Moscow Victory Day (70 Years) Parade

[Lethaface]

Kosovo was problematic as well.

 

Pakistan / Yemen / Somalia drone assassinations are problematic as well, to name a few.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

Pakistan / Yemen / Somalia drone assassinations are problematic as well, to name a few.

 

As problematic as invading a neighboring country, carving off a piece of land, starting and fueling a rebellion to ensure said land has access to your country, while still doing the assassinations in a more conventional way problematic though?

 

Again, goes back to my earlier statement.  It's a game of accusing a man of murder, and then he points out you're a thief.  Bad acts by the accuser (or even at that, simply the accuser being of a nationality that's done some bad historical stuff) do not negate bad acts by the accused.  

Edited May 11, 2015 by panzersaurkrautwerfer

[Sgt Joch]

 drone assassinations

 

Ah yes, assassinations which include U.S. citizens. Apparently, the President has the authority, but he refuses to release the legal memos justifying same so we can see for ourselves.

 

Spiegel had an interesting article on that, seems the standard to be included on the "kill list" is looser than the administration lets on:

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-docs-reveal-dubious-details-of-targeted-killings-in-afghanistan-a-1010358.html

[Lethaface]

If we're going by the reputation I've acquired, all Russians are worse than Hitler, and even an ounce of Russian blood should condemn you to being eaten by a starved and enraged Micheal Moore.  

 

If I'm done being sarcastic:

 

It's really two different flavors of annoyed.  Here's the quick rundown:

 

 

1. Collectively the west is stupid for believing in "nation building."  I hold nations/nation-states are things that must grow organically.  When we go in and try to impose what works for the west on a society, it almost always will fail simply because it's a foreign influence.  When we go into a country and try to restore order the parties we usually work with are not the proverbial founding fathers we think we're working with, it's the folks who see us as a means to an end.  Sometimes that's an okay end, we've really found someone who wants to make crapistan a better place, and we've got the money to do that, but a lot of time it's marginal powers who see us as a way to bypass the major players, or folks just looking to scam as many millions as they can in reconstruction projects.

 

[...]

 

I think everyone at age 19 is a little dumb.  It's one reason now than I'm older I'm glad the younger population does not vote (or throws the vote effectively away).  Looking back on college I can see a lot of head against wall level stupid beliefs in both my peers of the day, and myself from all ends of the political spectrum.  

 

Good post (no sarcasm, ).

 

Regarding the Iraqi locals, look at how that country/region/'nationstate' has been managed the last 500 years or so and it does make sense to me that the general population really lives literally day by day. Obviously not all do, as I can tell from first person from some Iraqi people I know.

 

One thing I do miss in your analysis and posts is slamming of the west. Yes democracy is the best of the bad and I'll take US leadership of the world over any Russia, China or even divide et incompetente EU. We West are supposed to have become 'civilized' after killing each other in several guiness world record wars and are relatively free. Still we are at times violently and lawlessky intermingling in affairs on behalf or our own interest; means to an end. That democracies tend to more bureaucratic and 'evil' over time makes me not very inclined to push our 'superior ways' down the throats of other (be it oppressed) people around the world. I wasn't sad Saddam went but thinking of being involved and at least partly responsible for the slaughter and wholesale plunder that has happened and is happening there, I can't judge that as mere 'thievery'

 

Ending with Russia: power hungry ex-military oligarch mafia been running the state for a few decades, no need to say more.

 

Feels good to have our own, semi off op topic men being men, parade here

Edited May 11, 2015 by Lethaface

[db_zero]

On the topic of the parade...I think the Russians and Chinese put on great military parades...regardless of politics.

I did notice most of the Russian troops were smiling as they passed the review stands. I'll have to see older parades to see if that usual.

Looks like war and misunderstandings is going to be with us for some time judging from this thread.

[AttorneyAtWar]

Looks like war and misunderstandings is going to be with us for some time judging from this thread.

