Soviet losses in ww2

[Desert Dave]

Attacking non-combatants began in the Age of the Mastodons, not the Flying Fortresses. The first time that Joe Neanderthal killed Jim Neathanderal, and grabbed Jane Cavewoman as booty, meant that civilians would be in the firing line.

Only dreamers, armchair generals (most wargamers belong to that pseudo-martial category) and techno-fetishists could believe in clean war. Maybe in outer space, but not on Earth, where conflict inevitably means someone's crops will be trampled, their livelihood curtailed, their way of life disrupted.

Perhaps that's not such a bad thing. It means that modern war is democratic. All of us are involved, so we can't fold our arms and cry, "It's not MY war. It's THEIR war."

Diced Tomato

What the hey? :confused:

In above example, Jim N has the opportunity

To DEFEND himself and whosoever else

He should prefer to... faithful

Jane, perhaps.

I repeat:

WW-2 witnessed the VERY FIRST en masse,

Cap-T... "Terror bombing."

Bombing implies the use of AIR craft,

At least it did then,

Aside from the rocketry anyhow;

En Masse means WHOLE neighborhoods

In one blistering swath.

The kind of places with trees got swings

Dangling from ropes?

Got victory gardens?

Got some are fat, and some

Damn near starving to death?

Like it's always been?

So, anyway,

Joe N, he The Man, the pilot.

His buddy is sighting, and each

Of the crew doing their part, as

Good ol' pub-crawling pal... is releasing

The bombs.

Maybe muttering,

Possibly even - shouting!

Bombs Away!

Upon:

In Dresden, it is Hans.

In London, it is Sean.

In Tokyo, it is Yan.

In America it was... well, anyway,

All of whom are... 3 years old.

Riding a motor scooter, the kind

You push with one little leg?

Maybe even a lever he or she can work it

To ring the bell - look out World!

Ecce Homo, in miniature I am!

On my way to being Great!

Just being antic, having SOME fun.

(... kids are amazingly intuitive and KNOW

when the parents, the back-yard, the neighborhood

is in trouble, so not as MUCH fun as

during times of, let's say,

an honorable peace, I will grant you that)

None of 'em 3 can fold their arms

And say - hey!

Adult who should know better?

Adult who CAN and SHOULD make

The WHOLE built-environment... BEST possible?

How about acting like you were, oh,

Let me consult me Story Book, ummm,

How about?

A "Chivalrous Knight!" who

LIVES for old honor, and

As far as I know - and that ain't much, me?

I am merely - 3 years old,

Going on 4!

Yep, a Knight-like and stalwart Hero

Who,

NEVER roamed the countryside slashing & slaying

Women & kids,

Elderly & sickened,

Merchants & nurses like Nightengales,

Nor song singers or artists,

Or those who labor tirelessly,

All the day and all the night long

To put out fires,

Remove wrack of debris, and

Rescue kids and dogs from early entombment

Due to random, senseless,

Truly insane bombings.

Did they?

I WRONG here?

**Now,

I repeat for the very last time,

If any of those 3 kids

Or - ANY kids in ANY war

In ANY time, way back then, right now,

Or in future,

(... should we have one, and, well

You REALLY gotta wonder)

Are evaporated in fire

Or explosion by adult... cowards,

Who kill from high above,

In some Air Craft,

I - personally, consider it

A war crime,

And WHOMEVER is piloting, or aiming,

Or in some manner directing that annihilation

Of a child and/or any "non-combatant"

(... IE, they have not elected to participate

in these latest acts of mindless madness)

IS, ipso in actual facto, a war criminal.

Should be cuffed up

And stuck in the dock.

Should be punished.

Maybe even... hung from the neck until dead.

See what I mean, sans - that sleight obfuscation

You've introduced, Diced Ice?

[ July 17, 2006, 07:12 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

[Cary]

Originally posted by dicedtomato:

Attacking non-combatants began in the Age of the Mastodons, not the Flying Fortresses. The first time that Joe Neanderthal killed Jim Neathanderal, and grabbed Jane Cavewoman as booty, meant that civilians would be in the firing line.

Only dreamers, armchair generals (most wargamers belong to that pseudo-martial category) and techno-fetishists could believe in clean war. Maybe in outer space, but not on Earth, where conflict inevitably means someone's crops will be trampled, their livelihood curtailed, their way of life disrupted.

Perhaps that's not such a bad thing. It means that modern war is democratic. All of us are involved, so we can't fold our arms and cry, "It's not MY war. It's THEIR war."

