| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
 Posted - 11/22/2007 : 5:12:47 PM
|
Wow, Zombie. Just...wow. I hardly know where to begin. Well, OK, I'll start by reiterating why I left: things had gotten pretty ugly, I had crossed a line, and I proceeded to apologize to Ken. Things seemed cool, and I didn't see the point in stirring the pot further by continuing the argument. I had no idea that you had been sitting by the computer for four months, hanging on my every word. My bad. I'll certainly construct a reply over there, if it means that much to you.
For now, let me just point out that I was not the one who brought up Putin. My point was that both he and Bush are corrupt politicians, it's just that Putin is the head of a more totalitarian system. But people can read my remarks in context.
I dislike the QUOTE-post-QUOTE-post styles of reply because it leads to a fractured style of rhetoric, in which points can be broken down into something meaningless, as you did a few times in responding to my post, but OK, here goes.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by The Prankster
According to you, dissatisfaction with a war at home is going to cause us to lose. But what if the war is being badly handled? What are we supposed to do? Nothing, apparently.
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
The war was being badly handled at one point, and we did do something. We put General David Petraeus in charge and implemented an entire new strategy that has thus far seen a vast turnaround.
And what has been the radical Left's response to our progress in Iraq? Take your pick: label Petraeus a traitor, or deny progress is being made, or admit security has improved but claim the Surge has nothing to do with it, or admit the Surge is working but that political benchmarks (e.g., Iraqi oil revenue sharing) are the only worthy barometers, so the improving security situation really doesn't matter.
Like much of your post, this is an attempt to obsfucate my original point, which is a response to Greenhornet's statement about losing the "propaganda war". The issue here is that the people of America, Iraq, and the rest of the world need to be able to criticize their leaders when they screw up. If Bush, or any other leader, is doing a bad job, we have to be able to chastise him somehow, whether at the polls or in the media. If the entire edifice of the war falls apart because we point this out, it was a lousily designed war to begin with.
I think it "speaks volumes about you and your ability to think rationally" that you can't understand why people are cynical about Petraeus and the Surge. The fact that the administration takes four years to bring in someone who might possibly know what he's doing does not exactly inspire confidence. The fact that the "surge" involves bringing troops up to previous levels, which are still far below the levels initially recommended for the Iraq invasion, does not inspire confidence. The fact that the number of deaths have dropped might be sort of inspiring, if the math hadn't been shown to be so dodgy ([url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502466.html[/url]). But even if the numbers are 100% accurate, a slight, short-term improvement is not exactly cause to start proclaiming the war won.
The Bush administration has been mishandling the war. The fact that they've finally, grudgingly, changed strategies is not cause to suddenly start trusting them again.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
quote:
Literally any and every criticism of the current administration can be, and has been, spun as "undermining the troops" or "losing hearts and minds" or some such thing.
Here's a tip: if the war is really so fragile that it can be lost by criticism at home, maybe it's a poorly conceived war to begin with.
If opposition to a war forces a pull-out of troops before victory is achieved, of course political opposition can lead to defeat. If I persuade firefighters to lay down their hoses, am I not at least partially responsible for the house burning down?
Again, though, that's "Are you still beating your wife?" type logic. When is victory achieved? Originally, it was going to be no more than six months. The main military goal of deposing Saddam has long been achieved, yet the war isn't over. When is it over?
It honestly seems like the defenders of the Iraq conflict are never going to acknowledge defeat, ever. There's "wait and see" and then there's just "stalling for time". I think we've long passed the point where the Bush administration gets the benefit of the doubt, yet here we have people in this thread insisting that we're undermining the war that's been bungled from day one by criticizing it. Again...when CAN we criticize? What can we say?
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker quote:
Do you honestly think that WWII would have been lost if people had been critical of it at home?
Yes, Prankster, if there had been a groundswell of anti-war sentiment in 1944 leading citizens to vote FDR out of office and replace him with ar president bent on bowing to the Axis powers, that would have constituted a defeat. Similarly, if anti-war sentiment had inspired Congress to cut off all funding for the war effort, that, too, would have led to defeat. Surely you must understand this.
I understand that it's theoretically possible, but that's not what I was asking. I was asking whether mere dissent at home would have lost WWII. If the pre-1944 military operations would have gone differently. See below.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerquote:
More crucially, why do you think there wasn't any real criticism of America's involvement (after Pearl Harbour was bombed, that is)? It's because it was a noble cause, and one with real stakes and definite goals against powers that were roughly the U.S.'s equivalent in military might.
No, it was because the US was the one being attacked, pure and simple. Nobility of cause had nothing to do with it. When the Axis powers were somebody else's problem, Americans were all too eager to simply look the other way. Not that Americans were alone in their isolationism. When British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the appeasement accord with Hitler at Munich, he returned to largely roars of approval, not condemnation.
Again, you're trying to bury my point under a load of bushwa. WWII was a clearly, undeniably neccessary war. America was, as you say, attacked. It was clear who the aggressors were, what the stakes were, and what the goals were, and for that reason, the majority of American citizens stepped up to the plate and did what was needful. It was about as close to a "noble war" as you're ever going to get.
