The (Current year) General Political/Salma Hayek discussion Thread Part V

[jamil]

I wonder if either Kut’s or Trumpers’ position would change if Trump weren’t involved at all. I have no way of knowing but that would be interesting to know.

 

[Hatin Since 87]

Okay. Just so I’m understanding you accurately. You’ve left no room to doubt. Only follow rules you think makes sense. Be as violent as you want to be because they do it.

I can’t speak for bad dog but that’s pretty much exactly what I’m saying. Save the innocents lives, help the children, but totally **** up their fighters. Make them fear us. When they’re asked to join isis America should pop in their heads, and the potential for what could happen should help in their decisions. I’m tired of being the good guy. We are the only country following the rules when it comes down to it.

 

[nonobaddog]

In vietnam my bother-in-law was in a military position set on a big hill. They had flattened the top and set up a razorband perimeter. They had one cobra gunship but, of course, they could not keep that in the air all the time. The viet cong would load up kids, under 10 years old with grenades and explosives and send them up to the perimeter and then blow them up making a breach in the perimeter so they could attack through the breach. After this happened several times with multiple deaths from this tactic our guys had no choice but to shoot the kids when you could tell they were loaded and running up to the perimeter. Is this against the rules? Does survival in a war become part of the rules?
Stuff like this happens all the time in combat. We, the protected, are not often faced with the realities of combat and we try to impose "nice" on something that is just the opposite.

 

[Hatin Since 87]

It could also be argued that what he did was more humane. If a guy is laying in pain and injured, killing him would be more humane than leaving him to suffer. Mercy kill actually used to be a thing.

Regardless. I have no sympathy for people who are terrorist and kill/rape women and children.

 

[nonobaddog]

Left - ISIS teaching a child to kick a severed head. Right - Kids gathered around a mutilated and beheaded body.
ISIS has no morals and no rules. You will have no success telling them they must use morals and rules.

 

[nonobaddog]

Okay. Just so I’m understanding you accurately. You’ve left no room to doubt. Only follow rules you think makes sense. Be as violent as you want to be because they do it.

I want a better answer too. What is it?

 

[Phase2]

There are rules imposed by the military leaders on conduct. Just so we’re clear on this, you’re saying **** those rules, it’s okay if someone breaks them because the other side is horrible. That’s what you seem to be saying.

Don't the Geneva Conventions cover only uniformed combatants? I thought unlawful combatants weren't covered. Fighting with one or both hands tied behind your back gets more good people killed.

 

[nonobaddog]

I don't think the Geneva Convention has anything to do with isis.

ETA _ I'll take that back - it appears Common Article 3 applies to non-nation/state combatants.
However since isis did not sign the conventions and they sure as hell do not respect any of the content I would not say they deserve any considerations under those conventions.

 

[jbombelli]

I don't think you can beat an enemy like them by treating them humanely and with respect. If you want to beat them, you need to kill every one of them you find, along with their families, friends, and anyone else within range, as brutally as possible. If you want to just drag things out forever and eventually just give up in defeat, go ahead and treat them with humanity and dignity.

Just my opinion.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Meeting sadism with sadism rarely wins anything, but more enemies. The reason why we're the United States of America, is because we are above such things.

In most cases I would agree with you Kut, but when you're fighting an enemy that only understands and respects/responds to such tactics, I just can't. We've seen what happens when we try to use "western logic and tactics" on the fighters in their culture. It hasn't been successful.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I've always thought this was a curious expression, as with few exceptions, "fighting fire with fire" often leads to a bigger fire. How about fighting fire with water?
As far as sympathy, who is sympathizing with the ISIS member? He most certainly wouldn't have held to the same standard, and that's the point. Savages will be savages, to mirror their behavior makes us little better. If there is ay sympathy to be had, it's for the men and women in the armed forces that hold themselves to a higher stander being subjected to people like Gallagher in their ranks.

We tried that. The bleeding hearts called it "torture".

 

[Brad69]

Generally the U.S. follows our own policies that parallel most of the conventions.

Under the law of land war.

