While at drill with my Guard unit today, I ran into evidence that proves morale is in the crapper.
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
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- In The Mailbox: 07.18.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
I would be interested in knowing their reasons for that.
… because to be honest (and I am not disparaging any of the people mentioned in the post), if I thought I could end my career in the military by engaging in a pull-out, I might jump at the chance.
The Master Sergeant has been eager to go since 2001 – he has finally gotten the chance. The Staff Sergeant is going back because he felt that what he was doing was really important and it was very fulfiloing for him. The Captain is going to go back to where he was previously, and he pins on Major before too long, he will assume the Operations Officers position – he wants to see things through in a position of higher responsibility.
Nobody in teh Armed Forces ever wants to be part of a retreat. I know Viet Nam vets that are still bothered by the end of that conflict…
And nobody in my position should be such a lousy typist…somebody get me a 71L, stat!
cynn-
So you’d put yourself in harm’s way just for the chance to be part of a retreat?
I’m guessing these guys are more about fighting for something.
Sorry. Cross posted with MJ, who is of course more eloquent.
But Major John, I think you meant teh Armed Forces!!!11!
I think I need to retire for the evening – back up at 0500. And I still need some 71L support.
I don’t what I would do. I was simply trying to pick the mind of a smart military guy. I don’t think summary withdrawal is smart, but I have a sick feeling that’s where it goes. I think my dems are about to squander an opportunity
Is this a beverage of some sort?
Never fear cynn, Bush is still commander in chief.
Is that a joke?
No, cynn, it isn’t a joke. It’s funny, but it isn’t a joke, it’s an observation.
Put it this way: Suppose you went to work Monday morning and discovered that you had a new boss, somebody who not only knew nothing whatever about the work you do, but had a large number of preconceptions about it that were exactly 180 degrees out of phase with reality, and revealed those in bombastic declarations of intent. Would you be pleased? Especially if it turned out that the new boss had the full confidence of the owners, and could discipline or fire you at will?
With respect (genuine; you manage to be wrong, i.e., disagree with me
, without being a moonbat) your comment reveals that you are not just utterly ignorant about the military and the psychology of people like Major John, the assumptions you have about them could better be classed as “preconceptions” or even “prejudices”, and are mostly wrong, sometimes fatally so. Whatever faults George Bush may have (or not have), a similar ignorance is not one of them. It’s therefore a good thing that he, and not some person with your deficiencies, is the troops’ boss, isn’t it?
Regards,
Ric
I’m confused about what you are saying, and what you meant.
You would jump at the chance to be part of a withdrawl, but you don’t think withdrawl is smart. In fact it gives you a sick feeling, although you would jump at the chance to be part of it. You so strongly believe this, that you wonder aloud if Major John’s military acquaintances perhaps volunteered for Iraq so that they could be part of a withdrawl.
What opportunity are the dems about to squander?
MayBee, you’re confused because cynn is confused.
We all have constructs, simplified models of the real world, in our heads. We have to. None of us has enough information to generate rigorously accurate responses about anything. So what we have is approximations. If they allow us to make more or less correct predictions most of the time, we consider them correct, or at least close enough to be useful.
cynn’s model of the military is seriously in error, so when (she?) tries to make a prediction about what military people will do… it does not include people volunteering for Iraq. The existence of the people Major John cited is outside the error bars of cynn’s model, and their actions are diametrically opposed to what that model predicts. This is naturally confusing. It’s as if someone tossed you a ball, and it curved up—evidence that contradicts a deeply-held world view.
The reason cynn doesn’t attract the sort of contempt that monkyboy and actus do, despite being not just a Leftist but a lowercase addict, is that (she?) occasionally shows evidence of such confusion, which indicates that (she?) isn’t so totally devoted to a particular model as to reject physical evidence that it’s deficient. cynn has “…a sick feeling…” that something’s wrong. Like an upset stomach after taking poison, it’s evidence that health is at least possible with proper treatment.
Regards,
Ric
Hehe, Ric.
Are we to assume the actions of three guys disproves Murtha’s contentions?
An Army of three?
I don’t think it matters one way or the other how individuals in the military feel about Iraq. The decision to stay or leave has to made based on America’s interests only…
Monk – would the presence of a mile-high picket fence in Iraq suspended from barrage balloons change your assessment?
No surprise, Major. When the Black Watch asked for volunteers they received 3 times as many applications to return to Iraq as they had places.
It’s the news media who have lost their balls, not our soldiers.
furriskey, (Capt, retd)
I thought they disbanded the Black Watch when it returned from Iraq, furris.
Did they change their mind?
No, they just incorporated it into a new Scottish Regiment as one of 6 battalions; the sort of stupid tinkering socialist politicians get up to.
monky – considering my own unit is on the “ready” list in 10 months and the “go list in 22, it is more than just an Army of three. These are people that just won’t wait – they took the first opportunity to go. I am sure you are not saying something ignorant, you just have to dismiss what I just witnessed, out of hand, because it would be yet more that evidence, anecdotal, to be sure, that Rep. Murtha was wrong a bout us being “broken”. Broken troops find ways to avoid service.
My experience has been repeated in units around my State. And in Indiana – where we picked up some volunteers too. From our retention numbers, it is fairly obvious that it is almost everywhere this type of thing is occurring.
But, I am sure in your recent service, you may have seen different things.
