Jerusalem must be divided

[Mika-El]

So, in the case of Iraq, you feel that the Coalition forces should have taken Hussein out and then left. And you feel that way abut all countries, such as Korea, post war Germany, etc.? In fact they are often there to protect the citizens, as in the case of Iraq, or to maintain some border control, as in the case of Korea. The military does far more than just fight wars.

To equate Iraq with the Korean war or Germany I would simply state is disingenous. They were not the same kinds of conflicts at all and to suggest all three were the same and required the same response is absurd.

It is also absurd to suggest because I like many US military generals argued against a large ground presence in Iraq does not mean we or I believe the U.S. should not have fought Germany or been part of the allied forces in Korea.

What next will you state Afghanistan and Vietnam are also the same theatres of conflict requiring the same kind of response as was done by the US forces in WW2?

 

[Mika-El]

The Shock and awe bombing strategy that was intended to directly influence the morale of Iraqi soldiers by using intense bombings to induce a so called state of shock and awe. It was supposed to break the enemy's will to fight. It was based on the WW2 German blitzkrieg.

However Iraqi forces were not cowered or psychologically defeated by the bombings. The Iraqi army just avoided any direct war with the coalition forces and broken into splinter groups engaging in guerrilla (Mao Tse Tung-Viet Cong) hit and runs

The allied air forces were aware Iraq had an extensive surface to air missile defence system supplied by North Korea, Russia and China and its soldiers equipped to use these missiles were trained by Siberians who had direct experience fighting NATO air forces in their war so the shock and awe campaign was limited as a result and yes smart bombs were used and the US said they targetted military installations or government installations. This simply caused the Iraqis to move all their military to civilian areas and hide behind civilians.

Allegedly only 2 people died in the massive March 22, 2003 bombings and allegedly the the electrical, sewer, water and other public infrastructure of the city were still functional after that attack but then the US attacked the Iraqi state television after it broadcast pictures of American prisoners of war and then it destroyed the electric, sewer, water and other public infrastructures of the city by both bombings and strategically placed bombs as well as tank warfare in its fight against Iraqi resistance.

Stoneage is what I call a city with no electricity, water, sewage, and all its major buildings destroyed and leaves its civilians in a state where they have none of the above.

There's nothing unfair with stating the facts or the fact that Haliburton was awarded huge contracts without tender to rebuild this infastructure and refused to employ any Iraqis. That is a fact.

As for the number of mercenary soldiers in Iraq being paid by the US government by private contract that is now public knowledge as are the war crimes committed by civilians contracted to the CIA.

Two wars went on. One for public consumption and a private war in which the oil fields of Iraq were secured. Interestingly the average American does not get a drop of that Iraqi oil and today's Iraqi politicians make millions while the average Iraqi lives at the poverty level in primative basic conditions and Americans sure as hell don't see that oil in their gas tanks. Ask China where it goes. Ask how much money Haliburton and the mercanary soldiers made and what happened to the typical US war vet when they came home.

The US war vets have been forgotten and treated like crap since their return home.

All that said and getting back to the topic of Jerusalem, what it shows is conventional armies can not occupy cities for prolonged periods of time. They become large immobile systems requiring complex logistic support structures and become sitting ducks in covoys and patrols for snipers and guerilla/terrorist counter attacks.

Israel had no intention of getting caught on the ground when it went into Gaza and I would argue was so petrified of a ground presence in Lebanon it tried a shock and awe bombing campaign which failed and simply enabled Hezbollah to use civilians as shields and win a p.r. war even though Hezbollah started the war.

In the dispute over Jerusalem Israel has learned that p.r. and optics are a quagmire and no one will support Israel in any decision to divide Jerusalem or create a West Bank Palestinian state when it comes to terrorism concerns and quite frankly is well aware of that fact and has contingency plans if the U.S. or anyone else tries to unilaterally impose unsafe conditions on it. It has the same option as Mr. Abbas to act on its own unilaterally just as much as Mr. Abbas does but the difference is Israel doesn't threaten anyone out loud. It saves discussions for when the doors close. Its learned its lesson as to how the world press has a bias against it.

Israel unlike the U.S. does not place the same degree of emphasis on patriotic displays or needing its leader to fly to war zones for photo op pictures as Bush did. The IDF detests the media and having to show its face. It prefers to do what it has to do with as little fanfare as possible.

Netanyahu may posture for the cameras but in Israel you only do so much of that and then you stop as the IDF is a civilian army where everyone knows someone who will die and so does not appreciate the IDF being used as a flamboyant display of patriotism. Its seen as a last resort necessity to survive when all else fails.