 

Its a shame, I have no issues with the Russian people, only there government. I wish both of our countries were a lot closer, Russia has the opportunity to join the rest of the world, but Putin doesn't care about that.

Edited May 11, 2015 by Raptorx7

[Holien]

Watching the ww2 soviet kit was interesting. What was more interesting was looking at the faces of the crowd in that video. Compare it to the crowd in the West. Surely not just down to being wet and cold?

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

Ah yes, assassinations which include U.S. citizens

 

Dunno.  Would we have batted an eye at killing some of the various Allied nationals that did work on behalf of the Axis?  There's plenty of German-American or Japanese-American folks who either found themselves stuck, or willingly answered the motherland's call, and were cut down without significant hesitation.  Where it gets fuzzy is the question of how legitimate some of these targets are at all in the  modern spectrum of non-conventional warfare.  Most of the very dead American targets unambiguous aided and abetted, or were in the active employ of organizations engaged in military conflict with the US government.  It's a far cry from making craters out of folks who simply disagree with US policy in the abstract.

 

The real debate should be a matter of targeting in terms of collateral damage (value of target vs damage inflicted to the populace) or national sovereignty in the cases of nations that at least above table, give no special permission for drones to operate in their air space (of course, finding a government in some of these places would be difficult).

 

But in terms of the intended targets?  They're folks who'd declared an intent to kill Americans wherever and whenever they can with fairly little discrimination.  That's pretty much hostile intent enough for me to sleep easily when that individual is made into meatpaste (but have some moral reservations when he's meatpasted with the family next door, if the intended target is just some low level dude).

 

 

 

 

One thing I do miss in your analysis and posts is slamming of the west. Yes democracy is the best of the bad and I'll take US leadership of the world over any Russia, China or even divide et incompetente EU. We West are supposed to have become 'civilized' after killing each other in several guiness world record wars and are relatively free. Still we are at times violently and lawlessky intermingling in affairs on behalf or our own interest; means to an end. That democracies tend to more bureaucratic and 'evil' over time makes me not very inclined to push our 'superior ways' down the throats of other (be it oppressed) people around the world. I wasn't sad Saddam went but thinking of being involved and at least partly responsible for the slaughter and wholesale plunder that has happened and is happening there, I can't judge that as mere 'thievery' 

 

The western system works for the west because it evolved and grew as western ideals and the like evolved.  It's a system designed for our way of thinking and our way of life.  Thusly it's good for Yankee imperialists, sneering British colonialists, and the French (no prefix required, name is sufficient to imply what I was getting at), but a poor fit for sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and somesuch.  They need a culturally well adapted system of government, and through colonialism, they lost some of that growth, and our continued attempts to make them more like us, we're doing them a disservice.  

 

In terms of the chaos of Iraq, I've said it before but it was coming regardless of who started it.  Centuries of Sunni-Shia conflict, and decades of Sunni minority rule were going to boil over someday (see Syria for a reversal of roles in terms of Shia minority rule over a Sunni majority, with a very similar history of oppression and mass killings).  If it was not the US invasion, it'd have been the fighting between Saddam's sons in 2024 after the old man kicked the bucket, the Arab Spring, or any number of crises.  It's arrogance to assume that the west is powerful enough to change the 3rd World for the good because it's the west, just as much as it is to assign blame for all the problems of the present to western whatever.  

 

I simply advocate we keep our meddling limited to our own interests in a low threat sense (if we do not like your way of doing things, we do not have to do business, vs invasions), the military involvement to breaches of the peace/international law (invading neighbors, or for reals actual genocide sort of beaches of the peace)  and a broad support of human rights (we don't care HOW you rule, just as long as you don't fill your jails or ditches with your opponents).

 

 

 

Its a shame, I have no issues with the Russian people, only there government. I wish both of our countries were a lot closer, Russia has the opportunity to join the rest of the world, but Putin doesn't care about that.

