HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: geoffb@coos.dartmouth.edu (Geoff Bronner)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Peru: what on earth is going on?
Date: 6 Apr 92 16:47:28 GMT
Reply-To: geoffb@Dartmouth.EDU
Distribution: alt
Organization: Amos Tuck School

In <14584@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rwstarke@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ross W. Starkey) writes:

>This morning I heard on Ted Turner's Headline News Nuggets channel that
>Fujimori (the President of Peru) had suspended the government, dissolved the
>legislature and declared martial law with the military's backing!  WHAT ON
>EARTH IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?

I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen. 
The government of Peru has been fighting a losing battle against the
"Shining Path" guerillas for some time now. This is simply the latest
escalation.
I haven't been paying very close attention to the situation since the
Shining Path occupied a major government building in Lima and assasinated
the Peruvian Supreme Court and a number of elected representatives.
(or was it the other way around?)
But, I have seen enough in the news (what little gets reported) to see
that the military is losing control over large parts of the country.
Martial Law is usually a reaction to a situation like that.

Personally I think it is a knee jerk reaction that will make little or no
difference. The areas where martial law might help the military aren't
really under any kind of government control.

In 1983 the government of Peru (under Belaunde Terry) declared a state of
emergency for many of the same reasons but it really didn't help.
After his election in 1985 Alan Garcia Perez escalated the war against the
Shining Path so I guess it makes sense that we have 'escalated' from a
"State of Emergency" in 1983 to "Martial Law" in 1992.
Alberto Fujimori has only been in power since 1990 so he may have been
forced into this move by the military. They have been pretty well behaved
since the last military junta stepped down in 1980 but the situation has
been getting worse for years.

>FIGHT DICTATORSHIP!  VOTE!!!!                                  

Cerebus for Dictator! Make your last vote count!

-Geoff
--
geoffb@Dartmouth.EDU  -  Computing Support Technician, Tuck School of Business
_______________________________________________________________________________
     "Are you sure?"      |           "That's a lot of money for a head!"
 "Yeah.  Sure I'm sure."  |                        -The Ugly
Newsgroups: alt.war
From: al037@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
Subject: Re: Why do we all believe war is inevitable?
Reply-To: al037@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 05:36:33 GMT


I dropped alt.war from the thread, which continues
in talk.politics.theory.
-- 
=======================
"Endeavor to persevere"
=======================
From: jsast@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Jonathan S. Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: war is hell.
Date: 13 Apr 92 17:28:12 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Apr13.024133.5387@cs.yale.edu> yarvin-norman@CS.YALE.EDU (Norman Yarvin) writes:
>I didn't say they could be ignored by everybody.  I said they could be
>ignored by the news media and the general public for a short time.  The
>entity that keeps Evil Chemical Companies from dumping PCBs into drinking
>water isn't the Sierra Club, it's the EPA, which is a large slow-moving
>organization and can safely be assumed to keep running on inertia if it's
>left alone for a year.

Sorry, I disagree wholeheartedly.  The only reason the EPA is willing to do
it's "job" is because with the current environmental movement, they could be
darned sure they'd have the press breathing down their necks in a minute if
they screw up.  Need an example?  During Desert Storm, the Bush administration
changed and restricted their definition of what is and isn't a "wetland".
Environmental groups were furious, but hardly anyone noticed.  The press
didn't give it much coverage.  Now, the EPA has less of a job to do.

>So there is no reason to say "we can't go to war because we have to pay
>constant attention to domestic things and war will distract us."

Maybe so, but you have to admit that the distraction is still there and it
still hurts us (even in the slightest degree) on the home front.

>Indeed if
>the current state of the nation is any way to judge how well paying constant
>attention to internal matters serves us, we might as well have another war.

Say what?  You might have unfailing faith in your government to perform it's
duties, but I certainly don't.  With government beauracracies, you practically
have to kick, push, light a fire under them, whatever to get anything done.
They have a tendency to move much quicker when the guy upstairs threatens
them because he's taking the heat from the press.  When the press is out
running around behind a column of tanks, this is hard to do.

