HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gtao@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Greg )
Subject: Re: suggested war plan critique (was:Re: Saddam planning ...)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 20:28:46 GMT

i'd like to add something to this discussion.  i'm a little rusty on my
Clausewitz, but i remember him saying something to the effect that war was
an act of violence intended to impose your will on that of your enemy after ALL
other means have been exhausted...now, whether or not our will has been
imposed on iraq, or saddam hussein for that matter, is up for debate.


*******************************************************************************
* Gregory Tao                      | E-mail to:  gt38091@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu     * 
* Univ. of IL at Urbana-Champaign  |        OR      gtao@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu     *
* Department of Computer Science   |        OR      gtao@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu     *
* --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *
*                                                                             *
*  	``Change, suddenly, is everywhere we look, sweeping empires and       *
*    ideologies before it, shaping a new era even as we watch. Such moments   *
*    are rare. Today we stand at such a moment.''                             * 
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Newsgroups: alt.war
From: dan@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Daniel Zabetakis)
Subject: Air power effectiveness
Organization: Columbia University, Dept. of Biological Sciences.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 15:07:40 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.083734.24754@lin.foa.se> eriks@lin.foa.se (Erik Svensson FOA2) writes:
>
>History is full of examples of units being subject to heavy 
>air attack and then just disintegrating. 

   I'm sure the word 'full' is a bit of an exaggeration, but I still doubt
this statment. Could you provide a few clear examples?

DanZ

-- 
This article is for entertainment purposes only. Any facts, opinions,
narratives or ideas contained herein are not necessarily true, and do
not necessarily represent the views of any particular person.  

Newsgroups: alt.war
From: bwise@hemlock.mitre.org (Barry Wise)
Subject: Re: BBN II -- Murk-o-Vision World Update (Mau Mau)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 15:50:27 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.131627.22136@dscomsf.desy.de> hallam@zeus02.desy.de  
(Phillip M. Hallam-Baker) writes:
> In case you hadn't heard the traditional way to fight a war is to shoot
> at the opposition, not your own lot. Perhaps if the US had learnt this
> lesson the British casualties in the Gulf would have been halved.

The so-called "friendly fire" casualties are far from unique to the Gulf.  At  
least one instance I remember reading about was during the Normandy invasion  
where we bombed our own forces ("Six Armies in Normandy" I think was the title  
of the book). Stonewall Jackson was even shot by his own troops!  
--
Barry Wise
(bwise@hemlock.mitre.org)
From: galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gross)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Naval survival
Date: 21 Jul 92 14:29:05 GMT
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

quale@saavik.cs.wisc.edu (Douglas E. Quale) writes:

> In article <1992Jul18.184044.25595@nntp.hut.fi> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas V
> >In article <1992Jul16.172943.2170@menudo.uh.edu> HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILL
> >
> >That carrier was TAIHO, and the battle was Leyte Gulf. It received a torpedo
> >hit, which ruptured the port side airplane fuel tank. Since gasoline evapora
> >easily, fumes escaped from the damaged tank and were noticed soon. The engin
> >officer of the ship ordered the ventilation system to full, thus only spread
> >the gas fumes all around the vessel. A spark then ignited the fumes, which (
> >the ships besides them) exploded. Ship was lost in short order. 
> >
> 
> This was an important factor in the war in the Pacific.  US Navy damage
> control was far and away the best in the world, while Japanese performance
> in this area was often indifferent or worse.
> 
> -- 
> Doug Quale
> quale@saavik.cs.wisc.edu


Have heard it said that the Japanese had a somewhat condescending
attitude toward damage control...something to the effect of, "we're
samurai, not smiths!"  If true, it cost them big-time. It also helps
to explain, beyond obvious propaganda reasons, why they claim to 
have sunk the carrier Enterprise so many times. Given their mindset,
they probably were certain that no ship could've survived the punish-
ment they inflicted on her.
G.

