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War: What Can Technology Do For Us?
Both the first Bush and the Clinton administrations, from Desert Storm to Kosovo, advanced the idea of conflict with little civilian loss and few casualties of our own. But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history. Still, the military analysts, network pundits and Pentagon officials are going to great lengths to point out that Taliban and fundamentalist fighters are skilled and determined, that this conflict will be long and difficult, that our expectations should be kept realistic. And bin Laden is a surprisingly agile enemy. He not only grasps America's most vulnerable points, he understands "spinning," using video-imagery and satellite transmission to get his side of the story out. This is something Saddam never began to grasp.
But are our expectations realistic? Are we once again overrating our own technology, and underestimating less sophisticated cultures and populations? Most Americans have been prepared for years to place enormous faith in a range of new technologies that are supposed to make us the most powerful military force in world history. Sophisticated technologies devastated the Iraqi military in Desert Storm. While their results were more controversial in the Kosovo action, there remained little American loss of life. The bloody action in Somolia showed us yet again that technology is not effective if it can't be used for political or military reasons. And Panama and Grenada resembled police actions more than military conflicts.
In this new war, though, it seems clear that American forces will be involved in some sort of ground fighting on Afghanistan's murderous terrain, and that would mean a battle more reminiscent of Vietnam than Kuwait.
What can technology do for us? Can GPS targeting systems really place bombs that accurately? Can intelligence analysts in the U.S. instantly track raw data without leaving their offices? Can civilian populations really be protected? Can thermal imaging and satellite surveillance see into caves or track small units in mountainous terrains? Can government computers follow money around the world? Will our soldiers' tech-equipped vehicles, equipment and weapons give them an edge over the the Russians, who were chewed to bits in their conflict with Afghanistan guerrillas, but whose equipment was comparatively primitive? Have we actually developed a new mix of tech-supported human and machine warfare that is deadly, flexible and effective?
From reading the papers and watching the generals on TV, we see confidence from the military that the answers to most of these questions is yes. But the people reading this have a much better than average grasp of these tech issues. Do you agree? What can tech do for us -- or not do -- in this supposedly new era?
...this kind of war!
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For $600,000 a pop we can rearrange the rocks in Afghanistan. Probably a good read would be Starship Troopers (skip the really dumb movie) Technology vs. experience + fighting on their home turf + emotional value of fighting for their way of life (however you want to define it) and the result is move very, very carefully. Also, the country is littered with mines from 10+ years of war, which are redistributed with each rockslide along mountain trails. Something to think about.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It will give us the slight edge we need. And on the battle field and edge is a good edge.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
One of the things that tech should NOT do.. given that part of this is human failure.. is give the other side an advantage by letting him know our plans. Sometimes I wish I could just reach out and smack some reporter who, by quick use of Email and communications, trumpets his "scoop" about what we're doing, and where, before the operation is complete. Hey, goons, our side isn't the ONLY ones watching your reports!
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
War: What Is It Good For? ;-)
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
War is a terrible thing but some good seems to come out of it as well as many rotting corpses. Many technologies are developed primarily out of the neccesities brought about by war. War tends speeds up the development of weapons and other related technologies. For example, during WWII powers such as Germany, and especially the United States raced toward the development of an A bomb. I believe that it would have been many years before the development of an atom bomb if it weren't for the war. I reason that there wasn't an immediate demand for this technology therefore its development would have been delayed. Other examples I can think of is the jet engine developed by the Germans and Radar I believe the British I know they used but unsure if they developed. (Guess I should pay more attention to Discovery channel's Wings)
I think that regardless of how remote we can get from killing things with our machines, we need to keep the perspective that we're still killing people.
I think a lot of people miss that point when you watch it on television or a computer screen.
Technology can provide many seemingly incredible weapons, but they're useless if they can't be relied on to work.
For example, I recall seeing somewhere that the Apache helicopter needed servicing so frequently it wasn't of much practical use...can anyone confirm/deny this ?
Disturbing that 4 U.N. workers were reported killed in last nights attack. These people were clearing mines. It would seem that with all of our GPS goodies and intelligence that we would try to eliminate their location as a target area.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Well one life could have already been lost in this war, had the spy plane that was supposedly shot down not been remote controlled, there would have already been a casualty. The job of spying is always risky business, and better we risk a machine than risk a human. So perhaps there is one area where technology has helped the millitary.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
These new techologies might save most of the Western world from being conscripted to go and fight out in Asia, but what about the people we're fighting? Technology hasn't really done them any favors. A war with less casualties? Perhaps, but probably only ever on our side. Ditching technology seems to have been one of the routes taken in Afghanistan. Apparently Usama Bin Laden has decided to go with the low-tech route of passing messages by running courier so that the US services can't spy on him as easily!
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I think this war may prove to be much more costly and long that any of the talking head may say, for two reasons: It's going to involve ground war, no matter what, because of the terrain involved. And there isn't a lot of technology to show you who's in a cave on the other side of the next hill. Also, if the U.S. proceeeds in this to the extent I think they may, then there will be continued uprisings by people in neighboring nations, which could very well result in war from multiple sides, which can only escalate until cooler heads prevail.
I don't feel that this war's outcome can be adequately predicted based on military conflicts we've had in the past. For one, this military action has a the vast majority of the population behind it, and it's likely to stay that way. Second, we have a much clearer objective going into this: Kill the terrorists. Most of our recent military actions have had fuzzier objectives. This time we're not trying to get anyone to surrender, we're concentrating on eliminating the terrorists.
Of course, if anyone has any thoughts to the contrary I'd be interested in hearing 'em.
no kidding. "Excuse me, general, would you mind telling us, in detail, how this operation is going to be carried out?"
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Whatever technology the Taliban have is surely overpowered by our high-tech military devices and machinery. The main thing we have to worry about is those bastards that are hiding in the underground tunnels... there is no easy way to 'flush them out' or send a few bombs in there to cave them in. The russians have tried this already, with earthquake bombs, vaccuum bombs and more. All we can do is hope that our troops realize that the Taliban, unlike us, is NOT going to play by the rules.
Last night on CNN a military official said (paraphrase) "We're running out of targets to hit."
The war in Afganistan isn't our big concern. Our greatest threat comes from within and is directed at our fundamental freedoms.
Most of the technology developed in the last 10 years has been related to gathering, storing and analyzing data. The hopeful goal is to produce information from the raw data. This is probably where we'll see the most benefit from any technology applied to Bin Laden and company. Current technology won't keep a plane from flying into a building, won't protect a water supply from any and all toxic chemicals, or keep people from contracting diseases due to biological weapon activation.
On the other hand, technology can help us gather information about who is doing what and where they're doing it. Could it stand some improvement? You bet. You can also bet that there's a whole lot of scrambling going on in the various intelligence agencies to improve any of their technologies that may have lagged in recent years.
"For it is the doom of men that they forget."
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Sure, war may drive technological change, but do we really want to be benefitting from death and distruction? Especially when we have a peaceful alternative that has resulted in faster internet connection speeds, the acceptance of DVDs, and the spread of the internet itself?
Yes, I'm talking about porn. Wanting free, anonymous porn everywhere has resulted in widespread internet access, even if its dialup to a local number at unlimited rates (in the US). Wanting high-quality pirated porn movies has resulted in the spread of broadband. And for viewing porn in the privacy of your own home, nothing beats DVDs, especially since they won't wear away the tape if you pause and keep viewing the same few minutes of certain "adult" videos.
Sure, you can talk about war all you want, but porn will drive further technological changes. Voice recognition software is perfect for hands-free browsing and other computer usage. Interactive movies will be another idea driven by porn. And don't even ask about what fully interactive virtual reality would be good for.
As the Dead Kennedy's sang "Kinky sex makes the world go round!"
Hopefully we will be able to eradicate many diseases with the understanding of the human genome and stem cell research. That would be a good start. Fossil fuels should not be a dependency in a technology based society. If we could liberate ourselves in this sense, then maybe we would be more willing to practice less aggressive foreign policy in the Mid East. Perhaps develop better ways to provide potable water to areas in drought and disaster relief?
I could think of many that would help 'us' without focusing on weapons of mass destruction.
pronoblem
Let's face it, it's not going to be an easy task if we send in the grunts. But do we actually have to? If the ruskies give the Northern Alliance enough support and we keep the worst of the Taleban hardware at bay then I would suggest to you that OBL will be facing the wrong end of the Northern Alliances big stick, given time. They want him just as badly as the allies do, lets not forget that. Let's help them to help us.
my other sig is written in brainfuck
Jon- We love you and all....but you're really dumb.
Here are some interesting charts showing how war and technology are blood brothers. As technology advances, we increase our ability to kill more people, at a faster rate.
Indeed, this idea applies even to non-war machines and technology that is not directly tied to war. For example, with the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks, the killing was made possible using a regular old plane. However, the plane is a technology exemplar. The plane, in many ways, defines so much technology. The commercial planes were not meant for war or killing, yet they did kill many people.
As technology increases, we will see more death. However, the death will come from humans using and abusing technology. That is always the way it has been. Humans kill other humans. Technology just helps.
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We should use nukes.
0 .h tml
There is an article at wirednews titled "Nuke 'Em From On High"
http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47319,0
A couple excerpts of note:
******
The most likely candidate is a tactical micro-nuke called the B61-11, an earth-penetrating nuclear device known as the "bunker buster."
******
The design directs the force of the B61-11's explosive energy downward, destroying everything buried beneath it to a depth of several hundred meters, according to a story in the March 2, 1997 issue of Defense News.
******
Any debate inside the corridors of power about using tactical nukes will be heightened by the intelligence buzz surrounding bin Laden's possible ownership of Russian nuclear "suitcase" bombs purchased from Chechen mafia.
Those weapons are said to be hidden in deep caves and fortified tunnels in remote regions of Afghanistan.
******
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
Anything BUT peace will it bring us. It will ONLY bring pain, sorrow, hatred and more MISUNDERSTANDING.
The Western World should instead of retalliating the consquences do something about its origins. And those origins are not the terrorist fractions, but rather the way we treat them.
Violence creates more violence. Remember that.
Three guys, a Canadian, Osama Bin Ladin and Uncle Sam are out walking
together one day. They come across a lantern and a Genie pops out of it.
"I will give each of you each one wish, that's three wishes total," says
the Genie.
The Canadian says, "I am a farmer, my dad was a farmer, and my son
will also farm. I want the land to be forever fertile in Canada."
With a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' the land in Canada was
forever made fertile for farming.
Osama Bin Ladin was amazed, so he said, "I want a wall around
Afghanistan, so that no infidels, Jews or Americans can come into our
precious state."
Again, with a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' there was a huge wall
around Afghanistan.
"Uncle Sam" (A former civil engineer), asks,
"I'm very curious. Please tell me more about this wall."
The Genie explains, "Well, it's about 15,000 feet high, 500 feet thick
and completely surrounds the country; nothing can get in or
out---virtually impenetrable."
"Uncle Sam" says, "Fill it with water."
Either that or when we do get OSL, give him a sex change operation and send him back a woman!
Upon encountering a snake in the Area of Operation (AO):
It seems to me that the best way technology can assist us in this matter is improved surveillance... My friend was telling me about cheap un-manned spy planes that the U.S. has been using. The more we know about the targets, the more likely we are to only damage critical areas and drastically reduce the number of innocnet deaths.
This war will be neither. I'll wage that small teams of highly trained commando's will be used instead of large forces like in 'nam. America can and will not be trapped in another situation like that.
Besides.. this time they are after a terrorist and it's hosts not an entire country. And of course... it will not be the US alone. Don't forget that allmost half the entire world is standing behind the US. Off course.. if it takes too long support will weaken with the day...
In the end nothing will have changed though. Bin Laden will just be replaced by someone smarter. Smarter because he knows what he can expect. More intelligent because he will probably use more sophisticated means, not nescesarily technologically sophisticated but sophisticated nonetheless.
All our technology in spite we will never be able to root out all terrorism. Whatever kind of goggles we use...
One point: The Russians were chewed to bits by the Afghan guerrillas because the Afgans had our support, first in the form of funding and Russian-made weapons to disguise or involvement, then we flat out gave them our tech-equipped weapons (the stinger missiles, which were deadly effective in neutralizing the Russian's helicopters).
Personally, I'm going to trust our military strategists and their technology and hope that they know what they're doing, because right now there's not much else I can do otherwise except for carry on with my life as best as I can.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
We (Americans) has the best trained military the world has ever seen. But we will not mount a ground assult without air support. The bombs are being used to take out AA guns, SAM sites, Air fields, comunications and electricty. Air Power can not and will not win a war alone. It is a joint effort of all bratchs of the military.
That being said, this will not be an easy war. These are grizzled fighters, fighting for what they believe. We have made alies with the Northen Allience and most of the other countries in the world. The conscrips that the Talbin has forced into service have already started to desert to the north. These people know the land and will will this war for us.
nuf said
Sanchi
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
As usual, Katz incisive and thought provoking (NOT) analysis of the situation leaves one breathless...
What are laser-guided bombs, satellite guided missiles, penetrating sensor systems, stealth planes, etc?
Force Multipliers.
But anything times zero is still zero.
The core of this, and every other conflict, is the soldier. The core of any operation involving taking ground and holding it, or in denying that ground to an enemy, is the infantry. Poor, thankless, cold, and tired infantry. Some poor shmuck (possibly quite well educated nowadays) a long way from home, in a nasty situation, with some people out to kill him and maybe some friends he's trying to keep alive. And hoping he'll get out in one piece and hoping he'll have dry socks.
This isn't a _new_ kind of war. It's a very _old_ kind of war - what is going on in Afghanistan today is a conventional war - suppression of air defenses prior to ground action. This war (like many others back many millenia) will be fought by conventional and unconventional means.
Will technology make a difference? It'll help. Being able to see at night is a big plus. Having comms and fire support and airborne mobility are pretty big assets. But ultimately, it'll be skirmishers, light infantry and special operations forces that will go toe to toe with the terrorists in the hilly backcountry of Afghanistan. All the technology in the world won't change that reality.
And will the allied forces get their asses kicked? Maybe they'll take some hits (probably some boys will be dying... this is always the cost of fighting an implacable enemy such as the terrorists are...). But the allied military forces have learned a lot from the Russian experiences and they've learned a lot in conflicts around the world in the last 10 years (Kosovo, Sarajevo, Bosnia, The Gulf, etc.) about how new conflicts are fought, their horrors, and their risks.
Ultimately, they will prevail against a government that does not enjoy unified support from its people because it is corrupt and because it abuses its populace. But don't ever think they have prevailed because of some wazoo technology.
They will have prevailed because some farm boy from Iowa was willing to bust his ass training to be a Green Beret and because he's willing to lay that same ass on the line for what he believes in and to do what it takes, wherever in the world that may be, to get the job done and make the world a safer place for his fellow citizens. That farm boy's guts and training and sacrifice will be what carries the day, as always.
God Bless America (and I'm not even 'Merican!)
Tomb Raider
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Microwaves! They will fry any electronics or living beings. If we have any idea bin laden is in a hill somewhere, just get a bunch of Microwave dishes and burn him to a crisp. Clean, cheap and no one will know any different because there is no crater. Sure, all the dead animals would be a sign *something* happened but there would be no crater!
There is no way we're going to be able to search every cave in Afghanistan, but we can use Microwaves to cook us some Taliban!
Since the 1st world war the USA soldiers are addicts to be in the back of machines to avoid face-to-face combats. This has been envolving since then, and looking to the military actions made by the USA in the last century, it becomes clear that the only option for the USA is to use machines instead of brains and soldiers - most attacks suffer from bad intelligence and extreme disorganization (normandy, panama, vietnam, corea, japan and nicaragua, just to name a few, are some witnesses of the undoubtful USA military incompetence).
Our mighty technological superiority over Iraq was useful until we beat them down till we had no more targets large enough to justify using half million dollar missles on. At that point, you send in the ground troops, and incur casualties. Afghanistan is already at the point where ground troops are necessary, so our tech doesn't give that big of a percentage advantage. Look for 20 to 1 kill ratios (U.S. to Osama) when the fighting gets up close and personal, rather than the zero casualties we are used to.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
The use of technology in warfare means that the days of drop-and-pray bombing are over, precision GPS and laser guided missles mean that targets can be singled out and destroyed without needing to destroy the whole area so there are going to be fewer civillian casualties.
A lot of people died in the Sept. 11 attacks and the retaliation attacks will cause more deaths no matter how accurate the weapons are. The only reason we can sit here and debate these issues is because the bombs aren't targetting our buildings.
The only way to achieve the same level of technological advancement without the war-driven invention craze is for everyone to work together on a common goal, but given the track-record of human interaction that's not likely to happen anytime soon is it?
Think about it, we'd probably have clean-burning fuel and personal aircraft now if people worked together instead of fighting all the time.
I think it's pretty obvious he is talking about the 5,000 or so civilians killed at the WTC.
WTF!!
Offtopic?
This was funny. You moderators suck ass. If I had some points, I'd move this up.
Shitheads.
Here is how technology can really help. If we combine current e-book technology with high density storage like C-3D we can create a device that can store lots of books in a small space.
Make millions of them. Get every text possible stored onto the media. Drop them all over the middle east, but most importantly Pakistan and Afghanistan. It would probably be useful to dump them all over the "stan's".
There are a few logistical problems (like how to power them consistently), but a small device can be easily hidden. Libraries are more difficult to hide. An e-book and its media could be stuffed under a brick, behind a stove, in the rafters easily.
Saturate them with knowledge. Send the good with the bad.
Hey, if we are clever, we can even make the e-books play video. Then we can send really subversive stuff, like episodes of "Friends!," "Soap," "All in the Family," "Days of Our Lives," "The OJ Trial."
Bringing the perpetrators of this crime to justice is important, but educating the world is more important. In the long run, enabling education will help us more than destroying infrastructure.
TNT
Brad Tittle
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
I guess the point that I am making is that most of our communications tech (at least the civilian stuff) was not made with wartime in mind. Hell I can just imagine what kind of information could be garnered by a good hacker with a portable with boosted up wireless card on it. Hell even a van with jamming equipent driving through most major cities cutting off cell phone calls would create massive havoc. And these are just some ideas I had on the spur of the moment wihtout knowing the ins and outs of a lot of these system.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
I took his reference to be to the 5,000+ dead here in the US - which qualifies as dreadful in my book.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
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Whether or not technology is going to be the deciding factor in this particular conflict is debatable. It does seem likely, though.
Consider the weapons which we have which (as far as we know) no other nation can even touch; The highly engineered fuel-air bombs with kiloton yield, stealth fighters, 2,000 mile range cruise missiles which can follow roads, flying low, and pop through your bedroom window... literally. When they get there (and I'm talking about tomahawks here) they can deliver a nuke, EMP, high explosive, antipersonnel, et cetera. How's that to really put the cap on your bad day?
Now, this is the technology that we know about. Some of it we know about because it became inconvenient to hide, and some of it we know about because the military wants to brag about how big its stones are. But think about how long some of this stuff was around before we really knew anything about it, or in some cases, anything. Think about what the military must have that they're not even telling us about.
On the other hand, Bin Laden lives a fairly low-tech life. Many of the methods we would ordinarily employ to locate someone will not work because of this. Ultimately, however, I think the pressure we're putting on the nation will lead us to him. Whether or not he's actually the one responsible for the attacks is a seperate issue. I personally don't care; He's a known (and admitted) terrorist, responsible for the deaths of [relative] innocents, and he should be killed. While I'm against the death penalty in most situations, sometimes someone is just too dangerous to be allowed to live. Better thee than me.
On top of all this; We trained most of these people, either directly or indirectly. We know how they operate, and we know just what level of technology they posess, and in most cases exactly what kind of gear they have, because they got it from us. We have both the technological and information edges on these people. You can further bet your ass that there's a significant number of "spy" satellites hanging out over these areas right now, just checking out anything that looks interesting. It might take us a while, but it is only a matter of time. Also, as a final point, consider that the US government, or at least influential pieces of it, is/are completely ruthless. This is merely something it has in common with almost every other government. While perhaps not a Good Thing (tm), it is occasionally useful.
Like the mounties...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One thing I really hope we learned first from Vietnam and second from the Russian attack on Afghanastan is that you cannot fight unconventional forces with conventional forces. The Afghans have a very well oiled guerilla force. The Soviets spent 6 years fruitlessly trying to fight an army that wasn't really there.
:).
It wasn't until 1986 when the soviets realized they needed to match their forces and began sending in Spetznatz (Special Forces) units instead of traditional forces. They were tremendously sucessful, and by some accounts pretty much had the war won. At that point Reagan stepped in and gave the Afghan forces American Technology, principally lots of Stinger missles. New weapons were enough to turn the tide of the war and the Soviets spent the next two years in a somewhat controlled retreat.
Be careful who you think your friends are, as our own Stinger missles are currently considered the biggest threat to the safety of American planes in Afghanastan.
Our targeted strikes are merely to knock out known defenses and to destabilize the infrastructure. The only way we can flush out their military will be with on the ground special forces.
The biggest thing that I fear is that the US will renig on their commitment to rebuild Afghanastan once we are done blowing it up. If we do not make the investment to rebuild Afghanastan to a stable and capable society, then we will merely be back where we began.
Remember that's how the Taliban came to power. Afghanastan was obliterated by the Soviets. It was an Anarchistic country dominated by local warlords, and ripe for a unifying force to take brutal control. Starving and desperate populations are the breeding ground for violent dictators: Witness numerous 20th Century european countries (names withheld to avoid invoking net flame degredation rules
Enjoy,
Chris
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
In this conflict there has already been over 5,000+ casualties all taken with arguably tow tech weapons (never thought I'd consider a 767 a weapon.) IMHO, if you depend on tech solely you venture into dangerous territory. You must also cary resolve.
Read about it here:
Oil
It worked for Saddam in the Gulf conflict, using dummy bases so the allied coalition would attack them instead of hidden, real missile sites.
We should not let technology be a substitute for sound strategy and planning.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
Readers were stunned to learn that Jon Katz, "controversial" columnist at the declining website slashdot.org, posted an article that questioned the use of technology.
The article in question, titled "War: What Can Technology Do for Us?" shocked any remaining readers by suggesting that technology may, in fact, not be a panacea for the ills that plague humanity.
Slashdot.org refused to comment when contacted. A reply was received by Katz, however the text of Katz's reply is unfortunately too lengthy to reprint.
...who develop and use it.
