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Author Topic: Berkeley and the Marines  (Read 38444 times)

CmonMiracle

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Berkeley and the Marines
« on: 12 Feb 2008, 14:13 »

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Hey-hey, ho-ho, the Marines in Berkeley have got to go.

That's the message from the Berkeley City Council, which voted 6-3, with Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds and Kriss Worthington dissenting, to tell the Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."
...
In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.
...
 Even though the council items passed, not everyone is happy with the work of Code Pink. Some employees and owners of businesses near the Marines office have had enough of the group and its protests.

"My husband's business is right upstairs, and this (protesting) is bordering on harassment," Dori Schmidt told the council. "I hope this stops."

An employee of a nearby business who asked not to be identified said Wednesday the elderly Code Pink protesters are aggressive, take up parking spaces, block the sidewalk with their yoga moves, smoke in the doorways, and are noisy.

"Most of the people around here think they're a joke," the woman said.

Wozniak said he was opposed to giving Code Pink a parking space because it favors free speech rights of one group over another.

"There's a line between protesting and harassing, and that concerns me," Wozniak said. "It looks like we are showing favoritism. We have to respect the other side, and not abuse their rights. This is not good policy."

Quote
The pro-military demonstrators were met by anti-war protesters who had camped out overnight, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown late in the day when the City Council is to discuss whether to revoke its previous vote.
....
Kriss Worthington, a progressive Berkeley activist and council member for 11 years, believes the council overreached.

"The inflammatory language in the City Council item is really outrageous -- not just to right-wing people, but to mainstream liberal people and even to some peace activists who have said they're insulted that the city would have such language," Worthington said.

He said Berkeley owes an apology to the military and to the peace movement "for having such embarrassing language allegedly trying to promote peace."
...
The City Council is to meet at 7 p.m. PT on whether to take back its previous measure urging the Marine recruiters to leave town.

"If recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders," the measure says.

It went on to say the council applauds residents and organizations that "volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the City of Berkeley."

Ever since the council measure, protesters with the anti-war group Code Pink have camped outside the Marine recruiting office on Shattuck Avenue, singing peace songs and chanting slogans for an end to the Iraq war.

What do you guys think of this? While I am not pro-war, I believe Berkeley is making a huge mistake doing this - if you don't want to join the Marines, don't walk in there! People have a choice! You can't just BAN people and institutions you don't like! While it is highly unlikely that this could lead to bans of other places - if some town decided to ban all gay bars, for example- that shouldn't be justification for this. You can't bend the rules one time and expect no one else to do the same - but worse. I'm especially shocked at the wording encouraging and giving protestors a free pass to basically harass Marines. Does this include preventing Marines from entering their workplace? What about people who DO want to join? What defines nonviolent means? What happens when someone -a protester or a Marine- snaps and retaliates?

Let's hear your thoughts, we need a good discussion.
« Last Edit: 12 Feb 2008, 14:22 by CmonMiracle »
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Dissy

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #1 on: 12 Feb 2008, 14:18 »

Berkeley is making a big mistake.  And these Code Pink people are real asshats. 
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #2 on: 12 Feb 2008, 14:51 »

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not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders

That really is harsh. If people want to defend their country, then let them do it. The Marines aren't forcing anyone to join by having a recruitment office there, they are waiting for those who want to do it. And Berkley is showing favoritism to Code Pink, who sound to be pretty rude for people promoting peace.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #3 on: 12 Feb 2008, 14:53 »

FIGHT WAR
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #4 on: 12 Feb 2008, 15:14 »

I agree that this measure seems pretty extreme. I believe (although I'm not certain of this) that California has laws preventing recruiters from coming on high school or university campuses, so as long as they're not harassing people I don't see the harm in letting them within the city.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #5 on: 12 Feb 2008, 15:43 »

I applaud this move.
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CmonMiracle

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #6 on: 12 Feb 2008, 15:46 »

I'd love to hear further explanation for your decision, Khar.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #7 on: 12 Feb 2008, 15:58 »

I applaud this move.

