Pentagon abandons active-duty time limits

[bradclark1]

By win, I mean setting up the Iraqi gov't on it's own feet and making it capable of running day-to-day operations so they can continue fighting the ground war for us. The U.S will still be there on a support basis but our position in the war will decrease substantially. When the insurgency ceases, we've won.

Until the Iraqi's stop using the Americans to prop themselves up there is not going to be any stability and the longer we stay the more the general population will turn to hate us as occupiers.
Iraq is a loose, loose situation. There are no patriots, no loyalty to Iraq, the only loyalty to to their religion, their militia, and their holy-roller/gangster imam(?). Iraq will always be a fight between the different factions.
I think what you want is an impossibility. Sad but true.

[Skybird]

Brad is right, for two reasons.

First, it is the old internal civil war between Ssunni and Shia, which is being fought for a thousand years now. There never was peace between both factions, only an occasional regional status of cease-fire, when their means to carry on the fight were running short. It is the old clash between Sunni Arabs and Shia Persians as well.

Second, there is no grown nation like "Iraq". It is an artificial, instable and arbitrary creation of Western and British policy-making that set up borders on maps without taking care to the mental and cultural and tribal realities on the ground. If you raise a new zoo and place a leopard into the same areal like a gazelle or a lion, expect to see you animal inhabitants decimating themselves. there is no grown national structure of an entioty like Iraq, and thus there is no truly national mentality. There are only different ethnicities, faiths, and economical interests. The same of politcial foolishness is on display in Kosovo, Bosnia, and other attempts to artificially enforce multicultural national bodies.

Nature let things grow. Man tries to create, even against all reason.

All this talking about Iraq - it will never work for longer than just a handful of years.

Rice has announced that the US will deliver weapons to the Palestinians to help them gaining stability, a deal worth 86 million dollars, I think (which for the most will come from the EU, I have little doubt). It seems some people never start to learn. As a nice side effect, European tax money is used to boost American weapon manufacturers. One can only gaze in awe at today's politician's intellectual competence. What said Kubrick so nicely? "Eyes Wide Shut".

Weekend is over. Luck for me.

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by Skybird

What said Kubrick so nicely? "Eyes Wide Shut".

That was a terrible and stupid film.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

That was a terrible and stupid film.

I liked it. 2001, Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut, these are the three Kubrick movies I like best, in this order.

Originally Posted by Skybird

I liked it. 2001, Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut, these are the three Kubrick movies I like best, in this order.

Dr. Stangelove doesn't make your list??

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Has regular armed forces ever defeated an insurgency in history? I can't think of one time.
Anyone?

Hungary, 1956. Israel 66-70 AD. Indian Nations in the US.

Those are three that I thought of off the top of my head.
EDIT:
Realized that the seccessionists of the US civil war were also insurgents.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Hungary, 1956. Israel 66-70 AD. Indian Nations in the US.

Those are three that I thought of off the top of my head.
EDIT:
Realized that the seccessionists of the US civil war were also insurgents.

Don't forget the Norman conquest of England.

EDIT: I forgot the Conquistadors and the Mayans, Aztecs and Inca.

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Don't forget the Norman conquest of England.

EDIT: I forgot the Conquistadors and the Mayans, Aztecs and Inca.

In each instance overwhelming force was used. There is a lesson there.

[Schatten]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Hungary, 1956. Israel 66-70 AD. Indian Nations in the US.

Those are three that I thought of off the top of my head.
EDIT:
Realized that the seccessionists of the US civil war were also insurgents.

There was also: the Malayan Emergency 1948-60, the Philippine Insurrection 1899-1913, the Second Boer War 1899-1902, the Greek Civil War 1946-49, Baltic resistance to the Soviet Union 1944-52 among others.

The media has built up a whole mythology around guerillla wars/insurgencies that doesn't have a whole lot of facts to back it up. Insurgencies have been won by government troops as often as they have been lost, it's around a 50-50 proposition historically and the success rate is on a par with any other sort of warfare. But you don't hear that, you hear all sorts of talk about the successful insurgencies which leads to the sort of talk of "You can't win a war against insurgents" which is bunk, it's been done many times before, and more than once by the US. But to listen to many in the media you'd think that just because it's a fight against insurgents we should run away as fast as possible because everyone knowns insurgents have magical powers and are unbeatable...

A case could be made that the US even won the "insurgency" phase of the Vietnam War as well, since after the Tet Offensive of '68 the VC was pretty much gutted as an effective force and the war continued almost exclusively through the use of NVA troops.

Whether or not the CSA was technically an insurgency is something that's still up for debate. There are good arguments both for and against it. However after the war, during Reconstruction there were indeed several small, scattered guerilla/insurgent campaigns fought in many places with the most notable ones being in Tennessee, South Carolina, Texas and Arkansas. Federal forces won all of those campaigns as well.

[bradclark1]

A case could be made that the US even won the "insurgency" phase of the Vietnam War as well, since after the Tet Offensive of '68 the VC was pretty much gutted as an effective force and the war continued almost exclusively through the use of NVA troops.

They were sacrificed for the specific purpose of annihilation. The north wanted them out of the way.

[Takeda Shingen]

The Austrian War of Succession dealt with the handy defeat of multiple insurgencies.

Originally Posted by bradclark1

They were sacrificed for the specific purpose of annihilation. The north wanted them out of the way.

It would appear as if your question regarding insurgency defeats has been answered.

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Has regular armed forces ever defeated an insurgency in history? I can't think of one time.
Anyone?

Well I think that was sufficiently answered. :rotfl: