From heros to zeros!

[TheTaintedSoul]

Originally posted by SaintNuclear
Ok, presuming they have information on Al Qaeda\'s bases and hideouts in Afghanistan and other countries in the world, I\'d send squads to them.
A building that is known to be a base will be invaded. Officers and higher ups are arrested for interrogations. The others are worthless, a bullet to the head is more than enough.
Tunnels with terrorists will have tear gas pumped into them. The terrorist will run out. Again, officers are arrested, grunts are shot.
A building that is known to have only terrorists in (no civilians) and isn\'t a main terrorism operations center (with alot of officers and other such goodies) will simply be raised to the ground. No need to waste time in transporting soldiers there.

Sounds nice, problem is it doesn\'t work. When sending squads the taliban army is in the way. Youre thinking about sending delta force and the like in? Don\'t think they can get in, kill/capture/arrest terrorists, then get away again. Theyre good but that good?
And if you bomb buildings with terrorists they probably just go into caves hiding there until things calm down.

Dont get me wrong, if there is a realistic way of retaliating without killing too many innocents and encouraging terrorism id favor it right away.

Have you read my post about snowballing of the economy yet?
On every economist you find that says the snowball effect is gone, you can find an economist that says it\'ll keep snowballing for the next few years (or more).

I read everything you posted so yes. Maybe i read it again tomorrow to see if i missed anything. However maybe i misunderstand what you mean with snowball effect. I thought it meant that economy was only to get worse since 9/11 without recovery. But seeing you talk about years it seems you too think that the negative effects will stop, only the period is longer.
If so we agree i think on the actually important thing, the damage from 9/11 is extensive.

China is mistreating it\'s citizens? First time I hear about it, really. Can you give examples? (no, not asking for prooves, only examples)
[/quotes]
surprises me you dont know that. China has a strict dictatorial communist regime. It has one of the highest count in death penaltys (not sure if thats also relatively) including many politic dissidents. If you\'re found guilty often you will get shot right away. The family gets billed for the bullet.
Example, the way china acted when the students demonstrated. They sent tanks to deal with them. One student bravely stood in the way of the front tank. It was crushed down with violence. Dont know exact details beside that.\'
And the stupid thing is that holland/europe want to sell weapons again to china claiming human rights have improved. Thats true but china still has a long way to go. The mobile gas chambers they started using recently for more efficient execution is just a proof of that.

Depthblade, youre right you did gave your opinion, i forgot.

[SaintNuclear]

Originally posted by TheTaintedSoul
Sounds nice, problem is it doesn\'t work. When sending squads the taliban army is in the way.

I didn\'t say they shouldn\'t invade.
Deploying a few tanks around the place of operation will be enough to cover the units against any intervention of the local army.

Youre thinking about sending delta force and the like in?
[...]
Theyre good but that good?

No, I\'m thinking about sending grunts in.
Ten grunts inside an apartment building will do the same job and have the same amount of casualties as special ops. It\'s better to lose a grunt every 4 buildings than a special op every 4 buildings.

And if you bomb buildings with terrorists they probably just go into caves hiding there until things calm down.

A cave is not a problem. Easier than a building.
Maybe you meant a tunnel?
In that case, as I said, they\'ll simply pump tear gas inside. The bastards will run out of their holes in no time! :]

If they don\'t feel like pumping tear gas (from whatever reasons), there\'s a new cool weapon that can get the bastards out too (and was used in Afghanistan).
It\'s a rocket launcher, that launches a certain rocket. The rocket exploads in the air like a fuel bomb.
The heat then sucks alot of oxygen from the surrounding.
Using one above a tunnel entry will suck alot of oxygen from it. Anyone that won\'t run out in 10 mins will never run again

It has one of the highest count in death penaltys (not sure if thats also relatively) including many politic dissidents. If you\'re found guilty often you will get shot right away. The family gets billed for the bullet.

Hmm, I didn\'t knew that. Interesting.

Example, the way china acted when the students demonstrated. They sent tanks to deal with them. One student bravely stood in the way of the front tank. It was crushed down with violence.

Are you sure it wasn\'t during Chairman Mao\'s Cultural Revolution?


