This board makes me laugh (a reality check)

[BluffTHIS!]

The "slippery sloap" thing is just an overused scare tactic. The only reason to temporarily not follow normal procedures is because the demands of war time intelligence have a greater urgency and the FISA process is actually longer than 72 hours and sometimes is too long for a pressing intelligence gathering need.

We live in a robust democracy and have the ability to elect legislators who can ammend the constitution if necessary to redress anything carried too far. And we actually still have far less secrecy and governmental powers in defense and intelligence matters that Britain does with their Official Secrets Act and the government's ability to use royal prerogative powers, and they haven't gone down the road to 1984 Big Brother, even though some there don't like those government powers either.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
If we stop fighting the war, it will still be fought against us.

[/ QUOTE ] You are fighting the wrong war, if you think you're fighting terrorism in Iraq. (Well, now you are indeed fighting terrorists as well, because there are terrorists among the insurgents. But this is no excuse.)

The war against terrorism, i.e. what you called the war for Natiional Survival (choke, gasp), is not a war in the sense that wars have been fought thus far in history. That idiot of a president sends, as is his wont, gunships, tomahawks and aircraft carriers to do battle ...with ghosts.

Terrorists have no country whose frontiers you can invade; no capital whose capture would cripple their efforts; no industrial or agrarian infrastructure whose demolition would choke them from raw materials; no CCC hubs which can be neutralized.

Quite probably, you will learn this very slowly (and I say this because your lot seems hell bent on NOT learning from your mistakes) and also quite painfully. It's in the cards.

May the gods of poker shed some light to your path.

[BluffTHIS!]

Man what a masterful military analysis. Insurgents and terrorists with guns, bombs, mortars and anti-aircraft weapons are really just ghosts so there is no point in our arming our troops as best as possible and teaching them counter-insurgency warfare tactics (you know that assymetrical stuff).

Surely you need to be teaching this stuff as a guest lecturer at the War College.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Man what a masterful military analysis. Insurgents and terrorists with guns, bombs, mortars and anti-aircraft weapons are really just ghosts so there is no point in our arming our troops as best as possible and teaching them counter-insurgency warfare tactics.

[/ QUOTE ] Oh. Is this what you've been doing all this time in Iraq?

Coulda fooled me.

[ QUOTE ]
Surely you need to be teaching this stuff as a guest lecturer at the War College.

[/ QUOTE ] Some green berets were on the right path when they discarded their uniforms, stopped shaving, stopped washing, started learning the local lingo, and went a-hunting.

The powers that be soon put an end to that nonsense in Afghanistan, last I heard.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
[sarcasticallyInsurgents and terrorists with guns, bombs, mortars and anti-aircraft weapons are really just ghosts so there is no point in our arming our troops as best as possible and teaching them counter-insurgency warfare tactics.

[/ QUOTE ] It would be wrong for the political or military planners to equate in their minds insurgents with terrorists. What you describe above are insurgents, i.e. guerillas. Counter-insurgency warfare is altogether different than "regular" warfare, i.e. a clash between organised armies in the field of battle. (And need I repeat that the U.S. seems to have learned very little from its first-hand counter-insurgency warfare it conducted in places such as Central America and Vietnam? Even in counter-insurgency, the U.S. is behaving like a all -pwoerful giant with a peanut-sized mind.)

And BTW, when the insurgents are using seemingly "terrorist tactics", i.e. blowing up a Kabul discotheque full of civilians (oftentimes intentionally blowing themselves up in the process), this does NOT make the fight against them a fight against terrorism!

No, personally, I would be more concerned with modern terrorism itself. And by that I refer to large scale attacks against civilian targets, possibly targets at home (the home of those perceived as aggressors by the terrorists, e.g. Washington, Manchester, Rome, etc), attacks executed by relatively cheap and small means, using low-technology techniques for communication, command and control, e.g. mail drops, music signals, etc.

Against that enemy, the fight is extremely tougher than fighting the most ferocious insurgent in Afghanistan or Iraq! The importance of intelligence cannot be over-estimated. And that comes in the same package as co-operation across nations and continents among the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of all those committed to combat terror. Which, in turn, precludes unilateralism, arrogance and over-simplification -- but, instead, needs/depends on co-ordination, diplomacy, a dose of humility and a lot of thorough & complex analysis.

However, a lot of people in the United States confuse patience for inaction; controlled aggressiveness for reluctance to fight; and thorough analysis for nerdiness. Good poker players are supposed to know better.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If we stop fighting the war, it will still be fought against us.


[/ QUOTE ]

The war against terrorism, i.e. what you called the war for Natiional Survival (choke, gasp), is not a war in the sense that wars have been fought thus far in history. That idiot of a president sends, as is his wont, gunships, tomahawks and aircraft carriers to do battle ...with ghosts.

Terrorists have no country whose frontiers you can invade; no capital whose capture would cripple their efforts; no industrial or agrarian infrastructure whose demolition would choke them from raw materials; no CCC hubs which can be neutralized.

[/ QUOTE ]


Ah, but Cyrus, terrorists do gain greatly by state actors lending them various kinds of support. al-Qaeda was freer to train and plot, when unmolested some years ago in Afghanistan; and today numerous terrorist groups benefit greatly via the shadowy support of Iran and Syria.

So, where should we be cutting off their supports? To an extent, we are already cutting off some of their financial supports; and intercepting their communications, and continuing to catch more of their lietenants: the terrorists would be further yet crippled if Iran and Syria were no longer using the powers of their governments and militaries to clandestinely lend support to these bad guys. So, regime change in Iran and Syria is necessary (for that reason, and for a few other reasons as well).

Does regime change for Iran and Syria need to come externally, as in Iraq? Well, hopefully not; an internal overthrow would be much better. However, if Iran keeps up the BS, and gets really close to nuclear weaponry, all bets are off: limited strikes might lead to a larger war which might lead to regime change in Iran. Which, of course, would be a good end result.

The timing for such might be propitious, too: by Spring, Iraq should be much more stable, while Iran may be approaching the no-turning-back point in the nuclear cycle; strikes on Iran have the potential to be pragmatically on the table about that time. So, we'll just wait and see. In the meantime, Ahmadinejad-al-Crazy will go on spouting vitriol, if he doesn't manage to get himself assassinated first. But Springtime really isn't that far off.

[The once and future king]

Party Rocks.

It is your officers job to make you think what you do, if you dont then the war on the ground well it just isnt feasible anymore.

Men have to be motivated to face the prospect of stoping a bullet or making friends with an IED.

80% of Officers ranked Captain or above do not think this is a war of survival.

Grunts think one thing oficers think another. That is why grunts are grunts and officers are officers. Facts of life.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]

80% of Officers ranked Captain or above do not think this is a war of survival.

[/ QUOTE ]

The war in Iraq , in isolation, is not be a war of survival for the US. However, the war against Islamic jihadism/terrorism most certainly is a war of survival for the US--as it is for the UK, Australia, and Israel as well--and even for Europe, whether they know it yet or not.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Over 80% of people like me agree that he’s doing a pretty good job based on the military vote in the last election. I don’t think he’s Abe Lincoln but he isn’t the devil either. Do you think 80% of the people like me are just too stupid to know better, or do we have an informed opinion?

[/ QUOTE ]

Anyone else spot the circular reasoning here?