no, tw, i am not trying to pervert any of your posts or put words into your mouth. contrary to what you may believe, i think that you are an intelligent, educated individual with a drastically different world view than i hold. i was shocked to read what sounded like a declaration that generally, officers are more intelligent than enlisted. i asked you a question hoping you would clarify.

you want specific proof that enlisted people are as intelligent as officers? what would be sufficient? IQ test results for every member of the military? you are asking for proof of something that cannot be proven in a text book fashion. what we can do is step back and look at the sea of humanity we see everyday. are managers necessarily more intelligent than their employees? are people in "professional" careers necessarily more intelligent than those in non-"professional" positions? to think that intelligence can be judged by a quick glance at rank, job, or pay would be a mistake.

a mistake that i didn't believe you would make.

Uh, nobody has mentioned draftees....you know.....the ones that fought in Viet Nam. :eyebrow:

That sounds like a blanket indictment to me. You were painting every enlisted man with the same brush and depicting them all as being like the typical Vietnam era draftee. Senior NCO's hardly deserve to be subject to such blanket condemnation, nor do the draftees, for that matter.

My father didn't listen to the local rock station. He preferred Johnny Cash, but he still had grave misgivings about Westmoreland. I don't know if he ever read Sze Tzu, and its too late to ask him now. Was he atypical of a top ranking enlisted soldier (E-9)? I don't really think so, other than his knowledge of Latin, perhaps.

What percentage of the Army is E-9? :question:

I don't know.

Once when I was a child I can remember asking my Dad why he didn't join the officer ranks. He replied, "Because I'd have to accept a demotion to 2nd lieutenant!" :D

Again, you can distort anything and everything I have posted by changing the perspective. What clearly was never a blanket statement is changed into "sounds like a blanket indictment". Serious mistake on your part. If I stated that, then you can cite the specific sentence that says that. If I don't state it, then assume I have intentionally led you astray so that your emotions would make wrong conclusions.

Assume what I have posted as bait for your emotions; so that you would ASSUME. That is not my intent. But stated often, I post bluntly. That means I don't waste time with politically correct statements. I am not a politician. Therefore it is easy for one to pervert what I had posted into implications and 'sounds like' misrepresentations. Again, where is the exact sentence that 'sounds like' anything? If that sentence does not specifically say it, then 'sounds like' is only personal bias.

Tell me how long the coastline is around Britain. We measure from space and get a specific number. Then we move down to an airplane's perspective. Suddenly there are numerous inlets and other geographical features that maybe double that coastline. Then we walk that British coastline to find far more coastline as the beach curves in and out. Then we take a microscopic perspective - measuring the beach as it curves around each grain of sand. Completely different numbers are due to different perspectives.

Was I lying when I provided Britain’s perimeter from space? I was 'painting with a broad brush'. Therefore I am wrong? No. But if you don't use my perspective - if you take what I post out of context - then you could even prove I will be a racist murder for the KKK. Perspective. Context. 'Sounds like' is not sufficient for valid reasoning. At best 'sounds like' is only enough to wildly speculate - only enough to justify a question.


A valid point is that enlisted men in Vietnam clearly were even less intelligent than their counterparts today. Of course. Few had any interest in advancing their intelligence. Do your time and get out. The music of that time listened by a massive majority of enlisted men told the story. "WAR ... what is it good for. Absolutely nothin'"

BTW, intelligence is created by working at it every day. Only part of intelligence is inherited. Intelligence is created more by 'viruses' such as curiosity, doubting, incessant reading of what was once boring, and using the concepts of science as routinely taught in school. In Vietnam, few wanted that intelligence. A disease created and promoted by a crook who was also a lying president (85% of all problems ...).


Officers are better trained, have more insight, and get their job by having more intelligence - can better see the bigger picture. They must; it is their job. There is no way around that fact. Meanwhile, what does a better army do? Increase the intelligence of its lowly enlisted men. Do better trained enlisted men make for a smarter army? Absolutely. But does that make enlisted men smarter than their officers. Maybe when it comes to firing a 105 Howitzer faster – a technically smarter enlisted man. But not when it comes to the most important facts in any army - such as its strategic objective.

Perspective. Don't distort the perspective I have posted. In some ways, you have done what Lookout123 does. Convert clear trends into an assumption that all enlisted men are dumber then their officers. Easy to change my post by taking the wrong perspective - taking what I have posted out of context. 'Sounds like' or 'implies' is not sufficient to interpret what I posted. Where is the irrefutable fact that I even implied such conclusions? A logical response would post the exact sentence where that 'sounds like' comes from. Where is that exact quote - the irrefutable fact?

There is good reason why officers tend to go to college and have advanced degrees whereas enlisted men do not. There is very good reason why the military schools train everyone as an engineer. The former have more curiosity, a quest to understand why - the bigger picture, a firmer grasp of reality, and must follow up with more questions and doubts. Such are required of officers. Such is less desirable in enlisted men (which is why accusing only enlisted men of torture in Abu Ghriad is a mockery of intelligence thinking).

The latter tend to get a job, learn to do the tasks, and don’t spend substantial time advancing their education in things such as advanced math, psychology, or quantum physics. Enlisted men do what their officers say or intend - which would be exactly what happened in Abu Ghriad.

Again, some enlisted men prefer not to ask those questions that officers are required to ask because, sometimes, enlisted men regard knowing too much as hazardous to their own health and attitude.

Stated is a complex analysis which is more consistent with reality. There is nothing in this post or any previous post that can be analyzed by 'sounds like'. Sounds like is how Oprah fans and a Jerry Springer audience make judgments. If it 'sounds like', then where are the exact quotes, numbers, and underlying science that justifies that 'sounds like' conclusion. Cite the irrefutable fact such as the specific sentence.

BTW, how did 2nd LTs survive in Vietnam? They first turned to their Sgt and ask, "How do we do this". The sign of an intelligent officer.

AND an intelligent Sgt who got them out of the mess that the green 2nd Lt had put them in! ;)

I'm not going to argue semantics with you, and its true enough that most officers tend to be better educated than most enlisted men, especially if we start comparing E2's and E3's to majors and colonels.

In today's military, however, many do join the enlisted ranks precisely because the military holds out the carrot of a college education, so you can hardly condemn today's rank and file soldier for not wishing to better himself or having a lesser intelligence.

