US manpower

Originally posted by magicmushroom
The US military is stretched at the moment, its available Army manpower is about 850k which sounds a lot but not when you look at US commitments Worldwide. Also its a big mistake to include the total numbers of the armed foces as the greater percentage will not be fighting on the ground.

Mushroom, 850K doesn't sound like a lot at all for a nation that has over 300 million people in it.. Also, as you pointed out, it's certainly not much when you consider our commitments around the globe. We should be marchin a 3 or 4 million man army easy.. and that is in peace time!!

Originally posted by BlueRaja
I disagree with the assertion that we went to Iraq, to make money. Nobody in their right mind goes to war to get rich(at a national level, perhaps you could say a Mercenary fights for money). Do you honestly believe that the government wouldn't have preferred the last 6yrs to be peaceful, and have an easy time in office, rather than the crap they've had to deal with day in and day out. Where's the cheap oil? Halliburton didn't start the war. I've been in Iraq, so I am somewhat qualified to speak based on personal experience- most Iraqis just want stability and while they may not be crazy about us being there, they're even less crazy about us leaving in a hurry, and everything going down the crapper. The percentage fighting us because they lost a relative is a pittance compared to the other reasons I've mentioned.

Ther government expected to be out of baghdad in 90 days.
they never expected it to become this out of control.

why else would you ALLOW terrorists to attack?

Originally posted by magicmushroom
Yes the US has large Army reserves but these are hardly combat proven or ready and if the professionals (ahem) cannot complete the job its doubtful reserves will.

THere are 25 active combat brigades from the regular army that can be sent out of the US and into Iraq. That's without even changing the ones in korea and the like.

We can send less than half of that, and still double the troop pressence in Iraq, and thats with regular army troops, not reserves, who are doing a fine job of it anyway.

Also the US Goverment is concerned of losses, not that its cares about its personnel, more the fact that it does not want to loose power.

US losses in iraq are about 1/80th of US losses per day in Vietnam. Clearly, there's not a concern about weakening the army through deaths and other casualties.

Either way America is up # creek without a paddle, it looses either way.

You do realize that its the whole of the West that has been defeated here, right? No nation, anywhere now, is going to be able to do anything, short of sanctions, to stop jihadists in the middle east. THey will simply slowly take over the entire region, and then have control of, or at least over, the world's oil supply. They're going to use it to build nuke weapons, just like iran is, and then they're going to start nuking, or threatening to nuke, western cities. Its not what the average muslim wants, but its what the fanatics that are killing people en mass in iraq want. There's nothing left in the world to stop them.

my sympathy lies with the grunts and the innocents who have and continue to make the supreme sacrifice, we forget them so easily.

My sympathy lies with the future victims of this upcomming nuclear holocaust.

We should be marchin a 3 or 4 million man army easy

We have around a million people in the military. COmpare that, oddly enough, to north korea, which ALSO has 1 million people in its army. They are in the top 5 'larget militaries in the world'. And thats with a population of 22 million. If we had a million men in the army for every 20 million, meaning we had the same fanatical militarism that the NKs have, we'd have something like 15 million people in our military.

[edit on 12-12-2006 by Nygdan]

The government may have expected things to go much better in the aftermath, but they didn't allow anybody to attack. Unless you already have planes in the air flying CAP, and know that an attack is in fact happening, there's not a whole lot you can do to stop it. It doesn't take long to fly from Dulles to DC, or from JFK to the Trade Center. Till planes started hitting buildings there was no way to know that was their intent. The 8yrs prior to Bush were a dismal failure in dealing with Al Qeada/Terrorists, and merely served to embolden them(i.e. the USS Cole, embassies, Khobar Towers, etc...) Could we have done a better job- sure. Does it sometimes take a disaster to bring into realization that a system is broken(or at least needs a complete overhaul)- the answer is yes. Many of the post 9/11 policies wouldn't have public approval, unless we'd been hit, so that's why there were some deficiencies in our defenses.

The system was not brocken.

The US government had an absolute TREASURE trove of intellegence, of warnings, of FBI field agents, of intenational agencies warning htem of what was coming.

