tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post2060582129417352244..comments2023-10-30T06:31:05.501-07:00Comments on MilPub: Truth, Lies and AfghanistanFDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-84536129515065612572012-03-02T06:57:40.471-08:002012-03-02T06:57:40.471-08:00BB,
note that the emphasis was on soldiering and n...BB,<br />note that the emphasis was on soldiering and not warrior hood.<br />jimrangeragainstwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02126542922536584950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-40550488407865316982012-02-29T06:26:59.536-08:002012-02-29T06:26:59.536-08:00I watched a movie on TCM last night, "The Man...I watched a movie on TCM last night, "The Man Who Would Be King".<br /><br />Some quotes<br /><br />Daniel Dravot: Now listen to me you benighted muckers. We're going to teach you soldiering. The world's noblest profession. When we're done with you, you'll be able to slaughter your enemies like civilized men. <br /><br />Daniel Dravot: In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find - "D'you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty. <br /><br />Daniel Dravot: You are going to become soldiers. A soldier does not think. He only obeys. Do you really think that if a soldier thought twice he'd give his life for queen and country? Not bloody likely.<br /><br />http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073341/<br /><br />bbAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-85740458884204814942012-02-26T04:26:54.995-08:002012-02-26T04:26:54.995-08:00Al,
i'm at Benning this morning and i saw a CO...Al,<br />i'm at Benning this morning and i saw a COMBAT VETS ASSOCt shirt and leather jacket that shows a skull with an ace of spades superimposed.<br />would these guys piss on a courpse?<br />i'd bet yes.<br />jimjim at rangerhttp://rangeragainstwar.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-31564928418111145542012-02-26T01:15:53.688-08:002012-02-26T01:15:53.688-08:00oops
http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_2...oops<br /><br />http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_20046205<br /><br /><i>By Graham Bowley and Alissa J. Rubin <br /><br />New York Times <br /><br />Posted: 02/25/2012 06:06:19 PM PST <br />February 26, 2012 3:6 AM GMT Updated: 02/25/2012 07:06:12 PM PST <br /><br />KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two U.S. officers were shot dead inside the Interior Ministry building on Saturday, and NATO responded by immediately pulling all its advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul, in a deepening of the crisis over the U.S. military's burning of Qurans at a NATO military base. <br /><br />The order by the NATO commander, Gen. John Allen, came on the fifth day of virulent anti-American demonstrations across the country, and it was a clear sign of concern that the fury had reached deeply into even the Afghan security forces and ministries working most closely with the coalition.<br />.<br />.<br /> "I condemn today's attack at the Afghan Ministry of Interior that killed two of our coalition officers," Allen stated. The military had not yet found the person who carried out the shooting, he said, adding: "The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered. We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan to reach our common goal of a peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan in the near future." <br />.<br />.<br />Among the recent events that have heightened tensions are an Afghan soldier's killing of French troops that led the French to move up their withdrawal date, and outrage over a video that showed four Marines urinating on bodies that were said to be those of Taliban fighters. <br /><br />The Quran burning, however, has taken the animosity to a new level, eroding further the weakened trust between the Afghans and Americans. On Thursday, two U.S. soldiers were shot to death by a member of the Afghan Army at a base in eastern Afghanistan, as protests about the Quran burning raged outside. <br /><br /><b>"We've got this happening at the highest level of the ministry and at the boots-on-the-ground level," said John Nagl, a fellow at the U.S. Naval Academy and a former Army officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.</b> "The American strategy is to hand over responsibility as rapidly as we can to the Afghans, and this is going to require enormous trust between the Afghans and the Americans. And that's now been violated on both sides, and we did it first." <br />.<br />.</i><br /><br />I recall the time we supplied the weapons to Afghans when the Soviets occupied the country, watched the Olympics going political, & cheered the brave mujahadeen heroes as they threw themselves against the mighty Commie War Machine.<br /><br />Now, they're cowards.<br /><br />I think it's time to go rent a DVD, "Charlie Wilson's War" to see Tom Hanks climb out of a hot tub packed full of nude nubile American girls, hook up with Julia Roberts and set American Foreign Policy aright.<br /><br />Foreign Policy and Strategic Planning the way it should be done.<br /><br />Right?<br /><br />bbAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-53716081736737841202012-02-25T16:58:50.428-08:002012-02-25T16:58:50.428-08:00we need to discuss propaganda v. info etc., esp in...<b>we need to discuss propaganda v. info etc., esp in light of events like AN ACT OF VALOR which is simpleminded propaganda that surely APPEARS funded or supported by ADM. Mc Ravens greatest show on earth.</b><br /><br />Good idea, but as propaganda goes, it's working very well.<br /><br />http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/act_of_valor/<br /><br />bbAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-64226939967878775592012-02-25T15:30:31.216-08:002012-02-25T15:30:31.216-08:00Coincidentally, one of my favorite authors, Harry ...Coincidentally, one of my favorite authors, Harry Turtledove, will be bringing out a new alternative history of WW 2, "The War That Came Early", based on the hypothetical, what if WW 2 had started in Czechoslavakia a year earlier that it actually did.