Artillery from the receiving end

[Clavicula_Nox]

Primarily, NCW seeks to remove the warrior from the war. It's a very generalized statement, but everything that results from it is, in my eyes, a bad thing. I know if BigDuke6 comes back to this thread, he can rail about it quite a bit more in-depth than I can.

[Battlefront.com]

As a civilian, I find it interesting that the military is no different than any other institution/vocation... people within often have some pretty strong opinions that are expressed as if they are wildly apart, yet really aren't fundamentally in opposition to each other.

Often I see individuals arguing with someone as if that other person has never been, or isn't currently, in uniform and therefore doesn't know what he's talking about. Since I've been around here consistently for 11 years, and have some off-forum contact with many, I can say for sure that that sort of assumption isn't a good one to make. I urge you guys to remember that you don't necessarily know who you're arguing with. It wouldn't be the first time that I've seen someone slamming another guy for "not having a clue" when in fact I know that said "clueless" person was in the same armed force and held a higher rank. Which, I guess, means that guy probably is clueless, come to think of it

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

NCW was something I believed could be used for good instead of evil. Now, I'm not so sure. A friend of mine retired from US Special Forces a few years ago and sent me some private thoughts about NCW. Let's just say that he didn't like being out in the desert while some guy in Florida decided if he really needed something or not. He at one point went into a major command center and saw the heart of NCW at work and it scared him. I've seen and read enough from low and high level sources that seem to back this up.

If used to back up a soldier on the ground, NCW is a huge benefit. You're stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the enemy, you have casualties, and all you can do is call for help. GPS coordinates tell the center exactly where you are, exactly what assets are available to help, where they are, and ETAs of how long it will take to get there. The control center can make sure incoming fires are put down in the right place without parachuting in experienced FOs, it can make sure artillery and air assets aren't in conflict with each other, and it can get other assets not currently in the mix (like medical) ready to do their part when needed. I doubt there is a soldier in the world that would think that's a bad idea.

But when you're in the middle of nowhere and you get a message from several hundred or thousand miles away trying to micromanage your mission... like "proceed to x point and don't do anything except chew gum and whistle until I tell you can do something else" sort of thing is what appears to be where NCW falls apart. Now the soldier feels like he isn't trusted, can be caught for any infraction EVEN IF it was right to disregard instructions, and generally stresses out someone who is already stressed out enough.

At least that's my take on it. Those of you with direct experience... I'd love to know if I've been paying attention in class

Steve

[Apocal]

OTOH, many idiots can (and do) wear the BTDT shirt.

They are still idiots.

[Battlefront.com]

Obviously the most cost effective way to conduct an occupation is to put an overwhelming number of soldiers on the ground with as small a logistics footprint as possible. "Buy Local" whenever possible, put people to work doing things they are capable of doing, keep interference with culture to a minimum EVEN IF it is not agreed with, show strength and determination without force as the norm, and fund it. I personally believe that if there were 200,000-300,000 lightly armed Coalition forces in Iraq on the heals of a heavier force, and that heavier force basically stayed out of sight after, then things would never have gone the route they did in 2003/2004. The boots, jobs, money, and organization would have allowed some breathing room to get more fundamental changes underway by a different group. Would that have ultimately worked? I have no idea, but based on what we know happened in Iraq during 2003/2004 I think it is safe to assume it probably couldn't have been worse.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Apocal,

OTOH, many idiots can (and do) wear the BTDT shirt.

They are still idiots.

Exactly. And the only way to find out is to actually discuss issues instead of having one side say "if you walked a mile in my boots" and the other saying "I have and you're feet stink" is so pointless. Each side is trying to score points and IMHO both sides lose them. I've seen so many men in uniform say the stupidest, most ignorant, obviously wrong stuff about their missions that even someone with an actual highschool education would know is wrong. I've also seen people with lots of letters after their names, years of experience with this or that think tank, fail to grasp something that even the thickest headed soldier knows almost intuitively. And that's even before politics are thrown into the mix, which almost always makes both sides look like morons

