With friends like these who needs enemies

Carry on, Kerem, we'll gladly hold your coat

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Top tip, 'pinups' in you're note-book. That's what keeps me going!

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

LoL, guys. I am being sent to the 58th Inf. which is located south of Turkey. I heard that after one month basic training they send us to Cyprus

So I'll be invading E.U. soil. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I am leaving this Tuesday, I guess I can get accsess to internet there. Sorry TA but I heard there are not such furious drill instructors there (I hope they are right ). The Army is careful about not breaking the feelings of guys who serve only 5 months. I hope to get back to real life by May.

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"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
A.H.

Congratulations Kerem, I'm sure you'll get internet access there. Cyprus will be a nice experience too, have a glass of Raki on me.

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True, but only to an extent. With the technology we have now, we can make planes that are capable of flying extremely high and attacking with deadly accuracy. What happens if the other side’s supply line gets raided twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? How long can they remain underground? It will not take anything more than a few good CIA agents and a few million dollars worth of bribe to discover huge underground networks, I am afraid that the underground networks can't remain "underground" to any good intelligent network. In the future, whoever controls the air, and eventually space, will dominate.

Well, no doubt the US are controlling the air in Iraq, but what is the ground being dominated? This needs more thinking. The US did a fine job in winning the war in Iraq, winning the peace is being another kettle of fish. I don't see how it can be better in North Korea.

And remember both Kims had decades to stockpile supplies in those very tunnels and caves (which by definition are difficult to locate, and if you really want to smash them you need very accurate info where their weakspots are), so your supply line attack won't have much effect either.

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Wow, how happy I am to see your reply. I thought you put me on your ignore list for sure after the post from the fish.
As for Iraq, my choice of weapon would be terror. Remember, "we do not need them to love us; we only need them to fear us"-Himmler. Air weapons have no effect because they are not fighting a standing army, they are figting rats.
Plus, I never considered our posts to be any “arguments”, for I favor no side except the truth. Since I wish to make sure my understanding of the facts to be true, therefore, I posted my understanding in exchange for yours. It would be wrongful to take any information we exchange personal, since it was never my intension.

It looks like it takes more than a few good CIA agents and a few million dollars worth of bribe to locate Osama Bin Laden.

Air/space superiority is good in a conventional combat. But you simply can't send a missle to militia wandering around. You need PBI to get him.

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"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
A.H.

Bin Laden can't be considered a "huge network".

But his organization is.

Anyways no need to take this any further, what I mean is air superiority is not saving the Marines ass in Iraq. But sure it does lessen their burden.

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"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
A.H.

Good luck to you on Tuesday Kerem ! I do hope you are right and I am wrong about the drill instructors. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

You added alot of good information to the forums. [img]graemlins/salute.gif[/img]

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.

I'm sure Kerem will find a way to keep in touch while he'll be eating mud, getting up at 5a.m. and climbing ropes while being shouted at by his drill serge

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Good luck Kerem. Hopefully it'll be a positive experience.

Don't forget the rest of the coalition :wink:

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Thank you all guys. If I am not back on the forums in a week or two, you know that I'll be dealing with one of these.

Full Metal Jacket Drill Instructor

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"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
A.H.

Agree 100%.

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As a sergeant once told me, 'after the cruise missiles, artillery, aircraft, tanks, APC's, mortars, ugls and everything else has been thrown at them, someone has to go charging in to stick a knife in the pink mush at the bottom of the trench, at least, that's how it's supposed to work.'

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Well said. I'll have to remember that.

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Modern warfare from the U.S. standpoint has, in my opinion, been on a degressive slope for the last 10 +/- years. It's become a lot more impersonal than it used to be and there are too many considerations to be made and kept by the public and politicians that hamper the soldier's plan for victory. Soldiers have to keep in mind too much B.S. that would otherwise be the job of politicians and diplomats. This makes for a hard fought and high priced victory.

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Interesting way of looking at it, not sure what political deals your soldiers have to deal with, ours just have to avoid breaking the law. The rest is stuff they have been doing since the 70's in NI so I guess we are a bit more used to it.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Agreed Stefan. The British army has had an advantage in interaction with various scenarios. We have learned a lot from the Brits experience. In the 90ies the French had serious trouble in the Balkans, because they had become so unpopular. They ended up with removing the Tricolour from their uniforms. That worked for a few days, then the locals knew that the only ones without national emblems were the French.

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'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

Sadly it looks like these bastard insurgants are successfully ruining the 'hearts and minds' battle. A friend of mine (who got back from Iraq last week) was talking about 'pulse operations' which began as simple hearts and minds stuff, a bunch of soldiers turning up at a school during the day, distributing text books, rebuilding water pumps, repairing eating facilities, painting and so on. Now they have changed in character, three warriors will rock up after the kids have left, drop off a box of books etc, leap out, paint a wall quicker than you have ever seen in your life whilst their comrades cover them, leap back in and drive off. They can't do it during the day because when the insurgants started attacking them they were killing kids, on one particular operation the Iraqi police turned up, got to within 100m, took off their berets, pulled on balaclavas and opened up on our troops with RPG's. Unfortunately for them a landrover is no match for a 30mm cannon with a chain gun coax, so they didn't come off well.

Seriously though, how can you fight a war like that?

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

That is the magic question. We are there not as occupation forces but to ensure victory the campaign needs to be conducted as occupation forces. I say establish military zones of occupation around key areas such as oil fields, ports, airfields and such. Leave the cities to the Iraqis. The insurgents may claim victory in taking cities but they will have to attack the military camps to get us out. Then, the military can open up with everything. The current operations are playing into the hands of the insurgents. This is another vietnam/Afghanistan.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD! </