Can the US win a war ? ...

Can we win a war, yes we have won many wars. The issue, like Vietnam we as a nation do not have the will power to fight for something when so many do not believe in the reasons we are fighting.

We went into the second Gulf War with our leaders telling us a variety of reasons why we must go to war. We later find out that the reasons given were false. On top of that our leaders tried to retract that there was "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq when it was covered all over the world.

I think this video speaks for it self:


So yes we can win a war but not when we go into war under false pretenses.

There is a huge difference between the wars we are fighting today and say World War 2. I for one , if I actually thought our nation was under direct threat from a foreign power, like the countless many in WW1 and WW2 would eagerly sign up to fight. But this is obviously not the case today.

Some will argue that the nature of war fare has changed. That our enemy is different so out methods must change. At same point, are they any threat to the greatest military power in the world?

I guess it comes down to what you believe. Do you believe some people in a cave in Afghanistan manufactured the greatest terrorist strike in modern history. All our dedicated people, the whole system was completely broken, that Americans were cowards and didn't fight for the planes, that air plane fuel can melt steel, ect ect.

It all goes back to 9/11 really.

[edit on 21-8-2009 by oconnection]

Originally posted by oconnection
I guess it comes down to what you believe. Do you believe some people in a cave in Afghanistan manufactured the greatest terrorist strike in modern history. All our dedicated people, the whole system was completely broken, that Americans were cowards and didn't fight for the planes, that air plane fuel can melt steel, ect ect.

It all goes back to 9/11 really.

[edit on 21-8-2009 by oconnection]

I fully agree. For all the photos and videos of 9/11, there is still a serious lack of coverage of the questionable events. Why does everyone say the twin towers collapsed because of the planes and jet fuel, but WTC7 collapsed the exact same way on the same day with no planes hitting it? Why were all the videos of the Pentagon getting hit confiscated and the released ones missing frames? What about that story of a trillion dollars in defense funds gone missing one day before 9/11, and the very same investigating team dying in the Pentagon attack?

It was all a set up for war, but the American media and public ate it up like ketchup and the military asked no questions.

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
The US has never fought a formidable opponent in 50 years. The Russians would be a formidable adversary in a conventional war. Nukes and technology aside a Russian soldier DOES NOT fight like a sandal wearing Iraqi weighing a buck 50 carrying an AK-47. If America ever got into a conventional war with a real enemy it would be nasty. Not saying we wouldn't win but a real soldier from Russia or China is not some Taliban underfunded and unorganized. You haven't seen anything like a real war with the "war on terror".

Errrrr...The Japanese were the most formidable opponents the US has ever faced.

reply to post by Redneck from Hell


Star for you but I would also have to say the Vietcong fought hard too just not in a conventional manner. But they were tough as nails.

The US never picked on an capable adversary.
In WW1 and WW2 The US entered at the end, more to put their influence in the region and prevent the westward avance of communism.
Iraq, vietnam, Panama, Somalia, Afghanistan ...had no real means to defend themselves without outside help and we all know what happened in Vietnam.

simple answer no the U.S. can never win there is to much politics in war get rid of the politicians and then they might have a chance to win a war

Whoa there papa, the US military has won lots of wars.

They kicked the limey's butts twice, in 1781 and again in 1815.

Sam Houston whupped up on the Mexicans in 1848.

US Grant kicked butt on the southern secessionists in 1865.

Teddy R kicked some Spanish booty in 1898.

US dough Boys bitch-slapped the Huns and the Turks in 1918.

The Yanks took care of business in 1945 against the German National Socialists, the Italian Obamaists, and the Toyota Imperialists.

Just a few years later, Ted Williams and friends did the job that the cowardly UN forces refused to do in Korea.

But of course, there was that tragic fiasco created by the Democrat JFK, at the Bay of Pigs, in 1961. But soon enough, the US military got back to kicking some commie tail in Vietnam. At least until political correctness kicked in.

And things got worse in 1979 when the peanut farmer got a bunch of guys killed in a half-assed rescue attemp in Iran.

The Great Communicator came to power in 1981. He crushed the Evil Empire without firing a single shot and with numerous American traitors, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, actively collaborating with our communist enemies. As icing on the cake, Ronaldus Magnus sent the US military into Grenada in 1983 just to remind the Cubans who is in charge.

In 1990, GHWB dropped the hammer on the Iraqis. They managed to stay well behaved for about 10 years.

In 1992, the draft-dodging Slick Willy came to power. He cut tail and ran from Somalia after getting some brave Rangers killed. And his lasting legacy will be forcing US soldiers to wear those sissy baby blue berets of the UN.

