Peter Cairns
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Posts posted by Peter Cairns
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I'd be less harsh in judging the leadership of the US armed forces over Iraq, in that they did the bit they had been trained to do , defeating the enemy before them on the battlefield, pretty well.
If they failed to anticipate the insurgency, well in that respect they are in good company because neither did the vast majority of US politicians or public.
If their view of post war Iraq was way wrong then it just means that as you would expect to an extent from the volunteer army of a democracy, it reflected national oppinion.
Prior to the invasion most Americans did expect to be greeeted as liberators. It's not so much that the Neocons lied as that they genuinely believed that they would be greeted as heros.
The big issue then becomes how can an entire nations political, military and business elites be so out of touch with the realities of what is going on in a region they have been involved in for decades.
I know one thing, you won't find the answer on FOX NEWS.
Peter.
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Steve,
What makes you think a major conflict with militant Islam would have occured somewhere else relatively quickly if it hadn't been Iraq.For those who think things would be rosey if we hadn't gone into Iraq, well... their living in as much of a dream world as the neo-cons.If we had not gone into Iraq the confrontation with militant Islam would simply happened in some other guise in some other time in the very near future.
Militant Islams been around since the Irainian revolution ( almost thirty years) and suicide bombing since before the US suffered it in Beruit. But that doesn't mean that a major confrontation was any more inevitable than the Cold War going hot.
Situations like Greece v Turkey can remain stable for decades, Korea is another example. No one doubts that the atagonism exists or that it's a possibility, but it is never inevitable.
I've never liked the black and white argument "If it wasn't for X you'd be Y" ,whether it be America in ww2 and speaking German, or Nato and speaking Russian.
Certainly both a possible outcomes, but they are points on a bell curve with multiple outcomes rather than an off/on switch.
For over twenty years I was expecting terrorists somewhere to pull of a real spectacular, blowing up an oil tanker, or crashing a truck full of home made explosives in to an oil refinery, so when 9/11 happened my reaction was " Oh so it's today".
To be honest I was somewhat amazed we had managed to get through much of my adult life without such an attack.
From this perspective unlike most politicians that I hear, I don't think the world changed, or that militant Islam really became such a great threat, and from that perspective I see no reason why things couldn't have remained stable for decades with intermittant attacks like the Bali, Madrid or the London bombings being the mainstay with a lower level threat of a "spectacular".
I am interested to know just what events you seem to have seen as harbingers of an impeding showdown.
Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, The Philipeans, Pakistan and Afghanistan all had militant Islam, but all of these conflicts had there own internal dynamic and causes, rather than being a line of "Islamic dominos" that were poised to fall all the way to Americas door.
Peter.
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Found this on MetaCafe, Good film of a regular Middle Eastern army, although a lot more Western kit than Syria would have.
Peter.
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I think the german halftrack is a bit of a continuity issue, and still no 40ft containers.
Given that they are almost a fixturein military bases world wide they really should be in, as they aresuch a usefull piece of terrain.
Peter.
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This isn't anything new really, I am just old enough to remember politicains in the US still believing that there was a monolithic communist threat even though by 1969 the russians and chinese were lobbing shells at each other over the line of the border in Manchuria.
I must have been only eight or so at the time, but my late father who had been a conscript in the Paras and who had been a child in the war let me read his encyclopedias of WW2 from the time I went to school and let us watch reports from Vietnam on the News.
He reckoned it was important that we learned early what real war was like. I suppose I owe him a lot for that including my interest in politics and wargames.
I've often felt that in the USin order to motivate the population to get involved in non domestic issues politicians both simplify and exaggerate, so that a situation like Iraq is put in to nice simple boxes and the complexity on the ground glossed over.
So Saddam is seen as a "Nutter" who could strike at any moment and who has oppressed his people and all the domestic tribal, political and religious divisions that lie underneath aren't given enough importance.
You'd have thought having watched the Soviet Unions collapse and the ethnic conflicts that emerged, and the chaos that erupted after Tito's death when Yugoslavia fell apart they would have thought about it at least.
I sometimes get worried that the more the PR people have takenover politics the more we get leaders who don't just connect with middle income swing voters, but who actually ythink like them too.
I look at the way Bush and Blair have acted since 9/11 is as if they were shocked and paniced. thats fine for the public but you like to think our leaders would show retraint and calm, as opposed to panicing with the masses.
Peter.
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This looks a good general site for people
The scrolling panoramas are particularly good.
Peter.
[ March 20, 2007, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Peter Cairns ]
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Just been Looking a Damascus.
I hadn't actually thought about it before but Syrianot only has a railroad system, but in the capital a fair bit of it seems to be underground.
I bet you could hide quite alot in there.
I like the tearrain so far that i've seen from the screen shots, but a lot of the older urban areas in syria seem to be ectremely irregular, with streets at angles with odd shaped houses far more common than a US style grid with square blocks.
It might well be difficult to get that "Battle for Algers" Feel.
Peter.
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Even founds some photos, and guess what it is atypical of the region because it snows there....
Peter.
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Nicdain,
Your right about it being a volcano, if you click "Geographical Feature"s in the lower left "Layers' box then there are at least four volcanos that come up, two unnamed and one each at Jabal ad Druze and Es Safa.
It looks like it's an enormous lava field.
Do you think we should start a campaign to have red hot lava flows included in the game.
Peter.
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Nicdain
Are we looking at the same one, as there are actually two, the dark one I was refering too is probably more ESE, where as the one with the reddish cones is more SSE.
Where the roughly circular one meets a very light patch alone it's SE edge it looks very much like forest, although the resolution isn't great.
