NationStates Jolt Archive

I believe it does, at least in the short term. A fair number of other insurgency leaders identified from the data held on Zarqawi's data drive were hunted down and killed in the few days following Zarqawi's death.

Some argue that they will simply be replaced, and they argue that it doesn't take a smart person to be a terrorist leader.

Well, being smart surely helps. And I think it's hard to find a smart, cunning terrorist who is a leader as compared to finding someone with Down's Syndrome to wear a suicide bomb and walk into a market.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/jtkwon/06-22-2006.gif

I believe it does, at least in the short term. A fair number of other insurgency leaders identified from the data held on Zarqawi's data drive were hunted down and killed in the few days following Zarqawi's death.

Some argue that they will simply be replaced, and they argue that it doesn't take a smart person to be a terrorist leader.

Well, being smart surely helps. And I think it's hard to find a smart, cunning terrorist who is a leader as compared to finding someone with Down's Syndrome to wear a suicide bomb and walk into a market.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/jtkwon/06-22-2006.gif

In the short term yes. In the long term no, as you have stated they can always be replaced and Al-Zarqawi was not the brightest of chaps, as illustrated by that infamous video where he couldn't even fire his weapon properly. Add in the factor of martyrdom in this particular case (I guarentee he'll be venerated by Al-Quada as a martyr) and I think the long term benefits of taking out this man are slim at best.

snip

"An Insurgency"? No.

The insurgency in Iraq? No.

'Al-Qaeda in Iraq'? Probably, yes.

Nah.

If you think so, you underestimate the will of the insane.

These people don't really give a shit who's giving them orders, they all believe Allah has decreed and condones their behavior. They don't need an earthly leader.

of course it does. there are almost limitless numbers of people who can sit at the bottom waiting for orders but few who are fit to run the organization effectively

yes all those guys who got killed or arrested will be replaced but they are replaced by the 2nd string leaders. its like replacing the guys at CBS evening news with those chumps on MSNBC. sure they can do the job but they dont do it as well.

we have to hit the top and the bottom of the insurgency. the guys at the top have to know that they are risking their lives. that they cant hide. sooner or later they will be dead at the hands of the US or the new iraqi govt.

the guys at the bottom have to know that they run a real chance of just being DEAD with no virgins to greet them in the afterlife because they have failed at their plans for martyrdom. no glory for them, no payments for the family, just DEAD.

I believe it does, at least in the short term.[/IMG]
In 1916 every leader (save one) of the Irish insurgency was executed. And yet four years later we had won the war and had independence.

I guess it's possible that you'll have less 'smart' attacks, but you're still going to have nutters blowing up things in Iraq no matter how many leaders you kill.

I guess it depends on whether the leaders are actually the 'ideas' guys or not. Having a good plan, even a simple one, like say creating a small explosion to draw a crowd and then having the big one go off can be the difference between 2 deaths and 100.

In 1916 every leader (save one) of the Irish insurgency was executed. And yet four years later we had won the war and had independence.
Yes, but the circumstances are different; the Irish were against an enemy with far more pressing matters on their hands, who couldn't afford to hold onto such a small and frankly irrelevant land when the entire Empire was at stake.

In this case, the insurgents have the full attention of the enemy, who are unlikely to decide it's not worth the effort and cut and run.

In 1916 every leader (save one) of the Irish insurgency was executed. And yet four years later we had won the war and had independence.

Well that's because the Irish kick ass more than any other people on the planet. :D

[/irish pride]

In 1916 every leader (save one) of the Irish insurgency was executed. And yet four years later we had won the war and had independence.
It certainly helps when the British Army goes off to France to lose millions of men fighting the Germans.

Had those same millions of men been sent to Ireland, things would have been very different.

In 1916 every leader (save one) of the Irish insurgency was executed. And yet four years later we had won the war and had independence.

The Iraqi insurgency also differs in that the Irish were primarily concerned with political matters (an independent state) whereas Al-Quada simply want to "kill the infidel".

The Iraqi insurgency also differs in that the Irish were primarily concerned with political matters (an independent state) whereas Al-Quada simply want to "kill the infidel".
Getting westerners out of the Middle East is a political goal.
It certainly helps when the British Army goes off to France to lose millions of men fighting the Germans.

Had those same millions of men been sent to Ireland, things would have been very different.
Hence, the US needs more troops in Iraq.

Hence, the US needs more troops in Iraq.

Well, if the British sent 3 million men to Ireland in 1916 instead of to France, there would have been a soldier for every couple of Irish.

