Invasion of Iraq good or bad for War on Terror?

[Iceberg]

Much as it pains me to say this, Comical Axi does have a point. Foreign countries - even friendly ones - do run intel ops on the United States, which does necessarily occasionally include agents on the ground. It's an unsavory fact, but a fact nevetheless.

[Sharp-kun]

so we've routed out moles in the past. how does this prove that the UK and Israel have active spies right now working in the US?

I would be surprised if we didn't. I would also be surpised if the US didn't have spies here. Its the inteligence communities job.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Fuck countries, from what I've read Microsoft, and other corporate enities, run intel ops on each other. To say the least a few company's like Standard Oil, and Dole Fruits have destabalized/overthrown countries within this century....

[Darth Wong]

Much as it pains me to say this, Comical Axi does have a point. Foreign countries - even friendly ones - do run intel ops on the United States, which does necessarily occasionally include agents on the ground. It's an unsavory fact, but a fact nevetheless.

True, but they don't necessarily run around invading us, and in the larger sense of this thread, he's trying to justify an invasion, not an espionage operation. You've just allowed him to quietly change the subject.

[Iceberg]

Much as it pains me to say this, Comical Axi does have a point. Foreign countries - even friendly ones - do run intel ops on the United States, which does necessarily occasionally include agents on the ground. It's an unsavory fact, but a fact nevetheless.

True, but they don't necessarily run around invading us, and in the larger sense of this thread, he's trying to justify an invasion, not an espionage operation. You've just allowed him to quietly change the subject.

I never said he was wholly correct, just that he has a point buried somewhere in the depths of his murky thought processes. Like a broken clock is right twice a day, but only for a single second.

[Axis Kast]

True, but they don't necessarily run around invading us, and in the larger sense of this thread, he's trying to justify an invasion, not an espionage operation. You've just allowed him to quietly change the subject.

Just because something can be done or because a certain option should not be ruled out of the realm of possibility on grounds of moral bankruptcy does not mean that one should immediately go and do those things, Wong.

Of course, if you think that any global superpower can get anywhere by refusing to play hardball, that's your problem, not mine.

[General Zod]

if a spy's cover gets blown it means bad news for the US. especially if there's nothing that's actually worth spying on. sure all countries keep their secrets. But unless it's something big then sending spies is a waste of dollars, time and effort.

Yes, it does. And you might be correct if the topic of discussion were, say, Zimbabwe.

But it's not. We're talking about Israel, and about the United Kingdom. Two nations in whose inner circles we wish to have unknown ears.

exactly how does this invalidate my point that sending spies somewhere where there may or may not be something of vital importance is a waste of time, money and effort if there turns out to be nothing there?

[Axis Kast]

You may not find it good policy to keep tabs on the Israeli government (which tends to be known for its loose-cannon decision-making); others do, however.

As for Britain, it should be manifestly clear: we want ears in any first-world economic and military power.

[Perinquus]

Look you asked for a defense spending record. Not every military spending item, or even most of them will relate to the war on terrorists. So when you get evidence that Kerry wants to cut spending, it's kind of ridiculous of you to sneer because this particular item is not relevant to the war on terrorists. We're talking about Kerry's record on defense in general.

I didn't just refer to the war on terror, did I?

And I didn’t refer to Kerry’s long standing record on defense in general did I?

And the reason to oppose cutting the submarine fleet is that we have one shipyard in the US that can build nuclear submarines - the Electric Boat company at Groton CT. If they lose their contracts, and don't have anything to build, the skilled workers all have to go find jobs somewhere else in other industries. Then if the situation in the world changes, and we're faced with a powerful enemy with a strong navy, and we've let out ability to build subs evaporate, we can't suddenly reconstitute it so easily.

Prove that cutting the SSN fleet by any number (the Bill called for a reduction to 40) would result in an unrecoverable loss in shipbuilding skill- especially considering that these would be in-service submarines, not new-build ones (which in 1993 included many older Sturgeon submarines that are now long retired).

Actually, I have to concede a bit here. I note that at least Kerry had sense enough not to cut funding on the Seawolf submarine, which is where the prospect of losing our ability to build nuclear subs lies. However, the fact remains that Kerry more often than not votes against military spending. Most of his other votes have been clearly on the cut-military-spending side. Recent, the only times he’s voted pro-military funding were when he went along with 90%-plus majorities, going against only the left-wing hardliners like Boxer, Harkin and Wellstone.