Soldiers in a volunteer military will volunteer to serve. Critics will criticize. Pundits will pundiculate or whatever the verb is. Opinionated folk will opinionate. It’s just what they do.
Choosing to go early to Iraq might be a strong belief in the mission, dedication to fellow soldiers, a desire to get there and do some good work before the pullout, a desire to work with a particular division/unit/area of the country, or a desire to stick it to war critics. It’s up to them.
And that some do it doesn’t have all that much to do with whether or not the entire situation is fucked up or not. It isn’t evidence of peachy-keenness or a shitstorm quagmire. It just shows that some soldiers are willing to go there.
I don’t dismiss your information out of hand, Major John.
It casts the appropriate amount of doubt on the people who say the U.S. Army is “broken.”
The real question is whether the Iraqi Army is “broken” or not…
Alas, poor Chickenhawk! I knew him, Monkybutt: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
Major John, thanks for yet another view from the ground.
This is why monkyboy pisses me off so bad, it is not just that he is an idiot, he seems to think we are too.
This is an example of why I don’t call for banning monkyboy. If he didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.
What I especially enjoy is when, as here, he drops a snarky comment that discredits an entire category of his own and his allies’ arguments, then goes blithely on as if he’d just demolished his opponents. It’s infuriating and charming at the same time, like watching a puppy chew his food dish into unusable fragments.
Only if you’re a moonbat, monky. It was clear by the afternoon of March 21, 2003 that the Iraqi army was not only broken, but in many ways did not exist. It’s worth remembering that the likes of Fisk and Pilger were predicting that the Iraqi military would give the invading Americans a severely bloody nose at minimum, with tens of thousands of casualties. Instead, not just the Army, but the legions of brutal goons calling themselves “police” under Saddam, simply melted away into the general population when it became clear that calling out “Allahu Ackbar!” and waving AKs around did not constitute effective resistance to a competent force.
The lesson was driven home by First Fallujah, and my biggest disappointment with the Right is that so many of them don’t understand. First Fallujah was a test. An Iraqi general had pulled together a sizable force, representing them as the best, the competent core of his military. At First Fallujah the Marines broke the back of the resistance, then handed over to the Iraqis… who failed utterly, embarrassingly. It was at that point that American planners sighed in disappointment, moved all their timelines out several years, and began buckling down to the job of training.
So in one short sentence, not even a full sentence but a fragment with a trailing ellipsis, monky demolishes the entire line of argument that revolves around the notion of turning Iraq over to its Army and going home by Christmas 2003. The “Iraqi Army” they think should have been put in charge did not exist; it was a figment of Saddam’s imagination—and monky’s.
What’s made the notion stupid from the beginning as a criticism from the left is that that was, and indeed remains, a large part of the operational concept in the first place. Neither George Bush nor the “neocons” have any interest whatever in owning and operating an Iraqi subsidiary of whatever “vast conspiracy” the moonbats may believe is in place, and they never did. The plan was to depose Saddam and his henchmen, put a competent Government in place, and leave. What we found out was that thirty years of Saddam had broken Iraqi society much more completely than expected, and finding enough “competent Government” was not a matter of selecting relatively honest people and helping them take power, but of building reasonably competent institutions from the ground up.
One of the things that excites “the troops” is a chance to be a part of that. American military people are proud of their service(s), and more important are not jealous about it—they realize that an Iraqi military whose basic philosophy and training was like ours would be fearsomely efficient but would not be a threat to America any more than American troops are a threat to, say, France. It’s by no means the only reason, but many people volunteer for duty in Iraq because they look forward to the day when something good and bright will exist, and they will be able to point to it and say, “I helped build that.” This of course is something monkyboy will never understand, because he doesn’t have the equipment to understand it with. Birth defect, I reckon.
Regards,
Ric
Well I think they’re just looking forward to being based in Okinawa.
I have a very cunning plan vis-a-vis our military’ws morale. It involves balloons.
What I especially enjoy is when monkyspunk goes blithely on as if he’d just demolished his opponents after they’ve posted up direct evidence to the contrary of each and every one of his beliefs, none of which evidence he’d ever even absorbed. From there it’s a short step to monkyboi’s refusing to answer the usual trio of pertinent questions that traditionally follow it around:
1. Does being habitually, historically, chronically wrong on the issues in any way shake your moronic belief system?
2. Does being habitually, historically, chronically wrong on the issues shake your moronic, exhibitionistic psychology?
3. Or does being habitually, historically, chronically wrong on the issues shake and hoping none of the entirely reasonable posters here remembers your bullshit from the last thread get you off or something?
Obviously, there are numerous deratives, but these three seem to go to directly to intent and result.
The last time somebody took off their pants and trotted around in public we called it actus. But actus has nothing on monkypunk.
Me too. Nothing influences this particular pathology into being, does it?
6Gun, we have here three cases.
cynn is a True Believer who has recently acquired some data that brings some of that Belief under scrutiny. It remains to be seen whether any progress can be made on that front, but the evidence suggests that it’s at least possible.
actus is a True Believer who is still young enough and sincere enough to be impervious to data. He’s also bright enough to sort out appropriate catechisms to challenge us with, but they’re content-free. The advice to “ignore actus” is correct. There’s no there there.
monkyboy is pure Troll on both sides of his family. He doesn’t give a damn whether he’s right or wrong—more precisely, he’s egotistical enough to define “right” as “what monkyboy decrees”. His goal is to shift the debate so that it isn’t about the issues, but about monkyboy; that feeds his ego. You (and BBH) aren’t helping.