For example, it obviously does not prevent the US forces from bombing the wrong target, e.g. Chinese embassy in Belgrad or the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.
Just a side note (from a European point of view).
Don't be ridiculous.
One: the deaths were reported by who exactly? Yes. Thanks.
Two: what the hell are they still doing there next to an obvious target (the airport) after the same place had been bombed the day before?
Darwin.
I don't know all the details, but they were in a mine field during a war. To me is seems that a minefield is a military defense and a valid target.
Don't get me wrong, mine clearing is a noble task and the loss was unfortinate but not entirely suprising.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
The media onslaught is just like the "number" movies '1984' or 'Fahrenheit 451'. The media brags about some high-tech onslaught against some evil external threat. You see very little diverse opinion in the media, and the people who have offered some have paid (e.g. Bill Maher). Ironically, Orwell and Bradbury predicted that a dictatorial state would be necessary to impose such a uniform view, whereas in the present case the "silo-vision" seems to be emerging from all levels- the viewers, the media providers and the government.
On the other hand, the beauty of the net is that I can see the analysis almost totally absent from US media by reading European and Asian web papers.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
It is quite possible that the Taliban just blew up this building with their own morters/artillery or bombs to create some misinformation for the press corps on site. Remember, this is War.
I forsee that in the next few weeks we will have eliminated most of the decent military targets that the Taliban have, and to be fair there aren't that many.
once that is done the only tech edge we will have left is in intelligance. It is important to monitor radio traffic (and triangulate positions of the transmitters) watch troop movements etc. What it sounds like the game planfrom there is from theree is to continue to seed destablization in the country (read: Fund northern alliance).
the fallicy here is will deposing the Taliban give us Osama, hard to say but it should make other rogue states think twice before harbouring a known terrorist
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
When Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, we responded not by becoming independent from fossil fuels but by establishing a permanent military presence in Islamic holy lands. Even then we were warned by ibn Laden of the consequences of our actions. Even now he is saying that America will not be safe until we leave their holy lands. He has factually and impassionately stated both the problem and the only acceptable solution. He hasn't even the slightest fantasy of taking over America. He just wants us to leave them alone. Sounds simple to me. However, both Papa Bear Bush and Little Bear Bush are oilmen whose pockets are lined by the richest corporations. How many more Americans will these two gentlemen (a term I use loosely) sacrifice with their greed-driven ideologies?
I am disappointed in Little Bear Bush for lying to us once again. During his speech (9/11 or 9/12), he stated that we will use every tool at our disposal, including diplomacy. Time and again, the leaders of the Taleban have stated their desire to speak with us, which fits the dictionary definition of diplomacy. Time and again, Bush and company have rejected the Taleban's proposals. Bush's idea of diplomacy is apparently as screwy as his handle on compassion.
On a side note, we may be witnessing the beginning of an Anthrax outbreak. This is poetic, considering that most Americans are "following the flock" with meaningless flag-waving and spouting of rhetoric.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
If anything technology will save a few American (military) lives in battle. It's not 100% but what is?
Snoozer.
Hahahahaha! I love seeing the naive getting called on their bullshit. While the death of UN aid workers is a tragedy, there is no such thing as a war without civilian casualties.
a tw a.htm
Before you start criticizing individual acts within a war, look at the big picture first. What would cost more? Action or inaction?
And for those of you who believe that Osama is a reasonable man, please go over to FAS.org and read this:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-f
...you just go ahead and try reasoning with this asshole. Those are his words, read them well. He is not a resonable man, and his ideals are not compatible with the existance of any other type of civilization.
Fremen vs Harkonian
Excuse me, but this whole thing, from beginning to every minute of every day that this continues makes me sick.
Goodbye karma, but what's the good of it anyway?
Tom.
Oh arse
While we may loose some lives, and I don't intend to downplay the seriousness of this, it is probably not going to be militarily significant. That is, it won't change the real outcome.
The plain simple fact is that not only do we have vastly more and better equipment, but we also have vastly more and better trained people. Some of them will be lost, the the outcome is not in doubt.
The only thing in doubt is our will to see this through. In the past we have not had the will. After the first few body bags, we run home with our tail between our legs. And that is partly why Sept 11 occured. There is no credible belief that we'll do really very much about it. We'll drop a few bombs, and then when the first few body bags arrive, we'll run home.
After the Sept 11 outrange, we may now have the will. And this, I believe, is Osama's miscalculation.
Another one is this. He may grasp how to use PR to spin his side. But it seems to me that each PR bit he has released has stired our side to even more anger. And we may be able to counter spin his own remarks in front of the Arab world. That remains to be seen.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The greatest "technology" about war was written
by Sun Tzu about 2000 years ago. It is very much
up to date and definitive reading for anybody
serious about waging war.
What are the aims of this war ? Will we really
manage to wipe out the murderers or will we be looked up on as murderers and just increase the
risk of more bloodshed ?
Maybe this war could have been won without using
bombs at all ? By addressing the real issues instead. It is worrying to see that Osama bin Laden actually is gaining new supporters these days, it seems to be me that the US is doing exactly what he wanted them to do.
Food for thought. Maybe bin Laden is the guy who
is using technology to his advantage in this war ?
I know, I know, it's just Katz rabble-rousing and I should lower my expectations, but what is the basis for this statement:
"Most Americans are convinced that technology -- GPS targeting systems, thermal imaging, new intelligence retrieval systems, pilotless drone reconnaisance aircraft, high-altitude bombers, special forces equipped with goggles than can see into caves -- will carry the day for us. Will it? What can technology really do for us in this new war?"
Everything I have read, viewed or heard in the media, every poll I have seen, and every live human I have spoken with in the weeks since September 11 supports precisely the opposite proposition - the general public DOES NOT BELIEVE that technology gives the US/Allies the advantage in this war; it will be won, if at all, by traditional human intelligence, gritty casualty-producing ground combat, determination, and patience. And I don't hear anyone underestimating the low-tech Afghan mujahedeen.
Where are the "most Americans" who believe this is a magic tech silver bullet war? I don't see or hear them anywhere.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
The most distinctive feature of American-style warfare in the recent past was our extreme aversion to casualties, which developed during Viet Nam. Our development of high-tech warfare was motivated at least in part by this. In the wake of 9-11 that fear has become irrelevant, and we're going to be applying miltech in new and interesting ways.
Tactically (thanks to the elusive nature of the enemy), the war we're in now is all about intelligence gathering, which we have developed to a high degree technologically while leaving more conventional man-on-the-scene methods behind. The question is whether technology alone can compensate. I suspect that it can to a much higher degree than people might suspect, especially in the mountains of Afghanistan, but in order for it to be really effective (especially in populated areas), we'll need the new capability to put a bug/bot-on-the-scene.
Of course I don't really know how effective our tech will be in this war, but one thing is for sure - we'll soon find out.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
If this technology does exist (perhaps via earth-mapping satellites), this could make a huge difference. Then all the US would have to do is systemattically destroy any cave entrences to remove the hiding spots and flush them out where they could be spied on with conventional observasion techniques.
science is a religion
Once you seal up the US as "secure" through surveillance and tracking, the "interfaces" to the US will also required to be secured, and those nations that do not engage in similar practices will simply be part of the "them". No one is going to risk lowering security through transitivity.
Note that I am not being cynical about this - in this instance, racial profiling and surveillance based on that profiling would have worked. We know its not the 70 year old granny from Boca Raton that is seeding the water supply with poisons. We should use that information to make better guesses about who is tracked.
Welcome to the Panopticon!
Dont forget that all this technology is phenomenally expensive.
During the Persian Gulf war about 600,000 persons were killed at a reported cost of about $1,000,000 per casualty. (My own calculation based on news reports and the French casualty estimates.)
Remember the defense contractors benefit from this, and, to be fair, so does our economy.
Is it the best application of our tax money?
I keep my info in a house.
"Help him! Help the programmer!"
If you start reading the global press, you start to get the sense that perhaps a *lot* of the mid-East is not so happy with this attack on Afghanistan, and is, in fact, quite impressed with bin Laden's video monologue.
Nearest I can figure is that this "war" on the rubble of Afghanistan is going to just create an excuse for more terrorist attacks against US civilians.
Ol' Dubya has just initiated a tit-for-tat war of attrition. This is not going to be a good time to be an American citizen.
And, finally, an interesting bit of thought from Michael Moore:
"Orwell warned us about this one. Big Brother, in order to control the population, knew that it was necessary for the people to always believe they were in a state of siege, that the enemy was getting closer and closer, and that the war would take a very long time.
That is EXACTLY what George W. Bush said in his speech to Congress, and the reason he said it is because he and his buddies want us all in such a state of fear and panic that we would gladly give up the cherished freedoms that our fathers and those before them fought and died for. Who wouldn't submit to searches, restrictions of movement, and the rounding up of anyone who looks suspicious if it would prevent another September 11?
In order to get these laws passed that will strip us of our rights, they have been telling us that we are in a LONG and PROTRACTED war that has no end in sight."
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I dunno what news channel Katz watches, but what I see, over and over, is the government telling us how this war will be different. In Afghanistan, they tell us how few targets there are and how little the bombing can do besides take out some anti-aircraft weapons, some terrorist camps, some runways.
In polls and on-the-street interviews, people say they expect ground troops and special forces to be used. I think the American public definitely knows that this is not a video game war like Desert Storm.
On the news, over and over, we are told that the USA needs to get dirty and use spies and human intelligence to fight this "new cold war" (after a while this is what it will become, a cold war with occasional attacks). I think the government and the people fully understand that most of this war will not be fought with cutting-edge technology that we'll see on TV, but good old-fashioned dirty business and black ops. Sometimes tech will be used, sometimes not. Maybe we'll get a few pointers from the old KGB generals on how to play dirty and undetected?
High tech is definitely a sideline in this war.
Yeah, so we can drop a bomb down somebody's chimney, but does that make a fanatic (whos now lost his family) impressed? Does it alter his believes enough to lift the blinkers and see the pain his government is causing? No, it just makes him more determined to murder the infidel. And besides, it isnt as if theres a lot in Afghanistan to actually bomb.
In my opinion there is no way that the allied nations can win this war against terrorism. Just as hercules faced the hydra, cut off one head and (at least) another will form in its place.
Just look at northern ireland for an example. The english have been trying for years to deal with the terrorist organisations. A ceasefire is called with the IRA and another disgruntled group who disageree with the peace process entirely springs up.
The soldiers themselves, having been exposed to the troubles are now as bitter toward the terrorists as they are to them, essentially cerating 3 sides of bitterness that will never really move forward.
Until we start to apply a doctrine of politics to these people to capture the hearts and minds of the people under the regime, then fighting is pointless. And all the talk of "Reasoning is useless" or "we want payback", is clearly a knee-jerk reaction. Yes, people are hurting now, but does that justify the eye-for-an-eye mentality?
ChAoS
WARNING: May contain traces of nut
Unfortunate, yes, but even with PGM's there is going to be collateral damage. Whether it's an intelligence error, a malfunction of the targeting laser, or just debris/shrapnel from a good hit, there WILL be civilian losses. The important thing is that the number of those is only the smallest fraction of what it would've been even 20 years ago.
Technology, no matter what it is applied to, is just a bigger hammer that makes bigger things happen faster. So our technology makes more, bigger explosions more accurately in a shorter period of time. Is that an asset? I'm not sure.
...
A war isn't over until one side or another either doesn't exist anymore or is convinced that they have lost. That is the only way a war ends. This is especially true with terrorists. If there is one terrorist left out there who is still fighting to win, we haven't won!
Also, the technology is great for the US to not lose people - but we are aiming high tech weapons at low tech targets staffed by Afghanis. The US doesn't necessary have high casualties, but we are causing plenty in the targets that we hit. We can argue about whether they were civilian or not, whether some "collateral" damage is expected or not - if it's war, people die. I don't think anyone (as someone did earlier in this thread) should be arguing about whether deaths are either "deplorable" or "collateral". That's a non-argument. War sucks. Death sucks. Everyone is someone else's son or daughter, and no one wants to find out their relative is dead.
That said, this war is probably necessary. It is interesting that the key element of the decline of previous world dominating powers (Britain, Spain) can be traced at least in part to protracted, expensive wars.
We'll see if technology is stronger than human determination. Which is cheaper? Which is more flexible? Hmmmm
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much... much... better. - Laurie Anderson
It's not me who pressed the button... Or maybe: it was the robots heat detector which launched the bomb.
"I am not" responsible
How can we build better killing machines?? You could at least try to hide your fanatism by obfuscating your question in a way a scientist would do. You could hide it with something like "motion detection systems research".
I want to note that most of you here at slashdot are not looking beyond their own shadows and that most of you are just some republican fascist militants. Maybe we should think a little more and spread a little less hatred?
Yes, I know, there were bombings in the US. But are you sure you are gonna solve the problem by dropping bombs onto some dry mountains, where people see those bombings as a proof of their beliefs. Ask the communists (the bastards with the big bombs) what they experienced in afghanistan.
I know this posting will be flamed and moderated down. I hope you are all intelligent, smart, geek guys, who can rest a minute behind their keyboard trying to think about what is happening, instead of reacting like fanatic republican fascists, trying to hide their fundamentalistic christian attiutudes from themselves.
/.
When we built all these fancy weapons, I thought they'd be used in a reasonably fair fight - that is, we'd send the tomahawks against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics when they delivered their promised global revolution.
I didn't write all that code so that we could use it to kick over some mud huts in a stone-age nation bent on recreating a 16th century theocracy.
Granted, our jingoistic, bloodthirsty, home-grown perpetrators of atrocities are going after people of similar moral virtue, so at least we aren't knocking off Lapps, Tuvans or Bushmen... but I'd still like to see a fair fight. Let Bush and all his hawk buddies go fight a ground war, like the one he dodged in Viet Nam. I'll be happier about funding that, especially if we can use all-volunteer armies and ban all weapons more sophisticated than a bow and arrow.
Why can't all these warmongering bastards sate their bloodlust without bringing my nice clean superweapons into their dirty little terrorist tit-for-tat?
--Charlie
...let's think about what war has done for technology.
Look at the myriad advances made in aviation during WWII. Those advances were made because they had to be made if we were to offset the more advanced tech of the Nazis (Panzer tanks, superior artillery, and the V1 and V2 rockets were the forerunners of today's ICBMs). The British came up with the Spitfire and the bouncing bomb, the US fielded the flying fortress and made huge leaps in bombsight tech.
Then of course there's the nuclear weaponry that evolved during WWII and the Cold War.
One incremental advance in our age is that the US is not placing nearly as much stock in laser-guided munitions as they did in 1991. Now it seems they're relying on GPS to guide bombs to their targets.
I wonder what technological advances we might see due to war, either now or in the future?
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
I imagine a dung beetle thinking to himself, "Why would anyone go to so much trouble to move my favorite rock?"
If you have good technology, you can be really annoying to dung beetles.
ABC News article: "Abu Sayyaf
Bush's education improvements were
I think the experience of the last decade should give us a very clear answer to this question. Technology will not solve this problem, or its like, for us.
Our gadgets might be very useful in immobilizing an opponent that relies on sophisticated infrastructure, like we do. But when Rumsfeld and his generals speak of knocking out "command and control structures" in Afghanistan, the US Government's structural inability to even understand this kind of situation gets a nice bright underline. It's the same kind of mentality that insists the best road to security for the US is a multi-trillion dollar shield against ICBMs.
We've destroyed Afghanistan's meager air and air defense capabilities. All our cruise missiles and precision munitions can do for us now is make us look like cowards attacking what must rank as one of the most unfortunate countries on earth, with goals that are clear to no one.
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim "
You're not kidding. This is not a typical war, concerning borders and $$. Osama's goal is simple - Americans have to die. And I suspect, to fuck goats, although it wasn't mentioned in the article.
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
The Sept 11 gang was in the US for a long time soaking up our vices, and one of them was even observed in a porn shop. Beer and tits didn't give them pause. In fact its likely that they had the same reaction most intolerant people do - they soaked up the porn, but later in the guilt phase it probably made them hate the US more for presenting them with the means to betray their faith.
I've been reading and listening to just about everything I possibly can on this, and the more I learn, the more hopeless it looks. Sure, maybe we can take out most of al-Qaida, but then what? I am gladdened to see the US govm't responding in ways that are not strictly military, I believe that's necessary. But, I worry that crazies around the world with grudges have seen that they have the power to cause great harm to just about any nation they choose. To truly combat that will require privacy for none.
Uh...HELLO? One of the objects of war is to NOT get your own people killed!
The crux of the problem is that nearly 1/3 of this planet (the entire muslim population) range from having a dis-like of America to outright murderous hatred of it....
Why ?
Very simply its because much of their population are oppressed.... Why are they oppressed ? Because you happen to have a reliance on oil... and most of these people live in or around countries that supply it... Now what would happen if these countries were suddenly controlled by fundamentalist muslim countries with little or no wish to do business with the USA....
Hmmmmm.... I wonder... well its never going to happen because the good ol US of A CIA are in there fighting to make sure these people damn well stay oppressed....
What can technology do ?
Unless you're talking about using it to find an alternative forms of energy... Or some sort of magical happy gas that you can spray on this lot... not alot.
We have the technology to destroy every single terrorist base (including the fortified underground caves) without risking the life of a single American soldier (WIRED Story). The question is whether we will chose to employ this technology in the eradication of Al-Qeida or if Bush et al. won't have the courage to do so.
On an encouraging note, DebkaFILE reports that the Americans and Russians agreed that they would be willing to employ this technology in Afghanistan and Chechnya--we can only hope that our leaders will not needlessly put the lives of our armed forces at risk.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
CmdrTaco and Hemos are lining up on talk shows to caution Americans that slashdot will be a different kind of website, homosexual content, analy-penetrating, painful. But recent queer confrontations have taught slashdot readers to expect conflicts primarily waged by dildoes -- anal rapings without real sacrifice. This website began with gay, although orgy-related, anal virginity sacrifice. But those whiteish nighttime pictures are already pouring out of CmdrTaco and Hemos's apartments, along with the precision pack raping photos of jon katz, and satellite shots of homosexual training camps and faggot outposts. Most Americans are convinced that slashdot is the website of homosexuality -- ASS targetings systems, anal imaging, new ass cum retrieval systems (straws), condomless drone pleasure dildoes, high-fagitude cock restraints, "special" forces equipped with arabian-goggles than can see into ass-caves -- will carry the gayness for us. Will it? What can dildoes really do for us in this new homosexual time?
Both the first taste of bush and the first cock-sucking experiences, of both CmdrTaco and Hemos, advanced the idea of bi-sexism with little anal virginity loss and few cummings of our own. But thousands of American anuses are already penetrated in this conflict, greater anal virginity losses than in any orgy in U.S. history. Still, CmdrTaco, Hemos and JonKatz are going to great lengths to point out that heterosexuals and fundamentalists are skilled and determined to stop homosexualyit, that this orgy will be long and difficult, that our expectations should be kept realistic. And JonKatz is a surprisingly agile queer. He not only grasps CmdrTaco's most vulnerable points, he understands "anal-spinning," using video-imagery and satellite transmission to get his ass humping documentaries out. This is something CowboyNeal never began to grasp.
But are our expectations realistic? Are we once again overrating our own heterosexual tendencies, and underestimating the less sophisticated homosexual authors of slashdot? Most heterosexual Americans have been prepared for years to place enormous faith in a range of new technologies that are supposed to make heterosexuals the most powerful sexual force in world history. Nipple clamps devastated the party titled Desert Sperm, which took place at Hemos' apartment. While their results were more controversial in the CmdrTaco sponsored "Rim Job Fest '99", there remained little American loss of anal virginity. The bloody action in JonKatz's shower reminds us yet again that homosexuality is not effective if it can't be used for personal or gay pride reasons. And Hemos and CmdrTaco's actions resembled butt-pirating more than salad-tossing.
In this new war on heterosexuality, though, it seems clear that American forces will be involved in some sort of anal pack raping at CmdrTaco's festive apartment, and that would mean a battle more reminiscent of anal comsumption than cock bondage.
What can homosexuality do for us? Can ASS targeting systems really place penises that accurately? Can CmdrTaco instantly fuck raw rectums without leaving their oriffices? Can heterosexual populations really be protected? Can cock imaging and satellite surveillance see into ass-caves or track small units in assy terrains? Can Hemos follow man-ass around the world? Will our anti-homosexually tech-equipped vehicles, condoms and weapons give them an edge over the the heterosexuals, who were ass raped to bits in their conflict with heterosexual guerrillas, but whose cock bondage equipment was comparatively primitive? Have we actually developed a new mix of homosexual human and dildo warfare that is deadly, flexible and effective?
From reading the papers and watching the genitals on Hemos' TV, we see confidence from the homosexuals that the answers to most of these questions is yes. But the people reading this have a much better than average grasp of their own cocks. Do you agree? What can dildoes do for us -- or not do -- in this supposedly new homosexuality?
I've read several comments, articles and opinions about this war, since 9-11. Unfortunately, I've got the same conclusion, always: this isn't a winnable war. No war tecnology, modern warfare can win this war, and it's very simple to explain it: this war is not a military one.
The US (and the western world, by extension) isn't fighting a opressing regime or an expanding, threatening militar force. We are fighting terror, and senseless attacks on civilians. These attacks do not come from Taliban troops. They come from organized fundamentalists, which are functioning as any american corporation. The difference is the goal: the fundamentalists do not want profit, but some kind of religious "justice".
The real war isn't on Afghanistan: it's in the minds of a big number of people who think of the US as their biggest enemy.
Bombing Taliban sites or capturing/killing Osama bin Laden will not end terror. The terrorists are well spread all over the world. To stop these people, we'll have to make them stop wanting to hurt us. The bombs or the modern tecnology will not achieve this.
One thing that seems to get glazed over an awful lot is that during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the rebel groups were being backed by the United States and others. In this war they are completely cut off from outside assistance. Nobody is dumb enough to do something like that right now and risk us making them an enemy.
Another thing to note is that the Soviets had very different goals when they went into Afghanistan. They wanted to take over the country. The US is interested in eliminating a threat, which means taking out terrorists and those who sponsored them. We want to get in and get out as fast as possible, and ideally want some other group to come to power in afghanistan who doesn't hate us quite so much. We are trying to play various internal afghanistan factions against eachother, and making a point of not being a common enemy for them to unite against.