Kerry is playing up his Vietnam record in order to portray himself as strong on defense (which is ironic given his attending anti-war rally’s with Jane Fonda when he got back, and calling his fellow Vietnam vets war criminals), but his voting record clearly shows dovishness. When faced with a choice on the Reagan defense build-up which more than anything sent the U.S.S.R. into an economic tailspin as they tried to match it, Kerry was on the wrong side of history. Ditto for the Gulf War. With defense systems where, with a few exceptions, he has voted to cut military expenditures and weaken national defense. Whenever he has voted in favor of military expenditures, it’s only when the votes were on the no-brainer side, with 90%-plus majorities.

Sorry, catchy bumper sticker slogans don't constitute an argument. This just proves you will sneer at anything, and apologize for anything done by a left leaning politician. I served in a light infantry unit, just for your information. I was in the 25th from 1997-2000. Light infantry units really do have a mission, and really can serve a useful purpose, snide comments like this notwithstanding.

Bullfucking shit. Clinton has done more than enough in his time in office to piss me off, and there's no gurantee that Kerry won't do the same. What I object to is this litany of stereotypical generalizations you've plopped out as an argument, without any hint of justification, and then your pretending that they're some sort of definitive statement of his stance on defense.

Back to the actual topic: Light infantry units *do* have a mission, that mission being highly specialized- and they *are* too light to fight anything other than an enemy without armor or support of any kind. Frankly, how many do you think are needed? Justify your position, for once. Frankly, I don't see you serving in one being relevant in any way whatsoever, and probably clouds your judgement out of pride. Did you know that your 25th (1st and 2nd brigade) was being upped to a medium division? With Strykers? in short, catch-phrase my arse.

Like hell my service isn’t relevant. It means I know what the fuck I’m talking about. It really amazes me that you actually have the audacity to claim to know what the capabilities of my division was, what we were trained for, and what our mission was better than I do, when I served in it and you didn’t. I know the light infantry specializes in opposing lighter forces – which are more frequently encountered in a age where asymmetrical warfare is apparently becoming the rule rather than the exception. And since elements of all our light infantry units are committed to rotating deployments Afghanistan and Iraq, it looks like we may need all of them right now.

Somehow, this strikes me as just a wee bit of an exagerration.

It's practically true. FFS, the USAF has more F-16s alone in service than the combined air forces of all of Europe, practically.

Defense has never been the priority for European countries that it has for us. And it has become less so since the end of the cold war.

And we all know how those ships could NEVER be deployed to another part of the world, like say, the Persian Gulf, to clear mines and make the area safe for US and other shipping.

Look Mr Dishonest- Kerry called for the termination of the MHC(V) program, not mine hunters in general.

Which doesn’t mean those ships can’t be usefully deployed elsewhere.

And when our global committments are up, why would you want to reduce the size of the armed forces by 60,000 men? I was in the army when our manpower went down dramatically, and the optempo went up. Suddenly we were all working 60+ hour weeks routinely, and often much more. Moral was down, and the military was having problems retaining key personnel because everyone was tired of not having any time for a life.

Yes, in the face of increased commitments, let's cut the size of the military even more, and make sure our power is stretched thinner. Great idea.

And global commitments were through the roof in 1993, were they?

They were already on the way up, with the army being deployed to Somalia.

Having eked out a living on meager military pay, I can attest to the fact that we don't pay soldiers enough. I had soldiers in my squad who were married and had children who had to get WIC checks because they couldn't feed their families and pay all their other bills on the paychecks. Does the this justification for raising military salaries not enter into the leftist brain... at all?

Yes, I'm sure there are some in the military who are in dire financial straits in need of a pay rise. And I'm sure there are people who aren't in the military in the same situation. Maybe we should advocate that they all get wage increases to live as they feel they should? Or just the military? Name me one employee- anywhere- who doesn't think he needs mo'money. This is classic erection-for-defense crap- anything less than mo'money is seen as "soft on defense".

The military is dependent on congress for raises. The vast majority of the other workers you refer to are in private sector jobs. It’s up to their civilian bosses to give them raises if they are warranted. Government spending doesn’t enter into it. Funny how this distinction seems to slide right by you.