America was attacked on 9/11, too. Yet the fairly clear goals and stakes presented by that conflict (which prompted, momentarily, the same kind of singularity of purpose) had little to to with the Iraq war. That's why the American people have had more doubts and hesitations about this conflict. That's also why the international community, which jumped on board the bandwagon to Afghanistan without nearly as much hesitation, were reluctant to help out in Iraq. Some people believe the Iraq war was a bad idea from the start, some thought it could serve a purpose but was being undertaken for the wrong reasons, some thought it was a good idea but was bungled...and there are many shades of grey in between. But the fact that this war had to be "sold" and is such a PR exercise is a sign of bad faith on the part of the administration. Since this brings back a point I made in the original post, I'll jump ahead to it:
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerquote:
Back when the invasion was first launched, I mentioned that I thought a draft was inevitable. That was because I thought Bush was serious about winning the war. It quickly became clear that he wasn't serious, that he simply wasn't going to commit the troops neccessary to secure the country...
For the record, most people in the military don't want a draft either. An all-volunteer military is far more motivated and efficient.
Again, this has little to do with my point. A certain amount of troops were needed to secure Baghdad. This number of troops were not committed. That was a clear sign to me that Bush didn't take the war seriously, and saw it mostly as a PR exercise.
And that, right there, is my major criticism of this whole situation. If Bush didn't take the war seriously, why should America?
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerquote:
And indeed, as you point out, they were defeated pretty handily from a military perspective. You're correct in your assertion that these wars are "lost" in the hearts and minds of the people, but what you're not questioning is whether there was anything inevitable about that.
Again, in Vietnam we were not handily defeated. Nor have we been handily defeated in Iraq.
Go back and read my post again, please. I was saying that The Vietnamese were handily defeated from a military perspective.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerquote:
If Bush had "hit them hard" as you suggest--which I'm going to be charitable and assume would have meant sending enough troops to stabilize the country, as Shinsecki and co. suggested--there still would have been valid ethical criticisms of the war to be made, but at least the PR war and the actual military conflict would have been two separate animals.
The PR war can never be meaningfully separated from the blood-and-guts war.
I disagree. POLITICS and war are inextricable, sure. But that's not the same as "PR". Because actual military operations can be won or lost based on competence and planning; the PR war can only be won, in the long term, either through being in the right or by clamping down on free expression. THAT is my main point here: in any war, the truth will out eventually--the question is whether it outs before you win the actual military conflict and you lose your support at home.
The Iraq war was bungled militarily; the PR war thus would have been lost eventually no matter what.
I really, really dislike the constant implication (sometimes a straightforward proclamation) from the right that Americans (and the rest of the world) are too lazy and stupid to see a real threat in front of their faces, or want to see the bad guys win, and that's why they're "sabotaging" the war in Iraq. No, we're taking issue with the Bush administration's constant subterfuge and poor decision-making; it's not our fault that he's made a bigger deal out of his public image than of his military and political decisions. Every president has had critics and dissenters, and it didn't prevent them from occasionally doing something leaderlike. Bush doesn't seem to have anything but his image, which is why he's so hellbent on protecting it.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerquote:
By the way, that war I mentioned? The World one? Number Two? It took SIX YEARS--FOUR of them with AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT--and that was the greatest military conflict the world has ever seen. Amazing how we dispatched that one so efficiently, isn't it? Without a lot of politicians making excuses for why it was dragging on and on?
One reason for the "efficiency" of that war is that we openly targeted civilians. Allies deliberately killed millions of innocent men, women, and children. We carpet bombed whole cities. The firebombing of Tokyo alone may well have killed more Japanese than five years of war in Iraq have killed Iraqis. Ditto Dresden. And Berlin. Not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki; my, that was military efficiency at its finest, wasn't it?
Again, I'm trying to separate the moral issues from the tactical ones here. If, as you seem to be suggesting, wars have to be won by sheer brute force, taking no quarter, showing no mercy...shouldn't it then be a prerequisite to have the moral high ground, ultimately? If you're going to do terrible things, shouldn't it at least be in a good cause?
Of course, I happen to think that the atrocities committed in WWII weren't the actual cause of victory (Hiroshima and Nagasaki in particular--Japan had all but surrendered at that point) and that they represent a separate issue. But who knows? Woulda, coulda. The point is that it was a competently waged war, discrete from its morality, and it was over fast.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerIt also bears mentioning that in World War 2 (as in most other wars American has fought, including the Persian Gulf War), the enemy wore uniforms clearly distinguishing themselves as the enemy. It's much easier to kill an adversary who is essentially wearing a sign saying "Shoot me". In Iraq, by contrast, the enemy has not worn a uniform since the end of the kinetic phase of operations in 2003. Today the enemy dress like civilians. Today the enemy hides among civilians. And since our armed forces do not target civilians anymore, this affords the enemy an obvious advantage.
