From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Interesting challenge.
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 02:58:48 GMT

In <1992Apr12.143646.1@acad3.alaska.edu> fsrla@acad3.alaska.edu writes:

>Let me ask the challenger to answer a few questions in return.
>Name one war that couldn't have been executed in a lot less time
>then it actually took.

	All of them.  You do not drag on hostilities without a good
reason.  Such reasons may range from logistical problems to doing
by attrition what you can't do by firepower.

>  Take the War in the Gulf.  CNN knew where
>Saddam Hussien was the night the fighting broke out.  He was our
>only true enemy.  But the government here, with it's political
>twisting of words, said this is not who we where after.  WHY NOT?
>He is, after all, the man who was out to dominate the Middle East.
>His soldiers sure as hell weren't.

	Because killing him would have made him a martyr, and as
a defeated but alive political leader he is much less powerful.
Besides this tendency to kill his best generals, he is seen to
have been ineffectual because what weapons he could throw towards
us and Israel did little harm.  In short, he's now reduced to the
same status as Khadaffi and Arafat -- some people like them, but
they are widely seen as impotent and hardly accorded much respect.
I admit I am no expert on the Mid-East, but I believe this assessment
to be fairly accurate.

>Would you like to know how many civilians did die in the Korean war???
>Well, the number is not measured in the hundreds, thousends, or even
>tenthousaands.  It's quite a shocking picture that people who aren't
>even involved in a war are killed.  Is this what you want?  

	What killed them?  How many civilians died in World War II, I,
or in any other conflict?  Generally, civilians are not killed on
purpose.  They do have this annoying tendency to get caught between
armies, and have the audacity to work in and around military targets.
I have little sympathy for the "innocent civilians were killed" ploy
when those same civilians were in a war zone and near a target.  On
the other hand, I do feel sorry for the japanese civilians we toasted
in both the nuclear and incendiary raids.  Civilians tend to live in
cities, and these cities are military targets to some degree.  The whole
object in a war is to win, which you do by making the consequences
too unpalatable for your enemy leadership, which are usually politicians.
Indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and cities is seen as a rather
unprofessional method of soldiering, and are generally political
decisions and not military ones.

>War is no answer to anything.  It doesn't improve relations, in the
>last few wars, if anything, it made those countries far more anti-american.
>And, I for one, believe we deserve it.  

	War is not about improving relations -- war is about killing
those whom you don't care about having relations with anymore.  As
for countries being anti-american, if we just had a war with them it
is highly unlikely we particularly care what the loser thinks of us.
It is a uniquely American trait to want to be liked by all, so much
so that after unloading several thousand tons of bombs on a country
we will dispatch relief workers and supplies to clean up the mess and
help the country rebuild.  This has not been the case lately.  I
suspect part of it is that the destruction inflicted since Vietnam
has been fairly minimal, and also that we are losing the romantic
notion of warfare that the West has been saddled with.

<Daniel R. Sorenson   Dod #1066  |If Iowa State University agreed with me >
<z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu <- work |I'd make $90K/yr.  They don't, I don't. >
<viking@iastate.edu      <- play |"I am *not* goofing off.  I am driving  >
< myself mercilessly in the pursuit of relaxation." -- T. Weeds           >

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