To analyze this war against the backdrop of Soviet Afghanistan or Vietnam seems to belittle the truely different nature of this conflict. This doesn't mean it will be easy, and certainly with some policy mistakes we could turn it into such a conflict. But the goals here and the enviornment under which we are attempting to achieve them is very different from these historical precedents.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Point taken, as this was a tactic used by Bosnians to gain sympathy for their cause. They shelled a market place in one of their own cities.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
ultimately all our "Smart Bombs" and "Stealth Planes" all do the same thing that "Not So Smart Bombs" and "Quite Visible Planes" did in the past. Soften up the enemy for ground troops.
It would be wonderful if we had weapons that could finish off the war but ultimately we'll have to have a lot of 18-40 yr olds die in the process. When it is all sadi and done Afghani rocks will have been moved about and we will have "bombed them back to the stone age" setting them back a good 45 minutes.
War requires humans to kill one another face to face. It is sad.
This
If you speak long term, US DID kill a few millions...
think Somalia, think South America and Copper, think Vietnam, think repression, think Economical Pressure....
So stop speaking of casualties and start solving the world problems, cause you got the power to do it.
"This posted as an AC for every time I criticised US recently, I lost Karma. So FUCK moderators that side with emotion and don't take a comment.
OR put me as Offtopic, and not as Troll..."
along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots
I guess the illusion of "surgical strikes" can now be put into the dustbin.
The US airforce just blew up the United Nations building, close to Kabul in afghanistan.
But strangely, I can't find a word about it on US websites ??
The closest is This article but it doesn't mention a word about that the people were in the UN building outside Kabul.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
We spend millions on an action like this one. For every enemy killed the cost is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why don't we bomb them with money?
...
Or, to be realistic, can't the U.S. find a better way to spend those tax dollars: medicine, food, education, infrastructure development instead of weapons.
Perhaps you've heard of the military-industrial complex
There's some good alternative points of view available on counterpunch.org -- including on-the-ground information about Afghanistan and the building of an airstrip in Northern Alliance territory.
I keep my info in a house.
"Help him! Help the programmer!"
As the people who bombed the WTC are a terrorist organisation, they will not surrender or present an easily attackable and destroyable target, but will just hide amongst the innocent population of Afghanistan.
The only way to stop a determined terrorist threat is to either exterminate them all, and all their supporters (which would be several _hundred_ thousand people) or to understand why they are willing to give up their lives to strike at the USA and the west.
The authorities in the west (and the general population) should be asking why do intelligent, educated people commit suicide ? What drives them to do so ?
Technology helps the military kill people at a distance, whether they are guilty or innocent, but it does not help people understand the other sides point of view and reasons for fighting and so won't help this conflict to come to a swift conclusion.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Without the Stinger the Afghans may very well have been wiped out - the Hind was the perfect weapon for the job - fast enough to find mujahudeen before they could clear the firing range, and controllable enough to allow incredibly focused firepower.
Once the Soviets were unable to control the skies, the forces were more or less equilized. Needing a 3-1 advantage as any attacker does, the odds were against the Soviets.
The Stinger has a 3-4 year lifespan on some parts - it is unlikely that Stingers from the 80s are a threat now - they probably do not function at this point.
You know, it's time for the american military to get off their ass and produce the T-600 terminator series. I mean really, what's the hold up? We got robotics, we got Arnold, we just need to combine the two! "Come with me if you want to live!"
Think about it. In a time when a mounted knight was the next best thing to a tank it became necessary to find a way to penetrate that armor. Numerous solutions were developed, ranging from heavier lances to conical blade tips (for spreading chain links). In responce, armor was redesigned to more effectively turn lances, thickened, and the evolution went on. Along come fire arms and within a century or so, armor is meaningless. Now, step up to the modern era, with the advent of hi-tech materials like Kevlar (sp?), we are again "armoring" against modern conventional weapons.
The fact remains that in any protracted war (Be it the Hundred Years war or WWII), technological inovation on both sides is to be expected. The real challenge comes in adapting your military to the new technology, developing Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics to your new technology (lines of riflemen are great for breaking pike formations, but poorly suited to supressing guerilla (sp?) tactics).
War is fought by human beings (Carl von Clouswitz)
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
What you actually believe that the majority of what you view on television is real and truthful ?
You must be one very dumb schmuck.... after the planes hit... you've been watching nothing but propaganda budd....
Love how this was rated Insightful.... you guys are truely clueless...
Tech is giving us several strong advantages that the Afghanis lack:
- Excellent recon capability (drones, satellites, etc.).
- Night vision, ground and air
- Air superiority
- Precision guided munitions
- Vastly superior munitions in general, including cluster bombs and scatterable (air/artillery deployed) mines.
- Heavier artillery.
And don't forget, God fights on the side with the heaviest artillery!Seriously, the various technologies, especially recon and night vision, should make for a very decisive advantage. The only thing that really concerns me is the idea of troops going into the caves, which sounds very perilous. I hope they come up with a better tactic for the bunkers.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Unfortunately I think that a lot of people have got the impression from Hollywood films that we have technology which can do stuff that it can't.
Typical scene - government agent is on the trail of someone - taps their name into a database - image of person and pages of details displayed. Their car is bugged and agent can watch red dot moving across a map. Agent watches image of the person getting out their car from satellite image. Zooms in to look at the face of the person they are talking to. Face is automatically scanned and pages of details come up about them.
All of that stuff is just fantasy - a dangerous fantasy because some people (even politicians) seem to believe in it.
Unfortunately it is very easy to get round all types of technology, it just takes a bit of common sense.
Let's pretend we are going to launch a terrorist attack like the one on 9.11.01. We need to communicate somehow without the authorities finding out.
Let's agree:
Bin Laden = mother.
Taking the dog to the vets = hitting the WTC.
bus = airplane.
$1 = $1000.
Now we can communicate:
We've just had a message from ma to say that it's OK the take the dog to the vet on Tuesday. We are catching the bus at 8.05am, and should be at the vets about an hour later. We need some things for the journey, do you think you could send us $50?
It doesn't matter how sophisticated your technology is, often be very easily defeated with just a little bit of common sense.
What you need is semi-autonomous robot 'insects' you can release into cave networks in their hundreds - when one finds any largish live target (simple IR sensor? Carbon Monoxide sensor?), they send a picture back (via a chain of insects - low power close range transmission) to outside the caves. Human id check follows, then a return signal to go or cancel. Insect lands on target's neck (say) and instantly explodes. Just enough explosive to blow the main arteries...
As a bonus, if this worked OBL's friends might come running out of the cave system afterwards for easy kill or capture.
Shame the technology's probably not quite up to it yet. The power considerations might be tricky - it might work better with crawling rather than flying insects - you could even 'spring load' them for the final kill. Several could launch themselves at once for better results.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/miss
Millitary specifications on the tomahawk
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/bgm-109.
A technical guide to how the Tomahawk works.
http://members.tripod.de/usnavy/weapons/tomahawk.
Some statistics on Tomahawk missiles
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cruise-missile.htm
A less technical guide to how the Tomahawk works.
http://www.softwar.net/emg.html
Information on a cool EMG warhead that a Tomahawk can be fitted with.
I strongly recommend the book "Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden, http://blackhawkdown.philly.com/
In the longest running gunfight in recent US history, Task Force Ranger (including members of Delta Force) suffered heavy casualties. They thought they succeeded in their mission, if imperfectly. They inflicted much, much heavier casualties on the Somalis trying to overrun them, and held out long enough to be rescued by members of the 10th Mountain (who are right now in Uzbekistan, IIRC) (with Malaysian and Pakistani armor)
They DID complete the mission (capturing some important members of the ruling clan structure in a daring daytime raid) but after they suffered casualties, the mission was scrapped because the public couldn't deal with a relatively few lives lost. Note to enemies: Kill just a few of our men, and we don't have the resolve to keep fighting. I think maybe this has changed, since we've lost a lot of civilians.
A huge advantage of our forces is that we can afford to train them all the time, even when that gets expensive. We can afford truly awesome fire support. We have a truly huge military, largely because we're the only really huge country that isn't really poor. Militarily, we could close the borders to Afghanistan, occupy it, segregate it, and sweep across it forcing everyone to be inspected at a checkpoint. Would we be able to ID bin Laden at that checkpoint? I don't know. But that's a more subtle mission than one that's purely military.
We have at least two significant advantages over the Russians. The first is that the most useful of our technology, like the Night Optical Devices, are very useful even in urban on-the-ground situations. The second is that we were supplying and training the people fighting against them, and no one (AFAIK) is supplying or training them against us. That means they'll run out of midrange technology like SAMs if they use them...
Even in Vietnam, we won militarily. But we had no exit strategy. No amount of military success will make a corrupt puppet gov't legitimate. Defeating an enemy is much easier than nationbuilding, and I'm not at all sure how we're going to go about nationbuilding after we blow this stuff up. I suspect we can kill or try bin Laden and dismantle at least most of the structure of Al Queda - but as long as we leave festering countries bombed into the stone-age around, there are always going to be new problems.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
it seems strange that USA uses the same methods as the terrorists, violence gives birth to violence....
But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history.
Seems to me more than 5000 civilians died in the US Civil War. And it was not from the side-effects of war. Civilians were legitamate targets back in those days and were fired on by both sides. I don't have a link, but Gettysburg seems to be a good place to start researching this.
Although this is a bit offtopic, I do find it irritating when you hear all the "This is the first time that..." crap in the media. We've been attacked on our soil before, had our territory occupied before, and yes, our civilians have been attacked and killed in large numbers in war before. This seems to be a tool that journalists use in order to make it look like the story they are reporting is some radically new type of event, when in reality it is just a slightly different spin on what has been happening for centuries.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
In practiced Pentagonese, Rumsfeld deftly avoided answering the question of whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons could be ruled out.
Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices -- doomsday bombs -- don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism, smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current mindset of the Defense Department.
The most likely candidate is a tactical micro-nuke called the B61-11, an earth-penetrating nuclear device known as the "bunker buster." The B61-11 was designed to destroy underground military facilities such as command bunkers, ballistic missile silos and facilities for producing and storing weapons. However, it could be used against the warren of tunnels and caves carved under the Afghan mountains that are often cited as a potential refuge for the U.S. government's prime suspect, Osama bin Laden. The B61-11's unique earth-penetrating characteristics and wide range of yields allow it to threaten deeply situated and otherwise indestructible underground targets from the air.
The 1,200-pound B61-11 replaces the 8,900-pound, nine-megaton B53 device, a bomb initially designated as an earth-penetrating weapon. The B53 is deliverable only by enormous and vulnerable B-52 bombers. By contrast, the relatively diminutive B61-11 can be delivered by the stealthier B-2 bomber, or even by conventional fighters such as the F-16.
The B61-11 is designed to burrow through layers of concrete by way of a "shock-coupling effect." The design directs the force of the B61-11's explosive energy downward, destroying everything buried beneath it to a depth of several hundred meters, according to a story in the March 2, 1997 issue of Defense News.
The B53, on the other hand, with a force equal to 9 million tons of TNT, penetrates the earth simply by creating a massive crater, rather than the more precise downward blow of the B61-11.
The B61-11 is the most recent nuclear device added to the U.S. nuclear arsenal since 1989. It was developed and deployed secretly, according to a story from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The U.S. military sneaked it past test and development treaties, as well as public and congressional debate, by defining the B61-11 as an adaptation of a pre-treaty technology rather than a new development. Depending on the yield of the bomb, the B61-11 can produce explosions ranging from 300 tons of TNT to more than 300,000 tons. This is significantly less than the B53, but still far larger than even the greatest conventional non-nuclear device in U.S. stockpiles. And it is several times more powerful than the atomic weapons dropped on Japan in 1945.
Studies by the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate that more than 150 B61-11s are currently in the U.S. arsenals, scattered among NATO aircraft carriers and planes on bases in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece. Many B61-11s were withdrawn from Europe during the '90s and are now stored at Kirtland and Nellis Air Force bases in the United States.
According to a desk release from the U.S. Air Force's Public Affairs office, tests of the earth-penetrating capabilities of the B61-11 were completed on March 17, 1998, in frozen tundra at the Stuart Creek Impact Area, 35 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. Two unarmed B61-11s were dropped to test their ground-penetration capability. The tests were designed to measure the nuclear bomb casing's penetration into frozen soil and the survivability of the weapon's internal components.
A team excavated the two unexploded dummy bombs and took careful measurements of their angles and depth of penetration into the soil, which were 6 and 10 feet, according to the Air Force. The shells were sent back to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico for full analysis of how the simulated internal components fared in the impact. The B6-11's casing didn't rupture in any of the tests, including drops through concrete from 40,000 feet. All bomb casings were recovered 100 percent intact, according to the release.
Any debate inside the corridors of power about using tactical nukes will be heightened by the intelligence buzz surrounding bin Laden's possible ownership of Russian nuclear "suitcase" bombs purchased from Chechen mafia. Those weapons are said to be hidden in deep caves and fortified tunnels in remote regions of Afghanistan. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the discussion of ways to eradicate this potential nuclear threat -- while simultaneously destroying bin Laden and his teams --- may have led to talk about tactical weapons that can destroy even heavily fortified underground shelters.
You honestly expect me to care?
"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
how could those billion dollars be spent in preventing war?
but sadly spending that amount of money would be counterproductive against the national economy. why should money be put into countries, that are of high value to our nation so we can get cheap beef, cheap paper, cheap iron, cheap carbon, cheap fuel which only would result these basic materials of our economy getting too expensive to hold our state of living.
ever wondered why coffee is so cheap? in fact it's collected by people who have no education, no land, and in fact no property at all.
you could argue that their is financial aid by the world bank for 3rd world countries, but thats a joke. they get money, which in fact they got to return as exports into western countries - cheap exports, and they can't even choose how to use the money.
it's like you go to the bank, ask for money, they say you get it if you open up a whore house, and when they come to you, you got to blow their ****** for free.
that's what our civilised countries do with 3rd world countries.
don't wonder if some mad guys get lots of power there and nuke some skyscrapers in the us - it's whats coming, and it will not get better by bombing these people, nor by putting all money we've got into defense. we can't build a great wall that stops everyone from entering either.
It is obvious that the US and UK have already deployed special forces on the ground and soon will be sending a lot more.
Guerilla tactics are pretty much the only way to take out guerillas. The Soviets proved that controlling the cities and highways with a lot of heavy armor just makes you a static target.
So, don't expect this to be bloodless for the US/UK. All this government rhetoric about how this will be a hard effort means "we're gonna take casualties."
The US ground troops will have far more technological assistance than the Taliban: GPS, helicopters, night vision, personal radios, satellite imagery, powerful individual weapons, artillery and air strikes on call. But the Taliban are on their home turf, and they are ready to die for the cause.
When asked about the key to winning the battle, he replied "Get there fustest with the mostest."
Having gone against some of the best the US has to offer in exercises, the "red team" won most of the time despite the US "blue team" having multiple C-130 loads of the best detection technology that money could buy, while we were limited to what we could buy at Radio Shark. The element of surprise and the unknown elements of the "red team" attack worked out to the bad guys winning most of the time.
So, don't blame the technology if the guy using it makes a wrong call.
That we would integrate a back door in our high-tech weapons that are sold abroad so that they misfire/explode/active a lojack-like device if they are used against us. The government is so back-door-encryption happy that I'm surprised they haven't done this. And, if they haven't done so because of fear that the keys would be compromised, then why would the FBI want to implement such system for civilian encryption?
If readers have the guts to think, they might
try to read something different than the
propaganda spewing out of the U.S. government
and media:
Here is the URL:
The Phoney War in Afghanistan
Thank you
"..and that would mean a battle more reminiscent of Vietnam than Kuwait."
We got our butts kicked in Vietnam, partially because we pulled out. We also had The Soviets helping the North.
Until the U.S. came in and provided the Afghans with Stinger missles, Russia had basically won Afghanistan. The Soviets did it the way we'll do it. By sending in ground troops.
With most of the world on our side, who's going to provide the Taliban with the technology that helped defeat the U.S. and the Soviets in the past?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
That applies to more than just the military. It amazes me how many corporate endeavours are threatened by leaks. At my last employer, an important buyout that kept us afloat was almost killed because someone kept sending internal memos to the media. People knew that dozens of jobs were resting on keeping things silent until everything was said and done, and yet every important bit of information hit the net within minutes of being released internally. If this sort of thing starts happening in the military, it would endanger numerous American lives jsut because someone wants the satisfaction of starting trouble.
What Can Technology Do For Us?
For $600,000, we can buy a Tomanhawk missile and...
Bush's education improvements were
Technological superiority can be a hazard or a benefit depending upon how blindly we trust that superior technology means superior ability to kill.
Consider that when the F-4 Phantom was built, we relied so heavily on the technology of the radar guided missle that we thought there would never again be any dogfighting in the skies, and all kills would be done from a range of 25 miles away. And so, F-4 Phantoms were built without guns.
We got our butts kicked as a result with high losses as the MIG's tore the crap out of the Phantoms,
The next batch of F-4's had a gun built into a pod that would have been used to carry a missle. Suddenly the idea of building a manueverable fighter aircraft with guns was again, seen as a necessity. We learned that technology alone doesn't win a war.
The "Top Gun" school was started as a result of that embarassing mistake.
Let us hope that we still remember that painful lesson in this instance.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Probably the closest comparisons to prior conflicts can be made with the Indian Wars. During these conflicts between the US settlers and the Native Americans it is difficult to separate out the civilian casualties since much of the fighting was done by militias, etc. It should be possible to estimate civilians casualties for both sides in the Indian Wars by only counting women and children, and I would guess that the totals would be more than 6,000.
Of course the fact still remains that the number of civilian casualties that we've inflicted were much higher than those inflicted on us in the major wars of the 20th century. This is mostly a result of the fact that those wars weren't fought on American soil, but it bears consideration when trying to put the current conflict into historical context.
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
"In this new war, though, it seems clear that American forces will be involved in some sort of ground fighting on Afghanistan's murderous terrain, and that would mean a battle more reminiscent of Vietnam than Kuwait."
The terrain in Vietnam was not the problem... the terrain in Afghanistan was not the problem for the Russians in the 80's. People seem to forget the in 'nam the Russians were supplying the North with arms and the same in Afghanistan- we were supplying the Afghans with arms to keep the Russians out.
So the difference is that this time the Afghans don't have a super-power backing them. They can't hide in holes forever, eventually they will have to come out and face consequences for their actions. I have no doubt that a 40+ nation coalition can march into Kabul very quickly, I doubt the Taliban are going to put up much of a fight.
That said I also want to comment on Mr. bin Laden's little video conference. So he can use a camera and a satalite -- SO WHAT??? He killed 7,000 people and American's are suddenly going to be sympathetic because he showed up on TV? In case you haven't heard 90% of Americans support this action, since when did 90% of this nation agree on ANYTHING???
bin Laden is hiding in his cave scared stiff because he had no idea what he was going to bring upon himself with this attack, if he isn't then he's far stupider that I give him credit for.
The Anti-Blog
You know, If I were US intelligence I'd be watching the Kabul Al Jazeera office, personel, and visitors with everything we've got. It seems to me the easiest way to find bin Laden is to wait for him to send a message and then follow the courier(s)/mail trail/evidence analysis straight back to him.
The thing no one seems to mention is that every system has strengths and weaknesses, including the shadowy al quaeda. They may go to great lengths to keep their actions secret, but by the same token their communications are slow, infrequent, physical in nature, and (most importantly) difficult to authenticate, and even more difficult to organize. An opening in the network, restrained tracking and mapping of the network, and a tightly coordinated disinformation campaign could tear it completely apart. And that's just for starters.
One thing I noticed from the bin Laden video - he's just like Saddam Hussein or any other would-be dictator, using war to expand and consolidate his influence with himself on top. He's doing a credible job, although I think the media is overly-surprised at his control of spin - this is a man whose main purpose is recruitment. But the bigger he gets, the harder he'll fall, and his inaccessibility will ultimately be his undoing because he'll have no way to defend himself. He can easily be trapped and caught and/or badly discredited, with no way to defend himself, and in the process all the followers he's developed can be humiliated and shamed.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Oh so this is supposed to represent American forces?? Really funny although you forgot the part where the snakes hijacked 2 planes and flew them into the world trade center killing thousands of innocent people. I don't care what the US has done in the past, it has never targeted innocent people. We are one of hte most generous countries in the world although we do stick our nose in a lot of business that it shouldn't be sometimes.
In particular, I'm interested in clean, sustainable energy sources and delivery systems that would give the energy-hungry USA the luxury of acting according to its democratic principles in the international arena, instead of its all-too-common current tendencies to do whatever it has to to keep cheap oil flowing in.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
As usual, Katz is oblivious to history. The 5-6000 dead at the WTC are not the greatest civilian casualties ever suffered by America. During the American Civil War hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed. These were still in the minority compared to combatants killed, which contrasts favorably (from an ethical standpoint) with modern warfare, where 80%+ of the dead are civilians.
As a former Apache Mechanic I can say that the airframe is fairly reliable when it is flown frequently the problems with this helicopter really start when you let them sit.
If you keep them flying the seals last longer and since they upgraded the Air conditioner from water based to freon based the electronics last much longer (the AC was piped to the computers first and the pilots got what was left over)
In a operational setting the AH-64 frequently achieves a 90% up time, in garison settings this drops to 65-70%
In short when needed the Apache is ready, reliable and when needed lethal.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I hesitate to call this conflict a war since it is not between two states, but rather between a state and a group of individuals. The fact that Bush Jr has involved the Taliban doesn't change that for me.
That said, I think you will find that the tech involved in this conflict will be primarily oriented to command and control, recon and surveillence.
It appears that so far the "smart bombs" have done no discernable damage to the Al Queda network. Nor are such devices likely to work as they are designed to take out military assets, not individuals. Several experts believe that the US and its allies will rely heavily on special forces used on the ground. I tend to agree. The strengths of the Al Queda followers are the same as those of the muhjadeen - rapid strike ground forces that disappear after contact - hit and run tactics as explained by a former British SAS member who helped them refine their techniques. Those kinds of tactics cannot be fought by bombing an area into submission.
Wherer the tech does stand out however, is in tracking and locating friendly forces. GPS allows ground commanders and operational officers to know where their men are at any time. That is a great advantage for recon (When the enemy is spotted or engaged), evac (if troops are in danger). Enhanced communications and satellites will play further aid these processes.
Other less glamorous technologies such as night vision and short range heat trackers will lend a tactical advantage to ground forces (who will be more likely to attack their opponents at night), but again these aren't the high profile items that cost 5 and 6 figures each.