True story... I got into an argument in 2004 with a USMC SGT who was in Iraq. I said something about how badly managed the war was and that there weren't even WMDs, which he kept saying they were going to find any day now. He was aggressive, nasty, and obviously dismissive of what I had to say. This despite the fact that I was basing my opinion of the conduct of the war on decades of studying military history (and politics) and having just received an email from a senior officer friend of mine at the Pentagon who said "I can't believe how badly we are f'ing this up!". Lots of other stuff too, of course. I mentioned this and sent him a link to the White House's own website where George W Bush himself, the Commander in Chief this guy told me he respects, said that there were no WMD in Iraq. The next response from him was a tirade in which he called me a "traitor" and a bunch of other things. The other right wing nuts in the discussion, of course, said that I shouldn't argue with a Marine because I'm a civilian.

Well... who had a better handle on reality? Me, the dumb-assed-liberal-traitor sitting in safety back home, or the guy who supposedly had all the answers because he was there doing things for real? I'm not trying to toot my own horn, just reinforce what Apocal said... just because a man has stripes or bits of shiny metal doesn't necessarily mean he's got a clue about everything all the time, every time, and is therefore beyond questioning. I bet that SGT could field strip a M-16 blindfolded in a sandstorm on 1 hour of sleep and no meals in 3 days faster than I could well rested and sitting at a workbench... but that wasn't the topic at hand

Steve

[Splinty]

Jon, my objection isn't to being a "tool of foreign policy" or to being in harms way. My objection is to being called a "whiny bitch" for no real reason. If you object to the mission or beleive it's been handled badly that's your option, I don't neccesarily disagree with you. I also know first hand how many idiots there are in the military, and how well we do in spite of them given the circumstances we've been put in. All I was trying to say is leave the name calling out of it, it's not productive, it's dismissive, and it's pointless.

[Bigduke6]

NCW is just better communications.

In my era we said, "If you can't communicate, you're dead." Amounts to the same thing.

The reason the Pentagon keeps rolling out these new terms is, basically, there are tons and tons of majors and colonels in there, and they have all heard about Rommel and v. Manstein at least superficially, and for lots of them their job is thinking about how to fight the next war. And since this is America, refinements can't be just the old thing slightly improved, it has to be something totally new. So you get NCW to describe nothing more than using modern communications in a war, and trying to get an edge by doing it better than the other guy. Sure, there's all sorts of data wrapped up in it too, but at the end of the day, a scout calling out a spot report on his walkie-talkie, and a drone beaming what it sees into Langley amounts to the same thing: getting information from here to there. Which is communications.

Since the US only takes on 5th and 6th rate opponents these days, it seems like it really works great. Of course, if America winds up fighting some one able to attack US comms - you know, sattelite killers, anti-radiation missiles, etc. - I think the NCW might well take a stumble. But until then it sounds really good, and makes it seem that US warfighting superiority is something new and different and clever, rather than just a big nation spending alot of resources on a military and getting more or less what they paid for.

It's like Airland Battle, remember that? Back in the late 1970s it was the new concept, because the military was out of Vietnam and focusing on getting ready to fight the Bear, and they needed a doctrine so West Europe aided by the US could fight Central and East Europe, and a substantial chunk of Asia. So they thought up things like deep battle and priority intelligence requirements and other buzzwords, to get the military to focus on that mission.

But the technique Airland Battle represented was nothing more than combined arms, sure in depth and not just fighting but electromagnetic and super-flexible logistics and incorporating air and civilian support and and so form, but still boring old combined arms. Which predates the birth of Christ as a war-winning technique by about a third of a millenium, even if you just look at the European military tradition.

The problem bit is when these proponents of the latest new buzzword lack the historical background to understand how they fit into long-term military trends, and decide that since they wear a uniform they are arbiters of all military-type discussions, and let's not forget that in the military outside the Pentagon they don't discuss the right tactic, there is a right way already written down for things as minor as how a soldier's should cuff his trousers and the angle and width of his allowable moustache. Right and wrong is judged within the military by a very simple rule: either you meet the standard and you are right, or you are different from the standard and you are wrong.

