Is the US Military/Gov. aware of history?

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Well?

Ingorant
6
38%
Very thinly Veiled Propaganda
3
19%
Your under arrest for UnAmerican thoughts
5
31%
What crack were you smoking when you saw history on TV
2
13%
 
Total votes: 16

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The Yosemite Bear
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Is the US Military/Gov. aware of history?

Post by The Yosemite Bear »

Ok, the French Bashing, the Impossibility of fighting a Geurilla War in the Desert, the Homosexuals have never been sucessfully integrated into a western army model and other statement have lately led me to believe that what ever history course West Point, VMI or other college is teaching it's pretty damn shallow. Either that or our pentegon officials and secretary of states didn't read machievelli and were making blatant lies for moral purposes, feeling no one would ever challenge them on it.

Question the No desert guerilla war concept would mean that:

Saladin was never able to get the Knights Templar & Knights Hospitaler out from their well defended cities, and into ambushes.

the settled areas of the southwestern united states were not repetably held up in delaying actions by out numbered, underarmed native gurilla movements?

Pancho Villa never raided Arizona and then proceeded to avade the US Marines for several years still making raids on Zappata's forces, and even getting film crews flown out to great him?

T.E. Lawrence Never raided the Ottoman Turk's railway lines, becoming a major well publicized Geurilla Neusence. (GALE force bonus if you can recall what other impossiblity TE Lawrence did)

The SAS never performed Geurilla Actions in North Africa against Rommel , infact the US version should read that nothing happened in the North Africa at all to the Italian or German Forces until Al Amien. (Definatly no British Bi-plane carrier attacks on italian battleships well before the 1st sucessfull carrier strike at Pearl Harbour), and No SAS Jeep raids near Tobritz.

During the First Gulf war The SAS didn't take out more Scud sites on the ground then the US missions did in the air.


The No Homosexuals quote would mean:

The Greeks and Later Romans did not field the first Western style Military armies.

Walt Whitman Never served with distinction in the Civil War. (Hell he even had affairs with his fellow comerades in arms)

We won't even get into WWI & WWII....


French Bashing:

The Gauls didn't severely devestate several Legions and Personally vex Julius Ignatus considerably.

The Cresant isn't the result of the French holding off Invading Saracen Troops, after all every ameican knows the French have never won.

The French Normans never invaded England

Henry the Fifth didn't say that the French gave as well as they got, and considered his campaign to be a total phyrric victory.

Richard the Lionhearted, wasn't born and raised in France.

etc.
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Post by HemlockGrey »

Well you raise some good points, going back hundreds or thousands of years is probably a bad idea. The Knights Templar didn't have cruise missiles, Humvees, and fully automatic weapons.
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Post by 2000AD »

On the french bashing:

The Normans invaded straight after a group of scandanavians did, forcing Harold to march his army up the country and beat the "vikings" then march all the way back down, with little rest. That made things easier for them.

Did Richard the Lionheart actually do anything? I thought he just fought some innefective crusades and got himself captured, costing us a lot in ransom.
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

well except for the the Anti French Bashing, The Greeks, & Saladin thee is no incident older a couple of hundred years old.
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Post by HemlockGrey »

Richard the Lionheart defeated Saladin on several occasions, I believe, his tactics were effective against the Muslim army. However, Saladin laid waste to the land as he retreated and defeated Richard through the magic of logistics.
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

Well he did very well raiding spain, portugal, Scicily and Greece in preperation of starting the crusades, and then overwhelming cities held by a technologicaly superior force.....
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Post by 2000AD »

HemlockGrey wrote:Richard the Lionheart defeated Saladin on several occasions, I believe, his tactics were effective against the Muslim army. However, Saladin laid waste to the land as he retreated and defeated Richard through the magic of logistics.
So he won the battle, but lost the war?
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

Won many battles, causing people to greatly fear him, but lost due to lack of supplies for his Neumerically superior, but technologically superior forces. Please remember back then the whole of Europe, was well Entrenched in the dark ages. Islam and India are the greatest bastions of culture/civilization at this time.
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Post by Frank Hipper »

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Won many battles, causing people to greatly fear him, but lost due to lack of supplies for his Neumerically superior, but technologically superior forces. Please remember back then the whole of Europe, was well Entrenched in the dark ages. Islam and India are the greatest bastions of culture/civilization at this time.
I'd rate China over the Islamic middle east and North Africa, as well as India. :wink:
But in the west and near-east, yes.
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Post by HemlockGrey »

Winning the battle losing the war...basically. If I recall correctly, he spaced crossbowmen with pikemen, creating an effective reply to Muslim tactics. Also, I believe he clad his troops in thick felt, which the Muslim bows were unable to penetrate.
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Re: Is the US Military/Gov. aware of history?