Well, yes, and that's a pretty strong indicator that maybe pure military force isn't going to solve the problem. Reforming Iraq, if it was ever possible, would require a whole series of political tools, diplomacy most definitely among them--but the administration picked up the hammer of military force and threw away the rest of the toolbox. That the military would perform admirably in defeating the Iraqi army was never in question. It was the nation-building part that Bush seemed to be ignoring during the run-up, which is where the criticism came from. That's why America needed more allies and credibility--which is where less duplicitous motives would have been helpful.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerRather than playing whack-a-mole as we were doing the first four years of the conflict, our forces have now shifted tactics by drying up reservoirs of insurgency support in Iraqi communities. You might want to call it winning hearts and minds.
Right, but again, the fact that Bush is just now, very grudgingly, realizing that he has to shift tactics, doesn't really speak highly of him, does it? And like I said, you can secure Baghdad all the live long day--that's still only the first step in nation-building, which the administration doesn't seem to have the first clue how to go about doing. Without proper nation-building, you just have American soldiers enforcing de facto martial law, which the Iraqis resent, which leads to more insurgents...it's a vicious cycle.
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerPut another way, if the Axis powers had ditched all their uniforms, masqueraded as civilians, and adopted the cowardly game of cat-and-mouse like the insurgents are doing now, they would not have been defeated by 1945. And if the Allies had decided that under no circumstances were they going to call in massive air strikes because civilians might get hurt, the enemy might never have been defeated.
The "ditch your uniforms and become insurgents" is the traditional tack of an army that's been defeated, or which was never up to its opponents in the first place, so it's hardly likely that a gigantic military machine like the Germans would do such a thing until they had nothing left to lose. Which, as it turned out, they did. ([url]http://canadafreepress.com/2005/rubin082005.htm[/url])
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhackerquote:
Why, it's almost as though, the more morally grey a war is, and the worse the intentions of the instigators, the harder it goes for them. Funny that.
Ah, I see... right makes might. So Lenin handily defeated a fledgling Russian democracy and established a dictatorship that ended up murdering tens of millions people. Nonetheless, he must have acted with only the noblest of intentions because he won, whereas Alexander Kerensky clearly must have been a monster on the order of the vilest neoconservative because his democratic coalition lost.
What? That's pretty clearly not what I was saying. If anything, I was arguing "Right makes Might". Of course the good guys don't always win, but a passionate belief in the rightness of what you're doing helps any war effort, and helps to explain why underdogs have a surprisingly good track record when it comes to major conflicts. Which is more or less what you're arguing with the "PR war" point...but my larger point is that the "PR war" is ALWAYS going to be undermined if your motives are dodgy, because people will eventually find out. It's certainly possible to sell people on an unjust war--some do it more effectively than others--but the easiest way to sell a war is to be right.
---
Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
 |
|
|
Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2007 : 8:23:59 PM
|
Look Prankster, engageing in propiganda DOES NOT MEAN kissing your leaders' butts, it means pointing out the ENEMY'S blunders and bad points. THE LEFT seems bound and determined to spread hate for the United States and have even praised the Muslim maniacs, do YOU think that's a good war policy? Don't you think that's aiding THE ENEMY'S propiganda efforts?
Why can't you understand that?
You seem like a reasonably inteligent guy, why do you think that free speach is being crushed? IT IS NOT. I know that a lot of Liberal fools think that the Constitution has been destroyed, but our rights are intact. The fact that you and everyone else can rag on President Bush, the war and the government WITHOUT CONSEQUINCES is proof of that.
Unlike past wars, you are in no danger of being drafted, you are not being asked (Or forced) to conserve, you are not asked to buy war bonds or collect scrap, and you are NOT INCONVIENIENCED IN THE SLIGHTEST.
So what's your problem?
And don't say that Bush went over Congresses heads to declare war, they GAVE HIM that option to protect their political butts.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
|
|
|
RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 04:39:22 AM
|
A quick flip to the dailyKos web site and you will see the Taliban described as a national liberation force. I guess that among the nut left, and actually much of the left, especially in Hollywood, hatred of Bush and the United States trumps a love for some basic human rights. They tend to see the Talaban as nice little liberals just like they are. They learn nothing. Remember when one of them visited Stalinist Russia and said "I have seen the future, and it works"?
rossM |
|
|
|
Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2007 : 2:26:00 PM
|
Greenhornet, you're all over the place. Please understand that "the left" is not a multiheaded monster with exactly the same opinions. More to the point, I think you're proving what Warden said about needing to understand what the liberal arguments actually are instead of responding to what you think they are. "Free speech is being crushed" is a parody of the complaints most people on the left have about the current situation, not an accurate appraisal.
There are, again, many different takes on the situation, but the general consensus--and I thought this was actually one of the few things the right and left could agree on--is that the US media has become shallow and lazy, focusing on non-issues while robotically repeating the conventional wisdom. The argument of many on the left is that the Bush administration has been good at exploiting this tendency to detract from many of its blunders and lies. There have been a lot of other specific issues with the media, including the extreme social pressure not to criticize in the two years or so since 9/11--but that's long since gone. This is a far more complex argument than you're making it out to be, as is the constitutional stuff.
