My thoughts

[RADAR]

Being selected for the draft during the vietnam war i can see a lot of similarities(With the war in Iraq)One thing about then & now that we havn't learned is that when you go to war against an enemy,you have to be as dirty & nasty as the enemy is.
We cannot fight a war & worry about popular opinion,because the enemy will take advantage.
When are we going to stop messing with a small group of insurgents and wipe them out like we should?
The beheading of Nick Berg was a tragedy--------all we did was imbarrass our prisoners, tell me which is worst.
This country & our politicians are so hung up on image & what the polls say;and it is risking our soldiers lives!
You can't fight a war & be the good guy and that is what we are trying to do....peroid!

RADAR

 

[HumorMe]

A - f...ing - men

 

[mekannik]

To win this "war" we have to be willing to take the gloves off (Human Rights) and throw them out the window. We need to bathe prisoners in pig's blood. Then execute a few. We need to shake, rattle, and roll threats (prisoners, captured terrorists). We need to turn the media coverage off and take care of business. Forget about opinion - internal or external to the country.

If we truly value the lives of our service men and women, and the current administration really believes in ending this fight, then we do NOT want another Vietnam (half assed troop support, tug of war commitments).

And this all means we will have to sit down at the end of it all and get bitched at by everyone at home and abroad with an opinion.


And if we need to suspend the Bill of Rights - just make sure to put them back in place when all is said and done.

 

[RADAR]

To win this "war" we have to be willing to take the gloves off (Human Rights) and throw them out the window. We need to bathe prisoners in pig's blood. Then execute a few. We need to shake, rattle, and roll threats (prisoners, captured terrorists). We need to turn the media coverage off and take care of business. Forget about opinion - internal or external to the country.

If we truly value the lives of our service men and women, and the current administration really believes in ending this fight, then we do NOT want another Vietnam (half assed troop support, tug of war commitments).

And this all means we will have to sit down at the end of it all and get bitched at by everyone at home and abroad with an opinion.


And if we need to suspend the Bill of Rights - just make sure to put them back in place when all is said and done.

That looks like what it is going to take.

Damn! Where Eisenhower when you need him.
RADAR

 

[Taps]

You guys should read "On Killing" by Dave Grossman.

What you advocate is not an effective war strategy. (although i use to feel the same way, so no flame).

 

[mekannik]

I'm thinking a General Patton reincarnation (or a clone).

But that will never happen in today's PC army upper echelon.



Taps - I will look into the book you mentioned. Does it address dealing with "religious fanatics"? Or even ones that say they are but are just lying and corrupting a belief system?

 

[Testosterone boy]

Is it not difficult to justify spending a few hundred billion dollars while taking tens of thousands of lives only to prove that you are the a different side of the same coin?

 

[Bulldog_10]

I agree with you in theory, but you can't really do that. Other countries' opinions do matter...how can we justify killing thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians? And if that does end this war, there will be thousands of other countries that will hate us even more. And then what? We just continue killing more innocent civilians to end THOSE wars?

This is why I'm against having such an expensive military. We could be spending this money on our own population, health care, education, feeding the poor, etc...which would save millions and millions of American lives. Instead we spend those billions of dollars trying to end terrorism, which has only taken a few thousand American lives. It just doesn't add up, and it makes the disparity between the country's wealthy elite and the middle- and lower-classes even wider.

But of course they use the Democratic facade, the American flag, and other symbols of America as distractions to the public at large...trying to rally the people against an outside enemy, rather than looking at our own predicament.

 

[Taps]

Taps - I will look into the book you mentioned. Does it address dealing with "religious fanatics"? Or even ones that say they are but are just lying and corrupting a belief system?

Not directly, but it does go into how ineffective it is (in the long run) to commit POW executions/torture, killing civilians, atrocities, etc. I always thought the US should just nuke Iraq - problem solved - but Grossman shows how pointless the allied bombing campaigns of WW2 were, and how they actually delayed the end of the war. I'm just scratching the surface here, and to get a real understanding you should read the book. (it's a great read, won a Pulitzer I think)

 

[mekannik]

We can do whatever we want. Think Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Popular opinion was pretty much forgotten when the WWII ended due to the Japanese suddenly realizing that we were bigger, meaner, nastier, and not willing to sacrifice anymore of our own. So we sacrificed alot of theirs.

I'm pretty sure the message got across. (History would support that one)

But then again there is still resentment/protests today in Japan.

And funny that the Japanese won't recognize the rape of Nanking [http://www.rotten.com/library/history/war-crimes/rape-of-nanking/] - but want us to acknowledge "our mistake" and make amends.

Sometimes you have to be the big bad guy and kick the little guy in the nuts to get your point across. Namely we don't think your shit is funny (terrorism, genocide, invasions - whoops, strike that last one) and we would appreciate you shutting the F-up.


And as for the coin - I think oil barrel would be more appropos.