 

I'm there too.  It just happens the russian government is well supported on the internet/military forums which tends to cast me in a more hostile light.  I wouldn't care what it did though so long as it did it within its own borders, and laid off on the nuclear bullying of poor Denmark though.  That doesn't mean I wouldn't make fun of Putin on ponies, just I'd recognize it's someone else's country, and if they dig that well, then it's sort of hilarious but whatever man.  

[Nidan1]

On the topic of the parade...I think the Russians and Chinese put on great military parades...regardless of politics.

I did notice most of the Russian troops were smiling as they passed the review stands. I'll have to see older parades to see if that usual.

Looks like war and misunderstandings is going to be with us for some time judging from this thread.

Yeah I noticed their expressions as well. They seemed genuinely proud to be there. Some of them also looked suntanned. Where would Russian soldiers get a suntan in early spring, is the Black Sea Region that warm this time of year?

 

Of course they may have had someone dressed as Krusty the Clown mooning them as they went by, but that would have been off camera.

[Hister]

Looks like war and misunderstandings is going to be with us for some time judging from this thread. 

 

If there's anything history teaches us is that humans as one of the animal species will always use/resort to aggression for whatever reason. War is practically embedded in us. So it's not really hard to bet that war will follow humans wherever they go in their present evolutionary form.   

 

 

Yeah I noticed their expressions as well. They seemed genuinely proud to be there.

 

I know some Russians personally and their nationalism and in general being proud of being Russian has really peaked in the last years, especially since the conflict in Ukraine. Haven't seen the smiling parading soldiers but you bet they are proud of being Russian right now. There's also much less room for objective debates with them but that is logical given the circumstances. Emotions tend to cloud your common sense and healthy judgment.  

Edited May 11, 2015 by Hister

[Sgt Joch]

But in terms of the intended targets?  They're folks who'd declared an intent to kill Americans wherever and whenever they can with fairly little discrimination.  That's pretty much hostile intent enough for me to sleep easily when that individual is made into meatpaste (but have some moral reservations when he's meatpasted with the family next door, if the intended target is just some low level dude).

 

That might be justifiable, if it was true, and certainly that is what the administration is feeding the american public, but in fact the target list is very broad.

 

being a deserter was enough to have a death sentence:

 

The case of an Afghan soldier named Hussein, number 3,341 on the list, shows how coldly NATO sometimes treated the lives of suspects. According to the documents, Hussein was suspected of involvement in an attack on ISAF forces in Helmand. A corporal in the Afghan army, he had allegedly deserted and was now on the run, presumably to join the Taliban.

NATO officials placed him on the list in the summer of 2010, as one of 669 individuals at the time. He was given the code name "Rumble" and assigned to priority level 2.

 

Just having the wrong phone could trigger a strike. No verification was made to see who was there:

 

 

The documents suggest that sometimes locating a mobile phone was all it took to set the military machinery in motion. The search for the Taliban phone signals was "central to the success of operations," states a secret British report from October 2010.

As one document states, Predator drones and Eurofighter jets equipped with sensors were constantly searching for the radio signals from known telephone numbers tied to the Taliban. The hunt began as soon as the mobile phones were switched on.

civilian casualties were considered acceptable "collateral damage". Note also how the definition of "civilians" was deliberately curtailed:

 

 

When an operation could potentially result in civilian casualties, ISAF headquarters in Kabul had to be involved. "The rule of thumb was that when there was estimated collateral damage of up to 10 civilians, the ISAF commander in Kabul was to decide whether the risk was justifiable," says an ISAF officer who worked with the lists for years. If more potential civilian casualties were anticipated, the decision was left up to the relevant NATO headquarters office. Bodyguards, drivers and male attendants were viewed as enemy combatants, whether or not they actually were. Only women, children and the elderly were treated as civilians.

 

the procedure to "identify" a target was also a bit vague:

 

 

The document also reveals how vague the basis for deadly operations apparently was. In the voice recognition procedure, it was sufficient if a suspect identified himself by name once during the monitored conversation. Within the next 24 hours, this voice recognition was treated as "positive target identification" and, therefore, as legitimate grounds for an airstrike. This greatly increased the risk of civilian casualties.

