- Reviews & Essays
- Conventional Military vs Terrorism
Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click here
By the end of this essay I will demonstrate why there is no relevance or value in not only conventional maritime forces but military forces period, when responding to a terrorist threat. I will do this by showing different possible scenarios of likely terrorist targets and how we as a "conventional military" become less than adequate.
Does anyone in the free world honestly think that a terrorist plot would include at home military establishments? What purpose would this serve to the terrorists themselves? There is no terror actually occurred by the general public. As a member of the military I expect to be in the line of danger, I did since the day I signed on the dotted line. If anyone thought other wise it would be like becoming a firefighter and thinking you would never have to go into a burning building.
Is it sad if a member of our military family dies in action? Of course it is horrible, but the day "said" member jotted their name on the line they knew what could happen. If a terrorist decided to hit one of our homeland bases what would he gain? A couple weeks in the news would be about it. As members of the military we have come to expect we are targets. Being the most likely target makes us probably the least likely. The terrorist gets no "terror" value from such an attack.
The extra people on gates, the extra training because of the "what if" factor, to me are not worth the money spent.
Now if an attack took place, where do you think it might take place to garner the most terror possible? What do "we" as citizens cherish most in our lives? In my opinion, these would include; our families and children, our money, our recreation, our entertainment and our needed things like water, and food.
Take Victoria, British Columbia for instance, if as a terrorist you wanted to kill a city, take out a cruise ship while it is docked in the city's harbor. Not only would that cause plenty of chaos but it would literally shut down the biggest industry on the island. The downward spiral of lost jobs, revenue and life would be catastrophic as opposed to a terrorist hitting the navy base.
There are many ways for terrorists to hit us and unless our government is ready to keep armed posts at all our reservoirs, nuclear facilities, shopping malls, arenas, theaters and countless other places people gather in large groups the military will be left for only clean up I am afraid to say.
Everyday in "hot" countries like Afghanistan and Iraq "extremists" are willing to take their own lives at check points or convoys to "possibly" take out a few of us "infidels" from the west. But in doing this how much have they really accomplished. We are still in Afghanistan and the United States is still in Iraq. Are some people demonstrating and trying to get us to leave? Yes, some of our own countrymen are exercising their right of speech and demonstration for what they believe is a greater good.
We can all speculate on why we are there or what purpose does it have but as a soldier I follow orders and if I was sent to Afghanistan tomorrow I would do it, and do it honorably, just like the many members who are over there right now. Doing our country proud!
Back to the relevance of our forces response to a terrorist threat, the only way we can stop these terrorists is to get inside their groups. We need moles and spies, and I don't know and actually don't need to know if our government has actually accomplished this feet. That is a project that is way beyond my scope of need to know and if they are doing this almost impossible task the less people that know about it the better.
I do feel however that if on September 11th, Canada had been attacked as well as the USA then more people would be supporting us in our efforts to stop terrorism. The concept is new to the western world, prior to the egregious acts on that fateful day people of North America were complacent and trusting, which was a gross miscalculation on everyone's part. We should have seen the signs of what was to come. Hollywood did, there have been plenty of movies and TV dramas prior to even the first attack on the Trade Center. And how many times have "you" turned on the radio or television and heard about suicide bombings overseas just to shrug it off and not really even care? Well with the world getting smaller and smaller and global communication so easily on hand we should have know it was just a matter of time before the attacks started taking place on our own soil.
Our liberal immigration policies have been tantamount to allowing many persons in our country that should not be here. How is the military to respond to groups of bad people who have been planning for years when stopping these horrific acts is just so new to all of us? I am afraid to say it just can't be done.
In closing I believe the only thing left for a "conventional military" to do is to respond after the fact. Like I said before, unless the country is ready to be put in a state of military law, where we would have armed soldiers at every target terrorists could possibly attack the possibility of attacks are always going to be there. But as not only a member of our fine military but a citizen I am not prepared to go to that extreme. I refuse to live my life in fear, and to have such a presence at every possible target would most definitely cause fear in most citizens. Let's leave armed military presence to the countries overseas, we don't need it here and personally I don't want it here.