I suspect the Vietnam era draftee would have displayed more intelligence if he had been asked to risk his life for an intelligent cause. The cause in Vietnam was far from an intelligent one and the unwilling soldiers who were swept up to be cannon fodder for Johnson and Nixon showed great cunning in merely staying alive.

Dear, dear, dear, Marichiko. How monomaniacally unwilling you are to be fair. Everyone but you knows that is BS. Perhaps you should take up cultivating roses instead of trying to take me on, for you are palpably defeated this day, and your carryings-on are in vain.

Frothings from you aside, that's just my estimation of how much time and experience it would take to play the pipes well enough to do a good public performance. Most playing of the great Highland bagpipe out of doors is necessarily rather public anyway; there's no way to play the things softly, unless you count stationing the piper on one hilltop and his audience on the next one over.

True enough -- if that were the case with the Kurds and the Shi'ites. Did not the both of them rise in revolt against Saddam? You don't revolt if you aren't oppressed, tyrannized, and generally living in a hell, which is exactly the situation when you're living under a dictator whose rise to power partook more of the nature of a mafioso than a U.S. President. I'd say they've got the desire and the will. Do you see Iraq changing course because the Rump Saddamites are leaving bent and blasted car parts all over? No you don't. Did not reporters before the war advise us that Iraqis from Baghdad, when the government minders weren't around, were privately telling them, and I quote, "If the Americans don't come, I'm going to kill myself." They were done with Saddam. True, they might have been done with Saddam eleven years before had we not been afraid of losing the Coalition and aided the rebellions to finish the job then, as the people who reckon Soldier of Fortune was right about it advocated, but in the end the tyrant is still fallen -- as much of his own misunderstandings of what he was doing and having done as anything we might accomplish in our campaign.

I shall assume that an unjust recompense for Iraq's travails as a nation would be the return of a Ba'athist dictatorship.

Bored, not going to answer further and better things to do with your time? I'm glad I've more honesty than to use such childish and transparent phrases to conceal an acknowledgement of defeat on the merits of the matter. I know the sound of a defeated America-should-lose-this-because-I-don't-want-liberated-foreigners-no-matter-how-small-the-cost, and you're making that sound.

But there are other things in this. Clearly there is so enormous a chasm between Marichiko's worldview and mine that neither of us can even reliably perceive the other's important core values, let alone understand or appreciate them. Sure, not taking casualties is preferable to taking casualties -- but that is not an option in a general war, and this one is far more general than bombing targets in Kosovo. We have no known enemies who are too incompetent to blood some of us and kill others. The measure of the worthiness of America's cause is not to be found in our soldiers not getting hurt.

The worthiness of soldiers is not found in dispatching them to self serving political causes - such as fixing the Middle East only for the greater glory of "Project for a New American Century". A truly respected soldier is deployed for reasons justified by a smoking gun. If a US soldier was indeed respected, then soldiers would have been in Afghanistan - hundreds of thousands - to find, capture, or destroy the real enemy.... Osama bin Laden. A deployment so worthy that even NATO would deployed for the same objectives. A deployment so worthy that even former Soviet Republics and Libya's Kadaffi endorsed and supported that objective.

Instead a US president would lie - blame Saddam - so that soldiers would be deployed for a personal political agenda. Lie to even alienate NATO allies. Like in Vietnam, lie so that American soldiers have doubt about their mission. Lie so that even the Defense Department now changes the parameters of victory - to minimize the possible impact of defeat.

How could a government so disrespect its soldiers? We are supposed to have learned from Vietnam to never do that again to the American soldier. We have so disrespected the American soldier that Osama bin Laden still runs free.

Osama bin Laden still runs free. Those with respect for the American soldier and American principles would never have let that happen. Why is Urbane Guerrilla so silent about disrespect for the American soldier and American principles?

Now that is a 100% agreement with what I posted. Why so much disagreement previously? No semantics. You just posted exactly what I was posting.

Rewriting History -- oh really?
 

TW, this is going to be fun. For me, anyway.

The quarter million that did come are sufficient to prove my case, leaving zero justification for your views. They did not run to Hanoi, but away from it, and in some cases more than once. Communist Vietnam was a hell hole, and it improved once they stopped trying to practice Communism on the streets of Saigon (I will not name a city after Ho.).

Those reeducation camps for South Vietnamese with the temerity not to like the Viet Nam Cong San were what? Summer camps for underprivileged urban kids? The fruits of some figment-tree of right-wing conspiracy, postwar? The penalty for being politically incorrect from Hanoi's point of view was mostly slow death and occasionally a quick one. This is the surest mark of a tyranny, and it is one you missed by half a parsec. That's pretty incompetent thinking, TW. Don't do that; I'll bite big raggedy chunks out of you every time.

You can't even copyedit as well as I do, yet you expect me to take you seriously as a thinker? The bar's a bit higher than that, TW. Meet it or lose.

This was Ho's move to find a power sponsor who could back him against the French. It's interesting, but after that, what? How much substance is there in might-have-beens?


The blame does not fall on the armed forces. It falls on trying to fight a polite war, which was done in the nation's capital -- an error which today's Administration, having experience of Vietnam, is determined not to repeat. Neither the Kennedy nor the Johnson Administrations knew how to win Vietnam, and in the losing of Vietnam, the domino theory was vindicated also: South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and additionally Burma fell into darkness. That not all the available dominoes fell is just our, and their, good fortune, not a disproof of the concept.

TW, were I your history teacher, I'd give you a failing grade. You're bad at this.

The more rumors I hear about the PNAC -- got it bookmarked somewhere -- the more I think I'd approve of it in almost every particular. Seems to be about making everyone free, freer, and richer.

What happened once those fears were unfounded? Oh. That means UG must now learn all of history. Did Vietnam change anything that caused people to stop fleeing? Of course not. People stopped fleeing - and many returned to Vietnam - because Vietnam was not the hell hole that an enlisted man is so sure existed. An enlisted man who will be exposed for rewriting history in direct contradiction to US government accounts.

Ahh but writing fictional history is fun. One is not encumbered with all that dirty reality.

