The Glade 4.0

"Pay attention to meeeee!! I wanna be part of the Axis of Evil tooooo!!"

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think he wants to provoke the US so we will bomb/rebuild their country and upgrade their infrastructure.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I just can't wrap my head around what is wrong with this guy.

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LOL.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I think it's more like he wants to provoke us into making some realtively minor attack a la Libya that he can play up as "U.S. aggression".

He doesn't want us to invade. That would have very negative consequences for him personally.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We aren't very good at the second bit anymore.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

But he does have oil, so that means we'd have the ulterior motive...

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

No, because it kind of requires that we have money to do it. We haven't had money to do it since we stopped charging people for the rebuilding we did.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Why rebuild someone after we bomb them, really?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

It helps a lot when they aren't blowing it up themselves while we're fixing it too.



That depends on who the 'someone' is and what the geopolitical context is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

But I have never understood why, honestly. "We just blew you the **** up! Next time do not piss off someone bigger than yourself." done, no rebuild, no take their refugees. You blow them up and let them claw their way back out of the stone age. Let them fear you.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I guess the rationale is Germany post WW I and post WW II. One leaves a nation of folks **** and another war brewing, the other lead to a modernised industrial power primarily interested in peaceful trade.

Japan too, meebbe.

Hell, why treat enemy wounded when we take them prisoner? Why treat an enemy with dignity and honor at all?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Yeah, why? Crush your enemy, make them regret being your enemy.

If war was not limited to rules people would think twice about doing it. You make the people you war with regret having weapons. You eliminate every one of them who is capable of waging war.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Maybe, maybe not. You and your opponent don't exist in a vaccum. We rebuilt Germany as a buffer against communism and a trading partner (and lest you think no buffer was needed, let me remind you of Stalin's behavior prior to Barbarossa. He managed to drive Finland, a democratic liberal country, into the arms of Hitler in the name of national survival). International tade is necessary, and sometimes that means defending trading partners against more powerful neighbors; if you don't, you're allowing that more powerful nation a measure of de facto control over your own economic future.

It's all realpolitik. Never assume that one course of action is inherently better than others all the time. We do what's in our best interest (as best we can tell at the time). Soemtimes that's bomb and leave (Libya) sometimes it's something else.

It seems like we're being idealistic or thinking we can change the world on the surface, but we're not. That's fodder for those who don't want to understand how the world really works. It's a lot more ruthless than that.



No, you eliminate theory ability to wage war. You don't eliminate the people more than you have to. Again, you and your enemy aren't in a vaccum. You may need them in the future (Germany). You may have future enemies, who will be much harder to deal with if they think you're going to simply slaughter indiscriminately.

You're right in the sense of fighting hard and fighting to win. But you want to stop fighting at the most cost-effective place. Preserve your own money and combat power; don't waste it making a point that will only make future enemies fight desperately fering annhilation.

As for treaing an enemy with dignity and honor.. to the degree that it's beneficial you do. Will that give you better national and international political support or will you just be handicapping yourself trying to play by rules your opponents won't observe?

It's almost always some of both.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Good questions, which I am throwing back at you...

Why should we treat enemy wounded when we take them prisoner?? Why treat an enemy with dignity and honor at all??

And a couple of questions of my own....

How many of our/our allied wounded have they treated upon capture??

How many have they treated with dignity and honor at all??

I very clearly recall quite a few of ours/our allies that they have captured that they have beheaded on live camera...tell me...just how many of theirs have we beheaded???

We treat their wounded and captured combatants much better than they treat ours or our allies!!!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

I feel the need to field this tho I'm not Monte.

Because we aren't gorram animals. We aren't fighting individuals, we are fighting their government or their extremists. Just like when the war is over, they are no longer fair game to be attacked. We should, and do hold ourselves to a higher standard.


Usually if the government isn't willing to treat our POWs according to established guidelines then it's a good indication of why we are fighting.


I would think it's more then has been reported. Dehumanizing the enemy makes it easier for the people to accept the atrocities of war.


I'm sure a few heads have been removed in the blast from Predator attacks. Or mortar attacks. Or by daisy cutters. Maybe thats just exploding the lungs.


Yes, and we kill far more of them then they kill of us. Also, from a soldiers perspective, if you are critically injured, would you like to be field stabilized by the equivilent of a Civil War doctor, or finished on the spot?