Militaries today don't work on sheer numbers of men.

Well, I can't see it helping them much...
Had those same millions of men been sent to Ireland, things would have been very different.
Which raises an important point: What's happening elsewhere while the US is getting bogged down and tied up in Iraq?

Which raises an important point: What's happening elsewhere while the US is getting bogged down and tied up in Iraq?

Darfur comes to mind, but we don't care about Black people, so all is well.

Well, I can't see it helping them much...

Which raises an important point: What's happening elsewhere while the US is getting bogged down and tied up in Iraq?

Well, the main point of "exhaustion" in a modern Western military is not a matter of logistics or troop strength. It's a matter of what the people at home are willing to put up with.

If you're able to fight wars that end in a matter of weeks, and everyone comes home for a victory parade, you can do that ad infinitum with no political repercussions at home. Everyone loves a winner, especially if it's a curb stomp.

Insurgencies, on the other hand, aren't quick and easy. So they get to "exhaust" a Western military by pissing off the people at home. As a result, a Western military has to change its tactics in order to avoid pissing off people at home.

You'll notice a recent trend - just before Zarqawi was captured, roughly 40 mid-level insurgency leaders in Iraq were killed - none captured. Then Zarqawi was killed, not captured. Immediately afterwards, several hundred more were killed, not captured.

Dead men don't make nice photo ops at Guantanamo. Don't get abused at AbyuGharaib. Don't end up as poster children for Amnesty International. Are quickly forgotten, even by the people who sympathize with them, as new people take their place. And few people in the US really care how many Zarqawis get killed - it's barely news after a while.

I believe that although there isn't an official policy in this regard, the military units themselves realize that the people at home think that taking prisoners is a bad idea - so they do the only other thing they are trained to do. I don't think that things would have turned this way had there not been the various debacles at the various prisons/detention centers.

Plus, it's cheaper. Not necessarily more effective, but cheaper. When a 500-pound bomb turns seven terrorists into ceiling spackle (and throws another out into the street to die), no one can claim they were tortured, interrogated, had their Korans abused, etc.

I doubt it, an effective resistance or insurgency relies on decentralized warfare, the grunts don't take orders from Zarqawilahwidfnsu or whatever-the-fuck his name was, they get orders from a local leader. The death of Zalafuckface won't make a difference to them.

Look at the VC as a perfect example. One year after their top general was killed, they shook the US with the Tet Offensive.

Losing a leader is important to small scale resistance movements, but to a large scale resistance group, it's not too important.

We're supposed to be fighting a "global war on terror" not a war against insurgents in Iraq (who wouldn't exist if we hadn't prepared the ground for them). All the terrorist groups and independent or semi-independent terrorist cells scattered all over the world will not be affected in any significant way by the loss of any "leader." That's kind of the whole point of running an organization as a network of cells -- so that cutting off what appears to be the head does not, in fact, kill the beast. They'll take some time, regroup, new leaders will emerge, and they will carry on over a period years, even decades, in different places and with new characters as necessary. How many times do they actually have to do this before you get it?

Well, the main point of "exhaustion" in a modern Western military is not a matter of logistics or troop strength. It's a matter of what the people at home are willing to put up with.

If you're able to fight wars that end in a matter of weeks, and everyone comes home for a victory parade, you can do that ad infinitum with no political repercussions at home. Everyone loves a winner, especially if it's a curb stomp.

Insurgencies, on the other hand, aren't quick and easy. So they get to "exhaust" a Western military by pissing off the people at home. As a result, a Western military has to change its tactics in order to avoid pissing off people at home.

You'll notice a recent trend - just before Zarqawi was captured, roughly 40 mid-level insurgency leaders in Iraq were killed - none captured. Then Zarqawi was killed, not captured. Immediately afterwards, several hundred more were killed, not captured.

Dead men don't make nice photo ops at Guantanamo. Don't get abused at AbyuGharaib. Don't end up as poster children for Amnesty International. Are quickly forgotten, even by the people who sympathize with them, as new people take their place. And few people in the US really care how many Zarqawis get killed - it's barely news after a while.

I believe that although there isn't an official policy in this regard, the military units themselves realize that the people at home think that taking prisoners is a bad idea - so they do the only other thing they are trained to do. I don't think that things would have turned this way had there not been the various debacles at the various prisons/detention centers.

Plus, it's cheaper. Not necessarily more effective, but cheaper. When a 500-pound bomb turns seven terrorists into ceiling spackle (and throws another out into the street to die), no one can claim they were tortured, interrogated, had their Korans abused, etc.
Your fetish for "big bangs" is really getting out of hand, DK.

