Re: [SG] Hostages

From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
 
> --- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> > Yes and No.
> > Look at how they dealt "harshly" with francs-tireurs
> > in the contretemps
> > in 1870, and in Belgium in WW1.
 
> Uh, massacres stiffen American resolve, not weaken it.

That depends on how monolithic and homogenous your society is.
IMHO - and do mean my opinion - one of the USA's great strengths,
its cultural and sociological diversity, might be a weakness here.
The great majority of the populace may well just have their
resolve stiffened, the apathetic now becoming active resisters,
as happened to an extent in Vietnam.
But the USA is as tolerant of Kooks as the UK is of Eccentrics.
You *will* have a shrill few who will welcome Germans, or Martians
for that matter, with open arms. These few will either have to
be kept "out of the loop", or dealt with summarily: see below:
 
> > More likely, many of the "Minutemen" would have
> > expended their ammo on
> > unarmed German-Americans rather than duke it out
> > with armed invaders.

And knowing the Prussian Imperial Mindset, there's always the
Carthage Option. "make a desert, and call it peace". Just
ask the Armenians. Or (to my country's shame) the Tasmainian
Aboriginals. Go ask the carib Indians. Or visit the villages 
in France, Poland and the Ukraine where a spot of guerilla
activity led to a 100% massacre of ALL inhabitants, friendly or not.

The Republic of Korea troops in Vietnam appear to have found
the same tactic quite workable - don't do it once as an "object
lesson", it will just get the others mad. Keep on doing
it until everyone's so afraid they'll be "pacified", or the
area is completely depopulated - and don't care which it is.

All it requires is a complete lack of concience.
 
> The biggest thing that foreigners fail to comprehend
> about Americans is that you mistake natural
> peacableness with cowardice.

Natural peaceableness? This from the Full Metal Atkinson?

Now I haven't marked this "Off Topic" because in SG, it isn't.
What happens when you're dealing with a Guerilla War in SG?
When "civilian" is a category including the innocent, friends,
and enemies masquerading as the uninvolved?