Paris Attacks

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
161

[quote]pat wrote:
That was until Russia started embarrassing “coalition” efforts by pushing as many bombs in a day as we would push in a month. Now he got more aggressive. Obviously it was too little too late.
[/quote]

As I’ve pointed out to you before, that’s patently false. As of Nov. 12, U.S. and coalition aircraft have conducted a total of 8,125 strikes (5,321 Iraq / 2,804 Syria).The US led coalition has conducted an average of 18 airstrikes per day for 450 consecutive days. Per month, that amounts to around 540 strikes.

The Russian Ministry of Defense recent report that its forces conducted 86 strikes in a 24 hour span - close to the theoretical maximum number of strikes possible for thirty-two fixed-wing combat aircraft - is impressive, but it remains to be seen if such a pace can be maintained. Also, the US has long held a substantial advantage in precision guided munitions. Ergo, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that 1 Russian strike =/= 1 coalition strike.

1,200 Frenchmen emigrated to fight for the self-proclaimed caliphate. If one were to theorize a perfect set of conditions for networked or inspired terrorist attacks to occur, one would be hard pressed to come up with a better example than France. To blame the Paris attack on the Obama administration’s counter-terrorism policies is ridiculous.

[quote]
I cannot count how many people warned the world is a more dangerous place, and terrorist attacks were imminent, due to the soft policies of this administration. Sadly, they were right. This attack was predicted. Predicted by people, who a lot of folks have tried to dismiss as hacks and morons.
When the smartest people in the room are always wrong, it’s right to question their intelligence. [/quote]

The above regarding predictions and dismissals is a strawman unless you can cite specific, verifiable evidence to support your claims.

Soft policies? When President Obama assumed office, the Pentagon increased the use of special operations raids (i.e., kill/capture missions) from 675 in 2009 to roughly 2,200 in 2011. In his first two years of office, President Obama authorized nearly four times the number of strikes in Pakistan as President Bush did in his eight years. President Bush authorized a total of 52 drone strikes. Obama? At least 480, not counting Iraq or Syria. Robert Gates called the raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan “one of the most courageous decisions I had ever witnessed at the White House.”

162

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
This is my wife’s proposal. If she were president, this is what she would do…

Afterwards, she would address the Nation with a simple “Good evening America. You’re welcome. Good night.”[/quote]

Respond to mass murder with nuclear mass murder. Seems tenable. [/quote]

I know! I’m still am saddled with guilt for our actions in WW2!

I think America should be brought up on crimes through the World Court.

Why do people think you win wars with violence?? States craft through dialogue, discourse and coffee is far more effective (and healthy for the planet).
[/quote]

Wars are won with decisive contained violence, not just the most violence. Our other options to end WW2 other than Fat Man and Little Boy was a full scale invasion of Japan. Conservative estimates had American casualty rates at 250,000. That’s just American casualties. That does not include Japanese casualties which could and would have been that or more.
As counter intuitive as it seems, the decision to drop the bomb on them was done in the interest in saving, American lives first; and lives in general latter. I recognize it’s small comfort to the some 180,000 victims of the blasts. But the casualty counts of all the alternatives were estimated to be much higher. Based on their experience in the war they were pretty good at guessing casualty counts and erred on the low end.
Japan was not going to stop for any reason.
Having conversations with Cushin and Cortes who live there have provided some insight into why that was true, they are a proud people. The invasion force that was proposed was to be in excess of 1 million soldiers with the expectation at at least a quarter of them would be killed in the invasion. Japan was prepared for it.
It’s tough to say if there were actually better alternatives. Looking at it through the eye’s of the 1945 war wary American military, I doubt they had better alternatives. But it was calculated, decisive and contained violence.[/quote]

I completely agree. The decision to drop the bombs saved far more Japanese lives than it took, though that wasn’t its intention.

P.S., I haven’t actually read Chushin or Cortez’ views on the subject. I’d be interested to know the modern Japanese perspective of the events.

