When I speak of honor and fighting on battlefields, why do you assume I mean to line up on flat ground and take volleyed shots at eachother?
If that's not what you mean, then what exactly DO you mean? There isn't much of a gray area between that and the way war is waged now.
I don't see how fighting on proper battlefields ends up with more casualities. For example, WWI there were a hell of a lot of casualites. But it was not for fighting on a battlefield with clear uniforms and armies. It was because they were making suicide charges against machine guns.
It is true that many of the casualties came about as a result of poor choices on how to handle the advent of newer technology that fueled the fire in WW2, but the biggest reason was that war was far more blatant in those days. We don't wage flat out war like that anymore. These days, acquiring small bits of sensitive intel is of the same importance as winning a key battle in the old days. Like I said -- The development of world-wide agencies like the CIA was intended to do some crowd control and handle situations long before they would ever gain momentum. Economic super-giants cannot afford to go starting wars and and stirring the pot without causing problems among allies. This sort of "everyone on everyone's side" idea is what they had in mind a long time ago during industrialization.
I quote you and you say you did not say it???
Read what I said. Carefully. You'll see what I was saying.
Hide? Why do you say hide? These guys don't have military bases to live on. They live at home or in the field.
Would you prefer they just gather out in the open and sleep in tents? Wouldn't that be inviting death by airstrike?
No more so than they already do on their own families. You'd think that extremists who care at all about their families would at least have the decency to relocate them, or to hide away from them to keep them safe.
You really think that men with no other place to go to sleep and eat are in their own homes as a war tactic??
It is, actually. Remember, I was originally talking about terrorists and you're the one who brought up guerrillas. This sort of behavior isn't exclusive to terrorists. Vietnam is a great example of that. (For example, having children work as bomb runners in the middle of the night)
But you did not answer my most important question. You know, when Taliban guerillas go home, they are home. When they go out in the field, they are out in the field. Its the same with American soldiers. So when American soldiers go home, is it fair dinkum to blow up their houses?
Would you kindly point out the difference between the home and the field for them? It's not like we wait for them to be home in their pajamas to go attack -- they house their operations right in the middle of cities and towns, and there's nothing that can be done about that if they (the guerrillas) don't care about the horrific consequences for the people they're surrounded by.
Do you really think Afghanistan was about preventing a larger war?? Can you name any such war in recent history that could be legitimately described as preventing a larger war, and that being the intention from the start? Is there some crystal ball out there I am not aware of to determine this?
No, I'm not claiming that everything done these days is efficient (Look at the Taliban, after all). What I was trying to get across is that you can't count people out for using advanced technology to keep themselves safe. These days, the fuel is intel and decisive, tactical strikes. Sometimes that means running a recon mission with a few drones. Sometimes it means dropping paratroopers in from the upper edge of the atmosphere to set up camp and snipe key targets. I never said that we
can't participate in larger wars. It's just the the focus has shifted from brute force to intelligence.
Think about it -- If intelligence could have prevented 9/11, are you sure we'd have gone to war there, at least anywhere near to the extent which we did?
I suppose I better ask this separately to ensure its not mistaken as a rhetorical question. Are you saying that fighting in towns in villages instead of places away from civilians is okay, because you think it will end in less casualites?
No. I actually do believe in a more honorable way of fighting deep down, unrealistic as it may be. In regards to fighting in cities, I'll say that armed forces have little choice. I'm sure your immediate thought will be "Of course they have a choice, they could just stay the hell out of the country to begin with!", but bear with me. I'm sure we could both agree that it makes sense for there to be high-priority targets for the government. These targets pose a huge threat to our country for one reason or another. If and when intel suggests we have a small window of opportunity to wipe those targets out, we literally have no choice but to draft the most efficient plan, storm in, and hope for the cleanest, most surgical removal of the threat. I'd be willing to bet money that if you were to ask any of the Navy Seals in on that operation about it, they'd tell you that they'd prefer not to have done it in a city, or a home for that matter. However, there was nothing that could be done. As soon as it was confirmed without a doubt that Osama was within their grasp, there was nothing that could be done but to take a very careful shot at it.
In regards to less casualties, I'll say this: I've been talking a lot about all of the intense training that our troops go through, and it's not just so that they can be vicious, killing machines. It's so that they can make a split-second decision as to whether or not someone is a friend or foe. This sort of training is documented a lot during wars against less advanced armies including and especially when it comes to special operations like the raid on Osama's compound. What I've been trying to tell you this whole time is that this war is taking forever because we're not just storming in and killing everyone indiscriminately. I said some time ago that if the the higher ups didn't value the innocent lives that are being put into danger over there, this war would have been over almost instantaneously.
