The Christmas War (continued from ..low-key invasion)

That's the bitch about being an officer, EchoMirage, if they won't obey it don't say it.

Sorry Spudit I lost you there. I don't get it. What do you mean? Who is  Who and what is it?
Well I can still asume but please explain it.

And, for who is the boss, look here: 2nd panel upper right  http://www.bigheadpress.com/eft?page=601

... .  I think the first option wouldn't be too bad (from Chang's point of view).  Common soldiers know that officers are allowed to do things that they are not.

I have to disagree. Even if common soldiers know that, the officer would still loose credibility.
At least if it was me I wouldn't trust my officer like before. I served my country as soldier and
I know I wouldn't believe my officers like before if there where a similar situation. Because in
a tense situation little gestures like a handshake have a much bigger impact than normal.


@ Stripp 645

And here comes the third posibillity.

Here you can see that Ed is experienced in public debate.

First (Strip 644) he disrupted Capt. Changs speech and stopped him in his active role, then he
offered him a handshake as in "Here, I give you an active choice". But then Ed stops that or rather
make Chang experience a neglected chance before Chang can really think about it.

Third now he drives Chang rapidly into a defensive position, and more he plants seeds of doubt.
After driving him into a corner Ed starts his last step.

He offers him help. Again he gives Capt. Chang an active Choice. But now this is interesting:
This choice looks just great at first but it is not really a good one for UW. But even if Chang
would realize that he has to accept. Because he doesnt want to miss a second chance like
before with the handshake.

Knowing your enemy is a good point, but from a military point of view you don't need to know why
people will resist. As a Capt. of a company of 150 Soldiers you must only know how much
resistence is awaiting you. As of why they resist is a question for higher ranks or politicians.

But thats the thing Ed offers. He offers him in general a chance to understand Ceres, covered as:
If you know us you have a better chance to survive.

That is what Chang sees, so he will have no other choice than to accept this offer regardless what
it will be because Ed made him think so. Well it is also really true that the soldiers will have a better
chance to survive if there wont be an invasion or a messy situation.

Well, Prof. Ed played his cards well.


But in the end the answer will have to wait until monday:

Will Capt. Chang accept this, or not? And what will Ed propose?

That's the bitch about being an officer, EchoMirage, if they won't obey it don't say it.

Sorry Spudit I lost you there. I don't get it. What do you mean? Who is  Who and what is it?
Well I can still asume but please explain it.

I think I can help here - "they" refers to the soldiers being given orders, "it" refers to the orders being given.

I believe Spudit is referring to the principle of command that you should never give an order that you think will not be obeyed - all that does is undermine your authority.

In this case, it's probably a bad idea for Chang to order his troops not to fraternize - at least some of them will probably disobey that order. That will start them getting used to the idea that they can disobey his orders, and make it more likely that they will question and/or disbobey other orders in the future. That's a bad thing for the effectiveness of a conventional military unit that relies on its members instinctively obeying orders from above.

That's the bitch about being an officer, EchoMirage, if they won't obey it don't say it.

Sorry Spudit I lost you there. I don't get it. What do you mean? Who is  Who and what is it?
Well I can still asume but please explain it.

Xavin is correct. "If they won't obey it don't say it" can be transformed to

"If your soliders won't obey your orders, don't give those orders" -- which is more explicit, but not quite as pithy.

Prof. Ed's alluded to the Tripwire situation Chang's men are in (if Ed's take is correct, I seem to have called that one correctly, c.f. the other thread pre-train-wreck).   Which is clever, but also dangerous.

1.  It assumes Chang values his men over his mission.  (Which may be true, and certainly WOULD be true in what we regard as a 'respectable' military.  But that's an assumption.  Example:  in 1956, the Soviet troops brought in to crush Budapest were cannon-fodder, Central-Asian conscripts who spoke none of the languages and were told that they were there to liberate the Suez Canal.  That the troops know 7-card holdem suggests that they're more informed, but says nothing about whether Chang is more loyal to the superiors who have put his men in harm's way than to the men being put there.  Recall he's taken an active part from the beginning, as the authors remind us c.f. Rhonda).

2.  He's called the UW's bluff on the Tanglenet.  Do the UW's leaders give a rat's butt about System Opinion?  Example:  Israel has one diplomatic advantage vis-a-vis the international system.  Since it's already a pariah state regionally, and its allies are for the most part decidedly unreliable, it has the advantage of being able to say "We're acting in our interests here and world opinion can go hang."  If the UW's circumstances are sufficiently bad, they can simply ignore whatever occurs, on the assumption that whatever PR damage occurs, not matter how bad, is better than failing on the Scylla and Charybdis of high debt and overpopulation.  Recall that the script shows a lot of social unrest and problems, but also that quite a number of folks in the UW have very definitely "drunk the kool-aid" and believe their own rhetoric.