So, when a well-trained soldier comes into contact with some one questioning the standards he has learned by heart, it takes alot of imagination and brains for that soldier to accept the question as legitimate, after all, thinking different from the standard is repressed, that's what basic training is for. This is why soldiers, as a general thing, are not great thinkers, and of course the longer they stay in, the more likely they accept the group think as their reality.

Now, in a professional military like the US that's not all bad, as alot if not an overwhelming majority of the standards make great sense. There is a reason you dig your fighting position 1.3 meters deep, and there is a reason why you need a buddy in the position with you, and there is a reason why there are sergeants trained and ready to hammer a private deciding he wants a fighting position a meter deep, and just for him. Militaries aren't stupid and neither are soldiers, but by their nature they have to act to get a result, not think to decide what result is desired.

So, when a guy like Steve, who has studied the military for years and designed I think we will agree one of the best ground combat tactical simulators in history, disagrees with a well-trained sergeant, hey, all we can do is ask who has the background and who is more likely to be objective.

Napoleon had a throwaway line about know-it-all soldiers: "The only thing my grenadiers saw of Russia was the pack of the man in front of him."

The flip side of this is, when you get a creative thinker in a functioning military, he's already a rare bird and if he gets to any position of authority he's about as common as a male calico cat. Every once in a long while, one of these guys manages a revolution just by the way he thinks and how he pushes his ideas into the system; Gudarian is a really good example.

But of course for every Gudarian there are God knows how many goofball wannabe Gudarians, you know the type, the officers who think the key to victory is bayonet fighting, or super-elite forces performing super-elite missions, or just tons of goodies in the PX. And in the modern military, they get their say and have their bit of influence too.

There was a very famous German military historian, Hans J. Delbrueck, he pretty much invented the concept of analytical military history for the purpose of teaching officers how to do their job better. Delbrueck actually served, in the artillery against Austria in the 1860s I think, but from about 1870 - 1915 he wrote like a fiend, and his reviews of the development of military technique over the ages are generally-acknowledged masterpieces.

Not because he served. But because his research for the day was pretty damn close to impeccable, and his analayses stand up right through to the present.

And yet, even Delbrueck, arguably one of the greatest military historians ever, from time to time had trouble pushing his ideas to the Prussian/German officer corps, an organization remarkably interested - by military standards anyway - in research and comparative analysis. Why?

Because, the officers said, Delbrueck didn't wear the uniform, and they did.

That puts people like Steve in pretty good company, but the "military mindset" I think is with us to stay.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Thanks BD6, I pretty much agree, though i have witnessed you rail against Net Centric Warfare before; I think it was over the buzzwords and stuff. It was some time ago.

[Lethaface]

Interesting discussion here. I wont react on the soldiers vs civilians type of thing, since I'm a civilian and the only soldiers I know are the ones that enlisted because they failed everything else.

As a civilian with a slight over-interest in history and conflicts, I have an opinion and a open question about the following quote:

10 years to stamp out resistance and endemic corruption, followed by 10 years to train up the knowledge and experience to run a country, across a broad base of the population. 20 years so that kids grow up with an expectation of stability and functional government organs.

In twenty years surely more can be achieved then in 10 years. That being said, I wonder if 'Any nation ever [has] succesfully invaded & occupied another nation AND got the population into actually supporting the 'invaders'.

From the sources that I have read, the only 'successes' that were achieved in this matter always incorporated some 'exterminating' (or 'relocating' as the Turkish called their Armenian affair) of the original local population. Of course the goal of the USA in Iraq is not to make it into a colony permanently, exterminating or even relocating are no options. However, in order to accomplish the given mission (in short; make those people see that a liberal democracy is best for everyone), the 'sub-goals' will be similar to the ones that are needed to occupy a nation permanently.

Anyone has an example of a succesful regime change by international force, which really worked?

---

About whether invading Iraq was a good thing to do; I think that every individual with access to 'free' press information and a working ethics function in his brain, is able to see that Saddam Hussein was not the ideal president. However, the 'regime change' has sort of done more bad then Saddam could have done in this time.

