N. Korea vows to end Korean War cease fire...

[nik-]

Yeah, the french soldier is fine, horrible leadership. You would have thought at minimum the Condor Legion would have informed them that this time was going to be different though. Petain was an #######.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

they like a lot of people still expected WW2 to be dominated by static trench warfare. They didn't see anyone mastering the combined arms stuff quite as quickly as Germany.

We are talking about 100's of years of warfare tactics here, just like navies of the world didn't foresee the impact of naval aviation and were content to continue to roll out massive battlewagons.

When you make a assumption in how you think the enemy is going to fight a war, and your wrong you rarely recover.

The German's showed all kinds of signs of going to a rapid mobile armored based warfare heavily supported by Aircraft and rolling artillary.

The French still expected the German's to bravely dash into the mag line a top of their horses and boots dying bravely for Germany and all that.

"Don't worry" was the cry "The forest will stop them, excelsior"

That's a good lesson that has been proven so many times in history. From the Great Wall to the Trojan Horse, to the Mag line.

The funny thing is, often the bigger the defensive effort, or unbreachable wall is, the bigger it fails. It often just takes a little outside the box thinking to figure out how to circumvent the defense.

Especially as you mentioned, when the time passes and technology advances. Unfortunately for static defense like walls and lines, they become obsolete very quickly.

[Daradon]

Ok, back to NK. So Dennis Rodman bought/brought a basketball team to NK for Kim's birthday.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...in-north-korea

I do think Rodman obviously needs to brush up on his history and explore some of the atrocities of this country and family. And just thinking about sitting down with someone like the Kim's and ignoring all the evil they have done turns my stomach. But, I do wonder if it's really doing any harm. Perhaps in the long run it could break down some walls? Don't get me wrong, I seriously doubt it ever will. However, if it's not doing any harm, then even a 1% chance of improvement would be a good thing right?

Ehhh, I dunno. If I was sitting beside someone like that I'd attempt an assassination attempt. Quick and dirty, shiv to the jugular.

They'd feed me to the dogs afterwards, but I'd give it a try.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Well yeah, I understand that, but it doesn't change the facts that the majority of the allies fought bravely for many years before the US decided to get their feet wet.

In fact, Canada lost 5% of it's total population to WW1! 10% of it's male population. Can you imagine that! If I recall, it was the biggest per capita loss of either war, besides Australia's WW1 loss.

Historically Canada got a lot of the toughest assignments too, part because they were the poor cousins in the world order, and partly because they were eager to prove themselves and show the world they were a 'nation'. Some of the battles they won in WW1, including Vimy, gave them much respect even among the Germans and Hitler himself in WW2. Ran into some stories of that when researching the Vimy Ridge Memorial.

It's not like the world doesn't know the US won (or at least sped up the victory immensely, as Germany made a really big mistake stretching into Russia when they did) WW2 in Europe for it's allies. It's not like the world isn't thankful for that.

It's just very maddening and sad to hear people, who typically know nothing about the history of the wars other than nazi's and the bombs, (not saying all American's know nothing, just saying the ones who often brag the most, often know the least) continually brag about saving the world from evil when other countries also made huge contributions, and the Americans watched a lot of their allies fight for years before they even got involved. Not to mention the real issues of profiting while others were fighting the good fight. And that's generally where a lot of those comments about the French come from. Or equally ignorant comments about the Canadian military.

Valid points, but lets also be honest, the French really didn't have a good 20th century in terms of the wars they were involved in.

I would argue that the French fought very well in the first world war with key victories over the Germans in the second battle of the Marne which was seen as a key turning point in the war. But the French also took huge losses throughout that war and the mutiny in the French 2nd army where they refused to fight probably didn't help the French military reputation.

You could also argue that the French demands for reparations in the treaty of Versaille allowed for the rise of fascism in Germany especially when the French sent the army in to seize key german territories and brutalized the Germans there.

The French soldiers did fight bravely at the start of WW2 but were gutted by a French Military that was unwilling to soak up casualties and removed any kind of initiative from the junior and mid ranked officers, because of this they were lead by some absolutely terrible Generals. The free french army was very good and were tough and fueled by thoughts of revenge, the vichy army didn't have the heart to fight the allies and were a non factor.

I would argue that the French Military was terrible during the Indochina wars. Its not that the men weren't brave, but they were poorly lead and intimidated by the ferocity of the Vietnamese.

[Byrns]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-...china-20131224

And the western media got lazy...

Story about Kim Jong-un's uncle being fed to dogs originated with satirist
Lurid story about Jang Song-thaek's death apparently first appeared in satirical post on Chinese social media network

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...d-dogs-made-up

[sureLoss]

new PBS documentary on what is going on in North Korea under Kim Jong Un

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...f-north-korea/

edit: didn't realize it had regional restrictions

[sureLoss]

just finished watching the documentary, it is pretty interesting.

Sounds like the influx of "illegal" technology and outside culture is really helping open up the life of the average North Korean.

The hidden video camera recordings of some of the lower level government officials questioning Un's leadership gives me hope that regime will topple one day.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

just finished watching the documentary, it is pretty interesting.

Sounds like the influx of "illegal" technology and outside culture is really helping open up the life of the average North Korean.

The hidden video camera recordings of some of the lower level government officials questioning Un's leadership gives me hope that regime will topple one day.

wonder how long the low level officials lasted after this video was released. There is a whole department in their intelligence service that watches Western News Stories on their country and their leadership. And even if a guy has his face hidden they'll just purge everyone that they suspect.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

just finished watching the documentary, it is pretty interesting.

sureLoss - where'd you watch it? The PBS link has the restrictions...

[CaptainCrunch]

Some interesting stories on the purge

http://rt.com/news/north-korea-drunk-executions-707/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/wo...urge.html?_r=0

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-korea...n-chop-1432244

[bluejays]

I'm assuming a proxy server? I'm going to give that a shot now.

edit: couldn't get it to work with any free online servers. Damn.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by fleury

I'm assuming a proxy server? I'm going to give that a shot now.

edit: couldn't get it to work with any free online servers. Damn.

Try Hola, it now thinks I'm in San Antonio.

[bluejays]

Tried it but didn't work.

[sureLoss]

yeah i used hola

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

new PBS documentary on what is going on in North Korea under Kim Jong Un

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...f-north-korea/

edit: didn't realize it had regional restrictions

One of the coolest things I've watched in a while.

The problem is what the CIA agent said though - if a government is willing to kill any number of people to stay in power, it will generally stay in power.

Just sad all around and I do hope that something changes sooner rather than later.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Documentary looks great...


HOLA is EPIC!!!!!

[bluejays]

I downloaded both hola's - browser and the addon, and both never worked. Hopefully it gets put to youtube.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by fleury

I downloaded both hola's - browser and the addon, and both never worked. Hopefully it gets put to youtube.

Hola works fine for me. I've use it for most world websites and netflix, etc. for quite awhile now.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

The Chrome plug in worked like a charm...might even get me to ditch Safari

[dissentowner]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/16/world/...ort/index.html

The panel reported a stunning catalog of torture and the widespread abuse of even the weakest of North Koreans that reveal a portrait of a brutal state "that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."

Can we just please nuke these a-holes already?