I suspect what you're interpreting as "praise for the Taliban" is the more realistic acknowledgement that Islam is as varied a religion as Christianity, and that the political situation is incredibly complex, with lots of grey areas in terms of who's a friend and who's an enemy. I do know that RossM's claim that DailyKos describes the Taliban as a "national liberation force" was not supported by a search of the site. (Even though, with no further context, "National Liberation Force" seems like a relatively value-free description of the Taliban. It's how they see themselves, certainly. How does describing them that way equal supporting them?)
And I really don't think there are many on the left who think that the Muslim extremists are without "bad points". That's pretty ridiculous. Do you honestly think the dreaded feminazis and granola-eating anti-God-Squad are eager to cozy up to the Taliban? Seriously? Because it seems to me that the downside of Islamic fanaticism is something the vast majority of westerners can agree on, which is why we're not arguing about it. There's no quota of talking points that has to be met when discussing this stuff. If I criticize the blundering and lack of ethics of the Bush administration, how does that mean I want "the terrorists to win?" What I want is for American and western leadership to be competent and ethical. Conflating criticism of Bush and the Republicans with implicit support for the enemies of the west is one of the more loathsome tactics adopted by the right. I don't have to state my bone fides every single time I criticize the administration.
(However, for the record, I'm not an American. I MUST have a partisan agenda to destroy your country, right? Because attacking Bush is the same as attacking America. Or it could be that I like America and want it to succeed as a world leader, something that's undermined every time this corrupt administration turns the very real conflict against extremism into a series of political talking points to further its own ends.)
(I'll also say that I think pretty much any of the major presidential candidates--Democrat or Republican--are going to do a better job in the White House than Bush. It's not a partisan thing. It's a "Bush is a terrible, terrible president, and the right are a bunch of jerks for enabling him" thing.)
Anyway, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say the right keeps moving the goalposts for discussion. If I and every other liberal is to be personally held accountable for every criticism of Bush, no matter how harebrained, obviously we can't have a reasonable discussion.
---
Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
|
|
|
Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2007 : 2:46:16 PM
|
By the way, I also think it's telling that you expect me to fall in line with the war "because I'm not being inconvenienced". Did it occur to you that this is exactly why I have a problem with the war? Real wars demand sacrifice and have costs. The Iraq war has long term costs, but in the short term it's being treated like an abstract concept, which you can "support" by slapping a flag decal on your car. Hence my assertion that this is a PR stunt, not a real war.
This is exactly why I brought up WWII. America was asked to make sacrifices, and they did so, because it was actually for the greater good. Whereas Bush knows that asking people to sacrifice for the Iraq war would have turned them against it even faster than they already did. People are funny about prioritizing when they actually stand to lose something.
---
Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
|
|
|
Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2007 : 5:25:37 PM
|
[img]http://www.mydocsonline.com/pub/fredproggh/BabyJesusCry.jpg[/img]
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
|
|
|
RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 02:28:17 AM
|
| While the dailyKos admires the Islamic throat slitters and bus bombers, it posts articles like "A World Without Israel" in which the diarist waxes poetic about how wonderful a world it would be if Israel was annihilated. I don't yet see this kind of raw hatred among the actual Democratic candidates, but it is certainly a strong thread among the far left. This is not new for them. I remember reading praise for the Khmer Rogue in Cambodia as well. It wasn't until the U.S. withdrew that the real war there started, to the silence of the left. |
|
|
|
Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 2:42:18 PM
|
Some numbers are in:
[url="http://boxofficemojo.com/intl/spain/?yr=2007&wk=46&p=.htm"] Click here for box office totals.[/url]
It doesn't look good for Redacted.
It only came in at 26th...in Spain?!?!?!
Look at what was number 2.
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
|
|
|
Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 11/26/2007 : 08:01:13 AM
|
quote:
Originally posted by Capt. Nemo
Some numbers are in:
[url="http://boxofficemojo.com/intl/spain/?yr=2007&wk=46&p=.htm"] Click here for box office totals.[/url]
It doesn't look good for Redacted.
It only came in at 26th...in Spain?!?!?!
Look at what was number 2.
Damn, I didn't know it was on theatres already. I wouldn't expect it to become a major hit here, so far I've seen zero advertising and it has no big names on it, apart from De Palma himself.
On the other hand, there's ads for Lions for lambs everywhere, all of which feature Tom Cruise and Robert Redford prominently, which would explain for its #2. I still have to read a possitive reaction to the movie, though, and I don't mean by critics, but by the regular moviegoers who attend Spanish message boards.
What can I say? We're suckers for Hollywood stars here, nothing to do with politics this time.
|
Edited by - Neville on 11/26/2007 08:03:03 AM |
|
|
|
R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
|
|
Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 11/26/2007 : 10:24:53 AM
|
I have no love for Brian DePalma, by the way. I think he's pretty much a hack, and even his best movies usually could have been better if they were made by someone else, though I'll admit I haven't seen his "classic" earlier films. "Body Double" seems like a perfect example of a good script that I think DePalma ruined. I have fond memories of "The Untouchables", but that was when I was a kid--it probably doesn't seem as cool these days.
---
Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
|
|
|
Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 11/26/2007 : 11:48:51 AM
|
The style that makes De Palma's movies great is also what gets him in to trouble.