The term 'lawful enemy combatant' means a person who is:

a member of the regular forces of a State party engaged in hostilities against the United States;
a member of a militia, volunteer corps, or organized resistance movement belonging to a State party engaged in such hostilities, which are under responsible command, wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry their arms openly, and abide by the law of war; or
a member of a regular armed force who professes allegiance to a government engaged in such hostilities, but not recognized by the United States.

The term 'unlawful enemy combatant' means:

a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or
a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

Here’s a manual on it!
https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN19354_FM 6-27 _C1_FINAL_WEB_v2.pdf

 

[nonobaddog]

I don't think you can beat an enemy like them by treating them humanely and with respect. If you want to beat them, you need to kill every one of them you find, along with their families, friends, and anyone else within range, as brutally as possible. If you want to just drag things out forever and eventually just give up in defeat, go ahead and treat them with humanity and dignity.

Just my opinion.

Reality agrees with you.
However people sitting in easy chairs will have trouble with it. If the reality of isis treatment were to get very close to them they would probably change their mind. I mean if they were tied up and forced to watch isis rape and behead their family and then **** on their bodies and kick their heads around would they still want to offer them cookies?

 

[DoggyDaddy]

We should go back to WWII tactics. Complete, overwhelming destruction of the enemy. War should be terrible. It should be so terrible that any country should see it as a complete last resort and be very hesitant to enter into it. Look at both World Wars. They were over in what? 4, 5 years? We've been dragging this **** out in the middle east for going on 20 years now (just since 9/11, not counting all the crap before that).

 

[Jludo]

I don't think you can beat an enemy like them by treating them humanely and with respect. If you want to beat them, you need to kill every one of them you find, along with their families, friends, and anyone else within range, as brutally as possible. If you want to just drag things out forever and eventually just give up in defeat, go ahead and treat them with humanity and dignity.

Just my opinion.

So if we start killing their friends and families how exactly are we different from them?

 

[nonobaddog]

So if we start killing their friends and families how exactly are we different from them?

We would stay alive and they wouldn't.

 

[Jludo]

We should go back to WWII tactics. Complete, overwhelming destruction of the enemy. War should be terrible. It should be so terrible that any country should see it as a complete last resort and be very hesitant to enter into it. Look at both World Wars. They were over in what? 4, 5 years? We've been dragging this **** out in the middle east for going on 20 years now (just since 9/11, not counting all the crap before that).

We didn't kill POWs and intentionally target civilians in ww2.
Clearly counter insurgency and world wars aren't similar.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

We didn't kill POWs and intentionally target civilians in ww2.
Clearly counter insurgency and world wars aren't similar.

And we're not doing that now. They, however do exactly that. That's part of their standard tactics and objectives. Do we have collateral damage? Yes. Do we intentionally target civilians? No. But they do. In fact they use their own people as shields for their own cowardly acts. Maybe if their people got tired of being used as such they might actually decide they've had enough and do something themselves. And in WWI and WWII, our enemies did indeed kill and torture POWs, as well as civilians.

 

[nonobaddog]

We didn't kill POWs and intentionally target civilians in ww2.
Clearly counter insurgency and world wars aren't similar.

What?? You never heard of the carpet bombing that went on? Never heard of hiroshima or nagasaki? Look it up sometime.

 

[Kutnupe14]

As everybody knows, when the british were over here trying to fight us over our independence they would line up in rows in their red suits out in the open and shoot at us. They were told to do this by their military leaders. Their military leaders were not very smart.

Yes, there are rules that should be followed if they make sense. But they only make sense if everybody follows those rules.

You may know more about fires, but it appears that I know more about military history. The British of the 18th century employee a smooth bore rifle called the “Brown Bess.” The rifle had no sights and was notoriously inaccurate past 100 yards. Given that fact, the British trained, and employed “linear tactics” (lined up by rows) to improve the effectiveness of their muskets. While the regulars in the Continental Army also used similar arms and tactics, irregulars employed guerrilla tactics, learned from the Indian Wars, and were outfitted with superior rifle arms, most famously, the Kentucky Long Rifle.
It wasn’t a question of the officers not being very smart, it was more that they didn’t have the ability to quickly adapt to the warfare being used against them.