it is.

As to the VC, etc. VC trained them as well. It is stupid on the part of government to hand a man a weapon expecting him to do much with it other than basically shoot it. Weapons misfire, they get cruddy. They need at times to be taken apart. As well machine guns are not like pistols, the Army designed systems of fire and control so they can do the job with maximum effect and efficiency. We even trained to hit targets in the black of night. There was not a lot of night training, but we were indoctrinated to trying to hit targets at night. We were not firing using night vision equipment. We had none.

I would put up our current troops against any nations troops. They have equipment today we only could imagine. If you read General Tommy Franks book on those two wars, he explains a lot of that in his book. I am sure Peter is way more up to date on that than I. Some of it probably can't be discussed at all.

Let me give you an example.

In Germany, my own unit, being HQ/HQ Company, had the officers that did the planning and execution of plans. The unit had a group that were in charge of the Davy Crockett weapons. We had over a squad, but not a platoon sized group. They could not discuss with any of us, other than officers and NCO directly involved and with proper security clearances, this weapon. Now it is no longer used and retired from action.

It amounted to a nuclear weapon that was carried on Jeeps. I could spot one because the gun tube was down the middle of the jeep. The 106 recoiless was mounted on the drivers side of the jeep at the rear. Both looked similar to each other. It had about 10 ton nuclear explosion rounds. As I said, Peter no doubt knows a lot about current weapons that I do not have a clue about.

Point, our men get the finest training. They can actually see and hit targets a long distance away. VC today would be easy pickings. And the Taliban troops are very easy pickings as well. When i say easy, don't misunderstand. Compared to our capability in war in 1963, troops today have far better equipment than we had.

[Bob]

None of our business how he treated his people. When he was killing iranians for us we didn't have a problem with him being a brutal dictator to his own people, did we?
"Situational ethics" like that in our foreign policy is why we're hated in the ME.

Well, that is true that he was brutal.

Bear one thing in mind. From the era of the fight in Kuwait until when Bush took charge, it was a constant running fight with Saddam. And Saddam did everything he could think of to deceive this country. And he also had a problem since he wanted to deceive even Arabs around him. He wanted to come out looking like he beat us, yet kept his weapons. He had fooled Schwarzkopf before. Saddam should not have been allowed to keep his helicopter gun ships. Those he used to put down a rebellion in Iraq that had it worked, we never would have been invading Iraq in the first place.

Clinton signed a public law on this. The congress created the law and Clinton agreed. The purpose of the law was to get rid of Saddam.

I don't know about you, but do you think it would have been wise of Bush to simply ignore that law?

Also, far too many Democrats approved of this for it to not happen. It was a chain of events spanning a decade or more and not just one event, to wit: the invasion. Don't ignore Clinton having no fly zones. They were enforced by our air power. Saddam was always trying to shoot down those war planes. Our pilots are so good along with the equipment, he missed and our guys paid him back.

[Bob]

Oh..THAT'S the criteria we should use? Ok.

When do you think we should attack North Korea?
How about Somalia?
Venezuela?
Saudi Arabia?
Iran?
How about Rhodesia?..sorry, I meant zimbabwe. Rhodesia doesn't exist anymore....for SOME reason.
Sudan?
China?
Syria?
Burma?
Uzbekiastan?

We have a lot of work to do, don't we?

That happens to be sound logical commentary.

Bush more than likely would not have invaded either Afghanistan nor Iraq had 911 not happened. Bush decided he had to put down his foot.

The nations you mention are not the subject of UN sanctions are they? I mean most. I know some are.

[Bob]

It is never a good idea to stand by and watch the innocent be slaughtered.

If evil is allowed to grow it becomes a massive problem, better to confront it when it is small!

Very good points.

Just like if a man would watch idly as a woman is beat to death, he diminishes his worth. So it is with the role of the USA vs other nations. It is remarkable we have not attacked a lot more countries.

[Akula]

That happens to be sound logical commentary.

Bush more than likely would not have invaded either Afghanistan nor Iraq had 911 not happened. Bush decided he had to put down his foot.

The nations you mention are not the subject of UN sanctions are they? I mean most. I know some are.

You seriously think we should attack all those nations because they abuse their citizens?


What if russia decided that since we have more people in prison (percentage) than any nation in the world, we are "abusing human rights" and we need to be attacked. By your logic that would be ok, right?

I'm stunned that anyone would advocate more wars...This country is bankrupt as it is..LMAO..and you want to attack 8 or 9 MORE countries...funny...

[Bob]

Commentary by me at the end.



