Still pathetic, punto .... granted, a little less so than Grenada, lol ..... sure there were a lot of arms around, however following the immediate repercussions of Ms Glaspie's invitation to him, Hussein never again used them outside his borders, and there was no indication that he intended to do so in the near or even medium future, as of september 2002 when the war-marketing campaign got under way
.. which was a campaign i'd have been more prepared to support, by the way, had it been conducted by wiser and less arrogant men ..... the great harm that was done here was not in the invasion and occupation alone, but in how it was done, in who participated in decision making, and in who dictated that their orders alone were sufficient
It is simply not on that the billions of the Rest of Us will rest easy with such power concentrated in so few hands .... the identical problem as with such weaponry in the hands of Hussein - absolutely identical .... those of you who identify with such powermongers, who perhaps fool yourself that you might have a degree of influence over it, you may like this situation, the Rest of Us are under no such illusion, and we do not
But back to der Dritte Reich [isn't the past so much easier, eh] - yes i think you are right on this, and GST wrong on that specific point - Speer says in his Inside biography much of the same, that while Germany had massive capacity it still hadn't been brought up to full wartime footing by the late 30s, and to an extent never was until it had been degraded substantially by allied bombing - some may find this surprising, but Speer makes a point of stressing that while Churchill asked of his people blood sweat and tears, promised them nothing but hard work and struggle for a long time, the nazis were nervous of doing anything of the sort, and permitted all kinds of luxuries and building for post-war celebrations et cetera .... Goering being the famous example of self-indulgence, but there were many more .... this was the core of Speer's war experience, actually, after he had been named ministre of armaments he had to break up cosy little fiefdoms within the system, to make it far more efficient than it had been .... he says it was a principal mistake of Hitler's, to lie to the people, tell them always that the war was going swimmingly, they were still being told this when russian shells were exploding around them in Berlin
Useful to remember maybe, that in this case the US, which had the overwhelmingly large industrial capacity of the allies, did not enter the war until the end of 1941, and had not much military effect until well into 1943 .... Stalingrad was the turning point, and it was a demonstration of russian industrial might, which had been built up from virtually nothing, shortly after being near wiped out
Rheinland - i think it is Shirer who says there was a supply of roughly six shells for each of the few guns the Wehrmacht had available, and officers had in their hands the order to withdraw on encounter of any significant resistance
Agreed on assistance to persian earthquake victims, thanks for mentioning it, i hadn't been watching the news ... my god, five thousands killed ..... yes it is an opportunity to demonstrate human solidarity, from the side of the mad mullahs it may be a way to save face while inviting in other nations, if any were so inclined already .... i would like to see a significant portion of [a greatly strengthened] canadian military being directed to such efforts, with transport and emergency gear ready to go at all times .... most of the necessary stuff is useful for support of combat operations anyway, and it is good training as well as excellent diplomacy, so why not
Got to go soon ..... Ish, 'old pup motor D4' - yeah they were great ... first machine i run was about a '48 TD9, started on gasoline and ran on diesel, no pup, same cylinders, they each had a spark plug as well as injector ... it took a bit of practise to get onto switching over from gasoline to diesel as you warmed it up, as that varied with temperature of course .... long-stroke old thing, lots of torque, hard to stall as it would give you warning .... well, best of the season to everybody, cheers all |