I enjoy living in our free society even with all the dangers that surround us everyday. I don't want our government to shut out our freedoms because of what "might" happen. It is sad that we live in such troubled times but we should also be thankful that we have such a great country. If something happens, then it happens no amount of military presence is going to stop people who are willing to die for a cause.
As a member of this fine military do I wish things were different and that we could find the answers to stop these "evil" people? Absolutely, but as long as there is different beliefs in this world we are always going to have war and conflict, hence why there are militaries in the first place. If I had a magic wand I would just make everyone love each other and there wouldn't have to be any armies or navies in this world but that is never going to happen.
Now I hope I never have to be witness to the horrors we have already seen these past few years but if more were to happen and my country asked me to go somewhere or do something about it, then I will be ready and willing. Whether it is to stand on a gate to give somewhat of a "presence" or it is to go to a foreign country to pull the roots of where this hate begins, whatever or wherever I am needed to do or go, I will be there!
I hope we have value and relevance in responding to a terrorist threat but unfortunately I just don't see how we can. Evil will be done regardless of what stands in the way of a committed person who is lost in what they believe to be right. One day I hope it changes and we can all respect one another as humans but until that day I stand ready as I can be for the wolf that growls at our door.
We possibly live in the greatest country in the world; I just pray it can stay that way forever!
- COMMENTS
Anonymousabout 11 years agoYou say: "Is it sad if a member of our military family dies in action? Of course it is horrible, but the day "said" member jotted their name on the line they knew what could happen."
Why is "'said'" in quotations? Are you implying that it is not really the same member who signed their name that is dying? This makes the whole military thing far more terrifying.
rubricaabout 11 years ago"As a member of the military I expect to be in the line of danger . . .
If anyone thought other wise it would be like becoming a firefighter and thinking you would never have to go into a burning building."--True, but some people can get caught up in the patriot feeling without knowing where they really stand. Though, I couldn't imagine anyone signing up for something they didn't truly believe in, but some do it for the supposed "perks".
You make many good points though. Sadly, terrorism will probably always exist, unless...we eventually find an enemy who is even stronger than terrorism which would cause us to stop our petty bickering (well that's what I call it). After all, unite nations under the banner of a common enemy, and suddenly you have a little more team work, there will always be some prejudice, but the real goals should be get along where you can at least live together, without the need to wipe each other out (it shouldn't be cromagnon versus neaderthal , and what's more it shouldn't matter, both groups were needed for evolution, it's just the cromag, didn't want competition, when you think about it alot of silly things are done because of vanity or ego).
For me about the only thing really worth fighting for besides family or friends and freedom,the only true thing worth fighting for is love, and protecting the innocent or disabled, though everyone deserves some amount of protection, not just special interests.
Enamoredover 17 years agoI'll go with your suggestion. After WWII Phillipinos (spelling?) served honorably in the U.S. military in many catagories. Sadly, many were initially relegated to the stewards in the U.S. Navy, but served honorably, and, at least as far as I was concerned, with distinction. Subsequently, many have served with distinction in all areas of the armed services.
Allowing others to serve, in the military, or in other service orginzations such as the Peace Corp is an elegant solution and should be explored further. I commend you for the idea. If I had it in my power, I would award you some kind of commendation.
My hat is off to you. You truly do think outside of the box, and as a man (or woman) of distinction.
Marc
Anonymousover 17 years agoA United States Marine boards an aircraft in Bagdad.
At the window seat is an Arab, as is the one in the middle seat.
The Marine settles in and promptly takes of his shoes and gets comfortable.
The Arab at the window says, “excuse me, I would like to get up and get a Coke.”
The polite Marine says, “Please, stay seated I will get one for you.”
As the Marine leaves, the Arab picks up his shoe and spits into it.
The Marine returns with a Coke.
The second Arab says, “excuse me, I would also like to get up and get a Coke.”
