The Iraq Thread 2

[ran 0]

I really think you need to compare it to wars of the past though? Excessive use of air superiority? Uhh...never has a military been so restrained in the use of bombs in combat operations....or have we forgotten the long bloody wars of the 20th century already? War is messy and PEOPLE DIE, supply lines get jammed, especially when the front advances in speeds never seen in warfare before. The media is totally flipping out about troops dying in Iraq, well, um, troops get killed in combat....more people died in Vietnam in a week, and more people on Omaha beach in a day than we have seen in this entire conflict so far. All people die, it's just a matter of how, and in today's liberal touchy feely world it's just not acceptable to die of anything particularly un-natural. Some may call it enlightened humanitarianism, I tend to see it as being soft, and thus vulnerable.

no need to compare

you have to admit that some losses during this conflict were unacceptable for a modern army

and about the supply lines , sure they can get jammed or stretched , but didn't anyone in the pentagon think about the smallest protection for the convoys ?

[USSoldier11B 0]

Quote[/b] ]you have to admit that some losses during this conflict were unacceptable for a modern army

Negative, you are being unrealistic. When the lead is flying you can't expect all this new fangled technology to save everyone's ass. Look at the friendly to enemy kill ratio....unheard of...casualties in both Gulf Wars were FAR FAR FAR and I repeat FAR below expected and what was considered acceptable. I don't mean to be a nationalist ass, but I'd love to see your armies do better. I can't say that they would do worse, or that they wouldn't do so comparably...but you are being far to critical.

Quote[/b] ]but didn't anyone in the pentagon think about the smallest protection for the convoys ?

They all had rifles, grenades, etc... It's not the CENTCOM commander's fault, or the coalition as a whole's fault that some undiciplined poges couldn't effectively react and assault through an ambush. It's their 1. Unit Commander's fault. 2. Their senior NCO's fault for not making sure their troops were trained proficiently in infantry battle drills. (Deep down all soldiers need to be infantrymen)

On the other hand, you can't expect the enemy to be 100% unsucessful. The enemy will ambush, raid, and sabotage you no matter how much security you have. Very few soldiers were captured by the enemy give me a break. You are faulting U.S. forces because it happened at all, get real, this is war. You are forgetting a few of Murphy's Laws of combat:

If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share of objectives to take.

Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing.

When you have secured the area, make sure the enemy knows that.

[Schoeler 0]

I've just got to chime in here as well. This is probably the smoothest, least damaging, most efficiently run war in the history of the world. I don't know what everyone expects of the American military, but look at the scale of operations compared to the number of casualties on both sides and it's obvious that nothing short of a miracle was pulled off. War is a confusing, costly, deadly cast iron sonofabitch. The actual combat operations were almost pulled off without a hitch compared to the mistakes made in previous wars. Now the aftermath of the war, winning the peace, that's another story altogether.

Just look at what actually went wrong. A couple of Coalition aircraft were shot down by Patriots due to some weird glitch in their IFF transponders (some computer geek programmer somewhere dropped the ball), a couple of incidents with super gung ho overly trigger happy pilots shooting at friends (this happened far more often in previous wars), the convoy ambush (the idiots took a wrong turn and traveled out of the area that was secured in advance for their safe transit), the checkpoint killings (this is understandable given the suicide bombings, jumpy troops and general confusion, and is probably thie biggest U.S. mistake due to lack of planning made in the war), and lastly, the stray cruise missiles (which turned out to be too old to be used anymore).

This really isn't a whole lot of errors given the enormous potential for screwups in this sort of situation.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]This really isn't a whole lot of errors given the enormous potential for screwups in this sort of situation.

It is if you check the war itself. Have there been major battles ? No. Has there been heavy resistance ? No.

Have there been situations with massive enemy situations ? No.

If the US forces can´t even handle a war where resistance is low like never before what will happen if there is an adequate enemy with adequate tech and a higher morale to fight ?

This is where fog of war arises but the combat situations in Iraq don´t justify the huge quantity of FF incidents.

And well the planning done by Rumsy and his veterans was really nothing but bullshit.Even the pentagon sees it that way.

BTW FF is going on on a daily base. Or are syrian border troops Iraqi´s ?

[Schoeler 0]

Quote[/b] ]This really isn't a whole lot of errors given the enormous potential for screwups in this sort of situation.

It is if you check the war itself. Have there been major battles ? No. Has there been heavy resistance ? No.

