Change of strategy needed - Page 4 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

aklim · #46 11-15-2006, 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A264172

Energy independence may be the only sure thing we can do to contribute to winning this war. We need to buy from our friends and not our enemies even if that means we have to do without or reinvent the current system. The term cheap energy gains relativity over time.

oil prices through the roof... we do something about it through re-tooling our fueling and consumption accross the board... and the situation resolves itself as it competes with our model.

IF the USA were the center of the world, you might have an idea that works. It is NOT. So, even if you are independent and other countries are not, it will not work. In this global economy, I go down and so do you. Will you retool everyone else too?

soypwrd · #47 11-15-2006, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

I believe it is still too soon to call the Iraq adventure a failure. That would be like calling WWII before the Battle of Midway incompetently run.
B

Any comparison with any part of WWII is faulty. The powerful nations of Germany and Japan held a direct threat to the US, leaving us no choice but to engage them and fight until death. This is war of choice against a small country that had no real immediate threat to our survival... completely different situation. Don't confuse the two.

soypwrd · #48 11-15-2006, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aklim

IF the USA were the center of the world, you might have an idea that works. It is NOT. So, even if you are independent and other countries are not, it will not work. In this global economy, I go down and so do you. Will you retool everyone else too?

Those other countries want to be almost as independent of the ME as we do and they want to kick the Devil's Tea habit for environmental reasons which we seem to care little about. If we restructured our own energy systems and came up with the new techs that lead to efficiency/renewables we'd be the new ME in the energy field, which would lead to an economic boom that would make the Dot.Com thing look like a kiddy party.

We've just got to take the bull by the horns and take the country away from the corporate interests seeking to mire us in the 20th century for their own good and not ours.

t walgamuth · #49 11-15-2006, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

Is the situation closer to the British pullout of India when Pakistan and India were created?

i read a huge book about that. there are definite parallels. on a vastly different scale though. when the british pulled out there was a secterian blood bath. there were basically different areas carved out for folks of certain religeons, muslim packastan, for one then another area for hindus (lets say). i am not sure i have that last group correcty identified. when the brits left there were still huge numbers of muslims in the hindu region and vice versa. as these folks tried to go to the area where they would be safe they were systematically murdered by groups of extremists. whole trainloads at a time.

i think when we pull out, whenever that is, it will be similar. the ones left in the regions that dont fit will have a hard time getting to their safe area.

it is happening even now. when we pull out it will just get worse.

imho.

i hope i am wrong.

tom w

Botnst · #50 11-15-2006, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soypwrd

Any comparison with any part of WWII is faulty. The powerful nations of Germany and Japan held a direct threat to the US, leaving us no choice but to engage them and fight until death. This is war of choice against a small country that had no real immediate threat to our survival... completely different situation. Don't confuse the two.

You are of course, pretty much exactly right.

My analogy was suitable only for the time-to-victory. In the WOT we are barely started and it will be as Don Rumsfeld said on several under-reported occaissions, "A long, hard slog."

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Speech by Winston Churchill given at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942.

t walgamuth · #51 11-15-2006, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

Iraq was beaten thoroughly, in the sense that the central government and its army was destroyed. The population in Iraq had a more ambiguous relationship to the central government than either Japan or Germany. There is no cultural unity underlying Iraq as there was in Japan and Germany.
I'm not sure that Vietnam is a good comparison. I don't think there was much doubt that once the US left Vietnam, there would be a unified country. It would be a nationalist and communist government, but it would eventually control the country which had a long cultural history (I think)

no, i disagree. iraq was not beaten thoroughly. our armies were poised on the edge of bagdad. we were going to attack the next morning. in the morning the iraqi army had just disappeared. so our guys declared it destroyed and victory. their army dispersed and went into hiding taking what weapons they could. lots of weapons too were stockpiled different places. the so called insurgency in my opinion was well planned. they knew they couldnt win a pitched battle against our fierce firepower. but they are winning what is happening now. picking us off a few at a time.

this strategy is not a lot different than what we did against the british in our revoulution.

tom w

Botnst · #52 11-15-2006, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

not at all comparable. both of those countries were pacified by having been beaten thoroughly.

that is certainly not the case in iraq.

this is more like viet nam in the aftermath of the tet offensive.

tom w

Ah yes, the Tet offensive. In which the US Army and Marine Corps handed the VC and NVA their asses on a platter but the US news agancy reported it as a defeat.

If that knucklehead McNamara had a pair of balls he'd have followed those defeated elements into North Vietnam and and Laos and annhilated the NVA. Chicken-*****.

B

aklim · #53 11-15-2006, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soypwrd

Any comparison with any part of WWII is faulty. The powerful nations of Germany and Japan held a direct threat to the US, leaving us no choice but to engage them and fight until death. This is war of choice against a small country that had no real immediate threat to our survival... completely different situation. Don't confuse the two.

How was Japan a threat? Pearl Harbor? Why did they do that again?

aklim · #54 11-15-2006, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soypwrd

Those other countries want to be almost as independent of the ME as we do and they want to kick the Devil's Tea habit for environmental reasons which we seem to care little about. If we restructured our own energy systems and came up with the new techs that lead to efficiency/renewables we'd be the new ME in the energy field, which would lead to an economic boom that would make the Dot.Com thing look like a kiddy party.

