Understanding terrorism

[lookout123]

"every officer is always more intelligent than every enlisted man". Obviously I did not say that. And yet that is what Lookout123 wants you to believe.

no, tw, i am not trying to pervert any of your posts or put words into your mouth. contrary to what you may believe, i think that you are an intelligent, educated individual with a drastically different world view than i hold. i was shocked to read what sounded like a declaration that generally, officers are more intelligent than enlisted. i asked you a question hoping you would clarify.

you want specific proof that enlisted people are as intelligent as officers? what would be sufficient? IQ test results for every member of the military? you are asking for proof of something that cannot be proven in a text book fashion. what we can do is step back and look at the sea of humanity we see everyday. are managers necessarily more intelligent than their employees? are people in "professional" careers necessarily more intelligent than those in non-"professional" positions? to think that intelligence can be judged by a quick glance at rank, job, or pay would be a mistake.

a mistake that i didn't believe you would make.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Uh, nobody has mentioned draftees....you know.....the ones that fought in Viet Nam.

Originally Posted by tw

So you are claiming your dad is typical of all enlisted men? I don't think so. That would be why he was in HQ.

Originally Posted by tw

In Vietnam, the officer named Westmoreland did not have sufficient intelligence or curiosity to be commanding general material. Would the enlisted man even know? Things that every officer was supposed to know were not even provided to enlisted man. The enlisted man only knew the symptoms -
"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam
And it's five, six, seven, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well, there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna die. "

They knew the top generals were wrong; were lying. The music said so. Any yet if we told enlisted men why, well, eyes would only glaze over. You tell me. How many enlisted men read Sze Tzu's 'Art of War' - and why not? Required reading for anyone in the military - with sufficient knowledge of the job.

That sounds like a blanket indictment to me. You were painting every enlisted man with the same brush and depicting them all as being like the typical Vietnam era draftee. Senior NCO's hardly deserve to be subject to such blanket condemnation, nor do the draftees, for that matter.

My father didn't listen to the local rock station. He preferred Johnny Cash, but he still had grave misgivings about Westmoreland. I don't know if he ever read Sze Tzu, and its too late to ask him now. Was he atypical of a top ranking enlisted soldier (E-9)? I don't really think so, other than his knowledge of Latin, perhaps.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What percentage of the Army is E-9?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

What percentage of the Army is E-9?

I don't know.

Once when I was a child I can remember asking my Dad why he didn't join the officer ranks. He replied, "Because I'd have to accept a demotion to 2nd lieutenant!"

[tw]

Originally Posted by marichiko

That sounds like a blanket indictment to me. You were painting every enlisted man with the same brush and depicting them all as being like the typical Vietnam era draftee. Senior NCO's hardly deserve to be subject to such blanket condemnation, nor do the draftees, for that matter.

Again, you can distort anything and everything I have posted by changing the perspective. What clearly was never a blanket statement is changed into "sounds like a blanket indictment". Serious mistake on your part. If I stated that, then you can cite the specific sentence that says that. If I don't state it, then assume I have intentionally led you astray so that your emotions would make wrong conclusions.

Assume what I have posted as bait for your emotions; so that you would ASSUME. That is not my intent. But stated often, I post bluntly. That means I don't waste time with politically correct statements. I am not a politician. Therefore it is easy for one to pervert what I had posted into implications and 'sounds like' misrepresentations. Again, where is the exact sentence that 'sounds like' anything? If that sentence does not specifically say it, then 'sounds like' is only personal bias.

Tell me how long the coastline is around Britain. We measure from space and get a specific number. Then we move down to an airplane's perspective. Suddenly there are numerous inlets and other geographical features that maybe double that coastline. Then we walk that British coastline to find far more coastline as the beach curves in and out. Then we take a microscopic perspective - measuring the beach as it curves around each grain of sand. Completely different numbers are due to different perspectives.

