ISIS publishes a "to kill list" for their American brethren...

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I don't understand. Is what bullshit? That the US, working with the government of the country involved, killed someone who had performed an operation claimed by a terrorist organization?
 
That we target opposition leaders with our drones.

From our POV, it is just. From their POV, it is tit for tat.

If we stir up hornets' nests, we have to deal with the hornets.

FWIW, I don't think we should be working with governments' "permission" to drop bombs in foreign countries. If we're at war, declare war and let's go to town. I don't think our government particularly acts in our best interests - more in its own interests. I don't think any different of foreign nations' governments.

Plus, I am pretty sure we influence those foreign governments through all sorts of means, to allow us to strike who and where we want. In many cases, we don't have permission (Pakistan?).
 
In ONE case, we didn't have permission in Pakistan. And even that was because of other issues. And while there may be "influence" on foreign governments, that happens all the time...it's called diplomacy. We're doing it right now with Russia and Ukraine and Venezuela and Cuba and Iran and .... The difference is that in this case, we are operating violently as the host government wants us to, rather than through sanctions or withholding trade or whatever. If we weren't operating as they want us to, they don't let us (see: not using the Main Supply Route in Pakistan, or not being allowed to use Russian airspace, or air bases in Saudi for combat operations, or Karzai not signing the SoFA).

We don't target "opposition leaders". We execute justice on people who can be proven (or who have confessed openly) to have committed crimes. If they happen to be someone who has committed enough of these acts that they are the head of a group, well, that sucks for them.

I disagree with the notion that we stirred up anything.
 
We execute justice on people without a trial.

If we're at war, declare war and let's go to town.

The US being the world's policemen (actually, judge/jury/executioner) is only going to make the bad guys want to retaliate.

It's just questionable, at best, that some "country" could invite us in to effect combat yet the people might be in revolt against that government.

Hell, even in the USA you'd only get roughly 1/2 the people to support anything the government wants to do.
 
BrianFromWA said:
I disagree with the notion that we stirred up anything.
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Nothing is our fault, because we wear the white hats and they wear the black hats. God is on our side, and he doesn't screw things up, so we don't either.
 
Man, you folks who think that ISIS brutality is about repayment in kind for drone strikes are totally off the mark, from what I've read. These guys are dedicated to the notion that they are bringing about a caliphate that will take over the world, eliminate the infidels (which by their definition is anyone who does not ascribe to their 7th century view of Islam), and are willing to do whatever it takes to bring that vision about. These beheadings and other atrocities are calculated to draw the West into a holy war that will cause all of Islam to rise up and join them in their vision of jihad. If you think that it's just the military families who are on that list that are in danger, you're sadly mistaken. It's any "infidel" that they think stands in their way or even who may be useful in advancing their cause by spreading terror. This article from the Atlantic is a pretty good assessment, IMO.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
 
Denny Crane said:
We execute justice on people without a trial.
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We do that all the time here. Which is why deadly force is used. If a suspect draws a weapon on a cop, he gets shot without a trial. If it looks like a kidnapper is about to kill his victim, he gets executed without a trial. And that's here, where arguable we have the most robust laws and the most citizen protection of just about anyone, anywhere.

If we're at war, declare war and let's go to town.
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Even if the politicians "declare war", we can't indiscriminately kill, rape, loot, plunder, behead, set on fire, urinate on victims, desecrate religious objects, have sex with farm animals, etc. Doesn't matter that the enemy does. You don't get to use "symmetry". What do you think "going to town" would entail that we're not already doing?

The US being the world's policemen (actually, judge/jury/executioner) is only going to make the bad guys want to retaliate.
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No, bad guys want to "retaliate" because they're being stopped from doing what made them "bad guys' in the first place. The US didn't start anything from Morocco to Pakistan. They weren't the ones who reneged on the Israel/Palestine solution in 1948. They didn't start the Iran/Iraq war, and they didn't cause Saddam to invade Kuwait. The US didn't start the Arab Spring. EDIT: What eblazer said as well, while I was typing

It's just questionable, at best, that some "country" could invite us in to effect combat yet the people might be in revolt against that government.
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It's a pretty well-established international law, with many precedents.