 

Drug dealers, farmers and couriers were also considered to be legitimate targets, whether they had any connection or not to the Taliban:

 

 

According to the NSA document, in October 2008 the NATO defense ministers made the momentous decision that drug networks would now be "legitimate targets" for ISAF troops. "Narcotics traffickers were added to the Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) list for the first time," the report reads.

In the opinion of American commanders like Bantz John Craddock, there was no need to prove that drug money was being funneled to the Taliban to declare farmers, couriers and dealers as legitimate targets of NATO strikes.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-docs-reveal-dubious-details-of-targeted-killings-in-afghanistan-a-1010358.html

 

The U.S. governemnt likes to give the impression that the drone program is a hi-tech "James Bond" type precision operation, but when you look into it, it is just another variation of the same type of terror bombing we have seen before, like the WW2 saturation bombing or Vietnam type "Kill ratios".

 

Is it making "America safer" or just creating the next generation of enemies?

Edited May 11, 2015 by Sgt Joch

[Nidan1]

I

My frustration with Iraqis came from the fact they kept indulging in very self destructive choices for short term gain.  In the wider view it makes sense as given Iraq from the 1980's on, anything long term rarely panned out, but grabbing the money and running was highly successful in the short term.   But in terms of rebuilding, it meant you'd at risk and expense install a generator to provide power for the local community, and then six hours later it's been stripped down to pieces and is being sent up to Turkey to be sold as scrap as the pennies on the hundreds of dollars of investment in the generator is worth more to someone than having reliable electricity.  And then the local community basically just sitting and watching it happen because maybe they can steal the wires the guy didn't take and sell those!

 

George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" is strongly illustrative of the feelings of being in Iraq, in terms of having all the power to murder the heck out of everything, but being ultimately unable to change the behavior of the locals, or address the underlying problems in their community.

 

 

 

 

I'll address this one section first, I'm a little pressed for time right now, but you made some interesting observations.

 

What you say about 19 year olds is probably very true. However for me personally, when I was 19 I was up to here in rice paddies, different times no doubt, but I was definitely politically ignorant at the time. I believed in the "Domino Theory" and the Red Menace had to be stopped no matter where it reared its ugly head. My experience in Vietnam made me feel exactly as you describe, of course Iraq had more urban areas than where I was, so you were in contact with locals a lot more than I. I think that feeling may be a fatal flaw in Americans, especially when in the military in a foreign country in wartime. Hell we interrupted our lives, or had them interrupted because the draft was still in force back then, and we came over here to help you, and you dont seem to give a damn. The ambivience of the South Vietnamese made us furious. Of course we knew nothing of them as a culture or anything of their history, no one ever bothered to give us any information about the place before we went over there. So if most of them considered us just another colonial master, and the farmers just wanted to be left alone, we (I) understood none of it. So we went along feeling superior and then resented the people we were there to help. What made things worse was that we were castigated by our own people when we came home.

 

A little catharsis for me here, but I find it very interesting that 50 years later American military men have similar attitudes and gripes about what their country was asking them to do. It boils down sometimes, and this is true in many walks of life, the higher ups never ask the people that are doing the job what they need to do it better.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

The case of an Afghan soldier named Hussein, number 3,341 on the list, shows how coldly NATO sometimes treated the lives of suspects. According to the documents, Hussein was suspected of involvement in an attack on ISAF forces in Helmand. A corporal in the Afghan army, he had allegedly deserted and was now on the run, presumably to join the Taliban.

 

I'd put him on the splatter list.  If someone helps the Taliban kill ISAF personnel, then books it and is calling folks from the hinterlands about how great it is to be free of Kabul's whatever, that's going to have an effect.  It's going to make some folks waver a bit if the Taliban narrative of "you'll be totally safe bro!" is undermined by the fact CPL Rumble never calls any more.