Allow me to appreciate what UG has just posted. Pulp fiction is nothing more than an excuse for using dirty words. Meanwhile, Nationalist Vietnamese wrote a Declaration of Independence only so that the US would come to their aid? A document as fundamental to them as the US Declaration of Independence is to Americans was instead written only as a cheap and dirty ploy to get America to come to their aid? Invent history when you don't know the answers?

Ho Chi Minh asked to become a protectorate of the US because ... well even the US government says why he made those requests. So which one is lying - Urbane Guerrilla or the US government? Urbane Guerrilla - at least learn what the US government said before you rewrite history for personal gain. Yes it is fun to write fiction. But better fiction writers first spend years learning reality before writing their fiction. You have just contradicted well published US government documents by saying IOW you again invent history to suit your needs. You have been caught and exposed. The domino theory was a lie predicated on a now universally discredited theory that Vietnam was part of a global communist agenda. A global communist conspiracy necessary to justify a widely discredited Domino Theory did not exist. What you describe as targets of that Domino Theory was nothing more that civil war - leading to far more corrupt government in Cambodia. Thailand instead remained true to their people and therefore suffered no coup. How can that be if the Domino Theory was valid? Only the ill educated would still believe the Domino Theory.

A polite war? Where do you come up with these myths? America used every asset of our conventional war machine in that war. Armed forces in Europe, S Korea, etc were sometimes stripped down to almost decommisioning to fight a *polite* war. We even considered using nuclear weapons. We lost almost 10% of our B-52 force. When did that become a *polite* war? Urbane Guerrilla - are you the reincarnation of a disgraceful American General named Westmoreland? You also change history and facts to promote your agenda.

Even Johnson, in recently released tapes as president, admits the American war in Vietnam was not winnable. Even Johnson says UG has misrepresented the facts. Blame does not fall on the armed forces. Blame belongs on top management who both literally and intentionally lied to create a Vietnam War. Deja Vue. We do it again to American troops in Iraq. Even worse, Urbane Guerrilla endorses the trashing of American troops and American principles. He even puts up 'straw men arguments' about blaming the armed forces. The military was but another victim of lying Generals and civilian leaders. But again, Urbane Guerrilla conveniently declares the military was blamed.

Urbane Guerrilla has even posted history in direct contradiction to what the US government has published. When Urbane Guerrilla does not know history, he invents it. The Vietnam Declaration of Independence was a ploy to get American support against the French? UG - who do you think was paying the French - according to US government documents?

Meanwhile here we are again making the military another victim of a lying president and his "Mission Accomplished" war. When I say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, well, we have Urbane Guerrilla as a perfect example.

TW, you have written at length, to an unexpected end: neither you nor I know what the hell you're talking about.

Refugees do not flee nice places. How many run away from the United States?

What unfounded? Do you not know that Laos and Cambodia were conquered by communists? There's a pattern to your representations here...

Something you're not discussing, and I am, is the question of are they following the libertarian impulse behind such Declaration? They aren't, AFAIK, doing that even nowadays. Had they done something other than the usual communist oppression, purges, and poverty, they wouldn't have had refugee one. I'll take the evidence of a quarter million fleeing, preferring pirates, robbers, and dying of thirst at sea on rafts, to ordinary daily life under communism, over all of your pravda, TW.

And this is known; I addressed that in my previous post. It is known that he was disappointed in this, and that he turned instead to Red China and the Soviet Union, both of whom were hardly unwilling to spread Communism, and with a religious fervor about it, to yet another region undeserving of such monstrousness. Did Ho set up anything but yet another Communist prison state? I'm unaware of Ho's state doing anything Mao would have taken exception to. You have to understand totalitarian systems are evil, impoverishing, and wasteful of life before you can understand anything of history, TW, especially the history of the twentieth century. For an instance -- and such an instance! -- non-democracies perpetrated every single genocide in the twentieth century. Such understanding is less than evident in what you post.


Who needs a global conspiracy when a regional campaign of expansionism will do? Who needs a conspiracy when you consider that at its base communism was a sort of religion? What did the communists do besides go on jihad? What did they succeed in doing besides kill folks by the many tens of millions over seventy years and make folks poor? What you present as argument is not so much history as collectivist-totalitarian pravda, which you've swallowed hook, line, and sinker. How does it feel to be in a fellational relationship with the shades of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao? I'm sure I'll never find out for myself.

Where do you fall in the political quiz over in Politics? I'd like to see your numbers.

Cambodia had communists in its hills, for years upon years. You want corruption? Look at the wonders the Khmer Rouge performed upon the Cambodian population. Corruption? -- better say Cambodia was run by crazy people. Whatever one can say about Norodom Sihanouk, he wasn't an ignorant maniac like Pol Pot. The domino fell.


Okay, here I'll cut you some slack because you've never thought of it this way, and are completely at sea.

Look at the limitations we clamped on our strategy: we stopped at borders, rather than go harrying the enemy wherever he might flee. Polite. We made a point of not bombing war matériel north of the Chinese border, rather than doing everything to break their power to battle us. Polite. It became even more absurd: rather than destroy the sinews of war everywhere in or near North Vietnam, we publicly restricted ourselves to only bombing targets in certain patches of North Vietnam. Beyond polite; this was born to lose, and the idea didn't come out of the people doing the fighting. This totally allowed the North Vietnamese to install missile sites to shoot at our guys -- unmolested in the least. We were so concerned about bothering a pack of totalitarians committed to an inhuman system that we forgot to win the war.

Having lived through the 1960s, I don't recall that Richard Nixon thought of it in quite this way. He seems instead to have possessed the Republican capacity for resolve in war. Even with all our too-polite strategy, the communists remained stalemated until we left in 1973.

This paragraph constitutes a most astounding misreading of this one:

"The blame does not fall on the armed forces. It falls on trying to fight a polite war, which was done in the nation's capital -- an error which today's Administration, having experience of Vietnam, is determined not to repeat. Neither the Kennedy nor the Johnson Administrations knew how to win Vietnam, and in the losing of Vietnam, the domino theory was vindicated also: South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and additionally Burma fell into darkness. That not all the available dominoes fell is just our, and their, good fortune, not a disproof of the concept."


What, this again? Was Ho Chi Minh NOT seeking outside aid? Was this NOT directed against the French? Ho was already done with the Japanese. I've never said it was a ploy and I'm not going to. Please cease to misrepresent the matter.


Are you saying that immediately postwar we somehow shouldn't have been helping a very battered wartime ally? And is there any particular relevance in this, or indeed anything astonishing?

What you've posted here is remarkably congruent with the kind of pravda that communists and their fellow travelers would say. TW, you do not have anything to teach me.

Hypergraphia. It's not just for tw anymore.

but this is a good thing. there is now a countervailing wind, and we can be buffetted by gusts from both sides.

I'm sure they're reading each other's posts, but I wonder if anyone else is.

No offense to either of you. You're just really....voluminous. My old newspaper editor would be having fits.

I can't say I understand terrorism any more than I did before.

well, as long as you understand that enlisted people are stupid, then all is well. :eyebrow:

HAHAHAHAHA!

I'm trying to figure out what a right-wing military junta in Burma has to do with communists.

They do have an agreement with China, but that might have more to do with our relationship with China than losing Vietnam.

Well, just hold this thought, ya dumb NCO!

BTW, how did 2nd LTs survive in Vietnam? They first turned to their Sgt and ask, "How do we do this". The sign of an intelligent officer. :lol:

Well, my Dad fought in Burma during WWII. Probably he bungled something since he wasn't an officer and that explains it all! :mg:

Well again Urbane Guerrilla demonstrates fictional knowledge of history. Ho Chi Minh asked to become a protectorate of the US because Ho Chi Minh feared ..... Red China. Well documented in US government analysis but not found in "The World According to Urbane Guerrilla". Same documents that the US government feared Americans would read.

Those documents were widely published and read by Americans who learn from history rather than rewrite history. Urbane Guerrilla would even claim that Saddam was participatory in attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. He is again doing as the George Jr administration would do; rewrite history when convenient. Maybe Urbane Guerrilla will also declare "Mission Accomplished"?

Interesting how history will be rewritten to justify the invasion of Iran. Let's consult an expert. Urbane Guerrilla: what is the historical justification for an invasion of Iran? Legal precedent found in a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? Or is being defined as an axis of evil is sufficient? Maybe their election was rigged. Would that justify an invasion to rescue democracy in Iran? Maybe we could arrange a Gulf of Tonkin in the Persian Gulf? So many good myths from Vietnam could justify the invasion of Iran.

Ho Chi Minh asked to become a protectorate of the US in five letters to Truman because he feared Red China. Urbane Guerrilla tells us that Ho Chi Minh went to Red China for help. From what? Red China?

Nope.

Remarkable how many Americans think some other Americans believe that, and will insist to the rest of us that somebody else, somewhere on the continent, believes that. However, actually finding such people is damned hard -- I certainly don't know any.

Let's see, what did North Vietnam get from Communist-bloc sources? Every rifle they fired at us once they'd run out the supply of catch-as-catch-can WW2 surplus, every cartridge also fired from these SKS and AK rifles, and the PPSh submachineguns and their cartridge, which also means the Tokarev semiauto pistols that fire the same cartridge, every ChiCom grenade, every SA-2 Guideline missile, and every MiG-15, -17, and -21. Both Red Chinese and Soviet sources, if memory serves. Ho got this largesse through fearing Chinese dominion? Please.

But that won't be enough evidence for you, TW. No factual evidence will ever jar you from your fellow-traveling. You are now trying to turn things to make ME the issue. You will fail, as you generally do. It's pretty clear you're only going to find out what you're up against the hard way.

UG Rewrites more History
 

From The Weekly Standard entitled
Case Closed UG - just a little more history you forgot to learn before you rewrote it.

More Examples of History Rewritten
 

Johnson finally conceded that his Generals, especially Westmoreland, were lying to him. The war was not winnable. So Generals (and Urbane Guerrilla) wanted to take the war into other nations. The same Curtis LeMay, who also claimed we would win a nuclear exchange, agrees with UG. How scary is UG's world?

From McNamara's own analysis, Ok Urbane Guerrilla. You tell me about a Nixon who had a resolve for war. Nixon literally sent every remaining conventional weapon we had against N Vietnam. Results were exactly as virtually every intellegence agency had predicted in the 1960s. There were no military significant targets in N Vietnam. Bombing would not deter a nation from its declaration of indpendence. But then winning the war was not a Nixon agenda.

Having lived through the 60s, you only learned what was convenient. By 1969, this was a fact from the field as even stated to Johnson by Gen Westmoreland when Westmoreland was asking for another 1/2 million troops. The Vietnamese would match our troop strength no matter how many troops we sent into Vietnam. How is that war winnable when we remain in the world of reality?

Nixon also would not commit additional troops we really did not have. The 'polite' war had severely tapped out most conventional weapon systems. There were no reserves to deploy. And winning the war was long proven not possible as Nixon's own actions proved. Nixon was only interested in 'withdrawing with honor'. Just as long as a unilateral withdrawl did not happen under Nixon's watch. This was Nixon's secret plan to end the war. Sacrifice good men from my generation for his greater glory.

Realizing how badly the war was going, Nixon even proposed mutual troop withdrawls - and N Vietnam rejected the offer. Obviously. Why would N Vietnam that was winning the war and fighting for independence instead withdrawl troops? Meanwhile Nixon felt that as long as he keep up the war, then a N Vietnam flag would not fly in Saigon until after 1972. Nixon was primarily worried about how a N Vietnam flag in Saigon would affect Nixon's reputation; America be damned. Some Democrats also had the same self serving agenda - to make it more of Nixon's war. Again, America be damned.

By 1967, no S Vietnam military units would patrol at night. S Vietnamese unit commanders could be punished if they lost material in a VC battle because their primary mission was to protect the government ... from whom? Even in 1965 as well as in 1970 This was a war that UG claims America could win? Ironically, Americans are just as restricted from movement in Iraq. Deja Vue.

Richard Nixon's primary interest in that war was to not have a N Vietnamese flag in Saigon until after 1972. Just another fact from history that UG rewrote.

Lets see. Something like 10% of the US B-52 force was lost over N Vietnam. Was this to cause them to surrender? Of course not. Even Nixon had conceded that victory was not possible. The B-52s were deployed to force N Vietnam to negotiate (in earnest) in Paris. The B-52s were a last conventional military option - the war was going that badly. Nixon deployed it to force a stalemate. Knowing that, Nixon still sent tens of thousands of my generation to their death. You talk honorably about this man. Shame on you for rewriting history only because it suits your self serving opinions. Shame on you for having so much contempt for the American soldier.