Was I lying when I provided Britain’s perimeter from space? I was 'painting with a broad brush'. Therefore I am wrong? No. But if you don't use my perspective - if you take what I post out of context - then you could even prove I will be a racist murder for the KKK. Perspective. Context. 'Sounds like' is not sufficient for valid reasoning. At best 'sounds like' is only enough to wildly speculate - only enough to justify a question.


A valid point is that enlisted men in Vietnam clearly were even less intelligent than their counterparts today. Of course. Few had any interest in advancing their intelligence. Do your time and get out. The music of that time listened by a massive majority of enlisted men told the story. "WAR ... what is it good for. Absolutely nothin'"

BTW, intelligence is created by working at it every day. Only part of intelligence is inherited. Intelligence is created more by 'viruses' such as curiosity, doubting, incessant reading of what was once boring, and using the concepts of science as routinely taught in school. In Vietnam, few wanted that intelligence. A disease created and promoted by a crook who was also a lying president (85% of all problems ...).


Officers are better trained, have more insight, and get their job by having more intelligence - can better see the bigger picture. They must; it is their job. There is no way around that fact. Meanwhile, what does a better army do? Increase the intelligence of its lowly enlisted men. Do better trained enlisted men make for a smarter army? Absolutely. But does that make enlisted men smarter than their officers. Maybe when it comes to firing a 105 Howitzer faster – a technically smarter enlisted man. But not when it comes to the most important facts in any army - such as its strategic objective.

Perspective. Don't distort the perspective I have posted. In some ways, you have done what Lookout123 does. Convert clear trends into an assumption that all enlisted men are dumber then their officers. Easy to change my post by taking the wrong perspective - taking what I have posted out of context. 'Sounds like' or 'implies' is not sufficient to interpret what I posted. Where is the irrefutable fact that I even implied such conclusions? A logical response would post the exact sentence where that 'sounds like' comes from. Where is that exact quote - the irrefutable fact?

There is good reason why officers tend to go to college and have advanced degrees whereas enlisted men do not. There is very good reason why the military schools train everyone as an engineer. The former have more curiosity, a quest to understand why - the bigger picture, a firmer grasp of reality, and must follow up with more questions and doubts. Such are required of officers. Such is less desirable in enlisted men (which is why accusing only enlisted men of torture in Abu Ghriad is a mockery of intelligence thinking).

The latter tend to get a job, learn to do the tasks, and don’t spend substantial time advancing their education in things such as advanced math, psychology, or quantum physics. Enlisted men do what their officers say or intend - which would be exactly what happened in Abu Ghriad.

Again, some enlisted men prefer not to ask those questions that officers are required to ask because, sometimes, enlisted men regard knowing too much as hazardous to their own health and attitude.

Stated is a complex analysis which is more consistent with reality. There is nothing in this post or any previous post that can be analyzed by 'sounds like'. Sounds like is how Oprah fans and a Jerry Springer audience make judgments. If it 'sounds like', then where are the exact quotes, numbers, and underlying science that justifies that 'sounds like' conclusion. Cite the irrefutable fact such as the specific sentence.

BTW, how did 2nd LTs survive in Vietnam? They first turned to their Sgt and ask, "How do we do this". The sign of an intelligent officer.

Originally Posted by tw

BTW, how did 2nd LTs survive in Vietnam? They first turned to their Sgt and ask, "How do we do this". The sign of an intelligent officer.

AND an intelligent Sgt who got them out of the mess that the green 2nd Lt had put them in!

I'm not going to argue semantics with you, and its true enough that most officers tend to be better educated than most enlisted men, especially if we start comparing E2's and E3's to majors and colonels.

In today's military, however, many do join the enlisted ranks precisely because the military holds out the carrot of a college education, so you can hardly condemn today's rank and file soldier for not wishing to better himself or having a lesser intelligence.

I suspect the Vietnam era draftee would have displayed more intelligence if he had been asked to risk his life for an intelligent cause. The cause in Vietnam was far from an intelligent one and the unwilling soldiers who were swept up to be cannon fodder for Johnson and Nixon showed great cunning in merely staying alive.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Feel, free, UG. Borrow away. Your response to my points about Vietnam was that you got to go play your bagpipes at The Wall. That's nice. So, all those men died so you could go get your ego gratified at their national memorial?