--
Gregory Alan Gross      Welcome to life, where no good deed goes unpunished.
San Diego Union-Tribune         (619) 293-1270 (voice)
P.O. Box 191                    (619) 293-2333 (fax)
San Diego, CA 92112-4106        galan@netlink.cts.com (Internet)
From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: BBN II -- Murk-o-Vision World Update (Mau Mau)
Date: 24 Jul 92 17:45:40 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL

mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner) writes:

>From article <1992Jul24.050033.18743@dscomsf.desy.de>, by hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker):
>> The US murdered more Vietnamese in the war than Ho Chi Minhs govt did after.

>Of course.  After the war, the North Vietnamese controlled everything, so 
>why murder anybody?  The question is, how many did *they* murder *during* 
>the war?  Granted that the US Army often had a cavalier attitude towards
>"collateral damage", but I don't think they deliberately targeted
>civilians that were not involved in combat, infiltration, or that kind
>of stuff.

Actually, we did engage in terror bombing of Hanoi. (We didn't call it that,
but ever since Curtis LeMay, the USAF has the opinion that if you just blow
up enough cities you will win. The Army Air Corp, for instance, decided that
D-Day lengthened WWII by six months since it diverted so many heavy bombers.
-- 
ami silberman - janitor of lunacy
	silber@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.war
From: jac54@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Kuwait security question
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 10:32:33 GMT

In article <872@hobby.ukc.ac.uk> karr@ukc.ac.uk (K.A.R.Razzooqi) writes:
>
>
>
>         Hello everybody,
>
>             I have a serious question to everybody and that is :-
>
>          Can KUWAIT creat its own security depending on its own population
>          and not to depend on outside protection?
>          (and will it be able to defend it self?!)
>          And if that is possible how can it be achieved?
>          (I will appreciate all ideas)
>
>
>    Kutaiba
>               The basic problem for Kuwait is that it is very small
>       compared to its neighbours.  They can buy the best equipment, and
	the best training for their soldiers and make sure that morale
>       is kept high.  Even if the entire nation were under arms they
>       would not have an army big enough to hold off any of their
	neighbours.  A suitable comparison would be Belgium caught between
	Germany and France.

	The best that Kuwait can do is to engage in treaty relations with
	neighbours that include a mutual defence component.  The Kuwaiti
	military would then act as a tripwire.  That is, when they are
	engaged in combat within the borders of Kuwait, their co-signatories
	would come to their aid.


	Alec Chambers
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
From: whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt)
Subject: Re: Confederate Flags
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 18:30:56 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.124442.4184@mcs.kent.edu> bennett@Amber.mcs.kent.edu (Dan Bennett) writes:
>Once again, my ignorance shows through.  Would some kind sole please tell
>me which flag looks like this?

         +-----------+			+-----------+
         |\*\     /*/|			|   |   *   |
         | \*\   /*/ |			|   | *   * |
         |  \*\ /*/  |			|   | * * * |
drawn    |   \*V*/   |			|   | *   * |
by   ->  |    \*/    |		added	|   |   *   |
Dan      |    /*\    |		by  ->	|   +-------|
         |   /*^*\   |		me	|   |   |   |
         |  /*/ \*\  |			|   |   |   |
         | /*/   \*\ |			|   |   |   |			
         |/*/     \*\|			|   |   |   |
         +-----------+			+-----------+


	Confederate Battle		Stars and Bars
	      Flag

I may have the pattern of stars wrong on the Stars and Bars. :(  The
center stripe is white and the outer two stripes are red.
The Stars and Bars and similar variations was the Confederate national
flag for most of the war. However, in battle they found that it looked
too much like the US flag to serve for identification purposes, so they
shifted to the Battle Flag which was more distinctive. I hear tell
apocraphally that actually the several armies each adopted different
battle flags and that the one shown is that adopted by the Army of Northern
Virginia, which later caught on with the other armies. Dunno if that is
true or not: anyone? Bueller?
-- 
Steve Schmidt			<><		   whale@leland.stanford.edu

"We have met the enemy and he is us" - Walt Kelly
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
From: daveu@sco.COM (Dave Uebele)
Subject: Re: Reenactor
Organization: SCO Engineering, 150 Dubious St.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 00:19:41 GMT



I'm an artificer (blacksmith) in 3rd US artillery, NCWA (Same as Jeff Z., in
fact I'm his next door neighboor and helped get him involved with reenacting).
NCWA is central California based reenactment group.