Diced Tomato

Diced, with all due respect, I have to point out that you're making Thomas Hobbes sound like a liberal humanist and an optimist. (!) Generally this suggests that one's arguments are floating somewhere in "cloud-cuckooland." That's fine. I've been there many times myself, but my experience is that it's not healthy to stay there too long.

For what it's worth, Hobbes' argument is that only an armed, organized body can can bring to an end the "war of all against all." Leviathan, needless to say, is not pacifist.

That said, it's a part of the American (settler's) cultural heritage that we haven't had to think much about Thomas Hobbes. Even W.T. Sherman didn't really mean what he said when he said "war is hell" (or at least he didn't with respect to White Southerners -- for anyone who lived on buffalo it was a different story). And more importantly, he, like most of us on this continent, never had to face the spectre of the "war of all against all." But part of the danger of the American Way of War (Weigley's book by this title is worth the read) is that it can easily leave the "war of all against all" in its wake -- if we bomb 'em back to the stone age, we end up with a lot of "neanderthals" kicking around.

By the way, just to promote a truly off-topic post.... Anybody want to stick up for the Neanderthals? All we know about them is that Cro-Magnons had better publicists.

The idea of "Just War" and the idea of "Just conduct in war" has been around a long time, and some true thinkers have spent their life's energy on it. Perhaps part of their wisdom is that we will be in trouble if we ever think we've come to a final answer -- if we cease to think we might be wrong. I don't know that I can abstract this thinking all that well right now -- and there are professionals who have done it much better -- so I'll just make a couple points.

You are correct, one thing that has to be said about the Flying Fortress, to say nothing about the PGM and the video feed: the horror of it is that they can deceive us that war is clean -- things look simple and orderly though the missile's suicidal periscope, or from 20,000 feet.

Perhaps as because of the temptation to believe in the "surgical strike," somebody has to take the position of the moralist in a debate like this. (And a salute to you, DD, for doing so).

Certainly (young?) armed men too easily become thugs. And their leaders bear the responsibility. Vis:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5129350.stm

I'm pretty much convinced that Kony's a war criminal, that, at best he deserves to be badgered to death in a Luxemburg court -- gotta love the European flavor of capital punishment for Milosevic -- or to rot for 40 years in solitary. But saying that requires me to accept that there are individuals who have fought in a way that is better. Do they include the fellows with the joysticks? .... Honestly, I don't know.

As to armchair generals and wargamers, I think you've mis-stated things: rather than believing in clean war, we're too prone to believing that war is clean. It's easy to forget just how much misery follows war when you're manipulating cardboard chips, or chips of 0s and 1s. As such, it's also easy to forget that specific acts of violence can cause more misery or less.

My experience with "professionals in the field" is that they are, generally, trying to carve islands of sanity for themselve in an insane pursuit -- some, of course, fly back to a clean barracks and punch their cards, and need not struggle so hard -- but many have a far more profound challenge. I can respect them they realize that they are taking blood on their hands and because they are trying to relate their ends to their means, and they realize that they might truly do wrong if that proportion is lost.

I guess my point, in the end, is that there may be good reason to accept an idea of "aristocratic" war. Europe is probably the most literate, cultured place on earth to actually try out "democratic" war -- perhaps twice, once, in the wars of religion 1550-1648, and once, in the wars of mechanized mass death, 1914-1945. (Ok.. I'll reach desperately to grab a justification for this post in this thread -- particularly on the Eastern Front)

Aristocratic conflict may be nasty, but, like democratic politics, it beats the alternative. Now, on this, I may be wrong. A true optimist once wrote:

"All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Non-violence is a good starting point. Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony."

In America it was... well, anyway,

The name of a Philadelphia mayor comes to mind....

And, yes, in my neighborhood once de septiembre brings out small Catholic shrines.

[ July 17, 2006, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[dicedtomato]

Whoa! We can see that Desert Dave was a grunt, because he believes that all combat pilots are war criminals. They must be criminals, because they're dropping bombs from 10,000 feet without seeing their targets, which means that houses and schools inevitably are hit.

But then I'd have to ask Dave: when the grunts in Vietnam took fire from a village, and called in the 105s that pulverized the old farmer and his family, was that a war crime?

I do believe in the concept of war crimes, defined as deliberately targeting innocents for the sake of terror. But that's a Pandora's box, isn't it? Britain in 1942 had no real means of striking at Germany directly other than strategic bombing. Given the primitive tech of the time, civilians would inevitably be killed (as they were during American "precision" bombing). So would you tell an Auschwitz mother who watched her baby stomped to death by an SS guard, that you couldn't bomb German cities because German babies might be hurt?

