USMC850T

This is true. But it doesnt mean anyone under those ages isnt educated on certain subjects. That also works both ways, as age doesnt always mean you become more educated.

But the hope is candidates will be more experienced, not wet behind the ears.

Of course the Arab nations don't like israel. I can understand why, they were basically carved out of their territory following WWII. What legitimises it form me is when the entire arab community around israel attacks them and is repulsed time and time again. The israelis have earned their land in my mind.

Well when i came upon the the statement "the situation is more a result of our policy in the Arab - Israli conflict" I felt it was rediculous and really doesen't explain much of anything and has little bearing on the iraq situation. I still have about 75 pages left so I am trying not to make up my mind until then but there are some things i definately don't like, but some i do.

1. Baath party members still are very present in Iraq, albeit they are not the ruling party, they still exist and they still have some say in the government and are still a political party in Iraq.

One of the reasons why the government is weak now is because it has been de baathified, and there are few people presently in the government with the kind of experience they had. They were the ruling party and knew how to run the government. They really don't have a major presence in the current government, are are faaar more prevalent in the Sunni Insurgency.

2. Yes our occupation is not going well, and I do have many clues as to why, I too am a political science major, and I focused in terrorism, and the middle east, so yes I know. We have created a perfect place where any and every terrorist can both attack the USA, and vie for power of a country that has no leadership. There is much more to be said on it, but I dont want to spend that much time.

I agree with that for the most part. I don't feel that it is as close to an al qaeda playground as the pundits make it out to be though. The Sunni insurgency and al aqaeda have a kind of mututally beneficial relationship going, however al Qaeda is definately hated by the shiite millitias. And what better place to engauge al Qaeda than on foriegn soil, and against our military instead of our population centers?

6. You can't honestly say that the marine corps has no position. You're jsut repeating a bunch of babbling BS you've been told. While the MC doesnt make official press releases stating their positions and opinions, clearly the higher ups in the MC have their own opinions and since they make a lot of the decisions, their opinions are reflected in their decisions. Additionally, those who join the MC are more likely to havea certain political affiliation and certain beliefs about foreign policy, so one can very easily make claims about the MC's position

Ok again the entire United States armed forces have no official political views. At the highest levels, the JCOS, they do advise the President about capabilities and courses of action. This is different from expressing offical political views. The military tries to be an entirely apolitical orginization, since they exist solely to execute the policy courses deceided by civillian policy makers (congress & prez). Also, the enlisted ranks of the forces are almost always more liberal in their own personal ideology than the officer corps, which tends to lean conservative.

7. Wow, a semester away from a DEGREE IN POLITICAL SCIENCE!!!!! Wow, that's soo fucking hard to get, the amount of complete morons here at Cal who are going to be getting degree's in Poli Sci is astounding. I'll have a degree in PoliSci and Econ in a semester, whoop de doo! That makes you marginally more qualified to discuss things than jsut about anyone with a brain. The degree means very little, other than you can take some classes.

I mentioned that because i have been repetitively called dumb by a 17 year old who cannot form complete & coherent sentances. Just because I take a different point of view, or am persuing a career in the military does not mean that for some reason i am stupid. I have taken plenty of courses and read plenty of the literature on the subject we are discussion to formulate my own views, and none of it has come from the military.

. What makes it a disgrace is the refusal to admit that anything is going wrong until it is soo far gone that we can't do anythign about it. The current presidency would rather be Strong and Wrong, instead of changing their minds, admitting they were wrong, potentially looking weak and being correct in the end. What makes it a disgrace is that we still have almost no people in the intelligence community who speak arabic, and even fewer who speak Farsi (should we go into Iran). What makes it a disgrace is the government and military's complete refusal to learn about the cultures that we are fighting against. Still you see the marine storming into houses in Iraq yelling in ENGLISH for people to get down and not move. These people dont know what the fuck their saying, we really have no idea about how these people live and that is part of the key reason that we are having such a hard time doing anythign in Iraq. Perhaps if we learned more before we went in, we would have seen how fucking hard and impossible these people are to teach anything.

More arabic speaking intel officers and translators will only help things, I agree, which is why t hey are recruiting heavily for those talents.

