I miss Ronald Reagan...

[JayC]

Sure you can, if you force the population as a whole to have to spend 100% of their time focusing on trying to live, they're not very likely to have extra time to go out and get into trouble.

 

You only have groups of guys meeting in hillside caves, and causing trouble when those men have spare time not growing food, or taking care of their families.

 

You're right a lot of countries in the middle east don't have a stable power grid, or don't have access to clean drinking water on a regular basis.  But, they do have a power grid that works at least some of the time, they have bridges that cross rivers, and passable roads, most have a rail system, pipelines, fuel storage tanks, airports, internet, cell phones, and radio and tv stations.

 

Now, if you go in and deny all of those things, the country even a crap hole like afghanistan can't function, they can't move food around to feed people, you can't move supplies around, and you don't have the time to hike up to a cave and figure out new ways to cause more trouble.  

 

Now, you go in and destroy anything that looks like infrastructure...  not just 1 of the above, all of the above all at once.  And for a period of time you continue to deny them this infrastructure.  Let them rebuild a little, somebody says something about attacking us again, and go blow it all up again.  The population won't put up with trouble makers anymore.

 

 I think it would have worked at least as effectively as what we've been doing today, and at a lot lower cost is both lives, and money.   

 

I'm certainly not a trained military strategist but it seems obvious to me that you cannot use the same tactics against a dispersed, loosely associated group of people who look identical to and often hide within the rest of the population and generally don't gather together into identifiable formations...who fight through stealth and cowardly acts of terror or meet inside of caves in a hillside...against such an enemy, you can't use the same tactics that you would use against a uniformed military with an actual command and control structure and who wage war in a traditional way.

Moreover, while I haven't been to Afghanistan, I've been to enough middle-eastern countries to know that denying them what we consider to be basic needs like electricity, etc. doesn't really get you very far as a lot of the "basics" are unavailable for extended periods of time as a normal situation.

In hindsight, I'd say we would probably have been better off to have done NOTHING except to pursue Bin Laden and his cronies on a person by person basis...in other words, a more subtle but no less ruthless pursuit of the people responsible for attacking us.

However, given our anger at the time of the 9/11 attacks, I'm not sure that the people would have been happy with such a course of action and had I been president at the time I might well have taken the same course as Bush.

 

[E4 No More]

Sure you can, if you force the population as a whole to have to spend 100% of their time focusing on trying to live, they're not very likely to have extra time to go out and get into trouble.

 

You only have groups of guys meeting in hillside caves, and causing trouble when those men have spare time not growing food, or taking care of their families.

 

You're right a lot of countries in the middle east don't have a stable power grid, or don't have access to clean drinking water on a regular basis.  But, they do have a power grid that works at least some of the time, they have bridges that cross rivers, and passable roads, most have a rail system, pipelines, fuel storage tanks, airports, internet, cell phones, and radio and tv stations.

 

Now, if you go in and deny all of those things, the country even a crap hole like afghanistan can't function, they can't move food around to feed people, you can't move supplies around, and you don't have the time to hike up to a cave and figure out new ways to cause more trouble.  

 

Now, you go in and destroy anything that looks like infrastructure...  not just 1 of the above, all of the above all at once.  And for a period of time you continue to deny them this infrastructure.  Let them rebuild a little, somebody says something about attacking us again, and go blow it all up again.  The population won't put up with trouble makers anymore.

 

 I think it would have worked at least as effectively as what we've been doing today, and at a lot lower cost is both lives, and money.   

Personally, I think putting a missle up Osama's ass when Clinton had the opportunity to would have been the best move.

[RobertNashville]

Sure you can, if you force the population as a whole to have to spend 100% of their time focusing on trying to live, they're not very likely to have extra time to go out and get into trouble.
 
You only have groups of guys meeting in hillside caves, and causing trouble when those men have spare time not growing food, or taking care of their families.
 
You're right a lot of countries in the middle east don't have a stable power grid, or don't have access to clean drinking water on a regular basis.  But, they do have a power grid that works at least some of the time, they have bridges that cross rivers, and passable roads, most have a rail system, pipelines, fuel storage tanks, airports, internet, cell phones, and radio and tv stations.
 
Now, if you go in and deny all of those things, the country even a crap hole like afghanistan can't function, they can't move food around to feed people, you can't move supplies around, and you don't have the time to hike up to a cave and figure out new ways to cause more trouble.  
 
Now, you go in and destroy anything that looks like infrastructure...  not just 1 of the above, all of the above all at once.  And for a period of time you continue to deny them this infrastructure.  Let them rebuild a little, somebody says something about attacking us again, and go blow it all up again.  The population won't put up with trouble makers anymore.
 
 I think it would have worked at least as effectively as what we've been doing today, and at a lot lower cost is both lives, and money.

Great theory but I join with SWJewellTN and ask...where exactly has doing it that way worked for us recently?

[npgunner]

Great theory but I join with SWJewellTN and ask...where exactly has doing it that way worked for us recently?

What we've been doing certainly hasn't worked, so why not change game plans.
I agree ... the reason these people had time to work on destroy America plans is they have extra time. So lets give them a reason to have to quit plotting and start plowing (or however you grow food over there).

I'm sure the same would work for all these people on welfare. When it comes down to die or survive; if you take away the .gov tit (or infrastructure in the Middle East) people will choose to survive. If they want to continue sucking the life out of others they will eventually get the point when someone keeps them from stealing.

Not saying this plan will be beautiful and I'm sure it would hurt some feelings ... but I'm beyond caring.