I believe that the whole idea of invading a country and making 'friends' along the way is as naive as a 'Palestinian man wearing a Hamas uniform in Gaza who decides to bake a cake for his colonist neighbours to offer peace, and expecting them to believe that there is no poison/bomb in the cake'.

Disclaimer: My viewpoint is based on my background ofc, however I like to think it is based on what would be best for humanity as a whole. I think it is very hard to discuss about a certain subject because, for example, opinions of persons born in the USA will be based on total different terms then persons born in Iraq.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Lethaface, look into the US occupation of the Phillippines after the Spanish-American war, there are some other good examples, but that is one to start with.

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, I fully understand the difficulty of a professional (in any profession) not taking well to criticism of the conduct of his profession. Just ask any mortgage broker or stock broker these days about their professions You get two types... one who defends their profession to the hilt and blames someone else for the obvious problems. The other type admits to institutional problems, but doesn't see themselves as being a part of the problem (which may be true or not, to some degree or not). Both of them, however, were likely to tell you that there were no problems with either the housing or stock markets back in July 2008. Me? I pulled my meager retirement funds out of the stock market years earlier because I apparently knew more than the professionals! So while these professional's own 401Ks took a 40-50% hit, mine is actually higher now than it was in August 2008. And I have no letters behind my name nor any serious experience with these markets. I just have common sense that what goes up must come down, and the bigger they are the harder they fall

The problem I had with this SGT (actually, I think he was a SSGT) was he was obviously a political extremist. THAT was the issue, not the fact that he wore a uniform and was having his professionalism at that job questioned (I never suggested he didn't know how to dig a foxhole correctly . His position, that I challenged, was that the war was going fantastic, there were WMDs to find just around the next sand dune, and George W Bush was God's hand picked choice to free the world from oppression. And when I questioned that, reasonably and (as it definitely turns out, accurately), he basically tried to put a bullet in my head, virtually speaking. Even he said he's out there defending my right to have freedom of expression, but then directly said after that I should keep my mouth shut because he personally didn't want to hear what I had to say. Like I said, political extremist

The problem all institutions/professions have is that they are nothing more than the sum of their parts. If their parts have problems, then they have problems as well. In this case the SSGT might well be an excellent "tool" in many cases. But I have serious doubts about his ability to lead and inspire a random selection of individuals if his level of tolerance for differences of opinion is so low. What happens when he suggests to go down Street A in a fire fight and one of his soldiers says "Sarge, I don't think that's a good idea for x reason"? Does this SSGT tell him to go f-himself, they're going down that street or does this SSGT take into consideration that a different point of view might have some value worth considering? Especially if that soldier has his eyes around the corner of the building they're behind while the SSGT doesn't.

Anyway, I was simply reinforcing Apocol's point that we all need to be aware that having a uniform, or not having one, doesn't inherently mean anything in a given situation. Arguments should be judged on their merits alone. And yes, soldiers with first hand experience about a given topic are more likely to know what they're talking about compared to a civilian who has never done such things. But the more the topic gets raised above first hand experience the more equal things become. I definitely had a better handle on the strategic situation in Iraq in 2004 than the SSGT I mentioned had. I definitely had a better ability to be rational about it as well. But again, if you were in a firefight you'd probably want that SSGT to bail you out and not me. I've only played paintball and I'm not a fool enough to think that counts for much

Steve

[Clavicula_Nox]

This is related to Net Centric warfare. The 5th SBCT / 2ID is deploying to Afghanistan and will be field testing the Land Warrior system

[Clavicula_Nox]

And Steve, maybe if you weren't a dirty Communist, that Marine wouldn't have had to throw a temper tantrum.

[Lethaface]

Clavicula_Nox,

Thanks for the post!

I actually never dived into this conflict, so that's always a good read

However, I think there is an important note in this case. It is not that USA invaded an independent country 'Phillippines' , but actually they attacked the Spanish forces that occupied the country since a long time. I dare to bet that those Spanish colonists did use a little bit of 'convincing' efforts to oppress the phillippine locals, before and during the colonization. Plenty of successful examples in that category.

However, as the 'Philippine-American War' proved this was not a successful regime change in that the locals agreed to the american presence.

