They tried -- and everyone has been very supportive of the troops, even if they don't agree with the war (at least in my experience). America as a whole just has ADHD.
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
Joint Chiefs Chairman Says U.S. Preparing Military Options Against Iran
- Thread starter Tex_Hill
- Start date
They tried -- and everyone has been very supportive of the troops, even if they don't agree with the war (at least in my experience). America as a whole just has ADHD.
Kinda fuckin' tough for an entire half of the country to support the troops when the very success of their political party hinges directly on the failure of the mission in Iraq, and thus, the failure of our military. Distilled down from the spin, the objectives of their party cannot be fulfilled if we (pointing at everybody in the ready room) succeed.
What kind of pathetic human being does one have to be to support such a rueful, self-loathing organization as the Democratic Party?:icon_rage
Again, concur on the ADHD part, but American involvement is not like how it was in WWII or even Korea for that matter. Then, people had that desire to win because the war affected their daily life, if not for any other reason besides pride. Now? Does the war affect anyone's daily life all that greatly? Maybe gas prices, though I wouldn't say most point to the war for that one. I just think the fact that as a result of the war not affecting people, they do not have any care invested in it...
^^ How did Korea get called the "Forgotten War" if America's daily involvement was so great? The fact that you are failing to realize is that there is no draft -- that limits how much the American people pay attention to these conflicts. This isn't WW2 -- more like us fighting the insurrection in PI in the early 1900s. The American public didn't care then -- they were more worried about booze, movies, and cars. The only thing that is different -- we wait to see what Britney Spears does next.
Still, the fact is that there was a draft and it affected American's daily lives. I agree that WWII had a much bigger impact, but I still say both had greater public awareness than the current wars going on.
But yes, you're right... we're overboard today on the ADHD of the public.
Do you really think that? Since when did one political party have exclusive rights on patriotism? I guess we should just dismiss a 'pathetic human being' like this and what he thinks:
I think MarineMike does make a pretty good point - the Democrats stand to gain significant political advantage with a "failure" in Iraq. I also think that those who get to define what success/failure is (media) tend to punch the ballots for quite a few more Dems than Republicans.
As for James Webb, the guy still amazes me - decorated Marine infantry officer, Assistant Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, and eventually on to the logical conclusion of becoming a senator - with a few stops in between it all as a novelist ?!?! (pretty good one I might add).
As for James Webb, the guy still amazes me - decorated Marine infantry officer, Assistant Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, and eventually on to the logical conclusion of becoming a senator - with a few stops in between it all as a novelist ?!?! (pretty good one I might add).
You are almost deluded as he is if you think that 'the media' 'decides' what is success or failure.
As for 'failure' in Iraq, it it certainly may benefit the Democrats in the next election, but you could also argue the war benefited the Republicans in the 2004 election. But then again, winning a war doesn't always benefit you either. Ask George H.W. Bush about that.
Absolutely, I mean look at this political cartoon.
Wait... Dr. Suess? Hitler? This is from WW2... Could it possibly be ALL wars have political squabbles, blunders, and red tape?
With many people saying "I wish there was support like WW2 today" I find these political cartoons summarize problems which are eerily similar to those today. I dont want to pick on A4 but I thought he would appreciate...
Iran is only helping fund radicalism ... a little bit
Defense contractors:icon_shoo
Fine Iran we will give you one more year to agree to the sanctions.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
Good post, MrSaturn.
You've shown the similarities between "then" and "now" but I believe that two factors separate "now" and "then"...
First, the enemies we fight are not even close to the enemies we fought in WW2. We have never fought a whole nation since then, in my opinion. We didn't just fight the government of Germany or the government of Japan. No, they, like us, had almost every citizen doing their duty to help them. They didn't roll over and die after an air campaign or hide in the jungle/forest/basement. They fought tenaciously; they had honest-to-God navies, competent air forces, and professional armies. What nation have we fought since then that has had a populace back their legitimate and professional government and military? It seems that every conflict since WW2 has been us taking (anti-communist) sides in some internal struggle or otherwise settling the difference between two nations. Remember the gas attacks against Kurds in northern Iraq after the first Gulf War? That insurgence to Saddam's regime was bolstered in part by the historic precident of us siding with one political side of a country as it tried to overthrow the other (or defend itself from being overthrown).
Secondly, as soon as we developed the capability, we nuked our last tenacious enemy. Is that still on the table? The justification (which is pragmatically valid in my opinion) was that invading Japan would have cost more lives than forcing a nuclear surrender. Would the same be true of any other conflict in which we fought a genuinely threatening enemy? Our vast armament plays a strong influence in disarming us, I believe.
