For those who think the US can not handle a 2 front war....remember Japan and Germany in WW2. And neither Korea or Iraq is close in power to those 2. DD
That was a WORLD war. We didn't do that one alone. Think we could have handled the European Theater if the Russians hadn't been on the other side of the Nazis? How about the Pacific if Japan had not been overextended in Asia? I think we can handle a 2 front war, but I also think your reference is flawed.
Breaking News From CNN.com: President Bush says Saddam authorized commanders to use chemical weapons and the U.S. "will not wait" for Iraq to unleash such attacks. Details soon. ---------------------------------- Anyone have information on this???
Saw that too, apparently there is more that will be released on it but the other info I saw is that he was more referring to the intelligence we have is sufficient to begin action shortly. If I find a more detailed report or see anything else I will post it.
On the other hand, too, the United States was far less prepared for entrance into World War II than they would be now if put in a similar situation. But yeah, this is hardly the same thing.
Understandable, but there are instances were a war now is better than the alternative (i.e., more people will die with the alternative). Saddam will not end his ambitions if we ignore him. He will become evermore lethal. Obviously, the point is debatable, but that is what I believe. That said, taking a pure pacifist stance against war can be short-sighted.
Exactly true. 1) The Iraqis have had 10 years to address how the last war went. It won't be entirely the same; 2) Cities must be defeated this time. If the Iraqi government does not collabpse from within...this will be very bad; 3) Saddam and his cronies know what their destiny is this time if they're defeated. It's not defeating a bunch of targets in the desert.
that is true. but i'm not a pure pacifist. if war is necesary than i wil have to agree with it. I know the war will come soon. i just hope that there wil be as few casualtys as possible Iraqi and american (i know that is also what you al want). but i do not want a war without the support of the UN. and if the inspectors wil say they think saddam is doing things against the sanctions, then he must be stopped. but war is the last thing i want (i know it is also the last thing you want,but i'm not so sure about Bush)
Yea, but you also forgot us middle-of-the-roaders.. For the record(since I stay out of political threads for the most part)..I am a liberal at heart, but have conservative leanings..especially when it is about our security.. I don't want war, but agree that something needs to be done about Saddam, he is a problem that isn't going away anytime soon without outside help. He may not be able to reach us with missiles, but I certainly wouldn't put it past him to help some terrorists get smaller, easily-transportable biological/nuclear devices to strike at "The Great Satan". Scary times for us all...
I did that on purpose. There are a few posters that I really couldn't classify...you and Juan Valdez came to mind.
rimrocker, et. al.: I'm in the military and have somewhat of an idea of what is going on. No war is easy, but this one might seem so... I am not, however, too worried about the actual war itself for a number of reasons: 1) In the past 12 years, Iraqi military capabilities have been seriously degraded, while ours have significantly improved. We are ptobably about 3 times stronger than we were last time, while they are about a quarter their previous strength overall. You do the math. 2) New strategies are going to be used. For example, a new strategic bombing technique called SSBS (Simultaneous Strategic Bombing Strike) is going to be used - it has never been done before, although its principles were tested and validated in Afghanistan. What it will amount to is that within about the first three hours, we will likely hit between 2,000 to 3,000 separate targets, nearly all of them within minutes of each other. Such a volume of fire has never - ever - been laid before (this will be similar to compressing the entire volume of fire of the first Gulf War into one day's strikes), and is likely to signal a death-blow to the Iraqi military in itself... This is just one new technique that is going to be used. There are others as well, some even more eye-opening. After this paralyzing attack (or a few days of such attacks), the ground forces will make a beeline for Baghdad, bypassing the injured and paralyzed Iraqi units that would have stood in their way (and therefore sparing them destruction - they will be important in the post-war Iraq). Six days is the target frame within which the war is to begin and end, although there may be a prep air campaign outside of this. And six days is very doable. 3) We are not going to fight in the cities - at least, not Baghdad, the center of gravity. This is also a departure from previous strategies, but it comes via the realization that once we lay seige to Baghdad (and that will happen very quickly), it is just a matter of time before the regime falls, and it will be totally unnecessary to send in divisions to take the city by street fighting. We may send in special forces when we get good intelligence on juicy targets, but for the most part we just surround Baghdad and wait for the regime to implode (shouldn't take long after Saddam loses his twin levers of power - the military and oil wealth). 4) The military will not advise going until it is sure that it can accomplish its mission within a certain time frame and with a certain amount of casualties. Yes, Murphy's Law, things fall apart, etc - things always go wrong - but the military is surprisingly good at risk management (lotsa experience), and the generals won't go unless they are very confident of a number of factors. The military is a conservative lot, despite what some of our anti-military friends here would have you think. We won't go until we're 95% sure that it will go largely as planned. Worry more about the post-war situation than the war itself, if you need to worry about something. There are more x- factors there.