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_That_Came_Early<br /><br />Turtledove has been making a good living writing alternative histories, but I gave up on reading him halfway through his version of WW 2 about lizard aliens invading during WW 2 and causing the Allies and Axis to unite to deal with them. I'm more of a fan of his fantasy series.<br /><br />His stories on WW 2 and other famous conflicts seem plausible to me. But then I'm not like you guys who've studied, done or seen the real thing.<br /><br />And Chief, just kidding about the hemorrhoids.<br /><br />Unless you think such a subject is worth your while.<br /><br />bbAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-66475103628254470732012-02-25T14:55:06.566-08:002012-02-25T14:55:06.566-08:00jim inquires:
are you saying that hitler having a...jim inquires:<br /><br /><b>are you saying that hitler having and using a bomb would've been repugnant, but us frying little yellow people with the same type of bomb was some how more righteous?</b><br /><br />No I'm not saying that. My question was in response to your statement:<br /><br /><b>i believe that every war the US has fought has been to our strategic detriment.<br />including ww2.</b><br /><br />I believe it's entirely conceivable that Hitler could have developed nuclear weaponry given the time and freedom to do so if the US hadn't gone to war against him. The Nazi regime had developed far enough along to produce significant quantities of heavy water, knowledge of which leads to nuclear energy and weapons.<br /><br />Here's an article discussing that history:<br /><br />http://tinyurl.com/6p9qnjm<br /><br />To a certain extent, especially due to the brain drain from early 1900s Germany, other nations were at the point of developing the same technology, but the Nazis were also developing delivery systems, the V rockets and the buzz bombs.<br /><br />If the Nazis had won the nuclear weapons race, it's within possibility neither of us would be here discussing this.<br /><br /><b>what if's don't mean nothin'.</b><br /><br />Possibly, but still, Napoleon's hemorrhoids could have been much more a deciding factor in world history than some might think. Maybe we can get Chief to write about hemorrhoids.<br /><br />http://afstewartblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-napoleons-hemorrhoids-make-history.html<br /><br />bbAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-72537436024518379682012-02-25T10:18:29.294-08:002012-02-25T10:18:29.294-08:00As long as the illogical notion that wars are &quo...As long as the illogical notion that wars are "won" is perpetuated, the battle of semantics will never end. No one "wins" a war. If a war is "settled", it is because one side lost less than the other. The first life or injury of a war is a loss for that side, and from there on, the losses simply keep piling up. The second, and more significant "loss" is the basic humanity within the belligerents as they justify the use of nukes and the like to pursue their ends. The firebombing of German and Japanese population centers cannot be made "moral" simply because they were "evil enemies". I might be willing to accept an admission of a "less than moral response to a highly immoral threat" (how's that for tortuous semantics?) but claiming any moral high ground or even neutrality in the matter of those firebombings, no less nukes, is indeed a tragic diminishing of humanity and human dignity. Hell, there are those who see urinating on the bodies of fallen "enemies" as righteous. Not just beer swilling gutter scum who think so, but high profile public figures and elected "leaders".Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-29383339314990133732012-02-25T04:21:25.109-08:002012-02-25T04:21:25.109-08:00seydlitz,
we need to discuss propaganda v. info et...seydlitz,<br />we need to discuss propaganda v. info etc., esp in light of events like AN ACT OF VALOR which is simpleminded propaganda that surely APPEARS funded or supported by ADM. Mc Ravens greatest show on earth.<br />my tax dollars are supporting movies that support mindless wars. i reckon this was just a small step for man kind.<br />i'll think on introducing this discussion.<br />jimrangeragainstwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02126542922536584950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-79325573299695975602012-02-25T04:16:59.974-08:002012-02-25T04:16:59.974-08:00bb,
are you saying that hitler having and using a ...bb,<br />are you saying that hitler having and using a bomb would've been repugnant, but us frying little yellow people with the same type of bomb was some how more righteous?<br />why don't we just keep our discussion reality based. he didn't have a bomb. he did have poison gases which he didn't employ on the battlefield. so why is he considered the devils spawn?<br />i might throw in saddam in that question. he never employed chem/bio against us .<br />why was US developing a nuc a good thing??<br />god help us when we accept the legitimacy of us frying people and condemning others for wanting to do so.<br />forget the m-f 'ing hitler-let's focus on us and the 11,000 hell fires that we've dropped from the sky since 03.we killed more folks than the syrians, and they weren't our citizens.<br />what if's don't mean nothin'.<br />jimrangeragainstwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02126542922536584950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-80548037458642333282012-02-23T21:04:37.284-08:002012-02-23T21:04:37.284-08:00jim, what are your thoughts on the possibility of ...jim, what are your thoughts on the possibility of the Nazis gaining nuclear power and weapons without the US in Europe for a second time?<br /><br />Without the pressure of US forces in play against them, Hitler could well have developed not only a bomb, but a delivery vehicle to go with it. My "mushroom cloud" arguement.<br /><br />And on our side, without the pressure of a war to prod us to develop and use nuclear weaponry, the US may not have felt the need to do so.<br /><br />bbAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-83470815157645367312012-02-23T16:09:05.613-08:002012-02-23T16:09:05.613-08:00Mike,
