31-10-2003 03:31									#151
	Tired of ads?

Thanks, Che. Well the agreement was easy to implement in 1973 with only 23,000 US troops left in Vietnam and with the Vietnamese military built up the way it was. Perhaps SV knew in 1968 that it was doomed if we withdrew in 60 days.

Just speculation. But this seems reasonable.

	31-10-2003 03:34									#152
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark Im a voter, so i guess in that sense im a policy maker. When i was 18 the US was at peace, and most people who joined the military did so cause they found it convenient. When 9/11 happened I was too old to join (and yes I looked it up) And yes, in forming my opinions i give credence to those who never fought as well as to those who did. I also recognize that the military leadership has its own institutional agendas, and that generals and JCS members are highly political, and their advice isnt guaranteed cause they led a platoon in Nam 35 years ago.

In case you take it personally, you should check on my treatment of lefty chicken chokers when it comes to things like troops exposing themselves to greater risk in the name of avoiding collateral damage, etc. Voters aren't policy makers, whoever it is, once you vote 'em in, you're along for the ride for the next two, four or six years.

I don't necessarily hold JCS types in any higher regard than chickenchokers or chickenhawks. However, in reluctant fairness to career officers, they are in theory placed in a number of command roles in addition to all the school and staff horseshit. Haig and Powell have been the most notable exceptions (Haig espeically, since having his nose up Nixon's ass moved him from O6 to O10 in record pace without holding any intermediate command), but even Powell did battalion command, division ADC and Corps command before his NSC tour and political promotion to FORSCOM. Shinseki was politically fasttracked by Clinton from his division command tour on, but prior to that, he worked through the chain of command.

In my system, if you have a CIB or any decoration for actual combat involving significant personal risk (I don't consider hosing infantry at 500 meters with the coax mount on an M1A1 significant personal risk), you get a free pass, but other than that, if you're not MOS 11-B, C, D or Z, 18-, or maybe 12-B or combat aviation, you're in REMF country AFAIK. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children get some slack depending on their MOS, and there's a few squiddies and Air Farce types, but precious few of those. It's my system, I can ignore the opinions of the unqualified if I want to.

As far as the Big Bad Wolfie being under fire, I don't consider being on the opposite end of a building hit in a one-off terrorist attack to qualify him for a medal. Nor do I view a sight-seeing tour, where he was also in a building (albeit much higher, and heavily reinforced) that got popped at, to be more than showboating. I'm sure there are a lot of people with families who would love to get boogied on out of country the first time hostile fire came their way, but only Wolfie gets boogeying rights. It's a lot different from eating sand on a daily basis.

	31-10-2003 03:35									#153
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Chemical Ollie Iraq is not Germany. It is not Korea, Vietnam or even Somalia. The closest comparison would be Afghanistan - Sovjet's invasion, that is. An easy victory, followed by a long occupation and a slow, grinding guerilla war where the occupation forces got new coffins to send home every day, until they eventually decided to leave.

USSR's Afghanistan and Vietnam were very similar. Iraq is also similar to each and the solution is the same. Build up the local military and withdraw. The USSR's problem was that it did not do this but chose to carry on the fight itself. We seem to be heading to a USSR style of debacle.

	31-10-2003 03:48									#154
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Ansars links to AQ are based on individuals with membership in both organizations, like Zarqawi. This is no different then the links between the AQ and JI which pulled off the Bali bombing. The actual number of "sworn" AQ memebers seems to be actually rather small, only a few hundred. The vast majority the graduates of Bin Ladens training camps went off to affiliate organizations. Thats the way AQ works - through affiliates, united more by a common ideology and vision than by detailed organizational links. They seem to have moved even further in this direction since their central organization was attacked after 9/11.

Nonetheless, if al-Qaeda were able to pull off something this complicated in Baghdad, I'd expect the gov't to find at least some direct evidence

quote: Al ansar had limited resources prior to Gulf War 2. Which made sense - there wasnt alot they could do, so AQ directed resources elsewhere - Zarqawi focused more on Saudi and Jordan. Since then two things have happened 1. The overthrow of Hussein, and subsequent instability, have both opened up Iraq as a field of operations, and made it imperative to AQ to see that the US fail in Iraq. 2. The Riyadh bombings of May resulted in a severe crackdown on AQ in Saudi Arabia. Both these would explain the new AQ focus on Iraq, which would result in AQ focusing resources on Ansar.