I mean jesus, bush refused to be questioned under oath ALONE about the intellegence they had prior?

doesnt that ring any bells ?

Condi answered every question with ' i dont remmeber '

Why ar emeetings about the threat being lied about, only to be admitted to years later?
The sytem worked, everyone knew the threat and saw it coming.

I cant believe u think the system wasnt working here...



question:


How do you not SEE, known terrorists enter the country, under EXTREMELY dubious paperwork?
How do you MISS them training in FLIGHTSCHOOLS, ESPECIALLY when you'd HEARD of them planning to use planes as missles?
HOW Do you miss the intellegence FOREIGN AGENCIES ARE emploring you to act on about terrorists about to attack?

JEsus man wake up...

the system worked,

your governmnet wants you to believe it didnt, so they can bring in all these new laws.

There a difference between it failing, and it being allowed to fail!

It's one thing to have a lot of raw data- what was broken was the ability for it to be processed into actionable intel. Just because an lower level intel squirrel in one agency gets some data, and another in some other agency gets other data, unless there's means to connect the dots, and get it to the appropriate entities, it remains raw data. What we learned were where some of our vulnerabilities were. To say that Bush and his folks not being forthcoming about what our vulnerabilities are, is lying, is a bit disingenuous. The previous admin didn't connect the dots in 8yrs, no other intel agency in the world did either, so why in 7 or 8 months should Bush and crew be any more likely to have?

Bush received MEMOS stating an attack was coming.
FOREIGN INTELLEGENCE agencies warned them..
FBI AGENTS WERE REQUESTING additional investigation on arabs training in flight schools.

Condi had a meeting with CIA director where he STATED an attack was looming,
she DENIED IT HAPPENED to the 911 committee, but as of late it has come out it RELALY HAPPENED.

If bush and co COULDNT put 2 + 2 together, with all the calulators, abacuses, maths wiz's and computers they had infront of them...

then how on earth did they even wake up and tie there shoes.

I dont like giving out statements and lines im going to use in a soon to be posted thread..

but on sept12, when heads of state were meeting discussing what action to take...

GW bush walked up and asked them to FIND A link between Saddam and 911.

The CIA man turned and said '' but alqaeda did this, it was alqaeda ''

bush snapped back

'' I know, I know ''


If this was a surprise attack,

How was the PRESIDENT CERTAIN, the next day of who did it...

enough so he was activley looking for links BETWEEN the culpirates and another party?

He OBVIOUSLY NEW alqaeda was responsible before the events happened.

How are you aware of who is ABOUT TO ATTACK YOU,
but NOT AWARE an attack is coming?

"GW bush walked up and asked them to FIND A link between Saddam and 911.

The CIA man turned and said '' but alqaeda did this, it was alqaeda ''

bush snapped back

'' I know, I know ''


Can you provide a link, where I can confirm that those were his exact words?

Also a link showing that Bush knew that the attack was happening on Sept 11th, and which planes were involved?

I don't disagree that a lot mistakes were made, but hindsight is 20/20 eh?
The take away is how do we fix these shortcomings, not finger pointing.

Originally posted by Nygdan

We should be marchin a 3 or 4 million man army easy

We have around a million people in the military. COmpare that, oddly enough, to north korea, which ALSO has 1 million people in its army. They are in the top 5 'larget militaries in the world'. And thats with a population of 22 million. If we had a million men in the army for every 20 million, meaning we had the same fanatical militarism that the NKs have, we'd have something like 15 million people in our military.

[edit on 12-12-2006 by Nygdan]

Well, yeah...I think the real question is, why don't we? Is it because there is no longer a draft? Or do we think that we are just so much more technologically advanced that man power is not an issue? If it is the latter, we have much to learn.

I'd be curious to know how many men on the ground China has. I feign to even imagine...

sigh,

I dont bother when people demand something that doesnt exist

You think there's a memo out there written by bush saying

'' I knew that this plane was going to hit this target on this day ''

And like I said, i am posting a thread so hold tight.

How many insider people is it going to take for people to see that the government was AWARE an attack was being planned, that would be big?

2? 3? 5? 10?