He likes to experiment with the camera WAY to much. He loves dutch angles, pans, circling around the table, and protracted POV shots.
This has led to some great scenes. Like in Scarface during the chain saw scene, it was nerve racking to see what was happening to Tony and yet down the street his friend was distracted by beutiful woman. Or in the Untouchables, the POV shot where your seeing what Malone's assassin sees before Malone pulls a shotgun was kind of riviting.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfRaR5aRW_c"]Click here to see the Scarface scene(violent)[/url]
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve3l_fuLpQo"]Click here to see Untouchables scene.[/url]
But you look at Casualties of War and you see the same techinque is used when someone tries to frag Michael J. Fox's character. And frankly, it just didn't work. It felt silly.
The best example of his artistic hubris was in the movie Blow Out. A rather uneven film. But the scene that always sticks with me is when John Travolta's character returns to his office and finds out that all of his audio tapes have been erased. During that scene, Depalma spun the camera around and around. I got dizzy just watching it. The problem with that bit of technique was that it MADE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. It didn't add to the story one bit.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neZ5CD1xSpY"]Click here to see that scene, it starts at the 4:25 sec mark[/url]
You can also argue bits and pieces here and there were out of touch. Like was in nessasary to have organ music in that Mars movie he made a few years back. And could he have done ANYTHING to tone down Cage's performance in Snake Eyes.
All and all, time has just passed him by. He may have been hot when he was more humble and his style was new. But now in the world or bullit time effects and shifting perspective cams, he's now passe'.
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
|
|
|
Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 11/26/2007 : 3:17:00 PM
|
Shoot me, but I think the quality of his output is no different than in earlier times. I mean, he's the guy who made the monumentally bad Bonfire of the vanities, then one of the best noirs of the 90s, Carlito's way.
I do agree it's his visual style that often gets him into trouble, but again, I'd rather watch a De Palma film than any other from the local theatres. These days 90% of the films out there look like made for TV.
Let's face it, nobody would remember Snake eyes or Mission to Mars if it wasn't for their occasional visual flair. |
|
|
|
Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 11/26/2007 : 4:16:28 PM
|
But the man has no finese. Which I pretty well sum up in my previous post.
Also, he has a lot in common with George Lucas in that he has no feel for what an audience might be thinking as there film plays out on screen.
Take for example that "audio tapes have been erased" scene. When I first saw Blow Out, that scene felt awkward because I didn't know what the heck was going on. It isn't until later that you realize that Travolta was grabbing random tapes and sticking them in tape players because he couldn't believe that they were all erased. And that someone had to of broken in to his office to do it. When I first saw it, just looked like a mad man running around the screen.
Also the endings to his films can be unsatisfying. In Snake Eyes, the story ends with Cage's life destoryed by the powers that be. In Bonfire of the Vanities, Hank's character is storied and then discarded by everyone that was involved with the scandel. In Carlito's Way, the character was ...well...I won't spoil that one. Let's just say, I didn't like it.
Low blow time.
Foy once said that Uwe Boll would be better respected if he had people that would pull him back from the bad movie pit every once in the while. I think De Palma is that sentiment incarnated. When Depalma has a good script and has a producer that will stand up to him, he turns out good work. Left to his own devices, Jabootu channels though him like [url="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/"]Pazuzu[/url].
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
Edited by - Capt. Nemo on 11/26/2007 9:21:13 PM |
|
|
|
zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 11/28/2007 : 12:24:46 AM
|
Prankster:
quote:
For now, let me just point out that I was not the one who brought up Putin.
No, but you were the one who compared Bush to Putin, a charge for which you have adduced not a single shred of evidence.
quote:
Like much of your post, this is an attempt to obsfucate my original point, which is a response to Greenhornet's statement about losing the "propaganda war".
"Obfuscate" seems to be one of your favorite words. You also accused me of obfuscation in the Iraq war thread, yet when challenged to provide a single salient example, you immediately changed the subject.
quote:
The issue here is that the people of America, Iraq, and the rest of the world need to be able to criticize their leaders when they screw up. If Bush, or any other leader, is doing a bad job, we have to be able to chastise him somehow, whether at the polls or in the media.
Last I checked, the First Amendment here in the United States was in full force.
quote:
If the entire edifice of the war falls apart because we point this out, it was a lousily designed war to begin with.
Voting leaders into office who are committed to defeat will lead invariably lead to defeat. The Democrats since 2004 have not been committed to fighting the war more effectively,they have been committed to a total pull-out.
quote:
I think it "speaks volumes about you and your ability to think rationally" that you can't understand why people are cynical about Petraeus and the Surge. The fact that the administration takes four years to bring in someone who might possibly know what he's doing does not exactly inspire confidence.
Yes, and in the other thread I specifically stated that Bush was an incompetent leader. (Remember?) In any event, Petraeus is the architect of the Surge, not Bush, and our efforts in Iraq now therefore must be viewed in that context.
quote:
The fact that the "surge" involves bringing troops up to previous levels, which are still far below the levels initially recommended for the Iraq invasion, does not inspire confidence.
