People expect a mistake free war?
 

I contend that in the age of insta-info mass media hysterical play up everything 10000% that it is impossible for the US or any other country to effectively wage any sort of real war for an extended period of time.

Every war in history has had so many mistakes, screw up's, corruption, idiocy, unnecessary deaths, abuses, etc.

Think of the horrors of the Civil War, on both sides.

Think of WW2.

People tended to be ignorant of many of these mistakes and they only came to light much after the fact.

Since Vietnam the media has made it almost impossible for the populus to support any war.

Every little boo-boo in Iraq is front page news for weeks.


My basic underlying contention is that war is a dirty, nasty business and it's impossible to wage and win a war without some inevitably bad things happening and the media can go F itself.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

A 4 star general said we needed 500,000 troops to secure Iraq. He was demoted. He was also right.

That is not a mistake, that is dereliction of duty on the part of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

They betrayed our volunteer army by not sending enough troops and by not equipping it properly.

Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

http://www.rall.com/rants.html

If our volunteer army is abused, it will cease to exist. Can anyone guess what the alternative is?

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Can anyone guess what the alternative is?

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Me taking a trip to Fort Dix because my GPA sucks.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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My basic underlying contention is that war is a dirty, nasty business and it's impossible to wage and win a war without some inevitably bad things happening

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You're dead right. These are exactly the reasons war should not be entered into lightly, or for the wrong reasons. There are many places in the world that need "freeing" but I don't see your tax dollars being spent on those causes.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Alot of what your describing sounds like incompitence.

Incompitence does not equate to dereliction of duty or treason, although can have just as bad consequences.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Yeah, what kind of morons would expect this Iraq war to be easy? Oh, wait, I think a couple people did.

“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Dick Cheney 3/16/03

"To suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement." Dick Cheney, 3/16/03

“We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, 3/27/03

“I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” Defense Policy Board Member Ken Adelman, 2/13/03

“A year from now, I’d be surprised if there’s not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.” Former Pentagon Advisor Richard Perle, 9/22/03

“It is not knowable how long that conflict would last, it could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Alot of what your describing sounds like incompitence.

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Exactly. I don't think people expect a mistake free war or a war without casualties, but they surely don't expect incompetence when so much is at stake. People probably don't expect the guy that sent our troops to this war and responsible for their mission telling the country, "It's hard work" and that, "he thinks about Iraq everyday" either.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

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This doesn't make sense unless you're making up a new definition.

And I'd step off the high horse you take towards the military when you include a link to Ted Rall's website. The man is the lowest of the low.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

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This doesn't make sense unless you're making up a new definition.

And I'd step off the high horse you take towards the military when you include a link to Ted Rall's website. The man is the lowest of the low.

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A little anecdote about army personel buying their own equipment. A kid in my Arabic class is a marine reservist and was supposed to makea speech on fox news right after class. He broughtin a scope he had bought himself b/c the marines wouldnt supply him one (by scope i mean a sighting device, meant to be used with 2 eyes, I'm not gun expert.)

Anyways, the scope still had an AK-47 round rattleing around inside of it. The scope stopped the round only 1 inch from the marine's head. It freaked him out pretty good, but makes for an awesome memento.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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He broughtin a scope he had bought himself b/c the marines wouldnt supply him one (by scope i mean a sighting device, meant to be used with 2 eyes, I'm not gun expert.)

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While I'm certainly no gun expert, your description is confusing me. Is it like binoculars? You don't use 2 eyes with any scope I know of. Whatever.

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Anyways, the scope still had an AK-47 round rattleing around inside of it. The scope stopped the round only 1 inch from the marine's head. It freaked him out pretty good, but makes for an awesome memento.

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He's pretty lucky. I haven't heard of "scopes" stopping bullets.

Do you know what he did as a marine that he would need a "scope" but wouldn't be provided with one?

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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He broughtin a scope he had bought himself b/c the marines wouldnt supply him one (by scope i mean a sighting device, meant to be used with 2 eyes, I'm not gun expert.

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While I'm certainly no gun expert, your description is confusing me. Is it like binoculars? You don't use 2 eyes with any scope I know of. Whatever.

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He probably bought a red-dot sight from Aimpoint or EOTech or maybe an ACOG. The Aimpoint M68 CCO used by the Army is a red-dot sight for rifles that allows the user to shoot with both eyes open. It looks like a scope but isn't, it doesn't provide any magnification. It's a piece of equipment that's nice to have but not really a necessity.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

funny you should say that..

I was just thinking how "Freedom of the Press" clearly didn't apply to all this instant press that the Internet gives and surely it shouldn't be constitutionally protected.

Blame the press - blame the democrats - blame the Iraqi's - anyone but the guy who started a war to raise profits for his oil buddies.

RB

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Yeah, what kind of morons would expect this Iraq war to be easy? Oh, wait, I think a couple people did.


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News flash: compared to most wars, this war is easy.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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I was just thinking how "Freedom of the Press" clearly didn't apply to all this instant press that the Internet gives and surely it shouldn't be constitutionally protected.


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???????

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

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It's not treason, but our servicemen damn sure are entitled to be provided with the best protection money can buy.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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News flash: compared to most wars, this war is easy.

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Yeah, I find no difficulty in watching the heads of soldiers that should never have been sent to Iraq and contractors just trying to feed their families being chopped off.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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News flash: compared to most wars, this war is easy.

