Zephyr Net

I never said that this was a damn Utopia I am saying that we should have done something back then to at least do something right for the future.

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Centurian

Well CENT in your world of just do this or that, I'm telling you it was not something that we could have done in 91' for many reasons.
For a genuis like you that did not have to putt your ass on the line. Did not have to spend months in the desert, did not attend funerals for buddies, did not feel the relief when we had achieved the initial goal and survive, and look forward to getting back to regular life and family. Those are real easy words to spit about. But I gave you good advice, be carefull saying that shit around anybody that was there, some may not take it as good as me here now.

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"cool beanz"
D. "FETCH" Jordan

Explain to me why we shouldn't have done it then? Why should we not have done it then rather than this time, waste even more money, cost even more lives, and cost even more effort and time. The Iraqi army was in shambles and we could have pushed in and done even more, hurt them even worse. Granted they were nothing in 2003, they were certainly hurting bad after 42 days of intense slaughter.

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Centurian

This might get long but I will try to be concise.

First from a personel prospective.
Most of the active duty forces and equipment had been out there for almost a whole year getting ready, without rotation, and or the forces to rotate due to deployment levels.
Here's a question for a smart guy like you ...
Do you know why the ideal "long" deployment is less than 9 months ?
After all we are only humans (and that goes for military spouses too).

From an equipment perspective.
What do you think a Tank battalion or artillery regiment does for 10 months in preparation for and invasion like GF1.
How far can an M1 go before you've got to replace the treads ?
Got an ideal how many bombs and ordinance we spent during the War and in prep.

From an political perspective.
Here at home the political will was not there to spend the blood it would have taken to go into the heart of the beast, sure maybe it might have been possible, but the threat level to us here at that time did not make the expenditure in American blood worth it when we had done such a great job at the mission objective and an almost tolerable loss of life (not that any loss of our guys can be said to be worth this or that)
From a geopolitical point of view the rest of the world absolutely would not have supported continuing into Baghdad.
And at that time what after Saddom was removed if we had continued the war ?

Like it or not the fact is we basically shot our load, or at least a large enough portion of it to where it took time to replenish our stores and re-equip our forces. I mean it's not like we here in America was on some sort of war time production footing like WWII either before during or after GF1.
Seriously these are just some quick outlines of what went down and the way it was. I could dig up some data if I needed to, but prefer to ask you ..
just how old where you in 91' ?
I mean the road you heading down now is like you trying to tell a WWII Vet about WWII from some BS you heard, read, or believe for some reason when he was really there.
Use your head for more than a hat rack, and think about it.
I am reminded of people that say after WWII we should have just kept fighting but just turned from the Axis and engaged the Russians.
That's easy to say for someone that was not there, and might sound great, but in the real world can anybody seriously think that was doable ?
Give me an break.
And take my advice, and try to show some respect for those that sacrifice for you to sit your but up at school while other young men right now this very minute are taking risk you are not willing to.

And if I did not like and respect you, I would never spend this much effort trying to convince you of the folly of that statement. If I did not think you where worth the investment I would not dig up the memories I have of those times to try add relate to you in some manner the personal sacrifices we went through.

You of course are entitled to any opinion you want, but that can't change what happened, and the atmosphere in which it took place.

And no I really don't think your a twit, or knucklehead, or anything else I might have typed, that's just the way I write for anybody not used to my Marine lingo ....
But those really are fighting words to me under the right curcomstances.
Just don't ever start that shit if we do meet in person and are drinking.
Good nite CENT, catch ya later.

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"cool beanz"
D. "FETCH" Jordan

See now that's a good explanation I can like that. My thing is we had a military 400x bigger than then we have now. In addition, we were already there, deployed. Granted yes you guys were there for months even before the first bombs fell and we sure as hell dropped a lot of ordinance, albeit most of it conventional, and of course treads need replacing. However, we were what, 90 miles away from Baghdad? In addition we had Schwartkopf (can never spell that name) versus Franks. That man knew his stuff. We had them on the run. Hell Saddam had no airforce left, his military was demoralized, and just about everyone except his Republican Guard remnants and Fedayeen were done for. We had air superiority. I'm not saying we would have taken it in 3 hours but tactical bombing inside Baghdad to get that SOB would have been worth it. In addition, I am sure our CIA intelligence was A LOT better then than in the post-Clinton era.

