Re: This Memorable Day
ken [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: James A. Donald wrote: So far the Pentagon has shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears. Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in battle. You also had to look at what they were up against. Witness the complete massacre at Isandlwana (the classic Zulu bull-and-horns overran the British camp because the troops were too far away from their ammunition to resupply, no doubt copying Elphinstone's tactic in Afghanistan) vs. post-Isandlwana use of Gatling batteries and massed field artillery (some of which was converted Naval artillery), e.g. Ulundi, where post-battle reports were of piles of Zulu dead mown down by Gatlings. The British only thought that the Zulus were just semi-naked savages until Isandlwana. Peter.
Re: This Memorable Day
James A. Donald wrote: So far the Pentagon has shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears. Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in battle.
Re: This Memorable Day
At 9:00 PM + 11/10/04, ken wrote: Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in battle. Yeah, but the zulus had the wrong end of, well, the stick. Take a look at, again, Hanson's Carnage and Culture for a nice discussion of the Zulus in particular, and exactly why 18 brits in a hastily constructed breastwork could hold off several thousand, killing most. Cheers, RAH -- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
From: Peter Gutmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 6, 2004 2:10 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: This Memorable Day The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was directed against Russia. Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before the US got involved in Europe. So the Russians should get most of the credit. Yep. I think to a first approximation, the US defeated Japan and the USSR defeated Germany. My impression is that a lot of the push to do the D-Day invasion was to make sure the USSR didn't end up in possession of all of Europe at the end of the war. (Given how things developed, this was a pretty sensible concern.) Peter. --John
Re: This Memorable Day
The US made a bundle from WW1 and WW2 warfare, in both cases being rescued from an economic slump, and some have argued the US delayed sending troops as long as possible to extend the demand for supplies, supplies which appeared to always be insufficient but enough to keep the warring parties going at it. To be sure, the US Civil War provided the same beneficence to its overseas exploiters, not to say domestic entrpreneurs, not to say hordes of today's reenactors. Historians have noted that Northern generals in particular worked hard to avoid battle while begging for more troops and supplies. Shrewd commentators write there could have been Southern-general complicity in this paradic churning before it got out of hand due to Lincoln demanding action to keep his comfy future -- kapow! went the prez to his virgins. It is a truism that power in leaders is enlarged during wartime, no matter their ideology, so it is a surefire way to boost flagging support (60 million can be that DUMB). And the more humans slaughtered the greater the support as each homeland, praise Allah's cloven hooves, and seeks revenge for the loss of its prime beef, and if all goes well, the fighting never comes home to roost in hilltop mansions, damn those paraplegics who won't parade their grotesqueries: axe their meds. Red poppies, how do they bloom in November, remember Fallujah. Halls of Montezuma, Shores of Tripoli, yadda.
Re: This Memorable Day
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Tiarn=E1n_=D3_Corr=E1in?=) writes: The Russians (for example) conquered Hitler's capital, Berlin. And I believe the Russian zone in Germany was larger than any of the others, reflecting the fact that Stalin bore most of entire burden of defeating Germany, uncomfortable as it may be. The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was directed against Russia. Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before the US got involved in Europe. So the Russians should get most of the credit. Peter.
Re: This Memorable Day
-- Nomen Nescio wrote: To label any argument that points out the obvious circumstance that injustice feeds hatred as communist propaganda, is really only ridiculous, even if it's also dangerously incompetent and as such no real laughing matter. Why do you mention Bin Laden anyway? There are thousands of bigger and smaller groups around the world (they exists in every country more or less) that we'd label as terrorists in the western part of the world. And all of them are instruments of the affluent and well connected. For example Shining Path was not poor peasants, but academics and students. For the most part using terror are not those suffering injustice, and all of them are those inflicting injustice. This is particularly the case with Islamic terror. For the most part it is not those suffering Dhimmi status that engage in terrorism, but those who in their native countries are successful in inflicting Dhimmi status on those of the incorrect religion, and who apply terror in the hope of expanding this success. Al Quaeda attacked westerners because of their considerable success in murdering and raping Afghans. Jemaah Islamiyah because of their considerable success in murdering and raping Timorese and Ambionese. Today's Islamic terrorism, like yesterday's communist terrorism, is the actions of evil men whose considerably privilege and comfort arises from the injustice and oppression that they have successfully inflicted, and that they intend to inflict a great deal more of. Back before the fall of communism, wherever the master's boot smashed into the face of a child, you lot would loudly praise the master, and demonize the child as a CIA agent. Now, after the fall of communism, you are still at it, even though the masters no longer even pretend to be acting to defend the poor and oppressed. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG QeJ5sNOExxqx0Vq7NTG0bDDnwEip8vKbsX9+9d8i 4IDiep3tuDmwKA77n4H3u9nHRV2g6oqOWQkRYfFcW
Re: This Memorable Day
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process. You forget that Bush and his cronies are Evangelical Christians. They believe that the world is going to end *soon* and that it is a good thing. These are people who are doing everything they can to make the world a less stable place because in doing so they bring about armagedon. (Then Jesus will come back and they will be rewarded for bringing about the deaths of billions. Sometimes i wonder if they worship Jesus or Cthulhu. (Maybe they are the same. How else could he walk on water?) -- Q: Why do programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas? A: Because OCT 31 == DEC 25.
