It's going to accomplish something. Qaddafi will be gone.

Eventually he will die of old age.

And I'm still shocked that a Republican Primary gathering can actually boo a soldier serving his country in Iraq.

What happened to "Respect our Troops"?

Anonymous wrote:

Like I said too little, too late. Given the circumstances on ground, we should not have gone in at all. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman gets us in a 3rd war and accomplishes nothing.

Clarification to what I said - "Like I said too little, too late. Given the circumstances on ground and politically, we should not have gone in at all. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman gets us in a 3rd war and accomplishes nothing. "

In my opinion quicker miltary action had a much higher chance of working but was not worth the political cost for the reasons that you mentioned.

It's going to accomplish something. Qaddafi will be gone. We could use an ally or two over there. There are revolts through the region and we have to pick which side we want to end up on. This one had the strongest domestic resistance to back, and other NATO allies willing to get in it.

Like I said too little, too late. Given the circumstances on ground, we should not have gone in at all. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman gets us in a 3rd war and accomplishes nothing.

Clarification to what I said - "Like I said too little, too late. Given the circumstances on ground and politically, we should not have gone in at all. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman gets us in a 3rd war and accomplishes nothing. "

In my opinion quicker miltary action had a much higher chance of working but was not worth the political cost for the reasons that you mentioned.

That's a lot of armchair quarterbacking. In Mid-February, the resistance was a bunch of unarmed demonstrators. The National Transitional Council wasn't formed until the 27th. We were in there on the 15th. The idea that we decide to bomb a country like Fed Ex delivers your khaki pants is really naive. No one was going to commit the US to a third military action without doing it through the UN and with international commitment.

Like I said too little, too late. Given the circumstances on ground, we should not have gone in at all. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman gets us in a 3rd war and accomplishes nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Well in the context of the last few posts, it is one of the only smart things we did. Our urban combat capability was a mess, but our air superiority is unquestioned. Air attack is the one thing we know how to do without getting our ass handed back to us.

We did too little too late. If we had reacted one or two weeks earlier Gaddafi would have been finished. Also of all the countries in the region Libya is much less important strategically and in terms of human rights violations. Look at Syria now and Iran over one year ago when the video of that poor woman getting shot by a sniper was released. The US response was pretty much, "nothing" in both cases.

Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman does not see that impressive to me. I guess that the rest of the country will decided in 2012.

That's a lot of armchair quarterbacking. In Mid-February, the resistance was a bunch of unarmed demonstrators. The National Transitional Council wasn't formed until the 27th. We were in there on the 15th. The idea that we decide to bomb a country like Fed Ex delivers your khaki pants is really naive. No one was going to commit the US to a third military action without doing it through the UN and with international commitment.

Well in the context of the last few posts, it is one of the only smart things we did. Our urban combat capability was a mess, but our air superiority is unquestioned. Air attack is the one thing we know how to do without getting our ass handed back to us.

We did too little too late. If we had reacted one or two weeks earlier Gaddafi would have been finished. Also of all the countries in the region Libya is much less important strategically and in terms of human rights violations. Look at Syria now and Iran over one year ago when the video of that poor woman getting shot by a sniper was released. The US response was pretty much, "nothing" in both cases.

Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winning statesman does not see that impressive to me. I guess that the rest of the country will decided in 2012.

Anonymous wrote:THANK GOD WE ATTACKED LIBYA.

Well in the context of the last few posts, it is one of the only smart things we did. Our urban combat capability was a mess, but our air superiority is unquestioned. Air attack is the one thing we know how to do without getting our ass handed back to us.

THANK GOD WE ATTACKED LIBYA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NP.

1. Defense spending ramped up in the 80's under Reagan, which is why it was relatively level during the post-Reagan era. If it was enough to defeat the Russians while holding back the Chinese and North Koreans, why isn't it good enough today?

