Jack Kelly: Give Obama the potato test
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Ilíon wrote:
Now, can you seriously believe they will not regard "free" soldiers in the same way?
As a percentage of total Democrats in the Congress, how many served in the armed forces? As a percentage of total Republicans in the Congress, how many served in the armed forces? Where did you do your service, chicken little?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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oilFactotum wrote:
So what?(I respect your service, BUT - ) That gives you no right to put others in harms way.
What it gives me is the ability to know what I am talking about. people who talk about harm's way and have never been there are poseurs.
oilFactotum wrote:
When strategies motivated in this manner fail to achieve their goals, that merely shows the need for more will because to change strategy at all would send the wrong sort of message about our resolve."
Call it what you will. It worked in Korea; it worked in Vietnam. We didn't need to show more will, all we needed to do was live up to our obligations to South Vietnam.
oilFactotum wrote:
You still haven't addressed how we would have gotten to that point,
We were at that point. A peace treaty had been signed. The North had affirmed the right of the South to continue to exist. Read your history.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
What it gives me is the ability to know what I am talking about.
Assuming you were in combat, it does mean your opinion on combat carries weight, but it doesn't mean much at all when it comes to how we could have won or why we should try.
Oakman wrote:
It worked in Korea;
No, it didn't. We accomplished our goal of preventing the conquest of South Korea, and the Chinese accomplished their goal of preventing the conquest of North Korea.
Oakman wrote:
it worked in Vietnam
No. Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City.
Oakman wrote:
We were at that point. A peace treaty had been signed. The North had affirmed the right of the South to continue to exist. Read your history.
You've got to be kidding. The treaty was a fig leaf for American withdrawal and everyone knew it.
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Oakman wrote:
Put down your matches. We're not burning anyone at the stake tonight, Torquemada.
How terrible it must be to exist in such a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance as you do. Poor thing. :laugh:
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I have noticed is that whenever you can no longer defend your position at all, you resort to calling the other person a liar, in the header of your post. How, pray tell, is "As a percentage of total Democrats in the Congress, how many served in the armed forces? "As a percentage of total Republicans in the Congress, how many served in the armed forces? "Where did you do your service, chicken little?" A big lie? Other than you are pretty sure you won't like the answers to the firts two questions and you know I'll laugh at your third answer, I mean. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Oakman wrote:
What it gives me is the ability to know what I am talking about.
Assuming you were in combat, it does mean your opinion on combat carries weight, but it doesn't mean much at all when it comes to how we could have won or why we should try.
Oakman wrote:
It worked in Korea;
No, it didn't. We accomplished our goal of preventing the conquest of South Korea, and the Chinese accomplished their goal of preventing the conquest of North Korea.
Oakman wrote:
it worked in Vietnam
No. Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City.
Oakman wrote:
We were at that point. A peace treaty had been signed. The North had affirmed the right of the South to continue to exist. Read your history.
You've got to be kidding. The treaty was a fig leaf for American withdrawal and everyone knew it.
oilFactotum wrote:
No, it didn't. We accomplished our goal of preventing the conquest of South Korea, and the Chinese accomplished their goal of preventing the conquest of North Korea.
Wake up and smell the roses. The war started because the North wanted to conquer the south. We made forays into the North (which did, indeed, scare the shit out of the Chinese) but that was not our goal.
oilFactotum wrote:
No. Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City.
Which is exactly why the left is blamed for the loss of Viet Nam. Now that you have explained it so well, I need not say anything more.
oilFactotum wrote:
The treaty was a fig leaf for American withdrawal and everyone knew it
Remind me - As part of "everyone," how old were you in 72?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Al Beback wrote:
expensive gasoline, expensive health insurance, expensive food prices, plumetting real estate values
Been to Europe lately? :rolleyes:
Mike Mullikin wrote:
Been to Europe lately?
Not lately, though I hear they wipe their butts with dollar bills these days. :^) Do you think America can do better, or is it OK because it doesn't suck as much as X?
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
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oilFactotum wrote:
No, it didn't. We accomplished our goal of preventing the conquest of South Korea, and the Chinese accomplished their goal of preventing the conquest of North Korea.
Wake up and smell the roses. The war started because the North wanted to conquer the south. We made forays into the North (which did, indeed, scare the shit out of the Chinese) but that was not our goal.
oilFactotum wrote:
No. Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City.