Have there been situations with massive enemy situations ? No.

I'd say there is an equal if not greater chance for error in situations like the U.S. encountered. When forces are attacked by guerilla style militia forces in sporadic ambushes where the attackers fade back into the civilian populace, I think there is a greater potential for disaster in the form of civilian casualties, friendly fire incidents etc...

Quote[/b] ]If the US forces can´t even handle a war where resistance is low like never before what will happen if there is an adequate enemy with adequate tech and a higher morale to fight ?

This is where fog of war arises but the combat situations in Iraq don´t justify the huge quantity of FF incidents.

And well the planning done by Rumsy and his veterans was really nothing but bullshit.Even the pentagon sees it that way.

BTW FF is going on on a daily base. Or are syrian border troops Iraqi´s ?

What huge amount of friendly fire incidents? How quantifiable is huge? Compared to what? Previous wars? Then the use of huge isn't justified, because compared to previous conflicts, the number of friendly fire incidents was minimal at best. It's war, people are going to kill one another. Unfortunately, sometimes they make mistakes.

[ralphwiggum 6]

on the flip side, there are 200 lives that could be alive if the war did not happen.

[ran 0]

on the flip side, there are 200 lives that could be alive if the war did not happen.

add a 0

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Then the use of huge isn't justified

Well it is in my opinion and certainly in the opinion of the families who lost their sons and fathers cause of ff.

I know you will bash me to death, but as long as I am a soldier and as long as I have been on missions (violent ones), I have never experienced ff incidents amongst our troops.

I mentioned this somewhere before but whenever US troops hit the deck everybody ducks cause they are known for their high ff rate. You can ask other active soldiers if you don´t believe me.

[FSPilot 0]

ran

Quote[/b] ]War is the continuation of politics

- Clausewitz

Clausewitz was a jerk!

-me

Balschoiw

Quote[/b] ]It is if you check the war itself. Have there been major battles?

Define "major battles". Battle of the bulge? Wake Island?

Quote[/b] ]Has there been heavy resistance ? No.

I know 28 people who say otherwise, and that's just today.

This war was well planned, the problem was that it was a war. Plans don't last through the first shot, any real soldier would know that.

RalphWiggum

Quote[/b] ]on the flip side, there are 200 lives that could be alive if the war did not happen.

And about 1 million if we had done this a lot sooner.

[raedor 8]

yes, sooner. before we sold WMD to saddam. before we didnt support the rebellion and saddam killed thousands of rebellious people and "normal" civilians. yes, before we sold weapons to saddam and didn't say anything when he attacked iran...

yes, u're right!

[FSPilot 0]

You haven't read a single thing I've said in this thread have you?

And talk about a contradiction. You're criticising us for taking down saddam, then you're criticising us for NOT taking him down.

Quote[/b] ]before we didnt support the rebellion and saddam killed thousands of rebellious people and "normal" civilians.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Okay, FS, history lesson time-

Post Gulf War the Bush administration fostered and fomented two rebellions in Iraq: a Kurdish insurrection in the north of Iraq, and a Shiite revolt in the south, centered around Basrah. President Bush pledged to support these rebellions by all possible means, and publicly encouraged the rebels to continue. However, the US support never materialized (except for the institution of the No-Fly Zones, and considering the state of the Iraqi Air Force post-war, this was little more than a token gesture). As a result, Saddam was able to quell both rebellions in an extremely violent fashion. Our initial encouragement, and subsequent betrayal of those rebellions led directly to the deaths of well over 15,000 Iraqis and a refugee crisis on the Iraq/Turkey border.

[Balschoiw 0]

I had to laugh when I read all that "us" in FS´s post.

Excuse me sir but when have you joined the armed forces and when have you been to Iraq ?

You didn´t win this war neither did your president  

Quote[/b] ]Define "major battles".  Battle of the bulge?  Wake Island?

No I talk about enemies. The coaltion forces didn´t see much of them during war , did they ? Maybe this is why they make new ones every day now to get a feeling for it.

Quote[/b] ]I know 28 people who say otherwise, and that's just today.

If you want to tell me that this is heavy resistance you should better check some other wars to get an idea what resistance means.

Quote[/b] ]This war was well planned, the problem was that it was a war.

No it was not well planned or did you already forget all that little things that happened ? Again your lack of memory makes me wonder. Rumsfeld intended to go to Iraq with 30.000 men only. This is what you call well planned ?

