Whatever happened to the McCarthurs and the Pattons
 

With the offensive in Fallujah clearing up, some issues have become evident to this writer. The most glaring of these issues is the complete rank and file nature of our military now. Generals and upper level commanders are not taking initiative and are listening to civilian orders too closely. Accordingly, as pointed out in his latest KnightRidder article by Joe Galloway, these civilan commanders, have never seen a day of combat, or know anything outside political expediency.

Now that we are heavily engaged in Iraq there needs to be decisive action waged by commanders in the field to ensure defeat of foriegn insurgents in Iraq. The micro managing by civilian authorities in the name of politics is going to ruin us in the end, lead to more destruction and further death, than if operations can persist with commanders in the field discretion. This is a huge problem, and I see nothing but further set backs for our military unless one of these generals or colonels. WWI and II saw some insubordination at times, but I think it's essential to winning victory.

The boys in DC are second guessing and monday morning quaterbacking way too much these days. There needs to be a maverick here that gets results.

-Walrus

I don't think any General dares to be a MacArthur or a Patton these days -even MacArthur or Patton wouldn't dare to do today what they did back then. War has become a media event, and you have to play by the rules, such as they are. The dilemma is that the nature of conflict is evolving faster than the law. Civilians, the media, and technology all impact the present operational environment. The line between combatants and non-combatants has become blurred and humanitarian issues are coming under world scrutiny.

According to the definition of "Declaration of War" under treaty law, a "just" war (Jus ad bellum) embodies these components:

1) Just cause
2) Last resort
3) Lawful declaration
4) Political objectives proportionate to costs of fighting
5) Reasonable chance of success
6) Rightful intentions

Under international law, the UN charter, Iraq did not break any law that would have necessitated our attack on that nation. The fact that Saddam was a despot and opposed to the idea of Western democracy is not sufficient justification for what we did under international law. There has been no proof EVER that Saddam intended to destroy the US or that any attack by Iraq upon the US was imminent. In theory,our military commanders could one day find themselves facing a war crimes tribunal because of this.

Naturally, such an outcome is unlikely, given the military superiority of the US over other nations, but the thought must give our commanders in the field some pause, since they have studied the laws of war and the international implications of breaking them.

I find it hard to believe that any international war crimes tribunal would find in favor of Saddam over our guys. Give me a break!

Ok. Take a break.

We are deployed there, regardless
 

The type of talk that Marchiko is using is exactly why we can't earn a decisive victory in Iraq. It comes down to the man in the field now. George Bush and the Congress of the United States are responsible for deploying the troops, not generals. They need to wage the war they see fit once deployed.

I hate to say it but we are descending into a Vietnam style mess up here. We need decisive action from a non-partisan soldier, period. None of this, "Well what will these people think?" That was done the day we stuck it to the UN. If you truly follow a policy of pre-emptive war, and a go it alone attitude then heckling with international governments for 4 months while Saddam packs up any illegal goodies and gets the terror war ready is exactly the kind of thinking that got us in this mess. Yeah, let's tell people were coming and give them plenty of time to booby trap the position and get key personell out of the hot zone. This is the worst offensive tactics I've ever seen. We fight a blitzkrieg style war in Spring 2003, then lead a flopy occupation effort. The night we got into Bagdad it should have been 0 tolernence curfiew. We should have kept more Saddam era funtionaries in place longer, offerred them more power in the new government, and set about
creating a new government. Starting from scratch was a disaster and foolish to boot.

And what if we actually get these foriegn insurgents on the run, and they start to cross back over the borders to Syria, where most of these crazys are from, what then? We stop at the border and call the UN, screw that. This is where we stand now. Furthermore many of the countries on the security council had much to gain from keeping Saddam in power. The new invesitgatiion into the oil for food program shows that France, Germany, and Russia may all be implicated in this scandal, hmmmm, isn't that strange, the same bozos who didn't want to topple Saddam. Besides the fact that if all these countries could they would have been selling the guy nuclear secrets and missle guidance systems.