If I have 10 different people, from government ciricles all saying that the government had PRIOR knowdlege...

would that be enough?


finger pointing is one thing,

but whom to point the finger at is critical!

My point is that you seem certain that those things happened in exactly that manner. Maybe they did. Before I point fingers though, I like to make sure I have completely accurate info, with corroborating sources.
These need to be credible sources too. If a source seems to have an axe to grind, I'm going to be less likely to take everything they say at face value.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
I believe that a % of the attacks are from outside influences.

but ultimately, it is the iraqis who are being bombed, shot, and drive out of their homes.
[We do not waste bombs on civillians.
We do not fire on civillians. (With orders, there have been court- marshals, and executions ofr individual soldiers doing this.)
Driven out of their homes is due to sectarian violence and threats.]

Its Iraqi's being locked up and interrogated by US Forces.
[Generally, with just-cause.]

Even so,

Anyone who takes a shot at US Forces is deemed a 'terrorist' under current government standards.

[Yes. If you fire a bullet at an enemy soldier, you're going to be killed. This is true for any nation, in all the world.]

If your family was murdered in a bomb strike...
you had nothin left, but a war torn country where death was saturating..
wouldnt you pick up a gun, and take a shot at the occupiers that caused so much suffering?
[Again, we don't waste bombs on civillians. Yes, there have been accidents. Preferably, I'd try to rise above it, aid my country, and stop the cycle of death which is destroying myself, my country-men, and my religiou sect that I care so much about.]
The US is ensuring the war on terrorism GROWS, every minute we are in Iraq.
[We're ensuring nothing. However, because we are there, every dissident country which has the slightest issue with us is pouring forces, and arms into the region. We're in one of the most volatile areas of the world, and we're hated. Of course it's growing.]
But its passed the equilibruim,

If we stay, terorrism increases.
If we leave, terrorism increases.

This war being lost has nothing to do with the public losing stomach wanting to follow it,

its lost because the reasoning, the rational and the goals of this conflict were illegitimate and illegial.
[These do not affect the outcome of wars. Do not romanticize a bull# concept.]

We went into this war to make money, not to better humanity.
[No, we didn't. Halliburton conspiracies, even if true, do not cover the entire war. Put some facts into your posts, some evidence, I ask.]

And that is the reason this war will never be won.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
I dont like giving out statements and lines im going to use in a soon to be posted thread..

but on sept12, when heads of state were meeting discussing what action to take...

GW bush walked up and asked them to FIND A link between Saddam and 911.

The CIA man turned and said '' but alqaeda did this, it was alqaeda ''

bush snapped back

'' I know, I know ''


If this was a surprise attack,

How was the PRESIDENT CERTAIN, the next day of who did it...

enough so he was activley looking for links BETWEEN the culpirates and another party?

He OBVIOUSLY NEW alqaeda was responsible before the events happened.

How are you aware of who is ABOUT TO ATTACK YOU,
but NOT AWARE an attack is coming?

I'm seconding this. You're making a massive amount of very large claims, with no factual support, and when asked for some -- You say, 'You think they'd let people know this?!'

Then how do you know it.
Where'd you learn it.

Or did you just listen to some thread, or some discussion, where people claimed the same, without support, and you believed them.

'Deny Ignorance' goes for this forum as well. If you don't know something, and begin to babble incoherant claims without support, you do not belong here.

horsepower > manpower?

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
I am not sure how many soldiers the U.S has...I doubt that it's over 2 million...However, considering that we are spread all over the war in places like France,Germany and others, it is no wonder that we don't have enough to go into Iraq..

There was enough to go into Iraq and properly pacify it but that did not fit with the plans of those who make these decisions. How can insurgents stage a insurgency when you have half a million troops watching their every move?

One of the problems that I see with the current conflict and the reason why the "war on terrorism" is not winnable is because the American public is not patient enough.. I don't necessarily think that we should be in Iraq; however, I am referring more to how long the "war on terrorism" would last any way.. Americans do not have the tenacity to support a prolonged war.

People will rally round the flag if they believe their nation is under attack and that is why governments work so hard to stage these events so that they may gain that added control over their populations.

