quote:Originally posted by Cartman: Dismissing casualties is easy when you're nothing but a pathetic armchair quarterback with a grip on reality that doesn't reach beyond your living room and there's no possibility you'll ever have to answer for the mistakes of your team, isn't it?
Certainly this article illustrates that point. These people keep squealing about supporting the troops but when its time to "walk the walk" they fall far short in supporting the widows and orphans of the dead (never mind the troops themselves).
The thing is that the majority of policymakers who concoted these policies are "chickenhawks"; people who scream for war but have never served in combat and have no idea of the reality of the frontlines. Both Bush and Cheny, for example used various means to avoid serving in Vietnam.
-------------------- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: Anyone who didn't expect a blood bath when invading and occupying a country like Iraq was deluding themselves. This is urban combat with a deeply entrenched enemy, across a vast area of land where everyone and their auntie has a machine gun close at hand. I don't mean to offend any Americans reading this but yank soldiers are quite possibly the worst equipped and least experienced to deal with this situation. By most accounts they have serious trouble building up trust with the locals, they are gung-ho, reckless and in the words of John Simpson they have a habit of "shooting first and asking who they shot later". Indeed a British army Staff Sergeant once told me that American soldiers are great blokes but when the shooting starts, he'd be much more worried about being shot with a round from an M-16 than an AK-47. So combined with the current administration's apparent lack of any clue as to what they're actually doing or why they're doing it, it's no wonder that there's a steady stream of folded American flags heading back to the states.
No offense taken, Reverend; as a matter of fact, many American officers have complained loudly about the lack of adequate training and equipment for US soldiers at the knife's edge. Colonel David Hackworth has been particulary vocal on this subject in his books "About Face", Hazardous Duty" and "Steel my Soldiers' Hearts". The website Soldiers for the Truth has also been a forum for those soldiers pushing for reform.
The biggest problem IMHO has been a collective case of denial concerning the experiences of the Vietnam War by American military and political officials; too many of them tend to treat Vietnam as an anamoly rather than take a hard, objective look at what happened. As I noted in another post, what makes it worse is that the majority of the architects of Bush's pre-emptive war policy are "chickenhawks"; those who scream loudly for war but avoid serving in the military themselves. These policy makers are living in an academic never-never land totally at odds with the reality of the world. BTW this is a failing of both Democrats and Republicans; look at some of Clinton's interventions.
As for hearts and minds, too many American troops seem to subscribe to the notion that "If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." IMHO our collective problem is quite simply that since the majority of Americans are descended from or are immigrants from other countries who came to the US for a new life, we tend to have a dim view of the rest of the world, seeking to either isolate ourselves from it or change it so that it is more to our liking.
Another factor is our history of "Manifest Destiny"; American history have always had an expansionist streak. Look at the Mexican and Spanish-American wars, for example. We figure that if we can tame the "Wild West" and the indians, we can tame the rest of the world and its natives as well.
-------------------- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
quote:Both Bush and Cheny, for example used various means to avoid serving in Vietnam.
So did Kerry. He just didn't succeed.
Anyway, Cartman, it's good to know you're still displaying the same staggering poop-flinging ability which you possessed when last I was here. Although your jumping up and down and screeching style has flagged somewhat.
"Armchair quarterback" fits you at least as well as it does me. Probably better. So continue to call the kettle black, pot boy.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
First of Two: "Since when has a lack of updated information been cause for a lack of press coverage?"
Since about the time of establishment of modern press, in the early 1600's. When lack of development occurs in a story, or public interest sways away from the issue, attention is moved to more interesting things.
Chronicles, independent articles and essays can still be written with total freedom of subject (and a good thing that is), but they can't excpect the big media to follow.
The article you posted at the beginning may be an example, something that may have deserved more attention but was left out from the big portals, were 'hotter' news fly. I haven't heard a court update on Milosevic's trial for many months, it appears even Haag has stopped trying to churn out development in the issue.
Cartman correctly adressed all the points and more in his first post, from the POV of judging Bosnia/Iraq news relevancy. If he was being harsh in his first remark, the "bottom-dweller" response was harsher.
Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged
"When lack of development occurs in a story, or public interest sways away from the issue, attention is moved to more interesting things."
Exactly. Why d'you think no-one's mentioned the search for bin Laden in over a year?
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Pot boy. I like that. Will you be my kettle bitch, Firsty?
And thanks, Rob. I couldn't have asked for a better teacher.
Nim: you haven't heard any updates because the prosecution rested its Croatia/Bosnia/Herzegovina case in february and the defense won't commence its case until june (provided Milosevic is deemed "medically fit" to stand trial and doesn't die in his cell first, that is).
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Agents found nearly half a million rounds of ammunition, more than 60 pipe bombs, machine guns, silencers and remote-controlled bombs disguised as briefcases. Pamphlets on how to make chemical weapons and racist literature were also discovered.
Beside containers of hydrochloric, nitric and acetic acids, agents found more than 800 grams of almost pure sodium cyanide, enough to create a bomb that could kill everyone inside a 30,000-square-foot building, federal authorities said.
The findings led to one of the most extensive investigations of domestic terrorism since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
This story was reported on the very last page of today's newspaper: it was one column wide with three paragraphs.
Nothing on CNN about it at all.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Half a million rounds of ammunition, more than 60 pipe bombs, machine guns, silencers and remote-controlled bombs disguised as briefcases, hydrochloric, nitric and acetic acids, 800 grams of almost pure sodium cyanide don't kill people, people kill people.
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
But he never meant to hurt anyone. He said so himself.
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged
At the time, many thought the war would be over soon, and that a year's deferral of service could render enlistment unnecessary.
However, as is a notable pattern for a man who served 20 years in Congress without making a signifigant contribution, he failed to achieve his objective.
quote: A former Navy doctor who says he treated Sen. John Kerry for the wound that led to his first Purple Heart in Vietnam said yesterday that several of Kerry's crewmates told him at the time that the injury did not occur in battle.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Agents found nearly half a million rounds of ammunition, more than 60 pipe bombs, machine guns, silencers and remote-controlled bombs disguised as briefcases. Pamphlets on how to make chemical weapons and racist literature were also discovered.
Beside containers of hydrochloric, nitric and acetic acids, agents found more than 800 grams of almost pure sodium cyanide, enough to create a bomb that could kill everyone inside a 30,000-square-foot building, federal authorities said.
The findings led to one of the most extensive investigations of domestic terrorism since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
This story was reported on the very last page of today's newspaper: it was one column wide with three paragraphs.
posted
I watched CNN for about three hours last night (I was building an Akira model) and over an hour today and heard nothing.
I dont scout their website on my days off work though.
Still, if anything should've been a headline, it's this. Not a picture of Bush and Rumsfeld and a insightful headline about how the president's "not happy".
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Cartman: But he never meant to hurt anyone. He said so himself.
The NRA would consider him to be "defending himself".
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Naah. At best "preparing to defend himself," as he'd never actually used anything.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
