"This war is lost" - no it's not! - question for war supporters

[theweatherman]

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So why are we in Iraq, one of the most secular nations in the middle east?

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LOL...this is like saying Ted Bundy is the most rational of all serial killers. LOL! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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except for the fact that shake is correct and your are ignorant of the facts.

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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Iraq, one of the most secular nations in the middle east
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LOL...this is like saying Ted Bundy is the most rational of all serial killers. LOL!
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except for the fact that shake is correct and your are ignorant of the facts.

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I guess you were not taught about similes in school.
Here, I will educate you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simile

Teacher Unions are destroying our education system. Time to have school vouchers to introduce competition and kill off weak schools... I can't believe that our school systems are failing to teach students simple things like similes.

Oh well.....it is not your fault Weatherman, it is the teacher's unions fault. I will do my best to bring you up to speed.....

[Huh?]

Random War/Media question

I'm reading all these magazines about VT shooting..Time etc
and they have the full on bios of each person killed. It really seems to hit you when you read about the person and who they were/wanted to be etc.

Now from a non political viewpoint--why isn't this done for our soldiers? Is it because by nature a war is going to have to cause casualties in order to succeed so eventhough it may be well intentioned it is to detrimental to the intended goal?

I only ask cuz I always hear about a soldier dying etc..and am just like...huh another dead nameless soldier...flip back to sportscenter or whatever.

Occasionally see a photo or something in a newspapers with name/age/rank but nothing else really. Not sure if people would want to even have to see their dead sons/daughters bio life story printed in anewspaper or every week in Time etc, but seems like people on both sides might take things a bit more seriously if you felt like you knew all these people a bit more.

[Kaj]

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Off Topic: Do not use "troop" when you actually mean "soldier". A troop is a group of soldiers.

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Except military officers say "he's a good troop" all the time as slang for trooper ... but I guess that's okay, just not on an internet forum ...

[GtrHtr]

FWIW I agree with your post. This is the "Politics" forum and the amount of politics vs fact is to be expected. While I will not discuss politics, I am perhaps unique on this site (or a member of a very small minority) in that I'm in the Army and can provide facts and perspectives that others cannot, much like you did.

I might be willing to answer questions in a seperate thread if posters are interested.

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They are trained to kill. It's that simple.
If you want a simpler answer: They are trained to put ordnance on target.
And guess what, they are great at it. Whether it be the pilot dropping a laser guided bomb or the Marine rifleman in a small unit firefight, they do that job exceeding well. Why? Because the treasure and experience of ou nation was put behind them in the training and equipment.


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A fair % of the "light" infantry Army (iow, no tanks they walk) has had extensive training in both our primary job, which you describe above, and dealing with peace keeping and peace enforcement operations. From what I've seen of their training, which is a lot - but I've never been in a "heavy" unit, the training prior to 9/11 was much less and focussed on maneuver warfare.

The issue in my mind has been a lack of counter-insurgency operations training prior to 9/11, and a lack of a graduate school level CI thinking and training both before 9/11 and now. The British army, for example, is more flexable at the moment than we have been - for good reason, mostly due to Northern Ireland.

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Now what are they doing?
Learning on the fly to conduct counter insurgency?
This is a job suited for either guerrillas or Special Forces NOT GI Joe regular army/marine.


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This statement is true but doesn't have to be, ref. my comments on the Brits above. While they may not be as expertly trained on major war ops as you pointed out, mainly due to their size and budget, they remained sharp in CI operations and in my opinion, have been the best in the world at CI for decades, although they may not remain so into the future again due to Northern Ireland winding down.

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I was in favour because I saw with my own eyes the absolute face of evil one day (around 2000/1) in the Iraqi/Kuwait desert. That face WAS Saddams Republican Guard. Thieving, coldblooded, murderers.

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This is without a doubt the most important point in your post to me and can be expanded on to include all the other groups who have and will do us harm on a scale that will make Virginia Tech and perhaps 9/11 look like childs play. Many in our society are under the impression that the rest of the world is like the US or Europe, where in fact, the rest of the world is not. I encourage those who think otherwise to travel, particularly to the middle east to help them gain a grasp of what makes them tick, how their society works and assess the political and social climate. I can say without a doubt that if and when we "end the war" it will only end for us not the other side.

[ShakeZula06]

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Wait, why do you take war of aggression to be defined as only for taking their land?

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Just playing the odds. Most wars of aggression are over land and resources.
Wars are very expensive. Most countries can not afford to go to war because they think it is 'cool'.

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Ah, so now what ever the most likely action is now the definition. I get it. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
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Is is possible to disagree with you and still be "honest"?

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Of course. I disagree with a lot of people here yet for some reason I haven't called them dishonest.
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If you think any of my facts or historical examples are mistaken then feel free to correct me.

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Err, the fact that you tried to say that war of aggression=only the action of taking another nation's land.
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And the anti-Felix crowd taunts me about these mistakes for a minimum of a week.

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Who is the anti-Felix crowd?
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Of course, when someone disagrees with your position, it's because their dumb. Because we all know Hemmingway and Einstein were idiots.


[/ QUOTE ] I did not say they were dumb or they were idiots.

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Yes, and we all know that's not what you were implying when you compared them to Paris Hilton.