Is there a better way to fight these kinds of criminal gangs than to deploy 100,000 soldiers for a ten year gig?? http://www.associatedcontent.com/shared/print.shtml?content_type=article&content_type_id=9035843 LRA Could Teach Economics Lesson to Congress By Lloyd Thomas COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama's decision to deploy American troops against the tiny Lord's Resistance Army in Africa could prove to be a powerful lesson in military economics for America. Amid the spectrum of opinions by the media and political pundits could lay a valuable lesson in the way America plays the world's policeman. Obama's sending troops to Uganda to help eradicate the LRA needs a closer, bipartisan look by congress. The U.S. cannot fulfill its role as military superpower, the leader in the war on terror, and the U.N.'s go -to military force without a substantial and effective Department of Defense. At the same time, the nation's economic crisis will not allow us to keep pumping redundant dollars into defense spending. After 10 years of war, even the most hawkish of Americans are tired of throwing good money after bad into military overkill. Using small, mission specific special operations tools, logistics and troops to fight and eradicate groups like LRA makes more sense than staying in Afghanistan for over a decade with tens of thousands of troops and trillions of dollars in static warfare. Obama did not just put his finger on a map with Uganda and the LRA as a political tool. Even Rush Limbaugh should see that, as should the media. Congress is paying more attention to talk radio and the media than they are to economic reality. Should Capitol Hill open its collective eyes on the potential lesson Mr. Obama's deployment against the LRA could teach, bipartisanship could steward in an intelligent and cost effective compromise in defense spending. LRA has cost America countless dollars in Africa not only in and of themselves, but by their support and alliance with other terrorist groups in that region. Effectively eradicating LRA in Uganda with this small mission specific force and then doing the same in Yemen and Somalia would serve several purposes. Not only could we stop throwing money at Uganda, we could put a stop to throwing money at the entire region until we are forced by the actions of small terrorist groups into the use of massive and costly troop and fleet intervention. Prove to the world that we don't need to allow such groups as the LRA, Taliban and Al-Qaeda to bleed our economy dry, throwing money and lives away as they have been for the past decade. Our military has the capability to do these things starting with the LRA and moving forward cost effectively not only our defense spending, but in state department spending, foreign aid spending and loss of life. Can the LRA teach Washington a valuable lesson in this political season and climate? One would certainly hope so. We can only watch and wait. It would seem that this small military intervention could give us all a large education in the type of fundamental hope and change that not only America, but the world has been waiting to see.
I don't think you can really compare taking out a small, nasty, and unpopular personality cult with toppling an entire government such as in Iraq and Afganistan. However I do think emphasizing a minimal boots on the ground approach is wise for these sorts of situations, and it might be wise for the insurgencies that are ever so popular. However if you're going to play the nation building game and your repairing war damage and adding new infrastructure while setting up local level government, police, etc, than you're putting yourself in a defensive position, which simply requires the presence of troops.
While I'm glad that this appears to be a very small operation, I do have to wonder why we're getting involved.
But rethnking the ways we fought the LAST war seems like a good thing to me.. I realize that human nature is to repeat what was a winning strategy, but this seems like a whole new ballgame to me.
Well, again, it is a different ballgame. You can play singles in tennis, but not football. Another factor is that you can't just drive down to McDonals and hire some special forces operatives. For the most part they come from a select crop of the veterans of the other forces. Though I suppose that depends on what you ask of your special forces operatives. Also I do think we're trying to change how we fight those wars. We're building airborne drones at a rapid pace. And, despite all the terminator sequals, development and deployment of ground based combat robots is clipping right along.
Then we are on the same page basically.. I don't think every conflict has to involve 100,000 troops, 10 years and a trillion dollars.
Yup, it's just that some do...at least until we build some T-800s. Since I think most people agree, I don't expect you'll get much more activity out of this thread unless the topic derails.
What are T-800s? http://www.politicalforum.com/current-events/213588-what-lords-resistance-army.html#post4620434