I really wonder about Balkans in the 90s


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Liberty's Edge

Plane's wear out even without combat and technology advances

It's part of why the USN doesn't fly F-14s or F/A-18s any more.


Krensky wrote:


It's part of why the USN doesn't fly F14s or F18s any more.

And in what wars F-117 was used to extent of airframe failure?

You see,f-14 is a dedicated interceptor,they are on patrols all the time.
What F-117 patrolled,Mexican border?
Also,speaking of used planes,last B-52 was produced literally before my father was born,and somehow it's still in air.
Also,f18 looks like it's in service.


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My take on Yugoslav Slaughterhouse

Funny how the US rolling in, ruining diplomatic negotiations and instigating nationalists (e.g. SDA/Izetbegovic) to fight instead of compromise (as negotiated by Europeans), ultimately depending on US backing to resolve the war to the US' liking, was later held up by NATO high-priests to be proof of why the US (#1) and NATO (#2) are so necessary. Kind of like how the US kept backing alternating factions in Somalia for several decades, denouncing anarchy only to back a previously designated "bad guy" faction when some other faction not sufficiently aligned to the US looked like they would stabilize things.

Not that stead-fast German political-military backing for Slovene/Croat separatists (helped out by Serb-hating Albanian terrorists), irrespective their clients' unprovoked violence or ethnic purges, didn't help get the ball rolling first in Yugoslavia. Because that was a long time coming, Cold War and all. At least somebody remembers their history.

But Albanians can now peacefully live in the Independent EULEX Republic of Kosovo, after the KLA/UCK was conveniently de-listed as a terrorist organization and UNSC-recognized Yugoslav sovereignty was overthrown by NATO bombs... Especially making sure to obliterate those evil Nazi-Serb-Yugoslav schools and hospitals and especially that bridge on the Hungarian border that was killing 500 Albanian orphans a day. Fortunately it didn't go on much longer, because it starts to get really expensive when you need to start targetting cows because every other military target is long gone. After 5 years of NATO occupiers (ahem, philosophers of human rights and the rule of law) protecting human rights and preventing ethnic cleansing, just to say "thank you" the Albanians even organized a little pogrom complete with church burnings, which of course promptly led to NATO recognition of Kosovo "independence" ...because NATO Cares About Ethnic Cleansing(tm). "Independence" means Kosovo still doesn't even have an actual army, although the Kosovo Security Force (nee KLA) is content to collect "taxes", and instead of NATO appointed bureaucrats baby-sitting the government Papua New Guinea-style it is EU appointed bureaucrats, but now Serbia's government doesn't say or do very much about Serbs still living in Kosovo. At least they finally learned to shut up and play along... Must be genetically stupid or something. Oh, and kidney transplants are up 500%.

And all those Americans, Germans, British, loyal moral citizens of NATO just CARE SO MUCH about all these quaint little people that give so much purpose to their military machine. Just like they care so much about those Libyans, Somalians, Iraqis, Afghans. Oh! South Sudanese too, how could one forget!? Or did they eat all each other by now? It's almost like there isn't enough quaint little peoples in the world to save. Almost.

I remember the beginning of US involvement in Croatia/Bosnia around 97 or so, and that there was just NOBODY who was really opposed to it, even at the "liberal" university I was going to. This is America that makes a cult of "rebellion" and individuality, with most of the middle-aged folks having grown up thru government lies of Vietnam, but gosh, CNN is really convincing. Especially when those bad-attitude folks like Peter Arnett properly get removed from the air. Was he shot or hung?

Some time before that I remember seeing a documentary "The Panama Deception" on the US' war in Panama cerca 1989, an event I vaguely remembered personally, which made later learning the actual history (minus serial amnesia and media obfuscation) all the more shocking by it's contrast. That documentary actually won the Academy Award for Documentaries, so when I discovered Netflix, I was almost surprised that Netflix didn't carry it (and still doesn't AFAIK). I later saw an interesting documentary on the iconic Bosnian 'concentration camp' imagery, which was shown to be a sham.