The bottom line: We now find ourselves in a precarious situation in Iraq obviously. Pulling out is going to earn us any respect anywhere, decisive victory is our only recourse. With Iraqi popular sentiment turning towards outside combatants I think there needs to be a non stop offensive effort by commanders in the field, not Washington, to kill and or neutralize these fighters, period. It comes down the guy next to you out there in the field, we all know that, and these commanders need to put the lives of their men first. This means whatever it takes to meet security standards for free elections. Then, and only then, do you consider an exit strategy. Too many folks have died, as GW Bush would say, and in part he's right, but you don't honor their memory by fighting the same stupid war. Now its not just about Saddam and whether or not he had arms, its about foriegn fighters and terrorism. They're not fighting for Iraqis, in fact popular support for these foriegn fighters is starting to erode. This is not like the VC here people, these individuals are not fighting for a free communist Iraq.

Finally, in regards to the UN's standards of a "just war" are simply outdated and irrelevant in today's context. These standards are just as irrelevant as the Leauge of Nations standards were in 1933. This goes for the Geneva standards as well. We are fighting an enemy that recognizes nothing but Allah. Western conventions, and civilities are only going to end up getting us all killed. There needs to be some sort of logical and coherent suspension of these "play nice" rules to root out this plauge on humanity, once and for all.

-Walrus

So do you go straight to the nukes, or try the strategy of smallpox-infected burkhas first?

The only excuse for war that has not turned out to be false was to save the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator. In a war with that justification, aren't we obligated even more to be humane and careful with human life?

No need for nukes
 

I don't think taking it to these individuals will mean the use of nuclear armaments. Its as simple as following all available intel from the field, and recognizing tactics that work for this context. We are acting to slow and beuracratic to solve these issues. These people don't work on petitions and committees lets get real here. We need to work outside the box to defeat this enemy is all I'm saying. As far as UN standards, I'm not saying no standards, but new ones. Western style standards need to be applied to Western style nations. You can't apply them to non-tiethed terror organizations, its just ridiculous. You can't fight these people with the same tactics you use for countries with organized armies and a civilian population, for these people there one and the same. Same goes for borders of Islamic countries, they were drawn in the sand after WWII for the most part, hence part of issue there, these people see only the fidels and the infidels, that's it. Compartmentalizing is not going to work here. The nukes will be dropped without our help, we're just facilitators. Letting that cat out of the bag, it's only a matter of time before those missles fly, but in the meantime, we need to mount offensives in Iraq in a shorter period of time. Civilian casualites will be higher in this case, but there needs to be a comprimise, what's really acceptable here. I think the Iraqi people will turn against these fighters after Falluja, so there may be no need for this type of action to take place. Having said that though, if they set up shop someplace else, we need to take action sooner, that's it. We're going to get called on it anyway, might as well try to get some of these bastards.

-Walrus

THEN WHY ARE WE THERE? Our only excuse for being there is to help the civilian population. If we can blithely classify them as one and the same as the enemy army, or as expendable as long as we get some actual enemy, then we have lost any justification for being there at all.

Someone knows their biowarfare history.

So let me get this right walrus....you suggest that basically, kill anything that moves, torture suspects and assume everyone is a tango and whatever it left gets to vote in 'free and fair elections'? Now i've smoked some damn good stuff and come up with some interesting concepts but you, well, how much for a 1/8?

The kind of talk I used is from the law of armed conflict and is part of basic training for officers and most NCO's, as well. It is not some liberal hype or peacenik diatribe. It comes from both international law and a US doctrine known as the Bellum Americanum that hinges on precision-guided bombs, standardized targeting, accepted levels and types of collateral damage, and higher bomb flight altitudes. Officers who "wage the war as they see fit once deployed" are going to face court martial or worse if they overstep certain boundaries and break the laws of armed conflict.

