Sissy Nation? (huge rant)

[Sean Smith]

Gigantic rant in effect:

As of right now, we've driven to within 50 miles of Baghdad in 5 days. We've blown through the country like crap through a goose, and have suffered total casualties of about... 0.05% of our total force. But all I hear from people, or see on TV, or on various online forums, is how things have been "getting rough."

Rough? First of all, of course it is rough. All of it is rough. THAT'S WHY IT IS CALLED WAR, and not "The Really Nice International Group Hug Activity." We make fun of the French, but our casualties aren't even out of the decimal places yet, and everybody is crying in their beer. Every time we have to stop to shoot somebody, it is a "setback," or a "stalled advance." WRONG, you morons, that's called ACTUALLY FIGHTING A FREAKIN' WAR!!! If only 2,000 Americans get killed when it is all said and done, it will have been a cakewalk.

"Surrender monkey" talk is cheap.

You want to talk about abject cowardice? Some of you can't even watch TV about a war without being scared out of your wits, and ranting on internet forums about how we should have bombed Iraq more before sending in the troops. At least the doves are honest about being sissies. Some of you see obvious Iraqi propaganda, and it makes you hysterical. Meanwhile, there has been an incredible amount of second-guessing of those School for Advanced Military Studies grads who cooked up the current plan... by people whose entire military education consists of losing games of "Counter-Strike."

I don't like the idea of dead Americans any more than anybody else, especially since I was in the Army, and always liked the idea of not being dead myself. But for crying out loud, try to get some kind of sense of proportion here. We are talking about a war here, not a cricket game, and lots of people are going to die no matter what we do. Only getting less than a tenth of a percent of your force killed or wounded in the first 5 days of a war, while driving a couple of hundred miles across a trackless wasteland, is a bona fide military miracle in the making. Our armed forces are perfoming miracles, but even Fox News manages to be defeatist sometimes.

To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, I'd suggest that victory is a good hint that you are victorious.

War is chaotic. The next days and weeks may get alot worse. But right now we are on pace to win a spectacular, maybe unprecedented, military victory. Unfortunately, we seem to have become such a cowardly nation that we can't recognize that. "Omigod, there was fighting! And somebody died! Wars aren't supposed to be like that!"

Wow, I feel better already!

 

[Greg L]

Thanks Sean, it needed to be said.

(Can you please tell it to my mother, she can't get it through her head that we really are winning.)

Greg

 

[Mike Irwin]

Unfortunately people have become used to high-tech, relatively blood-free operations.

Many have come to believe that high-technology can wage and win wars without the loss of life.

 

[Tamara]

Every time I hear about "Oh, dear Krishna! They've taken American POWs!", I think to myself: "Wow, less than 20 versus 30,000+. I'd say we're beating the point spread."

Compared to Iraqi Freedom, Case White, Operation Cobra and Bagration were close-run things...

What did people think this was going to be? A friggin' bloodless Playstation game?

 

[DeltaElite]

I knew people would freak as soon as soldiers started coming home in body bags.
Every loss is sad, but that is the nature of war.
As a society we are soft pampered spoiled brats.
Fortunately there is an element that is still hard and willing to do what needs to be done to protect the spoiled brats that make up the majority of our society.

 

[Greg L]

What did people think this was going to be? A friggin' bloodless Playstation game?

For the most part, yes.

Compared to most any other war in history, we are doing incredibly well. (Gulf War I being the exception, we never really found out about the #'s of Iraqis blown up or burried in the trenches when the bulldozer tanks rolled through.)

Greg

 

[Airwolf]

What did people think this was going to be? A friggin' bloodless Playstation game?

Yes, I'm very much afraid that a lot of people did.

Nothing more that a reflection of a Nation that has become terrified of many, many things. It disgusts me, but I'm not surprised by any of it.

The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines being sent to war are an incredibly valuable resource. Our leaders know this, even if the anti-American types think they are just mindless baby killers. So far, what we've gained is SO far out of proportion to what we've spent it's incredible.

These whining morons have no idea of just how amazing this all has been. Well, that's to be expected of people that don't study or learn from history (except to revise it to support their worldview).

 

[ahenry]

Sean,

I completely agree but I am still reminded of Robert E. Lee’s immortal words:

It is well that war is so horrible, lest we grow fond of it.