The US failed to plan the war and the time after Saddam badly. That´s the truth , face it ! You can see the results on TV daily. And apart from the US view there are still innocent Iraqi´s dying daily. Do you think this will help your troops down there ? If you think so...well it´s FS...go for president.

[FSPilot 0]

Balschoiw

Quote[/b] ]I had to laugh when I read all that "us" in FS´s post.

Excuse me sir but when have you joined the armed forces and when have you been to Iraq ?

You didn´t win this war neither did your president

And neither did you. But you still think it's appropriate to question our plans.

Quote[/b] ]No I talk about enemies. The coaltion forces didn´t see much of them during war , did they ? Maybe this is why they make new ones every day now to get a feeling for it.

Which war are you talking about? There were plenty of enemy forces during the war. They harassed our logistic lines, took our soldiers prisoner, shot down our aircraft, staged "alamos" in towns.

Quote[/b] ]If you want to tell me that this is heavy resistance you should better check some other wars to get an idea what resistance means.

Or maybe you should specify what you mean by "resistance"

Quote[/b] ]No it was not well planned or did you already forget all that little things that happened ? Again your lack of memory makes me wonder. Rumsfeld intended to go to Iraq with 30.000 men only. This is what you call well planned ?

The US failed to plan the war and the time after Saddam badly. That´s the truth , face it ! You can see the results on TV daily. And apart from the US view there are still innocent Iraqi´s dying daily. Do you think this will help your troops down there ? If you think so...well it´s FS...go for president.

It was well planned because the war was won. A bad plan would of resulted in a lost war.

Haven't you ever heard "If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid."?

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]on the flip side, there are 200 lives that could be alive if the war did not happen.

And about 1 million if we had done this a lot sooner.

if we went in a lot sooner, we would have had more casualties. i'm talking about OUR troops lives.

[FSPilot 0]

And about 1 million if we had done this a lot sooner.

if we went in a lot sooner, we would have had more casualties. i'm talking about OUR troops lives.

Iraqi civilians don't matter?

[ralphwiggum 6]

And about 1 million if we had done this a lot sooner.

if we went in a lot sooner, we would have had more casualties. i'm talking about OUR troops lives.

Iraqi civilians don't matter?

according to pre-Bush administration Republicans, yes.

[Balschoiw 0]

Did they ever ?

DA WAY DEY SHOULD BE DREATED

[ralphwiggum 6]

Did they ever ?

DA WAY DEY SHOULD BE DREATED

old news Bals, and IIRC, he was cleared of charges.

[Balschoiw 0]

I know but I didnt find a better one in the hurry

You know all that dead little Iraqi´s killed in "accidents" that are still researched...you remember the bombs in market of Bagdad ? It must be a hell of a job to examine such things. They are still doing it...

Anyway you know what I was trying to say

[USSoldier11B 0]

Quote[/b] ]It is if you check the war itself. Have there been major battles ? No. Has there been heavy resistance ? No.

Have there been situations with massive enemy situations ? No.

If the US forces can´t even handle a war where resistance is low like never before what will happen if there is an adequate enemy with adequate tech and a higher morale to fight ?

This is where fog of war arises but the combat situations in Iraq don´t justify the huge quantity of FF incidents.

And well the planning done by Rumsy and his veterans was really nothing but bullshit.Even the pentagon sees it that way.

BTW FF is going on on a daily base. Or are syrian border troops Iraqi´s ?

ohhhh we beg your forgiveness oh mighty wearer of the baby blue helmet, keeper of peace, distributor of rice, and guardian of gates. Some people never fail to kill my brain cells.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Some people never fail to kill my brain cells.

Any left ?

[ralphwiggum 6]

You know all that dead little Iraqi´s killed in "accidents" that are still researched...you remember the bombs in market of Bagdad ? It must be a hell of a job to examine such things. They are still doing it...

Anyway you know what I was trying to say  

a philosophical question.

how can something can be ongoing, when it didn't even start?

[FSPilot 0]

I know but I didnt find a better one in the hurry  

So you lied? You misled us into believe that this was still true, only told us half the story.

[ralphwiggum 6]

I know but I didnt find a better one in the hurry  

So you lied?  You misled us into believe that this was still true, only told us half the story.

shhh...can't you see Bals is now surrendering to the great bafoon leader Bush and is following his steps?