In other words, you want a soldier to commit an act of insubordination against the Commander in Chief and the upper level brass in the Pentagon. Do you have the faintest understanding of what would happen to such an individual? He could kiss his career good-by, and that's just for starters.

hmmmm, remember that 2nd rate Hollywood actor who starred in "Bedtime for Bonzo"? What WAS his name? Oh yeah, Reagan. Reagan sent arms and munitions to Iraq and Saddam until the country was abristle with weapons. People (and countries) who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

In other words, we have met the enemy and he is us. Let's be as ruthless or more so than Saddam ever was. Since it's difficult to distinguish civilians from combatants, let's kill 'em all. Poison the drinking war, use nuclear weapons, engage in biological warfare that would make the 7 plagues of Egypt seem like a bunny hop by comparison and find a second General Sherman (to hell with MacArthur and Patton - they had too much integrity) to lead a scorched earth march to the sea. The US has almost zero credibility in the MidEast, anyhow, so what do we care whatever what is left of them will think? And our allies can go to hell because we're Americans, and, by definition, America does no wrong. Right.


"Sweet is war to him who knows it not" - Pindar, Fragment, 110 (500 B.C.) Again, these are not just the UN's standards of a "just war". They are also (in theory, anyhow) a part of US standards, as well, and derive from the thinking of various statesmen and philosophers going back to Clausewitz and Grotius (who wrote De Jure Belli ac Pacis in 1625) and as recently as 1998 when Schmitt formulated the Bellum Americanum. Soldiers are not just stupid fighting machines as you seem to imply. Upper level officers are well aware of the fact that when world opinion or the tides of war turn the wrong way, it is the commander in the field who will go before the world court, not the politicians. This was true in recent history in the war crimes trials in the wake of the Rwandan and Kosevo conflicts.

Your desired course of action for some US commander is both inhumanitarian, illegal, and impossible.

It seems all sides will spin it however they like anyway; one can, for example, do a remarkable job of avoiding civilian casualities and still have whining, frightened people wringing their hands over invented ones. Kill them all or kill only the bad ones, the argument will be the same. So I'm with Walrus; separate politics from war, both will be more effective for it.

Tell me when you get to the 21st century. War has always been a political tool, to try and separate the two is foolish, to attempt to do so in the this day and age, where the relationship between political machinations and military muscle has never been closer is silly. The way in which forces operate is dictated by the environment they operate in, to try and disconnect it is to deny reality. Asymmetrical warfare is not a new concept, while the realities of it are only starting to hit home to the armchair crowd there are enough papers and discussions on the topic to fill a stadium, if there was a better way of doing it that was accepted by the US military establishment, they would be doing so.

Furthermore, this isn't world war two. This isn't the US in shining armour rescuing the world for fascism, this is, really, a morally bankrupt conflict, better than Vietnam only by virtue of scale. The forces aligned against the US are fighting in essence a downhill battle, they only have to destroy. While Hearts and Minds has become yet another addition to the political lexicon it doesn't yet seem to have sunk in. The British forces managed to hold a peace in soft hats though engagement and understanding, the US tries to win by force. Guess who is doing a better job.

The funny thing noone seems to be mentioning is that the US does not want 'free and fair' elections in Iraq. It'd be a disaster, Shia hardliners in power, Sunnis up in arms and the Kurds threatening to go off and form their own state properly. I'm looking with trepidation and what kind of dodgy dealings they're going to do to pull that off without a disaster.

Nothing like a little whining and frightened hand-wringing over invented dangers to underscore my point.

If you're scared, get a dog.

Could be your right cowgirl
 

In response to Marchikos response: Well your right it may be immoral and wrong, but at some point after sustained casualties and zero results, I think there will be dissent on tactics. I by no means advocate scorched earth tactics, please marchiko, you read too much into my comments. I simply think it's time for a commander to continue when it's ammeable to do as such. My case in point is the ceasing of the initial foray into Fallujah, which was stopped by Bremner.

Now I'm hoping that after this election we have a more effective war effort in Iraq. Now that Bush doesn't have to worry about winning and we have 4 years I hope something is done. Pulling out will only embolden the terrorists, and hostile or semi-hostile states to assume we are on the retreat. They'll beat the hell out of us in a trade war or be working a way to get surretripous agents through our borders, regardless it's either now or never. Sitting and bitching about the Geneva convention or delveing into the ramblings of the diplomacy set isn't going to help us now.