As far as the raids are considered, most of the soldiers and Marines that have been there for any length of time know some arabic for exactly those situations you are describing. The Marine Corps has made efforts to improve what they call "cultural intellegence". Before a deployment they will take classes in the local culture and some arabic. In the town of Hattin, the local commander has religous leaders from the town teaching his troops arabic on a regular basis.

4) The USMC does blindly follow authority. You question an order, you get punished. If you wanna shave your head, be brain-dead and follow orders from someone above you your whole life, go right ahead, then maybe you will understand.

Nobody blindly follows athority. There are such things as illegal orders, those which would force someone to break the geneva conventions, or other treaties which govern the conduct of war. The military does rely on discipline and obedience to orders, but look at what their job is. Without discipline, would they be able to accomplish anything?? And do you think that you somehow won't have someone telling you what to do in the civillian world? Ever hear of a boss or manager? Challenge their authority and you may find yourself unemployed.

I will be commissined as an officer, so I will be doing most of the issuing of orders, but of course I will be having people tell me what to do too. I didn't decide i wanted to join for money - If that's what i wanted I would have joined the army. I didn't join because I wanted to go to Iraq either, I honestly wouldn't mind though. I joined because I am going to strap an F-18 on my back and rain fire on the enemies of the United States. I have always wanted to fly, and I can think of no greater challenge in aviation than being a military pilot. There are a lot of people in the Armed forces who did not join for college money, they just want to serve their country. Too bad that seems to be a declining trend these days.

3) A demoracy smack dab in the ME would lead to a complete take over by Iran retard. A crippled country, Iraq has 0% of becomming a democracy. The parties would assasinate each other. And a main principle of democracy is a seperation of church and state. HOW DO YOU THINK THAT IS POSSIBLE?!?!?!

Iran would invade a US backed iraqi democracy?? I don't think so. Not unless they wanted to sacrafice every single piece of military hardware that crossed into Iraq. While the US military is not best suited in dealing with insurgency or guerilla threats, they are undeniably the best in the world at force on force encouters, which is exactly what an Iranian invasion of a democratic Iraq would involve.

Honestly, I have no freakin idea bro. I think we need to try something different at least, cuase the current way ain't working so good. How about this, I will try to formulate an exit strategy after I am done with finals in a week.

~Mike

I think you should instead focus on a solution to the problem, rather than how or when we should get out.

Ok you're missing my point. I said may of 2003, which was a year and a half after afghanistan but good reading comprehension on your part non the less. We did win the war. There is not debatable in the least. What part of Baathist former Iraq is still existing today as it did in may of 2003? I'll admit our occupation is not going well and getting worse by the days. You don't have the slightest clue why this is happening, which is why you cannot contribute any type of suggestions or solutions, making you just as worthless to the problem as all the other bitching whining bring the troops home idiots.

Secondly, we don't start wars based on assumptions. Our intelligence services, along with the majority of the worlds intel, came to the exact same conclusions.

Saddam hated extremists because it posed a threat to his regime and would have them executed.

Retarted, baseless, wrong, and irrelavent.

We went from Osoma, to Saddam, back to extremists, then to a democratic government, to protecting oil from the extremists.

Incomprehensible babbling. I don't have a fucking clue what it is you're talking about.

In the begining, did we even consder turning Iraq into a democratic government...NOOOO!!!?!?!?!

Of course we did. Were we going to turn it over to another totalitarian figure and let it turn into the same situation w/ saddam? A democracy smack dab in the heart of the middle east is undeniably in our best interest.

Even Rummy said his way was failing, but if you want to be a retard and follow the views of the USMC without quesitoning the authority

The Marine Corps, along with every other branch has no official political views, so I cannot possibly be following their position, because it does not exist. The armed services do not formulate policy, only execute it. By the way im still on school and have a semester left before i would go back to ocs, so im not in the MC yet, so please stop making references to me being stupid or dumb because i have an association with the Marine Corps. You are some little shit in high school eating up everything his teacher has to say and getting your news from moveon.org, I am a semester away from a degree in political science and intel analysis, so trust me, I'm not dumb by any stretch. You would also be suprised at just how educated and intelligent the officer corps is, especially the field grade officers. But go ahead and be cool....QUESTION ATHORITY MAAAN!!!1!!1

And since when does a war not going as planned make it a disgrace?? The planners did not anticipate the insurgency to develop as it did, but that's not a disgrace by any means. I mean I can't think of a single war in all of history that went down as planned. Have you never heard of murphy's law??