Regards,
Ric
– By all available evidence, Socialism is an incurrable affliction.
– Actually Ric, I like to see their reductionist deflections, and empty obfuscations.
– I particularly enjoy things like the “Most Excellant Balloon project”. We all need a good laugh from time to time in this season of political discontent. Personally when I read the adalpated three’s posts, I always feel that much more vindicated in our belief systems, and voracity.
– And, dare I say it, it’s simply fun to “spank the monkeys”.
Not always, I was a rabid little socialist for most of my early years.
– Moe – I too had some of the typical Socialistic tendencies of youth. Maybe I would have been more accurate to say; “Socialism has only one known cure, age and experience”.
Ric,
Clearly, the attitude of Maj. John’s comrades dooesn’t represent the attitude of everyone serving in the U.S. military.
There are plenty of people serving in Iraq and Afghanistan now who would “volunteer” to come home today…if they could.
monkey – You and the Left continue to equate a natural common sense human aversion to war in general, with the idea that those same idea’s indicate in any way, those self same people being unwilling to fight for things they believe in. It’s a clever ruse. But none the less, a false trope. It’s a revisionist attempt to cover your own lack of resolve, and empty belief system.
– The mirror image of that distortion, is your intentionally misleading meme, that anyone who is willing to fight in defense of America, is a jingoistic warmongerring extremist. Both are arguments designed to cover your own form of “theistic” selfishness.
– All the Marxist tricks are pretty much public knowledge these days, sinmply because they’ve been overdone. You need some new red meat in your bag of moral equivalency ploys.
Hunh? I don’t see any Socialists here.
One of the most striking things about the last ten or fifteen years is the complete reversal of the Left. There is, for all practical purposes, no genuine Left any more—the “Euston Declaration” is a last-ditch effort by the pitiful remnant, shouted down more by the self-declared “leftists” than by their putative opponents.
What we have today is Fabianists, and the Fabians were always much better understood as usurpers than as reformers. Elitists and nobles, “gentlemen” (= people who don’t work for a living in any way) who have no intention of changing or even modifying the class structure except to change the names and insert themselves at the top of it, and promise faithfully to be good Noble Rulers, keeping the welfare of the poor peasants at the top of the priority-list. But you have to give them the power first.
When the Communists and labor organizers of Iraq begged for help from the international Left, they got told to piss off and die; they weren’t enthusiastic enough about killing Americans. Today’s Left has no heroes that aren’t oligarchs and/or tyrants, and no program beyond “stability”, by which they mean that freedom and prosperity are seen as an American plot to establish “hegemony”, to be resisted to the last starving peasant. (So long as they remain well-fed themselves, of course.)
They continue to use the terms, conventions, shibboleths, and Sacred Texts of the original Left, so the name remains as a use-tag to identify a particular set of loons, but they’re a good bit less Socialist than the British Raj of Victoria’s time. Their ideal is stasis, whether in climate or in politics. Orwell was a prophet.
Regards,
Ric
As I’ve suggested more than a few times, narcistic, emotional, paranoid, opportunistic, selfish Leftism (is there any other kind) is a mental disorder. It’s unchallenged tenets rely on myth, disallowing history, stereotype, slander, and insisting that its first effects (welfare, the nanny state, appeasment, et al) actually work. Likewise that opposing beliefs (in this approximate context, that a military is necessary and all violence isn’t morally equivalent) are somehow fraudulent, this notion based equally on disallowing history, human nature, principle, etc.
To Ric’s observation of cynn, actus, and monkyspunk, the end result is that hordes of minor, lazy thinkers and hordes of malicious malcontents and everything in between get sucked into that same approximate political vortex. In the end, that place isn’t nearly so much a valid political orientation—balancing conservative principle and value in some sort of circular co-equal dance of intellects—as much as it occupies the end of the ray of humanity closest to the endpoint of Void, or in the case of the monkyboi’s of the planet, a sort of unreasoned Nihilism, where ends always justify means and both depend on psychological denial.
The hard Left seeks a “principle” just above moral absolute zero. It is purely relative, ungovernable, utterly self-absorbed, shameless, reactionary, hostile, intolerant, bigoted, racist, and evil.
In this Ric may have a point: Ignore it and it’ll go away from here. The problem is that it’ll go away into something, and from there, damage that place.
Call me idealistic but I think calling that pathology down and shining a light on it forces it to confront itself. Or, at the least, keeps it thinking it has something in it worth engaging, even as base and vile as that pig-wrestling can be.
Frankly, I don’t have the time to waste. But if describing that pathology using fact, reason, and the ridicule the normal psyche responds to doesn’t constitute “good men doing something”, at least in the case of those of us limited by time to posting comments in a blog, than what would?
This minor dialog can either confront the Left’s obvious pathology or it can deny it exists. Which is the more useful?
Agreed. That Leftism’s transparent like glass. All the usual myths are broken.
Leftism is the ill, unprincipled religion of self. It’s anti-principle. It’s not equivalent. It’s a cancer. It we have with us always. I’m going to protest it when I encounter it.