Thankfully, GWB took control in 2001. And he rained holy-hell on Al-Queda in both Afghanistan and Iraq for most of his 8 years in office.

Sadly, since Jan. 2009, we've had Barack Hussein Obama as Apologist in Chief of our armed forces. Can we win a war by sucking up to our enemies?
Not likely.

reply to post by riff_raff

Somehow I couldnt help to imagine your post being read aloud by one of these famous movie trailer voices. It seemed fitting.

Anyway, there is an inaccuracy; actually the Huns "bitchslapped" the Americans, and in WW2 it didnt get better. The german wars were won and lost elsewhere.

Originally posted by Lonestar24
Somehow I couldnt help to imagine your post being read aloud by one of these famous movie trailer voices. It seemed fitting.

Anyway, there is an inaccuracy; actually the Huns "bitchslapped" the Americans, and in WW2 it didnt get better. The german wars were won and lost elsewhere.

I see the level of posting hasn't really improved in my absence...lonestar, I hope your comment here was a joke....

War....a business a little too dangerous to leave to just patriots.

- Devilwasp

I don't think that the issues posed by the original poster are the reasons why the US could not "win" a war, but there are reasons why we or anyone else could not win a war. If the enemy simply refuses to surrender, and the US is not willing to simply kill everyone (as was done in past wars) then one could say that the US could not win that war. In Vietnam, by any reasonable standard we had devastated the enemy. Where we lost 50,000 troops the extimates are the the North Vietnamese lost 1 million, and this was in an environment where the US was purposely not simply attempting to level North Vietnam.

Even in Vietnam if the generals and politicians had said, do what it take to win, we certainly could have inflicted so much damage to the North that the question of who one would have been academic (nobody left to surrender). If you allow the use of nuclear weapons the US could win any war in a couple of hours. The real question comes down to what kind of war are we talking about. If for example Kim Jong Ill decided to launch his long range missiles at the US and he managed to take out Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the US decided that the only way to keep him from doing more damage was to take out North Korea, we could do it in a couple of hours. There would be nothing alive in North Korea to surrender, so I think that by some definition that would be a victroy over a dangerous enemy.

If you are talking about an invasion of Iran to eliminate their nuclear capability, well I suppose the US could do that as well. What the US cannot do is to occupy a country that has people in it that do not want the US there, but where we do not have a disagreement with the populace sufficient to justify killing them all. The US could "win" in Iraq if it didn't care who got killed, but they cannot win when they are supposedly trying to bring democracy to a country in which a substantial portion of the people don't want that forced on them by the US.

The US won against Japan for 3 reasons. 1. THe US was willing to kill everyone in Japan if it came down to it, and the Japanese came to understand that fact. 2. The government of Japan actually cared about their people enough to not want to see them all killed. 3. the US was willing to commit huge numbers of troop to occupying Japan and keeping a lid on any terrorist activity. Remeber that the US sent more troops into Japan and Germany (each of them) at the end of WW2 than the US has in it's entire military today. The US had hopelessly too few troops in Iraq at the end of the invasion to provide security, because the US doesn't have enough troops to be able to send enough to provide security.

Yes the US could win a war, if the will to do what is needed to win is there. The will to win existed in WW2 because the US had an aggressive enemy that was an immediate threat to the US. In Irag there was never a serious threat, and certainly none existed after the invasion, so the will to continue the war until no resistance existed simply was not there. If the US had said after reaching Bhagdad, "we won", well most people would have probably agreed. If the US then pulled out all it's troops and said to the middle east, "if any country tries to develope WMD we will invade and remove the government" they would have probably been listened too.

reply to post by captbilly


captbilly,

I would disagree with you on one minor point. The US didn't beat the Imperial Japanese because "THe US was willing to kill everyone in Japan". The US ultimately won the war because Harry Truman was man enough to take the heat for nuking a couple hundred thousand Japanese civilians in order to save the lives of a couple hundred thousand US military. Do you think Obama would have the stones to make that kind of decision today? Not likely.

The entire premise of a self-ruling democracy rests on some reasonable degree of rationality and some reasonable degree of an ability to discriminate between real information and falsehoods. Today’s American democracy seems to lack these qualities in increasingly abundant amounts.

Pretty much sums up this playground discussion.

America nukes China, America runs out of toothpicks, toilet rolls, auto parts, EVERYTHING.

The US couldn't even win a trade war against China, the Chinese could survive a withdrawal of american trade overnight. They'd drive internal demand for their products... it's not like the US could tool up to meet a Chinese void in 2 weeks is it ??

