ISIS Takes Control of Mosul

#2
#2
I don't have high hopes in the end we will have changed much from pre-2003 circumstances. I can see this exact same thing happening in Afghanistan as well. These guys will wait 50 years for us to leave if they have to.
 
#3
#3
rjd970 said:
I don't have high hopes in the end we will have changed much from pre-2003 circumstances. I can see this exact same thing happening in Afghanistan as well. These guys will wait 50 years for us to leave if they have to.
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I agree which makes me ask; why did we waste 4,000+ Coalition lives in a futile war?
 
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#6
#6
hog88 said:
Because we forgot or refuse to fight them to win.
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What exactly did we forget? Are you referring to Vietnam?

I'll be honest, I'm not a military man, but I'd imagine it's incredibly difficult to fight a fanatical insurgency (whether it be nationalist/communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese or Islamists) 10-12,000 miles away. The amount of resources, money, time, and effort it would take. Honestly, it's a losing battle no matter what, especially when you consider they almost always have local support.

But if your solution is to bomb the hell out of the locals, then yes, I suppose it's possible to win. I'll let you clarify your previous comment though.
 
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#7
#7
Velo Vol said:
How do you "win" in an occupying role half way around the world?
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You would have to be there for decades. Honestly, when you throw this in with other factors, it's no damn wonder we're in such a financial hole.
 
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#9
#9
rjd970 said:
I don't have high hopes in the end we will have changed much from pre-2003 circumstances. I can see this exact same thing happening in Afghanistan as well. These guys will wait 50 years for us to leave if they have to.
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You're exactly right. I think Afghanistan will be the same. Just more civil war, just like it was before we got there. And still a terrorist training ground. I still can't really blame Bush for going to war in Afghanistan though. Now...

Iraq, that is a different story. One of the dumbest decisions a president has ever made. We went there, ostensibly, to get rid of Saddam's threat and negate Iraq's influence on Islamic terrorism. In the process, while there may be no WMDs to worry about if there ever where, we've turned the country into Syria and made it into a terrorist training ground. You couldn't make this kind of nonsense up even if you tried.

Now, for our military men and women, I feel the utmost respect for; it's not their fault. It's our nation's leaders that are to blame. We should have never gotten involved in Iraq in the first place. Somewhere between 100,000-500,000 dead, and it's now a worse situation than it was before we got there. But I guess at least they can vote for multiple candidates now as long as they don't get blown up at the polling station in the process.
 
#10
#10
rjd970 said:
I don't have high hopes in the end we will have changed much from pre-2003 circumstances. I can see this exact same thing happening in Afghanistan as well. These guys will wait 50 years for us to leave if they have to.
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As you asked in the other thread, I'll explain more about Iraq.

Here's the deal. We have a military of destruction. The Armed Forces can immolate most nations on this earth and be home in time for beers around the BBQ on Friday evening. The problem is, we do not have a military of building the peace. And furthermore, have forgotten the lessons of WWII when we utterly devastated German and Japan and told them "okay, we broke your toys, have fun rebuilding." Now of course we helped along the way, the Marshall Plan for example, but by and large those nations rebuilt themselves.

Fast forward 60 years into Iraq. Instead of actually remembering it's far better and more responsible for a defeated nation to rebuild themselves, we decided we had to do it for them. So instead of saying "Okay Iraqi Chief, grab fifty guys that can lay bricks, do electrical work, experienced carpenters and we'll put them on a paying wage" we decided to do it for them through contractors. We brought in thousands of Third Country Nationals (TCNs) that did the labor while the Iraqis looked at us. So we won the war handily, but lost the peace because we didn't remember the lessons we had learned before. As well as causing the insurgency to grow far larger than it should have been.

Now, Afghanistan is another matter entirely. We never should have "invaded" and those people are not ready for modern democracy. They have to want it. Have to be ready to earn it and fight for it. And they just aren't. I support the operations in Afghanistan to a far lower level than we are currently at. Bombing the hell out of terrorist camps, limited SOF involvement and assistance, maybe a base or two as logistical hubs, but nothing at the levels we are and have been at. It will be a maximum of six months before they are fighting each other again. It's history as the Afghan people are either fighting each other over one tribe who stole a horse two hundred years ago or fighting an invader that decided to be the latest army in history to find out Afghanistan will never be conquered.
 
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#11
#11
volprof said:
What exactly did we forget? Are you referring to Vietnam?

I'll be honest, I'm not a military man, but I'd imagine it's incredibly difficult to fight a fanatical insurgency (whether it be nationalist/communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese or Islamists) 10-12,000 miles away. The amount of resources, money, time, and effort it would take. Honestly, it's a losing battle no matter what, especially when you consider they almost always have local support.

But if your solution is to bomb the hell out of the locals, then yes, I suppose it's possible to win. I'll let you clarify your previous comment though.
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Forget Vietnam. We apparently learned nothing from that war. I was referring to WWII, total war victory or nothing.

In no way am I advocating war, it should be avoided as much as possible but when the country (politicians) decide to commit troops on the ground it should be done with one goal in mind. Total victory, render the enemy incapable of fighting.

If we are not prepared to fight with that mindset, we need to stay home!
 
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#12
#12
hog88 said:
The same way we won WWII. See how we have forgotten?
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That's what I thought you meant, but I was going to give you the opportunity to clarify first.

See, the thing is, today, we have these things called "smart bombs" that are supposed to minimize collateral damage. If the US decides to go poking its nose into things that may or may not be its business, we at least want to look like we have some concern for the innocent civilian population rather than bombing the hell out of them.