[Guest ThePunisher]

Speaking of statues that people might admire, there are statues of American patriots Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. The democrats have statues of Jackson,Truman, and JFK. The republicans have statues of Lincoln, Rossevelt, Eisenhower and MLK. The Libtards have statues of Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Hilary plus Jesse Jackson. The moderate fence sitting republicans have statues of Nelson Rockefeller, Bush 1 and Bush 2, McCain, Romney. The conservative republicans have statues of Buckley, Goldwater and Reagan. The communist have statues of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and soon will erect a statue of Obama for destroying America.

[RobertNashville]

What we've been doing certainly hasn't worked, so why not change game plans.
I agree ... the reason these people had time to work on destroy America plans is they have extra time. So lets give them a reason to have to quit plotting and start plowing (or however you grow food over there).

I'm sure the same would work for all these people on welfare. When it comes down to die or survive; if you take away the .gov tit (or infrastructure in the Middle East) people will choose to survive. If they want to continue sucking the life out of others they will eventually get the point when someone keeps them from stealing.

Not saying this plan will be beautiful and I'm sure it would hurt some feelings ... but I'm beyond caring.

Sounds like then, you don't have any examples of where the strategy you propose has worked and with a lack of examples of success to point to all we have is a theory.

Failure of a current policy does not equal an endorsement of the one you propose.

In any case...there is nothing you or I can do about it. Edited April 24, 2013 by RobertNashville

[JayC]

Cambodia 1975 is a perfect example of this tactic being used for bad.  You see great examples of it during WWII, and The Great War...  Indian wars here in the 1880's.... Here is a little hint, it is a classic war strategy taught to every cadet and officer in the military even today.

 

What does it take to train and coordinate a terrorist organization?  A safe place to train, stable transportation, stable food supply, the ability to move men and equipment around from place to place, the ability to communicate with units operating in the field.  

 

Can you completely stop an enemy bent on low velocity terror attacks using this method?  No.  But, if they have to use horses and donkeys to move 600 miles to training, and pack in all of their supplies and equipment...  it might slow them down a bit.

 

Sounds like then, you don't have any examples of where the strategy you propose has worked and with a lack of examples of success to point to all we have is a theory.

Failure of a current policy does not equal an endorsement of the one you propose.

In any case...there is nothing you or I can do about it.

 

[Guest ab28]

What we've been doing certainly hasn't worked, so why not change game plans.
I agree ... the reason these people had time to work on destroy America plans is they have extra time. So lets give them a reason to have to quit plotting and start plowing (or however you grow food over there).

I'm sure the same would work for all these people on welfare. When it comes down to die or survive; if you take away the .gov tit (or infrastructure in the Middle East) people will choose to survive. If they want to continue sucking the life out of others they will eventually get the point when someone keeps them from stealing.

Not saying this plan will be beautiful and I'm sure it would hurt some feelings ... but I'm beyond caring.

Some people are severely disabled, whether physically or mentally, and unable to hold down a job. Even something like McDonald's, you gotta be fast on your feet during rush times, you work your ass off, and get paid nothing. I did fast food for a couple years after high school, it sucked, the amount of crap you had to put up with just wasn't worth it.

 

Sure, there are people that suck off welfare, but I know several people on food stamps, and they all work. They are underemployed. I've also known a few mental cases that you wouldn't want them working in public. They are fine or whatever as long as people leave them alone, but get a boss somewhere riding them, they might get violent.

 

I don't have any sympathy for the rich, they have a big house and a ton of nice cars or whatever, surely they can help feed a few people. Nothing wrong with being wealthy, but remember, it didn't happen in a vacuum.

 

But EBT should be restricted to good, healthy food. I do see people waste it on chips and red bull. I only have an issue with stuff like that, it is fine as long as they use it properly, as a short term safety net.

Edited April 27, 2013 by ab28

[Pengnpup]

[quote name="ThePunisher" post="956818" timestamp="1366597513"]Well, I think I see why a republican may not ever be POTUS again by looking at the responses to this topic. If we can nitpick one of our greatest conservative presidents ever, I'm afraid there's no hope for anyone else other than another Libtard commie wishing to destroy America.[/quote

took the words right out of my mouth. You are 100% right. Im too am so tired of people picking apart every candidate we have instead of fighting for them to win. Keep it up, go ahead. You are the sam ones who are complaining about the state of things now. I give the libs credit, they rally around their candidate instead of pulling them apart. Keep it up, go ahead. You better get used to the way things are now.

[mav]

[quote name="ThePunisher" post="956818" timestamp="1366597513"]Well, I think I see why a republican may not ever be POTUS again by looking at the responses to this topic. If we can nitpick one of our greatest conservative presidents ever, I'm afraid there's no hope for anyone else other than another Libtard commie wishing to destroy America.[/quote

took the words right out of my mouth. You are 100% right. Im too am so tired of people picking apart every candidate we have instead of fighting for them to win. Keep it up, go ahead. You are the sam ones who are complaining about the state of things now. I give the libs credit, they rally around their candidate instead of pulling them apart. Keep it up, go ahead. You better get used to the way things are now.

 

It is rather difficult to get enthusiastic when one has to decide between a piece of s*** and a pile of s***.

 

Liberals rally around their candidates because they know that even through compromise, they will still gain ground.  When Republicans compromise, we always lose ground.  I will say it again as I did in my earlier posts, pointing out and/or complaining about the flaws of a candidate (past or present) in no way reflects on the future success of Republicans candidates.  If Republicans field strong candidates then their chance for success is good, and if they field weak candidates or people vote for them in the primaries because they are perceived to be the most electable, they will more than likely lose.