Of course, there certainly was "war crimes" by all sides, but the black & white story told by Western MSM was basically a useful fairy tale... although easier to fit into a sound-byte than the actual reality of human political conflicts. Did make me end up learning alot more about the whole region, and history in general.

EDIT: Oh, and what I learned from Bosnia was that the main sign of being an anti-muslim Nazi (that must be defeated by the forces of the free world) is allying with the #1 popular voted muslim politician (Abdic). That's why it makes sense that the global protector of muslims in the never-ending war on terror is so sensitive about boarding an airplane while bearded. Thank god for CNN's top notch infotainment to explain all this. And vodka.

Liberty's Edge

Vlad Koroboff wrote:
Krensky wrote:


It's part of why the USN doesn't fly F14s or F18s any more.

And in what wars F-117 was used to extent of airframe failure?

You see,f-14 is a dedicated interceptor,they are on patrols all the time.
What F-117 patrolled,Mexican border?
Also,speaking of used planes,last B-52 was produced literally before my father was born,and somehow it's still in air.
Also,f18 looks like it's in service.

The F-117 was retired because it was only a ground attack plane and it was much more maintence intensive than the F-22 or F-35.

I could have sworn the F/A-18 was retired in favor of the F/A-18E/F which is really a different aircraft despite the name, but I seem to be mistaken.


Quandary wrote:

My take on Yugoslav Slaughterhouse

Funny how the US rolling in, ruining diplomatic negotiations and instigating nationalists (e.g. SDA/Izetbegovic) to fight instead of compromise (as negotiated by Europeans), ultimately depending on US backing to resolve the war to the US' liking, was later held up by NATO high-priests to be proof of why the US (#1) and NATO (#2) are so necessary. Kind of like how the US kept backing alternating factions in Somalia for several decades, denouncing anarchy only to back a previously designated "bad guy" faction when some other faction not sufficiently aligned to the US looked like they would stabilize things.

Not that stead-fast German political-military backing for Slovene/Croat separatists (helped out by Serb-hating Albanian terrorists), irrespective their clients' unprovoked violence or ethnic purges, didn't help get the ball rolling first in Yugoslavia. Because that was a long time coming, Cold War and all. At least somebody remembers their history.

But Albanians can now peacefully live in the Independent EULEX Republic of Kosovo, after the KLA/UCK was conveniently de-listed as a terrorist organization and UNSC-recognized Yugoslav sovereignty was overthrown by NATO bombs... Especially making sure to obliterate those evil Nazi-Serb-Yugoslav schools and hospitals and especially that bridge on the Hungarian border that was killing 500 Albanian orphans a day. Fortunately it didn't go on much longer, because it starts to get really expensive when you need to start targetting cows because every other military target is long gone. After 5 years of NATO occupiers (ahem, philosophers of human rights and the rule of law) protecting human rights and preventing ethnic cleansing, just to say "thank you" the Albanians even organized a little pogrom complete with church burnings, which of course promptly led to NATO recognition of Kosovo "independence" ...because NATO Cares About Ethnic Cleansing(tm). "Independence" means Kosovo still doesn't even have an actual army,...

That's my take, roughly, except with calls for overthrowing capitalism and a Socialist Federation of the Balkans thrown in.


Yes, and with a drum set solo...

Are you familiar with this pinko outfit in Belgium, PVDA/PTB?


Krensky wrote:
Vlad Koroboff wrote:
Krensky wrote:


It's part of why the USN doesn't fly F14s or F18s any more.

And in what wars F-117 was used to extent of airframe failure?

You see,f-14 is a dedicated interceptor,they are on patrols all the time.
What F-117 patrolled,Mexican border?
Also,speaking of used planes,last B-52 was produced literally before my father was born,and somehow it's still in air.
Also,f18 looks like it's in service.

