:o :D :-?
@TG:
Forrest and Bill are two different kind of businessmen! At least Forrest had sound judgment and good morals. Bill Gates ran around swindling and stealing other people’s stuff, then calling it his own. Actually, I take that back. Gates would be good a raiding Union Supply Depots, then claiming the stuff for the Confederacy! :P
Sounds like a great plan! Too bad more Confederate leaders didn’t try it. :lol:
Yes, Gates then could sold the stolen weapons and equipment back to the North and make a profit for the South! :wink:
But first, Gates would have to “bug” (replace all the parts with faulty ones) the equipment and make it “crash,” causing the guns to malfunction when the North tried to fire them. This in turn would cause the North to purchase the “upgrade” from Gates, giving the South even more money! Bill Gates, you’re a genius! :P
Well, as they say, “business is war!”
When i was a territory manager for a (large) pharmaceutical company, i read Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
Competition the difference is instead of spending money and forming corporate alliances, etc., you are spending people, merging forces, etc.
Anticipation is the watchword in business no less than in war. Be the biggest dog on the block, utilize the fog (of war or numbers) to your advantage, take no prisoners, have no mercy, work long hours, build connections, use the big guns appropriately, etc.
you get where i’m coming from.
:evil:
Yeh…Nathan Bedford Forest was an AWESOME guy. He kicked ass against the Union and after the war he went home, dusted himself off, had a cup of coffee, and put on a nice, shiny white Ku Klux Klan robe and hunted the ni**ers!!!
Lets not get too carried away here, guys; Nathan Bedford Forest was a MONSTER…
:x
Ozone27
I never said he was a nice guy, I was comenting on the fact that he was a great strategist, he was self taught, and the youngest general in the civil war.
Yeah, there’s a difference between military strategy and personal ethics (Good example being the damnYankee, William T. Sherman).
Forrest got out of the KKK when it got too violent for him. If there were more “monsters” instead of Hoods and Braggs the war would have been different, most likely shorter. Believe me. 'Nuff said.
@TG:
Yeah, there’s a difference between military strategy and personal ethics (Good example being the damnYankee, William T. Sherman).
TG:
But don’t you think military commanders ought to be held to the highest moral standards? After all, these guys don’t just “go away” after a war, they stay on as powerful figures–as both W.T. Sherman and N.B. Forest show. W.T. Sherman devastated the South, and the North had little or no ability or desire to invest in “reconstruction” (political expedients aside). He also hated Native Americans with a passion (even though he was named after one) and commented on his visit to the 1870 front in the Franco-Prussian War as attache to the Prussian General Staff that he wanted to see “more refugees, more burning villages”. Morals were of no consequence to this guy–the object was to WIN no matter what the cost or who (on the other side) it hurts.The war might indeed be shorter, but it certainly will be bloodier and more painful for all involved…
bangalore:
Then you’ve got everybody’s “best friend” Nathan Bedford Forest. So this guy was a tenacious soldier and a military visionary (he was). But a peace involved with this fellow would be (and in fact was) an absolute nightmare! I don’t care whether he could stomach the “violence” of the KKK agenda–he helped to START it; in fact his name recognition was a powerful inducement for early members to join! He HATED AFRICAN-AMERICANs and worked to secure their “second-class” status in the South that continued through the early 1960’s (and continues to this day throughout the U.S.). Yeah, this guy was a cavalry genius, but the fact that a man of his dubious moral calibre could achieve high command in the Army of the Confederacy is a testament to that institution’s moral degeneracy. Yeah, the Confederates were fighting for the cause of self-determination (surely a worthy cause), but that cause was a SHAM, because their intention was to shut out from that so-called-“self-determination” half their population!!! :evil: :evil: :evil:
Now I’m not some anti-South nut that has no affinity for the rebel mystique (I am, after all, an American) but lets be real here–the cause was an EVIL one, and commanders must be held responsible for the causes for which they choose to fight. After all, THEY are the guys w/ the guns!
