Reading in the Army Times, I Soon came across this little bit of disturbing info. The quote comes from The Army Times, an unclassified, military newsletter that sells at our PX, and, as far as I can tell, can be subscribed to.:

This soon got me thinking. I was never a fool to think our enemies were simple-minded religious zealots, but just how advanced and determined are they? We have a really large amount of troops in Iraq right now, and the fact that our enemies are'nt as simple-minded as most first thought, but now are learning and adapting at an alarming rate, does have me very worried.

So, I wish to ask you, good people of The Fallout Shelter: What do you think of our current enemies over in the Middle East? And, what are your projections on our new conflict?

[P.S. My apologies for the obvious sales pitch above, but it was needed.]

I think the Middle Eastern opponents of the U.S. Army are every bit as resourceful and tenacious as the Viet-Cong of the Vietnam War. I think that even with our technology and our numbers, we will fail to crush resistance and ultimately be forced to withdraw. The only problem is...I have little faith in the competency of the nation who fights wars like this, especially for all the wrong reasons. We were never able to quell Vietnam and we will fail here too. We are not desert people. They are well-adapted to their own terrain, and our terrain is largely hospitable. The Middle East is using our mile-long list of shortcomings against us. We'll never stop them or even catch Osama bin Laden. Even if we do, that won't stop a thing.

The supposed capture of Osama Bin Laden may make things worse, seeing the problem right now over there, I'd say Sadaam was better off not found. But, that's just me... and, we came into Iraq and all unprepared: No armor on the Tanks and Jeeps and all. Sure, Desert Storm I was a success(I think), but what of Desert Storm II(The one we are fighting in now)?

What the hell?
Tanks have armour. If they didn't have armour, they'd just be heavy gun carriers. There is nothing wrong with the tanks out in Iraq. The only threat to them is being ambushed and hit in the rear by sneaky RPG troopers.

The Humvees are okay, they have decent amount of armour to withstand light gun fire, though yes, they could use more. More well protected wheeled APCs are what are in demand. There have even been requests to up armour the humvees. But of course, none of this will work against those car bombs.

I think what was meant by armour was over plate armour. Armour that is added to the cheaper metal hull of the tank or whatever, like Titanium for example.

i'm meaning the stuff they put on their humvees, yeah... with no armor on em, they salvaged alot of scrap from the ground; rusted plates and all...

They already use Titanium alloy for armor plates and just about everything else=O

The problem is they're fighting a battle of hearts and minds. We're fighting a battle of guns and tanks. That is why we're generally hated out there. We're not revealing the terrorists for the pricks that they are, we're just trying to grind them and anyone who may or may not have been within a 50-mile radius of them into a fine paste.

Honestly, I have to agree with G.M. Eastwoods viewpoint of a battle of Hearts and Minds. Our Current strategies are a hit-and-miss within the Muslim community, and at the start of the war, our initial fear of anything closely related to the current threat was ostracized, even if they were doing nothing of the sort.

Also, if I can go off on a personal tangent, this is what would have happened if I found Saddam:

-Opens sheet of metal used to seal up hole-
-Looks inside- He's armed! Frag out!
-Takes grenade, pulls pin, drops in hole, covers hole, runs-

Of course, that would have been my reaction. Heck, i'd take punishment for it.

And for John and K. Takura: Titanium is very expenisve. My guess wound be cheaper aluminum-steel plating with Reactive armor. But that's just my guess.

There is no point of adding extra armour to tanks. They already got what they need. The Abrams weights roughly over 70 tons. Lets not push it.
The only thing you could add is reactive bricks. But you won't have to worry about being hit by anti-tank missiles or other tanks in Iraq.

That's so idiotic that it isn't funny. Bolting random crap to the side of humvees is pointless. They already have ideas with uparmoured humvee packages to upgrade with. Besides, that should be already good enough against small arms fire. The Humvee is not designed to protect the crew from an RPG or road side bomb.

The normal humvee has Canvas doors. There are uparmored humvees in Iraq, but you standard flavor in garrison wouldn't stop a .9 MM round. Butnot even uparmored, like TSS said, would protect against an RPG.

Anyway, a friend of mine used a very good analogy: Adding armor to tanks is like pouring waterin the sea. It's armored against small arms fire, and reactive armor is usually installed for the threats of IED's and RPG's.

Besides, i've seen Bradleys have their turret popped off the top by IED's, and Marine vehicles cracked in half by explosions. Armor isn't cutting it against 5 mortar rounds tied together, and detonated point-blank. You would need somewhere along the lines of a miracle to stop an explosive force like that.

Damn straight.

We're the invaders here, turning their lives upside-freakin'-down. It's the Alamo all over again, and just as pretty too. I don't care if we develop the first-ever giant mecha-robots and stomp all over their country or even use robot troops in the first place - We of the U.S. have got the wrong idea. The Middle East does not even represent the actions of terrorists, anyway. Terrorism does not come from a set source. That's why the War on Terror is bullshit.

