Well with the last post I must disagree.

Tank for tank we are better but Iraq is an asymmetrical war. To win their you must have an overwhelming force ie huge troop numbers. The US military has tons of equipment but a battle tank is not designed to fight a guy planting a remote roadside bomb.

The US does have the best military in the world currently to that there is no question but technology has now reduced the advantage of that large military.

The Chinese now can knock out all our satellites, boom "poof" a multi billion dollar asset is gone. Our eye in the sky is blinded, just think of all the space debris that would be up there taking out all the other commercial satellites. The Chinese not only have missiles but they have ground based lasers that can also take out Satellites.

The Iranians have Russian Sunburn cruise missiles, Two dozen could take out a battle group.

A million dollar missile could take out a carrier.


Technology is shifting to the point where the advantage of the US military is being reduced daily.

The beating of a true American chest, what a spectacular site.

Take a read of Gwyn Dyer's - War. He has a pretty good handle on the capabilities of modern armies.

Take a look at the reports coming from the US military. They are running short of equipment. Why? because the stuff breaks and they can't keep up with repairs. There are literally hundreds of M1's sitting idle because of parts shortages and lack of mechanics. This is true of much of the US military hardware. The attrition rate is horrendous primarily because the machinary is high-strung and too specialized.

No arguement that much of the equipment is impressive and fierce, but only when it's running.
The traditional forms of conducting warfare are obsolete. Modern armies cannot sustain any sort of aggression because they can't maintain enough equipment in the field. Compound that with the fact that the personnel has become too dependent on the equipment.
Hell, even the modern hand weapons the US is using aren't as reliable as the kalishnakov. Again, great weapon, but only when it works.

It's not the manpower, it's the frailty of the entire modern warfare machine. Look what Iraq is doing to the US military. Plus, this sort of aggression is backrupting your country. It's simply not sustainable and you are going to pay a very ugly price once it collapses.

Oh yes, a little Canadian chest beating is in order. Indeed, man for man the Canadian peacekeeper is better trained and had superior experience, particularly when coping with asymetrical combat.
Our JTF sniper teams are the envy of the world of fighting forces.

You speak the truth! I was reading a story not too long ago about our snipers making kills in Afghanistan from 2km away with M82's. Not too shabby.

Thumping the Americans? Brush up on your history before you make random comments. Statistically this has been one of the least deadly wars in our history. You cannot expect to occupy a heavily armed hostile country with deep seeded social problems and not take casualties.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... usat_x.htm

While we can't put a price on the value of a human life we can only look at the comparitive cost of this war. Do you really believe that the Canadian military would have more success? Perhaps you should brush up on your history before you make any more dumb comments.


http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004615.html

Perhaps you should brush up on your ettiquette before jumping into a well-established thread and hurling insults.

Anyway, should we really be defining failure or success of this war by the relative number of American casualties? A better yardstick might be whether or not we've completed our objectives in the region. If you look at the war as an exercise in "spreading democracy" it's been a dismal failure. But if it's an oil grab (see the newly drafted oil law) then: Mission Accomplished!

You are talking about human casualties, which are terrible, if relatively light. Although I wouldn't be so cavalier about them.

I however, have been focusing on the casualties in hardware. The very easily understood conclusion is that the modern war making machine that the US has built is unsustainable. It is bloated with frail, extremely expensive, high tech equipment that can't be built fast enough or repaired in the field.
Iraq provides clear proof of this. As you JBeckton have yourself confirmed, it is an almost insignificant engagement relative to what the US is theoretically capable of doing. Yet it has completely devastated your inventory. By next year the US army will be incapable of fielding a full brigade of front line armour, simple because they've run out of battle ready tanks. Most significantly, this problem can't be solved by any amount of money. The complexity and specialization of the equipment, limits the availability of parts and people to do the repairs.
I'm a good mechanic and can rebuild just about anything, with 4+ decades of experience to back that up, but I can't fix an M1 tank right away, simply because they are so specialized.

Wow this post screams CNC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny how you refer to them as "peacekeepers". I'm sure your underfunded unexperienced "peacekeepers" would fair much better.

(CNC-Canadian Napoleon Complex)

Sorry, as a vet reading a post declaring that the American's are being thumped, when they are clearly doing the best they can fighting an enemy that they cannot see, ettiquette has no bearing on my response.

jbeckton,

Being a vet doesn't mean you can lose your cool, your ettiquette, especially over an internet forum. In fact, I would expect just the opposite. I would expect a vet to be able to maintain his cool under a lot more pressure than can be found on this message board. If you the vet lose your cool so easily, its no wonder there have been so many convictions for war crimes of US vets in Iraq.

Just how many ships, tanks, jets and helicopters have we lost? Not much, where do you get this notion that our mechanics can't fix the tanks? I was an engineer, not a mechanic, but we had mechanics im my platoon and I never head anyone say that the tanks are too hard fo fix because they are too specialized. The extra skill it takes to fix them is far outweighed by the advantage the tanks gives when operational.


Besides, one M1 is far superior to 2 of any other nations tanks in the world.

I did not lose my cool, thats really how I feel, I regret nothing. And don't even give me your "so many war crimes" argument. If the press had as much access to WWII troops, we would still be trying people.

.000139% of service members have been charged with war crimes. Thats under some of the most challenging situations the military has ever been under. So your war crimes argument is more showing of the media's hold on you than your knowlegde of the facts at hand.

Rdsnt is off the mark when he categorizes the problems in Iraq as primarily an equipment issue.

Here is a great articlce by Pat Buchanan that refutes his point. link

Never mind the fact that this is the longest the US has ever fought a war without instituting the draft. The US has an all volunteer army that is being stretched too thin throughout the world.

It is not just me who disagrees with Rdsnt but the US generals as well. We do not have near enough troops in there to get things under control and we do not have the will to send more in through the draft.

The idea off todays 18 to 24 year olds being drafted is scary for all kinds of reasons.

Like I said, you lost you're cool, or, in more polite terms, your ettiquette.

As for the number of war crimes committed by US troops, you also need to refresh yourself on why the US trains to follow the Geneva convention in the first place - it has nothing to do with reducing the percentage of war crimes, which is a red herring, it has everything to do with winning the political battle - its easier to win when people want to surrender. Even though small by your figures, the prison scandals, rapes etc are causing the US to lose the political fight in the ME and is in fact helping fuel the insurgency - a fact conceded by Rummy himself who said that the prison scandal set the war back more than anything else hitherto. The prison scandals and admitted raping of minor girls and killing off of their families play right into the "Great Satan" theme. Simply put, war crimes fuel and insurgency. The same was true in the US Revolution, though percentage of British war crimes were small, the war crimes nevertheless fueled the US insurgency and brought in various divided religious groups that previous were not supportive of the American cause.

Don't be dissing my army. The prowess of the average Canadian soldier is well known.

What other army in the world can field soldiers that can beat you with a frozen salmon from 20 yards while simultaneously drinking a six pack and making a snowman?

they have shown an ability to take out very low altitude satellites, but they can't hit the high altitude ones, big difference.