From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> --- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
> Uh, massacres stiffen American resolve, not weaken it.
That depends on how monolithic and homogenous your society is.
IMHO - and do mean my opinion - one of the USA's great strengths,
its cultural and sociological diversity, might be a weakness here. The great
majority of the populace may well just have their resolve stiffened, the
apathetic now becoming active resisters, as happened to an extent in Vietnam.
But the USA is as tolerant of Kooks as the UK is of Eccentrics. You *will*
have a shrill few who will welcome Germans, or Martians for that matter, with
open arms. These few will either have to be kept "out of the loop", or dealt
with summarily: see below:
> > More likely, many of the "Minutemen" would have
And knowing the Prussian Imperial Mindset, there's always the Carthage Option.
"make a desert, and call it peace". Just ask the Armenians. Or (to my
country's shame) the Tasmainian Aboriginals. Go ask the carib Indians. Or
visit the villages in France, Poland and the Ukraine where a spot of guerilla
activity led to a 100% massacre of ALL inhabitants, friendly or not.
The Republic of Korea troops in Vietnam appear to have found
the same tactic quite workable - don't do it once as an "object
lesson", it will just get the others mad. Keep on doing it until everyone's so
afraid they'll be "pacified", or the
--- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
wrote:
> > The biggest thing that foreigners fail to
Naturally peaceable sheep require a few sheepdogs on the payroll to eat the
wolves.
> Now I haven't marked this "Off Topic" because in SG,
NRE response: Take the citizenry and deport them. Preferably to a loyal
planet. Load the village up, take 'em to a processing center, and weed out all
suspected guerillas. Send the rest on to Planet A. Take the suspected
guerillas and do further
interrogations (drug-assisted if necessary). Send
reliable ones on to Planet A--one threatened by
another threat, or frontier in need of colonists. Send questionable ones to
Planet B and have the local police watch 'em for criminal activity. Probable
guerillas, take 'em out back and shoot them. Then give retired Roman Army
veterans land grants on the planet and start importing loyal (and well armed)
colonists.
Amnesty International does NOT like the NRE one little bit.
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> > What happens when you're dealing with a Guerilla War
People like FMA are why the rest of us can maintain peaceful ideals. What's
the line about a few rough men defending our peaceful slumber? We're
fundamentally nice guys, but we have a temper and a tendency
towards situational ethics when dealing with global issues - which is
what pisses people off about us when we act amoral in pursuit of a strategic
objective. Kind of like a drunk, as a nation we occasionally exhibit
disfunctional behavior. Yamamoto had it right with his sleeping giant line.
And if I'm working a theme of quotations, we are also the
nation that re-light the lights in Europe with the Marshall Plan and the
Cold War.
We have a lot of momentum to be the dominant world culture, but the Chinese
and Indians will be heard from before we're done. The war(s) against Iraq and
all might be test runs to develop the techniques we'll
need against the Chinese. Any flight of B-2's from bases in the US could
cripple or eliminate China's nuclear deterrent and then their air defense
network. After that it's just a question of how much we want to spend on
ordnance to drop on Chinese targets. What are they going to do
attack through North Korea and engage our forces on the DMZ?
Ultimately, there might be enough strain on our internal structures to cause a
fragmentation, collapse or return to isolationism. Or we might make a strong
showing of a mature world leadership.In thirty years we could be anywhere from
the Pax Americana to remeber them?
> Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:
> Natural peaceableness? This from the Full Metal Atkinson?
--- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
wrote:
> > NRE response: Take the citizenry and deport them.
Nah, we're professional about it. We don't rape the women and boys first.
> (Note: Any resemblance between the NRE and FMA's
I'm using actual Byzantine response here...
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> --- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
...if there's anybody watching. How do they feel about Sheep though?
> > (Note: Any resemblance between the NRE and FMA's
Yup. Roman too.
Notice my first name, Alan?
There was this bunch of nomadic tribesmen just NE of the Black Sea and NW of
the Caspian, called... the Alans. Bunch of troublemakers, they were. Gave the
poor
Roman-sympathising Hsu'nan (Hun) immigrants a hard time.
Like the Sarmations of the same area, young girls had to bring back an enemy's
head before they could marry.
Unlike the Sarmations, the head didn't always have to be
detached if the enemy was good-looking enough, according
to one source.
So the Romans shipped them to the other end of the Empire, to ( The Horror!)
Gaul. Where they settled
> Amnesty International does NOT like the NRE one little
Would that be Amnesty Interstellar?
> --- Randall L Joiner <rljoiner@mindspring.com> wrote:
We havn't spoken in so long we aren't sure.[1]
--- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
wrote:
> Notice my first name, Alan?
> You know this would make an excellent FT/SG/DS2
Yup. I was passingly familliar with the story.
Amusingly, for a couple centuries afterwards, the
Bretons were well-known for having lighter cavalry
armed with bows and javelins instead of sluggers with lances like all their
neighbors...
> People like FMA are why the rest of us can maintain peaceful ideals.
The problem with men like Atkinson is that they can get us into as much
trouble as the can get us out of.
> We have a lot of momentum to be the dominant world culture, but the
You are assuming the Chinesse or going to take us on in manor that best suits
us, like that idiot Saddam Hussien. That is a very dangerous assumption to
make. They are doing a lot of R&D in low tech
anti-satelite
systems (aka gravel bombs), that suit there their launch vehicles. Think of
the choas if half the satelites in orbit (including GPS, NAVSTAR, IMARSAT,
etc.) were destroyed and the remainder damaged to varing degrees. A lot of the
U.S. civiliain distribution network relies on satelite communications, and
most grocery stores only have a 3 day supply of food on hand. Don't worry, the
Chinesse can do much worse then just gravel bombs if they want
to...
Atkinson and all of his bravodo gives a very false sense of security and over
confidence.