Thoughts On Hearts And Minds

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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So I’m sitting here, it’s like 1 in the morning, and I’m watching “Red Dawn”. Yea, yea, laugh. It’s crappily made, I know, but I can’t help relating it to Iraq nowadays…

It is supremely ironic when the Hispanic general says something about “Winnning the hearts and minds of the people”… right before a bomb goes off at the Soviet-American relations place.

I wonder how many of you stay-the-course types would let your hearts and minds be won… by an invading army…

The causes and rhetoric goes out the window when there is another country’s army marching through your streets… like the Southern soldier said when he was asked by a Northern counterpart why he was fighting for the South in the Civil War when he owned no slaves- he said simply, “I’m fighting cause you’re down here.”

Just some thoughts.

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[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

The causes and rhetoric goes out the window when there is another country’s army marching through your streets… like the Southern soldier said when he was asked by a Northern counterpart why he was fighting for the South in the Civil War when he owned no slaves- he said simply, “I’m fighting cause you’re down here.”[/quote]

Just to dovetail on your example - how did the Union armies deal with said problem?

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Yes, what great ideas our leaders have. Lets send predominately English speaking Christian Anglo-American soldiers into a Farsi speaking Muslim Middle Eastern country and win hearts and minds.

Not only is it a far shot to win hearts because the basis for faith is all but completely unparalled but we’re going to assume that the language they speak is Arabic (mind you they learn Arabic because it is the language communicated in HOLY scriptures) so intelligent communication is sub par. This is the logic that we as Americans are responsible for ergo our representatives.

Wouldn’t diplomatic solution be the proper way to handle this situation? This is after the fact of course. Just saying.

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[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:

The causes and rhetoric goes out the window when there is another country’s army marching through your streets… like the Southern soldier said when he was asked by a Northern counterpart why he was fighting for the South in the Civil War when he owned no slaves- he said simply, “I’m fighting cause you’re down here.”

Just to dovetail on your example - how did the Union armies deal with said problem?[/quote]

By wearing down and defeating the Army of Northern Virginia in battle. Your point being? Last I checked, we were fighting dozens of insurgent groups, the militias of political parties that are supposedly on our side, and preventing a country from falling into sectarian civil war. So how is putting firepower on targets going to solve this?

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[quote]meangenes wrote:
Yes, what great ideas our leaders have. Lets send predominately English speaking Christian Anglo-American soldiers into a Farsi speaking Muslim Middle Eastern country and win hearts and minds.

Not only is it a far shot to win hearts because the basis for faith is all but completely unparalled but we’re going to assume that the language they speak is Arabic (mind you they learn Arabic because it is the language communicated in HOLY scriptures) so intelligent communication is sub par. This is the logic that we as Americans are responsible for ergo our representatives.

Wouldn’t diplomatic solution be the proper way to handle this situation? This is after the fact of course. Just saying.[/quote]

What? Farsi? Iran’s been invaded already? Seriously though, Iraqis speak Arabic. Not the same Arabic as the Quran or the one they teach at language centers around the world, but Arabic nonetheless.

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[quote]meangenes wrote:
Yes, what great ideas our leaders have. Lets send predominately English speaking Christian Anglo-American soldiers into a Farsi speaking Muslim Middle Eastern country and win hearts and minds.
…[/quote]

They speak Arabic in Iraq and Pashto in Afghanistan. Our leaders appear to know more than you.

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[quote]GDollars37 wrote:

By wearing down and defeating the Army of Northern Virginia in battle. Your point being? Last I checked, we were fighting dozens of insurgent groups, the militias of political parties that are supposedly on our side, and preventing a country from falling into sectarian civil war. So how is putting firepower on targets going to solve this?[/quote]

If Irish’s point is to say that the opponent’s opinion as to the enemy “marching in their streets” is somehow relevant as to why they fight, my point was that the “offending” army continue to work toward its mission and not define its work by whether or not it can it can perform well in an opinion poll among its enemies or doubters.

If Southerners said “I’m fighting cause you’re down here”, the Union armies didn’t suddenly go “oh no! We aren’t winning hearts and minds - let’s get out of here lest we offend someone else”.

P.S. - somehow this thread has my name as the OP. No idea how that happened, but Irish is the OP.

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[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Our leaders appear to know more than you.[/quote]

They seem to lack common sense though. Invading Iraq to fight terrorism? C’mon!

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[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:

The causes and rhetoric goes out the window when there is another country’s army marching through your streets… like the Southern soldier said when he was asked by a Northern counterpart why he was fighting for the South in the Civil War when he owned no slaves- he said simply, “I’m fighting cause you’re down here.”

Just to dovetail on your example - how did the Union armies deal with said problem?[/quote]

They slashed and burned their way through the South, and defeated the armies that the South fielded.

I know what you are aiming at Thunder, but that slash and burn tactic caused a rift between North and South that has not healed to this day (Confederates in the Attic?). And that is among countrymen descended from the same WASP origins- I think only the massive influx of immigrants that we’ve seen in the last hundred years has made some of us forget that war.

Now, my point was that an army in your streets is an army in your streets, and that it does not matter what they call themselves, be it “liberators”, “peacekeepers”, “occuiers”, etc. The people who live there will fight the force that is not their own, just as I would expect that I or any American would if a foreign army landed on our shores, as in the awesome, second-only-to-Roadhouse movie, “Red Dawn.”

The Communists thought themselves liberators, I’m sure- liberating others from capitalism? Maybe not towards the end, but when the idealogy was the cool shit to do, they certainly did, just as we believe that forcing democracy on other countries will always work, even though it is proven that some countries don’t A)want democracy or B)Can’t handle it.

So what you end up with is an army of “liberators” or whatever the fuck you want to call them, being attacked by isolated insurgent groups ala every guerilla war in history. It is not comparable to the Civil War in this regard- you know as well as I do, Thunder, that someone suggested taking the war to the mountains, and Lee waved it off as nonsense… though he well knew that that war could have gone on forever if they had continued that, much like the American Revolution in the Southern Colonies with Nathaniel Greene.

I am arguing the premise that at this point, the war in Iraq is utterly unwinnable because of the military situation.

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[quote]lixy wrote:

What? Farsi? Iran’s been invaded already? Seriously though, Iraqis speak Arabic. Not the same Arabic as the Quran or the one they teach at language centers around the world, but Arabic nonetheless.[/quote]

Your right, I was misinformed.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
meangenes wrote:
Yes, what great ideas our leaders have. Lets send predominately English speaking Christian Anglo-American soldiers into a Farsi speaking Muslim Middle Eastern country and win hearts and minds.
…

They speak Arabic in Iraq and Pashto in Afghanistan. Our leaders appear to know more than you.[/quote]

As for them knowing more than I; sure. They better. After-all there is a group of them. But for great ideas? I just showed you a better idea.

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[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Our leaders appear to know more than you.

They seem to lack common sense though. Invading Iraq to fight terrorism? C’mon![/quote]

This is irrelavant. They weren’t invading to fight terrorism.

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[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Our leaders appear to know more than you.

They seem to lack common sense though. Invading Iraq to fight terrorism? C’mon!

This is irrelavant. They weren’t invading to fight terrorism. [/quote]

Awhh shit. Okay. Then what was the “real” reason that they invaded Iraq?

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Now imagine Zionist Jews deciding what’s best for the Arab Muslim world and wonder why they just can’t see its for their own good.