1. TRUSTED ALLIES.
2. POSSIBLE TRAITORS.
3. THE ENEMY.
4. THOSE WHO DO NOT COUNT.
5. VICTORY.
6. SURVIVAL.
VERY succint, very good summation.
I added number 5 and number 6.
note, there is NO ROOM FOR PC BULLSHIT from a combat soldier's point of view.
LORD, i dealt with the FRENCH ARMY in the 60s. egotistical, underpowered,
underpayed, and mostly drunk all of the time was the impression i was left
with.
FRENCH ARMY officers were the most common walking talking, blow hard assholes
on the planet.
and you know what? my FRENCH cousins who served in the FRENCH ARMY of the 70s,
80s, and 90s all tend to agree with my own thoughts....
all of us agree that FRENCH military has improved in some ways since
the 60s-noticeably medical/dental care, weapons, equipment and pay.
but is is stil overloaded with windfilled professional assholes....
amazing, wot?
as for bombing the crap out of third world armies-some one must do it
when they cross the line.
UN peacekeepers are a huge bad joke. as are observers, and "police".
again i hear this from cousins who served with them in the Balkans among other
places.
as for SG II universe - the FROGS are just FROGS IN SPACE in our games.
no one bursts into tears of the lack of PC in a sci-fi game that i have
seen!
for PC in a sci-fi game get in a bit of sleep deprivation, eat lousy
food, do without sex for prolonged periods of time, seperate yourself from
family and friends, live and pretend to fight in conditions that
you would probably think of being, well, sci-fi!
if you do, friend, you had better be sending REAL MONEY to the SALVATION ARMY
or RED CROSS as a way of paying out those DEATH BENEFITS payments for little
lead corpse s, disability payments for little lead soldiers mutilated in
battle, and hospital costs for those little
lead guys/gals who are too badly mangled or psychologicall messed up to
ever live among normal society again.
giving blood to make up for lead blood spilled.
seeking professional help for the trauma of combat.
paying out money settlement s for collateral casualties.
handing out more cash for re-building the country of the just
defeated enemy.
conducting trials, and investigations to make sure that no war criminals are
overlooked!
and committing to status of forces agreements with forign countries or worlds
that you are defending!
yes sir, PC sc-fi wargaming at is best.
then, you will be playing PC sci-fi games!
> At 09:18 29/05/02 -0500, DAWGIE wrote:
I take it you are excluding from your sweeping statement the UNARMED UN police
officers who faced down rampaging militia after the independence vote in East
Timor, protecting East Timorese people who had taken refuge in the UN
compound.
Cheers
> At 1:08 AM +1000 5/30/02, Derek Fulton wrote:
Sadly it really does depend on situation and rules of engagement. I for one
think its bloody stupid to send military forces into an area to protect a
peace and not give them ROE that allow for fire in dire situations where they
or 'protectees' are in danger.
Hiya folks,
> note, there is NO ROOM FOR PC BULLSHIT from a combat soldier's point of
I can understand that, sure.
But this list is not a war... (though it mimics it sometimes;)
This list is a means for a group of people to chat about war gaming, and other
associated interests.
The operative word in that is not "war", it is "group" and "gaming".
The concerns people have are not really, I think, to do with being PC all the
time about everything. It would be DULL DULL DULL if everyone were perfectly
PC. But there is a big difference between being PC all the time and being
civil.
For example, the Australian "straightforwardness" mentioned recently is often
tempered with humour, and certainly rarely comes across with malice.
Certain list members have a *long* established habit of speaking out loudly in
ways that are often bigoted, racist, and clearly ignorant. That pisses people
off, and this isn't the forum for those sorts of attitudes, BECAUSE it pisses
off the community (the list is, after all, what we make of
it...)
That sort of behaviour is SELFISH, because it detracts from the overall
quality of the list experience, and it drives people away.
Being a soldier is no excuse, particularly in an environment like this one,
for being a jerk.
> as for bombing the crap out of third world armies-some one must do it
Uh huh.
You know, Canada hasn't exactly been an active militarist nation over the
past 50-odd years. We've had troops "officially" actively participating
in exactly 2 wars (The Gulf, back in '91, and currently in Afghanistan.
In all that time of not being particularly militaristic, over a hundred "bad
joke" Canadian soldiers have been killed, trying to protect
innocents/civilians in the middle of other people's wars, where we often
have *no* national interests. Generally, they've done a pretty good job at the
protecting, particularly given our governments' criminal neglect of the armed
forces.
I'm really not trying to beat the Canuck drum here. My point is that
statements like "UN peacekeepers are a huge bad joke." is just the sort of
blanket statement that gets people going... It is manifestly not true, in many
cases. Certainly it is true in others. But if I said "American soldiers are
all shit" because there are examples throughout recent history of American
soldiers performing poorly in battle or running away, for whatever reason,
you'd probably get annoyed, no? And it isn't fair, because there are also many
examples of American soldiers performing magnificently in battle.
In this case, the UN Peacekeeping system, the bureaucratic part of it run by
the idiots at UN HQ is often very broken. All kinds of stupid stuff has
happened. But all kinds of good stuff too. And a LOT of very good soldiers,
mostly not American, have participated in some very successful UN operations.
