Re: USA develops space-based weapons


Rand Simberg wrote:
On 5 Nov 2006 21:29:40 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
<edkyle99@xxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


Alan Anderson wrote:
"Ed Kyle" <edkyle99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rand Simberg wrote:
Yes, and it will continue right up to the election, since much of the
purpose of the mayhem is to influence it. You ignore what their
losses are. They can't continue at that rate of attrition
indefinitely. This is their Tet.

Hogwash. The U.S. isn't making a dent against the insurgency.
Perhaps several thousands lost versus millions of available
combatants.

http://www.geocities.com/launchreport/delta4.html

"Reliable figures for insurgent casualities are not available. The
Pentagon stopped supplying figures for what it called "non-compliant
Iraqi forces" in mid-summer 2003."

Would you like to try that URL again? It doesn't say anything like what
you just quoted.

Re: Tet. Vietnam lost millions over the years, but won the war.

They "won", but not because we lost. It was because we quit. We could
do the same thing in Iraq, but it would definitely not be a military
loss.

If the U.S. had not "quit", it would still be fighting there (if it had

not torn itself apart or bankrupted itself by now). Robert McNamara,
the Secretary of Defense at the time, has said that he determined
early on that the war could not be won. A lot of armchair generals
believe otherwise, but I suspect that most Vietnam vets and
historians agree with McNamara.

Even General Giap believed otherwise. He said that, to the degree
that they "won," it was in the streets of America, not on the
battlefield. Al Qaeda is attempting exactly the same thing in Iraq.

Giap knew what McNamara knew - that the U.S. would not have been
able to defeat him as long as China or Russia were supporting him,
unless the U.S. was willing to start WW III. Even LBJ wasn't willing
to go that far, which is why McNamara knew it couldn't be won.

U.S. public support waned once the public 1) figured this out for
themselves and 2) discovered that their government had been trying
to hide this truth from them.

Al Qaeda is a minor player in Iraq. The insurgency is based on local
militia - local guys who get mad when they see a U.S. patrol in their
town and want to do something about it.

This war is being lost on the streets of Iraq, not on U.S. streets.

- Ed Kyle

.

Relevant Pages

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