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A few notes about why the "war" is just stupid....

Goodpasture

Well-known member
If you haven't been keeping up with
  • the systematic destruction of the intelligence services,
  • The falsified intel about nonexistent WMDs,
  • fourth generation warfare,
  • the total lack of preparation of the Army for "nation building" at the root, due to basic doctrine,
  • the complete amateurist incompetence of the Bush administration in general and Rumsfeld in particular,
  • the way the Army was set up for failure both before the invasion (too few troops - Google on "al Qaaqaa") and after (the ambassadorial career of one F. Paul Bremer),
  • the destruction of the Army and it's inevitable replacement, both now and in future wars, with bands of mercenaries under their own captains (prior examples of possible consequences: Italian peninsula post-1497, Roman military history post-Adrianople)
etc., etc., ad nauseum, then there's no way you're going to catch up on all this on my say-so.

But, the simplest way to put this? Colonial wars became ruinous to even attempt 65 years ago.

The disjunctive moment was World War II.

That was when multiple currents of technical and social change, to wit,
  • infantry small arms technology
    • reduced-charge "assualt rifles" culminating in AK-47,
    • effective man-portable antitank, anti-aircraft, and anti-bunker rocket-propelled munitions (Stinger, RPG-7, RPG-29)
  • strategic thinking
    • Heinz Guderian and his predecessors,
    • Mao Tse-Tung,
    • Josip Broz Tito,
    • Ho Chi Minh
  • the perceptions and memes present in potential target countries
    • Russo-Japanese War,
    • sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales,
    • Fall of Singapore
  • the sheer insupportable cost of maintaining a professional or draftee state army capable of supporting and maintaining an empire
    • fall of the British Empire post 1945,
    • fall of the Soviet Empire by 1990,
    • fall of the American Empire inside the next two decades, maximum
    and
  • the growth of computers and telecommunications
    • televised news coverage,
    • growth of the Internet,
    • ubiquitous cheap unbreakable crypto
all came together to create conditions ripe for a perfect storm of resistance.

The Brits saw this more or less clearly; they at least had the good sense to get the hell out of India like scalded cats. Thank Lord Mountbatten for that insight. The French, Belgians, Dutch, and Portuguese were less well served.

So we had to go and attempt a colonial war six decades too late. Brilliant. Just brilliant.....but typical of neocon thiking
 
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