What?? I thought you were going to put me on "ignore". So much for bluster and indignation.
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quote name='scotsman' timestamp='1332620914' post='684926097'
Yes, I have.
Your article refers to Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. NOT Iran. And Iran IS different. Anyone who really looks at Iran and the rest will see that. There is a genuine non-extremist young political movement (the one being put down currentlky) that is potentially friendly to the West and Israel.
A friendly Iran (post Iamdinnerjacket) could be our best (Muslim/Arab) ally in the region IF the young people take power, or at least use their power to put in moderate men who have kinder thoughts to the West and Israel than the regime does now.
That article pertains to any and all so-called "movements" in the Middle East. IRAN, as well:
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Polling in Iran Shows Real Support for Ahmadinejad
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet,
while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.
http://www.washingto...9061401757.html
Not much of a "movement". "Pro-western"? Fat. Chance. Even without the internet to give them a good look at the outside world, you'd think they would be fed up with the way their lives have been since the Ayatollahs took over. There's a lot of "ifs" in your scenario.
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Let us identify the extremists.
Step one: Go to the Middle East.
Step two: Spit in any direction.
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Let us then use our political power to ensure that such groups are on the margin of these new societies.
Political power hinges on the ability of Western democracies to stay united against Islamic aggression. I don't see that happening. Secondly, I don't see any "new society" emerging in the Middle East or any other Islamic-dominated region as long as they remain dedicated to a violent theocracy diametrically opposed to any kind of reform.
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We cant change these groups existence.
We can kill them. Then they wouldn't exist.
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We cant change their ideas.
Kinda makes the "hearts and minds" thing null and void.
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We CAN change their appeal to Arab youth and to Arabs in general.
If the lousy example they've set for years hasn't been enough to change that appeal, then what the hell makes you think that will change any time soon? Sharia-based oppression has been a staple of Islamic nation states since the Caliphate was created in the 7th century.
Somebody must have liked it enough to keep it going all these years.
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We CAN keep such groups on the margin, and help ensure moderate govts sympathetic to the West and Israel.
"Moderate governments"...didn't we already have that discussion? You mentioned Yemen, and I pointed out that Yemen in fact sponsors terrorism. In case you missed the point, the only real ally we have in the Middle East is Israel, and just for that fact alone, most muzzie countries hate our guts.
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So if start writing these nations and peoples off, then they WILL simply turn to the very people who would use our rejection as 'proof' of Western 'Muslim/Arab hatred'.
Until I see any real proof of genuine change, and I mean massive, I will continue to write them off. Face it, there just isn't enough grassroots support for transformation to a more free, open, democratic society. The saber-rattlers I see in the "movements" tend to gravitate to other extremists. If these "protesters" were just as determined to overthrow Ahmadinejad as the 1979 protesters were in overthrowing the Shah, it would have been over by now. I remember it well. Watching the millions of Iranian's joyous celebrations over the embassy hostages, hailing Ayatollah Khomeini as their holy savior and voting by national referendum, to become an Islamic Republic. Change in the Middle East never works out very well.
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Yeah, dont ya think that opinion was a little stupid?.
Nope.
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Good. What you should see is a quiet, intelligent man who was trained to fight war and would fight wars by being tougher than the enemy, but also being much cleverer.
Uh, you weren't so quiet on that other thread... :whistling:
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Even if I wasnt a fan of hearts and minds, and wanted only a ruthless 'kill first and ask questions later' way of waging war, I would STILL disagree until the end of time with you about your strategy. My brutal and ruthless war would STILL have to be fought with the scalpel, not the club.
Again, the scalpel alone is useless against a metastasized cancer. When we entered WWI and WWII, we didn't lead with "hearts and minds" crap. We led with bullets and bombs. Disagree all you like.
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With the SAS, SBS, SEALS and DELTA, not nuclear bombs.
After a few
neutron bombs, the SpecOps/Spec Forces wouldn't be necessary.