Iraq’s Muslims follow two distinct traditions, Shia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia) and Sunni (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni) Islam. According to the CIA World Factbook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook), Iraq is 97% Muslim (60-65% Shi’a, 32-37% Sunni).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iraq#cite_note-Factbook-1) Iraq is home to many religious sites important for both Shia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia) and Sunni (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni) Muslims. Baghdad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad)was a hub of Islamic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic) learning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning) and scholarship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarship) for centuries and served as the capital of the Abbasids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate). The city of Karbala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karbala)has substantial prominence in Shia Islam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam) as a result of the Battle of Karbala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karbala), fought on the site of the modern city on October 10, 680. Similarly, Najaf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najaf) is renowned as the site of the tomb of Alī ibn Abī Tālib (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali) (also known as “Imām Alī”), whom the Shia consider to be the righteous caliph and first imām (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam). The city is now a great center of pilgrimage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrimage) from throughout the Shi’a Islamic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam) world and it is estimated that only Mecca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca) and Medina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina) receive more Muslim pilgrims. The city of Kufa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufa) was home to the famed scholar, Abu Hanifah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Hanifah) whose school of thought is followed by a sizable number of Sunni Muslims (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Muslims) across the globe. Likewise, Samarra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarra) is also home to the al-Askari Mosque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Askari_Mosque), containing the mausoleums of the Ali al-Hadi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Hadi) and Hasan al-Askari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_al-Askari), the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Imams), respectively, as well as the shrine of Muhammad al-Mahdi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Mahdi), known as the “Hidden Imam”, who is the twelfth and final Imam of the Shia of the Ja’farī Madhhab. This has made it an important pilgrimage centre for Ja’farī Shia Muslims. In addition, some female relatives of the Prophet Mohammad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad) are buried in Samarra, making the city one of the most significant sites of worship for Shia and a venerated location for Sunni Muslims.
Smaller sects of Islam exist in the country, such as the small Shaykhist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaykhism) community concentrated in Basra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basra) and Karbala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karbala).
Next comment
According to the Iranian government, around 90%[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iran#cite_note-Iran.2C_CIA_-_World_Factbook-1) of Iranians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran) associate themselves with the Shi’a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi%27a_Islam) branch of Islam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam), the official state religion, and about 9% with the Sunni (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Islam) and Sufi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi) branches of Islam. Most Sunni Iranians are Kurds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds), Baloch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baloch_people)and native Lari people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lari_people_(Iran)) from the mountainous region of Larestan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larestan_County). Lari people speak the Lari language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lari_language), which is closely related to Old Persian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian) and Luri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luri_language).[ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iran#cite_note-books.google.com-2)
Bob commentary
I believe that most Americans have never got very close to Muslims. I had my own appraisal office. Some of my customers were Iranians and operated loan firms. I was one of their favorite appraisers.

I was able to have some time to spend with some of the Iranians.
1. Frank Alam. In Iran Frank was a Construction boss. In the USA he operated a home loan company.
Frank and I did not really get into this topic.(I learned that many Iranians last names are shortened for use in the USA. I know Franks actual Iranian name but since I did not ask him, I don’t show his true full name.)
2. Sia Norouzi. Sia fled Iran essentially yet when he became a US citizen, he would at times return to Iran for family matters.
Sia was an educator in Iran. In the USA he worked in the medical profession in a role not dealing with patients and took up doing home loans for a company headed by a Filipina woman. She turned out to be a real crook and was ran out of business before the crash happened. Sia as well as Frank had quite a following in the Iranian community. In my role as appraiser, I did hundreds of appraisals of homes owned by Iranians.

I was with Frank the AM of the Simpson murder verdict and Frank stunned me by approving the verdict of not guilty. Frank told me that Simpson’s wife deserved her death. I was in shock.

Sia is the most important part to this story.

Sia like Frank had a college education in Iran. Sia loved telling me history of Iran. Sia was from the not rich class so he supported Ayatollah at the time. Even burned American flags he admitted to me. The government of Iran did not like Sia’s teaching so took him to task. This frightened Sia. Sia had a heart problem and not able to be treated in Iran. Sia requested to go to Germany for treatment. The Germans however did not want to treat him. He managed to learn a way to come to Colorado for treatment. He was not able to get treatment in the USA. Sia had a limited visa. Sia decided to run the risk of getting caught and stay in the USA. Realizing he was tracked to Colorado, he departed and came to the SF Bay Area where he never was caught. Somehow he got employment. Sia, having been in Iran during the hostage crisis, at first hated the USA. Sia learned to like the USA so much he became a citizen.

Anyway, Sia and other Iranians told me that if you were in the wealthy class, the Shah was your man. That if you were poor, the Ayatollah was your man. I never found any Iranian that did not agree on that.

