deleted.........
deleted.........
Last edited by Renotommy; 18-07-2010 at 02:23 AM.
You are still getting mixed up and trying to paint a portrait with a 6" brush. I would have to check through the piles of photos on Tienanmen but in my memory the PLA where not running amok. The killings happened in many areas and if I where to put money on it I would assume the Armed Police. However I admit it was not their or China's finest hour but they where directed by their commander in chief and that's what soldiers do. Its not personal, its the oath you take. Remember the tank episode? Why, if they are bloodthirsty devils did he not just run the student over? Reason - because 99% of the PLA come from impoverished rural areas and have a kind heart in my experience. Obeying orders is another thing and every soldier should do that without wavering.
On the German issue you note, again you seem not to understand history very well. The Wehrmacht where the guys strung up on piano wire after failed assassination attempts and shot by the discipline battalions of MPs whilst defending THEIR motherland and obeying the orders of THEIR Commander in Chief. In 1936 (?) as never before they where required to give a personal oath of loyalty to AH and you know Germans - they obey the rules. If your trying to taint them for atrocities I think you are on very thin ice here. You should not confuse ( you seem to do that a lot ) the Wehrmacht with the SS or the Gestapo or the SD or the Ersatz Grouppen. Just as you should not confuse the Red Army with the Commissars groups that sent them to their deaths or shot them down when they tried to get back to their lines from failed assaults.
I LOVE history. I just wish more people would get theirs right.
That depends on the current environment. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia emerged as a weaker state, not willing to use and iron fist and heavy handed military and police operations to hold it all together, central Asia and south Western Russia detached itself from the empire to form many smaller countries...very little blood was shed. When China become economically and politically weak, this may well happen in China. The Chinese state is unarguably held together by brute force. That cannot last forever. China, as it always has done in the past, will undo itself.
I'm pathetic? You go from the US only recognizing Iraq to ...oh well did you want Iran to win? You blame China for supporting the NK regime because it's an ally in the region but it's OK to support Hussein because he was fighting Iran...By the way, who ended up invading Kuwait? Was it Iran?
While you're at it, since the US is a bringer of freedom and democracy to the world. Why is it that it sat on their ass for both Darfur and Rwanda yet spent billions to "liberate" Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US invasion in Afghanistan led to bumper crops in opium production . Interestingly, it's estimated that only 10% of those drugs reach the US market and most going to Europe. Meanwhile of course lots of money was spent to fight the drug trade in Colombia which of course tends to land in the US.
Now I don't find this surprising...all I am saying is that the US like any other nation acts in its own self interest without particular regards to freedom, democracy or any of that BS rhetoric/propaganda that is often used to sugarcoat US actions all over the world.
As to your 96% want to stay...well If someone says they want you to leave gradually, you interpret that as wanting to stay??? No wonder americans get in trouble all over the world.
And the you have the gall to say japanese want the US to stay when their prime minister sees his approval rating go down so low that he has to resign specifically due to that reason? How moronic is that?
And just like americans, it doesn't mean your are winning just because you are thumping your chest saying you are... Even Obama isn't claiming victory in Iraq yet you seem to be... What are you? Cheney's nephew? Rumsfeld secret bf?
Please do remind us why Obama fired McChrystal? Is it because he wanted to leave Afghanistan?
On debt and deficit? Please tell us when you last had a surplus that was even forecasted to continue and what may have caused that surplus to turn into a huge deficit?
Do tell us how America is better off after that little foray in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why do you think the republicans lost the last election? How proud were you of having a former beauty queen VP candidate that knew of only one Supreme Court decision, that couldn't name any books she had read and that resumed her foreign knowledge as being able to see Russia. Yeayyy proud to be an american!
On security, any reasonable person would likely say they are feeling safer from world wide conflict than in the past but probably a lot more concerned about terrorism than before. On that subject...why do you think that the US is such a target for terrorist while China isn't?
