You kill me.

I appreciate the discussion between MS and Martureo concerning war. Good thoughtful comments. (applause)

The conception was just a bit whack also. Big tip o' the hat to Tail Gunner Joe and J. Edgar Hoover. Funny how great wars, great as in hugely awful, often seem to revolve around a scapegoat.

And then we add smirking man of ambition, gonna be a great general, Westmoreland. To this day hawks whine that our rules of engagement didn't allow our guys to really slaughter the damn g****. This in spite of carpet bombing, napalm, and a casualty ratio of between 10 and 20 Vn to every 1 American.

Coulda won that war gawddammit.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Marines in Generation kill on hippies! - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dg3Us9ld2g

From Gen Kill, War is the answer...

Warning NSFW!!!

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2006 CL500
2009 C300 4matic
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Outspoken, heterosexual white males of means.

Hattie. You really ought to join up. Might be another hot war any day now.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I would have preferred a kill ratio of 10M:1. Or better, not a single American lost in action and mountains of enemy dead. But that's just me.

ROE are usually not a military concern but a political one. The ROE for the military begins with Geneva Conventions and is extended by whatever politician believes expedient.

See, soldiers like to win wars by defeating the enemy. Politicians think was a useful tool for negotiating.

Wars are generally won by generals who are not afraid to do what is necessary and don't really care about piles of bodies.

Sherman and Grant bleed the south dry and burned what was left, the generals before them were to gentlemen like to do what was necessary.

The Russians bleed themselves and the Wehrmacht dry, but at the end of the day the Russians simply had more soldiers.

We stopped the Chinese advance on the 38th parallel by machine gunning so many PLA soldiers our guys could use their frozen bodies as bullet stops.


Politicians like to paint wars as something that they are not, and ROE are simply political fantasy. You either fight or you don't, ever time any country does it half way the results are poor. Rich countries cannot sustain long wars since the populace is so comfortable and unwilling to sustain loses for any period of time. The amount of losses sustained on the Easter front for example would send the US public in a tailspin. This is an advantage that powerful authoritarian countries have over us, like Russia and China.

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2006 CL500
2009 C300 4matic
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I'm guessing you have never watched Generation Kill, its not a pro war series.

http://www.youtube.com/user/USArmyWarCollege/videos?view=0&sort=p&shelf_id=5

Some further viewing material.

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2006 CL500
2009 C300 4matic
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Always one to love a train wreck, I looked at the second....
Guess he missed the part where wiki describes the -
"German as the official language myth"....
Also known as the Muhlenburg Legend

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On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

1983 300SD - 305000
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https://media.giphy.com/media/X3nnss8PAj5aU/giphy.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsjm4dm4_gE

Wars are won. Oh boy. And why do we want to win wars, boys and girls?

Turning Vietnam into a giant combo graveyard/parking lot would have been very unlikely to yield any good fruit for our nation.

Reminds me of Eisenhower said the Joint Chiefs in '54 IIRC when they were arguing for a pre-emptive nuke strike on RED China because the French were worried that China was going to enter the fight in Vietnam.

This Week in History, January 13-19, 1953: President Eisenhower and Nuclear Policy: Toe to Toe with the Utopians

Vietnam's population in 1960 was around 35m, in 1970 45m so I guess the estimated 1 to 3 million we killed didn't make a big dent. Let's assume FTSOA that we had killed 20m or 30m. This is what might have been needed to "win" over there as most indications have it that 70 to 80% of the nation supported Ho ahead of any western nation trying to pick up where the French left off.

But you have to wonder what the world response to such a thing would have been. This in a nation that absolutely could not have traveled the 8 or 9 thousand miles needed to attack us.

But lessee, if we embark on a war for any reason, anywhere we HAVE to win cuz winning ain't everything, it's the ONLY thing godddammmit.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Wars are both won and lost, simultaneously. Once one engages in war it behooves one to win rather than lose it.

Perhaps you could check human history for examples of winning and losing wars.

Wars are fought because we are human, also the fact that they are is not going to change anytime soon.

Having said that being on the winning side, historically is a good place to be.

__________________
2006 CL500
2009 C300 4matic
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I sang that one so many times back in the day that I'm plum wore out on it. I counted one time, I had 30+ John Prine songs memorized.

But that link did lead me to this vid that I hadn't seen or heard before. Prine and Steve Earl singing a Townes Van Zandt song, "Loretta:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOfpaLFq0lI

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K