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Post by DarkAries on Nov 16, 2004 2:55:09 GMT -5
Uhhh...
'Acceptable losses' is a term used by politicians to explain how much they want to lose in a situation.
By politicians.
By civilians, families, soldiers, everybody on our side...the families on the other side, the for-the-good-of-humanity people, who, considering, are NOT bad people at all, the acceptable loss ratio is 'zero'.
God forbid the day we all start thinking like politicians.
What good is this honestly doing? Would you be talking about an acceptable loss ratio if you were sandside with a helmet on your head and an M-16 in your hands, when you could be in that percentage? If you were a medic, would you just stop trying to save one of your wounded buddies if you were still under the acceptable loss overhead? If you were a major in Tactical Command, would you send a unit on a suicide mission and think it was perfectly okay if they got killed since you were under your acceptable loss ratio? If you were in Supply Division, would you stop shipping food or water or ammunition to a company of Marines who were cut off, for no other reason other than that you could afford to lose them?
The acceptable loss ratio is zero-to-zero, because somebody has to go home and tell the wives and children and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters that so-and-so is never coming home again.
And none of you, none of you, know what that's like, on ANY side of it. You've never been told. You've never had to tell. You've never been the one who required such a notice to be made.
...
And because they have a different point of view than us, we arbitrarily have the right to kill them for their views. We arbitrarily have the right to send people to die for our beliefs in our stead.
It is NOT human nature to war. Human nature is to disagree. Disagree, nothing more. War is extended hate based on disagreements, based on it, and in honest truth, it's not worth it. It's not worth seeing a six-year old girl cry because her daddy, who read to her every night and played Tea Party and House with her, who loved and cherished her, who was there when she was born and held her high and knew his life would never been the same, and it never was, because he spent every minute of every day that he could set aside with his daughter, is never coming home again.
And many Muslim fathers cherish their daughters too.
This. Is. Not. Worth. Those. Tears.
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Post by Wag - Now And Forever on Nov 16, 2004 12:01:52 GMT -5
It is NOT human nature to war. I'd disagree for reasons that are sure to be disputed, but have you ever read the story of Cain and Abel? The first murder? It's human nature to be evil, period. Children are taught to share, they are taught to obey the rules and laws and abide by certain standards. They are not taught, however, to be greedy, jealous, vindictive, hateful, or any of the other feelings on the opposite end of the spectrum. People are born bad - but this is not to say that we shouldn't rise above that and be good, it's just proving a point. Personally, I really wouldn't care if I was an "acceptable loss". Now granted, I'd perfer to actually see someone shoot me rather than be gassed / poisioned / bombed, but hey...can't have everything. "Omg Wag you don't know shit. You just said you wanted to die." AND WHAT THE FUCK DO PEOPLE THINK IS GOING TO FUCKING HAPPEN WHEN THEY SIGN UP FOR THE GODDAMNED MILITARY? You do not fucking sign up to PICK FUCKING FLOWERS. You sign up to fucking KILL - OR - DIE. That is WAR. That is what the Armed forces DO. If you can't DEAL with it, why did you SIGN UP in the first place? Yes, people dying is bad and should be avoided, but in war, it cannot be avoided. I literally throw the paper across the room in disgust when I read shit about how people in the reserves don't want to fight. They fucking suck on the golden teat of all those benefits of being in the armed services, then they don't want to do their damned job!? The Army does not want robots. They want invincible men. They want lethal, remorseless, ruthless killers who know what their job is and are good at it. "Being a hero" or "getting everyone home" is just a byproduct of this. The Army does not train heroes, they train fucking killers. Killers who "save" their comrades by being good at one thing - killing. NEVER believe otherwise.
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Post by Triyun on Nov 16, 2004 13:34:11 GMT -5
Wag you make excellent points about that being the nature of the army, thats why the army sould be held in check, and not unleashed in unnecessary grudge wars. It also in an age of fervernt nationalism should try to avoid collateral damage. The fact is, in the modern era it is easier to win a war than to stay in a terroritory after the war.
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Post by Meyo-san on Nov 16, 2004 15:42:24 GMT -5
"The battlefield knows no mercy."
A statement I find true. Collateral damage probably could have been avoided, like, 500 years ago when we used swords, and spears instead of guns and bombs. The only way to avoid collateral damage is to sacrifice the lives of the soldiers, and then you'll start crying about the losses of soldiers. I'd rather have collateral damage than a relative dead when it could have been avoided. And Viper, ever since 9/11 there hasn't been any real terrorist attacks on American soil, basically their funding could have very well been destroyed.