I don't care how much assistance Ansar has gotten from al-Qaeda. It simply has nowhere near the amount of resources needed to pull something like this off. Ever since the US invasion, Ansar has essentially been castrated - and it really wasn't all that powerful to start off with. The CS Monitor had a really article on the history of the organization a couple weeks ago:

"Such has been the fate of the majority of Ansar's original members, say these detained militants, which makes them skeptical that the group can be behind many of the current attacks in Iraq. Gharib estimates that of the 600 Ansar members, some 250 were killed, 50 "were officials who ran away," and the rest have been arrested by the PUK, have given themselves up, or are still in semi-hiding in Iran. "This virtually means that Ansar is over, by the numbers," says Gharib. "Anybody saying these [current attacks] are done by Ansar has no information. They can't do it.""
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1016/...iq.html?related

quote: Other way around - he called himself Syrian, then they decided he was Yemeni.

Ah, my bad.

quote: Yemen has lots of Islamists - theres been a virtual civil war between the Islamists and govt. Are the still Arab nationalists who are not pro-govt?

Well, the gov't is an Arab nationalist one... Why should it matter if they're pro-gov't? And I think you overstate the Islamist rebellion - the gov't clearly has the upper hand.

quote: Maybe, though i havent heard about them lately. The point is that you stated his nationality as evidence that this is NOT islamism at work. If hes yemeni his nationality is not such evidence.

Look at it this way: Half of the population is Shia, and probably at least half of the population is nationalist. The probability of this person being part of al-Qaeda can't be more than 1/4.

quote: 2. It happened on Ramadan. But AQ executes operations on Ramadan

Nonetheless, secular nationalists like the Ba'athists would be more likely to launch a major attack on the start of Ramadan than Sunni Islamists like al-Qaeda.

quote: 4. No AQ captured yet (that we know of) First this requires ignoring captured Ansar. Second, even if we ignore those, its easily explained by Coalition focus on Baathi, and superior AQ tradecraft.

We're not ignoring al-Qaeda. The idea that we're using disproportionate resources in dealing with the Ba'athists is totally absurd. To wit; look at how badly we've manhandled Ansar.

And again, Ansar is a very different thing from al-Qaeda.

Sure, al-Qaeda may be a more effective organization than the Ba'athist resistance given the number of people in them, but they're not gods. If they really are committing these sorts of resources to Iraq, I'd expect to at least see some hard evidence.

quote: Is it POSSIBLE that its not AQ? certainly. But Id say theres at least a 75% probability that it was AQ and affiliates involved.

I'd say the opposite.

	31-10-2003 04:01									#155
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Ned LoTM, I have a hard time understanding MtG because he seems to be inconsistent. I still would like to understand why he thinks building up the SV or Iraqi military and withdrawing US troops was or is a bad policy.

I'm very consistent. You just have to look deep under the surface.

"Building up the SV military" is exactly the problem. We let the generals in Saigon draft every g**k in the countryside they could lay their hands on, and simply facilitated absorbing VC elements into the ARVN. RF-PFs and MAT/DATs? They hosed our advisors on a regular basis. ARVN officers stealing payroll, or extorting cuts from the conscripts for them to get paid?

Due primarily to cultural differences, language barriers, and an institutional lack of desire to look at the unpleasant underbelly of things (like the Strategic Hamlet program), there was an entire undercurrent to building up the ARVN that nobody in command was interested in paying attention to. US troops and field commanders never liked having to rely on ARVN units other than the volunteer ARVN Rangers and Marines (who were a bit undisciplined and underarmed, but at least politically reliable and had some balls).

With respect to Iraq, we have a similar problem - it takes time to produce a coherent professional force, and we need to get swinging Cheneys into the line faster than we can sort out their backgrounds (to elininate political and intel risks), train them, make sure they really do get paid, make sure they're not riddled with infiltrators and sympathizers (or that we don't balkanize or sovietize things by having Kurds and Shiites be the main "local" ground force in Sunni areas).

