Conversation

Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Replying to
@iwelsh
Anecdote. Friend was artillery in the 80s. NATO competitions. Germans were always #1: inhumanly precise. Canadians were usually #2. Brits #3. Americans were always last, but had such big guns they needed to only be sort of near-ish to the targets.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Anecdote #2: friend was manning a radar base. American green berets hit it in exercises and lose. American elite troops vs. Canadian troops who are 3rd line. And American fighter pilots are getting worse and worse from everything I hear. Etc...
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Americans basically lost in Iraq. Are losing in Afghanistan. Lost Vietnam. Only drew in Korea. Only won 91 Iraq, against a bunch of incompetents in bad equipment who sat their and let the Americans do what they wanted.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
But you can't tell this to Americans. They think their military is somehow the best in the world. No, it's shit for what you pay and only sort of works because you spend so much money on it.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Oh, and the Israeli army is crap. Absolute crud. Complete shit. People think it's good because they remember the Arab/Israeli wars. That army is long gone, the current one has been completely corrupted and made useless by being an occupation army.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Best troops in the world, probably? (not the best army, but best troops) -- Hezbollah. But most people can't admit or see that. This is also why Americans lose. They can't see their enemies clearly, and won't grant them their virtues. They want to think enemies suck.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Like Bin Landen. Evil? Sure. But very smart and a personally brave man. He wasn't a chicken hawk like Bush or Clinton Trump: he led troops from the front. Sure he died, but he accomplished much of what he wanted against a far more powerful enemy.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
If you can't respect the abilities of a man like Bin Laden (and separate them from his morality, which you should not respect), you are a blithering idiot and a fool and deserve to lose. But then, George Bush is an evil fucking war criminal AND a blithering incompetent.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
I suppose this all speaks of me in many ways. I have spent my life trying to cultivate clarity of vision. I am a failure in most ways. But what I wanted most, I have, mostly, gotten. Maybe I should have chosen something else (money, happiness, power, or something), but eh.
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Jonathan Korman
@miniver
Replying to
@iwelsh
There’s a very old wisdom myth I know where a couple of people accept the gift of divine clarity of vision from a magic talking animal, but the joke is on them: it turns out they were naked all along, and they get kicked out of paradise
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