I'm very grateful that Bernstein and Woodward weren't in 'Nam.  (Well, maybe
we could have done without Woodward. :-))

>--
>Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu
> "Democracy is also a form of worship.  It is the worship of Jackals by
>  Jackasses." -- H. L. Mencken

-Jon Anderson


  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  
  Jon Anderson                                      jsast@unix.cis.pitt.edu
      "Won't you look down upon me Jesus, you gotta help me make a stand,
       You've just got to see me through another day.
       My body's aching and my time is at hand,
       And I won't make it any other way. "                 -James Taylor
  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><
From: jsast@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Jonathan S. Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: To the Pacifists (A Challenge Not a Flame)
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:52:44 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Apr15.032607.31620@m.cs.uiuc.edu> steph@cs.uiuc.edu (Dale Stephenson) writes:
>
>I submit that the laws against cocaine use have directly caused *some*
>people to refrain from using cocaine.  I believe that if there were no
>laws on the books, cocaine use would rise.  In other words -- the laws
>do have a deterrent effect.

Many would argue this point, but I won't.  Let's take you assumption to be
correct.  In the same vein as what you are saying, a strong belief in pacifism
has allowed *some* to not participate in war, thus securing their own lives
and possibly saving the lives of their opponnents that might have been 
slaughtered.  I would claim that this is good thing.  However, pacifists like
myself are not out to war.  We simply see something evil and refuse to
participate in it.  In the same manner, I refuse to snort cocaine because
I see it as evil.

The difference between the law and pacifism is that the law's clear intention
is to end cocaine use.  Pacifism's intention is to keep the conscience of the
individual clear.  Which would you say has the better chance of meeting it's
goal and is more based in reality?
 
>I don't think you were challenged to prove that a pacifism would prevent
>all wars from now until the end of time -- any more than military
>preparedeness prevents all wars.  I'm waiting for any example where pacifism
>prevented a *single* war.

Again, I will say that such a war does not exist.  There is no example to
give.  War will not end by human effort because human's are imperfect
creatures.  However, identifying the evil and refusing to participate in it
is a good first step.

>[snip]
>
>-- 
>Dale J. Stephenson |*| (steph@cs.uiuc.edu) |*| Gigabit Study Group 
>
>  "It is considered good to look wise, especially when not 
>   overburdened with information" -- J. Golden Kimball

-Jon Anderson


  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  
  Jon Anderson                                      jsast@unix.cis.pitt.edu
      "Won't you look down upon me Jesus, you gotta help me make a stand,
       You've just got to see me through another day.
       My body's aching and my time is at hand,
       And I won't make it any other way. "                 -James Taylor
  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><
From: bwise@hemlock.mitre.org (Barry Wise)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: What about the worst generals ever?
Date: 15 Apr 92 15:58:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: linus.1992Apr15.155803.29406
Organization: The MITRE Corporation

In article <1992Apr15.001520.14861@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>  
manuelp@bullet.ecf.toronto.edu (MANUELPILLAI Gerald N.) writes:

> I had already suggested Hitler, but for his "campaigns" in Russia _after_
> Barbarossa.  Hitler did not have any say in planning Barbarossa (except for
> the timing).  Anyways, in all probability, given the originally planned early
> starting date, Barbarossa had a very good chance of succeeding, so it wasn't
> really a planned "debacle".

Ok, I meant the actual execution not the original plan drafted by the staff.   
Hitler took a number of well thought out operations and turned them into  
disasters by his changes and indecisions during the course of the battles. A  
great plan doesn't do a lot of good if poorly executed.
--
Barry Wise
(bwise@hemlock.mitre.org)
Newsgroups: alt.war
From: aryk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (a.j.s. nusbacher)
Subject: Re: How to stop wars
Organization: University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 03:49:30 GMT


We all decided to outlaw war with the Kellogg-Briand pact just after WWI.  All
the democracies proceeded to disarm to one extent or another.  The war was over
and it was no longer necessary to maintain a serious level of military prepared-
ness.  In the words of the poet:

	Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
	But that couldn't happen again.
	We taught them a lesson in 1918,
	And they've hardly bothered us since then.

