Ted Rall for January 26, 2015

The Revolutionary war was won by “snipers” who stayed in the trees and shot off rows of redcoats. The Civil War saw effective snipers, and was where people started turning against the practice

I’ve noted elsewhere that snipers accept, and take risks, to isolate the damage they do to the “bad guys”. Close personal experience with the practice.

A sniper works at about a thousand yards, but is still on scene, and has to get away, OR is protecting guys at LZs as in ’Nam, taking down those bad guys with mortars etc, before they can get a shot at his buddies. “Inside the wire” is just as dangerous as outside. It does take courage to do the job.

The drone pilot is in a bunker 1,000 MILES or more from any danger, where’s the courage in that.

The whole world is turning to drones, Israel, Britain, the U.S. and others are making big money off that growth. The question is, when does war without risk find the next way to up that ante?

I don’t like the use of armed drones, ethically, and morally associated with the cowardice of allowing war to become methodized so the killing is only one sided. Granted, a drone taking the shot for a guy with boots on the ground DOES eliminate some of the errors, and does allow the observer to not give away his position, but . . .

I’ver heard some of the quotes from that “American Sniper” that weren’t in the movie, and the denegration of the enemy as sub-human is there, and a dangerous human pathology on all sides.

Back in the Hart v Reagan days, I stated I’d rather have a guy who could love carelessly than kill without caring. That we’ve leaned toward killing without caring is a bad sign for the nation, and most of our military and police don’t feel that way. Which, nobody hates war as much as those, who are/were, good at it.

Remember 9/11 Teddy?Must’ve been nice in your comfy LA penthouse while 3000 Americans died.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1lKZqqSI9-s

ConserveGovIraqis had nothing to do with 9/11.

A sniper is the ultimate precision weapon. When you talk about limiting collateral damage, a sniper is the master. Whether a police sniper taking down a hostage taker without hitting the hostages, or military sniper eliminating the enemy who are shooting at our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and parents, a sniper is extremely precise, extremely economical, and extremely deadly.

If you believe snipers to be cowards, Rall, I suggest you read Carlos Haithcock’s biography. Given what the enemy does if they catch or spot a sniper, it takes guts to do the job. A sniper team is one shooter and one spotter. Period. No platoon of infantry to protect them. Disregard Hollywood, disregard that crap you heard. I challenge you to go to a sniper school and take some of the training and see how you do.

And yes, snipers do have to sometimes use the knife up close and personal. I did.

“You know the best way to limit collateral damage? Don’t start a f—-ing war in the first place.”Specifically, don’t start wars against people who1) didn’t attack you2) prior intelligence warned that deposing that government will destabilize the region and allow terrorists to take root in a country they’re currently being kept out of

Enter the Overlords: From now on movies should no longer be allowed to direct our impressions toward war, UNLESS they become total immersion experiences..Blood and gore on the screen should be accompanied by actual blood and gore that rains down on the movie goers. Injuries shown on the screen should be inflicted at the time they occur on one or two random people in the audience. Destruction of homes and family members shown on the screen should happen in actuality to at least one person during each movie.. It has to be real. If everybody were to be hooked up to sensory units that only simulate those sensations, no doubt people will become addicted to them as the next level of video games.

Wow, I’m glad you didn’t help write the Geneva Convention.

Your are right, there is no such thing as a fair fight, but if you don’t live your morality and ideals, what are you fighting for?

Clearly you have all the solutions and are much smarter than any of us. It is also unlikely anyone could use the power of persuasion to change your mind. Maybe that is part of the problem?

There’s no such thing as free (as coraryan keeps reminding us). I don’t have a child under 5. Never have and never will. Why should my tax money go to support some other person’s child?

Oh, and lonecat, I do have kids. Both now are grown adults and are doing great. I paid local taxes in two states to support public education but sent them to private schools as we wanted as demanding an education for them as possible. And, no, I don’t feel guilty for having done so. I would have sent them to public schools, just as I went to public schools. However, the private schools where they grew up were populated with students who were all strivers, so the choice was easy in comparison. But I have supported public schools and continue to do so.

Thank you, twclix & logicalone (!), for a reasonable exchange of views, blissfully free of the anti-thought dogmatic repetition of talking points which stands in for reasonable dialogue so often.

The wars were ill-conceived from the get-go. W and Cheney had no clue what they were getting into. This was not and is not our fight, either in Iraq or Afghanistan. What critical national interest is there in either location? None.

who instigates the killing and the wars? Look at the presidents, the kings, the dictators, and all the politicians in general…most civilians just want to be left along to raise a family and make a living.

“Childhood’s End” by Arthur Clarke. Simplistic story, but pleasant to imagine.

@nance19oped: In the GHW Bush term, there were two Secretaries of State: Baker 1989 – 1992 and Eagleburger 1992 – 1993.Mr. Chaney was Secretary of Defense for the entire term.

However, Mr.Chaney would certainly have known about the problem predictions and the nonremoval plan for S. Hussein, as these were certainly part of the invasion and departure plan. Today, it looks like the GW Bush war plan had only the invasion element. A simplified plan was not a better plan.

I tend not to hero worship people that put lies in their books.

Your apportioning of responsibility for the debt increase is illogical, whether misinformed or intentionally biased. Office assumption date is not a valid measuring point of fiscal responsibility – the previous administration’s budgetary influence extends (particularly in this case) well beyond the new President’s (and Congress’s “take-over” date. All suffered from the economic effects of the “Recession” and the measures taken to arrest and alleviate its effects – and may, with varying degrees of “expertise”, disagree with those actions. Facts are, Mr. Obama (even without the contentious demeanor of the [not-so-loyal] opposition) could not have immediately halted the precipitous plunge of the economy. I doubt anyone could have done significantly better – and many advocated actions that would have resulted in worse. Whomever is “blamed” for the crash, the economy was in “cardiac arrest”…Mr. Bush drove the ambulance and Obama was the surgeon who had to stop the damage, resuscitate the victim and oversee the recovery. The cost will all show on the bill – transport and treatment – and “Insurance” didn’t cover it – it will cost us all ! …still better than the alternative.

Tax receipts are still below (in constant 2009 dollars) 2000 and 2007- due to taax cuts and economic health (?).

And when is that going to happen? Have you really read anything about human history? War and the rumors of war have been a pervasive part or humanity since UGH the caveman first knocked GNARL over the head with a stick.

Now I am all for not starting wars without good cause. Soldiers are NEVER war mongers. Soldiers have to fight the wars, have to put their bodies between the people of the nation and danger. Politicians are war mongers. Throw your angst at them, not the soldiers trying their best to protect you as ordered by politicians. When war or fighting does come (we have been in a state of undeclared war against Islamic terrorism since at least the early seventies), and when you want to take out enemies selectively and no by Guernica bombing, the sniper is the ticket.

There are worse things than war. Ask the people living near Boko Haram who see their villages wiped out, daughters stolen as sex slaves, etc.

Nailed, it Festin. We are a war-loving nation, sad to say. Ted Rall is almost always dead on, so to speak. Caustic, in-your-face, but dead on. I have especially admired his critiques of Obama and drones. Truth is hard work!

I remember that episode; the one where two neighboring planets fought by computer simulation, and those who were in areas that were hit, reported to disintegration booths! People died, but their “civilizations” lived on!

Inre your reply to twclix:.“You can’t convict politicians for voting for laws, so yes, the bankers that broke the law is what I am talking about.”

I maintain you CAN convict pols for voting for a particular law, or repeal of, IF you can show proof that he/she was “influenced” by a sudden, recent “campaign contribution”, aka BRIBE. This is something I wish our Attoneys-General, and FBI would do!