This is nothing but another attempt to justify your Muslim genocide fantasies by advocating state-sponsored murder, war crimes, and ignoring civilian collateral damage. As with all your other attempts, it is based on willful ignorance of the real enemy and how they operate. "Willful" because the truth is right in front of your face every day, but the truth doesn't support your indiscriminate bloodlust. You have no interest in stopping terrorism (since your little dreams would not accomplish that). You just want to live in some kind of fascist, Nazi-style, war-ridden dystopia you've made up for yourself. I haven't forgotten the time you stated, in another thread, that you would be happy to join the Gestapo if it would make you feel safe.

We're supposed to be fighting a "global war on terror" not a war against insurgents in Iraq (who wouldn't exist if we hadn't prepared the ground for them). All the terrorist groups and independent or semi-independent terrorist cells scattered all over the world will not be affected in any significant way by the loss of any "leader." That's kind of the whole point of running an organization as a network of cells -- so that cutting off what appears to be the head does not, in fact, kill the beast. They'll take some time, regroup, new leaders will emerge, and they will carry on over a period years, even decades, in different places and with new characters as necessary. How many times do they actually have to do this before you get it?

Then perhaps we need to design robots that do the fighting for us, that can operate as a loose network of cells.

Then, at the very least, there won't be any US soldiers killed, captured, or at risk, and any abuses can be laid at the feet of badly written software. The insurgents will then face an implacable foe with which they cannot negotiate, and have no chance of intimidating.

I'd say it depends on the nature of the war in question. There's no shortage of people willing to :sniper: :mp5: :gundge: and if that's what the war is, then killing the leader won't make much difference. However, if there is any actual planning involved, then killing the guy doing the planning can make a big difference. The 2nd choice will take awhile to get up to speed, and if we can take him out too, they might be screwed.

Sure it will slow things down for a little while, but in the end they'll just be replaced. Which makes one wonder...how can a war on terror be won? There will always be a terrorist somewhere...

Darfur comes to mind, but we don't care about Black people, so all is well.


Apparently, the folks living much closer to them than the US dont care.

I cant agree with someone saying "we dont care about Black people" .

Apparently, the folks living much closer to them than the US dont care.

Mama always taught me that two wrongs don't make a right.

I cant agree with someone saying "we dont care about Black people" .

*shrug*

Darfur, New Orleans, etc ... overwhelming proof.

Mama always taught me that two wrongs don't make a right.



*shrug*

Darfur, New Orleans, etc ... overwhelming proof.


speak for yourself. you're not representative of "we".

Many of us did a lot and are still doing. Dont discount it with an ignorant and bitter general statement.

Many of us did a lot and are still doing.

Yes, I'm one of them.

Our government on the other hand ...

If we don't recognize our government's problem as a "we" problem, then what's the point in electing them?

Then perhaps we need to design robots that do the fighting for us, that can operate as a loose network of cells.

Then, at the very least, there won't be any US soldiers killed, captured, or at risk, and any abuses can be laid at the feet of badly written software. The insurgents will then face an implacable foe with which they cannot negotiate, and have no chance of intimidating.
After you were done watching "Road Warrior" you moved on to "Terminator" and "Robocop"? That must have been quite a girl's night in. :rolleyes:

Sure it will slow things down for a little while, but in the end they'll just be replaced. Which makes one wonder...how can a war on terror be won? There will always be a terrorist somewhere...
And they won't all be Muslims dreaming of a caliphate or whatever, either.

After you were done watching "Road Warrior" you moved on to "Terminator" and "Robocop"? That must have been quite a girl's night in. :rolleyes:
No, the US and other countries are building them, so it's not as silly as you think
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200509/kt2005092118400211960.htm

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-00n.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4199935.stm

After you were done watching "Road Warrior" you moved on to "Terminator" and "Robocop"? That must have been quite a girl's night in. :rolleyes:

anything valid to say, or is this your personal crusade against Deep Kimchi ?

Look at the VC as a perfect example. One year after their top general was killed, they shook the US with the Tet Offensive.

Losing a leader is important to small scale resistance movements, but to a large scale resistance group, it's not too important.

they did lose the TET offensive tho. :cool:

*shrug*

Darfur, New Orleans, etc ... overwhelming proof.

*sigh* It's not that we don't care about black people. It's that we don't care about poor people. We don't really care about middle-class people either, but the middle-class is in a better position to take care of itself.