As for playing up the danger of conflict, that's been SOP for a long time. Remember the US government built up Iraq as the fourth largest military in the world (when it couldn't make a dent in Iran for 10 years). Technology's role in the military since WW2 has rarely created a paradigm shift, it merely increases the efficiency in which something can be done.
The fact that once again the most dangerous weapons US troops are likely to face are ones we sold our opponents doesn't help.
The MIGs could do that because under the rules of engagement, our forces were forbidden from launching until they had a direct visual ID on the other aircraft. Silly, given that the F4 was designed to fight Soviet frontal aviation over Europe, in a massed air war where they'd want to get in 3 salvos before they could see one another. The Phantom's missiles were set up to allow the back-seater to track multiple aircraft while launching (Sparrow) missiles against one enemy, then engaging others with Sparrows or Sidewinders.
Yes, this IS responsible for the revival of guns in American fighter jets. It's also responsible for our current ROEs that provide positive control and take advantage of the technological superiority we've built up. Most of the folks in our military spend lots of time working on integrating the new capabilities of their new toys into doctrines that don't leave a lot to chance - one reason it takes us so long to get a new weapon from the drawing board to the field is that we do so much integrating and testing.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
May I ask how the loss of innocent civilians (american or otherwise) is of any help in a world that seeks to maintain freedom?
Terrorists had NO RIGHT to take on INNOCENTS, independently of their reasons and/or beliefs; but a wrong on one side doesn't necessarily make it right on the other.
Don't you think it's ironic that the very New York people (the most closely touched and afflicted) were among the first to march asking for peace? They know the experience of losing a loved one, and know that revenge brings nothing better. Instead they ask for peace to try and prevent others from going through the same.
Can things get done without any more peripheral death and suffering? I think so.
Are you absolutely positive (do you have first hand knowledge) that this was done by the US strikes? I think not.
I'm not saying it wasn't.... these things happen. But I would not put it past a regime like the Taliban to blow up a building full of UN people and blame the US.
And given the UN knew what was coming (or certainly should have), why wouldn't they have evacuated? Poor planning on their part exposes them to casualties.
Surgical strikes merely offer a lower ratio of civilians killed than indiscriminate bombing. They offer a better chance of getting the people you are after (military targets) rather than innocents (say civilians like those in the WTC). They don't offer a gaurantee and I don't think anyone in the US administration has tried to convey any gaurantee of no civilian casualties. They try to minimize the number (unlike the terrorists and their supporters) of civilians who die.
The other option, of course, would be to sit back, let the terrorists get away with mass murder and/or accede to their vision of how the world must unfold.
I think dissidents, moderates, Christians, and women in Afghanistan might give us some idea of why that's not such a good option.
Yes, sometimes you'll kill a civilian or ten. Life sucks that way. Sometimes bad things happen to innocent people. The difference between the West and the terrorists is we do at least try to differentiate a military target from a civilian target and we don't hold an entire nation to blame for the actions of its government. The West is going after the Taliban and Bin Laden, not the Afghani people or else they'd carpet bomb Kabul. Do the terrorists try to follow any such conventions? Not a chance.
I think that is the important distinction we need to remember. War is never Just. War is never clean or sanitary. War is never Good. But it is sometimes necessary. The world _can_ be a better place after all this is over.
Tomb
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Those have been all over the 'net. Everyone here has seen them a dozen times.
Try something original for a change, please.
When Dubya said this would be a different kind of war he really meant it. This war is primarily a war of accountants: Identify a terrorist, find out where his/her funding is comming from, use military/special ops/economic coercion to convince the funding source that it really is not in their best interest to *ever* contribute more funds in support of terrorist activities.
The current festivities are good news consumption for a population that wants "something" to be done, and done now. But the long term campaign will primarily be waged by accountants determining who has been supplying funding for terrorist activities. The technology of this war is primarily being able to track dollars, yen, pounds, and francs across international boundaries.
How about the many times that bin Laden has called for the destruction of Israel? Its clear the man has a broader objective that fits in with the established pattern of Islamic fundamentalist dogma.
Time and again, the leaders of the Taleban have stated their desire to speak with us
Please, you aren't interviewing on CNN. Don't insult our intelligence.
I think we should send in Rudy and streak by the Taliban. That way we can distract them and snatch Osama at the same time!
They were actually sleeping in their barracks.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
http://www.pushback.com/terror/DroppingPhones.html
...
This idea would show the terrorists a bit of the reality that they're working so hard against. It's the nature of people to want to be free and prosperous, and despots and dictators are working against that nature. The useful information we could get from anonymous "squealers" and the terror instilled in the terrorists' hearts would be two very potent weapons.
There's no need for the US to limit itself to expensive, marginally effective military technology. There are probably more solutions like this one that take advantage of the cheap technology our free market has produced.
----------- (Excerpt from the web site) -----------
Freedom Phones and PINs--How to Find Osama bin Laden and Other Terrorists with Methods that Guarantee Anonymity for Informants
Immediately after the WTC attack on September 11, many top scientists and Middle East experts in the U.S. suggested and recommended the anonymous reward scheme described below to encourage those with information on the identity and whereabouts of terrorists to provide this information to U.S authorities such as the FBI.
Dr. Bill Wattenburg gave the first public descripton of this clever scheme on his talk show over KGO Radio AM810, San Francisco, on September 25, 2001, from 7pm to 10pm. The response from listeners on the west coast was overwhelming understanding and approval.
Terrorists Leaders Will Know the Fear That They Can be Betrayed at Any Time by Captive Citizens Who Formally had no Secure Communication--or by Their Own Henchmen Who Can Safely Collect Large Rewards Here on Earth Instead of Only in Suicide Heaven.
The US has so many toys. The US has got myriad different payloads for those Tomahawk cruise missiles you hear so much about, from anti-personnell to anti-building to ones that shoot metal fibers everywhere and short out power plants. They've got the greatest mechanized infantry the world has ever seen, in the form of the M1A1 tank, that has a 120mm smoothbore cannon with an effective range of 4000 meters, many equipped with depleted uranium shells and armor, which really do a number on non-depleted-uranium armored tanks. They've got attack choppers that have a retina based targeting system that's effective from five miles away. An Apache pilot is capable of taking cover behind a hill, popping up, sighting an enemy tank miles away, firing, and ducking back under cover, all in a matter of seconds.
Even if the US has to commit to a ground war in Afghanistan, they are much better prepared than the Soviets ever were. Ford's auto plants are designed such that they can be at full production of tanks and armored vehicles within a week, if need be.
But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history.
First we'll assume you mean U.S. civilians, as millions were killed in WWII, which is certainly still in the recollection of most Americans. Going a bit further back, but again certainly within U.S. history, there was the civil war. Do you honestly believe that there were not more civilians killed in that war?
Now on to your question. There is no doubt that our technology will benifit us. Do our GPS targetting systems work, certainly. Are our satellites as good as we think they are for battlefield intelligence? You betcha. Have our soldiers been better prepared both mentally and physically? Absolutley. Can the Taliban win this war? No chance.
But it isn't technology that gives us the real advantage. We had technology on our side in Vietnam. We didn't win. Sure, it wasn't nearly at the level we have now, and we didn't have the experience using what we had in real situations, but we simply were more powerful. But we didn't win. Why didn't we win? During Vietnam we were a divided nation. We had defeated the Viet Cong in South Vietnam by 1968. But the north saw our division here in America, and counted on us to give in to internal pressures. To make a long story short, we did.
Today there's no such division. The overwhelming majority of people in this country believe this is something that needs to be done. Sure there are some people who disagree, but they certainly aren't the majority. Our nation is united. The other nations of the world are also standing behind us. If we continue to stand united, we will win this war, just as we've won all other wars that we've stood through united.
When all is said and done, some may say that technology won the war. But the real reasons will have had nothing to do with technology.
The Gulf War - 10 years ago - was the last time that the US really got to go to town on a war so they've got a huge stockpile of new stuff to try out and Dubya wants to be able to justify the son of Star Wars thing. They're not going to get Bin Laden with bombers/missiles but they want to show them off/use them up in the meantime.
Bin Laden and the Taliban don't seem to put much value on human life so they won't really care, except for propaganda 'look at all the civilians you killed' reporting, how many people get killed in the bombing.
(More on Bin Laden and US weaponary humour at http://www.geek-ware.co.uk)
----------
"Yes, I have breasts. Now quit looking at them"
http://www.geek-ware.co.uk
It's a shame they were killed but there will always be innocent casualties of war. But to group them with the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks is stupid and naive. They were innocent people deliberately targetted for mass murder.
speaking of Bosnia, but from a different angle...
PBS had a show last night which talked about the US recent military actions on behalf of muslims in kosovo and bosnia. remember those? the whole 'genetic cleansing' crap which was sweeping the eastern bloc and literally translated to 'kill all the muslims'. the US and the UN fought at great expense to stop the genocides of milosevic, etc, toward muslims.
Yet in the middle east, muslims cheer 'death to america' while burning down buildings.
that's right, there is no point to this post, just rambling in fear of ww3.
-sam
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
The collateral 'opportunity' available to all of US, is one of preserving our ability to communicate/commerce freely, unless, we 'surrender' our new 'tools' to sum felonious deceptive corepirate greedmonger money funnelling scams.
join us. ITs free. EVERYTHING's gnu now. take advantage of IT. just remove the 'wool' from over your eyes.
God bless/help all of US/U.S..
Why would that be ridiculous? The United Nations themselves confirmed [bbc] the deaths. Perhaps these people were still in the building (apparently, asleep when it collapsed on them) because they, well, fairly reasonably, would assume that the coalition would not bomb a UN site? That would make it a much safer place to spend the night than anywhere else.
Yet another tragedy in the long list that we've witnessed in the past few weeks...
errr... your last two paragraphs sound like excellent pro -taleban propaganda (swap Iowa for region in Afghanistan). I'd say that these paragraphs sum up well exactly why the Taleban forces have an excellent chance of giving the USA and all the other allied forces a really hard time . The USA doesn't want casualities in a far off land. The Afghan soldiers are fighting to protect their motherland, their way of life, their religion.
Personally I consider that both the governments of Afghanistan and the USA could be considered not to enjoy unified support from their peoples, are corrupt to some degree and abuse their populace.
I far prefer the latter to the former but I don't see purity and unsullied goodness on either side of the political fence. I just worry that yet more innocent people who would like peace and want to get on with their lives are going to die.
First of all I think that many of our soldiers are willing to die for our country. Those who might not have been a couple months ago are probably more likely to be willing to make that sacrifice given thousands dead in New York. Now, is it quite the level of sacrifice one might see from a religious zealot? Probably not, but is that a bad thing?
Self-sacrifice is all well and good, but if it isn't done it a well thought out manner it can be counterproductive. A dead guy with a weapon isn't of much use to you, so if he makes that sacrifice it had better be for a good reason. Zealotry can cloud ones judgement where as somebody genuninely afraid for his life will think twice about the sacrifices (and perhaps in the end provide strategic advantage in that).
One other thing to consider, I don't think all the Taliban are quite the religious zealots that we might otherwise think. Surely some of them are, and a large number of them are probably in the firm belief that they are right, but not everybody is the kind of person who can commit suicide for the cause. Only time will tell but I suspect that a large amount of resistance will cease to be if it's clear to the people of Afghanistan that we want them to be better off in the long run. People with food on their plates, and a roof over their head are much less prone to zealotry and if we help them get there, their loyalties aren't going to be to the Taliban.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Leaking of secrets between "Military" or "Business" are VERY different issues.
Selling or leaking business secrets is unethical and rotten, but legal (short of insider trading or non-disclosure violations).
Selling/leaking MILITARY secrets is TREASON and will get you EXECUTED promptly in time of war. A little more serious than "starting trouble".
Unfortunately, morons reporting what is visible to a casual observer on the battlefield isn't considered "leaking" secrets, because the events have already happened (even though only moments ago). Pity.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Completely untrue. We target innocent people all the time; we've been doing it for almost 60 years.
Would you eat those funny packages they've pushing out of the planes? First, they are nothing like you've ever seen before. Second, how do you know if the enemy who just bombed you isn't trying to poison you?
And so, my fellow Americans:
"Ask not What Technology Can Do For You -- Ask What You Can Do For Technology"
President John F. Kennedy
Washington, D.C.
January 20, 1961
----------
Whaddya all mean he didn't say it that way...?
2 reptiles beneath your current threshold.
Yeah, and I've got this nice bridge in New York I'm interested in selling. (Better buy it quick, though, before it gets blowed up real good.)
If anybody reading this site knows what the advanced military nations of the world are actually capable of, and if they were to write about it here, it would mean their immediate dismissal from the secret services and subsequent vaporization.
My information is about a decade old, but according to it, back in the early nineties, we had the technology to see through mountains, pinpoint kill from huge distances, and with shoulder mounted arms put nuclear-scale non-nuclear devastation pretty much anywhere at any time. I'll repeat that; NON-nuclear explosives which have the range and effect of nuclear devices. Small warheads a single warrior can carry and deploy. And that's just the brute force crap.
This stupid, evil, fake production of a pre-fab war could be won in under a month with little or no loss on the side of the tech-advanced nations.
And that's using tech from nearly ten years ago. (And you wonder why ZPE is dead in the civilian realm. Use your damned brains!)
However. . . You are not going to see a quick resolution because the power brokers don't want that. They plan to put on a good show which will establish all of the right dramatic tensions thus preparing and programming the world for the further steps of their master plan, (which if the world survives long enough, I am sure we will get to watch unfolding with all the melodramatic glory of a bad Hollywood film, written, of course, for the average 14 year old intelligence, because anything less would appear confusing and thereby deflate its core audience.)
Pass the popcorn. Erg. And the Tumms. (Lame writing gives me gas.)
-Fantastic Lad
War is good for:
Economy
Enlistment Quotas
Military Readiness
Military Training
Defense Contractors
Population Control
As usual, the US has embarked upon a military action which it feels will help it to survive, and eliminate its enemies. On the surface thats fine, but how they intend to do it has serious flaws.
1) Airplanes cannot conquer groud. That is, unless you have a soldier in an American uniform standing in Afghanistan, then they haven't won. While Rumsfeld says that they are not in the business of nation building, thats exactly what they are trying to do. However, they forget that more ordnance was dropped in Vietnam then in all other US wars combined, and they lost that one.
2) Smart bombs aint so smart. Despite all those nice B&W videos from the Gulf war, smart bombs more often then not miss their intended targets (the stats from the Gulf were around 30% i think, but don't quote me on that). This is a combination of GPS drift, targetting inaccuracy, technical errors, and simply aiming at the wrong thing, but it menas that 70% of the time, you're hitting something you didn't want to. And when there are civillians living 200m away, it means that you hit them. "Surgical strikes" do not exist, and won't for some time.
3) The American public won't accept another Vietnam. As i already said, the only way to accomplish the US's objectives in Afghanistan is to send in groud forces. Special forces are fine for capturing wanted criminals, but to topple and rebuild the country, you need GI's. Now, as was proved by the soviets, its damned hard to fight an entrneched, geurilla-like enemy in the mountains, and heavy losses will be suffered if they try. There are too many voters who are Vietnam vets, and the US simply won't do it. Period. Despite what he intended, i have to qutote George W - "We aren't going to shoot a $2m misile at a $10 tent at hit a camel in the butt". Well, yet you are.
-Michael Roy Some people are like Slinkies. Not really useful, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down
War, especially this kind of "feel good" unwinnable war, consumes Gross National Product without the benefit of raising the standard of living. That is, every effort put to the war is effort that could have been put to feed, salve or teach our own citizens or to aid other citizens.
Unwinnable? Yes. Just as in the Gulf War, America claims victory because we've hit all the known military objectives, while Saddam claims victory because we've not hit all the unknown military objectives and he remained in power. A war without losers is a war without winners. And that's exactly what we're facing with this newest "whack-a-mole" war in Afghanistan.
--"Emanuel Goldstein", 1984, by George Orwell
Endless war just stratifies the society into a more crisp and more maintainable hierarchy of the Power Elite, the Party sheep, and the proletariat masses.
[
Thanks for saying this. Half the time I watch the news, my roommate wonders why the hell I blurt out a "Shut the fuck UP!" every hour or so. (Side note - not all reporters are idiots; mad props to one reporter who, when questioned as to his whereabouts by his anchorman, replied with "Y'know, I think they said it was OK to tell you where I am, but I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. I'll tell you tomorrow.")
To Slashdotters reading this - you can help.
Do not post reports of military activity in your area. If you see lots of planes taking off from an airbase, or lots of planes landing, or lots of trucks moving about, or anything that might indicate our future plans, keep your mouth shut about it for a day or so before telling folks what you saw. Don't post names of people you know are on duty or being called up. Don't post unit numbers.
Exceptions can be made for breaking news, such as yesterday's intercept over Chicago, where our forces wouldn't be jeopardized. But I'm sure that anyone, with a moment's thought, can see the difference between "Holy shit, sonic booms over Chicago!" and "I wonder where all those planes and ships are going?"
Loose lips sink ships.
Jon Katz charges -
>This war began with dreadful, although geographically localized, civilian sacrifice
Any source or proof of major civilian casualties directly due to the war
(as opposed to the death and suffering ongoing for the last 20 -25 years)??
it's an interesting idea: if we can discuss how a war will be fought on /., we're discussing war as an application of technology, not as a conflict between people. to put it more simply, if we discuss how a piece of high technology fares against certain other technologies in a certain terrain, climate, etc., we're suddenly talking (and thinking) about technology rather than humans using technology to fight eachother.
the danger is that if we think of war as a conflict of tech in which the best tech wins, we begin to think that war is not a human conflict but an application of technology. of course, you can't dismiss the fact that war is, and always has been, a technologically faciliated endevour. but in discussing the tech, it's easy to lose the politics beneath the tech and, more importantly, the most general point of the tech: to kill as efficiently as possible.
Not sure why you say that most people expect to do this with little to no losses, and no footwork by US soldiers. Where I work, 90% of the employees have no college education. About 25% have family either currently in the armed forces, or very recently out.
Overwhelmingly, they expect that their sons, daughters, brothers, will be put in danger. They have accepted what Bush and others have said: it's gonna take soldiers on foot.
Perhaps they are more savvy than the average citizen. But even those rather far removed from those in the military accept it. What they do seem to want is for us to use as many smart bombs and other technological means prior to putting troops on the ground.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Tech stuff is ok for fighting at the front and for bombing stuff, but the war is here! America has allowed many terrorists to establish residence and even citizenship. They are our neighbors, they may even number amoung our "friends" and one day they will act! There are amoung the terrorists native born Americans. As Thomas Wolf put it "Which of us has known his brother, who has looked into his fathers heart?" Each of us is a "soldier", our homes are foxholes, their action against us will be very direct, here in America, in the cities, in the country, they will strike anywhere: churches, banks, buses, homes, farms...anything can be a target! Their aim is to destroy us, their plans and army are already in place, already established, well prepared with supplies, hidden, unknown! Killing ben laden will only elevate him to status of martyr. I was a child when Pearl Harbor was attacked. America responded, I witnessed a combined expression of caring for each other, and a drawing together, protecting and defending, caring and loving, a huge national resolve to work together, to sacrifice our lives if required, for our common welfare, to protect our families, friends, all Americans, even humanity itself. Against this monstrous act. America was mobilized, motivated, in a way that the world forgot, until 9/11/2001. My ancestors came to America while it was still a colony. They came here for freedom. They fought in the American revolution, as they have fought in every war since to preserve that freedom. We will do it until we die. And without fanfare, quietly, I will step forward with my weapon, to defend my country when needed, with my life if required, just as every other American that I know, will also.
I assume you are talking about the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan, who is responsible for numerous well documented (outside the Carolinas, anyway) atrocities including the slaughter of surrendered (white) Union prisoners for associating with armed blacks?
The same Forrest who is abhorred "by freedom loving people all across America" as you put it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
--Charlie
Here's a link that works:
Osama bin Laden: Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
He is doing what he can to make violence seem reasonable. But it isn't.
Bush's education improvements were
airports, which were unlikely to be used in this
conflict, anyway, and which the US & UK will now
have to pay Afghanistan to rebuild, once the war
is over. See Sun Tzu's excellent paper on warfare
on why this is an incredibly stupid tactic.
The "minimal loss of life" has included UN
volunteer workers, when those carefully guided
missiles slammed into a UN-sponsored facility.
IIRC, this is not the first time "smart bombs"
have been fired by less-than-smart humans. The US
really should update its maps. I'm sure the
Chinese would help pay for some. Iraq and Libya
would probably chip in some cash, too, given the
number of civilians killed by "stray" missiles,
fired in anger by US pilots, in both countries.
The first problem is that the military are
unbelievably dumb. Giving them "smart" technology
doesn't make them any smarter. (Laptops and the
UK's MOD don't mix. Well, they do, and then they
seperate, with said laptops carrying information
MOD officials damn well aught to know better
should not be put on unsecure machines.)
The second problem is that even the "smart"
technology is far from "smart". The guidance
systems (camera-based, laser-guided, GPS, etc) are
all prone to error, and there seems to be very
little in the way of verification done. (If there
were, we wouldn't get stray missiles! The system
would be able to detect there was a problem, and
correct it.)
The third problem is that this kind of war
depersonalises it. Death and destruction at the
push of a button, with no understanding or
compassion. Reminds me a lot of Davros, from the
television series "Doctor Who", or the Cybermen.
In both cases, fictional descriptions of what
happens when you destroy the "human element", and
replace it with passionless machinary. How, then,
should we challange those things which -are- evil?
Again, the good Doctor answered this, in the story
"Evil of the Daleks" - cooperation, caring and
compassion are more powerful than brute-force and
power-plays.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Can all this technology help? i don't know, but seeing as you sold half of it to the taliban already, i'd say your pretty f*cked. I don't think Bin Laden took the energy to plan all these attacks for nothing. War works like chess, and it looks like he has thought several moves ahead, but bush (like the ape he is) is having difficulty just thinking of one. All the accidental plane crashes and anthrax cases seem a bit to co-incidental? Not to mention blair, who is risking our lives by joining in with it.
:) I mean, if you knew your camps were about to be cruised' would you not move them??
They had: Some mobile phones, a few laptops, and some determined people.
The Feds had: Advanced evesdropping systems, weapons, super-computers.
Who one that one?
