Re: OT: Israeli troops mass on Gaza border

In article <gAzpg.1342$PE1.494@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
DGDevin <dgdevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Claude V. Lucas" <claudel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:44a6898c$0$12707$742ec2ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the '50s, the military was hamstrung ( again ) by the political
leadership who was unwilling to pay the necessary price to achieve
a victory. There also were logistical considerations and the fact
that we'd just been thru WW II.

That's the part you don't seem to get, sometimes the price for "victory"
(whatever that is) is just too damn high.

Says you...


Perhaps you need to clean your ears.

To state that there was "no plan" is totally ridiculous.

It would be more accurate to say that the planners were not as
competent as would be desirable, and I would wager that more
than a few generals will be taking a premature retirement to
join those who already have left the service and are doing
their best to deflect blame from themselves by crying the blues
about the Administration on CNN and the other propaganda organs.

Truman had that sign on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here." If the admin went
to war without ensuring that the plans were as good as they could reasonably
be, then who gets the blame for that? A business run this badly goes
bankrupt. "Not as competent as would be desirable," my goodness, what
delicate language to describe a first-class cluster-***.

I have read nothing that indicates that the plans in place were not
considered to be the best possible for the situation.

Of course, hindsight has again revealed the flaws in those plans.

Time will tell whether it is or is not a "first-class cluster-***".


Actually, if conducted properly and methodically such a clearance of
weaponry would be both possible and effective.

And how did that work out in Falluja? Are you expecting the insurgents to
sit around reading comic books while this is going on?

I haven't heard much one way or another about Fallujah lately.

I missed the part, though, where the Marines were allowed to
clean up the place on their terms without one hand tied behind
their back and with the authorization to apply sufficient force.


The "Marxist revolutionaries" have been drastically wrong about pretty
much everything else and have been reduced to bleating tired catch-phrases
in generally disinterested Usenet groups, so I would not be inclined to
worry
too much about this particular bit of brilliance especially in a situation
where many if not most of the troublemakers are not locals.

Marxism rightfully rests on the dungheap of history, that doesn't mean that
the techniques they used were not often highly effective.

It certainly doesn't mean that their techinques *are* effective either,
except against the easily intimidated.


Part of conducting the operation in a proper and methodical manner would
be
to minimize erroneous door kicking. If the kicked-in door led to illicit
weaponry, then the occupants reaction to the authorities would be
irrelevant.

Let's hope they do decide to put you in charge, 'cause so far there seems to
be a shortage of folks over there with your insights into how this sort of
thing should be done.

The only problem is that there is no shortage of people in charge
that are more worried about what the NYT will say than they are
about finishing the job.


Yeah, snipped-out bogus scenarios. Who cares?

Says you.

If the occupants of a building refused to allow a search by the
authorities,
then the neighbors should be given adequate warning to clear the area
before
the building is flattened from above. That type of procedure would
minimize
innocent casualties.

And then Halliburton gets another $X-million to come in and rebuild the
neighborhood except now there are more insurgents among the pissed-off
neighbors. You really don't seem to get it, brute force isn't enough, look
at how the British did it in Malaya for starters, the hearts-and-minds thing
really is important.

OH NO!

Not HALLIBURTON!

The Brits are a *great* example to follow, that's for sure.


Coordinated efforts
to reveal classified information by both individuals and corporate
entities
are an abuse of out constitutional rights and should be severely dealt
with.

Unfortunately the govt. wants to classify everything, I once looked at an
inter-base bus schedule posted on an airbase bulletin board and it was
stamped, "Classified." Just because the govt. wants to conceal something
doesn't mean it should stay hidden, there's a lot of stuff that Nixon or
Clinton would have preferred you not to hear about, doesn't mean the papers
did something bad by revealing the truth.

You certainly seem to be able to concoct
a worst-case for every scenario.

The fact is, there are things that the general
public just does *not* need to know.


I'm not suggesting any particular scenario in any specific detail. I am
merely reminding that there are people of whatever nationality who have
sworn to do as much damage to the US as they can by whatever means
necessary.

