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Veterans doubt value of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan in new poll
militarytimes.com | July 10, 2019 | Leo Shane III

Posted on 07/10/2019 5:25:36 PM PDT by PROCON

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To: PROCON

I call b.S. on this poll furthermore I call complete bull shit that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were unnecessary and not justifyed or warranted they most certainly were and still are.


41 posted on 07/11/2019 5:22:17 AM PDT by StoneWall Brigade (Live Free or Die)
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To: SecAmndmt

“Who else in the region has these things?”

Iran has been supplying Syria for about 15 years of weapons and ground support to the extent of attacking Assad’s enemies with missiles fired from Iranian soil. They are our current pain in the neck.

As for weapons, Iran says using a religious decree they don’t have them. But that doesn’t say they don’t make them as their fatwa against them is for use, not creating. But they started an active nuclear program in the 1970’s and have been gaining technology and parts from Russian by way of North Korea for over 20 years, probably longer.

There are six key “established owners” of NBC weapons in the middle east: Israel, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Egypt. But there are many offshoots of this group. And many countries over there are “sneaking around” designation. Turkey for instance. Turkey has three nuclear facilities two of which are research reactors and one pilot fuel production plant. Turkey has been listed as a latent nuclear power. It is one of the 46 members of the Nuclear Supplier Group even though it is not identified as a nuclear power state. But Turkey’s membership was requested due to its manufacturing capacity for materials of potential use in the nuclear industry. And they have the capacity to enrich past industrial grade. Where’s the line to draw?

If you cross over into most of the countries in the middle east, you’ll find, if you have the capacity, that most carry weapons like bio and chem. The stuff is a hot trading commodity and depending on whose side they’re on this month, will decide on who’s language is on the box. It’s a way of life there. And the concern of this stuff getting into the wrong hands and finding its way to the US, is a major concern as it can be used as a terrorist angle more than a killing one. But to add insult to injury, Russia declared years ago they have “lost” some suitcase bombs. If detonated, they could kill thousands in an area of major city. So since the start of the war over there, and since there is so much of it, we have been trying to depose or neuter the current regimes rather than waste time trying to find and gather it. There’s just too much.

rwood


42 posted on 07/11/2019 5:22:47 AM PDT by Redwood71
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To: ImpBill

May the American Paleo Conservatives, rot in hell for undermining our war efforts with sabotage after sabotage from War II to the 1st Cold War to the WOT right up to the present day dual Cold War.


43 posted on 07/11/2019 5:28:29 AM PDT by StoneWall Brigade (Live Free or Die)
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To: PROCON
Let us prosecute these wars without rules and restrictions and then get the hell out.

Kind of hard to do that when NO ONE can tell anyone else what the endstate is supposed to be.

44 posted on 07/11/2019 6:07:44 AM PDT by Future Snake Eater (Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. - Dwight Eisenhower, 1957)
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To: Redwood71

Thanks for the history, but I wasn’t asking for it. Also, I do my own research on these matters. I would never accept an FR post as Gospel truth or accurate. There are plenty of people here promoting something other than the limited government vision of the Founders, in both matters foreign and domestic.

The point of my question was that there are a lot of non-conventional weapons in the region, including Pak, India, Israel. You did not mention everyone, I noticed. Some of them have been supplied by Western nations, including us, going back decades. And I do not take a utilitarian or interventionist view on this. Countries feeling the threat of regime change by outside powers will acquire this kind of stuff. I’d like to see most of it gone (including ours), personally. We seem to be capable of destroying plenty with the conventional?


45 posted on 07/11/2019 6:57:49 AM PDT by SecAmndmt (Arm yourselves!)
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To: SecAmndmt

The general objective of using non-conventional weapons is to instill a belief in the civilian population that peace and security are not possible without compromise. Affording the terrorist groups an opportunity to compromise has historically been proven foolish. If you go back to Hitler’s regime, each time he overpowered a country around him, he told the world that he was going to stop there. And that obviously didn’t happen.

Today’s terrorists operate the same way. They lie through their teeth and anyone that believes them is just as foolish as in the 1930’s. So non-conventional means are not a proven success.

“…I wasn’t asking for it.”

You’ve got me a little confused. Your exact post said: “Who else in the region has these things?” I gave you an answer who was in the lead on them and part of where they were coming. I guess I misunderstood your question. Could I give you all of them? That information changes rapidly but let me just say, most if not all of them. And they are passing it around like baseball trading cards in the region. At this point, I personally doubt if all of it is in sight. But no one is talking, either. And you are also right in that we were contributory to getting junk in the area as we started supplying Saddam officially as early as the Carter administration for Saddam’s ongoing conflicts with Iran.

“I do my own research on these matters. I would never accept an FR post as Gospel truth or accurate.”

Good. I wouldn’t trust me either. You don’t know me or if I have or haven’t an agenda. But I did give you a little for you to follow up on if you wish. I’m glad you are attempting to educate yourself on these topic as many don’t and take almost anything anyone says as gospel. I was medically retired by the DOD in 2012. I do have some friends still in the system, but I don’t keep up on it as much as I used to have to do. It’s an interest, but not a must.

