Haiti (Catch all)

[Tom Kratman]

him -- but I may...

To return the thread from whence it came, I've been to Haiti, no desire to go back. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment on that topic.

I slurped at the Army trough a long time, so it's possible. More likely if you were a grunt, considerably less likely if you were SF, as the nearest I came to that was attachment or being co- / near-located. In either case, though, I'd be very surprised if we didn't know some of the same people, even if we have 10-15 years difference in entering service, which we might. I didn't enlist until 74.

Haitians...you know, I felt sorry for them. Even when they were (incompetently) trying to steal from us, I felt sorry for them. They, none of them, created the world into which they were born and, as Marc pointed out, to act any other way than they do, in that world, would be a kind of insanity.

[Ken White]

...if you were a grunt, considerably less likely if you were SF...In either case, though, I'd be very surprised if we didn't know some of the same people, even if we have 10-15 years difference in entering service, which we might. I didn't enlist until 74.

Both on the jobs, very probably on the knowing others but I retired in 77 with just a tad less than 28 years not counting my year plus of National Guard time before the active bit. Did the DAC thing for another 18 finally totally retired in 95 because I got tired of trying to keep each new General from embarrassing himself trying to reinvent wheels in two year tours...

...to act any other way than they do, in that world, would be a kind of insanity.

True. Little hope for much change IMO; we have to try and I'd love to be surprised. Rarely am.

[Tom Kratman]

Both on the jobs, very probably on the knowing others but I retired in 77 with just a tad less than 28 years not counting my year plus of National Guard time before the active bit. Did the DAC thing for another 18 finally totally retired in 95 because I got tired of trying to keep each new General from embarrassing himself trying to reinvent wheels in two year tours...True. Little hope for much change IMO; we have to try and I'd love to be surprised. Rarely am.

I think I saw a general invent a new type of wheel - that worked - precisely once. But reinventing the old type or creating square wheels? That calc would be X-1 where X equals all the generals I've known. Then again, I've only known a handful of generals that were worth much at all. And even one or two of that small slice had feet of clay.

[jmm99]

Do we focus, in this thread, on the "Harsh" or the "Haiti". I agree that Haiti should be the focus.

from David
The last few posts have developed a military discipline / legal issue that appeared amidst the comments on Haiti and the thread is now moving off topic. If the legal issue needs further comment I may create a new thread, or you can request one (no fee).

As you correctly note, the last part of the conversation has developed some "military discipline / legal issues"; but it also goes to training and education for combat, where the legal component should (but does not always) follow sound operational considerations. It also goes to military philosophy (which some may find as foreign as military music, military justice and military intelligence - and yes Virginia, all exist). And a lot more considerations that affect one eventual product, military law.

Haiti will disappear as a major item from our radar screen, but the issues (both operational and legal) which can arise in a host of "gray areas" will not. Many of those issues come to the fore when we have to deal with irregular combatants in our "small wars" of the present and the future. Many of these subjects are "touchy".

I have no idea where such a thread should go. IMO: Law Enforcement is not the place. I agree on the idea of a separate thread.

Regards

Mike

PS: Kratman, you ain't that scary. Consider what I have to confront each morning in the mirror. Now, Ken White is really scary and you don't need a visual for that. I did have to look up "overbearing putz" (as to "putz", which I find = fool, idiot); and that doesn't fit either.

[Tom Kratman]

Do we focus, in this thread, on the "Harsh" or the "Haiti". I agree that Haiti should be the focus.



As you correctly note, the last part of the conversation has developed some "military discipline / legal issues"; but it also goes to training and education for combat, where the legal component should (but does not always) follow sound operational considerations. It also goes to military philosophy (which some may find as foreign as military music, military justice and military intelligence - and yes Virginia, all exist). And a lot more considerations that affect one eventual product, military law.

Haiti will disappear as a major item from our radar screen, but the issues (both operational and legal) which can arise in a host of "gray areas" will not. Many of those issues come to the fore when we have to deal with irregular combatants in our "small wars" of the present and the future. Many of these subjects are "touchy".

I have no idea where such a thread should go. IMO: Law Enforcement is not the place. I agree on the idea of a separate thread.