On that we entirely agree, but again I have to ask, why are resources that
could be employed going after those bastards instead being pissed away in
Iraq?

Why don't *you* run for office and get elected?

Then *you* can set the national priorities.

Many, if not most people seem to believe that the war effort in
Iraq will be worth the trouble in the long run.


Denying that the Hussein regime in Iraq had an ongoing chemical and
biological weapons capability is to turn a blind eye to the fate of
hundreds of thousands of various Kurds, Persians, and other residents
of the area who met a gruesome fate. Personally, I am willing to give
the benefit of the doubt to those who decided that Hussein needed to
be dealt with at the time that he *was* dealt with. Howlings of the
hate-Bush crowd aside, there has been no proof that it was a mistake
to do so.

Saddam was a monster responsible for the deaths of millions, he would
without question have resumed WMD research and production if he had had the
chance. The point you're missing is he didn't have the chance, he had been
mostly hamstrung by sanctions and inspections, doesn't mean that would never
have changed, but at the time of the invasion he was nothing like the threat
the administration claimed. And 500 rusty old shells dating from 20 years
back doesn't change that, they didn't find the WMD that were supposedly
there, if that doesn't qualify as a mistake, what does?

The point that *you* are missing is that the world is a better
place without the Hussein regime in charge in Iraq. If finding
the older remnants of his arsenal doesn't convince you that they
were evading the inspections, then perhaps when you are elected
you can broaden the search to the neighboring countries. The actual
hardware is secondary to the removal of the ability to use whatever
destructive equipment may or may not have been there.

Saddam was *the* WMD.


As far as Soviet era nukes are concerned, there are varying opinions
as to whether or not a third party possessing a purloined device would
have the technical capability to perform maintenance activities such
as tritium replenishment that are necessary for the weapons to function.

Some of the people who made those nukes are on the market too, and surely
the Soviets had fission-only tactical devices as well.

It is also true that if the secondary fusion reaction fizzles that the
primary fission reaction produces an extremely destructive event, but
the former Soviet era nukes would seem to be pretty much on the same
shelf as the "500 rusty old shells". In the case of someone being able
to provide adequate maintenance to such devices there is no reason
to suspect that they would not be fully effective.

Whether or not such an effort has been in place is open to speculation.

I have read that the expense involved was too high for the Soviets, and
that many of thier nuclear devices were deteriorating long before the
deterioration of their empire. Whether or not this is the case is something
I have no means to verify. Whether or not anyone else with sufficient resources
including a reactor to produce the tritium and the infrastructure to purify
it has put forth the effort to keep Soviet antiques in working condition is not
something I'm aware of.


I doubt seriously if anyone reading or writing this has the first clue
about the details of what is actually being done to prevent an event of
large scale destruction in North America. It would seem to be prudent to
hold such plans far away from public disclosure.

Ah, so in the absence of information, you assume the best. There are two
sides to this coin, on the one side we have the Bush-bashers, and on the
other folks who apparently are willing to assume the same govt. that
couldn't handle Katrina is doing a good job of something else.

Well, this discussion is certainly drifting, but there are those
that believe that the failures to plan for Katrina, and the failure
to cope with the aftermath were largely the fault of intrenched
corruption and greed on the part of local officials who mismanaged
the funds allocated for that purpose and made poor decisions on the
spot as the disaster was occurring. This was apparently compounded
by gross incompetence on the part of the Federal bureaucracy, but
I believe that there are different bureaucrats in charge of port
security.

Hopefully they are more competent.

It definately was Bush's fault, however, that the hurricane occurred
in the first place. After all, he *is* the sole source of all the evil
that ails the planet.

Well, time will tell whether this war is any more pointless than
any other half-assed effort has been in the past.

You mean "Mission Accomplished" was premature?

It's easy to ignore people who are blatantly and obviously full of ***.

There's no shortage of *** on either side, and while I think the far left
is hip-deep in the stuff, it is frankly baffling that you would extend such
an enourmous benefit of the doubt to an administration that has produced its
own bumper crop of manure.

Again, it falls back to the facts that the current Administration
is the less bad of the awful and that there has been no better
alternatives proposed that I've seen yet.
.

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