The polite Marine again says, “Please, stay seated I will get one for you.”
As the Marine leaves, the second Arab picks up his other shoe and spits into it.
The Marine returns with a Coke.
As they prepare to land the Marine puts on his shoes, and realizes what has happened to his shoes.
He starts a conversation to the effect of.
“I can’t understand this animosity between our people. This total non acceptance of different cultures has to stop. How can we ever achieve a peace, with this spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes going on.”
Len Beeover 17 years agoYou are a great liberal, but it scares me that you might be military as you claim. Your kind of mindset will always lead to terror acts being committed and then responded to.
But you overlook the obvious as you push what I have to assume is your liberal agenda. You fail to consider both ability and opportunity on the part of all terrorists. By hitting them hard in their safe havens, we have deflated their balloons in every other location where they are either active or sleeping. Their leadership is in shambles because we have taken the fight to them.
Anyone who still claims Iraq was not a legitimate terrorist haven for us to attack is simply brain dead. Hussein was actively supporting terrorists in many different ways, from direct aid in Iraq to paying the families of homicide bombers (which encouraged others to take up the Jihad so their families would become rich overnite as well).
Our offensive war has either removed or severely reduced both opportunity and ability on the part of the terrorist. Why hasn't a terrorist already taken out a cruise ship? Or sent a suicide bomber into a shopping mall? Or flown an airplane into a big building? They no longer have the ability to do so, that's why. And the anti-terrorist forces working for us have also removed their opportunities, not so much by hardening soft targets as by identification of potential terror cells, active surveillance and intervention of plots.
There was no viable response other than exactly what Bush did. He wacked Afganistan and ended the terror training. He wacked Sadam's kingdom and took away a major source of support. And we no longer have to worry about wacking Libia because that asshole saw the writing on the wall and caved.
The bigger question is Iran. Does anyone honestly believe that, if Iran gets a nuke, they will not use it? If they do, then they are also brain dead.
Author, you are stuck solidly on stupid. Get your head out of your ass and look at the bigger picture. Ask yourself why we have not been hit since 9/11? The answer is staring you right in the face, and it is called offense, not defense.
Len Bee
KublaiKhanIIIover 17 years agoThere are two choices are are better than all, consideration ANY choice is bad:
(1). Rather than withdrawing or withdrawing slowly and HOPE that the "Iraqi army/security force" is going to be able to "take over the job", instead, SEND IN 500,000 more troops, "whatever it takes," and TOTALLY OVERWHELMING --- or hope to --- all overt resistance groups.
Quickly erect another 500,000 to 1mil or so IRAQI military personnel and do DOOR TO DOOR gun collection.... NEITHER ASKING NOR GIVING answers to civil rights, penal rights, or military shit this or that.
TOTAL AND OUTRIGHT OCCUPATION, with MARSHAL LAW, with only ONE promise:
That when we are satisfied that we have collected all or most of the guns and have instituted solid enough a SYSTEM of government, with enough man power and financial resources (Iraq really does STILL have ENOUGH oil reserves to generate most of the FUNDS needed!, let's not be shy saying so at this point in this FUCKED UP situtaion, okay?), WE LEAVE.
We don't promise the Iraqis will dance for us, give us flowers, whatever. They HATE us, the majority of them, except Dick and Rumself are too stupid to know it, so the had the Pentagon and other folks manufacture propaganda about Iraqis liking us for going over to liberate them. Stupid, UGLY AMERICANS, these war-mongering idiots...
We simply promise, ourselves and all of Iraq, that with a $500 Billion a year Pentagon budget, that we can and WE WILL pacify a country the size of Iraq, now that we are involved and involved without the UN's blessing and so very few others except some 15,000 or so bloody Brits willing to stay there with us.
(1,000 Aussies and 50 Poles and 2 Tongas don't count!, that is, if we already have 150,000 American GI's there and we are still dying a few dozen each fucking month!)
