Dealing with Terrorism?

[DavidJames]

David,
I mention Scott Ritter because he is a bit of a darling of the left, and hence someone that a person such as yourself (liberal, anti-war) might be expected to believe.

Don't embarrass yourself by pretending you know what I believe.

Before OIF Iraq was a terrorism generator. Now it's a terrorism sink. That's big progress all by itself. Creating an arena in which the terrorist is placed on the same ground as the US Army and Marines creates a target rich environment for these troops. It's pretty easy to see the advantages of such a strategy for the person blessed with even the tiniest bit of common sense.

See, you claimed it was a strategy. Presumably one by the administration. You've been given two opportunities to defend that claim, instead, now you are changing the subject

Saddam Hussein was an active supporter and exporter of terrorism is not even controversial. Check your facts.

Incredibly, you make yet another claim and tell me to check my facts. Actually, all thing considered, it's not incredible at all.

 

[lostnick3]

i think everyone talking of nuking anyone should charter a boat to bikini atoll and swim around the hole the mike bomb made. that hole was once a coral island and half of another coral island. its deep i'm telling ya deep.
the good old U S of A is up to about 39 lost nuclear weapons ( give of take a couple). who knows what the Russians have lost to date?
it only takes one suicidal nut-case in a leaky sailboat to take out any coastal city in America. making it a very uninhabitable city for generations to come.
that'll show'em.
who really were the good guys during the crusades?
is it our God's tougher than your God? our God hates you more than your God hates us? our God loves us more than your God loves you? its really the same God of Abraham? or just evolution in progress?
what i'm saying is that nuclear weapons make a really big mess and human civilization isn't held together all that well. i'm to old and dependent on pharmaceutics's the keep me on this side of the grass to start sniffing butt's seeing who the alpha male is.

 

[Ziggurat]

the good old U S of A is up to about 39 lost nuclear weapons ( give of take a couple).

Are you referring to nuclear weapons lost when nuclear missile submarines have sunk? Those are the only ones I know of which are missing. And those things are so deep it would take resources comparable to starting your own nuclear weapons program to retrieve them. In other words, they do not pose a risk from terrorist organizations. Can't speak for the Russians, but they would have had to lose a nuke on land to be a risk, and that's a much less likely scenario - the bigger risk from them comes from loose material suitable for dirty bombs.

it only takes one suicidal nut-case in a leaky sailboat to take out any coastal city in America. making it a very uninhabitable city for generations to come.

The loss of life would indeed be enormous. But the idea that it would somehow become a dead zone for generations is a myth. Visit Hiroshima and you'll see that the city is very much inhabited.

 

[Panelman]

We lost 39 nukes?....Proof?

 

[lostnick3]

ZIGGURAT/Panelman i think you myth understand me.

i'm referring to the ones (nukes) the airforce has lost crashing bombers or just jettisoning them out. like the Tybe hydrogen bomb, a mark 15 - 1.6 to 3.9 mt. it was dumped out of a B-47 in 1958 in Wassa Sound off Savannah Georgia. i think their still looking for it. just a example.

as for the number 39 i thought you'd figure out it was a ballpark figure. its the number i remember from Irving Wallace's "book of lists". i have two library's, as usual the "book of lists" is in the other one. sorry inexcusable reference. look the tybe bomb up in the wikipedia. it mentions that its one of 11 incidents

last i heard Bikini Atoll was uninhabitable until it is replaced (1976?) i think the difference between Hiroshima and modern nuclear weapons can be equated to having a firecracker go off in your hand. when you wake up the next morning your fingers feel a little fuzzy. as apposed to having a block of C4 go off in your hand. the next morning you wake up on the "other side".

its not just the loss of life. there's the disease and starvation for those left outside the strike zone. there's also going to be a giant piece of infrastructure not working that may affect an entire region. that may not get fixed for a long time just out of ordinary human fear of the unknown.

and we all know how well the federal, state, county, and local governments are prepared to help us.

trying to kill our neighbors with WMD's, guns, knives and fists (in large groups or individually) just because one way or another their different from us has always backfired. someone always gotta get even.

the really big problem we're not addressing is that in every large group there is a very small group (lets say for the sake of argument 1,000,000:25)where the small group makes life miserable for the large group. like the brother that always starts fights. the grandfather who its his way or the highway. the gossip that stirs the pot all the time. a psychopath here a sociopath there. a hardcore religious nut willing to die for the cause of the day.
we as a society need to start identifying to dangerous ones and send them the the happy pharm and get help for the others. be a example for the rest of the planet. when we start making real progress we can invite our enemy's over for liquid libations, if thats not their preference i'll make some brownies. a show and tell to start a dialog. but we need to straighten up our own back yard first.

so while we still have the technology and infrastructure (not to mention the food) why don't we start working on teriforming other planets in our little solar system. little self contained ecosystem's in space. we homo sapians need to leave this planet. there will be problems here that started at the dawn of mankind that will continue until the sun explodes.

lostnick3

the weakest ink will last far longer than the strongest memory-buffalo ed 1975

 

[Ziggurat]

last i heard Bikini Atoll was uninhabitable until it is replaced (1976?)

Bikini Atoll was in a very different situation than modern cities would be. The people lived subsistence lives, eating plants and animals that lived locally. Remaining radioactive material thus got concentrated as it went up the food chain. For a modern city, food and water supplies are shipped in from outside, often quite some distance. Simply living at the location of the blast is much less risky than eating food produced there.

we as a society need to start identifying to dangerous ones and send them the the happy pharm and get help for the others. be a example for the rest of the planet. when we start making real progress we can invite our enemy's over for liquid libations, if thats not their preference i'll make some brownies. a show and tell to start a dialog.

Umm... no. It's too late for that. They have already made their problems into our problems. And they are NOT interested in dialogue. Bin Laden and his ilk aren't going to be impressed that we take care of our loonies so well, they're going to be enraged that we aren't toeing the Sharia line. The only possible dialogue he's interested in is over whether we want death or dhimmitude (if you don't know that word, look it up, it's important).

so while we still have the technology and infrastructure (not to mention the food) why don't we start working on teriforming other planets in our little solar system.

Because we DON'T have the technology and infrastructure to do that, it's at least a hundred years off in the future (likely much longer), and we can't wait that long.

 

[rikzilla]

Don't embarrass yourself by pretending you know what I believe.

Hostility,...tsk..tsk... So, I am wrong in believing that you support Scott Ritter's view that Iraq was a complete mistake?? Sheesh! You embarrass yourself by making inconsistent posts to this forum David. Maybe that's why you can have so many posts and other's here still can't figure out what you believe in.

See, you claimed it was a strategy. Presumably one by the administration. You've been given two opportunities to defend that claim, instead, now you are changing the subject Incredibly, you make yet another claim and tell me to check my facts. Actually, all thing considered, it's not incredible at all.

Nope, not incredible at all. Of course as a strategy it makes pretty good military sense. Placing terrorists on the same ground as the US Army is a good thing. See; the thing that happens is that the US Army has a way of killing it's enemies in exceptionally large numbers. It's something that happens every day but since we don't do the body count thing anymore you only get to hear about our guys dying.

Iraq Endgame- Let's win the narrative

We have entered the end game in Iraq and now the most important battle is no longer whether democracy and freedom prevail there, but how will we and the world view this conflict, and more importantly US power overall.

The opposition and their media have made no bones that they consider it a stinging defeat in a conflict predicated on lies, and that all the casualties were in vain. Aside from it's outrageous detachment from reality, it is a narrative we cannot allow to stand.

There is a scene in Heartbreak Ridge, where the moron officer tells Gunny Highway and Chewy that their generation of Marines is 0-1-1, with a tie in Korea and a loss in Vietnam. Given the opportunity, the left/media would love to hang a loss or a tie on W and the whole idea of US military power. If they can create a loss in popular opinion they gain all of the casualties as martyrs to their belief that the employment of US power is fundamentally wrong. They already have pounded the meme that we are now handcuffed and unable to use military force against anyone else because we have exhausted the military and destroyed it's morale. That lie is put to rest as soon as these armchair pacifists are confronted by the swelling pride of those who have earned victory on the ground. They reenlist in record numbers and they come home to tell the truth about their good works, ignored by the defeatist press that owes the truth but delivers only the death and destruction.

Well thank God that the left/media no longer completely dominates the discussion, which previously allowed them to spin the disastrous Tet Offensive in Vietnam into an enemy victory. We will prevail in the story about Operation Iraqi Freedom, which goes solidly in the win column. The work is not done though, we currently trail in the propaganda battle as we require ourselves to stick to the truth and our loyal opposition feels no such compunction. Like monkeys flinging their own dung they try to smear whoever they can. They assume the immorality and evil of our policies and the poor bastards forced by tax cuts and racism to enact them. Abu Ghraib? Bush's idea. Desecrating Korans? That was Rummy's brilliant plan, and the whole torture thing was Gonzalez' reaction to an email from Israel's Mossad. Add to that the deepening quagmire and the always growing in size and effectiveness insurgency and it's no wonder they want to cut & run.

Someone has to stand up and say BULLS**T!, and here we are. The rise of the milblogs is the best antidote to the poison spread by the left/media, but we have to raise up and make sure everyone hears. The troops will start coming home next year, not because we were forced to admit that not one more should die for a lost cause, but because we won. That message must dominate and we have an election cycle to do just that. The left/media will have a challenge to maintain this fiction of defeat as the troops enjoy parades all summer and when interviewed talk about the schools they built and the wells they dug. But they need our help, and that means everyone. Many readers here also write and every voice adds to the message, but we also must directly oppose those who oppose the truth. Newspapers, TV stations and all media must be taken to task for defeat-mongering and failure to show the positive.

The administration has begun to help in the fight and now we need to cover their backs. We won this war and don't let anyone say otherwise, not neighbors, not friends, not family and let's get deep in the shorts of our Congressfolks in DC. They are useless unless they feel a political win or liability, so let's give them a choice, join the reality-based community in celebrating our victory or be swept out with the rest of the losing side. Moore's Minutemen blew up far too many of their own children and they are being disowned, defeated and returned to their component molecules. 50 million people now breathe free air and the whole region has to deal with an actual democracy. Tyrants quake every time Condi Rice's people call to arrange a meeting, Al Qaeda has alienated wide swaths of their desired Caliphate, and the status quo ante for bad guys around the world has been raised.

Every casualty in this conflict, as in every other, is tragic, but unlike the left/media we know they served a higher, and thankfully victorious, cause. Stay strong and vigilant as we finish this conflict to ensure that those who attempt to create the defeat that fits their worldview are handed one when America welcomes home our heroes in 2006.

Try and snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory all you want...it's not going to work. Besides; if this were another Vietnam...we'd what? Have the 21st century version of the Carter administration to look forward to?

-z

 

[DavidJames]

Hostility,...tsk..tsk... So, I am wrong in believing that you support Scott Ritter's view that Iraq was a complete mistake?? Sheesh! You embarrass yourself by making inconsistent posts to this forum David. Maybe that's why you can have so many posts and other's here still can't figure out what you believe in.

Roll your eyes all you want Sylvia, but your ability to read minds is wrong again. Another strawman (and they say farming is dieing in this country). Please show me, with my quotes, where I have been inconsistent.

Try and snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory all you want...it's not going to work. Besides; if this were another Vietnam...we'd what? Have the 21st century version of the Carter administration to look forward to?

Strike there. You made a claim and failed, three times to back it with evidence. BTW, nice attempt at misdirection. Where did the reference to Vietnam come from, not from me? I'll leave you to argue with yourself, it's the only way you have a chance.

 

[lostnick3]

ziggurat thanks for dhimmitude

let me step back for a moment and explain where I'm coming from a little. first i don't have a serious bone in my body so this is hard for me.

(que battle hymn of the republic)

in the declaration of independence where is says "we hold these truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...i believe that includes women and children. Everyone on the planet.

long ago i took a oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. with my life if necessary. its a document i believe in with all my heart.

that said

rikzilla we lost the war in Viet Nam. get over it. north Viet Nam had better generals than we did. Uncle Ho was smarter than General Westmorland, thats why Saigon is named Ho Chi Minh City. America has the finest solders, sailors and marines on the planet bar none. they won every major battle the north chose to fight with us. they were wasted in Viet Nam there being wasted in Iraq. you said it, their coming home (the vets from Iraq) in great numbers. the truth will come out ,they have no reason to lie.
if wmd's and being nasty to the civilian population is the defining criteria for invading a country then North Korea tops the list. oh wait! North Korea doesn't sell cheap oil.

if you were paying attention the first amendment was lost when Reagan invaded Grenada. who knows whats been lost since then? well it does look like a presidential election election has been rigged and stolen. as far as milblogs, their days a numbered. you can't have the troops telling a bunch of stupid civilian the truth. they just can't handle the truth.

now back to the regularly scheduled rant.

if nuking terrorists like a drunken fleet sailor with a box of old condoms on a 72 hour liberty is plan "a". then we really need a short term plan "b" and a long term plan "b" that's a little more nonviolent or messy.

short term plan "b"
theory 1:
it is my theory that if the alien's all the wacko's have been playing with came to the good Ole u. s. of a. tonight and rounded up all the elected officials, office holders, anyone, just as long as they are duly elected. loaded them up on the intergalactic love boat and hauled them off to Betelgeuse's for a indeterminate period of time for interstellar fun and games.
tomorrow the federal, state and local governments would continue to continue just fine. the point being that we lost control of our governing bodies some time ago. i know they don't speak for me.

solution 1
let the planet know we have a little business to take care of. after all there's always plan "a". register to vote. hold local elections (neighborhood) paper ballots. we can work our way up to the top.
we still have the internet, lets use it while it's still ours. after all we have the right, its built into the constitution.

plan "b" long term
after a truly representative government is elected we need to rewrite all the code's and regulations (like the tax code) so that a person with a high school education can understand them.

finally for Ziggurat. we can go into space in large groups now. first we have to demilitarize it. I've seen extruder's that make some pretty nifty beams from a roll of thick aluminum foil. then there's the technology that's been suppressed. an example is in the mid 70 on one of the news stations ran a program where a spokesman for a well known university stated they had developed a prototype device that separated the hydrogen from oxygen in water using rust as a catalyst. it would be in production in two years and cheap enough that a home owner could buy it and drop off the grid.. i think a little more was mentioned the next day then nothing. or once again I'd been hoodwinked.
but my point here is a civilization either grows or dies. c u l

 

[Ziggurat]

finally for Ziggurat. we can go into space in large groups now.

Going into space isn't the problem. Living there is. We can't even do that in small numbers yet - the closest we can do is low orbit with continual resupplies from earth, at massive expense. That doesn't come close to cutting it. Putting anything into space is massively expensive, and until we can start extracting more wealth FROM space than it takes to get there (not anytime soon), there's simply no possibility of getting people to live lives off-planet.

then there's the technology that's been suppressed. an example is in the mid 70 on one of the news stations ran a program where a spokesman for a well known university stated they had developed a prototype device that separated the hydrogen from oxygen in water using rust as a catalyst. it would be in production in two years and cheap enough that a home owner could buy it and drop off the grid.. i think a little more was mentioned the next day then nothing. or once again I'd been hoodwinked.

You've been hoodwinked. Catalysts for chemical reactions work by creating lower-energy intermediate steps in the reaction, but if you want to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water, there's no physical way of changing the energy of those end states (water vs. oxygen/hydrogen gasses). Which means that even with the most ideal catalyst imaginable, doing the separation TAKES energy. Where does that energy come from, if you're not on the grid? You need another source. Which means the best this thing could EVER be is just a nice way to store energy from whatever that other source is, a fancy battery. Finding that alternative other source is the real problem, though, not the battery - there was never a possibility of this entering the home because it physically cannot be the source of energy for home owners.

 

[lostnick3]

Ziggurat
I’ve been hoodwinked before. It wasn’t the first time nor has it be the last. I’m still somewhat new to the site and I’m working on my critical thinking. As I see on the thread I entered about stalking, the kitties are hungry and waiting to pounce as I throw myself in to fray (fry?)

As far as my into space solution. You match up the bio dome idea (I’m still not sure if it was or was not pseudoscience) with permaculture (Bill Mollison) then the only problem is how much is the minimum biomass per person you need for startup. The soil is all ready there. You can prepackage the all structure along with the seeds and starter biologic’s then send it up by private rocket. I know I’m full of B.S. so fertilizer is not going to be a problem. A small assembly team with prepackaged food (MRE’s + 2 gallons of h2o (h2o is per person per day = 8053 lbs per person) Can get everything up and running in a very short time. I’m old enough to go on the start up (but not that old) I’d take a one way ticket

The lunar crust is composed of a variety of primary elements, including uranium,thorium, potassium, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, aluminum and hydrogen.{Wikipedia Dec 05} I don’t know if that’s mineable but something there should be. Turn a profit or even loose money in a profitable way your in business. As for masses of people someone has to wash the dishes. Clean the floors and tend the farms.