Which is exactly why the left is blamed for the loss of Viet Nam. Now that you have explained it so well, I need not say anything more.
oilFactotum wrote:
The treaty was a fig leaf for American withdrawal and everyone knew it
Remind me - As part of "everyone," how old were you in 72?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
The war started because the North wanted to conquer the south.
So what? The Chinese didn't intervene until we crossed the 38th parallel. They would not have intervened if we had not crossed it and tried to conquer North Korea.
Oakman wrote:
Which is exactly why the left is blamed for the loss of Viet Nam.
Really? The left is blamed because we lost. Well that does make sense. :rolleyes:
Oakman wrote:
Remind me - As part of "everyone," how old were you in 72?
Old enough to get a draft card. So, you admit that the peace treaty was a fig leaf? So lets recap: You haven't provided any suggestion of how we would have won(actually I'm more interested in you acknowledging the real cost that would have been incurred by the attempt). You have not provided any rationale for why we should have made the attempt. You threw out the red herring of Korea as if the two conflicts are comparable in regards to why peace negotions occurred - because American willpower drove them to negotiate - not true in either case. You irrelevantly attack my age and experience to distract from the actual points at hand.
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Al Beback wrote:
Please explain what that means. How would you prefer it?
I want way less government in my life, way less social programs and less entitlement programs and therefore way less taxes taken from me.
Al Beback wrote:
And what would be the risks associated with that?
The risks of too much socialism is apathy and everything that leads to... The risks of too little government is that people who refuse to even make an effort to be self sufficient may die early.
Mike Mullikin wrote:
I want way less government in my life
Yes, stop controlling what I watch on TV, what I hear on the radio, how fast I can drive on the highways, what I can or can't do inside my car, what substances I can put into my body... I agree.
Mike Mullikin wrote:
way less social programs and less entitlement programs and therefore way less taxes taken from me.
Yeah, it's about the money. I hear you. Have you actually broken down how much of your money is used for those programs you want to eradicate, versus how much of it is wasted in wars, corporate handouts, or to pay our national debt? Here's a link I found: http://www.cbpp.org/4-10-07tax2.htm[^] What pieces of that pie would you be keeping if it were up to you?
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
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We had some groups, or so I was told, that were with the tards up in the mountains, but basically, you are right. I had a senior moment. I guess the image of the fall of Saigon is so burned into my memory, I forget that the guards there were the only uniforms left.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
I turned 18 in october of '71 and went into the Navy January '72. We were involved in the clean up operations with the withdrawal (demining Haiphong Harbor,for example) So my memories of it are pretty vivid. If you've seen the video of the helicopter being pushed over the side of a ship, that was our sister ship that had just relieved us a couple of weeks before.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Mike Mullikin wrote:
too damn socialist for my tastes.
Please explain what that means. How would you prefer it? And what would be the risks associated with that?
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
Al Beback wrote:
And what would be the risks associated with that?
A complete repudiation of everthing the United States of American was ever intended to be, everything our soldiers have fought and died to protect us from, everthing our ancestors escaped Europe to free themsevles from. Aside from that, no problem at all.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
They will be falling all over themselves to implement a full blown European social welfare state as quickly as they possibly can. And I do not believe that American society is ready for it.
Really? You may be right. American society does seem quite content with expensive endless wars, expensive gasoline, expensive health insurance, expensive food prices, plumetting real estate values, and a worthless currency. God forbid our next administration and Congress takes steps to curtail those things. :rolleyes:
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
Al Beback wrote:
You may be right. American society does seem quite content with expensive endless wars, expensive gasoline, expensive health insurance, expensive food prices, plumetting real estate values, and a worthless currency. God forbid our next administration and Congress takes steps to curtail those things
And obviously the only cure for that is socialism.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
On the other hand, the military of the 1960's was designed to fight two major wars simulataneously
That was the theory. However, it was not tested.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is difficult to believe that we have gone from that to being incapable to taking out a few minor backwater nations without a draft
We have allowed Putin and Wen Jiabao to forge bonds with Iran which puts limits on how much taking out we can do - though I have no doubt that we could return them to the stone age if no other consideration besides miliary might was present.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If we had kept these assholes in front of us rather them letting them infiltrate the society we are trying to stabilize it would have been much better.
Bremer and Rumsfeld hurt this country as badly as if that was their purpose. It wasn't, of course, and I am sure they think of themselves as patriots, but their monumental ineptness did more damage to the U.S. that anyone could have thought possible.
Stan Shannon wrote:
the society we are trying to stabilize
We would have done far better to leave Saddam in power and begun to support him again, if that was our goal.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Still, things are not looking all that bad in Iraq right now dispite our incompetence.
