what happens if and when we drain our resources of military troops. they already had to impose a stop-loss rule that stops service who are able to retire, from retiring. we are in a position of weakening our military because this thing in iraq isnt as easy as people assumed.....and dont tell me that no one thought it would be easier than it turned out to be......how many are ready to send their 18 yr old sons and possibly daughters to war in iraq. there are probably countries that just cant wait til we get weaker and weaker losing people in this war.......i believe there is gonna be a draft.

to bad all those idiot politicians cut the number of divisions down so much huh? it makes me mad when politicians who vote to cut the size of the military whine that there are not enough troops. anyway, the natural cylce in this country is to fight a war then gut the miltary, get in another war, raise a military, then gut it afterwards. you would think we would have learned by now but we never do. if there is a draft then there is a draft, it wont be the first time nor will it be the last.

travh.........stop following me man. you always wanna fight......lmao

The reason we have a smaller military is because it was downsized after the collapse of the Soviet union, our biggest potential enemy at the time. We only need more troops in Iraq now because we are trying to occupy a country without significant help from other countries. If we don't plan on invading and occupying countries, our military is sufficietly large at the moment to defend this country against any aggressor.

even n. korea ?

pagan, you should knowthat throughout history our military has always been inadwquete at the start of every war, its because of that exact line of thinking you just laid out. the thing is, we dont fight wars on our land, so that line of thinking is irrelevant to the reality of the world. if we did follow your lineof thining, we wouldnt need a ground force at all, just a navy and a bucnh of anti aircraft missles.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the wars of the future will often be very different from the wars we've fought in the past. Yes, it's possible we will be involved in a war that would require a mobilization of manpower like WWII, but that's unlikely. The wars of the future will be relatively short conflicts from a conventional military standpoint, then they will devolve into the sort of guerrilla war we see shaping up in Iraq. We have the most powerful military in the world now, and we made short work of Iraq's military when we invaded, but as we should have learned from history, it's almost impossible for a conventional military force to win a guerrilla war being waged by a determined native population.

its not impossible pagan, we defeated the american indians and the philipinos, the only thing that makes it "almost impossible" is political correctness.

Originally posted by Travh20
its not impossible pagan, we defeated the american indians and the philipinos, the only thing that makes it "almost impossible" is political correctness.

What you mean to say is that we need to wage a brutal war of occupation and extermination.

if it comes down to winning or losing we go to do what we got to do to win

Originally posted by Vilepagan
What you mean to say is that we need to wage a brutal war of occupation and extermination.

I think we should go to every religous and community leader and tell them to tell the terrorists/insurgents/whatever PC word they are being called to get out of the hospital, school, mosque, etc. they are hiding and storing weapons in or we are going to level it. We should go street by street and house by house and search for weapons and disarm the populace leaving the weapons in the hands of the Iraqi police, military and coalition forces. Once a city or town has been cleansed we will rebuild it, fix the school, mosque, or hospital. Get electricity back on, water running, and phones working.

It does not need to be brutal or extermination but ruling with an iron fist on one arm and a soft hand on the other.

frankly, I don;t think wars from now on are going to be the traditional kind. guerilla warfare has proven itself effective, and we need to work on contructing a military that can deal with guerillas. the army we have really can't, and I think intelligence is really the way to go right now.

Originally posted by The Republican
I think we should go to every religous and community leader and tell them to tell the terrorists/insurgents/whatever PC word they are being called to get out of the hospital, school, mosque, etc. they are hiding and storing weapons in or we are going to level it. We should go street by street and house by house and search for weapons and disarm the populace leaving the weapons in the hands of the Iraqi police, military and coalition forces. Once a city or town has been cleansed we will rebuild it, fix the school, mosque, or hospital. Get electricity back on, water running, and phones working.

It does not need to be brutal or extermination but ruling with an iron fist on one arm and a soft hand on the other.

I just don't think this approach will work for a number of reasons.

First, you assume that we would be able to find all the weapons, which I doubt would be the case. People would hide them, make new weapons, steal weapons, and I would also point out that borders are meaningless to guerrillas. In Vietnam when we made it very difficult for the enemy to hide inside Vietnam itself, they started basing themselves in Laos and Cambodia, and launched their attacks from there, so unless we are ready nad capable of attacking Syria and perhaps other countries as well, winning a guerrilla war in Iraq seems unlikely.

Second, ruling with an iron fist usually just pisses people off and makes it easy for the guerrillas to recruit new members.

Lastly, the tactics you are proposing would result in a level of death and destruction that would be repugnant to the American people, and world opinion would turn strongly against us to such a degree that it would jeopardize our alliances with even our staunchest friends.