Cary, aristocratic war is nonsense. It never stays aristocratic. If you like Weigley, read his book on the quest for decisive victories, which every nation sought but few achieved, so the war dragged on. WWI began as aristocratic war, a game between monarchies that degenerated into mass murder as trench warfare produced frustration (see http://military.discovery.com/randr/reviews/books/cataclysm.html).

Of course I would love to see a clean war, like some SF novel where the combatants fight on some magically empty planet. I know that military professionals would love nothing more than to fight their opposite numbers in some civilian-free world, just like Rommel and Montgomery (and we'll just forget what the Germans did to the Tunisian Jews in the rear). It's too bad that professional soldiers are also taught to focus on accomplishing their missions, and if civilians get in the way, it's "collateral damage."

If you want to avoid civilian casualties, don't go to war in the first place. If you do go to war, expect that you will hurt innocents. That may not be decent, but at least it's honest.

Diced Tomato

[Desert Dave]

If you want to avoid civilian casualties, don't go to war in the first place. If you do go to war, expect that you will hurt innocents. That may not be decent, but at least it's honest.

Valid points Diced Ice,

And yet I would finally add this:

Where is it written?

In what book,

Military, Sacred or the one

You keep deeply secret

In your fertile mind,

That JUST BECAUSE the status quo

Is, presently, such & so,

We must,

Like lemmings headed over the cliff,

CONTINUE to "follow" any of those? :confused:

You may suppose, I don't actually know,

That I dwell in some un-real, surreal,

Sloppily pseudo-intellectual... Dream World.

Fine by me,

I NEVER mind what somebody else imagines,

It's... ALL to the good.

What I AM saying is this:

There had better be some alteration

In HOW we interpret so-called

"Received histories & other

Myths, superstitions and tell-tales"

Else,

We just ain't gonna make it,

As a species.

My opinion merely.

I start from the first,

With the basics, if you will, IE,

No more senseless slaughter.

Seems reasonable to me.

Then,

As that will hardly be enough,

[... there ARE legions of deranged folks such as

socio-paths and ignorant "MY bible ONLY"

or usually useless chest-thumpers, I appreciate]

I hope and, yea, pray

For that liberating day,

When the "collected consciousness"

(... no, this ain't merely the province

of it's originator, Carl Jung, BUT

the common everyday will-full ability

of EACH human to reach way the hell down

in heart & mind & soul, and

arrive at... a most ecstatic,

and commonly UNDERSTOOD "epiphany")

Has one a' them JOLTS,

And throws over all the haters & dolts,

Why,

Sure enuff,

The "right stuff" will get done. :cool:

The "old order" rapidly over-thrown,

Like it wuz... magic.

NO verbal exchanges,

NO babel of lingo differences impeding,

As ALL will just... KNOW

What is... NOW required.

Call it what you choose.

I say... it's not fantasy,

It IS... quite likely to occur.

IMHO.

**May it be... before the nasty boys

Destroy our Earth, what

With 'em Self-enlarging play-toys.

[ July 17, 2006, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

[Cary]

Originally posted by dicedtomato:

snip...

But then I'd have to ask Dave: when the grunts in Vietnam took fire from a village, and called in the 105s that pulverized the old farmer and his family, was that a war crime?

I do believe in the concept of war crimes, defined as deliberately targeting innocents for the sake of terror. But that's a Pandora's box, isn't it? Britain in 1942 had no real means of striking at Germany directly other than strategic bombing. Given the primitive tech of the time, civilians would inevitably be killed (as they were during American "precision" bombing). So would you tell an Auschwitz mother who watched her baby stomped to death by an SS guard, that you couldn't bomb German cities because German babies might be hurt?

Cary, aristocratic war is nonsense. It never stays aristocratic. If you like Weigley, read his book on the quest for decisive victories, which every nation sought but few achieved, so the war dragged on. WWI began as aristocratic war, a game between monarchies that degenerated into mass murder as trench warfare produced frustration (see http://military.discovery.com/randr/reviews/books/cataclysm.html [link edited to make it "hot".]

Of course I would love to see a clean war, like some SF novel where the combatants fight on some magically empty planet. I know that military professionals would love nothing more than to fight their opposite numbers in some civilian-free world, just like Rommel and Montgomery (and we'll just forget what the Germans did to the Tunisian Jews in the rear). It's too bad that professional soldiers are also taught to focus on accomplishing their missions, and if civilians get in the way, it's "collateral damage."

If you want to avoid civilian casualties, don't go to war in the first place. If you do go to war, expect that you will hurt innocents. That may not be decent, but at least it's honest.

