Quote:
Originally Posted by cashman
Me neither cheers eric, i think it would still be very convenient to nuke em though.  |
Not a big fan of the idea of tossing nukes around. But there again, I'm no fan of the new way of war. The West seems to have introduced Health and Safety rules to combat, ones that go way beyond the Geneva Convention. Too many "smart" weapons. Seems like the yanks, in particular, want the kind of war in which nobody gets killed apart from enemy combatants. Nice idea. Pimple-faced geeky kids with thousands of hours practice on their Playstations, sitting underground in Nevada, controlling massively expensive drones ... if only, eh.
By the way, before some of you believe that I'm, as Republican candidates would put it, "soft on terrorism", I firmly believe that Islam is a blight on the planet and should be eradicated, or at least toned down to CofE levels. Still don't like nukes; but there are stocks of napalm around, and conventional HE bombs are cheap and easy to make. One thing the "allies" (that would be the yanks and all those willing to kiss yankee ass) have, and I can't see them losing it, is control of the air. As the USAF demonstrated in the firebombing Tokyo on March 9, 1945 all that is necessary is control of the air and lots of cheap, easily manufactured ordnance. There was some collateral damage as the 750,000 inhabitants of the ****amachi district found out.
While I'm on this extensive rant, here's something else I don't like: the phrase "boots on the ground." Helps us ignore that fact that these "boots" are worn by brave young men and women putting their lives on the line, doesn't it. If it were just a case of boots, I would be all for it. I've some old boots that I would gladly donate to the cause. There are lots of boots, already filled, out there fighting ISIS. Many of these are being worn by Kurds, and an increasingly effective Iraqi Army. Canada, by the way, has commited more money and advisors to help train and equip these boots. I think that this will be more effective than 6 CF-18s which more often than not return from sorties without having dropped a single bomb. Health and Safety regulations again.
All the high-tech toys that Western militaries own have not changed what is needed to achieve victory. According to Liddell-Hart, perhaps the most intelligent strategic thinker of the 20th Century, infantry must take ground and hold it. Maybe there has to be a warm fuzzy "hearts and minds" campaign too. But one the few intelligent things that Richard Nixon said was: "When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
