NUKE_CLEVELAND

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 01:09 PM) That leaves out the answer to the question: what would we do if they didn't just "Piss off"? If they chose to either up their aid or establish an actual military presence inside North Vietnam along the lines of what we had established in the south? They already were pouring massive amounts of money, weapons and raw materials into North Vietnam. If Vietnam meant that much to the Soviets they would have committed forces to the fight up front. I believe they didn't think that country was worth risking total war with the US over. Besides, they were too busy studying our tactics, looking at how our equipment performed against theirs etc..etc..

QUOTE(Ricky3353 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 01:00 PM) 2 TDs and 240 yards for Orton as he silences his critics because all he does is win. Whatever it is you're smoking I want some!

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 01:02 PM) So would you contend that the death of any of the Soviet advisors, or the widening of the conflict to directly include Cambodia or Laos, would have had no consequences with regards to the actions of the Soviets or the Chinese? The Soviets and Chinese spent the whole war shipping arms to their "fraternal Socialist Allies". If a few of their advisors had been killed we could contend that their weapons were killing far more of our people and basically tell them to piss off. Besides, invading Cambodia and attacking Laos later in the war had no real consequences other than to inflame the hippies here at home. EDIT: My point is you fight a war with everything you've got or not at all.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 01:01 PM) Not a chance in Hell. He very likely did want an excuse to enter the European war, but he never imagined the loss of almost the entire Pacific Fleet. So it was coincidence then that the far more valuable aircraft carriers left port only a couple of days prior?

There is a school of thought that says that Roosevelt allowed Pearl Harbor to happen as justification for getting into WW2. Anyone believe that.........I do.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:52 PM) I would counter by saying that there weren't enough right targets. Even if we had gone after their defense network before it was up, it wouldn't have broken them. That nation endured terror campaigns just as bad as any bombing campaign we could have launched when the French first attempted to recolonize the country after WWII - people starving, torture, indiscriminate killings, occupation of cities, the whole works. When the "Christmas bombing" happened in 72 (I think it was that year, correct me if I'm off by 1), it basically had almost no effect on North Vietnamese morale, because the people had both been through worse, and they'd been expecting terror bombings of their cities since the U.S. first intervened. The right targets were air defense and their ports. Air defense protected the ports which is where they got all of what they needed to wage war. Without raw materials and weapons they cant function. Any competent military commander knows that you have to deprive your enemy of its ability to wage war but we allowed them free access to what they needed for years. BTW. I havent even gotten started on how we allowed them to use Laos and Cambodia as staging areas for years unmolested.

QUOTE(Steff @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:49 PM) The COA of NO is roughly 14% less then in Chicago, and the pay scale just under 10%.. anyone know the starting pay of Chicago's finest..?? If I remember right Chicago cops start off in the high 30's and go up to like 50K a year once they come off probation. I could be off but not by a whole lot.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:45 PM) Oh goodie, now we've got a Vietnam tactics debate. This should be fun. The problem with bombing as a tactic is that in North Vietnam, there really wasn't all that much available to bomb. Yes, we lost a ton of airmen because of the rules of engagement there, but think about this...in N.V., there were virtually no Industries during the war. Nothing in the way of factories, munitions plants, or even psychological targets that could be hit with bombing. If we flew planes over Vietnam, we were spending tens of thousands of dollars on fuel, munitions, and lost planes, in order to bomb a few hundred dollars worth of a target. (anecdote from History of Vietnam War class @ Indiana:) At one point during that war, the military claimed it had destroyed something like a billion dollars worth of North Vietnamese equipment through bombing; at the time, the estimated net worth of every piece of industry, equipment, buildings, etc., in all of North Vietnam was something like an order of magnitude less than that. The only solution to that war through bombing was going to be to bomb that entire nation into the ground, killing literally tens of millions. You simply cannot bomb away an opponent when the opponent is fabricating half his munitions from your unexploded bombs. I wont debate you that we dropped a lot of bombs and wasted a lot of gas bombing. We did. Problem was that we dropped bombs on all the wrong targets.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:43 PM) At 100x what they are paying those guys, I wouldn't want to be in some of the places we send US Military. I know it isn't the paycheck that keeps most of the guys reenlisting. Some guys are adrenaline junkies, others have families and like the job security, others like the camraderie and still others are easily bought off by re-enlistent cash. Theres a bunch of reasons why people stay in.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:31 PM) Nuke, I've often thought the same thing about you . . . Touche. At least I make more than twice what those guys are making though.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:20 PM) We didn't lose Nam because LBJ was a moron. We lost because our military tactics were out-of-date and entirely useless in that type of war. We failed to adapt (until after Nam, anyway). I beg to differ. Johnson placed large swaths of North Vietnam off limits to US bombing. This allowed the North to build what was regarded as the worlds most formidable air defense network which cost the lives of hundreds of US pilots. Air Force commanders literally begged Johnson to allow them to take out those missile sites before they became operational but he refused. Additionally, North Vietnamese ports were also placed off limits to bombing and mining by the Navy. This allowed the North unrestricted access to the raw materials and weapons from the Soviet Union to wage war with. When Nixon finally allowed ports in the north to be mined they were at the bargaining table within 6 months because, simply, they ran out of what they needed to keep fighting. EDIT: You are right though about outdated tactics being a problem there. Too many Generals were trying to re-fight WW2.