_____________________________________________________________________________
        Aryk Nusbacher                .. ..       Hart House, 1916
                                      ||_||  Women Admitted since 1972
          Hart House                  | I |     || ||          || ||  ..    ..
Informal Education in the University  |   |   . ||_||__________||_||  || ___||
                                      | O |___|_|__________________|__| /  \ |
    aryk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca         |   |       o oo  oo  oo   o      |__| |
                                      |_A_|_______A_oo  oo  oo   A__^^^______|
_____________________________________________________`------------____________
From: bjohnson@athena.mit.edu (Brett W Johnson)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Greatest Military/War Games
Date: 8 Apr 92 20:27:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Apr8.202747.24289
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <1992Apr7.030804.19912@descartes.waterloo.edu> sjknell@descartes.uwaterloo.ca (Jason Knell) writes:
>Ok.  Here's a RELATIVELY simple question that I need answered (out of 
>curiousity):
>
>   What are the greatest/best military/war games to play?  I'm more   
>   interested in games of strategy and/or tactics.  Some people have
>   suggested to me that chess is the ultimate.  But what do you war
>   experts think?

Chess is an excellent *game*, but it is not really a wargame.

I don't think I qualify as an *expert*, but my favorites are:

Third Reich (soon to be released in 5th edition aka Advanced 3R) by Avalon Hill
East Front by Columbia Games
Rommel in the Desert by Columbia Games

I freely admit to a bias towards WW2 games.

-Brett

--
Brett W. Johnson     (617) 273-2289
---
These opinions are mine and mine alone...
Newsgroups: alt.war
From: reynard@susie.cs.scarolina.edu (John Reynard)
Subject: Hannibal 
Keywords: Cannae not all
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 14 Apr 92 19:18:07 GMT


All the discussion of Hannibal at Cannae misses his next 11 years of 
campaigning up and down the Italian peninsula keeping an army of mercs
together without paying them and basically making the Romans day unhappy 
for an entire decade without reinforcements.  

I think this should put him on the list of great generals.  

He also destroyed one consular army before Cannae as well.

John
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: What about the worst generals ever?
From: ppugliese@pimacc.pima.edu
Date: 13 Apr 92 18:53:59 MST
 <1992Apr2.021348.8061@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> <k21701.703151327@kyyppari> <204855@unix.cis.pitt.edu>

> 
> Somewhere along the list would be included the leaders of
> the US-South Korean, and Chinese-North Korean armies who
> let their armies bleed away needlessly, losing division
> after division fighting over small hills in the dmz, while
> they failed to come up with a doable truce for 2 years. 

Don't forget that this was primarily a political decision. MacArthur
didn't like it & he got canned, replaced by someone else wouldn't
raise a fuss. I know that most of the military leaders on the UN
side didn't care for the situation but that wasn't their decision
to make.

> 
> Also candidates are the French and German leaders who
> wasted their armies in the trenches on the Western front.

Once again a political decision made higher up. The german Chief of the
General Staff that lauched the Verdun offensive was primarily motivated,
accrding to some sources, by a desire to make WWI so terrible the poli-
ticians would HAVE to agree to end the war. He didn't want to concentrate
on Russia as Hindenburg & Ludendorff desired because he knew that victor-
ies could be won there & that would simply make the continuation of the
war more feasible, according to this theory.