Sia also educated me on Muslims to a great extent. He told me the difference in Shia and Sunni. He denied that they are at war with each other the way our media tries to claim. They share the same religion. It is not as if the Shia are Christians and the Sunni Muslim, both are Muslim.

I asked Sia if the Muslim faith is dangerous and violent. He told me right away, they are.

Sia converted to the Catholic faith. Over a period from about 1992 until about 2005, Sia and I would chat a lot.

Sia also introduced me to a very old man. This man was at one time the head of police communications for Iran and worked for the Shah. He had retired prior to the kicking out of the Shah. He too said that the Shah was good for people who had money. This man was a millionaire in Iran but unable to sell his holdings and bring those to the USA. He told me how close he came to being killed by Ayatollah due to his connection to Shah. He told me that many of his friends were dead, killed by Ayatollah. Told me horror stories of them being rounded up and put to death with firing squads.

Anyway, in this country, it is told that this country installed the Shah. While this country supported the Shah, this country did not put him in power. The Shah has deep roots to the past and that is what got him to being the Shah. He felt some pressure and departed the country only to be overthrown. This is when some claim the USA put him in power. The truth is he had been in power. A splinter group managed to overthrow him. But that does not mean that group was the legal government of Iran. Shah was very popular at one time. Notice he had power for decades and when he got into ill health, this cost him his job. The vacuum of power when he was seeking treatment outside of Iran made the job of Ayatollah easier so he seized power.

Has anything changed in Iran. Well, a lot more Iranians don’t like Ayatollah than when the first Ayatollah seized power. Nobody elected Ayatollah. They elect the president, but not Ayatollah.

[Bob]

You seriously think we should attack all those nations because they abuse their citizens?


What if russia decided that since we have more people in prison (percentage) than any nation in the world, we are "abusing human rights" and we need to be attacked. By your logic that would be ok, right?

I'm stunned that anyone would advocate more wars...This country is bankrupt as it is..LMAO..and you want to attack 8 or 9 MORE countries...funny...

No i do not.

[Bob]

Iraq had a historic claim to kuwait and it was none of our business and the post was in reply to spectre who said I had it all wrong.
I was proving that what I said was, in fact, correct and I supplied the proof.

Did you read it? Why do you disagree?

I think you intended to claim it was Iran with the historical land claims, not Iraq.

[Akula]

Clinton signed a public law on this. The congress created the law and Clinton agreed. The purpose of the law was to get rid of Saddam.

I don't know about you, but do you think it would have been wise of Bush to simply ignore that law?

Slavery was "legal"..Alcohol was legal...then illlegal..then legal again.

Lots of things that are "legal" aren't "right" or "honest" just because some politician said so.


Also, far too many Democrats approved of this for it to not happen. It was a chain of events spanning a decade or more and not just one event, to wit: the invasion. Don't ignore Clinton having no fly zones. They were enforced by our air power. Saddam was always trying to shoot down those war planes. Our pilots are so good along with the equipment, he missed and our guys paid him back.
Popular opinion or consensus among politicians is no reason to start a war. ..and again you put your faith in politicians to do the right thing. See what you got for your trouble?

If iraq was flying warplanes over the u.s. do you think we'd try to shoot them down?

[Bob]

Really, do you know the owner? Have you read his book? Do you know why he was allowed to establish his own military?

Do you know that many of the people that he hires are Spec from other countries. Do you know that the training operation's that he has train most of the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, SWAT teams ect!

Do you know how the family made the money that allowed the son the capital to create this huge company? And do you know how the USA is using this company around the world today? Because we are still using them. Your current President is not leaving the middle east, he is removing the military and replacing with contractors and 10 to 20 times the cost.

The problem here is you have closed your mind to anything that does not fit the nice little box that you have framed your debate in!

Maybe Akula does, but I don't know the full history.

I know you are talking to him, but I happen to have an open mind.

I knew some of the history of Blackwater but not as much as you know.

[zelmo1234]

Oh..THAT'S the criteria we should use? Ok.

When do you think we should attack North Korea?
How about Somalia?
Venezuela?
Saudi Arabia?
Iran?
How about Rhodesia?..sorry, I meant zimbabwe. Rhodesia doesn't exist anymore....for SOME reason.
Sudan?
China?
Syria?
Burma?
Uzbekiastan?

We have a lot of work to do, don't we?

Why does it always have to be US? But I do not believe in letting innocent people be slaughtered where every they live.

Now that being said I do not believe in using the military as police, I believe in unconditional surrender! This will seem cruel to many but I believe that evil must be confronted.

And what is to say that if we confronted the Evil in North Korea in and totally defeated it in the 1950's? would all of these other have popped up? Who knows, but maybe not!

[zelmo1234]

Maybe Akula does, but I don't know the full history.

