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[James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>]

On Sunday, Dec 7, 2003, at 20:24 US/Eastern, Alan MacHett wrote:

> Why the hell are we using jets to kill individual people?  The intended
> purpose of the A-10 Thunderbolt is to destroy tanks.  This is only one 
> of
> a long list of such abuses of military might ... the cruise missle 
> attack
> in Yemen, Apache attack helicopters picking off individual soldiers in
> Iraq I (the Apache, too, was created to destroy tanks), and all the way
> back to the bombing of Qaddafi's residence, to name a few notables.

I know people who use the calculators on their computers to balance 
their checkbooks.  Surely, for hundreds of dollars less than the price 
of a new computer, these people could by calculators?

Also, battleships were originally designed for naval surface combat.  
Why do we use them for offshore bombardment, when a marine can do the 
job cheaper?

> Y'know, it's not even cost effective.  Compare the cost of fueling,
> arming, flying, etc. a jet fighter -- add to that the mistake of 
> killing 9
> children and maybe not killing the intended target -- to the cost of
> sending some special forces troops by helo'.  Well, who knows; maybe it
> *does* cost less money to send the A-10, but wouldn't it be so much 
> more
> honorable and satisfying to have troops capture an enemy in a show of
> force rather than send some stick-jockey to play his video game on
> faceless and unsuspecting people below?

Even better: A Marine private makes less in one year than your average 
cruise missile costs US taxpayers.  Factor in the R&D, the cost to 
support the infrastructure to maintain and fire the cruise missile, and 
I'm sure that it would cost less to let a reasonably well-trained 
Marine private die taking a beach than it does to use overwhelming 
force to defeat an enemy and save US lives.

> Yeah, "honor"; I know that's a hard word to choke down in this day and
> age.  Today marks the 62nd year since the attack on Pearl Harbor.  
> Those
> are the kinds of soldiers I admire.  Those guys went through hell for a
> good cause, and they didn't have high-tech gadgets to distance 
> themselves
> physically and emotionally from the enemy.  It, and maybe Korea, were 
> the
> last "good" wars the US fought in; the rest are all just about somebody
> else's money.

"Good" because lots of US soldiers died?  "Good" because lots of 
civilians died?  You started this rant because 9 civilians died.  How 
many civilians do you think died in WWII or Korea?

Also, part of the US force advantage has been and will continue to be 
firepower from a distance.  Rifles that shoot accurately from further 
away (say, an M-14 at 200 yards) are better than rifles that shoot more 
bullets less accurately (e.g., the ever-popular AK-47 at under 50 
yards).

These disparities extend back to the Revolutionary War and the Civil 
War.  For a more recent example, the casualty ration in Somalia 
exceeded 50:1.  I don't have the exact figures with me, but it was 
roughly 17 Americans dead and more than 1,000 Somali combatants dead.  
And all we were trying to do there was feed people.  (Ironically, the 
subsequent investigation into the Battle of Mogadishu hinged around the 
commanding general's request for gunships - the A-10 is a gunship - and 
whether their presence would have saved more US soldiers, and prevented 
our victory from costing so many American dead.)

Cheers -