And just because things were done a certain way in the past doesn't mean they should be done that way today. This is a false argument.
 
#13
#13
volprof said:
What exactly did we forget? Are you referring to Vietnam?

I'll be honest, I'm not a military man, but I'd imagine it's incredibly difficult to fight a fanatical insurgency (whether it be nationalist/communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese or Islamists) 10-12,000 miles away. The amount of resources, money, time, and effort it would take. Honestly, it's a losing battle no matter what, especially when you consider they almost always have local support.

But if your solution is to bomb the hell out of the locals, then yes, I suppose it's possible to win. I'll let you clarify your previous comment though.
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"Bombing the hell out of locals" does not work. The US bombed the hell out of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and still did not win. The bombing of North Vietnam alone surpassed the total tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany, Italy, and Japan in World War II.
 
#15
#15
volprof said:
That's what I thought you meant, but I was going to give you the opportunity to clarify first.

See, the thing is, today, we have these things called "smart bombs" that are supposed to minimize collateral damage. If the US decides to go poking its nose into things that may or may not be its business, we at least want to look like we have some concern for the innocent civilian population rather than bombing the hell out of them.

And just because things were done a certain way in the past doesn't mean they should be done that way today. This is a false argument.
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I'm usually on this side of the argument but I do like to play devil's advocate here; look at what the Russians did in Chechnya. You don't hear much of anything anymore coming out of there nowadays.
 
#16
#16
hog88 said:
Forget Vietnam. We apparently learned nothing from that war. I was referring to WWII, total war victory or nothing.

In no way am I advocating war, it should be avoided as much as possible but when the country (politicians) decide to commit troops on the ground it should be done with one goal in mind. Total victory, render the enemy incapable of fighting.

If we are not prepared to fight with that mindset, we need to stay home!
Click to expand...

So we either should have stayed out of Afghanistan or have bombed the hell out of them?
 
#17
#17
volprof said:
That's what I thought you meant, but I was going to give you the opportunity to clarify first.

See, the thing is, today, we have these things called "smart bombs" that are supposed to minimize collateral damage. If the US decides to go poking its nose into things that may or may not be its business, we at least want to look like we have some concern for the innocent civilian population rather than bombing the hell out of them.

And just because things were done a certain way in the past doesn't mean they should be done that way today. This is a false argument.
Click to expand...

What's past is prologue. And it does not change the fact that warfare is destructive no matter what. Even with limited "collateral damage" the fact remains something will need to be rebuilt in the aftermath.

And instead of doing it for them and creating a generation of Iraqi citizens that are out of work and see jobs they could and should be doing themselves that further creates resentment, we should have put them to work.
 
#18
#18
volprof said:
So we either should have stayed out of Afghanistan or have bombed the hell out of them?
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Whatever it took to accomplish the mission of destroying their capability to fight and forcing their unconditional surrender.

If we as a nation are not willing to do so, we do not need to sacrifice any more lives fighting. We should have learned this from Korea and Vietnam.
 
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#19
#19
Abe Hoffman said:
"Bombing the hell out of locals" does not work. The US bombed the hell out of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and still did not win. The bombing of North Vietnam alone surpassed the total tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany, Italy, and Japan in World War II.
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Operation Linebacker II, the unrestricted bombing of North Vietnam, brought them back to the peace negotiations.

When political motives are picking your targets, you will not win.
 
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#20
#20
Burhead said:
I'm usually on this side of the argument but I do like to play devil's advocate here; look at what the Russians did in Chechnya. You don't hear much of anything anymore coming out of there nowadays.
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Perhaps not as "fully-articulated" separatist movements (which I think are kept somewhat in check by the current pro-Russian Chechen strongman), but they do have the annual (at least) terrorist attack that claims at least ten or more Russian lives. The two or three bus bombings in Volgograd right before the Sochi Olympics were the latest. Honestly, I still find it a wonder that there weren't any at the Sochi games; I was (and still am) convinced that the Volgograd bombings were test runs.
 
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#21
#21
hog88 said:
The same way we won WWII. See how we have forgotten?
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We were fighting nation states in that war. When those governments surrendered, domestic support for those movements collapsed. No one wanted to carry on the fight.

Not the same dynamics here.
 
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#22
#22
Grand Vol said:
What's past is prologue. And it does not change the fact that warfare is destructive no matter what. Even with limited "collateral damage" the fact remains something will need to be rebuilt in the aftermath.

And instead of doing it for them and creating a generation of Iraqi citizens that are out of work and see jobs they could and should be doing themselves that further creates resentment, we should have put them to work.
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I'll give you that, and you probably know that better than me, but I don't think this is what Hog meant.
 
#23
#23
Velo Vol said:
We were fighting nation states in that war. When those governments surrendered, domestic support for those movements collapsed. No one wanted to carry on the fight.

Not the same dynamics here.
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Slightly different but it works the same.

You have to destroy the will of the people to fight, nation state or otherwise. If your not willing to commit the resources to do that, stay home.
 
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#24
#24
volprof said:
I'll give you that, and you probably know that better than me, but I don't think this is what Hog meant.
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He did to an extent. Point being, whether it's in the air or on the ground, the destruction of the will of the people to fight is paramount. Hence, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
#25
#25
volprof said:
I'll give you that, and you probably know that better than me, but I don't think this is what Hog meant.
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I never touched on the rebuilding. I do agree with GV on this however. Still doesn't negate the fact that to win you first have to kill the will to fight.
 
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