Re: This Memorable Day
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 R.A. Hettinga: Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so... sophomoric? Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. (Euripides) You too. Sad it is. Howcome the Americans became so egocentrical and cynical that anyone who dares to speak up and support compassion for his fellow man automatically is a communist? It's a sincere question, no doubt in my mind that we won't get a sincere answer though. Reading your email actually reminds me of those of Tim May, he also seemed to be full of bigotry and hatred and deeply disliked anyone who were unfortunate enough to be poor. Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson appropriately No I don't shit into a hole, but I can still try to be unbiased and extend a though or two to other people who are not so fortunate as we are to be born in the rich part of the world. Ah. That's right. I'm not nuanced enough. It's too *complicated* for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) History Studies class, or whatever. Please. To me it's enough to at least try to understand and try live by the spirit of the Bible. It's also quite ironical that all those right wing voters actually read communist propaganda in church, since that is the logical conclusion of your arguments made here. There we go. Wisdom from a thug. How about this thug, instead, kid, quoted just about as much out of context as you have yours: When the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all should have equality, the lions replied, Where are your claws and teeth? -- attributed to Antisthenes in Aristotle, 'Politics', 3.7.2 Oh. That's right. One shouldn't read Aristotle. He was a White Male Oppressor... You like quotes, ok here I have a small collection for you, maybe one or two of them qualifies as white oppressors too, I don't know. Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. (Nietzsche) An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. (Thomas Jefferson) I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts. (Abraham Lincoln) It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. (Voltaire) What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? (Mahatma Gandhi) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. (Martin Luther King) Sheesh. When will September ever end? In my calendar it's November already, I don't know about yours. Johnny Doelittle -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYoOvDVaKWz2Ji/mEQLUvgCfZJiR4Nmtvpe00RHmsfJujf1opfYAn289 PIgwc3xyE+/RolLAFBqAc6Ks =cwYX -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: This Memorable Day
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 James A. Donald: You are quite right, it is unjust that people like Bin Laden are so immensely rich with oil wealth. To remedy this problem, Bush should confiscate the Middle Eastern oil reserves. You are using stale old communist rhetoric - but today's terrorists no longer not even pretend to fight on behalf of the poor and oppressed. This was quite lame and doesn't really deserve a response. To label any argument that points out the obvious circumstance that injustice feeds hatred as communist propaganda, is really only ridiculous, even if it's also dangerously incompetent and as such no real laughing matter. Why do you mention Bin Laden anyway? There are thousands of bigger and smaller groups around the world (they exists in every country more or less) that we'd label as terrorists in the western part of the world. You think every one of these hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of recruits and followers are millionaires? Fantastically lame comment to a real and important issue. Should we take you seriously when you write these childish rants? I don't know what to fear the most, the dangerous ignorance of those of your kind or what dictatorial rulers may accomplish using your ignorant kind as followers who do not question the truths from the authorities. Hitler did it in the 30's election where some 37% voted for the nazis, in a democratic multi-party election I might add. Some of the ingrediences present then in Hitler's rhetoric are also present today in Bush's rhetoric, even though I don't mean to make the comparison . We just cannot afford to be this naive. I can't help thinking about the fact that we usually portray Americans as a religious and church going people. Perhaps some 25% attend church on a somewhat regular basis. To make matters worse those people seem to vote for Bush(?). One can't help wonder if they're literate and if they actually read the bible and it's message of love, understanding, forgiveness and compassion for their fellow man. May god bless the world, we may need it. Johnny Doelittle Men willingly believe what they wish. (Julius Caesar) There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. (von Goethe) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYoO4jVaKWz2Ji/mEQKzWACfTEUN6ENT9/kbzMEOQVuvM4txtpIAnRI2 pU5RbBMeBggUCWf2ZW4rBQYG =EiIW -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: This Memorable Day