Diced Tomato

Note from the site you cite, Diced, Stevenson's point in Cataclysm doesn't necessarily support you:

The most interesting part of Cataclysm isn't how the war was won, but how the peace was lost. When the guns fell silent in November 1918, "the Western world was not foredoomed to follow the disastrous trajectory that it pursued in the succeeding decades," Stevenson writes. "Yet the very cost of victory, by undermining political and social stability, had stacked the odds against a peaceful future." A bitter Germany blamed its defeat (as losers often do) on treachery within its ranks. The wartime coalition of the victors disintegrated, as America, Britain, France and Russia — wracked by social and economic disorder and distrustful of one other — failed to respond until it was too late.

I might say that "aristocratic war" is all about looking to minimize the "cost of victory" so that that "cost" doesn't stack "the odds against a peaceful future."

The problem that Americans, particularly, have to face -- "now that we're in a war, are civilian casualties ok?" Does crossing that first Rubicon mean that we are free to cross the second? I respond as doggedly as I do because I believe the answer is "no."

Agreed, the quest for a decisive victory in war is a chimera: Sherman, Grant, or James Gould Shaw didn't get it in 1865, even having accepted that "war is hell."

But as to "nonsense" and "never," we owe much of our thought, our technology, and our civilization to Europeans who lived in this "nonsensical" fiction of aristocratic war: the long "peace" between 1648 and 1789, and between 1815 and 1914. (Sorry to all of the multitudes of PC anti-eurocentrists who I just know are lurking nearby, waiting to be offended -- rest easy, I'll say far mor offensive things than praise for Locke, Newton, and Kant). I would give near anything that we live in a century as peaceful.

No question, the seeds of destruction were sowed in those periods, but many these seeds were themselves the belief that we could "progress" to the end of war, or, once a war was begun, that it could be the "war to end all wars."

Warning... more gasoline for the thread... YMMV

As to the 105s and the village: I am going to take your bait. Yes, probably so, perhaps not so much because civilians were killed, but because it was an attempt to fight a war without sacrifice on the part of our soldiers. Frankly, Patton's view that the point of war is to make some other SOB die for his country is dead wrong, and it's particularly, even fatally, misguided in the context of guerrilla war. The point of war is to prove your own and your country's own willingness to sacrifices for its own beliefs and its survival. --- Among those sacrifices, it should be noted, is having the act of killing somebody else on one's own conscience, something that the fly-boys and lanyard-pullers are, terrifyingly, spared --- And if we can't find grunts willing to make that sacrifice, it seems to me a good indication that the war shouldn't be fought, because any "victory" will be particularly short-lived.

This is, I am afraid, the true meaning to the phrase "freedom is not free."

Is this easy for me to say... perhaps. I can't claim I'd be scrambling for the sharp end. But it seems to approach a truth about the -- harsh -- "ethics" of soldiering, such as there are.

As to the Auschwitz mother, I'd like to grant her the moral integrity of not necessarily wanting revenge for it's own sake. The awful truth of the matter, of course, is that she had far more to worry about than Hamburg or Dresden.

[ July 17, 2006, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[dicedtomato]

That "long peace" of aristocratic war saw Native Americans and other indigenous peoples wiped out. I guess the moral is that aristocratic wars work as long as the aristocrats have some outsiders to exterminate.

I don't get your definition that the point of war is proving that you're willing to self-sacrifice. That sounds more like African tribes waving spears at each other, or a political-military chessboard conflict like Vietnam. Nazi Germany didn't surrender because the Soviets proved how tough they were. They surrendered when the Red Army stormed Berlin.

Diced Tomato

[R.J.]

Originally posted by Cary:

As to the 105s and the village: I am going to take your bait. Yes, probably so, perhaps not so much because civilians were killed, but because it was an attempt to fight a war without sacrifice on the part of our soldiers. Frankly, Patton's view that the point of war is to make some other SOB die for his country is dead wrong: the point of war is to prove your own and your country's own willingness to sacrifices for its own beliefs and its survival.

Cary also wrote (p3): Because we generally accept that mixing religion and politics is a disaster.

I'm afraid you're setting the moral bar too high for the strictly secular concept of the nation state. If you're going to ask for a sacrifice that grand you'd better be offering something more than the temporal.

Politics (modern and Western at any rate) tends to play out in more pragmatic, alas even cynical, terms. 'Bomber' Harris may have to answer to God in eternity, but in the here and now (or there and then as the case may be) the idea of ending a war through terror bombing was believed (falsely as it proved) to have merit.

