Thank God for the Americans, if it werent for them we would

[niss]

be watching the muppets in German.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jee1J3_Ps0

[Nark]

You sir are welcome.

Happy Chanakkah, Hanukkah, ha-nna-ka





Happy Festivus.

[ottawa,kan]

Well, you're welcome! But I did read somewhere recently that over half the troops that landed in Normandy on D-Day were either Canadian or British. Over half.

[iflyforpie]

The Canadians at Juno Beach were the only ones to reach their 24 hr objective on D-Day. To be fair, the boys on Omaha probably had the toughest section.

Here in BC, we would be speaking Japanese, not German. But because we won the war, we speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjab, Filipino.....

[Nark]

But because we won the war, we speak...Filipino.....

Tagalog


When I was in the beautiful PI, somewhere between the 50 cent bottles of rum and the lazy-river, I managed to ask how you pronounce this word: "NG"
The translation was lost since much more important matters were at hand...

[dashx]

Niss.

You can thank anyone you want:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_sold ... orld_War_2

Now where's that shovel? I can hear your driveway calling.....

[niss]

Methinks someone has not been reading long enough to 'get me'.

[dashx]

"get me"?

There's something to get?

If there was something to get I don't think I got it.

Did I?

[niss]

"get me"?

There's something to get?

If there was something to get I don't think I got it.

Did I?

I am one of the last people who will sing the praises of the Americans, etc.

This was just a tongue in cheek reference to that old adage 'if it weren't for us you would all be speaking German' and just showing off that I found a copy of the muppets in german.

[dashx]

I see....

sarcasm......

So what you're saying is that Americans believe the world revolves around them.....

So tell me how you really feel......

[Nark]

Are you saying the world doesn't revolve around us/me?

[JakeYYZ]

Saturday's the 5th anniversary of the Sumatran tsunami, which would be a good time to remember not just the U.S. relief aid funds, but the fact that the American military does more than just kill giant Smurfs for the profit of evil corporations, Niss.

[niss]

Saturday's the 5th anniversary of the Sumatran tsunami, which would be a good time to remember not just the U.S. relief aid funds, but the fact that the American military does more than just kill giant Smurfs for the profit of evil corporations, Niss.

What a perfect time to reflect on the fact that 9/11 and Katrina while no doubt horrible and sad, were not the largest loss of life, nor the largest disasters of the last decade.

Hopefully this will put things into perspective for many and add to the thankfulness of the holiday season.

Have a safe and peaceful holiday season to all my fellow human beings.

[BibleMonkey]

I disagree.

I say we should all pig-pile on Niss for making joke threads inna Polit8icalDisgussion/humour section.

If we don't stop him now-what's next, funny pictures?

Bastard.

[Siddley Hawker]

Bob Seger!!!

[BibleMonkey]

Bob Seger!!!

Durn-it does look like Bob Seger.
I hafta go sing. (:
Merry Christmas Siddley, and all.

[g5]

[Spokes]

Whats your point? The girl in the center was clearly taken from a famous Vietnam War photo?

Most people do not know the context of this photo, and assume the girl is running away from here village, not having enough time to get some cloths on, to escape an American attack. I have seen this photo used before to show disdain for the Americans.

What really was going on was this girl was fleeing from a VC attack on here village, and American troops were driving them out. I suspect had the Americans not been there there would have been plenty of tragedies like this preptrated by the communist north, except with no one to stop them, amd no one to take pictures.

So I ask, what is your point?

[mdscientist61]

Here is a wikipedia posting on the story behind the picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Th%E1 ... _Ph%C3%BAc

[BibleMonkey]

Here is a wikipedia posting on the story behind the picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Th%E1 ... _Ph%C3%BAc

I should have got a Pull-its-her for my above photo I took of my little niece at the picnic, it's way better:



For some reason people said I doctored it up-not true! She really is that cute-dunno what the big deal is.

===========

The "other" iconic Vietnam pic , also-of course-has an interesting story :

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2 ... g3NTk0NzE=

" .....But the really disturbing image is of Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a man. Everybody has seen this picture or the film of the incident. A cruel and angry South Vietnamese General executes what appears to be a defenseless Vietcong prisoner. Eddie Adams, The AP photographer who snapped the photo, earned a Pulitzer Prize for the picture.

That picture helped galvanize the anti-war effort in the United States. Hubert Humphrey, at the time the photo was taken, was on the verge of challenging President Johnson for the Democratic nomination for president. The photo (and subsequent NBC film) helped stir sentiment to the point that Johnson announced he would not seek a second term only two months later. It is one of the most powerful icons for everything that was supposedly wrong with that war. It is precisely the sort of professional coup that a reporter who's "Dying to Tell the Story" dreams of getting.

Except Eddie Adams wishes he never took the picture.

After the photo was seen around the world, the AP assigned Adams to hang out with General Loan. He discovered that Loan was a beloved hero in Vietnam, to his troops and the citizens. "He was fighting our war, not their war, our war, and every — all the blame is on this guy," Adams told NPR (in what may have been the most surprisingly courageous NPR interview I've ever heard). Adams learned that Loan fought for the construction of hospitals in South Vietnam and unlike the popular myths, demonstrated the fact that at least some South Vietnamese soldiers really did want to fight for their country and way of life.

Just moments before that photo had been taken, several of his men had been gunned down. One of his soldiers had been at home, along with the man's wife and children.

Vietcong had attacked during the holiday of Tet, which had been agreed upon as a time for a truce. As it turned out, many of the victims of the NC and North Vietnamese were defenseless. Some three thousand of them were discovered in a mass grave outside of Hue after the Americans reoccupied the area.

The surprise invasion, turned out to be a military disaster for the Vietcong, but a huge strategic victory because of its effect on American resolve.

But at the time, all of this was irrelevant to people like Loan. It was an ugly, shocking assault. The execution of the prisoner was a reprisal. It was an ugly thing to be sure, but wars, civil wars especially, are profoundly ugly things.

Adams wrote in Time magazine, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.

What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'"

The picture that Adams took, the picture that CNN thinks is such an atrocious and ignoble deed, ruined Loan's life. More to the point, it didn't expand on "our right to know." It didn't answer questions, or give us the story. It deceived. It gave no context. It confirmed the biases of the anti-war journalists, and they used it to further their agenda.

Loan fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon for the US. He eventually moved to Burke, Virginia. He tried to open a restaurant in Northern Virginia, but when the identity of its owner became known, it closed down. Protestors circled the establishment venting their fashionable, safe, outrage.

The two men stayed in touch, and Adams tried to apologize many times.

"He was very sick, you know, he had cancer for a while," he told NPR. "And I talked to him on the phone and I wanted to try to do something, explaining everything and how the photograph destroyed his life and he just wanted to try to forget it. He said let it go. And I just didn't want him to go out this way."

General Loan died a year and a month ago. He left a wife and five kids. Most of the obituaries were, like the photograph that ruined his life, two dimensional and unforgiving. Adams sent flowers with a card that read, "I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes." ....."

==
In summary, I guess ole checkered-shirt-bullet inna head guy had it coming...having just killed the generals friend and all of his family...

[Rockie]

Very few hats worn in war time are black or white, and some you would think are black are actually white and vice versa. The overwhelming majority of them on both sides are varying shades of grey.

Those are my words of wisdom to people who only think in terms of black/white, good/evil etc.

[Nark]

Rockie,
Excellent point.

The grey spectrum gets even bigger when bullets start flying.

[bmc]

Rockie,
Excellent point.

The grey spectrum gets even bigger when bullets start flying.

And then the spin machine kicks in.