Iraq, G. dub, and the long arm of the Army Reserve

I only said the UN took over peacekeeping iat the end of the conflict.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/836708.stm says NATO not U.S. is being sued for bombing Belgrade. It was on CNN too.



It is a different kind of war, I agree. However, I disagree with this war being as close to hand to hand as you can get. I haven't heard of our troops fixing bayonets and charging an enemy. While a guerilla enemy with no uniform does cause stress, I don't think our current military could handle a conflict like Vietnam now. The way I see it our troops have a degree of comfort never before seen in warfare. They always seem to out man and out gun the enemy. That is what I was saying, If they cant sit in a safe area and lob shells at the enemy they start to complain. If they cant be comfortable they wont engage. It reminds me of a high school bully, if they don't know they will win, they're too scared to fight.

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Originally Posted by webwurm99

However, I disagree with this war being as close to hand to hand as you can get. I haven't heard of our troops fixing bayonets and charging an enemy.

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Hmmm the recent kidnapping and execution of 4 marines, required the use of "hands", can't get any closer then that unless their married...as for fixing bayonets, so okay they don't require them, but kicking in doors in a house to house search is still pretty much foot's on...(hand to hand)I somewhat agree they can seem to be a bit comfortable, but no more so then the guy's who fly bombing missions, during the second world war, they would fire from away as well, as for Vietnam, sure it was dirty but if you look at the footage, you will see they almost in all cases placed their rifle over the hedge or wall and fired blindly, the reasoning was if they fired enough bullets, they might hit something, and I am sure they did this in all the wars, with the exception of the Civil War, now that was a brutal war...

I think what you are getting at, and I can see this anology, it's the same as Pro Sports, as long as the equipment gets better and better the player's feel like they are invincible and so get careless and wham they get injuries..can you blame the troopers though, I would like to know the tin can I'm riding in has the defenses to stop most rounds fired at it...I mean after all the primary mission of all of the troops, other then their objectives is to stay alive right?

I see your point Dalek, and you cant really blame the troops. The soldiers should be kept alive if possible. The point I was trying to make is the degree of the "comfort factor". In the house to house raids for example, there is usually a large group of well equipped soldiers kicking in someones door, while they eat dinner. This IMO is not hand to hand, and the comfort level is still huge. The troops in Vietnam may have shot blindly over bunkers, but they didn't whine that jeeps didn't have enough armor. While I don't blame the "troopers" I do blame the whole of the military. Imagine in 10 years if we have to fight China. They are growing quickly into a superpower, so I cant see it being avoided. How do you think our troops will fare against a LARGE, well equipped army? I don't see it going well for our guys.

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Originally Posted by webwurm99

I see your point Dalek, and you cant really blame the troops. The soldiers should be kept alive if possible. The point I was trying to make is the degree of the "comfort factor". In the house to house raids for example, there is usually a large group of well equipped soldiers kicking in someones door, while they eat dinner. This IMO is not hand to hand, and the comfort level is still huge. The troops in Vietnam may have shot blindly over bunkers, but they didn't whine that jeeps didn't have enough armor. While I don't blame the "troopers" I do blame the whole of the military. Imagine in 10 years if we have to fight China. They are growing quickly into a superpower, so I cant see it being avoided. How do you think our troops will fare against a LARGE, well equipped army? I don't see it going well for our guys.

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I do actually, quite well. Even in 10 years, I strongly doubt the Chinese Navy/Airforce/Missle Systems will be on parr with the United States of America. That will certainly be where any conflict between the two nations occurs if it ever will (extremely doubtful). China is growing rapidly, but growing economically is (oddly enough) not directly communicable to parrallel military growth. I find it doubtful that too many western countries are going to make it easy for China to purchase the latest weaponry. On that note, R&D takes a very long time.

Besides, if it came to a ground war with China (assuming that it would be on their soil), it simply wouldn't happen until the numbers looked feasible. Regardless of that, why do you think the United States is being so friendly with India? Also, I'm very certain that the troops in Vietnam had lots of problems with how/why the war was being fought. There isn't a doubt in my mind about soliders complaining about inadequate training/equipment. However, the media that existed then is not the media that exists today, nor was the military (in terms of dissention being permissible).

And yet again the point is missed and by such a wide margin that it seems you all are speaking different languages.

You know what? If I were the enemy, be it Iran, Syria, North Korea, *cough* Europe *cough*, I would take pleasure in watching the major news outlets in the U.S. for the simple fact that the "sit in a circle and hold hands" crowd has come of age. They survived their "conscientious college objector" stage (aka) cowards who run from any discomfort. They have now got themselves elected into official office which means they can make cowardice a national policy and as far as I can see our own senators and representatives will do most of the work for the enemy. There was never any fight in them to begin with (John Kerry), so open the borders, because if you don't it'll make us look bad. And certainly don't fight against what we think is wrong, because that'll make us look bad. I'd rather look bad and have my family safe and happy than be a footnote in the history of the modern world which is the direction of this country.

Remember when the U.S. used to fight for what was right?

