What is Victory

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jastayme3 RE:What is Victory 5/5/2004 1:15:58 PM

Victory is the fulfillment of the objective of one party as compared to the other party. In the Winter-war the Finns acheived their objective of reminding the Russians that they were not people to be fooled around with(Finlandization is a bad metaphor; Finland came out better than any of the other tag-along axis, it was hardly Finlandized). The Russians by contrast did not get security for Leningrad: in fact they placed a dangerous new enemy there in return for a few useless miles of snow. And they certainly did not win access to the North Atlantic trade via Scandinavia;that was conceivably their real motive, almost certainly in their thoughts. In other words the Finns won their objective, the Soviets didn't. Therefore the Finns "won".

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jastayme3 RE:What is Victory 5/5/2004 1:24:26 PM

In the "war on terror" I doubt there will be a definite end. At best we can hang on until terrorism becomes unfashionable. Sooner or later it will. And then a few generations after that it will become fashionable again. But that is our descendants problem Winning is coming through with the least amount of damage to indivdual citizens and our cultural infrastructure. You defeat lions by mounting their heads on the wall. You defeat termites by not having any in your house. Terrorists are more like termites than lions.

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jastayme3 RE:What is Victory 5/5/2004 1:25:58 PM

Terrorists are more like termites than lions Previous Comment ................................ better anology-locusts locusts are potentially deadly(cause famine) termites aren't

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SGTObvious Shaheed, Ipars 5/5/2004 1:44:32 PM

It translates as "martyr". Innocent enough. But "Stormtrooper" translates as "bad weather soldier". It is the Inner Meaning that is the problem, and the Inner meaning of Shaheed is the fundamentalist Jehadi. I am trying to say, when Future Arabs think of "Shaheed" (Also, Shahid) in the same way that Germans think of "Stormtrooper"- as a bad thing from an unfortunate, violent, and misguided time in history- the war will be won.

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ilpars RE:Shaheed, Ipars 5/5/2004 4:15:58 PM

In Turkey "Sehit" is a soldier or a police who died while defending his country. It is considered as the greatest honour to be a "Sehit". Of course fundementalists could have corrupted even such a sacred thing. In Turkish belief

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American Kafir RE:The necessity of AK; for Ilpars and Achernar 5/5/2004 5:52:29 PM

I really don't see myself as an extremist. We have neutron bombs, so there would not be any fallout. This arsenal is expensive to maintain, costs that are cut once the weapon is expended. We can have Grozny-level retaliations for terrorism without breaking any windows. We can kill terrorists and cut the budget simultaneously. And no, I would not nuke the United States to find a terrorist. The very framing of my statement suggests that this would be used in cases where the government of a nation is knowingly harboring a terrorist and refuses to extradite him or her. I'd call it "no better friend, no worse enemy" applied to the international arena. You should have heard my solution to the Moghadishu incident. I wanted the US to collect or destroy everyone ounce of food brought to Somalia, carpet bomb every agricultural area in Somalia with defoliants until anyone wishing to farm there would have to dig through at least a meter or two of plant killer, and set up a blockade to shoot down or sink anyone bringing food to Somalia bwecause they obviously didn't want it.

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American Kafir RE:What is Victory - AK 5/5/2004 6:01:24 PM

>>So you are saying that for example if a terrorist is hiding at USA, USA government should give himself 30 minutes to find him. If unsuccessful, nuke all of his cities. Did I get it right?<< No, you didn't. I'm talking about cases like when we knew the Taliban was keeping Osama Bin Laden safe and they refused to turn him over. In a war where the enemy (the terrorists) measures his victories with body counts, we must make his efforts seem insignificant.

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jastayme3 RE:Shaheed, Ipars 5/7/2004 3:23:08 PM

Actually, "stormtrooper" means soldier for assulting fortresses-for "storming" The first "stormtroopers" of WWI fought well and were justly honored in their time. Hitlers "stormtroopers" were thugs. Unfortunatly this was not the only time the Nazi's took something innocent and gave it bad connotations. The word "Fatherland" is another example of this. phenomenon. George Lucas' "stormtroopers" fulfill the role of Battlestar Gallactica's ceylons, or Tolkiens orks-providing something whose main purpose is for the heros to kill them.

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jastayme3 RE:What is Victory - AK 5/12/2004 1:01:01 PM

In a war where the enemy (the terrorists) measures his victories with body counts, we must make his efforts seem insignificant. ..................................... A. in most wars everybody at least partially measures victorys in body counts. Shakespeare's feeling of pity for the Frenchmen at Agincourt, for instance, is not obvious to most readers. B. we have already killed considerable numbers of terrorists. C. What is unusual is that the terrorists prize small trophies(sing songs, we just killed one marine after he killed twenty of us)or ill-earned ones(ain't it great we just killed a Israeli girl because we were afraid to face her big-brother).

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jastayme3 RE:What is Victory 9/15/2004 3:14:59 PM

Victory is the fulfillment of the objective of one party as compared to the other party. --------------------------------------------- On the other hand objectives may change, or may have been ambiguous to begin with. What was the object of WWI after the first year for instance. The first year it was a typical geopolitical colision of the type that Europe used to have every generation or two; the only difference was the force involved. After that it seemed to be more and more out of emotion with no clear idea. Yes Kaiser Bill wanted to be the top dog, but he didn't want it that much-and for that matter it was not necessarily so bad to let him be top dog for a while in the hope that they could get even next round. In any case did thrashing the Serbs constitute aggresion against the peace of Europe? And if it did wasn't 1914 enough and the rest of the war disproportionate? Those would certainly have been the arguments of the 18th century princes who saw nothing wrong with trading provinces like monopoly cards. The point is not whether the war should have been continued. The point is that the objectives changed quickly until the war became something beyond recogignition. How do you define victory then. You must remember that any given war is not a thing of itself like a board game-it can only be understood in context. And sometimes you still can't define victory.

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