Originally posted by Vilepagan
Lastly, the tactics you are proposing would result in a level of death and destruction that would be repugnant to the American people, and world opinion would turn strongly against us to such a degree that it would jeopardize our alliances with even our staunchest friends.

That is the answer I was looking for as to why we cannot do that. You have proven my point eloquently. Thanks.:cool:

Originally posted by The Republican
That is the answer I was looking for as to why we cannot do that. You have proven my point eloquently. Thanks.:cool:

And what point would that be :confused:

Originally posted by Vilepagan
And what point would that be :confused:

The reason why we cannot go in and let our troops do what they do best.

Originally posted by The Republican
The reason why we cannot go in and let our troops do what they do best.

and that reason is? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Vilepagan
and that reason is? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Vilepagan
Lastly, the tactics you are proposing would result in a level of death and destruction that would be repugnant to the American people, and world opinion would turn strongly against us to such a degree that it would jeopardize our alliances with even our staunchest friends.

I am stopping...if you do not get it then it is beyond you...

Cripes Republican, I understand that you agree with the point I made, I was wondering how you felt about it.

Do you think that our inability to wage certain kinds of war is right or wrong?

Do you think we should ignore public, and world opinion when waging war?

And please...try not to insult my intelligence...it doesn't improve your image...:rolleyes:

Originally posted by Vilepagan
Cripes Republican, I understand that you agree with the point I made, I was wondering how you felt about it.

Do you think that our inability to wage certain kinds of war is right or wrong?

Do you think we should ignore public, and world opinion when waging war?

And please...try not to insult my intelligence...it doesn't improve your image...:rolleyes:

I was not trying to insult your intelligence...I thought you were mine...

We should be able to wage war the way it should be fought. We saw what politics did to Vietnam and with this age of information wars in the future will be worse to fight because of it. I bet the same peacnicks that complain about our troops doing their jobs would also bitch if the war were fought in the US with the same circumstances.

I feel there are a lot of people in the US that take our freedom for granted and as long as something is not directly affecting them they could care less about it except to bitch and moan.

The main problem in all of our arguments is that the world expects war to be sanitary. Well a sanitary war can not happen. World Opinion is important as long as it doesnt allow our security to be compromised. A war fought correctly will totaly demoralize an enemy, will remove that enemies ability to fight back and should without exception leave no doubt on who the victor was. This is not a pretty image and well make most cringe, and that is the problem with allowing world opinion to dictate our policy in dealing with those who wish to endanger our people.

Originally posted by Travh20
pagan, you should knowthat throughout history our military has always been inadwquete at the start of every war, its because of that exact line of thinking you just laid out. the thing is, we dont fight wars on our land, so that line of thinking is irrelevant to the reality of the world. if we did follow your lineof thining, we wouldnt need a ground force at all, just a navy and a bucnh of anti aircraft missles. inadwquete thining bucnh yeah travh......i wanna go where you went to school..........what are you man, vice president of the moron section of the knucklehead club.......

Originally posted by Travh20
its not impossible pagan, we defeated the american indians and the philipinos, the only thing that makes it "almost impossible" is political correctness. .....where in the hell did that shit come from......the american indians !!?...man, your forehead needs a circumcision...........really travh.......really

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Republican
[B]We should go street by street and house by house and search for weapons and disarm the populace leaving the weapons in the hands of the Iraqi police, military and coalition forces. Once a city or town has been cleansed we will rebuild it, fix the school, mosque, or hospital. Get electricity back on, water running, and phones working.

yeah......that shit works great here.....we lead the world in murders........but....stop them....those guys are still waiting for running water that we destroyed....i can smell it from here......physician heal thyself

Originally posted by The Republican
I was not trying to insult your intelligence...I thought you were mine...

We should be able to wage war the way it should be fought. We saw what politics did to Vietnam and with this age of information wars in the future will be worse to fight because of it. I bet the same peacnicks that complain about our troops doing their jobs would also bitch if the war were fought in the US with the same circumstances.

I feel there are a lot of people in the US that take our freedom for granted and as long as something is not directly affecting them they could care less about it except to bitch and moan. politics didnt do anything to that war compared to what the vietcong did.......we are arrogant, we just think we can just go beat em up huh? we're not stopping n korea.....see, to other countries war is almost a way of life, so they dont fight fair.... we're over here in america, the military is not as trained for war, thats why you see what you see....most people thought this shit was pretty much overwith...but as we saw with vietnam, thats far from the truth......when you are a blessed nation like america, arrogance is the one thing that can break us..... we needed to take care of the guy that did this first.. we are not showing the world anything but that we are arrogant....why didnt we go to war with n. korea. they are making wmd's right now.....we fight like bullies, we only fight the wars we know we can win.....but the world see's our hipocrisy. the only people who sided with us on this are the ones that are scared of us, or , broke and needed that money bush promised........and everyone that the bush admin tried to make a rambo out of, was killed by friendly fire, so dont tell me how trained they are.....and bush dont have to fight it so he dont care.....just beat em up

Originally posted by korg
inadwquete thining bucnh yeah travh......i wanna go where you went to school..........what are you man, vice president of the moron section of the knucklehead club.......