(Of course these casualty numbers are hardly the “horrible†to which he referred, but the point remains)

 

[XLMiguel]

Thanks, Sean. Five days in, 50 miles from Baghdad - we ain't doing too bad. The hard part is yet to come, of course, but for those who think it was going to be a 'cakewalk' (whatever the hell that is), has never been a combat soldier or has a remote idea of what war is about.

TV is too sterile, and it allows too many candy-assed whiners second-guess a situation they have no skin in from a very limited perspective, aided by the 'embedded press' who spend way too much time talking about themselves rather than reporting what's going on. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those humps haven't figured out that it's not about them, they're supposed to be there to report the news, not be the news.

Ooops, now I'm ranting, too much TV, too much caffeine, too late.

 

[Sean Smith]

Actually, we are doing BETTER than the 1st Gulf War so far. Total casualties in that war for the U.S. were about 268. Based on news reports, I don't think we are even near 100 total yet.

That said, I personally would be (pleasantly) surprised if we don't lose more lives in this war. The Iraqis are, frankly, fighting a bit smarter than they were before, and are more blatantly violating the laws of land warfare just to inflict casualties on the U.S. (e.g., pretending to surrender as a set-up for ambushes, shooting at us from hospitals, etc.). On the other hand, I think that Franks is persuing an even smarter strategy than Schwarzkopf did in 1991.

 

[Jeff White]

What did people think this was going to be? A friggin' bloodless Playstation game?

Yes Tamara, that's exactly what they think. Unfortunately this is one of the byproducts of our otherwise successful volunteer force. The percentage of our population who has any experience with the military is smaller every year. Add to that, the fact that our leaders sell technology as a solution to every tactical problem and what are the sheeple supposed to think?

We have made remarkable progress considering the forces that we have in place. The big test is coming in the next few days. I think that the proponents of air power and bloodless war (for us) are about to find that technology hasn't quite taken us there yet. They received a setback a year ago in Anaconda, and I fear that they are about to find out the hard way that precision air strikes alone won't win wars...Sometimes it takes brute force...

Jeff

 

[Standing Wolf]

...I fear that they are about to find out the hard way that precision air strikes alone won't win wars...

Depends what you're using for bombs, I'd say.

 

[Monkeyleg]

These same "whiners" have lost track of history. One Letter to the Editor in our local rag the other day complained about our use of high-tech weaponry.

Well, let's see. If we'd had the ordinance in 1944 that we have now, we would probably only have lost two or three GI's at Normandy. In fact, we probably could have eliminated the Third Reich with only a few hundred civilian casualties.

Where do these people come from?

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. These are the same people who advise female rape victims to lie back and enjoy it.

 

[Jeff White]

Monkeyleg said:

Well, let's see. If we'd had the ordinance in 1944 that we have now, we would probably only have lost two or three GI's at Normandy. In fact, we probably could have eliminated the Third Reich with only a few hundred civilian casualties.

Dick, you don't really believe that do you? Precision air delivered munitions are great, but they certainly wouldn't have allowed us to have landed at Normandy with almost zero casualties. Fox News just reported that over 80% of the ordnance we've dropped has been precision munitions and we've already taken more casualties then you said we would have at Normandy with them. And we haven't face anything near the layered defenses that defended the beaches at Normandy. You don't happen to own a lot of stock in Boeing do you?

Jeff - Believer in the overwhelming force doctrine

 

[Greg L]

Fox News just reported that over 80% of the ordnance we've dropped has been precision munitions

On Friday I was on the road and listening to the radio. The only thing that I found was an ABC feed with Peter Jennings talking to a reporter that was in Baghdad watching the bombs hit across the river.

Peter to a very shaken reporter, "I'm sure that you will be glad to know that 90% of the bombs that are being dropped are laser guided"

Reporter (who sounded like he wished that he had gone downstairs to the bunker), "Actually Peter, it is the 10% that I'm worried about right now."

Peter shut up. Got to love live radio to put them back in their place.

Greg

 

[Dannyboy]

Something else to consider about the way the Iraqis are fighting. Thay didn't get the crap pounded out of them for 40 days and nights before the ground troops rolled in. That pretty much demoralized them in the last war. Of course, I'm sure there's much more to it than that.

