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ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael

Thompson,

Iraq isn't China, she stated conventional forces because any combat with China, at least open combat, is not going to be urban guerilla warfare.  The reasons we lost in Iraq have nothing to do with military capacity and everything to do with a complete and utter lack of competent leadership and vision.

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We went to Korea with conventional forces and got our collective asses handed to us.

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We went to Viet Nam  with conventional forces and got our collective asses handed to us.

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Now we are in Iraq with conventional forces and we are again getting our collective asses handed to us.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

First off, there is no reason we could not have won the Iraq war with conventional forces. We simply moved too fast to secure the population centers or the border under the neocons idiotic belief that we would be welcomed by everybody and a first world democracy would simply spring up.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

General response ...
 
This may not be popular ... but I'm not so skilled as some, at altering reality to match my views, wants and desires.
The reality is that the U.S. goes around the world thugging countries out of their shit.
 
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc ... are not an example of the modern war,
Perhaps you would give us some examples of modern war for comparison?
 
 or how war has evolved. They are examples of what happens to the hyper-powerful when they decide to fight with questionable motives and objectives ... and place strict limitations on what they are willing to do, in order to win.
Your concept of winning and the governments concept may not be the same thing.  In Korea our purpose was to secure our supply of tungsten not to own the country.
In Viet Nam our purpose was again economic and not for the purpose of gaining turf.  We felt that we could inhearet the French empire there and rule it through a puppet like we do in Korea.
Any one that does not believe  we are in Iraq for anything but the oil just is not paying attention.
 
This is nothing new, or something that has come around post-World War II. The Romans fought these kinds of war with little success, as did the Byzantines, Sassanids, and most other powerful nations. The United States seems to excell at foolishly involving herself in these sorts of conflicts.
If you can gain a gazillion dollars worth of some resource in exchange for the blood of the lowest economic fraction of our population, then that is what will happen.
 
Iraq could be over in a month ... complete pacification, and without using our own WMD's. Send the reporters home, blow off world opinion, and unleash the full power of the military. To deny this, is to place the desires of your heart in place of the horrific truth. Do that if you wish, but know that people will see that for what it is.
I think this comes under the heading of genocide.
 
My hope is that the superpower United States will learn from all this, that a superpower just cannot rush to war. This is the lesson to be learned ... not the fool's lesson that the conventional military isn't up to the job of protecting the nation.
Our military is up to the task of defending the nation I believe but then they have not had that task since 1815.

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ORIGINAL: Sinergy

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We went to Korea with conventional forces and got our collective asses handed to us.

Not entirely correct.  What happened in Korea is our government did not want to draw China into a bloody conflict on Korean soil, so we partitioned the country as a way of not going to war with China.

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If I remember correctly it was the Chinese  that the first Marine division fought at Chosin Reservoir and that is in Korea.
You will notice that the line that partitions Korea puts the tungsten supply on our side of the line....kinda of convenient.  If you look real close at the line that divides that country you will see that that line makes a detour around the tungsten deposits so as to include them on our side of the line.  It ain't a straight line.
We went to Viet Nam  with conventional forces and got our collective asses handed to us.

Not militarily. 
You are going to have to give me some explanations as to how you see that.

We did not "win" in Vietnam because the American people did not have the will to do what would have been needed to "win."
Yeah it is called genocide...the Chinese have a fifteen hundred year history of learning that the only way you are ever going to "take"Viet Nam is to kill every Viet Namese.
Taking Viet Nam was never an option.  We were there to shore up our puppet and to extract as much of the wealth of the country as possible before we left.

Doing what would have been needed to win would have drawn us into a conflict with China.
It is possible that China would have accepted U.S. control over the south but that is a little iffy.  Probably a little more likely after the rapprochement due to Nixon.

So we made a deal which partitioned the country, and when Nixon wanted to get reelected and the American public lost faith in the leadership of our country, he pulled us out of the country.
It was not until middle class white boys started coming home in rubber sacks that the American public lost faith in the prosecution of the war.

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Now we are in Iraq with conventional forces and we are again getting our collective asses handed to us.

I agree with this one.

Have to put Vietnam and Korea into context, this occurred when the United States and the USSR were at loggerheads.  The United States being involved in a full-on regional conflict with China, it was thought, would have resulted in a Soviet invasion of Europe and the conquest of the Earth by the Red Menace.
This is the rhetoric that came out of Washington...if that were so then why did the U.S. trade with Russia and China all during the cold war.  All on the q t of course.  It would not do to have the masses know that the big boys all eat at the same table.

Whether or not this perception was accurate, sane, or supported by historical precedents, it was the perception.
Yes this was the perception that  Washington pimped to the American people, not the reality that drove the war effort.

I also generally agree with the various points about tungsten and oil and the like.

Synergy

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

Unforunately it is too late for drastic action. China holds far too many dollars. If they were to suddenly unload them onto the world market the dollar's value would crash.

We need to wean ourselves off Chinese goods while ending deficit budgets and priority should be given to redeeming Chinese held bonds and other financial instruments.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

It was not until middle class white boys started coming home in rubber sacks that the American public lost faith in the prosecution of the war.

