[quote]kamui wrote:
So long as we’re advocating things that will never happen here’s my take:
Bring back conscription
Send over several mechanised infantry and armour divisions
Blow the Wahhabis into piles of meat and bone splinters
Appropriate the country’s oil
[quote] squatbenchhench wrote:
Us culture certainly is not superior.
[/quote]
Superior to what?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[/quote]
Why?
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[/quote]
Why?
[/quote]
US Army is only half a million strong and dropping. It’s at its lowest level since pre-WWII.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[/quote]
Why?
[/quote]
US Army is only half a million strong and dropping. It’s at its lowest level since pre-WWII.
[/quote]
Okay, get that. But why?
Is it because of the sheer volume you’d be sending in your scenario to a specific place?
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[/quote]
Why?
[/quote]
US Army is only half a million strong and dropping. It’s at its lowest level since pre-WWII.
[/quote]
Okay, get that. But why?
Is it because of the sheer volume you’d be sending in your scenario to a specific place?[/quote]
Yeah. US only has a single standing armoured division right now.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]kamui wrote:
So long as we’re advocating things that will never happen here’s my take:
Bring back conscription
Send over several mechanised infantry and armour divisions
Blow the Wahhabis into piles of meat and bone splinters
Appropriate the country’s oil[/quote]
Well, why not.
But the militaro-industrial complex and energy industry already had their shares.
That’s why i was thinking about giving the job to other industrial complexes this time.
[quote]squatbenchhench wrote:
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
I think the USA has a lot of problems, but we’re not in total decline. We have a lot of lazy people here but we still have the best and brightest. The cream of the crop from nations all over the world still want to come here and are coming here. Not all of our immigrants are low-skilled people from Central America. It’s foolish to just proclaim China is inevitably going to be the dominant power. We still have a vastly superior culture among other factors. And “Eastern powers” is vague because the only one I can think of is China. Russia’s prospects aren’t that rosy.
And as I’ve already said, we have a goddamn lot of oil and gas. Our neighbors do too. We also have by far the best energy infrastructure in the world. Other allies outside of North America have good energy prospects or operations as well. All of the oil and gas in the world isn’t in the Middle East. Our infrastructure is also superior, as are our banking and financial systems.
Do you think the Saudi’s and Qataris can build a LNG liquefaction facility on their own? To build refineries on their own? Where do you think these countries buy their weapons from? And no one likes the Chinese or the Russians. They are bad business partners. Countries do business with them when they have to. No one wants China or Russia leading the world, even the countries that hate the USA.[/quote]
America doesn’t have the cream of the crop, and never has. What is has been good at historically is monetizing new inventions (because of its largely unlimited manufacturing capacity for most of the 20th century). It is also pretty good at getting clever foreigners to go there. However, Americans themselves have not proved particularly good at creating or inventing things.
America has nowhere near enough energy to meet its current domestic demand. Revolution would be the likely consequence of telling people to lower their energy usage.
Us culture certainly is not superior. I don’t really think Americans have much an idea of how primitive they seem to Europeans over the buzzword issues (abortion, women’s rights, racism, lgbt rights).
The Chinese and the Russians are liked over most of the world. No countries want ANY other country ‘leading the world’, they want to develop organically within their own sphere of influence. [/quote]
I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not. USA citizens have created and invented many things that have fundamentally changed the world and we haven’t even been in existence for 250 years. I wouldn’t even know where to start and it’s such a ridiculous statement I’m not going to honor it with doing research for you. We have extremely talented people and the resources to develop that talent.
The US is an energy superpower and that’s a fact. We’re also near another energy superpower in Canada, and Mexico also has a lot of resources. South America also has a lot of resources. We don’t even get that much oil from outside of North America and the oil we do get is crude b/c we have the by far the best refinery infrastructure in the world. We do not export crude, but we export petroleum products. A lot of crude coming from outside of NA is re-exported back into the world market. We have positive net exports of petroleum products, natural gas, NGLs, and coal and that will increase going forward. We are already lowering are energy usage and we will continue to lower it because we’re America and we’re creating new ways to be increasingly efficient.
My statement was that US culture is superior to Chinese culture and I stand by that. How is Chinese culture influencing the rest of the world like American culture? It’s not even a debate. China and Russia are liked by the rest of the world? You’re out of your mind. In one statement you call us primitive because of an alleged negative track record concerning LGBT rights, women’s rights, and racism and then you praise China and Russia in the next sentence. GTFO. If you’re gay, black, or a woman the USA is a fine place to be when we start examining the rest of the world. I never claimed we were perfect, I said our culture is better than China and I have no doubt about that. How many people are eager to immigrate to China and assimilate into that culture? There are way more Chinese nationals living in the USA hoping for citizenship than there are Americans in China.