Korg, that kind of shit's not neccessary. If you've got a point to make do so, but name-calling is just asinine.

Korg our military is trained for war but the American people are not. When the media shows us attacking towns where innocents might be killed the whole world screams. So to say we are not capable of defeating an enemy like the VC is ridiculous. When we started an all out bombing campaign on Hanoi, the world cried foul. That would have brought the North to their knees, but we allowed the world to let thousands more of our soldiers to die. If the media had the access that they have today during WW II we would might have lost that one as well.
Air superiority is a must in any conflict, most countries couldnt even touch our air power.
Ask the Syrians what air superiority did to them in 67 against Israel. The Syrian Air Force lost 95% of their aircraft and all of their Sam sites and Israel lost none.

Korg...
Don't make liberals look bad

Originally posted by Overdose
Korg...
Don't make liberals look bad


:hitout:

Perhaps in light of the fact that most everyone agrees that in the War against Terror we're fighting a different type of a war, is every more reason for us to consider a type of mandated service for every able bodied citizen. This is not to suggest that everybody become a Rambo, or even a soldier, but there are many positions that could/would encourage increased awareness of community and country. The U.S. and its' allies are facing a loosely unified enemy. Until recently, terrorist acts were "over there" and not in our backyard. Guess what, boys & girls, they're here!! A larger percentage of our population needs to have the experience of a service, be it the Marines or the Peace Corps. Yes, we have a fine, all volunteer military right now. With all the demands of military life in wartime, can this level of readiness be maintained by volunteers alone?

Originally posted by es347fan
Perhaps in light of the fact that most everyone agrees that in the War against Terror we're fighting a different type of a war, is every more reason for us to consider a type of mandated service for every able bodied citizen. This is not to suggest that everybody become a Rambo, or even a soldier, but there are many positions that could/would encourage increased awareness of community and country. The U.S. and its' allies are facing a loosely unified enemy. Until recently, terrorist acts were "over there" and not in our backyard. Guess what, boys & girls, they're here!! A larger percentage of our population needs to have the experience of a service, be it the Marines or the Peace Corps. Yes, we have a fine, all volunteer military right now. With all the demands of military life in wartime, can this level of readiness be maintained by volunteers alone?
Ok I am voting for Es for President.

es, I would leave for Iraq tomorrow if they needed an old man to help out. I'm still pretty able- bodied.

I would as well, I have volunteered to assist in providing security in Iraq but alas they say I am too old and to banged up to help.

After 9/11 I went down to the recruiting folks & we had a real long talk. Everything was going just fine until one of them asked " ... well Sir, just how old are you now ? ... " and from there things took a significant downhill turn. All of the sudden it was " ... thanks for coming in ... we'll be in touch if .... " etc., & I was sent packing. As I don't hold a professional degree being over 50 slammed the door. Might have been nice to get retired from the Army a second time .... !

Originally posted by Overdose
Korg...
Don't make liberals look bad im sorry od, but that travh brings it out of me.....i'll just let you guys talk, you represent very well.....im kind of a jokester at times, and these discussions call for seriousness. i'll start a thread where travh and i can hurl insults.......lol just kidding......sorry you guys, wont happen again.............im not liberal by the way....im not really party, i listen for something that sounds right , and i follow it.......right now, its you, o.d.

Originally posted by Vilepagan
Korg, that kind of shit's not neccessary. If you've got a point to make do so, but name-calling is just asinine. sorry vile.....just sparring with travh

Nice apology Korg, earned some respect for that from me. But you are still wrong :)

Originally posted by Beirut_Veteran
Nice apology Korg, earned some respect for that from me. But you are still wrong :) thanks beirut, i'll take that from you anyday. your like the big brother of this site making sure everyone knows the skinny and stays in line..

Originally posted by korg
thanks beirut, i'll take that from you anyday. your like the big brother of this site making sure everyone knows the skinny and stays in line..
Not me that is Borg, Lionel,Dan,ES and Vile. I am just one more toddler with a lollipop.

Originally posted by Beirut_Veteran
Not me that is Borg, Lionel,Dan,ES and Vile. I am just one more toddler with a lollipop.

What..who me? I just like sticking my nose in other people's business :D

Don't we all?