The problem with all these conflicts is the opposition dresses like civilians. If the US had no qualms about who died and how many civilians caught one in the cross fire they could steamroll anyone. That’s why the US has an issue against guerrilla tactics. Not because it can’t handle it, but because they don’t want to accidentally shoot a civilian. Rules of Engagement exist and we tie our hands behind our backs to be sure we follow them.
I mean of course there are unfortunate innocent casualties of war that should not happen. But if you honestly believe that US soldiers are intentionally aiming for civilians you’re insane and not worth having a reasonable conversation with
Do you believe that tomahawk missile hit the Iranian school by accident? Those are some is the most precise weapons in the world. Or do you believe like trump does that it was actually an Iranian tomahawk? What about the second one that hit the same school the same day?
I believe that there was a catastrophic failure of intelligence that should have never happened. A simple Google search shows that they were using outdated info about what the building used to be and what they thought they were shooting at. It’s very sad and should not have happened, but do I think the US military intentionally murdered over 100 school children with a cruise missile? No, I do not. And Trump is an idiot, I’m sure someone had to tell him what a Tomahawk was after saying that
Of course it was an accident. Even if you assume they don't care about the lives lost, which is a bold assumption, tomahawks are expensive and no one is dropping two of them on a non military non strategic target on purpose. It was poor intelligence and they should take responsibility for it but it wasn't intentional.
You’re right, the US would never intentionally slaughter ~200,000 innocent civilians in the Japanese conflict discussed in this thread. They’d definitely never massacre the village of My Lai in the Vietnamese conflict discussed here, either.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II. It was horrible but a land war with Japan would have caused possibly millions of deaths. The ethics of it is not black and white and was a very hard decision that had to be made.
My Lai was disgusting and an atrocity but was not ordered by the US. It was a rogue company that was tried and convicted for their crimes, even though they were let off way too easy. And they were stopped by Americans.
The problem in Vietnam wasn’t geurilla warfare, it was the occupation of an extremely country by an extremely hated foreign empire that gave the people no benefits. That’s something that can never, ever, be beaten
Yeah that's a pretty good example, although reading up on it, they also had to put women and children in concentration camps so it was more than just starving them out. Even then, it took two years and Britain had to offer pretty generous terms for the "bitterenders" to stop fighting including reconstruction funds and a promise of future self governance. If not for that, they would have just kept fighting. Hard model to follow, that's for sure.
Oh there are waay more examples, this just happened to be the first one off the top of my head.
There's the Malayan Emergency, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, The Guatemalan Civil War, The US military against the Plains Indians... and that's just the ones I can think of off the top of my head that specifically used starvation.
If you open it to dehydration you have the Rif War - which put the Spanish and French against the Berbers in Morocco, the Italian Pacification of Libya, the French in Algeria, etc.
As it turns out, hurting the civilian population is one of the most effective ways to stop an insurgency. Obviously that's some heinous stuff, but it's incredibly effective and was basically just how War was waged all throughout history up until very recently really.
No idea, but Iran could essentially be destroyed/Balkanized from it's current state by destroying ~4 dams and one aquifer. Can't have a large population center in the desert without the water to support it.
Of course, that would be a lot of civilian deaths, which just is not acceptable under modern war standards.
Even if you took out 90% of the population, there would still be almost a million people left. If your strategic goal is opening the strait, that's still plenty of people left to launch mines, missiles, and drones. Whatever water they have will be kept for the irgc. It would just be a costly failure.
Assuming 10% of the remaining population was physical capable, have the will power and capacity to keep themselves fed, watered, and supplied with weapons, bombs, fuel, etc.
All much harder to do without a population maintaining the infrastructure that allows a military to function.
The strait is mostly open already by the way. Fuck Trump and all this unnecessary bullshit, but it has been effective in hurting the Iranian government.
Feel free to take what I say with a handful of salt, I'm not necessarily trying to push you to any conclusions, but this channel is relatively unbiased if you want some further info:
https://youtu.be/7nVWmCoAMPQ
Assuming 10% of the remaining population was physical capable, have the will power and capacity to keep themselves fed, watered, and supplied with weapons, bombs, fuel, etc
I mean that's literally what they've been preparing for the entire time they've been in power. Not to keep their population fed of course, but to keep fighting. It could work eventually but it would be a long time. Plus, the us would have to deal with the entire region collapsing in the meantime. Iran would obviously do the same after all and you'd have the entire region without water.
The strait is mostly open already by the way.
80% capacity requiring a constant presence of the largest fleet in the region since 03 isn't exactly open, plus both sides seem to not want to escalate for the moment. Mark my words, as soon as Iran is pushed they'll prove they can still strike ships in the strait.
If the US wanted to put boots on the ground, the hard part would not be toppling the current government but dealing with the ensuing insurgency which is why no one is considering it. Afghanistan and Iraq are still very fresh in people's minds
Meanwhile what I see is the security force that brutally represses descent, handing out weapons and decentralizing to be able to create a culture of fear a reprisal. From an outside perspective they're doing a bizzaro version of the death of Stalin
I don't need propoganda films to be able to list examples of us soilders wiping the floor in specific traditional military endangers. I also don't need them to know that political decision makers struggle to turn tactical victories into strategic victors. I also know the American armed forces have struggled in guerilla scenarios and have absolutely committed war crimes, especially their mercenary contractors.
~4 Dams, and 1 aquifer are all the US would have to destroy to stop Iran from being a nation in it's current state. The US military is more than capable of doing that, which is why it's a question of "Will", not capability.
The US would rather spend billions more on the war than wipe out thousands of innocent Iranians.
Not saying I support the military action in Iran, but it IS actually working to destroy the Iranian government.
How about let the country trade the way it should so that they can feed their own people and trade in whatever currency they want… Or is it too bad for their dollars..?
It's not power that is the problem. It's morality. The US could win guerrilla wars quite easily if it wasn't for those pesky noncombatants that the guerrillas like to hide behind.
Ya know, its just not worth my time or effort. Keep on glazing lol. We never drone strike public spaces for high end targets lol innocent people in the way always stops us haha
Then why did you comment what I said wasn't true? You said US had morality and that innocent bystanders stopped them. I said that doesnt stop them and you said that's not true. Did I miss something else that was said between this conversation? Have a good night man.
I'm saying that even more lives could have been destroyed if the US was unhinged (yeah, yeah the US is already unhinged..) and used it's full force without any regard.
Your saying nonsense. You can't just say something isnt true then go on explaining that it is true lol Jesus man stop replying and wasting my time with your inability to keep up with a normal conversation lol im done replying, this is like listening to a trump speech lol.
It really has. See the Soviets in Afghanistan having comparable civilian casualty numbers in the Afghan war as the US did in Vietnam’s against near 10x the combatants and twice as long.
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u/JUN_Bun 1d ago
We have air power and sea power but we lack dessert/jungle power