Oh very good points. No-one knows better than my own countrymen how to totally mess up and hurt entire nations - for sure. We made enough mistakes in the past to figure out what we should be doing in the here and now. It's just a shame to see another nation make the same mistakes that the British made in less enlightened years. Does every nation have to go through the same 'bloody' (in its literal sense) lessons?

Which brings me on to the context of officer's usage of the word untermenschen. All of those tactics are the kind used by British forces in its rather racist, colonial period - I think that he is making comparisions to British occupation forces in India etc, etc. It's not appropriate, it's a generalisation and frankly just plain wrong to colour the entire US army in such a way.

And in that foolish colonial period (India being a very good example), we soon learnt that when we engage in what effectively amounts to collective punishment, the victims don't beat the hell out of those we are attacking - they run to their neighbours and convince them to grab their guns and shoot back at the people shooting at them - and eventually they *will* beat off even the best equipped army.

My country has a two hundred year history of occupation and oppression - that's a lot of experience to draw upon. If its army says a particular tactic is counter-productive, belive them.

They've been in the same situation a hundred times before - they *know* what they are talking about.

[ 04-15-2004, 03:22 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

Okay, perhaps ancient history isn't so irrelevant. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 04-15-2004, 03:38 AM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

Not so. Our forces are directly affected by the actions of your forces. We are intertwined.

What's truly sad is how some MUST learn in blood. There are certain lessons that just don't come out any other way. Human suffering is sometimes the only expedient to understanding. One of humanity's greatest flaws, to be sure, but Ghandi turned it on its head, reversing the process to positive results.

Awww, that's awesome Oblivion437. Now put away those dag-blasted guns of yours and do some passive resistance with us [img]smile.gif[/img]

WOOHOO - a convert :D

Well, the problem with passive resistance is, the need to see blood to teach the lesson is inexorably human, the answer to the question can't be spelled out for some. That's the reason I support armed revolution as a last-ditch alternative to the nonviolent (but active) resistance method. In the US, we happen to be under the leadership (truly under now, no longer represented by) of men who suffer from this particular character flaw.