if anyone still cares about iraq and afganistan

[wu_trax]

intresting article about the military side
(its a bit long though, im only half way thorugh yet)

[wu_trax]

as usual noone give a damn about my threads

[Scoot951]

5 sentence summary please.

[wu_trax]

us politicians ****ed up both wars, in afganistan and in iraq because they a) failed to specify a specific goal for the war and b) took influence in the strategic decisions, a topic they have no idea about.
because of that the wars will fail or take very long. (there are lots of references to the vietnam war to show the problems)

[Scoot951]

Cool. And very likely true.

[Kåre Willoch]

Very good article. The term Shock and awe is quite equal to blitzkrieg don't you think ? Hitler also thought military might was all that was needed to control the world. It is a fact that Bush is much more comparable to Hitler than Saddam ever was.

I think the US will give up it's failed policies of open military world domination...IF democracy still is functioning over there...one can only hope anyway... If not, the costs of occupying Afghanistan and Iraq will drag the US down.

[Nodrog]

Originally posted by Kåre Willoch
Very good article. The term Shock and awe is quite equal to blitzkrieg don't you think ? Hitler also thought military might was all that was needed to control the world. It is a fact that Bush is much more comparable to Hitler than Saddam ever was.

[Ryudo]

I disagree, they didn't f**k up the second iraq war, the f**ked up the second iraq 'peace', they planned the war down to the not so finest detail, if everthing went perfectly then there would have been something wrong. What they didn't plan was the peace after the war, infact almost everything theyhave done since has been a farce, appart from rounding up the leaders from the old ragime of course. They have given most of the contracts to rebuild iraq to american companies without a tendering process and only tendered out the smaller contracts to other countries. Also they seem to have given the contract to build an iraqie mobile phone network to an american company that said it was going to build the american system, which is not compatible with the GSM system used by every other country in the region. It just goes to show that without proper planning nothing goes right.

[Ryudo]

Very good article. The term Shock and awe is quite equal to blitzkrieg don't you think ? Hitler also thought military might was all that was needed to control the world. It is a fact that Bush is much more comparable to Hitler than Saddam ever was.

Rubbish, could Hitler or Saddam be removed from office by the 'people' (for 'people' read 'lawyers'), just because they apear to have a slight agreement in the use of military force, besides even if bush is a fundamentilist christian he has to try and get reelected so h wont go on a campaign to wipe out some ethnic faction(s).

[MrL_JaKiri]

That's a social rather than ideological comparison for the most part.

[Kåre Willoch]

Originally posted by Ryudo
Rubbish, could Hitler or Saddam be removed from office by the 'people' (for 'people' read 'lawyers'), just because they apear to have a slight agreement in the use of military force, besides even if bush is a fundamentilist christian he has to try and get reelected so h wont go on a campaign to wipe out some ethnic faction(s).

--------
I said he was more compareable...not that he was equal.

Bush leads an agressive imperial state. Hitler did too. To dominate they both relied/rely on superior military force.
Saddam on the other hand, who was actually compared to Hitler, was/is just a minor player in the game of nations. You could sensibly compare him to Mussolini. A fascist and a loudmouth, but hardly somebody about to conquer the world.

The argumentation/propaganda used by Bush and his administration is strikingly similar to that used by a totalitarian state. "For us or against us" is the standard example.

The term "Pre-emptive strike" even tops Hitler's propaganda machinery. The Germans pretended to be attacked by the Poles, which indicates that they knew normal people would think attacking your neighbour is wrong... The Bush administration is so confident that it openly attacks other countries for various bogus excuses (WMD/harbouring terrorists).

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Kåre Willoch
The argumentation/propaganda used by Bush and his administration is strikingly similar to that used by a totalitarian state. "For us or against us" is the standard example.

That's a bible quote. Jesus (supposedly) said it.

[wu_trax]

shock and awe and blitzkrieg were military strategies, one of them worked at its time angainst its enemies, the otherone doesnt seem to (again, against the enemies it is used against, i have no doubt it would work against, lets say, a european country with a conventional army). these things dont have much to do with the political leaders of a country.
what hitler and bush have in common is their authorian style of goverment and probably their ideas of creating an empire.

[Kåre Willoch]

Originally posted by wu_trax
shock and awe and blitzkrieg were military strategies, one of them worked at its time angainst its enemies, the otherone doesnt seem to (again, against the enemies it is used against, i have no doubt it would work against, lets say, a european country with a conventional army). these things dont have much to do with the political leaders of a country.
what hitler and bush have in common is their authorian style of goverment and probably their ideas of creating an empire.