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Firstly, it is simply unworkable. The nuke em all idea is a nonsense. Not only the frankly obscenity of killing 100 innocent people to get one terrorist bad enough, but purely from a military and counterterrorism standpoint, it using a ponderous sledgehammer to crack a mobile and clever nut.
Dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki sure helped bring the Pacific portion of the war to a halt. "Terrorists" weren't the target but it send a message to the COUNTRY full of fanatics that would have certainly fought to every last man, woman, and child had we done a land invasion.
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Secondly, the tedious analogy people here bring up about 1939-45 is such an incorrect analogy my 7 year old niece in Preston, Lancashire could work out is flawed.
It's not an incorrect analogy. If you're going to fight a war, then goddamn it, go all out and finish it. When I left Iraq after my first tour, I wrote this in my journal as the last entry:
"Unfortunately, Hussein is still alive. I still believe that the mission should have continued until we reached Baghdad and destroyed what was left of the Iraqi army. I think this tactical oversight will cause the U.S. Army to return to Southwest Asia in order to finish the job"
No kidding.
In 2003, we were deployed back to Iraq.
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When we fought 1939-45 (or for you 1941-45), or 1991, or 2001, or 2003, we fought nation states, states with infrastructures that had to be and could be and were destroyed. Physical infrastructres, physical armies in the field that could be challenged and defeated.
BUT this enemy is not that.
Okay, we're halfway there. There are Islamic NATION STATES with INFRASTRUCTURES who support not conventional armies, but large contingents of terrorist individuals and GROUPS. Destroy their base of support, and you destroy them. In other words, destroy the very nation states who fund, train, and indoctrinate them, and there will be nowhere for them to hide, let alone reproduce.
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When you killed Bin Laden, did America send in a mass of bombers, nuclear strikes and bomb half of Pakistan to hell?.
No, you sent in an elite but small group of men.
And job done.
After YEARS of sucessful interrogation techniques at GITMO which led to the capture of HVTs like Khalid Sheik Muhammad,and sending lieutenents like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to hell, we finally got the intel to track down Bin Laden to the compound where he had been hiding for gawd knows how long. Fantastic. I'm glad we did. But we knew he
had been hiding in Pakistan for years, it was just a question of where. Secondly, Pakistan is a safehaven for Taliban and Al Qaeda. The Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) has Taliban moles on its payroll, and cells run back across the Afghan border after re-grouping, thanks to the Pakistan regime. Any resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan can be directly attributed to terrorist groups operating carte blanche in Pakistan; abetted by a large portion of the Pakistani government, Army, and ISI. You see the point? We could have expedited the process with a little more persuasive action. If ya get my drift.
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As the old saying goes: its not having the biggest d*ck, its how you use it that counts.
Yeah, I know the "it ain't the meat it's the motion" schtick, but we have the ability to wield a mighty big d*ck, and get rid of a lot of enemy territory.
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Well, that crap seemed to work well for the British, in several terrorist wars on three continents. At a time when both France and America got mauled in SE Asia and lost wars they were expected to win. The British and Australians even taught US Special Forces during Vietnam. Delta Force exists because of an American who served in Malaya with the SAS and saw that the hearts and minds policy worked and that the US needed an American SAS unit. And Jerry King's cross-service with the SAS also lead to the formation of the ISA.
And yet we still have a quite a problem with the spread of Islamic terrorism and attacks around the world, don't we? US Special Forces can only do one particular target at a time, and that "hearts and minds" crap doesn't cut it.
I don't recall the U.S. signing any surrender papers to Hanoi, but I do recall the Dem majority in Congress pulling the war funding in 1974.
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Hunt and peck seems to have worked very well for our Israeli brethern, dont you think?
Israel isn't engaged in a larger scale war like we are, but if Iran gets a wild ICBM hair up its ass, that might change.
This post has been edited by GI JANE: 24 March 2012 - 06:02 PM