And there goes that crazy whacko let's maintain our numerical and technoligical superiority idea.

Prove your bullshit false dilemma that any cut in military spending would result in losing America's already overwhelming technical and numerical superiority.

You want me to prove that cutting programs that pioneer new defense technologies will have an adverse effect on how much we advance our military technology? You want me to prove the sky is blue while I’m at it?

Nice sneering dismissal. It doesn't erase the fact that all throughout his career in congress, Kerry has consistenly viewed defense as a low priority on his agenda, and has been much more focused on social programs. As I said, he is practically the stereotype of the soft on defense liberal who would rather spend the money on social programs. In more settled times, perhaps we could afford that. But right now, with terrorists being such a big threat, this is not the man I want in the White House. This country has a long and ignoble history of being less than adequately prepared for the ward it's had to fight, and politicians like Kerry are a big reason for it.

Spare me the right wing spiel. For some reason, I'm reminded of the bit the daily show did with Cheney slamming Kerry on defense with a litany of weapons systems he was "against" (which was spurious propaganda based on his voting against two entire bills in 1990 and 1995, but anyway)- while the other side of the split screen showed yet another car bomb in Baghdad. Terrorism has very little, if anything, to do with cuts in the weapons that Kerry has at times advocated. Furthermore, your continued repetition aside, your free republic article is nothing but an unobjective cherry-pick of mostly the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, and says nothing of his voting for defense appropriation bills for the last 7 years.

See above

Funny, I had heard that they were used to good effect in the last war.

So were all sorts of other weapons. Doesn't automatically mean they were a wise procurement decision.

If it makes the job of the soldier less risky, and allows us to use up materiel instead of personnel, it’s probably a wise procurement decision.

And of course, as the technology for stealth aircraft is improved, and experience with such aircraft gained, it should become possible to build stealth planes better and more inexpensively in future... if we develop the technology that is. Yes, let's make sure we never develop the capability. God knows we can be certain we'd never need it anyway.

There are plenty of other 'stealth' planes in development, and in the case of the most expensive, controversial one (F/A-22), it's actually more justified.

And how many of these were in development when Kerry voted to cut funding for this one?

And the ability to defend against incoming missiles is bad because?

Because it won't work.

Really? Perhaps not against a massive, Cold War type bombardment that would destroy the country several times over. How many potential enemies today can launch attacks like that? Faced with smaller nations with far more limited capabilities, it may not be infeasible at all that we can develop defense systems against the kinds of missile attacks they could launch.

And why would he make these statements in the first place? It tells you where his priorities are. He'd rather spend the money on something other than defense. And if he does allocate money for defense items, it will be rather grudgingly. It would be different if you could point to something like him saying "we need to cut money from high tech boondoggle programs so we can make sure not to shortchange our conventional forces" (like former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis did, for example), but I am not aware of any such statements Kerry has ever made. His natural inclination seems to be to place defense as a low priority on his agenda.

Not if you take a remotely fair look at his voting record, instead of cherry picking free republic articles.

Try this one:

Senator John Forbes Kerry (MA)

Why not, when Clinton himself admitted it?

No, what Clinton admitted to is *not* what you're arguing- Sudan never offered to hand over Bin Laden directly to them, doesn't matter what Mansoor Ijaz says- they responded to US pressure and kicked him out.

Why would Clinton bother explaining why he didn’t choose to extradite Bin Laden if we never had a realistic chance of laying our hands on him?

Then it's awfully funny that George Tenet and other officials in the CIA say this sure was news to them.

Proof?

Gladly:

Licence to kill bin Laden may have been news to CIA

A report compiled by the commission's staff found that senior officials in the Clinton White House said they had made it clear the CIA had a licence to kill the Saudi fugitive and not just capture him.
But the report said: "If the policy makers believed their intent was clear, every CIA official interviewed on this topic by the commission, from (the CIA director, George Tenet) to the official who actually briefed the agents in the field, told us they had heard a different message.
"What the United States would let the military do is quite different, Tenet said, from the rules that govern covert action in the field."
The distinction may have made a crucial difference to the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader, who later ordered the September 11 attacks.
"CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President Clinton as instructing them to capture bin Laden, except in the defined contingency. They believed that the only acceptable context for killing bin Laden was a credible capture operation," the report said.
It quoted a former chief of the Osama bin Laden unit as saying: "We always talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him."