 

[Grant]

To equate Iraq with the Korean war or Germany I would simply state is disingenous. They were not the same kinds of conflicts at all and to suggest all three were the same and required the same response is absurd.

It was you who said "The military views I hold are coventional and contend that conventional armed forces are not intended to serve as ground police forces or long term presence on the ground to control the day to day lives of a country's citizens".

You never said that certain conditions or changes in circumstances had to be taken into account. Does this mean that this contention of yours only applies to raq? If not, where else would it have applied?

It is also absurd to suggest because I like many US military generals argued against a large ground presence in Iraq does not mean we or I believe the U.S. should not have fought Germany or been part of the allied forces in Korea.

I really don't "suggest" anything, which is why I'd appreciate if you used the quotes system.

What next will you state Afghanistan and Vietnam are also the same theatres of conflict requiring the same kind of response as was done by the US forces in WW2?

You're wandering too far off course here.

 

[Mika-El]

Grant you asled mein response to my stating I supported the conventional military position of not using armies as indefinite ground presence police forces, the following:

"Does this mean that this contention of yours only applies to Iraq? If not, where else would it have applied?"

I will repeat again. The conventional military arguement that their armed forces should not be used as urban occupation political police forces applies not just to Iraq but any theatre of conflict where armed forces are called in to invade a country and remain behind long term.

The above theory I stated which is what the US Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Bush et al repeatedly, is that an army is not intended to serve as an occupying police force. A conventional army is designed to wage a battle against a conventional enemy (that means a visible enemy fighting the exact same rules of war) and when a war is won, both armies are to be withdrawn.

After World War Two, Britain, France and the U.S. remained in West Berlin but they became symbolic. The actual day to day running of West Berlin as well as its policing was done civilly.

It was in Eastern Europe the Soviet Red army left behind a civilian secret police apperatus run by the KGB with satellite operations in each eastern nation. The actual Red Army was seldom used and the Soviets instead deliberately rebuilt each nation's army because it knew psychologically it needed for example a Polish army of Poles interacting with Poles to prevent less cultural backlash than a Russian army directly doing it.

In Vietnam, the U.S. proved its conventional army could not be controlled when it was asked to operate in civilian areas. Its soldiers broke down and raped and committed war crimes against civilians and became violent because part of the psychological warfare of the Viet Cong was to blend in with the civilians making it impossible for a soldier to know who was the enemy.

The point is in today's warfare, the enemy is not visible. They do not fight by Geneva war conventions and wear a uniform and that means the conventional army is outmoded. To fight terrorists and guerillas who blend in as civilians, a conventional army now can't come in with tanks, carpet bombing and large immobile command centres and networks that are necessarily slow moving and make so much noise everyone knows what they are doing. Conventional armies need large and long logistics supply lines which terrorists can easily blow up like pipelines.

So today, to be effective in threatres of conflict, all conventional armed forces on the front lines fighting terrorists have learned to work with fast moving no more then 20 member units that operate in complete secrecy and move in and out very quickly. Every armed forces has its special elite counter terrorist units.

Britain has SAS among others, the US its Seals, Israel has its specialized elite units, Canada has its own as does Australia and the Russians.

Whether we like it or not marching in huge displays of soldiers no longer works. Its gone the way of the dinosaur and yes to answer your question it applies in all conflicted theatres including the Gaza, West Bank, Iraq, on and on.

The IDF being tied down on the West Bank as an intermediary between Palestinians and West bank settler Jews was not what it was designed to do. The longer it does it, the more of a negative effect it has on the morale of the conventional soldiers.

Coventional soldiers are taught to fight a visible enemy. When faced with an invisible enemy they do not do well. To fight an invisible enemy you need an elite, swift, fast moving unit that can also blend in and become invisible and engage in the exact same tactics as the terrorists they hunt if need be.

The point here is neither Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza can remain indefinitely occupied by a conventional army. It is too expensive and it doesn't work. I have been on foot in East Jerusalem. A soldier can not run through the winding corridors without being heard, seen, smelled.

Too many people think you simply draw a line in Jerusalem, plop an Israeli soldier on one side,a Jordanian on the other, and that is it, presto. No it does not work that way. All that happens is those soldiers become targets.

This is why a huge security wall went up and that will be the future if Jerusalem is to be divided as many want. That will be the reality-a huge security wall running arbitrarily along a line that best seperates Jews from Muslims. That is the reality of division.