We also have to train them to coordinate with US forces, to integrate with US command elements, and ideally, at least at critical staff and command levels, we want to have some semblance of peer relationships. All of that takes time to do properly, and takes resources to do properly, and many of those resources are in short supply (especially US interpreters with adequate expertise, background briefings, etc.)

Meanwhile, all this nice touchy-feely stuff doesn't have an immediate or near term impact on the security situation on the ground, so if you don't plan for them as two separate issues (creating an apolitical, accountable, professional Iraqi military force for long term security and stability when we let them run their own country again, vs. the immediate needs to break some heads on the ground), they get muddled together, and one gets shortcut to expedite the other.

That's where we ****ed up with the ARVN, but then we had to go through the dual set of motions that the generals we more or less had as our boys were in fact elected independent leaders on the one hand, and at the same time, really were our boys and didn't have their own thugopolistic agendas at cross-purposes to our agenda.

The US approach to this sort of thing is to make excuses that "we've done this and this and this for them, but that is their problem" - trouble is, if the house of cards goes poof, it doesn't really matter to the end result if it was an Iraqi card or an American card that went first. Especially if one side or the other things whosever card it was, it really should have been the other guy's.

	31-10-2003 04:05									#156
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Ned USSR's Afghanistan and Vietnam were very similar. Iraq is also similar to each and the solution is the same. Build up the local military and withdraw. The USSR's problem was that it did not do this but chose to carry on the fight itself. We seem to be heading to a USSR style of debacle.

Perhaps the ONLY similarity is that the political leadership's grandiose pronouncements before the fact were disconnected from reality on the ground to a similar extent.

Remember, Iraq has to become a "model of hope" and a "beacon of democracy" for the entire arab world. You ARE still committed to your President's vision, aren't you?

	31-10-2003 04:08									#157
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by Chemical Ollie Iraq is not Germany. It is not Korea, Vietnam or even Somalia. The closest comparison would be Afghanistan - Sovjet's invasion, that is. An easy victory, followed by a long occupation and a slow, grinding guerilla war where the occupation forces got new coffins to send home every day, until they eventually decided to leave.

The soviets had FAR higher casualty rates (per enemy killed and per day) than we do.

	31-10-2003 04:31									#158
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I dunno, at this point I'm really looking forward to our boys leaving a big cache of arms in Shiite country and letting them finish the job for us.

	31-10-2003 04:33									#159
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

A worthy chart of notice for you all:

Source: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct...30-D-6570C.html

Attachment: 031030-d-6570c-001.jpg
This has been downloaded 54 time(s).

	31-10-2003 04:33									#160
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Fez... that looks like it was made in Excel

	31-10-2003 04:34									#161
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Perhaps the ONLY similarity is that the political leadership's grandiose pronouncements before the fact were disconnected from reality on the ground to a similar extent. Remember, Iraq has to become a "model of hope" and a "beacon of democracy" for the entire arab world. You ARE still committed to your President's vision, aren't you?

Bush is just being a HELL of a lot more decent in his response to events than many would be.

	31-10-2003 04:44									#162
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by skywalker Fez... that looks like it was made in Excel

I didn't make it... ask the guys in the DOD.. And what's wrong with excel?

	31-10-2003 07:23									#163
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

It doesn't even have proper units listed. Thousands of what? Newtons? Looks like Shrub fails his math assignment again.

	31-10-2003 07:45									#164
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Ramo It doesn't even have proper units listed. Thousands of what? Newtons? Looks like Shrub fails his math assignment again.

Bananas! That's it! 275,000 Bananas have been deployed against the terrorist threat in Iraq...

Another unfortunate case of Bush saying one thing and getting a different outcome...

	31-10-2003 19:14									#165
	Put an end to popups!

I wonder what Shrub's (and Bremer's) response will be. It seems like they may crack down on the Shia, thus playing into the hands of the Ba'athists. Hopefully, as Rummy seems to be out of the loop nowadays, Powell may be able to inject a little bit of reason into his actions.

	31-10-2003 19:48									#166
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat I'm very consistent. You just have to look deep under the surface. "Building up the SV military" is exactly the problem. We let the generals in Saigon draft every g**k in the countryside they could lay their hands on, and simply facilitated absorbing VC elements into the ARVN.