Please, pray tell, why you would applaud this.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #8 on: 12 Feb 2008, 16:08 »

I wouldn't applaud these actions, necessarily, but that's because I really just don't fucking care. Oh my god, somebody's protesting a military organisation, alert the 60s
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Yeah, I mean, "I won't kill and eat you if you won't kill and eat me" is typically a ground rule for social groups.

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #9 on: 12 Feb 2008, 16:15 »

Oh my god, somebody's protesting a military organisation, alert the 60s

You live in a world today in which people are fighting and dying in the armed services. What the hell kind of attitude is this? Am a interpreting your humour incorrectly or something?
I mean, here we have a council banning certain people from town and certain people harassing other people who are trying to get certain other people to sign up to maybe die. In your country.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #10 on: 12 Feb 2008, 16:37 »

It was really more me being cynical than trying to be humorous. I amount this thread much the same to the Anon vs. CoS thread. really too political just in case there are still some people out there who happen to be forum members who are for the war (why they'd be there I don't know, but I don't want to offend them either if I can avoid it)
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Yeah, I mean, "I won't kill and eat you if you won't kill and eat me" is typically a ground rule for social groups.

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #11 on: 12 Feb 2008, 17:11 »

Please, pray tell, why you would applaud this.

Because I hate your freedom.
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jhocking

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #12 on: 12 Feb 2008, 17:18 »

Talk about a decision that will backfire. I can already hear Bill O'Reilly's rant.

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #13 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:06 »

I'm fairly pacifist, but this is dumb. You can't just ban people from your city. Especially not because of politics. Poor form, Berkeley. Stop being idiots.

At any rate, it won't stand. They'll be sued, it'll run up the chain of appeals, maybe up the the Supreme Court, and then the precedent will be set that no city can pull this shit ever.
« Last Edit: 12 Feb 2008, 19:08 by Ozymandias »
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David_Dovey

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #14 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:12 »

Agreed with Ozy. I'm about as pacifistic as they come, and I'd love to see a world where there is no need for armed forces and where they were all abolished, but I'm nowhere stupid enough to think that abolishing the armed forces right now is a particularly smart move.

certain people harassing other people who are trying to get certain other people to sign up to maybe die. In your country.

Yes, because people are being forced to join the Marines and go to war. Is it actually anywhere stated that they are harassing people? Unless you have a wildly different interpretation of harassment than I do.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #15 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:13 »

Recruitment offices aren't exactly innocent though, keep that in mind. If they EVER get a lead, they will hound the person to the end of the earth to try and get a commitment out of them. My sister's boyfriend went to an information session by the Marines at his high school, and the recruiter got a copy of the school's phonebook and called him constantly for the next two years, showed up at his house and after school at the theater, and basically made life hell. They threatened to change phone numbers and bring the police into it and the guys finally backed off.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #16 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:18 »

You get harassed by the armed forces just by turning 18 if you're male. Recruitment offices don't have to be involved at all. The government wants blood. Still can't be banning people.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #17 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:23 »

I don't agree with the banning people either, though I think it's a bit odd that they bothered putting a shopfront recruitment place in Berkely of all places. How many people do you think they manage to pull in there? It's white, rich, and liberal, the people are not really the military's main targets.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #18 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:24 »

I feel silly for not thinking that the U.S. Armed Forces were such a bunch of shitcocks!

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KickThatBathProf

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #19 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:24 »

Please, pray tell, why you would applaud this.

Because I hate your freedom.

You should be banned from America for this.  We're going to deport you back to Afghanistan where you belong, you terrorist
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Ozymandias

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #20 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:26 »

He's in Britain.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #21 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:28 »

Yeah... you have to sign up for that goddamn selective service thing, in case they bring back the draft. If they do though, I am going to be out of the country before they can enact the first round of drafts, I am not a pacifist anymore, but I still don't think it is right to kill simply because you are told to. And my hide is a hell of a lot more valuable to me than it is to the politicians.

I don't think this is the right thing to do though, I have nothing against the military, considering that the whole idea behind it is to take normal people and turn them into killing machines that, when faced with people in a different uniform that actually aren't really all that unlike you, try to kill them while they try to kill you. All because some politician's feelings got hurt in a dickwaving contest.

