Jerry Johnson wrote: > Nope. They are wrong. > > At the sharp point of the stick, it is about killing. Fast. And > brutally. Shock and awe as they say. > > Basic soldiers are not policemen, they are not public works engineers, > they are not nannies or babysitters. They are there to break things.
This is true only because that is how we train them to be. Train them differently, get different outcomes. Do you think that it is less difficult to train an 18 year old to be a killer than it is to train them to be a policeman? Perhaps it is. I, admittedly, have never tried to do either. People with far more experience than I seem to think that its worthwhile to try and train them to be policemen first. Police do know a thing or two about killing people when they have to. Sometimes more easily than I would like in fact. > "Hearts and minds" is for a different group to worry about. Soldiers > are _not_ ambassadors. People with guns should not be doing that sort > of work. People _surrounded_ by people with guns should be. One of my best friends is in the foreign service and going out and about in Afghanistan surrounded by people with guns. She still took it on herself to learn how to use an M16 though. People with guns need to be diplomatic. Diplomats need to understand when to use guns. We don't have the luxury to seperate the people with guns and the people that need to understand and talk. The world is a tad more complex than that. Adapt or die as they say. > Unfortunately, we only have one foreign power tool. All of our civil > engineers and policemen are organized in the National Guard. And our > few non-military assets (politicians and ambassadors, media and > business) have been poorly used in these conflicts. So we use the same > hammer for every job. We have successfully adapted our military to meet changing needs many times in the past. We've added a navy and an air force. We created the Marines. We've gotten rid of most of our mounted calvary. WWI woke us up to the realities of trench warfare and mechanized war. We adapted. Brutally so. We are fighting a different style of war now and we will either adapt or we will continue to lose. I would prefer to not continue losing. Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade to ColdFusion 8 and integrate with Adobe Flex http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJP Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:242419 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
