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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jaknik2 who wrote (215212)	8/10/2007 12:44:58 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793964

While the Brit Army paraded around in bright red uniforms and fought using typical European line by line attacks, scoundrels like the Swamp Fox hid behind trees and bushes and picked them off in great numbers. And every time George Washington fought them in the stand-up battle he wanted, he lost. Poor George. He was brought up on the British Army way of doing things. We won the same way the Viet Cong did. We outlasted them.

To: Jaknik2 who wrote (215212)	8/10/2007 7:40:37 AM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 793964

So, who is guilty at West Point The failure is systemic. Unconventional warfare and Insurgency/Counterinsurgency and Foreign Internal Defense are subjects just making it into the West Point curriculum. These subjects have been ignored for 25 years everywhere in our armed forces except SF. It will be another 20 years minimum before these future leaders are in position to effect change. The only way to get experts in these matters to the top quickly is to promote current SF officers. They are the only fully trained and experienced resource we have. But that is not happening. Only one SF officer has been promoted to 3 star. And that just happened recently. He is the only SF career officer among the 62 - 3 and 4 star army generals. While I am on this let me explain a few more important points. Special Operations Command is merely a grouping of various military organizations with different missions. SOCOM is not a lean mean fighting machine. I am told the staff to combatant ratio is 13:1. In past wars SOCOM would likely be called a Joint Task Force. Special Forces is a war-fighting capability. One that took over 50 years and billions of dollars to develop. Every man in SF is prepared to, equipped to, and ready to fight everyday. SF is the most effective and the least expensive counter insurgency option available to us. In these times, it is criminal to even think about eliminating that war fighting capability. Meanwhile SOCOM and DOD are still all wrapped up in what SF calls Direct Action missions. These are raids on AQ and other terrorists. The way the Army and SOCOM does these raids costs billions and billions. Worse, these raids have been and continue to be their primary focus. It is a mission better suited for the USMC. The Marines were making raids behind enemy lines for 200 years before SOCOM was estabished....and that was when we were winning wars. SOCOM continues to announce wins. If SOCOM's strategy and tactics are so effective, why, as we head into year "6" of this war, are we still in Phase One of military counter-Insurgency operations and why is not even Baghdad secure? Our current Intel estimate says there are 150 million militant Muslim insurgents on earth. Killing 50 to 100 or even a 1,000 a month in expensive raids is not the way to win. There are more problem issues surrounding this topic. Too much for one post.