Ric,… and thus did I employ the use of the term “Theist”, because there is no indication that the practioners of “ambush politics” have any loyalties to a specific plebocite, beyond using the best ploys of any system to seek power, and assured status in the existing society, even as they work to confuse, and marginally destabilize, hoping to hold the whip in the end.
– Besides, who the hell would ever want to live in Mississippi…
Regards,
Hunter
Interesting. If you want to segregate all formal “leftisms” so as to define if what we see before us is actual Socialism, wouldn’t you also then find the need to isolate all Socialisms from one another? At some point that nomenclature gets unwieldy and loses meaning.
No matter; call it collectivist anti-conservatism, in one of it’s infinite permutations of anti-reason, anti-value, and anti-thought. I suspect that’s what we mean when we say Socialism, as Socialism has the initial and eventually, most pervasive set of such criteria. Get started down that path and eventually, while history takes decades to sort you out, meanwhile you’re toast.
We’re well beyond the early stages of bread-throwing, Ric, and now we’re entering into all sorts of moral, rhetorical, and emotional relativities. And we’re thinking about doing it all under the Religion of State.
I like “Socialism”, and, the exact definition of our resident sitepests’ relative deformities aside, it fits the overall disorder we see around us.
You’re using Orwell to support the war in Iraq, Ric?
That’s a rather unique approach.
The U.S. government could always make service in Iraq voluntary…then we could actually see how many people are their by choice.
Until then, we’re stuck with the rather lefty tactic of forcing people to something and then claiming they want to do it…the will of the people.
“Until then, we’re stuck with the rather lefty tactic of forcing people to something and then claiming they want to do it…the will of the people.”
– The perfect comment to illustrate my point; Dump anything, and anyone, when the going gets too deep.
– I’m sure any number of our troops would find the comment they’re “forced to be in Iraq” a real laffer. I’m sure you would be exhillerated if we did, in fact, have a draft. Sans one, it leaves you looking terribly feckless.
– More empty reach. Same results.
Point taken, 6Gun, and to a large extent I agree that the term “Socialism” identifies a particular pathology that should be combatted. But you have to watch out how you try to fight it. Getting irate at actus is a waste of time, for instance. actus has a body of Doctrine at his disposal, and in response to any issue performs a keyword search, spitting out the preprogrammed “response” that matches best. You might as well try to debate ELIZA or the AI engine of ZORK. Better to consider him a reference, a search engine that can tell you what the current Received Wisdom is on any given subject.
It’s worth keeping some historical perspective as well, because Socialism isn’t new—it’s new paint and fresh serial numbers slapped on something Charles Martel (or a randomly-selected Han Dynasty Emperor) would have understood. It all ties together, even “climate change”, and if you attack it on mistaken grounds you run the severe risk of ending up in the wrong even though you’re absolutely correct. As a single example: “soak the rich” taxation policies are not “Marxist”. Marx wanted to destroy “the rich”, to eliminate concentrations of wealth completely. Progressive taxation is simply an elaboration of the mindset of a twelfth-century European noble, whose asinine policies were so destructive of wealth that he had to find some outside source of support—and robbing the traders who did produce wealth was an easy way to get it. We have almost achieved Marx’s goal—nobody, not even Bill Gates, has personal control over the fraction of resources controlled by, e.g., the Robber Barons of the 19th century—without the “Marxists” ever noticing, or at least without them acknowledging it. Taxing “rich corporations” for the so-called Public Good is nothing but a systematic way of shooting yourself in the foot by destroying the wealth generators.
So it’s not at all that I deprecate resistance to the Socialists, but “fire, ready, aim” is not good fire discipline.
Regards,
Ric
And yet…U.S. soldiers go to Iraq when they’re told…or they go to jail.
Why don’t you guys advocate making duty in Iraq voluntary?
If so many of our troops want to go there…it won’t be a problem, will it?
– monkey – Your comments are falling to the level of a six year old at this point. I think I’ll take Ric’s advice, and stop feeding the squirrels.
BBH, you’re gonna need a big fence for that. trust me on this. ;D
– Ohhhhhh …. look at teh pretty balloons….
that there’s some good eyesight, BBH.
Ah, monky, so well-named. (Understandable. You did, after all, pick your own sobriquet.) When in doubt or challenged, shriek louder and fling feces from another angle.
No, I’m not using Orwell to justify the war in Iraq. I’m using Orwell the way Orwell himself intended—to deconstruct the faux-Left. There are arguments against the Iraq war based on both principle and practicality. I disagree with them and would be glad to debate, but I never see them presented. All we see is the Left, with yourself as exemplar, arguing from selfishness, elitism, ignorance, and bigotry, and cloaking it all in a blizzard of self-righteous buzzwords.
There is nobody in the U.S. military today who isn’t there by choice, and that’s really, really hard for you to get around, isn’t it?—thus the Rangel Plan, trying to get it all back onto ground you’ve won before. F* you—the military likes the way things are, and wouldn’t take draftees if they were available unless forced to at gunpoint. And guess who has the guns?
Part of the deal that one makes when one joins the military is to subordinate one’s choices to the leadership’s, in our case those of the President and his advisors. Nowadays that has to be explained it some detail, thanks to the notion enforced by the trial lawyers that ignorance of the sunrise is enforceably common, but the fact remains and is well known—and the existence of people like Moulitsas, who are appalled to discover that they really mean it and can’t wait to abandon their oaths, doesn’t change the basic equation. So you have to fall back on accusations that they’re too stupid and/or ignorant to realize what’s going on—then wonder why they don’t thank you for your “support”.