The F-117 was retired because it was only a ground attack plane and it was much more maintence intensive than the F-22 or F-35.

I could have sworn the F/A-18 was retired in favor of the F/A-18E/F which is really a different aircraft despite the name, but I seem to be mistaken.

Also, to increase the savings associated with logistics it is more cost effective to eliminate an entire weapons system then to reduce 2 by half. Other little tidbits worked against the F-117, especially when compared to the F-22. Unable to handle air-to-sir missions, lack of it's own radar (it used GPS and inertial navigation, radar could give it away), flying like a brick, ect, ect.

Additionally, the old style F/A-18D (the E/F variant is a similar looking but completely different aircraft that is 25% larger) is still in use until the F-35B's actually work.


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Quandary wrote:
And all those Americans, Germans, British, loyal moral citizens of NATO just CARE SO MUCH about all these quaint little people that give so much purpose to their military machine. Just like they care so much about those Libyans, Somalians, Iraqis, Afghans. Oh! South Sudanese too, how could one forget!? Or did they eat all each other by now? It's almost like there isn't enough quaint little peoples in the world to save. Almost.

Preach it!

In 1807, the British Fleet fire bombed the heck out of the civilian population of Copenhagen. We have not forgotten!

*grinds axe*

The North Will Rise Again!

;)


Krensky wrote:


The F-117 was retired because it was only a ground attack plane and it was much more maintence intensive than the F-22 or F-35.

Objection!That's what we are being told.But how,exactly,maintenance of f-117 can be harder(or costlier) then two-times-larger and far more electronically advanced F-22?

Problem is,you can't use F-22.Once you use it in combat,threat countries get combat data by any means,and five years from now,there will be no stealth(which is kinda okay for f-35,because you can make more of them).It actually happened to f-117,BTW.
And F-14s....god...can anything be more stupid than writing off the only long-range AA missile boat?
Those guys in navy tried to check range of russian missiles even once?
Because Russia,you know,sell those missiles.
Actually,i found the country who makes MAD dollarz from Balkans war and others.
Russia.


Quandary wrote:

Yes, and with a drum set solo...

Are you familiar with this pinko outfit in Belgium, PVDA/PTB?

No. I haven't been familiar with any Belgian pinkos since Ernest Mandel.


Hama wrote:
Gallo wrote:


Given the Albanians have centuries of being mistreated and suppressed by the Serbs, I fail to see how they are to blame. Self-detemination is an accepted right. A lot of misinformation was spread in Serbia, Kosovo and elsewhere in the lead up to the fighting in 1998. But when the fighting started it was Serbs responsible for the first massacres of civilians, followed up by further atrocities on both sides.

So the Albanians didn't do a good job with your laundry. Way to trivialise an issue with a petty first world problem. Try being an Albanian under the control of the Serbs, then you'll know what problems are.

Centuries? Please tell me how Serbs could have mistreated Albanians before the 1820s? You know, being under Ottoman rule and all. Also, Albania didn't exist as a country before WW2. Also, they were allowed to settle on Kosovo for free after WW2, and misused that.

I see that you only listened to one side. Good for you.

Oh, sorry. 170 years or so doesn't qualify as centuries? My terrible mistake. Should I have said "almost two centuries" to make it clearer for you?

Given Albania was granted independence in 1913, you are hardly one to be making criticisms of historical accuracy.

And I have read very widely on both sides of the issue (and the Bosnian, Croat and other ethnic groups). It is just that much of the stuff about the Serbs is not very flattering.

Acquisitives

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

What is there to wonder about? It was COMPLICATED and PEOPLE STARTED SHOOTING and I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE THERE.

That wraps the Balkans in the 1990s up in a nice little bow for me.


Yakman wrote:

What is there to wonder about? It was COMPLICATED and PEOPLE STARTED SHOOTING and I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE THERE.

I don't think Hama had that option, alas.

