That was because the operation went wrong due to ither factors not at all due to the government
So you never heard about how Clinton denied AC-130 support to the operation, despite the commanders request, or how we had a platoon of Abram's in Somalia that the locals hated, but that Clinton pulled out for 'hearts and minds' reasons before the event went down?
Abu Gahrib, the Blackwater shit, the lies about the WMDs (more specifically the yellowcake uranium that was a farce, not the old, busted chem shit we found), and how we just wanted to ignore local history to try to force democracy on a nation/people who did not understand it the way the west does.
All of that burned international good will.
Okay and? That doesn't mean the US should fight restricted
From a political perspective, yes actually, it does; the US and international public is more accepting of 'light' US casualties than seeing another case of 'droned an aid worker because we didn't check well enough' appearing on the international news.
Dead civies hurt US international PR, dead US soldiers don't, and that's something I don't think the military wants to admit to it's troops.
You mean the ROEs that prevented needless deaths? The ones that allowed us to dominate the enemy?
An enemy known to hide among the people and use them as members (the VC). And we still were facing them woth kid globes because we wernt allowed to actually gain anything in Nam.
What kind of ROE are you thinking we want? To bomb cities into rubble? Something we don't do anymore because we favor precision over numerical destruction. Desert Storm and the 03 invasion proves that we can deal more damage with surgical strikes then leveling a city.
As I said above, dead international civies hurt the main US political goals more than dead US solders do.
That is political reality, and post-Bush Jr. ROE's reflect this.
ROE oretains more on the infantry side of "hey, that guy has a gun and is everything we know to be a ba guy. Let's shoot him so he isn't a threat" where as the ROE we were forced to use was "hey that guy has a gun, but it isn't shooting or aimed at us yet, and the kids next to him seem to also have guns and or a bomb. We have to wait for them to get within a certain distance and or get shit at before we can do anything"
What political goals overrode troop safety? The troops are how you fight and if you don't favor thier survival you get more people unlikely to obey such orders.
ROEs are broken because of stupid orders from politicans who think "those poor goat farmers who have been killing our soldiers! We must make sure they are 100 percent the bad guy's. Thay means if they drop thier weapons and run they are no longer a threat! And must be freed!"
Again, political considerations mean dead international civies hurt US political goals more than dead US troops.
I know that's not a happy thought, but it is reality.
The corps of engineers is actually a DoD group you know.....it is in the name US Army Corps of Engineers.... the military isn't the labor for it as it IS the CoE....
Yes, Corp of Engineers is DoD, and one of the best reasons for a standing military.
what? You saying we should get a civics class instead of training to destroy the adversaries of the United States?
Yes.
Both are needed, since US public schools are skimping on civics education, and soldiers do not stop being citizens who need to know how their nations civie government is supposed to operate.
Maybe if US public schools did a better civics education, it wouldn't be necessary, but since they aren't doing their job, military education programs may need to do it for them, for new recruits.
The entirety of the US Militaries job is to he a weapon. A means to make sure we are able to keep our nation and the world (in some terms. I am not for world policing but it is a simple term to go with for now) from our adversaries hands.
Infantry train to kill the bad guy's. Pilots train to fly thier aircraft and do thier jobs. Intel trains and does thier job constantly.
Engineers do thiers.
It is a day to day life for us, we do this because we wat to and it allows us to further improve our lives after woods with experience many can't get without paying for it.
Unfortunately, that's the ideal, not the reality, and illogical political reasoning and demands can pull snowjobs on those who do not have a grasp of US civics.
You want to have better ROEs, then the military needs to have more civics minded soldiers who can try to make RoE's that fit political needs, and soldier protection, better than soldiers who do not have a civics education.
More civic's minded soldiers also mean more soldiers who want to either stay in long term, or become politicians to bring veteran experience to politics.
*Looks at statistics of Vietnam.* 70% of all casualties were volunteers. With 91 percent if the USMC being volunteers.
the Army was the only one with damn near half and half casualties wise for draftees and enlisted. And it counted all from KIA to WIA.
Overall draftees killed thiugh? Only roughly 30% of the casualties were draftees. And only 25% of the fighting force were draftees...
Percentages matter less than the fact any unwilling draftee died in Veitnam, when it comes to public perception of the war at the time.
Veitnam killed the draft, because the US populace was done with letting themselves be forced to fight in wars they did not want. Even just being forced into uniform for garrison duty was no longer going to be accepted, because it still put unwilling people into uniform and the US was done with that, even if technically Selective Service still exists in terms of paperwork.
My grandfather served before Nam and got medically discharged in 62. That's how he got out of it. My other grandfather served in Korea.
Did my grandfather lose buddies in Nam after he left? Yes. Does he resent the government for it? Not really as they all volunteered instead if drafted.
Yes, volunteers often have a different view of things than those who were drafted.
They were less likely to end up in Nam then in some garrison because it was easier to have draftees do menial tasks compared to all the stuff necessary to fight
Again, percentages forced into uniform for garrison vs forced to fight/die in Veitnam doesn't matter, the fact any unwilling American was forced to fight in/for South Veitnam does.
I mean yes. But at the same time the world was not ready for what would have been a more disasterous war and the fact that the Russians were already building thier own nuke would not have been good.
We had multiple years before the Soviets would have the bomb at that point, there was a window of opportunity to move against Stalin, and Patton saw that, but was punished for admitting as much.
I mean, the VA just recently agreed to have Agent Orange be accounted for any cancer.
But not a single soul in the military cares about Nam.
Again, it's not whether those in the military care, it's whether it impacts civie political calculus that determines what orders/objectives the military is given.
