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boggsman1



Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9118
Location: at a computer

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey ISO...howz that end-of-the-world GOLD trade workin out for ya?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 1:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
Starve them into submission.

Easy enough when laying siege on an isolated castle; all but impossible with a nation or play-nation, because the guys in power get first dibs on ANY contraband or relief supplies that enter by hook or crook.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the old days thre was little money in circulation. Land was the kings wealth because he had farmers to turn it into trade goods. Those farmers were the rank and file of his army too and losing them in battle meant no harvest. Even if you won the war you went bankrupt when your people starved.
Even as late as the Revolutionary War the Brits lined up in bright colored uniforms just out of rifle range and tossed insults or displayed body parts for all day until the general rode out on his horse and traded insults with the enemy officers until a deal was struck. If your army was outgunned you paid and retreated, maybe coming back with more guys after the harvest while trying to get the enemies soldiers to poison the boss.
The American rebels hid behind trees and rocks and killed any Brit within range.
This was considered barbaric and murderous in Europe at the time.
These tactics were a prelude to modern warfare where you kill as many soldiers as possible, often along with ten times as many civilians.

By the way, anyone who thinks the US would be under attack right away if we had a somewhat smaller army have learned about the world by watching too much TV or listening to the fake news.
Even so called enemy countries do not have many people who want to go to war with the US regardless of our military might.
Some don't want to be nuked out of existance. In most cases the Swiss Effect is our greatest protection. Nobody attacks Switzerland and not because they have everyone's money. Swiss banks have little money in them just like most US banks.
Folks in Enemy Countries want to live in LA or Geneva but are mad over some imagined or real disrespect coming from those who live the good life.
They do want to destroy that life, they want to import it. Much of the rest is gov. bluster not shared by the real citizens of Cuba, North Korea, Iran etc.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The biggest danger we face in this country is to be killed by other Americans with their cars or gun collection. Those death rates are much higher than our losses in war.
As many as thirty plus thousand people in the US are killed with guns, and another same size crowd in their cars.
How many US soldiers killed in The Republican Party's war in Iraq over all the years? Still around 7000?
An enormous amount of your tax money is spent defending rich countries like Saudi Arabia,South Korea or even Canada. They spend their money on themselves. It is a mystery to some of theim I have discussed this with.
Why do we provide military aid to rich countries at all?
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wynsurfer



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 940

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perhaps we provide military aid to rich countries because the United States has a war economy, and has had one for well over 150 years. Some have called our two party system of government a one party system masquerading as a two party system. You get war either way. After WWII our leaders were afraid we would slip back into another depression, without the need for our wartime economy. This is why we had to fight communism. Russia had lost 20,000,000 people to Hitler. It was not eager to fight another great war. We could not fight Russia, since they had nukes, so we turned our war machine to the third world. Countries who could not attack us even if they wanted to. Since the end of WWII the United States has killed over 10,000,000 people in third world countries. In Cambodia we dropped more tonnage of bombs than we did in all of WWII. The Kamir Rouge had little support from the people of Cambodia before the bombing began, but that soon changed after the bombs began to fall. Has Vietnam posed a threat to us after we lost that war?

I feel that it is our militaristic foreign policy that threatens our national security. All these covert cia operations and foreign wars are a big Frankenstein factory. We are creating enemies faster than we can kill them. Kind of like the Hydra in Greek mythology, cut off one head and two grow back. After 911 people were asking why do they hate us? Maybe because they have good reason to. As others have pointed out Switzerland and Sweden both are neutral countries and have not fought in any of the wars of the last century, yet no one has invaded them. It works for them why not us?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

slinky wrote:
1. This is why we had to fight communism.

2. We could not fight Russia, since they had nukes

3. we turned our war machine to the third world

4. Countries who could not attack us even if they wanted to.

5. Since the end of WWII the United States has killed over 10,000,000 people in third world countries.

6. Has Vietnam posed a threat to us after we lost that war?

7. I feel that it is our militaristic foreign policy that threatens our national security.

8. All these covert cia operations and foreign wars are a big Frankenstein factory.

9. We are creating enemies faster than we can kill them. Why do they hate us?

10. Switzerland and Sweden both are neutral countries and have not fought in any of the wars of the last century, yet no one has invaded them. It works for them why not us?

1. That ... and the threat of world domination by the USSR. I grew up under that threat, and my wife and I fought the Cold War for 40 combined years. "Better Dead Than Red" was not just a slogan; my generation meant it.