Other nations may say they don’t want any other nation leading the rest of the world but the reality is there is always a superpower or superpowers that are leading culture and civilization and that dynamic isn’t going to change this far into human civilization. Right now it’s the USA and it’s not even close. If we decided to leave the world stage there would be an incredible void to fill and NO other nation is even remotely close to being able to fill it. No one is calling on Russia and China to take care of global problems. No one is looking to China or Russia for cultural cues or to learn how business should be conducted.
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
[quote]squatbenchhench wrote:
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
I think the USA has a lot of problems, but we’re not in total decline. We have a lot of lazy people here but we still have the best and brightest. The cream of the crop from nations all over the world still want to come here and are coming here. Not all of our immigrants are low-skilled people from Central America. It’s foolish to just proclaim China is inevitably going to be the dominant power. We still have a vastly superior culture among other factors. And “Eastern powers” is vague because the only one I can think of is China. Russia’s prospects aren’t that rosy.
And as I’ve already said, we have a goddamn lot of oil and gas. Our neighbors do too. We also have by far the best energy infrastructure in the world. Other allies outside of North America have good energy prospects or operations as well. All of the oil and gas in the world isn’t in the Middle East. Our infrastructure is also superior, as are our banking and financial systems.
Do you think the Saudi’s and Qataris can build a LNG liquefaction facility on their own? To build refineries on their own? Where do you think these countries buy their weapons from? And no one likes the Chinese or the Russians. They are bad business partners. Countries do business with them when they have to. No one wants China or Russia leading the world, even the countries that hate the USA.[/quote]
America doesn’t have the cream of the crop, and never has. What is has been good at historically is monetizing new inventions (because of its largely unlimited manufacturing capacity for most of the 20th century). It is also pretty good at getting clever foreigners to go there. However, Americans themselves have not proved particularly good at creating or inventing things.
America has nowhere near enough energy to meet its current domestic demand. Revolution would be the likely consequence of telling people to lower their energy usage.
Us culture certainly is not superior. I don’t really think Americans have much an idea of how primitive they seem to Europeans over the buzzword issues (abortion, women’s rights, racism, lgbt rights).
The Chinese and the Russians are liked over most of the world. No countries want ANY other country ‘leading the world’, they want to develop organically within their own sphere of influence. [/quote]
I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not. USA citizens have created and invented many things that have fundamentally changed the world and we haven’t even been in existence for 250 years. I wouldn’t even know where to start and it’s such a ridiculous statement I’m not going to honor it with doing research for you. We have extremely talented people and the resources to develop that talent.
The US is an energy superpower and that’s a fact. We’re also near another energy superpower in Canada, and Mexico also has a lot of resources. South America also has a lot of resources. We don’t even get that much oil from outside of North America and the oil we do get is crude b/c we have the by far the best refinery infrastructure in the world. We do not export crude, but we export petroleum products. A lot of crude coming from outside of NA is re-exported back into the world market. We have positive net exports of petroleum products, natural gas, NGLs, and coal and that will increase going forward. We are already lowering are energy usage and we will continue to lower it because we’re America and we’re creating new ways to be increasingly efficient.
My statement was that US culture is superior to Chinese culture and I stand by that. How is Chinese culture influencing the rest of the world like American culture? It’s not even a debate. China and Russia are liked by the rest of the world? You’re out of your mind. In one statement you call us primitive because of an alleged negative track record concerning LGBT rights, women’s rights, and racism and then you praise China and Russia in the next sentence. GTFO. If you’re gay, black, or a woman the USA is a fine place to be when we start examining the rest of the world. I never claimed we were perfect, I said our culture is better than China and I have no doubt about that. How many people are eager to immigrate to China and assimilate into that culture? There are way more Chinese nationals living in the USA hoping for citizenship than there are Americans in China.
Other nations may say they don’t want any other nation leading the rest of the world but the reality is there is always a superpower or superpowers that are leading culture and civilization and that dynamic isn’t going to change this far into human civilization. Right now it’s the USA and it’s not even close. If we decided to leave the world stage there would be an incredible void to fill and NO other nation is even remotely close to being able to fill it. No one is calling on Russia and China to take care of global problems. No one is looking to China or Russia for cultural cues or to learn how business should be conducted. [/quote]
Dude, he is one of our new trolls…don’t waste your breath.
But really good post, FTR.
[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
So what, we should be the moral equivalent of the Mongols and wipe out entire populations…
[/quote]
Ahhh, evidence you don’t know your history. I thought as much.
The Mongols were noted for leaving infrastructure and civilian populations intact.
This might be the most insane statement on the Mongols ever, they were known for leaving civilians populations intact! Holy shit that is not the case. Before some of the Chinese advisors from the conquered lands started to act as advisors to the Khan he would simply wipe out the native population and clear the lands for Mongol farming. It took the chinese explaining if he left some of the population alive he could tax them.
