Comments on: When it comes to war, everything old is new again

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:55:50 +0000

There was a pretty good pdf explanation of “will” that I found at blackfive.

The funny part is that I just recently gave the links to On War and The Art of War on Book’s Book thread.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:44:02 +0000

Also Neo Neo Con had a link back to WWII times in which intellectuals and other upper crust folk also talked about how it was a waste to lose husbands to that war. So socialism and the value of nihilism was present in WWII. There were people who, because of free will, will always choose surrender over fighting. Human nature doesn’t change after all.

By: El Jefe Maximo

El Jefe Maximo — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:20:28 +0000

Ymarsakar touched on the point…the reason people seem different is because they are not as convinced that as much as at stake as, say, in the War Between the States and in the 2nd Punic War. Maybe they’re wrong, maybe not — but the threat of annihilation or catastrophic defeat does tend to concentrate the mind somewhat.

By contrast, a slow dribbling decline and defeat caused by nibbling around the edges does not. The Fall of Rome, for example, took hundreds of years, and because it took that long, it was all the more conclusive and complete when it finally happened.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:18:11 +0000

Rome’s citizens numbered somewhere around 250,000. Soon after Rome lost about 100,000 soldiers in the 2nd Punic War. They never considered surrendering even when Hannibal Barca was uncontested on the Italian Peninsula.

The reason, I think, is rather simple. People on the precipice of defeat and annihilation naturally either fall or they stand. They don’t vacillate like Americans of 2003 and 2006 do. They can’t, because they do not have the luxury of sitting on the fence or of ignoring the problem. They either fight and fall or fight and win.

It is sitting on the fence that demoralizes people, Book, not just Americans. It is the inability to fight or copnduct flight that tortures people’s psyche. Fighting relieves tension and so does fleeing, but going from one to the other with indecision made worse by enemy propaganda, both foreign and domestic, is another thing entirely.

The other lesson from the Civil War, apart from the one Book wrote about, is how the Democrat party was able to plaster over their support of slavery to modern times. So don’t be assured that just because they promote defeat, that others can defeat them and their goals. There is absolutely no assurance in wars of survival. Of anything.

By: jj

jj — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:38:18 +0000

The Republicans are always fundamentally optimistic, the Democrats are always moaning and whining. Jimmy Carter’s solution was to turn down the thermostat, put on a sweater, and get sunk in malaise - while accusing all the rest of us of being in a “national malaise.”

Ronald Reagan said, in essence: “Nuts to that - America’s best days are yet to come; let’s get out there and function” - and we did.

We generally do. And I do think the Democrats are sowing the seeds of a smashing repudiation for themselves, particularly now that Iraq is in fact going rather well - which they have put themselves in a position of never ever being able to admit.

I suspect a great many people will find themselves fed up with this constant whining and downgrading of our efforts by next November - or if not then, perhaps it’ll take until November of 2010 - but it’s coming.

By: benning

benning — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:37:46 +0000

“…we’re engaged in a Titanic struggle between civilizations,…” I’d say we’re in a struggle between Civilization and bloody Chaos. And the Dems are playing political games while the house is being undermined.

Nice to know Giuliani can say the right thing, but I still think he is the wrong choice for Republicans.

By: Gray

Gray — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:16:09 +0000

We’re a people who drive a block to pick up a gallon of milk, who freely spill our sordid secrets on Talk TV, and who have raised a generation of children that has never heard a discouraging word, no matter how well-deserved it might be.

No we’re not. That’s the weird ‘post-honor’ urbanized America that guys like Orchie live in.

Out here, we also have the highest number of hunters per capita, are wild for ‘X-treme Sports’; it seems everybody works out or does Pilates; and we go to church in amazing numbers; kids get spanked and everyone spends the weekend at Home Depot to work on stuff….

There’s a lot of restless energy out here that would be well spent on a frontier–if we had one….

By: Allen L.

Allen L. — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:36:05 +0000

This past August I crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains on horseback. From the high desert in the east to the western frontage of the Sierras. Though it’s farther to the south it is very similar to the Donner Pass route. As I was riding along it struck me that people crossed this type of terrain 160 years ago with wagons. It left me dumbfounded, that someone would even have the nerve to try. I was left with a profound respect and admiration for the pioneers.

I then started to wonder, exactly like Bookworm, could America even produce that spirit today? Yes we can and do. They are the entreperneurs, the inventors, the volunteers for the military. We just have to have the wit to support them.