Dear, dear, dear, Marichiko. How monomaniacally unwilling you are to be fair. Everyone but you knows that is BS. Perhaps you should take up cultivating roses instead of trying to take me on, for you are palpably defeated this day, and your carryings-on are in vain.

Frothings from you aside, that's just my estimation of how much time and experience it would take to play the pipes well enough to do a good public performance. Most playing of the great Highland bagpipe out of doors is necessarily rather public anyway; there's no way to play the things softly, unless you count stationing the piper on one hilltop and his audience on the next one over.

Frankly, if the people of any given nation don't have the desire or will to rid themselves of dictators and tyrants, why should we spill our blood on their behalf? Let them reap their just reward as a nation and as a people. They'll figure it out - or not.

True enough -- if that were the case with the Kurds and the Shi'ites. Did not the both of them rise in revolt against Saddam? You don't revolt if you aren't oppressed, tyrannized, and generally living in a hell, which is exactly the situation when you're living under a dictator whose rise to power partook more of the nature of a mafioso than a U.S. President. I'd say they've got the desire and the will. Do you see Iraq changing course because the Rump Saddamites are leaving bent and blasted car parts all over? No you don't. Did not reporters before the war advise us that Iraqis from Baghdad, when the government minders weren't around, were privately telling them, and I quote, "If the Americans don't come, I'm going to kill myself." They were done with Saddam. True, they might have been done with Saddam eleven years before had we not been afraid of losing the Coalition and aided the rebellions to finish the job then, as the people who reckon Soldier of Fortune was right about it advocated, but in the end the tyrant is still fallen -- as much of his own misunderstandings of what he was doing and having done as anything we might accomplish in our campaign.

I shall assume that an unjust recompense for Iraq's travails as a nation would be the return of a Ba'athist dictatorship.

Bored, not going to answer further and better things to do with your time? I'm glad I've more honesty than to use such childish and transparent phrases to conceal an acknowledgement of defeat on the merits of the matter. I know the sound of a defeated America-should-lose-this-because-I-don't-want-liberated-foreigners-no-matter-how-small-the-cost, and you're making that sound.

But there are other things in this. Clearly there is so enormous a chasm between Marichiko's worldview and mine that neither of us can even reliably perceive the other's important core values, let alone understand or appreciate them. Sure, not taking casualties is preferable to taking casualties -- but that is not an option in a general war, and this one is far more general than bombing targets in Kosovo. We have no known enemies who are too incompetent to blood some of us and kill others. The measure of the worthiness of America's cause is not to be found in our soldiers not getting hurt.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The measure of the worthiness of America's cause is not to be found in our soldiers not getting hurt.

The worthiness of soldiers is not found in dispatching them to self serving political causes - such as fixing the Middle East only for the greater glory of "Project for a New American Century". A truly respected soldier is deployed for reasons justified by a smoking gun. If a US soldier was indeed respected, then soldiers would have been in Afghanistan - hundreds of thousands - to find, capture, or destroy the real enemy.... Osama bin Laden. A deployment so worthy that even NATO would deployed for the same objectives. A deployment so worthy that even former Soviet Republics and Libya's Kadaffi endorsed and supported that objective.

Instead a US president would lie - blame Saddam - so that soldiers would be deployed for a personal political agenda. Lie to even alienate NATO allies. Like in Vietnam, lie so that American soldiers have doubt about their mission. Lie so that even the Defense Department now changes the parameters of victory - to minimize the possible impact of defeat.

How could a government so disrespect its soldiers? We are supposed to have learned from Vietnam to never do that again to the American soldier. We have so disrespected the American soldier that Osama bin Laden still runs free.

Osama bin Laden still runs free. Those with respect for the American soldier and American principles would never have let that happen. Why is Urbane Guerrilla so silent about disrespect for the American soldier and American principles?

[tw]

Originally Posted by marichiko

... and its true enough that most officers tend to be better educated than most enlisted men, especially if we start comparing E2's and E3's to majors and colonels.

