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

To: Ilaine who wrote (41149)	8/31/2002 3:54:07 PM
From: SirRealist	Respond to of 281500

You have to realize CB, that I rarely consider anyone under the age of 25 to have sufficient experience to have a fully fleshed out political philosophy. It takes some callous on the psyche to develop that. As for my kinky fantasy life, I assure you, no neocons were injured, injuring, or had a part in any of it. But you may have ruined it for me. I'm terrified to fall asleep now. I keep worrying that I'll have nightmares about Maggie Thatcher as a dominatrix, and her burro named Perle. Aaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!

To: Ilaine who wrote (41149)	9/1/2002 3:58:29 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "Hi SR - my impression is that the guys who are going to do the shooting first are really happy to do it." This is true, but it isn't information. They would say the same about any other similar task. They said the same thing in Mogadishu just before they got their butts kicked. Guys go to bed every night praying that tomorrow a (conventional) world war will break out. Looking for their opinion on a conflict is like looking at a broken clock. Hell, the Iraqi elite infantry grunts are saying exactly the same thing. A certain percentage of young men just love to fight, and that percentage gets self selected into the elite military forces. Here's some quotes from BlackDown (note that these quotes are from just before an operation that was a disaster for the US): <<< [p6] The prospect of getting into a scrape didn't worry them. Not at all. They welcomed it. They were predators, heavy metal avengers, unstoppable, invincible. The feeling was, after six weeks of diddling around they were finally going in to kick some serious Somali ass. [p9-10] Rangers knew the surest path to that height was combat experience. So far, Mog had been mostly a tease. War was always about to happen. About to happen. Even the missions, exciting as they'd been, had fallen short. The Somalis -- whom they called "Skinnies" or "Sammies" -- had taken a few wild shots at them, enough to get the Rangers' blood up and unleash a hellish torrent of return fire, but nothing that qualified as a balls-out firefight. Which is what they wanted. All of these guys. If there were any hesitant thoughts, they were buttoned tight. A lot of these men had started as afraid of war as anyone, but the fear had been drummed out. Especially in Ranger training. About a fourth of those who volunteered washed out, enough so that those who emerged with their Ranger tab at the end were riding the headiest wave of accomplishment of their young lives. The weak had been weeded out. The strong had stepped up. Then came weeks, months, of constant training. The Hoo-ahs couldn't wait to go to war. They were an all-star football team that had endured bruising, exhausting dangerous practice sessions twelve hours a day, seven days a week -- for years -- without ever getting to play a game. They yearned for battle. They passed around the dog-eared paperback memoirs of soldiers from past conflicts, many written by former Rangers, and savored the affectionate, comradely tone of their stories, feeling bad for the poor suckers who bought it or got crippled or maimed but identifying with the righteous men who survived the experience whole. They studied the old photos, which were the same from every war, young men looking dirty and tired, half dressed in army combat fatigues, dogtags hanging around their skinny necks, posing with arms draped over each other's shoulders in exotic lands. They could see themselves in those snapshots, surrounded by their buddies, fighting their war. It was THE test, the only one that counted. Sargent Mike Goodale had tried to explain this to his mother one time on leave in Illinois. His mom was a nurse, incredulous at his bravado. "Why would anyone want to go to war?" she asked. Goodale told her it would be like, as a nurse, after all her training, never getting the chance to work in a hospital. It would be like that. >>> Again, my point is that all this enthusiasm for war (perhaps among your son) means nothing as to whether or not the conflict will be a disaster for the US. The sharp forward edge of the military is not trained to think about the odds. Theirs is but to do or die. They're always enthusiastic, even up to the opening of disastrous operations where they're sent in horribly outnumbered with zero backup available. The "hoo-ah" attitude includes officers through the combat levels. Instead of looking for them to give you opinions on what is and what is not easy, you'll do better by looking to higher officers like the joint chiefs. This is not some accident, they're in those positions of authority because of their long history of careful planning. And they're saying that an attack on Iraq will require 250,000 soldiers and months of preparation. -- Carl