And where does one finally draw the line in us v. them? My family v. the criminals who threaten them? My country v. the country that threatens to enslave us? The family of man v. the livestock that feeds us? All organic matter living in perfect harmony? Will some future generation condemn us for mowing our lawns as some now condemn Harris for trying to spare "his own" at the expense of others?

It's an imperfect world. We need both our ideals and a good dose of pragmatism for such difficult questions as war.

[Cary]

Originally posted by dicedtomato:

That "long peace" of aristocratic war saw Native Americans and other indigenous peoples wiped out. I guess the moral is that aristocratic wars work as long as the aristocrats have some outsiders to exterminate.

I don't get your definition that the point of war is proving that you're willing to self-sacrifice. That sounds more like African tribes waving spears at each other, or a political-military chessboard conflict like Vietnam. Nazi Germany didn't surrender because the Soviets proved how tough they were. They surrendered when the Red Army stormed Berlin.

Diced Tomato

Keegan's History of War suggests that this African way of war was, overall, pretty smart. (Actually, he talks about the New Guinean way of war, but it's still about waving spears). And there's something too the point that the capital-intensive "American Way of War" is actually pretty stupid -- we haven't really solved the problem where your opponents just surrender long enough to copy your gee-whiz gadgets -- (that might include the one-armed bandit, by the way).

Further on that point... there are, we generally think, two great successes of the "American way of war," WWII and the Civil War. But there are two interesting issues about the Civil War -- 1)"Mine eyes have seen the glory..." expresses a particular view of the "cause" -- both sides were swept up in a spirit of sacrifice... 2) The losing side was, increasingly, sitting on a powder keg. 3)Some people could be forgiven for thinking that the south actually won. World War II, meanwhile, has been the subject of this thread. My contention continues to be that, contrary to popular belief, the US did not wind World War II.

Whew, back on thread.... I'd argue that the Soviets "proved how tough they were" by storming Berlin. There's no question that they proved their willingness to sacrifice; indeed I agree that they went rather overboard in this regard. But we cannot deceive ourselves even despite Stalin, even despite SHAEF's incompetence the sacrifice for "Mother Russia" was essentially willing -- saying otherwise to a Russian even today is a great way of starting a fight.

Conversely, by the way, the Russians lost the Cold War, in the end, because they (actually Honecker of East Germany) couldn't find soldiers willing to pull triggers in Leipzig.

No question, the "long peace" had its brutality, particularly at the point when the Europeans "had the gatling." You may be right and somewhere to send the warriors may be crucial to a "long peace." That's a pessimistic view (and a nice justification for the space program, particularly when the planets are uninhabited). I'm not sure though -- seems to me the problem there is less with the warriors than the "civilians" who find gold in the Black Hills or diamonds in the Transvaal.

And I'm tempted to believe Hannah Arendt's argument that imperialism and anti-semitism (not necessarily war) led to man-made mass death.

Originally posted by R.J.:

I'm afraid you're setting the moral bar too high for the strictly secular concept of the nation state. If you're going to ask for a sacrifice that grand you'd better be offering something more than the temporal.

Politics (modern and Western at any rate) tends to play out in more pragmatic, alas even cynical, terms. 'Bomber' Harris may have to answer to God in eternity, but in the here and now (or there and then as the case may be) the idea of ending a war through terror bombing was believed (falsely as it proved) to have merit.

And where does one finally draw the line in us v. them? My family v. the criminals who threaten them? My country v. the country that threatens to enslave us? The family of man v. the livestock that feeds us? All organic matter living in perfect harmony? Will some future generation condemn us for mowing our lawns as some now condemn Harris for trying to spare "his own" at the expense of others?

It's an imperfect world. We need both our ideals and a good dose of pragmatism for such difficult questions as war.

I knew I was going to get into trouble here... but I guess it wouldn't be interesting if I didn't.

Bomber Harris is an easy case, I'm afraid. The bloke has to make a desperate case that he actually did save some of his own by burning Dresden and Hamburg. There's much reason to doubt him. There was much reason to doubt him at the time, not least that German terror-bombing of London had been notably ineffective. As to mowing your lawn... do you use a rider mower? (Let me avoid wandering way off topic).

Very frankly, I have no problem setting the bar as high as I do. I see very few places where setting the bar this high would have prevented the U.S. from getting into a war we should have gotten into, and at least two cases where it'd have kept us from adventures and crusades we could have done without.

