How come we beat Germany and Japan in 44 months "BUT" can not beat Rag Tag fighters in Middle East?

Question

Source: History. ..War in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far war is over 48 months long. The USA can not beat a rag tag group of men who look like they belong in the Flintstone army.

Answer 1

What about the guys in pajamas in vietnam???

Answer 2

Your question demonstrates exactly why so many US and UK troops are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is because both Bush and Blair have made the simplest mistake a military commander can make. That is they understimated their enemy and they didn't look at their history books. Afghanistan has been invaded many,many times over the centuries and each time the invader has been beaten. the British went into Afghanistan in the late 1800's and were slaughtered they also fought in Iraq for many years and eventuially pulled out.

The Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and ten years later were beaten to a standstill by the afghan guerillas. The second mistake is to rely on firepower alone to win. remember the British war in Malaysia during the 1960's? This lasted for ten years until we kicked Sukarnos butt out of Malaysia and back into Indonesia. This was done not with by immense firepower(although that was called on occasionally,but not relied on). It was a special forces war and the likes of the Royal Marines, the SAS and the SBS were supreme.

This is what Iraq should be. Winning hearts and minds by helping to rebuild,to resupply.But it is too late I fear for that now. Too much has gone by and too much damage been done. Don't forget that Al Queeda and the Taliban are not stupid.It is now clear that they didn't retreat mindlessly in front of overwhelming allied military might.They retreated tactically and regrouped and waited until the right moment to emerge came. What they are doing is fighting a guerilla war and they are doing it very well. If they continue they will overcome and beat us both. That is what the VC and NVA did in Nam,that is what the afghan tribesment did in the 70's and it is what they are doing now. WE DON'T LEARN. we have grown soft whilst they have grown stronger,we have all that we want,they have nothing. We demand results,whilst they demand nothing but patience, we have elections, they don't. GET IT NOW.

Answer 3

This basically explains the difference between all out warfare, which is what we did in 1941 - 1945, versus this silly police action we are exposing our troops to, while the tail wags the dog. What ever happened to the Pentagon that had a pair. What ever happened to the days when fighting was established and the generals took over from there. GWB , when he fired Rumsfeld, forgot to release the battle decisions to the generals, he's still calling the shots, and that, the American people want to see changed !

This president seems to think he can be all things to all people. Nobody has expressed confidence in his ability to run this war. He needs to turn over the decision making to military minds. Politicians are complete failures as field generals. When will they ever learn !

Answer 4

By the time USA joined the war, Germany and Japan were both (almost) exhausted by the nonstop fight back from other countries in Europe and Asia. It's easy for US to be the last straw to kill that two monsters.

Rignt now, unfortunately, US is more like Germany and Japan, as it is invading another country! That's why the Iraqis are fighting back. It doesn't matter what you call them, militars, insurgents, etc. They are Iraqis. It doesn't matter what US calls its mission, freedom, invited by Iraq, requested by UN, whatever, it's INVASION.

Answer 5

While SANE makes a good point the problem is that we are not having stand-up, decisive battles against an army-we are fighting people who were shopkeepers and taxi drivers 20 minutes ago and 20 minutes after the fight they return to their jobs. In Vietnam the Viet Cong tried to hold a few straight up battles with us and we demolished them-but their guerrilla fighters wore our national willpower down and we eventually just quit. That's what's shaping up in IRAQ. We trashed their army-but now we face groups of a few bombing our people and disappearing again. Hard to grab a handful of water and squeeze, you know what I mean?

Answer 6

because in world war 2 they dropped an atom bomb on Japan. I do not see that to far in the future for the middle east because the same problems with Japan exist with Iraq.
Have you ever known of a military weapon that has not been used? with the continueing threats from the muslim extremists and the ones in this country they cannot walk away but they do see they are losing and to save face either by private industry or the goverment by accident an A bomb is going to go off and you will see a musroom cloud rise over bagdad. As they keep ruining our economy it isn't that far off.
We have a lot of rich pepople here and an A bomb is not that difficult to acquire. their threats make it impossible to just walk away. They won't stop fighting and they are doing to the USA what they did in Russia, a slow detoriateing until they broke the government into being economically depressed.
I doubt if the ones controlling our economy is going to stand by and let that happen to USA. So they are forceing it to happen and they want to die as martures and then go to heaven so basically it is what they want.
I see a mushroom cloud over Iran to because they know when they get one it is going to be used. First strike advantage. It is just a matter of time.

Answer 7

Because there are no conventional armed forces wearing a uniform and being properly organised. That woman could be hiding an AK-47 under her robe, people shoot at Humvees and run away, its all guerrilla tactics.

The USA, UK, Russia, and Germany have all fallen to these sneaky tactics before. The Brits from angry colonists, The Russians in Afghanistan, the Germans in France against the Resistance, and the USA in Vietnam. Conventional battles are easy to win for countries like these, but the guerrilla tactics are too hard to fight for anyone.

Then again, we shouldn't even be in Iraq in the first
place................................

Answer 8

They are hard to find. We knew where Japan and Germany were. But it is very hard to find a couple of people who run around from cave to cave in a place where there are many caves. They retreat when they are losing so we can not draw them into a fixed battle where we could win with our firepower and technology. They are cowards and paranoid and paranoid people are hard to kill.

Answer 9

We were fighting an actual army suited up in military gear during WW2. Now we are fighting people who hide amongst the civilians. Big difference. When we overthrew Saddam's regime, it only took a couple of weeks because we knew who to go after. Hopefully you are smart enough to figure out the rest on your own.

Answer 10

Because back then our soldiers were allowed to go in and do the job come heck or high water. They blew up buildings, churches, farms, both sides killed innocent people, what ever it took to get the job done. With this war, everything is Politically Correct and touchey feeley. So now our soldiers cannot go into churches for fear of offending, they cannot go into hospitals, they cannot go into schools and they get persecuted if a civilian is killed. The terrorists use this idiotic liberal insanity to their FULL advantage, and quite successfully it seems.

Answer 11

1) We are not using as much force in Iraq as we did in WW2.

2) We had to kill millions of civilians to win in WW2.

3) We win the huge majority of confrontations with muj, but more keep coming and they're fighting each other, not just us.