The war is a lost cause really, like Mass said they are fighting like the Viet-Cong are. And we're monkeying our way into things. I cant count how many times I've heard that people were killed by roadside bombs, mangled by bombs, mangled by bombs while still in their vehicles, the only time I EVER here about actual enemies is when they kidnap some poor schmuck and then behead the guy.

You cant fight a target that wont pop up, and beyond that, I promise you, when we are finally forced to pull out. With no other recourse, which will most likely be the circumstances in this war of attrition. That Iraq will not stay friendly in any form. Infact, a civil war will break out after America is told to stick it where the sun dont shine. Many people will die, and the country will just about fall into ash. This war should be not going on, it should have never started. Frankly I dont like to say this, but while Saddam was a monster, he kept his country together.

And worse yet, by the time this is over, the whole country (USA) will be absolutely unfathomably bankrupt. No one is putting a curb on the money being dirhead'd out over there...

World War 3 isnt that far away, of course several of my family think its already upon us. Not in a paranoid sense, but in a "Cannot be avoided" sense. Quite a shame.

Make sure you read ALL of this in order to get context :P

Again I have to agree with East, people are way more likely to join up with these so called "Terrorists" who actually seem to be fighting for a cause rather than us who's just doing this because "the higher ups told us to" XP

... That "LTC Ross Brown" is a freaking idiot. OF COURSE THEY'RE F**KING LEARNING, THEY'RE PEOPLE NOT F**KING PUBIC LICE!!! What surprises me is that people actually seem surprised by this fact.
"Great God almiaghty, I gone thought that they were dem der mindless religious zealots type peoples who just be running straight for us and blows up. Nah help me put this burnin' cross up in this fellas front yard." Just because there are some religious zealots like that doesn't mean that all religious zealots are like that. Also we invaded THEIR land most of them probably just want to protect their country not ONLY for religious reasons.

Maybe the army could actually try some tactics rather than attacking wildly like blindfolded monkeys with high explosives. I'm under the impression that they just had a vague outline of what to do rather than an actual plan. That got them into the situation they're in now, where they have no idea when or where the next attack is going to be or even which people are their enemies.

I can guess that their strategy meetings (if they even attempt the bloody things) go something like this:

"Lieutenant, our forces are being attacked what do we do?"
"Stick to the plan."
"What, you mean wing it while wasting government funding that would normally be used for teaching little kids how to read and about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and unprotected sex creating a new generation of illiterate, drunk, junkie, pregnant school kids with STDs?"
"Yes."

It's absolutly ludicrous how much public/ government funding is going into this moronic war and the cuts to things that are far more important than this farce that started over some monumental bloody f**k up that the UN didn't agree with in the first place. Of course we had to go against the bloody UN didn't we and now we're too damn deep into this buh-GOCK!-up everyone's drowning in their own F**KING STUPIDITY XP

*Deep calming breath*

Ok I'm done with my rant n_n

Indeed. It's considerably harder to win a war when you are the offenders attempting to take a foreign land. I'm not saying that the US is trying to conquer Iraq, but we are the invaders. We need to try to win the hearts of the people, get them to stop harboring and helping any terrorist groups. We need to give some more support to their local forces and get supplies to the people that need them.

It's impossible to go to war against an ideal using only bombs and guns.

Problem is that we ARE training and winning over the hearts and minds of the people over there. However, that change takes years upon years to work at, and it is a slow, painful process that takes sacrifice, dedication, and support. People who preach about how we should pull out, and how we are instigating the war, are the ones who fail to see the peogress we are making to help out those who are truly in need.

I do not believe our reasons for entering into Iraq were true or just. However, I do see why we now have to stay.

Really? Hmmmm.... Just a second.

HNNNG!! URRRRG!! WORRRRP!!

*Pulls several hernias in an active attempt to see the issue from that angle*

Ouch... No, I'm sorry, but I can't see us having to stay. This is like gambling with a cardshark in a rigged casino. The more we put into the pot, the more we're gonna lose, and the house ain't giving back. I believe that while there are those who can speak of noble cause, for wanting to think higher than our administration, those who do won't be getting in any good brownie-points BECAUSE of that administration.Now, if we abandon them, there might indeed be a great calamity. On the other hand, given that these are a desert people giving US a hard time, I'm sure they'll survive a civil war as well, which might be preferrable to perpetually getting our hands in it.

Sorry to say, but have you ever heard of a power vacumn? Just like the Russian Bloc Countries after the fall of the USSR, if we pull out now, without proper training and stabilization, there will be a power vacumn, and the entire mess will start over. Sure, the Iraquis, Kuwaitis, and Kurds are tough, (Please don't use Desert people. Makes me think of Tusken Raiders), But look at what happened to the Kurds the last time we decided to mind our own business. There are already leaders in the new Iraq that are using torture and forced detainment. The last, and I do mean LAST, thing we need now is yet another totalitarian regime, especially after all of the funding, training, and manpower we've dumped into it. Right now, we are slowly giving back city after city to Iraqi control, but as I said before, it takes time. We won't move too fast, or we can have the same thing happen to us as did in Afghanistan, when we gave weapons to help fight the Russians.