Hell, even in the USA you'd only get roughly 1/2 the people to support anything the government wants to do.
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But, as shown very recently, normal citizens (at least here) don't get to tell other countries stuff that contradicts the government. If Bush invited the Mexican Army to provide security by shooting looters during Hurricane Katrina, I couldn't shoot the "invaders" without being convicted of murder (and most likely, be killed before I could finish).
 
MARIS61 said:
I'm a live and let live kind of guy, but our military-industrial complex has been doing bad things to Arabs for decades upon decades and I don't think they share the same philosophy. I don't think they will ever forgive "Americans", which means the MIC has succeeded in establishing a permanent cash cow at the expense of Real Americans.
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Arabs have been doing bad things to others, including other Arabs, for millenia. It's not some religious thing, though that's handily used as an excuse. It's not some "anti-progressivism" thing, since the Islamic world was at the forefront of education and learning as late as the Renaissance. It's criminality, pure and simple, as wrong today as it was in 1939 or 622. It's greed, barbarism, bloodlust, etc., and it doesn't deserve to be allowed to live.

Real Americans are doing their best to follow orders from people who think they know the best way to protect Americans.
 
BrianFromWA said:
We do that all the time here. Which is why deadly force is used. If a suspect draws a weapon on a cop, he gets shot without a trial. If it looks like a kidnapper is about to kill his victim, he gets executed without a trial. And that's here, where arguable we have the most robust laws and the most citizen protection of just about anyone, anywhere.

Even if the politicians "declare war", we can't indiscriminately kill, rape, loot, plunder, behead, set on fire, urinate on victims, desecrate religious objects, have sex with farm animals, etc. Doesn't matter that the enemy does. You don't get to use "symmetry". What do you think "going to town" would entail that we're not already doing?

No, bad guys want to "retaliate" because they're being stopped from doing what made them "bad guys' in the first place. The US didn't start anything from Morocco to Pakistan. They weren't the ones who reneged on the Israel/Palestine solution in 1948. They didn't start the Iran/Iraq war, and they didn't cause Saddam to invade Kuwait. The US didn't start the Arab Spring. EDIT: What eblazer said as well, while I was typing

It's a pretty well-established international law, with many precedents.

But, as shown very recently, normal citizens (at least here) don't get to tell other countries stuff that contradicts the government. If Bush invited the Mexican Army to provide security by shooting looters during Hurricane Katrina, I couldn't shoot the "invaders" without being convicted of murder (and most likely, be killed before I could finish).
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What we do here is what we do here, bound by our laws.

Going to town means > 1M boots on the ground, a draft if necessary.
 
I fear the Republicans. I fear they just might get their way, calling for action, and our involvement. What I see is atrocious acts all over the Mid East and Africa but it seems to be
Muslim on Muslim for the most part. I pity the poor Christians, perhaps they better get their butts up with the Curds and perhaps we should get them all some weapons to defend themselves.

But now is not the time to send eager young people of our nation to whoop ass. That takes leadership, leadership with a moral plan, a winning plan. We lack the leadership at this time. Much better to let the Muslim on Muslim conflict mature. The winner will come for us when his confidence is flush from victory. This will no doubt, focus attention on selecting a leader up to the task at hand.
Sending our youth into this mess to flail away would be tantamount to squandering them for no good under the leadership in place today. Be silent, we wait.
 
MarAzul said:
I fear the Republicans. I fear they just might get their way, calling for action, and our involvement. What I see is atrocious acts all over the Mid East and Africa but it seems to be
Muslim on Muslim for the most part. I pity the poor Christians, perhaps they better get their butts up with the Curds and perhaps we should get them all some weapons to defend themselves.

But now is not the time to send eager young people of our nation to whoop ass. That takes leadership, leadership with a moral plan, a winning plan. We lack the leadership at this time. Much better to let the Muslim on Muslim conflict mature. The winner will come for us when his confidence is flush from victory. This will no doubt, focus attention on selecting a leader up to the task at hand.
Sending our youth into this mess to flail away would be tantamount to squandering them for no good under the leadership in place today. Be silent, we wait.
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We wait for who? Jeb Bush? Mitt Romney? Ted Cruz?
 
BrianFromWA said:
No, and I'm wondering why the asymmetry isn't being understood by most. I get the fictional characters just being fictional characters, but the others of you make me wonder if I'm just not explaining things well enough.

