Star Wars Quirks

@empireman:

Where I live would be the spot where the war will first start, So I would have the choices of being a slave or a part of a resistance group. I would choose to fight the evil commies.

same here…

You have to be really BIG government to do that……

@Amon:

@cyan:

@Petrucci08:

The indian Sepoy mutiny of 1857.

…. and if you stretched it enough i suppose you could call the reformation a civil war in the church  :-D

they forgot a lot of them without haveing to strech. like all the english civil wars and the glorious revolution. and they forgot the war where more americans died than any other war. (also happens to be the second modern war) the Civil War. (what a creative name) Does the Hungarian Revolution count as one and all the other minor communist revolts. Does Italian Renuifaction count as a civil war. because it just this one dude going around and forcing others to join the great italian cause. but someone said something about Greece. they did have a civil war right after world war I i think.

Greece had its civil war after WWII

the communists tried to seize power

the USA and UK backed up anticommunist forces which eventually win

very important event was closing the borders of Yugoslavia and Albania to Greece, that how Greek communists found themselves trapped
-it happened after the Tito-Stalin split

and the Greek communists were i think ideologicaly connected to Soviets

yeah i think that happened after both wars. first the brits and the french were dividing up Turkey and the Russians and Americans created the coldwar.

@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.

Wrath of Khan is not bad, but i prefer First Contact.The borg are scary and Borg Queen is the ultimate enemy!

As this has been posted with the authors permission, i guess that he will have a look at the forum to see how we react.

@El:

Aftermath of War: A Lesson from History
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Nick Robertson

…

On May 28, 1453, two of the greatest armies in the world ended an epic 52-day battle on the border of Europe and Asia. On one side the 100,000-man army of Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire and the forces of Islam were attempting to capture one of the world’s greatest cities — Constantinople (now Istanbul). On the other side, behind the supposedly impenetrable walls of the city, were the defensive forces of the west — the 10,000 man force led by Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI.

Well, i think the description here is over-exaggerated. Byzantine was kind of a “vassal” of the Ottomans for about 200 years at that stage. Its empire was the city. The city was historically and culturally great, but the number of citizens has been declining, from plague sweeping over it (AFAIR twice), from being raided by Venetians (who then imposed the “Latin Empire” and looted it thoroughly), and other internal struggles.
The forces of the “west” never were forces of west, they were forces of the east: non-catholic, greek instead of latin etc.

Dragases. The battle for Constantinople is considered one of the greatest and most important confrontations in history.

Constantinople was one of the most vital possessions of the Christian world. The city was the capital of the East Roman — or Byzantine — Empire ever since the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great selected it as his new capital in 324 AD. Constantinople was the gateway between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam.

It was vital as a symbol, and still had some meaning for trade, though Genoa and Venice were more important, using the Mediterranean Sea for trade (while Constntinople was important for land trade).

Though, Constantinople was a “buffer” between teh Latin Christianity and Islam. As long as it stood, the westerners cared not too much (except in the Reconquista (sp?)). After it fell, Islam found its way to the borders with the west.

The city rested by the Bosporus, a watery straight which was the most important artery of international trade. Trade ships from Venice, Genoa, England, France, and much of Europe traveled past Constantinople to the eastern Black Sea ports which connected the European continent to the major trade centers of India and China. The wealth that traveled on this route built the economic power of the Western world — a 15th century version of today’s globalization of trade.

The main shipping trade routes did not go through Constantinople anymore. It once was important for the city, true, but in 1450 it already had changed. It still had importance in the trade with the Black Sea (and thus, with part of the Rus), but it did not control the trade routes, as it did a few hundred years ago. The black eastern sea ports were not important for the trade with India/China after the Varangians had been defeated there, that trade went through Arabia.

As the battle for Constantinople began, the Ottomans unleashed man’s newest weapon, artillery, to breach the city’s massive walls. Shortly after the shocking breakthrough, the Ottomans accomplished what had been deemed impossible for over a millennium — the fall of Constantinople. There was horror and disbelief as the forces of Islam routed the Western army. Panic swept across Europe. The vital trade routes to the East were now under enemy control, and an alien army with strange beliefs threatened to march through Europe.

The “shocking breakthtough” was a small unguarded unclosed door called “Kerkaporta” or “Kerkoporta”. “alien army with strange beliefs”, well this is after the Crusades and Reconquista, the Europeans probably though they knew what would come.
A very emotional writing style all the way up to now, something that i feel inappropiate here.

Was this the end of the Western world? Quite the opposite. What seemed at the moment a knockout punch to Europe ended up causing great change. It literally forced the discovery of a new world.

the conclusion “forced” is discussable: “helped” would be better IMHO.

Constantinople had been Europe’s center for intellectual studies for centuries.

For centuries long past, when it finally fell. It was non-catholic, looted by catholics. Even then, it still had amassed a lot of historic valuable scripts and other things. Most that we know of the Ancient Greek had been saved by them. So, it was not hte center for studies, but a main archive, which the west didn’t care about to visit or use for its own good.

…Many who lived inside the city’s walls devoted their lives to studying and preserving history’s classical past. When the Ottomans conquered the city, many of these intellectuals fled to Italy. This flight from war was directly responsible for the acceleration of one of the most important periods in Europe’s history, the Renaissance.

Correct.

Classic ideas, locked inside the walls of Constantinople for centuries, broke free and spread out across Europe. Isolated city-states began to gradually dissolve. For the first time in history, nation states — like Spain and Portugal — emerged. The Renaissance brought Europe into an age of light after an age of darkness.

Not fully correct: Portugal and Spain (that is Catille and Aragon) existed for about 100 years by then. The Renaissance did not happen in nation states, but in the Italian city states.
I would not support this way of concluding that tghe fall of Byzantine lead to the rise of nation states. Not without further explanation that is.

Since Constantinople’s fall blocked overland trade routes to the spice markets of South and East Asia, the emerging nation states needed new routes to the riches of the East. The Great Age of Exploration began. Brave men such as Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Magellan circumnavigated the globe to find new routes across vast, unknown oceans. In the process they discovered the world — and many of its secrets, treasures and mysteries.

Notice that above it’s “trade ships”, why Constantinople is important, here it is overland trade routes. Again, memerging nation states are mentioned, which is discussable. The rest is correct to my knowledge.

…

i skipped the rest of that discussion, my only comment: far stretched :)
The only thing in common is the loss of a war. The important (for the west) fled of intellectuals and access to old sources and the change to the commerce system are not present in Iraq.

KILLING THEM MUHAHAHAHAHAHAH ^_^