Are the architects of the War on Terror in trouble

[sheaf_stout]

JosephH, cool. I am not really attacking your credibility. Mostly I just wanted more info. That's a shitty way to get it, I know.

 

I am not a merc or whatever derogatory term you want to use in order to get under my skin. Never was.

 

Nice compilation of targets you have there. I suppose I could also drum up as many on the left who voted for the war too. I think Rednose already covered that point earlier though. If not - then why the hell did some many of them vote in favor of the war? Did they think war was some friendly game? Rhetoric... The left is as guilty of anything if you ask me. To suggest treason is really a joke. Believe it or not. I am not here to convince you one way or the other.

 

Canadian idiot - go home. I am with Rednose on that.. I will not disgrace all Canadians though. A Canadian was my squad leader when doing LRP training down in Georgia. One of the toughest and meanest son of a bitches I ever did meet. I never did get it out of him why he was in the US military...

[dt_3pin]

 

 

There is a message in there just for people like you.

 

People like me? Oh, you must mean vets. Vets who joined the service as a higher calling, who thought that the military represented the best of American character, but came to find those qualities in desperately short supply. Vets who left the service disgusted with the dominant "young, dumb, and full of cum" culture, saddened by the machismo uber alles, and disheartened by lack of ideological vision.

 

The little boys in that video and the leadership (from the CIC down) that encourages that culture are the reasons we will never win this war.

[sheaf_stout]

dtpinhead,

 

You sound like you were the social reject in your platoon.

[dt_3pin]

dtpinhead,

 

You sound like you were the social reject in your platoon.

 

 

Oh snap!

 

[mattp]

- then why the hell did some many of them vote in favor of the war? Did they think war was some friendly game? Rhetoric... The left is as guilty of anything if you ask me. To suggest treason is really a joke.

 

I thought we had an interesting angle on the discussion here - and to me the central question is how events may unfold and whether any of this will lead to a true national dialog instead of just more of the same politics, but I can't resist taking this bait.

 

The "left" did not support the war. The demonstrations against the war, not only in this country but around the world, were the largest demonstrations since the Vietnam era. A significant number like maybe 30% of the American public was against the invasion from square one.

 

Those who voted to authorize Bush to negotiate based on having the authority to invade were mostly spinless opportunistic politicians. Not leftists and certainly not leftists with any conscience. Even the authorization itself was one step removed from actually authorizing war - they authorized further negotiation backed by the threat of the use of force - and I'm surprised they aren't trying to weasel out of their failure of leadership using that excuse now.

 

I'm not saying that no Senator or Congressman could rationally have supported the war. But they are all a bunch of liars if they stand here and say that they were carefully analyzing the news and they actually believed the stated reasons for the invastion. And nobody stood up to say: WMD is not why we are dong this, but I'm for the invasion because I think blah blah blah.

 

Second, it IS treason in any ordinary definition of the word to lead this Nation into what is predictably going to be a disaster, for reasons of personal greed. We don't really know how much Bush and his buddies were adding up their anticipated profits before this war, but they had to know it was going to turn out well for Halliburton and the Oil Companies. So far, they've offered no believeable justification for (1) invading, and (2) rejecting the advice of their own war planners as to how to do it right once they invaded. There may well be a good case for treason.

 

In my view, we are destined to remain in the same rut of schizophrenic and groundless foreign policy operated from the back rooms as long as nobody in leadership has the courage to stand up and say: HEY FOLKS - THIS HAS BEEN A DISASTER AND NOT ONLY A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP BUT A FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY AND WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW TO TAKE AMERICA DOWN A DIFFERENT ROAD. Folks on the "right," and many on the "left" may disagree with such a proposal, but real discussion rather than BS is what is needed.

[sheaf_stout]

dtpinhead,

 

You sound like you were the social reject in your platoon.

 

 

Oh snap!

 

dtpinhead,

 

Let me guess... you spent 2 years in the military for some GI bill\college money. I've seen those people come in all the time.

Usually squeaky mouthed and often times unwilling to pull their weight. More interested in letting time pass in a hurry. Often times the ones who whined and complained about how they didn't want to go to the Middle East because they didn't sign up for that.

