We can't win

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RayThom
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We can't win

Post by RayThom »

ex-khobar Andy wrote:
Big RR wrote:... And just to make it crystal clear, I don't blame Trump for his sudden convenient case of bone spurs. Had I been up for the draft at that time, I might even have thanked the Lord for giving me that condition...
I mentioned earlier that had my family physician -- who brought me into this world -- not helped me out with a letter attesting to my active ulcers that I took to my induction physical, I was looking at a draft situation I knew I was too immature to handle. I was looking at Canada as an option -- thank God I didn't need to follow through with those plans.

Ridicule or death? During the Vietnam War era the choice was easy.

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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

Big RR
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Re: We can't win

Post by Big RR »

Easy perhaps in retrospect, but not at the time. Canada was an option (and one I considered as well), but leaving behind everything with no real prospect of returning was not attractive, nor were employment opportunities in Canada for someone without a college education. I recall during my draft physical we had a guy who said he had albumin in his urine and he pissed in at least 6 -8 cups for others (I doubt it worked as the labs would likely notice a cluster of this and order a retest); I had a friend who starved himself to fall well below the minimum weight limit (he was pretty skinny to start) and a couple who said they were gay (although I doubt they were). I took the Bill Clinton route and joined ROTC reasoning the war would soon be over and I'd get a 1-D deferment (as well as a scholarship), and I figured the peacetime active or reserve duty wouldn't be that bad (and after the war was ended for certain, a lot of us, myself included, were given the chance of leaving with no commitment). So no, I don't blame Trump anymore than I blame Quayle for pulling strings to get into the National Guard, but their behavior afterwards makes them hypocrites, and that I do blame them for.

liberty
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Re: We can't win

Post by liberty »

After all that you still want to tell me that young people will submit to a military draft. Why should they want go and fight and die a piece of frozen arctic tundra where no one lives? We can’t win a war in the arctic without civilian help and the civilians won’t fight or at least enough of them.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

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Joe Guy
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Re: We can't win

Post by Joe Guy »

I think you're confused. The 'Cold War' has nothing to do with fighting Russians in the Arctic Circle.

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Lord Jim
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Re: We can't win

Post by Lord Jim »

We can’t win a war in the arctic
We probably can't win a war on Mars either, so it's fortunate that there's an equally realistic chance that we'll be called upon to fight a war there...

Since the incentive for a foreign power to draw us into a war in either place is precisely the same...

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Long Run
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Re: We can't win

Post by Long Run »

Joe Guy wrote:The 'Cold War' has nothing to do with fighting Russians in the Arctic Circle.
When you have a craving for something cold, anything can happen.

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I think the last time I went to one was on hot day driving through Alturas, but that was more than a couple of years ago.

liberty
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Re: We can't win

Post by liberty »

We can’t raise and train a civilian army that would be worth putting in the field. But the Russian can and that would give then then quite a numerical advantage. Our larger population in effect means nothing. We may have better troops, but if they are constantly be harass to the point they are unable rest they will worn down and defeated.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

Burning Petard
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Re: We can't win

Post by Burning Petard »

"if they are constantly be harass to the point they are unable rest they will worn down and defeated"

Please. Mr. Liberty, take a basic literacy class at your local adult learning center.

And you do know that any war in the Arctic Circle will be a naval war--no place for the tanks and artillery and infantry to stand.

Oh, sorry. The fake news that 95% of the Arctic ice has already melted is just another liberal conspiracy.

Snailgate.

Big RR
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Re: We can't win

Post by Big RR »

maybe fostering global warming is how we will win?

liberty
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Re: We can't win

Post by liberty »

Burning Petard wrote:"if they are constantly be harass to the point they are unable rest they will worn down and defeated"

Please. Mr. Liberty, take a basic literacy class at your local adult learning center.

Burn baby, it has nothing to do with literacy; I would explain it to you, but I don’t think you are capable of understanding.

And you do know that any war in the Arctic Circle will be a naval war--no place for the tanks and artillery and infantry to stand.

Oh, sorry. The fake news that 95% of the Arctic ice has already melted is just another liberal conspiracy.

Snailgate.

That is right global warming is your best military ally.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

Big RR
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Re: We can't win

Post by Big RR »

Weather is often a deciding factor in a battle, why not climate in a series of them?

liberty
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Re: We can't win

Post by liberty »

Every year the Russians train a new army. With such a strategy in ten years the nation has ten armies and in twenties the nation has twenty armies with recruits ranging in age from 18 to 38 years old. Granted the training is not very good, but it is good enough and the recruit could be brought up to speed in a very short time.
A larger population has no value if it can’t be depended on. The Russian people would join their army and they would called up their trained reserves and reinforce their highly trained professional army. The US population would be chanting “hell no, we won’t go”’. The outcome of such a war would be so predicable that to fight it would be nothing but murder.

The only logical reaction to a Russian seizure of US or better Canadian arctic territory would be negotiations.