 

 

 

civilian casualties were considered acceptable "collateral damage". Note also how the definition of "civilians" was deliberately curtailed:

 

And it's worth debating.  It's a lot like the point in which less than lethal weapons have pervaded the police agencies, it's made it easier to exert force, which in turn has caused a lowering of when using force to achieve ends is acceptable.  It used to be striking someone for not obeying a police instruction was possibly risky, and took some doing, but now with pepper spray and tasers? It's much easier to resort to force as a choice.  Same deal with drones, when I was in Baghdad we targeted people much the same way the drone program does, only without the drone strikes.  We'd simply go out in the dead of night, yank the target out of bed in front of his family and stuff him in the trunk of the HMMWV (sometimes.  More often than not we'd just restrain him and stick him in a seat, but the trunk was good in a pinch and is more evocative of what the raid involved).  And more often than not it was bad dudes we were putting away.  The cell phone stuff especially tended to be very high fidelity, as it simply was not "he has a terrorist number!" but he's called this known terrorist, and this known terrorist, and his number is on this phone we found in a raid last week, and he's on the phone now talking about dropping "babies" that "explode" and "kill American infidels" off at the "pool that is an American base."

 

The really bad intel is all the HUMMIT stuff as they'll tell you all sorts of lies to get paid/get revenge/off rivals etc.  But the phone stuff is usually pretty solid and more than just "this number is pure evil"

 

Co-incidentally if any of you plan on doing something terrible, regardless of how much your country pretends to be offended at American spying, do throw away your cell phone (in all serious don't.  Make it easier for law enforcement/the military to deal with you).

 

Re: Collateral damage.

 

That's also my beef.  We don't ask the question of if this drug dealer is worth the lives of the families around him.  If it was Shiek Omar?  Splash him.  Sadface for the families but he's a high value target.  But I fear we've gotten too far down the road where any target becomes a legitimate target regardless of collateral damage.

 

Also:

 

 

 

Drug dealers, farmers and couriers were also considered to be legitimate targets, whether they had any connection or not to the Taliban:

 

This is sort of where you're missing the forest for the trees.  Drug dealers, and drug producers, are a key source of income for the Taliban, and often have their fingers in attacking ISAF (as ISAF is the one that burns down their drug fields, and honestly is the only police agency in the country they cannot buy).  It's not really a separate problem from the Taliban any more than Ploesti by virtue of not being literally filled with Nazis  wasn't part of the Nazi war machine.

 

Same deal with couriers.  Pretty much like knocking over a telephone exchange (although when it comes to snatching people, couriers are often the ones that are least invested in keeping their lips sealed, and most invested in cooperating as much as possible so you can keep them from getting killed when you release them).  

 

 

 

The U.S. governemnt likes to give the impression that the drone program is a hi-tech "James Bond" type precision operation, but when you look into it, it is just another variation of the same type of terror bombing we have seen before, like the WW2 saturation bombing or Vietnam type "Kill ratios".

 

I think you're missing the point, it's somewhere between the "terror" raids, and the claimed precision.  The point of the terror raid was to:

 

1. Destroy the will of the enemy to fight

 

2. Destroy wide area targets that contribute to the war effort (worker housing).

 

The Drone program makes very little intent to destroy the will of the enemy for fight.  It's closer to the point of what the USAAF attempts at precision bombing were supposed to achieve, knocking over key infrastructure to disrupt, degrade, and inshallah destroy the enemy's war machine.  Of course the question is, and remains the same, is the lack of precision and inevitable casualties a worthy trade off for the target in question (granted there's a lot more precision now, but collateral damage is more or less a line crossed, in effect killing one innocent person carries much the same reaction as killing a baker's dozen)?

 

And to that end I feel the answer CAN be yes, but we've become too comfortable with the simple ability to splat insurgents out of existence, whereas the program should instead be focusing on our higher tier targets we cannot safely arrest, or splatting folks who offer no reasonable risk of collateral damage (such as knocking them off when they're traveling in a car, or in an isolated camp).