I know you are talking to him, but I happen to have an open mind.

I knew some of the history of Blackwater but not as much as you know.

The family is very generous and so is he. He was a SEAL at one time. You know one of those kids that never had to work a day in his live and chose to join the military. His training centers are top of the mark! and he is a huge supported of the constitution!

Now that being said, his people have been hired to do some terrible things! But sometimes terrible things need to be done.

The family fortune is from paper of all things!

[Bob]

Here is what you would have been faced with if you were in the position of GWB!

#1 you just lost 3500 innocent people in a terrorist attack where the people trained in a lawless Muslim nation.

#2 Sadam had been defying the UN inspectors and making it look like he was moving weapons around his country. And remember they did find some WMD's just not a lot.

#3 Sadam was paying the families of bombers if the killed Americans or Jews.

#4 by all Intel he had training camps and we knew that he had used gas against his own people.

It is your job in this case to keep the people of the USA safe. And you go to the UN and get permission to use force and then you go to congress twice and get permission to us force. (So the truth is that even in the eyes of the international community the Iraq war was not illegal) Now there are a lot of political reason that people want it to be, but according to international law, it is not!

Now there is a military industrial complex, weather you or I like it? that is up to us to choose. There are people that make money off wars, and there are times when this stimulates the economy and can be good for the popularity of Politicians. We are free to feel the way we feel about this.

But I believe in the shadow of 911, it would have been a very hard decision to not got to war with Iraq, and still tell the American people that you had their safety in mind

The war for oil? That is BS because we have been there 12 years now and if he had made a deal with the oil companies and went back on it? WE there would be a lot of politicians that would not be around today!

Big Business play a lot harder than the government

Excellent post. That story had to be repeated.

[Bob]

The family is very generous and so is he. He was a SEAL at one time. You know one of those kids that never had to work a day in his live and chose to join the military. His training centers are top of the mark! and he is a huge supported of the constitution!

Now that being said, his people have been hired to do some terrible things! But sometimes terrible things need to be done.

The family fortune is from paper of all things!

Well, even at my age, I learn daily. Thank you.

I have never mentioned this, but when I owned a machine shop in CA, some of my customers were dealing with the paper industry. I filled an order for special disc knives that cut corrugated boxes. I forget the paper company I sold them to. Ametek Hottendorf made machinery for the paper industry and I made a lot of various parts for their new machines. Fibreboard was a steady customer and I made both parts and sub components of their machines. Hottendorf dealt with corrugated boxes. Fibreboard had a group of enginners and technicians that assembled machines the engineers designed. I got a lot of work from Fibreboard.

Back to Hottendorf. They too had engineers and a large machine shop. My equipment was better than theirs so I got more spin off work that their own shop was slower in producing. I was taken to be introduced to Bill Hottendorf who was a nice guy.

Circa 1967-71.

[Bob]

In the 90s, the first forum I read and posted on was called The great commanders.

That forum had some true experts so I learned a lot from all of them. One poster showed up as a West Point student who obtained a commission. Chris and I once e mailed often. The last time I talked to him, he was a Major but fortunately at that point, had not yet been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.

He mentioned me might retire but the guy was so sharp, I urged him to remain and probably make the rank of General. I consulted him for years about military things. His wife was interested in him leaving the Army.

I can't recall all the other posters but I admit they were so well educated that it was a pleasure to read them chatting back and forth and me mostly learning.

I recall suggesting that General Fred Franks was a great commander. That went nowhere. LOL

Fred is not related to General Tommy Franks.

I am trying to recall their thinking on General William DePuy the almost unknown General that few Americans seem to have known of. I took a special interest in DePuy whom if you look his bio up, commanded the very HQ/HQ unit I was later part of. He had hardly been gone and I was assigned to a rifle company. I was supposed to go out on field duty and study making war.

HQ company top sergeant studied my personnel file and told me he was keeping me with him.

I was supposed to be in C company but got super lucky.

How lucky you say?

Well, I was issued a new M-14 which I was supposed to qualify with annually. I never fired the rifle and it was kept clean by somebody in the Arms room for me. It was as new the day i left as the day I arrived. Working for the Company Commander has some perks.

[Axiomatic]

If it is your belief that we were looking to have a safe haven for a military base in the region? You are correct!

But you are looking at the situation with eyes that are separated from 911 by more than a decade, not in the shadow of the worst terrorist attack in US history..

It is also possible that you are young? And do not remember the feeling that the nation had. GWB while a terrible President in his own right, was not the only person in the world that believed that Iraq had WMD's, as a matter of fact it was the consensus that Sadam was in possession of these weapons. And Sadam himself was a party in this deception.

