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Do you really think a big ing red cross stops people from shooting at our dustoff choppers?!?
"smug"
I am less concerned about personal ego than having enough knowledge to be able to form opinions about the efficacy of policies and strategies.
I posted it less to be smug, than to point out there is a policy/strategy framework, and a good one, IMO. I encourage everybody to read it, because it provides a great deal of perspective and context.
Do you really think a big ing red cross stops people from shooting at our dustoff choppers?!?
Also something I agree with.
I would not be so sure about "the Taliban" toppling Karzai, whatever "the Taliban" means. It isn't quit as clearly unified as many think, and represents a rather large umbrella of groups that, once a common enemy is removed, are as likely to fight each other as the Mayor of Kabul, IMO.
Once we leave, it will be up to China and India to figure out how stable they want Afghanistan, and how much they should act as a counterweight to Pakistan's influence, or Iran's for that matter.
We need to be having some serious, high-level pow-wows about that with them, if we aren't already.
Do you really think a big ing red cross stops people from shooting at our dustoff choppers?!?
He was being sarcastic, by my reading.
Cross or no cross they are going to shoot at helicopters. I don't see how changing that will improve evac times. Your article doesn't explain how, or even show any expert claiming this, it just breezily waves that claim out in the wind.
I would simply like to see the basis of that claim. No more, no less.
And what do nukes have to do with anything? The Pakis let us drone mother ers with impunity and put up what amounts to some diplomatic wrangling when we chopper in and kill OBL. What makes you think they would do anything of substance if we made a major incursion (while threatening to cut of all/most of our aid, which is all they care about anyway)?
Really?
You are going with "airstrikes, and putting large combat formations of ground troops onto a nation's sovereign territory long enough to "clean out" an area would elicit the same exact same reaction from the Pakistani government" ???
You seriously think the reaction would be the same?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 11-05-2012 at 12:37 PM. Reason: new and improved, now with less snark.
It's more than whether or not there are crosses painted on the choppers. It's the doctrine which states a dustoff must have an escort since the Medevacs aren't armed. If there isn't an escort available, then the chopper sits around until that escort becomes available. Meanwhile, men die.
Take off the crosses, throw a .50 or a minigun in the door, and you will improve response times immensely when there aren't any escorts available.
That is all I needed. Thank you.
If that fixes the problem, and does improve response times, then we should do it, if there are no other concerns.
No, I don't. It wouldn't be the same but I don't think it would be anything we couldn't live with, either. Do you know for sure they would do anything drastically different? Of course not, nobody does since it's a hypothetical. I certainly think we could have worked that out much earlier in the game. Of course there would be threats and back-channel negotiating to go along with it, but I don't think they would be averse to us going in and doing their dirty work for them. We also could have set it up so that we could chase those ers over the border when they do their hit and run antics. It's not nearly as far-fetched as you're making it. Of course, in-the-box thinking such as yours is the norm and we all see what that's done for usReally?
You are going with "airstrikes, and putting large combat formations of ground troops onto a nation's sovereign territory long enough to "clean out" an area would elicit the same exact same reaction from the Pakistani government" ???
You seriously think the reaction would be the same?
dp
It's fair to note that the Obama admin isn't at fault for the Medevac situation. That's a problem for the brass to work out.
Needed to address this one as well. I'm talking specifically about Afghanistan and not his entire foreign/domestic policy. If there is another resounding success in-theater, please, enlighten me
You have no familiarity with the history of the Pakistani intelligence services. It's a running joke how they respond to us diplomatically and what they run on state television. You don't invade countries with nuclear weapons on a lark. The state would no longer care about the aid as the invasion would itself undermine their power. Maybe it's hard to figure out or something but it seems obvious to me.
There are elements of the ISI which are probably still helping those in the region who oppose. So? what else is new. They've been playing people off one another for a long time, and I'm sure they're clever enough to turn one of our incursions into something from which they can gain. Again, I said there would have to be talks to iron out details, but I definitely think it would have been doable early on. As things are now, it's not going to happen, and nor should it.