 

[sm]

Sean Smith

Thanks, it needed to be expressed.
A rant...?
Sounds like Reality to me.

 

[Drjones]

*hangs head in embarrasment*

Sean, you are right, and I agree with you completely.

Please keep in mind that I am only 22, and haven't really "lived though" a war yet. (I was only 11 or so during the first gulf war, obviously)

I am guilty of adding to the "rant" threads you mention.

Thanks for putting it in perspective.

ahenry made a very good point with his quote, but we will always need men like you around to keep us in check.


Drjones

 

[WilderBill]

I expect that we could have had fewer killed up to this point if we had a little less concern for the poor Iraqi concripts trying to surrender and we could have had more devistation of government facilities in Baghdad if we had less concern for civilians.
I'm glad we have been able to lose so few and harm so few civilians.
I expect that to all change now that the Republican Gaurds are between us and Baghdad.
If they decide to use chemical weapons, then things will get real interesting, real fast. Dubya has stated that use of WMD will probably get a nuke in response.
My own guess is that there might be some fuel air bombs to burn up the chemicals (and the folks firing them) and maybe some MOABs to make them wonder if we have started dropping nukes.
It's just as well that I'm not running the show. I think I might have vaporized Baghdad first, and then asked if anybody wanted to surrender before I get serious.

 

[cuchulainn]

As I said yesterday in a similar rant: the low number of casualties are not "setbacks" no matter how many times Wolf Blitzer says they are. And imagine how the a 24/7 media with live webcams atop the Normandy cliffs would have played the invasion into a defeat after just 30 minutes -- after all, we took casualties.

 

[Joe Demko]

Casualties for the US are remarkably low when you look at them as percentages. I'd still like you to walk up to the wife or mother of one of those (few) casualties and deliver this same rant to her face and to the faces of his children, if any. You were in the army? Big deal, so was I. Neither of us is now. Since we aren't the ones in the fields of fire and aren't going to be, it's pretty easy for us to rant about everybody else being soft, spoiled, whining babies who can't stand a few acceptable casualties. No, we aren't losing militarily and we aren't going to lose. I would like you to remember, sir, that those numbers you quote are, or rather were, real live people who had lives and families.

 

[Bulldozer]

Historical Perspective

Sheesh, every general from Scipio Africanus to Patton would give one of something he had two of -- eyes,lungs,kidneys, etc. you pick -- to have had a campaign go as well as this one has.

 

[cuchulainn]

Golgo,

No one is forgetting that. No one is saying the casualties are not tragic.

However, we're rejecting the idea -- now in the media -- that we are facing "setbacks." Rather, we are facing amazingly low casualties, and it borders(*) on anti-U.S. propaganda to characterize them as "setbacks."

Go to www.alltheweb.com and click on the "news" button. Now type in "setbacks." You'll get hundreds of stories from around the world about our "setbacks" this weekend. Now type in "resistance" and "rethinking strategy" and similar terms. Geez, it looks like we're losing this war.

The Washington Post has an op-ed this morning about how our command leadership has made the classic mistake in its "shock and awe" strategy of fighting the last war. The author is writing about the strategy as if it is a failure not only before it has failed, but while it is GOING WELL. Huh? Did that guy write 90% of this piece six months ago in anticipation, and the Post trotted it out with a few "current" paragraphs as soon as we suffered a few casualties? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21783-2003Mar24.html



(*) I say it borders on propaganda because I don't give most media that much credit -- they're just trumpeting the scariest possible version of a story to increase readership/viewership.

 

[Sean Smith]

Golgo-13,

You have managed to spectacularly miss my point, and be laughably self-righteous, all at once.

War kills real people, you say? NO S !

HINT: I was talking about people, who have experienced no hardship whatsoever, being reduced to quivering mounds of jell-o by the slightest hint that a war might have consequences other than tickertape parades.

 

[BigG]

More people are killed in car accidents daily in a city the size of the forces deployed, I'll guess.

You have to remember the media is a minute by minute thing. If there is nothing new to tell, they make something up. Also, the reporters get jaded to the status quo just like everybody else. Once they get bored they start to focus even more than they usually do on the negative.

Whoever said Playstation mentality summed it up pretty well.