There was some talk awhile ago about getting a mailing list of reenactors
together, but I have not heard anything about it in quite some time.

dave
-- 
Dave Uebele	uunet!sco!daveu  or daveu@sco.com
From: jeromema@cc.uvcc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: News Item
Date: 28 Jul 92 17:33:56 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley Community College

In article <1992Jul27.223934.6466@odin.corp.sgi.com>, zursch@whizkid.corp.sgi.c
om (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide) writes: 

Hello to a fellow re-enactor:

I enjoyed your comments, especially the analogy:
 
> ...about the whole confederate/slavery/other aspects issue.Think of the
> Confederacy and Old South as a body and slavery as water. You can't take
> your body and say "this is all water", nor can you say "there is no water
> in this particular part of my body." There is water in every part of your
> body, but no part of your body is made exclusively of water.  Similarly, the
> Confederacy was about much more than the preservation of slavery, but you
> can't point to any single aspect and say "Here there is no taint of racism
> and slavery." It is equally unfair to those people to say that they were only
> about the preservation of racism and slavery. You can't separate it out of
> the Confederacy just as you can't separate the water from your own body...
> it's pervasive, but there's more to it than that.  
>  

It is a problem for those who have legitimate desires to preserve a regional
heritage that in many ways is an honorable one, yet so inter-twined with the
tainted and venomous spectre of human slavery.

Too bad the South was not able to devest itself of slavery in the 18th
century as the North was able to do (I have a Connecticut Yankee ancestor who
left four slaves to his wife in 1750).  Compromise at the foundation of our
nation unfortunately came back to haunt and tear us apart when the South had
been allowed to maintain slavery.

I am a staunch Unionist originally from Wisconsin and a re-enactor.  I lost
an ancestor to the horros of Andersonville.  And though I portray a Yankee
soldier, my son is a Confederate re-enactor.  He has a tough road to travel,
and is often critizied for the uniform he wears by the public and fellow
re-enactors.  But he has the spunk and determination of his Southern ancestry
and continues on in his representation of the Southern soldier.  He does it
out of respect and love of his and his mother's ancestry.

Neither of us our racists, and are offended when white-supremacy groups
display the Confederate battle-flag alongside the Nazi swastika flag.  As a
teenager I remember the cross that was burned on our lawn and the hate mail my
father received as a result of his community efforts to promote brotherhood
among the different races and religious groups.  It is quite a dilemma.  I can
see my son's reasoning and I respect him for it.  Yet how can you separate the
good images from the bad ones when the battle flag of the South is unfurled.
I repsect the courage and tenacity of the Southern soldier, but shudder at the
thoughts of slavery and the government of the Confederate States of America.
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
From: toten@bourbon.ee.tulane.edu (Derek Toten)
Subject: Re: Beast Butler
Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-8897]: bourbon
Organization: E.E. Dept., Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 06:24:25 GMT

	"Beast" Butler commited numerous atrocities upon the people of New 
Orleans during his overly harsh reign of the city.  As one of his first acts
he had a man publicly hung for tearing down the American flag.  He regularly
pilfered from the citizens of the City as well as from his own Union stores.
His brother joined him at one point to help in the theft and was even accused
of selling Union supplies to Confederate forces (not difficult to believe). 
Butler also aquired the nickname "Spoons" because he supposedly stole silver-
ware from the homes of the New Orleans gentry (this may or not be true).
	His crowning moment of glory came, however, when he issued the infamous
General Order No. 28.  More than a few ladies of New Orleans treated members
of the Union army rudely (verbal insults, social snubs, physical gestures,
 etc...).  Butler replied with: 

	As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to 
repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in
return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture or movement,
insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she
shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying
her avocation.

	The gentlemen of the South were outraged.  Beauregard issued a 
challange to southern men to rise up against "those infamous invaders" who
dared to treat "the ladies of the South as common harlots."  Jefferson Davis
even issued an order that if Butler were captured he should be executed on
the spot.  Supposedly, when word of Butler's action reached aristocratic 
Europe, the furor was raised all over again and public opinion was against
him not only in the South, but throughout the world.
	Anyone know the full story or have any references concerning this last
part?  I've done a bit of research on "The Beast" and have found his reputation
to be mostly deserved, but I can't find any details locally describing this
often mentioned "world reaction."
	Sorry to be so windy, but Butler is still a lively topic here in 
New Orleans...


