Conflict In Iraq

[Gunny]

So who do you blame for your "Iraqis aren't capable of adopting democracy" mentality?

Pretty funny watching all the Repubs talk about individual responsibility and pulling ones self up by the bootstraps but then blaming the minority party and the MSM for the failures in Iraq.

Mentality? Blame? If I was going to blame anyone-or-thing on this point, I would blame all those not-so-very-insightful Americns who cannot comprehend that a people raised in a different culture hold different core beliefs and aren't going to willingly accept someone rolling in and telling them that what we believe is better because we say so.

The inability of the Western mind to accept or even somewhat understand that not everyone in the world holds our same core beliefs is at the root of the problem, and pretty obvious to anyone who actually LOOKS at it.

Instead, you have the usual PC bunch who refuse to accept the fact right and wrong, good and bad in Arab culture do not always correspond with right and wrong, good and bad in Western culture.

Western-style democracy is an invention of culture, not an inherent belief.

When the numerical minority party has the loudest voice via biased media, it's pretty damned-easy to call that spade a spade.

And jsut to clear it up for you, I'm not a Republican. The last political party I was actually registered as a member of was the Democrat party. That ought to get your gears whirring and smoking.

[dirt mcgirt]

Mentality? Blame? If I was going to blame anyone-or-thing on this point, I would blame all those not-so-very-insightful Americns who cannot comprehend that a people raised in a different culture hold different core beliefs and aren't going to willingly accept someone rolling in and telling them that what we believe is better because we say so.

The inability of the Western mind to accept or even somewhat understand that not everyone in the world holds our same core beliefs is at the root of the problem, and pretty obvious to anyone who actually LOOKS at it.

Instead, you have the usual PC bunch who refuse to accept the fact right and wrong, good and bad in Arab culture do not always correspond with right and wrong, good and bad in Western culture.

Western-style democracy is an invention of culture, not an inherent belief.

Wow, Gunny. You sounded just like an anti-war liberal there. Did you hug any trees today?

[Abbey Marie]

Wow, Gunny. You sounded just like an anti-war liberal there. Did you hug any trees today?

Gunny, if you do any tree-hugging, I want pictures!

[Gunny]

Wow, Gunny. You sounded just like an anti-war liberal there. Did you hug any trees today?

Nothing anti-war liberal about it. One of the very first, basic tenets of engaging an enemy is knowing him. Political correctness does not allow for that since it includes calling Arabs "Arabs" and Islam a religion of hate. Since we cannot say those things without the MSM crawling up every orifice of our bodies, we have to pretend they aren't who and what they are.

Sound tactical doctrine has nothing to do with politics.

[Gunny]

Gunny, if you do any tree-hugging, I want pictures!

I don't hug potential firewood.

[dirt mcgirt]

Nothing anti-war liberal about it. One of the very first, basic tenets of engaging an enemy is knowing him. Political correctness does not allow for that since it includes calling Arabs "Arabs" and Islam a religion of hate. Since we cannot say those things without the MSM crawling up every orifice of our bodies, we have to pretend they aren't who and what they are.

Sound tactical doctrine has nothing to do with politics.

So you spout Confucious and talk about knowing your enemy while painting Arabs and Islam with broad brushstrokes. LMAO.

[Gunny]

So you spout Confucious and talk about knowing your enemy while painting Arabs and Islam with broad brushstrokes. LMAO.

Makes pretty good sense to judge by the rule and not the exceptions.

But you keep on pretending they're something other than what they are so you can get a gold star by that on your PC Checklist. YOU are one of the problems previously identified.

[dirt mcgirt]

Makes pretty good sense to judge by the rule and not the exceptions.

But you keep on pretending they're something other than what they are so you can get a gold star by that on your PC Checklist. YOU are one of the problems previously identified.

Actually it's your inability to distinguish and differentiate the groups that's the problem. If you think that about all Arabs and all Muslims, then why don't you advocate a pull out and nuking them all?

[Gunny]

Actually it's your inability to distinguish and differentiate the groups that's the problem. If you think that about all Arabs and all Muslims, then why don't you advocate a pull out and nuking them all?