Darfur has nothing we (or Europe) wants, so we ignore it, unlike certain countries that happen to be sitting on oil fields. NOLA was largely minority, but more important, those minorities were poor.

*sigh* It's not that we don't care about black people. It's that we don't care about poor people.

Conceded.

anything valid to say, or is this your personal crusade against Deep Kimchi ?
IMHO, it's a personal crusade.

No, the US and other countries are building them, so it's not as silly as you think
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200509/kt2005092118400211960.htm

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-00n.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4199935.stm
Just to make sure no one missed this.

IMHO, it's a personal crusade.


Its one thing when people disagree and argue, but the personal quest to continually attack some other individual is tiresome.

anything valid to say, or is this your personal crusade against Deep Kimchi ?

I'd say a little from column A, a little from column B.

DK is deliciously attackable. ;)

Depends. Did we misunderestimate the leader?

I'd say a little from column A, a little from column B.

DK is deliciously attackable. ;)

I thought that was the whole point of NS General...

I thought that was the whole point of NS General...

I think it's in the TOS somewhere. :D

I'd say a little from column A, a little from column B.

DK is deliciously attackable. ;)

While I do disagree with DK on a lot of things, he HAS shown a sense of humor about himself AND an ability to reverse a previously held opinion (just not as often as he should :p )

Well, if the British sent 3 million men to Ireland in 1916 instead of to France, there would have been a soldier for every couple of Irish.
.

they had over 100,000 troops in Dublin alone to fight the rising, on top of the tens of thousands garrisoned there.

the point is that chopping off the head of a grassroots uprising will ulitmatly achieve very little.

if anything al-quaeda being sidelined may strengthen the insurgancy by giving it more legitimacy, ie. it will be more iraqi

While I do disagree with DK on a lot of things, he HAS shown a sense of humor about himself AND an ability to reverse a previously held opinion (just not as often as he should :p )
Well, I opposed you on global warming just to have something to talk about, not because I really think the planet isn't getting warmer due to human activity.

But I think it's all the farts...

*sigh* It's not that we don't care about black people. It's that we don't care about poor people. We don't really care about middle-class people either, but the middle-class is in a better position to take care of itself.

Darfur has nothing we (or Europe) wants, so we ignore it, unlike certain countries that happen to be sitting on oil fields. NOLA was largely minority, but more important, those minorities were poor.

The problem in New Orleans was the overwhelming incmpetence of Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, etc. I live less than two hours away in Missisippi and we had nowhere near the problems New Orleans had and we have just as many poor people as New Orleans. Why is that? We actually prepared, they didn't.

The guy wasn't particularly important.

The news coming out of Iraq suggests the insurgency is organised on the level of streets and neighbourhoods, with little in the way of cooperation. The US Ambassador to Iraq recently summed it up nicely in a memo, describing how every neighbourhood in Baghdad has its own flavour, its own customs and rules, and any outsiders are quickly spotted and intimidated or attacked outright. If people want to move around freely, they have to be careful to adopt different outward personas, the right behaviour in each place. And while the Iraqis aren't killing each other over religion, politics and crime, the whole lot is attacking the Americans. It is not uncommon for insurgents to have part-time work with the government, splitting their time between paperwork at some ministry, and shelling some other one on their days off. Journalists have interviewed just such men, most notably educated civil servants with good posts and documents, who man mortars after work.

You have to understand that the insurgency in Iraq is leaderless. Killing the nominal figurehead of one organisation does not weaken the insurgency overall. The dead men are not necessarily replaced by those unfit for leadership, but equally probably by more quiet methodical men, who have made fewer enemies and are therefore more difficult to locate. Or else if one group is weakened, another grows stronger. Remember that these groups do not work together - most are fighting others, and thus keep each other in check. If the militia of one neighbourhood takes too many casualties to remain effective in the short term, another has greater freedom of movement as a result.

These are lessons Russia has already learned in Chechnya, that it is dangerous to treat an insurgency as a homogenous entity which can be made to bleed experience, which takes a hit across the board when one element is destroyed. It is simply not the case. Russia has lost thousands of men working that out, it seems the US will do likewise.

Dead men don't make nice photo ops at Guantanamo. Don't get abused at AbyuGharaib. Don't end up as poster children for Amnesty International. Are quickly forgotten, even by the people who sympathize with them, as new people take their place. And few people in the US really care how many Zarqawis get killed - it's barely news after a while.


Deep Kimchi in a nutshell.