Now that is a 100% agreement with what I posted. Why so much disagreement previously? No semantics. You just posted exactly what I was posting.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

TW, this is going to be fun. For me, anyway.

Originally Posted by tw

Obviously, if Hanoi and Vietnam was a hell hole, then those boat people are still coming in the millions.

The quarter million that did come are sufficient to prove my case, leaving zero justification for your views. They did not run to Hanoi, but away from it, and in some cases more than once. Communist Vietnam was a hell hole, and it improved once they stopped trying to practice Communism on the streets of Saigon (I will not name a city after Ho.).

Tyranny was not N Vietnam.

Those reeducation camps for South Vietnamese with the temerity not to like the Viet Nam Cong San were what? Summer camps for underprivileged urban kids? The fruits of some figment-tree of right-wing conspiracy, postwar? The penalty for being politically incorrect from Hanoi's point of view was mostly slow death and occasionally a quick one. This is the surest mark of a tyranny, and it is one you missed by half a parsec. That's pretty incompetent thinking, TW. Don't do that; I'll bite big raggedy chunks out of you every time.

One is suppose[d] to learn history instead of rewriting it.

You can't even copyedit as well as I do, yet you expect me to take you seriously as a thinker? The bar's a bit higher than that, TW. Meet it or lose.

But then we cite specific examples. Who asked to be made a protectorate of the US? Ho Chi Minh. Whose Declaration of Independence is an example copy of the US Declaration of Independence? Vietnam's.

This was Ho's move to find a power sponsor who could back him against the French. It's interesting, but after that, what? How much substance is there in might-have-beens?

But UG blames Congress. Its called rewriting history.

The blame does not fall on the armed forces. It falls on trying to fight a polite war, which was done in the nation's capital -- an error which today's Administration, having experience of Vietnam, is determined not to repeat. Neither the Kennedy nor the Johnson Administrations knew how to win Vietnam, and in the losing of Vietnam, the domino theory was vindicated also: South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and additionally Burma fell into darkness. That not all the available dominoes fell is just our, and their, good fortune, not a disproof of the concept.

TW, were I your history teacher, I'd give you a failing grade. You're bad at this.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The more rumors I hear about the PNAC -- got it bookmarked somewhere -- the more I think I'd approve of it in almost every particular. Seems to be about making everyone free, freer, and richer.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The quarter million that did come are sufficient to prove my case, leaving zero justification for your views. They did not run to Hanoi, but away from it, and in some cases more than once. Communist Vietnam was a hell hole, and it improved once they stopped trying to practice Communism on the streets of Saigon (I will not name a city after Ho.).

What happened once those fears were unfounded? Oh. That means UG must now learn all of history. Did Vietnam change anything that caused people to stop fleeing? Of course not. People stopped fleeing - and many returned to Vietnam - because Vietnam was not the hell hole that an enlisted man is so sure existed. An enlisted man who will be exposed for rewriting history in direct contradiction to US government accounts.

Ahh but writing fictional history is fun. One is not encumbered with all that dirty reality.

This was Ho's move to find a power sponsor who could back him against the French.

Allow me to appreciate what UG has just posted. Pulp fiction is nothing more than an excuse for using dirty words. Meanwhile, Nationalist Vietnamese wrote a Declaration of Independence only so that the US would come to their aid? A document as fundamental to them as the US Declaration of Independence is to Americans was instead written only as a cheap and dirty ploy to get America to come to their aid? Invent history when you don't know the answers?

Ho Chi Minh asked to become a protectorate of the US because ... well even the US government says why he made those requests. So which one is lying - Urbane Guerrilla or the US government? Urbane Guerrilla - at least learn what the US government said before you rewrite history for personal gain. Yes it is fun to write fiction. But better fiction writers first spend years learning reality before writing their fiction. You have just contradicted well published US government documents by saying

This was Ho's move to find a power sponsor ...

IOW you again invent history to suit your needs. You have been caught and exposed.

