Haiti (Catch all)

[Stan]

Oh, surely you could have gotten more lumber to build a higher gallows to get them to notice sooner, Stan.

LOL... the lumber we contracted for - we built outhouses with

I note how very quiet and cooperative the Haitians rioting in the camps at GTMO, circa late 91-early 92, became once we committed one Marine artillery battery and one Army infantry company, in riot control gear, to quelling those riots. And I don't think we had to hurt anyone, but merely demonstrate that we would.

Yep, did that on the Korean border in my youth and saw a few things go Tango Uniform (without firearms). Tried that in Africa but the opponents carried US-made hand grenades. I got your point however. We better be prepared for a lot of dead children in that so-called crowd of refugees and as much as I hate to agree with you just yet, you're right - we're not prepared for the hard decisions.

When I refer to lack of moral fiber, in the case of the west, I'm generally referring to the unwillingness to do the bad thing, or at least the harsh thing, to prevent the worse, or the simply frightful. Forex, we could have probably saved 800,000 innocent Tutsi for well under a billion with the commitment of a single brigade with ROE to shoot. I personally suspect that the reason we didn't was that the domestic political cost of shooting black folks, be they never so evil, in order to save other black folks, be they never so innocent, is simply too high. The ones we kill end up on the news (though they don't say much) while the ones we save are ignored as, at best, speculative.

I think we were a little late for ROE - way behind the power curve and out gunned and out manned. Our allies weren't exactly on the same sheet of music either. Those were white folks BTW

Ammo or food depends on both the need for food and the seriousness of the looting. No cookie cutter will do.

I don't have any conclusions, Stan. I don't think that anything we can do, and that we're willing to do, will work, long term. And in the places where they seem to, one wonders if we were needed in the first place for anything but to keep people alive, short term.

Concur !
I must have been exposed to looting so much (grew up in DC) that I consider it SNAFU most of the time.

Issuing ammo may have solved problems faster than airlifting food

[Tom Kratman]

LOL... the lumber we did contracted for we built outhouses with



Yep, did that on the Korean border in my youth and saw a few things go Tango Uniform (without firearms). Tried that in Africa but the opponents carried US-made hand grenades. I got your point however. We better be prepared for a lot of dead children in that so-called crowd of refugees and as much as I hate to agree with you just yet, you're right - we're not prepared for the hard decisions.




I think we were a little late for ROE - way behind the power curve and out gunned and out manned. Our allies weren't exactly on the same sheet of music either. Those were white folks BTW



Concur !
I must have been exposed to looting so much (grew up in DC) that I consider it SNAFU most of the time.

Issuing ammo may have solved problems faster than airlifting food

That actually sparks an interesting thought, Africa-wise.

With basing troops in Western Europe being so expensive, and moving them to / basing them in Eastern Europe being potentially quite dangerous (as in leaving them out on an unsupplied limb should relations with Russia sour badly and some of NATO refuse to permit resupply through their borders, neither of which events would surprise me), I wonder what it would cost to base a brigade - maybe a division but at least a brigade - somewhere on the coast of Africa, along with a sufficient air and sea transport increment. It would need a decent but not a great port, and someplace flat enough to build a lengthy airstrip on. Buuut...demonstrate graphically once that we're willing to do whatever it takes to prevent another Rwanda, and we just might not have any more Rwandas.

The country - and note that I left off the quotes this time because under our close interest it just might be able to become a real country - would make a fortune servicing - and I mean that in the, ahem, broadest, ahem, sense - the troops.

Liberia, as the only place there where we have the greatest moral responsibility, might work.

Sadly, that initial demonstration we lack the will for, too.

[Stan]

I think EUCOM actually looked into that at one time with all the IMET and MTTs going wrong there (non-specific - insert country name here). Liberia ? I think they looked at Ascension Island.

In my 16 years here, we haven't exactly done much besides threaten to build a rocket base on Putin's back porch

I can't even fathom how much goes into protecting the Baltic airspace with fighter rotations and even that symbolic gesture may have been enough back in the early 90s to preclude "Rwanda".

Hindsight is great !