How about that oldies song. Thats about damn near all I could make out from the whole song. Whoever sung that must have been high as a kite.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 12:02 PM) But what happens when torturing 1 person prevents 1 suicide bomber from getting where he's going, but it motivates 1000, or 10000 more people to begin to work/fight against America? Years of hateful teaching is what motivates people to take up arms against America not Johnny Jihad who got beat up in a back room somewhere.

We could have won Vietnam in 6 months if LBJ wasn't a moron. His mismanagement of the war cost us a ton of lives and allowed the North to win.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 11:42 AM) Except even the Israelis don't torture. Because it doesn't work. And I don't think that anyone has more experience dealing with suicide bombers than these people. LOL! Do you really believe the Mossad doesn't torture people? I HIGHLY doubt that.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 11:01 AM) So because the French say it's OK, mean it's OK? Torture is never acceptable IMHO. I do believe that there are some moral absolutes. And torturing someone for any reason is one of those No-Nos that I live by. If torturing terrorists saves one innocent life, prevents 1 suicide bomber from getting where hes going, stops one shooting before it starts, prevents one governmental official from being assassinated then its justified. I wont shed a single tear for people who hate America and want to kill as many of us as they possibly can.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 11:04 AM) Of course, they also only get paid 18k/year to start, in one of the highest crime cities in the country. They might as well be begging them to become entrepreneurs. WOW! They aren't getting paid s***. You would think in a place like that they would at least give them a decent salary. Its starting to make sense why the cops there are s***bags. Why would a smart, motivated young man/woman want to chase bad guys around for a crap salary when there's far better and safer ways to make a living?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1378454 I thought this was interesting. EDIT: Someone please fix that typo in my thread title. Thanks.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 09:51 AM) I forgot these guys were screwed up before the hurricane. Great point. This may be a blessing for the NO police department, unless it was the crooked, corrupt ones that stayed at their post. Somehow I dont think that corrupt cops would stay around when the going got tough and they were actually having to do their jobs.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 09:49 AM) "Where can we go so the Americans can't get to us?" "China" "BRILLIANT!!!!!" I think the Chinese can deal with these punks.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 08:27 AM) Where does he say that? Read the quotes in Controlled Chaos's article.

I think its really ironic and funny that Osama Bin Laden likes our chances of winning a lot better than Howard Dean does.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 07:49 AM) This depends on what we call victory. We haven't been able to stop crime in our country. Gangs terrorize neighborhoods, drive by shooting, innocent person tied to fence post and killed because he was gay, dragged behind a pick up because he was black, beaten because he dared teach an anti-religious view of our origins. So if we are trying to wipe all crime from Iraq, we can't. And much of this is criminal, we aren't fighting an army. We removed Hussein, that was a victory. But removing all the terrorist gangs? We can't. YASNY, you are right, if someone doesn't know about Viet Nam, how could they know about Iraq? Misquoting the death numbers is just plane stupid and sloppy. That's why I thought Kerry had a better handle on what to do in Iraq. He fought in Viet Nam, He had people shooting at him. Bush stayed stateside, occasionally flying a plane. Who had the better clue? In Vietnam we fought with both hands tied behind our backs. The politicians lost us that war not the military. In Iraq the military is being given more or less free reign to fight. Apples meet oranges.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2005 @ Dec 6, 2005 -> 10:15 PM) I hear the Steelers O-line has had a lot of trouble generating consistent pass protection for Big Ben. Brown and Ogunleye should dominate. LOL If their offensive line doesn't play the game of their lives they're gonna have to carry off Big Ben.........one piece at a time.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 7, 2005 -> 05:15 AM) Howard Dean. What a joke. This guy had the nerve to compare it to Viet Nam as an unwinnable war. He's certainly an expert on history and the Viet Nam War. He said something along the lines of 25000 young Americans lost their lives in Nam. Considering the number was closer to 50000 tells you this dips*** doesn't have a clue about the Viet Nam War, and therefore probably knows jacks*** about Iraq. Howard Dean doesn't know very much, doesn't want to know very much and never will. He's there to do just what he's doing and thats make outrageous comments just like that in order to stir up his base and get the same leftist retards who gave him money online to do the same for the party as a whole. Hes a hack and nothing more.