Oh, and don't worry Khar, plenty of people in the government hate it too, why do you think they came up with things like "free speech zones"?
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #22 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:40 »

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #23 on: 12 Feb 2008, 19:41 »

if you're interested in watching: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=9868

also, some uc berkeley student opinions. i pretty much agree with them.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #24 on: 12 Feb 2008, 21:35 »

i think cities should start banning people from other cities.

let's try our best to fail at living, shall we?
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #25 on: 13 Feb 2008, 00:20 »


What do you guys think of this? While I am not pro-war, I believe Berkeley is making a huge mistake doing this - if you don't want to join the Marines, don't walk in there! People have a choice! You can't just BAN people and institutions you don't like! While it is highly unlikely that this could lead to bans of other places - if some town decided to ban all gay bars, for example- that shouldn't be justification for this. You can't bend the rules one time and expect no one else to do the same - but worse. I'm especially shocked at the wording encouraging and giving protestors a free pass to basically harass Marines. Does this include preventing Marines from entering their workplace? What about people who DO want to join? What defines nonviolent means? What happens when someone -a protester or a Marine- snaps and retaliates?

Let's hear your thoughts, we need a good discussion.

Banning people and institutions a government or council dislikes happens all the time. This ranges from brothels to drug dealers to polluting industries, and just those people governments decide they don't want in their country. Most countries will only allow people to be within their borders for very limited amounts of time on tourist visas and they ban them from remaining longer, and there are vast amounts of the world's population they simply wouldn't allow to enter the country at all. Berkeley has simply done what councils and governments do all the time, which is to decide that this organisation's activities are detrimental to their area and not allowed them to operate there anymore.

What's wrong with preventing marines from entering their workplace? That's one of the oldest non-violent tactics in the book, it's what you do when you're on strike to prevent bosses just replacing you by using scabs. If you don't disrupt the activities of those organisations you're against then you'll just be ignored, you need to make it unprofitable for them to continue operating. Using protest to raise public awareness is all very well but it will mostly be ignored by the people who actually make decisions. The anti-Iraq war protests in the UK are a good example. Roughly a million people marched against the war in London and were promptly ignored by the government. If those same million people had blockaded and disrupted the activities of the government and armed forces the effect would quite possibly have been very different. It would have been impossible to arrest them all and the government would have not been able to continue with its activities until it backed down from its pro-war position.

What about people who do want to join? Tough, they want to do something you're against so they need to be prevented. They should have it made clear to them that if they sign up they're doing something a lot of people think is deeply wrong, I see no reason for them to be protected from that. It's true, somebody could snap and retaliate with violence. It happens, protesting isn't easy and often involves physical danger. This isn't a reason not to do it.

In short: good for Berkeley.
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NarwhalSunshine

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #26 on: 13 Feb 2008, 00:33 »

Well that's stupid, my dad is a retired staff sergeant of 21 years so I've been around the military a lot and get lots of calls from recruiters and the marine recruiters are the most laid back, they don't have to do anything the future grunts come to them. If anything take the Navy recruiters' phone privileges away, they are worse than telemarketers.
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Patrick

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #27 on: 13 Feb 2008, 00:34 »

Some photos taken in Berkeley:





THIS IS THE CITY WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE, YOU GUYS.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #28 on: 13 Feb 2008, 00:42 »

God, If you're gonna make a protest sign, don't make it so you have to stand there for five minutes reading it

It's got to be simple
Examples: 
"Moar peace plz thx"
"God cries when you masturbate"
"Ur Doin It Wrong"
"I hate kittens"
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #29 on: 13 Feb 2008, 00:49 »

Dude, you can find people that crazy anywhere.  Berkeley's just the only place where people have enough fun humoring them that they have the confidence to go public.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #30 on: 13 Feb 2008, 01:00 »

"Ur Doin It Wrong"

That and "Do Not Want" are two of the most succinct protest signs there could be. Thankyou, internet.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #31 on: 13 Feb 2008, 01:04 »

Berkeley's actually a pretty amusing place. Sure, there's a segment of people who think everything is deadly serious and here is a petition about that. But there are, in my experience, much more who are just sort of quirky. I had one guy do an extremely exaggerated pantomime of me walking with enormous testicles because I bought a postcard off him for some charity thing.