As for the terrorists remember Jefferson, Washington and especially Franklin probably would be considered terrorists today. Washington lead a ragtag army that bested one of the best trained army’s in the world. So we as American people might want to be careful throwing nukes around getting even with “foreign” terrorists lest we nuke our selves in the foot.

Foreign terrorists are not our big worry. It’s the homegrown ones that cause me the most grief. The little wanna be Gangsta sh1ts around the corner that like to maddog me and talk smack when when I’m walking my dog. Or when I’m not around, my house and car get vandalized. The burglar that walks down the street trying door knobs to see if you locked up before going to work. In less than 10 minutes most of your valuables can be loaded into a van and gone. There are neighborhoods you can drive a nice car into then have trouble driving out.

In the 1950’s we had “Tail gunner Joe” McCarthy finding commies real or imagined everywhere. Today its the terrorists. Cause enough trouble for some government bureaucrat and you could find your self labeled a “enemy combatant”. Then you could be whisked off to who knows where, held incommunicado for a indeterminate period of time with your constitutional right’s suspended. Think not? Think I’m really really nuts? Check out the Microsoft Windows Media Digital Rights Management Web Services Privacy Statement Updated: September, 2004. If Microsoft thinks your dangerous they’ll rat you out to the feds. Probable cause for someone to give you a nice official visit. You know the visit where you and yours get to be handcuffed in the front yard for your protection. If your library contained any banned books like the anarchist cookbook by William Powell or Revolution for the hell of it by Free.

We don’t need to nuke bin Ladin and his band of crazies. It’ll just make his methods justified in the eye’s of the Muslim World. Lets figure how to take care of the homeland terrorists first. Then we can help them take care of theirs

aloha. gone to take my medication.

 

[peptoabysmal]

if wmd's and being nasty to the civilian population is the defining criteria for invading a country then North Korea tops the list. oh wait! North Korea doesn't sell cheap oil.

Is North Korea really a threat to the US? Do you think they would risk firing one of their sub standard nukes at a super power? What scares you more, some looney dictator who has nukes or Jihadists with biological and chemical weapons access? Should we only fight wars that don't have any possible benefit for the US?

 

[Ladewig]

The lunar crust is composed of a variety of primary elements, including uranium,thorium, potassium, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, aluminum and hydrogen.{Wikipedia Dec 05} I don’t know if that’s mineable but something there should be. Turn a profit or even loose money in a profitable way your in business. As for masses of people someone has to wash the dishes. Clean the floors and tend the farms.

As for the terrorists remember Jefferson, Washington and especially Franklin probably would be considered terrorists today. Washington lead a ragtag army that bested one of the best trained army’s in the world. So we as American people might want to be careful throwing nukes around getting even with “foreign” terrorists lest we nuke our selves in the foot.

What are you talking about?!

 

[Ziggurat]

Ziggurat
I’ve been hoodwinked before. It wasn’t the first time nor has it be the last. I’m still somewhat new to the site and I’m working on my critical thinking. As I see on the thread I entered about stalking, the kitties are hungry and waiting to pounce as I throw myself in to fray (fry?)

"Fray" is correct: it means a disorderly fight or dispute.

As far as my into space solution. You match up the bio dome idea (I’m still not sure if it was or was not pseudoscience)

It may have been real science, but even if it was, it was still a complete failure. It simply did not work, and we don't know how to get such a thing to work either.

As for the terrorists remember Jefferson, Washington and especially Franklin probably would be considered terrorists today.

No, not really. They never targeted civilians, and neither did the British troops during the war.

Washington lead a ragtag army that bested one of the best trained army’s in the world.

With some aid from the other leading power of the time, too. French arms and even French soldiers played a key role, and we couldn't have won without them. Similarly, the Mujahedeen managed to drive back the USSR with US and Saudi backing, but nobody came to the Taliban's rescue, and we steamrollered them with very few of our own boots on the ground. The largest power willing to back terrorists now is Iran, and even they aren't willing to do so beyond a certain point. Neither China nor Russia, the closest thing we have to major power enemies, aren't willing to play the terrorist game anymore because of their own problems with muslim minorities.