Sovereign Court

To be honest, I was kinda too young to have the bombing bother me. I had too much faith in US precision strikes back then.
As for the war in '92, i distinctly remember sitting in front of the TV, watching Disney cartoons and eating smuggled ham. You pretty much had to smuggle everything in back in those days. That plus hyperinflation led to the Yugoslav nomination of 500.000.000.000 dinars. For which you could buy a bread.

However I know some people old enough to have been conscripted.

Sovereign Court

Gallo wrote:
Hama wrote:
Gallo wrote:


Given the Albanians have centuries of being mistreated and suppressed by the Serbs, I fail to see how they are to blame. Self-detemination is an accepted right. A lot of misinformation was spread in Serbia, Kosovo and elsewhere in the lead up to the fighting in 1998. But when the fighting started it was Serbs responsible for the first massacres of civilians, followed up by further atrocities on both sides.

So the Albanians didn't do a good job with your laundry. Way to trivialise an issue with a petty first world problem. Try being an Albanian under the control of the Serbs, then you'll know what problems are.

Centuries? Please tell me how Serbs could have mistreated Albanians before the 1820s? You know, being under Ottoman rule and all. Also, Albania didn't exist as a country before WW2. Also, they were allowed to settle on Kosovo for free after WW2, and misused that.

I see that you only listened to one side. Good for you.

Oh, sorry. 170 years or so doesn't qualify as centuries? My terrible mistake. Should I have said "almost two centuries" to make it clearer for you?

Given Albania was granted independence in 1913, you are hardly one to be making criticisms of historical accuracy.

And I have read very widely on both sides of the issue (and the Bosnian, Croat and other ethnic groups). It is just that much of the stuff about the Serbs is not very flattering.

Well maybe you could provide me with some of your sources?

Bosnians aren't an ethnic group. They are Serbs that live in Bosnia.


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... Which might not be what they consider to be a good description of them, hmmm?

Sovereign Court

Every Bosnian I ever talked to says they are Serbs. They do speak the language marginally differently, and as fat as faith goes, I never considered it important when differentiating people. I don't feel like being in a foreign country when I go to Bosnia. Just as if I go to Montenegro.


There was a Bosnian pizza place in my neighborhood in Houston; they used to buy a lot of their ingredients from the Serbian grocery across the street. I found it endearing that no one at either business said "I am Bosnian" or "I am Serbian," but rather, "I am from former Yugoslavia."

Contrast with Mrs Gersen's family, who say, firmly, "We are Croatian."

Liberty's Edge

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I lived in an apartment complex back in the '90s that the State Department used to house Bosnian Muslim refugees. I had a chance to talk to some of them and they told me some insane stories about mass murders, mass rapes and other atrocities committed on them by the Orthodox Serbians.

I worked at a coffee shop with a couple of Serbian chicks (one was from Montenegro, one from Serbia proper) who told similar tales of mayhem about Bosnian Muslims.

Neither had nice things to say about the Roman Catholic Croatians, whom both considered the worst kind of Nazi loving scum. I have not had any conversations with a Croatian about the subject, but I assume I'd get much of the same.

Neither side seemed like they were exaggerating in the least. That, coupled with my knowledge of the five hundred years of history prior to the Yugoslavian civil war, pretty much leads me to believe there were no good guys and bad guys, just a bunch of people that were pissed off the last five hundred years were complete crap and itching for payback.

The Ottomans were brutal masters, as were the Austrians, Italians, Russians and any number of other large empires that used the Balkans as a battleground to settle their petty squabbles. All three major ethnic/religious groups see the others as the worst oppressors in that five hundred years.

So, my opinion is that the whole thing was a mess, there really wasn't a "right" side to back, and we probably should have been more understanding about the potential powder keg (it wasn't a secret the Serbs, Croats, and Turks hated each other to no end) that was the collapse of the Yugoslav era.