It was even funnier because I was like, 15 at the time.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #32 on: 13 Feb 2008, 01:52 »

...and your testicles only grew to their current gargantuan size when you were 17?
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #33 on: 13 Feb 2008, 02:18 »

For the long, serious answer I could not be bothered to write, please refer to a pack of wolves' post.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #34 on: 13 Feb 2008, 06:06 »

FIGHT WAR


IT'S A WAR ON WAR
IT'S A WAR ON WAR
IT'S A WAR ON WAR
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #35 on: 13 Feb 2008, 08:04 »

Recruitment offices aren't exactly innocent though, keep that in mind. If they EVER get a lead, they will hound the person to the end of the earth to try and get a commitment out of them. My sister's boyfriend went to an information session by the Marines at his high school, and the recruiter got a copy of the school's phonebook and called him constantly for the next two years, showed up at his house and after school at the theater, and basically made life hell. They threatened to change phone numbers and bring the police into it and the guys finally backed off.

That isn't true for all recruitment officers.  I went into a recruitment office to get some information for the Marines, cause I was interested in joining.  I got the information, I got a free hat, and the first guy I talked to called me once.  We talked for a few minutes about the enlisment process, and he informed me that if I had enough college credit, I would be eligible for Officer Training.  A few weeks later, another RO called to inform me of times for a pre-enlistment training meeting would happen.  I told him, that due to a recent car accident, I was hit while biking to class, I would be unable to enlist at the present time.  That was the Last Time I heard form the Marines.


Banning people and institutions a government or council dislikes happens all the time. This ranges from brothels to drug dealers to polluting industries, and just those people governments decide they don't want in their country. Most countries will only allow people to be within their borders for very limited amounts of time on tourist visas and they ban them from remaining longer, and there are vast amounts of the world's population they simply wouldn't allow to enter the country at all. Berkeley has simply done what councils and governments do all the time, which is to decide that this organisation's activities are detrimental to their area and not allowed them to operate there anymore.

There is a BIG difference between Brothels (a place with sells sex, which is illegal) and the Marine Corp.

This actually brings up the pro-war/anti-war issue.  (Just a note, I was against the war back in '03.  But now that we are there, I think we need to finish the job, because we will have to go back into Iraq if we pull out.)  Most of the people who are against Operation: Iraqi Freedom say that we should not be there because Sadaam and his country never attacked us.     Now, going back to last century, let's look at some of the major military operation the US was involved in. 

Was the US wrong to join in World War I, just because nobody attacked it?
Should the US enter into a war against Germany in WWII?  Remember, Germany never attacked the US prior to them joining the war.
Korea?
What about Vietnam? 
Should we have gone into Afghanistan in the '80s?
Kuwait in '91?
Bosnia?

I am by no means pro-war, however, I believe that it is morally good to protect those that others seek to kill and unjustly opress.
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KharBevNor

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #36 on: 13 Feb 2008, 08:39 »

Was the US wrong to join in World War I, just because nobody attacked it?

The US joined World War One because the German navy attacked US shipping. Besides which, World War 1 was essentially a territorial conflict between the European Great Powers. No side was in any way weak or morally superior/inferior.

Quote
Should the US enter into a war against Germany in WWII?  Remember, Germany never attacked the US prior to them joining the war.

Germany declared war on the US after the US declared war on Japan.

Quote
Korea?

The US was in Korea as part of a UN force including troops from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the Phillipines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the UK, and medical staff from Denmark, Italy, Norway and Sweden.

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What about Vietnam? 

No fucking way you should ever have been in Vietnam. Sorry. All you managed to do was prolong a conflict in a country with no connection to you unnecessarily and get hundreds of thousands of people killed for nothing.

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Should we have gone into Afghanistan in the '80s?

You didn't.

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Kuwait in '91?

Again, a UN led action. Casus Belli was established by Saddams blatant contravention of international law. A fairly just war, though the sanctions imposed afterwards were inhuman.

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Bosnia?

UN and NATO action. NATO became involved militarily because Serbian fighters violated the no-fly zone and were engaged by NATO forces. Actual NATO involvement in the conflict was mainly tactical and lasted less than a fifth of the whole span of the war, which was essentially civil.