We don’t need to nuke bin Ladin and his band of crazies. It’ll just make his methods justified in the eye’s of the Muslim World. Lets figure how to take care of the homeland terrorists first. Then we can help them take care of theirs

I'm not aware of anyone serious who thinks we should nuke bin Laden (among other problems, we may not know where he is even within a nuke's accuracy). But if we get the chance to take him out with a hellfire, we're going to take it.

The "terrorism" you described earlier, which most people just refer to as crime, is indeed a larger problem for many people than terrorism. But the solutions to it, to the extent that they CAN be solved, are also largely local. Terrorism, however, cannot be addressed on the local level, because it's not a local phenomenon.

 

[Elind]

Is North Korea really a threat to the US? Do you think they would risk firing one of their sub standard nukes at a super power? What scares you more, some looney dictator who has nukes or Jihadists with biological and chemical weapons access? Should we only fight wars that don't have any possible benefit for the US?

How do you reconcile "would they risk" with "looney"?

Why would you choose between nukes or biologicals or chemicals?

What makes you think there are no third (first?) stage suppliers to Jihadists, for example?

Should we only fight wars, always, while we are under attack?

We are not under attack now?

You think we won't be if we hunker down on our little island paradise?

 

[lostnick3]

north Korea kicked our butts down to Pusan twice now without nukes. who's to say they can't do it today. and they could not care less if you nuke, gas or bug large numbers of civilians. and its already pr oven that they can launch a missile close enough to japan to make us sit-up and take notice.

i don't think i my point clear enough. another example: the talibin's been run out of Afghanistan (or just melted into the crowd). the warlords have the same power as before, nothing has changed. the farmers biggest cash crop is still opium. with enough stashed to last them the next two or three years. the u.s.of a. still has troops on the ground keeping order.

now the connection to us at home.

the opium in the hills of Afghanistan gets sent to Europe for possessing into heron. the heron gets shipped in bulk to America. then cut and sent down the food chain (i sure you all know the drill) until it gets to the little Gangsta gangbanger wanta be sh1t's around the corner from me that talk trash and maddog me when i walk my dog. and i live in a really nice neighborhood!! it doesn't matter who you are 8 to 80 if you got the cash you get some stash. now if your selling heron in southern California, from Fresno to the Mexican border you have to pay taxes to the Mexican mafia (these guys are just as smart as the taliban) without question. or people you know and love start to go missing or die until you come into compliance. just like in Afghanistan where our troops are keeping the peace. there is so much money involved that it can corrupt from the local police up thru the state police, FBI, DEA, CIA, and probably on up. and this is just a small piece of whats going on here in the homeland.

yes local terrorists are criminals so are the international ones. if we can find a way within the laws of the land to deal with our terrorists then we can develop a way to deal with the international ones.

Americia has a horrible track record for solving its forign affair problems.

[ttext=100] "democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage" H. L. Mencken[/ttext]

 

[Ziggurat]

north Korea kicked our butts down to Pusan twice now without nukes. who's to say they can't do it today.

How about the fact that they can't even feed themselves today? That's generally been a kind of prerequisite for serious power, military or otherwise.

North Korea has a lot of conventional artillery and a lot of soldiers. They do NOT, however, have the money to train regularly - they cannot spare the ammunition to do live-fire exercises on a regular basis, so the quality of those soldiers is pathetic. They probably can't even be sure that all those artillery pieces pointing at Seoul actually work. Roads in North Korea are also pathetic - for heavy transportation, they are completely dependent on their railroad networks. Railroads are trivially easy to destroy with precision bombs, and damned hard to repair quickly in all those mountain passes throughout the peninsula.

In a conventional war with the North, this is the scenario we'd be looking at: fixed artillery along the DMZ shells South Korea, causing significant damage and casualties until they're taken out by return fire from South Korean artillery and from air power. But unless they strike first, not all of them are even going to engage, because if WE strike first, we strike at their communications network, and without knowing what's going on, a lot of units won't engage at all. In the mean time, North Korean railroads would be cut off by air power, paralyzing the country. Anything that wasn't on the DMZ to begin with can't move to engage. Forces remaining on the DMZ cannot resupply. The North Korean army begins to collapse, as units lose communications contact, can't resupply, don't know what's going on, and have no strong loyalty to the regime other than their privileged status which is quickly evaporating in wartime. Unless Chinese troops decide to ride to their rescue, North Korea has no hope in a conventional war. All they can hope to do is make it costly enough for us that we refrain from attacking first (which they've done), but they stand no chance of survival in an actual war.

i don't think i my point clear enough. another example: the talibin's been run out of Afghanistan (or just melted into the crowd). the warlords have the same power as before, nothing has changed. the farmers biggest cash crop is still opium. with enough stashed to last them the next two or three years. the u.s.of a. still has troops on the ground keeping order.