[Perinquus]

I never claimed that military action alone will "solve" the problem of terrorism. But when a country can be proven to be harboring or supporting terrorists, I think military action against that country is appopriate. I do not think we should wait until after the next 9-11 to use military force.

Yes, in such blatant cases it is appropriate, and well, gee, the US stomped the Taliban government of Afghanistan flat as a pancake while most of the world either helped or approved in any case. You have yet to offer a single shred of evidence for why the war in Iraq (the subject of this thread) and the war in Afghanistan (an unrelated subject) were remotely analoguous, so I'm just going to accept your concession.

You know, it’s funny how no matter how many times I point out that I started out on this thread in the first place responding to another posters blanket assertion, with no distinction made between Iraq and Afghanistan, and no matter how many times I concede that the Iraq justification is looking rather dodgy these days, it just doesn’t seem to register.

So what should he have done? Accepted having bin Laden handed over and locked him up indefinitely without a trial, giving a visible martyr for the AQ cause and getting roundly castigated by the rest of the world? Or accepted and quietly have him killed, with the same results?

And this would have been worse that letting him plan and execute the 9/11 attack how?

You're using hindsight on a situation when bin Laden's significance was almost completely unknown, and when that situation was assessed with the information at hand at the time, it was the correct decision. In the perfect world of hindsight, things are different, but we did not have prescience back then.

It wasn’t completely unknown, as I pointed out in a previous post. As early as 1997, and possibly much earlier, he had been identified in the mainstream media as a serious potential threat. I would certainly hope that our intelligence services had an idea a bit earlier than that.

See above about hindsight. Given the information at hand at that time, the decisions they made were correct. You have no argument.

Only if you insist on regarding Osama Bin Laden as a criminal rather than a military enemy, which is the entire point I am making. It was a mistake to look at him that way.

If you are not extraditing a terrorist because you don't think you have legal grounds, and that terrorist then goes on to kill large numbers of Americans, your approach failed.

Iceberg already dealt with your extradition argument, so why don't you quit flogging a dead horse?

Really? I have been contending all along that he should have been assassinated if he could not be extradited. And today you have Richard Clarke saying Clinton authorized just that, although George Tenet and other in the CIA deny that they were told this. I frankly have a hard time understanding why some people have such a problem with the idea of killing a known terrorist.

Yes, other things related to the most basic, elementary security issues that were not done and had been in use in Europe and the rest of the world for decades to prevent exactly the kind of action (airplane hijacking) that made the WTC attack possible. There is absolutely NO EXCUSE. None whatsoever.

And again, if the head had been cut off the Al Quaeda snake earlier, when we had a chance to get him, the whole plot might have ended aborning.

I still don’t think you entirely get me. I don’t blame Clinton too much for letting Bin Laden slip through his fingers. Though I still think it was a mistake, it’s a somewhat understandable one, given that Bin Laden hadn’t done his worst deeds yet, and though we knew he was dangerous, we might not have appreciated quite how much. But today we do appreciate it. We played it a certain way back then, which is hindsight was not the best way. And the problem is that Kerry doesn’t seem to be saying he’d play it any differently today, despite the painful experience we’ve gained.

Your government fucked up because of pressure from businesses who thought their bottom line more important than safety and pressure from passengers who couldn't be bothered to be inconvenienced in the slightest, even to save their lives, and because of that collective spinelessness and incompetence when the threat of airline hijackings was a known possibility America took it squarely on the chin the first time a serious incident happened. Just deal with that fact and suck it up.

We’re still fucking it up with a ludicrous PC refusal to look for terrorists (God knows we can’t [shudder]profile[/shudder] people. So instead we search blue haired old ladies and wheelchair bound D-Day veterans, and take their nail clippers away to show how fair, impartial and thorough we are. And we let the young Middle Eastern-looking males go by with out too much bother because we don’t want to look like racists profiling people.

I’m sorry, all this makes it more crucial than ever that we regard terrorists as the military enemies they are. They are too damn likely to slip through the joke that passes for airport security.

But military action against a dangerous terrorist might well have forestalled the whole thing. Based on Kerry's record and his statements, I don't believe he would have taken the military approach back in '96, and more importantly, I still don't think he would take it today.