Perhaps there is a large grey and smudgy area in between 'liberating' and 'invading', but the differences between the invasion of colonized Phillippines by US troops and operation 'Iraqi Freedom' (/invasion of Iraq) are quite apparent for me. Saddam was an Iraqi, perhaps not the best of all leaders even in eyes of his populace, but still an Iraqi.

Perhaps an example out of context may be better to illustrate this; It is difficult for most people (how hypocrite it may be) to accept criticism in their personal sphere from an external source. For example, if your senior colleague at work tells you how you should raise your kid (without you asking for advice), it might not be appreciated. While if it was your mother who would say the exact same things, you perhaps would listen to them. Form is important. 'How can those arrogant foreigners think that they know better how to govern OUR country?'. or even 'How can those arrogant infidels (remember the crusades) think we even want them to change our crappy regime?'.

Sliding away from topic too much, I still doubt that any Nation (a real nation, not X minorities mixed into a large chilli concarne pot or an already occupied territory) has ever been successfully invaded (and occupied) with the consent of the population. A mere 100 years ago this consent wasn't really important, as the public opinion was much more 'deformable' at that moment. Meaning that any resistance is futile as they will simply burn down your village. Until after WWII it was sort of not a big issue to use military means on the general population. It worked after all.

Luckily in the present time violence against civilians isn't practical anymore. It is a problem. And now the reason for the original need of that violence is what is shown in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because in spite of all of the good intentions (?) behind 'Iraqi Freedom', a large part of the Iraqi's will never trust the US soldiers in their country and will be hurt in their pride so to speak. That is all even apart from believes about possible other reasons behind the invasion, complot-theories, etc etc etc.

In my opinion operation 'Iraqi Freedom' already failed because of the large amount of 'free Iraqi's' that have died as a result of this 'liberation'.

I hope this mess will one day result in Iraq having a nationwide supported government. I truly hope so. But I think that for most the Iraqis themselves, living under Saddam was better then the current status quo.

The option to remove Saddam directly after Kuwait, was a much better one IMHO. The shiites in the south asked for it and it could have been a hit and run action more or less. The removal of Saddam could have lead to a civil war, but sometimes these are necessary to (re)form a nation.

[Vark]

My god Steve hope you have a copy of the latest DHS handy, seems like your SSGT was one to keep an eye on!! That was English sarcasm, lest anyone respond Surely you should have done a brief conversation recce and seen what he was like, then move on to more fertile brains. What is the point in showing your supposed superiority to someone who obviously was radiating insecure professional disorder (IPD) unless you too were showing early signs of IPD? Sure, if you were a civilian involved in a Hollywood-esque confrontation with the military with lives at stake and the clock was ticking then argue the toss, but what did you gain except knowledge that extremists exist in the military, Timothy McVeigh anyone. Sorry, when it comes to conversations I am a mercenary, I always want to leave richer than I was and although I do not suffer fools gladly at least I've learned to not be so obvious about it.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Lethaface, I get what you're saying. I don't think OIF is a failure because of civilian deaths; (they contribute, but aren't the sole reason) but because we have failed to give them something better. Very general statement, but it serves it's purpose.

The Phillippine deal drug out until beyond WW2, but it is an example of an outside power coming into a foreign nation and completely re-building it from the ground up through 2 insurgencies, and 1 world war.

[JonS]

In twenty years surely more can be achieved then in 10 years. That being said, I wonder if 'Any nation ever [has] successfully invaded & occupied another nation AND got the population into actually supporting the 'invaders'.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I think the cannonical examples here are Germany and Japan from 1945 onwards.

I picked a minimum of 20 years for the colony because that's basically a generation. The idea is to impose a new way of doing things - legal, government, commerce, etc - then maintain it in a steady state for a long period so that people get used to it, and get used to the benefits, and actually realise those benefits for themselves, their kids, and their communities.

Yes, I'm being horribly Western-centric here, and assuming that the Western way of organising countries is inherently better than the Middle Eastern way. Also, there's a pragmatic point here - Western agencies know, more or less, how to run a western style country. They don't know so well how to run other types of polities, so playing to their strengths seems to makes sense, even if it (western style polity) isn't objectively the best possible solution for - in this case - Iraq or Afghanistan.

