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Kandahari

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  1. An interesting surmise, M. Costard. On the face of it, a futile attempt by aggrieved families/a lawyer ripping his clients/an example of US litigation getting out of hand. All of these explanations are so ridiculous as to beggar belief (not that this is a reason to think they aren't true) - surely we haven't stooped so far into idiocy? Perhaps there is indeed a suspected fault that can be only uncovered through Discovery, etc., and that this case is in essence a straw man set up to allow the US military to be poked. Given the ageing state (and overwork) of some US helicopters, how convenient would it be to blame a crash costing so many lives on enemy fire rather than systemic failure? If one was suspicious that this bird was flying beyond its limits, how else to establish that?
  2. Oooo.. it deserved a reply. Not really - It was me venting all manner of bile as the result of dining and wining (whining?) with friends who complain of the power, corruption and lies, but who continue to make good money (as do I, except fo the good money bit). You copped it, and apologies for that. So many talented and intelligent individuals who subsume their light under the bushel of contract law or property development, etc. Of course, everybody has to make a living, pay off the mortgage, fend off the taxman, etc. But you can also use your spare time to provide critical commentary beyond the confines of a particular and socially isolated forum (if that is your wont). You don't have to spend your spare time playing golf or attending parties where you really don't care for anyone present. You only get one life. Practise commentary as an active contribution to the general discussion. By all means use the Battlefront Forum as a training ground, but there's a time and a limit beyond which you are merely talking to like-minded individuals (more or less) and no-one in the wider world is the wiser. Freelance journalism - do it. Of course, this is difficult because you don't have an 'in'; you have no way of reaching an audience IOT persuade them, but and however: A considered and well-reasoned argument is worth more than the letters: MBA or PhD. Particularly now, when your average MBA graduate has no idea how to construct a reasoned argument, let alone how to express it in a persuasive and lyrical manner, and a PhD can be bought. An ability to critique a given status quo, and to argue for imrovement in a coherent and logical manner is of the highest order of importance. There are, however, places for your argument to be aired given an ability to edit, which on repeated acceptance might warrant the demand: 'Hey, how come I'm not being paid for this?' I'd say it'd be relatively easy for you to be published in the dailies at the least four times a year to begin with, given some small effort (and a lot of editing - no offence). If you submitted a 300 word piece every week (how hard would that be, really). People might actually appreciate the reasoned argument, rather than the purely subjective opinion-piece that usually passes for reader contribution. It's just an idea. Not to practice this ability, not to train the mind that is capable of doing so is an affront to the genetics that created you. Not to do it Sir, would be the most grievous of insults (my glove). Oh, and try to disguise the argument in terms of a shpiel that will appeal to your readership. Make it light if it's the weekend magazine ('So I was gardening in Tuscany the other day...'); make it entertaining if it's the dailies. If all else fails, make it relevant WRT the issues that concern the average comfortable rich person (cancer, taxes, education, etc.). Anyone who lives in a sense of security and with the ability to plan is rich, no matter what the neighbours or annoying brother-in-law may earn. Gosh, I think I need to stop preaching and do this myself. But there is a resource there - the ability to form a reasoned, coherent argument, couch it in succinct and erudite prose, and it would be a shame to allow this ability to stagnate in a forum of like- or near-like minded individuals. Regards. Quote: (seems to be de rigeur) "..the reading public is still so naive and immature that it cannot understand a fable unless the moral is given at the end, fails to see jokes, has no sense of irony, and is simply badly educated. It still doesn't realise that open abuse is impossible in respectable society or respectable books, and that modern culture has found a far keener weapon than abuse. Though practically invisible, it is none the less deadly, and under the cloak of flattery strikes surely and irresistibly.' Mikhail Lermontov 1840
  3. Damn, and I thought we was all sailing six points to the wind. You nay-sayers and doom-merchants will always point to the negative aspects of capitalism, but it has always been thus: What is it that is so new; what is it that differentiates this scenario from the situation in any empire of old, the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottoman and the Sung - all of them survived until.. until the credit ran out and the average Joe said "quite frankly, I'm better off buying a defencible piece of land with water and soil than I am investing in the Emperor's multiplex, 'cause the mongols is coming". Whether they be actual Mongols or just folk who are over it (UK riots, French riots some years earlier).. Dissolution of the things that are written on a piece of paper - never signed by you or by me, but somehow law for all. Oh, Costard. You are so negative, Why can you not be like everyone else and just believe! We have been told what to do, and as long as everyone keeps doing it, we should maintain positive growth and the happiness quotient and all good things..? Why can't you just relax and watch Batman and laugh along with the morning tv hosts. Why can't you just put up and shut up and keep giving me your superannuation? Oh, Costard - so much reasoning from one who is so far removed from where the decisions are made; what are you doing? Should you not be advising president Obama? Or Prime Ministre Cameron? But no, you are here in the forum, and everyone is soo sympathetic. Oh, Costard. If only you could put your mind to actual use.. Or is this an excuse to do nothing? Yeah, I'm here too, so mea culpa.
  4. Perhaps if small groups of heavily armed, but seriously outnumbered soldiers of a certain disposition were to be inserted into semi-permissive (Hazara) areas for a year or two... how about language skills beyond 'get up, go away, shut up and hands up'. How about we spend some money on tarps and rope and fuel and pins and cloth and not so much on stealth fighters. How about we listen to what is being said to us on the ground - how about we commit lives, or else get the f out. The reluctance to suffer is a mark against us - when the fighting starts up for real, we leave. This is observed and marked as cowardice and with contempt. Obviously no politician wants to be the one to announce that 20 American lives were given today for a small collection of rocks, but as things are now, every time we withdraw because it's too hot, the enemy (and I don't really see them as this, I just don't have a better word) can spruik a victory. Training the Afghan defence force? All very nice when there's tiers of American support that'd make an officer cadet (or CM afficionado [sp?]) weep for joy, but not so good when you have one radio per company (optimistic) and all your air support (one antiquated helo with limited ammo) is assigned to protect the corrupt police chief's compound... The solution? Nuke the lot. Or, educate the people who are to interact in the foreign environment such that at least, they are able to respond to the inhabitants as human beings, with kids and cares and joys and sorrows, and not just as monosyllabic automatons of a military superpower.. language skills would be nice - interpreters only work to a certain extent. You'd be amazed at the change that can come about in human relations when one makes the attempt to speak in the lingua franca and completely butchers it. All of a sudden, everyone is laughing... This is my first post (ever, to anything), and I'd like to extend my apologies if I've offended or broken protocol... feedback most welcome, even negative (c'mon, I have a thick skin..).
  5. I'd say that's fairly acurate about the cover afforded by orchards - many orchards having low boughs for the picking, and forests (in my peculiar geographic experience) having a significant gap between undergrowth and arboreal concealment. I'd rather sneak around in an orchard than in an (Australian) old growth forest... anyone above the flat will have immense difficulty in putting down fire onto troops in an orchard. That having been said, anyone defending on the flat with say, an mg42, should have no problem at all if the cows and sheep have been keeping down the grass, as they would, from France to ... A fig orchard provides awesome concealment to anyone below the flat - anyone above the orchard could see nothing until we were within 10 meters. Anyone on the ground could see us coming from 100m away.
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