Re: [GZG] Dear John

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 5:55 PM, Enzo de Ianni <enzodeianni@tiscali.it>
wrote:

>>It's an active resistance.
>
> No, John, it is not a military operation like the guy that shot a t
> your colleagues patrolling the roads in Iraq, OK? It is a VERY
> DIFFERENT KIND OF OPERATION. If you think that spy operations and
> subtraction of industrial secret items are your job you are a confused
man.
> If you think that information subtraction or homicide of an
> individual is a military operation you are in a branch very different
> than the one I served.

There's a confusion on your part as well--counterinsurgency and
insurgency tend to transcend traditional (conventional) delinations
between what is or isn't a military operation.	cf. Phoenix, which was
an early "interagency" operation that mixed detailed intelligence
gathering with both paramilitary and military assets which actually
targetted specific individuals.

And yes, I have rolled into a village and kicked open a door to arrest
a single individual.  Would have shot him had he realized what was
going on in time to effectively fight back before getting cuffed and
stuffed.

> For example, the kind made by the Viet Minh (yes, I know it was the
> party, not the name of the army) or FRELIMO and UNITA; "FRELIMO and
> UNITA" were NOT different from PAVN... both had not a defined,
> protected territory that could not be invaded but controlled parts of

Actually, PAVN had a defined, protected territory that could not be
invaded.  It was called alternately the DRV or SRV depending on year.
Do some basic research and understand what I'm talking about before
you make more of an ass of yourself than necessary.

> By the way, I like to work with what I studied and remember, not what
> I can reap through the Net. I am old fashioned.

Double-checking your facts rather than running off your glaringly
fallible memory would save you from looking like an ass in public.

>> > Whose death exactly proves what?
>>
>>He was assassinated by Polish resistance fighters in 1941.
>
> Great, there were killers active in 1941 in Poland; how does that
> relates to activity like the Warsaw Uprising that, at least, is
> relevant to the discussion we were conducting?

Full-spectrum operations.  This is how weak resistance movements
operate.  Basic Little Red Book stuff here.

> really, didn't want to get this personal, but you have some
> relatively big problem: you lack the capacity to analyze what you
> read, either in books or in these messages.

I can't analyze drivel which is factually incorrect.  Garbage in,
garbage out.

> 1) you should understand the limit of this kind of communication -
> write is far more boring than talking face to face;

I know--I'm even more exciting face to face.  It's also easier to tell
when I'm jerking someone's chain and when I'm not.

> 2) accept broader generalities and categories, even if not exactly
> precise, just like any other do [I could have asked "quote date and
> place and whatever else" after the sentence "a Marine MEU can invade
> any nation"... it is false, unproved and impossible, but it was meant
> to intend that a MEU is a redoubtable force and in that meaning I
accepted it]

You're attributing someone else's statement to me.

 ... and I am still waiting for an explanation
> about how come invasion forces do not incur in the same kind of
> logistical problems defenders do...

The invaders do.  Presumably they have a pretty good handle on the
rate at which they should expend supplies and have made provision.
Having captured a lot of the infrastructure of the colony, I presume
they will engage in some of the excesses American forces do (shipping
bottled water instead of purifying water on the spot, etc) and will
supplement their imported resources with confiscated stores of food,
water, fuel, etc.

There are a lot of unanswered questions which are utterly setting
dependant.  If, to take an extreme case for discussion's sake, all
potable water on the planet comes from a single facility, then that
constrains the invaded more than the invaders who probably made that a
prime target and secured it as soon as possible.

[by the way, defenders menaced
> usually disperse their stores and have a whole planet...

Most of which is howling wilderness devoid of local communities and
transportation networks capable of sustaining an insurgency. . .

how come AK
> was able to store enough weapons and ammo in Warsaw under the
> occupation

Very little of that predated the invasion.  Most of it was stolen or
captured from German forces or smuggled in.

> 4) do not ignore everything that do not concord with your hypothesis
> that come up in discussion as you have done again and again in this
> exchange and do not warp the term of the issue at hand [I never ever
> declared that a US maneuver unit was completely destroyed in Vietnam,

Nah, you claimed that United States forces were defeated tactically.

> you referring to historical precedents I invoked] - [and I am still
> waiting for an explanation of Ishandlwana] - [and, I would add, an

Any force which makes the series of gross errors displayed by the
British forces (tactical, technical, logistical) at Ishandlwana would
have been utterly destroyed by any force what so ever--though how you
justify saying the British were a small, elite force compared to the
Zulus, who were technologically primitive, but highly trained
professionals.

> 5) do not ask for precise references with pedantic regularity, it
> does very little to help the discussion, focus instead on the topics,

If you make factually incorrect statements, I find it difficult to
refute them by saying "uh-uh, you're wrong".  Then we both end up
sounding like small children going "is, is not, is, is not".  If I ask
for references to back up your sweeping assertations and you cannot
provide them, or the ones you do provide fail to back up your point,
then you are clearly shown to be an ignorant jackass.

> 6) last but not least, do not use personal evaluation with complete
> foreigners, it usually is considered rude.

My coat doesn't say "US State Department".  You make factually
incorrect statements, and get offended when those statements are
challenged as factually incorrect.  To me, that's most revealing about
your intellectual honesty.  I'm an asshole--but I'm an honest asshole.

> But would like to hear the story of the exchange with Kratman... he's
> described as a mean guy and must have been a titan's clash... :)

He's beneath contempt in many ways, not least of which is a level of
personal insecurity that has to be experienced to be believed.	He
once threatened to sue me.  He's also threatened to call my company
commander and tell him I hurt his feelings on the Internet.

I'll always wonder about someone who carefully cultivates a reputation
as a badass, and then suddenly discovers a medical problem when he
gets called up to put his money where his mouth has been, especially
if that individual just signed a lucrative book deal.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again. We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani

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