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Post by NeoEllis on Nov 16, 2004 15:55:45 GMT -5
You're missing the point, Mav. There doesn't have to be any collateral damage because we didn't have to attack Iraq. How one can justify the loss of innocent lives to an arbitrary war is beyond me.
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Post by Triyun on Nov 16, 2004 16:44:49 GMT -5
Mav all your talk about honour and shit, like ALL THE TIME, isn't it kind of hypocritical? I mean you screamed, "John Kerry isn't a real warrior, he is a dishonourable coward, yak yak yak!" And here your supporting the armies of 500 years ago which basically sold children into slavery, raped women, slaughtered prisoners, burned villages, and plowed fields with salt. These are people that killed off the entire native american population, destroyed whole cultures.
Your not advocating a return to the conquistadors of Spain or the crusaders are you, it sounds like you are. I mean sure Dracula, Phillip II, Richard the Lionheart, all these people pushed the damn muslims back but at what cost. The muslim world has hated us ever since because we used those tactics.
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Post by Fireball on Nov 16, 2004 16:50:53 GMT -5
War is humanities greatest, and worst invention. Let's face it, we are the only species that kill off each other. To quote a philisophically wise Rau le Creuset, "Humanities dream is too wipe itself out".
And you know what? There are no Christians in the world aside from the Pope now. Every damn Christian I know does not follow the love thy neighbor thing. I am so fucking pissed that these right wing, redneck Republican "Evangelical Christians" rule America now.
I'm going to France. Who's with me?
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Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Nov 16, 2004 16:54:13 GMT -5
Canada is inviting people to go live north of the border, you know.
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Post by Craze on Nov 16, 2004 18:00:44 GMT -5
War is humanities greatest, and worst invention. Let's face it, we are the only species that kill off each other. To quote a philisophically wise Rau le Creuset, "Humanities dream is too wipe itself out". And you know what? There are no Christians in the world aside from the Pope now. Every damn Christian I know does not follow the love thy neighbor thing. I am so fucking pissed that these right wing, redneck Republican "Evangelical Christians" rule America now. I'm going to France. Who's with me? What? We're not perfect, even the Bible presents that, and even history of our religion states that. We make mistakes. And still, we are given the choice of free will whether to follow a religion or not. Jeez, we're all human damnit, no one's perfect. And for gosh sake, you are making a stereotype out of people who have a different opinion than yours.
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Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Nov 16, 2004 18:05:03 GMT -5
Crazy, you aren't a Fundamendalist Christian last time I checked. He's not talking about you. He's talking about "The Bible is true, Evolution is the teaching of the Devil, Smear the Queers!" - type Christians. But it does seem like he is grouping all the denominations together, even though there are liberal sects.
Besides, if you leave the country, how can you change it for the better? Look, just because something doesn't go our way that doesn't mean just give up. You got to keep fighting.
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Post by Naz T Mann on Nov 16, 2004 19:19:45 GMT -5
Anyone who says war isn't human nature obviously not taken a good look at humanity. War will happen, always, because of one simple fact. Nobody wants to be anyone elses subordinate. Not every body wants to lead, but nobody wants to be lead to the point where they have no choice. Their will never be peace because of choice. It's as simple as that. If you want peace, you have to tell everyone what to do and get them to obey you. If that isn't totalitarian, i don't know what is. I say i'd rather have war than peace, because that means i still have choice. I'd rather die by choice than live under control.
And, to all those anti-collateral damage people, here's what the other half of the coin is saying:
Death of innocents is never acceptable, that is true. But it is inevitable.
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Post by Triyun on Nov 16, 2004 20:02:46 GMT -5
Umm when was there a threat of Iraqi tanks steam rolling through Springfield, [insert random state]. Your not being threatened, war to defend a country is justified, offensive war isn't. The fact is, its a joke saying this country could be subjegated, no one even has the military capactiy to mount any serious threat against the US anymore. Its us imposing our will on regions around the world that is the problem. If we had stayed with take afghanistan and work with governments around the world were Al Qaeda actually was, and to date the CIA branch in charge of tracking says there was no connection to Iraq btw, Al Qaeda's ranks would be cut in at least a tenth and the world would be supporting us.