The way things worked out, it seemed like the plan was that the Iraqis were just supposed to collectively get out of bed and know how to run a western democracy. Without being shown or taught. I suppose by osmosis or something. And that they'd wholly embrace it, and completely reject their previous training, knowledge and experience. That's a powerful bit of wishful thinking, if you ask me.

Jon

Edit to add: I deliberately used the word colony and colonisation. I don't really care if the Iraqis and Afghanis like being colonised. The idea is they get used to it, or get a close and personal experience of western methods of enforcing law and order. After 20 years I doubt there'd be many death or glory types left, due to attrition and more importantly due to assimilation of the majority population: "yes yes, the western imperialists invaded our country 15 years ago and took over, but little Achmed is in medical school now, and his sister graduated as a lawyer last year. Those westerners may be w@nkers, but my kids would never have had these opportunities without them, and I really don't want to go back to the way things were under Saddam, or get involved with Ravi-down-the-street's plan to bomb the market. What's the point? Everyone is happy and healthy, and in five years we start having elections. This country is 3,000 years old - 5 years really isn't so long to wait."

[Vark]

'How can those arrogant infidels (remember the crusades) think we even want them to change our crappy regime?'.

So Lethaface I take it there is no time limit with the 'conquerors challenge'

A) Norman Invasion, totally changed certain aspects of English society so inhabitants had to change as well. including supporting the new structures. Feudal society demanded that the population be ready to 'support' military actions when called upon.

Roman Empire, very good at co-opting races invaded into actively fighting for them

C) Crusades were a Western response to Muslim aggression and the locals crappy regime was little different from the Crusaders. Rich overlords, often outsiders, dispensing rewards and justice in a seemingly random fashion with 99% of the popualtion unable/unwilling to control or determine their destiny.

As for invading after DS forget it, their was no UN sanction for such an action, contained in the original resolution authorising force and the Arab allies would have deserted us. Secondly the force structure was to fight a ground war not occupy a country, so no change there then!

[Battlefront.com]

Vark,

The exchange basically ended after I two rounds. He made some big claims, I innocently pointed out there was another point of view (including from his CiC, which he just basically told me was God on Earth), he called me a traitor, I literally asked him how I could be a traitor for linking to the White House Website, then the rest piled on to tell me how wrong I was to argue with a Marine because I'm not. That pretty much ended it I did get a nice bunch of off list messages from other guys who commended me for being one of the only ones to stand up to the right wing nut jobs who had hijacked a supposedly non-political Forum. You know the type... they post all kinds of completely off-topic political crap and then when someone posts a challenge to it they say "hey, don't post off-topic". The irony was never realized by them, despite me and others pointing it out After 10 years on that Forum I dropped off it. Not worth the hassle it became to try and get the few nuggets of info that I was in need of.

Back to the thing about occupations. Remember, cultures matter. Not only the culture of the occupying country but also of the occupied. Both the Japanese and Germans had strong cultural identities which were, in their own ways, tied to the rule of law and a set of values which can be loosely described as "honor". Both were utterly beaten militarily over the course of many years and tremendous suffering. They didn't want to keep the battle going and instead simply wanted to return to normalcy ASAP.

The countries under Western Allied control eventually realized it would be a lot better than that and bounced back BIG TIME. The ones under the control of the Soviet Union didn't because the intentions of the Soviets were not well received. After recovering from the initial period of post-WW2 problems the Hungarians revolted. Others would have too if the Soviets didn't crush the Hungarians so quickly and beef up their occupation forces elsewhere.

My point here is that Germany and Japan were basically best case examples. Haiti, Somalia, and Afghanistan are pretty much worst case examples. Iraq is somewhere inbetween, since unlike the others it did have a very strong and "effective" central government for many decades. And yet Germany and Japan didn't start really getting on their own two feet for the first 5 years of occupation. It took another 5 or so for Germany to really start to get its internal house in order. And all the while they had a largely benevolent occupation. Certainly Iraq and Afghanistan are inherently more challenging, so 10 years minimum to get things moderately calm, 10 more years to really get things solidified. And that's with good policies!

