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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (45752)	3/16/2004 6:14:31 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50167

Alqaeda after cowing Spanish voters, and those voters did injustice to their dead by caving to terror, the leadership of Alqaeda tells French to take out the ‘scarf law’ or be ready for reprisals. If terror can undermine popular choice the events in Madrid proved that how fickle we as humans can be, giving into terror is the worst offence and Alqaeda have raised the ante once they have realized that what they can achieve by demonstrating raw orgy of blood is immense a dagger has been drawn into heart of Spanish democracy by influencing elections on Sunday through coercive timing of the innocent citizens bombings. Instead of voting an appeaser the Spanish should have realized that they are dealing with an organization that has a medieval agenda and today announcement against France demonstrates just exactly that. To mete the punishment of Anzar’s political decisions on citizens of Madrid is blind and cruel atrocity. The whole argument that MADRID WOULD HAVE NOT APPEARED ON Alqaeda radar screen if they would have remained neutral is totally wrong the events today represent new threat against French national law adopted by the National Assembly and Senate. Alqaeda is not sympathetic to those who have supported the cause of ‘Iraqi unjust war’ it against freedom and expression of choice, it is about imposition of their brand of live on others and it is about reincarnation of rule by terror, for posterity I will like to be on record that this Spanish PM within few months will be the frontline fighter against Alqaeda, the fun he is poking on Blair and Bush will come to haunt him, French PM seemed to be shell shocked when they received the ultimatum of withdrawing the ‘scarf law’ today they must have realized that Bush is right Alqaeda wants to rob us of our freedom of legislation, will French now care to declare that Alqaeda war is a war on western values and civilization and its formidable institutions, sooner or later all these nations who think by keeping a low profile they can escape from the atrocious conduct of this terrorist organisation will join the club of nations who are helping uproot this cancer globally.. President Bush on Tuesday called on Spain and other allies in Iraq to stick with the United States and not cave in to pressure from al Qaeda by withdrawing their troops.

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (45752)	3/16/2004 6:57:52 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Hi IQBAL LATIF; Re: ""Eight paramilitary soldiers embraced shahadat (martyrdom) and 15 have sustained injuries during the operation", near Wana in South Waziristan tribal territory, Brigadier Mahmood Shah told. "We believe that 24 foreign and local militants have been killed, but so far only two bodies have been recovered," said Shah, the security chief of the federally administrated tribal territory in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province." Since only two bodies were recovered, we can assume that the government forces did not manage to retain possession of the battlefield. In that sort of wartime circumstance, it is a universal character of the human species to overestimate enemy casualties. The overestimation ratio is typically about 5x to 10x, and is due to the fact that the kill numbers are obtained by asking the soldiers how many people they hit. It turns out that soldiers always overestimate their accuracy. One shoots, the other guy ducks, one concludes that the other guy was downed by the shot. This overestimation shows up in military history with some regularity. For example, when the very professional air force of Germany in WW2 went after the British during Battle for Britain, they brought back kill totals that far exceeded the total number of aircraft that Britain could possibly have. The British, on the other hand, because they were fighting over their own territory (and therefore retained control over the battlefield), knew almost exactly how many Germans they had shot down. The bad estimates also figured prominently in the Pacific War between the US and Japan, with overestimated numbers of ships sunk by each side. This despite the undeniable fact that a ship is a huge machine that is fairly easy to see, LOL. The overestimation of enemy casualties doesn't figure prominently in land warfare because the land warfare associated with the most casualties tends to avoid the war of maneuver where the estimates are bad. But it does figure prominently in estimates, for example, of how many tanks the Afrika Corps or Montgomery had destroyed during the fight over North Africa. So no, there weren't 24 enemy killed. Probably around 2 to 4. If you think that this is bad, you should see the estimates of US soldiers killed put out by the resistance in Iraq. They're constantly announcing another dozen US soldiers killed, but their figures are always exaggerations by a factor of 5 or 10. While it is possible to chalk some of these errors up to deliberate propaganda, it is also true that humans have a strong desire to tell their bosses what they want to hear. Each individual soldier doesn't think it's such a bad thing when he guesses that maybe he got a couple hits when in actual fact it was probably the same guy ducking back under cover. In actual combat nowadays, you only see the enemy for brief moments, then they're either dead or more likely hiding. So he gives his squad leader a number which is off by one or two. This same applies to everyone in the army, and by the time the totals are added up, the figures are way off. Enemy soldiers are hard to kill. They're prepared, and they're armed. It's a hell of a lot easier to kill enemy civilians, especially when they're unprepared, so armies do better when they estimate how many unarmed civilians they (deliberately) kill. That's cause the soldiers walk up close rather than waste ammunition. -- Carl