But still, I doubt the US will deal with China.
If the US army will invade to China prices for so many things everyone use will go very high. Companies won\'t allow it. The US army and government won\'t have investors, and the political party of the president that will order the attack will be nothing but a tiny bit in the history books.

[The Limpid School]

Originally posted by The Limpid School
The Iraqis that are still fighting are doing so for religious reasons.

Originally posted by SaintNuclear

Actually, they\'re doing it for territorial reasons. Iraq is their home, and no matter what the west thinks about their home, it\'s still their home and they like it. They\'re fighting because their home was invaded by foreigners that try to change it without asking them, the residents, if it\'s fine by them.

SaintNuclear was certainly right, I did make a bit of an oops. The \'raqis ARE fighting for territorial reasons. There wouldn\'t be all this death if they hadn\'t been invaded. But I suppose I meant that the terrorists that would have attacked regardless, such as 9/11 and Bali, do so for religious purposes.

Originally posted by Davis

The troops aren\'t trying to eradicate Islam, the new Iraqi government officials are Muslims, and Saddam Hussain did not run a religious government, as opposed to, say, Saudi Arabia.

I never intended to say that the western troops were in place to iradicate Islam, I merely meant to comment on their motivation.

With that cleared up, I\'d like to state that my personal belief is that the Iraq conflict will not ever really die down. I think it\'s going to be another Northern Ireland, conflict going back and forth forever, and in ten years no one will remember why.

[kbilik]

Originally posted by SaintNuclear

No, I\'m thinking about sending grunts in.
Ten grunts inside an apartment building will do the same job and have the same amount of casualties as special ops. It\'s better to lose a grunt every 4 buildings than a special op every 4 buildings.

There\'s nothing better about losing any life. They are still people and special ops are at least trained to enter in such situations where the odds against them are far higher. From a tactical and strategic view, SAS, Delta Force, Navy Seals, Marine Recon, \"Black Ops\" (CIA paramilitaries) etc are far better suited for this kind of task where as infantry rely more on artillery, mechanized forces, and heavy air support.

But even special forces need some kind of support - they can\'t handle 1000 - 1 odds. Remember Mogadishu, Somolia?

If they don\'t feel like pumping tear gas (from whatever reasons), there\'s a new cool weapon that can get the bastards out too (and was used in Afghanistan).
It\'s a rocket launcher, that launches a certain rocket. The rocket exploads in the air like a fuel bomb.
The heat then sucks alot of oxygen from the surrounding.
Using one above a tunnel entry will suck alot of oxygen from it. Anyone that won\'t run out in 10 mins will never run again

Ah you mean the thermobaric bombs? http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/blu-118.htm
 Nasty stuff... at the least it will collapse the lungs of anyone inside a cave or underground facility.

But still, I doubt the US will deal with China.
If the US army will invade to China prices for so many things everyone use will go very high. Companies won\'t allow it. The US army and government won\'t have investors, and the political party of the president that will order the attack will be nothing but a tiny bit in the history books.

A conventional war between China and the US will never happen. Never. The Chinese army is the largest in the world (although outclassed by superior US capabilities and technologies). This war would involve nuclear exchanges if it is ever fought = World War 3.

[TheTaintedSoul]

Originally posted by kbilik
he should have provided the location, records,  and number of WMDs destroyed. The problem? He didn\'t! Heck they don\'t even know where this so called \"destruction and demilitarization\" took place. Hmm.. isn\'t that suspicious.

Youre right its suspicious, however i still would like to know how you proof the destruction of something. By showing the remains? The place of destruction?

And the whole wmd thing just seems to me like the following.
There is a village, here one claims someone else (S) has outlawed weapons in his house that should have been removed. He provided some of these to this man and fears there still there.
Now he asks the others to go look, but nothing is found despite much search. Though saying to know where the weapons are hidden he doesn\'t precisely say where.
Then he brings proof to them, giving photos of S carrying some package. He claims these to be the weapons hiding them before inspection.
Then he forcefully enters the house despite protest. Still he finds no weapons. But he says those have been moved to the neighbour.
Is this man right (US) by acting this way? my opinion is he isnt.