In fairness, even if Bush had followed his dissenting generals' advice at the outset and deployed higher troop levels, we would very likely still be facing the same situation right now. What doomed the early success of Operation Iraqi Freedom was not an unwillingness to commit more troops, it was the unwillingness to apply counterinsurgency tactics.
quote:
The fact that the number of deaths have dropped might be sort of inspiring, if the math hadn't been shown to be so dodgy
Here are the numbers:
[url]http://icasualties.org/oif/[/url]
Coalition Deaths by Month Since 'Dec 06:
Dec-06 - 112
Jan-07 - 83
Feb 07 - 81
March 07 - 81
April 07 - 104
May 07 - 126
June 07 - 101
The first five months of '07 constituted the run-up to the Surge. Contrary to what many in the mass media would have people believe, the Surge was not yet under away, at least not in full force. The military at this time was involved in what are euphemistically referred to as shaping operations: going to ground, preparing the battlefield for the long war ahead.
The last of the troops Petraeus requested in January only finally arrived at the end of June. (They don't call the Pentagon "Fort Fumble" for nothing.) From July onward Petreaus was free at last to execute his proposed counterinsurgency plan. This is the net result:
July 07 - 78
Aug 07 - 84
Sept 07 - 65
October 07 - 38
November 07 - 34 (to date)
Coaliton casualties have dropped to a third of what they were a year ago. Bear in mind the context of these figures: there are more troops on the ground than there were a year ago, yet casualties are lower. Moreover, our troops now are no longer secure in the relative safety of their FOBs; they're on patrol, living among the Iraqis, and therefore putting themselves at much greater risk. Yet the drop in the death toll among Coalition forces has been dramatic.
But what about the Iraqis themselves? How have they been faring during the Surge? Here are the Iraq Security and Civilian fatalities since Dec. 06.
Dec 06 - 1752
Jan 07 - 1802
Feb 07 - 3014
Mar 07 - 2977
Apr 07 - 1821
May 07 - 1980
Jun 07 - 1345
July 07 - 1690
Aug 07 - 1674
Sep 07 - 848
Oct 07 - 679
Nov 07 - 505 (to date)
Now any person reading these numbers would agree that 505 dead in November is still 505 too many. The point isn't to claim victory. The point is that the decline in violence is real and not merely a game of smoke and mirrors. Anbar province is the greatest example of the Surge's success. Today, US soldiers in Anbar are no longer required to wear heavy body armor while on patrol. Even wearing helmets is becoming increasingly optional. That's not PR. That's the real deal.
quote:
The fact that they've finally, grudgingly, changed strategies is not cause to suddenly start trusting them again.
It is, however, cause to trust Petraeus.
quote:
It honestly seems like the defenders of the Iraq conflict are never going to acknowledge defeat, ever.
There is no evidence that we have been defeated. Saddam was defeated, the Iraqis elected a new government, wrote a new constitution, etc. Yes, the the insurgency constituted a devastating setback, but Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, and their cronies are all gone. General Sanchez has been given the boot, as well, and Petraeus is the man in charge. And Petraeus, at least at this juncture, is producing tangible results.
The danger now, not only to US forces but to Iraqis as well, is a resumption of sectarian hostilities. al-Qaeda in Iraq is done. The Baathists are history. No one at this point should be Pollyanish about Iraq's future prospects (certainly Petraeus is not) but neither is their cause for immediate pessimism.
Regarding my point about Pearl Harbor and US's entry in WW2, you state:
quote:
Again, you're trying to bury my point under a load of bushwa. WWII was a clearly, undeniably neccessary war. America was, as you say, attacked. It was clear who the aggressors were, what the stakes were, and what the goals were, and for that reason, the majority of American citizens stepped up to the plate and did what was needful. It was about as close to a "noble war" as you're ever going to get.
America was attacked on 9/11, too. Yet the fairly clear goals and stakes presented by that conflict (which prompted, momentarily, the same kind of singularity of purpose) had little to to with the Iraq war. That's why the American people have had more doubts and hesitations about this conflict.
First, you miss my point. WW2 was also a "noble war" when the French, British, and Poles were bearing the brunt of the conflict. Yet at that time most people in the US were steadfastly isolationist. Only when American blood was spilled did Americans collectively rise to the cause of defeating world fascism. It wasn't the nobility of the war which summoned US citizens to the banner, it was the fact that our side got whacked. The deaths of millions of Europeans meant next to nothing to your average Joe on the street until the first American navyman came home in a casket. Then came the cry for war.
Again, my Russian example. The Russians weren't passionate about defending their fledgling democracy. They were passionate about installing a communist dictatorship. The fact that people sometimes do not summon the enthusiasm to "fight the good fight" should not be taken as evidence that the cause itself is unjust. Nor does the outcome of a particular conflict vindicate the intentions of the victor. Lenin was evil. Kerensky was a former radical turned political reformer. Whose side won?
quote:
That's also why the international community, which jumped on board the bandwagon to Afghanistan without nearly as much hesitation, were reluctant to help out in Iraq.
