Either take it or leave it and stick with current standards for weapons... which have already gotten several thousand killed and over 20,000 maimed or wounded. Either way, using this weapon to our advantage could expand our military beyond all others and make the United States top dog when it comes to research and science with weapons.

You have a better solution? Well by all means, sir, do tell!

Civilians ARE exempt from being targets, especially in a war like this. What, do you want it to turn into another Vietnam? American soldiers running around towns and cities killing residents and raping and stealing like a mindless rabble? That gives our enemies motivation to fight and it gives the people motivation to turn to the side of the terrorists or form their own third party that's anti-American.

Break the will of the people? No. Japan gave up because Emperor Hirohito actually gave a damn for his people. He knew the destructive power of the Little Boy and Fat Man were too great for his military capabilities, and so he decided to surrender. His generals were against it, and an elaborate plot in 1947 actually surfaced which would end in the assassination of Hirohito and the reinstatement of a new militaristic government... fortunately, it never played out.

With Germany, you have the same case. The people were brainwashed into following Hitler until the end and Hitler was willing to send every last man, woman, and child to fight for him until the very end. Japan's people were also brainwashed by the militaristic and imperialistic propaganda put out at them by people like Tojo. The difference: Hitler didn't care; Hirohito did, though the people, the military, and the supreme leader (even above the Emperor himself) Tojo didn't (however, Tojo's case was more of a "honor and glory" status... somewhat applies to the people; after all, they thought he was a god).

If this explodes, we should start another thread rather than rob SUBMAN's...But.

The way we use our military is absolutely ridiculous. We expect to be able to swoop in and "be welcomed" by a culture whose national identity largely consists of resisting westerners, back to the time of the crusades. Our military is expected to knock off SoDamned and have oil flowing through a foreign territory we "control but don't own". Color television has made people realize that war is ugly, and has made the US of A an impotent nation. War will never be armed robbery on a grand scale. War is about CONQUERING. Taking land and holding it. And if we intend to hold it, it is clear we cannot leave the culture in it so vastly different. We did not have to do it to Nazi Germany, because they were a western culture. We did have to do it to Japan, and were only allowed to do it peacefully because they had completely shamed themselves within the rules of their own culture. But we did have to do it to the Native Americans and the Phillippines. And it was an ugly affair, we wiped their culture off the map FORCIBLY and VIOLENTLY. But that is war, something people have only come to realize with the advent of television. And we clearly do not intend to stay in Iraq to conquer. Because we frankly just don't have the stomach for it any more.

Our military has even ceased to be a potent deterrent to terrorists (a tactic, not an entity). Our military should be there to assure our enemy that whatever they do to us, we will inflict them with ten times the pain they inflicted on us. Yet those who practice terrorism KNOW that because of our newfound morality, all we will be able to do is knock over their latest dictator and flail about looking for "terrorists". Which by the definition in Iraq is simply an adult male with a rifle who doesn't wear a uniform, what Middle Eastern culture is full of. So we knock off a dictator and piss of a civillian populace (killing thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of them in the process). And because of our morality, we lack the ability to deter barbarians (terrorists). We lack the moral fortitude to say for every one of ours, ten of yours. For every ten of ours, one hundred of yours. And be done with it. Which is exactly how we stopped raiding American Indian tribes. This from a nation that fire bombed millions of German and Japanese civillians during WWII without a guilty conscience.

Which leads me to the conclusion that terrorism works. Because we don't have the stomach to conquer a place anymore, we just shamelessly attempt an armed robbery instead.

Now, before everybody calls me horrible names... I don't think our western morality is a bad thing. We have evolved into a society that values life, and doesn't want to kill unless absolutely necessary. BUT WE NEED TO FACE THE FACTS. We do not have the stomach to bring democracy to the Middle East or stomp out Islamists, or secure it long term to ensure our petroleum future. We shouldn't even try. Putting American soldiers on the ground to do so will fail, both to bring democracy or "prevent (read invite) terrorism", or steal their oil. If we don't want to fight the war to the bitter end, we shouldn't be starting one. And it is clear we can no longer pursue this sort of thing to the end anymore.

Our military is usesless in deterring the Islamic brand of terrorism (largely an invented threat ANYWAYS until our military established a permanent presence in the Middle East. Talk about self fulfilling prophecy.) due to it being chained by modern western morality and its citizens still believing "we're fighting the good fight". The USA does not have the stomach to conquer anymore. We need the stop flailing around in the Middle East and just accept the fact that this fight is unwinnable, no matter our cocaine like addiction to petroleum. We are bankrupting ourselves morally and economically by continuing to try. As well as inviting more crazies to unload on our civillian population at home, which our military abroad can do little to stop.

PD