I would not underestimate the power of the ideas behind the nation-state. One of the real challenges that the United States faces is that we have not thought for a long while what ideals and interests we have that are really worth fighting and dying for -- just toss a missile after a tent and leave the problem for the next administration.... This is a weakness for the obvious reason that we have a poorly calibrated compass for our actions internationally. It is also a weakness, when we wander into s**t, because we have a very hard time understanding those who do have a sense of the the ideals and interests they would die for. I have to emphasize, the problem here is not just understanding the bad guys but the "good guys" as well.

And so there are a bunch of naive 18 year olds wandering in a shooting gallery -- or cooped in the Green Zone -- and complaining that their job and the risks they face wasn't worth the offer of free college tuition..

... sorry... I know many of my compatriots are not as angry as I am about the current state of our country.

[ July 19, 2006, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[dicedtomato]

The point is that Germany didn't surrender because the Soviets intimidated them. Germany had to be physically occupied and Japan had to be starved and atom-bombed before they would surrender. War as a contest of wills sounds more like nuclear-era deterrence theory - act tough, use force to send a carefully calibrated signal, and the other side will back down. Like the African spear-wavers, that game only works if everyone is playing by the same rulebooks. Not likely in an age of asymmetric warfare.

You're right that soldiers frequently are not the ones demanding escalation. It's the home front that wants the war ended and a decisive victory to justify the sacrifices.

War doesn't have to lead to mass murder. But it seems to be the most efficient medium.

Diced Tomato

[Ottosmops]

Originally posted by Desert Dave:

And WHOMEVER is piloting, or aiming,

Or in some manner directing that annihilation

Of a child and/or any "non-combatant"

(... IE, they have not elected to participate

in these latest acts of mindless madness)

IS, ipso in actual facto, a war criminal.

Is this really so clearly to assess?

---------------------------

Imagine the following scenario:

A terrorist has taken ten hostages.

You are a policeman and you have the terrorist in the cross hairs of your gun.

What do you do?

Case 1: You shoot. The terrorist dies. 90% Chance that the person near him is also killed.

Case 2.1: You don't shoot. 50% Chance that the terrorist gives up. Nobody is hurt.

Case 2.2: You don't shoot. 50% Chance that the terrorist detonates his bomb. All hostages are dead.

What do you do?

---------------------------

Now transform this scenario in the military environment:

The policemen is an Israeli pilot, the terrorist is a Hamas activist, the person next to him is an innocent civilian, the other hostages are Israeli civilians.

When the pilot fires his rocket at the Hamas activist and also kills the civilian, he is a war criminal, according to your opinion.

If he doesn't fire, he may indirectly cause the death of other civilians, when the Hamas activist fires his rockets at an Israeli settlement the next day.

What I am trying to say is, that life is often very complicated.

(Especially when one tries to discuss in broken Denglisch)

[R.J.]

Originally posted by Cary:

As to mowing your lawn... do you use a rider mower? (Let me avoid wandering way off topic).

LOL, actually I use a push mower- but that’s just to save my ears and lungs, not mother earth.

Originally posted by Cary:

One of the real challenges that the United States faces is that we have not thought for a long while what ideals and interests we have that are really worth fighting and dying for ...

I agree with you there. The concept of real sacrifice for a greater good kind of faded away when eat, drink and be merry for here and now is all there is became the national (indeed Western) ethos for the modern age.

With morality (the domain of religion) giving way to ethics (the domain of philosophy) the gold standard for some will be us versus them, and me me me the standard for the rest.

[Cary]

Originally posted by dicedtomato:

The point is that Germany didn't surrender because the Soviets intimidated them. Germany had to be physically occupied and Japan had to be starved and atom-bombed before they would surrender. War as a contest of wills sounds more like nuclear-era deterrence theory - act tough, use force to send a carefully calibrated signal, and the other side will back down. Like the African spear-wavers, that game only works if everyone is playing by the same rulebooks. Not likely in an age of asymmetric warfare.

You're right that soldiers frequently are not the ones demanding escalation. It's the home front that wants the war ended and a decisive victory to justify the sacrifices.

War doesn't have to lead to mass murder. But it seems to be the most efficient medium.

Diced Tomato

You're right to see the links with deterrence theory. But (as if I haven't said enough loony stuff already) I tend to put nuclear weapons in the category of "American Gee-whiz weapons that never worked." With the arguable exception of Hiroshima, the nuclear test of wills never really led to an outcome that wouldn't have been achieved on the ground anyway. That scholars spent so much ink on it in the past 50 years says something about the dangers of a too much education.

As to the "War without Mercy" on the Eastern Front... well, as I said, the old "African Way of War" seems pretty smart by comparison. Granted, this give way too much credit to Shaka and his successors. Still, Hitler would have done well to back down when Soviet women showed up on the front-line and in the Soviet factories. As well, tragically, Von Stauffenberg didn't stay with his bomb in July 1944. That he did not risked national annihilation.