So faced with the fact that we did not know the extent of the terrorist network in the middle east, and the fact that the world generally felt that Sadam would be more than happy to supply these weapons to those willing to attack the USA. Your options would have been different than they were today.

To make any conclusions without taking that into account would suggest that one would be trying to tip reality toward supporting there version of the story

Let's focus back on the point. Your goal is to change the regime in Iraq. At your disposal, you have the US military and some allied forces. Include whatever else you want as your goal. All I ask is that, if some part of your goal makes it advantageous to secure a town only to then abandon that town so that it becomes a base for the very insurgent forces you are fighting so that, in the future, you will have to secure it again, and to repeat this process in town after town throughout the area you are trying to make safe for four years, and then, after four years, begin to employ the well known, necessary tactics you avoided using throughout the previous four years, you will explain the part of your goal or predicament that makes that advantageous and how it does so.

Attacking uphill with the sun in your face is a mistake. Ordering your forces to attack or retreat when they are unable to comply is a mistake.

What I can't accept is that persisting in a strategy (which itself is foolish), so well known to be counterproductive and self-defeating, over such a long time, can be a mistake that any competent person, let alone a team of experienced generals, would make.

Not that it would it would have any bearing on the facts, but I'm definitely older than you think. I do remember the situation as it was, and what I've described here is my perception of events, not from now, but from the time they unfolded. But, again if you can think of a way in which the emotional climate at the time should justify such persistence in refusal to employ known necessary tactics, then explain your thinking. I just don't know what to do with a vague guess that maybe, somehow, such events could have influenced events in some way.

[zelmo1234]

^^^^^

Well if you remember you will know that you had Bill Clinton being interviewed supporting the use of force, the British, Hilary was on the floor of the Senate calling for his head on a platter

That was the environment at the time! however!

I can't stand the fact that we fought to rid the cities of the thugs just to leave and come back in again.

My way is much more cruel but you have the rats out of the hen house when you are done! And you don't have anyone attacking your back!

I do not recall any new outlet or Senator claiming that Sadam should be left alone. the hawks were in charge back then!

And in the setting of 911 it is easy for me to see why?

[The Sage of Main Street]

You really think you can "vote" and fix this country?
This system can't be fixed by using this system. It is broken beyond repair.

Regardless, whoever wins, WE lose.

A day of reckoning approaches.
Soon an Iraqi government will invade and annex Kuwait, which for 4,000 years has belonged to whoever controls the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. Why should we defend billionaire petrocrats who are too cheap to defend themselves?

[The Sage of Main Street]

I guess you're trying to be...funny...or something. The Koch Klux Klan rides again!

[The Sage of Main Street]

Precisely.
To them we're "unclean" and to the muzzies we're "infidels". They both hate our guts. Fine.
Let them solve their differences among themselves and let the chips fall where they may....but of course our zionist occupied government would never allow anything like that. Israel Is Our Shield. Muzzies are descended from a pre-historic race of bandits, driven into the desert as fugitives. Israel is only their closest target in a worldwide lootfest. After World War I, those who conquered the Ottoman Empire set it and Lebanon up as decoys for the inevitable next jihad.

That started with OPEC price-gouging in 1973. Big Oil piggybacks off that.

[Akula]

Israel is our shield? What are you talking about?
Israel pulls the strings and the u.s. politicians dance like puppets.

[Bob]

Slavery was "legal"..Alcohol was legal...then illlegal..then legal again.

Lots of things that are "legal" aren't "right" or "honest" just because some politician said so.


Popular opinion or consensus among politicians is no reason to start a war. ..and again you put your faith in politicians to do the right thing. See what you got for your trouble?

If iraq was flying warplanes over the u.s. do you think we'd try to shoot them down?

Your argument makes virtually no sense, not if you think you are trying to be of help to the forum.

Sure, Washington, Jefferson enjoyed owning slaves. But do your history books run them down?

And you totally ignore that I nor you had any say about war. Even when I was in the Army, I had no say so as to what President Kennedy did and then Johnson.

You act as if the public has a say.

[Bob]

Israel is our shield? What are you talking about?
Israel pulls the strings and the u.s. politicians dance like puppets.

Israel does not agree. I believe Netanyahu is pissed at Obama.

Is Israel our shield? Israel is busy being it's own shield.

[Akula]

Your argument makes virtually no sense, not if you think you are trying to be of help to the forum.

Sure, Washington, Jefferson enjoyed owning slaves. But do your history books run them down?

And you totally ignore that I nor you had any say about war. Even when I was in the Army, I had no say so as to what President Kennedy did and then Johnson.

You act as if the public has a say.

context.
My post was a reply to you(?) or someone who was going on about clinton authorized this and bush had to follow becuse it was the "law"...etc...
I pointed out that laws are changed all the time and listed a couple. Read my post again.