But, of course, Western Europe and the U.S. were still patting themselves on the back for "winning" the Cold War back then and couldn't be bothered to pick up the pieces of the shattered Eastern Bloc. Following up has always been a problem for us (see also: the end of the Afghan civil war and the rise of the Taliban, not keeping Chiang Kai-shek on a leash, not pressuring France and GB to do a better job of divesting themselves of their Empires after WWII, not keeping Ravi on a leash (or not telling BP to suck it up after Iran decided to keep their own resources for themselves and not toppling their perfectly secular, legitimate, democracy), etc.

So, really, we're the bad guys for not remembering we live in the real world where five hundred years of constant war might just make the group of people who fought each other for that time a little resentful of each other and more than willing to get some payback for things real and imagined when they finally could just let loose. But then, that's what we do.


Hama wrote:
Gallo wrote:
Hama wrote:
Gallo wrote:


Given the Albanians have centuries of being mistreated and suppressed by the Serbs, I fail to see how they are to blame. Self-detemination is an accepted right. A lot of misinformation was spread in Serbia, Kosovo and elsewhere in the lead up to the fighting in 1998. But when the fighting started it was Serbs responsible for the first massacres of civilians, followed up by further atrocities on both sides.

So the Albanians didn't do a good job with your laundry. Way to trivialise an issue with a petty first world problem. Try being an Albanian under the control of the Serbs, then you'll know what problems are.

Centuries? Please tell me how Serbs could have mistreated Albanians before the 1820s? You know, being under Ottoman rule and all. Also, Albania didn't exist as a country before WW2. Also, they were allowed to settle on Kosovo for free after WW2, and misused that.

I see that you only listened to one side. Good for you.

Oh, sorry. 170 years or so doesn't qualify as centuries? My terrible mistake. Should I have said "almost two centuries" to make it clearer for you?

Given Albania was granted independence in 1913, you are hardly one to be making criticisms of historical accuracy.

And I have read very widely on both sides of the issue (and the Bosnian, Croat and other ethnic groups). It is just that much of the stuff about the Serbs is not very flattering.

Well maybe you could provide me with some of your sources?

Bosnians aren't an ethnic group. They are Serbs that live in Bosnia.

Bosnian = Bosniak = Bosnian Muslim (to be more accurate)

Serb living in Bosnia = Bosnian Serb

So they are a separate ethnic group, there are just different ways of describing them. How would you describe the ethnicity of Bosnian Muslims? Or a ethnic Serb in Bosnia?

As for my sources… a number of friends who were officers in the various peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s and 2000s; a wide range of open-source material; reading ICTY judgements; acquaintances of Serbian and Croatian descent here in Australia; years as an intelligence analyst reading a wide range of material on the various conflicts in the Balkans in the last 25 or so years, and so on.


Hama wrote:
Every Bosnian I ever talked to says they are Serbs. They do speak the language marginally differently, and as fat as faith goes, I never considered it important when differentiating people. I don't feel like being in a foreign country when I go to Bosnia. Just as if I go to Montenegro.

You obviously haven't spoken to any Bosnians who aren't Serbs. Only about 35% of the Bosnian population are Serbs, about 50% Bosniak and 15% Croat. You might not think faith is important but in the history of the region it has been a very important factor, if not the defining factor. Given ethnically and linguistically the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks are very similar, religion is the main point of difference.

Sovereign Court

I never equate religion with ethnicity. That is one of the reasons why there is so much war.


Hama wrote:
I never equate religion with ethnicity. That is one of the reasons why there is so much war.

People fight over religion as well as ethnicity. Equating or not equating the two won't change that. Both can be a large part of cultural identity.

Sovereign Court

Never had one of those. Maybe it's a good thing considering where I live.
Honestly, the only thing I am tired of is how people demonize Serbs outside of Serbia.
I mean, yes, we are largely uncultured, uneducated, with a striking amount of illiterate people, but we're not baby eating monsters.