PHIL
p.s. I assume that by leaders you meant the generals BTW. That is what
this thread is about isn't it? If civilian leaders are brought into con-
sideration it's a whole different ballgame.
From: rwstarke@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ross W. Starkey)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Peru: what on earth is going on?
Date: 6 Apr 92 14:33:51 GMT
Reply-To: rwstarke@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ross W. Starkey)
Distribution: alt
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI

This morning I heard on Ted Turner's Headline News Nuggets channel that
Fujimori (the President of Peru) had suspended the government, dissolved the
legislature and declared martial law with the military's backing!  WHAT ON
EARTH IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?


-- 
Ross Starkey                         "Of course you know, this means WAR." 
rwstarke@vela.acs.oakland.edu        "This whole thing is goony, I shou'da
                                      stood in bed!"  "Gruesome, isn't it?"
FIGHT DICTATORSHIP!  VOTE!!!!                                  --Bugs Bunny
Newsgroups: alt.war
From: spinoza@next03wor.wam.umd.edu (Prince Lev of the Domovoi)
Subject: Re: How to stop wars
Organization: Workstations at Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 18:05:39 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.080249.1763@cs.mcgill.ca> zippy@cs.mcgill.ca (Fotis  
XIPOLITAKIS) writes:
> In article <92102.230859DAM137@psuvm.psu.edu> DAM137@psuvm.psu.edu  
writes:
> >Just a quick solution that was put forward by a German poem entitled
> >"Sagt Nein! (Say No!)" written just after WWII:
> >
> 	[things deleted]
> >
> >Just say no...
> 
>  Just not very realistic! eh!? What about the factory worker who needs
>  to do the job to feed his family and be able to send them to scholl so
>  they don't have to do what he's doing? What about the soldier who is
>  ready to put his life on the line for a system he deams worthy to
>  protect? We have a volunteer army not a conscript one... Our soldiers
>  believe in what are countries stand for... They are doing what they are
>  because they wish too... Should we just say no to people like hitler?
>  Let them kill millions we'll be happy here in our prety ivory towers
>  until people like him come after us... Certain political motives may
>  dubious but the soldier MUST always do what he is told... That is his
>  job...
I'd just like to point out here that the soldier is not obligated to  
follow orders which are manifestly immoral (at least that's what I've  
heard about US and Israeli armed forces, I imagine the same principle is  
expounded in other countries. In any case, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials  
seem to have established this principle pretty well by demolishing th  
e"just following orders argument"....................




lev
"Lo yisa goy el goy cherev lo yilmedu od milchama........but until then  
keep the Galil oiled and loaded........................................."
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Saturday, 11 Apr 1992 13:51:30 EDT
From: <CMH114@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: re: Mongols(was re: greatest general of all time)

Tuomas Viljanen said:

>In article <9APR199218145175@venus.lerc.nasa.gov> smpod@venus.lerc.nasa.gov
>(Stefan) writes:
>>>
>>Turnbull says that at the time of Genghis death, the Mongol army numbered
>>123,000 TOTAL. So it is difficult to believe that 75% of the army was used as
>>a flank guard into Poland, with the remaining 25% hitting the 100,000
>>Hungarians and guarding the empire.  Chambers mentions an invading force of
>>100,000 Mongols.
>
>Using Osprey Men-at-Arms books as source ? Heath warns about them. He says
>they are good reading, but contain many grave errors and faults.
>
>A Moslem historian Rashid al-Din records, that on death of Tzinghis Khan
>(remember, this happened 1227 !) the Mongol armies totaled 129,000, of which
>Army of the Left Wing (East) consisted of 62,000, the Army of the Right Wing
>(West) of 38,000 and The Imperial Horde of 29,000. Remember that this was the
>situation _fifteen years_ before the European campaign.

>Auxiliaries, as I have previosly stated, made up a large part of the army.
>Rashid al-Din mentions, that some ten years after the death of Tzinghis the
>Mongols wer able to mobilize 1,400,000 men, while Khan 0go"dei claimed himself
>to be able to maintain five armies, totaling 1,500,000 men.