The blame does not fall on the armed forces. It falls on trying to fight a polite war, which was done in the nation's capital -- an error which today's Administration, having experience of Vietnam, is determined not to repeat. Neither the Kennedy nor the Johnson Administrations knew how to win Vietnam, and in the losing of Vietnam, the domino theory was vindicated also: South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and additionally Burma fell into darkness.

The domino theory was a lie predicated on a now universally discredited theory that Vietnam was part of a global communist agenda. A global communist conspiracy necessary to justify a widely discredited Domino Theory did not exist. What you describe as targets of that Domino Theory was nothing more that civil war - leading to far more corrupt government in Cambodia. Thailand instead remained true to their people and therefore suffered no coup. How can that be if the Domino Theory was valid? Only the ill educated would still believe the Domino Theory.

A polite war? Where do you come up with these myths? America used every asset of our conventional war machine in that war. Armed forces in Europe, S Korea, etc were sometimes stripped down to almost decommisioning to fight a *polite* war. We even considered using nuclear weapons. We lost almost 10% of our B-52 force. When did that become a *polite* war? Urbane Guerrilla - are you the reincarnation of a disgraceful American General named Westmoreland? You also change history and facts to promote your agenda.

Even Johnson, in recently released tapes as president, admits the American war in Vietnam was not winnable. Even Johnson says UG has misrepresented the facts. Blame does not fall on the armed forces. Blame belongs on top management who both literally and intentionally lied to create a Vietnam War. Deja Vue. We do it again to American troops in Iraq. Even worse, Urbane Guerrilla endorses the trashing of American troops and American principles. He even puts up 'straw men arguments' about blaming the armed forces. The military was but another victim of lying Generals and civilian leaders. But again, Urbane Guerrilla conveniently declares the military was blamed.

Urbane Guerrilla has even posted history in direct contradiction to what the US government has published. When Urbane Guerrilla does not know history, he invents it. The Vietnam Declaration of Independence was a ploy to get American support against the French? UG - who do you think was paying the French - according to US government documents?

Meanwhile here we are again making the military another victim of a lying president and his "Mission Accomplished" war. When I say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, well, we have Urbane Guerrilla as a perfect example.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

TW, you have written at length, to an unexpected end: neither you nor I know what the hell you're talking about.

Refugees do not flee nice places. How many run away from the United States?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

What happened once those fears were unfounded?

What unfounded? Do you not know that Laos and Cambodia were conquered by communists? There's a pattern to your representations here...

Nationalist Vietnamese wrote a Declaration of Independence only so that the US would come to their aid? A document as fundamental to them as the US Declaration of Independence is to Americans was instead written only as a cheap and dirty ploy . . . ?

Something you're not discussing, and I am, is the question of are they following the libertarian impulse behind such Declaration? They aren't, AFAIK, doing that even nowadays. Had they done something other than the usual communist oppression, purges, and poverty, they wouldn't have had refugee one. I'll take the evidence of a quarter million fleeing, preferring pirates, robbers, and dying of thirst at sea on rafts, to ordinary daily life under communism, over all of your pravda, TW.

Ho Chi Minh asked to become a protectorate of the US because ... well even the US government says why he made those requests.

And this is known; I addressed that in my previous post. It is known that he was disappointed in this, and that he turned instead to Red China and the Soviet Union, both of whom were hardly unwilling to spread Communism, and with a religious fervor about it, to yet another region undeserving of such monstrousness. Did Ho set up anything but yet another Communist prison state? I'm unaware of Ho's state doing anything Mao would have taken exception to. You have to understand totalitarian systems are evil, impoverishing, and wasteful of life before you can understand anything of history, TW, especially the history of the twentieth century. For an instance -- and such an instance! -- non-democracies perpetrated every single genocide in the twentieth century. Such understanding is less than evident in what you post.

The domino theory was a lie predicated on a now universally discredited theory that Vietnam was part of a global communist agenda. A global communist conspiracy necessary to justify a widely discredited Domino Theory did not exist. What you describe as targets of that Domino Theory was nothing more that civil war - leading to far more corrupt government in Cambodia. Thailand instead remained true to their people and therefore suffered no coup. How can that be if the Domino Theory was valid?