You're trying to play semantics, attempting to use technical levels as a means of misdirection. We were speaking in general, not identifying each and every tribe, religious sect, ethnicity, Nationality, etc of each and every individual in Iraq.

I DO differentiate between each religious sect, tribal group, combatants vs noncombatants, and Islamofascists from outside Iraq influencing the violence, or I WOULD BE for nuking them all.

The bad guys, regardless which sect, group, tribe, ethnicity, or whatever they belong to need to be hunted down and killed. If there is collateral damage, that is the price of war. If it pushes some to become militant extremists then they just add themselves to the target list.

Nothing is ever going to be accomplished as long as you want to have your cake and eat it too, and nothing has been accomplished from it.

Maybe some of you newbies need to listen to some of us dinosaurs and learn how to fight to win instead of all this political mollycoddling you espouse.

As I said before, you offer no solution, just an impossible situation.

[Gaffer]

If I were going to nuke any place it would be iran. Take off the head you kill the body. Two thirds if the terror organizations are supported and funded by them. That is an absolute fact. Yet they are still in existance and NOBODY does anything about them. It wouldn't be pc to just pre-emtively take them out. pre-emptively taking out hussien was the most evil thing the US has ever done according to the rest of the world and our own wonderful liberals.

[dirt mcgirt]

You're trying to play semantics, attempting to use technical levels as a means of misdirection. We were speaking in general, not identifying each and every tribe, religious sect, ethnicity, Nationality, etc of each and every individual in Iraq.

I DO differentiate between each religious sect, tribal group, combatants vs noncombatants, and Islamofascists from outside Iraq influencing the violence, or I WOULD BE for nuking them all.

The bad guys, regardless which sect, group, tribe, ethnicity, or whatever they belong to need to be hunted down and killed. If there is collateral damage, that is the price of war. If it pushes some to become militant extremists then they just add themselves to the target list.

Nothing is ever going to be accomplished as long as you want to have your cake and eat it too, and nothing has been accomplished from it.

Maybe some of you newbies need to listen to some of us dinosaurs and learn how to fight to win instead of all this political mollycoddling you espouse.

As I said before, you offer no solution, just an impossible situation.

No, I offered my opinion on what we should do. I said we should move the troops to the borders, seal them off, and decentralize the forces to act as command and control for the Iraqi security forces. We can also take another 50,000 Iraqis, train them out of country, and bring them back when their training is complete.

This isn't about PC mollycoddling. I've stated repeatedly we aren't trying to engage an enemy on the battlefield, we're trying to build a Democracy. Flattening cities like Fallujah undermines our objectives. Writing people off as collateral damage undermines our objectives. Not because of the "humanitarian aspect" or because it's "PC", it's about stopping ordinary civilians from joining the insurgency and attacking our troops with IED's and sniperfire. It's about curbing the sectarian violence that stops us from fulfilling the objective. That "Bring 'em on" mentality didn't work back then and it isn't working now. The military has an internal report about the mistakes in Iraq and are implementing a new counter-insurgency manual. All of these things seem to go against everything you're arguing. Perhaps you should write our military leaders and tell them that they're wrong.

[Gunny]

No, I offered my opinion on what we should do. I said we should move the troops to the borders, seal them off, and decentralize the forces to act as command and control for the Iraqi security forces. We can also take another 50,000 Iraqis, train them out of country, and bring them back when their training is complete.

This isn't about PC mollycoddling. I've stated repeatedly we aren't trying to engage an enemy on the battlefield, we're trying to build a Democracy. Flattening cities like Fallujah undermines our objectives. Writing people off as collateral damage undermines our objectives. Not because of the "humanitarian aspect" or because it's "PC", it's about stopping ordinary civilians from joining the insurgency and attacking our troops with IED's and sniperfire. It's about curbing the sectarian violence that stops us from fulfilling the objective. That "Bring 'em on" mentality didn't work back then and it isn't working now. The military has an internal report about the mistakes in Iraq and are implementing a new counter-insurgency manual. All of these things seem to go against everything you're arguing. Perhaps you should write our military leaders and tell them that they're wrong.