"Winning" is not up to us, I believe. We can't topple something that doesn't take shape. We can kill and capture every insurgent we find, but we can't stop people from becoming insurgents. I don't think toppling the government of Iran will help us out either. I think a careful analysis is needed of how Japan and half of Germany transitioned from nightmarish military juggernaughts completely at war with us into some of our strongest allies on all fronts.
You've shown the similarities between "then" and "now" but I believe that two factors separate "now" and "then"...
First, the enemies we fight are not even close to the enemies we fought in WW2. We have never fought a whole nation since then, in my opinion. We didn't just fight the government of Germany or the government of Japan. No, they, like us, had almost every citizen doing their duty to help them. They didn't roll over and die after an air campaign or hide in the jungle/forest/basement. They fought tenaciously; they had honest-to-God navies, competent air forces, and professional armies. What nation have we fought since then that has had a populace back their legitimate and professional government and military? It seems that every conflict since WW2 has been us taking (anti-communist) sides in some internal struggle or otherwise settling the difference between two nations. Remember the gas attacks against Kurds in northern Iraq after the first Gulf War? That insurgence to Saddam's regime was bolstered in part by the historic precident of us siding with one political side of a country as it tried to overthrow the other (or defend itself from being overthrown).
Secondly, as soon as we developed the capability, we nuked our last tenacious enemy. Is that still on the table? The justification (which is pragmatically valid in my opinion) was that invading Japan would have cost more lives than forcing a nuclear surrender. Would the same be true of any other conflict in which we fought a genuinely threatening enemy? Our vast armament plays a strong influence in disarming us, I believe.
"Winning" is not up to us, I believe. We can't topple something that doesn't take shape. We can kill and capture every insurgent we find, but we can't stop people from becoming insurgents. I don't think toppling the government of Iran will help us out either. I think a careful analysis is needed of how Japan and half of Germany transitioned from nightmarish military juggernaughts completely at war with us into some of our strongest allies on all fronts.
A military action against Iran is more or less going to be an expansion of the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan since geographically they surround Iran the United States has a clear advantage.
In my opinion I don't feel a conflict will emerge and if one does it will more than likely involve push across the border in pursuit of insurgents fleeing into Iran thinking they are safe as well as destroying insurgent infrastructure based in Iran.
As far as toppling their government and such....I don't really see that happening at our hand but more at the hands of the Iranians themselves who don't approve of their government if they so choose.
But I completely disagree that it would be opening another conflict. I view as an expansion.
As far as winning anything...well it's all based on strategic victories and not military victories nowadays.
War is an extension of politics by other means as Clausewitz would say.
So while the United States Military is in my opinion undefeated others might view that differently.
That's okay though.
It's all about the strategic victory.
The problem is....
what is that right now?
In my opinion I don't feel a conflict will emerge and if one does it will more than likely involve push across the border in pursuit of insurgents fleeing into Iran thinking they are safe as well as destroying insurgent infrastructure based in Iran.
As far as toppling their government and such....I don't really see that happening at our hand but more at the hands of the Iranians themselves who don't approve of their government if they so choose.
But I completely disagree that it would be opening another conflict. I view as an expansion.
As far as winning anything...well it's all based on strategic victories and not military victories nowadays.
War is an extension of politics by other means as Clausewitz would say.
So while the United States Military is in my opinion undefeated others might view that differently.
That's okay though.
It's all about the strategic victory.
The problem is....
what is that right now?
I was going to call BS and compare current efforts to keep beating the drum on support for the war effort by comparing it to FDR's fireside chats during WWII.
Turns out, FDR addressed the nation WRT the war effort an average of about every 3 months:
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/firesi90.html
President Bush has done it as much as about 3 times per month:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/radio/index.html#y2008
Of course, these days there are more options just for video game consoles (let alone cable TV channels, satellite TV channels, and internet) than there were for the only form of live mass media (radio broadcasts...newspapers also counted for much, but are not live media) back then...and anyone who's listening to Presidential radio broadcasts these days, probably doesn't need to be reminded anyway - as their probably well versed in current events; those that matter, anyway.
Maybe we need to be constantly bombarded by reminders to support the war effort in all forms of media just to keep the same level of exposure as occured back then. Of course, then you dilute the message, and produce a backlash as well.
What about Tet?
T37Driver
Lone Warrior
Haha...We don't need to deal with them under the table, they steal stuff from our drawers and JWICS computers.
Remember the instances of Israeli Operatives busted by our authorities for passing highly sensitive information to Israel?
Anyway, all this talk of war against Iran, though nice on paper, doesn't seem to practical or even too highly possible right now.
T37Driver
Lone Warrior
Wow, I guess you put about 40%+ of AMERICANS in their place
. Next time you have such a thought, just say it to yourself in your HEAD first...OH SMART ONE!