Long Distance Phone Call Execution

[TheMercenary]

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Okay... V's not doing any research himself in apparent hopes of making me mad or something. [Marvin Martian]Very Angry.[/Marvin]

Zen's just making me confused. Perhaps it's a Koan thing...

". . . You are worthless Alec Baldwin/You are worthless Alec Baldwin..." Come to think of it he never did leave the country, did he?

[Edit] Hmm, lots and lots of hits for Napoleon saying it, and lots of near-miss references to Sun Tzu talking about the making of mistakes. That's what it looks like so far. I found one hit that could be misread to attribute it to Nietzsche, but that was a matter of juxtaposition and reading the text shows Napoleon.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

DPRK wouldn't manage any too well against the modern American military, regardless of how many million they have under arms (roughly two), because they are not a modern army but a mid-twentieth-century one, with the feeblest of economies behind it. I say we'd mulch them. We own the day, the night, the air, the sea, space -- everything but the bush over the fighting hole. It would be a matter of our firing two million rounds.

Deja Vue Nam. Oh. Lesson from history is BEFORE Urbane Guerrilla rewrote the Pentagon Papers. Amazing how a military so advanced as to 'bomb them into the stone age' only 'bled to death' in a jungle. Then 30+ years later make the same mistake in a desert when another crook was president.

If UG had ever learned Military Science 101, then he knows why Nam was lost, why a strategic objective is essential, and even why war is the only solution according to wacko extremists on both sides. If UG had learned anything, then he understood why Jimmy Carter's (Nobel Prize honored) deal from the mid 1990s, destroyed by wacko extremist Americans, had to be reestablished by Condi Rice only after heavy handed pressure from China. American wacko extremists could never understand constraints upon Kim Jong Il as he carefully attempts to bring his country (and wacko extremists) back into the world and without being deposed (murdered).

Of course, all this was discussed by those with simple grasp on 28 February 2007 in North Korea fires missles including a detailed analysis in Radio Times on Wednesday, 5 Jul 2006 with Mike Chinoy. Since then, Condi Rice has proven that two year old analysis was correct. Our wacko extremists did not get into a shooting war as they also so desperately wanted over a silly spy plane incident in China. Wackos always see solutions only in military operations. The purpose of war is too complex for them. UG would know this if he bothered to understand Sun Tzu's writings.

How could UG have seen reality? Required is a simple grasp of Military Science 101. But a serviceman need not learn basic military concepts if they intend to remain an enlisted man and desk jockey for 20 years. No wonder UG routinely rewrites history. Otherwise he would have to admit the fallacy in his politics.

Those with basic knowledge could easily see why Kim Jong Il was saber rattling. How he was doing it was so obvious. He was trying to reestablish the Jimmy Carter solution - to bring his nation back into the world without getting murdered in a coup d'etat. In a wacko extremists world of 'black and white', 'good and evil', and perspectives, then Kim's real objectives would be too complex for wacko extremists to comprehend.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Kim Jong Il carefully attempting to bring his country back into the world?

Beyond belief. What gases in what percentages make up the atmosphere of your world, tw? You don't seem to inhabit the Earth.

You certainly don't seem to grasp the behavior of tyrants at all accurately, but that's par for the course. You're a lot better at troubleshooting automobiles, it seems, than in the people arts of politics. Those auto fixing posts were the best things you've ever written on the Cellar, and I hope you do more. Your strengths lie there, and those posts were worthy things. Certainly much more worthy than trying to attribute farsighted, humanitarian action to Kim Jong Il.

When it comes to realities in politics, they and you don't intersect much; a Venn diagram would show two separate circles, for all the accuracy you've ever shown -- especially when you're trying to fathom my thinking and predict it: the kindest description is "wide of the mark."

Tw likes to try disparaging my grasp of military science, without actually demonstrating any ability or knowledge at military science himself. I wonder when he'll give it up as unsuccessful?

He sinks into his usual slough of delusional thinking with his insistence someone somewhere wanted a war over "a silly spy plane incident." Proof is lacking. Tw cannot provide proof, and can't understand that he's a liar. In incomprehension is unrepentance, it would appear. We don't buy your Big Lie tactics, tw. You suck, hard. About 40 bars, I reckon.

He then continues in his misery, projecting a fallacy in my politics. I laugh, secure in the knowledge of just how much better at this I am than he.

Tw, kid, I can't be as stupid as you need me to be for your predictions about my thinking and behavior to come true. I can tell you that, but you can't understand. The deficiency is all yours, the smugness all mine, and justified.

And you're hopeless at foreign phrases. Google's your friend, you know.