Our Idiot of a president had already use a spineless Congress to STAMP his WAR act and had already committed close to 1 TRILLION dollars, all told, along with the lion share of our active military wings,,,, so HE doesn't need to ask Congress again to send in more troops. The idiot is going out of office in some 2 plus years, too, so there's NO FEAR he would or wouldn't not get elected again!
Fuck the Democrats, Republicans, or Conservatives who are not having second thoughts.
(I am a happy, non violent Liberal, by the way. I don't own gun; don't know any thing about guns. Bush, to me, is a complete moron. But he IS the president and can and does order America's $500 billion War machine around, put them in any where around the world, so long as he can stupidly claim it is a "national security interest" issue.... Dickhead likely never took any world history class, logic, or political science,,, but his dad's an intelligent intelligence man so the dickhead --- though NEVER THE BRIGHTEST nor most "meritocratic"/deserving to be where he is --- found himself America's president,,, so let's not give him a hard time about it!)
Or,
(2). We get the hell out of there and say, honestly, "We fucked up and we don't really care. This is a religious and tribal society, UNLIKE Germany and Japan and South Korea, where we hoped to and did make successful democracies out of,,,," Lick our wounds and bury our less than 3,000 military deaths.
SHIFT our man-hunt for Osama and others WHEREVER THEY ARE, without wasting 150,000 locked up in the Desert of Iraq, doing nothing but fortifying ourselves in military zones with mountains of concrete to prevent drivers from driving cars and trucks with bombs in them through.... Where EVERY TIME we go into any district in Baghdad, we MUST fly half a dozen or so Apache and go in half a dozen or so armor tanks and can't even stop anywhere more than a few hours without FEAR that some bombs gonna get us, from some angle!
Saddam IS/was a very evil man, but he NEVER invaded America or killed Americans. Rumsfeld and Dole went and SHOOK his hands, smilingly in the 1980s. So don't give me crap about America saving the Iraqis from a dictator. There are doznes of dictators like Saddam and there are at least half a dozen of them WORSE than Saddam in the world today. We DO NOT have any moral, ethical, juridical or political right to dismantle their dictatorship...
By the way, for the really, really stupid: the way to stop terror or "terrorism" is to NOT create them in the first place. Don't go throwing rocks at wasps --- who are naturally protective of their territories and especially of their nests! --- and then when you get stung, cry moral outrage, demdanding that all wasps and other stinging insects be wiped out of the face of the earth!
Anonymousover 17 years agoWhy should we stay involve? It is not just a matter of hubris. There are serious considerations regarding an American withdrawal from Iraq. These are the choices we are left with by a president who celebrates his ignorance and a secretary of defense who believes that smarminess is the same thing as competance. The question the Left has to answer is: if we withdraw and the result is genocide and ethnic cleansing in the mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad (which has already begun), what moral resposibility do we have?
Anonymousover 17 years agoSuccinctly, if the country's citizens in large part resist your presence and haven't bought into your purpose it aint going to happen.
This situation is much worse in principal and facets than Vietnam. Old waring factions, oil, religious radicals and very rich nasty neighbors funding the bad guys.
Solution: Who knows - but until the highest percentage of the populace stands up for their freedom we are throwing money and lives down a bottomless hole and the military knows it. it should be clear the oil companies don't really care - they just mark up for their excessive net profits anyway. Smoke and mirrors folks.
We could have stayed in Vietnam forever - well until we went broke in money and lives.
This should have or should be brokered with the surrounding Arab nations and failing that agreement just get out.
When will we learn. Ugly americans? Perhaps just overly presumptous?
V.Richover 17 years agoJoe,
I disagree with your previous Anonymous(I almost always disagree with someone who is not cleaver enough to create a handle for themselves). But this particular Anonymous I have to disagree with. Literotica is THE forum for individuals around the globe who have their minds open and their brains fully engaged.
The advice I would give you, Anonymous, besides giving yourself a name, is to suggest you stay away from the catagory: Essays.
It is not as if Literotica has any shortage of catagories. How about we leave this catagory for the readers looking for... a little bit more.
Vee Rich
