From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Mar 31 17: 2:41 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mta2.rcsntx.swbell.net (mta2.rcsntx.swbell.net [151.164.30.26]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7C6F37C041 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 17:02:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from noslenj@swbell.net) Received: from acp.swbell.net ([208.190.159.236]) by mta2.rcsntx.swbell.net (Sun Internet Mail Server sims.3.5.2000.01.05.12.18.p9) with ESMTP id <0FSB007NEC87WT@mta2.rcsntx.swbell.net> for freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 19:02:32 -0600 (CST) Received: from localhost (noslenj@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by acp.swbell.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA00590; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 18:13:05 -0600 (CST envelope-from noslenj@swbell.net) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 18:13:05 -0600 (CST) From: Jay Nelson Subject: Re: Guns and freedom [Was: Re: On "intelligent people"and"dangers to BSD"] In-reply-to: <38E409B8.521D5015@mail.ptd.net> To: "Thomas M. Sommers" Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Thomas M. Sommers wrote: [snip] >As I said, I agree that as far as results go, it does not matter whether >we lost or quit, but that difference does matter when you try to draw >lessons from the war. Neither the VC nor the NVA beat us on the >battlefield. If we had wanted to, we could have stayed indefinitely. You are right, of course, and it does raise some important questions. If there were a need for a second revolution, would current government have more, less or equal will to win? Would troops on the ground have more, less or equal enthusiasm for the fight. (Would the revolutionaries have any will.) What would be the rate of defection when the "enemy" is the same as the troops. Did we learn anything from Vietnam upon which we could improve? There would be a lot of wild cards in an action like this. It would be interesting to compare the contingency plans in place at the pentagon and justice. -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message