James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: When it came to the part of the war that was purely a public good, conquering the German and Japanese homelands, America did indeed bear almost the whole burden, but when it came to defending Australia against the Japanese, the Australians bore the major burden, and similarly for most other battlefields outside of the aggressors' homelands. Nonsense. The Russians (for example) conquered Hitler's capital, Berlin. And I believe the Russian zone in Germany was larger than any of the others, reflecting the fact that Stalin bore most of entire burden of defeating Germany, uncomfortable as it may be. -- Tiarnán
Re: This Memorable Day
James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But it is hardly a matter of holding out. So far the Pentagon has shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, We're talking about different things, the War on Bogeymen vs. the War for Oil. In its war on bogeymen, the most notable thing the USG has achieved to date is to create vastly more of them. Its strategy is about as effective as the paras were on Bloody Sunday, i.e. its actions serve mostly as a recruitment drive for the opposition: I swear by Almighty God [...] to fight until we die in the field of red gore of the infidel tyrants and murderers. Of our glorious faith, if spared to fight until not a single trace is left to tell that the Holy soil of our country was trodden by these infidels. Also these robbers and brutes, these unbelievers of our faith, will be driven into the sea, by fire, the knife or by poison cup until we of the true faith clear these infidels from our lands. (Whoever wrote the original was definitely no English lit major). Peter.
Re: This Memorable Day
At 6:29 PM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: Do you seriously think the war on bogey^H^H^Hterrorism can ever be won? You're gonna love this one: You can't have terrorism without state sponsors. We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of terrorism, and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran. Libya. Doesn't look so hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled over. Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter, but, so far, they win. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Germany 1944 does not equal USA 2004, no matter how hard you twist the kaleidoscope. Fighting an unwinnable war always seems to produce the same type of rhetoric, whether it's the war on some drugs, the war on anyone Bush doesn't like, or the war on anything non-German. The only thing that changes over time are the identities of the bogeymen that are used to justify it. (Do you seriously think the war on bogey^H^H^Hterrorism can ever be won? Leaving aside the obvious debate that you can't even tell who you're at war with, how do you know when you've won?. We have always been at war with Terroristia) Peter.
Re: This Memorable Day
The US has not won since WW2. Rebellions, now called terrorist wars, have been far more successful. If you want to be a winner do not enlist in military forces of states, rather get a spin contract far from danger, arguing the virtues of mightily fearsome hardware and sacrificial patriotism. The US, a hidebound state, engages in limited combat, dithers, gets youngsters killed, parades the funerals and heroes, eventually pulls out, and the apologists for warmongering do their dirty. Still, it can be said of US military might: more servicemen die of military and civilian accidents, ill health, murders and suicide than in combat. Worse, deaths and maimings from friendly fire and bad medical care, not to say military justice, remain a high hazard of high technology and a natsec/military policy of acceptance and/or denial of responsibility for self- caused casualties and homicidal behavior in abused and abandoned service members -- Tim McVeigh one of tens of thousands who attack at home due to momentum rigged by inept military training and ethics. Bob Hettinga is just baiting by putting up flimsy arguments for western supremacy, evangelizing brand USA. Hoovering the yokels who cannot not believe their kind are chosen people. Standard fare of US (Western, all) state-sponsored education and religion and, oh my god, journalism. Quote of the day from the NY Times: every journalist should spend a month in jail to appreciate the freedom of the press. This from a reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Report, to be closed shortly by Dow Jones.