Its easy to have wars, its not easy to maintain peace. A mark of a truely great leader is one who can achieve his goals without using war. Rome and Britain the main global powers before us were able to use diplomacy far more effectively, soft power proved to be a greater tool in many cases than hard. Self-defense is human nature, war in the sense of being first strikers is purely cultural.
States which are warlike btw, are not necessarily free ones. This fight free or die a slave jargon is deceptive. It tends to be the more warlike a state gets, the more oppressive, the most warlike states I can think of Mongolia, Sparta, and Assyria being among the most brutal as well. The Athenians and Romans are excellent examples of these. Both were the free during their early days relative to their time period and became more and more corrupt and amoral as they increased in military power. Even the United States has experianced the sharpest drop in civil liberties during its war time. Lincoln imposed martial law during the civil war. The Second World War saw the detainment of Japanese-americans. And Vietnam saw massive rioting (as I should mention the civil war did as well) both were put down by brutal force often. War often allows government to slip out of a system of checks and balances. In addition it builds up the military and the industries built around it to an uncomfortable level of power. Corporations entrance into government has increased since WWII and a lot of it has to do with the corridor between the military/political elite being often the same as the economic elite.
I'm not going to say as an absolutist statement war destroys the rights of free men. But it has enormous potential to set in place oligarchies to replace representative government. Increased militancy caused this in Athens and Rome and it may be starting to in the United States.
Its not human nature to be war mongering, its in its nature to self defense. Your pessimistic view is really only to try and keep your own conscious in check more than anything else. The fact is everyone knows pre-emptive war without a clear and present threat is nothing more than saying your own prejudices and suspicions are worth more than thousands upon thousands of human lives and its despicable.
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Post by Meyo-san on Nov 17, 2004 12:04:58 GMT -5
And here your supporting the armies of 500 years ago which basically sold children into slavery, raped women, slaughtered prisoners, burned villages, and plowed fields with salt. These are people that killed off the entire native american population, destroyed whole cultures. Your not advocating a return to the conquistadors of Spain or the crusaders are you, it sounds like you are. I mean sure Dracula, Phillip II, Richard the Lionheart, all these people pushed the damn muslims back but at what cost. The muslim world has hated us ever since because we used those tactics. Uh, no, I was just making a sarcastic statement about collateral damage. Gojira, I'm just going to quote Peter Griffin now, "Canada sucks."
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Post by Ai on Nov 17, 2004 14:20:12 GMT -5
Wait, WHAT?!
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Post by NeoEllis on Nov 17, 2004 14:26:21 GMT -5
You never fail to elevate yourself above the ignorant, Mav.
And to reply to Wag: I’m not going to tell you or anyone how exercise their religious faith, as I see it to be largely unnecessary –but do consider this: Don’t you see any contradiction between Jesus’ love and understanding based philosophy and your balls-out nihilistic take on the nature of war? I know this question goes over the collective heads of most (but not all) modern Christians, but come, maybe just a little bit?
And to reply to Fireball: Yes, things are looking quite dark these days, but don’t give up just yet. What the democrats needs is something clear and tangible to stand on. The Republicans, as we have seen, use moralism to move through and win a campaign. There’s no way the democrats can hope to beat them in this respect, namely because: A) you can’t hope to out republican the Republicans (the last mid-term election proved this) and B) it would only result in more people moving away from the Democratic party into either third party membership or outright complacency.
So what Ellis, you may ask, is this magic platform?
Reform.
The democrats made a clean sweep of New York in this most recent election cycle, and reform was their message of choice. Albany has been said to be the most dysfunctional state government in the Union (whether or not this is actually true, I do not know. It should be noted, however, that budget has not been on time for quite some years now, due largely to the fact that the process is controlled by three people). And so there was in this latest election a huge push for reform (bipartisan, but largely Democratic) –and it worked.
Despite whatever perceptions many of you may have of New York State, it serves as a more accurate microcosm of US than you might imagine. There are, of course, large urban centers such as NYC that typically go for the democrats, but there is also a large farming sector in upstate New York that isn’t much more progressive than many parts of the south (but a good deal more literate). More pertinent to the issue of reform, there is a corrupt and ineffective government that few people actually trust –the parallels to DC should be obvious. In short, what happens with the Democratic Party in New York may have a substantial impact on what we seen on the democratic ticket four years from now.
Bottom line, if democrats can present themselves as reformers, they just might win.
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