Be that as it may, my real point here is that civility is a pretty good
operating principle for this list.
> DAWGIE wondering where all of this PC crap comes from. . . .
> From the oft-stated desire of people on the list to NOT be subjected to
We know people have left because they are offended/bothered by
bigotry/racism on the list and by the flame wars that generates. We
know people have tried to join, and left again almost immediately after seeing
anti-French or anti-whatever comments flying about. Beth (IIRC)
commented
on this some time ago - about trying to convince friends to join the
list, only to have them react in horror at the racist comments...
Certain members seem to feel that it is their right to be assholes. Other
members feel, I think quite fairly, that it is their right to comment on and
protest against this sort of behaviour. The trouble is that when people start
to be jerks and others react to it, the list degenerates. And then we have
ANOTHER round of flaming... Some of it is, I have to admit, a
bit entertaining sometimes. And certainly I'm not saying that everyone
should always be tip-toeing around trying not to cause offense. There
is *NOTHING* wrong with strongly held and strongly argued opinions.
There is certainly something wrong with TRYING to cause offense and actively
being an ass, though. Like I said, it is selfish behaviour.
Selfish and childish attention-grabbing OR trying to stir the pot just
for the sake of seeing the reactions (which is in itself extremely immature).
Strongly held, strongly argued opinions do not preclude civility...
***************************************
DEREK,
i am speaking of the Balkans the Middle East, and Africa in
particular, but the whole concept of unarmed UN POLICE in an area where ARMED
AND MURDEROUS THUGS ROAM IS ANOTHER BIT OF UN INSANITY.
ALL OF THOSE POLICE were just a bad accident that did not happen then and
there.
you know as well as i do that the Australlian government and people
would have demand the mlitary blow the Indonesian militias and
regulars to bloody bits if those UN ARMED POLICE were murdered by the miitia.
the militia knew it too....
so Oz gained face, the Indonesian thugs lost face.
do not confuse apples with oranges.
Oz is not FRANCE, even a septic knows that.
CANADIAN SOLDIERS DIE and are maimed as UN PEACEKEEPERS because the CANADIAN
GOVERNMENT and PEOPLE DO NOT DEMAND realistic ROE and COMMAND STRUCTURE BEFORE
THEIR TROOPS ARE COMMITTED TO UN OPERATIONS.
also protectees are murdered, tortured, raped, robbed, maimed while UN
peacekeepers, observers and police on site wring their hands and do not DO
ANYTHING TO STOP IT!
this, my friend, is from the mouths of at least 20-25 Canucks who were
"UN PEACEKEEPERS" and kissed your armed forces good by after seeing UN
PEACEKEEPING work first hand.
LOL!
quite a few of them live in America now, and seem quite hostile toward their
own government and people for allowing the UN to place them in NO WIN
situations.
to paraphrase at least one of them now living in TX, when discussing UN
PEACEKEEPING duties; it sucks big time. everyone in CANADA ought to take a
tour of duty performing this mission, and see how they like being targets,
objets of scorn, and seriously screwed by their own.
just some thoughts.
DEREK,
DO NOT THE VIEWS OF EX FRENCH MILITARY FOLKS COUNT?
HOW MANY OF YOUR COUSINS HAVE BEEN IN THE FRENCH MILITARY SINCE THE 60S, AND
HAVE SPOKEN THEIR OPINION OF THE ARMED FORCES COMMAND STRUCTURE?
MINE HAVE. THEY ARE RATHER VOCAL ABOUT IT AT TIMES.
AND I KNOW WHAT I SAW IN THE 60S FIRST HAND.
OOOPS!
FORGOT TO UNLOCK THE BUTTON!
as for the unarmed civilian police, they lucked out.
and should never have been sent there in the first place.
my opinion.
> At 09:16 29/05/02 -0500, DAWGIE wrote:
Find me any military on the planet that hasn't had it's ups and downs? There
were one or two Australian Servicemen who hoped that the Indonesians over
stepped the mark, not because they wanted to have a war, but because they
wanted the public to realize that having a viable military means actually
paying for it.
> AND I KNOW WHAT I SAW IN THE 60S FIRST HAND.
No drama:)
> as for the unarmed civilian police, they lucked out.
Your Opinion, fair enough. But would the Indonesians allowed the entry of
armed foreign nationals? Those police had a function to fulfill and I don't
think protecting the East Timorese from the Militias was what they initially
had in made.
Cheers
Hi Dawgi,
> DO NOT THE VIEWS OF EX FRENCH MILITARY FOLKS COUNT ?
I have a friend of mine who is a Captain in the U.S. Army who says almost the
samething about about the command structure of the U.S. Army...
IMRE, i will not lie and tell you or anyone else that the US ARMED FORCES are
perfect in anyway.
as far as dip-shits with stripes, warrants and commissions, our armed
forces has its share of them too.
i have never, ever claimed otherwise.
On Thu, 30 May 2002 08:09:21 -0400 "Imre A. Szabo" <ias@sprintmail.com>
writes:
> Hi Dawgi,
And your point is? Armies in peace time are seldom as good as they ned to be
in war...
And leadership suffers first.
Gracias,