Re: This Memorable Day
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote: The US has not won since WW2. Nope. Not at all. 1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ until they're almost enough of a nuisance, to lots of people, including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over. 2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses revolted, at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough. The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and 2., above. That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh. Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at, say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand in a decade or so, shall we? C'mon, John. Think faster, or something. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYjzo8PxH8jf3ohaEQLrKACgpPVvDmuAS+ZE/9OAwZBAneLGztIAn2TK eVqIGmJf1iLvKLe55TuIgQYf =SOlw -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
At 5:21 PM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: another super-power in the mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever was on their side Relativism does not a fact make, Peter. Germany 1944 does not equal USA 2004, no matter how hard you twist the kaleidoscope. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 R.A. Hettinga: You're gonna love this one: You can't have terrorism without state sponsors. Nonsense! Are you in junior high? We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of terrorism, and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran. Libya. Doesn't look so hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled over. Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter, but, so far, they win. This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those are inequalities and injustice anywhere. As long as the most powerful nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist. Not understanding this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative feelings and opinions and fuel extremism. The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all the problem that leads to. Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without listening to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere will never ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able to reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after having turned also the western civilization into police states) but you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his mind. If you do not understand this you are not only unintelligent IMNSHO but also part of the problem itself. You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. (Malcolm X) Johnny Doelittle -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYicHzVaKWz2Ji/mEQJ/KgCeJaL0A7KEtXrdg6DmER5yGHwhJWEAoNA/ 96lJo2JRLf4zWoOTjELrPQB4 =Uq+t -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: This Memorable Day
From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 2, 2004 10:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: This Memorable Day .. Expect more carnage than culture when Bush is elected. I gather we waited to start the offensive in Fallujah(sp?) until the polls were all closed. I'm not sure how much of this was trying to time things not to interfere with the election (the buildup has been going on for awhile, and Kerry could have squawked about this but didn't, so presumably he didn't think it was unfair for the attack to be delayed a bit), and how much was trying to bury the coverage of a pretty bloody battle with a lot of civilians dying and a lot of peoples homes destroyed, behind the whole election coverage. Cheers, RAH --John
Re: This Memorable Day
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 12:50 PM +0100 11/3/04, Nomen Nescio wrote: Nonsense! Are you in junior high? Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so... sophomoric? :-) This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those are inequalities and injustice anywhere. Ah. That's right. Inequality, instead of causing progress, causes damnation. Where's Robespierre when we really need him? Another useful idiot for equality. As long as the most powerful nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist. Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too Please. Take the towel out from under the dorm-room door and quit regurgitating what you learned passing the bong around. Groups are not people. They don't have rights, for instance. Only people have rights. Nation-states are not people either. More the point, they aren't people in a dialectical struggle to free themselves from the Oppressive Industrial West, any more than the workers are in a dialectical struggle to free themselves from some guy in a top-hat and spats. If you'd learned any history, you'd know that the first argument is the result of the complete failure of the *premises* of the first to happen at all, and that both arguments have been demonstrated wrong in the face of *evidence*: the explosion of the bourgeoisie in the West (that's middle-class to those of us with a state-school education; the group including *you*, bunky, unless your name is Bush or Kerry [really Forbes or Cohn, take your pick] and you went to say, Andover and Yale), and the explosion of gross domestic product in the very countries you now claim the west exploits. If you don't believe that, ask that Sidekick-wearing software engineer in Bangalore the next time you're talking to a help-desk sometime about how Nehru, the great Indian Leveller, was such a wonderful guy that millions of his own countrymen starved during his tenure as the Indian more equal than all the others. It wasn't until Indians actually started to free their markets that people stopped starving in the streets. Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson appropriately calls it, a nuclear caliphate --- has figured out a way to make more new stuff cheaper, and to continually do it for the last 2500 years or so. And, guess what? As a result, we can kill more people cheaper, too. That means we win wars. That means we'll win this one, too. Because, if you hadn't noticed, they have to use *our* stuff to fight *us*. Some around here see that as a bug, of course, but I see that much more as a feature: I'll see that bug, raise you a couple of MOABs, and call the bet. Not understanding this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative feelings and opinions and fuel extremism. Ah. That's right. I'm not nuanced enough. It's too *complicated* for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) History Studies class, or whatever. Please. The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all the problem that leads to. If we would all just get along, the lion would still eat the lamb for a mid-afternoon snack, bunky, and then lie down for a nap. Singing Kumbaya in Arabic won't make it happen any different. More to the point, some mook in chi-pants marching in a black-block in Seattle advocating the confiscation of what someone *earns* by *working* is not going to make some *other* islamist mook, who also got his way paid through college by *his* daddy, to stop building bombs and crashing airplanes into skyscrapers. What *will* stop mooks of the latter persuasion is to kill as many of them as possible, and as quickly as possible. Maybe their parents, too, for raising an entire generation of ignorant superstitious children. It was ever thus, however. The Meijii Japanese could *copy*, even perfect, aircraft and aircraft carriers, but they couldn't *invent* new stuff, like, say, atom bombs. Only markets can do that, bunky. More to the point, only markets full of free people arguing their heads off about what's right and wrong can do that. Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without listening to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere will never ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able to reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after having turned also the western civilization into police states) but you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his mind. Hint: policing the world is what
Re: This Memorable Day
ObPedantry: At 9:49 AM -0500 11/3/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote: If you'd learned any history, you'd know that the first argument is x second the result of the complete failure of the *premises* of the first to happen at all -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
-- Peter Gutmann wrote: Well it wasn't the point I was trying to make, which was comparing it to predictions made by (the propaganda division of) another super-power in the mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever was on their side, and all they had to do was hold out a bit longer. Compare the general tone of the WSJ article to the one in e.g. the first half of http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documen ts/htestmnt.htm. But it is hardly a matter of holding out. So far the Pentagon has shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears. As quagmires go, this one has not yet got shoelaces muddy. The enemies are the one's that have heroic fantasies of holding out against hopeless odds, as for example Fallujah. The question is not whether the terrorists keep Falljah, but merely whether Pentagon gets a city or a pile of rubble. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 9M6CeBC9wwBisQe3JNJvnnu758kvx8Rq2e2KM9b2 41XkwhnPAbRy29/XaMnNedLxI40PWmNEk4y2tUdn7
Re: This Memorable Day
2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses revolted, at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough. Are you trollin' m'friend, or have you been smokin' James Donald's ground up toenails? -TD Mao accused the US of being a paper tiger, and there may be some truth to that. From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: This Memorable Day Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:05:19 -0500 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote: The US has not won since WW2. Nope. Not at all. 1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ until they're almost enough of a nuisance, to lots of people, including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over. 2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses revolted, at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough. The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and 2., above. That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh. Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at, say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand in a decade or so, shall we? C'mon, John. Think faster, or something. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYjzo8PxH8jf3ohaEQLrKACgpPVvDmuAS+ZE/9OAwZBAneLGztIAn2TK eVqIGmJf1iLvKLe55TuIgQYf =SOlw -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
Re: This Memorable Day
-- Peter Gutmann wrote: Fighting an unwinnable war always seems to produce the same type of rhetoric, It is a little premature to call this war unwinnable. The kill ratio so far is comparable with Britain's zulu war. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 9YCccdHmWgBxj3a1UFFKM7Xyl1qKvkQYJoNuuZEw 4pOgjIzTXDiWQ1xXvdwBxCk93EgSXiZfQ29ag+5sW
Re: This Memorable Day
-- This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those are inequalities and injustice anywhere. You are quite right, it is unjust that people like Bin Laden are so immensely rich with oil wealth. To remedy this problem, Bush should confiscate the Middle Eastern oil reserves. You are using stale old communist rhetoric - but today's terrorists no longer not even pretend to fight on behalf of the poor and oppressed. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG hB70Rn/r/Izz2zUYn/rVfOyEDZVqu1UUzdNLVJJe 4inRuB429RCVLG1VVfP9Z5CBGfL+mE/dNmP+GZvcb
Re: This Memorable Day
Bob, But your defenses of the fatherland are hollow formulas. There has been no war to win, a war the US is forever stealing from the citizenry to prepare for, and then fucking up with the minor skirmishes by having no doctrine or training to apply its mythical might, except, as always, to explain away abject failure with fairy tales like you're telling. Deterence is bullshit, but it worked to keep the Soviet and US militarists and their supplies in top level comfort. Now, the US has no complicit partner in raiding the public till, so it fabricates the terrorist threat, and lockstepping right along comes Russia, the UK and all the natsec bullshitters (slanted intelligence addicts) to march to the beat of bucks aflowing imperially. Dig deeper, middle-aged spinner, your history seems to have been framed by the Cold War and its bastard mini-me terrorism racket here lately. Do you by any chance have a contract with the tomfoolers? Or is it just natural to believe sugar daddy's tales of conquest and invulnerability? And, what is this shit about needing to kill as many of the varmints as possible? Have you ever tried to do that, these mean sumbitches are not birds and rabbits and women and children. Beware the May/Donald megadeath syndrome which always indicates a yellow stripe down the back of those who love to advocate others dying for their comfort and safety -- in large numbers, as if big bragging makes it braver. Weenies do that.
