Posted on 08/18/2005 6:06:22 PM PDT by Yasotay
Well I was wet .... frozen .... exhausted .... scared .... and did I say hungry? Yup Hooah school ... I got lucky and made it.
Back then, we would have shot the bastards.
Sure, the first part of the movie was fairly true to the book. Heinlein was a harda33 about things like citizenship, but so were many in the old world of the Greek city-states when war appeared to be a necessity and peace was just a chance to learn how to be slaves.
You need to keep in mind Clausewitz' distinction between "total war" and "cabinet wars". The former engage the whole nation in a battle for survival. The latter are initiated by politicians and fought for political and economic interests.
The clearest indication that this is not "total war", like WW II, is that there has been no declaration of war. Instead Congress passed some mealy-mouthed resolutions authorizing the enforcement of some UN resolutions.
Actually, the United States has engaged in non-War wars since WW II. Korea was a "United Nations Police Action".
No war was declared in Vietnam.
War was never declared for the first Gulf war, not to mention Panama and Grenada.
So you were sure about this looking like the "War on Drugs" -- it is only a war in the rhetorical sense.
No. Your problem is you want to apply conventional warfare to an unconventional war. You also forget that you must have the backing of the American people. You have no such political consensus on Iran or Syria.
Iraq is an offensive move in the overall strategy against Islamic Terrorism. Iraq is our kill zone where we bring the Terrorists out of hiding into a Battle field of our choosing. We do not have the political will to go after everyone everywhere. Iraq is doable, Iran/Syria are future battles that the bulk of Americans do not have the will to do at this time.
Look up the term Operational Overreach. What you advocate is a policy for that.
For a historical analogy think of Iraq as the 1943 Invasion of Italy. Just like Italy for the Allies, Iraq is a step necessary in the context of a broader war against Islamic Terrorism.
True but we can also use the same external threads against our enemies ..... Iran might be weaker politically and socially then the US.
Sad but true ... but FR is a start!
Would a blockade or oil help us or hurt us before hostilities, and if so, would it be effective?
How would the Iranians respond?
Well I guess we are just going have to do it someway. If the internet had been available in the 60's and 70's Southeast Asia might have worked out different.
An excellent point. Right NOW this is a cabinet war. It may develop into total war, but we are not there yet. After the London atrocity some commentator made the point
"We have the means to destroy our enemies but lack the will, our enemies have the will but lack the means
The race is on to see who achieves what first.
Very possibly. Do we have some theory of how to dislodge the power of the religious claque over there?
When Bush this summer at Ft Bragg said that we must stay of the Offensive, I tried to read the tea leaves and hoped he meant at all levels. To stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons something has to happen. I can only hope we will be proactive and not reactive.
Thanks for the link
The trick was to hide the candy bars in the machine gun ammo. Fire a few rounds and out came a candy bar. And they say it doesn't get cold in Georgia, I've seen it below zero around Dahlonega.
Patton was Quoting Fredrick the Great. The correct quote translates more like Audacity, Audacity always Audacity. However, as have pointed out before, this would be applying conventional strategy to an unconventional war.
Stop driving our cars one day a week and the Mullahs and the Saudi Sheikhs would choke on the excess and the price would drop, more from the psychology than the actual surplus of gasoline.
Stop driving our cars one day a week and the Mullahs and the Saudi Sheikhs would choke on the excess and the price would drop, more from the psychology than the actual surplus of gasoline.
How do we accomplish by indirection, that which would be so costly by direct action in this context. a la Lidell Hart?
What do you propose that achieves that result?
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