Peter,
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I've just been looking at Google Earth Maps of Syria and I have two terrain questions.
The first concerns season.
Looking at the montague of pictures that make up the maps it is clear that some vary from a bright red to vivid greens.
Some of this is no doubt due to terrain, but others where there is a marked difference between two individual photos show that depending on the season the surface vegitation can be markedly different.
I think there has been discussions of things like olive groves etc, and early on I had raised the issue of the fact that a lot of open waste ground in mediterrainian countries has dense 2mtr high vegitation, but looking at the CM:SF screen shoots so far I see no indication yet of anything particularly rugged or dense, or indeed allowance for the time of year.
The second point is an odd one.
Approximately 60 mile South East of Damascus, there looks to be a random palch of dark green terrain about 20 miles across which looks to me bizarrely like an enourmous forest.
Anybody got any ideas what it might be.
Way in the north east, the euphrates valley looks like it's pretty dense foliage as well.
Peter.
[ March 20, 2007, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: Peter Cairns ]
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I think it is unlikely but there is the alternative that they have reversed the video and that it hit a mine or IED.
Then long after it was abandoned they staged the guy putting the bombs underneath for PR.
I t would be interesting to see what it would look like that way round.
Peter.
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Syria has also had the additional economic double hit of the return of tens of thousands of labourers from the Lebanon.
Not only have they swollen the ranks of Syria's already high unemployment and urban poor, but the huge flow of foreign exchange that they generated has dried up.
Peter.
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What would be interesting is to what extent tis stuff is going to and staying in Syria, and to what extent syria is only a conduit for it mooving both West (to Lebanon as stated) and East (into Iraq).
If NV sights, ATGM's ( particularly awith anti helicopter capabilities) and ManPads start turning up in western iraq, the USwill know where they are coming from and CM:SF at least on a small border scale starts to look a possibility.
Peter.
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Bexkett,
Current word is that some Mac inventories are running down, which is usually a sign of a product refresh, so if you were thinking of doing it soon check MacRumors, AppleInsider or ThinkSecret ( just Goggle them) to get the latest news and leaks.
It would be a pity to spend that kind of money and then find within a month that you could have got something better for the same price.
Peter.
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It would also be intersting to see some "low Light' dusk or Dawn effects and a "Low Sun".
Peter.
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I know that there are countless request for things to be put in, but looking at these one thing that seems to be almost universal these days are "containers".
Whether on the backs of trucks, used for storage or accomadation, or even when filled as roadblocks or blast protection, they would be a simple but I'd say worth while addition.
Peter.
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I wouldn't get excited.....
There is a big big difference between Sweden deploying under UN auspices after a conflict or with the concent of the democartic governement and actually getting invoved in a shooting war that involves going in to someone elses country.
UN Nato operation or not, if any Swedish government tried supporting an invasion of syria it would be out on it's ears before the troops got to the dock side.
Over the last 25 years I've been regularly reading stories like this about Denmark, Finland and most particularly Germany. All have been muted to be taking a more active international role and a quarter of a century on little has changed.
It really is very much wishful thinking on the part of those who want to see Europe more internationally active.
Of course the other factor is that post the cold war and with the costs involved Sweden really has to get people to buy the Gripen if the likes of SAAB are to stay in the fighter business.
Peter.
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Bigduke6,
I am with you on that one.
I watched a news report on the US in Iraq a few weeks ago, it was filmed over three days.
It started with them on a roof top returning fire at people snipping at them, and complaining that the Iraqi troops with them wouldn't return fire.
Then they went to the area the snipers were in and challenged the Iraqi police their. They basically told them they didn't mind them being corrupt and taking bribes but if they allowed fire from their street again they would be arrested.
Next there was an attempted grenade attack from government offices next door to the joint US/Iraqi compound, which saw the US go in and hold everyone in the courtyard for two hours, including the members of the elected local council.
Finally on the last day there was another grenade attack on the US, but this time it came from the Iraqi part of their own compound.
Peter.
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It all depends on what the type of device was.
An obvious choice would be something that was buried and triggered by a metal detector as opposed to an IR sensor or command wire.
That way unless you were running mine detectors over the strip on a daily basis it could lie their for a long time.
Of course you could just go down the US route and rely totally on large secure airfield s orbase areas, like the Green Zone and baghdad Airport, but of coursethat leads to the insurgents having free to virtually control the capital.
In Afghanistan the British have been Criticised for "platoon houses", small bases dotted around and often laid siege too by superior taleban numbers, but the alternative is to retire in to bigger and bigger, mounting large scale sweeps far less often.
The end result of that is the same 90% of the time the insurgents have the run of the land and the ear of the people, With you becoming a rare visitor and then in a large military operation, that probably scares the **** out of the people you are trying to help.
The British approach is higher risk. it means spreading yourself thinner in smaller groups, and potentially higher casualties, but as a way of winning the war it's probably a better long term strategy.
Peter.
Quiz Time... Name this Plane....
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
Well done Wicky... Dead right black crow it is.
I think the range of the Airborne laser is about 250 miles.
Apparently last year or so the USset up a squadron to practice tactics and simulate combat with a fighter sized airborne laser, which presumably is aimed to fit the internal bay of at least an F-22 if not a JSF.
Give that at 186,000 miles per second compared to 1,500 mph for a Mig-29 means that in the time it takes the Mig to move an inch a laser can cover seven miles I think manouverability and speed will start to become less of an issue.
Wouldn't it be just great if it turned out that within ten years a $15m bizjet with a laser could take out a $150m dollar F-22 with AMRAAM's.
Peter.