Modern historians put the death toll from the genocide committed in the siege of Baghdad at 200,000 to 1 million! Others count as high as two million factoring in those who died afterwards from starvation and other related deaths.
They rounded up the civilian population and executed the in front of the Caliph and plundered the city, destroyed all the literature and most of the great achievements of what was at the time, the most progressive place on earth.
The river Tigris ran black with ink from the books from the grand library, they killed all the Caliph’s sons, executed all the philosophers and scientists and then killed the Calih by rolling him up in a carpet and trampling him to death with their horse.
They then left. However squads on horseback were sent back days later to catch the survivors who hid while they came out to bury their dead and try and survive in the aftermath of the slaughter, thousands more were killed.
They purposefully ruined the irrigation systems and canals and lay waste to the agriculture, the overall destruction and ruin is the main reason most modern historians give for the stunted development of the Islamic world.
They wiped out millions of civilians and their brutality has never been matched, for example the population of Iran only reached its pre mongol invasion levels in the mid twentieth century!
I don’t claim to be the smartest person around, I am still learning and reading and developing but one subject I have done more than my fair share of reading and research on is the step people, their rise to arguably the biggest empire ever and their eventual decline. Their customs and intra-conflicts.
If you don’t wish to go to as great of a level of research of the mongols as I did I would recommend an American conservative’s podcast called Dan Carlin’s horrible histories. He has a few 3-5 hour podcasts where he goes over the entire timeline of the mongols and only uses information he has sources for and names them as he goes through the history.
The mongols were huge fans of flaying, specific cases are cited by Carlin where the mongols flayed the skin from civilians and made other civilians eat the skin.
He also goes over how when times were really tough they would kill a horse and drink the blood and eat the organs and intestines raw, when they got even tougher they would pick straws and eat soldiers. They might be some of the toughest sons of bitches in history.
However to say we should emulate them, is Anti American anti freedom and generally puts you in the same category as people who say we should emulate Mao, Stalin, Hitler, the British Empire, Rome, Vandal and Visigoth rule.
You can’t support the constitution and support being like an empire simultaneously, they are mutually exclusive.[/quote]
Mongol farming? Lol. They didn’t farm they were hunter gatherers who lived in tents.
I wonder how George S. Patton would have dealt with the Islamists?? We need a commander who said things like this:
“From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don’t give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.”
“Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle…Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”
"My men don’t surrender, I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That’s not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet…
“We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!”
“I don’t want to get any messages saying, “I am holding my position.” We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy’s balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!”
"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, “Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.” No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, “Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!”
[quote]UtahLama wrote:
Dude, he is one of our new trolls…don’t waste your breath.
But really good post, FTR.[/quote]
Um, yea, I probably wasted my breath. I’m a critic of my country as any reasonable person should be but I also have a lot of pride and when people talk nonsense and disrespect our contributions I get a bit fired up. I’m horrible with concise posts too. The thing is there are definitely a lot of people out there that hold those views, troll or not.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[/quote]
Why?
[/quote]
US Army is only half a million strong and dropping. It’s at its lowest level since pre-WWII.
[/quote]
This isn’t necessarily an unwelcome development.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[/quote]
Why?
[/quote]
US Army is only half a million strong and dropping. It’s at its lowest level since pre-WWII.
[/quote]
Okay, get that. But why?
Is it because of the sheer volume you’d be sending in your scenario to a specific place?[/quote]
Yeah. US only has a single standing armoured division right now.[/quote]
Volunteer military forces are superior to conscripted ones. Why muddle a highly professional army? I do however think that all young Americans should be obligated to be employed in a short stint of public service.
[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
I wonder how George S. Patton would have dealt with the Islamists?? We need a commander who said things like this:
“From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don’t give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.”
“Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle…Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”
"My men don’t surrender, I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That’s not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet…
“We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!”
“I don’t want to get any messages saying, “I am holding my position.” We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy’s balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!”
"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, “Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.” No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, “Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!”[/quote]
Patton was a brilliant tactical commander and an inspired leader. He lacked strategic vision and political acumen, however. Any reincarnation of him would be woefully unsuited for strategic command in the twenty first century.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
Patton was a brilliant tactical commander and an inspired leader. He lacked strategic vision and political acumen, however. Any reincarnation of him would be woefully unsuited for strategic command in the twenty first century.[/quote]
Bullshit. His strategic vision was spot on at the time. There was little stomach for the correct action at the time though. That’s probably why he died.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
So what, we should be the moral equivalent of the Mongols and wipe out entire populations…
[/quote]
Ahhh, evidence you don’t know your history. I thought as much.
