4x6 war table made for A&A up for sale

I use Mandom… what more needs to be said…?

I can’t wait for the day when 3-D printers are finally priced down to a reasonable consumer level so hobbyists can go nuts making their own sculpts.

@Jermofoot:

@Gargantua:

Call it Progress.

Call it Change.

Call it Reform.

Call it War.

Like rolling the dice in Axis and Allies, anything can happen and there are no garuntees; But if you don’t like the gameboard and you want to improve your control of “progress/change/reform/victory” for your side, you have to move your pieces in play to “take the chance” on better results.

What Peters is saying is that the Bush administration set the pieces in order to contribute to a possible “roll of the dice” in Egypt; and that some credit is deserved for this.

Anyways - want to know who I think deserves Credit? And like Deanin his time, I was lamblasted for saying had a “level of grace” about this process?

Mubarak.

Unlike Assad, or Ghaddafi, Mubarak saw the writing on the wall, knew what was at stake and basically resigned without a shot fired - all the while knowing he would likely face criminal proceedings. �You have to have some respect for that.

Call it dumb.

Some change.  Where is Egypt now?  In complete turmoil right now.  What an improvement.

@Gargantua:

What was wrong with the Iraq war again?

Sorry, I tuned out to the news on it for about 5 years… far away up here in Canada you know.

IMO, at the time, there was no significant justification for it.  It seemed pretty clear to me the motivation for it was not what was being sold to the American public, who ate it up anyway post WW2.  And the conflict of interest, cronyism and outright corruption involved in bidding contracts, infrastructure, supply, etc. just about makes me sick.  And hardly anyone even cared.  The public was duped and we are paying for our bamboozle.

Like politics, Sausage is ugly when made.

I wonder what the “world” said about the American Civil war during the 1860’s.  “It’s in complete turmoil right now”.

The “turmoil” in Egpyt is a piddlance in comparison to the turmoil in Syria… or what we saw in Libya.  Considering the players, the location, and the stakes, it is a fairly well moderated shift.  There aren’t 1000’s of people dying in the streets.

The “shift to what” is the question we should be asking.

Hey all,

I bought some t-shirst from the Zazzle ad on this site.  If you are interested they have 20% off t-shirst ending 31 DEC 08.

I thought some of you might like to know.

LT

@M36:

Speaking of Korea though, it is true that South Korea is an immensely prosperous nation, while North Korea languishes in poverty. South Korea became “Americanized” and now places that where once rice patties and dusty mountain roads are prosperous metropolises. ( I know this because my sister is serving in Korea with the Army engineers) Without our intervention, South Korea would have been conquered, and would be no better off than North Korea is under the heel of communism. The Korean conflict was one of our more noble military ventures.

Sure, military means money.  S. Vietnam had a huge jump in economy when we were there that mostly collapsed after we left.  It would happen no matter where we go.

However, the state of Korea today has less to do with them being dirty communists, and more with the disintegration of the USSR and a horrible famine during the 90’s.  They simply could not support themselves because their primary trading partner disappeared and was unable to supply what they needed, only to be subjected to a series of disastrous floods and drought.  Of course, it’s not helped by their military-oriented economic policy, but we do similar and still sustain ourselves (but we’ve got the goods).

But we took a number of casualties in Korea, was it worth that sacrifice of American lives? As a Marine I believe we are all expendable to accomplish our mission, but the call is yours. How many of us will you sacrifice to accomplish the objective? You should be willing to sacrifice all of us. That kind of resolve no longer exists in America.

Tough to say.  As an elite group of fighters, I wouldn’t send Marines in frivolously.  When it comes to Korea, we are exactly where we were after WW2 (except no skirmishes and such).  So did it do any good?  I guess so, primarily economically.  Are your lives worth promoting the economy of another country?  Are anyone’s?  Especially when that country actually competes with our own?

But here’s the thing: we installed an unpopular dictator in S. Korea that resigned.  A military coup followed that was just was tyrannical and ruthless.  It really goes unnoticed because the economy surged and we “saved” them from communism.  But I don’t think we accomplished all that much.

I’m not sure when or where you guys should be deployed.  Hopefully never, but that’s a pipe dream.

Yes i did a long search as well when i was debating that point and could not find anything about the second war-just 1991. He may not have much of an air force to move anyway at that time.

@El:

Another form of World Charity…
What happens to the world’s economy if all countries buy their own products where available, but elsewhere when necessary…

I think i didn’t totally understand that. You mean “buy their own even if moer expensive”, and only if that is not enough go and import?
I suppose so, so let’s look…

Canada buys its own lumber. The US buys Canadian lumber. Who is helped? Canadian limber industries. Who is hurt? US lumber industries.

