Yes, I'm good.Slow night on the forum...
I hope all are well...
T
Yes, I'm good.Slow night on the forum...
I hope all are well...
T
Is that how those are made? Isn't nature amazing?
Of course there are then the commanders who either cynically screwed up or favored their own interests over those of their troops. Stalin is on top (along with maybe Zhukhov) and myriad Nazi generals, as well as Mao. One can make a case for including both Petain and MacArthur (spend lives to enhance reputations and get more command responsibility). Montgomery made some inane decisions and optimistic, avoidable mistakes based on politics. So did Sir Arthur Harris. Curtis LeMay maybe did what he thought was necessary, but had a tin ear when it came to understanding how to achieve goals without maximum violence. I certainly agree that a good general has to be able to put aside some human reactions in order to be effective, but some people went way over the line. Frederick the Great's (he was enormously competent, even better than Napolean) "Forward, you dogs, do you want to live forever!" comes to mind--and all his wars were fought to enhance his power, not to defend anything.In the US this is 'Memorial Day' weekend. As with every holiday every store is offering their best sale ever, people party, and life goes on...
Except for who the holiday is named for and their families and friends who live with the loss of their loved ones. Right war or wrong one men and women have given their lives for a cause they may not even have understood.
Tree Tips a straw hat to them and wish the surviving family and friends comfort and a debt of gratitude for something I never had to face...
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.Benjamin Franklin was wrong, there are good wars and a bad peace. Would you really want to be living under Nazi rule for example?
You post is interesting and yes some 'peace' can be ugly.Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.
No one would like to be living under Saddam Hussein, either, but that didn't turn out as well. (Maybe in the end it will, but not so far.)
And no one (at least not anyone sane) would want to live under Stalin, but I think Patton's supposed suggestion to "continue right on through the Soviet Union" after Germany was defeated would have been a "problem" to say the least. Not living under Nazi rule actually led to Soviet rule in Eastern Europe and to Mao's misrule in China (with millions of deaths) and the Korean War. I wouldn't say World War II could have been prevented easily, but I will say that if Versailles had been handled differently, if the Depression hadn't led to militarism in Japan, things might have been different. The United States shunned the League of Nations. Peace is messy and uncertain, and sometimes isn't possible (Chamberlain was clearly wrong to allow Czechoslovakia to go under--he should have called Hitler's bluff, which given the fallout from World War I was politically very hard to do). But we can certainly try harder. World War II was really a continuation of World War I, which should have been prevented. There were no reasons for it other than nationalist jockeying and big power imperialist competition (the United States was no innocent here, especially in Latin America) and dynastic egos.
Unfortunately the world seems to be heading back toward competition instead of cooperation, and not only in American policy. Xi and Xyulo - wanted by criminal international court in The Hague are pushing very hard for "interests" that are very dubious. And as hateful as the Iranian regime is, containment is the only feasible option. If Iraq couldn't be effectively handled with a military solution, then Iran certainly cannot. Internally, Iran is pretty shaky, and the regime can't last forever.
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by demanding a SDM system that as far as I know still hasn't been built but the Berlin Wall (and the rest of the border fences) are mostly gone.
Tree, I googled "SDM system"
https://www.google.com/search?q=SDM+system&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
and did not find a definition that fits the context of that sentence. What do you mean by it? Just curious.
I'm old... Did the USSR break up or not???Wait! Did you mean SDI? Or SMD?
The combination of photographic background and CG foreground is very effective!I'm just eager to share this, it's a lovely new image
'inspired' by my poem Crucifixa, by Dazinbane on DeviantArt!
View attachment 592512
I'm just eager to share this, it's a lovely new image
'inspired' by my poem Crucifixa, by Dazinbane on DeviantArt!
View attachment 592512
Very nice! The depth of field also gives it a nice 3D quality. Nice realism.The combination of photographic background and CG foreground is very effective!
You post is interesting and yes some 'peace' can be ugly.
The end of WW I caused WW II which led to the Cold War. The US really won (militarily) the Viet Nam 'Tet Offensive' but lost the media war in the US. The North Viets couldn't believe how they had their asses kicked yet even Walter Cronkite reported they had won the war...
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by demanding a SDM system that as far as I know still hasn't been built but the Berlin Wall (and the rest of the border fences) are mostly gone.
Peace can often lead to strange wars...