Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: art slott who wrote (26587)	4/22/2002 9:50:45 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi art slott; Re: "I'll never forget that day when 241 US servicemen were blown up by Hezzbolah. We suffered heavy casulties by Saudi terrorists too. And then we had to deal with a Saudi cover up." This identical argument would have kept us permanently in Vietnam. Any country that insists on winning every one of its brushfire conflicts eventually ends up on the wrong side of history. If we're going to take on the Arabs militarily in a nasty guerilla war, it will have to be with plenty of allies on our side, preferably from Moslem countries. The bad press that the Israelis are getting even in Europe suggests that we won't get docking privileges, much less fly over privileges if this thing ever gets hot. Re: "Cutting military aid off from Israel means eventually we'ed be sending over weapons anyway bu[t] US troops would be going with them." Yeah, I always like to go back to places where I was completely outnumbered by the locals and got my butt completely kicked. Not. And I'm hardly a pacifist, just a simple realist. For example, I noted that we would kick ass in Afghanistan here: #reply-16625987 This was posted on November 8 in response to Raymond Duray who felt that Afghanistan would become a Vietnam type conflict for us. Maybe it's time to revisit that post and the 10 differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam, but instead compare Afghanistan to Palestine: (1-2) Assume kill ratio is still 20 to 1 against conventional forces. The problem is that the Middle East issue is not conventional forces. Saddam already tried conventional forces against the US and got his butt kicked. We'll be facing the same sort of suicide bombing and terror tactics that have run us out of Lebanon once already. That was with Reagan, and Bush is no Reagan. Our attacks against Iraq in the Gulf War, and against Afghanistan recently were both attacks against totally conventional forces. (3) We still have the option of conscripting women and sending them into combat. (4) The US population is 3.5x larger than Vietnam, and nearly 11x larger than Afghanistan. The problem is that if you combine Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon, you end up with a population that outnumbers the US. (5) Vietnam was richer than Afghanistan, but the countries we'll be going up against in the Middle East are richer still. While they're not exactly Hitler's Germany, they do have a lot more weapons to throw at us than Vietnam ever dreamed of. (6) The Afghanis were sick of the Taliban. By contrast, most of the Middle East is sick of the United States. This is in contrast to Vietnam which was more or less neutral to US power at the start of Vietnam. (7) American air power is still supreme. (8) Vietnam was provided arms and munitions by China and Russia. Afghanistan was on its own. The Middle East, if we try it without allies, could end up rather complicated. Who knows which countries would like to see the US humbled and are willing to send a few boat loads of "stinger missiles" or the equivalent to help. (9) Vietnamese forests were hard on air power, but our big threat in the Middle East is from terror, which doesn't need forests to hide out in. The US wasn't even able to knock out Iraq's Scud missiles during the Gulf War, how are we going to be able to find all those suicide belts. (10) American resolve for Afghanistan was higher than for Vietnam. American resolve against Palestine is fairly low, as is evidenced by long standing right wing radicals like myself arguing against it. Politically, this will be a disaster like Vietnam. When we went into Afghanistan it was to the sounds of cheering crowds. If we go into Palestine to assist the Israelis it will be to hissing crowds. It's simply not a good idea. -- Carl