Re: This Memorable Day
-- R.A. Hettinga wrote: Seriously, any future crypto-anarchy / anarcho-capitalist society is probably not going to succeed unless it can project *more* force than we can project currently with force monopoly -- not less. That *doesn't* mean centralized, but it certainly means *more*. It is often argued that since war, violence, etc, are public goods, only a state can efficiently defend against states. Yet in most wars since 1980, non state entities have done most of the heavy lifting -loose coalitions containing many independent groups, for example the contras, the holy warriors that overthrew the Taliban. Looking at the events of World War II, it looks to me that it does indeed require a state to conquer and occupy a hostile government, as the US conquered and occupied Germany, but the Japanese army was broken by a thousand small groups. Defeating a large scale evildoer is a public good - but large scale evil consists of many acts of small scale evil, and defeating each particular small scale evil act is a private good. When it came to the part of the war that was purely a public good, conquering the German and Japanese homelands, America did indeed bear almost the whole burden, but when it came to defending Australia against the Japanese, the Australians bore the major burden, and similarly for most other battlefields outside of the aggressors' homelands. Most German troops died fighting Russians in Russia, not Americans in Germany. The particular victims of particular Japanese or German acts of aggression counter attacked those particular Japanese or Germans attacking them. National defense, or at least some forms of national defense, such as destroying Hitler's Germany, is a public good, and genuinely anarchist societies are apt to under provide public goods. On the other hand governments tend to provide the wrong kind of public goods, providing what serves their purposes rather than the supposed purpose of the public good, Further, when a government gets in the business of providing a some supposed public good, it creates a lobby, which results in the public good being over provided, thus for example ever lengthening copyright, ever more expansive patents for ever more trivial inventions, and, of course, the infamous military/industrial complex, such as Haliburton. War, for example destroying Hitler's Germany, is the most plausibly essential public good, the strongest justification for the state. But when we look at the defeat of the Soviet Union, or the defeat of the Taliban, this argument looks considerably weaker. The heavy lifting in those wars was done by loose alliances of small groups, for example the holy warriors and the contras, which did not rely on a single large centralized authority to support the public good of defeat of an oppressive regime. In the second world war, public good theory would lead us to expect that the most powerful state, America would bear almost the whole burden of defeating the threat, and smaller states would hang back and cheer the winner. The holy warriors were probably effective against the Soviets because each holy warrior was defending his home, and each small group of holy warriors were defending their village. Among the contras, it appears that the Indian contras defended the Indians against forced collectivization, breaking up collectives with extreme violence and killing the collectives functionaries and administrators, often in disturbingly unpleasant ways, but failed to participate in other contra struggles. Thus anarchic forms of society appear to be capable of waging war defensively with considerably effectiveness, but are considerably less capable of taking the war to places far away. This is not such a severe limitation as it might appear, since the Soviet Union was overthrown by essentially defensive wars, leading to the dominoes falling all the way to Moscow. It is the nature of Islam to impose dhimmitude on nonbelievers, without much regard for official state boundaries. Dhimmitude being a dangerously inferior status where one's property is insecure, and women are apt to be raped. Existing Muslim states often fail to prosecute crimes against infidels, and when crimes are prosecuted, penalties are slight. The West has tried to confine Dhimmitude inside a system of states - the Muslims can oppress their minorities inside Muslim state boundaries all they like, but cannot oppress outside Muslim state boundaries. This artificial boundary bends under pressure, creating the conflict we now see. The anarchic equivalent of the current policy of imperial state building, would be to enter mutual defense arrangements with dhimmi, without regard to state boundaries. The Taliban had imposed Dhimmi status on Muslims they did not agree with in Afghanistan. An anarchic America would not be able to occupy Iraq, nor would it be capable of building democracy in Afghanistan, but it would be able to do the equivalent of sending special forces to assist the
Re: This Memorable Day
At 11:11 AM -0800 11/3/04, James A. Donald wrote: Dhimmitude being a dangerously inferior status where one's property is insecure, and women are apt to be raped. ObSmartAssComment: That's why they call it Dhimmicracy, much less the Dhimmicratic Party... :-). Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