We've just got to take the bull by the horns and take the country away from the corporate interests seeking to mire us in the 20th century for their own good and not ours.

They do. However, wanting and being able to do it are two different things. There are too many things that re dependent on oil and I am not talking energy. How many things do you know that are not oil tainted besides energy? Lets say you came up with a new machine that produced electricity from something else besides oil. Would that work? I don't think so. Why? Well, it would be like selling you my business. You'd pay one set fee and that is it. Kinda like the difference between renting and buying a house. I haven't spoken to my Realtor and builder for 10 yrs. You never want to sell the machinery. You want to sell the product. However, sooner or later, they will develop their own versions of the product anyways. Then there is the question of price. How will you settle on a price that they can afford and it is right for you? Even if you do all this, how will you replace the other myraid of products that come out of oil? You are only looking at oil as a source of gasoline. Can you replace the other products that are probably just as important? Matter is neither created nor destroyed. What will this new tech make power out of? If you do succeed, will there be a fight over this new resource? JUST DO IT is a good slogan for Nike but not much else.

aklim · #55 11-15-2006, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

Ah yes, the Tet offensive. In which the US Army and Marine Corps handed the VC and NVA their asses on a platter but the US news agancy reported it as a defeat.

If that knucklehead McNamara had a pair of balls he'd have followed those defeated elements into North Vietnam and and Laos and annhilated the NVA. Chicken-*****.

B

All true. However, the problem was that the military was directly controlled and micromanaged from the White House. Look at the military today. Do they have control of what they buy and in what quantities? Nope. Imagine a mechanic where you tell him how to do his job, what tools he needs to work with and what brand and when to do this, that or the other. A mechanic has the privilege of telling you to DIY whereas the soldier has to make do with the crap he gets.

A264172 · #56 11-15-2006, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

Has anybody ever seen any contest, from toddley-winks to global war, in which a purely defensive strategy triumphed?

B

Quote:

Originally Posted by aklim

How was Japan a threat? Pearl Harbor? Why did they do that again?

Oil.

As to the ability to do without... If your gas bills are rising, and you can't afford the cost, you insulate yourself the best you can. Any other strategy is secondary to the imperitive of long term survival. How much corporate profit in the 90's came from efficiencys and cost reductions? A sound plan for self sufficency, (and by that I mean begining to demonstrate to the players that there is a future beyond oil) to the degree it is possible, is missing from our policy... particularly when you factor the defense budget into the cost of energy, there is room to promote non-enemy energy sources. And if there is not, why muck around with democracy when the potential outcome is not necessarily in line with our real goals.

Are we unwilling to expand the war to the degree necessary to influence the outcome? If there is a sound stratagic goal then it is being executed in a fainting manner that was orchestrated by the CIC and a big part of the propagandas success is the reality on the ground.

Wether defensive or offensive, the best strategy is to weaken the enemys position relative yours. Make his position untenable and you have won. But the esscence of current policy is that his position will always be paramont.

retmil46 · #57 11-15-2006, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

One thing that bothers me is the disparity between what mid-level bureaucrats and soldiers say upon return from Iraq as compared to the hallucinatory assessments from the White House on one extreme and the defeatist attitude of of the press and Democrats.B

Like I've said several times before - go ask the guys on the ground, get their assessment of what the situation is, and then formulate your strategy.

Co-worker at Freightliner just came back from a year in Iraq with the reserves, in the Balat and Tikrit areas. His assessment basically boiled down to "What's the f#####g point? They hate our guts".

Botnst · #58 11-15-2006, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by retmil46

Like I've said several times before - go ask the guys on the ground, get their assessment of what the situation is, and then formulate your strategy.

Co-worker at Freightliner just came back from a year in Iraq with the reserves, in the Balat and Tikrit areas. His assessment basically boiled down to "What's the f#####g point? They hate our guts".

I don't think there's ever been an army in human history that didn't ***** about everything from the Emperor to the mascot, and every one of them thinks they could do a better job than the (choose one: sgt, Chief, Lt, maj, Lcdr, Lcol, Cdr. Capt, Adm, Gen ... President).

B

dannym · #59 11-15-2006, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mb1

4. A class action law suit should be filed against Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld on behalf of the innocent Iraqi civilians who lost loved ones (650,000) and who have suffered by this war and those who have lost their homes and jobs in addition to restitutions and for the wrongfull deaths of 650,000 civilians and Bush's, Cheney's, and Rumsfeld personal assetts should be fair game. It should not matter if these innocent people were killed accidently by our forces, or by the terrorist insurgents, or by suicide bombings as America's action and America's illegal war is the cause of the deaths because America's war has set the stage and has provided this environment for the insurgency.

Quote:

Originally Posted by soypwrd

Let's not forget wolfowitz, pearle, fieth (sp.?), libby, the whole bunch of slime behind it. How about haliburton, McDonnel/Douglas et. al. And throw in the cheerleaders too, the ones who supported and made $ on the war; limblow, hanity... let's confiscate their wealth to help pay for it all.

I'm dreamin, I know. Justice ain't that real.

Just saw a show on the war hospitals. Damn bush/rove. I wish there was a hell.

Didn't the Bush administration pass some kind of Bill that prevents them from being prosecuted for anything concerning the Iraq war?