The Vietnam War was carried out with complete ineptness, however it did succeed in keeping half a country free. [/quote]
You might want to let the Vietnamese people know about this. After the fall of Saigon the communist took over and it became the Soviet Republic of Vietnam in 1976. Are you perhaps thinking of Korea?[/quote]
You’re right, my bad…[/quote]
That is twice now you have admitted to an error. If you are not careful you may be expelled from PWI.
The Vietnam War was carried out with complete ineptness, however it did succeed in keeping half a country free. [/quote]
You might want to let the Vietnamese people know about this. After the fall of Saigon the communist took over and it became the Soviet Republic of Vietnam in 1976. Are you perhaps thinking of Korea?[/quote]
You’re right, my bad…[/quote]
That is twice now you have admitted to an error. If you are not careful you may be expelled from PWI.
[/quote]
My goals are reasonable discussion, not banging my dick on a desk. I know a ton about early American history. I make mistakes when the subject is so broad. I am typically a narrowly focused guy. But trust me when I am right and I know it, I won’t back down ever. But if I make a mistake, I think the best course of action is to admit and move on. It adds nothing to the discussion to defend the undefendable.
I have no interest in name calling and one-upmanship. That’s for stupid people.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
A win in terms of military engagement and a win in terms of long term successful nation building are two different things.
When you conflate the two you err from the path of good, solid, intellectually honest debate.[/quote]
Why are you bringing up this non-sequitur bullshit about winning military engagements. That was NEVER the goal. The goal was ALWAYS to destroy al Qaeda’s and other terrorist organization’s ability to operate in the region. We clearly have NOT succeeded there. Conflating the issue is about as detrimental to good, solid, intellectually honest debate as trying to wash over the fact that, while we have won a military engagement there, we never went there simply to win engagements but to accomplish the larger goal of wiping away safe havens. If anything, we’ve actually created more safe havens since it seems as if Iraq is now a massive training ground for jihadists all over the region.
Iraq is to Johnny Jihad what Dagobah is to Luke Skywalker.[/quote]
Permanently? That’s delusional. I don’t know whether you’ve realized this or not but during OEF and OIF we’d take control of those safe havens only to get told and pack it up and leave. The goal has always been a withdrawal. But to say there wasn’t any success as far as disrupting their activities goes is ridiculous. It’s just short term because there wasn’t a long term goal from the top down.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
We didn’t succeed at all in Iraq.
[/quote]
I respectfully disagree. The USA succeeded masterfully militarily.
The politicians, however, lost the will to fight, and let it progess into a proxy war with Iran, basically because the Republicans and Democrats were playing “red team” and “blue team,” and saying whatever in order to get re-elected, instead of looking out for the interest of the USA and its allies.
If the Democrats and Republicans had actually cooperated with each other, Iran could have been nuetered and thus unable to fight a proxy war in Iraq and now (possibly) Syria.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
We didn’t succeed at all in Iraq.
[/quote]
I respectfully disagree. The USA succeeded masterfully militarily.
The politicians, however, lost the will to fight, and let it progess into a proxy war with Iran, basically because the Republicans and Democrats were playing “red team” and “blue team,” and saying whatever in order to get re-elected, instead of looking out for the interest of the USA and its allies.
If the Democrats and Republicans had actually cooperated with each other, Iran could have been nuetered and thus unable to fight a proxy war in Iraq and now (possibly) Syria.[/quote]
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If anyone believes Assad is going to hand over all his chemical weapons is a fucking fool.
You have some of the biggest bullshitters in play here (Obama, Kerry, Putin, and Assad).
A man who gassed his own people is simply going to hand over his weapons ? … Right… good luck with that.[/quote]
I’d like to hear JB’s take on this…but I don’t think that this is the Goal, Max.
I see two issues: (Keep in mind, that these things DO NOT take into account the Syrian people who are going to suffer TERRIBLY, and already have, regardless as to who “wins”):
Appeasement (the least of which are the American People) and
Controlling, but not eliminating, Assad.
I think that it’s become very clear that these “Rebel’s” are the worst collection of assassins, torturers, Islamic Mercenaries and thug’s that the World has seen. While it may be a “lose-lose” for the Syrian people…in terms of the region, a “controlled” Assad is looked at as being “better” than this group taking over the Country.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If anyone believes Assad is going to hand over all his chemical weapons is a fucking fool.
You have some of the biggest bullshitters in play here (Obama, Kerry, Putin, and Assad).
A man who gassed his own people is simply going to hand over his weapons ? … Right… good luck with that.[/quote]
It wouldn’t matter if Syria did, it’d be temporary. It’d payoff for them in the long term. It’d blow over and eventually the war in Syria will no longer be a major issue. Do you think Obama wouldn’t accept it? He’ll jump at the chance to avoid any military action.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If anyone believes Assad is going to hand over all his chemical weapons is a fucking fool.
You have some of the biggest bullshitters in play here (Obama, Kerry, Putin, and Assad).
A man who gassed his own people is simply going to hand over his weapons ? … Right… good luck with that.[/quote]
Agreed, but saying he will buys him time. Funny nobody is asking him to hand over the conventional weapons that have killed WAY more people. He can keep those and kill as freely as he wants with that, as long as it’s not a chemical.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If anyone believes Assad is going to hand over all his chemical weapons is a fucking fool.