Using hindsight when the data was not available. Concession accepted.

Don’t uncork the champagne just yet. As I said, we knew back in the 90s that he was dangerous. It isn’t entirely hindsight.

Yes I've thought about the wider implication of what I am saying. The war with terrorists is a war. Or had that fact escaped your notice? Osama Bin Laden and his crew certainly regard it as a war, and they are waging it quite ruthlessly. Well in war you don't arrest enemy soldiers, you kill them. And when you capture them, they don't get mirandized, appointed a lawyer, and assigned a day in court. They just become POWs. This is war my friend. Just because it is not conventional war between nation states does not make it any less of a war.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but a state of war by its very nature exists only between state entities

Bullshit. Asymmetrical warfare and guerrilla warfare are still called warfare for a good reason, even though one side may be composed of irregulars who have no direct affiliation with a nation state.

and this War on Terror only matches a colloquial use of the word, not reality. How the fuck do you go about identifying the enemy? How do you guarantee that you don't just summarily deal the same fate to a shitload of innocents in the process?

Give me a fucking break. Are you really suggesting that we might confuse high level personnel in terrorist organizations like Al Quaeda with Achmet the Persian rug exporter? Do you really think that our intelligence agencies have no idea whatever who the real terrorists are, and might inadvertently target some poor innocent shmoe instead?

I’m not talking about sending a CIA assassin after every single person who we think might be a terrorist, no matter how lowly a “foot soldier” he may be in the organization. That wouldn’t be either practical or necessary. I’m talking about taking out the key personnel. And we know who they are. There really isn’t much room for cases of mistaken identity here.

And please don't tell me about how I am saying we should ignore the constitution in the case of "foreigners who don't like America", that is a ridiculous strawman distortion.

In light of the actions of the US government actions, it's not a strawman distortion, it's a statement of fact. See Guantanamo. Or why the hell do you think all those Brits the US released to UK government custody with demands for them to be kept under control got released with no charges within two days of the handover? Some nations actually care about the ideals they were founded on, even when it might be inconvenient to those in power.

Really? Are you really naïve enough to think that there is a powerful nation out there with completely clean hands? You know, Machiavelli was considered an evil man by some for advocating what he did in “The Prince”, but all he did was write down the rules nations play by. The world is what it is, not what you wish it to be. If you try to deal with it on any other terms you will not be a success. This does not mean I advocate total disregard of ones ideals. But they simply have to be tempered with a certain practical flexibility, harsh as that seems sometimes. If you go down to defeat by your more ruthless enemies, what are your ideals worth then?

I am talking about people who more than just "dislike America". I am talking about people who hate America with a fanatical religious fervor, who have stated their clear intent to attack Americans, even civilian Americans, as and when they can, and who plan and carry out these attacks when they are able to do so. I am suggesting that we treat these self proclaimed enemies as enemy combatants, not criminals.

So vigilante justice is completely okay? Or just vigilante justice against foreigners? Didn't think I'd hear a police officer advocating this kind of shit...

Why? I’m only human. There are a lot of things I would do that I can’t, because I am constrained by rules. Many of them I would break if I could get away with it.

Think of it in these terms. Back when my father was a policeman in this town, if you mouthed off to a cop you got slapped down. If you resisted a cop, or assaulted one, you went to a hospital and the ER docs put a turban on your head. And most crooks were a little bit afraid of the cops, because they knew that the cops would fuck you up.

Today, we have a kinder, gentler police force. The criminals simply aren’t afraid of us anymore, and we get into fights a lot more often. We have a lot more suspects try to run, a lot more who resist, and a lot more who won’t hesitate to assault a police officer. Since our reputation no longer deters them, they’re more willing to fight us. So we have more fights. This not only results in cops being injured more often, it results in the crooks being injured more often because there are so many more fights. So on the pretext of being kinder and less harsh, we’ve enacted policies meant to hurt people less, and it results in more people hurt, both good guys and bad guys.

There is a certain wisdom in the old saying Oderint dum metuant. Let them hate so long as they fear. This modern squeamishness when it comes to using force harms more people than it saves.

Let me ask you something. Do you really think that it was right to let Osama Bin Laden go when we had a chance to grab him? I mean, knowing what we know now, and knowing that in a trial, it would be necessary to produce evidence that would certainly compromise our intelligence assests, and thus impair our ability to detect and apprehend the next Osama Bin Laden, who would take over Al Quaeda in his place, do you honestly feel that we must treat this as strictly a law enforcement matter?

