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Minimalist will love this one...
#21
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
An army of "soldiers" failed in Iraq....and will fail in Afghanistan.
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#22
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
What should Iraq do?
And how could Costa Rica survive without an army?
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#23
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
(September 25, 2014 at 12:55 pm)Minimalist Wrote: An army of "soldiers" failed in Iraq....and will fail in Afghanistan.

Well, the soldiers need to be well led too.

When a 4 star soldier who happen to have been the army chief of staff said before congress that a proper war in Iraq requires several hundred thousand soldiers on the ground for years, and an deputy secretary of defence without a single day's military service, to say nothing of having attended any general staff college, laughed condescendingly and said it was "wide of mark" before national television, you knew for certain we were going to lose this war.
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#24
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
Always remember:

Quote:Nervos belli, pecuniam.

-Marcus Tullius Cicero


"The sinews of war is unlimited money."

We spend $1,000,000 per man to equip, pay and train a soldier. Meanwhile they hand some fuckhead a garage door opener and tell him to press it when one of our super expensive vehicles goes by.

You can't win that.
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#25
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
I dunno, old Bill might be on to something. Find a bunch of mercenaries on the other side of the world, send them a shitload of money, and wait for them to do your dirty work. What could go wrong?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

-Stephen Jay Gould
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#26
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
(September 25, 2014 at 2:25 pm)Minimalist Wrote: We spend $1,000,000 per man to equip, pay and train a soldier. Meanwhile they hand some fuckhead a garage door opener and tell him to press it when one of our super expensive vehicles goes by.

You can't win that.
We spend even more, thats an average. Some MOS cost more than others, and some specializations within an MOS are even more expensive still.

Bring every fuckhead with a garage door opener my way. Eventually, they'll get me, it's just a matter of time - but I'll get so many of "them" that it will be difficult to find someone capable of operating the garage door opener and also...willing to do so. We can win, it's just that it's difficult to do so when your "leadership" keeps shooting you in the damned feet.

Soldiers are worth many times their own number in zealots, warm bodies, etc....
(that's why we spend the extra money..it doesn't always take....but there it is)
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#27
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
Why fight when just some diplomatic pressure on their government can work wonders?
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#28
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
(September 25, 2014 at 2:25 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Always remember:

Quote:Nervos belli, pecuniam.

-Marcus Tullius Cicero


"The sinews of war is unlimited money."

We spend $1,000,000 per man to equip, pay and train a soldier. Meanwhile they hand some fuckhead a garage door opener and tell him to press it when one of our super expensive vehicles goes by.

You can't win that.


Don't forget in the early days of the war, we outnumbered the insurgency by 10 to 1. If we had handled the initial phase of occupation right, the number of insurgents should go down from there, not up. We squandered the chance.

Even today, if we mount a real military operation against ISIS, we would still easily outnumber them 10 to 1.

Basically, in most real counter insurgency opeartions, soldiers are not really there mainly to hunt down the insurgency. They are mainly there to take casualties while keeping civilians from being coerced by the insurgency. If they kill insurgents, that's just a bonus, but it won't be decisive.

If you can keep the insurgency from coercing the civilians, and provide the civilians with an enlightened administration, and keep the civilians from each other's throats, the insurgency will wither. Else you will lose.

It's that simple.
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#29
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
(September 25, 2014 at 1:59 pm)Chuck Wrote:
(September 25, 2014 at 12:55 pm)Minimalist Wrote: An army of "soldiers" failed in Iraq....and will fail in Afghanistan.

Well, the soldiers need to be well led too.

When a 4 star soldier who happen to have been the army chief of staff said before congress that a proper war in Iraq requires several hundred thousand soldiers on the ground for years, and an deputy secretary of defence without a single day's military service, to say nothing of having attended any general staff college, laughed condescendingly and said it was "wide of mark" before national television, you knew for certain we were going to lose this war.
Wasn't ww2 enough to teach that when politicians take the place of generals you lose?
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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#30
RE: Minimalist will love this one...
Quote:War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

--Georges Clemenceau

Quote:Even today, if we mount a real military operation against ISIS, we would still easily outnumber them 10 to 1.


Ultimately irrelevant. We overran the whole fucking country in 3 weeks and then stood around for 8 years with our thumbs up our asses getting blown up one humvee at a time because we had no plan.
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