i believe that every war the US has fought h...Mike,<br />i believe that every war the US has fought has been to our strategic detriment.<br />including ww2.<br />nice trick that -getting the euro bad guys to declare war on us.<br />a real neat stratego trick fuck.<br />the euros, and libyans,egyptians,syrians and every body can resolve their own problems, and that's my take.<br />why is it bad to intervene in syrian, but it was right in 1940 to step into a world war? what's the bottom line difference?<br />thanks to all of you for responding.<br />jimrangeragainstwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02126542922536584950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-82680258123421220642012-02-23T11:47:37.502-08:002012-02-23T11:47:37.502-08:00jim-
Thanks for this thread, Davis's report n...jim-<br /><br />Thanks for this thread, Davis's report needs to be given more focus, other than what we have been seeing . . .<br /><br />http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/20/lt_col_davis_afghan_report_he_talks_a_good_game_but_there_s_not_much_to_it<br /><br />To me the most important point, even more important than Afghanistan is the place of Information Operations as US domestic psy-ops which has taken hold since Rumsfeld was Sec of Defense. Davis writes:<br /><br />--It seems not to have occurred to the Colonel that the drop in American public support as conveyed in the Pew poll might have had something to do with the actual deteriorating battlefield conditions and not a "failure" on the part of PA to accurately "frame" the matter. More troubling is the author's contention that a valid role for Public Affairs is to "frame" information in order to "safeguard US national will." Since he has just demonstrated that he didn't consider the failing military situation on the ground to be a valid reason for American public opinion to be low, what's to say the implication isn't that we can "frame" only the positive information while suppressing the negative - or to manufacture positive information if none exists.<br />Colonel Leap concludes his article by recommending several actions designed to strengthen "Military Information Operations." One of the most noteworthy: "It should specifically address all prior legislation beginning with the Smith-Mundt Act that is limiting the effectiveness of Information organizations in the GWOT environment. It should also specify acceptable activities that organizations may perform to protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will."<br /><br />http://www1.rollingstone.com/extras/RS_REPORT.pdf<br /><br />The whole section starting on page 24 is worth reading. <br /><br />Also, consider that I made this comment on Phil Carter's WashPost blog almost four years ago . . . <br /><br />"Speaking from a strategic theory perspective I find it all fascinating, and I have been talking about this for some time. What happens when information becomes a weapon, when the military is turned against the people since they are seen as the main center of gravity in a war without end, one where the political purpose/interests involved dare not be made public? I suppose we'll find out."<br /><br />http://voices.washingtonpost.com/inteldump/2008/05/joe_says_it_aint_so.html<br /><br />What more is there to say?seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-39827370751243510232012-02-23T11:24:04.692-08:002012-02-23T11:24:04.692-08:00mike-
"The Chalabis and Netanyahus of the wo...mike-<br /><br />"The Chalabis and Netanyahus of the world own us lock, stock, and barrel in this century just like Churchill owned us in the last century."<br /><br />Amen brother . . .seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-91755219032235919712012-02-23T08:49:52.323-08:002012-02-23T08:49:52.323-08:00"i hope you're suggesting that the us had...<i>"i hope you're suggesting that the us had no reason to fight in euro in ww2."</i><br /><br />That is not my position Jim. We did have reason. As you know Germany, Italy, and three of their other allies (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria) declared war on us. We responded in kind after the fact. Are you suggesting we should have ignored that?mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-77722444937058084722012-02-23T06:07:51.072-08:002012-02-23T06:07:51.072-08:00mike,
yep, we've outsourced our souls on more...mike,<br /> yep, we've outsourced our souls on more than 1 occasion,<br />but democracy is doubtful.<br />i hope you're suggesting that the us had no reason to fight in euro in ww2.<br />that's my position.<br />jimrangeragainstwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02126542922536584950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-51473609082915406162012-02-22T16:52:01.269-08:002012-02-22T16:52:01.269-08:00jim -
Haven't we already outsourced our democ...jim -<br /><br />Haven't we already outsourced our democracy? The Chalabis and Netanyahus of the world own us lock, stock, and barrel in this century just like Churchill owned us in the last century.mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-57396022449595147992012-02-22T04:25:29.761-08:002012-02-22T04:25:29.761-08:00srv,
are you suggesting that we can out source dem...srv,<br />are you suggesting that we can out source democracy??<br />jimrangeragainstwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02126542922536584950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-66805780865765119932012-02-21T18:12:36.145-08:002012-02-21T18:12:36.145-08:00Can we just outsource this war already? Declare vi...Can we just outsource this war already? Declare victory, call up Xe, offer $25B/year with the sole requirement "keep Afghanistan out of the news" and we just all move on.srvnoreply@blogger.com