[quote]hedo wrote:
orion wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
So how many tens of millions of people has the Swiss Army freed from horrific oppression and dictatorship? How much does the freedom enjoyed by so many around so much of the world owe to the Swiss Army?
Oh wait, is the answer none and not any?
Doesn’t sound like true greatness to me.
Is that the job of an army? To free other people from oppression and dictatorship? Now even if I agreed for discussions sake that any army ever did more harm than good trying to achieve that, how is that not a form of welfare and how could we possibly hope that a government can make that work in another country when it fails to do so in its own?
But to an ingrate who doesn’t want to admit he owes his personal freedom to the armed services of the United States of America, of course it makes sense that the Swiss Army is allegedly greater. Not only makes sense, but is probably psychologically necessary.
Well the very army that laid the groundwork for several revolutions during and after WWI helped us deal with the consequences afterwards.
I would indeed have preferred to achieve the exact same situation we have now without Hitler, Stalin and WWII, so yes, thank your grandfather for putting out the fires his father poured gas into.
But maybe it is psychologically necessary for you to believe that the history of American involvement in European affairs started ca 1944?
Europes problems were created by Europeans. Unfortunately for the rest of the world they lacked the ability or character to fix them. The Americans had to do it for them and now they resent it since they have lived in a relative era of peace. This attitude is particularly pronounced on the continent and Orion is simply a product of that upbringing. To this day Europe still cannot stand on it’s own militarily and most of it’s armies are hollow or make work programs. Other then Britian most Euro armies would be hard presed to but a division in the field even if they had the desire to do so. That division would last about two weeks before running out of supplies if the US didn’t provide airlift capability.
As to the greatest Military ever. The Swiss Armey isn’t even under consideration. This is merely a mindless point Orion seeks to make so he can spew his rhetoric. Arguing military affairs with Orion is pointless. He is too one dimensional to make it interesting and he assumes his opinion to be fact.
The Swiss Army is small. It cannot project it’s power or manuever with any degree of speed. It is vulnerable to blockade or isolation. In other words it can simply be ignored and isolated. Since the Swiss have a history or diplomacy they would no doubt seek terms if faced with starvation. Those terms would be dicated by the aggressor.
If your military can only fight a holding action while you seek surrender terms, you are not the “Greatest Military Ever” Hardly in the same ranks as the US, Britian, Australia, Russia and China…the only worthy competitors for that title in modern times.
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No Hitler without Versailles, no Versailles with the US.
So, US involvement was undoubtedly a conditio sine qua non for Hitler´s rise.
That does not put the blame on the US, but it shows that government actions tend to have unintended consequences. If an American conservative like you fails to see that the minute the American armed forces are involved it is probably a result of your upbringing?
Then, your idea of “greatness” when it comes to a military is a military that is able to reach out and make other people bow to its will, merely successfully keeping the homeland safe does not seem to be enough.
That however is an army that is more fitting for an empire, not a republic and I think the founders of your republic agree with me.