You are right, though. The US faces a real problem in the age of asymmetric warfare. The jokes about turning the Middle East into a glowing parking lot touch a certain degree of truth. Let me explain what the following documents -- Fred Kaplans gloss on the new counterinsurgency Field Manual and the FM itself -- suggest to me in brief.

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

http://www.slate.com/id/2145175/?nav=navoa

Guerrilla wars are won by small groups of grunts on the ground who win the respect and the fear of their neighbors. They win this respect and this fear in great part because they are willing to take the chance that their neighbors will bump them off in the middle of the night, and because they have the faith that if that happens, somebody else will come along and replace them. If they are not willing to take this chance, they will just be hated but not feared. "Neighbors" by the way, is a very non-technical, non-military term, but I think it captures specifically where the "boots" have to be on the ground and their relationship to the population around them. I'm simplifying the lessons of the British counterinsurgency and the abstract above, but I think I capture the essence here.

Originally posted by Cary:

As to mowing your lawn... do you use a rider mower? (Let me avoid wandering way off topic).

--LOL, actually I use a push mower- but that’s just to save my ears and lungs, not mother earth.

Well, some sacrifices are smaller than they originally seem. I don't have a lawn, and I rather dread inheriting one. Taking Machiavelli as my guide (along with Donnella Meadows) you may be in the best situation, where your lawn both loves you and fears you.

[ July 17, 2006, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[Yogi]

Posted by Kuniworth

Have no clue what you are talking about.

Lets face the facts sonny. You got called up couldn't stand the challenge and had to hide your cowardness by stalkin me to get even. Hell Diced Tomato at least made up some looney story about me going mad playing that super-player Masturbator but you just kept saying that Cheese Panzer were your friend and that all must obey Fartknocker or do a gangattack with Lucky Zebras on Desert Dave's house.

Well only chance you got to prove you ARE an old guard is play me in my battle of russia scenario or play Rambo. Otherwise you will be remembered as the Old Guard's Judas who betrayed the Icons and stalked Kuniworth becuase he was such a stud.

Hi Kuniworth, sorry I was on vacation for the last week in beautiful Eagle River, so I wasn't available to respond to your confusing post. Perhaps you are indeed a stud as you claim, but other than that I am the one who has no idea once again where your claims come from.

I do have to say this is not the first time. Perhaps you get me confused with someone else's posts? Not sure who though? I have no idea why else you would post the references to Cheese Panzer, Fartknocker or Lucky Zebra. I have no ties to them. As for DD, just a few posts in the past back and forth, but no real connection there either other then forum interests. I remember a few months ago (or so) you made another similar post about my alledged connections/defense of others. I really think Kuni that you are somehow thinking that I have made posts that were actually posted by someone else, or think I have multiple identities (like someone said about you) not true in my case anyway. Or I suppose you could have just lost it and reality is just a thing you once heard of. If the latter is the case, I guess you will continue to rant and rave about me, but maybe. just maybe, you have made an honest mistake about me. Whatever the case, keep on posting, it is always interesting.

[Liam]

On losses and figures during WW2, in respect with todays wars. I'm not on topic entirely but close enough. The figures then were greater because the War Was Greater. Now it's minor conflicts and has little or no meaning. 10% of the world's oil isn't the end of the world... if Iraq was in Zimbabwe we wouldn't raise a finger for them. If itw as in Siberia we'd goto sleep safe at night... Even if they had nuclear weapons. North Korea does, but they cannot even afford to feed their people...

WW2 represented True Evil vs Good. Though be a be cautious we had some evil in our midst to let things develop as they did. Evil lost... though only by a hair and don't believe it couldn't happen again. Next time evil shall be more cunning, the only difference is then, it didn't need to be, we didn't scrutinize things as we do now.. Hitler was not a good Devil, but rest assured his type were as close as the 20th century could see...and there were many Devils... as there were Many Gods... Angels, Demons, all biblical, all just a metaphor for the reality of it... the reality is that the War for Equality Peace and truth was fought and won. Americans, were on the side of good

but next time, I do not know if they will recognize that side? Have McDonald's, Frequent Airline Miles, XBoxes made them lose their way? What happened to good ole hard working, sweat and toiling Americano? Dead? You tell me... We did pay in blood, for a War that never really was upon our soil and for that it's Much Greater and when I said we invest more in our 1 man than Russians invest in 10, still a fact.. we put more pride, money, effort, and feelings into 1 than Russians due to historical reasons and logisticals ones. Reds cannot afford to and couldn't then...