Derek Toten
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
From: blackman@acsu.buffalo.edu (Cancholech)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Finding regiment information for ancestors
Date: 26 Jul 92 22:44:28 GMT
Organization: Miskatonic University Graduate Program
  Affiliations: A.R.C.H.I.E. Laboratory
 Project: Raising R'yleh
 Where: Lost in Cyberspace
 Quote: Reality is the Product of Our Mutual Imaginations
 Philosophy: Life is just one Conception after Another.



I am looking for information on how to find out what regiment 
an ancestor was in during the civil war. I know that there is 
a way but dont remember how or where. If there is something on-
line that would be even more excellent.

Thanks

-- 
"I have all my wisdom teeth, two up top and two beneath,
Aye, to recognise my mouth says things that aren't so wise.."
rutgers!ub!blackman blackman@acsu.buffalo.edu
From: tecump@ucsb.edu (Dal Bello)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Confederate Flags
Date: 28 Jul 92 22:25:02 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara

Recall that for over 80 years, the _Stars and Stripes_ protected
slavery.  Bigotry has been an unfortunate part of the United
States since its inception, and people living in the North were
just as racist, if not more, than the people living in the South,
in general.

I am a Unionist at heart, and while the Confederate flags have
taken on more meanings than than they once did, they are an 
important part of our past. 

	-dom
From: tecump@ucsb.edu (Dal Bello)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Confederate Flags
Date: 30 Jul 92 22:39:59 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara

The Confederate Flags are the following:

Battle Flag:  Red field with the blue "X" with 13 stars (2 "xtra" for
		Mo. and Ky.).  This is not the official national flag.
		It is the battleflag designed by Beauregard after 1st
		Bull Run/Manassas because the Confederate National flag
		looked like the stars and stripes thru the smoke and
		when furled.  The flag was SQUARE in the army and 
		rectangular for the navy

1st National (adopted 1861)  "Stars and Bars"
	3 vertical bars (red/white/red) (instead of 13 stripes).
	upper corner field of blue with 7 white stars (orig 7 Confed states)
	arranged in a circle.  Thus the obvious confusion with the
	Stars and Stripes on the battle field, necessitating the
	need for the battle flag.

2nd National  (adopted 1864)
	An all white flag, except the upper corner near flagstaff which
	was the image of the Battle flag (red field with blue X) 

3rd National (1865)
	because the 2nd National was all white except for the upper corner,
	with no wind it looked like a flag of truce.  thus, a red vertical
	stripe at the end of the flag was added. 

There were many other flags carried by the Confederate armies, i.e. state
flags, St. Andrew's Cross flag, etc. etc. 

				-dom
From: denelsbe@washington.cs.unc.edu (Kevbo)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: ....gee.......
Date: 21 Jul 92 19:58:07 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

In article <1992Jul21.170442.17161@odin.corp.sgi.com> zursch@whizkid.corp.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide) writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.162903.13491@news.iastate.edu>, Paul J Hollander writes:
>>What about General "Beast" Butler?  I vaguely remember he got his nickname 
>>for threatening to lock up some southern ladies in New Orleans.  I believe 
>>he was corrupt and a poor battlefield general, but was he responsible for
>>any atrocities?

He gave that famous "Women's Order" that said that any New Orleans woman who
(in any way) abused Union soldiers would be treated as a "woman of the street
plying her avocation" or somesuch; meaning basically treated like a whore.
The New Orleans women had apparently been giving the Union soldiers a real
hard time (in order to provoke some sort of incident) but Butler's measure,
perverse as it was, put an end to most insults.

>Before you go villifying old Ben Butler, check out his performance later in the 
>war on the east coast. (He held some seaboard territory...) I'm not real familiar
>with the history of it, but my recollection is that he did a very good job.
>
>JZ

I've heard differently.  I was reading about old Ben last night and he might
well have been the most incompetent Union battlefield general.  He managed to
get bottled up on the Bermuda Hundred by a numerically inferior force (Ben
had something like 39,000 men), and later on he totally botched the Federal
offensive against Fort Fisher on the North Carolina coast.  But he always
landed on his feet because of his political connections.