 

As far as making enemies, they've already been made.  Drones or no, OIF/OEF or no.  The historical legacy of the west, paired with opportunistic local leadership that blames everything broken on infidels already made that pool.  If it wasn't drones, it'd be invading Afghanistan.  If it wasn't that, it'd be historical support of non-Islamic governments.  If it was not that, it'd be the destruction of the Ottoman empire and it's perfect caliphate (we're not dealing with history majors here If it wasn't that, it'd be western support of the Greek independence movement  from the Ottoman empire etc etc.

 

It's the same cultural narrative that leads to the popularity of wahhabist Islam.  Again arrogance to think merely a few years of drones somehow makes enemies where there were not before.

 

Re: Past and present

 

 

 

A little catharsis for me here, but I find it very interesting that 50 years later American military men have similar attitudes and gripes about what their country was asking them to do. It boils down sometimes, and this is true in many walks of life, the higher ups never ask the people that are doing the job what they need to do it better.

 

I know the feeling.  I was talking with one of my dad's friends after I finally came back CONUS from everything, and he'd been a USMC tanker in the late 60's.  Odd how little changes.

 

I think our problem as Americans is we view ourselves as a city on the hill, that we're something good and great.  And I think we are (with some historical low points and things we ought to own up to).  But we expect our enthusiasm for what we offer to be contagious, and much of what we offer is some bright future down the road with much labor involved, vs the gold paved roads and never ending riches the Iraqis and I imagine Vietnamese expected us to deliver upon arrival.  Once the gold doesn't show up it becomes easiest to chase the idiot promising them communism/allah/whatever will deliver that amazing future.  And of course given the totalitarian nature of those systems, rather unlike the American system, you cannot opt out once it fails to deliver.

 

Anyway man.  Awkward as it can be, thanks for your service.  Sorry to hear about the rice paddies, they're certainly something I'm glad Iraq skipped out on.  

[Sgt Joch]

This is sort of where you're missing the forest for the trees.  Drug dealers, and drug producers, are a key source of income for the Taliban, and often have their fingers in attacking ISAF (as ISAF is the one that burns down their drug fields, and honestly is the only police agency in the country they cannot buy).  It's not really a separate problem from the Taliban any more than Ploesti by virtue of not being literally filled with Nazis  wasn't part of the Nazi war machine.  

 

 

You could argue that, but we are very far removed from "terrorists" planning an imminent attack on U.S. troops.

 

Drug Dealers/Producers are a economic target, just like German/Japanese civilians in WW2. Sure, the U.S. can choose to murder Afghan farmers in the name of the "war on terror", in the hopes that it will somehow impact the Taliban finances, but don't pretend it is any more precise or humane than what was done in WW2.

Edited May 11, 2015 by Sgt Joch

[Nerdwing]

Slysniper: Able to punch through an m1A2's frontal armor RELIABLY at 2000 meters. Current russian gun and ammo in the game can already achieve that under certain conditions (30-40% of the time, odds are better the closer you get).

Lets get back to a more technical and neutral subject please.

 

Good catch!  Almost missed a chance to fellate Russian tech there!

Edited May 11, 2015 by Nerdwing

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

Drug Dealers/Producers are a economic target, just like German/Japanese civilians in WW2. Sure, the U.S. can choose to murder Afghan farmers in the name of the "war on terror", in the hopes that it will somehow impact the Taliban finances, but don't pretend it is any more precise or humane than what was done in WW2.

 

Just speaking from my hands on, it's not just any and every poppy farmer in whatever district must die.  It's easier to burn a field or arrest those dudes.  There's some of the larger growers that are well above our ability to get at conventionally (many of whom owning to some degree the local police force), or being evasive to the degree that they're somewhere out of reach.

 

Or they're just genuinely bad dudes who keep collections of Afghan polcemen's ears.  Dunno.  Either way the characterization of "farmers" as indiscriminate is sensational, but not as specific or indicative of practice as it should be.  

 

So to that end I'll hold dropping an ATGM through the roof of a genuinely bad dude (or very very suspicious at least) is a bit more precise than planes flying wingtip to wingtip, with a target described as "Greater Berlin Metropolitan area." 