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Yeah, I find no difficulty in watching the heads of soldiers that should never have been sent to Iraq and contractors just trying to feed their families being chopped off.

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Totally misses the point.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Well, the administration's cheerleading and denial of mistakes helps make this front page news.

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Since Vietnam the media has made it almost impossible for the populus to support any war.

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Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

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My basic underlying contention is that war is a dirty, nasty business and it's impossible to wage and win a war without some inevitably bad things happening...

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This and the inevitable media reaction should be considered when determining if a war is winnable, or when determining if it is worth the effort.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

What war? To quote W, "Mission Accomplished".

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

War is a lot more than just overrunning a weak military, so, I respectfully disagree with you that I "totally missed the point."

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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War is a lot more than just overrunning a weak military, so, I respectfully disagree with you that I "totally missed the point."

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My point was entirely comparative, and your response didn't seem to address my point; all you did was cite examples of atrocity. Atrocities occur in every war. So citing atrocity does not in any way rebut the point that most wars are more difficult than this war.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Your contention may well be correct. If it is correct then that is a good thing for us and the world and we should stand up and applaud their efforts. It should give pause to the next nutcase who wants to start a war on thin pretext .

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

But the atrocities are important as they are a part of war. War changed forever with Vietnam because now the people back home were able to see with their own eyes what was going on. Americans watched in horror as the embassy in Saigon was nearly overrun and they cried with the victims of the My Lai massacre. Television has brought the war into America where it never was before. We sent our boys overseas and assumed everything was okay. There were parades when they came home and the only taste of the war abroad were pictures of the pretty French girls giving flowers to their heroic liberators. Now they see everything and that is war too. Add to that the fact that nobody can adequately explain that the cause is just, makes it that much more difficult to say "war is easy." War is never easy, it's not easy for the innocent victims, it's not easy for the mothers and fathers and it certainly isn't easy for those on the battlefields.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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But the atrocities are important as they are a part of war. War changed forever with Vietnam because now the people back home were able to see with their own eyes what was going on. Americans watched in horror as the embassy in Saigon was nearly overrun and they cried with the victims of the My Lai massacre. Television has brought the war into America where it never was before. We sent our boys overseas and assumed everything was okay. There were parades when they came home and the only taste of the war abroad were pictures of the pretty French girls giving flowers to their heroic liberators. Now they see everything and that is war too. Add to that the fact that nobody can adequately explain that the cause is just, makes it that much more difficult to say "war is easy." War is never easy, it's not easy for the innocent victims, it's not easy for the mothers and fathers and it certainly isn't easy for those on the battlefields.

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Yeah, but I didn't say, "The Iraq war is easy." I said that COMPARED TO MOST OTHER WARS it's easy.

Let's say you have to run 7 miles in the hot sun, or freezing rain. Well, it won't be easy. But COMPARED TO RUNNING A MARATHON IN A BLIZZARD, it's easy.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

The words "war" and "easy" should never be in the same sentence.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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The words "war" and "easy" should never be in the same sentence.

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Come on now.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

You're right, I'm wrong. I was asking some Vietnam vets, you know, the ones with nightmares and sever drinking, drug, and mental problems. They agree, it's very easy for an 18 year old to be far from home in an environment where it seems that everyone is trying to kill him. My bad. It's also a cakewalk to come home, watch friends die painful deaths from exposure to unknow chemicals that their own government dropped on them and wonder if that's going to happen to them as well. And, without a doubt, it's next to nothing to have the knowledge that your f-upped sperm as a result of said exposure is causing serious problems in your offspring, beyond the ones that your habitual drunkeness and violent behavior towards them have caused.
What is easy is for one who hasn't been exposed to combat, especially if your father's influences helped that cause, to arbitrarily commit troops without just cause.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Russian Bear, do you understand the difference between "easy" and "comparatively easy"?

Saying "the Iraq war is easy compared to most wars", is approximately the same as saying "most wars are difficult compared to the Iraq war." Both are comparative

Somehow, I don't think you would have a problem with the second sentence, but both sentences mean essentially the same thing.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Using the word "easy" in the same sentence as the word "war" even in the comparative sense appears to a demonstrate a lack of understanding of war -- other than from an armchair.

In any event, if this is an "easy(ier)" war then it should behoove the next nut who wants to invade a country to look at the results of this war prior to the invasion and perhaps only invade when there is a real imminent and gather threat - rather than an imagined and fabricated threat. But most war advocates of the Iraq war have shown a lack of understanding of the history of conflicts and invasion.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

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Using the word "easy" in the same sentence as the word "war" even in the comparative sense appears to a demonstrate a lack of understanding of war -- other than from an armchair.

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Anyone with a logical mind should understand that the comparative sense, when clearly applied, trumps any contradictory connotations of the word.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Whatever dude, just keep listening to Limbaugh and O'Reilley for your talking points

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Ignorance is bliss, I guess that explains the huge grin on your face.

Re: People expect a mistake free war?
 

Actually good writing combines correct use of words, logic and a choice of words that are in context. A simple example offered in writing classes is to choose analogies that make sense to the context of the writing even though there may be other analogies that are logically correct but are jarring to the reader. Similarly, IMO, the choice of the word "easy" and "war" in the same context is a poor one -- even if (and I dont agree with the if) the logic is correct.

But perhaps we need a forum topic on writing styles.