163

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
This is my wife’s proposal. If she were president, this is what she would do…

Afterwards, she would address the Nation with a simple “Good evening America. You’re welcome. Good night.”[/quote]

Respond to mass murder with nuclear mass murder. Seems tenable. [/quote]

I know! I’m still saddled with guilt over our actions in WW2! The horror!

I think America should be brought up on crimes through the World Court.

Why do people think you win wars with violence?? States craft through dialogue, discourse and coffee is far more effective (and healthy for the planet).
[/quote]

I’m not, given it ultimately saved exponentially more lives than it took.

Alas, if only there existed a “World Court”.

War is the continuation of politics through other means, the means being the professional application of violence. States craft? Is that anything like statecraft?

164

Yes, SOFT. Numbers are meaningless, you rely on them way to much.

How is our strength perceived? Are we feared?

But we have increased drone strikes 225.7%!! This can’t be possible.

165

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Yes, SOFT. Numbers are meaningless, you rely on them way to much.

How is our strength perceived? Are we feared?

But we have increased drone strikes 225.7%!! This can’t be possible. [/quote]

Empirically more aggressive security and defense policies (by several orders of magnitude) = soft? Makes sense.

Not quite. Combat data and its analysis are an essential component of security policy studies. Any analyst worth their salt will stand by this.

I don’t know. I’m not an adversary of the United States. Do you have a sophisticated qualitative research design that demonstrates a significant drop in “fear” of American power over the course of Barrack Obama’s presidency? No? Didn’t think so.

Perception and misperception in world politics are important, but they aren’t the end all. Force is the ultima ratio in international affairs, and combat data is the best means of quantifying it. What is perception vis-a-vis nearly 400 percent more SOF kill/capture missions and over 900 percent more drone strikes? Material realities force the enemy to change their techniques, tactics, procedures, and even strategy; its quintessential Sun Tzu.

166

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The West lacks the necessary ruthlessness to deal with this. The new age “college should be free” voters won’t allow a military response, and instead will try to fight this war through hashtags and colourful Facebook profile pictures. We need to either provoke these groups onto each other, or outsource the job to someone who can get it done (PMC’s, Russia, Israel, etc): Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

167

We have increased drone strikes 225.7%

Mohammed Emwazi was killed after being targeted by a missile in ISIS’s de facto capital of Raqqa…

Why hasn’t Raqqa been carpet bombed by now?

168

[quote]Iron Condor wrote:
The West lacks the necessary ruthlessness to deal with this. The new age “college should be free” voters won’t allow a military response, and instead will try to fight this war through hashtags and colourful Facebook profile pictures. We need to either provoke these groups onto each other, or outsource the job to someone who can get it done (PMC’s, Russia, Israel, etc): Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

[/quote]

I heard this story and after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon and also an attack on the French in a similar manner, the Russians parked a Druze tank in front of their hq’s in Lebanon daring any truck bomber to strike them…they never did.

169

[quote]Iron Condor wrote:
The West lacks the necessary ruthlessness to deal with this. The new age “college should be free” voters won’t allow a military response, and instead will try to fight this war through hashtags and colourful Facebook profile pictures. We need to either provoke these groups onto each other, or outsource the job to someone who can get it done (PMC’s, Russia, Israel, etc): Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

[/quote]

Bullshit. The literature shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, democracies are superior counter-terrorists. See the link below. Security policy is not a popularity contest fortunately. Uninformed civilians (yourself among them) don’t formulate or conduct policy. Policymakers and practitioners do.

PMCs? Are you fucking serious? Relatively small numbers of light infantry fighting for nothing more than a paycheck and without organic close air support, armor, or heavy weapons platoons are going to defeat over a division of zealous ISIL fighters fielding heavy weapons, artillery, tanks, and armored fighting vehicles?