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This is the rhetoric that came out of Washington...if that were so then why did the U.S. trade with Russia and China all during the cold war.  All on the q t of course.  It would not do to have the masses know that the big boys all eat at the same table.
 

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ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth

thompson / et al;
You make good points which point to a broader issue. The distinction, unique in the 'West' and in particular the US, between the USSR, China, and to a lessor extent our current enemies in the middle east, is that the entity called the US is not the beneficiary of any war victory. Although its people pay directly with their lives and their tax money; the beneficiaries are US Corporations not the US.

Korea, was access to tungsten for the citizens of the US or the Companies who use it? Southeast Asia, were we fighting against communism or, as it turns out cheap labor? The beneficiary, Corporations making goods and Corporations that import them. In the middle east, do you belief for a moment if we did take over any oil field they would become the possession of the US or would deals be struck with oil Corporations?

There is a identity problem in the US. We believe, or if you prefer we are brainwashed, that the actions taken by our politicians are to benefit the US. What is the US? Its no longer the people. The people have no power in the direction of the US. The latest polls show total contempt for the immigration bill, Democratic voters more so than Republicans, yet any voice of the people is considered ignorant of he facts at best, or at worse racist. The beneficiary once again of the Bill - the Corporations.

I don't know if I'd go back as far as 1815, but I'd agree than any military action taken by the US government since 1941 has been to directly benefit the US Corporations. Think about it, do you think any of the Corporations who got rich while producing the goods necessary to support WWII were ready to go back to generating "routine" profits after the war? As soon as that war was over, they looked for other war "opportunities".

US workers and trade unions were taken along for the ride until the 1970's however ever since international communication, trade, and technology advanced the need for US workers has decreased, especially at the blue collar level.

We the people, are tricked into believing grandiose ideals called 'democracy', and 'freedom' and the need to spread it throughout the world. We are told that we, as a rich country founded on freedom, should be prepared to go anywhere in the world to fight for those who are oppressed and subject to genocide. Yet, Darfur goes on and it takes a great effort to find any daily reference in our news.

We the people are kept apart by our politicians providing entertaining issues to debate. Abortion, ERA, even silly things like requiring helmets while riding a motorcycle; whatever it takes to create emotional response to an issue. If that doesn't work, there is always the circus of the modern media age; creating a generation of couch potatoes trained to think and react to subliminal and not so subliminal messages of what to buy and what is important.

The confidence of the Corporate/Political hierarchy is growing. Why else would they now be so obvious in disclosing the similarity of the political parties by putting forth the supplemental War Funding Bill and the Immigration Bill. Both against the vast majority of citizens. Both only benefiting one entity; NOT the USA but US Corporations.

Sorry... but your post just generated this off the cuff rant.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

Mercnbeth:
I mention 1815 because that was the last time the American military defended America....every war since then was for profit.
Smedly Butler USMC MOH wrote a book called "War is a Racket"  In it he details who made money and how much during the first world war.  He also was responsible for stoping the coup d'tat against Roosevelt by Singer,Du Pont et al.
Your assessment of corporate amerika is spot on.  Which is why I reposted in its entirety because it bears repeating.
thompson

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ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael

DomKen,

While I could quibble over details, you are right. Iraq was stupid but doing it as they did was criminal. They violated every tenent of common sense and accepted guerilla tactics. Bush created this mess first by invading Iraq and then by ignoring common sense once he had committed the blunder.

Anyone else notice a pattern here? 

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ORIGINAL: Sinergy

Not entirely correct.  What happened in Korea is our government did not want to draw China into a bloody conflict on Korean soil, so we partitioned the country as a way of not going to war with China.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We did not "win" in Vietnam because the American people did not have the will to do what would have been needed to "win."

Doing what would have been needed to win would have drawn us into a conflict with China.

So we made a deal which partitioned the country, and when Nixon wanted to get reelected and the American public lost faith in the leadership of our country, he pulled us out of the country.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Have to put Vietnam and Korea into context, this occurred when the United States and the USSR were at loggerheads.  The United States being involved in a full-on regional conflict with China, it was thought, would have resulted in a Soviet invasion of Europe and the conquest of the Earth by the Red Menace.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen
First off, there is no reason we could not have won the Iraq war with conventional forces. We simply moved too fast to secure the population centers or the border under the neocons idiotic belief that we would be welcomed by everybody and a first world democracy would simply spring up.

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ORIGINAL: Vendaval

I noticed the repeated strategy here, Cold War Era, wars in Korea and Vietnam,
fear of having another country intervene, Korea and Vietnam cut at various parallel
lines and divided. 
 
So now we have Iraq, the War on Terror, fear of having Iran and other countries
in the Middle East intervene and the likely strategy of partitioning the country.  

Anyone else notice a pattern here? 

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn


 
Iraq could be over in a month ... complete pacification, and without using our own WMD's. Send the reporters home, blow off world opinion, and unleash the full power of the military. To deny this, is to place the desires of your heart in place of the horrific truth.