You should know that there are a few more things to being a soldier than launching 5.56 and 7.62 down range at the enemy.

Being a part of a cohesive unit and dealing with the daily difficulties of life in the military are some of the hardest parts for people to grasp.

The 1st Sergeant of my unit used to send a lot of the problematic troops into my squad for a fixing. I think most of those troops just didn't really grasp what their mission was at times and got lost thinking about themselves too much instead of their unit.

In general the military is a representation of our society as a whole. So if you had a hard time fitting in then maybe there are other issues at hand.

I'd hardly say that a short stint in a unit or two for a few years as a small sampling of the military would give you the benefit to make generalizations which suggest our troops are mindless brutes which you were too good to serve with.

Perhaps you chose the wrong MOS or got shipped into a shitty unit as well. Or maybe worse, that you harbor some social issues which you have not dealt with.

I sense that you got sent on KP and guard duty too many times and maybe even got bullied by your peers for possibly not pulling your own weight.

Don't bother blaming the military for things you had trouble dealing with.

 

 

Either way it doesnt really matter because a soldiers mission is not really to win people's hearts and minds as you have suggested. Your banter is full of hot air.

 

 

MattP, In general I see you are trying to vindicate or absolve your favorite party from responsibility.. I will come and read what you have to say when I have more time on my hands...

[RedNose]

Nobody's arguing that the ADMINISTRATION has botched numerous facets of the war, considerable blame placed higher than others, but Democrats and sideshow Republicans have blood all over their reptilian scales, and all the rhetoric in the world won't change that. I had zero access to classified information in 2002, and I never for one second believed that Saddam posed a threat to our sovereign nation. Now if I layman can figure that out how can a Senator with years in the White House, connections to every nook and cranny in the Pentagon, an Army of Boston trained analysts, fail to know the truth?

 

 

[RedNose]

People like me? Oh, you must mean vets.

 

There are many levels of veterans. Please identify your units, job classifications, whether or not you've served combat duty in Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Desert Storm/Shield, OIF, OEF and if it applies which deployment phases. I think this will help seperate the men from the boys.

[Jim]

In my view, we are destined to remain in the same rut of schizophrenic and groundless foreign policy operated from the back rooms as long as nobody in leadership has the courage to stand up and say: HEY FOLKS - THIS HAS BEEN A DISASTER AND NOT ONLY A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP BUT A FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY AND WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW TO TAKE AMERICA DOWN A DIFFERENT ROAD. Folks on the "right," and many on the "left" may disagree with such a proposal, but real discussion rather than BS is what is needed.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

I hope we leave Iraq with a big bang. I think of it as a way to let that part of the world know we're ready if they come knocking later on.

 

 

Perhaps John Kerry might have had the nutsacks to define what 'getting the job done' means.

 

From your quote here, it sounds like you are at odds with your Commander in Chief's stated goal of bringing security and stability (if no longer democracy) to Iraq. That leads me to believe that you are unclear of your mission there, which leads me to question why we are there at all.

 

Your big bang theory is stillborn in practice. Anti American terrorist groups know full well the extent of America's military might. They also know that the more innocents we kill, ie, the bigger the bang, the more adherents to their side they will gain. That is the nature of a asymetrical warfare: the information campaign is as important as the use of force, and we seem to be losing on the PR front. A big bang, which I'm reading as an escalation to total warfare and thus a higher tolerance for indescriminate killing (bombing Mecca, etc, etc), is clearly what those destabilizing Iraq right now would prefer. Why not get America to help them do what they're already doing? In addition, is a display of deadly force really a deterent to suicide bombers?

 

The war's detractors are often criticized for not having an alternative, so I'll present one here. Rather than destabilizing a country and creating a petri dish for terrorist groups to operate against the US in Iraq, I believe we should have ignored Iraq, which was essentially contained, and continue to pursue nation building in Afghanistan while continuing to rout the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and all the other assholes that have flocked to that region since the Soviet invasion. We should then have concentrated our efforts on infiltrating and neutralizing terrorist groups in other countries with the cooperation of those governments. Guantanamo has been recruitment poster child for the other side. Bad idea. Try em, convict em punish em, let the others go. Our indefinite detainment strategy has been a lose/lose for us: it has eroded support for the WOT at home and made us look like pricks abroad, which reduces the willingness of other governments to work with us on counter terrorism efforts.