... .  I think the first option wouldn't be too bad (from Chang's point of view).  Common soldiers know that officers are allowed to do things that they are not.

I have to disagree.

Chang agreed with you.  No surprise there.  I've made several predictions about the strip, every one wrong.

I screwed up.

I abused and overused pronouns. I left an undefined term hanging in the air. Then a guy who had to actually study my language caught me on it.

Bad Spudit, bad. 

But then I blame society as a whole and take no personal responsibility for my misuse of my own native language. I blame the Chicago Public Schools for my ignorance, not me, that would be unfashionable.

Just kidding guys, I screwed up.

EchoMirage, may I call you EM, again my apologies for the confusion.

I suspect Rhonda might be a political operative of some sort; she looks smart and flexible. Her being built like a Quantum Vibe Martian android might have skewed my opinion though.

Ed is a teacher and I'll bet a damned good one. A guy that good should still be teaching but then he is, a crash course in applied civics rather than physics.

Happy Crow mentioned the world's view of  Israel as a pariah state regionally.

Example:  Israel has one diplomatic advantage vis-a-vis the international system.  Since it's already a pariah state regionally, and its allies are for the most part decidedly unreliable, it has the advantage of being able to say "We're acting in our interests here and world opinion can go hang." 

I can only speak for myself but when I see on TV a well dressed eloquent man with a slight and pleasant accent, one who looks talks and acts like one of us I find myself sympathizing with him. When I see and hear a scruffy belligerent fellow who goes out of his way to scream foreigner, I go the other way. I am thinking here of Benjamin Netanyahu as opposed to the late Yasar Arafat. One looks like "us" one not. Hell, I'd buy a car from "Honest Ben". Damn he is good.

I realize most Israllies are descendant from Europeans, as are most Americans, so of course they look like us. And yes, I realize I am being manipulated by psychological genuises. It does not stop there and my critical thinking proceeds from that point but I fear the damage is done.

Am I alone in this? I would especially like to hear the opinion of those raised and living outside US culture, you know who you are.

That's one thing I love about this forum, the range of cultures. Any Aussies or Kiwis reading this? Please join in, most of us don't bite.

Too damned many pronouns again, damnit.
 

Am I alone in this?

Alone in being subject to manipulation by psychopaths?  Not hardly.  I find it helps to regard all politicians as psychopaths, regardless of suavity or scruffiness -- hey, the suave reasonable-sounding one and the screaming scruffy one might be playing "good cop, bad cop" with me for a double mental whammy.

but I fear the damage is done.

On my planet, just being able to have that specific fear means the damage isn't complete.  It's the ones who can't or won't even imagine that they might be being manipulated, whose minds are most vulnerable.

Good is good, no mistaking that. At least I can see it coming in the case of old Honest Ben, used car salesman and all around swell guy.

The fact that post war Palestine filled up with European Jews is the root of the locals' claim of invasion. The locals see them as Europeans, who are Jewish. Israelis see themselves as Jews, who's families used to live in Europe. Going back to the days of Islam's expansion through the region there have always been Palestinians, Jewish ones, Muslim ones and a scattering of Christian ones.

My solution, turn the region into an international religious park and put the Dalai Lama in charge. Like that's gonna happen.

Back to propaganda.
Imagine a world where Joseph Goebbels resigned from the party, got over his thing about Jews and moved to Madison Avenue.  Probably the same one where Yamamoto did indeed bail out of Japan as he threatened to when the Imperial Army put out a hit on him and ran off with his mistress to become a professional gambler in Monaco. This might have been a nicer place if both had.

Prof. Ed's alluded to the Tripwire situation Chang's men are in (if Ed's take is correct, I seem to have called that one correctly, c.f. the other thread pre-train-wreck).   Which is clever, but also dangerous.

I don't think it's as risky as you suggest"

1.  It assumes Chang values his men over his mission.  (Which may be true, and certainly WOULD be true in what we regard as a 'respectable' military.  But that's an assumption.  Example:  in 1956, the Soviet troops brought in to crush Budapest were cannon-fodder, Central-Asian conscripts who spoke none of the languages and were told that they were there to liberate the Suez Canal.  That the troops know 7-card holdem suggests that they're more informed, but says nothing about whether Chang is more loyal to the superiors who have put his men in harm's way than to the men being put there.  Recall he's taken an active part from the beginning, as the authors remind us c.f. Rhonda).

