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If you don't like Oliver Stone's take on American history then avoid Howard Zinn too. Both take the position that everything that has happened since Columbus landed on Hispaniola has been a series of one injustice after another.
Have to agree with Donnie although the Finns against the Russians in the Winter War is a pretty good one too.
The reason I won't get involved is defining the family is slippery at best. A family can in fact be different things to different cultures and even different things within subsets of a culture. It is a subject ripe to touch off a firestorm.
Cultural factors play a huge, even decisive role in whether nation-building can be successful.Many people seem to forget that terror has a role to play in war and deterring war. Our enemies should be so terrified of what we would do if they attack us that they essentially police themselves to avoid the consequences of not doing so. Yes, these consequences may even include the wholesale destruction of cities, farmland, and infrastructure.I put it this way: How did Rome finally end the Carthaginian threat?
But wasn't that reconstruction only after total destruction and eradication of the enemy? (something we have not done in either Iraq or Afghanistan)
In the case of post-war Japan and Germany it was. We have not tried it anywhere else.As regards Afghanistan and Iraq what we saw in both places was mission creep Somalia style. Once the initial mission was accomplished ( and Bush was right, it was) we had to find something else to justify our presence. In both countries we turned to nation-building.
Wow has this thread strayed from the original topic.My original point is that Iraq is better off now than before the war. The Iraqis have a chance to start over and make of t what they will. If they go down the same path they did with the Baathist's well then they risk the same thing happening again. I did not mean to start a divergence into a discussion of Just War Theory.The argument can be made, I have made it, that Afghanistan is a useless war. We achieved our objective in the first 90 days with the toppling of the Taliban and have been spinning our wheels there ever since because we are not ruthless enough to do what it would really take to reform Afghan society and culture. There is much more at work in Afghanistan than just Islam and the radicals it spawns. It is probably the closest thing to a criminal culture the world has ever seen and is so resistant to change that said change is almost impossible. To really change Afghanistan we would have to (to paraphrase) destroy the country in order to save it.
If Phid is correct in the roots of the problem and I suspect he is then let me say for the record that I absolutely meant no offense and tried to bend over backward to avoid causing such. If I did inadvertently cause offense I apologize as that was not my intent. That particular discussion did get heated but I though all parties did quite well at avoiding ad hominem/personal attacks. Apparently, I was wrong.Let once again tender heartfelt apologies for any offense caused.
I would argue that the point of the quote is not about books alone. Instead it is about anything.I think it is different way of restating the old cliche "that those that can do, those that can't teach."
According to Collins English Dictionary, a troll is : (computing, slang) a person who submits deliberately inflammatory articles to an internet discussionhttp://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/trollQuestions : - What to do when a global moderator is allowed to act as a troll ? - What to do when after requesting deletion of a user account, nothing happened ?
Has this happened?
I understand that JWT is more concerned with the reason fro war than the waging of it. I don't reject it entirely, I think JWT is a useful guide. I just think that ultimately the arbiter of why nations go to war and how they wage said war is perceived rational self-interest and not abstract metaphysics.While I admire pacifists for their adherence to their principles. I call them targets. I also think that pacifists are the most despicable of people as they will gladly enjoy the fruits provided by others defending them yet high-mindedly refuse to participate in that defense themselves. I am not talking about what God commands or does not command I am talking about what reality and the circumstances of life require. If all Christians are pacifists then our enemies will quickly overrun us and God's word can no longer be spread. Sorry, I just don't think God wants us to passively submit to violence done against us. If you think about it in some ways the Christian pacifists are just as bad as the Pharisees who condemned Christ because they are so dogmatic. Much as Jesus told us that God's laws are not absolutes and that Gentiles can also be christian and the Pharisees condemned him for that. Why would he want his commandment to love our neighbor to be absolute to the point that we even allow our neighbor to d us harm? It makes no sense and if there is one thing I am convinced of it is that Jesus had common sense.
It was roughly 25-30 feet distant. I hit it on my third try and was then pretty consistent after that. The problem from perspective is that Legos are pretty hard to break apart.The dog jumps like that every time I fire it. I have to keep her nearby or she will walk in front of it and get hit. I have not tried a dog biscuit yet. Once the current ice gae ends and I can get back outside I plan on shooting it some more.