UG still knows that war could have been won. He also rewrites history when it is convenient. His lying exposed earlier in this thread. He even tries to change history about a mythical Saddam / bin Laden alliance. How convenient when he can rewrite history at will.

Urbane Guerrilla probably thinks Iraq will eventually be conquered. "Mission Accomplished" or Deja Vue. It means the same thing when history is nothing more than pulp fiction.

TW, you are very much at pains to misread what I write, and the Case Closed article is one familiar to me. What you antis just refuse to wrap your minds around is that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys -- but didn't himself do 9-11, and we who want to win this understand that. We also understand that Ba'athist Iraq was part of the overall problem we would have to solve. Just as Hitler didn't bomb Pearl Harbor but needed to be defeated, so with Saddam. It is not legitimate to insist that Saddam doesn't parallel Hitler's case: he does. Dictators are more alike than different -- these two even share a penchant for facial hair and uniforms. What to do about dictators is more similar than different case by case also.

While I don't necessarily think US forces will be there at the end, the terrs in Iraq are notable in achieving absolutely nothing now, and will in the end be defeated -- by the rest of Iraq. They have nothing to offer but murders in aid of returning to the previous tyranny. The rest of Iraq isn't interested, and won't allow it.

I don't draw any particular link between them either. They are as isolationist as Radar and over twice as cranky. Combine this with totalitarianism and the army and police, and you've got Burma/Myanmar as one fucked-up sweet-potato patch.

As they put it in The Green Mile, "That's a bad combination."

Noxiousness need not have a global conspiracy to be noxious.

Who cares...they don't have anything we want. :headshake

Can UG Prove He is not Lying Again?
 

When caught lying, then a liar can either apologize for his mistake, OR he can ignore the accusation. Urbane Guerrilla, caught rewriting history for a self serving agenda, instead posts The enemy of fundamentalist Islamics extremists (ie Al Qaeda) are secular governments. Since Urbane Guerrilla has been exposed lying about Vietnam, he now changes the topic to Saddam. He claims Saddam was hooked up with people who were Saddam's most dangerous enemies. Saddam of Iraq, Asad of Syria, Nasser and Sadat of Egypt, and Hussein of Jordan are all secular governments - targets of the same people that Urbane Guerrilla tells us that Saddam was, instead, allied with.

In "The World According to Urbane Guerrilla", enemies are allies? Same pulp fiction claimed that America could have easily won the Vietnam War. Same pulp fiction claims that the US only fought a "polite" war in Vietnam. Same pulp fiction invents myths as to why Ho Chi Minh asked to become a protectorate of the United States. Same pulp fiction that claimed the US was not forcing democracy on anyone (even though a 15 August US deadline is being imposed on the Iraqis). UG now pretends he did not invent those fictions.

This goes right to the personal character of Urbane Guerrilla. You advocate wasting of good American lives by justifying lies; inventing enemies; posting pulp fiction to cover up insufficient knowledge of history. Many good American died because a president also did same - for a self serving agenda. Why would Urbane Guerrilla disparage good American solidiers - of past and future? Your integrity and honesty is the question. UG doesn't even deny lying about history - especially when caught doing it repeatedly. Instead UG pretends those lies were never posted.

Saddam was not a threat. A well proven fact. Even George Jr no longer makes that claim that UG now posts. Still Urbane Guerrilla would promote a myth that has long since been proven wrong - "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". This way UG need not admit to lying about Vietnam.

Well UG - prove it. Don't wait for the translation. I am prepared to wait for hell to freeze over. Your next post, if you are an honest man, will prove "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". Show us that you are not just Rush Limbaugh high on hard drugs. Show us. Can I make the challenge any more obvious? Prove your accusation or admit to, again, posting more lies. You made the claim. Prove it. Show us "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys".

TW, you are not seeing the whole forest because you are fascinated with about three of its trees. If Islamoterrorism is to go away, its sponsors must be finished off.

Islamoterrorism doesn't happen without the say-so of Islamic governments or government entities. It keeps transpiring, for a somewhat far-flung instance, that Indonesian Islamoterrorists have covert ties with the Indonesian military. And just how many Islamic nations/governments are on the list of terrorist sponsors? Two that were recently knocked off that list are Afghanistan and Iraq. Still on it are Syria and Iran among others.

That was proven by the "Case Closed" article, which you were so kind as to link to and to exerpt from. Really, TW, your analysis of all this can most charitably be described as eccentric, and more clearly described as friggin' bonkers, and nobody thinks your silly personal accusations have any basis.

Let this stand for several other instances of a peculiar view of this. The Iraqis, having had the obstacle to democratization the Saddam régime constituted removed, are setting forth a constitution for a democracy, and unlike TW, they are not complaining about getting it done by mid-August. They figure, nothing loath, that a constitution might as well be drafted by a certain date and be ready for a plebiscite then. Imposed, quotha!

TW is driven by the insane belief that the United States must be the root of all evil, apparently because, well, it's the United States. So he goes hysterical whenever this anti-American orthodoxy is criticized, or, God or whatever forbid, challenged. As long as you use this for the basis of your thinking, TW, you can be nothing but wrong. And you still don't know any twentieth-century history. Telling me you do doesn't help you. I'm not crazy enough to believe it.

Your terrorist nation list is promoted to people who need not first learn history. Indonesia as a terrorist nation is clearly absurd; only for those who blindly believe; reality be damned. Only an extreme right wing agenda - to even promote hate and justify more wars - would make that claim.

Meanwhile, those 'Islamoterrorists' are a greater threat to the local secular government including Syria, Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, the many K'stan nations, Pakistan, western China, and Saudi Arabia. UG, learn from history rather than blindly believe what a drug addicted Rush Limbaugh tells you to preach.

Who almost killed the Prime Minister of Egypt? Who then later and successfully killed Nasser? Who was so close to killing Syria's Asad that Asad literally massacred something like all of 10,000 people in towns that were 'hotbeds' of 'Islamoterrorists'. What government supported and encouraged these 'Islamoterrorists' attacks? IOW why do you post facts that are invented - fictional - created to promote a political agenda much like the Nazis did in 1930s Germany and Milosevik did in 1990 Balkans?