MTG is quite right. There have already been problems on the ground with the new Iraqi police - accusations of Baathist sympathizers helping "inside jobs", and much more, of persistent corruption and inefficiency. While the CPA seems to be moving rapidly up the learning curve, and the quality of the police seems to be improving in recent months, the danger of introducing similar problems into an Iraqi army or civil defense force if the formation of such is rushed is quite real. The real hope is that the strategic differences from Viet Nam are enough that things are less rushed - the borders are more easily controlled, US casualties are far lower, the hearst and minds situation is far better (what would Viet Nam have been like if the Montagnards had been 80% of the population?).

Also the political situation is different. As frustrating as the Iraqi Gov Council has been, its still far better (SO FAR!) than the South Viet Namese generals. To the extent that local political leadership can improve the vetting and reliability of local forces, there is a chance Iraq may be different from Viet Nam.

	31-10-2003 19:48									#167
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Ramo I wonder what Shrub's (and Bremer's) response will be. It seems like they may crack down on the Shia, thus playing into the hands of the Ba'athists. Hopefully, as Rummy seems to be out of the loop nowadays, Powell may be able to inject a little bit of reason into his actions.

why would they crack down on the Shia, when theres no evidence the Shia have had a hand in the recent violence?

	31-10-2003 19:55									#168
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Rumsfeld on training iraqi forces

"Q Is there some concern that you're rushing it too much, particularly in the training?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Always.

Q I mean, can you talk --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Always.

Q And can you talk about that a little more?

SEC. RUMSFELD: And that's a fair issue. It's a risk issue. There are three, four, five risk issues that we're constantly trying to balance. And, you know, in a perfect world, you'd have a year's vetting process before you included anybody. Unfortunately, we're not in a perfect world. So -- so what we do is we vet them to the best we can.


Then, I think that Mr. Kerik said that he thought that it was appropriate to have about eight weeks training, for example, for police; that anything less than that, they're not really up on the step and ready to do the job in terms of values, in terms of experience, in terms of management of difficult situations, in terms of investigations. Some types of police work take a lot more training than others, you know, forensics and the type. So what's been done is that they've taken some people with fewer than eight weeks training in the police, put them out with the understanding they'd bring them back and give them the remaining course, as they're able to feed additional people through the process. And it was a way of getting more people on the street doing things.


The army is the one that takes the longest -- the heaviest equipment. And, of course, that's the least problem. Iraq is not likely to be attacked by armies, navies or air forces externally; it is being attacked internally. And so the army is -- you can accept that it takes a longer period of time.

The border patrol is an immediate problem, and we've got folks that are doing that.

Site protection probably takes the least training, and yet is quite important. But it doesn't require maneuvering, it doesn't require heavy equipment; it requires a presence and -- and of course, I've said it before, but I'll say it again, there have been something between 80 and 85 Iraqis, security people, who have been killed in the last three or four months. So it's not like these people are standing around not doing anything. They're out there doing things."

	31-10-2003 19:58									#169
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I think that they're the most likely suspects if you ignore minor religious details as this administration is apt to do (look at the posts in this thread). And given the recent flare ups between the US and the Sadrists, I wouldn't be suprised if the Shia are blamed.

	31-10-2003 20:59									#170
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Ramo Nonetheless, if al-Qaeda were able to pull off something this complicated in Baghdad, I'd expect the gov't to find at least some direct evidence

Have they found any direct evidence tying the carbombings to the Baathists?

quote: I don't care how much assistance Ansar has gotten from al-Qaeda. It simply has nowhere near the amount of resources needed to pull something like this off. Ever since the US invasion, Ansar has essentially been castrated - and it really wasn't all that powerful to start off with. The CS Monitor had a really article on the history of the organization a couple weeks ago: "Such has been the fate of the majority of Ansar's original members, say these detained militants, which makes them skeptical that the group can be behind many of the current attacks in Iraq. Gharib estimates that of the 600 Ansar members, some 250 were killed, 50 "were officials who ran away," and the rest have been arrested by the PUK, have given themselves up, or are still in semi-hiding in Iran. "This virtually means that Ansar is over, by the numbers," says Gharib. "Anybody saying these [current attacks] are done by Ansar has no information. They can't do it."" http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1016/...iq.html?related

first - the ones who "are in semi-hiding in Iran" have likely come back. Second you assume Ansar is limited to its original members. I think you draw to sharp a line between AQ and Ansar. If AQ recruits someone in Yemen, and that person goes to Iraq, never having been "officially" made a member of AQ, and passes under the control of local Ansar types, reporting to Zarqawi do we call that person AQ? Ansar? does it matter? theyre clearly not baathists.

quote: Well, the gov't is an Arab nationalist one... Why should it matter if they're pro-gov't? And I think you overstate the Islamist rebellion - the gov't clearly has the upper hand.