Dudes, this is all pissing in the wind. *you can't trust chroniclers to give
us accurate army sizes in their own countries, let alone a couple thousand
miles away*. I won't even start about a ruler's own self-aggrandizing claims.
Medieval chroniclers underballed their estimates, Middle eastern chroniclers
exaggerated their figures, and most just pulled numbers out of thin air.
We have no textual way of guessing the number of Mongolian soldiers in the
hordes. You might be able to guess how many Mongols/Tartars there were to begin
with by figuring the herd #s supportable by the steppes at that time, but that
would assume that every manjack on the steppes came pouring out into the world.
Also, part of the reasons for these nomad irruptions are usually overpopulation
on the steppes, so your environmental estimates would have to be adjusted. And
of course, all of this goes out the window, like Tuomas said, when you figure
in the conscripts and recruits that surely swelled the hordes after their first
conquests.

Mitch
Quest Laboratories
Terraforming Division
Newsgroups: alt.war,soc.culture.asian.american
From: jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: The War in 2020 (was US military policy)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 02:17:08 GMT

In article <viking.702968302@aviator.cc.iastate.edu> viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson) writes:
>
>>On the other hand this attitude doesn't stop our waging wars where we are
>>sure to crush the opponent immediately (Panama, Grenada), or where our vital
>>interests are at stake (Gulf War).
>
>	It is also interesting to note that chimps have been filmed
>hunting down, killing, and sharing a monkey.  Never a gorilla, but
>always a much smaller monkey.  This also leads me to believe that
>perhaps there is some inbred warlike tendencies in humanity, we not
>being much above apes in many respects.  At least the apes know not
>to try hunting prey that can effectively fight back.

	That's fairly common in predators. Even if you hunt in packs,
large (relative to the hunter) prey animals can inflict unacceptable 
losses on predators. It is a rare predator who routinely hunts prey
much larger (5x and up) than themselves. That's why being big can be a
useful adaptation: none the predators can afford to hunt you when you're
healthy.

	I'm not sure if this is at all useful as a metaphor in international
relations, although being huge certainly helps Russia, if the invader can't
forage off of Russian resources (The Napoleonic and Nazi invasions, rather 
than the Mongols, who cleaned up handily).

							James Nicoll
From: sasrns@cossack.unx.sas.com (Neal Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Interesting challenge.
Date: 15 Apr 92 19:14:09 GMT
    <1992Apr14.155958.5363@linus.mitre.org>
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasrns@cossack.unx.sas.com
X-Bytes: 551

In article <1992Apr14.155958.5363@linus.mitre.org>, bwise@hemlock.mitre.org (Barry Wise) writes:
|> It would have been an assassination and we don't do those things do we? We'd
|> much rather kill the grunts out in the field. Wars are started by leaders but
|> the soldiers do the dying. I don't think a leader has led the charge since the
|> War of the Roses.
|> --
|> Barry Wise
|> (bwise@hemlock.mitre.org)


  Sorry if anyone has posted this already, but...


  Old generals never die, they just get their privates to do it.


Later
Neal Smith
From: fsrla@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: How to stop wars
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:22:23 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

In article <1992Apr12.080249.1763@cs.mcgill.ca>, zippy@cs.mcgill.ca (Fotis XIPOLITAKIS) writes:
> In article <92102.230859DAM137@psuvm.psu.edu> DAM137@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>Just a quick solution that was put forward by a German poem entitled
>>"Sagt Nein! (Say No!)" written just after WWII:
>>
> 	[things deleted]
>>      [more things deleted]
>> Certain political motives may
>  dubious but the soldier MUST always do what he is told... That is his
>  job...
>>
>>Dave
> 
> Fotis.
> 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting, though, that soldiers in the Soviet Union, and
some of the soldiers in China refused orders to fire upon 
their own countrymen.  It's a shame it's not like that here, huh?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Asbury                  email:  fsrla@acad3.alaska.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground"   ---CSNY---
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.war