I think we all have an idea of what is owed to our soldiers that go in harms way. I'm not sure what these obligations are. In the past there has been consideration given to providing them with appropriate weaponery. We are concerned that our soldiers not be beaten by opposing forces due to the inferiority of their weaponry. We are concerned that our soldiers be provided with appropriate armor plating for their humvees. We are concerned that our soldiers have adequate food rations. We are concerned that our soldiers be provided with theater appropriate clothing.
My question is . . . does deploying our soldiers to "police actions" comport with our expectations of what is owed to our soldiers? Do rules of engagement which value the lives of American soldiers below those of the civilian population where our "police action" is undertaken comport with our expectations? If our sons are killed as a result of such rules of engagement, is this OK, part of the territory? No one likes to lose a son, but if your son loses his live storming the beach at Normandy or taking a hill at Iwo Jima, that's the hard knocks of military action. Do we look upon a son lost because of rules of engagement in a police action in the same way, just the hard knocks of military action?
I don't have an answer. I'm interested in invoking a discussion. Speaking for myself, I would not want to lose a son under these conditions.
Do we look upon a son lost because of rules of engagement in a police action in the same way, just the hard knocks of military action?
i'm retired Army. Any soldier who is killed in an undeclared war is a travesty. What in hades did the US gain from the Viet Nam war?
If there were a draft and i had a son who was drafted; i would send him off to a neutral country and support him there rather than have the political pukes in DC waste his life in an undeclared war fought because some sorry cowboy president made a colossal blunder.
One of the reasons that i do not defend General McChrystal is because of his draconian rules of engagement that he, and he alone, implemented in Afghanistan. No doubt the Lt Colonels and Colonels who were charged with implementing those rules of engagement promulgated rules that were even more draconian in order to protect their butts should they be found standing at attention in front of McChrystal for an infraction of the rules of engagement.
General Petraeus has promised a review of the rules of engagement for Afghanistan. Some senior military folks say that Petraeus will revise those rules.
Rumsfield said it best when he said you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.
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Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
I do not know when we began the concept of a 'police action'. I am against using highly trained troops as police. I AM in favor of sending our troops to a location we want utterly destroyed...it's people dead, infrastructure reduced to rubble, it's government killed or imprisoned. I see no reason for rules of engagement, other than 'shoot the enemy on sight and at will'. Non-uniformed combatants can be killed at any time. Those are pretty good rules of engagement. Not 'don't shoot until fired upon'...if the OTHER guy is a good shot, it's your BUDDIES that get to shoot back while you lay down and bleed. No...no police actions unless they are redefined as outlined above.
As retired army, Falcon must know that the armed services are the enforcement arm of the president's foreign policy decisions. Always have been, always will be. THe use of the Congress to issue formal declarations of war pave the way for funding...I see no other purpose for it. So when the COMMANDER in CHIEF deploys the troops under his direct command, congress must fund it. Seems to me, when the president sends the Marines to strange and far-away lands, he's already declared war. So what did we get from Vietnam ? Well, first, we got the insight that democrats running a war machine end up with lots of full body bags and nothing to show for it. Second, we were given a keen insight into the futility of 'rules of engagement'...except those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. Bottom line is this: you do NOT send in the military except as a last resort. When the Armed Forces are deployed to a Theatre of Operations, their job is to destroy it's infrastructure and kill the inhabitants. To destroy the enemy's will to fight should be the only directive. Civilians in the way are collateral damage...they need to get the heck out of the way.
Our obligations to front-line troops....ensure they're equipped, clothed and fed, all appropriate to the area they occupy or are stationed. We are obligated to provide
medical care for people injured as a result of military service, physically or mentally, to include long-term care of injuries resulting in chronic debilitation. The government has sweetened the pot with additional promises of OTJ training, military career paths,
loans (tuition and mortgages) and other benefits...I do not grudge vets that bit of government support especially now that the army is all-volunteer, and the pay is nowhere near the national average. Career military people opt for an austere life and any bit of government assistance for these souls is ok by me.
Yep, that is true. You forgot the part where Nixon ran the war from 1969 until he surrendered to the North Vietnamese in late summer 1973.
That was during the period where the war was found to be unwinnable, the American people had become weary of the war,
the concept of 'rules of engagement' allowed us to win every single battle we ever engaged in, yet the war did not go well for us.