As far as Reagan is concerned, Iraq's build up was deemed necessary at the time. I think we have learned our lesson, or maybe we haven't, point being that was then this is now. There are true stakes for the future of Western civilization as we know it. It's too late to close up shop and hope that by reconginzing Western style laws and edicts we can appease the zealots out to kill all of us.

-Walrus

Hello? Come on, UT, you're conservative and I'm liberal. Much as we disagree on just about everything, I have always considered you to be a pretty intelligent person. You CANNOT seperate politics from war. You cannot seperate international law from the acts of war committed by commanders in the field. Sooner or later the final bomb will be dropped, the last soldier, the last civilian will die and the smoke will clear from the eyes of a watching world, and judgements will be made.

When it comes to civilian casualties, I agree to some extent, that a spin can be made either way - at least in certain cases. Take a communication center that is vital for the enemy forces. This communication center is actually the telephone company. Suppose you are a computer systems administrator for QWEST (or whoever the big phone co back East is). You are going about your work, making sure that Joe from from Indiana and Ma and Pa Kettle and all your friends and neighbors can jump on the telephone and share the latest gossip. The pentagon also happens to make use of Qwest's phone lines. An invading army sends a missle aimed straight at your office. Are you an enemy combatant or an innocent civilian? That's just one example and there are jillions of others.

I am going to share with you all some comments made by a friend of mine who is a veteran of the First Gulf War. I have mentioned this individual before. He didn't have some safe behind the lines job. He was in a tank that led the first wave of assault in that war. In the course of that engagement he saved the lives of the men in another tank crew. I read the letter those men wrote him afterward thanking him for his heroism, and every single man on that crew signed the letter. In other words, my friend is no wussie-boy and he also supported Bush in this past election.

A few nights ago he came over to my house to talk. He hadn't been able to sleep for two days. He told me, "I keep dreaming about a man who is a serial killer. I see him and look into his eyes and I know, and I know that he knows that I know. Everyone else can't see this person for who he is. Then in the dream I look into a mirror and I see the killer's face reflected back at me. I AM the serial killer. The military made me into a serial killer except that I have a conscience and a sense of right and wrong. I killed nine men in the First Gulf War. I wonder what their mothers' faces looked like. I wonder what their names were. I wonder if they left behind children or wives who mourn them. I am a veteran and I can tell you this much: No one wins in a war. No one."

This easy talk of killing some of you like to engage in is easy talk. Nothing more.

iamthewalrus109 - when one chooses to stare into the abyss one should be be shocked when it stares back and looks pretty familiar.

So what's the response here?
 

War is hell, I think most people have an incling of that. I have a friend who also served in combat. He doesn't sleep anymore, it's just a nightmare fest. Yeah it's easy to say and hard to do, of course. Why are we there? Well there are initial reasons, but those for the time being have been made to be false. Have we gone into Syria to check? no, not yet anyway. Have we heard of any clear intel on movements of large vehicles shortly before the war? No, not yet. In any case this is where we are today. Of course there is always politics in war, but to be totally contolled by what's going on here is doing the effort a diservice, it's either we're there to win or just blow up a bunch of impoverished Iraqi homes, kill there children, and call it day, give me a break. No amount of training will ever prepare you to deal with a combat kill, even when it's a combatant trying to kill you. It's true we will have severly mentally damaged people in our society after this, that is if one still exisits. I think we need to make some decisions here. In hearing that story of First Gulf war vet, I have heard similar from a host of other veterans, hence why we honor them so highly. It's probably one of the worst jobs in the world to have, to be haunted by the memories of every kill. Of course there are some that it doesn't really bother, they can justify the kills. Then there are some that killed a child mistakenly, or an old woman, these people will never be the same.

In the end what's to be done. We are already there. Unilateral withdrawal I think is not the best choice. There needs to be less civilian control, I'm sorry, it's the only way. To keep a civilian leadership in place when the war is still being faught is living in a state of denial. Let's face it, it's all politics. They put the civilian leadership in control prematurely due to the speed of the victory of convential forces and to heighten PR effect. This was a mistake, and I'll wanted to voice by starting this thread is that someone with Kahonies will have to take charge to get us out of this mess without us ending up with no credibilty with who is still allied with us while emboldening enemies, either quiet or vocal.