 

This administration blew Al Qaeda and kin up to be much more than they are. This is not a 'clash of civilizations'. These terrorist groups can blow a few things up, but they have no invasion/occupation/subjugation capability whatsoever. They have no 'civilization' to clash with. They are simply international criminal enterprises; thugs, not much different than the mafia. And that is how we should be fighting them: better intel through protected informants, etc...similar to the way the US successfully took down most of the mafia in the 60s and 70s.

 

Instead of marginalizing a few assholes who needed killing as such in the eyes of the world, our grand efforts, particularly our near unilateral invasion of Iraq, has allowed much of the Islamic world to paint our efforts out to be a war on Islam itself. This is a loser's strategy: one without political resolution. It's also an unsustainably and needlessly expensive one.

 

That's why I advocate withdrawal from Iraq. We've not kept our eyes on the ball in our anti-terrorism efforts because of this grand plan. I support a return to the strategy I've outlined above. As for those groups duking it out for turf inside Iraq, let them figure it out. If they can't, a partition will happen (it seems to be happening now whether we like it or not). Fine.

 

Finally, your criticism of another combat veteran's service seems to violate what I perceive to be your own code of honor. The only thing one should say to a combat vet, regardless of the efficacy of the war they fought in, is 'thank you for your sacrifice'. Enough said there.

Edited February 13, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[tvashtarkatena]

Nobody's arguing that the ADMINISTRATION has botched numerous facets of the war, considerable blame placed higher than others, but Democrats and sideshow Republicans have blood all over their reptilian scales, and all the rhetoric in the world won't change that. I had zero access to classified information in 2002, and I never for one second believed that Saddam posed a threat to our sovereign nation. Now if I layman can figure that out how can a Senator with years in the White House, connections to every nook and cranny in the Pentagon, an Army of Boston trained analysts, fail to know the truth?

 

 

Here, here. Well said.

 

Congress is very much to blame for allowing this debacle to unfold, no doubt. Those who 'believed' the administration's mail order intel and threat assessment were either covering their asses, or they were just plain stupid. Neither is admirable. However...Congress voted to authorize the President to use military force, so some in that body have argued that they did it to give the President negotiating leverage against Saddam for the purpose of a peaceful resolution. Uh...I'm not buying that one either. The scuttlebutt around Washington is way too efficient for the President's summer decision to go to war the following spring to have been kept a secret. Shit, I was reading about it in October before the invasion!

 

Congress made the supreme mistake of given the President a blank check, when they should have been more specific about the use of military force (authorizing it campaign by campaign, for example). That way, they could have said yes to Afghanistan, yes to worldwide counter terrorism efforts, and no to Iraq. Oh well.

[RedNose]

Based on that logic we would have lost the 2nd World War because Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki would all have been "Off Limits" targets because we're just "too damned high and moral" for that sort of chicanery.

 

???? I get where you're going, but your solution is a hindsight solution which offers nothing for the present tense.

 

I am a veteran with 5 ongoing years in combat, I can say without reservation that it is not my "honor system" to respect other veterans, nor is it anyone elses, it's an individual thing. Maybe for those REMF suckwads, but once you reach a certain point that is not the case. Reference Band of Brothers where a D-Day/Market Garden vet of the platoon is snubbed because he did not participate in Bastogne. Same-same. Cops are the same way. We all eat our own in the end.

[RedNose]

I am of the opinion that it is going to be up to the American people to reach common ground and concensus because our politicians have grown too segregated and devisive to serve the common interest.

 

I don't always agree with everything that everyone states here, but I think it's better that we talk at all.

 

Like all crimes, you have to trace motive, and opportunity and figure out where the money trail leads to. Exxon Corp comes to mind.

 

I'm not for pulling out. My strategy would involve pulling US conventional assets back to man large permanent bases, sending loyal forces out to the borders of Iran and Syria, and clandestinely arming the various competing factions until they wear themselves out. At this pace 3-4 years would be sufficient.