IOW this is about the character and integrity of Urbane Guerrilla:

Don't wait for the translation. I am prepared to wait for hell to freeze over. Your next post - as a liar must do - avoided "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". Show us that you are not just Rush Limbaugh high on hard drugs. Casting blame on TW does not get UG out of this. Outright and intentional lying is the most unforgivable sin one can practice here. Prove "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". An honest and credible Urbane Guerrilla could prove "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". Prove it. Show us that you don't just rewrite history when it is convenient - that you have a shred of honesty inside you.

We are now stuck right here on the character and integrity of Urbane Guerrilla who refuses to: show us "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". How cold is it in hell? I don't need a forest to recognize lying. Show us that Urbane Guerrilla has some integrity. Answer the question.

Least you forget:

Here ya go. From page 1 of a Google search of "saddam terror link"

Ugly web page, but the pictures are pretty damning. Don't want a debate -- I can't go toe-to-toe with every 3-page instance of random, disjointed, encyclopaedic facts about unrelated wars (I'm at work). So I will just leave the site out there as a visual aid.

British Plan to Deport 10 Foreigners


You gotta love those Brits. They don't screw around with niceities, PC, or profiling and they don't take :turd: from no one.

The man himself was a terrorist.. lest we forget the Kurdish gassing, etc.

When you look at the antiwar rhetoric, the attempts to demonize a perfectly respectable SCOTUS candidate, and the general shrillness of the left for the last 5 years, something becomes more apparent every day. The only real platform the Democrats are running on these days is "sour grapes over the results of the last two elections".

If they put as much effort into finding real solutions as they did into trying to neutralize any and all Bush efforts, we might actually get somewhere.

I don't want to start a new thread, but
 

next time you see someone ranting because the poor blacks and mexicans are disproportionately fighting and dieing in the middle east - show them this.

for some reason i can't grab the actual chart, so you will have to follow the link. what i see is that of all the deaths in Iraq:

1,265 have been white
195 hispanic
185 black

not that you would hear that on the evening news.

It's Flash so you'd have to do a screen grab.

Who the hell is ranting about blacks and hispanics disproportionately fighting in Iraq?!?!?!?!?!? My God! have we really run out of things to truely gripe about!!!??? What do these people think, that the war in Iraq is yet another underhanded way the "man" is beating the brother down? :meanface:

As far as I know, lookout123 is the only one ranting about it. I haven't seen it anywhere else.

I've heard of people ranting about the disproportional number of blacks in Vietnam, but not Iraq. Maybe I'm sheltered. After all, I'm sure you can find someone somewhere to rant about any paricular issue.

Read Allah's Torch, by Tracy Dahlby, you incompetent.

While the situation there looks defusable from the international relations viewpoint, I don't think we've heard the last of them.

As evidenced by the worthy TW. Good thing I'm not going to take him seriously. He shows me yet another example of what leftism does to the weak-minded -- further data.

"Least" you forget? -- don't ever try hiring on as a copyeditor.

The way the American courts work they would have found the airlines complicit in the Sept.11th attacks if the Feds hadn't prevented it. :eyebrow:

i haven't heard many people ranting about minorities in combat recently. Al Sharptong was a few months ago, i've heard Dean do it once or twice but it didn't really catch. then i had a client come complaining because they were taking all the mexican soldiers and sending them to Iraq to die so no "white boys" would have to. that conversation motivated me to look up the actual numbers, coincidentally CNN ran the numbers during the same week. so there you go - more insight into the twisted thought process of lookout.

Well, this being America, the difference is not really race, but economics. After all, OJ and Michael did find justice. Poor white kids and poor black kids join the Army. It is the employer of last resort and is a way to make some money and, if someone is ambitious, get training.

This war was slightly different in that there is a large National Guard and Reserve element. I would say that the Guard skews more towards middle class than the regular Army. Most of them have civilian jobs. A lot of them bought that 'The National Guard has not been called up since WWII' line.

Urbane Guerrilla, as a typical left or right wing extremist must do, cannot admit he had no proof for his speculation "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". He admits, using silence, of no knowledge that "Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". Silence is preferable to being honest when playing propaganda games.

Centrists first need facts before making a conclusion. Extremists will even lie to justify preordained agendas. Urbane Guerrilla will not admit it, but honesty appears to be not part of his character. That is the problem with having extremist and preordained agendas. Honesty no longer matters when propaganda and the agenda is more important.

Of course, UG still could demonstrate honesty. He still has the oppurtunity to prove his statement "that Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". He admits, by silence, of no knowledge that "Saddam was hooked up with the terror guys". But he can't for two reasons. 1) No proof exists AND 2) that would be contrary to who Urbane Guerrilla is. Honesty and extremism are mutually exclusive.

But who is Urbane Guerrilla? Can Urbane Guerrilla name someone who is too right wing for him; more right wing then himself?

For the second time, TW: Case Closed was proof. It exists. You linked it here. You proved my case. And you just can't admit that non-democratic regimes have such a penchant for warmaking that they'll employ proxies as cat's-paws -- to make war. The dictatorships about which TW has such a blind spot continue to behave wrongfully unless firmly checked.

I am enjoying your demonstration of your neurotic thinking in your Fenimore Cooperesque verbiage, and as I said, you will fail in making me the issue. I enjoy seeing fanatics dig themselves in deeper: they are ineffectual, so. Whattaya know, honesty and extremism are mutually exclusive.

The Birchers are too right-wing for me. So are the LaRouchies. The KKK aren't really right-wing though -- their thinking isn't sane enough. Despite appearances, at their core Nazism and the other brands of fascism are really more leftist than rightist, with their "the State is all" philosophy: collectivism and aggrandizement of the State are of the left, not the right -- check von Kuhnelt-Liddehn for a rather impressive argument for this.

The Left is without virtue, TW. Don't whore after their false gods. I don't.

Terorism Local vs. global - need to understand the difference
 

Cannot claim to have read every comment/view that went before, but have some obesrvations.