History is fun. You should try it someday.
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redglasscurls

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #37 on: 13 Feb 2008, 08:44 »

Khar, you're my favorite
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #38 on: 13 Feb 2008, 08:58 »

The US was in Korea as part of a UN force including troops from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the Phillipines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the UK, and medical staff from Denmark, Italy, Norway and Sweden.

History is fun. You should try it someday.

I learned all of that from watching M*A*S*H.
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Wait so you're letting something that happened 10 years ago ruin your quality of life? What are you, America? :psyduck:

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #39 on: 13 Feb 2008, 08:59 »

The things I learned from MASH were... a lot different.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #40 on: 13 Feb 2008, 09:31 »

khar's responses

The UN and NATO don't make a military move without the US spearheading it.  Korea?  US spearheading.  Kuwait? US spearheading.

World War I was not a territorail conflict, it was a simple conflict between two countires that blew up thanks to alliances.

Have you ever heard of a country called French IndoChina?  Shortly after WWII, there was an uprising fueled by a small faction fo the Communist party in that country.  The US had a small contingent of soldiers there as suport for the French army in the late 50's.  It was JFK, the greatest democrat of modern times, that escalated the conflict.  It was the US Congress who caused it to become the fuck-up it is now seen as, because they did not allow the military to fight a REAL war.  By the Way, French IndoChina is now called Vietnam.

How does a country in the midst of a Civil War band together and defeat one of the World's Superpowers?  These people didn't even have proper weapons.  How did they win?  The US went in, trained them and armed them.

For Bosnia, I want you to tell that to my History professor, who was the commander of a Spec. Ops. group that was in that country from '93 to '96, and they .  He stayed with families, barely scrapping by, all over the country.

You're right.  History is fun. 
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #41 on: 13 Feb 2008, 09:42 »

World War I was not a territorail conflict, it was a simple conflict between two countires that blew up thanks to alliances.

Disagreement. Entangling alliances only works as an explanation to far as to how the lines were drawn. The reality is that most of Europe was itching for a fight and wanted a bigger piece of a pie and the chance to use their new industrialized weaponry. In any case, there was no reason for the US to be in there because no side was correct. They were all assholes.

Have you ever heard of a country called French IndoChina?  Shortly after WWII, there was an uprising fueled by a small faction fo the Communist party in that country.  The US had a small contingent of soldiers there as suport for the French army in the late 50's.  It was JFK, the greatest democrat of modern times, that escalated the conflict.  It was the US Congress who caused it to become the fuck-up it is now seen as, because they did not allow the military to fight a REAL war.  By the Way, French IndoChina is now called Vietnam.

Uh, I'm pretty sure it would've also been seen as not a fuck-up if there was no US involvement at all. And would be considered horrific if we just razed an entire fucking country because we disagreed with the politics of a rebellious faction.

How does a country in the midst of a Civil War band together and defeat one of the World's Superpowers?  These people didn't even have proper weapons.  How did they win?  The US went in, trained them and armed them.

I thought you were looking for arguments to support military action. Because this action worked out just awesomely.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #42 on: 13 Feb 2008, 09:52 »

For Bosnia, I want you to tell that to my History professor, who was the commander of a Spec. Ops. group that was in that country from '93 to '96, and they .  He stayed with families, barely scrapping by, all over the country.

I am really confused by this bit. Did you mean to leave the sentence unfinished? Or spell "scraping" with 2 Ps? Also I believe Khar was specifically talking about NATO involvement, technically not the US, although I could be wrong.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #43 on: 13 Feb 2008, 10:07 »

The US was in Korea as part of a UN force including troops from TL;DR EVERYBODY WHO IS NOW IN NATO AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE

Fix'd
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #44 on: 13 Feb 2008, 10:35 »

There is a BIG difference between Brothels (a place with sells sex, which is illegal) and the Marine Corp

The difference being that [opinion] I think that brothels are morally acceptable, while the USMC is not. [/opinion]
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #45 on: 13 Feb 2008, 11:05 »

I am going to align myself completely with Tommy on this one.
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #46 on: 13 Feb 2008, 11:07 »

The UN and NATO don't make a military move without the US spearheading it.  Korea?  US spearheading.  Kuwait? US spearheading.

