War.... (Historical: 9/11 discussion thread)

[Exculcator]

quote:

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Originally posted by Puke:

Its like playing SE4. your opponent has already lost, and their strength cant compair to yours. you have been at war for hundreds of turns, and you push them into a corner and force surrender. but you leave them with nothing and no hope of striking back, yet you are the 'nice guy' and you dont finish them off. both your people hate each other, but for some screwed up moral reason, you both just sit there in some sort of cold war standoff.

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You are 100% right there and up until WWI this was the accepted norm. You loose, all mine now, tough ****, end of problem.

But then propaganda crept in. Those big wars sure needed a lot of cannon fodder. So people had to be lured in.
'We are fighting the just cause'. Freedom! Democracy! Justice! for all. These became the slogans to rally behind. And people started believing their own propaganda, even after the war was won. And it was carried on into the next war and further into the cold war. The origins of WWI had nothing to with those concepts.
You may include the American civil war here, come to think of it. How many Americans today actually believe that war was for the liberation of the black man? Quite a lot I'd think.
A sense of morale has slowly crept into warfare that might not alltogether be that healthy.The resulting idea, to treat the vanquished enemy in a 'politically correct way', has created more problems than winning a war solved.
Not finishing Saddam off was a mistake, for instance. What if after WWII the Nazi regime had been kept alive? To keep the 'political balance' in europe intact.
Soft healers do indeed create stinking wounds.

But keeping up the idea that you are the 'Good Guy' entails that you must walk on glass, not to destroy that image.
America has been walking on glass a long time now, bearing the torch high. But cracks have appeared in the image, maybe it's time to drop the pretences.
America is an empire and it controls a huge part of the world, why not admit it.
But Someone will allways be on top and we could do a lot, lot worse than being under American domination.

[tesco samoa]

geoschmo

I agree with you 100%.


I was just mentioning how they are being used as a corollary and a resultant within the same sentance.

Propaganda:
The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.

The thing about writting something in a forum or newsletter or email is that sometimes the meaning is lost or misinterpided.

That post was not written in the intent of producing any slanderous idea's against the pilliars that humanity is built upon.

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L? GdX $ Fr C++ SdT T+ Sf* Tcp+ A M++ MpTM ROTS Pw+ Fq+ Nd Rp++ G+

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Exculcator:
How many Americans today actually believe that war was for the liberation of the black man? Quite a lot I'd think.

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I do.

[Exculcator]

Really?

Not the opposing views of being a federation of independant states and that of preserving the Union ?

[Baron Munchausen]

I've picked up some interesting infomation, second hand. An acquaintance received an email from a friend in the military. He lives in New England, but the information seems to be relevant all over the country.

quote:

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I'd like you to advise friends and co-workers that if they have nothing critical to do in Boston, they should NOT go. We were just briefed, unclassified, but the message was clear. We are still "under attack" and we need to be incredibly careful. You should also keep all travel, especially commercial air travel to a minimum, as we are getting strong indications that this is no where close to being finished

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Just because this specifies Boston doesn't seem to me to exclude that similar warnings are appropriate for other cities in the US. Maybe Bush isn't exaggerating. Maybe we are at war. My best guess is that this email is part of an intentional strategy to warn people by word of mouth without making big public announcements and tipping off the terrorists. Let's all be careful, and let's all spread the word.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 14 September 2001).]

[Lisif Deoral]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
At the risk of sounding like an "ugly American" again, I wonder how many years worth of wages it would take to pay most Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory to emigrate and never come back?

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I suppose it won't work, and anyway it wouldn't be considered a "civilized" way to deal with the problem. I also suppose it'll lead to more problems sooner or later.

The Romans did something similar to Israel in 70 b.C. - with a much ruder attitude.
Well, you know what have been the consequences in the Last 1900 years, and what's happening now...

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Exculcator:
Really?

Not the opposing views of being a federation of independant states and that of preserving the Union ?

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Nope. It was slavery.

The southern states might have said they were leaving the Union because of the "States Rights" and all that crap. But the only "right" they cared about was the right to own slaves. If they weren't afraid, correctly or not, that Lincoln and the other northern states were planning on abolishing slavery, they wouldn't have cared if you called it a "Union" or a "Federation of States" or a "Grand Kegger".

We stopped being a federation of States when the constitution was signed. If that was the issue, they would have seceded then. The fact is they didn't, until it became apparent that slavery was going to end.

And whether or not the federal government would have fought to preserve the Union regardless of slavery is irrelevant really. Becasue if it weren't for slavery, there would have not been a reason for fighting to preserve the Union, because the Union wouldn't have split.

Geoschmo