Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Thrawn on June 07, 2005, 08:48:09 PM
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I was shown one of this guys articles and had to go back and read the rest.
http://www.exile.ru/2005-May-20/war_nerd.html
He makes alot of sense, to me at least anyways.
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Thanks for the post it was a good read.
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I like the following [QUOTE from Gary Brecher's article] : Thanks to our obsession with the "democracy" thing, the Shia, who are 62% of the population, are guaranteed to win ....[END OF QUOTE]
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Read his previous on the Eastern Front one thing jumped out.
He's not afraid to exaggerate a bit.
But out in the Western theater, where war was a hit-and-run business, towns like Lawrence, Kansas were wiped out in an afternoon, with no man, woman or child spared.
But what happened was:
His version of Quantrill's raid In a supposed retaliation for a Union raid on Osceola, Missouri, Lt. Col. William C. Quantrill led a force of about 300 to 400 partisans in an attack on the city of Lawrence, Kansas. His men killed civilians—men and boys—and destroyed many of the buildings. He held the town several hours and then withdrew. The "Lawrence Massacre" was, perhaps, the extreme example of the vicious Kansas-Missouri border warfare.
Result(s): Confederate victory
Location: Douglas County
Campaign: Quantrill's Raid into Kansas (1863)
Date(s): August 21, 1863
Principal Commanders: No Union commander [US]; Lt. Col. William C. Quantrill [CS]
Forces Engaged: No Union troops [US]; Quantrill's Raiders and other guerrillas [CS]
Estimated Casualties: 204 total (US 164; CS 40)
The population of Lawrence at the time was about 2000. 10% casualties is a pretty heavy hit, especially on the civvies.
Anyway, poetic license or some such, I guess.
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Originally posted by Toad
Read his previous on the Eastern Front one thing jumped out.
He's not afraid to exaggerate a bit.
But what happened was:
The population of Lawrence at the time was about 2000. 10% casualties is a pretty heavy hit, especially on the civvies.
Anyway, poetic license or some such, I guess.
Yeah, you're right. Entertainingly it looks, but actually it's too sad. Some "slight" distortion of the facts - that's the cheap price some jounalists are too eager to pay in order to draw the attention of the reader. And also, in his photo the guy does not look like a war reporter.
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He does exaggerate and has a breezy style. But his assessment of the situation is spot on. Or at least coincides with my opinion.
Actually the situation has parallels with the British army in Northern Ireland scenario. Early mistakes on both sides leading to a kind of balance of terror. In the end the terrorists came to realise they couldn't beat the security services. But the security services realised they couldn't beat the terrorists either. Leaving peace and politics the only option. There were differences though. Both sides were more or less culturally the same and both spoke English. Sucide bombing was accidental.
The big warning was that all this took over thirty years. The sons of the original soldiers and the terrorists took up the fighting and dying. I shudder to imagine the same scenario in Iraq. One major difference: The Brits couldn't leave. But who knows what the next US president will do?
One thing I do believe is that Iraq will be an US military and British posting for some years to come. If the Sunnis take a leaf out of Ho Chi Minh's book. They might play the long game and wait for the US to leave.
A lot depends on quickly this new Iraqi government can establsh control over their own country and people.
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It's safer selling Bibles door-to-door in Peshawar than strolling through Baghdad in an Iraqi cop suit.
Ok, that was hillarious.. :)
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Annoying/Inflammatory
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Originally posted by cpxxx
One thing I do believe is that Iraq will be an US military and British posting for some years to come. If the Sunnis take a leaf out of Ho Chi Minh's book. They might play the long game and wait for the US to leave.
And then get killed by the crazy assed Shiites that make up the large majority of the population? I don't think the Sunnis are the ones in the postition of power anymore.
"Yeah, you're right. Entertainingly it looks, but actually it's too sad. Some "slight" distortion of the facts - that's the cheap price some jounalists are too eager to pay in order to draw the attention of the reader. And also, in his photo the guy does not look like a war reporter."
He's not a journalist, he's an opinion piece writer. I like his style because he makes war so damn accessible with his use of humour, irony and the apparent just plain love of the topic. And although he is wrong from time to time, some of his predictions are uncanny.
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Originally posted by Skydancer
Annoying/Inflammatory
Thats because you are an annoying little englishman..> Maybe the brit general was squeaky too?
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the iraqi cop suit gets filled easy enough if you pay enough... recruits are sometimes blown up waiting to enlist... they clean up the bodies and the line forms again.
That is the difference between the real savage countries like vietnam, Iraq and say Ireland.
The Brits shoulda just hired more and more Irish cops.
The guy is right about one thing... the way to win is take the terrorist in and crush his fingers till he gives up all his buddies then round them up and put em in prioson or execute em... we can't do that but indiginous police can and will. Let the reporters deal with the cops and see how they come out.
lazs
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Originally posted by Thrawn
I was shown one of this guys articles and had to go back and read the rest.
http://www.exile.ru/2005-May-20/war_nerd.html
He makes alot of sense, to me at least anyways.
Some good stuff.. Thnx
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Annoying/Off topic
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Skydancer, quit trying to get my thread locked.
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Off topic/Annoying
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An armchair critic in a Moscow based "alternative newspaper". Gotta love it.
Skylilter having a rough day? :)
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Originally posted by lazs2
the iraqi cop suit gets filled easy enough if you pay enough... recruits are sometimes blown up waiting to enlist... they clean up the bodies and the line forms again.
That is the difference between the real savage countries like vietnam, Iraq and say Ireland.
The Brits shoulda just hired more and more Irish cops.
The guy is right about one thing... the way to win is take the terrorist in and crush his fingers till he gives up all his buddies then round them up and put em in prioson or execute em... we can't do that but indiginous police can and will. Let the reporters deal with the cops and see how they come out.
lazs
If the Iraqi police are behaving that way and they are only in power because the US is there to keep them in power then you have a 9.5 on the vietnam scale.
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Originally posted by lazs2
The guy is right about one thing... the way to win is take the terrorist in and crush his fingers till he gives up all his buddies then round them up and put em in prioson or execute em... we can't do that but indiginous police can and will. lazs
Free helicopter rides worked nicely for this at one time. I guess it`s all the fresh air . Just seems to put people in a talkative mood. :)
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Nope pongo... depends.. matter of degree. Mostly the advantage (as Abrahm's proved) to having indigenous police forces be as powerful as possible is... simply that we can't tell one arab/black/asian/indian whatever... from any other.
The police know when someone doesn't belong. They also look at crushing fingers as a slight moral backslide when used to stop a suicide bomber from blowing up dozens of women and children in a town square.
The trick is knowing when to stop crushing fingers because you have won.
lazs
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I think once you empower people to start cutting fingers off its a pretty slippery slope.
The trick is knowing whose finger to crush.
The current tactic is pretty much unstopable on the scale that it is being perpetrated.
The isrealis had a hard time containing it against a much smaller and isolated population. The US is facing the whole country.
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pongo... if all the people are natural finger and testical crushers by birth....
then the trick is to limit them to simply crushing fingers and the occassional testical...
Once there is some semblance of order you do your best to get them out of ancient habits.
They may be nastly little finger crushers but they are our nasty little finger crushers kinda thing... Like children... you try not to make a big deal about em soiling there diaper but you do what you can to keep em from grabbing handfuls of the mess.
lazs