That is the reality of the Middle East where people can not co-exist but the outside world demands they stop killing each other. The de facto solution is a large security wall just like Berlin precisely because occupying armies can't be relied upon.

That is the point.

W




I really don't "suggest" anything, which is why I'd appreciate if you used the quotes system.



You're wandering too far off course here.[/QUOTE]

 

[Mika-El]

Grant you asled mein response to my stating I supported the conventional military position of not using armies as indefinite ground presence police forces, the following:

"Does this mean that this contention of yours only applies to Iraq? If not, where else would it have applied?"

I will repeat again. The conventional military arguement that their armed forces should not be used as urban occupation political police forces applies not just to Iraq but any theatre of conflict where armed forces are called in to invade a country and remain behind long term.

The above theory I stated which is what the US Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Bush et al repeatedly, is that an army is not intended to serve as an occupying police force. A conventional army is designed to wage a battle against a conventional enemy (that means a visible enemy fighting the exact same rules of war) and when a war is won, both armies are to be withdrawn.

After World War Two, Britain, France and the U.S. remained in West Berlin but they became symbolic. The actual day to day running of West Berlin as well as its policing was done civilly.

It was in Eastern Europe the Soviet Red army left behind a civilian secret police apperatus run by the KGB with satellite operations in each eastern nation. The actual Red Army was seldom used and the Soviets instead deliberately rebuilt each nation's army because it knew psychologically it needed for example a Polish army of Poles interacting with Poles to prevent less cultural backlash than a Russian army directly doing it.

In Vietnam, the U.S. proved its conventional army could not be controlled when it was asked to operate in civilian areas. Its soldiers broke down and raped and committed war crimes against civilians and became violent because part of the psychological warfare of the Viet Cong was to blend in with the civilians making it impossible for a soldier to know who was the enemy.

The point is in today's warfare, the enemy is not visible. They do not fight by Geneva war conventions and wear a uniform and that means the conventional army is outmoded. To fight terrorists and guerillas who blend in as civilians, a conventional army now can't come in with tanks, carpet bombing and large immobile command centres and networks that are necessarily slow moving and make so much noise everyone knows what they are doing. Conventional armies need large and long logistics supply lines which terrorists can easily blow up like pipelines.

So today, to be effective in threatres of conflict, all conventional armed forces on the front lines fighting terrorists have learned to work with fast moving no more then 20 member units that operate in complete secrecy and move in and out very quickly. Every armed forces has its special elite counter terrorist units.

Britain has SAS among others, the US its Seals, Israel has its specialized elite units, Canada has its own as does Australia and the Russians.

Whether we like it or not marching in huge displays of soldiers no longer works. Its gone the way of the dinosaur and yes to answer your question it applies in all conflicted theatres including the Gaza, West Bank, Iraq, on and on.

The IDF being tied down on the West Bank as an intermediary between Palestinians and West bank settler Jews was not what it was designed to do. The longer it does it, the more of a negative effect it has on the morale of the conventional soldiers.

Coventional soldiers are taught to fight a visible enemy. When faced with an invisible enemy they do not do well. To fight an invisible enemy you need an elite, swift, fast moving unit that can also blend in and become invisible and engage in the exact same tactics as the terrorists they hunt if need be.

The point here is neither Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza can remain indefinitely occupied by a conventional army. It is too expensive and it doesn't work. I have been on foot in East Jerusalem. A soldier can not run through the winding corridors without being heard, seen, smelled.

Too many people think you simply draw a line in Jerusalem, plop an Israeli soldier on one side,a Jordanian on the other, and that is it, presto. No it does not work that way. All that happens is those soldiers become targets.

This is why a huge security wall went up and that will be the future if Jerusalem is to be divided as many want. That will be the reality-a huge security wall running arbitrarily along a line that best seperates Jews from Muslims. That is the reality of division.

That is the reality of the Middle East where people can not co-exist but the outside world demands they stop killing each other. The de facto solution is a large security wall just like Berlin precisely because occupying armies can't be relied upon.

That is the point.

By the way nothing I say is original. Its been told over thousands of years in the Middle East. No army has been able to occupy Jerusalem indefinitely. Doesn't matter who it is the reality is Jerusalem has proved time and time again it belongs to no one in particular but everyone and it rebels against any one people or identity trying to control it.

Jerusalem has to breath. Put a net around it too tight and that net soon as holes as the inevitable force of the Jerusalem citizen and their ancient ways finds a way to bust that net open.






I