If america has such military strenght why cant we win a war?

zqizzy

Because we don't actually fight, we try to stop everyone else from fighting. That will never work!

Oh, and the UN would not be happy with is if we did what it would take to actually win a war.

Indian Joe

Well technically your wrong.What about the first desert storm?
When Bush senior was the President.The US won that war.
And actually other areas of US army intervention was for peace full purposes and for maintaining law/order.As a world power the US has that obligation to lend a helping hand.And that's not wrong.
War depends on many factors,you simply cant over run an enemy with technologically advanced weaponry and hope to gain victory.
Take Vietnam for example.The US military shelled out all of its technology except nuclear power and they lost.
However the people of Vietnam did not care for their losses.If you look at it in terms of numbers,they lost far more men and women than the US.
So even in war their are different fields were victory can be achieved.Don't underestimate US military power.
But then again the US military underestimates their enemies all too often.

VET20

America has only had three wars since World War: NAM, Gulf War One and Gulf War Two. The other wars you are talking about were just conflicts and met the objectives of the United States. Gulf War One was won without the loose of the American lives seen in previous wars largely due to the technology used by the American military. Unlike the leadership we have today in this country, Previous presidents studied the history of World War Two and decided not to make the reconstruction of rouge countries such as Iraq, Granada, and other 3rd world countries that practice human rights violations a burden on the American tax payers. F.D.R. was a great president who did a wonderful job of leading America to victory in World War II, he didn't create the war or the battle field that the war was fought on. I don't think this Gulf war is winnable due to like of objectives. (Meaning, Ben Laden is not in Iraq and never was.) Why are we there? The American military deserves better.

markbesada

I'm a little unclear as to which war your referring to. I'm not sure how you can call the first Gulf War one in which we "lost." And in the current war in Iraq, there is a difference between the war (that is to say the initial battle itself) and the formation of a entire new government. The exit strategy of this war can certainly be questioned, but I certainly don't think you can say we lost the initial war and I certainly wouldn't say we're losing any sort of war now. This is less war than it is a attempt at maintenance and transference to a new self-governance in Iraq.

joeblack605

Israel is the strongest Military in the world , They will one day destroy Us if we aren't careful , betraying country's they control is there wining strategy style always has been . And they control our dollar and our government and our Military to do there dirty work.

Give me control of a country's money, and i care not who runs the government...!~!

coorz1

What Ever Guy!!!! why don't you join and do your part.

How about this saying:

The only people who truly see the end of war, are the DEAD!

duke4me2

We could easily demolish any country we would choose cause we could pull enough power into any one area. We could turn deserts into glass. But common sense says we cant kill everyone and usually there are bureaucratic reasons that certain things are not done. Many times military command is not what stops something it is politicians. I think a great example of this is seen in the movie Patton. He complains about political intervention. Think about it if we wanted to bomb everything in Iraq we could. However that is not a great humanitarian thing to do.

rattinnacage

We won the war in about 4 days. Even though the warriors warned them this could happen, the politicians never made plans on the enemy just melting away with all their weapons. What we are losing is the occupation. Everyone in Iraq hates us except for the Kurdish people in the North. The reason for this is that they have their own well equiped army and there is no need for us to occupy their land. THe only "friends" that we really have, we get the old fashioned way: we pay them.

Winning the war was easy, everything else has gone terribly wrong

lookatthehisky

because us military ar DORKS

ramsarabia94

Well the reason the war is not over is because for every 200 soldiers that WE have, an Iraqi suicide bomber kills them.

supermanjohn01

It might seem (due to the media), that we are losing the war. We have won every battle we have been involved with in this war, but we are having a problem fighting people that do not fight on our terms. The insurgents are cowards that hurt civilians and perform sneak attacks without regards to who is hurt in the process. They are not even from Iraq for God's sake. If we were focused on winning the war, without question, we could just go in and completely wipe anyone off of the map that we wanted to defeat, but we don't because we care about the innocent people that might get hurt in the process. We as a country have even developed weapons to be more specific in their targets in order to avoid civilian casualties.

Don't give in to the hype! If you talk to the soldiers and don't watch TV, we are doing very well in the war. The Iraqi people love us and want us there; its the foreign insurgents that do not. Get answers from our people that are in the battle, not the ones that want to use propaganda for political gain.

jonmorritt

The USA has a huge army and is well able to win a conventional war, fought against an opposing army.

However, when faced with a situation like Iraq, where there is no enemy soldier wearing a uniform, they tend to have problems.

Is the man standing on the street corner hiding a gun under his clothes, or merely out shopping ?

Does the trashcan on the sidewalk contain a bomb, or only trash ?

This is the problem that the USA faces. After defeating an enemy army how do you tell a friend from a foe ?

This is why many US soldiers are dying - the army can't tell the difference and so the terrorists carry out an attack and then disappear into the crowd.

The British army faced a similar situation in Northern Ireland, and are much better than the US at working out friends from enemies, as well as taking effective counter measures.

Most British soldiers are flown in and out of bases, whilst their US counterparts drive in trucks, leaving them more vulnerable to roadside bombs.

If it was merely a matter of "numbers" then the USA could throw their entire military force into Iraq and crush their enemy easily.

Sadly, this is not the case, hence the limited numbers of US troops in the country.

Until some one comes up with an effective way of telling friend from enemy then military might alone will not win a war.

Its not me Its u

I thought we wupped Saddam's *ss, including his much feared Republican Guard. i guess i must've been watching the wrong war.

Joker

Simply put the politicians are meddling too much in the war. And it's not really their fault, it's because we have so much media coverage that they can't take any shortcuts like torture and such because liberal pansies get their panties in a twist if we push someone to the brink to get the answers we need. These are people who are killing Americans, that pretty much cede's your right to a peaceful existence.

