Chard wrote on May 19
th, 2013 at 9:44am:
Brian Ross wrote on May 18
th, 2013 at 1:59pm:
Civilian employee? How are your forced days on unpaid leave going? Appears the Republicans don't want you do this sort of stuff either...
Hasn't effected me at all. I work for the the USDOD's Defense Intelligence Agency, so we're exempt from the furloughs due to national security reasons.
DIA and posting here? Sure...
Quote: Quote:The sledehammer unfortunately tends to kill not only the intended target but also everybody around them for a distance of many kilometres (if Nukes are being used). No finess at all, when a single bullet could achieve the same ends.
As the RUssians say, "quantity has a quality all its own." Sometimes you just need a single bullet, sometimes you need a time-on-target barrage with four artillery brigades in support. Depends on operational needs and availablity of assets.
ToT is a poor man's use of his artillery. If the US followed the Russians, they'd have Artillery Divisions.

Killing innocent non-combatants doesn't achieve much except murder. It has never broken "the will" of any nation. It has merely hardened resolve. In WWII where we saw the most massive bombing campaigns in Europe, it wasn't until the Russians fought their way into the seat of government in Berlin that we saw the German's surrender. In Japan, even despite the Atomic bombings, the Japanese government intended to fight on until the Emperor's intervention. I'd suggest "blowing things up and killing people" wasn't a particularly successful strategy.
It also invariably enbitters the population against you and your cause even further. That is has always been the problem for Americans who think war is about death and mayhem. They have never understood the writings of von Clausewitz or even more esoterically, Sun Tzu.
Quote: Quote:He meant morally, not financially...
What's more moral, using enough force to bring hostilities to a stop as soon as possible or use so little force that it prolongs the conflict and increases the likelihood that more people will die? It's a case of which you think is the lesser evil. As General Lemay said, "all war is immoral".
Which is more moral? Killing or non-killing? If you kill en masse you're just as guilty of murder as if you kill singly IMHO.
Quote: Quote:My problem isn't with the killing of those who deserve to die. It is with the sledgehammer approach that creates massive "collateral damage" without concern as to the ongoing consequences...
Again, General Lemay said it best, "There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders."
Yes, but Lemay was a lunatic who wanted to unleash nuclear war on the world simply because he couldn't understand the concept of restraint (nor it appears as has been revealed since, lawful commands from his superiors). He also wrote that at time of unlimited war, such wars today are impossible because of the probable consequences.
He also seems to believe that the common people are in control of their government. In most cases, they aren't, their government has been imposed on them by a select few within society and they are powerless to change it. Iraq being a perfect case in point.
Quote:When you go to war with another country you're engaging in a contest of wills. One side or the other cannot win until they break the will of the their opponent to continue the conflict, and the only way to do that is to kill their people and break their stuff until they are either unable or unwilling to continue to fight back. Anyone that fails to understand this simply needs to stay the hell away from warfare.
And so you ignore over a millennia of just war theory and of course over five centuries of the laws of war development.
I've always felt the problem with US attitudes towards war is that they've never been invaded nor had war carried on into their cities from afar. They fail to understand the consequences of modern war, unlike those who have experienced it or been willing to learn from that experience. They've always been doing the "blowing up and breaking stuff" and not suffering it.