Re: [HIST??] Culture shock

I think I'm going to have to agree with Beth.  An analysis of your
enemy that does nothing but denigrate that enemy would only
encourage your troops to underestimate your enemy.  Seems I
recall an American officer who underestimated his enemy, I
believe the quote was along the lines of "Could ride through
the Sioux nation with eighty men."  Underestimating your
enemy causes complacency and gets people killed. G.A.Custer
learned this the hard way.  

Roger Books

On 23-Jun-02 at 21:46, Control Robot (cqin@ee.ualberta.ca) wrote:
> Like I've said before, when people say "x are inflexible idiots", they
mean
> x are most likely to be inflexible idiots, not every single x is an
> inflexible idiot.  And frankly, if you go by historical precedent,
John A's
> "stereotypes" would be mostly right on that account.	And in any case
this
> description is a guide, not something that's expected to be followed
to the
> letter.  Having a guide for the enemy's possible behaviour certainly
would
> be better than nothing at all, or some silly useless guide that says
"the
> enemy are human beings just like you, and will show a great variety of
> different types of behaviour".  If any officer is dumb enough to think
the
> "stereotyped" description is a 100% accurate portrayal of the enemy
all the
> time, and always follows the guide to the letter, I suspect John A.
would