The military is composed of people. They are, on average, a little better educated, a little less selfish, and a little more responsible than the median, but that’s an average. The existence of examples at either extreme establishes nothing; the fact that there are soldiers who didn’t understand the contract at the beginning and are bitter at what they suppose is betrayal does not invalidate the contract, any more than the continued existence of Norm Geras means the Left is respectable. Nor do your continued expostulations establish that anybody who disagrees with you is ipso facto stupid.
Regards,
Ric
Not to nitpick, but my teenager never, ever spun like this…
Hehe Ric,
Are we to believe that the people snuggled safely among the government-subsidized crop fields of the midwest arguing for the continuation of a $100 billion a year government undertaking that has little chance of success are not socialists?
You guys are just leftys who are too ashamed to admit it…
monky
Police departments are voluntary yet police officers get assigned to any number of unpleasant tasks.
Would it be good policy to give each and every individual officer the “right” to refuse an assignment?
Do you get to pick and choose what you want to do at your job? (assuming you actually have one)
When losing, change the subject, eh monky?
Clue: an endless supply of feces does not constitute “argument”.
Regards,
Ric
– Somehow I feel “betrayed”. Now everyone is getting to “spank teh monkeys” but myself. Rats.
Ow, that’s gotta leave a mark. But not as big as this one:
The corollary is that asserting that soldiers are too stupid and/or ignorant to realize what’s going on and then wondering why they don’t thank you for your “support†is proof positive of the anti-principle of characteristic Leftist shoehorning reality into wish, or in other words, the lie of denial.
Misperceiving the will of others is one thing. Insisting its reality over their own protests to as to manipulate a result is another. Calling it all some sort of high principle is evil.
But redefining your own evil as something it’s not, knowingly, is the very height of malevolent arrogance.
The Left. Lying through its teeth, hurting it’s claimed beneficiaries, and exhibiting an intolerance not even befitting it’s own phantoms*. Now that’s some serious pathology.
Only if you intend to reframe the argument, and at that, even if doing so means questioning your own bent point of view, which obviously you’re doing.
Your bigotry is telling, monkyspunk, but in turn, no more so than your clear lack of integrity.
Ow. Confronting the monkyboi with principle? Integrity? Committment? One’s word?
Gosh.
You are the ones who are laughably accusing anyone who doesn’t support your massive government boondoggle of being leftists, ric.
No amount of I know you are, but what am I? arguments will change the socialist nature of your cause.
Every lefty argues that their pet war is a war of “liberation.”
If you were advocating for an all-volunteer force in Iraq paid for by donations from people who think it’s the right thing to do you could make a case you aren’t leftists…
Until then, if you want to see a lefty, just look in the mirror.
Whose government, monkyspunk? And which “cause”?
“If you were advocating for an all-volunteer force in Iraq paid for by donations from people who think it’s the right thing to do you could make a case you aren’t leftists…”
– It is, and it is. Can’t make it any simpler than that monkey-bag.
– BTW, when did you suddenly realize this isn’t a “hard Conservative site”, to the point where now you have to switch 180 and declare everyone “Lefties”. Where dos that leave you. “Anarchist”?
Dispatch: Car 105, domestic disturbance call, 2020 Mayberry Avenue, please respond.
Officer Bob: Gee Phil, those domestic disturbance calls can be a pain.
Officer Phil: Yeah. And dangerous! there might be a gun in the house, alcohol involved, high emotions! I don’t want to go.
Officer Bob: Me neither.
Officer Phil: Dispatch, we talked about it, decided we would decline this one. Got any calls for graffitti, or (snicker, elbow jab) protitution?
Dispatch: OK then, never mind. Will advise next protitution complaint available, you are 12th in line.
Officer Phil: Well, looks like we got some tme to kill, Donut Bob?
stupid s key…what you refuse to be involved in prostitution?
– I’ll trade you an “s” for an “e” lee….
lee & BBH, my keyboard is an old clicky Northgate. It’ll probably give up pretty soon, which I’ll hate, but the only real problem at the moment is that it tends to spew extra letters from time to time. If you find yourselves short of ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss or eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I’ll be glad to provide.
Regards,
Ric
tw: post68. I think I’m a little ahead of that pace
Ladies and gentlemen (you too, BBh, yuck!)
I do believe that once again, Mr. Locke has bullseyed the whole thing.
As far as the chimp-anus, his utter contempt for all things military has been established in too many previous comments to count. He doesn’t see any need for appreciation for any serviceperson’s sacrifice since that person toils for a bloated welfare system that wastes money on futile enterprises while children die in Africa. He can’t even bring himself to advocate intervention in Darfur, which has to qualify on the chimp-anus misery net as a rightious and necessary sacrifice, perfering to ask for UN peacekeepers and “hope for the best.”
Whatever billions the US spend in Africa, in hopelessly corrupt countries largely lining the pockets of tin pot dictators and mindless massacre barbarians pales in comparison to whatever money we spend on our military. He abslutely has no sense of perspective about what we should do, what we can do, and what we actually do with regards to our national interest. Instead, America is to blame for the vast majority of the misery around the world because, darn it, we should be spending more of our resources to help these poor people!
Chimp-anus is a misery monger, which entrenches him solidly with the hard left. The old “Limousine Liberal” who requires a purity of dogma about those in need and the need to do far more than we do, governmentally, that is, with other people’s money. The interesting thing is that most politicians, even hard hippie liberals, dance around the hard realities of this mind set. Kucinich is one of the few who will state without equivocation that his goal is to slash defense spending so that the government can spend more on social programs. This is the “misery monger” template and it has staying power because there will always be local and international misery and, in the mind of the misery mongers, all of that misery is our responsibility.
So chimp-anus will always argue the ever present waterfall of miseries preserved because of America and its military. He and his ilk are so locked in this idealistic mindset that they can’t even acknowledge the overwhelming good that our military has accomplished in its history because its very existance, in their misery fevered brains, exaserbates the underlining “causes” of the various miseries that are of a concern. Ergo, they reach the judge and jury leftard conclusion that America is responsible for the conditions that created the misery, thus responsibl;e for the misery itself.
Chinp-anus doesn’t realise how truly sad and pathetic he is. If he is a US citizen, then he is free to loath the very country that fights for the defense of the freedoms that he enjoys. He lights candles at the altars of Norm Chomcky and Sid Hersh and appreciates Kerry’s patrician arrogance because his America/military hatred is pure and standard form. Those of us who are more pragmatic, who can clearly see the flaws of our nation and yet still think we are the best country on earth and still a shining beacon should pity the poor simian. He is doomed to be perpetually disappointed that his own country never lives down to abysmal expectations.
Wars don’t always make things better, BJ.
Just saying we’re in Iraq to make America safer or we’re bringing democracy to the Iraqis doesn’t make it so.
Magical thinking like you and your pals engage in is another habit of lefties…
Ya gotta love monkyballs new insult.
Calling us lefties.
That’s just funny, on a bunch of levels.
hehe chimp-anus
I didn’t say either of those things in my comments, but what else is new. Change the subjest when you can’t directly answer the questions.
hehe
The important point is that you don’t have the humanity to even acknowledge the smallest, most personal contribution of anybody in the military because you hate them so much for sucking up your resources that could be sent to soulless dictators in Africa who will, no doubt, cure severe diarrhia in all of their children with the money. Would it kill you or weaken your idealogical utopian resolve to thank Major John for his service or is he just another member of the military welfare state? Try just take a break from the misery mongering and the US-as-satan-of-the-world poo flinging and smell the freedom rather than the feces.
hehe
Your turn now to change the subject. Why not back to China, at which point you can use that objective source if information, The China Daily, as fuel for your America bashing.
hehe
BJ – You’re giving it away! Monk already had a comment ready to go in the window about a certain wall in China and the innovative use of balloons in its construction. He was going to call it “The Great Lift Forward,” and it was going to be …… amazing.
Please, please, please!!
Somebody provide me with a link to the great balloon fence around Israel. I missed that and I need a good belly laugh.
Monky,
Wars don’t always make things better. And wars don’t always make things worse, either.
You would do well to approach the question from a Clauswitzian construction, and address the question as one of the utility and value of certain policy tools, rather than from this reflexive moralising that tends towards singing Kumbaya while people are slaughtered in carload lots.
BRD
BJ
Here.
BJ – Check the comments under Karl’s post over on page 3 on “Soon To Be Overheard in a Hezbollah Bunker.” Nichevo in particular is deserving of some type of award. Let’s just say that Monky is channeling the spirit of King Arthur’s scientific advisor from Holy Grail.
BWAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHA
Wow, whew, grunt! I’ve got cramps in my ribs and my sleeves are soaked from wiping my eyes. I am going to save that link so that everytime someone jumps to chimp-anus’ defense, I can just send them to that link.
I think that he was possessed by the ghost of Dr. Strangelove.
And Nichevo, I nominate you for sainthood! That you were able to carry out a conversation of such monumental ignorance through to its illogical end and not have the mother of all brain aneurisms constitutes a miracle in my book.
Man I am so bummed that I missed that gargantuous pile of simian feces hilarity.
Wow.
Just wow.
I missed all that the first time around. By the time stamps, and subtracting five, it happened while I was out drinking Negra Modelo with friends, or later while I was, umm, resting. I do believe I got the better of that deal.
I agree with BJ: nichevo deserves some sort of award. I suggest a bronze statue of a man pushing a rock uphill, posed just at the point of losing it…
monky deserves some kind of award, too. I haven’t seen a proposal revealing such total and utter ignorance of engineering, economics, missiles, and/or the laws of physics since one of my sixth-grade classmates suggested digging up Cuba and shipping it to Moscow. It makes it clear why his (marginally) more clued-in comrades thought adding five tons of armor to a vehicle with a two-ton payload would improve safety.
Hmm. The star of King Kong must have left some impressive, ah, monuments to the food service industry. What would it cost us to get one of them bronzed and monky’s name inscribed?
Regards,
Ric
Funny words from a guy who advocates the continuation of a gloriuos government endevor that so far has cost $500,000,000,000, facilitated the murder of 150,000+ innocent Iraqis and turned Iraq over to the very people we’re supposed to be fighting.
Well done, comrades!
I appologize for suggesting a cheap way to protect a few people…what was I thing?