(My source is "The Historical Times' Encyclopedia of the Civil War" -- I
highly recommend it.)

Regards,
Kevin

-- 
|| +------------------+  With the fabric of reality shredding all around him,
||-| Kev @ UNC        |  the Headless Horseman threw the banana at Ichabod
||-| Master Poetaster |  Crane.
|| +------------------+                      -- from a Sentence Game
From: roy_wells@qm.vitalink.com
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: Confederate Flags
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:42:55 GMT
Reply-To: <roy_wells@qm.vitalink.com> (<roy_wells@qm.vitalink.com>)
Organization: Never Never Land


 Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
nocsun.NOC.Vitalink.COM!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!eff!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!u
unet!psinntp!bnlux1.bnl.gov!news
From: KARLIN@BNLCL6.BNL.GOV (07850_LS)
Subject: Re: Confederate Flags
Organization: BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:36:21 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.23

In <1992Jul29.143621.3838@bnlux1.bnl.gov> P. L. Cowan writes:

>It would seem that there is an obvious solution to the "Heritage vs. Hatred"
>delema faced by the Virginia National Guard. The real Stars and Bars, 
>as opposed to the Confederate (Beuregard's) Battle Flag that the newspapers 
>call the "Stars and Bars", conveighs little if any of the knee-jerk racism 
>connotation to modern Americans. If the Virgina National Guard feels that 
>the 4-year period between 1861-1865 was their proudest moment (as opposed
>to, say, the War for Independance) it would seem that the "national" flag they
>served under would be as appropriate as a battle flag.

Of course, then the issue arises as to *which* national flag.  The CSA had 
four "National Flags" in their short history.

Myself, I prefer the fifth National--the white flag of surrender they last flew, 
but then I am a Yankee through and through...  :-)




----
"A man who carrys a cat by the tail is getting experience that will always be helpful.  He isn't likely to grow dim or doubtful.  Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either.  But if he wants to, I say let him!" 
--Mark Twain
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
From: cjt1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Charles Ten Brink)
Subject: Re: Confederate Flags
Reply-To: cjt1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 14:09:16 GMT

In article <159mh4INN19j@moe.ksu.ksu.edu> jsanders@phys.ksu.edu (Justin M. Sanders) writes:
>
>Chuck Ten Brink has since pointed out that the arrangement of 
>stars on the S&B was a circle.  He refers to the picture in the
>Official Atlast to give the number of stars as eleven.

Actually, I thought I said nine, but was wrong in either case; I 
double-checked last night, and there were indeed seven stars.  Must
have been the scotch.
--Chuck

-- 
Bitnet:                 uclcjt1@uchimvs1
Internet:         cjt1@midway.uchicago.edu
From: tecump@ucsb.edu (Dal Bello)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Bragg
Date: 24 Jul 92 20:50:57 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara

Some words on Braxton Bragg:

It is well known that Bragg tended to be argumentative with his colleages. 
Sometime after the War, Grant related a story about the pre-War Bragg: 
	
	Grant then told the well-remembered army story that disclosed
	Bragg's punctiliousness.  He was quartermaster at a post and 
	when the post commander was detached, he assumed charge.  As
	Acting commander he submitted a requisition, which in his 
	role of quartermaster he declined to fill.  He exchanged 
	several letters with himself, arguing from opposite sides of
	the desk.  Finally he submitted the file to his superior, who
	exclaimed:  "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarrelled with 
	every officer in the army, and now you're quarrelling with
	yourself!"


In July, 1864, as Joe Johnston was slowly giving ground in front of 
Atlanta to Uncle Billy, a commission came from Pres. Davis to try to 
get Joe to strike the Federals "a crushing blow."  One delegate went so
far as to say that he had heard that Jeff Davis had said that "if he
were in your place he could whip Sherman now."

So, Johnston went into action:

	Yes, I know Mr. Davis thinks he can do a great many things
	other men would hesitate to attempt.  For instance, he tried
	to do what God failed to do.  He tried to make a soldier of 
	Braxton Bragg, and you know the result.  It couldn`t be done.


					- dom