So your argument in this thread, and the purpose of it is to glaringly display the waste of the War in Iraq through the posting of a video that shows what is obviously the start of training for
11[/i] Men.
Who apparantly can't coordinate their bodies for follow cadence to do jumping jacks.
Wow. My god, this video shows that everything I believe and am going to fight for in my life is a complete and utter waste, we should leave now and let the terrorists kill us all for this. /sarcasm.
The Nation of Iraq, at least the vast majority of it, does not have public education. There are no elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, very few universities and none of them hold a candle to a school in America.
These people are farmers, the vast vast majority of them are farmers, who live their entire lives on a single farm. Generations on a farm, in a single farmhouse.
They grew up not knowing what a jumping jack was, they grew up not needing to know. Their lives revolved around the harvest.
That and for the past 30 years their lives revolved around what 1 single man thought was right in his mad quest for power and domination over the surrounding nations.
Not only that but he purposefully kept his people suppressed, butchered many of them, and oppressed them with a small segment of the population. Creating an elitist regime that held millions in squalor for 30 years.
That's kinda tough to break in 4 years.
The average U.S. Army Private has had 12 years of Education, likely has seen a great deal of movies about the military, has spent several weeks in basic training, several more weeks in advanced training, even more weeks with his unit receiving even more specialized training.
Typically a Private in a basic Infantry Platoon has been in training for a year or more before he is deployed. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
According to doctrine, its 4 years before an enlisted man is even allowed to lead others, 4 years of training, working, and learning under their squad leaders before they become Corporals and lead fireteams. (This is of course subject to the ever present and over-riding rule of: Situation Dictates.)
And you expect 11 men, likely farmers who have never had regimented excercize in their lives, to compare to the above? Within what is obviously the first few days of training?
Hell's teeth man look at our OWN history.
It took a Prussian Captain several weeks at Valley Forge to teach the Continental Army basic marching skills!
A good deal of American militia were frontiersmen, who knew how to shoot, knew how to stand and fight, and for the beginning of the Revolutionary War we got our tulips royally handed to us by those tea-drinking fairies!
Hell in JROTC it took us days of practice, weeks even to get entire formations just to move in step, and that's just as simple as jumping jacks.
America wasn't won in 4 years, try more like 30 and we still didn't have it quite right. And you expect the Iraqis to do the same in 4? With far more advanced methods of destabalizing an area available to the terrorists?
With people who don't really care if they live or die, so long as they get to kill Americans?
Yeah... that's gonna realistically happen in 4 years.
It takes alot of time to get even an American up to a level that a Squad leader can use him, alot of time and alot of money. And the Iraqis are starting at a big disadvantage in comparison but you should not dare to mock them. They are fighting for their independance and their right to control their lives, to live the way they want to live. How dare you mock that with this thread.
I'd proudly lead of platoon of Iraqis into battle any day of the week.
To KgB:
No it is not necessarily easier to keep and retrain an existing Army.
The Iraqi's military infrastructure was shattered twice over by the U.S. Military in Gulf War 1 and 2. It is far easier to remove the stigma of those defeats be building an entirely new Army.
Also, but keeping the same Army structure you inherit any problems that that structure faced, by starting from scratch you instill the desired discipline at all levels equally and from the start.
It takes time but starting over from the beginning is the smarter move in this case.
Especially since the Original Iraqi Army was based on Russian Doctrine, and now they will be supplied and oriented on American Doctrine, the change-over in an existing army would create some hefty sized headaches.
Better to just build a newer better more capable army and train it to American standards.
