On 12 Sep 2002 at 1:52, Hermit wrote:
>
> <snip>
> [Jeo McPees] Bullus shittus; you predicted massive US casualties
> should we place boots on the ground there, and the starvation of
> millions of Afghans causing anti-american riots at the Kaa'ba. None
> of which happened.
>
> [Jeo McPees] Seeing as how you continue to be in denial concerning
> your past massive mistakes of prophecy, I consider the balance of your
> post to be not worth my time to read.
>
> [Hermit] Err, whenever the US put troops on the ground, they didn't
> achieve much (nobody there) or did take casualties in embarrassing
> profusion... Which is why the US still largely huddles in its
> air-conditioned barracks and refuses to go out into the nasty and
> dangerous environment - despite pleas from both the UN and interim
> Afghan government - and the latter as nasty a bunch of warlords as
> anybody could dislike. Refer to The reality of Afghanistan
> (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=7;action=display;threadi
> d=26509) for more.
>
There have, to date, been less than twenty US casualties due to hostile
action in Afghanistan. Embarassing Profusion? C'mon! More people
have died in single bus accidents.
>
> [Hermit] The US military may be spending 30x more than the next ten
> big defense spenders put together, but their ineptitude is more than a
> little terrifying. Thinking big in small wars and attempting to use
> "Cold War" era tactics in a modern age is not a good way to achieve
> appropriate strategic goals. Yet this appears to be a general concern.
> See Reply: 158, "US Military inept?"
> (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=7&action=display&threadi
> d=11541&start=150)
>
Actually, the efficacy and ease with which we dismantled the Teliban and
Al Quaeda in Afghanistan has been widely hailed as a marvel of modern
warfare.
>
> [Hermit] I also noted that effective action against Al Qu'aeda
> required police action, and this has indeed turned out to be the case
> - in and out of Afghanistan. The 4'000 odd dead civilian Afghans was
> completely unnecessary and happened largely because the US refused and
> refuses to deploy on the ground and has proved incapable of developing
> an effective intelligence network.
>
We have boots on the ground there; the 10th Mountain Division, the 82nd
Airborne and the 101st Airborne have rotated through, as well as
members of all of our special ops divisions.
>
> [Hermit] I further noted at the time that millions of Afghans might
> starve, and had this happened it would have been blamed on the US and
> would probably have lead to massive reaction. This could still become
> the case, but it seems as if we are going to make this unnecessary by
> creating hundreds of thousands more wannabe martyrs and destabilizing
> our erstwhile allies ourselves... on the very flimsiest of pretexts
> but with the very maximum possible of jingoistic bombast. I refer of
> course to dubya's desire for "regime change" in Baghdad as reflected
> in your voluminous - and nauseous - slew of slanted sycophantic
> stories posted here of late.
>
When someone labels simple logic and cost-benefit analysis as
sycophantic, it is easy to discern the bias of the source of the remark.
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of
> Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=26507>
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