I am not gonna delve on the Michael Moore/American Sniper thing, but I do want to use a part of his Facebook page comment to address once again how disconnected they are from reality.
It is not a secret that the US Military hated the concept of the sniper basically since the Civil War and we did not have a proper policy and permanent units until the Vietnam War. Snipers from back then will tell you about the ostracism coming from regular soldiers and officers (Murder Inc. was one of the derogatory names used) who viewed them as stone cold killers…. that is until a sniper from the other side started to pick them off and the US Sniper suddenly became their best friend in the world.
But war is war. And in war, the idea is to destroy the enemy preferably by the most efficient way. To ask for a fair fight is an idiocy that will surely get you killed. In fact, the same people who bemoaned snipers had no problems setting ambushes which is also rather inconsiderate and unfair towards the enemy.
But we are not snipers nor we are at war, so what the heck does that apply to this mess? As civilians, we are lawfully given a very narrow window in which we can exercise deadly force and if we deviate just a little from that set of parameters, we will be facing dire consequences. Knowing that and knowing that our lives are in danger, it strikes me as supreme imbecility that some people expect us to “play fair” and give the criminal, a person not subjecting itself to the same norms we face, a chance to kill us just because they have some idiotic notion that all fights must be fair.
I recall an interview during Desert Storm where an officer with an armor unit was asked about the total whooping Saddam’s tanks were getting and that our side was destroying it like they were standing still and made of paper mache. The journalist indeed ask this officer if he considered it a fair fight and the officer responded:
“A fair fight means all my people go back home alive.”
And that is our goal, plain and simple.
I would figure that in the modern arena of combat, liberals would prefer snipers. A sniper identifies each and every target that they shoot. They do not employ explosives or direct artillery or airstrikes. For all practical purposes, snipers produce a 0% collateral damage. If bombing a building and killing children and innocents are what drives the moderate people to hate the USA than the sniper who only takes out the guy planting the IED or aiming the RPG is the perfect warrior.
And to say that only snipers shoot somebody in the back reflects a theory of war that hasn’t existed since Civil War soldiers lined up and shot at each other in rank. Fire and maneuver means that if my unit can come around your flank and shoot you in the back, I totally will.
And if snipers are cowards, than pretty much the whole concept of air superiority is cowardly. Is it any worse to shoot a guy in the back with a .308 at 600 yds than it is to drop a JDAM on him from 60,000 feet, or hit him with a Hellfire launched from a Predator drone, piloted by a guy in an air condition room at 100 miles away? Either way, the poor SOB isn’t going to hear it coming.
For that matter, this whole idea reflects a liberal lack of understanding of the evolution of war. Since the dawn of human combat the trend has been to move your solders as far from the killing as possible while being able to do the most damage. The rock was replaced with the club. The club gave way to the spear, which gave way to the lance. The pole arm was done away with by the long bow. Mounted calvary was killed off by the gun. As accuracy improved with rifling armies went from lining up 100 feet from each other to 100 yards, to 1,000 yards of no-man’s-land. Trenches were dug when massive cannons could out shoot the rifleman. Then airpower took over and dropping bombs on solders from planes was safer than batteries of artillery. Ballistic missiles and drones have been replacing bombing missions.
Don’t forget to add in the advantage of camouflage, night vision, and stealth technology. Is it cowardice to do your best to prevent the enemy from seeing you to shoot you? Is a sniper at 900 yds in day light any more cowardly than some grunt with night vision picking off Taliban in total darkness with the aid of NVGs?
I guess if you are a liberal, the answer to all of that is “yes.” For them, war isn’t about using that tactics that bring the most of your men home alive while completing the mission. War is like the movie The Karate Kid, where cheaters lose in disgrace. I guess that explains why Bill Maher said that the 9/11 hijackers were braver than our troops.
“A sniper identifies each and every target that they shoot. They do not employ explosives or direct artillery or airstrikes. For all practical purposes, snipers produce a 0% collateral damage. If bombing a building and killing children and innocents are what drives the moderate people to hate the USA than the sniper who only takes out the guy planting the IED or aiming the RPG is the perfect warrior.”
This is exactly why Liberals hate snipers. They’re efficient, effective, and reduce overall casualties on both sides. It doesn’t give them any headlines to smear American armed forces with.
To anybody who talks about fighting fair, I have a piece of advice.
“Nobody ever wins a fair fight.”
You win a fight because it was biased, somehow, in your favor. The terrain, the weather, the equipment, the skill level, or even just luck. That someone wins a fight is proof enough that the fight was unfair.
Once I realized this, I gave up all pretense of fighting fair. Don’t fight fair. Fight to win.
Anyway you can! And thank that person for shooting the combatant in the back that would have shot me or someone else.
It’s WAR, not a frickin’ boxing match!
Moore was the idiot who demanded GWB send assassins after Osama Bin Laden. What exactly did he think those assassins would do- send singing telegrams?
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen the “(X) military method of killing the enemy is cowardice” meme from Democrats. It leads me to believe that the Left doesn’t really understand what the armed services actually DO.
Here’s a hint, Moby Dick: “Fair fights” get your people hurt too. All four branches of the military spend a lot of time teaching their people to stack the deck as thoroughly as they can.
Except the Left hates the troops and loves it when they come home in body bags to publicly moan about; well at least when there is a Republican in the White House. Then suddenly with our current POTUS, you now rarely hear about the body count despite his idiotic rules of engagement.
Dead American soldiers make great props for Leftists/Democrats/Progressives so they want a fair fight where both sides are bloodied. It’s a “two-fer” for them. Dead brown people so we must be fighting a racist war and dead soldiers so we must bring ’em home even if we squander our success.
“If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.”
‘Nuff said.
I’ve noticed a common theme amongst the great commanders, generals, and admirals: not one is really into fighting fairly.
Fatass Moore makes me ashamed to tell people I’m from Michigan. I wish he would hurry up and eat himself into a fatal heart attack.