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[tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Gene GeRue wrote:

> > The Iraq war goes badly, will continue to do so---because El Estupido 
> > hasn't got enough boots on the ground, or eyes in the sky.---not in 
> > Baghdad, not in the Sunni Triangle, and not along the Syrian, Iranian 
> > or any other Iraqi border---an open invitation to the black hats who 
> > greatly outnumber Americans and a pathetic few hundred "coalition" 
> > forces Bush assembled for propaganda purposes.  If an incompetent 
> > "Commander-In-Chief" chooses to lose a war, he loses it---it is that 
> > simple
>
>
> How many foreign invasion troops would it take to keep proud Americans 
> submissive? No army is that big. It was a stupid, arrogant and immoral 
> invasion. Well over a thousand Americans have been killed and who 
> knows how many more bodies and lives ruined because of the arrogance 
> of a few men. This is the third large stupid war we have fought in my 
> lifetime. I fervently hope that future presidents will heed the 
> lessons of Korea, Viet Nam and Iraq.




How many foreign invasion troops would it take to keep proud Americans 
submissive?

tvoivozhd---best answer to that is how many Americans did it take to 
keep even Kamikaze Japanese submissive?  A relative handful, employing 
subversion and the quite believable threat of extinction under mushroom 
clouds. And to top it all off, imposing democracy on a society to which 
it was a repugnant concept, contrary to the entire Japanese political, 
military and cultural history.

tvoivozhd---above answer applies equally well to the "no army is that 
big" bullshit.

Similarly, and more spectacularly, Alexander The Great conquered and 
kept under firm control (with about 40,000 soldiers) an empire that 
stretched from Greece and Egypt to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India.

His mushroom cloud was to raze any city that offered any opposition, and 
kill all the inhabitants---pardon me, not all, in several he chopped off 
male arms at the elbow, and sent the armless to surrounding cities to 
spread the good news---presto---all opposition to Alexander or his 
appointed governors ceased thereafter.

I have a brass plaque on my desk that best explains both our 
transformation of Japan, and the transformation of Alexander's 
empire---"When you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will 
follow."


It was a stupid, arrogant and immoral invasion.

tvoivozhd---why the hell do I have to keep repeating the truth---hasn't 
anyone ever read a history book, or a newspaper since 1990? Immoral to 
get rid of Saddam Hussein?  Stupid not to.

Except for a two-year hiatus 1991 to 1993 when military idiot Bush #1 
incited the Shiites to revolt against Saddam and left them without 
military support to be slaughtered by the thousands, the U.S. was at 
continuous war with Saddam until our troops dragged him out of a hole in 
the ground near Tikrit.

Do you not remember our pilots enforcing the "no fly" zone
being shot at on a daily basis by Saddam? Do you not remember the 
$25,000 bounty placed on each pilot's head by Saddam?  And do you not 
remember that these were the predictable consequence of military idiots 
Bush #1 and Powell letting the Sunni Presidential Guard escape to kill 
our soldiers today and every day. Extracting defeat from victory is a 
genetic trait of the Bush family.
Winning that low level war was one of the few good ideas Bush#2 ever 
had. Unfortunately you can't expect good military planning from a 
President who not only has never been shot at, but went AWOL from his 
Air Force Reserve Unit.

Bad planning is a genetic Bush family trait too---Bush #1 imposed a "no 
fly" zone but applied it fixed-wing aircraft, not against Saddam's 
helicopters armed with guns and rockets, and not against armed tanks 
which Bush allowed to roam and savage the Shiites without even a word of 
protest.  Stupid bastard. 


Well over a thousand Americans have been killed and who knows how many 
more bodies and lives ruined because of the arrogance of a few men. This 
is the third large stupid war we have fought in my lifetime. I fervently 
hope that future presidents will heed the lessons of Korea, Viet Nam and 
Iraq.

tvoivozhd---arrogance my ass---arrogance never killed any of our 
troops---lack of body and vehicle armor did, lack
of overhead surveillance did and does, and lack of boots on the ground 
did, does, and will continue to do so---all due to incompetent planning 
by Bush #2.

Every professional soldier with combat experience knows the hazard of 
war---painful but necessarily part of the job. It is command 
incompetence that is unacceptable---and which accounts for over half the 
deaths and injuries in this one.

The lesson of Korea is that defending industrial South Korea 
worked---would it make you happy if the nukes of the North were coupled 
with the industrial might of South Korea today?

The lesson of VietNam is yes, the domino theory is valid---as valid in 
South Asia as it was in Europe throughout the Cold War---the dominoes in 
Europe were kept from toppling because combat-hardened WWII 
professionals managed the European Cold War.

The other lesson of VietNam is you have to go all out to win.  Like 
Bush#2, Lyndon Johnson was obsessed with fighting a war on the 
cheap---he constantly dribbled forces into VietNam, trying to send Ho 
Chi Minh "A message"

Ho got the message all right---"Americans won't fight". So he opened his 
last gasp effort, the Tet offensive--an unsustainable campaign where 
every ounce of supplies had to come in on a Viet Cong back along a 
thousand-mile supply line. Viet Cong records disclose they were on the 
point of giving up then---and Lyndon Johnson finally opened the serious 
bombing campaign on the North that ended a war that should have been so 
ended years earlier.