I totally respect his bravery and sacrifice, but I wish we had the sense to stop risking the lives of our men unnecessarily and do what needs to be done. We did not spend the last 200 years developing as the supreme world industrial power ,so we can fight as the enemy fights best.
We knew where, and we knew when. A couple of B-52's would have taken care of the problem nicely. When you have an infestation, you don't kill pests one at a time.
I am just sick of hearing of these men lost because we don't have the will to commit to war. We have at most a few years and it will be too damned late. Following "rules of engagement and careful avoidance of collateral damage will mean nothing when we lose a city, or the hordes overrun the west.
Douhet, Mitchell, even Beaufre were all convinced that air power is the be all and end all of fighting. It isn't, and it never can be. I say this as a shit-hot USAF Weapons Controller, but all air power is is long-range artillery. Even the counter-air assets, SAM-suppression assets, etc, etc, etc are all there just to help that long-range artillery get through.
Strategic bombers, air-to-mud fighters, armed drones certainly have a role to play in Syria-, Iraq-, Afghanistan-, Iran-type environments, but they can never be sufficient. There will, ultimately, need to be boots on the ground--competent boots. The onesies and twosies of advisors, even those leading from the front, advising by hands-on demonstrations, is insufficient. The nations providing the boots--including the US, but not limited to us--need to be serious about it. What I'm sick of hearing is the half-hearted, half-assed ground efforts--not by the men on the ground, but by national leaderships that pretend to support them.
Either send soldiers in in sufficient numbers, or pull them out altogether. Anything in between is just negligent murder. Even Vietnam was a quagmire because national leadership only did a half-hearted, half-assed effort to produce victory.
Air power needs on the ground intel, which is probably why SOCOM is obtaining casualties. Hussein already killed almost all the US allies and translators there, or barred them from entry to the US, or leaked their info to terrorists so their families are hostages or dead now.
The Americans will have to gather intel directly themselves, which sometimes means casualties.
Also, the Gitmo prison pens have been emptied. The human intel Bush II was getting dividends on, has been sent back to Hussein and the Left's allies.
The US is not so much crippled, as blind. Right now would be a perfect time for the Mexican/Islamic Jihad alliance to get up and going, because not even the FBI can see it now. Nor is the CIA capable given their other problems. Their capabilities have been sabotaged, intentionally.
I totally respect his bravery and sacrifice, but I wish we had the sense to stop risking the lives of our men unnecessarily and do what needs to be done. We did not spend the last 200 years developing as the supreme world industrial power ,so we can fight as the enemy fights best.
ReplyDeleteWe knew where, and we knew when. A couple of B-52's would have taken care of the problem nicely.
When you have an infestation, you don't kill pests one at a time.
I am just sick of hearing of these men lost because we don't have the will to commit to war. We have at most a few years and it will be too damned late. Following "rules of engagement and careful avoidance of collateral damage will mean nothing when we lose a city, or the hordes overrun the west.
Douhet, Mitchell, even Beaufre were all convinced that air power is the be all and end all of fighting. It isn't, and it never can be. I say this as a shit-hot USAF Weapons Controller, but all air power is is long-range artillery. Even the counter-air assets, SAM-suppression assets, etc, etc, etc are all there just to help that long-range artillery get through.
ReplyDeleteStrategic bombers, air-to-mud fighters, armed drones certainly have a role to play in Syria-, Iraq-, Afghanistan-, Iran-type environments, but they can never be sufficient. There will, ultimately, need to be boots on the ground--competent boots. The onesies and twosies of advisors, even those leading from the front, advising by hands-on demonstrations, is insufficient. The nations providing the boots--including the US, but not limited to us--need to be serious about it. What I'm sick of hearing is the half-hearted, half-assed ground efforts--not by the men on the ground, but by national leaderships that pretend to support them.
Either send soldiers in in sufficient numbers, or pull them out altogether. Anything in between is just negligent murder. Even Vietnam was a quagmire because national leadership only did a half-hearted, half-assed effort to produce victory.
Eric Hines
Air power needs on the ground intel, which is probably why SOCOM is obtaining casualties. Hussein already killed almost all the US allies and translators there, or barred them from entry to the US, or leaked their info to terrorists so their families are hostages or dead now.
ReplyDeleteThe Americans will have to gather intel directly themselves, which sometimes means casualties.
Also, the Gitmo prison pens have been emptied. The human intel Bush II was getting dividends on, has been sent back to Hussein and the Left's allies.
The US is not so much crippled, as blind. Right now would be a perfect time for the Mexican/Islamic Jihad alliance to get up and going, because not even the FBI can see it now. Nor is the CIA capable given their other problems. Their capabilities have been sabotaged, intentionally.