----------
Blitzkrieg worked in conquering countries, just as shock and awe does. But if you turn the population of the world against you (like Hitler did) the sheer number of enemies will take you down. Actually a lot of Russians at first saw themselves as liberated by Hitler, his hate policy against them soon thought them better.

US-planners also put emphasize on the initial military conquest(liberation in their words ofc), and forget about winning the population of the "liberated" country. The money for bombs and fancy high tech planes, is easy to come by, but the money to reconstruct a country after laying it to waste, is not so easy to get hold of. As long as Iraq is in chaos, the support for those fighting the US will be strong.

[Kåre Willoch]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
That's a bible quote. Jesus (supposedly) said it.

-----------
It doesn't make it any better. You can be quite sure Jesus was talking about a fight between good and evil, when Mr Bush uses it in a context of actual armed war, it is quite a different thing.

I mean, he lies about the reasons he gives to go to war, and when somebody questions the lies, they get a "you're either for us or against us" thrown in the face. Talk about throwing rationality overboard.
I don't actually know much about this Howard Dean guy that might become the next democrat in the White House. But he seems to be VERY anti-Bush, and that's enough for me, /crosses fingers...

[wu_trax]

if i understood it correctly 'shock and awe' means massive air strikes within a short periode of time using an absolutly superior air force. the goal of this is to break the enemys will to resist.
the problem with this in both wars, as the article points out (and as ive been saying ever since this whole crap started ), is, given the absolute superiority of the us-army compared to its enemies, that no enemy would stand, risk a direct confrontation and just die, but instead would retreat to a defensive position and start some kind of guirillia warfare (long sentence i hope it makes any sence). i think this has more in ommon with carpet bombing major cities in ww2 (ofc, nowadays directed against more or less military targets, not against civilians). that didnt work out neither.
thinking about it again, this strategy could never work: if you do have an superior army, your enemy wont stay for a fight and if you dont have such an army you dont have the capabilities to implement such a strategy. heh.
dont confuse this with the policy in the occupied territory, thats another story, BUT the us failed to win some hearts in vietnam aswell and i dont think the population in vietnam especially hated the us before the war, which is a fact in most muslim countries.

[Azof]

Originally posted by wu_trax
what hitler and bush have in common is their authorian style of goverment and probably their ideas of creating an empire.

Comparing Hitler and Bush like that is rather absurd. Your belief that the US is an authoritarian state is also rather absurd. I don't know what Bush's ideas are, however, I sincerely doubt he has plans of "creating and empire." He's hardly intelligent enough to do so as well. It feels like you're just bandwagon jumping to Anti-Bush (which I wholey agree with, and is better than the anti-US crap recently...)

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Azof
Your belief that the US is an authoritarian state is also rather absurd.

hahahahhahahahahahha

[wu_trax]

Originally posted by Azof
Comparing Hitler and Bush like that is rather absurd. Your belief that the US is an authoritarian state is also rather absurd. I don't know what Bush's ideas are, however, I sincerely doubt he has plans of "creating and empire." He's hardly intelligent enough to do so as well. It feels like you're just bandwagon jumping to Anti-Bush (which I wholey agree with, and is better than the anti-US crap recently...)

i said his style is authorian, not that the us is (yet) an authorian state (see the article i posted here)

[Azof]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
hahahahhahahahahahha

Nice to see your exceptional skills of discussion.

wu_trax- intersting read, though perhaps biased, and it does seem to have some leaps in logic.

This in particular caught my eye

Most fundamentalist Christians have authoritarian personalities.

I don't believe that his policies reflect that of an authoritarian, nor do I think that would be caused by his upbringing, though they are less civil-rights oriented than I woul prefer. *cough* "Patriot" Act *cough*

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Azof
Nice to see your exceptional skills of discussion.

As you said yourself, the patriot act. That's not the sign of a liberal government.

[Azof]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
As you said yourself, the patriot act. That's not the sign of a liberal government.

So all non-liberal governments are automatically authoritarian? Lol

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Azof
So all non-liberal governments are automatically authoritarian? Lol

I was going to use nonauthoritarian, but that's unwieldy and I thought you'd realise what I was meaning. Evidently not.