Sorry to disappoint you, but even in Afghanistan the lion's share of the fighting has been done by the US, Canada, the Brits, and a smattering of eastern European countries. The remaining countries -- our so-called allies -- have dispatched token forces to Afghanistan with the specific understanding that they will not be forced to patrol any Taliban-controlled areas.
The bandwagon has turned out to be more of a Radio Flyer.
quote:
America was attacked on 9/11, too. Yet the fairly clear goals and stakes presented by that conflict (which prompted, momentarily, the same kind of singularity of purpose) had little to to with the Iraq war. That's why the American people have had more doubts and hesitations about this conflict.
Prankster, the majority of Americans supported the Iraq war when it began. The majority of Democrats voted for it. The doubts and hesitations you're espousing were initially only to be found in the fever swamps of the fringe Left and the isolationist Right. Mainstream support for the war has waned not because of ideological differences over the war but rather because it soon became clear that this wasn't going to be another quick-and-dirty Operation Desert Storm. Added is the fact that the mainstream media has turned into a constant drumbeat of defeat and despair. The progess we made in the war even before the Surge was largely ignored by the MSM; meanwhile, our failures and scandals have been inflated far out of proportion to their actual significance. More Americans probably know the name Lyndie England than know the name of any recent Medal of Honor recipient. Yet there are far more Paul Smiths and Jason Dunhams out there plugging away than there are Lyndie Englands.
quote:
A certain amount of troops were needed to secure Baghdad. This number of troops were not committed. That was a clear sign to me that Bush didn't take the war seriously, and saw it mostly as a PR exercise.
There were two camps in this debate, those in the Pentagon who believed that victory could be achieved with a smaller deployment and those who believed only larger numbers could achieve victory. While Bush's failure to heed the right people's advice reflects poorly on his judgement, it does not necessarily speak to his sincerity. Neville Chamberlain trusted Hitler to uphold the Treaty of Munich. Does that mean he was insincere about preventing a world war?
quote:
Go back and read my post again, please. I was saying that The Vietnamese were handily defeated from a military perspective.
Well, if you agree the US defeated the Vietnamese militarily, then what other conclusion can be drawn than it was anti-war movement that occasioned our defeat? We did lose Vietnam ultimately, right?
quote:
POLITICS and war are inextricable, sure. But that's not the same as "PR". Because actual military operations can be won or lost based on competence and planning; the PR war can only be won, in the long term, either through being in the right or by clamping down on free expression.
The problem here is you're pretending that critics of the war have been the truth tellers. I would have welcomed someone coming forward in 2004 and arguing for a Surge. But most crticism of the war has been neither constructive or honest. "Bush lied, people died", "No blood for oil", Halliburton conspiracy theories, and so forth. Not to mention the New York Times and other media outlet leaking all our top secret intelligence surveillance programs, like SWIFT, which even the New York Times admits was a legal program, yet they blew the whistle on it anyway.
Again, the most vocal critics of the war have opposed this conflict from the beginning not on the merits but because they despise Bush, plain and simple. Case in point:
quote:
No, we're taking issue with the Bush administration's constant subterfuge and poor decision-making; it's not our fault that he's made a bigger deal out of his public image than of his military and political decisions. Every president has had critics and dissenters, and it didn't prevent them from occasionally doing something leaderlike. Bush doesn't seem to have anything but his image, which is why he's so hellbent on protecting it.
What on earth are you talking about? Bush is probably the least image-conscious leader I've seen in my lifetime. Outside of his State of the Union speeches, he rarely addresses the nation. He genuinely doesn't seem to care what people think of him. Consequently, he never launches into ad hominem attacks on his opponents. He never plays "pass the buck". (Count me the number of times he's blamed 9-11 on Clinton or Tenet or badmouthed anyone on his staff, even if they deserved it, in order to avoid the perception of any tarnish upon his own so-called image. Answer: Zero. If only some of our former presidents could be as civil in their public discourse. (Carter *cough*).
George W. Bush... obsessed with his own legacy? Worshipping at the altar of his public image? You're railing against an image of Bush which doesn't exist.
With regard to my points on how WW2 was fought:
quote:
Again, I'm trying to separate the moral issues from the tactical ones here. If, as you seem to be suggesting, wars have to be won by sheer brute force, taking no quarter, showing no mercy...shouldn't it then be a prerequisite to have the moral high ground, ultimately? If you're going to do terrible things, shouldn't it at least be in a good cause?
No, Prankster. You argued that the reason we won WW2 so "efficiently" was... well, actually you never explained why you thought that. You just assumed it.
Read my posts again, specifically the one I made to Warden. I argued that the prosecution of WW2 was as rife with incompetence as any other war in history.
Also, I am not endorsing brutal tactics. I am grateful that our soldiers in the WOT make every effort to minimalize casualties to civilians. But the trade-off to this approach is that military progress only becomes that much slower. It's easier to call in an airstrike and take out a building than it is to send in troops to secure the building one floor, one apartment, one room at a time, and evacuate innocent civilians. The second approach requires time, patience, and fortitude, and virtually guarantees that many Coalition soldiers will die in ambushes, booby traps, and firefights. The airstrike approach keeps your soldiers out of harm's way and requires no greater effort than making a radio call and pushing a button.