Assuming there had really been that opportunity (which wasn't, as Iceberg showed) and given the information at hand at the time, yes it was. On the other hand, given the rest of your conditions, which amount to accurate prescience, I'd have put an extrajudicial bullet in his brain myself, on the spot, without hesitation if given a chance. Does that answer your question?

So, if you know that putting a terrorist on trial means blowing your intelligence assets in the discovery proceedings in court, you admit dealing with him extrajudicially is the correct thing?

If the law-enforcement approach is so insufficient (European history of successfully dealing with terrorism being evidence to the contrary ) and the military approach as taken in the case of Iraq being demonstrably ineffective, I suppose you have a working solution?

Nice of you to conveniently ignore the fact that the military approach was not demonstrably ineffective in Afghanistan.

Are you being dense on purpose? I've already said Afghanistan was a success, because it was relevant to the War on Terror, but the subject at hand is Iraq and its meaning to the WoT, so take that red herring and go chop down a tree for the Knights Who Say "Ni!" with it or something.

Just how many times to I have to point out that I started this whole argument refuting a blanket assertion which made no distinctions between Iraq and Afghanistan?

And the European approach has also not been as universally successful as you would like to think. If it is so successful, why are the British still dealing with the problem in Northern Ireland after more than thirty years?

Maybe because it's taken that long to start addressing the issues that are causing the terrorism? Unless you didn't notice, that terrorism has lessened considerably in the past few years as the underlying causes have been tackled.

Which means making certain concessions. You might be able to do that with the IRA. I’d really love to hear you tell me what concession will satisfy a religious fanatic like Osama Bin Laden.

And how many civilian lives might have been saved if they had attacked Libya and taken out those IRA training camps that used to be there?

Some perhaps, but the overall effect would not have removed the underlying causes, so there would have been more attacks in any case, just not by the same individuals.

So why couldn’t you combine the attacks on the camps with trying to deal with the underlying causes and save those lives?

Given how even Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea have had difficulty getting nukes (the former unsuccessfully and the latter only probably), with the resources of whole countries at their disposal, you will please provide some evidence to support this claim that scattered organizations like AQ with less resources at their disposal could get their hands on such closely guarded and monitored devices.

You're asking me to prove a negative.

I call utter bulshit on that charge. Your own words, "not inconceivable" mean that it would be possible, and I'm asking you to provide some evidence of this possibility actually being more than utterly theoretical. There's nothing about proving a negative here, except in your imagination.

The airplane into buildings tactic was purely theoretical until they sat down and planned out how to do it, then put the plan into effect. You seem reluctant to admit it, but it is a possibility which simply cannot be entirely ruled out. And it doesn’t have to be a nuke. It could be ricin. Sarin. Anthrax. It could be lot of things. And as I said, I don’t want to see a government official after a mass casualty incident telling the nation that we could have dealt with the perpetrators, but didn’t because we didn’t think we could make the case in court.

I repeat, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. It is conceivable that Kim Jong Il will develop nukes, and then sell some of them to terrorists. You know damn well that intelligence agencies all over the world have envisioned this scenario. It's their job to think of such things and try to find ways to forestall them.

Yes, it is their job, and they've been very successful in doing it. So successful in fact that it's virtually impossible to move even small components related to nuclear weapons manufacture around without raising all kinds of red flags, so the possibility is way below something like the WTC attacks.

See above.

This is just like someone prior to 9/11 saying "you will please provide some evidence to support this claim that scattered organizations like Al Quaeda, with no flight training facilities could take over air liners and fly them into buildings".

That evidence would have been laughably easy to provide, and the fact that it happened and a similar plot had been foiled earlier elsewhere are evidence enough.

Where?

It was the case with Osama Bin Laden. And we missed our opportunity to get him.

Hindsight on a siuation where there was not enough information.

There was enough to know he was extremely dangerous. And as I said, my real issue, is that Kerry apparently wouldn’t do things very differently even with the benefit of hindsight.

Why is it that when I talk about taking military action against a country you assume I can only be talking about Iraq?

That's been the subject of this whole damned thread, and I've stated my agreement about attacking Afghanistan being a good idea, but I do not agree with using a military approach against irrelevant targets. You have not been making such a distinction here.