Regards

Mike

PS: Kratman, you ain't that scary. Consider what I have to confront each morning in the mirror. Now, Ken White is really scary and you don't need a visual for that. I did have to look up "overbearing putz" (as to "putz", which I find = fool, idiot); and that doesn't fit either.

Putz may mean those, but in context (also more generally, as in the Yiddish saying: "Wann die putz steht, liegt die sinn in die Erde.") it means...err...male appendage. As for scary, leaving aside the somewhat odd eyes, and rather cynical outlook on life, I'm not, particularly. The person who coined it, and the group he coined it for, were fairly far left. Anybody military would be scary to them.

Addendum: The other thing they tend to find scary is that I write science fiction with right wing themes. Liberatianism, that sort will tolerate, because they don't take it seriously. Right wing, in the future when it's prophesied to be dead, is scary and heretical.

[marct]

Addendum: The other thing they tend to find scary is that I write science fiction with right wing themes. Liberatianism, that sort will tolerate, because they don't take it seriously. Right wing, in the future when it's prophesied to be dead, is scary and heretical.

Well, speaking as someone who actualy reads your science fiction and recommends it to my students and friends (), I hate to tell you, but it ain't "right wing" except by PC, parlour-pink Marxist standards . "Libertarian", maybe, although not Randite. Personally, I would classify the political message as "pragmatist" (then again, I'm part of the Old right wing on the [now defunct] conservative party of Canada ).

David, Mike and Tom; the conversation actually hasn't veered that much from the original reason for spinning off this thread. If we consider the initial posts that sparked the spin-off, they have everything to do with how warfare, and "peacekeeping", are construed in a legal, moral and philosophical sense. These conceptualizations get worked into training, ROEs, etc., etc. and then played out in real life.

When we look at a crisis humanitarian mission, such as the Haiti situation, we also have to consider how that is conceptualized in international relations. It is one of the few times when sovereignty is, de facto, abnegated for a limited time due to an Act of God (who in the post-Westphalian concept of Sovereignty is, after all, the source of sovereignty). And on that, somewhat arcane, note, i will return to my bottle of merlot.....

[Tom Kratman]

Well, speaking as someone who actualy reads your science fiction and recommends it to my students and friends, I hate to tell you, but it ain't "right wing" except by PC, parlour-pink Marxist standards . "Libertarian", maybe, although not Randite. Personally, I would classify the political message as "pragmatist" (then again, I'm part of the Old right wing on the [now defunct] conservative party of Canada.

David, Mike and Tom; the conversation actually hasn't veered that much from the original reason for spinning off this thread. If we consider the initial posts that sparked the spin-off, they have everything to do with how warfare, and "peacekeeping", are construed in a legal, moral and philosophical sense. These conceptualizations get worked into training, ROEs, etc., etc. and then played out in real life.

When we look at a crisis humanitarian mission, such as the Haiti situation, we also have to consider how that is conceptualized in international relations. It is one of the few times when sovereignty is, de facto, abnegated for a limited time due to an Act of God (who in the post-Westphalian concept of Sovereignty is, after all, the source of sovereignty). And on that, somewhat arcane, note, i will return to my bottle of merlot.....

So, if I understand it, you're the Viet Cong of the Anthropology field, then? Well, you and Alfredo Figueredo.

There are a number of illusions people have about the political spectrum and their place on it. One of those is optical in that if one is far enough left, everything to the right of center blurs together, while if one is far enough right, everything to the left of center blurs together. I am, and my books are, near as I can tell, right on the cusp of the right edge of the middle third and the left edge of the right third - more rightish in matters of foreign policy, more centrish in matters of domestic policy. Minarchist (no more government than you need...and no less, either), in any event.

Sovereignty...all right...yes...but. It's more a matter of fact, with legal and moral implications, than a matter of morality and law with practical implication. In a place like Haiti, with few of the attributes of sovereignty, anyway, and those weak, a natural disaster can take away what little factual attributes of sovereignty they have. Compare that, though, with a conceptual natural disaster (to the extent they aren't a continuing man-made disaster) in North Korea. A strong (albeit quite mad) central government, with a million man army in 20 corps, backed up by a militia of three and a half million, is still a LOT of sovereignty. The only natural disaster I can imagine that would negate that would be for that whole half of the penninsula to sink into the sea.