Between 1940 and 1945 the U.S. lost in battle 291,560 heroes, other "non-theater" deaths were around 113,800, let's count those because todays media counts a stubbed toe as a casualty. It seems to me that saving Europe in the 40's cost us keeping the U.S. in the 21st century...

Hell, even if we saved the 33,000 or so that were lost in the Korean war this country would be better off. They'd still be around to run for office.

America, as far as I see in "the media" has lost it's will to sacrifice what needs to sacrificed for the betterment of the next generation.

So thank you Hillary Clinton, Charles Wrangel, Harry Reid, Dumbass Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, et al, for riding the wind of political correctness and never standing too firmly on the solid ground of conviction and holding on to the belief that we fight the good fight for the sake of a vote. Thank you for showing the American people that we can be more like the U.N. with it's " non-binding resolutions" and stalwart hatred toward Israel, hell, while we are at it, lets just all vote that all the world's injustices are wrong but never do a damn thing about them. Except for Darfur, and only because Sean Penn and all the other "wise and sage" hollywierdos think that's the flavor of the month.

Sway with the wind you cowards because thats the only way the you and your families will survive the war that's coming if you get your way. The U.S. is knocking on the gates and sooner rather than later we will have to survive a horrible blast from the lungs of hell.

webwurm99: did you actualy pay attention to the end of nam. troops didn't complain???are you on crack? we had high desertion rates, heavy complaints about the equpmint (mainyl the eraly m16's they tended to mealt) and lots of combat rufusals..not to mention the fragging's ect. If we had better jeeps (with armor) availible at the time I am sure the troops would have demanded them...

korpdeath...how big was teh army then...we are dealign with a force that is ~1/10 the size it was in WWII, sure less troops have been lost total...but its a large precentage of our total force, it has a massive effect on our militaries ability to do its job...we have airmen and seammen acting as infantry right now...thats a big problem. more importantly there was a poitn ot us being in eourpe (even a tiny reason to be in korea, and at leats in nam there was 1 side of the conflit that wanted us their) in our current mess we are attacked by all sides. where the hell is the good fight in iraq???? amazingly the americna public has little will for colonial adventures.

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Originally Posted by Evil Moo

I do actually, quite well. Even in 10 years, I strongly doubt the Chinese Navy/Airforce/Missle Systems will be on parr with the United States of America. That will certainly be where any conflict between the two nations occurs if it ever will (extremely doubtful). China is growing rapidly, but growing economically is (oddly enough) not directly communicable to parrallel military growth. I find it doubtful that too many western countries are going to make it easy for China to purchase the latest weaponry. On that note, R&D takes a very long time.

Besides, if it came to a ground war with China (assuming that it would be on their soil), it simply wouldn't happen until the numbers looked feasible. Regardless of that, why do you think the United States is being so friendly with India? Also, I'm very certain that the troops in Vietnam had lots of problems with how/why the war was being fought. There isn't a doubt in my mind about soliders complaining about inadequate training/equipment. However, the media that existed then is not the media that exists today, nor was the military (in terms of dissention being permissible).

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study your military history, wars are not won by the side with the coolist toys, they are won by the side wit hthe most troops to lose, we figth china, we lose. they have more troops then we have people, they have antiship missles that cn take out a carrer that we have no counters for, they can cripile our econamy at a whim(the single largest holder of us dollars is china, we piss them off the flood the market). China has the latest weaponry (they have vectored thurst migs from russia that are on par with anythign we have. they helped the serbs devlop radar systems that can detect are stealth units). they also have subs capable of hitting our fleets (one of the chinese subs "accidently" surfaced in the middle of one of our carrier groups a few months back....we didn't know it was there till it surfaced). china may be slightly behind us on the tech sace, but not that far, they also have very effective ground based anti satalite devices so we would be basicly fighting blind(all of our smart weapons work on either GPS or laser based targeting...we have to get troops close for the lasers to work, if the satalites are gone so is gps)


i wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to antagonize china, its not a fight we could win over there

However the USA have gained the technology of striking any location in the world within 60 minutes. The test will be done in 2008. So you are saying that if the USA can do this, chinese will lose men yes, more men yes, and even more. I disagree with your statement of more troops = a win. This isnt 20th century warfare, I.E World war 2 when men fought men. This is the 21th century with technology that doesnt mean men must be on the enemys soil to bomb it , whatever. America can knock out chinas army production, supply lines, whatever.

If it was storm the beach and die @ Normandy then I would say yes, but weapons are too advanced for that kind of thinking.

My Ol' Man was a WWII vet. A Coastguardsman manning an LCI
landing craft in the ETO (European Theater of Operations). Hit the
beaches at Sicily, Salerno and Normandy (he always said Salerno
was the worst, but that's a whole other story). Anyway, as a kid,
I was utterly fascinated by war and always asking him about it.

One day, he finally told me: "No one ever wins a war."

He was right. No one really won WWII, we just got a new, cold war.
Vietnam? Millions dead in a land laced with dioxins. Korea, more dead,
forever divided. Iraq? Does anyone really think ANYONE will win in
Iraq?

Like Krishnamurti once asked, what is the fate of a nation that prepares for war? The end of the Kaliyug just gets uglier and uglier...

Indeed no one wins a war. Everyone loses, just some more than others.