One frigtening factor to add to all this is that, we are the only ones really putting in the time and money here. While we fight this war, China and the EU are exploding on to the global trade scene. Inflation is on the rise and the cost of living increases. To pull out on Iraq and just try to play nice and play catch up with our competiors is not going to do it, we need leverage now, and a win in Iraq, and some diplomacy in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death will help. We need to secure the region, get energy costs down, stabalize then try to find our way out of dependency on foriegn nations for anything, period. Will any of this happen, most likely not, but its really the direction we should be going in.

-Walrus

Jag: I am the abyss
 

It has stared back, it's my reflection in the mirror every time I look into one.

-Walrus

*laughs.

You're still thinking in the padigram of conventional warfare. Declaring war is easy enough, so is killing some bad guys, declaring peace however is a touch more difficult, you won't see columns of surrendering officers marching down the streets of bagdhad at the 'end' of this conflict. You're also still a touch stuck in an economic period that was well over before we were born, every nation is interdependant in thousands of different ways and as time goes on only more and more so. The real threat to your SUV fuel bill and mortgage comes from the US deficit and the spectre of the collapse of fiat currency.

How many times have you heard the politicians should go to the front instead of sending others to fight?
Well it’s worse than that, they’re sending others, only giving them the equipment the pols think they need. Only the troops the pols think they need. Only the targets the pols think they need.

It’s a bad war. It’s an unjust war. It’s an illegal war. Blah, blah, blah......
Well maybe so, but it’s real and it’s here and now, we have to deal with it.
War crimes tribunal? Get real, only losers are tried and there’s not much chance of that, yet.
Get the reporters and politicians out and give the military the materiel they need to subjugate Iraq. Absolute, complete, and utter domain over Iraq, then we talk about freedom and self government.
Foreign wars are not won in Washington or in the media but they sure as hell can be lost there.
The politicians trying to micro-manage any war is a definite loser.
:rant:

To be be more accurate, only the conquered are tried, and we won't be conquered, even if we lose.

What? I'm sure that I heard our leader in the debates stress that we are part of a coalition, and that it is disrespectful to our allies to denigrate their contribution. :3_eyes:

But seriously, I sort of agree that we need to come up with a graceful exit strategy. The problem is that noone has defined the term 'win' in terms of Iraq. Is it just getting the elections through? What if the Shi'ite majority elect a primarily or exclusively Shi'ite government? It's a lot harder to play Red State - Blue State when both sides have guns and will not meekly become the minority party. Even if we get a stable Iraq, we have lost our credibility with many Arab nations. They know we want oil. They know that the Bush administration got away with invading Iraq on a technicality and that the UN was unable to stop it or even condemn it.

In terms of economic power, China and the oil states have all of the power. If they wanted to, they could start selling dollars and take a hammer to the US economy.

We have placed a large burden on our military. If we decided to invade another country, the draft would be a necessity. Saddam isolated himself by invading Kuwait, but the other Arab states are more connected. It's possible that a US invasion of another country in the Mideast might draw in other countries who would interpret it as the US trying to establish a hegemony in the Middle East.

There is NO graceful exit strategy to a situation we made fools of ourselves by entering into in the first place. How many lives did we throw away over some bullshit notion of "peace with honor" in Vietnam? How honorable were those final scenes of the fall of Siagon with the last US helicopter flying out with desperate Vietnamese trying to hang on? How many "dominoes" fell as a result of our leaving that godless war behind? Remember who our REAL enemy in the Vietnam conflict was? The "red" Chinese. Now look around and see how many items made in China are sitting around in your home, your office, the very clothes you wear on your backs. The Chinese won, not because of the Vietnam conflict, but because the American people went to sleep and allowed our government of the people to become the government of the international corporations which happily outsourced American jobs to the lowest third world bidder.