Did you know that before the battle of Fallujah our forces dropped leaflets on the city, warning them that we were going to invade and that civilians should evacuate? By doing so, we saved tens of thousands of lives. But by the same token, such humane tactics inevitably protracted the larger war, because naturally by announcing the attack in advance we enabled people like al Zarqawi to make good their escape. We saved lives at the expense of prolonging the war.
You seem to have this bizarre notion that the success of a war depends on how quickly it's concluded, not by the amount of casualties it creates. 72 million people were killed in WW2, including 400,000 US soldiers and 450,000 British. Yet in your mind that constitutes a stunning success.
quote:
Of course, I happen to think that the atrocities committed in WWII weren't the actual cause of victory (Hiroshima and Nagasaki in particular--Japan had all but surrendered at that point)...
Again, you duck and sidestep my examples of the bombing of Tokyo, Berlin, and Dresden. Regardless of whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary, the firebombing of Tokyo almost certainly was. And to the best of my knowledge and recollection, Japan never approached the US with an agreement of unconditional surrender. If they did, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would never have been necessary. (The Japanese were secretly talking surrender with Stalin, but Truman's White House wasn't supposed to know about those negotiations.
quote:
The point is that it was a competently waged war, discrete from its morality, and it was over fast.
Right. Words like SNAFU and FUBAR are clearly Bush-era terms.
In reality, the history of WW2 is a history of screw-ups and bad judgement calls sprinkled with moments of inspired leadership and planning. So goes with all of America's wars, and probably every major conflict in history. The Iraq war is no exception.
In any event, you've attempt to circumvent my point about fighting a conventional war versus waging a counterinsurgency. If from 1941 on the war against the Axis powers involved fighting terrorists camouflaged as civilians (in this case, millions of terrorists, given the size of the enemy back then), we never could have defeated them by the 1945 "deadline".
quote:
Reforming Iraq, if it was ever possible, would require a whole series of political tools, diplomacy most definitely among them--but the administration picked up the hammer of military force and threw away the rest of the toolbox. That the military would perform admirably in defeating the Iraqi army was never in question. It was the nation-building part that Bush seemed to be ignoring during the run-up, which is where the criticism came from. That's why America needed more allies and credibility--which is where less duplicitous motives would have been helpful.
We're in agreement that the post-war planning was shortsighted. In retrospect, though, I fail to see where having more allies on our side would have made much difference. Five hundred thousand troops employing conventional war tactics against a dug-in insurgency would have proved no more effective than a fighting force of half that number making the same mistakes. The Sunnis didn't turn against us and boycott the Iraqi elections because the French weren't there to supervise.
quote:
And like I said, you can secure Baghdad all the live long day--that's still only the first step in nation-building, which the administration doesn't seem to have the first clue how to go about doing. Without proper nation-building, you just have American soldiers enforcing de facto martial law, which the Iraqis resent, which leads to more insurgents...it's a vicious cycle.
Your perception of the war is severely misguided. Our armed forces are not merely patrolling the streets of Baghdad and shooting things. They are working with communities and local leaders, and that includes the sheiks, and have been doing so for quite some time. In fact, many Iraqis trust us more than they trust each other. They see the Coalition as being honest brokers in their sectarian conflicts. Which is nice, but in order for the war to end more quickly, they have to start trusting each other.
quote:
The "ditch your uniforms and become insurgents" is the traditional tack of an army that's been defeated, or which was never up to its opponents in the first place, so it's hardly likely that a gigantic military machine like the Germans would do such a thing until they had nothing left to lose.
The kinetic phase of the war ended in three weeks. The conventional Iraqi army was defeated handily. So your argument comparing the defeat of the conventional German army versus the conventional Iraqi army doesn't hold water. We did beat Saddam's forces swiftly and efficiently. It's the insurgency we're fighting now, and insurgencies by definition are infinitely more difficult to irradicate.
Today's insurgency is larger, better financed, and far more brutal than the Werwolf brigades of post-war Germany. And even the paltry insurgency in that case took two years to defeat (which means, all totalled, it took the Allies six years to defeat the Germans, not three or four as you seem so willing to assert. With that in mind, March 2008 marks the beginning the fifth year of combat operations in Iraq. So maybe we're ahead of schedule...)
And now we come to the ROTFLMFAO part of your argument.
First you said:
quote:
Why, it's almost as though, the more morally grey a war is, and the worse the intentions of the instigators, the harder it goes for them. Funny that.
I countered:
"Ah, I see... right makes might."
You replied:
quote:
What? That's pretty clearly not what I was saying. If anything, I was arguing "Right makes Might".
You can't make this stuff up, folks.
quote:
Of course the good guys don't always win, but a passionate belief in the rightness of what you're doing helps any war effort, and helps to explain why underdogs have a surprisingly good track record when it comes to major conflicts.
And our troops passionately believe in the rightness of what they're doing, so I fail to see your point. Morale in our armed forces is extremely high. The ones taking the war the hardest are the National Guards and reservists; the Marines and Army guys are used to being away from home for long periods of time.)
|
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Forum Locked
Topic Locked