[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Indeed. So which do you believe should be the primary purpose of an armed service?
To kill and destroy.
Oh, well, if that’s all it’s for, then the United States armed forces have a lot to learn from the Red Army, the Red Chinese Army, the Wehrmacht, and the hordes of Tamarlane and Genghis, clearly the greatest killing machines the world has ever known.[/quote]
The Huns, how could you forget Attila.
Or Tamerlan, the Timurid!
Skull pyramids, no less!
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Indeed. So which do you believe should be the primary purpose of an armed service?
To kill and destroy.
Oh, well, if that’s all it’s for, then the United States armed forces have a lot to learn from the Red Army, the Red Chinese Army, the Wehrmacht, and the hordes of Tamarlane and Genghis, clearly the greatest killing machines the world has ever known.[/quote]
Not really. The greatest killing machines may be far more restrained by their politicians and even the people.
In the end, the army doesn’t throw custer pies at the enemy.
[quote]orion wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Indeed. So which do you believe should be the primary purpose of an armed service?
To kill and destroy.
Oh, well, if that’s all it’s for, then the United States armed forces have a lot to learn from the Red Army, the Red Chinese Army, the Wehrmacht, and the hordes of Tamarlane and Genghis, clearly the greatest killing machines the world has ever known.
The Huns, how could you forget Attila.
Or Tamerlan, the Timurid!
Skull pyramids, no less!
[/quote]
But, it’s true? The things you folks keep coming back to is politics, ethics, and morality. And, unless we’re talking about a military dictatorship…
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
As for the Swiss Army. Who cares? It serves a purpose, I suppose, but it is the Swiss government, people, polity and good luck that we all admire. Can’t you see that we all agree?
We should care, Doc, if for nothing else to inspire us to wonder why we can’t cultivate in our own nation the kind of government, people, polity and good luck that is as worthy of admiration as that of the Swiss.
And that includes the army.[/quote]
Well said!
[quote]orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
And yet your greatest politicians where very much against a a standing army at all, and for very good reasons.
And in this regard, they were shortsighted. Not every country has the honor to bank the foreign Tyrant’s gold. Some have the unfortunate position of being the plundered.
I disagree, they were rather forgoing a short term advantage to keep a long term republic that would ensure their freedom:
[/quote]
That’s great. But then jets, missiles, aircraft carriers, nukes, rifles they might not even have imagined, came along.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
In the end, the army doesn’t throw custer pies at the enemy.[/quote]
You’re right. In the end, the army was trying to keep the enemy from turning Custer into a pie.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
As for the Swiss Army. Who cares? It serves a purpose, I suppose, but it is the Swiss government, people, polity and good luck that we all admire. Can’t you see that we all agree?
We should care, Doc, if for nothing else to inspire us to wonder why we can’t cultivate in our own nation the kind of government, people, polity and good luck that is as worthy of admiration as that of the Swiss.
And that includes the army.[/quote]
I, for example, know exactly why Austria has a militia system:
Because, less than 80 years ago, the army used howitzers on buildings where Austrian workers used to live in.
So the illusion that an Austrian professional army would not fire on Austrian citizens is something at least our social democrate politicians never cultivated.
Pictures are of the Schlingerhof, 21st district.
The Swiss army isn’t considered a standing army, by the way?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
And yet your greatest politicians where very much against a a standing army at all, and for very good reasons.
And in this regard, they were shortsighted. Not every country has the honor to bank the foreign Tyrant’s gold. Some have the unfortunate position of being the plundered.
I disagree, they were rather forgoing a short term advantage to keep a long term republic that would ensure their freedom:
That’s great. But then jets, missiles, aircraft carriers, nukes, rifles they might not even have imagined, came along.
[/quote]
But that does not change the reasons why they were against standing armies.
Or, as Eisenhower put it:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
emphasis mine
[quote]Sloth wrote:
The Swiss army isn’t considered a standing army, by the way?[/quote]
That depends on how you look at it.
They have a small cadre of professional soldiers, you also need to serve longer for more complex weapon system and they might have a National Guard system similar to Austria, but the point is that what you could call a “standing army” is dwarfed by the militia that could rise against it, almost equally well armed.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
The Swiss army isn’t considered a standing army, by the way?[/quote]
Only if you consider a professional cadre of 3500 instructors and staff officers, plus about 150 Swiss Guards, to be a “standing army.”
The rest are militia.
[quote]orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
The Swiss army isn’t considered a standing army, by the way?