I don't care who owned slaves 250 years ago or what public school "history" books say about them.
I know the citizens don't have any immediate way to correct government over stepping their boundaries.
I'm aware that the only (peaceful) way to affect govt is to protest en masse and keep it up. It worked for the vietnam war, didn't it...eventually.
You think I'm 12 years old or something? I know exactly how the government works. I was around for kennedy too. I've seen them all and heard every lie.

[Bob]

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#Opposition_to_invasion

According to General Tommy Franks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Tommy_Franks), the objectives of the invasion were, "First, end the regime of Saddam Hussein. Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Third, to search for, to capture and to drive out terrorists from that country. Fourth, to collect such intelligence as we can related to terrorist networks. Fifth, to collect such intelligence as we can related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction. Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needy Iraqi citizens. Seventh, to secure Iraq’s oil fields (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_field) and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people. And last, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government."[150] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#cite_note-152)

[Akula]

Israel does not agree. I believe Netanyahu is pissed at Obama.

Is Israel our shield? Israel is busy being it's own shield.

No..We are israels shield, actually.

If you're interested in how much influence jews have in government, do a search for jewish members of the senate...then do one for congress...then look at AIPAC very carefully.
You'll notice a disproportionate number of jews in government but they only make up something like 3% of the population.
Never mind..look at it here.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewcong113.html

Now that's a LOT of "lawmakers" who are of a faith that thinks they are superior to white christians and consider us "unclean" and "goyim".

..and that's part of the reason we're tangled up in so many wars in the ME...fighting the arabs by proxy for israel.

[Bob]

context.
My post was a reply to you(?) or someone who was going on about clinton authorized this and bush had to follow becuse it was the "law"...etc...
I pointed out that laws are changed all the time and listed a couple. Read my post again.

I don't care who owned slaves 250 years ago or what public school "history" books say about them.
I know the citizens don't have any immediate way to correct government over stepping their boundaries.
I'm aware that the only (peaceful) way to affect govt is to protest en masse and keep it up. It worked for the vietnam war, didn't it...eventually.
You think I'm 12 years old or something? I know exactly how the government works. I was around for kennedy too. I've seen them all and heard every lie.

You don't care about history but you care about the history of this particular war though over a decade since it started??????

We don't actually know if the protests during Vietnam worked or not. It is easy to assume that is the cause, but with the way the president during Johnson waged war, there was no way to end on top.

Nixon stated he would end it. And he did. If he responded to demonstrations, he sure fooled me.

I don't know your age. Do you know my age? Were you around for FDR as I was?

Look, so as to not mislead you, I went through phases during Vietnam.

Having just arrived in the USA when Vietnam was in charge of the war, when our men there were advisers, aka teachers, I backed the Army.

I kept an eye on Johnson. It took me awhile since he fooled me, to realize he was not fighting war as I had been trained to wage war. It came to me slowly that he was just getting our guys killed with nothing much to show for it. Then I decided to be on the side of the troops and talk to get them out. If a president won't win, nothing the troops can do that wins wars.

But you can say that about Korea as well.

[Bob]

No..We are israels shield, actually.

If you're interested in how much influence jews have in government, do a search for jewish members of the senate...then do one for congress...then look at AIPAC very carefully.
You'll notice a disproportionate number of jews in government but they only make up something like 3% of the population.
Never mind..look at it here.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewcong113.html

Now that's a LOT of "lawmakers" who are of a faith that thinks they are superior to white christians and consider us "unclean" and "goyim".

..and that's part of the reason we're tangled up in so many wars in the ME...fighting the arabs by proxy for israel.

You see Jews, I see Democrats other than Eric Cantor.

Those Jews whom are Democrats actually are part of making law. They play no role in deciding matters for Israel.

Israel has fought the Arabs. Won every war.

Today, Arabs seem to me more interested in tossing out their government or trying to get government since they tossed them out than interested in Israel

[Bob]

Israel is our shield? What are you talking about?
Israel pulls the strings and the u.s. politicians dance like puppets.

Democrats dance. Exception is Eric Cantor

[Akula]

You don't care about history I didn't say that, did I? If you're going to be dishonest I'm not going to continue.

We don't actually know if the protests during Vietnam worked or not. It is easy to assume that is the cause, but with the way the president during Johnson waged war, there was no way to end on top.

I never said they were the ONLY reason...but they had an effect. When tens of thousands of people protest every day nationwide for several years...it has an effect. believe that.


Nixon stated he would end it. And he did. If he responded to demonstrations, he sure fooled me.