I still say we had no bloody business going out there in the first place. Just another step in Bush's master plan to make a bigger ass out of himself.

How is throwing people into Guantamino Bay and torturing them in ways that aren't only physically and mentally damaging but also go against the beliefs of the majority of that country "winning over the hearts and minds of people"?

I agree with you on the reasons for entering Iraq not being true or just, and I also see why we must stay...

... To clean up the mess WE made in the first place XP

Sorry about the desert comment. I wasn't even making a Star Wars joke. Anyway...

You're trying to convince me that staying is better because if we pull the plug, everything might go down the drain. Now, while I doubt that, I'll entertain that possibility because it's not impossible. However, I will not rank it high on my list of worries, since staying is what's going on and staying is causing us (the big U.S. type us) no end of trouble. I have no great love of this boneheaded nation, so you can't see me going with the gung-ho majority.

Now then, here is how it is. If we stay and try to (ineffectively) solve things, we continue to go on the right path to crippling ourselves, which Wraith mentioned before. Also, since we don't actually know what the hell we're doing, it's a sure bet that that consuming path will be walked upon for quite a while. This leads to a degradation in society, in living, in economy, and maybe brings about a draft. And if you think I'm staying here with the big D roaming around, you've got another thing coming.

On the other end, if we leave, we may possibly doom that portion of the Middle East to its surrounding countries. Or maybe not. It all depends on whether they want it badly enough or not. And indeed, if that happened, we would be responsible. But let us not forget, this all started because the U.S. wanted to act big (again) and do its thing. Now that it's screwed up, we can leave it and maybe they'll recover on their own. We left Vietnam and they solved their own damn war without us, as if we'd never been there. We are not in control, and we never will be.

Now then, for my opinion. I would rather the U.S. step back, admit it couldn't handle the issue, and let nature take its course than stupidly destroy itself over something it can't resolve. Also, considering the subject of this thread, don't you think that anyone trying to pick on Iraq and whatnot will get more of what we've been dealing with?

It'll go the way of Afghanistan. We'll pump up Iraqi Army and security forces and once we think they're ready we'll leave them. Suicide bombings probably won't stop but I reckon they'll go down once us infidels pull out.

M1A1 Abrams can take more than a few RPGs to the rear side, boyo.

As far as Vietnam comparisons go, you're idiots. You've obviously never even looked at figures in Vietnam compared to those in Iraq. We're taking far, far fewer losses in Iraq than in Vietnam. Since we've been in Iraq, we're at roughly 2000 fatalities. There were 11775 deaths in one year of Vietnam.

The political situation is nothing like Vietnam. They're two completely different wars. Compare the Russian revolution of 1917 and the Peloponnesian wars while you're at it.

You have no idea what you're talking about, shut the @#$% up.

He's a Lieutenant Colonel. I'll bet a hefty wager he's smarter than you.

Also, he's been over where the events are taking place. It's easy to sit back and call someone an idiot, but it's a lot harder when you experience for yourself, or so a buddy of mine states.

I, Myself, have never been over there. I make no allusions to any kind of fact that i've served in Iraq, or have been hit by IED's. Most of my accounts/quotes are from friends whom have servers 12-18 month tours, and I respect their word for it, because it's a whole lot more valid than any 'Chairborne Ranger' Back in the states.

And, to clear up one last thing, I DO NOT agree with why we went. But I do agree why we have to stay.

Depends how he got his position, can you tell me his military and educational history or how rich his family is (you never know, could have bribed his way to his position)?

I guess I was being sort of naieve though, I mean I have no idea what kind of military tactics they're using. However if he had to say something like that it can be either one of 2 things, they've been using advanced military tactics and he was surprised at how well the enemy was adapting to them or they weren't planning much further past lunch-time and he was grossly underestimating how difficult an enemy they could be. I went for the latter because I was up for a rant because this whole war on/ policing of Iraq and the amount of funding it's taking away from other government programmes like health and education pisses me off.

Fact of the matter is you have to have a certain amount of time in the service before you can get to LTC. He's obviously spent a lot of time in it. And you can't tell if someone's an idiot just by reading one article they wrote.

Military periodicals can be painfully vauge because they're not allowed to let everyone know what they do.

The way I see it, one of the reasons not to pull out of Iraq too soon is because many believe that it would create another power vacuum just like Serin said. It would be like what happened to Afghanistan when the Soviets were finally driven out. Yet, at the sametime casualties are rising as Iraq is trying to get on its feet. Kind of a tough jam Bush put the U.S. into.

George Carlin said it best:

"Just look at the names. Colin, Bush, and D!&k. You know something's getting f*^%ed in this administration."

Honestly, I mean no disrespect to the position, but our CinC is a moron. Still I will follow his orders, even if they are to send me to do something totally inane like fight in this war.

I rasied my right hand, and swore upon the flag. Can't take that back.