Yes, its true that they always send the Marines first, and thats why they have the largest casualty rate.
Basically, because they are the strongest force they've got (man-related, not talking about weapons/technology etc), they send in the Marines first, so they can do the most damage, and then the military can mop up the rest.
It makes a lot of sense, from a strategy perspective. Tip of the spear first, and then the rest of the spear.
From a moral perspective, it doesnt make sense, because its immoral to only care about killing the most people, without any regard to your own losses. Then again, just wanting to kill people is immoral on its own, let alone the first one.
Ironically, the Marines aren't the "strongest" force the US has in terms of sheer manpower. The Army is probably ten times bigger, or more.
It's down to the training that Marines receive versus the training that any Army/Navy/Air Force servicemember receives. It's the mentality of the Marines; they have a mentality of "go in, kill the bad guy, and make sure he stays dead". The Army has traditionally had more of a ground-holding or large-unit maneuver mentality.
By that I mean that Marine units maneuver on the battalion level, while Army units maneuver on the regiment or brigade level. The Navy and Air Force don't really have a comparable mission to either the Marines or the Army; the Navy and Air Force are more oriented towards gaining and maintaining sea and air superiority (respectively). The Army is oriented towards holding ground, or large-scale maneuver warfare, whilst the Marines are oriented around purely offensive operations.
That's not to say a Marine unit is incapable of defending a position, far from it. Just that their modus operandi is oriented towards establishing temporary bases for logistics support, whilst forward elements are tracking and engaging the enemy, along with the main body of the force.
You do realize that the ISD isnt real either, right?
Of course. The point was to say that Godzilla is by far one of the least destructive objects in modern scifi history. The fact that Godzilla can tear up Tokyo isn't particularly impressive by the standards of many scifi series; even Star Trek, one of the lower-end damage capable series, has ships that are capable of pretty much sending a planetary civilization back to the Stone Age.
In constrast, the Imperial Star Destroyer is capable of literally turning a planet's surface into molten slag. Which is so overkill that it's ridiculous; you don't need nearly that much destructive firepower to cripple or destroyer a planetary civilization.
1. Uhm, no they're not protecting anything. Thats what they want you to believe.
2. There is no such thing as threats to national security right now. In fact, I cannot recall any time that the USA has been invaded, and I'm not talking about a distant island like Pearl Harbor or something, but North America's inhabited areas, towns cities, etc. If the USA has really been invaded for real in the past, please do mention it.
Anyway, the whole national security thing, is really a big fat propaganda, and its working quite well. Kudos to the US government.
3. I said it doesnt matter whether a trained killer is an efficient one or not. Morally speaking of course.
4. Oh yes, my opinion on whether these wars are noble/correct or not has everything to do with the subject at hand. And sadly, morality, ethics, right and wrong, are usually irrelevant for most people, and that is not only disapproved, but also rewarded, because a US president that has supposedly stopped a "terrorist group", by declaring war to them, killing thousands of people in the process, is mostly going to have the US people on his side, and get a nice Christmas bonus for a job well done. Just saying.
So basically, what I'm trying to say here, is that everything else like profit, social status, career advancement, etc comes first, and moral, ethics, human life, whatever you wanna call it, always comes second, and that is usually considered normal, and rewarded, in most cases.
1. I disagree; mainly because terrorist attacks against US soil have occured; September 11, 2001 is the prime example. Planes were suicide-piloted into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and nearly the White House. Such an attack could quite possibly have decapitated quite a substantial portion of the US government.
2. I doubt the national security issues are really propoganda. Really, the security issue is that there are small groups who happen to hate America for whatever reason, and these groups are trying to get their hands on weapons that can do significant damage to targets on US soil.
A national security issue can also be in the form of a sensitive information leak, like Julian Assaunge (sp?). You know why Assaunge isn't airing Russia's or China's classified docs? Cuz they'd kill 'im, plain and simple.
Incidentally, if Ronald Reagan were president right now, Assaunge would be dead. Reagan didn't mess around when it came to ensuring America was protected from anyone who could, directly or indirectly, hurt it.
3. Morally speaking, that's arguably true; however, I disagree with the idea. Here's why:
An efficient killer will generally kill only the person(s) who are confirmed as "the bad guys". The idea is that the efficient killer is able to use only the force required to kill, and not any more or less. An inefficient killer will either not use enough force to kill, thus leaving the "bad guys" alive, or he'll use to much, and possibly cause collateral damage.
In my mind, at least, an efficient killer would be capable of eliminating all hostile forces with zero, or unfortunately failing that, minimal collateral damage. So an efficient killer is better; they have a much less risk of causing collateral damage, in the form of property destruction, or more importantly, civilian deaths.
4. Well, that really depends. Has this terrorist group actually harmed or stated an intention to harm the United States? If so, then yes, the American people would be behind a president that has claimed to have lessened or eliminated said terrorist group. If he's lying, he's pretty much screwed. If the group hasn't done anything to America then it's a bit iffy.
On the one hand, who knows if said group might not have declared ill intentions against America. OTOH, who knows if said group might have been formed to destabilize a corrupt government, and replace it.
The thing about killing, is that sometimes, there's simply no other way to fix a problem.
As for the idea that profit/status/career comes before morality/ethics/sanctity of life, well, we live in a fallen world, wracked with sin. The placement of profit and status over morality and human life isn't the problem, it's the symptom. That's not to say those things aren't bad, just that they aren't the uber-huge problem lots of people make it out to be.