Ozone27
It’s total war. You do what you got to do to win the war at all costs. And if it means burning down a town or even spilling some civilian blood…well I guess that’s just the toils of war.
true Candyman,
but i have a lot of sympathy for Ozone’s point.
War is evil, by nature. At the same time, the concept of it being conducted by “gentlemen” is, i think something that prevents it from being even more unpalatable. Needless cruelty can be an important negative for a commanding officer - particularly where morale of his troops are concerned, as well as recently vanquished foes. Furthermore, our military leaders often assume political leadership (if they do not already have some). If we hold our political leaders to any kind of moral or ethical line, shouldn’t the same be true of military leadership?
(now, of course whether i needed to choose between my general being an ahole who got the job done properly, and some ineffective bleeding heart, then i’ll go with the ahole, however the South was not short of effective generals in the civil war - unlike the North).
war is always won by the side that stoops the lowest
@Ozone:
But don’t you think military commanders ought to be held to the highest moral standards? After all, these guys don’t just “go away” after a war, they stay on as powerful figures–as both W.T. Sherman and N.B. Forest show. W.T. Sherman devastated the South, and the North had little or no ability or desire to invest in “reconstruction” (political expedients aside). He also hated Native Americans with a passion (even though he was named after one) and commented on his visit to the 1870 front in the Franco-Prussian War as attache to the Prussian General Staff that he wanted to see “more refugees, more burning villages”. Morals were of no consequence to this guy–the object was to WIN no matter what the cost or who (on the other side) it hurts.The war might indeed be shorter, but it certainly will be bloodier and more painful for all involved…
Yes, Generals should be held to highest of moral standards. That is why fellow Confederates hate him so much. However, the problem with Confederates was that we forget to realize that all of Sherman’s tactics were not “march to the closest city and burn it down.” Any second rate moron can do that. Maybe his most infamous action, but Sherman was also a very good military strategist. His flanking manuevers were widely studied and practiced by another general with the name, “General George S. Patton.” Also, the inability to keep such a large army intact and a single fighting force (many people forget how difficult this is to do) is commendable.
But here’s another question, if war crime trials were around back then, do you think Sherman should’ve been tried and if so, convicted? This would be similar to the pilots who dropped “the bomb” over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anyone feel free to answer this.
The droppings of the atomic bombs are justified. It was a military means of ending the war and it was not a deliberate act to kill civillians and destroy cities. In effect, the droppings saved lives.
I’m not fully read up on Sherman and his “march to the sea” to contemplate whether his actions warranted a war crimes trial.
“But here’s another question, if war crime trials were around back then, do you think Sherman should’ve been tried and if so, convicted? This would be similar to the pilots who dropped “the bomb” over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anyone feel free to answer this.”
Any deliberate attack on the civilian population is immoral. I know in war, civilians are accidentally caught in the crossfire and many are indirectly killed, but to purposely use civilians as targets is a serious crime. I understand destroying weapons factories, railroad networks, and supply to deprive the enemy of resources but not when it would jeopardize the lives of innocent children exempt from any wrong doing. I think it is very cowardly of grown men engaging humanitarian violence and using war as a cover up :(
@TM:
Any deliberate attack on the civilian population is immoral. I know in war, civilians are accidentally caught in the crossfire and many are indirectly killed, but to purposely use civilians as targets is a serious crime. I understand destroying weapons factories, railroad networks, and supply to deprive the enemy of resources but not when it would jeopardize the lives of innocent children exempt from any wrong doing. I think it is very cowardly of grown men engaging humanitarian violence and using war as a cover up :(
…exactly. The Civil War was coming to a close as it was and while the “March to the Sea” may have hastened the “end” somewhat, the ends certainly did not justify the means. I agree that W.T. Sherman was a great general and probably not on a par with Forest in the “evil” department; still he used his army to rampage across virtually undefended civilian territory with the intent to “bring the war home” to the South by wantonly pillaging their country. This did a lot to prevent the reconciliation between North and South that continues in some forms to this day. Many Southerners still recall the name of Sherman with bitterness. This can hardly be called “ending the war sooner” at least in peoples’ minds.