You have some of the biggest bullshitters in play here (Obama, Kerry, Putin, and Assad).
A man who gassed his own people is simply going to hand over his weapons ? … Right… good luck with that.[/quote]
Agreed, but saying he will buys him time. Funny nobody is asking him to hand over the conventional weapons that have killed WAY more people. He can keep those and kill as freely as he wants with that, as long as it’s not a chemical.[/quote]
Pat, we need to put blame on both sides of this civil war. I can tell you the opposition are not clean in killing of women, children, and unarmed citizens.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If anyone believes Assad is going to hand over all his chemical weapons is a fucking fool.
You have some of the biggest bullshitters in play here (Obama, Kerry, Putin, and Assad).
A man who gassed his own people is simply going to hand over his weapons ? … Right… good luck with that.[/quote]
Agreed, but saying he will buys him time. Funny nobody is asking him to hand over the conventional weapons that have killed WAY more people. He can keep those and kill as freely as he wants with that, as long as it’s not a chemical.[/quote]
Of course, the distinction is really kind of disingenuous: all conventional weapons are chemical and biological: a chemical reaction initiating rapid oxidation of a propellant creates expanding gases which propel pieces of metal into living tissue, thus interrupting biological processes.
And really, a thermobaric bomb dropped on a village from an airplane will kill all inhabitants just as dead as dropping a nerve gas shell (pictured above: this one is of US manufacture) on them with a 155mm cannon. So why the fuss? Dead is dead.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If anyone believes Assad is going to hand over all his chemical weapons is a fucking fool.
You have some of the biggest bullshitters in play here (Obama, Kerry, Putin, and Assad).
A man who gassed his own people is simply going to hand over his weapons ? … Right… good luck with that.[/quote]
Agreed, but saying he will buys him time. Funny nobody is asking him to hand over the conventional weapons that have killed WAY more people. He can keep those and kill as freely as he wants with that, as long as it’s not a chemical.[/quote]
What’s his alternative? It isn’t like he can ship them out and say they don’t exist. He could however give them up for the time being and it’ll be enough to prevent American intervention. There isn’t enough domestic or international support for Obama to push through with action so if he can get Assad to give up the chemical weapons it’d be enough to declare some sort of victory.
The West is on the losing side of this little dick swinging contest, I think Assad stays in power. Support for the rebels is never going to gain any real momentum so there’s a limit to how much weight other nations can put behind them. The media is going to forget about this and so will the average person.
What’s his alternative? It isn’t like he can ship them out and say they don’t exist. [/quote]
It worked for Saddam Hussein…He is the one who shipped them to Syria. Don’t believe me ask Jewbacca.
[/quote]
Saddam isn’t hanging out in his palaces anymore these days. Russia would ship chemical weapons to Assad just so he could give them up and prevent American intervention. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kerry got advised to offer that as an alternative so intervention can be avoided, it’s too unpopular. Chemical weapons were supposed to be the ace up the sleeve and it’s accomplished nothing.
What’s his alternative? It isn’t like he can ship them out and say they don’t exist. [/quote]
It worked for Saddam Hussein…He is the one who shipped them to Syria. Don’t believe me ask Jewbacca.
[/quote]
Saddam isn’t hanging out in his palaces anymore these days. Russia would ship chemical weapons to Assad just so he could give them up and prevent American intervention. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kerry got advised to offer that as an alternative so intervention can be avoided, it’s too unpopular. Chemical weapons were supposed to be the ace up the sleeve and it’s accomplished nothing.[/quote]
Where do you think Assad is getting his chemical weapons? Iran, Russia, Iraq (previously), and he might produce some himself. If he hands them over to Russia they will just wait till everything cools down internationally and then give them back. They need to be destroyed by Russia or some other International agency.
I do not want to go to war over this. It is their civil war let them hash it out.
Why is gassing someone wrong when killing people with bullets, bombs, and grenades ok ?
Are they any more or less dead ?[/quote]
Precisely my comment five posts up. [/quote]
You have to give people a chance or else it is unsportsmanlike conduct.
Which is why nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are a big no no.
A lot of Americans insist that they are different from insurgents, terrorists, whatever because while them engaging in “asymetric warfare” practically garantuees that they will kill a few civilians for every “terrorist” it is ok because they do not specifically target them.
So, civilians hit by a stray round or a mortar shell is acceptable, gassing a whole area to kill terrorists is a big no-no.
I think in a war where you have to do shitty things in order to win, minutiae like that become important, how else could you convince yourself that you are better then “them”.
Why is gassing someone wrong when killing people with bullets, bombs, and grenades ok ?
Are they any more or less dead ?[/quote]
Na, but WWI was really, really ugly.
Like, really, really.
Which is when it was decided that some shit is just no fun, even in wartime.
[/quote]
Yeah, because a dirty nuke is so much less horrible than mustard gas.
And a ban by Geneva or Hague doesn’t prevent a country (like oh, say, all of them) from continuing to produce and stockpile as many chemical and biological weapons as they (we) possibly can. That picture of the 155mm sarin gas shell I posted above was from the 1980s, and I’m sure more than a few made it into Saddam’s arsenal during the Iran-Iraq war.
Would be ironic (and a little embarrassing) if the Syrians surrendered their chemical weapons, and we found out that every third one is marked “MADE IN USA”.
