[pokerpunchout]

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Even with 21st century technology, the US military can't subdue a population that refuses to be subdued.



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Technology doesn't mean jack unless you are willing to use it full effect. The real lesson is that you shouldn't engage in a counter insurgency unless you are willing to either A) be ultra kind to the populace and give as much ground as ideologically possible to keep them happy or B) crush them utterly with military might and give no quarter to anyone who stands in the path of a united central government.

This middle of the road BS just doesn't work. You take flack from one side if you kill innocents and flack from the other for not getting all the bad guys. Either blow the [censored] out of them or make nice.

Edit: And honestly I think blowing the [censored] out of everyone in our path wins that argument. I'm not a warmanger in the slightest but if you do go to war you give the enemy no quarter. It was a really stupid decision to go in and try to pussyfoot our way around the locals. Either go in all the way or don't go in at all.

I much favor not going in at all but now that we have blow everyone up or get the hell out. Our military isn't built for peacekeeping missions.

I have the displeasure of knowing several military men and they are violent, angry, ignorant people when they get out of training. If we want our military to be a peacekeeping force we need to drastically change the way men are trained to handle a hostile populace.

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I agree with you here. We should not enter into a conflict unless we are prepared to win. War is simple (1) you kill people (2) take ground (3) repeat until finished.

We should decide if we want to go about solving this problem using education, diplomacy, police actions ect, or do we want to use military force? If we can't bring hell to the enemy then we should try solving this by other means.


If a country or the military are not prepared to do this another tool should be used such as diplomacy.