The United States sent the largest contingent of troops to Korea because they had large numbers of active troops based in Japan, and because they were by far the participating country least ravaged by World War Two, both economically and in terms of manpower.

As for Kuwait, same deal. They already had troops in the gulf, and have the largest standing army in NATO. Is your argument that might makes right? In both cases, the decision to go to war was approved by the UN security council and the declaration of war was by the UN or NATO. America does not, in fact, lead either organisation, no matter how much they may like to think they do or how much it seems like it.

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World War I was not a territorail conflict, it was a simple conflict between two countires that blew up thanks to alliances.

Nope. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assasinated by a pan-slavic nationalist allied with a non-government Serbian terrorist organisation, which Austria-Hungary decided to use as a pretext for annexing Serbia, which is something they'd been itching to do for ages anyway. This caused Russia to declare war on Austria-Hungary. Russia mobilised to bolster Serbia. The Germans realised this was the chance they'd been waiting for to finally finish the pesky business of the Franco-Prussian war, and attacked France through Belgium (The Schlieffen Plan). The British only became involved because of the violation of Belgium neutrality. World War One was the endgame of a series of conflicts involving the divvying up of Europe (and to an extent the Middle East and Africa) between the six great powers (France, Germany/Prussia, Britain, Russia, The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire) that had been going on since Napoleon.

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Have you ever heard of a country called French IndoChina?

Yes. I think the most salient points about it are probably contained in its name: that it was a French colony in Indochina. As opposed to, say, anything to do with America.

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It was the US Congress who caused it to become the fuck-up it is now seen as, because they did not allow the military to fight a REAL war.

The United States deployed half a million troops using the most advanced weaponry in the world at the time, and accomplished nothing of value whatsoever,despite dropping over 7 million tonnes of bombs (3 times as many as used by the US in World War Two), which is equal to a 1,000 lb bomb for every single man, woman and child in Vietnam*, in a conflict which killed nearly 3 MILLION people. I would really, really love to know what you think a REAL war would have involved.

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These people didn't even have proper weapons.  How did they win?  The US went in, trained them and armed them.

They won because the Soviet Union withdrew their forces on account of their country falling apart. It's also worth noting that the Soviet Union was supporting the government of the (at the time) Democratic republic of Afghanistan, the PDPA (Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan) against Islamic fundamentalist rebels (the Muhajideen, which, incidentally, translates roughly as 'people involved in a jihad'). The weapons and cash which the United States, Saudi Arabia and the UK illegally funnelled into the Muhajideen through the military dictatorship in Pakistan were the same weapons used by the leaders of the rebellion to found and enforce the Taleban, and are the same weapons killing US and UK troops in the country today. Good one!


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For Bosnia, I want you to tell that to my History professor, who was the commander of a Spec. Ops. group that was in that country from '93 to '96, and they .  He stayed with families, barely scrapping by, all over the country.

Sorry, I was talking about legal US military involvement. UN Peacekeepers were there of course since '92, in a humanitarian capacity, so I'm sure the Deltas and whatnot had a bit of fun. Pity that, whilst engaging in basically, illegal black ops, the US troops didn't actually manage to stop any of the mass killings or anything. Actually, one kind of wonders what they were doing.


*and that doesn't even count chemical weapons or naval bombardments.
« Last Edit: 13 Feb 2008, 11:11 by KharBevNor »
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Patrick

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #47 on: 13 Feb 2008, 11:20 »

I can't wait until somebody starts talking about U.N. and, more specifically U.S. action in Kosovo. Somebody do it so I can join in the fun!
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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #48 on: 13 Feb 2008, 12:21 »

Guys, your war history pissing match is irrelevant to the point of the thread, ie. was the city of Berkley wise in their handling of the recruitment office? Reading back to your first post dissy, it is unclear why you you brought up the pro/anti-war issue other than to pick a fight.
« Last Edit: 13 Feb 2008, 12:24 by jhocking »
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Patrick

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Re: Berkeley and the Marines
« Reply #49 on: 13 Feb 2008, 12:30 »

Don't you DARE screw me out of a perfectly good flamewar, Hocking.
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