2. Are you telling me that after WWII, Korea, and Vietnam we spent so much on modernizing that we were not prepared for IED's - essentially landmines? - and guerilla warfare? If there is anything we learned from Iraq, it is that we lost the basic competencies we had in generations before. Money doesn't solve that problem.

It's not that simple.
1. It didn't level out post Reagan. It plummeted. During the Clinton years, the size of the military went from over2.1 million on active duty to less than 1.4 million. During this time, the military did more operations than during Reagan. Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somali, no fly zone over Iraq, plus conducted air strikes in sudan and afghanistam. We had embassies attacked and dont forget the uss cole. All of that takes money.
2. Ieds are not like land mines. Typically, a land mine is detonated in front of vehicle or underneath. Ieds were placed along roadsides and detonated remotely, hitting the most unprotected part of the vehicle - the sides.

You are making excuses. We did not prepare for urban combat. That's why IED's were so dangerous to us. We all talked about this back in 2003. Remember all of the talk about asymmetric war? The issue was not money. Armor is low tech. We did not plan to fight this kind of war, which is bad assumptions, not budget. Same with the embassies. And if you are telling me that you think the USS Cole was underfunded and that led to its destruction, you are crazy. The Cole is a Destroyer. It was taken out by a small boat. While in port! In Yemen! Do you honestlyt think that lack of guns, radar, or personnel caused this to happen, or lack of preparedness?

As for total budget, this is hardly plummeting. I suppose the cold war ended, the soviet union fell, and the right thing to do was to keep growing at the Reagan pace.

I'm not big on 60s style hippie-dom, but I think John Fogerty nailed PPs worldview when he wrote, "And when you ask them how much should we give, the only answer is 'More, more, more.'"

PP starts from the faulty position that the amount of money we spent during the height of the Cold War is insufficient to the task of our new "small war" reality, and everything thereafter is working backwards towards a justification. "Where'd the trillion dollars go?" "Kevlar!"

Anonymous wrote:

You are making excuses. We did not prepare for urban combat. That's why IED's were so dangerous to us. We all talked about this back in 2003. Remember all of the talk about asymmetric war? The issue was not money. Armor is low tech. We did not plan to fight this kind of war, which is bad assumptions, not budget. Same with the embassies. And if you are telling me that you think the USS Cole was underfunded and that led to its destruction, you are crazy. The Cole is a Destroyer. It was taken out by a small boat. While in port! In Yemen! Do you honestlyt think that lack of guns, radar, or personnel caused this to happen, or lack of preparedness?

As for total budget, this is hardly plummeting. I suppose the cold war ended, the soviet union fell, and the right thing to do was to keep growing at the Reagan pace.

You won't get any argument from me that we were unprepared for asymmetric warfare. The Cole was attacked in 2000. We were not at war with Yemen. It was fairly normal for small boats to be operating around a destroyer in port. It was an unprovoked and unexpected attack, just like using planes to attack the WTC and pentagon.

We should have been more prepared. All the signs were there that most potential future conflicts would be asymmetric. However, planners at high levels decided to plan for the "worst" case, which would be against large armies. It's easier to plan for, and costs more money. However, the tactics, techniques, and procedures for normal warfare are completely different than asymmetric warfare. We were prepared for the worst, not the most likely.

That said, it's easy to understand WHY military has typically voted republican for the last 20 years. As proven by the evidence, the military got more money during republican years - both in terms of pay raises, as well as in terms of funding for operation and maintenance of military units. During the 90s, it was normal for the officers to buy the toilet paper for their units restrooms. It was normal to take parts from one broken piece of gear to fix another piece of gear so less equipment was down since there was little money for repair parts. In the 90s, many people who thought the military was going to be their career were forced out. Almost 1/3 of officers were forced out. Like anyone else, the typical military person votes for the candidate that best protects his livelihood. It's not a matter of being a poor southern conservative or not. It's protecting your paycheck no matter what color you are or if you came from NYC or SoCal or Texas.