the usa's military's greatest strength is

[danielost]

Is also its greatest weakness. The troops care about what happens to none combatents. This is its strength because everyone or almost everyone is happy to see them. It is its greatest weakness because the enemy knows this and can wait until they are busy getting the civilians out of harms way. Also, in this war were the enemy doesn't wear a uniform, they can blend i n with the civilians.

[Vaise]

i understand and kinda of agree with your idea. however what are your main objectives in this topic highlighting such an obvious Strength/weakness? Basically i fail to see the point of the topic.

[Frank Merton]

Is also its greatest weakness. The troops care about what happens to none combatents. This is its strength because everyone or almost everyone is happy to see them. It is its greatest weakness because the enemy knows this and can wait until they are busy getting the civilians out of harms way. Also, in this war were the enemy doesn't wear a uniform, they can blend i n with the civilians.

Where do you get the idea that only American soldiers are like that, or the idea that all American soldiers are? Plenty of Americans have committed plenty of atrocities and plenty of non-Americans have been just as concerned. This seems a particularly chauvinistic and peculiar view of the world.

[Tata Rompe Pecho]

Is also its greatest weakness. The troops care about what happens to none combatents. This is its strength because everyone or almost everyone is happy to see them. It is its greatest weakness because the enemy knows this and can wait until they are busy getting the civilians out of harms way. Also, in this war were the enemy doesn't wear a uniform, they can blend i n with the civilians.

This is not entirely true, the military doesn't necessarily care enough of non-combatants to break prior engagements, just to save them. The only reason it comes off as our military caring too much is because we are not at war with a country, just a group of people within a country. So we technically can't harm others just to end the group we're after because that would enact a war against that country. Also a part of removing that group is showing the rest of the people within that country that the group is detrimental to their personal lives..

Don't get me wrong, I do agree that our military does seem to care more than others about non-combatants, it's just not to the extent of which it might currently seem.

Edited June 30, 2013 by xFelix

[Vaise]

Where do you get the idea that only American soldiers are like that, or the idea that all American soldiers are? Plenty of Americans have committed plenty of atrocities and plenty of non-Americans have been just as concerned. This seems a particularly chauvinistic and peculiar view of the world.

i agree that many countries armys will have a this feeling, i also know a few people in the army who have openly admired there in there for the experience and the money, nothing more.

[danielost]

The enemy that we are fighting right now could care less about people or property. They just want to be killed so they can get their seventy two virgins.

The germans and japanees also shared this view during ww2.

[FLOMBIE]

Is also its greatest weakness. The troops care about what happens to none combatents. This is its strength because everyone or almost everyone is happy to see them. It is its greatest weakness because the enemy knows this and can wait until they are busy getting the civilians out of harms way. Also, in this war were the enemy doesn't wear a uniform, they can blend i n with the civilians.

You say that, yet it were the US Americans who established the term "colleteral damage" (not by the troops itself, I am aware of that.).

The enemy that we are fighting right now could care less about people or property. They just want to be killed so they can get their seventy two virgins.

The germans and japanees also shared this view during ww2.

Wait, what? The Japanese and us shared the view of 72 virgins in paradise?

[Thanato]

The Japanese beloved in honouring the Emperor and that a true worrier never surrendered. German soldiers where just soldiers, it was the SS that where fanatical.

[Clarakore]

The enemy that we are fighting right now could care less about people or property. They just want to be killed so they can get their seventy two virgins.

The germans and japanees also shared this view during ww2.

If we end up losing the war let us see how history labels us.

What Hitler wanted to do and failed, take living space from Slavs in the East to create farms for his people to live on, is exactly what Americans did to the natives and are called heroes for it.

Unsure if the view presented in the quote above is accurate. How many who oppose us do so only because we dropped bombs on their village? Surely some who oppose us are not fanatical or believe in celestial virgins. Imagine their view of us and how off base that is too. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth but it won't be found among those calling their enemies Huns or terrorists or whatever label is en vogue.

[danielost]

I do not consider all of the people invoveled in the indian wars heros. Custer was not a hero in the west. He was in the civil war.

But both sides in the indian wars were commitingnwhat we would call war crimes.

During that time period you had to follow orders no matter what. Today, the troops only have to follow lawful orders.

[Thanato]

Daniel the problem is that a lot of green troops are afraid or unwilling to question orders from their senior nco's and officers.

It usually comes with experience that troops are willin to.

[questionmark]

Daniel the problem is that a lot of green troops are afraid or unwilling to question orders from their senior nco's and officers.

It usually comes with experience that troops are willin to.

Most are not only inexperienced, they are more afraid of their First Sargent than of the law or the enemy.