Because the govt has been cooperating with the US, and so anyone coming to Iraq to bomb US allies would necessarily be anti-govt.

The govt may well have the upper hand - IN YEMEN. That would be why the Islamists are heading to Iraq - thats a battlefield they can win on. Ditto for AQ types coming from Saudi.

quote: Look at it this way: Half of the population is Shia, and probably at least half of the population is nationalist. The probability of this person being part of al-Qaeda can't be more than 1/4.

The probability of someone randomly selected in Yemen being antinationalist and Sunni is 1/4 (based on your numbers) thats correct. But this is not someone selected at random - its someone who traveled to Iraq to attack US allies/ Given that most arab nationalists in Yemen are pro-govt and the govt is pro-US, and given that there is no evidence of Shia moving into Iraq to attack targets associated with the US, the odds that the individual is a Sunni Islamist are very high - at least 90% I'd say. (youve never studied conditional probability, have you?)

quote: Nonetheless, secular nationalists like the Ba'athists would be more likely to launch a major attack on the start of Ramadan than Sunni Islamists like al-Qaeda.

Perhaps, but less likely to engage in coordinated attacks, a little less likely to target NGO's, much less likely to use suicidal techniques, somewhat less likely to use diversionary tactics, and at least somewhat less likely to use Plastic explosives rather than items from the old Iraqi arsenals.

quote: We're not ignoring al-Qaeda. The idea that we're using disproportionate resources in dealing with the Ba'athists is totally absurd. To wit; look at how badly we've manhandled Ansar.

When i said "ignoring Al qaeeda" I meant as part of this dicsussion. Sorry for my poor wording.

quote: And again, Ansar is a very different thing from al-Qaeda.

I really dont believe that. I believe that the lines seperating these organizations are far from hard and fast, they have a tendency to morph quickly, they have many individuals who belong to one or more groups, who found new groups when its convenient,etc.

quote: Sure, al-Qaeda may be a more effective organization than the Ba'athist resistance given the number of people in them, but they're not gods. If they really are committing these sorts of resources to Iraq, I'd expect to at least see some hard evidence.

Ive never having been part of a counter insurgency or counter terrorist effort on the ground. I therefore have no grounds for judging how hard it would be to gather hard evidence. Do you have such experience? In the absence of any such basis, i cannot consider the absence of publicly displayed hard evidence as meaningful one or the other - I can only use what is available in press accounts, and that leans, I still think, to at least a 75% chance that this was an AQ activity.

	31-10-2003 21:02									#171
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by Ramo I think that they're the most likely suspects if you ignore minor religious details as this administration is apt to do (look at the posts in this thread).

I dont know what you're referring to. Certainly the admin has been focuses on the shiite-sunni distinction since months before the war began, and has been counting on it to make the occupation easier. That doesnt mean that they believe Shiite-sunni fundi cooperation is impossible - it ISNT, as the cooperation between Hezbollah and Hamas shows. But the situation in Iraq is different.

	31-10-2003 21:15									#172
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat As far as the Big Bad Wolfie being under fire, I don't consider being on the opposite end of a building hit in a one-off terrorist attack to qualify him for a medal.

I didnt suggest he get a medal, nor the thousands of others in the Pentagon or the WTC that day. I was taking issue with the "chicken hawk" motif that suggests that to make security policy, you have to have been in the military. That somehow General Zinni's opion on Iraq should have been privileged over Wolfies. When (in my humble, civilian capacity) Wolfie had a far superior view of the overall strategic issues than Zinni did.

BTW, how the hell do you know the attack on the Pentagon is a one-off? The WTC was attacked TWICE, once in 1993, and again in 2001. Do you think the baddies wouldnt attack the Pentagon again if they could manage it?