 

Any others?

[RedNose]

In my view, we are destined to remain in the same rut of schizophrenic and groundless foreign policy operated from the back rooms as long as nobody in leadership has the courage to stand up and say: HEY FOLKS - THIS HAS BEEN A DISASTER AND NOT ONLY A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP BUT A FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY AND WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW TO TAKE AMERICA DOWN A DIFFERENT ROAD. Folks on the "right," and many on the "left" may disagree with such a proposal, but real discussion rather than BS is what is needed.

 

 

Agreed that we need to take our foreign policy in a sensible direction, but I view Nancy Pelosi and Hillary with the same distrust as George Bush and Cheney.

[tvashtarkatena]

Based on that logic we would have lost the 2nd World War because Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki would all have been "Off Limits" targets because we're just "too damned high and moral" for that sort of chicanery.

 

Furthermore, your solution is a hindsight solution which offers nothing for the present tense.

 

Being that I am a veteran with over 5 years in combat, I can say without reservation that it is not my "honor system" to respect other veterans, nor is it anyone elses. Maybe for those REMF suckwads, but once you reach a certain point that is not the case.

 

I would argue that none of those bombings were necessary to win WWII on either front, but that could go on for days. Suffice to say that, of the targets mentioned, only Tokyo was strategically important. By the time Hiroshima came around, Japan was already on its knees and close to surrender. I would argue that we won that war by slugging it out across the Pacific, not by a finale of fireworks. Some have said that our allowing the Japanese military and civilian government surrender without requiring the emporer to do the same made more of a difference in ending that war sooner than Hiroshima.

 

Fatman did demonstrate one thing, however: it sucks to be nuked. It certainly played a significant role in deterence from then on.

 

In any case, the analogy doesn't fit. Japan was a nation state with tightly focused leadership. There was someone there to negotiate with. The situation is Iraq is much more complicated. We blow big up; who makes the call on the other side? Which of the many groups we're fighting is going to respond how? Will it foment more anti-US action around the world? Clusterfuck, really.

 

Finally, we're going to have to agree to disagree about the service thing. Is a nuclear sub captain whose never seen combat less honorable or valuable than the people you serve with? How about the office nerds that broke the Enigma code? It takes all kinds to make military campaign successful, and to prevent future ones from being necessary.

 

 

[RedNose]

It's generally regarded in the military that the worse you suffered the more honorable your service. Sitting it out in a nuke sub as compared to enduring indirect fire on the eastern front in Stalingrad? My vote goes to the grunt.

 

Someone please win this debate, so I can look away from this trainwreck!

[tvashtarkatena]

I am of the opinion that it is going to be up to the American people to reach common ground and concensus because our politicians have grown too segregated and devisive to serve the common interest.

 

I don't always agree with everything that everyone states here, but I think it's better that we talk at all.

 

Like all crimes, you have to trace motive, and opportunity and figure out where the money trail leads to. Exxon Corp comes to mind.

 

I'm not for pulling out. My strategy would involve pulling US conventional assets back to man large permanent bases, sending loyal forces out to the borders of Iran and Syria, and clandestinely arming the various competing factions until they wear themselves out. At this pace 3-4 years would be sufficient.

 

Any others?

 

I'm warm to some of this, but I don't the American public's going to go for the last suggestion. And that, unfortunately, is the toughest one to tackle. I've advocated partition, but I really haven't a clue as to how that would be executed. It's just not what I do for a living. There have got to be some other competing ideas out their regarding sectarian squabbling.

[tvashtarkatena]

It's generally regarded in the military that the worse you suffered the more honorable your service. Sitting it out in a nuke sub as compared to enduring indirect fire on the eastern front in Stalingrad? My vote goes to the grunt.

 

Someone please win this debate, so I can look away from this trainwreck!

 

You win. Let's let it lie.

 

The Enigma example was a good one, you've got to admit. That prevented a lot of grunts from suffering more than did.