Oh, no need to apologize, monkyboy. The fact that you think that your plan (1) is possible at any price (nichevo was far too generous) or (2) would, if implemented, actually accomplish its stated purpose means that it doesn’t matter what you were “thing” (sic), because it demonstrates that you don’t have the equipment for thinking. You shouldn’t try to fly, either, until and unless the saucer people come back for you.
And you might as well leave. From now on, any time you post somebody’s going to remind us of the Balloon Fence, everybody’s going to bust out laughing, and anything you might have wanted to say will be lost in the chortles. If Wile E. Coyote found a kit for that in the Acme catalogue, he wouldn’t order it, knowing immediately that it was a ripoff.
Let’s build a balloon fence! BUUUUUUUUUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!
Ric
Ric,
The other thing that I find kind of funny is that Monkyboy didn’t even realyl manage to explain his concept. I mean I get the idea of passive missile defense – it doesn’t work like that, but I get the idea. But he managed to take an idea that is, even at a core conceptual level, dubious at best, and make it even more ridiculous and far-fetched.
BRD
That’s the kind of can’t do attitude we’re looking for in today’s army, ric!
Let’s just stick with the ol’ plan of bombing people to make them love us…I’m sure it will work eventually.
Let’s just hope we don’t run out of money or civilians before it does.
BRD, what’s geniunely hilarious is that he apparently takes it seriously.
I mean, here we have a concept that isn’t even plausible enough for a Road Runner / Coyote cartoon, an idea that any seventh-grader with an IQ above 90 would reject in an instant—and he not only proposes it, not only thinks it’s possible, he clearly thinks it would work!
Foxworthy ain’t in it. Monkyboy needs to take that schtick down to the comedy club. Pure gold.
Balloon fence! BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA[choke]HAHAHAHAHA!
Regards,
Ric
I do take it seriously, ric.
As seriously as thinking we need a way to stop our soldiers from getting blown up by IEDs.
I suppose you think that would be just a waste of money, too?
Monkyboy,
How about, just for starters, in the interests of empiricism, you run some numbers, and maybe try a proof of concept run – like something with maybe a 10’x10’ section of chainlink fence – just to see to demonstrate some basic technical viability and to experiment a bit.
I’m quite willing to explore your findings and see what you come up with.
BRD
Funny words from a guy who advocates the continuation of a gloriuos government endevor that so far has cost $500,000,000,000, facilitated the murder of 150,000+ innocent Iraqis and turned Iraq over to the very people we’re supposed to be fighting.
Well done, comrades!
I appologize for suggesting a cheap way to protect a few people…what was I thing?
You mean ‘thinking’? Work your way carefully through this. Your credibility is at stake.BTW Given any thought to that question?
Oh, my God. Allah to Zeus, take your pick.
Because of course NOBODY EVER THOUGHT OF THAT. Three years, and it never occurred to anybody that getting guys blown up by roadside bombs wasn’t a desirable thing. Including the guys getting blown up. What a BLINDINGLY BRILLIANT INSIGHT!
No wonder. Balloon fence! BUUUUUUUUUWAHAHAHAHAHA[gasp, choke]HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Regards,
Ric
Ric,
The notion isn’t that dissimilar from Stryker slat armor, so there’s one bit of the puzzle there. It’s just a question of scaling, lift, and area coverage. But as you know, engineering problems don’t always scale particularly well. If one notes the difference in ready rounds for an M-1A2 versus an AH-64D, and digs into the mechanics of BMD, we start to get a good example of the physics of extending warfare into the third and fourth dimensions.
I’m very willing to reappraise my take on the whole thing if he does any sort of proof of concept experimentation – heck, even a 2’x2’ chunk of fence would be a good start.
But then again, I’m not exactly holding my breath to see him do anything that involves him interacting with the real world, or actually putting any effort where his mouth is.
BRD
BRD, I have a different take. I hope to God that the attendants at the home don’t let monkyboy have access to ANY tools whatever, including fingernail clippers. I’m fairly dubious about the plastic scissors they give to kindergarteners; he’s likely to do himself an injury with anything so powerful.
A person who could seriously advance, and defend, that proposal… well, put it this way: he claims to be a member of the Reality Based Community. The troops in Iraq are “based” in Orlando, Florida; their operating area is a trifling distance away from there. By analogy, if monkyboy is based in Reality, he’s operating somewhere in the vicinity of NGC 1585. Allowing people like that access to tools… well, it’s no wonder they don’t think letting the mullahs have the Bomb is such a big deal. Compared to the notion of monkyboy with a hammer in his hand, Ahmadinejad with the Bomb is actually comforting.
Regards,
Ric
Ric,
Well, somewhat approaches have proven useful in helicopter ambushes and are still in play in the ‘lead curtain’ school of AAA. In this particular scenario, the geography of Gaza suggests that it may be possible to channelize incoming fire, alleviating some of the spatial concerns. Meanwhile, the use of passive lift helps tackle the persistence issues.
But, then again, this is all just silliness as long as the Monkmeister isn’t willing to actually go do some sort of hands-on experimentation and share the results. And if I’m any judge of character whatsoever, I don’t think he will do anything at all with this other than tell himself how wonderful he is.