Just the way the world is... Why there is Suicide Bombers, they do not value one human life that much and believe that it will gain them something. It will only bring them blood. Blood Begets blood, live by the sword, holier than now, die by it.. Americans cannot deny this very very basic wisedom. That many have embraced since the beginning of Civilization

that is what we are are we not? Civilized? Shall we be, or to the jungle with us? And our kind... It is the one man who stands up and fights for what is right that represents all that is Good, despite losses and despite whatever other bull**** is in the way. Even in Germany WW2, even in the Gulf, even in the ranks of Terrorists.. Though few of them fight for what is right, rather what wicked preaching Demonic Priests teach them.. We do no listen to Wicked Priests? We fight for an economic, geopolitical reason, slightly better.. LOL Slightly Let's hope that improves later in the 21 century

[Cary]

Originally posted by Liam:

Just the way the world is... Why there is Suicide Bombers, they do not value one human life that much and believe that it will gain them something. It will only bring them blood. Blood Begets blood, live by the sword, holier than now, die by it.. Americans cannot deny this very very basic wisedom. That many have embraced since the beginning of Civilization

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country"

I guess we've gotten more civilized since then.

[Yogi]

WW2 represented True Evil vs Good. Though be a be cautious we had some evil in our midst to let things develop as they did.

I know everything is debatable and some argument and/or excuses can be made for any position. In fact there are those who would dispute that the above quote is even near to true. However - The Terrorist & Radical Isalm could certainly be at least nominated as an example of True Evil. (Politically correct or not) I won't attempt to convince anyone that the U.S. should be considered an example of Good. But do remember that while the U.S. may be in the forefront of the battle in some locations, the "evil ones" have shown that the entire "western world" and even beyond is their enemy. While the western world may not be able to argue that they represent only good, I at least know which side is closer to a definition of true evil.

Added Edit,

Sorry, I know this is off thread toppic, but I found Liam's post very interesting and some good food for thought and discussion.

[ July 24, 2006, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Yogi ]

[Cary]

Liam and Yogi,

I'm afraid I disagree strongly with your manichaen viewpoint, not least because it seems to agree with the viewpoint of the jihadis while forgetting some of the crucial insights of Western thinking about justice in war.

I suppose in the end, I'm uncomfortable with your viewpoint because it seems to assume that those of "us" wearing white hats somehow avoided the stain of original sin.

A lot of my thinking here derives from something George Kennan wrote in 1955 about the utility and dangers of violence:

We run around, each of us, encumbered with a side of our natures – the demonic side, which is not at all pleasant, wholly unamenable to reason, capable of great destructiveness, and extremely persistent. It manifests itself in us individually and collectively. Ultimately it can be restrained only by some form of force. Violence is the tribute we pay to original sin.

Of course the necessity for violence is a sorry one, humiliating if you will; and those who look to violence to produce glorious and happy results are profoundly wrong. It is a sad device – a sort of bankruptcy proceeding – of which the best that can be said or hoped is that if it were not invoked things might be worse still. But these limitations render it none the less necessary in certain situations; and the existence and recurrence of such situations is something assured by the nature of the human race.

It may not be a particularly optimistic take on human nature, but I think it is a clear-eyed appraisal of the challenges we face. Certainly the more optimistic view, complete with white and black hats, has been a particularly dangerous fiction.

The righteous seem quite capable of excusing their own atrocities with gleeful abandon. They forget as well that their crusade will end long before the end of a struggle between good and evil.

[ July 25, 2006, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[Yogi]

Of course the necessity for violence is a sorry one, humiliating if you will; and those who look to violence to produce glorious and happy results are profoundly wrong. It is a sad device – a sort of bankruptcy proceeding – of which the best that can be said or hoped is that if it were not invoked things might be worse still. But these limitations render it none the less necessary in certain situations; and the existence and recurrence of such situations is something assured by the nature of the human race.

Nice post Cary, I certainly don't by any means believe we have avoided sin. I found the second quote (above) you posted quite interesting. However any of us may feel about the "necessity of violence", right and/or wrong, when and/or where perhaps most can agree that:

the existence and recurrence of such situations is something assured by the nature of the human race.

[Cary]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'd been thinking for a while about where I disagreed with the posts above. It's nice to have the opportunity and the reason to think hard about the issue.

[Liam]

A very profound and insightful piece of one man's thoughts and ideas. If artists, visionaries, great men ruled the world may be a bit less Harsh.. Reality is in those words