[sheaf_stout]

In my view, we are destined to remain in the same rut of schizophrenic and groundless foreign policy operated from the back rooms as long as nobody in leadership has the courage to stand up and say: HEY FOLKS - THIS HAS BEEN A DISASTER AND NOT ONLY A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP BUT A FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY AND WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW TO TAKE AMERICA DOWN A DIFFERENT ROAD. Folks on the "right," and many on the "left" may disagree with such a proposal, but real discussion rather than BS is what is needed.

 

Agreed that we need to take our foreign policy in a sensible direction, but I view Nancy Pelosi and Hillary with the same distrust as George Bush and Cheney.

 

 

Amen. Those two are total nutcases of the other extreme. Many of the leading candidates for presidency from the last election on the Democrat side voted in favor of this war. To suddenly act like it never happened is really just a big lie. Thus the remarks from MattP earlier are dead in my eyes.

 

Trashman, I think you've read too far into my comments. Doesn't matter as you and I know it was just a shot over the bow. I don't really care for the arab world and am not interested in pursuing any relations whatsoever in that part of the world.

[tvashtarkatena]

Trashman, I think you've read too far into my comments. Doesn't matter as you and I know it was just a shot over the bow. I don't really care for the arab world and am not interested in pursuing any relations whatsoever in that part of the world.

 

The problem is, that's where the terrorists come from. Without at least some cooperation from these governments and their local populaces how are we going to conduct effective counter terrorism operations? I suppose we could pull out of the region altogether and hope for the best.

 

An analogy here at home. Every couple of years a homeless camp moves on to the lawn of the local church. The assault rate immediately goes up, and goes down when they leave. The solution on one side, I suppose, would be to kill them all. OK. Another solution might be to address the issue of why these people are on the streets in the first place. The worst option is to just ignore the problem, because the problem isn't going to ignore us.

 

Plus, there's that oil dependency thing we still haven't addressed.

[StevenSeagal]

I don't really care for the arab world and am not interested in pursuing any relations whatsoever in that part of the world.

 

That part of the world, however, is not going to disappear either. Far better than perpetual war with, or subjugation of said culture would be a long term development of cooperative relations- which might- might- produce a transformation of that culture. As RedNose said, "better that we are talking at all".

It's quite amazing how close we are simultaneously to having a war with Iran and yet how much potential exists for us to have normalized relations. Everything I've read indicates the population of Iran would like to see this happen.

[selkirk]

People like me? Oh, you must mean vets.

 

There are many levels of veterans. Please identify your units, job classifications, whether or not you've served combat duty in Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Desert Storm/Shield, OIF, OEF and if it applies which deployment phases. I think this will help seperate the men from the boys.

 

Come on Gotterdamerung - I usually agree with about 3/4 of what you have to say but every time somebody with military service spouts off this shit it pisses me off. It doesn't take being in combat on the ground to have an informed, intelligent, and valid opinion on our current foreign policy and how were prosecuting it. And it doesn't take having served to have the right to have on opinion and you know it. Some people seem to percieve a desire to serve the public good as weakness of intelligence and overabundance of machismo, and those people should be strung up by their thumbs. But there are more ways that are just as honorable and necessary to serve the country and the world than through the military.

 

That said, welcome home, glad you didn't get shot, and your service is appreciated. Same goes to all the vets on here. It's good to have a voice to argue against us godless, America hating liberals. Or even us unabashed moderates Dems. and old school Republicans.

[tvashtarkatena]

Pushbutton diplomacy:

 

 

[mattp]

MattP, In general I see you are trying to vindicate or absolve your favorite party from responsibility.. I will come and read what you have to say when I have more time on my hands...

 

Go back and read my posts here and in virtually every other thread on this topic, Mr. Stout. I have a tremendous amount of disdain for spineless and opportunistic politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle and I said that going along with the authorization force without real discussion of what everybody knew was (and was not) going on was a dereliction of duty.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

MattP, In general I see you are trying to vindicate or absolve your favorite party from responsibility.. I will come and read what you have to say when I have more time on my hands...

 

Go back and read my posts here and in virtually every other thread on this topic, Mr. Stout. I have a tremendous amount of disdain for spineless and opportunistic politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle and I said that going along with the authorization force without real discussion of what everybody knew was (and was not) going on was a dereliction of duty.

 

Military endeavors of this scope and duration should require a formal declaration of war.