Terrorism is international because we make it appropriate for it to be that way - Israeli support/bias, Iraq regime change being prime culprits. Give a man a good enough reason (stimulus) to react and he will - the harsher the reason the stronger the reaction. That applies both ways. From the 'terrorist' angle, take foreign interference out of the equation and how long would international 'terrorist' reaction be justified, or better still supported? Sure there would always be regional 'terrorist' reaction to regional issues - Irish with UK, Basque with Spain, and so on - but the reason to take a local issue to another country would evaporate - to maintain the support needs ongoing 'in-the-face' reason (stimulus). Think of the product life cycle of anything and you will appreciate that interest will only be sustained in any product/situation so long as there is sufficient stimulus to do so. Remove this and over time the original reason will be surpassed by a more attractive/novel/original cause to support. Hence the fact that we cannot tar everything that happens with a common brush but must acknowledge and accept that there are specific factions that rise and then fall in popularity. Saddam doesn’t = terrorism, doesn’t = international threat, but take away Saddam and you create the vacuum that terrorism can fill where there is a deluded and wanting public. Add the international element that evicted Saddam and is seen as supporting Israel over Palestine, and mix that with a faction of terrorism that acts against international interference and you have the volatile recipe that has fuelled the current well-baked cake of disruption.

A key question then is: have we gone too far to achieve a return to local/regional reaction? The deeper you are entrenched the harder it is to extract yourself and it will be brave international leaders that have the courage and foresight to find the means and support to withdraw on an international level and overcome the short-term economic and strategic risks and consequences that such action precipitates.

Clearly the current aggressive approach is not working and serves only to escalate the crisis. Poverty has a link to the extent that it causes the local population to share an identity of common cause when there is nothing else to give them hope of changing their status - and of course they have time and will enough to follow the leaders that court their attention. The poor need one or both of: freedom from poverty and/or reason to support another doctrine.

Time now therefore to put effort, not into aggression, but to achieving the withdrawal of support for 'terrorist' reaction on an international scale while preserving the status quo in economic stability. Achieve that and international threats will reduce to local issues can be dealt with – byte sized pieces that can be attended to with the appropriate level of action and remedy locally, without requiring an international presence. A difficult objective but is there really any other way…?

That was just about the most sensible post in this thread I've seen thusfar.
:beer:

It is a thoughtful post, but it still ignores a few basic facts:

1) Extremist imams call the shots in much of the middle east.
2) These imams call for the eradication of ALL Jews.
3) Israel is our ally. Muslim extremism therefore is targeted at America by default.
4) Terrorism has always been international. The only reason for its absence on American soil is not appeasement or negotiation, but the threat of our military might.

By attacking Iraq, we have achieved the following:

1) Terrorist acts are not occurring here, as on 9/11; when they occur, they tend to happen there, where they can be contained, and the perpetrators can more easily be killed or captured.
2) Those acts that do occur internationally are directed at our allies, to reduce support. They are not happening in the US, because of two things:
.....a) we have a highly effective anti-terrorism machine.
.....b) because we have shown the will to respond with force, terrorism on our soil will not reap the benefits it did in Spain. Britain's latest events were tests of resolve, which were passed with flying colors. They'll pick on another ally next time, unless I miss my guess.
3) Iraq is no longer a source of income and shelter for terrorists. It's a place for them to meet Allah, which achieves our strategic goals as well as their personal ones. Win-win! /sarcasm
4) When we pull out, Iraq will have a democratically elected government, and a police/military that is prepared and motivated to to fight their own war on terror. It will also serve as a buffer between extremist nations, hampering their ability to operate at will in that region.

Abandoning Iraq will scuttle any hope of freedom from terror for its citizens. The first wacko imam to the capitol building will take over, and every death will have been in vain. This is an acceptable alternative to our anti-war crowd because it gains them a domestic political victory. That's sickening.

We have to win in Iraq. It will stabilize the area and send a strong message to other countries that harbor terrorists that we are committed to eliminating the threat that terrorism represents. That is the only way to get their cooperation. Diplomacy and sanctions only work to a point. They are utterly useless tools against extremists whose only goal is to die in the jihad against the west.

IMO, were aren't being targeted because we are friends with Israel, but because we are the biggest and tuffest dude on the block who has thier fingers in everyone's counties. A lot of these extermists are young, unemployed, highly impressionable kids/young men who are looking for a better life. When you have someone telling you how you can have a dozen virgins feeding you moldy grapes for all eternity and become a local hero in the process, they want this. Since the Russians pulled out of Afganistan, they ran out of reasons to die for...enter the U.S. who is not going anywhere for a long time. We are high profile and can be viewed as bullies when it comes to implementing democracy on other contries. What better way to justify Jihad and get a few points under your belt than to take out a few hundred Americans.

I think the real reason why we haven't been attacked again is because Al Qeada is masters at biding thier time. They can wait months, years, even decades before striking. Time means nothing to them. True, we do have a better infastruction that has prevented some serious potential attacks but the majority of our Anti-terrorism machine is still covered up in bubble-wrap and located in some storage wharehouse somewhere. I don't think it's as effective as we are being led to believe.


We can not eliminate terrorism, it has to run it's course. Eventually, the extermists will grow tired of this way of life and move on to something else (possibly more sinister). The only way it can be defeated externally is if the entire world grows tired of thier people dying in sensless and brutal deaths, bands together, and begins to erraticate all Muslims wholesale in an event that will make Milošević look like Walt Disney (not going to happen).

Excellent. This is the crux of the reason why conventional war/battle/force will not work in the defeat of terrorism. You can't threaten death to someone who is praying for death...literally. They got nothing to loose. You kill them, they become martyrs. You let them live, they become martyrs. You hit them with sactions, they become martyrs. You...well, you get the picture.

I cannot agree with a lot of what you say mrnoodle, but I suspect that would be stating the obvious. To give my reasons - your words first f/b mine hopefully in Italics if the programming works as it should::

1) Extremist imams call the shots in much of the middle east.
** There are extremists in many countries - we have the BNP, France has Le Penn for example. They are unsuccessful because the bulk of the population has a civilised lifestyle as a result of the existing regime. These extremists' message has no value for the majority and so they are ineffective. The answer is to render the imams ineffective - trying to eradicate them turns them into either living or dead martyrs, and, as Hobbs says, that feeds the extremist regime.