The Army/Airforce's have: Planes, Guns, Tanks, Night-vision, and pretty much any kind of blowy uppy thing they want.
The taliban has the advantage of homeground, loads of caves (no they don't have back doors) and i wouldn't be surprised if all the terrorist hangouts the US just hit were actually fakes (does no-one in the gov. play Red-Alert?
And the number 1, all time best weapon the they have:
They have members living all around the world right now, and for all you know, they could be living next door to you...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Any technology we have, our enemies can get/have... Whats the point?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
There was an article in Newsweek a just a couple weeks ago about this very topic. The same technolgy we use for peaceful means empowers terrorists, it says. http://www.msnbc.com/news/629630.asp
The question of whether we can accomplish our goals in this conflict with a high-tech, sanitary, "surgical strike" like we did in the Gulf War is based on the false premise that we've ever acheived anything with this type of technology. In fact, the great majority of air sorties flown in the Gulf were thoroughly conventional, although we were never shown much of this type of action on CNN.
The Myth of Surgical Bombing in the Gulf War [deoxy.org]
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Where would out future combat sims come from!?
We can't just keep fighting the Gulf War on our computers forever...!
There IS a way to kill this hydra, but it can be VERY VERY ugly, and I don't know if we have the will. If pushed to the wall (aka enough deaths inside the US), I think (fear) we will do it. It's called genocide. When it's life or death, things like the moral high ground tend to go way
And your right, it's probably NOT a good time to be an American
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
>>find bin Laden is to wait for him to send a message and then follow the courier
His last message to the Al Jazeera news service was by fax. I think now that operations have started, all future communications will be done in this manner.
One common thread I'm seeing this this mystique of the 'religious warrior' and his supposedly supernatural power to overcome our weak invading forces. "Oh no, they've declared jihad!" Even people who don't believe in their God somehow see this as giving them some kind of edge because they're willing to die.
Frankly - fuck 'em. I'm not intimidated by anyone in some third world bass-ackwards country even if they're "defending their home and their religion". I'm not taken up in the sentimental (even if subconscious) attraction to the freedom fighter (as they see themselves) or the desparate religious zealot (as others see them).
Quite simply - our superior technology, superior productivity, and superior will will prevail. I don't care how dirty and desparate they are.
What I don't understand is how the US, who failed to do much in the way of getting Saddam out of power in a desert country, expects to accomplish a far more difficult goal in a mountainous country.
Unfortunately, Dubya and the rest of the gang aren't going to tell these cold facts to the American people, and the US cannot afford the real solution strategically, militarily, or economically. So we settle for bombing runs that look good on the evening news and demonstrate our gee-whiz technology. Meanwhile, the terrorists lurk in civilian areas, watching the news with the rest of the world, laughing about the tents made of goatskin that are being destroyed by million dollar weapons, and planning their next mission.
All the technology in the world does not change the fact that war is about destruction and killing, holding ground, and exercising force upon the enemy to reach goals. To me, it looks as though the terrorists are winning this conflict.
That video wasn't faxed. And we can trace electronic communications - that's what we're good at.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Collateral damage is inevitable, not dreadful.
You're kidding right? Right??
"Collateral damage..." what a fucked up saying that is...basically, it means those people who had no involvment whatsoever in the argument taking place but SOMEHOW WOUND UP DEAD!!
If you flip the coin... the 5000 people who died at the World Trade Center are collateral damage from yet another argument...
collateral damage = tragic victims - perspective differentiates the two.
'sapientia potestas est'
So.
When they feed you the drugs and roll the 'newsreel'... do you eat popcorn, or is that drugged, too.
Sheesh.
It'a amazing what kinds of critters will crawl out of the woodwork and call the rest of us 'clueless.'
I don't care what the US has done in the past, it has never targeted innocent people.
Not True. The most extreme counterexamples come from WW2, when US high command decided to start fire bombing residential neighborhoods in Tokyo and other Japanese cities. In this regard, the use of nuclear weapons was only a change in scale, not in policy. Other examples come from Germany WW2, Vietnam and Korea.
That (publicly known) US military policy doesn't involve targetting civilans doesn't mean it hasn't happened in the past, or can't happen again. I like the US, and I'm glad that technological advances allow for more accurate munitions. I just hope the people in charge can identify legitimate targets with equal accuracy.
It's pretty interesting...
But this is a good root post by Jon. And it's about a military subject, so I'm even more surprised.
The main problem I was seeing was that we were focussing on the cruise missiles (which can cost millions per missile) instead of JATO or JDAMs. Luckily, we have moved to JDAMs, which run around $20K per bomb and are more accurate than cruise missiles.
War is about a number of things:
1. Confusion
2. Command and Control
3. Bringing resources to attack the enemy or defend against them
4. Economics
So far, it looks like we're doing a good job. We have moved from the ultra-expensive phase to the inexpensive phase, where we can use our larger resource base, our control of airspace, our identification methods, and our ability to overwhelm defenses so that they are at a disadvantage.
But when it comes down to it, we still have to get the terrorists. It's easy to spot them when they have weapons, but what if they slip over the border unarmed? Money is not that traceable if it's cash or bearer bonds or illegal pharmaceuticals.
Technology will only help us - it can't win the war - for that we have to be willing to persist, to accept larger numbers of casualties than we've been willing to accept, and to make sure we target the true terrorists and not just people who don't like us or who look like terrorists. And technology isn't good at that.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
...right next to the target, a Taliban transmission tower. After the other employees there had left.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
We've evidently got these nifty microwave zappers for crowd control. Could these be useful in taking a city? In establishing a defense perimeter? How far can they project in a tunnel? How far can they be turned up? Are they a practical alternative to tactical neutron devices?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Any second there I was expecting you to start talking about the Zionist banking cartels, the Trilateral Commission, and how the moon landing was a hoax. It just shows how well-programmed I am, I guess.
Freedom: "I won't!"
That's the best use of the Internet these days. As the Pacifica Network is overtaken by neo-Liberals, and most of its veteran journalists are ousted, the Internet and traditional print are the only sources of dissent, or at least critical review in the US today.
No one dares say that US foreign policy has created Osama Bin Laden. But giving the Taliban $42 million dollars in May of 2001 is a fact that the US Govt cannot refute.
Well why don't we increase the funding for Nasa exobiology studies. This could have great benefit for NBC defenses as well. Considering that when we do get to Mars or some planet with unknown life or possible life threating contagens we will need spacesuits and similar technologies related to NBC warfare that can protect us and them. By the way what is the latest on the Mars Odyssey probe?
That other countries can read/hear english and watch the news???
While I think it's interesting to be able to follow the progress of the war, it does seem a bit dubious from a military intelligence standpoint... heck, the enemy could probably figure out more about the US/UK/UN force's current activities by popping up the American news channels.
As for the sonic boom over Chicago, I didn't hear it (may have been underground in the subway at the time) - and this whole situation REEKs of the same over-eager reporting rumors as news that made me stop watching nearly all the local news channels after the WTC tragedy... I didn't watch/listen, but my family told me that the stations were reporting fights in the cockpit, having to subdue someone who was trying to force his way in, F16's were going to shoot the plane down, etc etc etc etc. Given that nothing serious happened, my mom was laughing that night when they interviewed some of the "Brave Courageous" passengers who subdued the handicapped person and administered him Valium and Benedryl. BENEDRYL!!! Soothes those cuts and pains!
News Anchors & Crews, please show some restraint! Verify stories! I have no respect for American News channels, some of this stuff I would expect from Fox news, but CBS, ABC and MSNBC were reporting almost the same things. I now only watch the BBC news. Less of a Pro-American-only stance, but better quality and offers better world views on actions taken by the Americans.
I hope to die peacefully in my sleep like grandpa, not screaming like his passengers.
Brainwashing is nothing new and can be really effective in the current war...
In fact, the US is already doing this in the name of "humanitarian aid" and "food dropping".
What I don't understand, is why they haven't dropped booklets in ARABICS as well.
Printing in English on the food packs is as stupid a move as you can make. With their literacy level how are they going to understand English?
First, we have the technolog to feed the world yet do not use it. (Because this woud not make anyone any money.)
We have the technology to make any area (no matter how arid) into a garden. Again, this does not happen because people won't life a finger to help anyone unless there is profit involved. (Sure there are 10% of the "good" people out there.)
So instead of doing ANYTHING about the billion starving people of the world we simply look at them and say "Whew, I'm glad we don't have to deal with that kind of situation over here." What kind of fucking responsibility is that?
The worlds resources or wasted on the 'western culture' We've hogged everything up and taken everything away from the rest of the world.
We've taken the basic human function of reproduction as the 'most basic and definite purpose for being' and turned it into something economical.
Thou Shalt Not Kill. When you support or endorse the killing for whatever reason you are responsible. And America will always be a target until we stop being an Enemy to so many people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
This is because we're side to side in a map (I'm en Mexico), and because my work (computer-related) just can't be done other way.
First: I will not say that I dislike USA's way of life, to the extent that it does't get involved into other people's way of life. I don't like USA's standing in "our way of life it's the best, so we will impose it in every corner of the planet". USA must stop in doing so.
Second: Do you actually know what level of security is used to secure must Israel's airports, borders, even malls? you know that must of it came from USA? you think that USA is going to be more secure than Israel? (at every level, be it high-tech or militar), do you think that Israel, some day, some how, will be terrorist-free? do you think USA?
Third: USA has demostrated before, it's people is not prepared to deal with a long-standing war on terrorism on it's own soil. If the american people think that this war is going to be fighten in other place, they're mistaken. USA must realize that it is not going to benefit from this "new kind of war". Many countries are already wining it by means of not relating themselfes with middle-east. That's the way people. Stay off that area. Let Israel deal with Palestine.
I like USA the same way I like TCP/IP, it's there, is reliable, it sets a standard, you can use it, and certainly are better ways to do it, but if it begins to change into something that I don't like, It'll be years to have another standard to live on, and I don't know how could it be...
Carlos Niebla
So its a war of robots yes? Say chinese robots vs. american robots, and the best technology wins. So why spend all the monay to build those robots, and not do a "virtual battle" with virtual robots over the internet to see the best technology ?
Or better play a game of chess?
War actually means "give up or *DIE*". *DIE* includes death. Now if USA media wants USians to think that war is not bloody and no people get killed, thanks to good NASDAQ which makes robots, this is for f00ls.
War sucks. People die. People dont want war. Generals and Presidents do. Weapon companies do. American economy wants war.
That's like curing cancer by killing the patient. There are organizations as dangerous as al Qaeda in the US. Remember Oklahoma City? That was an American. Nobody declared genocide on Montana (or wherever).
That's ridiculous you say, but it's as ridiculous as wiping out a culture that has been under the stress of constant war for decades because it contains some fanatical groups. American culture also has fanatical groups. In fact, americans consider it a strength that they are an ideologically diverse culture. The Arab world is also more ideologically diverse than Westerners know, and the US can only share blame for the existence of these fanatics, because we did encourage them (financially at least) in their efforts against the soviets. We didn't join with them in a "War against Terrorism" like we are calling for now. Perhaps if we had done this earlier, rather than later, the world would be a more peaceful place.
"PBS had a show last night which talked about the US recent military actions on behalf of muslims in kosovo and bosnia. remember those? the whole 'genetic cleansing' crap which was sweeping the eastern bloc and literally translated to 'kill all the muslims'. the US and the UN fought at great expense to stop the genocides of milosevic, etc, toward muslims."
Yes the actions taken there were good but the party line over there is it was very late in the comming. Heck they even back that up now by pointing to how long it took America to respond to attacks on their soil versus the Saudi's in 1991 where they had oil interests (they mostly paint Saddam mostly as a puppet who was recieving US arms and aid even has he mounted troops on the border or a great man for paying the families of suicide bombers depending on the day and what's transpired)or Kosovo and Bosnia. So the moral of this for those fanatatics is make the attack hit homeland America. A poor one but that's unfortunately what they seem to be taking away from this.
Technology does not win wars. It can significantly contribute to success, but by itself cannot fight or win wars. Desert Storm was a fluke. It should not be viewed as a "win" either. True, the enemy was driven out of Kuwait, but that took ground troops after all was said and done. But the efforts again Iraq in the aftermath have been both ridiculous and pitiful, having no effect against the government, and harming only the poor people of the country.
Bin Laden will not be taken out by cruise missiles, unless he gets really stupid. Some might say attacking the US was his first stupid move, but so far he's gotten away with it. He's got plenty of experience hiding out underground where bombs and missiles aren't going to reach.
In the end it will come down to forces on the ground, whether that is a SEAL team or a small army, I don't know, but that's what it will take to get at Bin Laden. No one should think that we will accomplish our objectives without sacrifice of lives. Sadly, most Americans these days seem to feel that there is nothing worth sacrificing their lives. They feel that a death is too high a price to pay for any end. Life is a wonderful precious thing, but sometimes sacrifices must be made. There are issues larger than life. There are forces more powerful. There are fates worse than death. If you can't think of any, than you've already lost hope.
Also before the USSR invasion:
Check out MKDoc a mod_perl CMS
I am pushing for a high tech Jon Katz filter for /.
Oh is that off topic, paint it with camouflage patterns.
Nearest I can figure is that this "war" on the rubble of Afghanistan is going to just create an excuse for more terrorist attacks against US civilians.
what, so if we had not responded, there would be no more terrorist attacks against us??
In case you hadn't noticed, Sept.11 occurred exactly because we had not crushed these guys for there previous attacks. From the US embassy bombings in Africa, to the USS Cole to the first WTC bombing, they have been waging war on us for years and it is only now we have responded with force.
This is a good point. Word for word, this fella's paragraphs could be used to evoke the same response in a Talaban-loving Afgani. But you are a fool, and here's why:
The USA doesn't want casualities in a far off land.
Actually we do. We want to destroy these people that killed our folks and knocked down our buildings, injured our economy and the economy of the world. We want to destroy them, we know we may lose some more blood in the process, but by God, we're going to do it.
The Afghan soldiers are fighting to protect their motherland, their way of life, their religion.
Actually, that's kinda what WE'RE doing. We're happy to let people be people. We just get pissed off when people kill our folks and knock our buildings down, injuring our economy and that of the world. OBL wants his flavor of radical Islam to cover the world, and will jihad to do it. And by the way, not all Afganis agree with OBL.
Personally I consider that both the governments of Afghanistan and the USA could be considered not to enjoy unified support from their peoples, are corrupt to some degree and abuse their populace.
Hmm... interesting thought, and while literally true, I think it impressive that polls show 90% of Americans back the path the world is taking right now.
I far prefer the latter to the former...
As do I.
but I don't see purity and unsullied goodness on either side of the political fence. I just worry that yet more innocent people who would like peace and want to get on with their lives are going to die.
Bin Laden has been (heard on radio) murdering prominent leaders of the Northern Alliance. If we help them into power, which is where it looks as though they may be headed, they have their own score to settle with the guy. And it won't be them "doing our dirty work for us", they have their own legitimate reasons for executing him. We will just be a happy beneficiary. I really think we are being kept in the dark as to how much better the Northern Alliance will be on the issue of Human Rights.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
One thing it looks like many people forget about is technology's role in the new world of Predictive Intelligence, something that only exists in it's infancy now, but has vast potential for this new kind of war.
A few years ago, I was working at a dot-com on some really fascinating "intelligent" software. It would pull out abstract information from unrelated data and form n-dimensional "clouds" where related entities would become grouped toegther. It would then proceede to "find faces" in the clouds. In other words, it would try to extrapolate out new information based on what information it was given, no matter how much or how little.
It was a simply amazing tool for data analysis, for pulling out the relevant information from a sea of data, for making educated guesses that actually give you results... But like all dot-coms, we frittered our money away and now I don't know if more than three people in the world even have copies of this once multi-million dollar software.
My point is, if we as a no-nothing dot-com can come up with a really fantastic data mining/information extrapolation engine (of course, we used it solely for short-sighted evil-marketing purposes, thus our demise), then the government could certianly be able to build a system fifty times as complex, and use it for vastly more important purposes than correlating CDs with clothing purchases.
The next step for military technology isn't going to be the next biggest bomb or the pair of night-vision goggles that will let you do macramé in a cave during a new moon. Instead the next advance will be predictive and learning software that can make "good guesses" as to when and where the enemy will strike next. It will be able to profile everyone in the world based on thier credit-card purchases corelated with thier taste in web-sites, thier shoe size, and how many hours of bowling they watch a year, and be able to spot the "sleeper" terrorists with a 99.982% degree of accuracy. It will be able to analyse battlefield data and predict troop movement, ambushes, and caculate the plan of action that would lead to the biggest victory with the smallest loss of life.
Don't get me wrong, though, high-tech gadgetry will play a role in the war, of course, but to delude ourselves into thinking that all we need is Rambo and night vision will just lead us straight back into Vietnam, or if you're a Russian, Afganistan...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Actually, it was on the front page of CNN this morning when I looked.
Apparently we hit a UN building next door to a Taliban transmission tower. Four UN workers reported dead, all associated with a project to remove old mines from the country. Looked like a credible report, and seems unlikely that the Taliban are responsible.
Also, here's to hoping that we don't drop millions more mines on that country ourselves. 10 years later and they are still cleaning up mines from their last invasion.
...if our media is so into doing this "investigative reporting", why someone at the Puzzle Palace (CIA) or the Pentagon hasn't figured out how to take advantage of this is beyond me. Tell the press everthing. Get the enemy reacting at everything. Keep THEM off balance for once.
I think that the 10th Mtn to Uzbekistan was a feint, the last piece. All prior to Sunday was to convince the Taliban to send their forces north, get them out into the open and manouvering, and give them a nice Mk82 bitch slap.
What we don't seem to grasp in the US is that the SpecFor (Delta Force, SEALs, Green Berets, GSG-9, SAS, etc.) are the most efficient enforcers in the civilized world. The Rangers are the epitome of the US Infantryman. The SEALs and Special Forces are the epitome of the civilian SWAT teams. They pretty much hate toe-to-toe fights and aren't really equiped for it, but they do love the flip side.
There is no hope for the old way (i.e., send in the 3rd Armor Division and 82nd Airborne). The Soviet Union and Britain showed us how well that works in Afghanistan. We'll have to fight them at their level (Wouldn't it be ironic if more than a few field-grade US SF officers were there in the 80's as enlisted/jr officers fighting against those they advised?)
SWAT teams are the closest civilian equivalent most of us can grasp. The SF mission will be very police-like: surveillance, tracking, HUMINT and the occaisional raid. What happened in Somalia with our Special Forces there was what happens when you get complacent: We assumed the Somalis were just a bunch of Khat [sic] freaks, that we could keep operating the same way and no one would figure it out, and that the apparant size of our units would keep everyone at bay. Well, it didn't work out that way (read "Blackhawk Down", for you perspectively-challenged). They got off-mission that time, and paid badly for it. Rumor has it that bin Laden had a hand in helping them out there with that...
Cops shouldn't play soldier, nor should soldiers play cop, for any long period of time.
I think that we learned a lot from Somalia, in the right circles, and like the Iran Hostage Rescue, it won't happen ever again...
They learn, yes. But if we allow our troops to, and our troops don't get operationally complacent, then so do our troops...and we have better supply lines.
High explosives in the 80-90 tons.
Visibility 0.
Tomahawks: 40-50.
Rain: Shrapnel heavy at times.
Radar: Clear (but I swear there's something out there.)
I mean, a-freaking-men to this comment. I love how we are just repeating the same god damn mistakes we made when we were on the playground as kids.
1 kid is a bully, and gets his way. Another kid is sneaky, and pulls a surprise on the Bully that leaves him smarting. Bully proceedes to go after anyone who looks like they might have had anything to do with that cheap dirty trick.
Damn W. I thought smart people learned from the past- I guess you are neither smart, nor willing to learn. Look at Vietnam! Look at the Soviet war! Look at the god damn evidence that tells it wasn't the people you are bombing to pieces!
And for those about to flame me, Mr W Jr has been planning an assault on the Taliban for months now. And the article (that I will look for) also states that even if Osama was handed over, they would still bomb them back to the stone age (oh wait, they are already there, aren't they)
Bush, I have one thing to say to you:
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
And bin Laden is a surprisingly agile enemy. He not only grasps America's most vulnerable points, he understands "spinning," using video-imagery and satellite transmission to get his side of the story out. This is something Saddam never began to grasp.
Please tell me I am not the only one disturbed by the fact that the world media is all to willing spread his propaganda by the endless repetitions of his 'recruitment' videos.
I know that we do need to understand our enemy and it was newsworthy that he spoke out concerning the attacks. On the other hand, I fear that more sympathy will be aroused for his cause and the net effect will be a negative one.
endersdad"I don't care what the US has done in the past, it has never targeted innocent people. "
Yup. There were no civilians in Hiroshima. Sure.
Idiot.
...wars without real sacrifice.
Excuse me? There was sacrifice aplenty in Iraq, just not on our side of the battle. And there will be LOTS of people killed in this war, just most of them won't be Americans.
You're right to question the correctness of our reliance on technology for this, but for the wrong reasons.
A Beauwolf cluster of Smart Bombs. How many floating point instructions will be calculated before impact?
um, you'd *better* figure out how to make them play video, or at least sound. Afghanistan has one of the lowest literacy rates on the globe, and it's gotten even lower since the Taliban took over in 1996 and banned women from going to school.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
I highly doubt that the American Gov't would let out more information than it wants its enemies to know. I think asking the world to be quiet so we can win this war is a silly request that will never be fulfilled. We live in a media-rich environment, and many parties take advantage of it. You should appeal to the masses who demand this information of newscasters, if you're so upset. They're the ones who lead reporters to tell the world what they know.
With this as a benchmark, 40,000 Taliban/Al Qaeda troops can be defeated by conventional direct ground troup assualt with approximately 4800 US troops lost. The goal of all the technology is to reduce that 4800 number. It will do this dramatically. The ways technology will help us are:
- Precision bombing of air defenses to establish complete airspace dominance enabling rapid strike helicopter based special operations
- Satelite, drone, and "webcam" style recon to identify tactical targets and track troop and operative movements
- Precision heavy munitions: large 5,000 "bunker buster" bombs
- Precision tactical light munitions: smaller payloads such as precision mortar used tactically against troops
- "Painting" targets for aerial bombing by ground based forces allows attack without giving up position
- Night vision gives a decisive tactical superiority in guerilla fighting
- Communication monitoring, jamming, and even psych ops style transmitting & disinformation
In the end, it WILL still come down to special forces breaking down doors suddenly and killing at close range. Techology will assure that this is done against weaker immobilized opponents, that it comes rapidly with less warning, and that it occurs under conditions highly favorable to our troops.The problem with this new conflict is that in breaks all of the rules of conventional warfare. The U.S. Armed Forces are superior to anything else the world has to offer, in spite of it's just ending eight-year atrophy.