Not right. Canada is the biggest exporter of lumber products (21.2%). They would be hurt if people did not buy from them. The US only has 11.1% of that market, they mainly sell their lumber in their country anyway. In contrast the 31 millions Canadians don’t use as much wood as the 275 million USies (per capita they are comparable). The US lumber industry would lose not as much as the Canadians. So…. you are wrong :)

Source: http://www.cofi.org/reports/factbook2000/Chapters from FACTBOOK 2000-Part I.pdf

The US buys its own Christmas decorations. China buys its own Christmas decorations. Who is helped? The US foofaraw industries. Who is hurt? Chinese prison wardens and sweatshops.

Well, does it hurt the chinese (who probably don’t have that big market for christmas deco)? They would put that work into something else. It would help the US industry though, taken that you USies import a cheap lot from China.

Japan buys its own computer chips. The US buys Japanese computer chips. Who is helped? Japanese tech industries. Who is hurt? US tech industries.

Why are they hurt? By what you say in the beginning the above means that there are no US chips available. How does that hurt the US, when there are none anyway?

The US buys its own wines and beer. France and Germany buy their own wines and beers. Who is helped? The US alcohol industries. Who is hurt? The French and Germany brewmeisters.

Do not forget the US customers here, who are hurt, and the german and french drinking people, who can be sure to get good beer and wine only and not fall into this mean “Budweiser”/“Budvar” trap….

Russia cannot afford to buy its own diamonds. The EU and US buy Russian diamonds. Who is helped? Russia, the EU and US. Who is hurt? Nobody.

“Can’t afford” kind of contradicts the term “available”. The EU and US, having no large diamond mines would buy russian/south african diamonds anyway. So, i don’t see why the real world and your model would differ here at all.

The US watches its own Whorelywood movies and TurpitudeVision. The EU watches Cannes movies and ?. Who is helped? France is better off because the youth of France no longer have American negative behavioural influence and the French language is saved from Anglicization. The US is better off because Whorelywood only has 30% of its original budget. This causes fewer movies to be made, but they are of better quality(otherwise, the good and great directors, producers, actors keep working, but Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Madonna and Julia Roberts are working as telephone solicitors in East LA.) Both the US and Europe find a strange thing happening… families are spending personal time together. Who is hurt? Canada has an influx of unemployed actors and Peter Jennings.

Don’t forget Australia who would suffer from that with unemployed actors… and i don’t think the quality for Hollywood movies would go up:
(1) Sean Penn is a great actor
(2) you would lose/have lost the services of Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, Elle Macpherson, Stephen Hopkins (dir), Errol Flynn (all Australia); Klaus Kinski, Johnny Weissmüller (!), Franka Potente, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang (dir), F.W. Murnau (dir), R. Fassbinder (dir), W. Wenders (dir), Billy Wilder (dir), Roland Emmerich (dir); Wolfgang Petersen (dir), E. Lubitsch (dir), Peter Lorre (all Germany, Austria)…

Now look at the movies never made or seen by you…
Casblanca (Lorre), Tarzan (Weissmüller), for Flynn see:
http://www.imdb.com/Name?Flynn,+Errol
No “Independance day”, no Godzilla (Emmerich), no “Patriot” and “Lethal Weapons” (Gibson), No “beautiful mind”, “Gladiator” (Crowe), no Nosferatu (Kinski, Fassbinder; Murnau), no Metropolis (Lang), no “M” (Lorre, Lang), no “Run, Lola, run” (Potente),
etc. etc. etc. etc.
and these are only two countries …

So, i guess the quality would be even worse :)

Mr. Ghoul, I think the Japanese started in China as far back as 1933. You are right as to why the US cut off her fuel supplies. You’re right that didn’t give the Japanese the right to attack in the minds of the US and according to their law. And that is probably the right position legally. However, how would the US react if her oil supply was threatened. Ahhhhh yes, if radical Islam swept across all the oil in the middle east and the world decided to shut of the oil to the US. How would the US react.

The only difference is the degree to which their arguments are valid. Both Japan in 1940 and the US in the last 5 years of done some bad stuff, broken internation law etc. Of course the rape of Nanking is orders of magnitude worse then anything the US has done since perhaps the Indian wars, even then it was spread out over centuries not weeks.

I believe the US had and has laws on her books not to sell weapons to countries at war that don’t involve the US. The US was not at war during WWII until Dec 8, 1941. Therefore it was illegal for the US to supply ANY weapons or war materials to any country at war during the period preceding Dec, 8 1941. The US doesn’t like syria selling weapons to Iraq now, why should they expect war time Germany to like the US selling weapons to England.

In fact, Germany had a legal right to stop and sink any ships entering the british home waters found to be carring war materials. But I digress on this law and history lesson.

BB