Vietnam ruined this country when it comes to conflict.

And how on Earth did they manage to lose that war after winning it so many times over?

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Agit, you seem to be implying that it is actually Iraqis we are fighting over there.. I don't think that that has even a remote semblance of truth to it. I don't.. If you look at what is going on, the vast majority of the insurgency is entering via Iran and Syria

America's military leaders ( not the civilians oversight people who pretend to know what's going on ) have openly admitted that there is no evidence to suggest that the insurgency is due to actions by Iran or Syria or that they are supporting the insurgency with manpower...

The borders, much like here in the U.S, are not secure in Iraq.

Why are US borders not secure? Why is such a simple thing not done when they keep talking about American security? Stanislav Lunev ( highest ranking KGB defector)
testified that there are small nuclear weapons all over America just waiting to exploded by their operators on cue during the start of a nuclear exchange. Why is home security so lax when so much money is spent on terrorizing innocents all over the world?

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Well, from what I see, it wasn't the war planning that is the problem in Iraq.

There was no way for conventional Iraqi armed forces to resist after more than a decade of attrition but they tried and sometimes fought quite effectively ( assuming that any resistance against such overwhelming force is already rather brave) as people are apt to do when their country is under attack.

The problem is that we had no plan for afterwards.

Sure there were plans for afterwards but the civilians in the Pentagon decided that they were not going to go with the official military plans and just send enough people to make a insurgency possible.

I mean, hell, it looks to me as if the current administration thought that after Saddam was put away, everything would be hunky dory over there.

They knew that there would be resistance and they did so much to encourage it that it's hard not to think that it's what they wanted.

Well, it's not and the present administration doesn't seem to know what to do about it.

Then how come the solution is so simple that even i understand what peace in Iraq would require of the occupiers? It's not like there is not a few thousand years worth of history on the topic? Terror works but not when you go about it half-assed and refuse to admit that you are a brutal mass murdering entity that wants what he wants and wont take no for a answer your only going to invite attack due to your brutal but indecisive measures. The reason Empires by these means are no longer possible is simply because territory is no longer very important and there is very little in the way of public mandate.

Considering the history of that whole region, the Middle East, it was rather naive to think that everything would be peaceful after Saddam's fall. What on God's green earth ever gave anyone the inclination that it would be?

What history? Where did you get the idea that they thought it would be peaceful? The military planners apparently knew what would happen and it's clear from their planning documents what they thought would be required to 'win' the peace.

Now we have, what, 150,000 troops over there? It is not nearly enough. Before we even invaded Iraq, experts were declaring that we would need at least 400,000 to secure Iraq.. We never had that many over there. We may have had to 250 thousand at the climax, but never upwards toward 400,000.

The only question that remains is why you are still stuck on the idea that this is all some kind of horrible accident and due to some kind of government mismanagement? Why can government so easily sell us on the fact that they made mistakes when it suits them while denying it with a strait face for 'as long as it takes' when it does not?

Stellar

Originally posted by Nygdan
Indeed, war is bad for business. The capitalist class will have to favour relatively peaceable sitautions, not terribly war-filled ones.

Then why is arms production such a boom business and why has both the US and British economies been transformed to focus on it while other far more vital industries are shipped to the slave labour states in the East? History shows us that war is great for business and even better if you want to shape society in the corporate image.

Also, as far as politics, the iraq war has destroyed the republican rule of the us government.

It does not matter as America is already virtually a one party state already. The parties say different things but do the same and i am not entirely sure why so many otherwise informed people are so easily fooled by this charade.

For over a decade they had control of congress, and for 8 years they had the white house too. And that gave them the supreme court. Now they've pretty much lost it all, and disgracefully.

They are only temporary leaders and they understand well that the only way to stay in power at all is to do what they are told by those who sponsor them. Those behind the scenes hardly care much if it's democrats or republicans who rule as the sponsor both parties.

If the republicans had planned the iraq war to keep themselves in power, and their monied backers rich, then they'd've gone into iraq with the largest army possible, and used the most brutal and represseive tactics possible, in order to have security and success.