Which, when you really get down to cases is a pretty nasty bastard thing to do. Think about it, if you’ve got a concept for a passive missile defense that could save innumerable lives at very low cost, and you’re not willing to even lift a finger to work on it, essentially, you’re saying that your own leisure time outweighs the utility of doing something to save lives. Heck, even the Palestinian government could use something like this to protect against incoming missiles.
But alas, Monkyman isn’t going to do anything to actually save lives when it’s much easier just to carp on others who actually do try to do something.
Ces’t la whatever…
BRD
Good Lord – go back for another day of drill and 70+ comments break out! Monky – believe it or not, we actually do look at ways to counter IEDs. Try the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) – you can get on the unclassified section.
How about mounting cheap cameras along any route our troops will use and porting the signal to the internets?
I’d be happy to put in an hour a night monitoring a stretch of road our troops have to use…and post any weirdness I see.
I sure there are plenty of others who would be willing, too…
Monky,
First things first – are you going to do anything with the balloon fence?
BRD
BRD,
No. Sorry.
Actually, I don’t doubt that chain-link fence fabric would effectively stop Qassims. I’m extremely dubious about Katyushas, and anything bigger… Slat armor and similar concepts depend on the fusing of the attacking missile, but can work, at least partially and in some circumstances at the “better than nothing” level.
But to leap from that to the actual proposal, well… No. Just no. It would be a lot cheaper, and just as effective, to hire every psychic in the LA basin to erect a mental shield—and the result wouldn’t pollute the countryside. Or totally deplete the helium reserves before a hundredth of it was done.
It’s a stupidly, stupendously ridiculous proposal based on one tiny atom of credibility, and as such is exemplary of his and his allies’ “thinking”. Notice that he swallows the 150,000-plus number without blinking. Now we know why. He has less appreciation of what might jokingly be described as “the objective Universe” than a reasonably intelligent six-year-old could be expected to exhibit.
Or—my wife and I have an acquaintance, a goodhearted young (30ish) man with an IQ somewhere around 90 and a history of doing drugs. I described monkyboy’s idea to Robert, and his response was a long pause, followed by “that’s purty stupid, ain’t it?” Of course, he’s actually held a post-hole digger in his hand once in a while.
Balloon fence! BUUUUUUUUWAHAHAHA[hack, cough]HAHAHAHA!
Regards,
Ric
Unbefreakinglievable. So THAT’S the Great Balloon Fence? Holy SHIT!
Ric, my sincerest apology; I thought monky represented
politicalmental pathology. Either that or a birth defect.I simply didn’t realize it was only a small child. (Digging up Cuba, by comparison, is simply brilliant. Impractical, but damn insightful for a small child…apparently one without a stringy, poo-encrusted tail.)
And monky, thanks for making seventy thousand more points about the idiocy on your side of the er, fence than I ever could have. You, sir, if not a utterly brilliant cartoon lampoonist (reminiscent of the great and legendary witheld) are stupid beyond all possible measure.
About stopping IED’s? And psychopathic mideasterners? One carefully placed round at a time, my friend, one round at a time. Way cheaper than balloon fences.
And way more moral, I might add. Seriously. Your fence would wreck the planet’s economy… and certanly the view, enviromonky. Yet you, immune to all reason known to God and man, refuse to admit that it’s very first effect—like your entire utopian government—would be to ruin all it endeavored to save.
Nice job. Great sales pitch.
Yeoman nichevo hereby has my unending admiration, as do the regulars here who put up with this shit. Can it really be this desolate over on the Left side of the world?!
I’d be happy to put in an hour a night monitoring a stretch of Internet our readers have to use.
And post any weirdness I see.
Monk,
With respect to the idea of camera watching, you have a couple of problems. First, aside from the actual logistics of covering all the roadways the US uses in a place the size of California, there are deeper problems with that approach as an intelligence operation.
Basically, you end up with a lousy signal to noise ratio and no quality control over analysis, as well as putting massive demand on critical in-theater bandwidth.
Additionally, there would be some significant concerns involved with using an insecure means of transmitting raw data and analysis. Also, the possibility of spoofing becomes quite high – it sort of invites a DoS-type attack on analysis capabilities, both directly through the communications channels and via organizational capabilities to process incoming intentionally false positives.
Also, with untrained observers looking for “wierdness” even well-intentioned efforts are going to provide a lot of false positives (which are amenable to second-tier analysis) and false negatives (which aren’t).
So, it’s the kind of thing that – overall – will most likely cause more harm than anything else.
BRD
BRD
That was an amazingly civil response considering the previous level of discourse provided by your correrspondent. I applaud your restraint.
Not counting the slender (surely under three nines) chance that somebody would hack the network and turn it into a targeting system.
Balloon fence! BUUUUUUUUUUUUUWAHAHAHAHAHA[erk]HAHAHA!
Regards,
Ric
I suppose one of the rewards of blogging is that for the next few weeks, no matter what kind of stresses and irritations I encounter at work or elsewhere, the thought of the “Great Balloon Fence” will most assuredly bring a smile to my face.
Out of curiosity, I googled “Great Balloon Fence” and I think that our dear Monkyboy may have conjured up an idea so silly that it hasn’t been committed to writing before.
BRD
Or helium! Does anyone know how much helium is left?
Aaaahahahaaa! Heh heh heh heh *snort* Bwaaaaaaahahahaaaa!
cameras – monky, see JLENS. Also, counter IED see Warlock, Warlock Green, etc. (http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001233.html)