[acidhead]

The enemy that we are fighting right now could care less about people or property. They just want to be killed so they can get their seventy two virgins.

The germans and japanees also shared this view during ww2.

I have a hard time believing that Mohammed Atta and his gang were hoping to get 72 virgins for allegedly flying jets into the twin towers on 911. They frequented strip bars and he had a white blonde haired blue eyed girlfriend.... not exactly following a strict version of Islam. I wonder what he was truely thinking seconds before his jet slammed into WTC 1?

[regeneratia]

The greatest assett the US military has is the individual soldier. The most detracting feature of the US military and the ugliest thing about the military are the US Generals.

[pbarosso]

No. The greatest weakness is the politicians. The generals would win the war in two weeks and get the jobs done. Collateral damage and civ casualties happen in war. They have always happened.

@the world needs you, you are off base. Indians wanted guns and horses and wespons to destroy their neighbors. They had no might to back up their claim to the land so they lost it. It happens to bears, wolves, and all other animals. Those with the power win over. Otherwise the weak would survive....kind of like what is happening in first world countries today...the weak survive and that is what is naking ys weaker, unless cheap and abundant cannon fodder is a resource. ...

[Clarakore]

^

The continuation of the myth of the savage?

Our Manifest Destiny had nothing to do anything with Indian savagery but our own greed for land.

The conditions that allowed for and made the Plains War were us pushing people off their land in the East and forcing them into the West artificially creating overpopulation and competition for resources in the same way the Hun invasion sparked off the Great Migrations in Europe where Germanic tribes began pushing into Rome.

Not claiming that the Indians were peaceful but they were less savage than us for when they fought battles dozens died but when we did hundreds died and if we use contemporary European examples then thousands could die in one battle with the cannons and muskets and lines of war we used. Of course we adapted new strategies and did not usually have two great armies match off in even lines on the field in America outside the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

We were the more advanced and formidable killers and not the natives. Had we been through industrialization we would have used tanks, bombs, and concentration camps. We did use camps and even sent in poison blankets. We started the practice of scalping. The only thing we did not do is cannibalism but at a time even Texas Rangers allied with cannibals and looked away.

Their deadliest warriors were mounted but only found their horses after Europeans introduced them into the Americas.

We were not heroes but land grabbers and it did not matter what the Indians were doing before we arrived, we were going to take and have that land.

Edited July 1, 2013 by The world needs you

[danielost]

The militaries current goal is to get the fighting over with and then help rebuild.

[acidhead]

The militaries current goal is to get the fighting over with and then help rebuild.

How can the War On Terror be won?

[danielost]

How can the War On Terror be won?

Find a way to defund them.

[Thanato]

How can the War On Terror be won?

Stop being afraid.

[Frank Merton]

One thing is to stop giving terrorists and similar types so much publicity. The facts and the details of the events should be reported -- the public has the right to know -- but they are really for the most part (911 excepted) much less important than the attention they get. It is the public attention that drives it People realize they have little influence in the world and the more egoistic of them can't accept that, and when they see all the attention these acts get, it just causes more.

[Frank Merton]

Another thing is to stop hamstringing law enforcement with legal procedures and not worry so much about personal rights and worry a little more about the right to life of those terrorists kill.

[Thanato]

Another thing is to stop hamstringing law enforcement with legal procedures and not worry so much about personal rights and worry a little more about the right to life of those terrorists kill.

Never give up your personal rights for the sake of security. Those who you give them to will never give them back and they will make sure you don't feel safe (hence your post just prior to this one). They will craft slight propaganda to make you fear your neighbours if they have to. It has been done in the past and will be done again. Just look at the outrage and destructive action American Civilians have brought down on inoccent people of middle eastern back ground, not necessarily Muslim just middle eastern.

There is no such thing as a Muslim Terrorist, just a terrorist who happens to be Muslim. Just like there is no such thing as an English Terrorist, just a Terrorist who happens to be English. etc.

~Thanato

[Frank Merton]

"Never give up your personal rights for the sake of security" Well then do you obey speed limits and red lights? What is your view of guard rails on bridges and precipices and skyscrapers? Do you think restaurants should periodically be inspected by the health department?

[Thanato]

"Never give up your personal rights for the sake of security" Well then do you obey speed limits and red lights? What is your view of guard rails on bridges and precipices and skyscrapers? Do you think restaurants should periodically be inspected by the health department?

Driving is not a right. It is a privilege, not driving does not infringe on freedom of movement. It just gets you places faster, which is more of an inconvenience. General safety equipment does not infringe on personal freedoms. Unless your personal freedom is to kill yourself (which you can still do if you really wanted to). Food safety in restaurants again does not infringe on personal freedoms.