I don't see a policeman, I see a bully and China is also a regional bully. You seem to try to paint me as an admirer of China which isn't the case at all. I simply believe that there isn't much difference between the two. They both act in their self interest.
gilleshk
Do you honestly believe there isn't much difference between China and the U.S.? In that case let China be the dominant world leader and the rest of the globe will be no less safe than it is today. Are you really that naive to believe that?
I assume you are one of those non-appreciative but "happy to benefit from U.S. protection when convenient" Europeans. With more people like you, next time Europe is in trouble because some wars break out there, we'll love to see the U.S. SIT IT OUT and not waste their precious lives and resources on someone like you. In fact, your beloved Obama likely plans to do just that after Afghanistan. There, you get your wish.
Last edited by paenme; 18-07-2010 at 10:08 AM.
Hey Boris,
Actually I essentially agreed with you and have to somewhat reluctantly accuse you of oversimplifying a bit this time. The main point - that soldiers tend to be idealist and and well-meaning - I completely agree with.
I agree that the PLA may not have been the main culprit of Tiananmen and the People's Armed Police may have carried out the majority of the machine-gunning. But I am pretty sure that the tanks and APCs used to grind up the students bodies were the PLA's, not the PAP's. More fundamentally, martial law was declared and it is a fact that PLA units were crawling all over BJ attempting to enforce the crackdown. I'm also pretty sure that the people in the PLA tend to be at least a bit idealistic and were very upset that "People's Army" was used essentially, as a tool of political control. I think that is why the regulations regarding the PLA call-ups were tightened.
And yeah, I do agree about tank man - when I saw the tank episode it was obvious that the officer in charge of that tank plantoon was not a blood thirsty morron and showed considerable patience. Of course, Tank Man was probably taken out and shot anyway, but by the PAP, not the PLA.
Regarding the German Army in WWII, I think you are actually missing my point. I noted that German Army was full of decent, idealistic men (e.g., Rommel) and I did not accuse the German Army, in general, of involvement in War Crimes (although that is another question). My point about the German Army was that this splendid war machine full of brilliant officers was put to service on behalf of the Nazi State. The Wehrmact served the Nazis and Adolf Hitler, which is not the same as saying they served the German people. My analogy with the PLA was not that the PLA themselves are criminals, but that they serve a party, the CCP, which has its own interests separate from the actual "People". That is a different thing
Also, not to start a new thread here but I think it is a bit of an oversimplification to state that the German Army was not responsible for Hitler's crimes or that they should escape all blame for war crimes But the issues should be handled on a case-by-case basis (as I believe they were - although Jodl and Keitel may have been executed on the alter of collective responsibility, I believe, but most prosecutions handled by the Western powers were of actual war crimes, not for simple participation). It is a bit of a chicken and egg question, and if you know your Shakespeare (or your Kenneth Branagh) there is that wonderful scene in Henry V where the King wanders among his men incognito on the eve of Agincourt, at one point explaining that "every man's cause is the King's, but every man's soul is his own."
Returning to the PLA, my basic point is that an organization doesn't have to be evil to serve evil. It is also possible that the PLA could serve as a force for positive change within the PRC, but that would involve the PLA taking a role independent of the party, which it hasn't heretofore done.
Last edited by Freetrader; 18-07-2010 at 11:06 AM.
Last edited by Freetrader; 18-07-2010 at 11:42 AM.
I am curious about the rational for the original post and why the poster chose to write this up? What is his background, etc?
If anyone other than the US military thinks this is true - quite frankly it is not. These guys telling us this stuff are delusional. What credible evidence is there for this?
On the other part of this... not sure Freetrader is getting this right.
How can you understate the over US$1 trillion dollar costs just for the fighting (not any of the other funding going there) by saying it this way? A working democracy? I don't think so. When the Bushites destroyed the Republican Guard as well as a lot of the country, they destroyed the entire framework of government and maintaining order. They did not just topple Saddam for another leader they took it all apart.
