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

To: Bilow who wrote (191645)	7/14/2006 9:43:49 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Evidently you think our war against Japan was fought on "land". So. Do you think that battleships are just like big armored vehicles? Do you think that sailors dig foxholes on carriers? Actually it was.. Island by bloody Island... Okinawa was one of the the bloodiest land battles we fought in WWII, second only to the Battle of the Bulge. Among the U. S. dead was General Buckner, the highest-ranking U. S. officer killed in WW II. He died 18 June in a Japanese artillery barrage while visiting the front. Okinawa ranks as the costliest single battle of the Pacific war for both sides, second only to the Battle of the Bulge in terms of U. S. casualties. The high cost of freedom is shown by these figures: The Army sustained 4,436 killed in action (KIA) and 17,343 wounded in action (WIA). The Marines suffered 2,793 KIA and 13,434 WIA. Moreover, the suicide weapons and more traditional ones used by the Japanese, such as giant mortars and artillery, took a heavy psychological toll among American GI's. It reportedly produced the most and worst cases of combat fatigue In the Pacific war. merchant-marine.com My grandmother once told me that my natural Grandfather, who I never had the chance to know, (he took his own life before I was born), was never the same after his participation in the Battle for Okinawa. He was a Navy Corpsman with the Marines and the things that he saw there apparently left his mind permanently scared. Furthermore, you've apparently forgotten Guadalcanal, Tarawa Iwo Jima, the New Guinea campaign (the Army performed more amphibious operations than the Marines in the Pacific). And it was only a prelude to the casualities that would have been sustained had we actually invaded the Japanese home islands. This just show how out of touch YOU ARE with regard to what is required to win a war.. You seem to have some sense that WWII was just a football game in which all we had to do was show up. The reality is that it was never a sure thing. Certainly it was a major naval strategy, but fleets need ports, and like air forces, they can't occupy territory, only bombard it. To win a war, and defeat an enemy, you have to destroy their will to resist, and if you must, occupy their land. And after we've accomplished that, we have to replace the belief system that led them to initiate their imperialistic or totalitarian goals, AND REPLACE IT with a more tolerant and pacifist belief system. And I happen to believe that some form of democractic system is required for any government to have legitimacy and to be "hostage" to the needs and aspirations of the people that elects it, rather than the people being held hostage to the fanatical and expansionist delusions of a brutal elite. The nature of military power is a lot more complicated than you understand. The military is merely the implement that executes political surgery. We use military force, reluctantly, when we're afraid that the political "cancer" is at risk of spreading and threatening the rest of the international political body. But the real healing comes AFTER the surgery. Without political and economic "anti-biotics" to fight re-infection, the surgery is going to fail. And unfortunately, with this kind of military surgery, there's no anesthetia and we all feel the pain. Hawk

To: Bilow who wrote (191645)	7/14/2006 3:08:26 PM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

I totally disagree. Military power is much more simple than most people want to believe. 60 years of post ww2 rhetoric convinced people that war was bad, with our disgrace in Vietnam being the icing on the cake. We may not like to randomly kill people in the name of war as civilized Zionists. However, there are 1 billion Muslims that profit from higher oil prices every time someone dies. Jihad is not about the after life, it's about the after shock of oil prices. Every time another Muslim commits an act of terrorism, we reward all Muslims with higher energy prices. No wonder why they love guns and soicide belts. One of these days, all you self righteous Bush bashers are going to realize the violence against the Muslims is self inflicted for their own benefit. It doesn't matter who dies - a Shiite, a Jew, a Hezbelloh soldier/terrorist, a US soldier. The only thing that matters to the Muslims is that negative headlines keep the price of oil going in a higher direction. Meanwhile, they are pumping so much crude that inventories are above the 5 year averages with prices charging to $78 per barrel.