Political Correctness Strikes Again!

According to Fox News, the time table for Military Strikes by the United States will consider not attacking during the month of November, due to it being the Islamic Holy Month of Rahmadon(hope i spelled that right), so we wont offend our Arab allies. So now we conduct Military Operations around religious holidays. ( I know we stopped strikes against Iraq a couple of years ago because of this, just chalked it up to that idiot Clinton. ) This is pathetic. I bet George Patton is spinning around in his grave. I say again, political correctness will be our downfall. Rights must be upheld, i agree to that, but right now the only rights i give a [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color] about are the rights of the citizens of the USA. Terrorism is a world problem, but that problem came to our country, attacked us, killed our own. Its time to stop discussing this and act more than we have. Yes, we have freezed assets, arrested people, and foiled numerous other terrorists plots, that is fine and good. Bin Laden and the Taliban are still free and giving us the good old finger. That tickes me off.

[Waterdog]

Yup, pure horse [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color]!

Waterdog

[TMoney]

B9MM, don't worry about the spelling; if it ticks them off, let them eat bacon.
I believe we should try to be sensitive to other folks - call it respectful, if you like. But if misspelling rhslsmdsadon, will get me on the right [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color] list, that's fine with me.
They need to grow up and smell the napalm.

[Dennis]

International relations is distasteful business and, in some cases, there's no way to win.

1) If we do what it takes to have allies, we are considered by some to be weak and "politically correct."

2) If we do what it takes to do the job ourselves, we are damned for trying to be "the world's policeman."

Frankly, I prefer a reasonable attempt at #1 (above). It reduces the number of young Americans who must withstand the rigors of military service and run the risk of serious injury or death.

We can spread around the problem-solving - there are enough problems for other nations to help share the workload. And breaks in conflict because of holidays is not unheard of.

I believe in both World Wars fighting on many battlefields in Europe came to a standstill for some holidays. My neighbor, who fought across France and Germany in WWII, said Americans and Germans even swapped cigarettes on Christmas - then went back to killing each other the next day.

If easing off during Ramadan (I don't know how it's spelled either) separates possible enemies and strengthens our allied forces, that means a few less American casualties in achieving our goals.

Achieving our goals with fewer Americans losing family members is a policy I can support.

[Tom B]

I just completed a rant at Glocktalk about this delay issue and was called bad names as I dare to second guess King George W so all I will say is I think the longer we continue to wait the more American civilians we put at risk of more attacks. Our enemy sees delay as a sign of weakness.

[JCOJR]

It probably will not be long now. Check the position of the troops (about a third of the way down in the article).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1580563.stm

Let's Roll

[MAURICE]

anyone remember a little holiday in the 'nam called tet?

[EnochGale]

Remember the Yom Kippur War of 1973?

[scud]

New strategy from afganastan taken from the desk of Usamah bin Ladin:

Things to do today:

1. Make more holy day's, 365 of them a year.
2. Open up overpriced convenience stores to ruin american economy
3. Visit that sweet looking camel in Amad's tent.....

[Jay Baker]

Dennis, I'm a bit skeptical about your neighbor claiming that the GIs quit fighting on Christmas Day, in both WW1 and WW2, to swap gifts with the Krauts.

The U.S. really was not in the fighting of WW1 until 1918, and the armistice was signed 11 hour/11/11/1918, before Christmas. So the Yanks could not possibly have been handing gifts to the soldiers of Kaiser Bill. (Maybe some Brits and allies did it, before then????)

In WW2, we were not in France until 1944, and in late Dec., 1944, the Battle of the Bulge happened at Christmas time. One of my uncles, 504/101 Div., Abn., was killed there. I don't
think he was handing out Hershey bars and Doublemint chewing gum to the Krauts. And, I seriously doubt that the other GIs were handing out cigarettes and chewing gum and Snickers to the Krauts at that time, either.

We were in Italy in 1943. Did it happen there at Christmas?? I'd like some verification of that.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Strange things happen. J.B.

[Zundfolge]

There's a big difference between political correctness and diplomacy.

This sounds more like diplomacy (not with Bin Laden or the Taliban, but with the Saudis, Jordan and other Islamic countries on our side)

The diplomacy you mentioned has us, The USA, dancing around other countries agendas. What is wrong with this picture. We now are going to fight this as a Cold War rather than a Shooting War according to the latest statement i heard our beloved Sec. of Defense saying. That is because of this crap of building a base of allies. We now have to do things their way so we wont offend them, which is horse [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color]. I am slowly losing faith in our President, whom i voted for. I thought he had balls, guess not. Bush talked a good talk before Congress, but i dont think he can walk the walk. As for Congress, it back to business as usual. People will forget about this, and when and if we do ever strike, public opinion will go down and the peaceniks will come out of the wood work. I wonder what would have already happened if JFK, Ike, or FDR were in office today. And no, i am not a person who wants to see bombs dropping just to get off on a lets get them trip. I just want a solid, military response to this act of war, and stop this coallition [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color]. If i remember right, the act of was was on our property. As i have said before, political correctness will be our downfall. Look around, and you will see, unless you have your head stuck in the sand.

[hube1236]

Diplomacy, "laying off".

September 11 was a holiday for somebody in this country too. I am glad we did not decide to indict Tojo.

I am starting to agree with the Isrealies and thinking that this bedding down with the Arabs is really going to cause us more grief. But, we have already let them bunker in, what is another month of centralizing arms and defenses and decentralizing terroist forces going to do? :barf:

[Hal]

anyone remember a little holiday in the 'nam called tet?

Yes. More to the point though, is how many of *them*(terrorists) remember what happened?

[ninenot]

Mr. Baker is correct. The Christmas 'truce' was between combatants--at that time, Germans and British, during WWI. The Second World War brought no such relief. By that time, the old 'rules of war' which were quite chivalristic had disappeared in favor of the 'total war' concept. This degradation was paralleled by the treatment of POW's, which was horrible (by the Axis powers, and later by the N.Vietnamese.) Like it or not, these changes are elements which also parallel the "de-Christianization" of Western society--and are simply an extension of the philosophy of non-Western (non-Judaeo-Christian) societies

[Skorzeny]

Disagree. It has very little to do with "Christianization" or "de-Christianization."

If you read "A History of Warfare" by Keegan, you'll realize that "warfare of annihilation" culture of the Western Europe was what made Europeans the masters over cultures that emphasized "ritualistic warfare." No matter how "superior" the gunpower technology, European colonialists could not have overcome the foes who hugely outnumbered them. What gave them the advantage was that while they fought wars for "keeps," many cultures they ran into were still engaging in ritual warfare (like "flower" wars of the Aztecs).

The notion of "rules of war" is a 17th Century European (not necessarily Christian) construct. What made that possible was what Clausewitz later described as the Trinity of Warfare (nation, army, people). Singularly, "rule of war" came about when the nation-state (as opposed to tribes, groups or races) became the sole "legitimate" possessor of the means of organized violence.

Meaning, wars were quarrels between princes - "mon cousines and, as such, rules were drawn up to isolate the combatants from the civilians (by the same token, civilians were to accept whoever the possessor of the land was after such quarrels were settled).

The onset of nationalism was what began to erode the "rules of war," not "de-Christianization." Nationalism made it possible for civilians to treat occupiers as enemy (rather than a new master) and as such to be resisted. Of course, when the distinction between combatants and non-combatants began to blurr, other "rules of war" construct began to erode as well.

Check out Martain van Creveld's "Transformation of War."