You bet China and the oil producing countries have all the economic power. Why? Because the American people handed it over to them, giving away our manufacturing capacity and ensuring that this country would do NOTHING when it came to viable solutions for a petroleum based economy. Where are our mass public transit systems? Where are our alternative energy programs? I'll tell you where - in the pockets of sociopaths like George Jr. who doesn't give a damn about the American people, only about ensuring that the wealth of the Bush dynasty and its friends at Halliburten will be secure.

Economic power = wealth = military prowness. We can skate along for maybe another 20 or 30 years, but without manufacturing, without an educated and productive population, we will ultimately meet the same fate as did the USSR - brought down by outrageous military expenditures, and foolish refusal to invest in its own people.

We can kill every last man, woman, and child in Iraq, and sit like some bloated spider on the resulting petroleum spoils of war and all we will have done is to sow the wind in order to reap the whirlwind. Your children will mark my words.

Nice spot of writing, that.

+5 for horrid image of bloated spider. Very nice, Mari.

hyperbole don't make it so. There is no win or lose in Iraq, it's acheive the objective or not. Bush determines the objective and whether we've achieved it or not.
Some will declare it a win and some a loss, no matter what the outcome. ;)

Mari, you need like three or four dogs. You're afraid of shadows cast by objects that don't exist, created by light sources that are truly dim bulbs. They move and you move with them so you can make sure you can still see the shadows, so you can still be afraid of them. You live on the adrenaline created by your fear. If somebody says boo you'll jump out of your shoes. Cowgirls are supposed to be brave?

Alternative energy: remember, this question has been considered by the best and the brightest for about 50 years. Every single physics and engineering student has spent a good deal of time thinking about it. After the Carter presidency the government put a ton of money into that particular rathole. If this one were easy, it would be solved by now. But actually there is a very proven alternative energy source and the Europeans you like so well use it a lot. It's called nuclear fission. It's extremely clean, unless you happen to screw up and make an entire area of the planet uninhabitable.

But before you advocate for it you should spend some time living next to one of these plants. The towers cast a long shadow, and you may be frightened of it.

UT, Reagan dismantled the better part of the government research programs into alternative fuels back in 1980. I watched the whole oil shale thing out on the West slope of Colorado go from boom to bust, literally over-night. There are parts of the Uncomphaghre Plateau where you can take a cigarette lighter and literally set fire to the dirt, the oil shale content is so high. But the US would rather spend $200 billion dollars and countless lives in a foreign war than spend the money to come up with the technology to make shale oil a viable resource. The same for every other form of alternative energy.

I have spent time in Europe and been extremely impressed with their modern, efficient forms of public transportation and their use of energy sources like hydro-electric and, yes, nuclear. In Europe I know that extremely rigorous training for nuclear power plant operators is required. In the US, Homer Simpson runs them.

I can't afford to own a dog. I barely can cover the expenses for my cat. Besides, I'm not afraid. I'm older than most on this board, and I have no children. I figure the US will probably hold on for the rest of my lifetime. What happens after I'm dead is a matter of indifference to me, other than the fact that I wish my country and future generations well.

Mar, as much as you would like to think so, the US government does not control whether shale oil is used. Simple economics does. If the price of oil remains high, your burning carcinogenic rocks will be used, as well as the burning corn they grow in the next state over, and the turkey guts processor, and all the other $50/barrel "alternatives". It would cost much more than $200B to demand the economy run on it when it is a more expensive approach.

Lastly, The Simpsons is a fictional cartoon, and should not be used to advocate public policy or determine the nature of our world. HTH.

Let's show How Very Afraid you are on Inauguration Day. We'll go digital that day. :) Is fear an alternative energy resource? Specious poetics.

It's been demonstrated of late to be an excellent source of power.