2. More important, they WOULD not fight us because WE had nukes. MAD was a credible deterrent.

3. If I saw two guys beating a passerby to death for his wallet, I might intervene. If I saw a rumble between the Bloods and the Crips, think I'm sticking my nose into it? Ya gotta pick yer battles. At what point does a genocide get too big to ignore and still sleep at night ... and at what point does a nation get too big to take on over a few million dead peasants?

4. Radical Islam has attacked, has been intercepted in hundreds more attacks, and will one day succeed spectacularly in a WMD attack in our lower 48. Do we try to forestall that attack as long as possible by "going after them WHEREVER we find them" as POTUS Candidate Clinton promised she'd do, or do we try to keep that fracas on foreign soil as part of our president's Prime Directive?

5. Some very detailed skirmish-by-skirmish analyses double or even triple that estimate. There's no point quibbling about the number, but a quick perusal reveals some pretty bogus examples. "We helped Israel kill X,000 Palestinians", for example.
A. There is (was) no such nation as "Palestine".
B. The minute terrorists squatting on that patch of dirt stop firing thousands of rockets into Israel is the minute that conflict would end.
C. When Israel stops, Hamas, et.al., don't.
D. Israel gave them the Strip in appeasement; all that did was put more Hamas rockets closer to Jerusalem.

The flip side of the third world wars: Clooney demands that we stop the genocide in Darfur. (That means war, of course.) Is he completely wrong?

6. We did not "lose" that war in SEA. Walter Cronkite gave it away from his desk at CBS, costing 35,000 more U.S. soldiers' lives. Source: Gen Giap.

7. We're branded infidels first and foremost because we have a free society, call our deities something other than Allah, show some skin, let gay people live, and don't stone our raped daughters to death. If wars were primarily our fault, why do about 149 out of the 150 ongoing armed conflicts around the world involve the wonderful, peaceful, serene religion of Islam? These people have been at war for thousands of years; we're just the biggest blip on their spring-loaded radar at the moment. I said "These people are going to be trouble" out loud <40 years ago when I saw many hundreds of thousands of them pressed like sardines in the street, screaming their fool heads off and demanding death because some teeny-bopper flashed a damned ankle or nodded to a dude on the street. Over crap like that, they threw away and never recovered the technical advances they brought to the world and a few hundred million of them became to be and/or support the loudest, most narrow-minded, most dangerous, most murderous biblethumpers on the planet. Who do you want trying to convert you to their side ... a couple of Mormons holding little black books and wearing "garments" under their white shirts or 50 screaming freaks waving rusty machetes and wearing C4 Jockey shorts under their white robes? Speaking of white robes ... is the resemblance a coincidence? (I encountered THOSE insane murderous zealots in high school, too ... and you can bet your sweet bippy I just drove right on by, without intervening.)

8. So are my nice car, my wife's bare ankles, that beer I drank in 1966, and my long-forgotten church membership.

9. See #8.

10. Here's one explanation of at least Switzerland's impunity during WWII (Copyright © 1999 Eric Margolis):
<<< Each Alpine valley and every pass would become a Thermopylae. The vital rail tunnels connecting Germany and Italy were readied for destruction. The small Swiss Air Force shot down 11 Luftwaffe aircraft that overflew Switzerland; hundreds of pro-Nazi Swiss were arrested, and at least 17 soldiers shot for treason - by their own comrades.

As author Stephen Halbrook points out in his excellent work on this subject, 'Target Switzerland,' unlike other European nations, Switzerland was deterred from caving in to Nazi Germany by its highly decentralized system of government. The weak-willed federal government in Bern, which flirted with capitulation, simply could not order its independent-minded cantons, nor their citizens, to give up and surrender to the Nazis- as did centralized governments in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. The rifle clubs to which many Swiss men belonged became centers of patriotism and national resistance to Nazi threats.

According to the Swiss Constitution, each man must perform annual military service and bear arms, which he keeps at home. In Switzerland's direct democracy, the right and duty to bear arms is equal to and an integral part of the sacred right to vote. In the dark days from 1940-1945, Switzerland's armed citizen soldiers would not accept surrender, or any form of subservience, to Hitler. Though totally surrounded by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and dependant on them for oil, food, and raw materials, tiny Switzerland remained defiant. In the face of Nazi threats, the Swiss took in 37,000 Jewish refugees - exactly 37,000 more than were accepted at the time by the US or Canada.

