Astronuc said:
Yeah - just look at the success in Vietnam!
Vietnam was not any counter-insurgency war. It was a one year war that was fought about ten times over. The entire thing could've been won easily within one year, without any need whatsoever for the draft. The reason Vietnam was lost was because of the politicians. It's kind of hard to win a war when the government tells you you can't bomb the enemy.
When the U.S. finally DID bomb the enemy, the North Vietnamese suddenly turned to wanting to negotiate again. Had they just done that back in 1965, when the U.S. won the war in the Idrang Valley, the WHOLE THING, all those dead Northern Vietnamese, Southern Vietnamese, and American soldiers, could have been avoided completely.
For Iraq to be like Vietnam, George Bush would literally have to have ordered the military to invade Iraq and specifically prohobited them from bombing any of Saddam Hussein's infrastructure or military.
The President no longer has this authority, and when the Gulf War happened, the military went in and did it their way, the way they should've done it in Vietnam, which was to completely destroy the enemy's infrastructure and military, then invade.
They did it again with the current War in Iraq, but it is now a counter-insurgency war, which are fought a bit differently.
The French Revolution was ten years. The Chinese Communist Revolution lasted twenty-three years. The American Revolutionary War was about eight years. The Protestant-Catholic Thirty Years War lasted, well, as the title says. Counter-insurgency wars tend to take longer than conventional wars, which last over average about four years.
The other issue is that if this region is so critical to the entire ME, then everyone has an interest in keeping things under control as much as possible.
So then why is just about everyone else leaving?
Because keeping the Middle East under control is not as important to the Chinese or Russians. They would prefer the Middle Eastern dictatorships control the region, not have the United States have any influence in the area. Those countries do not want a strong United States.
Maybe this is just a matter of getting rid of Bush and his cowboy diplomacy.
They tried ordinary diplomacy with Saddam Hussein and it didn't work. The United States had plenty of reason to invade Iraq. I agree though that it was rather ridiculous to just invade and not consider that anarchy would break out with all authority gone and no police.
Of course this goes right back to the other paradox: If the very future of our way of life is on the line, then where is the draft?
Sometimes I do have a hard time deciding which lie to believe.
Because the government forced a social experiment on the United States military that involved forcing it to accept women into all sorts of positions, for equality. If they enact the draft, it will have to include equal numbers of men and women.
The only kicker is that the point of a draft would be for troops needed for combat purposes to police the country, something women cannot do.
A draft would create a whole bunch of crazy adverse affects in the country right now. If they could just draft men, things would be different, but they cannot.
Also, no politician has the guts to even try something like this right now. Politicians tend to put themselves before the country.