Well when I reply to a post that makes no distinction, I expect people who respond to me to be intelligent enough to see that I am responding to that post, and the implications of it. Conversations do evolve after all.

No, because I have clarified in more than one post that the strategy of dealing with terrorists military rather than legally is smart and necessary in appropriate cases, and I was responding to Albino Raven's blanket assertion that invading countries that sponsor terrorists accomplishes nothing. He didn't limit his comment to the case of Iraq, and I was responding to that assertion, so get that straight or concede the damned argument.

Okay, that's good enough, but when I raised the same objections by stating that military action against irrelevant targets is bad while appropriate action is good, you went on at me as if I had not made that distinction, so don't expect an apology on that count.

Edi

See above

[Vympel]

And I didn?t refer to Kerry?s long standing record on defense in general did I?

YES, you did:

God no! I'd hate to see Kerry win, and for all kinds of reasons. He has consistently opposed military spending, and spending on our intelligence services for the past thirty years in the senate. He's trying to use his Vietnam record to make himself look like he's not soft on defense, but his political record speaks for itself.

Quite frankly, his political (or to be more accurate, his voting) record doens't speak for itself. Classic case in point is the attacks he copped from voting against the $87 billion for Iraq.

Actually, I have to concede a bit here. I note that at least Kerry had sense enough not to cut funding on the Seawolf submarine, which is where the prospect of losing our ability to build nuclear subs lies. However, the fact remains that Kerry more often than not votes against military spending. Most of his other votes have been clearly on the cut-military-spending side. Recent, the only times he?s voted pro-military funding were when he went along with 90%-plus majorities, going against only the left-wing hardliners like Boxer, Harkin and Wellstone.

If voting for defense bills is to be considered pro military, he's been that way for at least the past 7 years.

Kerry is playing up his Vietnam record in order to portray himself as strong on defense (which is ironic given his attending anti-war rally?s with Jane Fonda when he got back, and calling his fellow Vietnam vets war criminals),

Oh come on. He gave an account of the shit that went on in Vietnam- these are not controversial allegations, these are fact. Those who committed the crimes he described *were* war criminals. Period. As for his "attending anti-war rallies with Jane Fonda", what exactly does this prove? Neither of these have shit to do with his stance on defence. He was against a war- that must mean he's "soft on defence"? How Orwellian is that?

but his voting record clearly shows dovishness. When faced with a choice on the Reagan defense build-up which more than anything sent the U.S.S.R. into an economic tailspin as they tried to match it, Kerry was on the wrong side of history.

Classic false cause analogy. Can you show any economic figures to back up this favorite cliche?

Ditto for the Gulf War. With defense systems where, with a few exceptions, he has voted to cut military expenditures and weaken national defense. Whenever he has voted in favor of military expenditures, it?s only when the votes were on the no-brainer side, with 90%-plus majorities

.

What's wrong with no-brainers?

Like hell my service isn?t relevant. It means I know what the fuck I?m talking about. It really amazes me that you actually have the audacity to claim to know what the capabilities of my division was, what we were trained for, and what our mission was better than I do, when I served in it and you didn?t.

Didn't say I knew *more*, nor would I presume to. Nor does it really matter.

I know the light infantry specializes in opposing lighter forces

This isn't exactly a revelation.

which are more frequently encountered in a age where asymmetrical warfare is apparently becoming the rule rather than the exception. And since elements of all our light infantry units are committed to rotating deployments Afghanistan and Iraq, it looks like we may need all of them right now.

They obviously dont' feel that way seeing as the 25th is being turned basically into a medium motorized division, leaving basically only the 10th Mountain and it's Alaskan unit, the 172nd. Furthermore, assymetrical warfare still favors the heavier force- e.g. it's the Hummer equipped units in Iraq getting wailed on most.

Defense has never been the priority for European countries that it has for us. And it has become less so since the end of the cold war.

And? The point stands. The USAF, USMC and USN combined have a ludicrous advantage over entire regions, let alone nations.

Which doesn?t mean those ships can?t be usefully deployed elsewhere.

That's not my point- my point was that he wasn't calling for every minehunter in service to be sent to the scrapper.

They were already on the way up, with the army being deployed to Somalia.