A) We're not 'at war' with any country. Our government is being asked by the nations involved, NATO or the UN to help governments stop people within their borders from committing crimes of such heinous nature that the President's only option left is to use the military (and not even the "normal" military--niches like cargo planes, special forces and a bunch of reservists and national guardsmen).
B) In your drone example, we can't target law-abiding citizens. We can't say "Ahmad looks like he's a sketchy raghead. Have the drone follow him to his house and kill him." Hell, we can't even say "that guy is known to supply money to terrorists. Kill him." or "I'm pretty sure he went to a mosque with a bad guy. Kill him". Now, have people been killed due to faulty intelligence? Sure. Have 'informants' played their allies for personal vendettas? Of course. But those are the vast minority, and those have to be explained or else operations get shut down. We aren't like the administrations in the past that correlated body count to success.
C) there wasn't a US military presence in Iraq post-2011. We left. And amazingly enough, people kept getting killed in more creative ways by more people who thought that, now that there wasn't a "sheriff" in town, they could act with impunity. To the point that Iraq/UN asked us to help, again, so we are, again. Believe me, most members of the military aren't chomping at the bit to go back.
D) Even if you believe that all's fair in wartime symmetry, the rest of the world disagrees. That's why we have the Geneva Convention and international laws on war, among other things. It doesn't matter if I'm absolutely convinced that we should practice symmetry and rape women, behead people who aren't my religion, set on fire our prisoners, etc. It's not allowed, even if it's "symmetric" to what the bad guys are doing. I'm not allowed to eradicate a tribe of people, knowing that if I leave a boy alive his tribal culture makes him hold a vendetta against his perceived "enemy" until fulfilled.
E) If it's a matter of them just going after the military member, as a matter of "symmetry", then I could almost understand that. Going after the military families as well? Not OK. But if you're still cool with people doing this, you better be cool when habeus corpus in the US gets suspended and I just start militarily eliminating perceived threats in my area of operations, which just got opened up from being 8000 miles away to my backyard and every city where ISIS just posted an address and a call to action. Or, wait, did that just get symmetrical for you, too?
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Damn Brian, very well stated. People need to wake the hell up. Thank you for making this as clear as it can be.
 
BrianFromWA said:
I'm wondering why nothing is being understood by most
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Brian, don't wast too much energy on those that profess to not understand. Most of them have never faced nor ever will face any threat, let alone a person or group of persons that state they are our enemy and work for our extinction.
I for one have no hope or wish that we ever face our enemies in a fair and equal way. I always want the most advantage we can attain. Fairness is not the goal and I find it stupid to speak of anything like fairness. I always hope we can remain on moral high ground but never equal in a confrontation. I would and did do, without remorse, those that would be our enemy and hope we will always have men that will do the same, without guilt or even a second thought. To those that say, we get what we sow, are simply ignorant hardly deserving the free speech they over use. Do not fret for leaving them uninformed, some are out of reach and unworthy of your effort. It sucks but it is.
 
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Brian, why do we still have 40k troops in Germany? 50k in Japan? 11k in Italy? I'm assuming because of a war 70 years ago?
 
Germany and Japan, yeah, that's how it started. We disarmed their entire countries and our occupying troops were the "constabulary", both for internal policing and foreign attack. In Japan's case, they're constitutionally not allowed to have an Army or Navy (they can, and do, have a "self-defense force" that's a military by another name).

Now, we are mostly using our residual bases in Germany (and Italy) for NATO and EUCOM/AFRICOM support. Our bases in Japan are for defense of Japan and staging areas for defense of our other Far East allies.
 
Would it make sense to shut all of those bases down and bring those 100 thousand troops home? Seems like they can take care of themselves at this point. 70 years later.
 
Too bad we didn't disarm the Iraqis (thus ISIS) once we decided to stay.

We occupied Germany and Japan for a decade. McArthur was military governor of Japan, Ike of Germany. Not handed over governing right away to a government we designed and put in place.

Bremer was governor of Iraq for a millisecond.
 
3RA1N1AC said:
Would it make sense to shut all of those bases down and bring those 100 thousand troops home? Seems like they can take care of themselves at this point. 70 years later.
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Seems like a question from a person that has no idea why we have a 7th fleet. Or any idea at all what being part of it involves.