"Vietnamization" of the war failed, as the ARVN never stepped up to do what was needed. It would have greatly facilitated our withdrawal. We did not surrender to the north vietnamese so you can shove that where the sun don't shine...we turned the war over to "Marvin the ARVN" who broke and ran. The Paris Peace accords were supposed to be the framework whereby the shooting would stop, S.Vietnam would reconcile it's communist and capitalist leaning populations, and North and South would re-unify in a stepped procedure yet to be negotiated. Nixon, like so many Republican presidents, was a victim of liberal, anti-war democrat congresses...the dems had sided with the agitators on college campuses and in the inner-cities and had begun defunding the war. The democrats have been scums for generations....
"Marvin the ARVN" was doing a very good job so long as the US funrished him with advisors, artillery support, air support and war materials. Then the US decided to take over the fighting of the war and shoved "Marvin" aside. Suddenly Marvin was hurting very badly from lack of air support, artillery support and materials with which to fight the war.
Yep, Nixon and his pukey lackey Kissinger condemned hundreds of POW/MIA folks to slow deaths when they surrendered. You can play partisan politics and call it what you want to but i served there and i choose to call it surrender.
"Marvin the ARVN" was doing a very good job so long as the US funrished him with advisors, artillery support, air support and war materials. Then the US decided to take over the fighting of the war and shoved "Marvin" aside. Suddenly Marvin was hurting very badly from lack of air support, artillery support and materials with which to fight the war.
Yep, Nixon and his pukey lackey Kissinger condemned hundreds of POW/MIA folks to slow deaths when they surrendered. You can play partisan politics and call it what you want to but i served there and i choose to call it surrender.
You can call it what you want. There were no articles of surrender and nobody signed anything of the kind. You might find an agreement that the conduct of the war was abysmal, but you can't show, other than your idiotic partisanship, that war was conducted in an able way by anybody preceeding Nixon either (Aka Johnson and Kennedy). Nixon brought the war to a close; unlike the current crapbag administration who ignores the will of the people, Nixon listened to the American people and he heard we were tired of it and disgusted with it. So he did what he had to...HE FOLLOWED THE DIRECTION GIVEN TO HIM BY DEMOCRATS AND COMMUNIST SYMPATHIZERS HERE IN THE STATES AND CAPITULATED TO REMOVE US TROOPS FROM S.VIETNAM. If there was a will to win that war, they'd be speaking English in Hanoi (NOT Ho Chi Minh city !) and drinking mai tai's at 5pm. Arvn was tasked with defense of his own country as the US forces exited...yet the forces of the republic of south vietnam did not stand and fight as they were trained and equipped to do. So, it did not end as was envisioned. And if you want to blame anybody for "MARVIN's" lack of wherewithal, look at the democrat controlled congress during the Nixon admin...they defunded the whole damn thing so that all Marvin got was Uncle Sam's castoffs. Put blame where blame belongs.
Rumsfield said it best when he said you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.
Thank you for proving that Americans learn NOTHING from history.
Wanna defend Rumsfeld? Pack a lunch. The stupidity of his comment was only surpassed by the stupidity of the timing of it.
Please tell me you don't really believe that failure to up armor vehicles after TWO YEARS of watching our kids be dismembered by IED's is acceptable because some political jackazz (who was practicing CYA at the time) said so...especially in a 'war' that we saw coming for nearly a decade.
Thank you for proving that Americans learn NOTHING from history.
Wanna defend Rumsfeld? Pack a lunch. The stupidity of his comment was only surpassed by the stupidity of the timing of it.
Please tell me you don't really believe that failure to up armor vehicles after TWO YEARS of watching our kids be dismembered by IED's is acceptable because some political jackazz (who was practicing CYA at the time) said so...especially in a 'war' that we saw coming for nearly a decade.
I don't see anything wrong with Rumsfeld's comment. You may hate him politically, but you DO, in fact, go to war with what you got. IN WWI, GI's trained with sticks because there were not enough Springfields to go around....it's a fact of life. Now once you're IN the war, you gear up to be able to effectively fight it. THAT"S the stuff of armchair quarterbacks and back seat drivers and will always be.....
Obligations to front-line troops?
