The Dumbing Down of our Children...

[Guest]

SGT

You want cannon fodder to obey without question and act based on training.

meh. To a point. i don't consider the Soldiers in my MOS cannon fodder. We shoot down aircraft, you see. The typical cannon fodder is infantry. And though we are capable of doing an infantry mission in a pinch, it is not our normal.

I try to groom leaders so that someone can take over in my absence. Everyone should know what is going on, but the questions need to come through appropriate channels and most of them can wait until after the shit is already done.

"Why are we doing this?" can be changed to "Why did we do that?" without too much trouble. and the results come faster.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

meh. To a point. i don't consider the Soldiers in my MOS cannon fodder. We shoot down aircraft, you see. The typical cannon fodder is infantry. And though we are capable of doing an infantry mission in a pinch, it is not our normal.

I try to groom leaders so that someone can take over in my absence. Everyone should know what is going on, but the questions need to come through appropriate channels and most of them can wait until after the shit is already done.

"Why are we doing this?" can be changed to "Why did we do that?" without too much trouble. and the results come faster.

Something I observed in Vietnam was E2's taking command when O2's and 3's and 4's were paralyzed and flummoxed in the midst of crises. Its wild to see a major or captain take orders from a PFC. Some are born to command.

 

[xssve]

SGT

You want cannon fodder to obey without question and act based on training.

From where I sit it looks to me that today's army has its head up its ass; youve been in Afghanistan almost 10 years and accomplished shit. You have all the toys but no brains and no balls.

No, it's not reading chicken entrails - the situation in Afghanistan or Iraq is analogous to the American South after the civil war - did everybody suddenly start playing nice because the cavalry had arrived?

No, because you're not dealing with puppies, you're dealing with a bunch of swingin' dicks used to doing things their way, what do you think is going to happen?

In Iraq, I believe the neo-cons based their expectation on the liberation of France, they'd have been better off to base them on the Algerian independence movement, or something similar, which is much closer to the actual dynamic, with the added bonus of significant religious differences as well as the usual class friction.

In fact, they were warned of this by several experienced generals and former generals, all of which they dismissed as pantywaisted "nation building" bullshit, and ended up retreating into the delusion that torture would somehow solve everything, which again, was mainly received with skepticism by people with actual experience in these matters.

Not having any military background themselves, I'm guessing the neo-con logic was based on their class bias's, i.e., that if people are accustomed to having a boot on their neck, one boot is as good as another.

That approach did work fairly well post Yalta, but coalition governments are replacing the authoritarian/dictatorship dynamic - once a population reaches a certain size, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep them in line with a whip, you need increasingly more whips. Even Saddam was struggling to maintain control, as it turned out, his whole regime was hanging by a thread - didn't mean they were casting about for a replacement.

Hell, even a domestic dispute is a better model, you know that no matter how violent and impassioned the dispute, they're both going to turn on the cop who tries to intervene.

 

[xssve]

In short, to suddenly expect Afghanistan to accept a federalist central government is the usual conservative wishful thinking. The Taliban didn't even have that kind of a consensus, it's one of the last bastions of old school tribal feudalism - it's gonna take some time for them to get used to the idea, if they ever do.

And, when it comes to that, the only way to maintain a strong, federalist government is through consensus, without that, it's basically a dictatorship, which by nature, devolves back into factional feudalism, and you're right back where you started.

Even Pax Romana was not maintained without overwhelming military force, hostages and bribery when that was impractical.

 

[xssve]

In other words, blaming a complicated situation in Afghanistan on the Army, is the usual conservative methodology of diverting criticism from themselves for their failure to read the situation objectively on the most convenient goat.

 

[xssve]

And again, let's be realistic: in spite of all the "personal freedom" and private property rhetoric and jibba jabba, the only reason neo-cons have for wanting to establish "democracy" in the Middle East, is that it's far more economical for corporations to bribe a few officials in a central government for right-of-way and mineral rights, than pay royalties to the people who happen to be living on top of those right-of-ways and minerals, redefining them as "squatters" and negating their possession with the stroke of a pen, all nice and legal.

Although in praxis, it often takes a few squads of Chinese Mercenaries should they inconveniently try and defend their possession, making them "terrorists", often another euphemism for "displaced person".

After they disappear, or are "lawfully" eradicated, the corporations can establish adverse possession, the original owners being conveniently out of touch in the corporeal realm.

That is the real world.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

Lincoln played the Obama Game till America ran out of patience with the slaughter and stalemate. Then he put U.S.Grant and Sherman in command, and they made policy, KILL EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT EM OUT. Union cavalry treated slaves like pigs & cows and other 'livestock.' If it moves kill it, if it dont move steal it.

 

[Huckleman2000]

XSSVE

Lincoln played the Obama Game till America ran out of patience with the slaughter and stalemate. Then he put U.S.Grant and Sherman in command, and they made policy, KILL EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT EM OUT. Union cavalry treated slaves like pigs & cows and other 'livestock.' If it moves kill it, if it dont move steal it.

We're seven years and $750 billion down the road from "Shock and Awe", and almost that from "Mission Accomplished". How's that big stick policy working for you?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

HUCK

If I wuz in charge we'd kill everything wearing a towel, including folks with wet hair.

 

[stephen55]

My Lai tactics ended long ago....get over it...

HUCK

If I wuz in charge we'd kill everything wearing a towel, including folks with wet hair.

That just might be why you're not in charge. We destroyed the village in order to save it.

Were you in charge of training Lt. Calley? Did you cure him of any trace of humanity in one session? No, as he recently apologized. So it must have been someone else.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Canada wasnt in Vietnam, either. You folks stayed at home coddling our deserters. We shoulda invaded you.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Canada wasnt in Vietnam, either. You folks stayed at home coddling our deserters. We shoulda invaded you.

You never served so you haven't got a thing to say about it......

 

[Loring2]

Wrong

You never served so you haven't got a thing to say about it......

No it's you who wasn't in Nam ... I was ... alone wiith my dog a lot of the time and I've got plenty to say about it .... fuck Canada. It has very few real men.
Those who are, are magnificent bastards.

Loring

 

[Xelebes]

No it's you who wasn't in Nam ... I was ... alone wiith my dog a lot of the time and I've got plenty to say about it .... fuck Canada. It has very few real men.
Those who are, are magnificent bastards.

Loring

Fuck you, dickswab. Take your YMCA Macho Man image and shove it up your ass.