Part of the massive cost of war is the clean up, like support and medical. We treat them better because we are better in that regard. We spend the time and effort to train our people to go in and save lives as well as take them.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Actually no, it has nothing to do with that, despite claims to the contrary. We do it in hopes that in the unlikely event we fight another nation that actually gives a **** about such things, our soldiers will be treated the same. We also do it for the political benefit of appeasing our allies.



In the sense that it's an indication of that government's general belligerance, yes.



Then you think wrong. We're not "dehumanizing" our enemies at all by claiming they regularly mistreat and execute captives. That's what they do.



Which isn't the same thing. Those aren't captives. I should also point out that the "Daisy cutter" has seen very little use, pretty much being limited to the initial Iraq invasion. We don't just sling weapons around willy-nilly to see big booms; that isn't cost effective.



That's because we're more competant and effective once actual combat begins. The enemy relies on remaining undetected to survive.



Which one gives me at least some hope of getting home to my wife and kids?



Yes, and it's to our overall benefit to be "better" in many cases. That doesn't mean we should always do so.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Pretty much the gist of my sarcastic response to Montegue! Guess I should have indicated the Sarcasm Meter in the lower left corner of my post!

I am fed up with "those people" that denegrate our and our allie's militaries because of "atrocities against humanity" that the militaries have "inflicted" on the "innocents" that have been captured during this war (declared or not, it IS a **** war!!).

I don't give a flying rat's *** about how many people in Guantanamo have had water poured over their faces, or how many Korans have been "desecrated". What I care about are the flag draped coffins that are coming home to America and Canada and all the rest of our allied countries! I care about the truly innocent civilians that are caught up in the middle of this fire fight!!

And I apologize, I've been drinking and probably rambling a bit! Hopefully this made some sense!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

There are no "innocent" people. There are combatants and there are noncombatants. All these "innocent" people are where the Taliban and those like them get their manpower from - and they got it long before 9/11.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Now you're thinking like Osama!
No one is an innocent - attack them all.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I said nothing of the sort Elmo. None of us are "innocent" either. "Innocent" really doesn't matter. "Innocent" is a word used by people who think that because they aren't pulling a trigger, or telling others to, that they aren't really involved. Sure, people can be innocent of specific acts, but these large numbers of "innocent" people who are simply being dragged into conflict by their government don't exist.

Moreover attacking them all isn't terribly realistic or cost-effective.

Now, you could think of trying to erode their base of power by winning over the people that support them as a form of attack, but even in that sense we're not attacking them all. We're co-opting some of them as a means of attack against others.

That's pretty much how things played out in Al Anbar. A lot of the people now supporting us, turning in bomb-makers and in some cases even joining the Army or the Police were the enemy at one point.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If everyone is the enemy it makes more sense to nuke the nation bare. More cost effective.

Of course its still the same rationality Osama uses regardless of how you try to rationalize your rationalization.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Not at all. "Cost effective" is not measured in solely monetary terms. How would the Russians react to our nuking a nation to bedrock (an exaggeration in and of itself baring truely profligate expendiatures of weapons in a small area)? How about the Chinese? Might they regard this as evidence of far greater willingness to use nuclear weapons than they previously estimated?

Even if they don't decide to strike first (which they probably wouldn't) it would almost certianly provoke them to build larger arsenals and better defenses. How about the radiation that might drift into their territory and others? What action might they take becaus eof that? All that might cause us to have to spend far more than the mere cost of replacing expendiatures in order to match their buildup.

What costs in terms of international relations that might cause us to bear? How would that affect our trade and economy?

There are no easy answers Elmo. One-line answers are the worst of all because they must, by their very simplicity, gloss over the immense complexities. Does this mean we should not ever retaliate strongly, or never use nucelar weapons? No, in fact there are at least 3 occasions since WWII when I think the use of limited nucelar strikes would have produced a better result.

If everyone is an enemy, and we nuke the nation to nothing, we will create more enemies than we can nuke. I suspect you are wildly overestimating the effectiveness of nuclear weapons in your thinking (which is understandable; few sources approach the topic with anything remotely resembling objectivity). How much would we weaken our defenses, and how much and how long would we need to rebuild them and match the new threat?

Far better to make as many enemies as possible friendly or at least neutral. They can then become tools to our further benefit. What use is a radioactive wasteland?



I'm sure it appears that way to amateurs.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."