TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 2:52 pm
You mean the American Colonial War and the War of 1812?
Be serious. Minor conflicts on your soil against a small fraction of the British Army.
US Military 2,369,239. US troops in Iraq about 150,000 (small fraction of our force).
Its the same situation.
The US Military has 1.4 million active service personnel. Of those, 345,000 are in the Navy - not much use in Iraq. 352,000 are in the Air Force, so not exactly in the trenches are they. The US Coast Guard also lists just over 40,000 active service staff.
What remains between the US Army and Martines is approx. 680,000. So a little less than a quarter of your army is trying to pin down one country in the middle east.
The British Army had more troops at the Battle of Waterloo (one battle which caught everyone by surprise) than they fielded during the entire War of 1812.
I will have to tell the men and women in the reserves and National Guard that are fighting in Iraq their not really over there
TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 2:55 pm
19 Dec 2006, 2:59 pm
Then explain to me, if you have 2 million troops you aren't using, how are you losing the war?
19 Dec 2006, 3:07 pm
TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 3:13 pm
Then explain to me, if you have 2 million troops you aren't using, how are you losing the war?
Thats the whole problem. The Bush Administration thought a small force could get the job done. That was based on thinking the Iraqis would greet our troops with hugs and kisses. That did not happen. There is an insurgencey with popular support standard
military logic is you have to have 10 to 1 troop advantage to defeat such an insurgency. There is talk now of sending 20,000 to 50,000 more troops. But that want
change the situation much either. We do not need to send a winning number of troops there we need to get out of there and let that place burn. The entire reason for being there was false WMD & terror.
TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 3:18 pm
19 Dec 2006, 3:26 pm
Then explain to me, if you have 2 million troops you aren't using, how are you losing the war?
Thats the whole problem. The Bush Administration thought a small force could get the job done. That was based on thinking the Iraqis would greet our troops with hugs and kisses. That did not happen. There is an insurgencey with popular support standard
military logic is you have to have 10 to 1 troop advantage to defeat such an insurgency. There is talk now of sending 20,000 to 50,000 more troops. But that want
change the situation much either. We do not need to send a winning number of troops there we need to get out of there and let that place burn. The entire reason for being there was false WMD & terror.
The problem is you were never welcome in the first place. I don't know, you've got all the CIA spending billions trying to be intelligent, Bush could have come and had a coffee with me and I'd have told him it was a stupid idea.
Maybe the CIA wanted a bit of Arab bashing after they made their pentagon into a square...
Anyway, this doesn't change my initial point - the Americans are crap at war.
TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 3:36 pm
19 Dec 2006, 4:02 pm
Fogman
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19 Dec 2006, 7:40 pm
I'm almost of the opinion that we should admit that we made a mistake in Iraq, and give the country back to Saddam Hussein. 
19 Dec 2006, 9:22 pm
19 Dec 2006, 9:34 pm
TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 10:00 pm
19 Dec 2006, 10:59 pm
Can't be bothered if you can't be bothered to look over that site and want me to show you the links...
http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html
http://www.strategypage.com/humor/artic ... 004615.asp
typical doesn't display....
Bet you 2 million it could...
What you don't get is this
" Americans shoot the place up "
" fire before they shot at "
" Blow up most of they own stuff
" and allied stuff "
" Overkill On using a tank buster to hit a sniper "
" mistake allies for the enemy "
I come back to it's safer to stand in a building of enemy than having an American soldier anywhere near you.
And everyone still will say the Americans suck at war "
*" Except the american's or maybe some are "*
" British have less money but better soldiers - America has more money and really bad soldiers "
Like the mini-cv lol
TheMachine1
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19 Dec 2006, 11:42 pm
There likely comparable. Also the battle theater makes a difference. Fighting in mostly
Shiite Muslims areas vs areas with a high percent of Sunni Muslims likely is a big factor. The British are in mostly Shiite terroritry.
Most all the British troops are in Bazra. Remember Sadam was a Sunni and his support base was Sunni.
20 Dec 2006, 12:28 am
I was trying to keep away
I have an uncle that used to live in Sarth Efrica. He worked in Insurance. I remember him saying that young men were safer in the SADF on active duty than they were in Jo'berg (where they would get drunk and crash cars). A family friend who was a Col. in the Australian Army, said similalry that more soldiers were killed on a 100 mile strecth of road between Melbourne and Puckapunyal training camp, than the total casulties in Vietnam.
I notices one statistic shows Iraq has a lower death rate per 100,000 than South Africa today. It would be interesting to compare the death rate of soldiers with civilians in Brixton or Chicago?
Also, in my infantry training it was said that all modern armies have similar training and equipment. We said the side that will win is the side that can withstand the most harship and discomfort and keep working as a team (which is why the Australian Army heaps as much hardship and discomfort on us 
).