Instead of being a contrarian, why don't you just post your opinion up front; which, as opposed to your claim, you have not. Don't want to be seen as agreeable?

I don't see a whole lot wrong with your opinion except as noted before that "bring 'em on mentality" most assuredly has worked for countless centuries, and most recently in Europe and Japan.

And if our military leaders are so right, then how come they aren't succeeding?

All I'm hearing from you is you newbies are so lost in your technology and psychoanalysis you've forgotten how to win a simple sword fight.

[dirt mcgirt]

Instead of being a contrarian, why don't you just post your opinion up front; which, as opposed to your claim, you have not. Don't want to be seen as agreeable?

I don't see a whole lot wrong with your opinion except as noted before that "bring 'em on mentality" most assuredly has worked for countless centuries, and most recently in Europe and Japan.

And if our military leaders are so right, then how come they aren't succeeding?

All I'm hearing from you is you newbies are so lost in your technology and psychoanalysis you've forgotten how to win a simple sword fight.

Our military leaders are not succeeding because they employed the very tactics that you're saying they're not employing. And I'm not being a contrarian, you're the one trying to pawn conventional warfare tactics off as applicable to the nation building mission. Ummm, hello, Earth to Gunny, this is Operation Iraqi Freedom not Operation Kill Everything That Moves. Iraq isn't Europe or Japan and this isn't a simple sword fight. The enemy is hiding within the civilian population and engaging our troops with IED's and sniper rifles for Christ's sake. The military isn't using battlefield tactics within the civilian population, not because it's "unPC," but because it leads to a high rate of civilian casualties and because they've learned that for every 'x' number of civilians or non-combatants they unintentional kill, they create an insurgent or militant in their place. Although the Pentagon doesn't keep track of civilian casualties, Bush estimated that about 35,000 civilians died last year and depending on who you ask, estimates range from 100,000 to 600,000 total civilian casualties since the war began. And aside from the "PC" humanitarian toll, in military terms that logically equates to a lot of fucking insurgents and a lot of fucking IED's. It's not like we can issue a declaratoin of war to the insurgency and tell them to bring all their equipment and vehicles out to the desert and settle it Geneva Conventions style. The military recognizes this which is why they're abandoning reactive conventional warfare tactics for these new proactive counter-insurgency tactics.

[Gunny]

Our military leaders are not succeeding because they employed the very tactics that you're saying they're not employing. And I'm not being a contrarian, you're the one trying to pawn conventional warfare tactics off as applicable to the nation building mission. Ummm, hello, Earth to Gunny, this is Operation Iraqi Freedom not Operation Kill Everything That Moves. Iraq isn't Europe or Japan and this isn't a simple sword fight. The enemy is hiding within the civilian population and engaging our troops with IED's and sniper rifles for Christ's sake. The military isn't using battlefield tactics within the civilian population, not because it's "unPC," but because it leads to a high rate of civilian casualties and because they've learned that for every 'x' number of civilians or non-combatants they unintentional kill, they create an insurgent or militant in their place. Although the Pentagon doesn't keep track of civilian casualties, Bush estimated that about 35,000 civilians died last year and depending on who you ask, estimates range from 100,000 to 600,000 total civilian casualties since the war began. And aside from the "PC" humanitarian toll, in military terms that logically equates to a lot of fucking insurgents and a lot of fucking IED's. It's not like we can issue a declaratoin of war to the insurgency and tell them to bring all their equipment and vehicles out to the desert and settle it Geneva Conventions style. The military recognizes this which is why they're abandoning reactive conventional warfare tactics for these new proactive counter-insurgency tactics.

You're talking circles and making no new points. I understand perfectly well what the situation in Iraq is, and I understand perfectly well what's trying to be done about it.

Speaking of "Earth to dirt" .... Isn't working, is it? Hmmmm.......

When y'all newbie, techno-geniuses get done out-guessing yourselves and your asses are kicked real good, you STILL won't get it. Youll just be all full of excuses and "how come's," and run back to your computers and over-analyze the shit out of what went wrong.