2) These imams call for the eradication of ALL Jews.
** as above

3) Israel is our ally. Muslim extremism therefore is targeted at America by default.
**Just because Israel is your ally does not mean that everything that your ally does is right. The strength of a friendship is in the ability for one party to influence the others actions for their benefit and the greater benefit of others. Rightly or wrongly Israel is seen as an aggravant whose actions appear to receive wholehearted US support. Change that view to change the view of the extremists

4) Terrorism has always been international. The only reason for its absence on American soil is not appeasement or negotiation, but the threat of our military might.
** Not true on both counts. Having lived through decades of our own 'terrorist' problem in Northern Ireland, I do not recall that the problems we faced extended beyond our shores. We may not have solved the Irish issue but we have achieved much more than many with a protracted ceasefire and a return to a level of normality in daily life that, whatever the differences might be, none of the affected parties is in a hurry to throw away. This was not achieved by the might of the sword but by the might of the word.

By attacking Iraq, we have achieved the following:

1) Terrorist acts are not occurring here, as on 9/11; when they occur, they tend to happen there, where they can be contained, and the perpetrators can more easily be killed or captured.
**Not sure I understand the logic here - on this basis the acts should be diminishing but they certainly are not

2) Those acts that do occur internationally are directed at our allies, to reduce support. They are not happening in the US, because of two things:
.....a) we have a highly effective anti-terrorism machine.
.....b) because we have shown the will to respond with force, terrorism on our soil will not reap the benefits it did in Spain. Britain's latest events were tests of resolve, which were passed with flying colors. They'll pick on another ally next time, unless I miss my guess.
**The perpetrators are not afraid and as Hobbs says it is only a matter of time. The longer that aggression towards and destruction of the factions is the objective there will be counter-attack. I tend to agree with Hobbs that it might not be hitting US soil right now but that is not to say it won't. Also IMO the attacks on Britain are unlikely to be the last.

3) Iraq is no longer a source of income and shelter for terrorists. It's a place for them to meet Allah, which achieves our strategic goals as well as their personal ones. Win-win! /sarcasm
4) When we pull out, Iraq will have a democratically elected government, and a police/military that is prepared and motivated to to fight their own war on terror. It will also serve as a buffer between extremist nations, hampering their ability to operate at will in that region.
**Unfortunately the democratically elected goverbnment failed to attract a major section of the population who have not signed up to the new way. As a a result, there is more likelihood of ongoing civil unrest and even a splitting of the nation into two opposing and warring factions. You simply cannot force a way of life on to a people that does not recognise that way as being any part of their culture. They will rebel.

Abandoning Iraq will scuttle any hope of freedom from terror for its citizens. The first wacko imam to the capitol building will take over, and every death will have been in vain. This is an acceptable alternative to our anti-war crowd because it gains them a domestic political victory. That's sickening.

We have to win in Iraq. It will stabilize the area and send a strong message to other countries that harbor terrorists that we are committed to eliminating the threat that terrorism represents. That is the only way to get their cooperation. Diplomacy and sanctions only work to a point. They are utterly useless tools against extremists whose only goal is to die in the jihad against the west.[/quote]
** I can almost agree your words in the last two paragraphs, but I would be applying the words to a different concept. Diplomacy has to be the better answer (not the only answer) as foreign intervention of an aggressive and dictatorial nature certainly will never achieve longterm stable results. I certainly do not advocate abandoning the situation for the very reasons you state. However, eliminating terrorism does not mean killing the perpetrators, to my mind it means rendering them and their doctrine ineffective by making it unpalatable and unattractive to the highest possible proportion of the population. Winning in Iraq for me means achieving that.

The only way the US (or the West in general) could possibly give the population of such countries a civilized lifestyle is to first move in and take over from the governments who are currently there. Are you sure you want to support such overt imperialism?


Ridiculous. The extremists will hate Israel no matter what the US does, and they'll hate US support of Israel as long as it exists, whether or not that support appears "wholehearted" or not.

It's imperialism if you're determined to stay and exact tribute from the resulting subjects. Absent staying...

Considering the fact that terrorists do not sit in one place waiting to be attacked, how does the 'threat of our might' stop them. After 4 years we still can't find Bin Laden, the most wanted fugitive in the world. We can raid all the houses and caves in Iraq, but have still failed to lower the number of terrorist attacks.

Terrorists (and rebels, insurgents, etc) do not fight from fixed bases or capitals. They cannot be invaded. They hide in neutral or allied countries.

It's possible that our improved security has made it harder to attack the US, but it's really not possible for Bin Laden or Al Qaeda to become even more wanted by us, so I don't believe that they are holding back out of fear that we will want to kill them even more than we do now.

We're building the biggest embassy in the world there, and I doubt the military bases we're building are temporary. As for tribute, we'll see.

Fox News reported this week that the number of terrorist attacks in Iraq has dropped for the third month straight. The number is down by about a quarter from three months ago, but the bangs are getting bigger. Fox also remarked that they didn't know whether it was us or them -- Rump Saddamites losing steam or the calm before another storm?

Monkey, the solidest and most objective evidence out there is that our Middle East policy is not and never was all about oil. Israel? Nary a drop that didn't get there by tanker. We had an army sitting atop the Rumaila Field, which is the biggest of Iraq's oilfields. We drove off it, packed up and went home. Didn't even pump barrel one for a souvenir. I believe and credit that solid and objective evidence. Being immunized against conspiracy theory, I don't get sucked in by the kind of thing you're believing in.

[quote=Cyclefrance]** There are extremists in many countries - we have the BNP, France has Le Penn for example. They are unsuccessful because the bulk of the population has a civilised lifestyle as a result of the existing regime. These extremists' message has no value for the majority and so they are ineffective. The answer is to render the imams ineffective - trying to eradicate them turns them into either living or dead martyrs, and, as Hobbs says, that feeds the extremist regime.

You raise an important point in your response to the above Russotto. It was not my intention that the example of 'civilised lifestyle' should be associated so directly as a solution to extremism in every case (it was supporting the European examples given) but the effect was that you made that connection. There you have it: intention vs. effect. How often is that behind the wrong result. No doubt the US intended/intends to make the US and world a safer place through its actions, but the effect has produced and continues to produce something else. The answer in such situations surely is a rethink and change, not more of the same.