But that was apparently not the aim and why they sent just enough soldiers to make a insurgency possible and successful. Is it not obvious that the aim of the bankers is to slowly destroy what is left of the American armed forces? Monied bankers do not need any more money as money is just a method of control and quite useless to them if not applied to increase their power over us.

As it is, they blundered into it and blundered throughout it, and have been booted out because of it.

Why assume that such otherwise intelligent people ( they got Bush into power after all?) can make such simple minded mistakes? I can see how thinking of them as foolish is easier on the mind but do you really believe it and if so why?

Hell, if we 'follow the success and who benefits', then we'd have to suspect the democrats of having engineered the iraq war.

So maybe it does and they get a wonderful mandate from the people in the next election so they have all that trust to once again abuse the populace in unexpected ways? Is grossly manipulated democracy not grand?

Hmm, they DID universally back the war itself, and then quickly get on the 'anti-war' bandwagon, perhaps they DID plan it all, eh?

Some notable political and historical commentators have said that nothing in politics is ever accidental or coincidental and i am of the opinion that this is the best way to investigate the actions of our so called 'leaders'.

If a state is about to conquer your state, then any 'theory' of war is meaningless, you have to respond just to survive.

Self defense( a uniformed national defense force anyways) is allowed under Un conventions....

BUt hussein didn't try to expand into the US. Indeed, hussein wasn't, per the neoconservative rational, really a threat to the US at all.

Not long before 9-11 both Rice and Powell stated quite bluntly that SH has not rebuilt his armed forces and that he posses no threat to US security. Ask any of his neighbours if they considered him a threat in 2001....

It was that the middle east needed to be reorganized along democratic lines, that this was necessary to stop terrorism, that was the rationale for removing dictators.

No it was not as the US government is a larger , if not the largest sponsor of terrorist and terrorist organizations in the world. ME attempts to move democracy have been thwarted by US or other imperial actions so many times that one wonders why they even keep on trying. Make no mistake in thinking that the US intervenes in foreign countries to spread 'democracy' as there is very little if any evidence and overwhelming factual material showing otherwise.

Hussein was supposed to be the start of all that. As it is, looks like he was the end of all that.

In my opinion things happened as they planned and they got all the social upheaval and destruction of Iraq that they wanted.

Originally posted by Nygdan
THere are 25 active combat brigades from the regular army that can be sent out of the US and into Iraq. That's without even changing the ones in korea and the like.

Considering that the units there are suffering from equipment shortages already would sending a few more units that are even less prepared really help?

We can send less than half of that, and still double the troop pressence in Iraq, and thats with regular army troops, not reserves, who are doing a fine job of it anyway

A fine job they might very well be doing under the circumstances but can the US armed forces really afford tens of thousands maimed and dead for absolutely no benefit to itself? It is not as if the US army bleeds now to prevent the Iraqi army from one doing becoming a USSR or anything...

US losses in iraq are about 1/80th of US losses per day in Vietnam. Clearly, there's not a concern about weakening the army through deaths and other casualties.

The Vietnam conflict cost the US nearly 70 thousand dead and a few hundred thousand seriously wounded so while it might not look bad against that record does that not say more about your bloody minded approach to comparison? You do realise that they have now lost the equivalent of 3-4 line divisions worth of trained men due to their service in Iraq, right? You do realise that the first gult war cost the US armed forces 350 000 casualties? And all this to bring from power a man the CIA installed and kept in power? Empires creates their own enemies.

You do realize that its the whole of the West that has been defeated here, right? No nation, anywhere now, is going to be able to do anything, short of sanctions, to stop jihadists in the middle east.

So we are in this 'together'? Talk about lame excuses for getting your fellow countrymen killed? Should we put it on their tombstones ' died in defense of western values' and are you sure they were briefed on this reality? There are more religious fanatics in the USA today than there is Iran and certainly a larger percentage of the population of the population? The sanctions against Iraq worked pretty well killing probably upwards of 700 000; too bad that half a million of those were kids that never even knew they were Iraqi's or what they were being punished over.

THey will simply slowly take over the entire region, and then have control of, or at least over, the world's oil supply.