See post above regarding a snowball effect. The lack available funds is enough to keep the US and world economy in a far worse state then pre-9/11.

Do you see snowball effect as only getting worse condition of the economy or as econonmy in a worse state eventually recovering though?

It is not just for the USA. It is for world financial, military, political stability. An attack on nuclear reactors or some nations food supply would have drastic global influences.

An attack on the food supply of a western nation isnt such a threat i believe, the west can easily import food if necessary. Only economicily it would be damaging. If youre talking about spreading some disease then i dont know the realism of such a scenario.
Ill be honest that i don\'t know the likelihood of a succesfull attack on a nuclear reactor and the impact of it (wheter it gives a nuclear chain reaction and or tsjernobyl like impact or not)
Actually there are other possible scenarios as well, consider a cyberattack where flight control, economical transactions and electricity are attacked. In a experiment a hacker succesfully got control of the steering of a american cruiser, another shut down a high level security computer by shutting down the air condition in the room.
Problem is i have no idea how likely serieus attacks by terrorists are. If they keep attacking like they are now the chance of getting killed by terrorist attack is very small.

Its dumb but sitting there and letting them strike thus completly destroying not just your economy, but the world\'s economy is worse.

Retaliating if it worsens the terrorist problem and makes strikes even likelier (which has happened) and ruining your economy doing so is like i said plain dumb.
Only if the risk of so extensive damage to the economy is seriously high and you have a way of decreasing terrorist attacks you should act in that way. Else your doing what you feared, damaging your economy

[TheTaintedSoul]

SaintNuclear, ill reply to your other post later, for now ill leave it with this:

Originally posted by SaintNuclear
I didn\'t say they shouldn\'t invade.
Deploying a few tanks around the place of operation will be enough to cover the units against any intervention of the local army.

Then even with the superior technology you need enough of those tanks, which easily becomes a full scale war you dont want.

No, I\'m thinking about sending grunts in.

grunts? You have to clear me on that one. I get a picture of a 2 meter high troll carrying a huge weapon.

A cave is not a problem. Easier than a building.
Maybe you meant a tunnel?

Problem with caves is that there are so many to hide in, you should bomb them all like they did in the war.

Are you sure it wasn\'t during Chairman Mao\'s Cultural Revolution?

Im sure mao was dead then. It was somewhere in the 80\'s. These students i talked about wanted more political freedom. The cultural revolution was a completely different thing, More like a country going insane. I read a fascinating book of a chinese woman, telling the stories of her and her female family line. This begins with her great grandma in the time of chinese warlords and the old ways (concubines locked up in their home bored to death, familys very important, etc)  Then goes on to the time of kwomintang. corrupt and rotten to the bone, brutal and very oppressing.

When the town they live in is taken by communists who bring a total new way of living (everyone is equal) you understand why theyre glad with them and join them. The soldiers really seem to want a new good way of live for them (and probably do). Later the dream becomes a nightmare when mao gains in power. However the indoctrination is strong. Well its too much to tell, the book is called the wild swans. Realy fascinating. It goes on shortly after the death of mao.

But still, I doubt the US will deal with China.

I fully agree with that, likewise with north korea. Attacking them will really be a mess and bring to high casualties. If the usa wants to overthrow dictatorial regimes they should look at african nations. Those have the weakest defence.

[kbilik]

Originally posted by TheTaintedSoul
[Youre right its suspicious, however i still would like to know how you proof the destruction of something. By showing the remains? The place of destruction?

And the whole wmd thing just seems to me like the following.
There is a village, here one claims someone else (S) has outlawed weapons in his house that should have been removed. He provided some of these to this man and fears there still there.
Now he asks the others to go look, but nothing is found despite much search. Though saying to know where the weapons are hidden he doesn\'t precisely say where.
Then he brings proof to them, giving photos of S carrying some package. He claims these to be the weapons hiding them before inspection.
Then he forcefully enters the house despite protest. Still he finds no weapons. But he says those have been moved to the neighbour.
Is this man right (US) by acting this way? my opinion is he isnt.

