Not bad. These guys security, though, is normally pretty tight. People is scared of them to the point of hesitating to follow anyone else’s instructions in fear or reprisal. You could put a 100 billion bounty and still not get him. And this still means putting people on the ground, then they get captured and you have to rescue them with even more troops and yadda yadda yadda. Then profit.
Iraq was a wealthy, secular, educated society. I think you’re labouring under a stereotype. Besides the will of God as revealed in the Koran and interpreted thru the hadiths tend to trump everything else, even Paris Hilton. Don’t forget the 9/11 scum were not illiterate villagers from the back-end of nowhere, they were educated men.
Same with the bombers here in the UK. What we call ‘civilisation’ is an affront to Islam across wide tracts of the world, particularly when it comes to the role and position of women.
Ignorance is not the problem.
There’s always that risk. There’s a critical initial stage where you hope the bulk of the army jumps on the coup bandwagon. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I bet disaffection with Saddam was high enough, in the bulk of the army, that a coup could have succeeded. You don’t need everyone, you just need the preponderance of forces, enough for those inclined toward Saddam to feel outnumbered and cave in. Or flee to Switzerland.
Well, I am hoping for minimal damage to the country. Infrastructure remains, defense is moot. Order might be the main issue here. And I know that “carry on” will mean “kill those I don’t like and try to get in power” for many. But if we started with the assumption that Saddam was the worst dude on all Earth and we had to destroy him at all costs :rolleyes: , then I don’t see how anyone worse could come to power.
TVs have an off button. I am not talking giant loudspeakers and screens on every corner. And I have edited my plan to broadcast more locally relevant media.
Ok, so if worse comes to worst, I am at eye level with the current plan.
Don’t be silly. Foreign blood is disgusting and has cooties. We kill them because we have new weapons to field-test, and a national economy depending on our defense apparatus getting regular use.
hey, hey, hey. Thought experiment going on. No need to get started with the name calling. You are doing a good job of pointing out what’s wrong with my plan, no need to slap the “vile” label on it (or “evil” if it was a typo)
Ok, we broadcast North Korean TV then. That will kill two birds with one stone.
Then I will keep at it until you are convinced that it is even worse than Vista.
It is not my stereotype. Just where the current invasion started. I wouldn’t have invaded Iraq at all.
To me, Iraq was among the very best of the Middle East. Saddam might have been a dick, but so are many presidents all around the world (coughbushcough). That’s no reason to invade a country (and if it were, Iraq would have been around 15 on my list).
The purpose of this thread is to determine if, starting from the same premises of the current invasion, there was a better way to use our technological prowess to make this war less costly to us (in money, lives, ill will, creation of terrorist nurseries, etc).
Your media-blitz suggestions are predicated on the acceptance of the stereotype. If lack of information on how wonderful the western capitalist lifestyle and culture is not the problem then providing that info is not the solution.
A realistic appraisal of the situation, a plan for the aftermath and enough trained, culturally sensitive boots on the ground to implement it would have been a start. There was no technological quick fix and what you think are our ‘strengths’ are the opposite.
Not sacking any Arab speaker who caught ‘teh gay’ might have been a way to go.
Having a reconstruction plan drawn up by real experts, not neo-con ideologues, with the focus of helping the Iraqi’s not Halliburton et al might have been wise.
And they’ll see that the dictatorships neighboring them are doing better than they are, while a democracy is bombing them. Just like now.
No amount of propaganda will overcome the cold, hard fact that we are killing them. That we are wrecking their country. That we are their enemies. They don’t hate us because they have no access to the outside world; they hate us because we are evil. Because we deserve to be hated, and ever bomb, every bullet is more proof of that.
So if I came up with a “thought experiment” that involved raping children or bombing churches I wouldn’t get called “vile” or worse ? This is either a disgusting plan or a tasteless joke.
Their communications network is part of their infrastructure; an important one. Without it, the country will collapse, and quickly.
In short then, is there a way for the US to force a war to be waged in such a manner that their technological prowess would be a deciding factor?
Vietnam and Iraq share the element of a super power, with technology that is decades ahead of their opponent, being forced to fight man to man, with rifles being the top weapon.
US soldiers are very expensive. A casualty is a very big deal. How do we always get reduced to putting our most valuable assets on the table?
And if there is no way to wage war with only missiles and long-range weapons, why do we bother to keep developing them? I don’t think there is any country in the world, with which we are even remotely likely to be at war, that is anywhere near to catching up with our technology.
Are we building a military designed for a war that will never be fought? And by this, neglecting to develop an army capable of fighting the wars that we can predict will happen in the foreseeable future?
Why are you focusing solely on technology? While the American military does have quite good technology, it certainly isn’t the only military which does.
Much of the success (and indeed many of the problems) of the American military have to do with its sheer size. In addition, it has quite refined training and tactics, ones that not only are quite advanced but also set the pace for our allies.
The American military, and indeed most Western ones, also have a structure that places considerable decision making and leadership into the hands of noncommissioned officers. This is a model the Soviet Union never could replicate, much to their detriment.
You focus on technology and bombs. I’m sorry, but that isn’t even close to the most important part of this issue. Not by a long shot.
Nuke them, obviously. Or destroy their army and leave. Neither of which is much use in a war of conquest like Iraq. Conquest requires flesh and blood soldiers in among the conquered, in order to maintain control.
Because we insist on fighting the kinds of battles that require us to put boots on the ground.
Yes and no. Hi tech weapons are good for fighting the kinds of battles we should fight, like destroying the military forces of our or our allies’ enemies as they attack, which is why that doesn’t happen; our enemies aren’t dumb enough to play to our strengths. So, either our enemies attack us in such a way and configure themselves so our technology is of little use, or we invade people who are not our enemies, and thus simultaneously create more enemies and make ourselves vulnerable to them.
As for why we make our military the way it is, there are many reasons; some that come to mind :
-
Inertia; people always plan to fight the last war.
-
We’re bullies; we want to fight people who can’t fight back, but are terrified of taking casualties ourselves, so we try to use machines to do our fighting, while terrified of our people getting hurt or killed.
-
It’s a way to funnel money to the defense contractors
-
It’s a way to kill indiscriminately and pretend it was just an accident; “collateral damage”
US military expenditure is higher that the rest of the world combined. I might be missing some notable exception, but I believe that all countries that are less than 20 years behind in military technology are members of NATO.
The size of the US military, impressive as it may be, is still not enough to deal with Iraq, apparently. The limiting factor, of course, is hands. Other than Humvee armour, equipment is not what is stopping us from victory.
Training and tactics break down when morale is low.
I am not necessarily talking about jets and bombs. It just impresses me that repurposed military refuse from GW1 is beating the mightiest military in the world. Not a good thought to put on the mind of other potential enemies.
ETA: this was in response to **MrMoto’s ** post, of course.
No it isn’t. It is breaking the political will of certain elements of the American body politic, which is another matter entirely.
And don’t doubt for one second that that wasn’t the ultimate target of those munitions, not the soldiers on the ground.
Not in an occupation. The “insurgents” live there, and will still live there no matter when we leave. All they have to do to beat our military is not lose. Simply by refusing to submit, their victory is inevitable.
As for “political will”, the Democrats HAVE no political will or they wouldn’t have caved in to Bush so often. Supporting the war is giving up, not fighting it.