Given that Chang's troops are seeing this, Chang must at least appear to value his troops as much as the mission.  If he fails to do this, he will lose the respect of his troops, and most if not all obedience.  I wonder if the UW troops are familiar with "fragging", or will need to reinvent it if that were the case.

2.  He's called the UW's bluff on the Tanglenet.  Do the UW's leaders give a rat's butt about System Opinion?  Example:  Israel has one diplomatic advantage vis-a-vis the international system.  Since it's already a pariah state regionally, and its allies are for the most part decidedly unreliable, it has the advantage of being able to say "We're acting in our interests here and world opinion can go hang."  If the UW's circumstances are sufficiently bad, they can simply ignore whatever occurs, on the assumption that whatever PR damage occurs, not matter how bad, is better than failing on the Scylla and Charybdis of high debt and overpopulation.  Recall that the script shows a lot of social unrest and problems, but also that quite a number of folks in the UW have very definitely "drunk the kool-aid" and believe their own rhetoric.

If this is observable (via Tanglenet) by the general UW citizenry, or by important "trading partners" (I'm thinking Mars here), then they will certainly be at risk of losing credibility and trust among some of them, thus weakening their continued control and influence.  A large subset of the UW population will be sufficiently motivated by the fear of loss of UW group identity that they will fall in line, but others will certainly begin to question and impede the actions (for US examples, think of Viet Nam war protests and the Tea Party movement).  Having to deal with this will divide their resources, which are already near the breaking point.  If they push too hard domestically, they risk a Middle East-type backlash, and if they can't censor access to the information and push too hard remotely, they cannot hold public opinion and the trust of their trading partners.

Thus, those making the decisions back on Earth will either have to work doubly hard to appear to be the "good guys" in this, or risk generating a much larger set of enemies at a time they cannot afford to defend against them, and will lose rather quickly as a result.  The latter, of course, is personally less desirable by Ed and his compatriots, but still probably survivable, given I expect they already have some tricks up their sleeves if things start to go badly -- and has already alluded to with Chang.

The top point zero zero one of the UW is nearly as free as Ed and certainly richer. They have Tanglenet TV. Chang's bosses are watching either live or a synopsis. Picture Mr. Obama watching the Libya news today. If they are watching in real time they can give orders in real time. So Chang could be getting instructions from Earth, right now, through an implant or ear piece.

That brings up a point about communications, through the TN a weapon or probe could be controled as if hard wired in the next room, none of this waiting an hour to see a lander move an arm crap. Talk about tele-presence. So a bomb can be steered right under the dictator's pillow as he sleeps or an operator could be plugged into an automated mining tractor a light hour away and just drive it in his slippers from home. Cool.

Or to stretch it more, a holographic or mechanical you on every planet you do business with. Through virtual reality and maybe a programable maniken with a reprogramable face and you are there, in Tokyo, Toledo, Ceres and Mars.

Or to stretch it more, a holographic or mechanical you on every planet you do business with. Through virtual reality and maybe a programable maniken with a reprogramable face and you are there, in Tokyo, Toledo, Ceres and Mars.

I like that , Avis could be into the YOU rental business.

If Chang is anything like other leaders from Earth we have seen, he cares little or nothing about the men below him, though of course he would deny this.

If Chang is like other leaders from Earth, he does not have the ability or intelligence to understand how the professor outmaneuvered him.

If Chang is like other leaders from Earth, he thinks he is the smartest guy in the room.  He plans to outsmart the professor and cannot conceive of a situation in which he won't.

We are still waiting for the capable opponent of AnCap society to rear his head.  If the antagonists are always as incompetent as Chang the story will suffer.  I want to see AnCap defend themselves against a realistic formidable opponent.  In comic book terms I want to see a Doctor Doom or Lex Luthor not a Penguin or Riddler.

Honestly I am not surprised by how this has turned out.
Disappointing as usual EFT.

We are still waiting for the capable opponent of AnCap society to rear his head.  If the antagonists are always as incompetent as Chang the story will suffer.  I want to see AnCap defend themselves against a realistic formidable opponent.  In comic book terms I want to see a Doctor Doom or Lex Luthor not a Penguin or Riddler.

Well put.

In cartoon terms, a little less Elmer Fudd please. Non AnCap works too, though not nearly as well. Just look out the window. Communisim didn't work very well either, but it was neither stupid nor harmless.

Good to have our old buddy back Holt, been a while.

If EFT disappoints may I suggest a box set of The Smurfs DVDs?