Read some more history...Nixon escalated the war and invaded cambodia and laos....When he saw HUNDREDS of thousands of people were protesting nationwide and congress held hearings on the "war powers act", he backed out.


If you would, read every one carefully and note the dates. It will show where you made your errors.

Here's the site;
http://www.landscaper.net/timelin.htm

31 Oct 68 - President Johnson announced he would halt all bombing of N. Vietnam on 1 Nov 68. The B-52 bombing halt was maintained until 15 Apr 72. The US bombing "sorties" were shifted to Laos 1 Nov 68 on through 1972 -- over 25,000 sorties were flown, with the most occurring in 1971
End 1968 - "Draftees" accounted for 38% of all American troops in Vietnam. Over 12% of the draftees were college graduates

http://www.landscaper.net/images/chopper_clr.gif
18 Jan 69 - Expanded peace talks open in Paris with representatives of the US, S. Vietnam, N. Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front (NLF)

20 Jan 69 - "The greatest honor history can bestow is the tittle of 'peacemaker'. . . after a period of confrontation we are entering an era of negotiation." President Richard Nixon during his Inaugural Address

5 Apr 69 - The only major anti-war demonstration in the early months of the Nixon presidency occurred April 5th and 6th

Spring 69 - During 1973 Senate hearings, it was revealed that secret bombings started a year before the 30 Apr 70 incursion into Cambodia

8 May 69 - "10-point peace plan" offered in Paris by the NLF and endorsed by Hanoi

14 May 69 - President Nixon, during a policy address on Vietnam, proposes an "8-point peace plan" that would include mutual withdrawal of all non-Vietnamese forces to designated bases over a 12-month period, after which remaining troops would be totally withdrawn from S. Vietnam

Mid-69 - President Nixon abandoned the idea of a "purely military victory", started bringing US troops home, and talked of a "Vietnamization" program to prepare the S. Vietnamese to take over the US combat role. Withdrawals announced: 8 Jun - 25,000 and 16 Sep - 35,000

3 Sep 69 - Ho Chi Minh dies

15 Oct 69 - "Vietnam Moratorium" - An estimated 1 million Americans across the US participated in anti-war demonstrations, protest rallies and peace vigils. 50 members of the US Congress also participated

3 Nov 69 - President Nixon says he plans withdrawal of all US troops on a secret timetable

19 Nov 69 - Congress gave the president the authority to institute the "draft lottery" system aimed at inducting 19-year-olds before older men. Nixon signed the bill into law 26 Nov 69. Under the new law the period of prime eligibility was reduced from 7 years to 1 year. Maximum eligibility would begin on a man's 19th birthday and end on his 20th birthday

1 Dec 69 - The first draft lottery in 27 years was held at Selective Service Headquarters in Washington, DC

2 Dec 69 - US House approved (334-55) a resolution endorsing Nixon's efforts to achieve "peace with justice", following a 2 day debate. This was the first major Vietnam policy declaration since the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution

8 Dec 69 - Chief US negotiator Henry Cabot Lodge and his deputy resigned, expressing pessimism concerning the course of the negotiations

15 Dec 69 - President Nixon announced the reduction of another 50,000 troops by mid-April 1970

18 Dec 69 - Senator John Cooper (R-KY), after several attempts, succeeded in limiting US activities in Laos and Thailand when a bill including $23.2 Billion for Vietnam war activities prohibited introduction of US combat troops into Laos and Thailand

End 69 - A year of ever widening divisions in the US. The "silent majority" and "middle America" were pitted against the war protestors. Vice President Agnew called protestors "impudent snobs"

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Jan 70 - "Washington Monthly Magazine" described an intelligence network of "nearly 1,000 plain clothes investigators working out of some 200 offices from coast to coast" who wrote reports on "political protests of all kinds". The domestic intelligence operation stored and disseminated information on both groups and individuals who "might cause trouble of the US Army." Senator Ervin reported in December 1970 that he was informed the surveillance included 800 Illinois citizens including Senator Adlai Stevenson, III (D-ILL), Rep. Abner Mikua (D-ILL) and US Circuit Judge Otto Kerner. Ervin said "apparently anyone who in the Army's definition was 'left of center' was a prospective candidate for political surveillance." During lengthly Senate hearings on the Army's activities, Defense Secretary Laird ordered the spying stopped.

