Come one, come all, and view the definition of an epic flame war. It started a few posts back, but this is the one (with over 75 comments) that is becoming a… conflagration, if you will.

I probably shouldn’t get involved, but I will anyway. Enlightenment (since I hope you read this), I’ve already touched as much as I plan to on your conspiracy theories, so don’t post any more about them here. I find your faith in youTube and other all-encompassing, easily modifiable, non-discriminatory information conduits rather disappointing. Here’s a suggestion from the world of law: pick your strongest points and harp THOSE. Throwing up 30 some links to websites of middling to ill repute in the international news community will not help you prove your point. In fact, it will only encourage people to paint you as an overzealous crackpot. I’ve reserved my judgment, and I’ve tried my hardest to treat you with respect. Please do the same.

((Okay, maybe I wasn’t quite done. I swear I am now.))

What I’d really like to address, though, were your initial comments. I’ll take them piece by piece.

ENLIGHTENMENT SAID: The U.S. telling China to sit down and shut up?? I almost fell out of my chair laughing. The U.S. is so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan it couldn’t afford to send troops to bully Haiti, let alone trying to defend Taiwan. Be realistic. And take a good long look at the war in Iraq: The so-called “world’s only superpower” is getting the runaround from a bunch of rag-tag untrained Rebels…

WingMan says: Numerous sources claim that the insurgents are actually well trained, using squad based tactics and terrain-adaptive strategy.

ENLIGHTENMENT SAID: …whose weapons are small arms and homemade bombs. Four years on and the U.S. STILL can’t control the damned road from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone!!

WingMan says: Yet again, numerous sources say that the insurgents are using surplus Soviet rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles, heavy machine guns and mines. Not to mention that “home-made bomb” isn’t necessarily a slur. Take a look at the EFPs. Mixing bleach and ammonia at home will still kill you.

ENLIGHTENMENT SAID: Every time U.S. forces encounter even two or three Iraqi Rebels with rifles they are too chickenshit to fight the Rebels like a REAL army’s infantry would, using fire and maneuver, but instead they cower and call in air support to do the fighting for them.

WingMan says: When was the last time you took machine gun fire? I don’t know who you are, so it could have been yesterday, but I somehow doubt it. I’ve never been involved in a live fire situation, but I’ve been in combat exercises. I’ve had M-16s fired at me, and I’ve done a bit of firing of my own. I’ve had GBSs (Ground Burst Simulators) go off next to my ear. It’s not exactly a… comfortable… situation. Calling anyone chickenshit who would rather have a steel bird do the job is not exactly justified if you’ve never been there.

Regardless of that, your classification of them as chickenshit, besides being unfair, is categorically wrong. This article regards only one of the numerous extended firefights US and Iraqi units have gotten into. Notice that the bombs stopped dropping at noon. The troops were beating feet until after dark. Also note: it wasn’t exactly “two or three Iraqi rebels,” but instead the largest force concentration they’ve seen. And directly opposing your accusations, in fact, Colonel Sutherland says that most of the time, it’s the insurgents who do the ’strategic relocating’- which is to be expected.

ENLIGHTENMENT SAID: And this is against Iraqi Rebels who have next to nothing to work with. Could you imagine if the U.S. tried to fight China?? Or even Iran??? Iran would sink their carriers in the Gulf in an afternoon and close the Strait of Hormuz to all tankers and watch the U.S. economy grind to a halt in a couple days. No, the last thing the U.S. wants to do is to poke a stick at a country like China or Iran who can actually FIGHT BACK. They had better go back to picking on Panama or Grenada or something like that, something they can handle. America’s military is the world’s biggest paper tiger.

WingMan says: As the well-respected just war theorist Dr. Brian Orend said just last night: no one can match the United States in “kicking regimes over.” We’ve been a dominant military power in conventional warfare since World War II, and we’re not getting knocked out of that spot any time soon. True, we’ve got some problems holding on to the occupation. Rebuilding is not our strong suit. But against men in uniform driving tanks and flying planes? We’ve proven numerous times that we’ve got that down.

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