But I am surprise the current Commander in Chief has not done as you suggest. With him in command we might as well have the 7th anchored in San Diego training the crew on how to apply for food stamps.
 
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Denny Crane said:
Too bad we didn't disarm the Iraqis (thus ISIS) once we decided to stay.
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Wrong! We should have left the existing army intact. The mistake the US made was disbanding the army after we invaded and won.


Ssu-ma Ch`ien gives the following biography of Sun Tzu:

Sun Tzu Wu was a native of the Ch`i State. His ART OF WAR brought him to the notice of Ho Lu, [2] King of Wu. Ho Lu said to him: "I have carefully perused your 13 chapters. May I submit your theory of managing soldiers to a slight test?"

Sun Tzu replied: "You may."

Ho Lu asked: "May the test be applied to women?"

The answer was again in the affirmative, so arrangements were made to bring 180 ladies out of the Palace. Sun Tzu divided them into two companies, and placed one of the King's favorite concubines at the head of each. He then bade them all take spears in their hands, and addressed them thus: "I presume you know the difference between front and back, right hand and left hand?"

The girls replied: Yes.

Sun Tzu went on: "When I say "Eyes front," you must look straight ahead. When I say "Left turn," you must face towards your left hand. When I say "Right turn," you must face towards your right hand. When I say "About turn," you must face right round towards your back."

Again the girls assented. The words of command having been thus explained, he set up the halberds and battle-axes in order to begin the drill. Then, to the sound of drums, he gave the order "Right turn." But the girls only burst out laughing. Sun Tzu said: "If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame."

So he started drilling them again, and this time gave the order "Left turn," whereupon the girls once more burst into fits of laughter. Sun Tzu: "If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders ARE clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers."

So saying, he ordered the leaders of the two companies to be beheaded. Now the king of Wu was watching the scene from the top of a raised pavilion; and when he saw that his favorite concubines were about to be executed, he was greatly alarmed and hurriedly sent down the following message: "We are now quite satisfied as to our general's ability to handle troops. If We are bereft of these two concubines, our meat and drink will lose their savor. It is our wish that they shall not be beheaded."

Sun Tzu replied: "Having once received His Majesty's commission to be the general of his forces, there are certain commands of His Majesty which, acting in that capacity, I am unable to accept."

Accordingly, he had the two leaders beheaded, and straightway installed the pair next in order as leaders in their place. When this had been done, the drum was sounded for the drill once more; and the girls went through all the evolutions, turning to the right or to the left, marching ahead or wheeling back, kneeling or standing, with perfect accuracy and precision, not venturing to utter a sound. Then Sun Tzu sent a messenger to the King saying: "Your soldiers, Sire, are now properly drilled and disciplined, and ready for your majesty's inspection. They can be put to any use that their sovereign may desire; bid them go through fire and water, and they will not disobey."

But the King replied: "Let our general cease drilling and return to camp. As for us, We have no wish to come down and inspect the troops."

Thereupon Sun Tzu said: "The King is only fond of words, and cannot translate them into deeds."

After that, Ho Lu saw that Sun Tzu was one who knew how to handle an army, and finally appointed him general. In the west, he defeated the Ch`u State and forced his way into Ying, the capital; to the north he put fear into the States of Ch`i and Chin, and spread his fame abroad amongst the feudal princes. And Sun Tzu shared in the might of the King.


 
Denny Crane said:
Too bad we didn't disarm the Iraqis (thus ISIS) once we decided to stay.

We occupied Germany and Japan for a decade. McArthur was military governor of Japan, Ike of Germany. Not handed over governing right away to a government we designed and put in place.

Bremer was governor of Iraq for a millisecond.
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There was a tough old Democrat in charge back in those days. They have morphed into entirely different creature since then.
 
Those south koreans need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and quit mooching off american welfare.

Do they really need a giant american force on perpetual regional standby? Jeesh. How did they get so lucky?

And being Japans army? completely ridiculous
 
We shouldn't have occupied in the first place.

What exactly would be the issue with the pacific fleet operating in San Diego?

We wouldn't be able to deploy ships to hot spots quickly. That's the point.
 
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