[wu_trax]

Originally posted by Azof
I don't believe that his policies reflect that of an authoritarian, nor do I think that would be caused by his upbringing, though they are less civil-rights oriented than I woul prefer. *cough* "Patriot" Act *cough*

i disagree. you mentioned the patriotic act yourself, then look at his attempts of foreign affairs policy which can be summed up with "my way or no way". all signs of a more authorian policy than anything else, ofc its a far lower extend than for example hitler or stalin used, but still, it points in that direction.

unfortunatly i have no idea how reliable the sources that were quoted in the article are, it could aswell be completly made up.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by wu_trax
if i understood it correctly 'shock and awe' means massive air strikes within a short periode of time using an absolutly superior air force. the goal of this is to break the enemys will to resist.

The air strikes are certainly part of it, but not all of it. There's a good definition of 'Shock and Awe' on Wikipedia or read Ullman's book.

the problem with this in both wars, as the article points out (and as ive been saying ever since this whole crap started ), is, given the absolute superiority of the us-army compared to its enemies, that no enemy would stand, risk a direct confrontation and just die, but instead would retreat to a defensive position and start some kind of guirillia warfare (long sentence i hope it makes any sence).

It makes perfect sense militarily, but unfortunately it requires the enemy commanders to make a realistic assessment of their position ahead of time. Everyone is at least partially blind to their own weaknesses to begin with and when you have an authoritarian regime it's far worse. First because they tend to think they're invincible/ordained-by-God/etc., and second because they tend not to solicit or allow viewpoints which disagree with theirs. So Saddam believed the Republican Guard could be an effective force against the Americans and the Republican Guard commanders didn't dare to contradict him.

From a military standpoint, Saddam would have been much smarter to disperse his armies before the fighting and to prepare for a guerrilla war. Instead, he ordered his armies to dig in and fight, and they were mostly destroyed in place (or when they tried to maneuver). The Taliban likewise lost thousands of troops trying to fight set-piece battles that they couldn't win.

Eventually, of couse, both Saddam and the Taliban have had to resort to guerrilla tactics--but only after losing most of their troops and weapons trying to fight a conventional (non-guerrilla) war on our terms.


But then there's also the political dimension to consider. It's a lot easier to be a guerrilla when you're the opposition, as you don't usually have to hold any specific territory, or for very long. However, when you're the government, abandoning the cities to a more powerful enemy might have disasterous political consequences--even if it were the smarter thing to do militarily. Perhaps Saddam and the Taliban felt they had no choice (politically) but to try to defend at least some of their territory, even though it meant fighting on our terms--and losing badly.

[wu_trax]

Originally posted by Tactitus
The air strikes are certainly part of it, but not all of it. There's a good definition of 'Shock and Awe' on Wikipedia or read Ullman's book.

well, ill have a look then... later

It makes perfect sense militarily, but unfortunately it requires the enemy commanders to make a realistic assessment of their position ahead of time.

thats why they didnt fight in open, but now use gurilla warfare, they knew they couldnt win an open confrontation. to put a few concripts on the front line as cannon fooder doesnt exactly count, that probably happend for the political reasons you mentioned below. the same goes for afganistan, there the taliban forces have even a lot more of experience with this kind of war. maybe you caught a few in that one offensive last march, but now they retook a whole strategically important province !!!

Everyone is at least partially blind to their own weaknesses to begin with and when you have an authoritarian regime it's far worse. First because they tend to think they're invincible/ordained-by-God/etc.,

having troops that think they are ordained by god can be extremly usefull, after all these people dont care much if they die during the war.

and second because they tend not to solicit or allow viewpoints which disagree with theirs.

heh, did you read the link i posted when starting this thread?

So Saddam believed the Republican Guard could be an effective force against the Americans and the Republican Guard commanders didn't dare to contradict him.

From a military standpoint, Saddam would have been much smarter to disperse his armies before the fighting and to prepare for a guerrilla war. Instead, he ordered his armies to dig in and fight, and they were mostly destroyed in place (or when they tried to maneuver). The Taliban likewise lost thousands of troops trying to fight set-piece battles that they couldn't win.

Eventually, of couse, both Saddam and the Taliban have had to resort to guerrilla tactics--but only after losing most of their troops and weapons trying to fight a conventional (non-guerrilla) war on our terms.


But then there's also the political dimension to consider. It's a lot easier to be a guerrilla when you're the opposition, as you don't usually have to hold any specific territory, or for very long. However, when you're the government, abandoning the cities to a more powerful enemy might have disasterous political consequences--even if it were the smarter thing to do militarily. Perhaps Saddam and the Taliban felt they had no choice (politically) but to try to defend at least some of their territory, even though it meant fighting on our terms--and losing badly.

i partly agree on what you say here, but i didnt see your enemies really putting up a fight, thats what they are starting now, everything before wasnt serious.