When 'suspected insurgents' are abused or tortured in American-controlled facilities, it is their OWN fault... and they are doing it for attention. When the US opts out of Geneva Protocols, it is the damn 'towelheads' looking for ways to propogate a propaganda war.

Abuse is the fault and design of the victim?

I hope you realise that this is EXACTLY the same logic that claims a miniskirt is an invitation to rape...

of course it does. there are almost limitless numbers of people who can sit at the bottom waiting for orders but few who are fit to run the organization effectively

yes all those guys who got killed or arrested will be replaced but they are replaced by the 2nd string leaders. its like replacing the guys at CBS evening news with those chumps on MSNBC. sure they can do the job but they dont do it as well.

Or replacing Clinton with Dubya.

The guy wasn't particularly important.

The news coming out of Iraq suggests the insurgency is organised on the level of streets and neighbourhoods, with little in the way of cooperation. The US Ambassador to Iraq recently summed it up nicely in a memo, describing how every neighbourhood in Baghdad has its own flavour, its own customs and rules, and any outsiders are quickly spotted and intimidated or attacked outright. If people want to move around freely, they have to be careful to adopt different outward personas, the right behaviour in each place. And while the Iraqis aren't killing each other over religion, politics and crime, the whole lot is attacking the Americans. It is not uncommon for insurgents to have part-time work with the government, splitting their time between paperwork at some ministry, and shelling some other one on their days off. Journalists have interviewed just such men, most notably educated civil servants with good posts and documents, who man mortars after work.

You have to understand that the insurgency in Iraq is leaderless. Killing the nominal figurehead of one organisation does not weaken the insurgency overall. The dead men are not necessarily replaced by those unfit for leadership, but equally probably by more quiet methodical men, who have made fewer enemies and are therefore more difficult to locate. Or else if one group is weakened, another grows stronger. Remember that these groups do not work together - most are fighting others, and thus keep each other in check. If the militia of one neighbourhood takes too many casualties to remain effective in the short term, another has greater freedom of movement as a result.

These are lessons Russia has already learned in Chechnya, that it is dangerous to treat an insurgency as a homogenous entity which can be made to bleed experience, which takes a hit across the board when one element is destroyed. It is simply not the case. Russia has lost thousands of men working that out, it seems the US will do likewise.

The crazy thing is... the constant attempt to try to link the Iraq insurgency to the 'formal' Al Qaeda, makes the current situation even more ludicrous... after all - the reason Osama and his compatriots even have an organisation, is because insurgency works against imperialist aggressors, who are fighting a 'conventional' war.

Of course - the same lesson could have been learned long before the Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan... the Irish insurgency has been proving the same point for decades.

I believe it does, at least in the short term. A fair number of other insurgency leaders identified from the data held on Zarqawi's data drive were hunted down and killed in the few days following Zarqawi's death.

Some argue that they will simply be replaced, and they argue that it doesn't take a smart person to be a terrorist leader.

Well, being smart surely helps. And I think it's hard to find a smart, cunning terrorist who is a leader as compared to finding someone with Down's Syndrome to wear a suicide bomb and walk into a market.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/jtkwon/06-22-2006.gif

Losing leaders doesn't help with the job appeal, at the least.

I swear the israelis and the Americans are in a competition between each other...on who can play whacka-mole with their opposing terrorist groups-(Israel/Hamas US/Alqaeda).

I like this game.

Losing leaders doesn't help with the job appeal, at the least.

I swear the israelis and the Americans are in a competition between each other...on who can play whacka-mole with their opposing terrorist groups-(Israel/Hamas US/Alqaeda).

I like this game.

Actually - part of the 'job appeal' is being a visible underdog, if not a martyr.

And, the irony for Hamas, of course - is that we are claiming to 'bring democracy to the Middle East', but we can't stomach it when it happens.

anything valid to say, or is this your personal crusade against Deep Kimchi ?
I've already made my points in other posts. This was just a joke.

No, the US and other countries are building them, so it's not as silly as you think
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200509/kt2005092118400211960.htm

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-00n.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4199935.stm
Yeah, I know. Only it's not relevant. Whether the killing is done by men or machines, war crimes are still war crimes, and my claim that this thread is nothing but another attempt to promote your warmongering views stands pat.

IMHO, it's a personal crusade.
No, DK, it's just that you set up these shots so often and make them so easy, I get the feeling you want me to take them. So I do.

As for my personal crusade -- it's not against you. It's against your views, and I am perfectly capable of addressing them, as I have done in several posts in this very thread, as well as many others.