 

This of course gets to the heart of why the drone discussion usually goes no where.  The realistic answer is likely "drones sometimes, but not as much as we do it" but instead painting it strictly as terrordrones seeking out more or less random people on the ground is just as disingenuous as the surgically clean lie that the government pushes sometimes*.

 

 

*Rather certain parts of the government.  From the GI end of things it's frustrating to be very honest that "this is going to do some damage to stuff we don't want to damage" then getting the government civilian side thumbs up to do "what we have to" and then the government goes off and promises it'll all be done spotlessly without so much as a hair disturbed on an Iraqi head, AND then comes back down on us for the operation being just as messy as promised.  

Edited May 11, 2015 by panzersaurkrautwerfer

[Sgt Joch]

This of course gets to the heart of why the drone discussion usually goes no where.  The realistic answer is likely "drones sometimes, but not as much as we do it" but instead painting it strictly as terrordrones seeking out more or less random people on the ground is just as disingenuous as the surgically clean lie that the government pushes sometimes*.

 

 

on that we agree.

[db_zero]

As much as I love my country-I do think that pre 1945 America was closer to the ideals of the founding fathers than what we became after WW2. Better or worse I'll leave up to the experts to decide.

 

What I do see is many who seem to distrust America and its intentions. As an American I think this is not only a good thing, but a smart thing to question what our intentions are. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the founding fathers and those who wrote our Bill of Rights and Constitution were deeply suspicious of government and wanted citizens to always be wary of big government.

 

As an American and if I were someone living overseas I would be be highly suspicious of the fact the 2 front runners for the next American presidental election is a Clinton and Bush. Since when is the presidency the personal play thing of 2 rich and connected families?

 

The Supreme Court has opened the door for unlimited money to pour into our politicans pockets and that that leads to undue influence by big money. Combine that with the fact our congress and senate have quietly rolled back all laws that pertain to themselves and their aides regarding insider trading and the fact that the Clintons, Bushes and other big name politicians get loads of money from Wall Street and banks, while they are shielded from profiting from decisions they make or inside information they have access to, makes one wonder just how much better we are than other countries we go around lecturing.

 

I think its a good thing to question and be suspicious of any big government and politicains in general.

[Thewood1]

American elections were always open to big money and influence.  Go read about elections in the late 1800's and first half of the 1900's.  Many of those elections were bought and sold.  Even into the 1960's it was all about stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes.

 

Also, can you say Roosevelts.  Americans have this idealized view of our past that just plain didn't exist.  Watergate was a turning point in Americans really looking at the ideals of the constitution and realizing it wasn't what we had.

 

As bad as some large media outlets are, there is a lot more transparency and opportunities to get at information today than at any time in the past.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

There is an idealized view of our past for sure.  

 

Either way not entirely trusting one's government, even when you're working for it is hardly a bad idea.  It's not even in the sense that the government is out to get anyone, or is malicious, just that it's a big organization with most people trying to do some shade of the "right thing" some people doing the wrong things, and then some people counting down the years until they can retire while shoving the paperwork they're supposed to be doing into a very large file cabinet and forgetting about it.  

 

I guess that's my experience at least.  It's rare anyone means to do ill, but often once an action has worked through the various agencies and the like it can become something quite nasty.  Lots of roads to hell paved with great intentions.  

[db_zero]

No argument from me about the idealized past and yes there has always been corruption, but just becasue it happened in the past doesn't justify it in the present...not saying anyone meant that.

 

You always need to remain vigilent. My understanding is years back 60 Minutes did a story about our elected officials giving themselves excemptions on insider trading and there was a huge uproar. Congress and the Senate expressed outrage and passed laws banning this and then a few years later quietly passed laws to once again give themselves excemptions.