Petreus is a miracle worker. That he has done so much with so little is amazing. I only hope his deputy is at least half as good. But, and 'tis a big but, our troops are being used up. Even though casualties have been reduced, they are still in harm's way 24/7. No-one, no matter how good a soldier, no matter how professional a soldier, can keep going day after day, month after month, tour after tour. Nor is my reading that Iraq is more stable. Just safer. There are still three factions, none with the upper hand, all believing they deserve to rule the other two, and all planning on getting sole power as soon as we leave, whether that's next month, next year, or three years from now. Joe Biden had the right of it awhile back - the only hope for what is left of Iraq is to create a three-state confederation - and the oil geography make that pretty impossible.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Bremer and Rumsfeld hurt this country as badly as if that was their purpose. It wasn't, of course, and I am sure they think of themselves as patriots, but their monumental ineptness did more damage to the U.S. that anyone could have thought possible.
But you cannot place the blame entirely on them. I've always opposed the very concept of small, "smart", limited wars, but the end of the cold war (the end of history) lulled our entire political system to believe we could draw down our military and do with less. That was clearly a mistake.
Oakman wrote:
Petreus is a miracle worker. That he has done so much with so little is amazing. I only hope his deputy is at least half as good. But, and 'tis a big but, our troops are being used up. Even though casualties have been reduced, they are still in harm's way 24/7. No-one, no matter how good a soldier, no matter how professional a soldier, can keep going day after day, month after month, tour after tour. Nor is my reading that Iraq is more stable. Just safer. There are still three factions, none with the upper hand, all believing they deserve to rule the other two, and all planning on getting sole power as soon as we leave, whether that's next month, next year, or three years from now. Joe Biden had the right of it awhile back - the only hope for what is left of Iraq is to create a three-state confederation - and the oil geography make that pretty impossible.
I don't disagree with that. I have never believed that you could take out one or two countries in that region and rebuild them into some kind of democratic republics willing to stand as models of American hegemony. The entire region, especially the power centers, must be dismantled for there to be any hope of that. On the other hand, however, we Americans have got to understand that the wars we are most likely to confront into the future are precisely the kind we face now in Iraq and Afganistan. There will be no more prestine noble causes where we are the clear cut and unequivocal good guys. If we cannot stand united as a people, even when the cause is less than certain and as our leadership struggles to evolve effective strategies for how to win them, we have very little chance of ever again being successful militarily regardless of how large our military is. Our troops are indeed sacrificing tremendously, but is it really more than they sacrificed in
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Al Beback wrote:
You may be right. American society does seem quite content with expensive endless wars, expensive gasoline, expensive health insurance, expensive food prices, plumetting real estate values, and a worthless currency. God forbid our next administration and Congress takes steps to curtail those things
And obviously the only cure for that is socialism.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And obviously the only cure for that is socialism.
No, it's more of the same. X|
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
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Stan Shannon wrote:
(However, I do concur with the need for a draft).
No we don't (#). When I was a kid and the draft was ended ... by the "evil" :rolleyes: Nixon ... just before it was time for me to register (*), I would have agreed that the US needs a draft. Now that I am old, I vehemently opposed to a draft (**). (*) I went down to register, they told me to come back in a month. When I came back, they had pretty much closed up shop and told me to go away. (**) Which, of course, puts the lie to one of the favorite leftist propaganda canards with which they "educated" us teenagers in the '70s. (#) First, consider how lefties look at "free" "government" money. Now, can you seriously believe they will not regard "free" soldiers in the same way?
As a nation we have obligated ourselves to remain on a permanent war time footing. I think a draft of some kind should be a component of that.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
And obviously the only cure for that is socialism.
No, it's more of the same. X|
- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. - Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. - Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus
Al Beback wrote:
No, it's more of the same.
And precisely what options do we have aside from more of the same? Free market capitalism works. Socialism does not. We have nearly a century of absolute proof of that and there is no 'third way'.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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As a nation we have obligated ourselves to remain on a permanent war time footing. I think a draft of some kind should be a component of that.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Obligated to whom? We? I don't think so. Bush has tried his hardest to suck us into a quagmire of permanent war, but we have no obligation to honor that legacy.
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As a nation we have obligated ourselves to remain on a permanent war time footing. I think a draft of some kind should be a component of that.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
As a nation we have obligated ourselves to remain on a permanent war time footing. I think a draft of some kind should be a component of that.