But that doesn't matter in this conflict.
Thousands of terrorist operatives may already be in the country. We can bomb Afghanistan and assassinate leaders, but how can we defeat a silent, anonymous enemy in our homeland who sits quiety and undetected until it self-destructs taking with it thousands of innocent lives? How can we even begin to defeat such a foe?
I believe there are only two ways out of our present dilemna: expel from our nation anyone that could be a terrorist operative (which, thanks to forged identification documents, is impossible without infringing on the rights of thousands/millions of innocent Americans), or giving in to the demands of the radical Islam movements by withdrawing from the Middle East.
Because both of these options are so undesirable, I fear that our whole way of life is now coming to an end. What happens when our water supply is poisoned? When random buildings start blowing up?
So, no, I don't believe our technology will help us win this war. I wonder what will?
You're an idiot. Not a RAGING IDIOT, just an idiot. RTFA. Osama explicitly says his only desire is to kill all Americans, and you want to suck his dick.
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
I never assumed that there was not a distinction between the two. I was pointing out that leaking business information has become far too common in the internet era, and were it to spread to military operations, the results would be disasterous.
Then again, the whole point of your post may be "KILLING BAD!! BAD!!!", in which case I have nothing more to say to you.
I'm pretty sure Our technology will be as useful in this "new war" as it was in the last, "New war" fought in the same area of the world. The media will be given images of successful bombings, we will hear nobody who wasn't, "Evil" was hurt and we will wonder what the truth really is.
A year or so later we will see a few images of thousands of injured innocent people, lots of destroyed buildings with no "terrorist" connection - and we will all go, "oh... well I guess that's to be expected with war".
The difference is, this is a great excuse for the US to just keep on fighting until the economy is super number 1 again. Go samurai cowboys! stamp out evil in all it's forms!
The last thing any of us wants is to be attacked in our own countries. The difference between giving your government the ability to "go to war" with anybody they choose - and actually going after the people responsible is a pretty severe difference.
Use your heads when voting for the next president.
Ace
It is however being waged against an unconventional enemy.
The problem is that the "enemy" in this case is faceles, it's not
Sure, you can knock out the Taleban, string up
I hasten to add that infiltration, inteligence gathering and the planting of agents will almost certainly be more effective in this on going conflict. You won't see it, you won't here about it, it won't be on TV, but it will be there and it will be more efficient at saving lives than a cruise missile.
Ultimatly of course the only way this kind of war can really be won in the long run is by unleashing the worlds most potent, deployable and self-reproducing weapon,
education....
....if someone can be persuaded to hate and to kill they can also be persuaded to love and to cherish
Damn, I sound like a hippy!
Be nice to people on the way up. You will meet them again on your way down!
I love Fallout.
No mutants allowed, baby!
"Most Americans are convinced that technology -- GPS targeting systems, thermal imaging... will carry the day for us."/ STRIKE_poll011007.html k s_poll_1.html
In a ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll "Eighty-two percent expect a long war. And 71 percent support President Bush's call for a broad war on terrorism" and "Three-quarters or more support sending "a significant number" of U.S. ground troops into Afghanistan"
ABC Poll:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews
Summary of ABC News-Washington Post, NBC-Wall Street Journal and CNN-USA Today Polls:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011008/us/attac
"As technology advances, every activity has the potential to be more efficient, whether it's killing people or mowing the lawn."
There! Saved you a few dozen words, too! Or, if you prefer reductio ad absurdum:
"When your method of doing something advances, you do more of it faster."
Don't forget Atlantis, U.F.O.s and Silly Putty!
Oooh! And Microsoft. You're always supposed to aim some dig at Microsoft around here, aren't you?
And yes, it does show how well-programmed you are. But to drag a timely quote out of my ass, G.I.-Joe always told us that, "Knowing is Half the Battle!"
-Fantastic Lad; --"YO, Joe!"
Obviously the officers and men of a nation's military are valid targets but what about the factories that produce the weapons? Would that be a vaild target? What if there was no centralised factory, and workers made weapons, or weapon parts in their own homes? Would their homes be vaild military targets?
If you are assembling tank treads in your garage, should you really be surprised if the enemy bombs your house?
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
When they said repent, repent I wonder what they ment
another Lenord Cohen fan! Cool!
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No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo
Most of the people in Afghanistan consider the Northern Alliance a foreign force and will not tolerate them.
Additionally, they have a similar fundamental interpretation of the Islam...
I'd say, get rid of the Taliban by making most of the ethnic groups turn against them (not by letting one group dominate the others).
Then we'll probably see a segmentation of Afg. in different states which will, given time, reunite again when they discover that they need each other.
Still don't want to fight? Fine.
Still think we don't need to kill these people?
Plz Die Thks.
To answer JonKatz’s questions: Not necessarily. A lot. Maybe, different people have different expectations. Probably not, but see previous answer. As I said, a lot. Yes. Sometimes, it depends on the data. No, you can never guarantee perfect safety. Yes. Sometimes, it depends on how clever the launderers are. Yes. Yes, IF it is properly applied. Sometimes. As I said, a lot but it can’t do everything.
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Technology is one way to gain an advantage in conflict. But it is not the only way. We have a positive asymmetry of technology. In other words, we have better and more technology than Al-Qaeda. But, for example, we have a negative asymmetry of means. In other words, even if terrorists had skyscrapers and jet liners we would NOT fight them by slamming one into the other to kill thousands of non-combatants. At least I like to think we wouldn’t. We historically have had a negative asymmetry of will with these groups. The terrorists were willing to endure more hardship to achieve victory than we would. That has changed, as a result of poor intelligence (the military kind) on their part. They went too far, caused too many casualties; and now we are much more willing to endure hardship in order to eliminate them as a threat. At least I like to think we are. Technology gives us one type of advantage in this conflict, but just as Airpower alone won’t win this war, so to Technology alone is not enough of an advantage to guarantee victory.
I will address two specific areas of warfare that have been impacted by technology, psychological operations and the principle of mass.
War is usually a psychological phenomenon. It is possible to eliminate an enemy by killing every last one of them, but it is difficult. It is more efficient to either break their will or convince them to join your side, and so that is what is usually done. The terrorists know this. They stage their events for maximum media exposure and psychological effect. Or at least they try to. The technology that gives us mass media and instant communications thus becomes a tool to break the will of our society. But our side can use technology for it’s psychological operations, too. Not just in delivering the message* but in figuring out what message to send and when to send it. Psychological operations becomes married with the concepts of Civil Affairs and Grand Strategy. Technology is more than just machines with blinking lights. Technology includes things like advertising and marketing techniques (if you don’t think we have the best marketing technology in the world, watch commercials from other cultures) and even psychology, socionomy (I refuse to use the term psycho-history), and econometrics. Everyone focuses on the sophisticated eavesdropping equipment the NSA and NIMA have, but few people talk about the sophisticated social, economic, and psychological models that the CIA has. These models are supposedly just as advanced above their civilian counterparts as the spy satellites are from civilian imaging satellites. These models can allow us to understand which groups to target militarily, psychologically, or politically. This better understanding, both on an intuitive and an analytical level, of human nature and international politics means the difference between an overly lethal terrorist attack that unifies its victims and a slowly built, carefully targeted, well explained coalition attack that minimizes the number of supporters that are driven to the terrorist’s power base. It may be hard to think of an academic paper on Disaster Sociology as technology, but such “soft science” developments are just as much of a technological edge as their “hard science” counterparts.
Perhaps the biggest effect technology has had on how war is waged is by changing the principle of mass. Not mass as in Newton, mass as in a lot of troops in a small area. Robert Leonhard points out that in ancient times, when one man, on average, killed less than one opponent it was necessary to mass troops in order to maximize killing power. Troops needed their comrades help in dispatching the enemy and if alone would be vulnerable to massed troops from the other side. When one man can kill more than one opponent, then mass no longer becomes desirable**. A large tight group of troops just becomes a juicy target for one of those highly lethal enemy soldiers armed with high rate of fire, ranged weapons. Despite the obvious transition point at the 1=1 ratio, this is not a sudden switch. Some well equipped veteran troops in the War of Northern Aggression (the American Civil War for you Yankees and foreigners) probably moved into this “modern” region of the lethality curve. On the other hand, there are many units in modern armies that cannot achieve a lethality greater than 1. No one will dispute that well equipped (with high tech weapons) , well trained (with high tech training and simulation tools, some of which comes from the entertainment industry), disciplined (with modern indoctrination methods), Special Forces units supported by quality C4ISR*** (also driven by technology) can achieve a lethality of a dozen or more. Veteran Mujahideen fighting on well known terrain can probably also achieve high lethalities. It is likely, therefore, that small, self contained, dispersed units, supported by high tech logistics, intel, and ranged attack units will play a key role not only in this conflict, but in all future ones.
* Can anyone think of improvments we can make in the psy-op technology used to reach such people. Leaflets are the primary technology, but we also drop cheap radios tuned to Radio Liberty and the like. Could we combine the two into a thin leaflet/solar-powered radio? One of the advantages of a leaflet is an enemy soldier can hide it (sometimes we print stuff on the back side that allows the enemy to hide a leaflet more easily) and read it when alone, for a radio that would mean including an earphone, which would probably increase cost, mass, and bulk too much to be used on each leaflet. What about an e-paper leaflet with a small computer chip that would allow it to display more information (and even animation) than a conventional leaflet is limited to. What about using the e-paper to make a leaflet that could be reprogrammed by an encrypted wireless signal, so that it could be updated with new informtion. It could be sort of like a "closed captioned" radio. How soon could such a thing be made? Could it be powered by solar energy or otherwise freed from the constraints of battery life? Got any better ideas?
**Like some of Leonhard’s other conclusions, I feel that he has ALMOST got it but has somehow still missed the mark. The real equation describing the desire for mass must surely include not only your own troops lethality against the enemy, but also the enemy’s lethality against yours. Regardless, it is clear that technology has transformed warfare by greatly increasing the lethality of the individual, and therefore turning warfighting principles that were true for thousands of years on their heads within the last century.
*** Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. Formerly C4IS, formerly C4I, formerly, C3I.
References
Metz, Steven; Johnson, Douglas V., II., Asymmetry and U.S. Military Strategy: Definition, Background, and Strategic Concepts , ARMY WAR COLL STRATEGIC STUDIES INST, 2001, ADA387381 [http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/fulcrum_main.pl?d
(remove excess spaces in urls)
Feder, Stanley A., “Factions and Policons: New Ways to Analyze Politics,” Studies in Intelligence, vol. 31 no. 1, pp 41-57, 1987
Leonhard, Robert R., The Principles of War for the Information Age, Presidio Press, 1998, ISBN 0-89141-647-1
Afghanistan is divided into lightly armed (compared to states) camps of rival tribal leaders. The key is going to be to make it worth their while to join a coalition govt. more favorable to US interests.
During the Yemeni civil war, the govt of N. Yemen mostly just bribed its way to victory, marching south and meeting with tribal chiefs as the army went.
If the US is smart, it will fire fewer million dollar missles and pay more ten thousand dollar bribes. Does that mean that these guys will stay bought? Of course not, but the trick is going to be to create enough incentives on the US/non-Taliban/UN sponsored nation building/whatever side to ensure that.
A few hundred thousand bucks in bribes is chump change compared to the costs, human, political, and finially economic, of fighting a long war.
Don't talk out your ass, college boy. You really think that anything that journalists get told is true? Or that anything they're allowed to see is important? You need to grow up.
"Greater civilian casualties than any war in US history"
So, how many people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki again?
-------------
ans =
NaN
Yes, but the domestic terrorists(militia men, etc) love America, they just don't like our government, hence the attacks on government buildings and not civilian ones.
Lets see how we get that count of *MILLIONS* killed by the U.S.
: South Africa
U.S. Killing people method 1: Something bad happens in the world and America does absolutely nothing.
Example: Bosnia & Somalia before the U.S. got involved, Rwanda, etc.
Verdict: "The U.S. should have done something" all of those deaths are the U.S.A's fault.
U.S. Killing people method 2: Something bad happens in the world we try diplomacy, and moral suassion alone but otherwise continuing relationship with nasty people
Example
Verdict: "U.S. should do more, U.S. complicit in the crimes, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. Killing people method 3: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with economic sanctions.
Example: Iraq, Cuba
Verdict: Innocent people suffer and even die as a result of the economic hardship. The U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 4: Something bad happens in the world and the U.S. supports one side or the other in the conflict.
Example: Afghanistan (last time)
Verdict: U.S. indirectly killing people, also U.S.A. is forever solely responsible for all acts by their one time allies. The U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 5: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with limited military force.
Example: Somalia, Bosnia after U.S. gets involved
Verdict: People killed directly by the U.S. military, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 6: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with overwhelming military force.
Example: Iraq, Afghanistan (Germany, Japan, Italy etc.)
Verdict: Lots of people killed directly by the U.S. military, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
Final Verdict: Only the U.S.A. is a moral agent capable of evil. All other nations only respond to "root causes" and the USA's actions, their response is always the sole responsibility of the U.S.A. All misery and death around the world is always the result directly or indirectly of the either the U.S.A.'s actions or inactions.
If the U.S. signs a treaty (WTO etc.) they are responsible for the evils of 'globalism' and 'imperialism' If the U.S. does NOT sign a treaty (Kyoto accord etc.) they are guilty of 'isolationism' or 'unilateralism.' If the U.S. acts where their interests are involved (Iraq, Afghanistan) they are selfish. If the U.S. acts where their interests are not involved (Bosnia, Somolia) they are arrogantly and imperialisticly meddling with the affairs of others. It is all a plot to sell American made weapons which is why whenever you see people killing each other all around the world they are always using M-16's not Kalishnikovs, Lobing Nike missles and never Scuds, Frogs or Silkworm missles, etc. etc. etc.
We all know that the world was a far better place before the U.S.A. invented hate and death.
Look, I don't if Katz is asking a lot of rhetorical questions or what, but here's my own take on the current situation: I sleep better knowing we're using the "bunker busters" to penetrate twenty or so feet into the ground (from an altitude of 40,000 + feet and obliterate the caverns and bunkers of these people.
Here's a link from the International Herald Tribune. A commander talks about dropping a bunker buster on a terrorism camp, seeing the ground implode, and then seeing the hills light up with small arms fire (a bunch off pissed of al-qaeda fuckers):
International Herald Tribune Bunker Buster article
I'm not particularly moved by war and hope everything gets settled peacefully, but, cripes, these guys are stateless, asymentrical savages. There's no two ways about it.
So, as far as I'm concerned, let us all praise the bunker busters and hope they're contributing to our self-defense.
lets use all our technology to kill these bastards in a whole myriad of creative and painful ways.
Like in the Dresden bombing by the end of World War II?
B52's are ready for the museum, '40s and '50s antiques. Try to do precision bombing with those...
Ogg With Stick beats Nog With Stone Spear.
Barbarians beat Rome.
Fremen overthrow Sardaukar.
Luckily, the US has never shyed away from going in and kicking ass when it really needs to.
Gadgets my ass. Airstrikes. Oops, caves. Nightvision equipment. Oops, really bright lights. Mountain terrain. No oops there, they've got the advantage already.
Technology is great. Especially in war. But it only goes so far. There comes a point where you just need to keep sending men off to the slaughter until you've beaten your enemy into a bloody pulp. Think D Day. Think Afghanistan, which hasn't been truly conquered since, I believe it was Alexander the Great.
Technology alone isn't going to win this war. We're going to have to send in normal, everyday ground troops, and take casulties.
The Gods help us if we don't.
(By the way, will someone stop Katz from trolling? Isn't this like his third or fourth story on technology and war?)
Not True. The most extreme counterexamples come from WW2, when US high command decided to start fire bombing residential neighborhoods in Tokyo and other Japanese cities. In this regard, the use of nuclear weapons was only a change in scale, not in policy. Other examples come from Germany WW2, Vietnam and Korea.
Actually in terms of casulties the firebombing of Tokyo was much more damaging than either of the nuclear weapons dropped on Japan. There was about 650,000 people killed in Tokyo, each nuclear drop killed about 300,000.
Leonard Cohen, but hey, nevermind.
But the lyrics to that particular song are quite fitting: I've seen the future, baby, it is murder.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
~John Stewart Mill
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No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo
As the Chinese found out a few years back, shit happens. In war, shit happens a lot.
We make every effort to hit what we are aiming at. Ususally we hit it. Sometimes we miss or have bad aiming data.
We *COULD* just carpet bomb all the cities and gas the countryside, like the Soviets tried. Frankly, I wouldn't shed a tear. Look at history, the Afghans are the scum of the earth, bandits and smugglers, thieves and murderers.
In the end, it will probably come down to them or us. Good (yes, we are the good guys) versus evil. West versus East. Rich versus poor.
They want to wipe us out, but can't. We can wipe them out, but don't want to (yet). That may change.
War, huh, dear God man! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again...
"Love is never saying you're too proud." -Tonic
Which means what? That they're valid targets? That their deaths are "unfortunate"? That they only have themselves to blame?
I don't think so. You aim those missiles, you fire, and you make damn sure they hit the intended target, not a school, a hospital, a nursery or four sleeping UN workers.
And if worst comes to worst, and you do miss the target and hit one of those, you step up, admit your fault, and face the consequences - a courtmartial.
One would have thought that you would have learned by now that friendly fire isn't.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
The U.S. government and its "allies" allege
that there is "evidence" that allegedly
is introcontrovertible and points to bin Laden.
When is the U.S. public going to get any
information about this "war" not approved
by Congress?
Thank you.
(I can argue just about any side of anything. Here I'll argue the opposite side, just because you seem to be unaware of its arguments.)
No, not "more," just "faster." In every major combat in which America has been involved, fewer people have been killed each time. Desert Storm and Kosovo weren't nearly as bloody as our civil war's Chippamauga (however the heck it's spelled).
Pick one of those wars, any one. How many people, combatants and civilians alike, died as a result of infected wounds? Notice how the numbers drop off as you move towards the present?
That's the whole point. We make the war shorter. We end it sooner, with fewer deaths and no diseases lingering amongst the innocent bystanders.
(That's why I have a love/hate feeling about these sorts of discussions. Both sides are right.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Technology makes war visible, meaning that we can watch it on TV. Last week TNN showed a Star Trek marathon, this week CNN has a war. So far, this has been the best television season ever!
or a hot grits bomb...destruction and humanitarian aid at the same time!
On the contrary, the war plan should be open and publicized for several reasons:
1) An informed public is the cornerstone of democracy. The people have a right and a need to know what actions the state that represents them is taking.
2) Public scrutiny makes identifying and eliminating logistical faults easier.
3) Ideally the plan is good enough that it cannot be defeated even if it is known. Realizing this, the enemy will have no rational choice but to surrender, sparing unnecessary effort and loss of life.
A Marine friend of mine suggests they're already on the ground. Their mission may be to simply identify targets, and to use the confusion of the attacks to discover exactly where Bin Laden and his buddies are hiding.
Once those mountains are blown to bits, they would probably follow to identify bodies and kill the survivors (if any).
That may be the initial hope, but my guess is that even if they do identify hidey-holes, they won't be able to blow 'em out from the sky, and we will have to go in with significant numbers of troops.
It's at that point that the sciences involved in insulation come into play. Any skier knows we've made great strides in that area in recent decades. I think the snow might actually turn into an advantage. But I'm an optimist.
Even assuming all goes well, Afghanistan is just one home to terrorism. There's still Iraq. There's still Syria. There's still Iran, and Iran is (in some ways) a democracy.
The key to all the rest of the propaganda war. And that's a war I fear we're not winning. We don't have to convince 90% of Americans we're right. We have to convince 95% of Muslims that their Fundamentalist preachers are wrong. Otherwise we're just raising a new batch of terrorists.
Hehe, that was great, thanks for the laugh!
Reminds me of a cartoon I once saw. It shows an infantryman in a nasty jungle, with snakes. The infantryman's saying "Damn, it sucks here."
The next panel shows a Ranger in the same spot. He's saying "Damn, I love the way it sucks here!"
The next panel shows someone from Special Forces in the same spot. He's saying "Damn, I wish it would suck here more!"
The final frame shows a pilot looking down. "Boy, I bet it really sucks down there!!"
And that's my $0.32 (adjusted for inflation).
What do you call the siege of Iraq? Do you think anyone important to Hussein is going to starve?
At the time of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the USSR made some of the finest military equipment in the world, and they still got their ass kicked ...due to the enemies habit of dispersing into the inhospitable terrain and blending in with the civilian population, (which was also our downfall in Vietnam).
NOT because of 'primative' equipment.
greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history
Uh huh... ever hear of the Civil War?
Someone in Ancient Greece stated that it is stupid to kill the father and keep his child alive. Thus we may face the next choice: either we genocide many _nations_ or have to live in endless war, the war not in Afganistan, but everywhere.
Imagine the president from other country killing your parents with hi-tech bombs and saying they are inevitable casualties. You must fly into a rage. And imagine your father had 20 children. Chances are they will succeed in revenge (it doesn't matter how).
We should have prevented the WAR. No we should STOP it.
They could also, in the interest of objectivity, point to how long it took americans to come to the aid of Jews being rounded up and executed in WW2, but they don't. Ironic, particularly since people in the "old world" are credited with having a much longer memory than americans.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I can't help thinking that advanced technology is going to be a two-edged sword in this conflict. Yes, better communications and intelligence gathering will benefit us. And advanced weaponry will also help. But the real risk is at home, not abroad.
m atters-worse" sentiment to be heard.
For some reason, people have come to expect that you can carry on a military campaign with little or no casualties. No friendly troops killed. No allied pilots shot down. No MASH units over-run and slaughtered. And no "collateral dammage". No civilian deaths. Unfortunately, nice as this would be, it isn't realistic.
Military losses and civilian casualties are a corollary of war. No matter how accurate your laser-guided weapons, you still have to send in some people, and in this campaign, given the terrain, the emphasis is likely to be in the direction of troops. Some of these will be caught and/or killed. (If past experiences are anything to go by, it might be better to be killed than caught.) And no matter how carefully you aim your missile, you will inevitably kill or maim young mothers, some children, and a few wrinkled ancients. These days this regrettable consequence of war is looked on as unacceptable carnage.