There has been a lot of good things coming out of the Pentagon over the last 10 years after the cluster that was the occupation of Iraq. Lots of changes in training, equipment, etc as they have come to understand that their missions are just glorified policework in many cases.
i have read multiple reports on plans to change the military structure from the giant behemoth to fight a large scale landwar against Russia and China and to a fast reaction force that can deploy anywhere lightning fast and for all intents in purpose be an occupation force. The main thrust has been as you say soft power and a shift of focus from big tanks and guns to something more focused on the individual. Half of the reports that I read were about how the typical soldier was not trained to even approximately handle the mission that they were assigned. Assault school doesn't help a guy walk a beat.
There is no way the Pakistani's will allow the US to perform army land operations on their own soil. They just nailed that guy tot he wall for helping us find OBL indirectly.
Pakistan parents killed daughter for eyeing boy
A Pakistani couple accused of killing their 15-year-old daughter by pouring acid on her carried out the attack because she sullied the family's honor by looking at a boy, the couple said in an interview broadcast Monday by the BBC.
The girl's death underlines the problem of so-called "honor killings" in Pakistan where women are often killed for marrying or having relationships not approved by their families or because they are perceived to have somehow dishonored their family.
http://mobile.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_41687/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=8ik2qCwT&full=true#d isplay
A prime example of why USA or any Western country is stupid to screw around promoting democracy in these backward, Muslim, tribally and ethnicially riven countries-in-name-only.
I don't mind entertaining out of the box ideas, , I put a few of them out there, to be sure.
This though... is not feasible in any realistic scenario.
No Pakistani government, no matter how much arm-twisting, would have signed off on something like that.
If it had, it would have been quite possibly violently deposed, and replaced with something far, far scarier than the Taliban, i.e. religious nutjobs with a genuine nuclear arsenal. The Pakistani government is bad enough now.
Your idea here is far fetched, simply because of the rather deep well of rabid anti-Americanism that runs through Pakistan. That anti-Americanism is a nasty, poisonous well, that runs far deeper than I think many, including you, in the west appreciate. If we had followed this course of action, we would have played into Al Qaeda's hands by invading a THIRD muslim country, over the wishes of that government.
It is sad that some Americans, even after the rather visceral proof of 9-11, still underestimate how deep that well is, and what drives it. Sorry if that sounds harsh. Don't take my word for it, do some reading on what Pakistanis actually think.
That is the doctrine behind "The Pentagons New Map" to a T.
You should read it, I would strongly recommend it, given his influence on junior, soon-to-be-senior leadership in the military.
I watched a presentation on CPAN by Barnett around 2002-ish, and the guy put into solid words and ideas a lot of the things I had vaguely formed about the way our military is formed and used up until then. The guy has it pretty much spot on.
I agree.
It was a systemic problem that existed long before Obama came to office, and is just now being understood in enough depth to do something about, much like the TBI and PTSD problems.
That said, it *is* fully Obama's responsibility to do something about those problems now, and definitely the next president, whoever wins the election this week.
We should be throwing money at this problem, and any president should be ramming it home with all the righteous anger at his/her disposal. It would be something both parties could agree on, and would be a good place to build up some sorely needed goodwill.
"We should be throwing money at this problem"
automatic Repug response (who blocked the Vets Jobs bill): "We're broke"
Not at all. That doesn't mean we stop using LOAC though. I don't think that al Qaeda is following Geneva conventions either.
Do you really think a big ing red cross stops people from shooting at our dustoff choppers?!?
Simply put, if you don't use the markings you don't get the benefit of LOAC. But if he wants that, why not go all out and arm the medical troops and ships? Why say just to remove the cross when you could argue for arming them up? Of course, they'd be legal targets then but they would be if they didn't have the sign anyways.
edit: I didn't see a mention of arming the medical helicopters, which is why I didn't know why he wanted to remove the crosses. Tactically it makes sense, but you'd have to make sure to accommodate gunners on the helicopters in place of an extra medic.
Last edited by LnGrrrR; 11-06-2012 at 01:28 AM.
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