How about if you put it this way: There is a scorpion in your room (WMD) that you confirm was there because someone put it there (The US giving Iraq the chemical weapons - many tons during the 80s). You ask the room attendant (UN) to go look in the room and find the scorpion and then get rid of it. The attendant doesn\'t find anything and shrugs then leaves. Do you feel safe enough to go back in even though 1)You know the scorpion/wmd is there and 2)The attendant didnt find anything so it still must be there somewhere?
 

Do you see snowball effect as only getting worse condition of the economy or as econonmy in a worse state eventually recovering though?

I see the world economy in a worse state than it would have been had the 9/11 attacks not happened. This ultimately taking decades to recover fully - not a year or three.

An attack on the food supply of a western nation isnt such a threat i believe, the west can easily import food if necessary. Only economicily it would be damaging. If youre talking about spreading some disease then i dont know the realism of such a scenario.
Ill be honest that i don\'t know the likelihood of a succesfull attack on a nuclear reactor and the impact of it (wheter it gives a nuclear chain reaction and or tsjernobyl like impact or not)
Actually there are other possible scenarios as well, consider a cyberattack where flight control, economical transactions and electricity are attacked. In a experiment a hacker succesfully got control of the steering of a american cruiser, another shut down a high level security computer by shutting down the air condition in the room.
Problem is i have no idea how likely serieus attacks by terrorists are. If they keep attacking like they are now the chance of getting killed by terrorist attack is very small.

Oh comon, an attack on the food supply being economically devastating is the least of our concerns. Such an attack is extremely hard to detect and only after people start to get sick and die will it be suspicous. Then we won\'t know for sure which food or if all of them are contaminated which will worsen the situation. As for an attack on a nuclear reactor, I heard of a recent UK paper that will soon be published outlining the risk of a jet crashing into a reactor. They say the crash will initiate a chernobyl effect at the least with the worst scenario causing 3 million fatalities near an England reactor (probably because the area is highly populated). Then there\'s the long term mutation and radiation damage that might as well poison the area for a hundred years.

Retaliating if it worsens the terrorist problem and makes strikes even likelier (which has happened) and ruining your economy doing so is like i said plain dumb.
Only if the risk of so extensive damage to the economy is seriously high and you have a way of decreasing terrorist attacks you should act in that way. Else your doing what you feared, damaging your economy

No, retaliation destroys the terrorists ability to counterattack. It makes another 9/11 attack far less likely as the terrorist planning cells and infrastructure are destroyed.

[SaintNuclear]

Originally posted by kbilik
There\'s nothing better about losing any life. They are still people and special ops are at least trained to enter in such situations where the odds against them are far higher.

Of course that losing any life is a bad thing. But you can\'t go to a war without having people dying, and from a strategic point of view - losing a special op is alot worse than losing a grunt.

Special ops may be trained for situations where the odds are against them, but you don\'t need them for invading into terrorist buildings.

Kicking the door down, throwing a very short fuse flashbomb, getting in. By the time the terrorists can do anything, they got guns pointed at their heads.
Any terrorist movement is a bullet to the head.
Identifying the leader, cuffing him, taking every kind of document and equipment that can be found and taking it all to the truck outside.
There are two soldiers standing outside the room incase any terrorist comes in, and a few along the stair case.
They keep going like that until they clear the building, and that\'s it.

Using special ops for this is highly inefficiant. It costs too much to deploy them, they could be doing a more important job (where they\'re actually critical), the death toll will be exactly the same as with using grunts - you\'ll use the same amount of people anyway, it\'s better to lose the grunts.

Nasty stuff... at the least it will collapse the lungs of anyone inside a cave or underground facility.

Doesn\'t matter. The most important things are the documents and equipment. Officers and other higher-ups are only bonuses - they probebly won\'t know more than what\'s written in the documents anyways.


------------

Originally posted by TheTaintedSoul
Do you see snowball effect as only getting worse condition of the economy or as econonmy in a worse state eventually recovering though?

Economy always goes up and down. It\'ll rebuild itself after a while. It might be alot better than the economy before it started snowballing, and it might rebuild itself to be worse than it is now (after it\'ll be alot worse).