This objective seems to change though...when it seems that the objective simply cannot be reached for some reason, it shifts. First it was WMD. Then when it came out that there were no WMDs that matched what Bush said was there, the focus shifted to terrorism in general. Right now we're basically fighting the bogeyman. It manifests as all kinds of things but isn't something that can be touched itself. Terrorism is an adaptable creature much like the cold virus. It changes and mutates itself whenever it realizes it can't get things done the old way. Unless we get a more tangible objective or get an actual GOAL, this war will never ever end...or will at least last 4 more years. Cuz as soon as Bush & Co. 'stabilize' Iraq (ha ha!), we'll be off to some other country the Hill says has shifty, beady eyes and start all over again there; same fight, different playground. Rinse and repeat until all countries with even a history of having terrorists set foot on the soil have been subjugated and Americanized while America itself turns into a rich third world country.

AAAh.....I'll spell out my point. ;)
It's ridiculous to point out weaknesses other people don't have a huge quantity of. It's rabid and none too bright to impose your ideas about how other people feel. Especially if you are known to attack them on some anonymous board. Should I start accusing people of feeling like Losers? How brilliant would I be then? Hey jag you feel great today....get rid of your dog.Impressed? :yelsick: (really not directed anywhere near Jag)

CW the larger objective, not stated so plainly, was to create a more pro-US state in the middle of the Middle East. So far it hasn't worked out, but it still could.

NT Times Friedman column today says so, registration req'd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/op...tml?oref=login

Ehhh...I think I see. That concept is not nearly as marketable as the idea of destroying all who might threaten our way of life. It's be easier to rally the US public to support "putting those 9/11 plotters and US Soldier killers and fuel pipeline destroyers in their place" than it is to rally them to support "creating a political foothold in the Middle East because that's the one place we haven't gotten our feet firmly planted in yet".

Duh, really? I am soooo disappointed! Bart was my role model! Now what do I do? I can't give a cite for this, but about a million years ago I read an article in some respectable magazine - "Atlantic Monthly" or "New Republic" or one of those - that outlined the differences in certification for nuclear power plant operators in Europe versus the US, and the US showed very poorly in the comparison. Maybe things have changed. I'm too tired to look it up, and I don't feel like going to the barricades over a relatively minor point. But it does bring me to my next point, which is this:

Just as "The Simpsons" is a vast over-simplification of the credentials of real life nuclear power plant operators, your statements about alternative energy energy are a vast over simplification of the role of government in a nation's energy use. For example, policies encouraging reliable mass transit systems both locally and nationally could make an incredible difference. Tax breaks for corporations using alternative energy sources could speed up research and development in that area by light years. It's a complex issue where government policy DOES play an important role.

Oh yeah, by the way, since when is shale oil any more "carcinogenic" than petroleum? I've camped on the Uncomphaghre Plateau on a regular basis for 20 years now and have yet to come down with cancer. This despite the fact that the place thrills the latent pyrromaniac (however you spell that) in me, and I spend countless happy hours setting bits of cliff face on fire everytime I'm out there.

Cyber Wolf
That's the beauty of it, he can't fail. The path of least resistance has been a lifelong pattern and he got to be Prez......twice. ;)

Wow,that's actually a really good point. But isn't the path of the least resistant a bread trail to McDonalds management? (at best)

Yeah, it must be nice to have your path of least resistance paved by a parent who's President of the US and richer than a Saudi oil sheik. Given that background, even Homer Simpson could drink himself into the presidency. :eyebrow:

And so clearly all the children of all those other wealthy presidents we've ever had must be lower than Homer Simpson on the intellect scale, since none of them managed to waltz into the White House? :eyebrow:

GWB ain't the only person ever to have the President for a father.

No, actually, the other kids were the bright and sane ones, because they wanted nothing to do with the presidency. ;)

oh please, I wouldn't be shocked if bush couldn't do up his own shoelaces, with everything handled by Rove, Cherny or Dad it's not too hard and having a pliable idiot as president suits the pocket-lining and agenda setting desire of those around him nicely.

Oh, I think he can handle the shoelaces, but why should he if he doesn't have to? His only sucessful endeavors have been in the position of front man and gladhander for people with money and a plan. Just follow the script, but in fairness I don't think the script is completely detailed. More likely an outline with established limits of wiggle room. Think of a bowling ball on an alley or bobsled on a track. :king:

They hate us for their lack of freedom
 

An exerpt from a new report(big pdf) from the Defense Science Board:
Note that this may or not be the motivation for individual terrorists or their leaders, but it is instead the background environment that gives terrorists popular support and access to new recruits. Fixing this environment is immeasurably more important than killing the current generation of enemies.