That depends on how you look at it.
They have a small cadre of professional soldiers, you also need to serve longer for more complex weapon system and they might have a National Guard system similar to Austria, but the point is that what you could call a “standing army” is dwarfed by the militia that could rise against it, almost equally well armed.[/quote]
Damn it, Orion.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Sloth wrote:
The Swiss army isn’t considered a standing army, by the way?
Only if you consider a professional cadre of 3500 instructors and staff officers, plus about 150 Swiss Guards, to be a “standing army.”
The rest are militia.[/quote]
Conscripted soldiers are the militia? Sounds more like draftees.
[quote]orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
And yet your greatest politicians where very much against a a standing army at all, and for very good reasons.
And in this regard, they were shortsighted. Not every country has the honor to bank the foreign Tyrant’s gold. Some have the unfortunate position of being the plundered.
I disagree, they were rather forgoing a short term advantage to keep a long term republic that would ensure their freedom:
That’s great. But then jets, missiles, aircraft carriers, nukes, rifles they might not even have imagined, came along.
But that does not change the reasons why they were against standing armies.
Or, as Eisenhower put it:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
emphasis mine[/quote]
Ok. But ultimately, not opposed to a standing army.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
orion wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Sloth wrote:
See, this should have been a foreign policy discussion. And, not a “greatest army” discussion. That seems to be what you’re after.
Indeed. My main problem with the Dachshund’s earlier posts was his assertion that the Swiss Army was so great that Germany and its Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe couldn’t bear the thought of invading Switzerland. That’s out there with his assertion last fall that the U.S. vice president rules America.
I must be an intellectual giant, if the only way you feel you can deal with my arguments is by constant, unrelenting misrepresentation.
Hmmmmm…The Dachshund wrote on 12/31/2008:
All they (the Swiss Army) did was raising the cost of an (German) invasion to a point where it did not happen.
The crystal clear implication is that the Wehrmacht - the same army that marched to the outskirts of Moscow, engulfed all of France, occupied North Africa and most of eastern Europe and part of Asia - got out their slide rules and carefully calculated the dire circumstances that the Swiss Army would have put them in had they crossed the Alps and so Keitel said to Hitler, “Nein, nein, nein, wir bleiben zu müssen weg von der Schweizer! Das Blutvergießen sie auf uns nehmen, wird zu groß!”
Yeah, right.
I happen to think it had more to do along the lines that the Germans greatly appreciated the Swiss for safeguarding the gold dug from the mouths of Jews but then what do I know, I’m just a country boy who doesn’t believe that the vice-president rules America.[/quote]
I do not think that that holds any water, for if they had won the war, no “safeguarding” was needed, and when they had lost it, no “safeguarding” could help the Nazis elite.
Also, Switzerland also had a lot of Jewish money and Germany was in dire need of money.
They could have the country and the gold.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
And yet your greatest politicians where very much against a a standing army at all, and for very good reasons.
And in this regard, they were shortsighted. Not every country has the honor to bank the foreign Tyrant’s gold. Some have the unfortunate position of being the plundered.
I disagree, they were rather forgoing a short term advantage to keep a long term republic that would ensure their freedom:
That’s great. But then jets, missiles, aircraft carriers, nukes, rifles they might not even have imagined, came along.
But that does not change the reasons why they were against standing armies.
Or, as Eisenhower put it:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
emphasis mine
Ok. But ultimately, not opposed to a standing army.[/quote]
More like deeply worried that modern technology and the Sowjet threat made it necessary and aware of the grave dangers of such a development.
[quote]orion wrote:
Ok. But ultimately, not opposed to a standing army.
More like deeply worried that modern technology and the Sowjet threat made it necessary and aware of the grave dangers of such a development.
[/quote]
The same thing.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Ok. But ultimately, not opposed to a standing army.
More like deeply worried that modern technology and the Sowjet threat made it necessary and aware of the grave dangers of such a development.
The same thing.[/quote]
Not really, because if, because of technological advances, it becomes necessary to have a standing army, that has an even greater advantage when facing militias, because of its advanced weapon systems, the question of how to reign an army in and how to avoid constant warfare abroad to avoid facing domestic problems becomes even more pressing.
It is not that those question are answered, it is just that the answer your founders gave to a pressing problem is no longer applicable.
And, given the emotional identification a lot of American “conservatives” seem to have towards an Army worthy of an empire, your current system already has changed the attitudes of a lot of Americans, for better or worse.
.
