Xref: utzoo alt.flame:1758 talk.politics.misc:7894 Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!lazarus From: lazarus@athena.mit.edu (Michael Friedman) Newsgroups: alt.flame,talk.politics.misc Subject: Re: Bullet-proof passports? Message-ID: <3470@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 4 Mar 88 20:35:16 GMT References: <3276@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3184@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3096@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <792@athos.rutgers.edu> <9612@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <4568@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <4581@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <4611@pucc.Princeton.EDU> Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: lazarus@athena.mit.edu (Michael Friedman) Organization: Murder Inc. Lines: 100 In Article <4611@pucc.Princeton.EDU > Q2816@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes: >In article <3276@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU >, lazarus@athena.mit.edu (Michael Friedman) writes: > >}}The European nations paid off the Barbary pirates. We > >}}didn't. They kidnapped American citizens and attacked American ships. > >}}We went to war and kicked their butts. >If we hadn't an economic interest in the region, we would never have >bothered, and there would have been few US citizens there in the first >place. We fought that war to protect our trade interests, which involved >having US citizens travel there. Yes, but we could have done what the Europeans did - payed off the pirates. It would have been a lot cheaper. We didn't because of something called national honor. > >}}}They [the Marines] died because they were on a mission they were unprepared for. > >}}}The CinC sent them there against the wishes of the Commandant and the > >}}}heads of other services. They were untrained as peacekeepers. > >So what's the difference? You tell me. How do you 'peacekeep' >You QUIETLY keep tensions from building. Same as the UN has done, >usually successfully, in the region since 1949. > >}You must know who the warring parties are, > >} command some respect, >Brute force is not what peacekeeping takes. Brute force is for wars. >Or are you telling me that war is peace? The only way to keep the peace between two groups that want to fight is to make it disadvantageous to fight. You do this by getting in between them and saying that they have to get through you to get to their enemies. This is why Peace-keepers are armed. (In case anyone thinks they are not, there was a picture in one of the recent economists of some UN peacekeepers. They were in an armored vehicle which had a machinegun mounted on it.) It takes no training beyond the normal training of a soldier from any army. If you disagree please tell me the specific skills that a marine lacks and that a Peace-keeper must have. Knowlege of the warring parties is provided by briefings. Whether it was or not is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the Marines were trained for the job. In a situation like Lebanon respect comes out of the barrel of a gun. You get it by being obviously too strong to fight. >It takes an understanding of the situation (one briefing genreally won't >be enough), perhaps some knowledge of the language, an understanding >of what the various people want, how to communicate with the various >factions without offending them, knowing the relationships between >factions, and being prepared to mediate small quarrels on a daily basis >with as little force as possible. Once one side perceives you as being >a soldier on the other side, you ARE just that for all practical purposes >and all your brute strength won't help you. Yes. Here I agree with you. You just haven't explained why the marines weren't qualified. Here is a question that might settle the issue. I. How much time is spent training troops for peace-keeping? II. What does the extra training consist of? > >}}}And by the way, the job of the Marines is amphibious landings. Not > >}}}peacekeeping. > >}}Wrong. The Marines are an elite force. You use them when you have a > >}}tough job. > >}Wrong. They are not trained to do the tough day-after-day job of > >}peacekeeping. The troops themselves said they felt out of place, > >}unable to get a handle on the job they were there to do. > >When in doubt, ask a Marine. I asked a guy in Marine ROTC. According > >to him, if you want to do something like what we did in Lebanon you > >use the Marines. >Marine ROTC! Wow. The ultimate authority. I based MY comments on the >words of the Commandant, the Chiefs of Staff, and interviews with the >men who were there. Dozens of military analysts all said the same thing: >the Marines were very good at establishing their base there, but once >that was done, they were pretty much at a loss as to what to do next. I. I doubt the Commandant and Chiefs of Staff were giving interviews in which they said that the marines should not have been sent. We all know what happens when military officers buck civilian authority. (Remember MacArthur?) II. Were they saying that the marines weren't qualified to do the job or were they saying that the marines weren't allowed to do the job right? There is a very big difference. These are the official opinions Mike Friedman of my organization. So, TOUGH!!