In June, 1940, as France lay dying, Mussolini attacked southern France with 350,000 men. The small, 35,000-man French Army of the Alps, Gen. Olry commanding, dug in behind the forts of southern arm of the Maginot Line, extending from Switzerland to the Riviera at Cap Martin. The guns of the forts crushed the Italian offensive. The German and Italian high commands were appalled at the deadly effectiveness of the French mountain forts, concluding they would suffer huge losses attacking the powerful Swiss fortress system.

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy did not invade Switzerland because they needed it, as revisionist critics currently claim, for money-laundering and gold trading: Germany also conducted such transactions through Sweden, Turkey, Portugal, Argentina, and even the USA which, let's recall, was still a neutral when the Swiss were shooting down Luftwaffe ME-109's over Basel.

Switzerland remained free because its citizen soldiers were ready to fight to the last man against Nazi Germany.>>>

Besides ... what do they have to offer besides good skiing (how many Jihadists ski?) and some of Romney's (declared and taxed) gold?
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Because Iso supercopies and never responds to factual rebuttals, it is folly to try to respond to all of his nonsense. But this is particularly eggregious:

Quote:
We did not "lose" that war in SEA. Walter Cronkite gave it away from his desk at CBS, costing 35,000 more U.S. soldiers' lives. Source: Gen Giap.


There have been many authoritative histories of the Vietnam war, and if you include the fiction by those who fought, the literature is rich. I doubt that Iso has read much of either. One of the best is the "Fog of War," and a partial transcript is here: http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html Unlike Mike Fick, McNamara was introspective. Slinky is correct that Vietnam posed no threat to the United States; rather they posed a counterweight to China in Asia. The entire set of assumptions of the monolithic nature of communism was wrong; this was a war of liberation and independence, at least for the Vietnamese. But we have made that mistake again with Islam, failing to recognize the schism between Sunni and Shiite, and use it to our tactical advantage.

It is often said that the military always refights the last war. Such is one of the problems with Vietnam. Vietnam, both with the French and American presence, was a colonial war. Here is one of the most telling quotes from the movie:

Quote:
The former Foreign Minister of Vietnam, a wonderful man named Thach said, "You're totally wrong. We were fighting for our independence. You were fighting to enslave us."
We almost came to blows. That was noon on the first day.

"Do you mean to say it was not a tragedy for you, when you lost 3 million 4 hundred thousand Vietnamese killed, which on our population base is the equivalent of 27 million Americans? What did you accomplish? You didn't get any more than we were willing to give you at the beginning of the war. You could have had the whole damn thing: independence, unification."

"Mr. McNamara, You must never have read a history book. If you'd had, you'd know we weren't pawns of the Chinese or the Russians. McNamara, didn't you know that? Don't you understand that we have been fighting the Chinese for 1000 years? We were fighting for our independence. And we would fight to the last man. And we were determined to do so. And no amount of bombing, no amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us."


So despite the fact that, from a military sense, we won the war--killing over 5 and a half million Vietnamese while "only" losing 58,000, it was a cultural war that could not have been won. Particularly with the number of civilian deaths, estimated here http://www.103fieldbatteryraa.net/documents/74.html at 587,000. Estimates of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong personnel killed: 444,000. Estimates of South Vietnamese military personnel killed: 440,000. The cost was $352 Billion, back when money was worth more.

The lesson that the military--and Iso--failed to learn was that this was an asymetric war, and the lesson of its effectiveness has become a blueprint for resisting American military might. Military brass ascribed the difficulties such a war posed to the terrain, and the cover of the Vietnamese jungle. Yet we have seen similar difficulties in mountainous terrain in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and urban warfare in Iraq.

The problems of the US military were compounded by the number of atrocities that US troops committed. A nearly brand new book, "Kill Anything that Moves,", by Nick Turse, shows definitively that My Lai was not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern. When the metric to show that the war was succeeding became body count, the military responded with bodies, and wasn't to squeamish about whether or not they were actually military personnel.
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mac wrote:
...it is folly to try to respond to all of his nonsense.

Do you suppose that Mikey suffers from OCD and paranoid schizophrenia?

He's nuts, which might explain his disability compensation.
.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If I was a psychiatrist, I'd quit rather than have to diagnose Mike.
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wynsurfer



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 940

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

At least i got a good laugh out of his last response. The world according to isobars is indeed quite bizarre!
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