Evolve i guess you forgot what happened in may of 2003, or maybe you were to young to remember. There is absolutely no question that we have won. Look around, do you see ANY aspect of Saddams regime still in place? The US forces also smashed the record for the fastest advance during thunder run. The postwar period of occupation has become far more ambigous, as is typical with 4th generation warfare. If you're interested in reading about that at all, look for an author named Lind. Reading his articles will definately give you a better understanding of what 4GW entails, and will give you a better understanding of why we "are loosing" as some say. I feel the situation is becoming dangerously out of hand. We have done almost everything to give the Iraqi's the tools they need to succeed. The failure or success of the Iraqi state will ultimately be determined by their new government and the populace. There are positives coming out of Iraq, jjust look north. The Kurds have managed to secure most of northern Iraq and are doing quite well up there. I'm sure they are quite glad to no longer be governed by president hussien.

Has anyone read through the Iraq study group's report? The begginning details the problems and complications fairly well i feel. I was quite turned off by it though when i read that that '...the problems we face in iraq the manifestation of our Israeli / palistinian policies..

I am only about halfway through it and so far i feel it has been next to useless. I hope it gets better!

Chavez is a fuckin twat who thinks he is important because he has oil. He just has his panties in a bunch cause we told him we will not provide any more spare parts for the F16's we sold him.

Insurgencies and gurellia wars tend not to work without outside intervention. US independance - France. etc. We can certainly seal up the borders quite well with all the air assets we have in theater.

http://thoseshirts.com/coulter.html

My personal favorite on a hilarious level. However... if anyone buys that they should indeed be shot.

Don't forget how many people were thinking / saying the same things 2 days after it happend. I'm still all for killing their leaders and followers, but i could care less what religion they practice.

Yes, brutality is certainly one way to handle the situation. The US army is showing us how for the given situation there are other alternatives which certainly can work better.

People who say the war is unwinnable fail to grasp exaclty what is going on over there. They are the same people who said after the TET offensive vietnam was unwinnable. Anyone who is remotely familiar with Veitnam knows TET was a disaster for the vietcong and marked the beggining of their demise. By no means is it going to be easy, but then again our nation is not standing where it is today because we took the easy way out of things. I feel that I've articulated my views more than enough times. I am currently working on the first half of my senior thesis paper which addresses 4th generation warfare, what it is, the difficulties it poses, and whether we should approach it using the military or police model. I will be sure to post it up here when i've finished it.

Interesting to read the different articles across the web about it. I can understand though why he was detained and held. I guess he was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong shit in his trunk.

He seems like a very good candidate to say the least.

i get annoyed when i hear comments like "those companies have so much money they shouldnt be making that much money" "its like only 1% more on your property tax and its basically only pennies more, are you saying you cant afford to spend a few more pennies?". Not to mention union tactics to extort money and hold hostage services which are fairly paid for.

It's a slippery slope argument. 1% this year, 1% next year...

Prolly the first truly accurate thing you've said yet.Another perfect example of how big business gets their weenies stroked by the government.It's all twisted.This country needs immediate tax reform...and neither of the parties have a serious plan or real initiative to do that successfully.

But the reason why that is true is not because of our current tax structure, it's just economics. CDB is almost always passed to the consumer in full.

Oh and your policy of increasing taxation on business and citizens is already in effect here in NY, one of the highest taxed states in the nation. It's not working out so great. Cost of doing business is so high here that both business and people are flowing out of the state, along with jobs. Who knows though, it might work out after all :tdown:

And USMC, you read my post wrong, the extra $500 dollars each would gain 105 billion dollars. The point is that if we tax a little, what differnece does it make to the common man? Don't b*tch about a little extra cash to help out the government. I bet none of you would even notice a 2 penny increase in taxing goods. And I have just now realized why USMC is so dumb and follows Bush without asking questions. That is what his proffesion teaches, blind obediance. Does USMC = United States Marine Core? If not, then disregard the last three sentences...