Though the warlords still have more power than I'd like, they do NOT have the same power as they had before. And the vast majority of Afghanis think not only that things are better and more secure now, but that they are continuing to improve. Afghanistan has made major progress, and if it looks like it's still a mess, that's because it was hard to fathom just how bad things really were under the Taliban.

Americia has a horrible track record for solving its forign affair problems.

Really? Vietnam is the only major failure I see. Most of our history has been successes: we beat back the Barbary pirates in the early days of the republic, we got France to sell us Louisiana without having to fight, we kicked Spain all over the map, beat the Germans twice in world wars, dominated the Pacific with our naval power, took on the nuclear-armed Soviet empire and ended up the last man standing, and more. New problems always arise, because that is the nature of the world and man, but we've actually got a pretty good track record, all things considered.

 

[lostnick3]

Viet Nam took a page from North Korea’s war book. It’s pretty obvious they (North Korea) doesn’t care about killing its own civilians. Everything’s buried. Who knows where all the tunnels are. With most of our troops committed. The U.S. troops in South Korea would just be a speed bump. Do we want to use hi tech weapons in Soul? Can we get enough Marines over from Okinawa to take care of business?

Look how well we took care of democratically elected governments in Central and South America in the 50’s thru the 70’s. What happened to the dictators we put in place that pissed Uncle Sam off. Are the drug cartel’s local criminals or terrorists?

[ttext= 100]"Democracy is the art & science of running the circus from the monkey cage" H.L. Mencken[/ttext]

 

[Ziggurat]

Viet Nam took a page from North Korea’s war book. It’s pretty obvious they (North Korea) doesn’t care about killing its own civilians. Everything’s buried. Who knows where all the tunnels are. With most of our troops committed. The U.S. troops in South Korea would just be a speed bump. Do we want to use hi tech weapons in Soul? Can we get enough Marines over from Okinawa to take care of business?

No, not everything is buried. Railroad tracks are not buried, which means they're easy to take out. As I said, without them, they can't move supplies. And you cannot bury a tank. Doesn't matter if we can't bombard them into submission, we don't need to. All we need to do is paralyze them, and wait them out. They CANNOT move a significant invading force into Seoul. They have absolute junk for heavy armor, it simply doesn't compare to what the South Koreans have, and they can't move them across the heavily mined DMZ. All they can do to Seoul is shell it from a distance, which is fine for raising the cost of war to us, but doesn't actually get them any closer to victory. As for tunnels, yeah, they've probably got a few. But the only tunnels they could keep hidden are small, which means (again) no heavy armor moving south of the DMZ, only infantry. And poorly trained infantry at that, whose main job over the past few decades hasn't been to fight highly-trained enemy soldiers but to suppress internal dissent so they can keep their privileged status. A war with North Korea would be a bloody mess, with lots of casualties, but the result is a foregone conclusion. You simply cannot compare the situation to Vietnam: the North is so screwed already that they face widespread famine without food aid, even if they're willing to let all their people die, the ARMY would run out of food in short order if they actually started a war. Yes, our troops are a token presence, but the 350,000 or so South Korean troops are not.

 

[Shadownexius]

We have the power to secure ourselves, but we place the value of human life and morality for others...(hmmm Terrorists...) to give them freedom of speech, fair trial, etc. We don't have enough people with the balls to keep the world in order, hence we are now ****ed. History dictates that as a super power, we must keep the world oppressed, in chaos, and completely third world. Once we let one country get past this opression they help others. The world needs to be dicated to, kept in a state of war and chaos in order to prevent their advancement.

In other terms:

I would prefer to keep the dog chasing the mail man, then let him stay home and chew on the couch.

Countries that are still dramatically set back by war still exists in parts of europe, asia, and the middle east. They dont progress in society or in technology, but rather continue to rivalry amongst themselves.

Would you like to see every third world country progress to nuclear technology, or let then blow themselves up with gunpower and explosives, then reach that point and blow American up.