| Thursday,
January 6, 2000
Or, an alternate title subject: Don't worry, be
happy!
Dr. Pournelle, Raving maniacs who shoot their mouths
off before thinking are everywhere, not just in Washington. Like hecklers
at a comedy show, their only entertainment is spoiling that of others. It
is inevitable. I would wish him harm, but it is bad Karma for me to do so.
He has his right to speak, but I'm sure you, and collectively we your
readers, wish he would do it elsewhere. Clearly passionate about his
opinions, yet uninformed, typical of the know-it-all liberals pouring out
of our nations higher learning institutes today. "Green Berets"
filmed in 1966. How do I know? I watched the credits. I also have a thing
for movies made in the year of my birth. "The Good, The Bad, and The
Ugly" comes to mind right away. As I recall, we really didn't engage
in much in Vietnam before 1968, so you are correct, our involvement at
that time was small-time, and the public new little of it. I do not,
however, concurr with your opinion of the correct strategy. So be it, that
is the way of things. My point in mentioning the film was watch the base
scenes, in 'Berets where the base is overrun and men died because an
adequate force wasn't fielded, or equipped, for the task, same for
'Gloria, and in ST as the little pre-fab fort gets swarmed (pun intended).
They did seem to have a thing for female aviators, so it's a good thing it
wasn't filmed at the Las Vegas Hilton. The Intelligence Branch seemed to
wear strangely Gestapo-like uniforms. Hmmmnn, now where would this message
lead? I am really surprised, and at the same time not surprised at all, at
the contempt Hollywood has for the military. Afterall, the grunts are the
dregs of our society, the uneducated, the stupid, the expendable little
people, baby killers and trash collectors, are they not? (Recall, however,
that I am an admitted grunt. I already had a year of college under my belt
before I enlisted, scored very high on the ASVAB, over 1200 on the SAT,
and a middle class whiteboy - clearly not fitting.)
Sorry that you became the subject of abuse from a
comment I made.
George Laiacona III <george@eisainc.com> ICQ
37042478/ 28885038 "If we put armor on the back, it will just
encourage them to get shot there." "Besides, If they get shot in
the back, they deserve it." -Design Engineer, Neemis Enterprises'
Templar Power Armor
Actually, we got heavily into Viet Nam in 1964 when the Tonkin Gulf
resolution went through a compliant Congress because everyone took the
President's word for it; in those days, "politics stop at the water's
edge" and we had a pretty strong tradition of bi-partisan foreign
policy. When Eisenhower left office there were only 15 US military people
in Viet Nam. By the time Kennedy was assassinated we had many thousands
more, but it was Johnson who put is in there big time. But a check reveals
that the movie was released in 1968 meaning it was probably made in 1966
or so. Not that it matters. I was never under the impression that I was
infallible.
I am continually amazed at your level of decency.
You continually give reasoned and respectful
responses to raving madmen.
That is why I like this cyber-daybook experiment of
yours - a little oasis of sanity in a sea of vitriol.
Andy Kowalczyk Lexington, Massachusetts "The
Birthplace of American Liberty"
Thank you for the kind words.
One of the nice things about this place is that I
can always count on getting the definitive answer to nearly any question:
Jerry,
According to the Internet Movie Database (http://us.imdb.com),
"The Green Berets" was filmed in 1967, with a release date of
1968.
Calvin
Jerry,
As best as I can tell, the book "The Green
Berets" (which the movie was based on) was written in 1965, so THAT
is probably the best date to place the story in.
Calvin Dodge
And that makes sense, as the author would be
working on it in 1963 and 1964, and that's the flavor of the movie.
Incidentally, my old friend and colleague in working for stratetic
defense, the late General Daniel O. Graham, was one of the founders of the
Green Berets when he was as he put it a "gravel agitator" before
he left infantry for intelligence. I used to twit him about that. We were
of an age, and I could say "General, in our day we used to say if you
didn't trust an officer with troops, you put him in intelligence." A
phrase Danny had heard often enough and he was always gracious enough to
laugh. He had some stories about trying to air drop lengths of railroad
rail segments that would curl your hair.
Many people wrote me about this:
Jerry, Just heard on the news that OSHA has reversed
itself on requiring businesses to control the environment at home of it's
telecommuting employees. This is good news, and pretty amazing that the
government actually acted this quickly. This had far reaching
consequences. It could have made employees responsible for the environment
wherever they were in the world.
It had 'sue me' written all over it. Thank God it
has gone away, at least for now.
Tracy Walters tracy@nemontel.net
I wish I had confidence that this is over, but I
don't. I don't at all. I think they'll wait until some of the noise
dies down, then make another grab.
It seems clear no one wants you to go to a web
site with an address like:
from http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000106/world/afp/
NATO_used_speeded-up_film_to_excuse_civilian_deaths_in_Kosovo__newspaper.html
-----
Thursday, January 6 10:13 PM SGT
NATO used speeded-up film to excuse civilian deaths
in Kosovo: newspaper
BERLIN, Jan 6 (AFP) -
Videotape shown by NATO to explain the killing of at
least 14 civilians aboard a train on a bridge in Serbia last April was
shown at triple its real speed, the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau
reports in its Thursday edition.
The alliance had sought to excuse the killing of the
civilians by saying the train had been traveling too fast for the
trajectory of the missiles to have been changed in time.
NATO warplanes fired two missiles at the 50 metre
(yard)-long bridge over the Juzna Morava River at Grdelica Klisura, some
300 kilometers (180 miles) south of Belgrade on April 12 during its
campaign to force Belgrade's troops to leave Kosovo.
NATO's supreme commander in Europe, US General
Wesley Clark, shortly afterwards showed two videotapes of the train
appearing to be traveling fast on the bridge, and said it had then been
impossible to alter the missiles' trajectories.
The Frankfurt newspaper said the two videotapes were
both shown at three times normal speed.
A spokesman for NATO'S military command in Mons,
Belgium, acknowledged in a telephone interview with AFP that those images
had been altered by "a technical problem."
The footage, recorded by a camera installed in the
warhead of one of the missiles that destroyed the bridge and train were
altered during the process of being copied for screening, said the
spokesman.
He said NATO was aware of the problem since last
October but did not consider it "useful" to disclose it.
The Frankfurt newspaper said the US air force, which
carried out the bombardment, had not noticed for some months that the tape
had been speeded up, and also attributed it to a technological error.
"We did not deem it useful to go public with
this information after we noticed it," the newspaper quoted a US air
force spokesman in Europe as saying
Why am I not surprised? It turns out more people
have been displaced after the pacification than had been refugees before
it, and certainly more have been murdered. As to stability, the KLA is the
real destabilizing force over there and anyone paying much attention to
the place knows it. Oh. Well.
TOP
|
CLICK HERE for
a Special Request. 