One of the encounters I had was when I went to London for a week, and I started chatting with this lady from the US. Everything was fine till I mentioned where I come from. She immediately started looking frightened and drew her kid closer to her. I mean seriously...


Hama wrote:

Never had one of those. Maybe it's a good thing considering where I live.

Honestly, the only thing I am tired of is how people demonize Serbs outside of Serbia.
I mean, yes, we are largely uncultured, uneducated, with a striking amount of illiterate people, but we're not baby eating monsters.

One of the encounters I had was when I went to London for a week, and I started chatting with this lady from the US. Everything was fine till I mentioned where I come from. She immediately started looking frightened and drew her kid closer to her. I mean seriously...

The Serbs were demonized in the American press during that time. Admittedly, it has been years and my memories are no longer clear, but I don't remember much criticism of the other parties during the war. The story here was essentially that the Serbs were above-ground morlocks preying on the eloi.

My brother asked me if I thought that the US should intervene at the time the fighting broke out. I answered that we should. He then asked "So, would you want to possibly get killed for some Bosnian?" That changed my perspective immediately.


I had no opinion of Serbs until I met a lot of them. On the whole, I liked the ones I met. Then again, I think that's often true of people.

I will say that I was very impressed with how well that Beograd had bounced back, and at how lively and vibrant the place was. And Novi Sad is of course like a postcard city to show to people who think that the Balkans are some kind of wasteland.

Sovereign Court

Beograd bounced back from what?
It hasn't bounced back really. We just tend to ignore buildings destroyed during the idiotically named military action.

1.
2.
3.


Ha! Maybe the person I was talking to had a sense of humor. He pointed to those buildings and said, "We leave those this way intentionally as a reminder of the UN actions. The rest we rebuilt!" And, anyway, it looks better than a lot of American cities that were never bombed:

Detroit
My hometown: Troy, NY

Sovereign Court

Nah, it's more like the buildings were monuments before they were destroyed and there is some law forbidding tearing them down.
We did rebuild some of the buildings, ones not too severely damaged.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm Croatian by ethnicity, but my Grandparents moved out of Croatia and Bosnia roughly 50 years ago to come to Australia. The thing about immigrants is that they sort of become a snap-shot of a country at the time they left it.

I love my parents and my grandparents (my grandfather passed away RIP).

In Australia there's still often tension between Croats and Serbs, which strikes me as quite mad because the point of leaving the Balkans was to get away from that kind of conflict. Old grudges die hard I suppose.

I think my reaction to the older generation's strange brand of nationalism was to think of the entire idea of patriotism and nationilism as silly and pointless. There's a lot of pride that comes with being Croatian, but there's also a lot of baggage.

I was pretty young during the Balkans conflict, and the only narrative I got was the CNN/BBC/my dad. But I was in high school, and we were learning critical thinking at the time and all I could think is: "How can you know a conflict without hearing from both sides?"

Sovereign Court

The worst part was that during the time of the communist/socialist Yugoslavia, everyone was pretty much getting along. And even worse, every single person I ever met that came from Coratia or Bosnia or any other ex-Yugoslav country was a quite normal person that I instantly liked. And all of us express remorse that that time passed.
There is a term called Yugonostalgia. And people who never even lived in that country miss it.


I'm Croatian, and we were attacked, but above all I'm human and believe there should be no countries.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

We have the same kind of nostalgia here for the '50s.

I don't get it, really, but there it is. I like my PC.


Quandary wrote:

Yes, and with a drum set solo...

Are you familiar with this pinko outfit in Belgium, PVDA/PTB?

Belgium: The Rise of the PTB/PvdA

Sovereign Court

houstonderek wrote:

I lived in an apartment complex back in the '90s that the State Department used to house Bosnian Muslim refugees. I had a chance to talk to some of them and they told me some insane stories about mass murders, mass rapes and other atrocities committed on them by the Orthodox Serbians.