Ill be honest that i don\'t know the likelihood of a succesfull attack on a nuclear reactor and the impact of it (wheter it gives a nuclear chain reaction and or tsjernobyl like impact or not)

Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear bombs factory back in the 80\'s and it didn\'t had a nuclear explosion. True, it was only in it\'s early stages, but still.
It should be possible to destroy a nuclear power plant or factory without a nuclear explosion. I don\'t know enough of these things to be sure exactly how, but it should be possible. Afterall, it\'s not like the whole building is one nuclear bomb

Actually there are other possible scenarios as well, consider a cyberattack where flight control, economical transactions and electricity are attacked. In a experiment a hacker succesfully got control of the steering of a american cruiser, another shut down a high level security computer by shutting down the air condition in the room.

People should stop watching sucky movies :rolleyes:
Some of the things you listed there aren\'t controled by a computer. Those that are aren\'t connected to any kind of network outside the cruiser \\ plane \\ whatever.
It might be possible if they\'ll actually be on that plane \\ cruiser, manage to find their way to a computer that they can plug their laptop into, and somehow hack it and steer it to wherever they want.
But, when everyone will be panicked and run around screaming that they lost control, they\'ll find that hacker sitting infront of his laptop with an evil grin typing stuff and take him down.
If he\'s already on the cruiser, and is strong enough to fend off all of the histeric people that run around, it\'ll be alot easier for him to simply go to the controls and take over...


--------

Originally posted by TheTaintedSoul
SaintNuclear, ill reply to your other post later

Why don\'t you just post everythingi n one post instead of making double posts?

Then even with the superior technology you need enough of those tanks, which easily becomes a full scale war you dont want.

Not at all.
The tanks won\'t attack anyone, they\'ll just be there to discourage anyone from attacking the operating forces.
Imagine a soldier shooting next to a civillian that is throwing stones toward him. The soldier is shooting only next to him, not hitting. The civillian runs away.
Stationing a tank or two infront of a building is exactly like that, only without shooting.

grunts? You have to clear me on that one. I get a picture of a 2 meter high troll carrying a huge weapon.

Lmao. Grunts are the most simple combat soldiers. Basic combat training and the like.

I fully agree with that, likewise with north korea. Attacking them will really be a mess and bring to high casualties.

I don\'t think the US will attack China not because of the casualties, but because when they\'ll overthrow the Chinese government, companies probebly won\'t be able to use the cheap work force there.
It\'ll be an economical nightmare.


-----------

Originally posted by kbilik
No, retaliation destroys the terrorists ability to counterattack. It makes another 9/11 attack far less likely as the terrorist planning cells and infrastructure are destroyed.

Even if they\'re still able to counterattack, a retaliation is mainly for discouraging.

[Monketh]

Nuclear explosions are not much to worry about in the event of a terrorist attack on a Nuclear facility.  The reactor itself and it\'s containment are generally designed to survive in the event of an airplane impact.  \'Problem is, the storage area for spent fuel is not.  
So, don\'t worry about an explosion, worry about released radiation.

[kbilik]

Originally posted by Monketh
Nuclear explosions are not much to worry about in the event of a terrorist attack on a Nuclear facility.  The reactor itself and it\'s containment are generally designed to survive in the event of an airplane impact.  \'Problem is, the storage area for spent fuel is not.  
So, don\'t worry about an explosion, worry about released radiation.

Yep thats what I was saying. Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion - rather a reactor core meltdown where the feul rods  overheated and blew, releasing vaste quantities of radiation. The initial rads would kill millions if a populated city were near (like having a neutron bomb next door to your city).

Originally posted by SaintNuclear Of course that losing any life is a bad thing. But you can\'t go to a war without having people dying, and from a strategic point of view - losing a special op is alot worse than losing a grunt.

Special ops may be trained for situations where the odds are against them, but you don\'t need them for invading into terrorist buildings.

Kicking the door down, throwing a very short fuse flashbomb, getting in. By the time the terrorists can do anything, they got guns pointed at their heads.
Any terrorist movement is a bullet to the head.
Identifying the leader, cuffing him, taking every kind of document and equipment that can be found and taking it all to the truck outside.
There are two soldiers standing outside the room incase any terrorist comes in, and a few along the stair case.
They keep going like that until they clear the building, and that\'s it.

