The mindset of, "I will placate the attacker and hopefully they will get theirs later," is a very recent concept in the history of man. Not even 150 years ago, men used to duel over honor. Men would certainly face death before having their houses robbed. Train robbers extensively armed themselves, because they needed the overwhelming firepower in order to quell resistance (which usually still occurred.) I am still waiting for the Western in which a passenger train in robbed by a group of men armed with only boy scout knives.
As to observations of history, I am still searching for anything concerning your 2001 Sudan example (thanks for a name of the battle, place, forces, etc.) and the 2001 Sri Lanka example. The only thing I can find in that time period concerning military gains and losses by the Tamil Tigers is that they took the Elephant Pass in April 2000 and have held it ever since.
Fine, then your examples of the Sri Lankan military and the Sudanese military are definitely wonderful examples of prestigious, and ingenius, military tacticians. Which, of course, is why Sri Lanka and the Sudan are such formidable military powers.
I love how you have absolutely no credibility in discussing military operations, tactics, or history. You flat stop arguing the comparison between the American Civil War and the current situation in Iraq, which was born out of your redefinition of why Iraq is in disorder (I think that happened after I posted death tolls and locales), once I demonstrated that unlike Iraq, mass violence occurred across the current states in the US and that it occurred in an astronomically higher proportion of death toll to population. So, now you come here, and what started out as a discussion over terrorists in Mexico then turned to a discussion over what you believe to is an easy task, sneaking nuclear weapons across the border. I stated it involved more sophisticated coordination, which leads to a heightened ability by our intel community to pick on the operation, in turn leading to a very difficult mission for the terrorists, especially in relation to 19 guys walking on planes with box cutters. I stated that this would not happen now, because now Americans clearly see the price of being passive in the face of any hijacker, stating clearly that the passengers on board were pacifists. You then tried to jump from 50 men against 4 on a plane to military situations in which troops are "overwhelmed," your words not mine, and they retreated, therefore in you tried to twist my logic to call these troops cowards and pacifists. I challenged you to present me with a battle in which troops retreated, giving no resistance (a condition of pacifism) against the enemy, and you came up with very vague examples. The example of the Mongols has been proven wrong, by me. As, tempting your foe into an ambush is not at all pacifism. If they were truly pacifistic, the foe, who chased, would have routed them...it did not happen. Your other three examples, the Israeli's, the Sudanese, and the Sri Lankans, are either lacking in historical timing, or completely inconclusive. Until I am proven wrong though, I will continue to maintain that while retreating they offered resistance to the attackers.