And to answer your question I was 8 at the time. I'm not telling you anything from a point of something I read, heard, or what not. I'm looking at it from an aspect of "Shit look at what we know now" kind of thing. I do remember one thing about that war though, watching CNN every morning before I went off to school because my dad had it on every morning.

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Centurian

"See now that's a good explanation I can like that. My thing is we had a military 400x bigger than then we have now. In addition, we were already there, deployed. Granted yes you guys were there for months even before the first bombs fell and we sure as hell dropped a lot of ordinance, albeit most of it conventional, and of course treads need replacing."

Remeber this ....
Like the presant conflict there where a large number of Gaurdsmen envolved, I must also say that we where not sitting around on our asses, we where useing up ammo in training, and unlike this go around we where green with few veterns. I worked mostly on Marine M60s they go 200 miles on pavement or mixed surfaces and maybe can be pushed to 1000+ offraod and me and the guys in my "Bat-Truck" replaced many in the lead up. I can with almost certainty tell you we trained up to the point that we used up almost all the stuff we had and still would leave supplies and a small reserve to use in the invasion.


"we were what, 90 miles away from Baghdad?"

Maybe, and Japan is a small island Nation but every inch would have cost thousands of Allied lives. What I'm getting at is they where believed at that time to have been ready to fight like hell for Baghdad, and up to that point your right it was a plain and simple slaughter, as I'll never forget the sight off an Iraqi battalion that was left out there to face us while the hard core guys ran for home ..... they never had a chance. If Iraq does become a piecefull Nation in my life time and becomes open to turorist, I'm going back to try and make piece, I'm sure the reckage from that war will scar the desert for a hundred years. It was a vision of the apocholipse.


To be absolutely honest there where those amongst us that wanted to keep going both Officers and gung-ho guys on the line, but it was decided by better minds to take the win we had on our hands, and not gamble on continueing the assualt. For bigger political reasons than most site to. In 91 we did not want to create a vacuum there for the radicals to fill, look at how tough the fight we are in is, and in 91 we had no ideal or plan to remove him, none at all .... chaos could have ensued.

Your entitled to your opinion but I just wanted to temper it with slightly less harsh tone of judgement. And since in a way you are in the trenches fighting a war of ideals there with people of your age group at school it is my hope that you might be armed with a few counter points for the arguements that they have to justify the belief we should have kept going. To put a face to it, those are our young men your tossing around the map like so many chess pieces. And the younger Bush did not I believe send the 1200 so far to their deaths just to settle a score.

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"cool beanz"
D. "FETCH" Jordan

You know I want to believe I really was about WMD but unfortunately we haven't found anything. If you haven't found anything you can't prove anything, unfortunately. That's the argument I bought. It didn't need to be said. All they had to say was that he was an evil dictator who killed 1.5 million people. Genocidal maniac. That would have been justification enough but noooooooooooooooooo. Saddam supporting terrorists, other than Palestinian homicide bombers, is so remote it isn't fully. I didn't buy he was in bed with Al Qaida simply because Osama would shoot him for his secular beliefs rather than cooperate. I don't buy the oil argument either, that's just liberal nonsense. However, the fact that they are settling a score from Daddy Bush does, unfortunately, make sense.

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Centurian

sigh ............

None is as blind as those that will not see.

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"cool beanz"
D. "FETCH" Jordan

Okay Fetch, your honest opinion, what was this war about?

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Centurian

It's a Jihad, like they call it.
It's us against them.
Will modern industrialized societies progress, or will they take us back to the 7th century

LOL
After all these years coming here, reciting Roman history you've got to ask.
LOL
Look wars seldom start for one simple reason or another.
In a nut shell we maintain a ready force un equaled by any other Nation for one reason. To ensure that our ability to set our destiny, that it not be determined by others. To support our allies and send a message to those that would try to disrupt the advancement of the modern industrialized societies.
I guess I could run down a list of simplistic reasons, but short and sweet Iraq was politically and logistically doable.

so why did we do it ......
Because we could.
That's good enough for me.
Period.
End of story.
Now Bush has 2.5 years, or 2500 casualties to pull it off.
After that even hard asses like me will start to say bring them home NOW.
See I ain't a politician I'm a Marine and I just want the win, the heck with all this PC crap, the only thing those camel humpers respect is power, any compassion is seen as weakness. We should lay the place to waste and just come on home.
So I got my beef's about how it's going to. But staying home like a bunch of pussies ... hell no. Let's kick some ass and create an army of hardened veterans. Because the job is just starting, and like the Romans we may have to have active military in the field somewhere fighting for at least a generation or until we decide to seriously smite those that would oppose us with ALL prejudice, no holds bar.

