So maybe we got it all wrong

**Fragony** · 02-14-2010, 13:04

Originally Posted by Hax

I won't go into what exactly Ahmadinejad meant when he stated the infamous "wiping off the map" quote concerning Israel. Do keep in mind however, that the same Islam that people seem to go totally insane over here in the west explicitly forbids people from harming Christians and Jews. At the same time, the rights of these two religious peoples (as well as Zoroastrians) are protected in the Iranian constitution.

'That 'infamous statement? It's a daily statement all over the world where Islam settles. Even in Oxford university.

DEATH TO THE JEWS

It's pretty obvious, you can see it with your eyes, you can hear it with your ears, so what the hell is wrong with you people.

**Hax** · 02-14-2010, 13:40

Our inherent "wrongness", I think, lies in the fact that we don't use the traditional Double Standard© when it comes to matters such as these. On one hand, you outright condemn Islam and are willing to quote as many texts as you can find about it, but when I raise the matter of Ahlul Kitab, suddenly our mental health is questioned. How interesting.

**Fixiwee** · 02-14-2010, 13:48

Originally Posted by Fragony

'That 'infamous statement? It's a daily statement all over the world where Islam settles. Even in Oxford university.

DEATH TO THE JEWS

It's pretty obvious, you can see it with your eyes, you can hear it with your ears, so what the hell is wrong with you people.

The biggest amount of jews living in any islamic country is Iran. So maybe what you meant to say is "Death to israel" and not "death to the jews".
That's a big difference for Iran.

**Fragony** · 02-14-2010, 14:09

Originally Posted by Fixiwee

The biggest amount of jews living in any islamic country is Iran. So maybe what you meant to say is "Death to israel" and not "death to the jews".
That's a big difference for Iran.

It isn't for the jews in Iran I worry about, european jews are no longer feeling safe, with good reason. And the tefties protect it.

**Centurion1** · 02-14-2010, 18:20

Yeah maybe Fragony does not especially like Muslims, i have never seen him run around posting Death to Islam.

Horetore, Iran still has humans rights problems, Many eastern European nations still suffer from severe corruption and other problems, after Yugoslavia fough tto sepaerate from single authority (which they deserved) there was genocide. And the shah in iraq....... i'm not sure what you mean.

And Hax, Vietnam was a very winnable war but the american population had no backbone among other issues (a drafted military when it should have been volunteer). I dislike comparisons of Iraq and Afganistan to Vietnam as they are completely different conflicts.

**Aemilius Paulus** · 02-14-2010, 18:34

Originally Posted by Centurion1

And Hax, Vietnam was a very winnable war but the american population had no backbone among other issues (a drafted military when it should have been volunteer). I dislike comparisons of Iraq and Afganistan to Vietnam as they are completely different conflicts.

Yeah, true. The North Vietnam, the VPA, was a solid front, a coherent conventional army. Of course, the Viet Cong were mostly guerillas in the Southern Vietnam, but that is an another story. Still, even with all as it was, even if US did manage to destroy the VPA, the war would be far from won, due to the insane numbers of partisans remaining. And I find it stunning that US could not make significant progress against the conventional VPA. I guess the terrain really was that bad...

Wait, volunteer military? Haha, good joke. After almost exactly 60,000 American dead, I doubt very many wanted to join... Logically, the US population is so large that it should have found enough willing recruits, but why then did they institute the draft? Because they needed more men who did not sign up I suppose. Which means the sentiment really was that opposed to war. And the lack of backbone is as much of a problem as a lousy military. Look at the Russian Empire in WWI. Internal strife is more dangerous than enemy munitions. Many wars are won by words, not weapons, and the DRV won that war.

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 02-14-2010, 18:49

Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

Yeah, true. The North Vietnam, the VPA, was a solid front, a coherent conventional army. Of course, the Viet Cong were mostly guerillas in the Southern Vietnam, but that is an another story. Still, even with all as it was, even if US did manage to destroy the VPA, the war would be far from won, due to the insane numbers of partisans remaining. And I find it stunning that US could not make significant progress against the conventional VPA. I guess the terrain really was that bad...

Wait, volunteer military? Haha, good joke. After almost exactly 60,000 American dead, I doubt very many wanted to join... Logically, the US population is so large that it should have found enough willing recruits, but why then did they institute the draft? Because they needed more men who did not sign up I suppose. Which means the sentiment really was that opposed to war. And the lack of backbone is as much of a problem as a lousy military. Look at the Russian Empire in WWI. Internal strife is more dangerous than enemy munitions. Many wars are won by words, not weapons, and the DRV won that war.