Steve

[Vark]

Gotcha Steve, I though it had been a tete a tete encounter, not an online 'discussion'. I do remember a series of very combative discussions on a military form between myself and a soldier, but after a month we had some really productive discussions, after we had sized each other up and both compromised, just a little in our views. I always wonder what happened to him as he was training on Strykers and going to Iraq, then nada. As for the culture argument I've always suspected that the post Iraq situation came about for two opposite yet linked cultural dynamics.

1) The belief that US can do can be a substitute for a shoe string take down of a country, so we have arrogance in abilities and a sense of cultural superiority.

2) The genuine belief that the Iraqi's were similar to Western people, that they really were like us but just dressed funny. Remember we come from a culture that if one dares ro suggest a culture is 'superior' in any way will immediately attract accusations of racism etc. We are so loathe to discriminate, in the true sense of facts leading to decisions, that instinctively we allow a 'relativism' to creep into our judgements. This fueled a belief that the Iraqis would hail us as liberators, fight the good fight, party for a few nights and then sit down and organise a civil society, as had the former communist countries. I cannot count the number of times that soldiers accounts have stated how shocked they were at how the Iraqis behaved, the expection that the US was to be a magical solution finder to all problems. So we are back to point 1 again. If the only previous experience most Iraqis have with the conquering country is firstly culturally dubious, ie Hollywoods action films and TV shows, that accentuate the US can do everything meme and secondly experience of what must have seemed a supernatural opponent then expections, for the Iraqis will be unrealistically high.

I do not ascribe dark motives to GWB, that is the territory of the IPDers, as far as I am concerned, but I do think he had a touching if somewhat naive belief about Iraq and Arabs in general. Rather like the Reagan situation where he was being demonised by the press as a war monger and anti-Russian but said that he wished "aliens from beyond the universe" would invade earth so that the two super-powers could come together, banish their differences and kick some serious green butt!

Final point, I do think it is very unwise to start making judgements about an on going operation. What happens if, in ten years time, Iraq becomes a model for democracy, has shattered the Iranian Mullahs power by acting as a cultural firebase and people all over the world are posting pictures/movies of their Iraqi holidays on Flikr and Youtube. How many of the "oh darling it really is the cradle of civilisation, you MUST go there" crowd would ever admit to having move-on org posters in their attic? Sure it could spiral out of control and be the end of civilisation but that avenue of thought is well lit and well trod.

[MARS42]

Hello everybody. This is my first posting in the forum, although i´m reading the topics here daily for nearly two years now.

I´m not sure, that we have seen 155mm calibre Artillery shells in the video at the beginning of this thread, because in my opinion it had not enough impact power.

In the following video about the Panzehaubitze 2000 of the German Army you see some 155mm fire missions at the end of the video, which have a different look!

The video might also be interesting for the Battlefront designers of the Nato-Module, because the PzHaubitze 2000 is, in my opinion, much more powerful than the actual artillery-systems of the US and British troops, which should be representend in the fire missions of the new module.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-nnUiMgE24&feature=related

Greets, MARS42

[Lethaface]

All thanks for the good posts.

In my opinion ofc; The big difference between Germany/Japan & Iraq is that Japan's population suffered from TWO Nuclear Bombs and Germany population was also severely pounded (Dresden among others), before they were occupied. I can understand people are tired of fighting after having suffered that amount of casualties. Furthermore, their government was the original 'invader' and got defeated afterwards, which led to the invasion of those said countries.

Apart from cultural differences, these 'exterminations' & the fact they were the original aggressor make the relative 'easy' regime change for Germany and Japan quite different from the, for example, Iraqi's (altough Saddam did attack kuwait 10 years before OIF).

I reckon that if the US first nuked Baghdad & Tikrit, occupying the rest of the country would have proven a bit more easy.... Or if they simply carpet bombed any town with insurgents inside. (Apart from the reason for the whole invasion, which I have always dissaproved).