Who needs a global conspiracy when a regional campaign of expansionism will do? Who needs a conspiracy when you consider that at its base communism was a sort of religion? What did the communists do besides go on jihad? What did they succeed in doing besides kill folks by the many tens of millions over seventy years and make folks poor? What you present as argument is not so much history as collectivist-totalitarian pravda, which you've swallowed hook, line, and sinker. How does it feel to be in a fellational relationship with the shades of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao? I'm sure I'll never find out for myself.

Where do you fall in the political quiz over in Politics? I'd like to see your numbers.

Cambodia had communists in its hills, for years upon years. You want corruption? Look at the wonders the Khmer Rouge performed upon the Cambodian population. Corruption? -- better say Cambodia was run by crazy people. Whatever one can say about Norodom Sihanouk, he wasn't an ignorant maniac like Pol Pot. The domino fell.

A polite war? Where do you come up with these myths? America used every asset of our conventional war machine in that war. Armed forces in Europe, S Korea, etc were sometimes stripped down to almost decommisioning to fight a *polite* war. We even considered using nuclear weapons. We lost almost 10% of our B-52 force. When did that become a *polite* war?

Okay, here I'll cut you some slack because you've never thought of it this way, and are completely at sea.

Look at the limitations we clamped on our strategy: we stopped at borders, rather than go harrying the enemy wherever he might flee. Polite. We made a point of not bombing war matériel north of the Chinese border, rather than doing everything to break their power to battle us. Polite. It became even more absurd: rather than destroy the sinews of war everywhere in or near North Vietnam, we publicly restricted ourselves to only bombing targets in certain patches of North Vietnam. Beyond polite; this was born to lose, and the idea didn't come out of the people doing the fighting. This totally allowed the North Vietnamese to install missile sites to shoot at our guys -- unmolested in the least. We were so concerned about bothering a pack of totalitarians committed to an inhuman system that we forgot to win the war.

Even Johnson, in recently released tapes as president, admits the American war in Vietnam was not winnable.

Having lived through the 1960s, I don't recall that Richard Nixon thought of it in quite this way. He seems instead to have possessed the Republican capacity for resolve in war. Even with all our too-polite strategy, the communists remained stalemated until we left in 1973.

Even Johnson says UG has misrepresented the facts. Blame does not fall on the armed forces. Blame belongs on top management who both literally and intentionally lied to create a Vietnam War. Deja Vue. We do it again to American troops in Iraq. Even worse, Urbane Guerrilla endorses the trashing of American troops and American principles. He even puts up 'straw men arguments' about blaming the armed forces. The military was but another victim of lying Generals and civilian leaders. But again, Urbane Guerrilla conveniently declares the military was blamed.

This paragraph constitutes a most astounding misreading of this one:

"The blame does not fall on the armed forces. It falls on trying to fight a polite war, which was done in the nation's capital -- an error which today's Administration, having experience of Vietnam, is determined not to repeat. Neither the Kennedy nor the Johnson Administrations knew how to win Vietnam, and in the losing of Vietnam, the domino theory was vindicated also: South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and additionally Burma fell into darkness. That not all the available dominoes fell is just our, and their, good fortune, not a disproof of the concept."

The Vietnam Declaration of Independence was a ploy to get American support against the French?

What, this again? Was Ho Chi Minh NOT seeking outside aid? Was this NOT directed against the French? Ho was already done with the Japanese. I've never said it was a ploy and I'm not going to. Please cease to misrepresent the matter.

UG - who do you think was paying the French - according to US government documents?

Are you saying that immediately postwar we somehow shouldn't have been helping a very battered wartime ally? And is there any particular relevance in this, or indeed anything astonishing?

Meanwhile here we are again making the military another victim of a lying president and his "Mission Accomplished" war. When I say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, well, we have Urbane Guerrilla as a perfect example.

What you've posted here is remarkably congruent with the kind of pravda that communists and their fellow travelers would say. TW, you do not have anything to teach me.