The Mongols were noted for leaving infrastructure and civilian populations intact.
This might be the most insane statement on the Mongols ever, they were known for leaving civilians populations intact! Holy shit that is not the case. Before some of the Chinese advisors from the conquered lands started to act as advisors to the Khan he would simply wipe out the native population and clear the lands for Mongol farming. It took the chinese explaining if he left some of the population alive he could tax them.
Modern historians put the death toll from the genocide committed in the siege of Baghdad at 200,000 to 1 million! Others count as high as two million factoring in those who died afterwards from starvation and other related deaths.
They rounded up the civilian population and executed the in front of the Caliph and plundered the city, destroyed all the literature and most of the great achievements of what was at the time, the most progressive place on earth.
The river Tigris ran black with ink from the books from the grand library, they killed all the Caliph’s sons, executed all the philosophers and scientists and then killed the Calih by rolling him up in a carpet and trampling him to death with their horse.
They then left. However squads on horseback were sent back days later to catch the survivors who hid while they came out to bury their dead and try and survive in the aftermath of the slaughter, thousands more were killed.
They purposefully ruined the irrigation systems and canals and lay waste to the agriculture, the overall destruction and ruin is the main reason most modern historians give for the stunted development of the Islamic world.
They wiped out millions of civilians and their brutality has never been matched, for example the population of Iran only reached its pre mongol invasion levels in the mid twentieth century!
I don’t claim to be the smartest person around, I am still learning and reading and developing but one subject I have done more than my fair share of reading and research on is the step people, their rise to arguably the biggest empire ever and their eventual decline. Their customs and intra-conflicts.
If you don’t wish to go to as great of a level of research of the mongols as I did I would recommend an American conservative’s podcast called Dan Carlin’s horrible histories. He has a few 3-5 hour podcasts where he goes over the entire timeline of the mongols and only uses information he has sources for and names them as he goes through the history.
The mongols were huge fans of flaying, specific cases are cited by Carlin where the mongols flayed the skin from civilians and made other civilians eat the skin.
He also goes over how when times were really tough they would kill a horse and drink the blood and eat the organs and intestines raw, when they got even tougher they would pick straws and eat soldiers. They might be some of the toughest sons of bitches in history.
However to say we should emulate them, is Anti American anti freedom and generally puts you in the same category as people who say we should emulate Mao, Stalin, Hitler, the British Empire, Rome, Vandal and Visigoth rule.
You can’t support the constitution and support being like an empire simultaneously, they are mutually exclusive.[/quote]
Mongol farming? Lol. They didn’t farm they were hunter gatherers who lived in tents.
[/quote]
This really shows you have pretty much zero knowledge of the Mongol empire. In the lands they conquered they would kill the local inhabitants and mongols would settle there and either kill all the local farmers and take their farm land and turn it into pastures for grazing or they would force them to farm and the farm would belong to the Mongols.
As the might of the Mongol empire grew and grew, they grew in turn, with mongol settlers farming crops and he formerly savage looking warriors now dressing in fine silks and often converting to Christianity or Islam.
Basically, like most other nomadic peoples who were successful in their attempts to conquer, ended up assimilating with the people they conquered, just like the goths and the Romans.
To think the Mongols never grew past the savage nomad archetype is to display a distinct lack of understanding of their evolution as a people.
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
[quote]UtahLama wrote:
Dude, he is one of our new trolls…don’t waste your breath.
But really good post, FTR.[/quote]
Um, yea, I probably wasted my breath. I’m a critic of my country as any reasonable person should be but I also have a lot of pride and when people talk nonsense and disrespect our contributions I get a bit fired up. I’m horrible with concise posts too. The thing is there are definitely a lot of people out there that hold those views, troll or not.[/quote]
While I agree with your post that America ( American people) have been responsible for many great things, why do you care if people criticise it, be proud of yourself and your achievements, not the piece of rock you live on.
It is like when I see people bragging about their ancestors and I ask are you proud of slavery too and obviously the answer is no. I then ask why it is legitimate to take pride and hold up the achievements of the good people of our past without doing the same and feeling shame for the bad ones.
Don’t get me wrong I feel no guilt over slavery because i didn’t take part in it, but i also don’t take credit or feel pride in the good people we had who did great stuff, because that was not me either.
[quote]dcb wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
Patton was a brilliant tactical commander and an inspired leader. He lacked strategic vision and political acumen, however. Any reincarnation of him would be woefully unsuited for strategic command in the twenty first century.[/quote]
Bullshit. His strategic vision was spot on at the time. There was little stomach for the correct action at the time though. That’s probably why he died.
[/quote]
Care to elaborate on Patton’s “spot on” views regarding grand strategy? You’re asserting that Patton was assassinated? That’s a bold claim that must be evidenced.