And why do they hate the Spanish?

Why the Aussies?

Why the Brits?

Why the French?

Why the Russians?

Well, there are different terrorist groups targeting different countries, but for the most part you just listed some of the closest allies of the US, almost all of which (not Australia, AFAIK) have also had imperial incursions into the Middle East. What point were you trying to make?

That the problem can't be fixed that way because even if you are a great friend of Arafat and Palestine and lavish them with gifts and billions of dollars, you can decide to mandate no headgear for students and suddenly you are festering hate and creatiing terrorists.

One problem is that they hate Jews. Very well then allow them to wipe Israel off the map. Where does the hate go then?

The real problem is the intolerable clash of the successful western world against the repeatedly failing middle east. They could wipe Israel off the map and it would only cause them to find another external reason for their overall failure on the world scale. Co-dependency is not good foreign policy.

The only way to do away with the problem is to do away with the hate, or at least the power behind it, not to do away with Israel or try to massage and work with the hate in some way.

There will probably be a minority who are willing to kill as long as Israel exists, and Israel's existence will probably always stick in the craw of a majority of Muslims. But the mere existence of Israel is not enough to generate most of the non-Palestinian terrorists. It is one (though a big one) of a million issues that combine to bring the mainstream towards the extremists.

You seem to read the article as saying we should shower Muslims with gifts and submit to their every demand (do away with Israel? WTF?). That's not what it says. Our policies are almost unvaryingly detrimental to Muslim citizens, for varying reasons. The cumulative effect is that first, terrorist groups gain recruits, and then anti-American sentiment becomes strong enough that even the governments we try to bribe start America-bashing to divert dissatisfaction from them to the US.

That's the point. You have to deal with root causes. Killing current terrorists is like picking the leaves off of a tree one at a time to try to kill it.

Germany seems to have awakened to the idea they have a problem. (yes, the way I phrased that was intentional)

"Multiculturalism has failed in Germany."

Our policies are almost unvaryingly detrimental to Muslim citizens, for varying reasons.

Clearly untrue. You are bending the truth to fit your narrative. You want it to be the fault of the US and/or of the politicians you don't agree with.

It is not, it is a cultural problem and the US will find blame no matter what it does.

Bombing people into oblivion, actively supporting the biggest thorn in their side and acting with nothing short of extreme arrogance are well proven ways of solving problems such as these.

The first part of it actually works if you do the job right.

The hate preceded that by decades so it must have developed from something else.

I don't want the fault to be anywhere in particular, except insofar as the aspects of it that are our fault are the ones we can work on most easily. That's not an excuse to do anything. Of course there are some who will blame the US for everything. We need to make it obvious that they are wrong, and the only way to do that is to decrease the legitimate issues that they wrap the bogus ones around. If we take on the attitude that they'll blame us no matter what, so we might as well trample them, then we are giving their lies legitimate support, and providing the terrorists with more support from former moderates.

The terrorist goal is to goad the enemy power into actions which decrease their popular support.

Perhaps something like this: Nobody's saying the bombing caused the hate (you seem to be setting up a lot of strawmen), just that it doesn't fix anything.

That's the terrorists' plan.

No, it's not. They can't make enough bombs to eliminate America.

We, on the other hand, do have the resources to eliminate them.

Turn the middle east into glass. Real stylish. Fuckwit. Next time the US bombs somewhere (doubt it'll be a long wait) I'll suggest the obliteration of every major US city, civvies be damned or maybe even targetted and well see how you react.

Sure it does, your reasoning about why is largely, correct, however your solutions don't seem to match the causes.

Control yourself.

Comparing resources and methods is not the same thing as agreeing with their uses.

Asshat :)

I didn't say I was reaching for an "excuse to do ANYTHING"; I'm just trying to get the narrative better.

Jag, perhaps the better solution is complete disengagement?