[regular.joe]

TW, are you a Military Officer? If so, which component, what branch, what rank, and TIS?

If you are an officer, or a cadet of some kind, you better get your head out of your 4th point of contact when it comes to your ideas of enlisted men and women.

[classicman]

[lookout123]

don't bother questioning tw's (mis)conception of what the military is like. he is as likely to magically turn into a purple cougar as he is to show any capacity for learning what it is really like.

[ZenGum]

Just sifting through TW's post, I think there are two points. He's my take on these ideas - as far as I can make them out.

One is military. Sure, the US would win a conventional war Vs North Korea (provided China stayed out of it) - but, then what?
How long until the liberators would be viewed as occupiers? Would there be a guerrilla campaign? and the real biggie ... how could the US rebuild a stable nation ready for reintegration into the local neighbourhood, out of people who have been brainwashed for 50 years that the rest of the world, especially the USA and South Korea, are pure evil and want to destroy them?
Which leads to the second point, which is political. UG is right that the US military would make short work of the conventional PDRK military, but this is only part of the question. Without a workable political solution, military victory is in the long term futile. This was the problem in Vietnam and has been the problem in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"If all you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." The US has one hell of a hammer, but if the job is changing a light bulb, the hammer just makes it harder.
So the deja vu TW is on about is that this military ability gets the US into political quagmires. Sure, the conventional war would be won... then what? Nation building is not the US's forte. Imagine trying to do it out of the screwed up mess that a post-war North Korea would be.

Oh and don't forget ... they DO have The Bomb. If they were cornered, as a last resort, using a tactical battlefield strike within their own territory ... I wouldn't rule it out.

I'm probably wrong in my TW scholarship. My apologies to you TW if I've got you way wrong. But TW? "Deja vu". Not "vue". Or "déjà vu" to be really precise.

[lookout123]

i think the objection to tw's post centered on his dig at enlisted men. it is a frequent tactic he uses to try to rile people up. he knows that a couple of people he tangles with frequently were enlisted so he insinuates that the reason enlisted folks are enlisted rather than officers is an intelligence issue. i'm sure he could puke up an encyclopedia or something to support his view, but it has no basis in reality. just a little tw-ism.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The North Koreans are more interested in food than insurgency. Most of them would probably head south at the first opportunity.

And no, they don't have "The Bomb". They managed to set off one crude explosion of questionably nuclear material.

tw's perspective is not from a military position, but of civilian scholars that study military moves and their results. You know, the people that planned Afghanistan and Iraq.
Attacking North Korea would be another example of their expertise, in telling the military how to wage war... ie, fiasco.

[ZenGum]

Lookout, yes, Joe's did, but there was more to TW's post than that cheap shot.

Bruce, yes to this:

The North Koreans are more interested in food than insurgency. Most of them would probably head south at the first opportunity.

But that still would be a huge flood of refugees and all the chaos that would create.

But to this:

And no, they don't have "The Bomb". They managed to set off one crude explosion of questionably nuclear material.

Basing my position on what I recall from the Japanese and western media, it probably was nuclear. Yes, it was crude. That is small consolation to me. I am presently downwind from the Korean peninsula, I would prefer the absence of filthy, contamination-scattering crude nuclear blasts in the general area, thanks.

OK, I just googled and Wikied. Radioactive isotopes indicate there was a nuclear blast. Yield estimates range from 0.55 to 12 kilotons. Probably about 1 or so. This means it was probably a fizzle - kind of worked but not properly.
It was still a nuclear blast. Fizzles are likely to be filthy. I'd rather not have them about, thanks.

[tw]

Originally Posted by regular.joe

If you are an officer, or a cadet of some kind, you better get your head out of your 4th point of contact when it comes to your ideas of enlisted men and women.

Apparently you missed my point entirely. The point is why some people even after 20 years service will never be anything more than enlisted man material.

The service defines a major difference between officer and enlisted man for good reason. Enlisted men who do understand the bigger picture (ie a concept called the strategic objective) may become officers. Even Powell and Shinseki (I believe) rose through the ranks this way because they could grasp and categorize these larger perspectives. They could see the bigger picture. Clearly neither lookout123 nor Urbane Guerrilla can.

Well defined is the purpose of war - which neither nay sayer still grasps. The purpose of war is to move that conflict to a negotiation table. There is no purpose to or value of war IF the negotiation table can solve the problem.

Numerous recent examples of people with an 'officer material' perspective exist. Holbrook got Milosevic to negotiation himself right out of office. Jimmy Carter avoided war by simply addressing Kim Jong Il's problem. Powell and Jimmy Carter solved Haiti without military conflict. Kennedy's grasp of the bigger picture in Cuba and his repeated 'put downs' of Gen Curtis LeMay's solution is why we all exist. In every case, war would have accomplished nothing while negotiation solved everything. These concepts are too difficult for the enlisted man UG who can only find solutions in overt conflict.