In another view; Perhaps it would be possible for the US to overthrow the Dutch government if Geert Wilders gets elected and decides to make the Netherlands into some '..... Reich' . However the Dutch probably would not agree with China going for a regime change here. Perhaps things would change a little bit if China decided to carpet bomb amsterdam... People tend to agree with things more easy with a gun in their mouth

So what it boils down to (boldly) is in my opinion; violent oppression is necessary to subjugate a (strong) people/nation. Without this people will revolt and violence will erupt anyway, creating an unstable situation which will be unfavourable to all involved. Mankind has learned this a long time ago and I think that is part of the reason for all those mass murders in the past. Now that we dont mass murder anymore, we are facing the same problems that were the original reasons of these mass murders.

I find it difficult to believe that people high in the Bush administration didn't 'realize' that the US in the eyes of Iraqi's are not fundamentally different then, for example, the Dutch colonizator in the eyes of the Atjeh'ers. Subjugating the Iraqi's or Afghani's will never work without heavy oppression; in other words, I think that given the current international agreements a regime change should not be forced using boots on the ground. Perhaps Steve's comments a few pages back are a better idea, altough I doubt that any foreign government worker wont be regarded as a spy/soldier.

I just tried to remember what the bloody Topic was hehe... Perhaps being on the incoming end of '155' is not enough for the Iraqi's to give up insurgency. Being on the incoming end of a 'Megaton shell' might work better Those video's are truly spectacular as well!!

[Vark]

Was that an animation of an Elephant TD halfway through the clip? If they can fire at rate 6 continuously I'd like to see the resupply chain, or is it that they can obliterate any target quickly they do not need to fire as many rounds as a standard battery?

[Lethaface]

Continued; I dont have any better suggestion for Iraq, except going back in time and never invading the bloody country. Perhaps if all the $ that went into the Iraq war, went to a program for a poppy alternative & infrastructure for the afghanis, it might have produced something there. Given the information about taliban & alqaida being on very good terms, something had to be done there, unlike Iraq. However the aftercare has been spoiled. How can you expect corrupt warlords to change into hardworking righteous governors?

I think the problem is comparable to problems with north african immigrants in the Netherlands at the moment. Most of m originate from the RIF mountains in Marocco where (governmental) law and order virtually didn't exist. There is an obvious problem with criminality, but if we want them to change, we have to 'fix' it. We can't expect a young thug to suddenly 'see the light' and become a good hard working person. Repression only, only makes it worse. Important is: 'What are the underlying reasons for them to go off track?'. Same thing about Afghanistan & the middle east. Can we (the west) do something about the reasons those nations fail?

Islam is not the reason they blow up innocent people. Religion can and will be abused for terrorism. However, given the same cirumstances and a different religion things wouldn't change a thing in my opinion.

There are several reasons for people to become bitter and depressive. There are more possibilities to change nations from inside, without using force. These will require sacrifices from us, the west. Protectionism, the UN being (in the practical reality) the most hypocrite organization in the world, supporting corrupt (friendly, heel licking) leaders, abusing monetarism, etcetera are the real problems we have to solve. 'If God is willing' US & EU will allow Iran nuclear energy while at the same time making sure they dont produce any nuclear weapons. Over time Iran's leadership might become less extremist and more and more acceptable to the west. It could change the whole middle east and let Israelis choose a less extremist government and work out a dual state with the palestinians. Fair trade, equal nations (am I dreaming #*$^?)

The way things are going now, OIF is regarded as another crusade in the middle east and the US the new imperialist infidel. Most Palestinians, Iraqi's or Afghani's (and most middle easteners) have nothing to loose. A lot of the corrupt leadership in the middle east is supported by the west, ....................................................

Sorry if I bored anyone with my preaching

However, being interested in military conflicts doesn't mean I think they are good for the world. I don't feel guilty about my grandfather fighting in Indonesia/Netherlands colonizing Indonesia and all the atrocities they committed (I didn't take part in it), but are all the more interested about why he (NL) was there and the lessons to be learned from our past. In many ways the past isn't so much different from the present. Hopefully the future will bring 'change'