We would obviously not choose to kill a teenager if given a choice, but if he's pointing an AK at you then you have no choice. Or rather, we have a choice, but that choice is surprisingly easy to make... I guarantee you that no US infantryman will think twice about taking one of these kids out if he's armed. And none of these kids will even really have a fighting chance. Things have changed in our Army since Vietnam - they'll just die needlessly. What a waste of Iraqi youth. We need these kids to learn about democracy and become that country's future leaders, not throw rounds in a futile attempt to keep Saddam alive/out of the Hague. Re: mandatory military service - almost every single nation on the planet has mandatory military service (it's called conscription); only a few Western nations actually have professional (all-volunteer) militaries. Conscription armies are notoriously unreliable - but very cheap... Most nations want to move to all-volunteer forces, but such armies are much more expensive, even if far more effective. Historically speaking, though, you're far better off betting on the professional army than you are betting on the conscripted one. Volunteer armies tend to win alot more.
Agreed, but imagine you're Saddam. Imagine, furthermore, that you'd you anything at all to stay in power. If I were him, the first thing I'd be doing is reading up on the history of the only major conflict that the US has lost this century. Better yet, he can just take his satelite dish and switch from CNN to the history channel, and see endless historians explain how the United States didn't achieve it's objectives in Vietanam by wageing a protracted guerilla war and causing the civillian population to turn against the war. I'd imagine that if/when the conflict actually breaks out, we'll see all of the gruesome footage broadcast from the scene by way of Al Gesira(sp). The only way Saddam can even hope to win is by making the price too high for the US in a massive game of chicken. Something tells me that he may have had something to do with this report which conveniently leaked about the US siezing Arab airbases when Iraq is attacked. BTW, between 1940 and 1973 (excluding 147-48) the US conscripted close to 15 million people, many of them durring times of relative peace, such as between Korea and Vietnam. Not exactly manditory for everyone, but still enough conscriptions to give pause.
Otto: I assure you that Saddam and his generals are most certainly watching CNN, and that at least some of his generals (although not Saddam himself) have read in depth about our only strategic defeat. They will gain nothing from it, because we are probably the first Army in history that doesn't train or plan towards fighting historical wars. We train and plan for the next one. He will almost certainly plan on a guerilla war, and in the urban setting of Baghdad. It won't matter. Even watching (or reading, for that matter) Blackhawk Down won't give him any insight into fighting such a war, because everything we are going to do is going to be different than what we did in that one. Very different. Aside from saying that we have new toys and new tactics, I will leave it to your (and his) imagination as to what that means. The Drudge report you posted was interesting, and I can say not wholly inaccurate as far as I know, at least on two points. One: A variety of attack points (airfields in particular) are going to be available to us one way or another when it happens. In the vast majority of cases (probably all) this will be through peaceful/diplomatic means. If they withold airfield use, then they risk confiscation... But that is extremely unlikely. They will cooperate, or we will just bypass. But the attack routes will be open, one way or another. Two: Israel will be given IFF codes this time. Meaning, when they send planes/troops to retaliate for WMD/SCUD attacks, they will not be attacked by us (in 1991 we refused to give them IFF codes, and they would have been attacked by us because of that). They may actually actively participate in this one. And since Saddam will almost certainly throw some chemicals/biologicals at them - maybe some "dirty nukes", too - Israel will be brought into the loop on this one. Good issues you raise.