[John Kettler]

Questions and observations for everyone except my tormentors

 

Steve himself talked recently about standing up, regarding inappropriate behavior toward oneself on the Forums, did he not? If I won't stand up for myself, as I resoundingly just did, especially when it's not just over brutal maltreatment but health endangering direct attack on my recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury, who will? Who here has the stones to stand up to the wholesale flouting of the Forum Rules; the character assassination, name calling, slanders, lies and low blows rained upon me by Wicky, LukeFF and JonS ? I believe that out of all of you men, a grand total of three have actually gotten on them over their uncalled for, outrageous, even vicious behavior toward me and, occasionally, others. I know for a fact there are Members who are afraid to post lest they also become targets for the same trio's abuse (which simply shouldn't be happening or tolerated on a moderated board). How? They PMed or E-mailed me saying so. That this is so is simply shameful.

 

I don't care whether you agree with me or not about matters outside the Forums.  You know where ot find me if you wish to discuss such things. I do care, though, that you honor the social contract you "signed" in becoming Members here. Let me speak plainly. To the extent that you let those three continue to attack me, in their typical illicit way, and say nothing by way of reproof, you are: 1) enabling their awful behavior and as such are complicit in their evil deeds; 2) not standing up for the Rule of Law, as defined for us here, or for basic human dignity, not just mine; 3) empowering others to imitate them and 4) practically guaranteeing that sooner or later you are going to be on the receiving end of them or someone like them. In this regard, you may find Martin Niemoeller's words apt. Try this reformulation, Line 1: They attacked John Kettler, but I said nothing, for I disagreed with his views...

 

Isn't it time to put the board bullies (very kind characterization) in their place and reclaim our online neighborhood? Why should anyone, not just me, have to worry about becoming their target and deal with the attendant and ongoing dire consequences? Gentlemen, I believe that answer is entirely obvious! 

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

 

[Sublime]

and isnt your post completely off topic john?

[agusto]

@Sublime:

Not is not more off-topic than the discussion about Iraq and Afgahnistan we are currently having.

 

@John:

In general i think you are taking this way to seriously, John. Just ignore them, i mean litterlly ignore them by using the "ignore" function of the forum. You wont see their posts anymore if you ignore them.

 

I do agree with you though on LukeFFs behaviour beeing inappropriate though, not because he is occasionally makeing fun of you, but because his profile says he is an official CM Beta Tester, which gives his statements and opinions influence on the general reputation of Battlefront.com. If i were Steve, i would tell LukeFF that publicly making fun of one of their customers is a big no-no because it may hurt the companys reputation.

 

At the end of the day, if the behaviour of the people you named really bothers you as much as you say, i recommend you collect their posts and as soon as you have sufficient evidence of their "bullying" write a ticket at helpdesk or send a PM to one of the Admins.

[Lethaface]

I'd put him on the splatter list.  If someone helps the Taliban kill ISAF personnel, then books it and is calling folks from the hinterlands about how great it is to be free of Kabul's whatever, that's going to have an effect.  It's going to make some folks waver a bit if the Taliban narrative of "you'll be totally safe bro!" is undermined by the fact CPL Rumble never calls any more.

 

 

And it's worth debating.

 

[...]

 

 

It's the same cultural narrative that leads to the popularity of wahhabist Islam.  Again arrogance to think merely a few years of drones somehow makes enemies where there were not before.

 

Well apart from Afghanistan and Iraq, JSOC is presumably assassinating people in countries they aren't at war with, without having brought them in front of a judge. While I agree the latter can be a little impractical and there are circumstances in which it is irresponsible to let certain individuals roam the world unhindered. But instead of debating acceptable collateral damage, I'd like to zoom out a bit.

 

If I as a state have to resort to outside of the law, large scale, (international) assassination operations to maintain national security, I'd be asking myself what I have done to make the situation so FUBAR that I'm even considering debating collateral. It's not 'normal' for a democratic state to have hitlists with several thousand people on it. While there is more to debate I think that alone is enough for me to rephrase your example of the thief and the murderer: I think it's more like the murderer confronting someone, who is both a thief and a murderer, about his thievery. 

Let me be very clear again that I'm not defending Russia at all, just a little picky on who's calling them out ;-)