Winning the war

[Toad]

If you don't find it, let me know. I think it's been out of print a while.

Quite a bit of it is plain old history and can be dry, tough sledding at times. The overall piece is worth it in my opinion. Extremely well documented; the voluminous footnotes in the back are worth stopping to read as you go through.

I'm not saying it is THE definitive text but reading it does give a different view that is pretty well supported with documentation.

It will challenge some long held beliefs on both sides of the question.

I found it very interesting.  It doesn't have much good to say about Westmoreland, that's for sure.

[Yeager]

Tens of thousands of dead GIs had little immediate, measurable impact in Vietnam, but 30 years later an objective historical review shows that Vietnam had a measurable impact in shortening the cold war and isolating the spread of communism.
====
This makes sense.  the only point I would make is:  Had Vietnam been allowed to follow its own degeneration and turn communist, without interference from west, would the world today be much different?

My gut feeling is no.

Vietnam is the greatest single failure the United States has ever experienced.

[WMLute]

just curious, but can't HT ban a particual I.P. as opposed to just a bbs I.D.?

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Pongo
...and the 100s of thousands of Iraqis that have died as a result of these failed strategies and dishonest intelligence and dimplomacy by the United States deserved far better from the beacon of democrocy and freedom in the world.
 

According to Iraq Body Count between 22,248 and 25,229 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the invasion began.  This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation.  

The Lancet is often quoted as saying there were 100,000 deaths due to coalition action, but the Lancet's study actually estimates the total number of deaths ranges somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000.  That's like saying St Louis is somewhere between New York and LA.  This estimate lacks somewhat in it's precision.

I'll take IBC's numbers over the Lancet. IBC does not count Iraqi military casualties and the military number is more difficult to pin down with an internet search but estimates range from 10,000 to 50,000 military casualties.  I guess that for now I'll have to be content with the imprecise data on that.

While 75,000 is horrendous, it is not "100's of thousands."

[Edbert1]

Originally posted by WMLute
just curious, but can't HT ban a particual I.P. as opposed to just a bbs I.D.?

Of course...easy as pie. The problem is that he'll just get different one, even on broadband.

Regarding the CCCP's funding of the anti-war movement in the 60's...can anyone provide links to the data from the KGB's archives that proves this? I have heard it was true for about 30 years now yet would like to see it for myself.

[lazs2]

pongo... you can get the book used on amazon for reasonable it is paperback version.  Great read and great insight into how and why current war is fought the way it is..  Abrahms was a military genius.

lazs

[Pongo]

"modern" wars are only fought the way they are when super powers invade countries that have no hope of defending themselves.
"modern" wars of that kind look very much like not so modern wars fought since biblical times.
When two "modern" countries fight each other that have some respect for the military capability of the other country, IE both countries have a reasonable ability to threaten each other then they look alot like not so modern wars.

[john9001]

Originally posted by Pongo
"modern" wars are only fought the way they are when super powers invade countries that have no hope of defending themselves.
".

before the gulf war, iraq had the 4th largest army in the world, and as the media told us, they were "battle hardened" and the US would need at least 50,000 body bags.

pongo, you never miss a chance to take a poke at the USA.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Pongo
"modern" wars are only fought the way they are when super powers invade countries that have no hope of defending themselves.
 

So what part of the "modern" wars where powers invade countries that have no hope of defending themselves looks like the sack/pillage of Jerusalem by the Crusaders?

There's a big difference Pongo, and you know it. Where in Biblical times did the invading power try to bring its vanquished enemy up to "first world" status so it could compete in the market place and have it's own stable form of government?

Where did the invaders say they planned on leaving as soon as they could?

Where in modern times have the invaders rounded up entire communities and put them to the sword, man, woman and child?

[eagl]

Toad,

Isn't there a story every couple of months about this happening in various African countries?  I seem to recall entire villages wiped out, with upwards of 100,000 slaughtered.

[Toad]

But do Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, etc. represent what Pongo describes as

""modern" wars are only fought the way they are when super powers invade countries that have no hope of defending themselves."

I don't think the ruling establishments of any of those countries can begin to qualify as "superpowers".

When I read his post, I figured he was talking about the US superpower invading Iraq which had no hope of defending itself.

Even though Iraq did have a high-ranking military establishment size-wize, I think we all knew they were not in the same league with us. The only thing that gave any pause was whether or not they actually had the WMD to use against us during the invasion. It's clear even in the Downing Street Memo and "memo #2" that the Brits were making the assumption that they may use such weapons against invading troops.

So, despite the size of Iraq's military establishment, in the absence of WMD they were a little league T-ball team going up against the NY Yankees. (When taken from the perspective of the air/land battle doctrine).

[Skydancer]

Just some suggested reading on the whole Iraq thing





A different viewpoint perhaps?

Other than that I shan't say a word.

[Toad]

I think I'll skip Omaar's book.

Much has been written of the Stockholm syndrome which finds hostages identifying with their captors. Less is written of Rooftop syndrome, in which war correspondents are held hostage by the voracious appetite of 24-hour television news. Rageh Omaar was one such victim. He does not discuss the condition in Revolution Day, yet its effects circumscribe his book. His account of the war on Iraq rarely leaves Baghdad and, not often enough, the confines of the Ministry of Information and later the Palestine Hotel.

That said, this is a worthwhile account of what it was like to be a BBC correspondent in Baghdad in the build-up to and execution of the war. The centrepiece is more the experience of the correspondent than any particular new understanding of who we went to war with or whether it was a good idea to do so. His best writing is reserved for the American attack on his hotel and the killing and wounding of Reuters journalists in their office two floors above his. And nothing can take away from the uncertainty and fear the 140 journalists endured by staying on in Baghdad to witness the American assault.

Simpson sounds a bit more like it.

None the less, it makes sense for Simpson to pull together his two decades of reporting on Iraq into one volume; and, as a quick canter through the history, leavened by reportage, it works. If you want to know, more or less, how we got to where we are, this is not a bad way of finding out, and it is very readable. Simpson takes us through the lead up to the war, including the rise of the neo-cons in Washington, providing few revelations but good colour and quotes, and occasional insightful comments. Reflecting on sanctions, he writes: "The first Gulf war was imposed on George Bush Senior, in the sense that he wouldn't have fought it if Saddam Hussein had not invaded Kuwait.

The second Gulf war ... was a matter of deliberate choice for his son, George W. But Bill Clinton, who always wanted everyone to think that his heart was in the right place, killed more Iraqis than either of them by a policy of slow strangulation." He is good at debunking the simple moral certainties of pro- and anti-war camps. But he does have a habit of writing others out of the story; for example, explaining that in 2003 Saddam Hussein chose to give an interview to Tony Benn rather than himself because the questions would be softer, he omits to add that Saddam also gave an interview to Dan Rather of CBS, whose questions were very skilful. Saddam understood that however important the correspondent, the Americans matter more than the British.

[Schaden]

Interesting article about Asymmetric Warfare...

http://www.theestimate.com/public/110300.html

[Pongo]

"and as the media told us, they were "battle hardened""
The media says lots of things. Look who owns it.
If the US had been willing to take some casualties doing it the Iraqis could have been ousted from Kuwiet with

Your all focusing on biblical. Just pretend I said ancient.
You all think that no peoples were ever invaded in ancient times under the excuse of modernising them? Most anyone that sees themselves as enlightend will use that excuse.

What I was saying that seems hard to follow I guess is the time doenst matter, what matters is the military relationships of the two combatants.

We need to save them from themselves is just the normal way that the unassailabley supperior force justifies attacking someone that is absolutly no threat to them.

It has ever been so.