Actually, the Thet Offensive pretty much finished off the Viet Cong, if you read Into the Storm by Tom Clancy and Gen. Fred Franks, you'll see that the major problem was the desire to institue a DMZ and political division between North and South, as in Korea. Essentially, the American Police Action failed because it was not preceeded by an actual war in which any attempt was actually made to defeat the NVA.

The Cage by Tom Abrahams is a more personal analysis by a British Officer of the problems he faced in the American Army.

**Aemilius Paulus** · 02-14-2010, 18:59

Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Actually, the Thet Offensive pretty much finished off the Viet Cong

Yeah, I know that, but the fact that US was not able to make significant headway before is what surprised me. I would not say 'pretty much finished', but yes, it was supposed to be the turning point for US if not for the propaganda victory of the shocking offensive.

**HoreTore** · 02-14-2010, 20:33

Originally Posted by Centurion1

Yeah maybe Fragony does not especially like Muslims, i have never seen him run around posting Death to Islam.

Horetore, Iran still has humans rights problems, Many eastern European nations still suffer from severe corruption and other problems, after Yugoslavia fough tto sepaerate from single authority (which they deserved) there was genocide. And the shah in iraq....... i'm not sure what you mean.

And Hax, Vietnam was a very winnable war but the american population had no backbone among other issues (a drafted military when it should have been volunteer). I dislike comparisons of Iraq and Afganistan to Vietnam as they are completely different conflicts.

Iran still has human rights violations and eastern europe still has problems? Of course, but that wasn't even close to the point, which was that it's very possible to topple a regime without the use of military force.

**Centurion1** · 02-14-2010, 22:11

Iran still has human rights violations and eastern europe still has problems? Of course, but that wasn't even close to the point, which was that it's very possible to topple a regime without the use of military force.

whats the point if you can't clean up the place after your done.

**Hax** · 02-15-2010, 00:56

About the Vietnam war; there are several issues that immediately come to mind when I see the United States failure to effectively "win" the war. As you stated, there was now real objective set, apart from turning North Vietnam into one big crater. Some other issues are:

- Fighting an unjustified war for a tyrannical government that was far worse than Ho Chi Minh, who I find a lot more agreeable than Nixon or Johnson. The Diem regime was probably one of the worst things that ever happened to Vietnam

- The "ends" justify the means. The Vietnam war was like the dire half-dragon version of that. It was a war based on the near-complete annihilation of a nearly invisible foe to preserve the very limited South Vietnamese version of democracy, which included rape, torture, mass conversion and many other nice western traditions. And now I haven't even mentioned the horrors of the child prostitutes on the streets. The United States governmen't didn't care about the basic human rights of Vietnamese citizens, but what's at least on par with the acceptance of the deaths of thousands of Vietnamese citizens, they actually sent in thousands upon thousands of their own citizens to fight this useless war for a useless cause, a cause that had been corrupted and hollowed out, I think, just about after the Korea War. John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen have explained this way more eloquently than I ever could, though.

Now that I'm fired up, I'd like to say this as well:

I have a huge problem with the way the conservative right in America seems to choke up every time a band starts playing bombastic music and flags are raised and soldiers are pointing their phallic objects in the air. To be honest, it doesn't impress me in the least. I think it's an absolutely horrible thing to feel pride in the fact that our tools of death our better than "the enemy's (Germans, Japanese, Vietcong, Afghani's, Muslims) tools of death and that we should feel some sort of weird heroism over the fact that our soldiers are going out to shoot those people under the guise of bringing democracy. It's absolutely horrible. By now, I will probably, among the McCarthyists, I will probably have finally settled myself as another Godless Communist/Liberal/Socialist, but I couldn't really care about that either.

I for one closely align patriotism, nationalism and fascism and as such, the raising of flags and the before-mentioned bombastic music doesn't impress me. Rather, it leaves me with a foul taste in the mouth. For me, it's patronizing and immoral and it comes creepily close to a misplaced feeling of superiority. When will we learn that in the end, we're all humans?

EDIT: I might have come across as a hater of America, which would be totally weird because

1) I don't feel hatred towards people/institutions/nations in the first place.
2) I deeply respect the diversity and general tolerance that is present in some places in the United States...San Francisco, for example.

As such, I am inclined to say that I just have a large problem with the pro-war/life (think about that for a moment) faction in the United States that seems to have quite some power at the moment.