I worked at a coffee shop with a couple of Serbian chicks (one was from Montenegro, one from Serbia proper) who told similar tales of mayhem about Bosnian Muslims.

Neither had nice things to say about the Roman Catholic Croatians, whom both considered the worst kind of Nazi loving scum. I have not had any conversations with a Croatian about the subject, but I assume I'd get much of the same.

Neither side seemed like they were exaggerating in the least. That, coupled with my knowledge of the five hundred years of history prior to the Yugoslavian civil war, pretty much leads me to believe there were no good guys and bad guys, just a bunch of people that were pissed off the last five hundred years were complete crap and itching for payback.

The Ottomans were brutal masters, as were the Austrians, Italians, Russians and any number of other large empires that used the Balkans as a battleground to settle their petty squabbles. All three major ethnic/religious groups see the others as the worst oppressors in that five hundred years.

So, my opinion is that the whole thing was a mess, there really wasn't a "right" side to back, and we probably should have been more understanding about the potential powder keg (it wasn't a secret the Serbs, Croats, and Turks hated each other to no end) that was the collapse of the Yugoslav era.

But, of course, Western Europe and the U.S. were still patting themselves on the back for "winning" the Cold War back then and couldn't be bothered to pick up the pieces of the shattered Eastern Bloc. Following up has always been a problem for us (see also: the end of the Afghan civil war and the rise of the Taliban, not keeping Chiang Kai-shek on a leash, not pressuring France and GB to do a...

Someone made a point to me the other day that the UK and US are countries that don't know the terror of invasion.

The US has never really been invaded and the last invasion of the UK, although terrible for the victim, was the vikings.

We have no cultural memory of atrocity in that way, so we struggle to understand the impact.

The closest Brits can get is realising that vikings stopped being straight-up symbols of evil and terror about 40/50 years ago... so it took a thousand years to forgive Scandinavians but we preach forgiveness and reconciliation like it's easy.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The American colonies were invaded by the French, and the British. Then as the US, invaded by the British again in 1812.

This may depend on your definition of invasion, but we are keenly aware of it. Having to repel the invasion from two of the world's top superpowers at the time is no small matter, nor easily forgotten.


Kryzbyn wrote:

The American colonies were invaded by the French, and the British. Then as the US, invaded by the British again in 1812.

This may depend on your definition of invasion, but we are keenly aware of it. Having to repel the invasion from two of the world's top superpowers at the time is no small matter, nor easily forgotten.

None of these are within living memory. And for the U.S., the War of 1812 has been largely forgotten, as what the British probably consider to be the most pivotal battle of the conflict is virtually unknown as little as 25 miles from where it happened.


Grey Lensman wrote:
None of these are within living memory.

Nor were the Viking invasions of Britain, so you'd also have to strike GeraintElberion's comment from the record as well.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Luckily for us, we have History classes.

Liberty's Edge

Kryzbyn wrote:
Luckily for us, we have History Mythology classes.

You had a typo.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I suppose the evil colonists should not have defended themselves, cuz guns R bad?

EDIT: Never mind. I don't care to know what your "correct" version of the French-Indian war or the Independance war or the War of 1812 were.
I just don't.


Kryzbyn wrote:

I suppose the evil colonists should not have defended themselves, cuz guns R bad?

EDIT: Never mind. I don't care to know what your "correct" version of the French-Indian war or the Independance war or the War of 1812 were.
I just don't.

I don't know if he is referring to it as Mythology because he doesn't like it or because in the U.S. we have a tendency to deify the figures of the revolutionary era. Myself, I just find it annoying that the Battles of Baltimore and Plattsburgh (which actually affected the outcome of the war) always take a backseat in the history books to the Battle of New Orleans, which should only be notable because a future president was there.