Others have danced around (have some grasp) of those basic military concepts including a silly, unnecessary 4th generation war in North Korea. They also see the futility in what an enlisted man (who will never be officer material) cannot.

Grasping the need for a strategic objective is fundamental. No strategic objective means no victory. What is the strategic objective in N Korea? UG knows if we bomb them into the stone age, then we will win. He never learned the lessons from Nam or "Mission Accomplished".

I don't know what your above 'quoted point' is about. However we have been through this before. Was it Onyxcougar who also misinterpreted that statement by saying her enlisted man father worked in HQ? Yes, some enlisted men who never become officers can see the bigger picture. But that is completely irrelevant to my point.

My point is about a 20 year enlisted man who could never be officer material as demonstrated by his solutions to everything: more war and bigger guns.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I'm just starting to read Thomas P.M. Barnett's Blueprint For Action: A Future Worth Creating. So far, I'm fascinated. I'll probably be talking about this book's ideas from time to time.

Then he discovered Barnett discusses, for example, how to secure oil by doing NOT what George Jr, wacko extremists, and UG recommend. UG never posts ideas from a book that is quite comprehensive and that demonstrates how his idea of military imposition does not work. In fact, UG perverts quotes from Barnett's book to again promote a 'big dic' solution.

Some who will never be anything but enlisted man material read Thomas Barnett and still completely miss the point - the bigger perspective. For example, UG never comprehended Phase Four planning. 'Planning for the peace' before conflict even begins is completely lost on UG and lookout123. That means grasping concepts well beyond what is in front of a gun barrel. That means seeing the bigger picture: officer material.

These concepts were why I could see the dangers of "Mission Accomplished". These concepts - the same mistakes made in the liberation of Kuwait - were unexpected. Those same people would never make the same mistake again? Cheney, Wolfovitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, etc would never be so dumb as to ignore basic military doctrine? And yet that is exactly what these fools did. They, like UG, also view resolutions only in 'big dic' concepts. No wonder they would do anything necessary to create war in Iran, North Korea, and a shooting war with China over a silly spy plane. Not officer material because they do not grasp basic MS101 concepts such as strategic objectives or the purpose of war.

The enlisted man was not disparaged. Exampled is an enlisted men who never will become officer material - who cannot see solutions beyond the point of a gun. These are 'big dic' types; who advocate war as a solution to everything.

[lookout123]

The service defines a major difference between officer and enlisted man for good reason. Enlisted men who do understand the bigger picture (ie a concept called the strategic objective) may become officers. Even Powell and Shinseki (I believe) rose through the ranks this way because they could grasp and categorize these larger perspectives. They could see the bigger picture. Clearly neither lookout123 nor Urbane Guerrilla can.

This is what i was talking about. tw has a misconception about what the divide between officer and enlisted is all about. but he continues to throw this little gem out when discussing military/political issues with people who were enlisted. apparently he thinks it gets under their skin or something. unfortunately it is just evidence of his unwillingness to try a new concept or learn anything because people have tried to explain career paths and rank structure to him. eh, whatever. can't expect much from a little muppet. he does make a nice little pet though.

[regular.joe]

Well, since I'm not talking to a military officer, I guess I have to consider the source.

The only difference between this material and "officer material" is that I won't suck dick for a living.

More to the point, many enlisted men and women choose their vocation, and career path in the military. You can see the "big picture", and set all the policy...steer the ship all you like.

Enlisted men and women work on the ground where the rubber meets the road.

After all the big wigs make their big picture plans, we will be there to clean up their mess and make em look good.

Don't disparage enlisted men and women as somehow being less then. The ability to regurgitate all them cool facts and figures...with flow charts, doesn't amount to squat when hot lead is slapping off of the concrete wall to your front. It's all balls and action at that point.

I know this is a thread about Korea. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

That's all I have to say about that.

[lookout123]

ok, if we put away the attitudes and call a ceasefire on the pissing contest we can just some it up this way: those that have spent time in or around the military understand that the rank structure is not designed around intelligence or ability. it is designed around job descriptions.

many career paths require an officer rank even though they are quite menial jobs and don't have much in terms of planning or leading. some career paths require enlisted rank even though the people in the field may have advanced degrees. they may spend their days doing logistical and strategic planning. you don't start as an enlisted guy, do really well at your job and become an officer. a commission is not a reward for a job well done.

the rank structure has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence and abilities. mmmkay?

now back to the actual topic if you all want.