At 11:11 AM -0800 11/3/04, James A. Donald wrote: It is often argued that since war, violence, etc, are public goods This is my favorite retort to that: Externalities are the last refuge of the derigistes. -- Friedrich Hayek An otherwise excellent rant elided... Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Externalities are the last refuge of the derigistes. -- Friedrich Hayek
Re: This Memorable Day
From: Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: This Memorable Day .. The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all the problem that leads to. Ahh. So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, and inequality all over the world. *Phew*. I thought it was going to take something hard. --John
Re: This Memorable Day
Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process. -TD From: John Kelsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: This Memorable Day Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:13:28 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: This Memorable Day ... The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all the problem that leads to. Ahh. So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, and inequality all over the world. *Phew*. I thought it was going to take something hard. --John _ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx
Re: This Memorable Day
At 3:32 AM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English, updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations - UN), and changed the Russian names and references to Middle Eastern ones. Yup. That's Davis' point, actually. Fuck with the West, we kick your ass. BTW, the Greeks at naval battle of Salamis were arguing, violently, the very night before the battle. The Persian deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Greeks died in the low hundreds. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English, updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations - UN), and changed the Russian names and references to Middle Eastern ones. Peter.
Re: This Memorable Day
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgpkbAEtb245e.pgp Description: PGP signature
This Memorable Day
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html The Wall Street Journal November 2, 2004 COMMENTARY This Memorable Day By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON November 2, 2004; Page A22 In singular moments in our history, the security of the United States hinged on a single presidential election. Imagine George McClellan recognizing an undefeated Confederacy in March 1865. Consider an eight-year Jimmy Carter tenure. Or contemplate Walter Mondale taking over from a defeated President Reagan to implement unilaterally a nuclear freeze, Mike Dukakis asking Saddam to leave Kuwait, or Al Gore mobilizing America to invade Afghanistan. We are now faced with the same critical choice. Today's vote determines how the United States finishes the present war against terrorists, and, indeed, whether we continue to defeat Islamic fascism and those Middle East autocracies that fuel it. * * * John Kerry sees our struggle as an unending law enforcement problem, akin to gambling and prostitution. Thus the terrorist attacks of the 1990s were not deadly precursors to 9/11, but belong to a now nostalgic era of nuisance. In contrast, George W. Bush envisioned September 11 as real war -- a global struggle against Dark-Age extremism, striving for a modern nuclear caliphate that could blackmail the industrialized world and destroy Western liberal values. So Mr. Bush took terrorist killers at their word, convinced that such evildoers, like a Hitler or Stalin, had no legitimate complaint against America. Rather, they murder out of a deep frustration that Western-inspired freedom is on the march, threatening both Islamic fascism and those repressive regimes that hand-in-glove with them have deflected their own failures onto the United States. John Kerry promises help is on the way to remove President Bush, who has, according to Mr. Kerry, lied when he is exposed as incompetent. Such strident condemnation ignores the stunning victory over the Taliban, the first voting in Afghanistan in 5,000 years, the removal of Saddam Hussein with scheduled elections for next January, positive changes in Libya, Pakistan and the Gulf States, and the absence of another 9/11-like attack here at home. Moqtada al-Sadr and Osama bin Laden now whine about American retaliation and send out peace feelers. But their apprehension arises not because of Sen. Kerry's rhetoric or his promises of U.N. collectivism. Rather, the specter of four more years of a resolute George W. Bush equates to their continued defeat. Their trepidation was shared by the 1980 hostage takers in Tehran, who relented in terror of an inaugurated Ronald Reagan warning them of the impending end to Carteresque appeasement. Most of Sen. Kerry's allegations about this war ring false or insincere because he shifts in tune to mercurial polls. The senator's yes/no/maybe public statements and votes reflect the perceived daily pulse of the battlefield -- and his lack of either a strategic understanding of the war or faith in the skill and resoluteness of the U.S. military. He insists that there were no al Qaeda ties to Baathists, but we see them in postbellum Iraq, knew