First off the ME does not really hold a large part of the world's oil supply as is commonly believe by the propagandized people of the world. How the 'religious fanatics' ( based on what i don't know but lets pretend ) are going to take over the region i have no idea but it probably does not help when you take away a leader like SH who did not take any nonsense from these so called 'fanatics'. Why did the US overthrow Iranian moderates not so long ago bringing to power those groups that they now call fanatics? Why did they sponsor into power the real fanatics that ruled Afghanistan till very recently?

They're going to use it to build nuke weapons, just like iran is, and then they're going to start nuking, or threatening to nuke, western cities.

And when they do those who really dislike the ME can level the entire place? Why on Earth would anyone who has a few nukes actually want to use them so as to serve as excuse for those who seeks to destroy them? This is not a logical argument and it once against assumes that America's enemies are bumbling fools and or fanatics that never considers self preservation as their primary objective. If these people are so crazy and suicidal why are car bombs not exploding in major American cities every day of the week? Because American border security is so great or because they are too dumb to manage it? Actually imo they just want to defend themselves against the obvious aggression but they do not really want to give anyone added excuses, to come bomb them once more, so they just do if after their sovereign territory have been invaded and have earned the right to violence in self defense. These so called fanatics are far less fanatical than the people who run America, the UK and other western nations.

Its not what the average muslim wants, but its what the fanatics that are killing people en mass in iraq want. There's nothing left in the world to stop them

The fanatics running the American armed forces today are surely killing people in mass in Iraq today and it seems to be exactly what they wanted from the start. How the Iraq resistance is going to prevent this from happening in the long run is any one's guess but they are by no means responsible for any great amount of the civilian dead. You only need to read official US army documents to realise this.

My sympathy lies with the future victims of this upcomming nuclear holocaust.

Then watch China building itself up to assist Russia in the inevitable war that American leaders will try wage on them as America's decline becomes ever more obvious to one and all. It wont be pretty but it wont be completely undeserved either.




[edit on 16-12-2006 by StellarX]

Continued

We have around a million people in the military. COmpare that, oddly enough, to north korea, which ALSO has 1 million people in its army. They are in the top 5 'larget militaries in the world'. And thats with a population of 22 million. If we had a million men in the army for every 20 million, meaning we had the same fanatical militarism that the NKs have, we'd have something like 15 million people in our military.

And that is sadly not of much use when you have lost control over what happens in the skies over the continental US.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX

Considering the history of that whole region, the Middle East, it was rather naive to think that everything would be peaceful after Saddam's fall. What on God's green earth ever gave anyone the inclination that it would be?

What history? Where did you get the idea that they thought it would be peaceful? The military planners apparently knew what would happen and it's clear from their planning documents what they thought would be required to 'win' the peace.

Stellar

What history? Hell, man, they have been fighting in the Middle East for 4000+ years!! What made the U.S government think that it was going to cease with the fall of one dictator!!??

Where did I get the idea that the U.S government thought it would be peaceful? Well, unless you are going to state that all of this is just an intentional conspiracy to get our GIs murdered over there, I think it's quite obvious that the U.S government didn't count on as much conflict as there has been since the fall of Saddam..

[edit on 16-12-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
What history? Hell, man, they have been fighting in the Middle East for 4000+ years!!

Had enough time to manage the kind of civilization the permanently at war Europeans did not for a long time after? I think if you go compare records you will find in which area the most blood got spilled.

What made the U.S government think that it was going to cease with the fall of one dictator!!??

They never did and hope it would encourage violence and instability?

Where did I get the idea that the U.S government thought it would be peaceful?

Well, unless you are going to state that all of this is just an intentional conspiracy to get our GIs murdered over there, I think it's quite obvious that the U.S government didn't count on as much conflict as there has been since the fall of Saddam..

It's not about getting the GI's killed as much as it is draining the American armed forces of funds and equipment; the tens of thousands of GI's may very well just be incidental. That being said the conflict in both Korea, Vietnam and could be easily have been resolved years earlier but the American government actively conspired to keep it going costing the countries involved millions of extra casualties.

Stellar