IT IS GOOD TO BE A ROMAN
(historical metiphor)

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"cool beanz"
D. "FETCH" Jordan

See the one scenario I have been thinking is Iran. Afghanistan and Iraq are both on opposite borders, thereby enclosing Iran. I wonder if this was all a ploy to pressure Iran. Granted Afghanistan wasn't part of that it was 100% revenge, Iraq on the other hand could fit that perspective. Then again, it also puts very close to Syria. Both of them are on the US list and have been for some time now in regards of terrorism.

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Centurian

Two words are missing from your geopolitical examination of the situation.

Israel
Manifest destiny

Now I'm not saying this is all about Israel. But they and we are at a nexus. For a couple of decades Israel has been able to fend off any aggression regardless of which quarter it would come from, but with the introduction of modern weapon technology all that goes out the window.
One should try and picture this scenario ....
Lets say that both Iraq and Iran become democracies elected by their populations, but still maintain their hatred of Israel, but now one of them has nuclear missiles.
At that point what could we say?
They could not be called extreme dictatorships and theocracies.
Would not the respective governments have to reflect what their populous wants, to present an aggressive posture to the enemies their people identify?
Would there be another arms race like in India and Pakistan?
Would we and the world have any sway on their politics and National defense posturing?
If said democratic governments did not reflect the wishes of their people what chance would they have of lasting?

What do I believe?
I believe that our long term policies are centered on keeping that region as free of nuclear weapons as humanly possible so if the entire region does explode into war it will be a conventional one.
In any type of nuclear exchange Israel would be destroyed regardless of the damage they could inflect on their enemies.
It may come down to the old question .... would we nuke Russia over Germany? Except this time it would be over Israel vs one of their neighbors. And what good would it do, Israel would still be gone. And also this time we here believe for the most part that they do not have the restraint that the Russians have, nor the control over rogue elements amongst themselves.

Couple our belief that we have the best system in the world and a manifest destiny to spread it world wide ... because we are good guys? Maybe, but we are in reality capitalist not saints and want newer growing markets.

This has turned into one of the better strings in some time on the general board, thanks CENT your make some good points of contention that are not easily countered. Your makeing me rethink a few of my positions.

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"cool beanz"
D. "FETCH" Jordan

Most certainly Israel fits into any discussion "Middle East." There is that whole "Greater Israel" thing but to be honest, I don't think they're stupid enough to try to seek it out because that's basically them against the entire Arab world and if they do, the entire Arab world is going to be shooting back, not just a few nations. I'm sure Europe would get involved as well and whilst we would sell them arms, I don't think we'd fight with them, officially.

I think that's what they are trying to prevent is another arms race. Because, for all intents & purposes, Israel has nuclear weapons, they just never admitted it. And they never will. Iran, Syria, Iraq, and so on having them does make a balance of power scenario whereby they balance out Israel. However, thats an arms race in itself and one with terrorists and fanatics, very bad.

Certainly, long-term, we want to keep nuclear weapons out of all states that do not have them and reduce those in states that do have them (i.e. Russia, China). I think we ought to focus on China as well, to be honest. Iran is a major player, yes, but let the IAEA handle them, they're willing, albeit to what point or purpose, to listen to them on a limited level. When Russia is supplying their technology it makes it much harder. China is arming themselves quite quickly with aims of obliterating Taiwan and I don't doubt they and Russia are, under the table, helping North Korea develop their weapons. I don't trust either of those SOBs for the life of me.

Yes that is a good point. Over Germany we would have obliterated Russia and Germany would have been decimated. Good coorelations with Israel, I never thought it that way. And yes I doubt these countries have the restraint that Russia had. They think Allah will protect them from the missiles. Guess what, Allah is sitting this one out.

Guess it still boils down to the White Man's Burden huh? Except it's the US now, not Western Europe. I can't say that I've thought it that way to be honest and I must concur, I am rethinking much too.

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Centurian