This is how Moscow deals with hostage crises. It’s hardly worth emulating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+hostage+crises&oq=soviet+hostage+crises&aqs=chrome..69i57.9793j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=moscow+theater+hostage+crisis

https://www.google.com/search?q=belsan+school+siege&oq=belsan+school+siege&aqs=chrome..69i57.5852j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

170

[quote]Bismark wrote:

This is how Moscow deals with hostage crises. It’s hardly worth emulating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+hostage+crises&oq=soviet+hostage+crises&aqs=chrome..69i57.9793j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=moscow+theater+hostage+crisis

https://www.google.com/search?q=belsan+school+siege&oq=belsan+school+siege&aqs=chrome..69i57.5852j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8[/quote]

If either of those situations occurred in America, do you really think the outcomes would have been better?

171

[quote]doogie wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

This is how Moscow deals with hostage crises. It’s hardly worth emulating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+hostage+crises&oq=soviet+hostage+crises&aqs=chrome..69i57.9793j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=moscow+theater+hostage+crisis

https://www.google.com/search?q=belsan+school+siege&oq=belsan+school+siege&aqs=chrome..69i57.5852j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8[/quote]

If either of those situations occurred in America, do you really think the outcomes would have been better?[/quote]

Yes. American hostage rescue and counterterrorism units are unrivaled. They certainly wouldn’t have pumped the theater full of a fentanyl analog 1000 times more potent than morphin, directly killing 15 percent of the hostages. The lethality of the chemical weapon was over twice that of those used in WWI.

172

[quote]Bismark wrote:

PMCs? Are you fucking serious? Relatively small numbers of light infantry fighting for nothing more than a paycheck and without organic close air support, armor, or heavy weapons platoons are going to defeat over a division of zealous ISIL fighters fielding heavy weapons, artillery, tanks, and armored fighting vehicles?
[/quote]

They have air support and heavy weapons. Read about what Executive Outcomes did in Sierra Leone, against a force 100x their size. Fighting for your country does not automatically make you superior to someone fighting for a paycheck (and many people in conventional militaries are just there for a paycheck anyway). Untrained or barely trained, brainwashed teenagers recruited by religious fundamentalists vs a well-organised, well-armed group of ex-servicemen (in most cases former special forces) with unofficial support from Western governments seems like a pretty decent match up to me. ISIS recruits are cowards who fled their homes to try play heroes. Their strength in numbers will fade pretty quickly when they’re faced with people who are more than able to fight back.

173

[quote]Bismark wrote:

Yes. American hostage rescue and counterterrorism units are unrivaled. They certainly wouldn’t have pumped the theater full of a fentanyl analog 1000 times more potent than morphin, directly killing 15 percent of the hostages. The lethality of the chemical weapon was over twice that of those used in WWI.
[/quote]

You have a thousand hostages packed in a school that is rigged to blow, with 30 terrorists watching every entrance. No unit, no matter how well trained, could avoid a bloodbath in this situation. You can’t even spell Beslan, don’t pretend you could’ve done any better.

174

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Yes, SOFT. Numbers are meaningless, you rely on them way to much.

How is our strength perceived? Are we feared?

But we have increased drone strikes 225.7%!! This can’t be possible. [/quote]
It could be that the drone strikes make us look like pussies to them. Like people that dont have the balls to look their adversary in the eyes when they die.
They may create dead bodies, but they also seem to make alot more infuriated living ones.

175

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]doogie wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

This is how Moscow deals with hostage crises. It’s hardly worth emulating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+hostage+crises&oq=soviet+hostage+crises&aqs=chrome..69i57.9793j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=moscow+theater+hostage+crisis

https://www.google.com/search?q=belsan+school+siege&oq=belsan+school+siege&aqs=chrome..69i57.5852j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8[/quote]

If either of those situations occurred in America, do you really think the outcomes would have been better?[/quote]

Yes. American hostage rescue and counterterrorism units are unrivaled. They certainly wouldn’t have pumped the theater full of a fentanyl analog 1000 times more potent than morphin, directly killing 15 percent of the hostages. The lethality of the chemical weapon was over twice that of those used in WWI.
[/quote]

How would we have kept that bomb in the middle of the room from going off and bringing down the roof on everyone?