Liberty's Edge

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I mostly meant that the vast majority of the 'history' found in primary and secondary school social studies and history classes has more in common with mythology than history. It's not that I don't like the events, I'm pretty neutral on them, I dislike mixing fiction, hagiography, and colorful apocryphal anecdotes in and calling the resulting mess 'history'.

My 'correct' versions are pretty much the standard interpretation and analysis you find among historians of that period of US and World history.
The French Indian war was primarily the North American theater of the Seven YEar War and in many ways was the first World War. It was primarily a conflict between the French and English colonies and their indigenous allies over territory due to competing economic activities. Most Indian tribes saw it in more stark issues of which side they felt treated them better or worse, and certainly the colonists were drug into it without regard to their economic, political, or security interests.

The War of Independence was a successful revolt brought on by Parliament mostly ignoring the colonial demands for representation in Parliament until it was too late and continuing the economic exploitation of the colonies which was the heart of mercantilism. Most of the mythology here has to do the motivations behind some of the preceding acts, the actual impact and nature of the tax acts, and the intent and politics behind the Constitution. There's other little things like the British being evil for using German mercenaries when it was standard, or the 'Indian inspired' guerilla tactics being responsible for our victories when we were losing badly until a German adventurer who claimed to be a baron taught us how to fight a 'modern' war, not to mention the Polish revolutionary, and all the help we received from Spain and France. I mean, it would have been more accurate for General Stanton to have visited Rochambeau's grave than Lafayette's.

The War of 1812 was due to a mixture of national pride fuelled anger at Britain treating us like the third world backwater we were and justifiable anger at impressment of US citizens by the Royal Navy, but mostly by the economic intrestes pisssed at the British not allowing us unhindered trade with France and Britain's other colonies. So we invaded Canada. And got our asses kicked. If it wasn't for the fact that the British wanted it over with as fast as possible with as little fuss and effort because they were dealing with a Corsican military genius in Europe we'd probably be subjects of Elizabeth right now.

Pretty much all 'history' you learn outside of college, and most that you learn in it, is so sanitized, streamlined and full of hagiography and borderline propaganda it's mythology.

Granted, it is safer to deify heroes after they're safely dead, so thats something.


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Nostalgia for the fifties is... Odd, to say the least. A generation of traumatized husbands/fathers, a generation of women forced away from work and into being housewives, children being allowed only the most minimal freedom, a uniform and very intolerant society... And those were the good parts, to hear people talk about it.

Liberty's Edge

Strong unions and upward mobility for most, although certainly not all, citizens (assuming you're white and marrying up counts for women). Massive investment in infrastructure, education, services, etc.

I'm not nostalgic for the 1950s, I just wish that we hadn't thrown quite so many babies out with the admittedly fetid and disgusting bathwater.


Many of the babies were a result of the fetid and disgusting bathwater rather than something against the grain, I'd say. I believe much of the nostalgia aims for the dreams of the future the fifties held. There was penicillin, health care was growing to function, vaccines started making a big dent in the child infections, technology was going to solve everything that could trouble people. I love reading early SF from that period... but the view of the future isn't something that corresponds well to how your society works in the present day.

Liberty's Edge

It's that a lot of the programs that helped that upward mobility got scrapped in the 1960s and 1970s when certain groups noticed they were helping black (and brown and yellow and etc) people.

Sovereign Court

Kryzbyn wrote:

The American colonies were invaded by the French, and the British. Then as the US, invaded by the British again in 1812.

This may depend on your definition of invasion, but we are keenly aware of it. Having to repel the invasion from two of the world's top superpowers at the time is no small matter, nor easily forgotten.

I don't really know anything about American history, so that's quite eye-opening.

Were these wars rape/pillage/atrocity invasions in which civilian populations were heavily involved? Or were they more conflicts between recognisable armies who (generally) killed each other?


Vive Pancho Villa!


GeraintElberion wrote:
and the last invasion of the UK, although terrible for the victim, was the vikings.

Actually it was the Norman invasion of 1066.

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