“We seem to be capable of destroying plenty with the conventional?”

So are they. Shortly after we took Baghdad a storage area close to the city filled with HE about the size of Manhattan island was discovered. No NBC was collocated, just HE. But a lot of that was stolen from the facility after we confiscated it.

Here’s an article from the 2004 NY Times on it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/world/middleeast/huge-cache-of-explosives-vanished-from-site-in-iraq.html

I’m glad someone is looking over the information they can find and I wish you luck in your search. A lot of it has been removed from info due to changing sensitivity and deals being made. If you find information contrary to anything I said, please send me an email. I will read it. Like I said, I still have an interest. I guess because I was playing for about half my life and I have grown a fascination for the game and it’s rules and breaking them. Some ways humorous, some dangerous.

rwood


46 posted on 07/11/2019 8:49:50 AM PDT by Redwood71
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To: PROCON

I agree with you on what should have been done - as to rules of engagement.

But, as that was not done, and not likely to be done, it leaves me/us with the moral question of what policy is NOW practical, likely and will honor those whose lives we have lost. I am unsure of which way we can go, and serve what we ought to do now and honor those who have fallen. I want to simply quit the fight in Afghanistan while I also see that as dishonoring those who died their. It puts me on the fence.


47 posted on 07/11/2019 8:58:07 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: PROCON; TomasUSMC
our politicians for the way they laid ROE's, (Rules of Engagement), on us and made it impossible for a complete victory

Complete victory requires complete effort, and complete effort requires THIS:

"That the state of war between the United States and the Government of [X], which has thus been thrust upon the United states, is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Government of [X}; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

48 posted on 07/11/2019 9:02:22 AM PDT by Jim Noble (1)
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To: PROCON

I noticed a new talking point with Paleo crowd “Complete Victory”, we were on the verge of complete victory in Iraq and in Afghanistan our counter interagency efforts were working perfectly we were drawing the Islamic fascist to new front in Iraq and was blowing them into dust.
The internal efforts in bringing about a unity government in Iraq were being undermineded heavily by the lefty democrats and Dr. Ron Paul, his paleo ilk with their blocking real of funding their continual pullout resolutions and their spreading of anti-war disinformation and propaganda that turned the tide of opinion all the way up to present day.


49 posted on 07/11/2019 9:13:04 AM PDT by StoneWall Brigade (Live Free or Die)
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To: PROCON

I’ll say this the pullout and withdrawal of Iraq and eventually Afghanistan was and will be the biggest mistake and strategic blender we could possibly do and make.
A withdrawal from Afghanistan, means the joint forces of the dual Alliance of Russia and China will swoop in to fill the vacuum they’ll then soon open a new weapons pipeline into Iran that will have Iran advanced Nuclear weaponry in no time.
Al Quda along with ISIS controll swaths of the land that will allow them to get WMD’s, from Pakistan to commit worse attacks on this nation than on 9/11.
As for Iraq? By withdrawaing we open up not only Iran to come in but ISIS and the Al Queda along with rouge Chinese and Russian forces as well if we remain the Superpower of superpowers we must realistic and fight back against all odds.


50 posted on 07/11/2019 9:30:11 AM PDT by StoneWall Brigade (Live Free or Die)
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To: ImpBill
"How can you quell the feeling of “terror” by using the Military without the goal the complete Annihilation of the enemy?"

The goal should be the destruction of the enemy's will to fight.

"So I won’t but please explain to us how we will achieve military 'victory' over 'Terror'."

You have a good point there. Use of the word, terror, would be even more tenuous than using fascism or communism in that context, wouldn't it. Our forefathers and their socially conservative society did achieve victory over one evil axis.

Denazification, cumulative review. Report, 1 April 1947-30 April 1948.
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.Denazi

51 posted on 07/14/2019 1:14:48 AM PDT by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." - -Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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To: ImpBill
"While I am proud of my service I am not proud of being used to fight a war without Victory as it’s objective."

In my opinion, we should get behind such a victory for the current generation and let them see it through. If we fail to do so, we face an existential threat. Terrorist nations are becoming attack dogs of communist nations, and they're building up their nuclear forces. They see the U.S.A. as the main obstacle to their desires to control the world's trade routes and natural resources.

[Admission: I write as one who drilled in each of many exercises many times over the course of a few years *without* any combat tour. We were *never* quite mobilized.]

52 posted on 07/14/2019 1:32:43 AM PDT by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." - -Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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To: StoneWall Brigade

It’s not over, yet. We have an embassy in Turkmenistan now, and so do our allies. Granted, if our fellow Americans continue to politically recede, the next world war will blow up real good. We’re seeing political speech and patterns similar to those just before the previous world wars.


53 posted on 07/14/2019 1:46:49 AM PDT by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." - -Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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