Veitnam still matters to civies, whether you like it or not.
The reason it happend was because we were not allowed at all to push on the offensive and take any part of North Vietnam. And the South Vietnamese lasted fir what, 2 years after we left? That was with us cutting supplies as well. So it was more like they just didn't have the support needed and a government to scared to get the Chinese or Russians to intervene like in Korea.
Yes, the US military was not allowed to invade the north, because it was not a 'war', it was another glorified police action and invading the north would have hurt the negotiations going on in Paris (the same one Nixon torpedo'd for his own political gain).
Again, draftees made up very little of the actual fighting force and has been a large lie the media has been pushing to make us seem worse then we were.
And again, percentages don't matter, the fact any unwilling American blood was shed to protect the South Vietnamese gov does matter, from a PR perspective.
And the media twisting things has always been the key to why things were worse for the military overseas. Hanoi Hanna os an example of the media being used by our adversaries to demoralize the troops.
Do you think the media ever showed what happend to troops to cause them to act the way they did? Showed the fighting the VC were doing?
Or how about Jane Fonda going and posing eith the NVA and basically making it seem like the military were the had guys.
Eh, what Fonda did was pretty shit, not going to disagree.
However, please do not pretend the military was being honest with the US people about Veitnam, and that is was only 'media twisting things' that turned the public against the war.
The feelings that came out of the US public after the Tet Offensive weren't some new thing, it's just that instead other anti-war side being attacked by those in power, this time the anti-war side had the US media on their side, instead of in the Pentagon's pocket (which is what the Pentagon had been used to).
you are shwoing your leftist roots.
And you are showing that conservative need to defend the Veitnam 'War', for the sake of military morale and the feelings of some vets, is a continued issue for the GOP base.
The Dems aren't stupid enough to try to defend what happened in Veitnam, and successful parts of the GOP have not tried to defend it either.
it isn't needed when it isn't needed. The screwdriver tends to prevent the hammer from being effective.
Point being, look at how effective we were against ISIS under Trump compared to Obama and Biden.
And yet the DoD still disobeyed Trump about pulling troops out of Syria, and numerous other cases of the DoD ignoring/undermining Trump for political reasons.
The DoD leadership are politicians too, not soldiers with some more clout, and operate in the political worlds rules more than the DoDs.
Eh, not really no. We at least had partial justification for knowing how Sadam was treating minorities in his nation (gassing kurds), and the fact that he did have WMDs at one point.
Sure by the time we found them they were bad but it took us awhile to find them.
The Yellowcake was a lie, a big one, and the nerve gas/bio agents were the secondary bit, and even those came out to be effectively so worthless that Saddam was not even close to using them on US or giving them to Osama, as was claimed to the US public.
Which is a bad thing. What is more important then your citizens surviving contact with the enemy? Good fefes thay get thrown back at you when they kill a whole fucking squad to a suicide bomb?
Political good will with international partners can be more important than your own troops survival, in political calculus.
As I said above, US political goals are hurt more by dead international civies than by dead US troops.
Vietnam no longer rucking matters to the military. That was what, 50 something years ago by this point? Almost 60? Not a single soldier alive has served since then, and the longest serving were born around the time of Vietnam.
We, do, not, care because it has no bearing on how we do anything these days.
And again, whether it matters to those already in the military is not important, whether it is still relevant to US civies and political goals/reasoning is.
yes, and that is something that we still have issued with to a degree, but not to the point thay ot will be hidden until war breaks out.
Usually the ones hiding it are a few officers want our numbers to look better but will get found out in audits or on exercises when the vehicles need to be sent somewhere.
In the US military it will get found out eventually.
Privates talk.
Yes, and this is a saving grace of our military.
Correct, but yet they get to dictate everything we do without any actual consideration for the ones whose lives are the military?
Yes, because there is no oath politicians sign or declare that says they have to care about US troop lives more than political concerns.
Tools are replacable, political concerns are often not.
I mean yes, but that doesn't mean we can go to congresscritters and complain because that is our right and is actively encouraged by the military
Which is another saving grace.
or we stop electing democrats and elect people who actively care about the military like 90% of Republicans. And maybe we have some balls on Congress to give us raises every year that are in the double digit percentage instead if max of like 6. 8 percent is best fir inflation at minimum, we got six....
Fiscal conservatives have nothing to do with that and people who seem to only care about thier own pockets do.
Often times 11% has been put onto the bills, and it always gets chopped down.
The Dems could be better on military funding, but look at how many people on the Right still operate in pre-fiat currency mindsets and thus plan military budgets accordingly.
Money printer gonna keep going 'brrr', might as well help boost the military with it, given the CVNs are the real thing that backs the USD.
because people would rather spend more money on green things domestically then help those who want to defend thier country
Yes, the radical greens are a problem, and for more than just the US military.
Nit 100 percent true.
Remember the president can send us to do actions fir 60 to 90 days depending on what it is and no need for war to be declared.
For instance, we send troops to support Ukraine. War would not be declared.
Now, if Nato were to be attacked war would be declared due to treaties.
Same with Phillipines or Taiwan or Korea or Japan...
It depends on situation and what is going on.
Yes, the 60-90 exception does exist, and has been used before.
However, that sort of stuff also pisses off US civies, and feels like a Executive end-run around US public consent towards military matters.
and that leash will end with us having a massive blow to our nation because we srnt allowed to have freedom.
Very possibly, yes.
Them's the breaks, and the price(s) of how dysfunctional and mistrusted the US gov and military have become by the US populace, do to their own ego and infighting.
It may take a slap in the face to whole US and a major blow to us for the delusions and illusions about how we should use our military to fall away.