The American empire is dead, don't mistake it's lifeless spasms as Military Infallibility

Any reasonably sized country sitting on $'s (Japan, Germany, France, Russia, Brazil etc) could collapse the US tomorrow by instantly dumping their dollar holdings in one day... no shots fired.

All this talk of total defeat in the form of 100% destruction of the oppenent flys in the face of the real underlying reasons for war.... economic ones.... there has to markets to exploit and people to indebt after the bombs stop falling or else there is no point in starting a war.


Until you understand that bankers/corporations start wars and all the bull# about humanitarian, removing dictators and 1001 other bogus reasons is crap then you shouldn't even be allowed access to the internet!

Seriously, the Star Spangled Jihaists who gloat about military supremacy on paper
need to lay down the crack pipe and look at the two unfloding disasters in Iraq and Afgahnistan. After decades of sanctions and starvation of the populations you still can't win. Public opinion is against you even with minimal losses and drones blowing up innocent Afghans at weddings each week, remote killing

The US military couldn't tackle a Happymeal and finish it, politics and all your other excuses aside

Originally posted by riff_raff US dough Boys bitch-slapped the Huns and the Turks in 1918.

So, the great T. E. Lawrence lead american forces against the Turks?

Thomas Edward Lawrence [Lawrence of Arabia] led the Arab forces when they openly revolted against the Ottoman Empire. For a very brief synopsis see the link below:

www.historylearningsite.co.uk...

At no time were american forces involved in the Arab revolt against the Turks!

So that's one campaign where you did not kick butt, as you put it.

If you're going to quote facts, at least make sure that Hollywood got it right!

And things got worse in 1979 when the peanut farmer got a bunch of guys killed in a half-assed rescue attemp in Iran.

That really made me laugh!

If your guys had accepted British [SAS] expertise or the help offered by Itzhak Hofi, then the fiasco at Desert One could have been avoided.

Apart from the usual misinformation, you really should be able to read up on what went wrong.

As I understand it, it was cronic equipment faillure and nothing to do with Carter.

[edit on 25-9-2009 by fritz]

Originally posted by fritz
If your guys had accepted British [SAS] expertise or the help offered by Itzhak Hofi, then the fiasco at Desert One could have been avoided.

Actually, had the military stopped it's normal inter-service BS, things would have been alot better.

Originally posted by fritz
As I understand it, it was cronic equipment faillure and nothing to do with Carter.

Carter wanted to do it on the cheap. After getting briefed on the plan, the first thing he said was, "Is anyone going to get hurt?"

reply to post by jerico65[/url]

Uh, I know. But when the head of Mossad offers 'black' help and when the SAS instructors [at Bragg] offer their 'deniable' services, it was somewhat churlish to turn it down.

'Made in America' and 'home grown' are not always the best way forward!

We could win, sure. If the war is started with the goal of victory. No war since world war 2 has been fought with the starategy of "do what it takes to win"

In a traditional war, a superpower type nation vs. another has the likely outcome of being a lose-lose situation. What's the point if there's no spoils to be had even if there is a chance that one side concedes and another is victorious? I'm sure all the big leagues have read up on Sun Tzu and understand the wisdom of his ancient knowledge. (Which still holds true, once you get the point.) So I don't see this happening over nothing. Not to mention there's the MAD wild card that definitely ensures the possiblilty of lose-lose if worse comes to worse. So it's likely to never scale up past proxy wars that sometimes involve a big leaguer using asymetric warfare. (The strategy here seems like poking a mound of fire ants, and inviting someone nearby to keep stepping on them after they get stung. The result is typically lopsided, as countless ants get squashed. Yet more keep coming out of the hole. But is it really productive?)

Now if you consider economic warfare, that's another game that everyone is happy to get into. And they decided to let America talk big and eventually get ourselves stuck with bad trade agreements that lets them get a hold of our "marbles". After the outsourcing stage, the twisting begins. And right now it looks like they're winning this battle without firing a shot. (But seeing your people fired is just as good.) Now if we'd get our government to stop conceding to global corporate interests and look out for it's citizens, maybe we could regain some control. Of course there might be a big hurt with tariffs or sanctions in the near term until we regain some manufacturing productivity, but at least then our nation could at least claim some control over it's own economic destiny.

But then again, what the heck do I know?

Can the US win a war? No.

www.reuters.com...

Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are "extremely" obese.

I'll do the math. 66 percent of Americans are overwight, obese or extremely obese.

We're f**ked.