We are not the only one who can utilize technological weaponry. I suspect that the enemy has every plan to use a very potent array of technological resources, that we will provide for them. In the past, they used our aircraft as weapons against us. In the future, they will use our communications networks, television, radio, print media, internet, and whatever, to bring the blood and guts right into our homes.
We will see photos of crippled kids, sobbing parents, dismembered innocents. And we will hear about our troops dying in the field, facing horrible torture upon capture, and so forth. We will be told about the atrocities our soldiers have performed, real or simulated. In the end, our own people will be clamouring for the "needless destruction" to stop, for our "poor boys" to be brought home safe, and for us to leave Afganistan to the Afganistanis. There is already a significant amount of "America-brought-it-on-herself-so-let's-not-make-
So advanced technology will not benefit us alone. Our enemies can also use advanced technology to their own ends. And as they have in the past they surely will again. Our technological advantage is in the physical tools of warfare, weapons and support infrastructure, that we make available to our troops. Their technological advantage will be in the use of our own civilian communications networks to weaken our resolve and undermine our morale at home to the point where political pressure at home causes us to withdraw. It remains to be seen who will benefit most.
A little snobbish don't you think mr. 30K?
I hate to break it to you - but Dr. Who was NOT REAL. Chortle. The Daleks, however, were.
I can tell you from experience that it will help... A lot. Prior to the gulf war (and for the most part during) the military was pretty low tech (spec ops not-withstanding). We had rifles, kevlar helmets and jackets, packs, binoculars, map and compass (the scariest piece of gear in a butter-bars' hands) etc. Over the past 8 years we've seen more and more starlight scopes, thermal imaging systems, GPS trackers, and even a few of the reconnaissance drones.
In short, instead of staring into the night trying to figure out if that's a pig or a person, and not wanting to give your position away, you look through these tools to find out what it is. You can see cows from over 5 miles away - looking with binoculars even on a bright day, they're hard to spot clearly at that distance. But with thermal sites you can pin point locations for each and every one of them, even if they're obscured by bushes, shade or laying down in grass. In light snow you can see the cool depressions of foot prints, ski trails, etc. The only defense against thermal sites is a radiant barrier (60% or greater purity aluminum blanket) which are hot, usually loud, and not something your average soldier carries.
Basically, face paint doesn't cut it anymore if you body heat is like a light bulb on a dark night.
Ctimes2
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
That may not be as effective as it otherwise might, because books don't offer a lot to someone starving.
But if we could put how-to videos on there, and things that would benefit starving peasants (a tetris game to play when waiting for food (see how-to #294), etc.
Ideally these things would be able to tutor, as well as simply present existing media. At this point they could help teach children (or adults) to read and thus use the more advanced materials.
Neil Stephenson (author of the Cryptonomicon) wrote a book called Diamond Age about something much like this. The 'primer' mentioned in the story is much more complex than this would need to be, it doesn't need to present a K->Univ education, complete with philosophy courses and all. What it needs to do is teach basic language and math skills to people who would otherwise be denied this.
Since the US is the CAUSE of quite a bit of the suffering (think economic sanctions)which he is talking about, your arguement is invalid. Stop imposing sanctions, and many people (NOT soldiers, people.) get a better way of life. Or is starving a population to get to a dictator (who is eating well either way) a good idea somehow?
It's been a long time.
My point is exactly: It can't spread to the military - as it happens, the perpetrators will be SHOT. Dead men repeat no mistakes!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Of course it can happen in the military. One of my favorite moments in the Gulf War was when an idiot journalist reported that the Saudi tank battalion he was attached to had moved up against the Kuwaiti border. But the Iraqis obviously didn't realize this, as they were still shelling the battalion's old position.
I spent about ten minutes screaming curses at the TV, fully expecting that the Iraqi artillery would shift their fire right on top of them.
Fortunately, in that case the Iraqis really were clueless idiots...
How close were the barracks to the transmitter?
What is the blast radius of a Tomahawk?
I don't have time to get into all the posts I've seen so far, but let me say this: I have never been prouder to be an Amarican as I am now.
From the overwhelming heroism of the rescue workers to the outpouring of support, to the surprising backbone of our leadership, we seem to be doing this right.
Yes, America has screwed up before. We will again, I'm sure. We're all humans. But this time, I think we've got it. This is a war, you know, formally declared.
We're *still* trying to keep casualties military and not civilian. We've given the Taliban nearly a month to figure it out and they stubbornly refused. Well then, that's tough shit for them, isn't it?
Whether or not the food/propaganda drops are sincere, it's valid military startegy. We're there to win this one and I don't think we're going to see another Vietnam or Iraq.
GTRacer
- Will fly F15 sorties for free
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Given that from what it seems the US + coalition did not have any eyes and ears on the ground in the -stans on the 11th, I guess a lot of the (at least, initial) intelligence must have come from satellites...
Does anyone know what resolution you could get from a spy satellite? Does anyone know what sets the resolution limit - the optics or image processing? I bet a combination of RF/IR/visible photos of the region could give you shitloads of info about what's Out There.
I read somewhere that bin Laden does not use any electrical devices in fear of detection. Personally, I am not sure about that - he'd need to coordinate activities and keep some intelligence channels to keep up to date. Unless he's doing things the Pony Express way, he must maintain some sort of telecoms. That's perhaps where an EP-3E would be handy...
Let's hope the US can infiltrate bin Laden's network, compromise his crypto and communications, and screw with his and his friends' heads until they mess up their operations big time, Cryptonomicon way. That would be the best way to catch bin Laden and put an end the entire Catch-22 situation of having to drop both Cruise missiles and aid on the poor Afghans' heads. And, hey, the boys and girls at Langley have probably been working hard on it the last few weeks, but that's the war we don't and won't hear about.
I have no affiliation with this group, but they do seem to have some old posters that are suddenly new again.
http://www.openstore.com/posters/shiplips.jpg
http://www.openstore.com/posters/somebody.jpg
http://www.openstore.com/posters/watching.jpg
http://www.openstore.com/posters/sometalk.jpg
http://www.openstore.com/posters/sake.jpg
http://www.openstore.com/posters/stetson.jpg
American and French sacrifices in Viet Nam were part of a noble effort that contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union. Hundreds of millions of people now live free because of those sacrifices. Unfortunately that war could not be won because North Viet Nam was backed by the Soviet Union and we wisely avoided letting the conflict escalate out of control. We also unfortunately fought that war with the mind set of World War II, where casualties were inevitable in a fight that we could not afford to lose. We fight much smarter now. And while the North may have won, imagine the economic powerhouse that Viet Nam would be today if they had lost to the U.S. In a very real sense, we lost but won, while the North Vietnamese won but lost.
Technology allows us to improve the casualty ratio and to properly value our troops as the individual humans that they are. The Iraqis foolishly lost a thousand or more soldiers for every American death. The numbers will be similar now for combatants in the War agasint Terrorists. Likewise technology allows us to kill more combatants and harm fewer civilians. The whole world understands that it is extremely stupid to fight the United States. And clearly the U.S. has no desire to expand or we would already own the world.
Osama knows these things and tries to twist world opinion against us. But the Muslims are too smart to fall for his lies. Technology and American sacrifices have led to a better informed and safer world.
What technology cannot do in "this conflict":
--give a bunch of bloodthirsty lunatics a clue about what questions should *really* be asked.
--enlighten perspective and deepen the human experience.
--make a difference to those who've already died.
Conversely, tech *can* do the following:
--provide a forum for flag-waving statist thugs to prime the pump for a bloodbath they will only experience through the filtering power of their "communications technology".
--enable the ennobling of killing in the name of the State as some sanitized exercise that allows feelings of vengeful fury without the painful hangover of moral reflection.
I'm sure there are *many* things I've missed, but I'm not trying to pander to a thread count, like Mr. Katz seems to be doing these days. No, all I'm seeking out of this post is the voicing of my inner dialogue's response to the latest trivialization of death and destruction in the name of the new god, Technology.
I refuse to worship at your god, Jon. Further, I reject the "premises" you make that bring forth your self-serving questioning. For me, you have gone from a reasonable, yet quirky columnist to another standard bearer for facile sensation. I honstly doubt I'll spend time reading you again....
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
A clean, sustainable, flexible energy source would indeed decrease if not eliminate our dependence on oil. It would also eliminate the major source of income for the major oil producing nations in the middle east. For them it would mean a short-term increase in poverty, degredation, (possibly) oppression, and violence until they stabilized into a socio-economic structure less dependent on revenue from oil sales. These types of transitions tend to be more stable if they occur slowly, rather than quickly.
Oh, and this too:
The Media and the Terrorist: A Dance of Death
By James E. Lukaszewski, APR
http://www.executive-speaker.com/spch0025.html
YOu inflate the numbers a bit. Less than 100,000 were killed in each of those instances you cited, though it is true that Tokyo was firebombed more than once, and the total of all the firebombings may have been in excess of half a million.
As an infantryman in Desert Storm, I believe that America's armed forces can wage and win a war in Southwest Asia. As for technology taking the place of discipline, endurance, and field savy the answer is a sound NO. These atributes are the result of training. Luckily, the adage at least when I was in, was train like you fight and fight like you train. That adage served us well in Desert Storm and continues to serve to this day.
The problem is choice..
Sorry you are wrong in this regard the US was very good at targetting civilians since the very beginning.
Loylists during the Revolutionary War were targetted in a very guerilla style Souther campaign of the war. During the Civil War the folks in the South were targets (Sherman's march to the Sea). During the Indian wars women and children were killed. Also, in WWII, plenty of innocents were wasted as others have noted.
It is a very recent idea really that war should not equal civilian casualties.
ACK
Book of Five Rings...much better and written by a real warrior who won many real duels and such. AOW is overrated IMHO.
If you want to talk about US military technology then you should check out the Federation of American Scientists website. I was in the Air Force during the Gulf War and have also served at weapons development base after the Gulf War. I must say that this site has a very accurate view of our current and future war capabilities. Check the section for US Smart Weapons for the JDAM. Here is a section under for the Stinger Missle . I have also seen some of our small "Special Forces" teams in action during training scenarios. The only thing I can say about that is, Oh My! I would never want to be at the recieving end of that. Brutal speed, accuracy, and stealth.
90 Perent of the problem with this siutaion is finding the enemy. The rest is taken care of.
Two Towers-Two Worlds.One seeks triumphs and freedom for man.The other deems man unworthy and wrecks them.
"Most Americans are convinced that technology...will carry the day for us"
Although Katz appears to have matured in the wake of the murderous terrorist acts of 911 he still resorts to old ways. This piece is a case in point.
Katz's premise is wrong: he, like many, mistake significant journalistic bias for the beliefs of the American people.
Nearly everyone I know is fully supportive of the need to pursue this action with conventional, old-fashioned military strategy i.e. men with machine guns and tanks killing other men with machine guns and destroying their tanks. Technology certainly gives us a great edge, but it won't win this or, probably, any other war. Journalists have tried hard to find dissenting voices, but there just aren't many, discounting a few thousand hippies in San Francisco, and Lord knows the media has given those relaitve few tremendously disproportionate coverage (e.g. last Fiday's "Newshour" piece, "Voices of Caution", 'Caution' presumeably being a term less fraught with historical disdain than 'pacifism'. Journalists are merely spewing in an attempt to provoke reaction and, because at heart many of them are anti-war, to hamstring political support for the war. 'Vietnam' is still a seminal event for many liberals and, therefore, many journalists. Their constant tendency to compare any American conflict with our supposed humiliation in Vietnam (which we did a great job at, despite activist and media disinformation - refer to American Heritage, May 2001 "The Meaning of Tet": e.g. 30-40 Vietcong soldiers dead to our 1, the victory of Tet, etc) is a telling reminder of their bias. Journalists know full well their unfortunate influence on many Americans: Our defeat in Vietnam is proof of their power in these sorts of times, and that's why we hear so much about it.
I was reminded of all this today: I took the day off and spent a bit of time watching a couple of press conferences. I caught both Ari Fleischers and Secretary Rumsfeld's. Each conference quickly reminded me of one of the primary problems we face in waging this, and any, modern war: self righteous, provocative, and biased journalists. Watching a press conference is entirely different than catching the sound-bites from it that make the evening news. The full measure of journalist-induced nausea can't possibly be conveyed in a soundbite.
Many members of the Fourth Estate have at least one thing in common with Attorneys: they're 'neccesary evils'.
I know the age of irony is over, but the whole reliance upon technology [cruise missiles, smart bombs, drones, GPS, etc.] to narrow the battlefield to a few specialized combatants seems, well, ironic.
From the day William Tecumseh Sherman cut down his first peach tree, military leaders have generally agreed that civilians are fair game in any conflict. Sure, it's immoral to kill unarmed people, but weighed against the greater immorality of war, hitting civilians is the quickest and easiest way to end the shooting match. Hiroshima and Nagazaki pretty much proved that.
Of course, this mentality is what gave rise to the culture of terrorism in the first place. As the "barrier to entry" into the combatant marketplace has grown, people who wanted to partake in the slaughter have opted to shun military targets altogether and take the war directly to the civilian populace.
From the Sun Tzu perspective, this seems pretty smart. Why fight your enemy where he's strong when you can hit him where he's weak? Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. Civilian populations can be pretty resilient, and unless you're willing to go big [i.e. Hiroshima and Nagasaki-style big], attacks have a tendency to strengthen political resolve. Look at North Vietnam and Israel for examples.
The current strategy, in which the military aims its sophisticated weapons at a few hundred culpable individuals, seems ultra-modern but is in fact ultra-retro. Its ultimate goal is to return the civilian to a spectator role and elevate the prestige of the warrior caste doing the actual fighting. Call it closed source warfare. CNN has become the military equivalent of the "We value your business" message computer users endure waiting for somebody in tech support to pick up the phone.
Frankly, I think American civilians should resist this trend and demand a bigger stake in the war "effort." After all, we've provided the bulk of the casualties so far, and we have the most to lose if the effort goes awry. A good start would be to demand a full accounting of the Bush Administration's military time-table by the 2002 mid-term elections, increased pressure for democratic reform in the Middle East [including a non-Zionist constitution in Israel], and heightened opposition to the curtailment of civil liberties here in the U.S.
Technology can give us an edge... if it is used properly and not relied upon as being vital to operations. Bottom line, a well trained Marine, Sailor, or Soldier can do more than any toy.
Sounds kind of silly but, technology doesn't kill people. People kill people.
Look at the what the vietnamese did. Rode around on bicycles, build tunnels, controlled troop movements with whistles and megaphones. Hell we had radio, napalm and had a tough time with them. (Although we had some stupid ROE, rules of engagement.)
I sat in a conference once with an arms manufacturer telling a bunch of marines that the weapon they were making had this and that gizmo, and was indestructible. A Marine Corps Colonel tooks his K-Bar and smashed the weapons' fancy optics and broke the rifle stock with one blow. End of meeting. That colonel told me on so many occasions that the best weapon in the world is a well trained marine.
as someone who routinely beats up on the media for not reporting a balanced story, especially in cases such as Columbine and Digital Rights, it is ironic to see another journalist trumpeting the great american war machine without any thought to why you are in this predicament. and the civilian casualties have only just begun.
and for what it is worth, Osama is absolutely correct when he says "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years" and that "To the United States, I say, I swear by God the Great that the United States will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land of Palestine".
these are not precision.get a life you piece of shit.
Incorrect. Probably close to 50% or more of the 5000 were not collateral damage; they were intended targets. FWIW, bin Laden considers any male American, or male Jew, or male citizen of their allies, an enemy and a soldier whether he serve with a gun or with tax dollars, and perfectly desirable targets.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It WAS offtopic. If it had been ontopic, there is a slight chance that it may have been moderated funny. (Of course the moderator would have to have a fscked up sense of humor, but it happens)
those poor soldiers couldn't wait to surrender to US troops. Won't be as much here, but expect to see some.
It was on the topic -- war! Yes, a different type of war, but war nevertheless.
I guess the moderators have small brains and cannot understand that a word can mean different things in different contexts.
I better stop using words such as "bank" on Slashdot. The moderators might get confused by my complex use of the English language.
How to Download YouTube Videos
cmon pubjames....most people here are discussing facts except for the obvious jokers and trolls. It must be just you that give movies any sense of credibility.
deer gun
/ 0900/968.htm
http://www.securityarms.com/20010315/galleryfiles
it's like you go to the bank, ask for money, they say you get it if you open up a whore house, and when they come to you, you got to blow their ****** for free.
that's what our civilised countries do with 3rd world countries
okay ya turd, how about the loan officer just states something along the lines of "you have any collateral besides those chickens and beads? No? Sorry, no can do, see, cause statistics show that you will NEVER pay us back anyway"
I can't believe you peaceniks. Really, is it the DUTY of the US to SUPPORT everyone who has their fucking hand out? NO it's not. If I recall, we've already given more loans and FORGIVEN MORE DEBT than ANY FUCKING NATION IN GODDAMN HISTORY!!
So fuck off.
First of all, most of the Stingers in Afghanistan haven't been maintained properly, and probably don't work.
Even if they do, they have IFF transceivers, and can't be used against "friendly" (NATO) forces. The Taliban could remove the IFF transceivers, but that takes a fair amount of know-how, and is unlikely.
What to do if you happen upon a peace rally by stupid naive hemp-shirt-wearing college idiots, to teach them why force is sometimes needed:
1) Approach dumb rich ignorant student talking about "peace" and saying there should be, "no retaliation."
2) Engage in brief conversation, ask if military force is appropriate.
3) When he says "No," ask, "Why not?"
4) Wait until he says something to the effect of, "Because that would just cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful and we should not cause more violence."
5) When he's in mid-sentence, punch him in the face as hard as you can.
6) When he gets back up to up to punch you, point out that it would be a mistake and contrary to his values to strike you, because that would, "be awful and he should not cause more violence."
7) Wait until he agrees that he has pledged not to commit additional violence.
8) Punch him in the face again, harder this time.
Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
I think Jon is "this close" to being a terrorist himself. He's one of those wackos that could snap at any minute. We should lock him up now.
How about hiring those guys from RobotWars and create those robots. Hook up a camera to each one then drop them on the mountains. Have millions of these, maybe with spider legs and guns.
Presumably, we want to accomplish the following:
1. Find Osama Ben Ladin and neutralize/capture/kill him.
2. Find and destroy terrorist training camps and other facilities used by the terrorists.
3. Find other individuals involved with Osama Bed Ladens Al Queada organization and capture/kill/neutralize them.
4. Destabilize/disrupt/remove the Taliban government, thereby preventing it from continuing to support/harbor/sponsor terrorism.
I think these are worthy goals. We can argue all day long about whether the US got what it deserved and whether a US military response is justified, but I think that after all the arguing is done, these goals remain valid.
The real question to ask is are we accomplishing these goals with the stratagy we are pursuing. I think the answer is yes. No one can argue validly that we've not accomplished numbers 2 and 4. Numbers 1 and 3 are obviously the most difficult to accomplish and are probably not as much of a military objective. But I think the the leaders of nations that sponsor terrorism might reconsider thier actions based on what's happening to the taliban.
NT
Their situation is completely hopeless unless they can convince another Muslim nation to back them (which doesn't seem to be happening).
Personally, my guess is that the Taliban crumbles in on itself within 10 days and the shooting is essentially over in a month. After that, we may need a few months to root every mouse out of every hole, but that's not necessarily a grand or expensive effort - just time consuming.
Of course, I could be smoking something...
Read this article for more information about the UN building.
I don't remember who wrote it, but it prolly wasn't this AC.
Bin Laden: "Hmmm... what's this?"
EULA: "By reading this document, you automaticly agree to the following:
You will not lauch any more terrorist attacks.
You will close down all terrorist training camps.
You will remove the Taliban from govenment power.
You will turn over everyone involved in terrorist attacks, and the Taliban."
Bin Laden: "Awwww...Fuck! I'm screwed!"
Technology gives us better planes, better guns, better bombs, i.e. better ways to kill people.
Technology gives them better planes, better guns, better bombs, i.e. better ways to kill people.
I'm sure glad my tax money is helping America get better technology, so they can kill people cheaper, faster, and better then the other guy.
I believe that treason was removed from the list of capital crimes in the US.
However, durin wartime when lives are at stake, the rules might change. Anyone have more info on this?
Tim
Technology can only be decisive in achieving a particular goal. To that end, our technology is not likely to be of much use in the long run - because of the rather hazy objectives we have set, and because of what we will need to accomplish to avoid a protracted, bloody and dangerous encounter.
We needed to redefine Osama bin Laden in the eyes of millions of poor, oppressed, angry people in countries all over the world. Technology did not help us to do that. To "win" we will need to do that still - because they are his army. We cannot - and do not want to - war with them.
We need to clarify the aims of the "war" - again not an area that technology can help with. Ari Fleischer said, yesterday, that even if the Taliban turned Osama bin Laden over we would not stop - so what is our goal? If we do not know what victory is how can we win?
What they have is called Institutional Memory. Those 77 year old vets show up to Ft Drum to talk to the current guys, and they get together out at Ft Carson. They have a fairly active Vets organization
Any time you have a unit with a "History" the unit KEEPS that history alive. It's part of what the guys fight and die for. It sounds silly, but that's the way it is. It's like firefighters and cops. Things run in families, and they try to get in the same precinct or firehouse
It's TRADITION that make "The Big Red One" what it is, the Marine Corps what it is, why sailors love "Their" ship etc
Want to study something interesting? Try to figure out what can cause a 18 year old young man to jump on a grenade, or get off the boat in Normandy
Think of the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
http://eserver.org/poetry/light-brigade.html
Why would the 600 go? Answer that question, and you'll understand Unit History, Institutional Memory, and why knowing how to fight in the mountains 60 years ago makes a difference
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Osama bin Laden petrified, with hot grits!
but everybody came, instead?
But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history
I suppose you're thinking of overseas wars, and probably just overlooking the lengthy wars fought within the US, like the Revolution, where it's estimated that hundreds of thousands of civilians died as a result of the fighting; or the civil war where diseases bred in the camps of the soldiers spread like wildfire through the general population, again killing tens or hundreds of thousands. While the loss of 6,000+ in the WTC is a lot of american civilians, it's certainly not the most civilian casualties in any american war.
You're right
Wow. On slashdot, of all places. "You're right", finding its way into a discussion.
Good work.