21 Feb 70 - A presidential commission recommends the institution of an all-volunteer Army and elimination of the draft

Mar/Apr 70 - News of increased US involvement in Laos and Cambodia surfaced when 1969 Senate transcripts were made public

20 Apr 70 - President Nixon announces during a TV address, the withdrawal of another 150,000 troops over the next 12 months. This reduction would lower US troop strength to 284,000

23 Apr 70 - President Nixon calls for far-reaching draft reform. Nixon also issued an Executive Order that ended all occupational deferments and most paternity deferments, with "extreme hardship" as the only exception

30 Apr 70 - President Nixon sent US forces into Cambodia, causing widespread war protest in the streets, and plunging Congress into a session-long debate over Congressional war powers

2 May 70 - Senators McGovern, Hughes, Cranston, Goodell, and Hatfield announced they planned to introduce an "end the war" amendment which would work by suspending funds for military operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

4 May 70 - 4 Kent State college students were shot to death by Ohio National Guardsmen during an anti-war protest on the campus. This lead to widening anti-war protests

9 May 70 - A peaceful anti-war rally held at the Ellipse in Washington, DC was attended by about 80,000 people including about 10 members of Congress

31 Aug 70 - During debate over the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment in the US Senate, Senator Eagleton (D-MO) and Javits (R-NY) said that the Nixon policy of gradual de-escalation was leading to a wider war in Indochina. Senator Church said the Congress needed to keep pressure on President Nixon to hasten the withdrawal. Senators Scott (R-PA) and Thurmond (R-SC) expressed concern over the fate of US P.O.W.'s and bargaining pressure if US troops were removed

1 Sep 70 - The McGovern-Hatfield Amendment, providing for the withdrawal of all US troops by 31 Dec 71, was defeated by the Senate now and again later

1970 - War Powers - By the time Congress learned that the naval incident leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) had been misrepresented and moved to repeal the resolution in 1970, President Nixon had already shifted to another legal rationale -- his constitutional powers as "Commander in Chief" -- for his Vietnam policies. In its 1969 "national commitments" resolution, the Senate made a bid to reassert a congressional voice in decisions committing the US to the defense of foreign countries. The House passed war-powers measures in 1970, 1971 and 1972.





I don't know your age. Do you know my age? Were you around for FDR as I was?
No, and I'm not talking down to you, am I?

[Akula]

You see Jews, I see Democrats other than Eric Cantor.

Ok..whatever..they're jewish democrats...who think white christians are unclean and goyim.


Those Jews whom are Democrats actually are part of making law.
Pssst...that's what legislators do. Democrats and republicans.


They play no role in deciding matters for Israel.
Are you trying to be funny or dishonest? No one ever said our legislators pass laws in israel. What the hell are you talking about?


Israel has fought the Arabs. Won every war.

Right. With our help. Go look up how much money we give to israel every year...and where do you think they get their weapons from? Us.


Today, Arabs seem to me more interested in tossing out their government or trying to get government since they tossed them out than interested in Israel

muzzies are WAY more interested in killing the invaders though...that would be us.
We fight the muzzies for israel by proxy.

[Mister D]

Akula What I can't understand is the attitude common among American Evangelicals. I don't think you will find a more pro-Israel demographic anywhere in the world yet American Jews fear and despise what we call the "Christian Right". It's odd.

[Akula]

@Akula (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=402) What I can't understand is the attitude common among American Evangelicals. I don't think you will find a more pro-Israel demographic anywhere in the world yet American Jews fear and despise what we call the "Christian Right". It's odd.

I don't understand the dynamic either. It does seem a bit off, though.
Beats me.

[The Sage of Main Street]

Israel is our shield? What are you talking about?
Israel pulls the strings and the u.s. politicians dance like puppets.

Big Oil pulls the strings to protect jihadist OPEC, which enables "our" oil companies to charge us at least a dozen times what the oil is worth. We live under a Big Oil Occupied Government. You are afraid both to recognize Islam as our mortal enemy and to stand up to our petrocrats, who must have their property confiscated for treason. Anti-Semitism Always Leaves a Yellow Stain.

[The Sage of Main Street]

I'm aware that the only (peaceful) way to affect govt is to protest en masse and keep it up. It worked for the Vietnam war, didn't it...eventually.
You think I'm 12 years old or something? I know exactly how the government works. .

The Vietnam protests had the opposite effect. Disempowered Middle America, the silenced majority, recognized that the "anti-war" cult comprised privileged degenerate snobs. Not knowing much about the war, normal people figured that if spoiled degenerate punks like that were against it, it must be right.

The focus of the rich-kid Vietnik movement was to show off to their Corporate Big Shot Daddies that they too hated the working class. So they called the working-class soldiers "baby-killers" in order to put them down. That's what that preppy tantrum was all about, despite the media-created myth that this cult helped end the war. Instead of what self-appointed experts tell you to think about that New Age eruption, the refusal of the enemy to quit and the absolute cowardice of the South Vietnamese made even the hawks realize that the war was impossible to win. The present Left glorifies itself with that myth, while the Right supports it as a "stab in the back" theory. Hippy = Yuppy = Preppy. QED.