Re: THE EYES OF A SOLDIER

Hiya folks,

>
>note, there is NO ROOM FOR PC BULLSHIT from a combat soldier's point of
>view.
>

I can understand that, sure.

But this list is not a war... (though it mimics it sometimes ;)

This list is a means for a group of people to chat about war gaming, and
other associated interests.

The operative word in that is not "war", it is "group" and "gaming".

The concerns people have are not really, I think, to do with being PC
all
the time about everything.  It would be DULL DULL DULL if everyone were
perfectly PC.  But there is a big difference between being PC all the
time
and being civil.

For example, the Australian "straightforwardness" mentioned recently is
often tempered with humour, and certainly rarely comes across with
malice.

Certain list members have a *long* established habit of speaking out
loudly
in ways that are often bigoted, racist, and clearly ignorant.  That
pisses
people off, and this isn't the forum for those sorts of attitudes,
BECAUSE
it pisses off the community (the list is, after all, what we make of
it...)

That sort of behaviour is SELFISH, because it detracts from the overall
quality of the list experience, and it drives people away.

Being a soldier is no excuse, particularly in an environment like this
one,
for being a jerk.

>
>as for bombing the  crap out of third world armies-some one must do it
>when they cross the line. 
>
>UN peacekeepers are a huge  bad joke. as are observers, and "police".	

Uh huh.

You know, Canada hasn't exactly been an active militarist nation over
the
past 50-odd years.  We've had troops "officially" actively participating
in
exactly 2 wars (The Gulf, back in '91, and currently in Afghanistan.

In all that time of not being particularly militaristic, over a hundred
"bad joke" Canadian soldiers have been killed, trying to protect
innocents/civilians in the middle of other people's wars, where we often
have *no* national interests.  Generally, they've done a pretty good job
at
the protecting, particularly given our governments' criminal neglect of
the
armed forces.

I'm really not trying to beat the Canuck drum here.  My point is that
statements like "UN peacekeepers are a huge bad joke." is just the sort
of
blanket statement that gets people going...  It is manifestly not true,
in
many cases.  Certainly it is true in others.  But if I said "American
soldiers are all shit" because there are examples throughout recent
history
of American soldiers performing poorly in battle or running away, for
whatever reason, you'd probably get annoyed, no?  And it isn't fair,
because there are also many examples of American soldiers performing
magnificently in battle.

In this case, the UN Peacekeeping system, the bureaucratic part of it
run
by the idiots at UN HQ is often very broken.  All kinds of stupid stuff
has
happened.  But all kinds of good stuff too.  And a LOT of very good
soldiers, mostly not American, have participated in some very successful
UN
operations.

Be that as it may, my real point here is that civility is a pretty good
operating principle for this list.

>
>DAWGIE wondering where all of this PC crap comes from. . . .
>

>From the oft-stated desire of people on the list to NOT be subjected to
the
repeated ignorant, racist and bigoted behaviour of certain members...

We know people have left because they are offended/bothered by
bigotry/racism on the list and by the flame wars that generates.  We
know
people have tried to join, and left again almost immediately after
seeing
anti-French or anti-whatever comments flying about.  Beth (IIRC)
commented
on this some time ago - about trying to convince friends to join the
list,
only to have them react in horror at the racist comments...

Certain members seem to feel that it is their right to be assholes. 
Other
members feel, I think quite fairly, that it is their right to comment on
and protest against this sort of behaviour.  The trouble is that when
people start to be jerks and others react to it, the list degenerates. 
And
then we have ANOTHER round of flaming...  Some of it is, I have to
admit, a
bit entertaining sometimes.   And certainly I'm not saying that everyone
should always be tip-toeing around trying not to cause offense.  There
is
*NOTHING* wrong with strongly held and strongly argued opinions.

There is certainly something wrong with TRYING to cause offense and
actively being an ass, though.	Like I said, it is selfish behaviour.
Selfish and childish attention-grabbing OR trying to stir the pot just
for
the sake of seeing the reactions (which is in itself extremely
immature).

Strongly held, strongly argued opinions do not preclude civility...

***************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca