The Political Discussion Thread

[LtColCarter]

Puerto Rico has their primary this Sunday, the 18th. Mitt Romney wins it.

Dude...why would Puerto Rico participate in US elections?

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

Dude...why would Puerto Rico participate in US elections?

They are a US territory and can vote in primaries but not presidential elections.

[LtColCarter]

They are a US territory and can vote in primaries but not presidential elections.

Ummm...no...

Puerto Rico is an insular area — a United States territory that is neither a part of one of the fifty states nor a part of the District of Columbia. Insular areas, such as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, are not allowed to choose electors in US presidential elections or elect voting members of the US Congress.

[Goose]

Ummm...no...

Puerto Rico is an insular area — a United States territory that is neither a part of one of the fifty states nor a part of the District of Columbia. Insular areas, such as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, are not allowed to choose electors in US presidential elections or elect voting members of the US Congress.

They're not allowed to vote in Preseidential elections nor Congressional elections, you're right. But they are allowed to take part in primaries.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

I find the 'owning guns protects me from the gubmint!' absolutely hilarious. Yeah, it worked fine two hundred years ago when the hostile government was an ocean away and everyone over here was on home soil. But in an era of brilliantly trained special forces equipped with the most amazing military hardware known to man (ie: SAS, SEAL Team 6), the age of government-approved warrantless domestic spying, and the Wacos of modern history--the idea is ludicrous. Laughable at best.

What I find laughable is how poor your knowledge of modern warfare is. If anything the back half of the 20th century and the early 21st have show that a group of people armed with little more than rifles and IED's can challenging and frequently defeat super powers. Vietnam, Afghanistan twice, Iraq all perfect examples of this. Wars cannot simply be won on the battlefield anymore. All an insurgency has to do is survive, it does not need to win on the battlefield, it does not need to control lots of ground, all the insurgency has to do is remain a threat even if that threat consists of sniping soldiers and policeman and planting IEDs. Eventually given enough time the enemy will lose the political will to fight and quit. This applies to internal uprisings and insurgencies as well. A successful insurgency will force the government its opposing to do much of the work for it, any action they take may end up backfiring. Fighting the insurgency will cause significant damage to their infrastructure and population, hurting their economy and with it the means to pay for military action against the insurgents, while turning the remaining populace towards the insurgents side. The expensive ground attack jet that can drop a bomb from 30,000 feet is useless when the insurgent lives amongst the civilian populace, and targeting him that way will kill 20 odd civilians as well as the insurgent, enraging the population. Eventually with a successful insurgency the regime looses all popular support and may even lose the support of military units, causing the regime to crumble.

Your ideas about warfare are outdated, you still think, as so many people do, in terms of 3rd generation warfare. Mechanised armies that win wars by defeating their opponent on the battlefield. But we now live in an age of 4th and 5th generation warfare, where the violent non state actors hide amongst civilian populations, use cyberwarfare and other unconventional tactics to bridge the gap in capabilities. A group of insurgents armed with rifles can be a major threat to a government, if they gains the support of even a relatively small part of the population they can integrate and hide themselves, becoming very difficult to deal with, without causing the rest of the population to side with the insurgents.

The elite special forces can kill many insurgents and their leaders, but that simply does not win the fight. If it did we would have won in Iraq and Afghanistan long ago. Shoot one insurgent and two more will remerge from the populace in their place. The centre of gravity in any insurgency is the support of the population for the insurgency, and in order to win you need to pull the two apart, once isolated from popular support an insurgency will wither and die. That means hearts and minds, reconstruction, something most militaries still aren't very good at. The insurgents simply force the fight down to their level, negating the advantages of your tanks, jets and special forces and makes you fight for the support of the populace instead.

No, just no. IEDs cause way to much damage, you are welcome to such youtube and see how powerful they are and what it destroyes. Not to mention the shockwave can even kill people.

IEDs are nothing but pure terror tools.

Speaking as someone who was in a combat zone where IEDs are used, they scare the crap out of me. They are nothing people friendly, they cant tell friend from foe once its been planted. You would have to let every one in the area know there its at to they dont get killed.

The fact that they are so terrifying and demoralising towards the enemy is what makes IED's such a brilliant weapon for insurgents, and why if I was an insurgent leader, I'd be using as many as possible.

They allow often poorly trained and equipped insurgents who could never win in a conventional fight a way to strike at the enemy without being hit back. If makes the conventional force get bogged down in long, difficult and often very demoralising operations in order to clear IEDs. It also leaves them weakened and open to further attacks such as snipers or ambushes.

The IEDs also have an effect on the civilian population, often they are planted in full view of them, but they do not report them, fearing reprisal from the insurgents. This, along with the feeling of being hit by a faceless enemy who hides amongst the populace, fuels anger and distrust of the civilian populace in the conventional forces, which in turn drives the civilians into the arms of the insurgents.

Its these capabilities that make IED's a key weapon in any successful insurgents arsenal.

[LtColCarter]

They're not allowed to vote in Preseidential elections nor Congressional elections, you're right. But they are allowed to take part in primaries.

That just seems stupid since they don't have a vote in the electoral college.

[Goose]

That just seems stupid since they don't have a vote in the electoral college.

Perhaps, but nevertheless they get a vote in the primaries.

[LtColCarter]

Perhaps, but nevertheless they get a vote in the primaries.

No "perhaps" about it...its useless.

[Goose]

No "perhaps" about it...its useless.

But the fact still remains that they do get a vote in the primaries.

[aretood2]

I would also argue that instead of running here to the US people in these countries where conditions are so bad should take a page out of our book (dated 1776) and actually rise up against tyranny instead of just running away from it...our resources are not infinite.....we can't afford to just keep bringing in increasing numbers of foreign immigrants...it's why we have the system we do.....so that we can control the flow of people we accept....could the system use a little tweaking? sure but that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater

Considering that the US exists because Europeans did not want to fix their homeland....I find this argument about modern immigrants not fixing their homeland ironic Even more interesting though is this, what if there is no solution? This problem is as old as the United States. To illustrate: There was a failed attempt to turn German into the official language of PA, never got far. If I remember correctly, there was some talk about providing a rule to have schools provide information to students in both English and German. Benjamin Franklin tried to spark of a German newspaper. Does this sound familiar?

My point is that there will never be a solution where everyone will be happy.

[Womble]

Your ideas about warfare are outdated, you still think, as so many people do, in terms of 3rd generation warfare. Mechanised armies that win wars by defeating their opponent on the battlefield. But we now live in an age of 4th and 5th generation warfare, where the violent non state actors hide amongst civilian populations, use cyberwarfare and other unconventional tactics to bridge the gap in capabilities. A group of insurgents armed with rifles can be a major threat to a government, if they gains the support of even a relatively small part of the population they can integrate and hide themselves, becoming very difficult to deal with, without causing the rest of the population to side with the insurgents.

The elite special forces can kill many insurgents and their leaders, but that simply does not win the fight. If it did we would have won in Iraq and Afghanistan long ago. Shoot one insurgent and two more will remerge from the populace in their place.

Trouble is, this is a situation largely caused by the well-intentioned Western rules of warfare. If civilians are off limits, then civilians make good cover if one is willing to break the rules. Statistically speaking, as the rules of war become more protective of civilians, the civilian-to-combatant ratio in wars gets worse, not better.

The centre of gravity in any insurgency is the support of the population for the insurgency, and in order to win you need to pull the two apart, once isolated from popular support an insurgency will wither and die. That means hearts and minds, reconstruction, something most militaries still aren't very good at.

That is actually not entirely true. The single most influential factor in any conflict of this type is the insurgency's access to an international border and the sponsorship of outside forces. As an obvious example, the swift fall of the Tamil Tigers- one of the largest and heaviest-armed insurgency groups- was not caused by a drop in popularity among the Sri Lankan population; they were crushed militarily because they were on an island and the Sri Lankan state could afford to not play by the Western rules. 20 000 deaths and an enforced media blackout throughout the war = praise from the UN for success in fighting terrorism. It's when you try to be nice that you get labeled a war criminal in this upside-down world.

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

nonsense

what about Paul? i kid

[lordofseas]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stor...tigation-.html This story just gets better and better.

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stor...tigation-.html This story just gets better and better.

i haven't got time to read it all but it is about voting and campaigning right?

[lordofseas]

i haven't got time to read it all but it is about voting and campaigning right?

Basically, the ruling Conservative Party has been accused of sending Opposition-minded voters to the wrong polling station via robocalls, thereby invalidating that person's vote, and allowing the Conservative Party to take the election.