176

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Yes, SOFT. Numbers are meaningless, you rely on them way to much.

How is our strength perceived? Are we feared?

But we have increased drone strikes 225.7%!! This can’t be possible. [/quote]
It could be that the drone strikes make us look like pussies to them. Like people that dont have the balls to look their adversary in the eyes when they die.
They may create dead bodies, but they also seem to make alot more infuriated living ones.[/quote]

Like the Paris slaughter didn’t make the terrorists look like pussies and infuriate a lot of people?

177

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]doogie wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

This is how Moscow deals with hostage crises. It’s hardly worth emulating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+hostage+crises&oq=soviet+hostage+crises&aqs=chrome..69i57.9793j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=moscow+theater+hostage+crisis

https://www.google.com/search?q=belsan+school+siege&oq=belsan+school+siege&aqs=chrome..69i57.5852j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8[/quote]

If either of those situations occurred in America, do you really think the outcomes would have been better?[/quote]

Yes. American hostage rescue and counterterrorism units are unrivaled. They certainly wouldn’t have pumped the theater full of a fentanyl analog 1000 times more potent than morphin, directly killing 15 percent of the hostages. The lethality of the chemical weapon was over twice that of those used in WWI.
[/quote]

Depends on what your objective is. To the Russians, killing of the hostage taking terrorists is more important than the lives of the hostages. This would make the whole hostage taking scenario rather useless if you’re a terrorist, don’t you think?

178

[quote]Bismark wrote:

Bullshit. The literature shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, democracies are superior counter-terrorists. See the link below. Security policy is not a popularity contest fortunately. Uninformed civilians (yourself among them) don’t formulate or conduct policy. Policymakers and practitioners do.

[/quote]

I’m not talking about the direct response to a terrorist incident. Obviously the counter-terrorism response is effective. I’m talking about military intervention to get to the source, which is a popularity contest. No one is going to vote for another Iraq war, especially not in Europe.

179

[quote]doogie wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]doogie wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

This is how Moscow deals with hostage crises. It’s hardly worth emulating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+hostage+crises&oq=soviet+hostage+crises&aqs=chrome..69i57.9793j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=moscow+theater+hostage+crisis

https://www.google.com/search?q=belsan+school+siege&oq=belsan+school+siege&aqs=chrome..69i57.5852j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8[/quote]

If either of those situations occurred in America, do you really think the outcomes would have been better?[/quote]

Yes. American hostage rescue and counterterrorism units are unrivaled. They certainly wouldn’t have pumped the theater full of a fentanyl analog 1000 times more potent than morphin, directly killing 15 percent of the hostages. The lethality of the chemical weapon was over twice that of those used in WWI.
[/quote]

How would we have kept that bomb in the middle of the room from going off and bringing down the roof on everyone?[/quote]

I can’t speak of the specific capabilities of American SOF, but killing 15 percent of the hostages through the use of a potent chemical weapon and refusing to disclose the identity of the gas to medical personnel is hardly an example to emulate.

180

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Yes, SOFT. Numbers are meaningless, you rely on them way to much.

How is our strength perceived? Are we feared?

But we have increased drone strikes 225.7%!! This can’t be possible. [/quote]
It could be that the drone strikes make us look like pussies to them. Like people that dont have the balls to look their adversary in the eyes when they die.
They may create dead bodies, but they also seem to make alot more infuriated living ones.[/quote]

Like the Paris slaughter didn’t make the terrorists look like pussies and infuriate a lot of people?
[/quote]
The party responrible for Paris attacks doesnt seem interested in putting an end to this. The US and allies at least pay lip service to wanting peace.