And I disagree. In the American system, the *lives* of the citizens do not belong to the State. And, if the society-as-a-whole *will not* defend itself, then no amount of governmental coersion will long hold off the inevitable end result.
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I turned 18 in october of '71 and went into the Navy January '72. We were involved in the clean up operations with the withdrawal (demining Haiphong Harbor,for example) So my memories of it are pretty vivid. If you've seen the video of the helicopter being pushed over the side of a ship, that was our sister ship that had just relieved us a couple of weeks before.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Oakman wrote:
Bremer and Rumsfeld hurt this country as badly as if that was their purpose. It wasn't, of course, and I am sure they think of themselves as patriots, but their monumental ineptness did more damage to the U.S. that anyone could have thought possible.
But you cannot place the blame entirely on them. I've always opposed the very concept of small, "smart", limited wars, but the end of the cold war (the end of history) lulled our entire political system to believe we could draw down our military and do with less. That was clearly a mistake.
Oakman wrote:
Petreus is a miracle worker. That he has done so much with so little is amazing. I only hope his deputy is at least half as good. But, and 'tis a big but, our troops are being used up. Even though casualties have been reduced, they are still in harm's way 24/7. No-one, no matter how good a soldier, no matter how professional a soldier, can keep going day after day, month after month, tour after tour. Nor is my reading that Iraq is more stable. Just safer. There are still three factions, none with the upper hand, all believing they deserve to rule the other two, and all planning on getting sole power as soon as we leave, whether that's next month, next year, or three years from now. Joe Biden had the right of it awhile back - the only hope for what is left of Iraq is to create a three-state confederation - and the oil geography make that pretty impossible.
I don't disagree with that. I have never believed that you could take out one or two countries in that region and rebuild them into some kind of democratic republics willing to stand as models of American hegemony. The entire region, especially the power centers, must be dismantled for there to be any hope of that. On the other hand, however, we Americans have got to understand that the wars we are most likely to confront into the future are precisely the kind we face now in Iraq and Afganistan. There will be no more prestine noble causes where we are the clear cut and unequivocal good guys. If we cannot stand united as a people, even when the cause is less than certain and as our leadership struggles to evolve effective strategies for how to win them, we have very little chance of ever again being successful militarily regardless of how large our military is. Our troops are indeed sacrificing tremendously, but is it really more than they sacrificed in
Stan Shannon wrote:
But you cannot place the blame entirely on them.
Clinton & Bush Sr. certainly tried to balance their budgets on the back of the dismantling of the military to their everlasting shame. But Petraeus was commander of the 101st during the invasion in 2003. Had he gotten the top spot then instead of the second-raters being promoted because they passed loyalty tests, the war might have been concluded early in Bush's second term. Instead Rumsfeld and his minions screwed it up - badly and completely. This is an interesting read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110801072_pf.html
Stan Shannon wrote:
lulled our entire political system to believe we could draw down our military and do with less
And when thre Army Chief of Staff testified before Congress that he felt 300,000 men were needed in Iraq back in 03, Paul Wolfowitz testified the next day that 100,000 men could do it. Wolfowitz has never served in the armed forces, by the way.
Stan Shannon wrote:
On the other hand, however, we Americans have got to understand that the wars we are most likely to confront into the future are precisely the kind we face now in Iraq and Afganistan
We won't learn that by providing millions in tax-cuts, trying to fill rediculously low recruiting targets with ever bigger bribes and lowering standards, and having two political parties who regard their ability to make law as a chance to give money to all their friends and supporters.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If we cannot stand united as a people, even when the cause is less than certain and as our leadership struggles to evolve effective strategies for how to win them, we have very little chance of ever again being successful militarily regardless of how large our military is.
As Buchanan points out in his new book (I'm just starting), we need to be careful that we do not imitate the egregious mistakes that Britain made at the beginning of the last century. As least with the advantage of hindsight, WWI was not inevitable and it lead, ultimately to Britain's status as a client state.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Consider the frontier wars which a very small
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Stan Shannon wrote:
As a nation we have obligated ourselves to remain on a permanent war time footing. I think a draft of some kind should be a component of that.
And I disagree. In the American system, the *lives* of the citizens do not belong to the State. And, if the society-as-a-whole *will not* defend itself, then no amount of governmental coersion will long hold off the inevitable end result.
Ilíon wrote:
In the American system, the *lives* of the citizens do not belong to the State.
Robert E. Lee would have disagreed.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.