of them during the first World Trade Center bombing, and once accepted President Clinton's claim for them during his 1998 retaliation against the Sudan. WMD are likewise derided as a chimera. But President Clinton, Sen. Kerry, and Sen. John Edwards are all on record frantically warning about Saddam's bio-chem arsenal -- with others citing intelligence confirmation from Vladimir Putin to Hosni Mubarak. During the three-week war, American troops in the field did not don bothersome chemical suits because of President Bush's naïveté or duplicity. In Sen. Kerry's world, brave folk such as Iraq's Prime Minister Allawi, the Poles, and the Australians are belittled as hollow and bought allies, while Germany and France, that profited lucratively with Saddam, will be invited to join the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, now dubbed analogous to the Bay of Pigs. The explanation for Saddam's removal, in Teresa Heinz Kerry's words, is blood for oil, a mantra echoed by Fahrenheit 9/11, MoveOn.org, and bin Laden's latest infomercial. But after the invasion, petroleum prices soared. Iraq's national treasure is for the first time transparent and autonomous. France, Russia and the U.N. can no longer appropriate it. President Bush, once libeled as the villainous Texas oil schemer, is now reinvented on the campaign trail as Sen. Kerry's clueless naïf, bullied by a sinister OPEC. True, much of the Kerry negativism derives from opportunism. Yet there is also a logic that explains the flip-flopping, rooted in deep-seeded doubts about both the utility and morality of using American military power. Thus Sen. Kerry voted against many of our present weapons systems. That obstructionism explains why in 1988 he looked back at the Reagan strategic build-up as one of moral darkness. Mr. Kerry, as a soldier and a senator
Re: This Memorable Day
At 10:31 AM -0500 11/2/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote: The Persian deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Greeks died in the low hundreds. More recently, and closer to Hanson's point in the article, both of Lincoln's elections were very close. But, after Lincoln's second inauguration, Grant took charge of the Union Army and began killing Confederates (and Union soldiers) in a series of horrific battles culminating in the end of the Civil War. Expect more carnage than culture when Bush is elected. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
And an admirable role model for the Simian's memory: An avenging rebel terrorist shot Abe, not Grant, who suicided himself with whiskey and self-pity, after lollygagging in the animal-beshat White House, lost that, took up liquor, became a helpless drunk, friends caretook his inept pickled carcass for a few years then he wrote a vain, distorted book about his carnaging of the rebels, and worst comedownance, got entombed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so it is said, but who knows what military-industrial effigy lies in that grafitti-and-dogshit-smeared pile overlooking beshitten liberal-elitist, nest of rebellious vermin Columbia University, Riverside Church, the National Council of Churches, and best, squalid, infested, periodically ractist white-massacreing Harlem. Still, when you visit Grant's Tomb you see mostly well-dressed African Americans studying the memoria displayed welling tears at the piles of war dead, the freed slaves, the army grunts and officers gauntly posed in muddy filth. A tourist bus roars in, pinky blobs waddle into the high-domed gloom, see no cafe, no gift shop, come out to circle the monument looking for something to buy or eat or video. Nothing there like the rest of the homeland shopfested US. What the fuck they mouth, fart, scratch, heave their globs fore and aft, struggle to re-mount the bus, stare out the dark glass at me in my Swift Boat get-up, jesus-bearded, gut abusting, carrying a Viet Vet begging sign that says Apocalypse Now or Else.
Re: This Memorable Day
At 11:58 AM -0800 11/2/04, John Young wrote: Grant, who suicided himself with whiskey and self-pity, Actually, he suicided himself with cigars, having died of throat cancer... ;-) Seriously, any future crypto-anarchy / anarcho-capitalist society is probably not going to succeed unless it can project *more* force than we can project currently with force monopoly -- not less. That *doesn't* mean centralized, but it certainly means *more*. Peace Kills. Violence will always be conserved. More is more. :-). Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: This Memorable Day
R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 3:32 AM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English, updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations - UN), and changed the Russian names and references to Middle Eastern ones. Yup. That's Davis' point, actually. Fuck with the West, we kick your ass. Well it wasn't the point I was trying to make, which was comparing it to predictions made by (the propaganda division of) another super-power in the mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever was on their side, and all they had to do was hold out a bit longer. Compare the general tone of the WSJ article to the one in e.g. the first half of http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/htestmnt.htm. Peter.