I sort of took your comment as an excuse to fire off a reply to the line of reasoning I've heard used by a lot of people.
I know how easy that is... you start covering the same ground explaining something to people so often that you start to get the same conceptual map of each discussion....
Good argument, magnanimous "You're right". I'm probably adding more noise than signal to this discussion, but I'm impressed.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Technology or not the basic problem is how brutal can you afford to look. The Gulf War ended because the US got parnoid about allies freaking when they saw the "road of death".
You could take care of anybody hiding in caves with "over-preasure" weapons (fuel air, dasiy cutters, a-bombs) leaving the targeted foes with popped eardrums, exploded eyes etc... You can do this valley by valley forever... However, the PR is AWFUL so the question for a superior host is always: "How brutal do you dare look?"
80s PUNK ROCKERS THE 'DEAD KENNEDYS' PREDICTED GLOBAL WAR TO PROP UP U.S. ECONOMY
Invoke this song without remembering the lyrics will you? If slashdot is anything to go by, you yanks are all the same. You mod down the 'centre' arguments or brand them as 'trolls', yet the most jingoistic and xenophobic rants get modded up as humor or, perversely, 'interesting'. Suck on the corpse of the DEAD KENNEDYS and SMILE, SMILE, SMILE.
And now, a word from Jello Biafra:
KINKY SEX MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND
"Greetings...
This is the Secretary at the State Department of the United States...
We have a problem. The companies want something done about this sluggish world economic situation...
Profits have been running a little thin lately and we need to stimulate some growth...
Now we know there's an alarming high number of young people roaming around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble for the police and damage private property. It doesn't look like they'll ever get a job...
It's about time we did something constructive with these people...
We've got thousands of 'em here too. They're crawling all over...
The companies think it's time we all sit down, have a serious get-together - and start another war...
The president? He loves the idea! All those missiles streaming overhead to and fro...
Napalm...
People running down the road, skin on fire...
The Soviets seem up for it...
The Kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years. Hell, Afghanistan's no fun...
So whadya say?...
We don't even have to win this war. We just want to cut down on some of this excess population...
Now look. Just start up a draft; draft as many of those people as you can. We'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on, hand 'em some speed, give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use an automatic rifle and send 'em on their way...
Libya? El Salvador? How 'bout Northern Ireland? Or a 'moderately repressive regime' in South America? We'll just cook up a good Soviet threat story in the Middle East - we need that oil...
We had Libya all ready to go and Colonel Khadafy's hit squad didn't even show up. I tell ya... that man is unreliable. The Kremlin had their fingers on the button just like we did for that one...
Now just think for a minute - we can make this war so big - so BIG...
The more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper...
We can get rid of practically everybody on your dole queues if we plan this right. Take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls...
Now don't worry about those demonstrators - just pump up your drug supply. So many people have hooked themselves on heroin and amphetamines since we took over, it's just like Vietnam. We had everybody so busy with LSD they never got
too strong. Kept the war functioning just fine...
It's easy. We've got our college kids so interested in beer they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again. Put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard, they
wouldn't even know what it looked like...
So how 'bout it? Look - war is money. The arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse...
The Soviets are in the same boat. We all agree the time has come for the big one, so whadya say?!?...
That's excellent. We knew you'd agree... the companies will be very pleased.
PS. GOOD WORK FUCKERS for creating your new office of HOMOfront DEFENCE. If FOUR JUMBO JETS were hijacked and crashed in Austria^H^Halia, we would be burning effigies of our 'intelligence community' ASIO and ASIS in the street! NSA, CIA, FBI, have all grown FAT AND LAZY sitting back and expecting wiretaps to provide them with information. By your own admission some 'camelfucker' who lives in a cave has commited the terrorism PR coup of the century. You had at least 3 years to get this guy after Clinton sent a few million dollars worth of cruise missiles at him.
Chicken Little said the sky was falling
Novo Ordis Saeclorum, indeed.
Jon Katz is the ultimate news whore troll!!11!!!
Tackhead, you remind me of all those Nazi and Communist informants who'd spy on their neighbors and rat out those who you'd find suspicious. Yup, a true patriot.
And, finally, an interesting bit of thought from Michael Moore
How someone so lacking in talent and charm with such a contempt for his fellow citzens has gotten a reputation as a "populist" is one of the mysteries of the universe.
For a good start at refutation of Mr. Me's bloviations, see Ma
This has been repeated over and over again in every /. article discussing the current war. Enough already! Your borg mentality is only showing how you're incapable of thinking for yourselves.
Tune out with some movies, Katz:
...
KOYAANISKATZI. Discuss.
POWAKKATZI. Discuss.
NAQQOYKATZI. Discuss. (This film hasn't been made yet, but thankfully the US Government have arranged for live television screenings over the next few weeks.)
While my caffiene addled mind urges me to invoke jihad against jingoistic, xenophobic and increasingly schizophrenic Americans, it seems that the great Australian champions of free speech, This Is Serious Mum, have already beaten me to it. The first stanza of their 1983 epic "Kill Americans" runs as follows:
Kill all the flag-waving, red-blooded, young Yankee boys
String their torsos up and use their dicks as toys
Nuke every US city, blow them to the sky
Every single fucking yank deserves to fucking die
obviously encourages the reader to find out what could possibly make the US the subject of such wanton and vitriolic language.
While I myself am not in a position to lament the absence of death threats at slashdot, rather, to amend this woeful state of affairs, I am in a position to threaten to amend this state of affairs.
I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb.
0rl0k
Former Sov-Cit PsiKop
I'll tell you what technology can't do, at least right now. It can't stop a carload of juveniles from throwing a lemon at me while I'm out trying to get a breath of fresh air.
There are 15 questions.
Sorry... American's have a great Air Force and Navy (all wonderfully high tech and highly effective), and lots of wonderful toy's, but to fight in a dirty land-based war, American's arn't anything special at all...
:P
Think about it. Why did you're infantry use M16's for so long when everyone else was going for SLR's, Styer AUG's, etc... When was the last serious land based battle that the US won (I'm thinking WWII, but feel free to correct me). That's why you generally go in for constant air raids, killing the enemy without them having too much chance of them shooting you back.
I think you guys should be very thankful that the British have joined you in this one. They are good at this type of thing, 'cause they've been fighting a terriorist war for years (IRA). They are better trained, generally better equiped, and a hell of a lot more experianced.
They might even be as good as the Afhghan's at this type of fighting (but not in the numbers of good experianced fighters that the Afghans have)
I thought everyone knew this stuff about the American military (i.e, it's based on money, not massed experianced personal).
Don;t you know about the rest of the world ????
Vastly more and better trained people???
No you don't.
You're average Afghanastan soldier is given in his crib his first toy of an unloaded pistol to play with. That's when they start training.
As well, they've had 30 years of near constant warfare where the people who arn't good don't drop out, they die.
They have huge amounts of experiance in (relativly) close quarters combat using exactly the types of weapons that America will have to end up using (small arms) while fightly inside a minefield (called Afghanistan).
I think you can expect more tha a few body bags...
Unfortunately, the reality is that while bin Laden might know some spin (a debatable point - bin Laden's broadcasts are hardly slick, and have more in common with the broadcasts of various turgid national leaders than they do with Alaister Campbell-style spinning), he is not spinning a message out to the world via satellite. He's sending simple video tapes (pretty low-tech these days) to news agency people in Kabul (yes, they're there - they're just not CNN).
Robert Fisk of the UK's Independent has an interesting commentary on how the message is going out, via Qatar (remember: the site of the next WTO meeting, moved there to avoid anti-capitalist demos) and the Al-Jazeera network. A bit more detailed than Katzism.
This war should be approached as more than simply another opportunity to put the American Psyche on the couch. The logic of bin Laden might be tightly interwoven with the logic of US foreign policy (in ways obscure to many Americans because of their ignorance of said foreign policy), but it also powerfully follows its own logic: the logic of expansionist Islamism, a particular logic which advocates the capture of the Middle East under the rule of the self-proclaimed god-fearing leaders.
That's a logic just as rooted in capitalism (not a medieval return, not seemless hi-tech) as is the expansion of 'US interests'. Analysing this war (or war in general) in technocratic terms, as Katz, does, is ludicrous. It fails to explain Vietnam (leaving out the fraggings, the mass refusal to fight on the part of the US army, etc), it fails to explain Iraq (again leaving out the mass desertions of the Iraqi army). And it fails again here.
Peter
Osama just wants power. He is pretending anger with the U.S. because of the stability the U.S. enforces upon the region. This stability prevents revolutionaries from rising in power. Mao Tse-Tung appealed to the young and foolish in China with his "idealistic principles", when all he really wanted was control/power. Osama just wants to use the U.S. as a rallying point for his own rise to power. Do not be fooled by his fake Hatred. He loves the fact that he can play the underdog and rally uneducated idiots to his cause.
He wants to start a revolution, he does not care where, as long as he ends up in charge. You can be sure that he will destroy/suppress all opposition if he manages to gain power. He will be another third world dictator that maintains power by keeping people poor and uneducated.
Every action this Jackass makes is calculated. Don't be fooled by his false display of emotion. This man is a complete liar, like most people who pursue power at any cost (innocent lives).
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
The whole root problem here is that you have millions of pissed off people, and for good reason. America and Russia have spent years destroying their country, leaving it in a state where people are dying of starvation in their hundreds of thousands. It's no wonder why these people hate America so much. Persecute and abuse any people like we have done, and they will eventually snap.
Yet, with all that, we start bombing their country, and bringing other islamic countries on the verge of civil war. Oh, now that's a good idea isn't it? Even if we do win this "war" with no casualities on our side, all we will end up doing is alienating so many other people from the American government, that we will have more and more suicide bombers and "terrorists". That includes American nationals btw, Tim McVeigh not come to mind?
I'd have thought that a couple of tomahawks would make a good job of clearing the mines too...
Is the American governement going to vanish in a puff of its own logic?
(The quote I am referencing:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it?
It could not have evolved by chance.
It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanished in a puff of logic. )
Now, the US Government's claims:
"We are at war with terror"
Worldnet defines terror as:
n 1: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety [syn: panic]
2: a person who inspires fear or dread; "he was the terror of the neighborhood" [syn: scourge, threat]
3: a very troublesome child [syn: brat,little terror, holy terror]
And the primary goal of the US seems to be to scare terrorists into not committing crimes against the western world. (ie. point 1 and 2)
Don't get me wrong, I agree with the cause... But this seems to be more and more a case of "Pot calling Kettle. Come in Kettle?"
Does anyone know of any world news sources on the `net where people can get a fully rounded view of what is happening in this "War", other than the 'news' CNN censors for us? I'm not sure that I'm buying the party line that the US government doesn't want CNN to play the footage of Bin Laden's side of the story because it "May contain code words or body language in a way that would communicate with other terrorists" (that being other terrorists than the US)
You are now President of the College Republicans chapter #666.
"National Security" is newspeak for "Economy".
Yes the actions taken there were good but the party line over there is it was very late in the comming.
You know, one thing I've learned about diplomacy as I've watched these events is that when you take responsibility for something that isn't strictly your business, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't, and damned if you get it even slightly wrong. I am the last person to practice jingoistic nationalism, and consider healthy skepticism to be the proper state of mind in a democracy, but the outpouring of sentiments to the effect that the US is an evil empire that can do no right, or that we are somehow "reaping what we sow," or are "responsible for creating OBL" has certainly done a lot to alter my opinion in the last four weeks. There's one thing for certain; when something of this scale occurs, the weirdos of the world take full opportunity to come out of the woodwork and dance like a bunch of crazy motherfuckers.
I thought this was a failure of the weapon system, not a mistake in the targeting. Who are you going to courtmartial? The missle? It's already dead.
The danger, as was outlined by David Hackworth (Col, Ret) in his book (name escapes me...), is that the Pentagon is developing an Institutional Amnesia (repressing the few remaining old warfighters who are kicking around with combat experience - obviously pre-Gulf War...).
Now, I like 10 Mtn. They're a good unit and well suited to operations (insofar as anyone is) in Afghanistan. And I hope they do make use of their Vets and unit histories - hopefully the lessons of the past are not lost. Institutional Amnesia gets people killed. But it is very easy to fall into because people die off or leave, and hearing stories second hand or reading old accounts is not the same as getting info first hand from someone with experience. Sometimes they don't record key facts because no one would think to ask the question - and then the source is gone.
This is one of the reason some special units like the SAS are ranked so highly in terms of competence despite not having quite as much wazoo tech as say Delta Force might... they have a base of experience and they continue to be operational worldwide on a regular basis which keeps the experience base refreshed. They are very good at knowledge transfer, though occasionally even the vaunted SAS screw things up royally (witness Bravo Two Zero's mission planning).
Esprit de Corps, a proud unit history, and Institutional Memory are powerful building blocks of a strong unit. Operational experience that is current is also quite a boon.
Hopefully we have improved some on prior times where lessons were lost and Generals prepared to fight "the last war" rather than "the next war".
And then the lessons were learned again... and paid for in blood again. Let us hope that isn't the case here.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
The Afghan people aren't the targets -- the accursed terrorists and the political leaders harboring them are, so the idea that we have to "decimate" the population is pure bunk. As far as I can tell, most Afghanis hate the Taliban, with some of them hating the Northern Alliance more. Which is why most scholars and pundits people thing that the best hope is for the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban, and then have the deposed king convene a grand council of the different tribes (agreed to by the N.A., BTW).
That way no single ethnic group can dominate and screw things up for the rest, like the Taliban is doing, and there might be a Truman/Marshall plan type way of getting Afghanistan back on it's feet.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Some wonder why they hate us all so much but when you watch movies like 3 Kings, it shows Iraq military men on their hands and knees begging and kissing the hands of our American military men. Then SwordFish came out ending the movie with Bin Laden getting blasted into bits on a boat. Talk about trying real hard to piss them off eh, now check the real deal movie they make about us.
Heh. That's the _next_to_last_ panel in the cartoon I saw.
The last one shows an Air Force guy in a La-Z-Boy with a beer pointing a remote at the TV.
"Cable's out?!? That sucks!"
Brandishing Dangerous Logic
Kinda OT, but what the heck, huh?
Is it just me, or are americans completely ignoring the possibility of al-quaeda, or, for that matter, any other organization (country, terrorist group, whatever), staging a major attack on the US? I mean, we take it as a major offense to our pride to attack us at all, but yet we attack other countries like it's nothing. I mean, we are bordered on both sides by countries that're scared ****less of us, or that we believe are not able to be influenced by anyone else. Anyone here ever play Red Alert 2? Where Russia was our enemy, and invaded through mexico? Change Russia to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any other country we've ticked off (Vietnam isn't too fond of us still...), and you get a major staging point of attacks on the oil of texas, the cash of vegas, the technology of silicon valley. Even a 'regular' attack, staged anywhere in the country, say by the equivalent of four chinook helicopters landing afghani troops, each wrapped in C4, ready to explode if they're about to die, with an AK-47, landing anywhere in the country, and levelling a major city, or at the very least, killing a ton of people, would completely stun us, we wouldn't know what to do. Lemme put this in what-does-this-mean-to-me terms. Let's say you live in Nowheresville. Nowheresville is relatively urban, slightly rural, but gets it's power from a centralized source, say, a hydroelectric plant. A few helicopters land, blow up the plant, and contaminate the water supply, making sure to destroy the roads on the way out, and blow up pretty much all the gas stations just for fun. Would you know what to do to hold out for long enough just to survive? Another scary thought, what if they were to just start targetting random major cities, forcing the population to go into the rural areas, and live off the land? How many americans would be able to live without their palm pilots and computers? How about running water and electricity? I mean, I may be rousing paranoia that normally lays dormant, but these days it's a bit healthy to think in worst-case-scenario terms.
-1, Disagree is not a valid option. Troll, Flamebait and Offtopic are not a substitute.
The fact that so many people declare that conspiracies don't exist. . , this is the direct result of media programming. Thanks to crap like the, 'X-Files' and similar, people no longer take the word seriously. So let's change the word, shall we? I like to use the word 'Corruption.' Do you disbelieve in Corruption? Of course I'm sure that with enough effort, P.R. manipulation, seeding of truly corn-ball ideas among the worthy ones, and given enough time, you would blithely parrot what those in power want you to; you'd tell me that 'Corruption' doesn't exist either, even though from your current perspective such a statement is obviously foolish.
(Unless, of course, you actually believe that there isn't a single dark and greedy stroke of any kind in the entire of political and corporate America, which would, I dare say, be such an asinine assertion that I will be so kind as to not assume it even of such a foolish, albeit, good-hearted person as you would make.)
As for the 'freedoms' which have been defended for my sake by the poor brainwashed farm boys sent off to kill and maybe even die. . .
Let's see now. . .
--The freedom to perpetuate the raping of the Third World by having them manufacture in slave-factories more than half of the frivolous garbage consumed in the West. Oh yeah. I want that noble trait protected.
--The freedom to keep America ripe with a constant supply of cheep Oil and Heroine? Yeah. Sign me up for that, too!
What? Afghanistan is the key to 70% of the world supply of opium, $200 to $300 billion dollars of which according the I.M.F. ends up flowing through Wall Street? Impossible! (Sorry; but while the Wall Street info must be sought from the I.M.F. and similar, the truth about Afghan opium is no longer secret knowledge, having actually filtered through from the back waters of information into the American public realm, as can be witnessed on one or more of the various 'Learning Channels.')
And what? Afghanistan is key to exploiting and controlling MASSIVE oil resources? (You'll have to dig a little for that info, though. It's common knowledge with plenty of solid reference, but it just doesn't seem to get airplay. . . Hm.)
What about the massively lucrative weapons manufacturing sector?
You don't think these little side-bars are of any interest to those in power? Sorry, but I tend to disagree. And yeah, let's send Johnny off to die for these noble interests. Especially when cheep and clean energy replacements have been around for decades. (Oh, I'm sorry. Cold Fusion and such are lies. Right. I keep forgetting.) And especially when all that Heroine, while it does divorce massive wealth from the populace and put it into the pockets of the already rich and powerful, actually harms the U.S. in the long run. . . Yes, let's send Johnny Buckwheat off to kill for these high ideals!
--Oh, and let's not forget the 'freedom' to be represented by a democratically elected member of my community. --In an age when interconnected banks know my net worth down to the penny, the most technologically advanced nation in the world is unable to count votes properly? Get fucking real. --And people running for office must all be millionaires before they have a shot in hell? -Good lord, man! Get your head out of your ass! The whole U.S. electoral process is a complete sham propagated by those in power who want to remain in power. Yeah. Send my brothers and friends off to die so that my, 'Freedom of Representation' can be maintained!
--Oh, and then there's this wonderful freedom of 'expression'. Fine on paper, but with brand new video cameras on every corner and loony new anti-terrorist legislation threatening rapid passage into law, (laws which would make it illegal to have even suggestive telephone conversations), I somehow doubt our 'freedoms' will exist for very much longer.
For goodness sake! You read Slashdot. It's happening all over the damned place! Just as an example, you've bourn witness to the blow by blow account of how copyright laws have been corrupted far from their humble origins; when knowledge was considered the free birthright of humanity, not property to be owned by large companies. Copyright was first invented to ensure a fair period during which only the author of a work would be allowed to sell it, so that s/he could earn a reasonable income before it passed into public domain. Now, as long as a corporate entity 'owns' a work, (i.e., forever), it need never pass into public domain; indeed, as mortal creators die, corporate bodies can scoop up and 'own' all information. And a vast number of the damned sheep on this site who, unlike most of the populace, were at least aware that an important deal was going down at all, were tricked into siding with the corporate giants! Basic knowledge has been co-opted by our wonderful system. Yes. The 'Freedom' for knowledge to no longer be 'Free.' Yeah, sign up the Boys from Idaho for that one as well!
Okay. Enough of that shit. What else did you say. . .
I've worked with members of the allied special forces community as well as many conventional military persons. I've worked with members of our allied intelligence community. I've worked with law enforcement. And I've worked at defence contractors who would have developed, if it existed, this "Star Trek" technology you've suggested the military is sitting on.
Guess again.
In my arrogance, I would dearly love to state more than I will, but trust me when I say that my info is MUCH better than your info. (Sadly, my hubris is also bigger than yours.) But let me assure you that the retarded dinosaur which is the current state of publicly displayed military might is unbelievably cheesy compared to that which is actually available. I'm Sorry. As convincing as your life and times must appear to you, I'm afraid that you and yours, from your friends and family, right up to the seemingly high military posted individuals you may know, are simply parts of the highschool production version of 'reality.' Gears in an infernal machine. Feel free not to believe me, (I'm not sure I would if our positions were reversed), but I am telling you in the sincere and genuine belief based on solid knowledge and direct experience, that you have been blinded, broad-sided, and bamboozled.
Now, of course, those in power have spent a great deal of time and energy making sure that you remain blind. There are some heinously dark people out there who, like Mobsters, have chosen to live selfish lives which entail acts of emotionless, almost psychotic brutality and disregard for life. (Or don't you believe that the Mob doesn't exists either? You do? Okay, that's a start. -But only because Hollywood says it's okay to believe. Think about that!) Well, if such nasty head-spaces can and do exist in the relatively small circles of organized crime, what makes you think such power-centric thinking doesn't circulate in matters of state and multi-national corporate business affairs? I know people who have witnessed and reported to me regarding high ranking officials of large corporate entities encouraged to indulge in everything from drug use to child molestation. This shit happens. This shit is not uncommon. This shit is what you and your boys from Idaho have been tricked into protecting.
It's a much, much uglier world than you would like to believe. -Than the propaganda teaches. I'll forgive you for sucking up the programming; it's a very hard box to climb out of. You've been living in it since birth, after all. But consider that you've been made the fool, and that while it might hurt to admit this, it would be far more ridiculous to continue playing the fool when you do not have to.
You would benefit greatly by setting aside your anger at my glib and acidic remarks, (but crikey, it's hard not to blast naivety, such as yours, which goes so far in making such evil possible in the world!), and refocusing your energy on the material around you from a fresh perspective. It takes real strength to ensure that a Trollish dick like me doesn't get in the way of your growth of awareness. Go out and try to prove me wrong. If you keep an open mind and be wary of the bullshit, if you use a basic level of common sense, you will be dazzled by what you will uncover. If you are ready, teachers will avail themselves to you. That's how the universe works.
Okay. Enough. Good luck, Bingo. Sounds like you'll need it.
-Fantastic Lad