Also there is a deep set in enemy that is hard to extricate.

progunr

The media, and the advances in technology are the biggest problems. When we could win wars, it was because the media was not able to post a photo of one woman or child accidentally killed by a bomb within 10 seconds of the bomb dropping. We now have to fight the war of public opinion and our leaders are not willing to make the tough decisions needed to win the war because they worry too much about what "people" will think when they see the reality of war.

icemanind

The reason we lost the vietnam war was because of numbers. We may have had the most technological weapons, but there were just too many (millions and millons) vietnamise soldiers.

Also, I can't see how you say we didn't win the Gulf War. In fact, you don't even acknowledge it was a "real war". I guess everything must be about numbers. If millions of people die in war defending our country, then I guess its a "real war", but if only 100 people died, then its just a dispute or something. Tell that to the hundreds of widows and parents of loss ones in the Gulf War. Anyone that dies for their country in any way, shape or form, should be given the respect to call their efforts what it is.

niffer's mom

We do have the fire power, technology, and manpower to "win" all the "wars" we've been involved in. But we can't just blow everybody up, our allies would more than frown upon that.
We could just blow a hole through entire continents, of course that would not bode well with the rest of the planet.
Do you think we should just clear off an entire nation of people and plant new citizens? Not feasible.
I'm not sure that "winning" was the point. I think the goals were to establish a democratic government, or to prevent atrocities, etc.
That makes it a tad more difficult to establish a "winner".

idontkno

we just don't go all out and Slater peoples .if we did then you would see the true power of this country military.but was you not watching the first war in the middle east.

kanemochisan_102

wars are won by annihilating the enemy, but politics does not allow that. Then, there is the military philosophy that the best war won is one without or minimal bloodshed. So war should be won by winning both our minds and the opponenent's minds into conformity, harmony and agreements which are deemed beneficial to both.

driveranderson

We have the Al Quieda order of Battle 750 + captured over 100 sent to the Virgins you are being un patriotic see the vote in the House 153 dems 3 republicans supported the Al Quieda position today.

Dave_Stark

We can't win a war? <blink - blink!> Define your terms!

We won the shooting war in Iraq, twice. The problem is dealing with an insurgency -- which is not the same. Defeating an insurgency does not require brute firepower, but finesse.

A good analogy would be trying to wipe out an ants' nest. You could use a nuclear weapon to destroy it, but wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose in light of all the collateral damage you would do?

kathy_is_a_nurse

There is a difference between winning a war and totally destroying a country in the process. America and it's allies are walking a very fine line between trying to defeat terrorists without destroying the country in which they reside. There is an argument to be made that it might be more humane in the long-run to be more aggressive against the enemy...regardless of the short-term toll such aggression might take on innocent civilians...because we could subdue the enemy quicker and have less total civilian losses over time.

I wouldn't want to be the one making such a decision, and I can understand the hesitancy that the powers-that-be might have...especially in today's politically correct environment, but there is logic in the more aggressive approach.

Dbl Monday

It's not the WAR that needs to be won, it's the BATTLE..which will never end cause we are too stupid to learn from history..Our military is strong enough and rest assured, if we need to end a war fast, we have that ability too.......our subs alone (just one) has enough firepower to destroy all of Iraq..

SUPPORT OUR TROPES

tex

The military is too connected to political influece.

roadmaptoamerica

Because this war is different from any other war we have fought in. The enemy is not clearly marked. No uniforms. The enemy has no central bases for their operations. There is no front line. The enemy is free to operate within the civilian population. The enemy has no rules of engagement, and does not clearly target military personnel.
The one thing that I see as a familiarity between this war and the others that we have not clearly won is this simple fact.
Americans are not United with the troops, not United with the cause. Not behaving like The United States. WW's 1 & 2 had the entire country's support. Citizens got involved during those wars.
Vietnam civilians demonstrated against, We won the cold war, but probably would not have if The Soviet Union had not collapsed on itself. Grenada was more of a rescue operation than a war. Somolia was lost by Clinton. THe two wars going on now could go either way, depending on the civilian population here. If the people don't want to win, we will not win. If everybody got behind Bush in the next two years, we could probably have things done and all cleaned up. It's really up to us. I think Bush's statements that "we will stand down, when the Iraqis stand up" should have been stated, We will stand down when the Iraqi and American people stand up.
Have a nice day.

ihcase1456

We did win the war in Iraq, twice. In 1990 we beat the crap out of Sadam's army and sent them yelping like a whipped puppy out of Kuwait back into Iraq.
In 2003 we destroyed Sadams army again and took over his country. Then the insurgents formed and started fighting a guerrilla war against us. At the same time Zarqawi, who had already formed a terrorist group in Iraq, swore allegiance to Al Qaeda and began fighting us as well.
Well, we just sent Zarqawi to paradise and are systematically wiping out Al Qaeda in Iraq.
As for the insurgents, it's hard to fight an enemy who won't take you on face to face. They dress as civillians, hide among women and children and detonate car bombs and I.E.D.s from long distances away. You have to fight them in other ways, using intelligence and infiltration.
Anyone who has taken on the might of the U.S. millitary head on has ultimately lost.

Whitey

Who says were not winning? Democrats (always anti-military)? The liberal news media?

Before you decide that we've "lost" speak to some soldiers who have just returned...they're the ones being shot at, and on the ground...not Murtha, Kerry, Dean , or any of the others...

cmist12

stupid question we are winning are i just dont care

thanks for 2 points

ga44male

Plain and simple the media and the politicians will not let us win.Fight a wa like we did in ww2 and we win no barriers,every thing is on tlevision nowand if one f our soilders defends themselves they want to throw him in jail .I hate tosay it but war is war and you have to fight it that or lose.

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