And the Russians have superior patriotism:

Is Russian patriotism stronger than American patriotism?
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7 Answers

Dima Vorobiev, Former Soviet propaganda executive
Updated Nov 24, 2018 • Author has 3.1k answers and 41.9m answer views
Originally Answered: Are Russians more patriotic than Americans?

In Russia, patriotism is a government-endorsed nationalism. This makes us and Americans a bit hard to compare. (See the footnote at the end of this posting.)
It’s rather unusual for Russians to publicly voice opinions that call for a “small State”, call for resisting the Deep State, petition for devolution and stronger local self-government and suchlike. People who do that are considered unpatriotic, possibly liberals, and sometimes even extremists. For example, calls for federalization of Russian Federation along the lines of German or American models, or the model proposed by Putin for Ukraine may result in fines and even a prison term, up to 10 years.
An uprising against the rulers, irrespective of who they are and what policies they pursue, is considered out of our national character and potentially treasonous. This alone makes us much more patriotic than Americans if we keep to our definition of the term.

Russians trust that our government and President Putin personally to do what is right for the country. This makes 41 percent of us feel we don’t have any responsibility for the state of affairs in Russia, while 28 percent feel “negligible” responsibility. Instead, we focus on taking care of our family, and the closest circle of friends: (source).
The picture below shows a mass rally in support of President Putin, a kind of regular patriotic outpouring that Americans can only dream of matching. The man in the foreground holds a poster saying “Thanks to Putin for Russia”
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

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Scooter
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Re: We can't win

Post by Scooter »

The Village Idiot wrote:What's the best way to learn a language?

Hundreds of experts built an app that teaches you a language in only 20 minutes a day. Try it for free!

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You certainly do babble a lot, so you should have a head start.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: We can't win

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Dumb-dumb wrote:ad by Babbel

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You know, not only are you an ignorant asshole, you're a LAZY ignorant asshole.
On those occasions when I cut-and-paste something, at least I take the time to edit out the fucking ads...
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Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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Scooter
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Re: We can't win

Post by Scooter »

The ones that baffle me are where he leaves in the ads but manages to delete all of the existing spaces between paragraphs, so all we see is a monolithic wall of text.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

liberty
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Re: We can't win

Post by liberty »

Bicycle Bill wrote:
Dumb-dumb wrote:ad by Babbel

What's the best way to learn a language?

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You know, not only are you an ignorant asshole, you're a LAZY ignorant asshole.
On those occasions when I cut-and-paste something, at least I take the time to edit out the fucking ads...
Image
-"BB"-

An ad was that offensive to you? You do know that you didn’t have read it.
Concerning the subject, does the truth bother you? The world is changing you can either adapt or be destroyed.

And in that perhaps distant future, if you send your children to fight the Russians you will be a fool because we know what the outcome will be. Based on what we have seen in our lifetime do you really think the current generation can sustain such a struggle? I have grandchildren of military age; I love them dearly, but they can’t do it. I don’t want some ass hole liberal politician sending them off to be murdered. I want to protect them.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

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Scooter
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Re: We can't win

Post by Scooter »

The Village Idiot wrote:I have grandchildren of military age; I love them dearly, but they can’t do it.
Perhaps you shouldn't project the failings of your mentally diseased/defective children as parents onto everyone else.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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BoSoxGal
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Re: We can't win

Post by BoSoxGal »

Russia is experiencing a health crisis much worse than here in the USA, and they are one of the few universal healthcare countries that experiences pretty shitty health outcomes. I’m not sure why anyone would assume they were in a far better position to field a healthy standing military than we are, with less than half the population numbers to draw on.


https://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/research ... health.pdf


Liberty, you do know that FAS is widespread in Russia?
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: We can't win

Post by Bicycle Bill »

The Village Idiot wrote:I have grandchildren of military age; I love them dearly, but they can’t do it.
I never got married and never had children, so I won't have any grandchildren to worry about.  However, I do know there are 50-some thousand names on a wall in Washington DC (and only by grace of the date of my birth and a high lottery number my name might have been up there too) that memorializes the last batch of people we sent to fight a no-win war.  But the reason we didn't win wasn't because the grunts didn't want to win it; they let someone else make up rules where we played it like a war game with boundaries and "rules of engagement",

And you saw the difference when we went into Kuwait (and later Iraq).  We had a definite purpose, we had all the equipment necessary to accomplish that purpose, and it didn't take very long for us to accomplish it.  Period.

So don't try to give me any of that "we ain't got the men, or the material, or the gumption to fight the Rooskies" shit, 'cause I ain't taking none of it.
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Last edited by Bicycle Bill on Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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BoSoxGal
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Re: We can't win

Post by BoSoxGal »

I just feel the need to point out that the ‘last batch’ of people sent to fight a no-win war were sent in 2001-2003 into Afghanistan and Iraq, and they’re still there.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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