Post by Wicked Pilot »

French bashing is in good fun only. I actually admire the French in many ways.
The Yosemite Bear wrote:Saladin was never able to get the Knights Templar & Knights Hospitaler out from their well defended cities, and into ambushes.
Different time, different revelance.
the settled areas of the southwestern united states were not repetably held up in delaying actions by out numbered, underarmed native gurilla movements?
Different time, different revelance.
Pancho Villa never raided Arizona and then proceeded to avade the US Marines for several years still making raids on Zappata's forces, and even getting film crews flown out to great him?
Different time, different revelance.
T.E. Lawrence Never raided the Ottoman Turk's railway lines, becoming a major well publicized Geurilla Neusence. (GALE force bonus if you can recall what other impossiblity TE Lawrence did)
I have no idea what you are refering to here, therefore I cannot comment. I would imagine however that the answer here is probably the same as the last three.
The SAS never performed Geurilla Actions in North Africa against Rommel , infact the US version should read that nothing happened in the North Africa at all to the Italian or German Forces until Al Amien. (Definatly no British Bi-plane carrier attacks on italian battleships well before the 1st sucessfull carrier strike at Pearl Harbour), and No SAS Jeep raids near Tobritz.
What the hell does this have to do with anything?
During the First Gulf war The SAS didn't take out more Scud sites on the ground then the US missions did in the air.
Attacking SCUDs from the air was a political move, not a military one. Don't confuse the two.
The Greeks and Later Romans did not field the first Western style Military armies.
If you're trying to make an arguement here then do so. I'm not oblidged to find your arguement for you.
Walt Whitman Never served with distinction in the Civil War. (Hell he even had affairs with his fellow comerades in arms)
Homosexuals are allowed to serve, just not freely. The logistical problems created by the integration of freely serving homosexuals into the military has already been discussed at length in another thread.
We won't even get into WWI & WWII....
You have not yet gotten into anything. I have little confidence your inclusion of stray statements regarding those two wars would do you or your cause any good.
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

That and he used his knights to protect his baggage train, unlike previous crsaders who let Saladin win by failing to protect his logistics.

Of course putting the port cities to the torch and raiding all of the ports inbetween england and the middle east kinda made it impossible for him to continue recieving supplies.
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Post by Wicked Pilot »

Note to self: not to repeat history again, it's spelled 'relevance'.
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Post by TheDarkling »

French bashing is in good fun only. I actually admire the French in many ways.
French bashing is not about fun, it is a solemn and sacred duty; the only thing that bothers me about Americans bashing the French is that it gives them the erroneous impression that they are any better :D
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

so what is the revelence of completly ignorig history with a blanket statement. The Penagon says that history has shown it's impossible to run a gurilla campaign in a desert. Strange they have ignored british Special forces in two world wars, a Mexican General in our own continent during the first world war.

your response WP reminds me so much of Greg Burnet's claims to refute that the Vietnam Era M-16 was not reliable. (I know different situation, but simular arguements, (The M16 of today is a damn fine weapon, it was all the result of poor maintence of the troops, side stepping all of the problems that the troops reported)
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Post by Wicked Pilot »

The Yosemite Bear wrote:The Penagon says that history has shown it's impossible to run a gurilla campaign in a desert. Strange they have ignored british Special forces in two world wars, a Mexican General in our own continent during the first world war.
I sincerly doubt the Pentagon has made any such statements, at least not how you described. Give me a quote if you want to be taken seriousily.

As to you claims about the SAS and the Mexicans, their actions did not win a war.
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Post by Frank Hipper »

The Yosemite Bear wrote:T.E. Lawrence Never raided the Ottoman Turk's railway lines, becoming a major well publicized Geurilla Neusence. (GALE force bonus if you can recall what other impossiblity TE Lawrence did)
That wouldn't involve a horny Turkish colonel, would it? Or are you talking about his sexuality in general?
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Post by Andrew J. »

No one's saying the French were wimps several centuries ago, but they've been more or less ineffective since, say, the Battle of Waterloo.
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Post by MarkIX »

Homosexuals are allowed to serve, just not freely. The logistical problems created by the integration of freely serving homosexuals into the military has already been discussed at length in another thread.
could you point me to that thread I would be really interested.
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Post by Raptor 597 »

Richard had to go fight little brother John and Phillip back in France. But he recognised that he would lose Israel after he took it. So he hoped by keeping Acre and Jaffa someone new could come after him. The Crusades were bad teethed Rednecks vs. Dark Surbanites 1.0
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Post by Wicked Pilot »

MarkIX wrote:could you point me to that thread I would be really interested.
No problem, here you go.
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Post by MarkIX »

Wicked Pilot
Thank you, interesting reading
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Post by Ender »

MarkIX wrote:Wicked Pilot
Thank you, interesting reading
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

Frank Hipper wrote:
The Yosemite Bear wrote:T.E. Lawrence Never raided the Ottoman Turk's railway lines, becoming a major well publicized Geurilla Neusence. (GALE force bonus if you can recall what other impossiblity TE Lawrence did)
That wouldn't involve a horny Turkish colonel, would it? Or are you talking about his sexuality in general?
In general specifically his RAF boyfriend
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Post by Knife »

Hey YB, so I can make an informed opinion, why don't you post the quotes the Defense Department and State Department issued that started this thread.

We wouldn't want to take anything out of context.


1. French bashing; well they want to be seen as our equals and their not.

2. Saying the Impossibility of fighting a Guerrilla war in a Desert, would imply that after the campaign the Gurerrilla's loose as opposed to the physical impossibility of actually fighting against a threat force using irregular tactics. In Iraq, the Guerrilla's have a long way to go before their campaign could be called effective, let alone a victory.

3. In most model's the homosexuals were a sub culture. So depending on how you interpert the quote, it can be acurate. Besides, in some cultures, not all, you are not considered homosexual if you do the pitching or so I have heard and read.
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