Using special ops for this is highly inefficiant. It costs too much to deploy them, they could be doing a more important job (where they\'re actually critical), the death toll will be exactly the same as with using grunts - you\'ll use the same amount of people anyway, it\'s better to lose the grunts.
 

 

I think you misinterpret what I wrote. Special forces will suffer less casualties not more. They are trained for these type of quick missions specifically and as I said will rely on far less outside assistance. Infantry (what you call grunts) are trained for long drawn conventional battles and long range gunfights (not the close in apartment-apartment battles). Sending infantry to do the job of elite troops is a no-no. It usually results in the infantry getting bogged down and needing the aid of special forces operators anyway, rescuing them in battles.

If you want quick strikes and less casualties , go with special ops (especially in urban warfare). If you want a hundred dead grunts and still send those same special ops, send in the infantry.

[SaintNuclear]

I think this argument of grunts vs special ops in these kind of missions as I described is pretty useless.
I still think that grunts will have the same amount of casualties and be more efficient in the big picture, but I don\'t think this disagreement will lead us anywhere.

The point is, that if the retaliation was planned in a way such as the one I described a few posts up, there would be hardly any civillian casualties, hardly any Al Qaeda people left, and the US wouldn\'t be there for so long.

Armies these days got generals that went through strategical training, they got an incredible amount of intel on any nation \\ terrorist group, yet the best strategy they can come up with against a worldwide terrorist group is to go to one country and destroy as many cities as they can? ?(

[windwalker]

all im mad about is my gas price going up... they are suposed to GET MORE OIL... PRICE DOWN.... so not only did they mess up the war... THEY ALSO MESSED UP MY BANK ACCOUNT!

......
/canada sits back and trys to design a radiation cleaner-uper for the Nuclear fall-out thats coming in 10 years or so......

[Syzerian]

i just hope this whole thing blows over soon

[tybrus]

As an American who\'s opinions are often considered against the government and the current president, i feel the Bush saw Iraq as both a possible threat and as a possiblity for oil resources.  

Since the attack on pearl harbor (and more recently the cold war) our government has tried to become the policeman of the world and this idea has grown into the fabric of our public (i hate this idea and feel that our country has exploited this throughout the years).  It is my opinion that the average American feels superior to most other peoples of the world, even if they do not consciously realize it.  But, most patrioic nations have this problem and our country is full of flaming patriots.

These \"issues\", as well as the paranoia that set in after 9/11 (caused by years of complacency and arrogance), was all that the government needed to gain public support for any war against a nation that they labeled terrorists (with only a little propaganda).  So, IMO, my government had many intentions for the war in Iraq:
1. Eliminate a possible threat (even if they had no real info of Iraq as being a threat)
2. Make any gains that are possible (oil, an ally in the Arab/Muslim world)
3.  Regain the Public\'s trust with a real war (Afghanistan had not had the desired effect to public opinion)
4. Eliminate a blemish from the Bush family record (a conspiracy theory of my own).

P.S.  And even with the mess that Iraq is still in, Bush stated in a speech on monday that he still plans to hand over control of the country to the Iraqis on June 30.  just amazing

[kbilik]

Originally posted by SaintNuclear
The point is, that if the retaliation was planned in a way such as the one I described a few posts up, there would be hardly any civillian casualties, hardly any Al Qaeda people left, and the US wouldn\'t be there for so long.

Armies these days got generals that went through strategical training, they got an incredible amount of intel on any nation \\ terrorist group, yet the best strategy they can come up with against a worldwide terrorist group is to go to one country and destroy as many cities as they can? ?(

Nope, your attack plans don\'t work in the real world. First quick strikes need extremely good intel - up to the minute. The 1998 Desert Fox airstrikes and the cruise missile attacks against Sudan and Afghanistan failed miserably. They failed to prevent 9/11 and Al-Queda was strong as ever. Mogadishu and the plan to protect UN aid to starving Somalis failed miserably as well even with the quick strike by Rangers to stop the militia from stealing the food (at least they tried to make it quick - but got bogged down).

Its far more complicated than that I\'m afraid. Hope this blows over too, but I\'m afraid that it looks too much like mideast type of violence where its keeps on going for decades. I really hope I\'m wrong on this.