EDIT: I want to hear what the common-man thinks about this, not some marine or Republican extremist.

Ok I've been pretty civil in the pages of debate that have been on here, but time and time again people have told you things, but it's not going anywhere. You have at best sophmoric grasp on any of the concepts we've been debating about. The national debt is not something that came to existance yesterday, and by taxing everyone just a little bit extra, it's not going to go away. As far as your super sweet tax plan goes, not everyone in this country of 300 million can pay taxes. A great number of those people are minors, or don't work at all. Then even further, some people are just poor. Unfortunately, you still want their extra 500 dollars. Your robin hood tax plan is of good intentions, but it would never work. The rich already pay plenty of taxes, and so do the corporations. Want to know why else it wont work?? Rich people make waaay more donations to political campaigns than the poor or middle class.

Now as far as me being dumb, I think through my responses in the other thread i've show, or hope I've shown, that I'm far more intelligent than you. Now I know that's not fair, because you're still in high school and I'm finishing my degree, but someday you'll be able to put together a coherent argument. If i were following bush out of blind obedience, I would not go to the lengths I do to clarify and explain my thoughts as I have in the war thread. I also have been studying political science for

a few years now so I've had plenty of time to develop my own Ideology, and since my school it quite liberal, I've had plenty of oppertunites to defend it. Just because you have different views than me doesn't make you stupid, your repetitive posts do that. And I had no idea you knew so much about the United States Marine Corps. Last time you mentioned it you said they didn't do anything. And none of our military branches teach blind obedience, and to say so is quite ignorant, and im sure that it would piss off the other members of the services whom browse this board if they were to read that in this thread. Obedience is quite different from blind obedience. And guess what, both republicans and democrats in the military are obedient, because they are there to serve the government as a form of "politics by other means". The military itself is an apolitical orginization because of that, they do not debate or formulate policy, only excecute it.

Evolve, 2 Billion ain't shit for the U S of A. You have no Idea what our federal budget is do you?

-1. I hated Carter and he was a horrible president. The Dow Jones is a reflection of the profit of some corporations, not of the nation as a whole buddy.

~Mike

It's an indicator of investment, which is an indication of the national economy as a whole.

Studies show that it takes roughly 8 points of contact to get low and mid propensity voters to show up at the poles. They usually don't bother the high propensity voters, it has a negligable effect. The campaigns try and get the points of contact through door knocking and phone banking. I agree about the robot calls though, but worst comes to worst you can always hang up.

The republicans have a far more effective system of microtargeting than the democrats tactic of just blanketing a swing district.

On a more republican note: I am pumped that the campaign I was working on was able to come back and win after the foley scandal broke. When it broke we were down something like 10 points, and over the few weeks we had between that and the election we were able to squeek out a 5 pt margin last night. I am speaking of course of the Reynolds campaign. It was pretty neat to see how the RNC's grassroots efforts work - definately more effective than the Democrats methods.

Those aren't reasons for going in Iraq, those sound much more like short term goals. The Chairman of the RNC also has nothing to do with policy. He is part of the party orginizaiton, not the party in government.

Rumsfeld's resignation may have political motiviations, but trust me, no one is going to press charges and have a comittiee investigation on what a retard he is. I think that bringing in someone with new and vastly different perspective and experiences certainly has the potential to help the situation in Iraq. I do not share your view that he was incompetent though. He did a great job handling the military and political aspects regarding Afghanistan, and the first portion of the Iraqi war was quite remarkable in many ways. As far as how he handles the press, he usually doesn't answer questions, and when he does, he is a total smart ass with them.

Oh and I guess your S60 runs on sunshine and smiles - "Your party" isn't any less concerned with oil than the Repubs. Our economy is dependant on oil, so you can believe that regardless of which party holds executive or legislative office, it will take the necissary steps to ensure we have a supply until such a time as we can transition to an alternative(s).

Are your ears not open??? O, an another thing real quick, your republicans have changed reason why we are in Iraq, for the fifth time...

~Mike

My ears are open and that's exactly what I heard on the news earlier today.

Bush said he misled the reporter because he "didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign."

What is the new reason? I'm sure it's the same as it always has been.