Lessons from HistoryFollow

And what's even wierder: both George's are/were insane!

He may have been a competant military leader at somepoint, but he's not a historian. The two conflicts have *nothing* in common. Him saying they do really don't make it so.

A much better analogy to the same conflict would put the US in the role of the French aiding the US in throwing off British rule and hanging around to help them deal with Tory rebellions after the fact. Which managed to work out pretty darn well historically.

He may have been a competant military leader at somepoint, but he's not a historian. The two conflicts have *nothing* in common. Him saying they do really don't make it so.
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all wars are very similar. we never seem to be able to learn from our mistakes of the past.

americans were the origonal terrorists. we invented shooting from behind trees as opposed to linning up on the field and trading shots. hell, the marines were first fromed to snipe british officers my climbing up the masts of ships and sharpshooting them. its why they were called "marines".

and lets not forget attacking british bussiness and burning them to the ground incase someone thinks even then we didnt target civilians. indians were all savages, so butchering them men wonem and children alike doesnt count, right? after all, THEY didnt get to write the history books.

the only way to fight a vastly superrior military force is by hitting them where they dont expect to get hit, their civilian soft spots, and running from the main fighting force.

it is a logical conclusion to any conflict where one side is vastly more powerfull than the other, but the will of the weaker side refuses to give up.

what is not logical is this addministraition thinking it WOULDNT happen in iraq. a tried and true stratagy in the middle east WOULDNT be used against us in iraq. or if they knew it would happen, not having a plan to defeat it.

thats not logical. infact, its incompetance.

the history books written about the middle east for over 1000 years speak of this type of warfare. only a fool wouldnt expect it to happen. it is history repeating itself, again. if we didnt learn in vietnam, we sure as hell should have learned it from the russians in afganistan even if we didnt bother to read the history of past wars in the middle east.

there are similarities in all wars. sides dividing, seeking allies. the weaker forces using more stratagy which the other side eventually decires as "evil".

WAR is about butchering people. period. and it is always, always, the poor and the weak who pay the highest price. one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. both sides will ALWAYS try to vilify the enemy to keep your normal GI Joe from asking....."so, why am i going to kill these people for you again?"

remember the stories of the japaneese tossing baby,s around on the end of bayonettes?

it is propaganda designed to get the sheep to do the wolfs bidding. why? because the sheep have all the power. they just dont know it. imagine a president declaring a war but all the GIs saying....good luck with that, and dropping their rifles and walking home.

it almost happened in WW1. during a campaign at christmas time, when both the brits and germans were bogged down and getting nowhere, the soldiers on both sides started "sharing" food and exchanging gifts by tossing them into the otehrs trenches. after christmas was over, they wouldnt fire on each other. the enemy had been "humanized". no longer were they these hidious monsters hell bent on destroying the world, now they were just kids, teens like them, a long way from home, scared, hungry, and cold.

the brits had to send in a new batch of officers who immediatly started shooting the german soldiers as they came to exchange food and things. a couple of the officers were shot by the british troops. they were sumarily executed, and eventually, they got the war going again.

WE have the power. WE just dont understand that. our leaders, ALL leaders spend great amounts of resources to make sure we dont understand that. and like duitifull sheep, we BELIEVE them when they lie to us.

just like we were LIED into iraq to protect ourselves from the deamons hell bent on destroying us and the world with terrible nuclear weapons.......without ever showing us a single scrap of conclusive evidence.......

baaaaa baaaaa baaaaa

No we didn't.

Excuse me? Neither were we. Not to overstate the obvious, but the colonists were all subjects to the British crown during our war for independance. We were most certainly not under foreign rule. Long distance, yes. Foreign? Not at all.




Lol. You wish...

Excuse me? Neither were we. Not to overstate the obvious, but the colonists were all subjects to the British crown during our war for independance. We were most certainly not under foreign rule. Long distance, yes. Foreign? Not at all.
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um, depends on who you ask. the americans hell bent on tossing the brits out sure didnt feel they were subjects of the British. all they saw is a leader in a far away land trying to rule them.

if you ask the brits, hell yea, they were subjects, ungreatfull subjects, but subjects non the less.

sooo, the brits, "those rebellious treasonists terrorists"

the americans "those oppressive occupiers"

one mans terrorists is another mans freedom fighter. your both right, just depends on whose history book your reading at the time. and good ole george w.? he was made famous in our history books for having is vastly weaker army hide in the trees and telling his men "dont shoot till you see the whites of their eyes", then running away, reforming and doing it again.

our history books hold him up as a hero, theirs call him a murderous coward not figting an honerable WAR.

kind of like the iraq situation, minus the suicide bombers.

there is no honor in war. there is only killing and dieing. it all depends on who writes the hostory books as to which side were heros and liberators or murderers and terrorists.

someday, we might learn form that. someday.

If we are arguing semantics... the word "foreign" in that sentence is not meant in the sense of nationality but a difference between the beliefs of the crown and of those living locally.

The problem is one of language. The word foreign means "different". So someone speaking a foreign tounge is speaking a different language. Someone from a foreign land is from a different part of the world. Over time we've equated the term foreign to mean specifically "of a different country", but that's not its actual original meaning.


Certainly you don't also believe when he says it's "foreign to our constitution" that he's talking about the "US Constitution" do you? Since it didn't exist yet and all...

Interesting

Something weird happened in that post.

Either

a) your post was scrambled, placing the words in random order after you hit 'Post Message',
b) you decide to redefine words to suit your purpose
or
c) you haven't a fUcking clue what you're talking about.

To Washington's followers, the British were 'foreigners'.

As for the 'foreign to our constitution' statement, that's a different use of the word. Fancy that! A word that can be used to mean different things?! (Maybe 'semantics' also has another meaning they never taught me in school)

I hope you managed to keep hold of those straws you were clutching at. . .

Except for two basic differences I can see the corollaries. The two basic differences between the two conflicts are part of thier tactics and goals.

First the "Al Qaeda in Iraq" are targeting innocent civilians, men women and children in addition to US Troops. Washington et al, never targeted innocent people or tried to terrorize the population into compliance. They used unconventional tactics which appalled the British but nevertheless targeted the British troop not innocents trying to provoke a civil war between two sides.

The second difference was their goal in the war. Al Qaeda in Iraq wants a theocratic despotism that promotes and exports the same across the region. The American revolutionaries wanted a free republic that promotes and exports the same across the region. While it could be argued that it’s just a form of government and is the same thing otherwise, I would like to believe that a fight for a free republic has a stronger moral momentum then a fight against one.

The comparison overall is a good one and the key to victory for the British back then is the same key to victory for the American today: to win they just need to outlast the insurgents no matter how long it takes. The British could not do that as they were spread too thin and could not dedicate the troops, money and supplies needed to achieve their goal. It was only really by those lucky circumstances that the American Revolution succeeded, had it occured 20 years earlier or later, it would have been squashed like a bug.

I'm sorry. Where in his bio does it say he is a "military historian"? He is a trained military commander. That does *not* mean that he's a historian. Not by a long shot.



Again. He's talking about distance, not nationality. You're trying to apply concepts of nationalism that simply did not exist in the 1770s.

Yes. The word "foreign" has changed meaning as the concept of nationalism has become more fomalized. The word really did not mean the same thing when Washington and Jefferson used it as it means when you say it today.

Of course, a true historian would know that.

I don't know why I'm bothering, but here goes.

Rose, apart from being CO of 22 SAS was Commandant of the British School of Infantry. As any fule kno, that means he oversaw the education of British Infantry Officers, a significant proportion of which involved Military History, from Sun Tzu and Alexander to the present day. I've heard him cited as an expert on tactics and military politics by some of Britain's greatest historians. Funnily enough, none of them mentioned you.

You revolution's main premise was 'taxation without representation'. Its very legitimacy was that by King George's political arrogance in denying them influence, he made the presence of the redcoats an occupation. DiCkhead.


On many occasions you've reminded me of 'Otto' in 'A Fish Called Wanda'


This appears to be your pinnacle of stupidity, your fillip of misconstruction.

Washington (like the Iraqi insurgents) felt that his countrymen were victims of an oppressive miltary force from a far away land. He undertook a guerilla war, supported by another opportunist nation, which he won because the enemy failed to adapt its military tactics.

There. Understand it now? Which bit of that last paragraph does not apply to both scenarios and Georges (George 3rd and GW Bush)?

If he decides to use mine I want him to wash it before he hands it back

Tactics and military politics. Great. Understanding historical analogies and how they apply to current day conditions. Apparently not so great.

Look. You can wax poetic about this guys qualifications all day long, but when I see someone make the kind of analogy indicative of a school child's understanding of history, I'm going to call BS. I'm not impressed by his credentials. I'm underwhelmed by his analogy. Period.

Maybe your common sense and logic flies out the window because the guy saying something stupid has a bunch of medals on his chest and the acclaim of others, but mine does not. Look at his statement. Ignore who he is. It really is a moronic comparison. The fact that you'll accept such a moronic analogy purely because of who said it is both scary and unfortunately typical of most who engage in any sort of debate.



Yes. I agree. But can you agree that a group of people would not demand representation in a government that they didn't feel they were a part of? They weren't pissed off cause some foreign nation was taking their money for no reason. They were pissed off because their own government was taking their money and giving them no say.

How on earth can they complain about a lack of representation if they didn't think they were entitled to said representation? Why is this confusing to you? It's pretty darn obvious. They were British subjects. Just like someone living in London at the time. Zero difference in terms of citizen status. The *only* difference is that the Colonies themselves did not have any votes in Parliment. Any one of those colonists could have moved back to England, and upon setting up residence there, been able to vote and be represented.

They were not foreigners to England, nor was England a foreign nation. Not in the sense of a nationality as we use the term now (and as several people have tried to use it in this thread).



You're kidding right?

How about using a model of the conflict that includes Saddam Hussein in there somewhere? Who's he represent from the US war for independance praytell?


That analogy has more holes then the hull of the titanic. Seriously. It's made no less moronic because of who said it. And it really is pretty darn moronic.



Again. Where's Saddam in there? The only rational analogy puts Saddam in the position of the British, with the anti-bathists (mostly in exile) in the role of Washington, Jefferson, etc, and with the US in the role of France lending foreign military aid to allow the overthrow of the existing regime (British/Bathist), and the insurgents in the role of the Torey's attempting to overthrow the newly established government.

No other analogy comes close to matching those two conflicts, no matter how much you'd like to twist things around and ignore some components in order to pain the US in the role of the evil regime that must be overthown.

Edited, May 7th 2007 6:06pm by gbaji