Scott Taylor a former Canadian military person and writer of Esprit de Corps magazine wrote this story July 14, 2010 on Counterinsurgency and how ineffective it is for standard military operations:
In a counterinsurgency, size doesn't matter
For those who closely observe the ongoing events in Iraq, the “success” claimed by the pundits is delusional. While it is true the Americans are taking far fewer combat deaths in Iraq than before the surge, the Iraqi people continue to suffer and die in a political power vacuum fuelled by interfactional violence.
As Western media outlets have shifted their attention to Afghanistan, few realize that since the March 21, 2010 elections, Iraq has not been able to form a government. Former prime minister Iyad Allawi and his (primarily Sunni) political party claims to have received the majority of the votes, while incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki refuses to accept the electoral result and has threatened to re-activate his Shiite militia.
As evidenced by a series of suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad last Wednesday that left 39 dead and more than 150 wounded, the struggle for power continues unabated.
Although the casualties incurred were far more significant than any violence reported in Afghanistan that day, the Iraq attacks did not warrant any coverage in the Canadian press. Instead, we apparently need to keep telling ourselves that Iraq is a success; maybe if we repeat it often enough, it will come true.
Last edited by Football16; 18-07-2010 at 12:37 PM.
Football16;913665]IIf anyone other than the US military thinks this is true - quite frankly it is not. These guys telling us this stuff are delusional. What credible evidence is there for this?
Well, I'm not part of the US military. I'm simply reporting what I've seen in the world press, including the MSM - slightly left of center publicatons such as the NYTs.
How can you understate the over US$1 trillion dollar costs just for the fighting (not any of the other funding going there) by saying it this way? A working democracy? I don't think so. When the Bushites destroyed the Republican Guard as well as a lot of the country, they destroyed the entire framework of government and maintaining order. They did not just topple Saddam for another leader they took it all apart.
As I said, I'm not trying to argue that invading Iraq was a good idea, or that it was money well spent (money spent by government rarely is). It is commonly accepted, with few dissents (e.g., Chris Hitchens) that disbanding the Army and purging the Baath Party was disastrous mistake and gave a lot of fuel to the insurgency.
If you review the history of the insurgency, things got contually worse until the Sunni and Shiite factions (including the Baathists) realized that the al-Queda in Iraq factions needed to be put down. Since the Sunni Awakening, there has been something close to (in the not-facetious words of another advisor) "an acceptable level of violence" and most conflicts have become political. Great progress from the days when AQII was sawing the heads off people.
Scott Taylor a former Canadian military person and writer of Esprit de Corps magazine wrote this story July 14, 2010 on Counterinsurgency and how ineffective it is for standard military operations:
In a counterinsurgency, size doesn't matter
"For those who closely observe the ongoing events in Iraq, the “success” claimed by the pundits is delusional. While it is true the Americans are taking far fewer combat deaths in Iraq than before the surge, the Iraqi people continue to suffer and die in a political power vacuum fuelled by interfactional violence.
As Western media outlets have shifted their attention to Afghanistan, few realize that since the March 21, 2010 elections, Iraq has not been able to form a government. Former prime minister Iyad Allawi and his (primarily Sunni) political party claims to have received the majority of the votes, while incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki refuses to accept the electoral result and has threatened to re-activate his Shiite militia.
As evidenced by a series of suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad last Wednesday that left 39 dead and more than 150 wounded, the struggle for power continues unabated.
Although the casualties incurred were far more significant than any violence reported in Afghanistan that day, the Iraq attacks did not warrant any coverage in the Canadian press. Instead, we apparently need to keep telling ourselves that Iraq is a success; maybe if we repeat it often enough, it will come true."
Freetrader says: Yes, that represents a common enough viewpoint. Yet there were elections, the Iraqis are trying to keep the violence under control, and there has been progress.
Football, comments above. More ink than blood has been spent on this question, I'm afraid. What is undeniable is the falsehood of the statement that the US is being 'run out of Iraq' - whether it was all worth it, is not, thankfully, for me to decide.
Last edited by Freetrader; 18-07-2010 at 01:05 PM.