Im sorry, i consider just about everyone who lives in the DC and NY metro areas a combat veteran, even if we didnt "eat sand" for months. Did all the decorated veterans manage to prevent 9/11? Did they take AQ seriously before then? Wasnt it some of those decorated veterans who insisted on leaving Saddam in power in 1991? Who created an atmosphere so hostile to US intervention on the ground anywhere, that the political pressure to defeat the Serbs using air assets onlu was intense? Wasnt it that chain of events - leaving Saddam in power, running from Somalia, using air power only in Kosovo - what convinced AQ that the US was a paper tiger?

Im sorry, i dont think much of the approach of the "realists" to foreign policy these last 14 years. And as far as i can see the military leadership has been very much part of the "realist" consensus.

	31-10-2003 21:18									#173
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat In case you take it personally, you should check on my treatment of lefty chicken chokers when it comes to things like troops exposing themselves to greater risk in the name of avoiding collateral damage, etc. Voters aren't policy makers, whoever it is, once you vote 'em in, you're along for the ride for the next two, four or six years.

We can influence policy by demostrating, lobbying, etc. How much so depends on the admin. In an admin as internally divided as this one, i the impact of public opinion is subtantial.

So I think you can, in that sense consider me a policy maker. So I ask, you again, am I a chicken hawk, cause i have opinions on foreign policy that differ from those of the uniformed military?

	31-10-2003 21:28									#174
	Suffering from ads?

to follow up with ramos

Ive found the following


"Plastic explosives previously have been found among the munitions believed left over from Saddam's rule. Coalition forces have seized large caches of weapons, including blocks of plastic explosives last week in a government building in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. A raid last month in Tikrit uncovered 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives."

That plus the possibility that the Baathists are learning AQ techniques, causes me to reduce the probability that AQ is behind the attacks to only about 50%.

	01-11-2003 00:51									#175
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

MtG, I am not sure I understand you. Are you objecting to the concept of Vietnamization or just its execution. If you are objecting to the concept, what is your alternative?

Cut and run?

Is that the exit strategy you advocate?

Or do you oppose an exit strategy?

Your posts are very unclear on what you favor.

	01-11-2003 01:01									#176
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

There is a moving about Vietnam called "A Bright Shining Lie." The movie protrays the carreer of a person named Vann (I believe) who spent ten or eleven years in Vietnam. He began as a US Army advisor to an ARVN battalion, and ended up commanding the entire ARVN force during the US pullout. While he was in command, the ARVN were doing quite well. Then he died in a helicopter crash. After that, the ARVN became ineffective. (The movie implied that Vann was a real person and the events were accurately protrayed.)

The implication was that the main reason the ARVN failed was lack of competent leadership, not unreliable grunts.

	01-11-2003 01:01									#177
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark We can influence policy by demostrating, lobbying, etc. How much so depends on the admin. In an admin as internally divided as this one, i the impact of public opinion is subtantial. So I think you can, in that sense consider me a policy maker. So I ask, you again, am I a chicken hawk, cause i have opinions on foreign policy that differ from those of the uniformed military?

Do you want to be one?

	01-11-2003 01:04									#178
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Do you want to be one?

I think the whole concept is misguided.

	01-11-2003 01:15									#179
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Ned The implication was that the main reason the ARVN failed was lack of competent leadership, not unreliable grunts.

Given the number of E4 to E9 US Army personnel I've known who've worked directly with ARVN units, I see absolutely no reason to doubt their statements, and the battlefield "achievements" of the ARVN are also consistent in that regard.

There is no leader ever made in a modern army (which is much more dependent on staff work and independent action of subordinate units than in Lee's and Napoleon's day) who can singlehandedly transform a poor force into a competent one, let alone have that competent force suddenly melt back to being a poor force once the leader is gone.

	01-11-2003 01:34									#180
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Ned USSR's Afghanistan and Vietnam were very similar...

Actually not. In Vietnam, the enemy still had a massive regular army you were never able to defeat, apart from the partisan or terrorist attacks behind your lines. The USSR easily occupied Afghanistan, but never met a massive regular army, but then suffered from endless guerilla attacks until they finally had it.

But I kinda agree to your solution if you can get it to work. Let the locals take over as soon as possible, and support them with air support rather than ground troops.