A few SF get deployed to Somalia, and this is the huge glut in commitments that restricts a cut of 60,000 over the *entire* armed forces?

The military is dependent on congress for raises. The vast majority of the other workers you refer to are in private sector jobs. It?s up to their civilian bosses to give them raises if they are warranted. Government spending doesn?t enter into it. Funny how this distinction seems to slide right by you.

An irrelevant distinction. Simply pulling out anecdotal evidence that "my so and so is in financial deep shit" is not valid reasoning to propose a global increase in military pay- if it did, it'd be down right fiscally irresponsible.

You want me to prove that cutting programs that pioneer new defense technologies will have an adverse effect on how much we advance our military technology? You want me to prove the sky is blue while I?m at it?

Nice try at misdirection- My comment was relating to a global defense cut in $6 billion- an insignificant amount (note: the JSF program *alone* is going to be $200 billion by the time it's finished). Now, prove that such a cut or similar cuts would endanger : " our numerical and technoligical superiority". Quite frankly, it seems you have no idea by how much US defense outstrips its competitors. It would take massive cuts and nelgect to rob the US of it's technical and numerical superiority, as well as a gargantuan increase in the economic fortunes of its enemies. Hell, look at how much the US spends on defense in comparison to the next most technologically advanced countries- NATO, combined, spends around $140 billion. The US spends $400 billion. And those are it's allies!

See above

See above? See what?

If it makes the job of the soldier less risky, and allows us to use up materiel instead of personnel, it?s probably a wise procurement decision.

Does the concept of "cost-benefit ratio" enter into this for you at all? Practically every weapon that works makes the job of the soldier less risky, that does not mean it's appropriate or wise to blow a few hundred billion on it. See: the Crusader artillery system and RAH-66 Commanche, to name recent examples.

And how many of these were in development when Kerry voted to cut funding for this one?

F-22 (ATF) development began in the mid/late 1980s.

Really? Perhaps not against a massive, Cold War type bombardment that would destroy the country several times over. How many potential enemies today can launch attacks like that? Faced with smaller nations with far more limited capabilities, it may not be infeasible at all that we can develop defense systems against the kinds of missile attacks they could launch.

They'll simply build the minumum number of missiles required to overcome the defense, and that won't be that much considering the limitations of the system in discerning real targets from fake ones. This debate has been done to death, btw. Any nation with the technology/industrial base to build ICBMs to strike the United States will be capable of this. It also increases the risk of nuclear proliferation and expands enemy nuclear arsenals. It is expensive, destablizing, and unwise.

Try this one:

Senator John Forbes Kerry (MA)

And?

Why would Clinton bother explaining why he didn?t choose to extradite Bin Laden if we never had a realistic chance of laying our hands on him?

He's referring to what Dick Clarke talked about on Meet the Press, that being getting him after he was kicked from Sudan. The Sudanese did not 'offer' bin Laden to them, and nothing in newsmax 'exclusive' quote says anything about an offer. It's so ridiculously general "they expelled him and I did not bring him here" that this is a weak-as-piss criticism.

Gladly:

Licence to kill bin Laden may have been news to CIA

A report compiled by the commission's staff found that senior officials in the Clinton White House said they had made it clear the CIA had a licence to kill the Saudi fugitive and not just capture him.
But the report said: "If the policy makers believed their intent was clear, every CIA official interviewed on this topic by the commission, from (the CIA director, George Tenet) to the official who actually briefed the agents in the field, told us they had heard a different message.
"What the United States would let the military do is quite different, Tenet said, from the rules that govern covert action in the field."
The distinction may have made a crucial difference to the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader, who later ordered the September 11 attacks.
"CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President Clinton as instructing them to capture bin Laden, except in the defined contingency. They believed that the only acceptable context for killing bin Laden was a credible capture operation," the report said.
It quoted a former chief of the Osama bin Laden unit as saying: "We always talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him."

That's hardly definite "news to them" now is it? How is this hard to believe? He tried to blow him to smithereens in 1998.

[General Zod]

You may not find it good policy to keep tabs on the Israeli government (which tends to be known for its loose-cannon decision-making); others do, however.

As for Britain, it should be manifestly clear: we want ears in any first-world economic and military power.

so instead of actually bothering to address my point you blatantly ignore it and pull a strawman. congratulations, you're an imbecile.