Ozone27
@TM:
“But here’s another question, if war crime trials were around back then, do you think Sherman should’ve been tried and if so, convicted? This would be similar to the pilots who dropped “the bomb” over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anyone feel free to answer this.”
Any deliberate attack on the civilian population is immoral. I know in war, civilians are accidentally caught in the crossfire and many are indirectly killed, but to purposely use civilians as targets is a serious crime. I understand destroying weapons factories, railroad networks, and supply to deprive the enemy of resources but not when it would jeopardize the lives of innocent children exempt from any wrong doing. I think it is very cowardly of grown men engaging humanitarian violence and using war as a cover up :(
This is a toughie. I agree that bombing civie’s is a bad thing in many cases (what simplistic language for the Crypt), in that you kill children, parents, people who are innocent of the war, etc. At the same time, you are also killing those who would “aid and abet” their country’s practices, thus blurring the lines of civilian/military distinction. This is through factories that supply the military, voting in war-hawk governements, exalt a culture that glorifies dying in “honor” and killing, and perpetuating evil deeds as a way of life.
I agree that the bombing of Japan, tho’ something i could never do, might be considered a necessary evil. Would the Japanese have continued their war of attrition, thus losing many more lives without the shock of a one time, devestating mess? If so, then would their civilians not soon be military targets (not merely civilian ones)?
As a pacifist, the whole idea is a little stomach-queasy-inducing, but as a rational person, there are somethings that hindsight will never predict.
So far, these have all been great post. But I just like to clear up a few things.
“The Civil War was coming to a close as it was and while the “March to the Sea” may have hastened the “end” somewhat, the ends certainly did not justify the means.”
This is true, us Confederates were scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Much of the Supplies from Richmond and the other Southern cities were cut off from reaching Robert E Lee, so I doubt even burning those down would of done much worse to the Confederate Army anyways.
“still he used his army to rampage across virtually undefended civilian territory with the intent to “bring the war home” to the South by wantonly pillaging their country.”
Well I would exactly call his campaign a walkthrough as Sherman met fierce resistance along the way from a great Civil War hero, Joseph E Johnston. In fact, Johnston even bested Sherman at and was able to retreat while keep most of his army intact.
“This did a lot to prevent the reconciliation between North and South that continues in some forms to this day. Many Southerners still recall the name of Sherman with bitterness. This can hardly be called “ending the war sooner” at least in peoples’ minds.”
Many Southerners!? Try all of them! :wink: You cannot walk in a Southern bar today, even mention Sherman’s name, and expect not to be thrown out.
“Many Southerners!? Try all of them! You cannot walk in a Southern bar today, even mention Sherman’s name, and expect not to be thrown out.”
I should try that sometime in the future. Hell, atleast it would be cooler than being thrown out for not meeting the legal drinking age.
The droppings of the atomic bombs are justified. It was a military means of ending the war and it was not a deliberate act to kill civillians and destroy cities. In effect, the droppings saved lives.
I’m not fully read up on Sherman and his “march to the sea” to contemplate whether his actions warranted a war crimes trial.
This was idiots, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just place to show how powerfull their little toy were, no real stategic importance. Those who send those bomb get no sentence at the end of the war but they sentence Goring and other Nazi to death; like Goring said at the judgement; “we are here because we loose”. American should have send a bomb on a desolated island first, it would have save life and the japanse would have understand, or at least they would have try to save life, also the number of death was really high, i am not sure it has save life, maybe American life, but not civillian life. But like Great Brittain that throw in the melee people from their colonies in wwi; no americans were judged for their war crime because they win.
