Happy Independence Day!

[slapout9]

Red Skelton and The Pledge of Allegiance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBTy...eature=related

[Pete]

On this date in 1863 Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Infantry made its epic stand on Little Round Top, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The action was celebrated in the Michael Shaara book The Killer Angels and in the Ted Turner film version of the book, Gettysburg.

My maternal grandfather lived in Maine while Chamberlain was still alive, and becase grandfather was politically prominent he may well have met Chamberlain a time or two. A business founded by my grandfather had its store in Bangor, Maine next to the Joshua L. Chamberlain Bridge over the Penobscot River.

My relatives at Gettysburg were on the Confederate side. General Lee stood next to a battery commanded by a collateral relative of mine in Poague's Battalion when he observed Pickett's Charge.

[Pete]

From William Faulkner:

"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it is the instant when it is still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen year old boy to think this time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago...."

[Pete]

General Lee stood next to a battery in Poague's Battalion commanded by a collateral relative of mine with my mother's maiden name, a distant cousin of mine, when he observed Pickett's Charge. Another relative of the same surname served in the "Bloody" 8th Virginia, the unit with the highest rate of casualties in Pickett's Charge. Yet another guy of the same family name died at Murfreesboro in 1862 as a company commander in the Confederate Kentucky Orphan Brigade. The war was real and it messed up a lot of peoples' lives, North and South.

[slapout9]

Johnny Cash-The Ragged Old Flag



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6vwXbQZvJo

[Pete]

If I recall correctly Lee said after Gettysburg that Pickett's Charge had not been properly supported, in that all Confederate elements had not synchronized their attacks to make them an overwhelming hammer blow on the Army of the Potomac. There was a postwar controversy about whether a North Carolina unit had attacked soon enough or gone far enough.

That having been said, AOP's artillery was very ably commanded by Gen. Henry J. Hunt, and the Field Artillery more than the Infantry was what destroyed Pickett's division. Same as the AOP's FA at Malvern Hill in 1862. During the 1890s a Coast Artillery fortification in Alexandria, Virginia was named for Gen. Hunt. In 1970 I graduated from Fort Hunt High School about a mile from the old fort.

During War II Fort Hunt was a secure facility for the interrogation of German submarine crews and other high-value German prisoners. When President GW Bush honored some of the surviving interrogators a few years ago they let him have it with both barrels on TV over "enhanced interrogation," which was not used at Fort Hunt. Jedburgh started a thread about it.

[Stan]

Happy 4th of July, Slap !

[davidbfpo]

I missed raising a glass to the rebellious colonials of long ago yesterday, so I offer this by a far more esteemed Brit, a David Cameron:

"If one of my predecessors had not screwed up, we would be fighting as one army."

Thus joshed the prime minister as he addressed British and American troops in Camp Bastion.

He was being rude about Lord North who presided over the loss of the colonies in the War of Independence, a war that is celebrated - at least in the US and certain parts of Afghanistan - on the fourth of July.

If you apologise for that, Mr Cameron told the Marine Corps, we will apologise for burning down the White House.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14024075

The title is my own. I for one am happy to apologise now.

[Bob's World]

David,

(My ancestors lived as British Citizens for some 130 years in the New World before becoming "Americans." Perhaps if the crown would have had the foresight to move the capital from "Old London" to some new location Washington might have a different name and this all indeed would have played out differently...)

There are tremendous lessons, still not fully appreciated in the COIN doctrine we continue to practice around the world, to be derived from the politics, pride and passion that led to the formation of America.

Yesterday we celebrated our Independence, today we get back to the dirty business of determining and shaping the outcomes of very similar quests for independence among a dozen nations and populaces, all unique yet all the same, struggling to find a future that they too can celebrate some day. Best we remember that people everywhere do not want to be America; they want to be like America, and that is a very different thing altogether. They want to share the opportunity to stand free as individuals from oppressive government at home, and free as a nation from excessive influence from abroad. Like us they will make mistakes and struggle for generations to get to what is right for them, and like us it will still be a messy work in progress forever. But it will be their mess, and that is an Independence worth celebrating.

[Tukhachevskii]

...any comments?

Tricked on the Fourth of July

Don't know much about the site (apparently a conspiracy theorist or some such). It reminded me of Revocation of Independance by John Cleese (alas, subsequently revealed to be a fake)

p.s. What Cameron said is about the only thing I like about 'im

[Dayuhan]

Yesterday we celebrated our Independence, today we get back to the dirty business of determining and shaping the outcomes of very similar quests for independence among a dozen nations and populaces, all unique yet all the same, struggling to find a future that they too can celebrate some day. Best we remember that people everywhere do not want to be America; they want to be like America, and that is a very different thing altogether.

Why would we assume that anyone fighting a government wants to be like America?

They want to share the opportunity to stand free as individuals from oppressive government at home, and free as a nation from excessive influence from abroad.

Again, we don't know that this is what all insurgents are fighting for. Sometimes they are fighting for power, for the ability to rule, hog the lion's share of whatever there is to have, and kick the stuffing out of the other faction/ethnicity/sect/whatever.

It is probably true that good governance is the ultimate solution to insurgency, but in practical tems that doesn't get us very far, because we cannot provide good governance to other countries. We may be able to install governments or to force people to revise constitutions, but that won't create good governance: people will still govern according to their own traditions and political culture. Their traditions and political culture may change over time, but we can't change them.

All this means to me is that we need to be very, very hesitant about mucking about in the way other countries are governed. If we absoluteley must do it, we should keep the objectives as limited, clear, and achievable as we can, which automatically excludes any idea of building nations, fixing economies, or installing good governance at gunpoint.