Rumsfeld's on Bravery

"C Knowles" wrote in message
om...
What's amazing is that some in the Arab world are amazed he surrendered.
They must have really bought his line of BS.

The tendency to buy in to the glorious myths of individuals is
pretty common amongst Muslims and Arabs in particular
it would seem.
Hmm, probably the case for most dictatorially governed people,
what they are raised to.

"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:37:46 GMT, Kevin Brooks
wrote:

"phil hunt" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 04:07:33 GMT, Kevin Brooks
wrote:

"phil hunt" wrote in message
...
Saddam was an assassin in his youth, which presumably took osme
courage. What's the bravest thing Rumsfeld has personally done?

He flew jets onto and off of carriers at one time

Anywhere near a war zone?

IIRC his service was just after the Korean Conflict. That said, it
takes
a
decent pair to land a high performance aircraft on a pitching and
rolling
deck IMO.


--have you done that?

Nope. The only thing I've ever flown is a glider.

So you are somewhere beneath Rumsfeld then on this mythical
totem-pole-of-courage?

I've no idea whether I am or not. I've never claimed to be
courageous, BTW, and in any case it is irrelevant to the quewstion
of whether Saddam or Rumsfeld is more courageous.

I just find it comical when folks start besmirching someone else's
courage,

I haven't besmirched *anyone's* courage, merely asked about it.

Then forgive me, because the way it sounded from your post it was a case of
"Saddam demonstrated courage by being an assassin (or more accurately,
assassin-wanna-be--IIRC he screwed up his attempts, at least until he got to
the position from which he could merely order the murder of those he
disliked), and just what in heck has Rumsfeld ever done that required
bravery?"


when their own demonstrations have not exhibited anything superlative to
the
individual they are commenting about.

Thgat's like saying only tall people have a right to comment on the
height of others.

No, that is like saying that commenting upon another's alleged demonstrated
lack of courage verges on hypocrisy.


Well, then, you'll have to define bravery.

I was using it to mean deliberately taking an action that knowingly
places oneself at a risk of death or serious injury.

By that criterion, I guess I'm not a particularly brave person; for
example, I've never done anything that I thought was reasonably
likely to kill me.

How brave are you, by that criterion?

I always hate this kind of dick-measuring

It's not dick-measuring; look, some people might have a big ego
thing about others considering them courageous, but I don't. It's
just another property about people that some have more than others.

It's dick measuring. From your statement it was apparent you wanted to cast
doubt on Rumsfeld's personal bravery versus that of Saddam--had you really
been interested in finding out what Rummy has done during his life a simple
google search would have answered that question quite easily. You got an
answer anyway, and then you tried to pursue it with that ridiculous "was it
anywhere near a war zone" crap, and with that you opened yourself to the
stinging question of just what the hell you have done that exceeds his
already demonstrated willingness to accept more risk than the majority us
have on behalf of his nation. You flunked that one, so you might as well
keep your attempts to downplay Rumsfeld's personal courage to yourself.

Brooks


--it is a tool of the misinformed
and the Walter Mitty crowd. If you really care to know, I had exactly one
situation where I was scared ****less (almost literally) but managed to
handle it while safeguarding a young E-5 who was with me at the time.
Suffice it to say that it involved an old M151 jeep sans rollover
protection, a dirt road which was axle deep in mud, a very steep dropoff
into the valley below, the failure of said roadway edge, and telling said
E-5 to get out of the jeep even though we both thought that the act may
result in it going over the edge. I don't consider it particularly brave
(there was not much to be gained by both of us going over that roadside),
but it did go some way towards meeting the best criteria I have ever
personally heard describing that quality--my old college boxing
instructor
once told us that bravery was doing what had to be done in spite of your
own
natural fears. Using that definition, I don't think your assassins make
the
grade--unless you think those women sitting at busstops or loading their
packages in the car just HAD to be shot by those miscreants I described
earlier. Now, are you about done with the dick-measuring?

Brooks




--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
...

And the Israelis will try to destroy the Palestinians. There are no
"clean
hands" in that mess.


Maybe not, but one side's hands are significantly dirtier than the other
side's. The majority of Israelis are willing to live alongside a peaceful
Palestinian state, few Palestinians are willing to live in peace alongside
Israel.

I am not sure about the veracity of that. It would appear that a significant
number of Israelis have no real interest in seeing a Palestinian state under
any realistic conditions, hence the fact that they have their current PM in
office. My wife visited the area at the end of '98, before the situation
heated up to its current level of violence--she departed here pro-Israel,
and returned sympathetic to the Palestinians. A CSM I served with had a
similar revalation after his visit. Both sides have more than enough blame
at their doorstep and blood on their hands.

Brooks

Are you serious? Israel was founded under terrorism. Their biggest founding
terrorist (Irgun murderers) became Prime Minister: Menachem Begin.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/begin.html

Jesus H. Christ! This thread is full of ****ing idiots!

"Jarg" wrote
But to suggest that both sides are equally to blame does Israel an
injustice.

Jarg

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 02:18:28 -0600, Don Harstad wrote:

"phil hunt" wrote in message
...

Because the assassin is deliberately doing an action that he knows
is likely to increase the probability of his death or serious
injury.

I seem to recollect that Sadam's "assassination" activity was more on the
lines of the thug killing rivals for his boss. In most cases that involves
a group thing against an un-armed victim.

According to Wikipedia:

In 1959, Saddam was involved in a CIA-supported assassination plot
against Prime Minister Qassim. Saddam was shot in the leg, but
managed to flee on foot (after removing the bullet from his own
leg) to Syria, from where he would later move to Nasser's Egypt. He
was sentenced to death in absentia.

So clearly he was shooting armed people (or at least, people with
armed bodyguards).

A killer, especially of the bullying sort (and that he is) is merely
pathological. Bravery involves much more than a physical act that can have
unpleasant consequences.

Why does it?

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 03:35:30 -0500, Dweezil Dwarftosser wrote:
Kevin Brooks wrote:


One of the TV networks here reported this evening that he came darned close
to meeting his end in that spiderhole. According to the report, the special
operator on the open end was getting ready to chuck a grenade in the hole
when Saddam stuck his hands up and said, in english no less, "I am Saddam
Hussein. I am the President of Iraq. I want to negotiate." It appears he was
willing to fight to the death...the death of his last misguided follower,
that is. All of his past promises to go down fighting evaporated when it
came time to place himself in the suicidal situation he had sent so many
others into with such gusto and false bravado. Miserable ******* indeed.

It's actually a lucky thing he did.
Had he not, the grenade goes down the hole, and
no one would go down to see whose blood and brains
were painting the walls afterward.

Then we'd be in the same situation as we are with
Osama: dead somewhere, and unidentified.

I'm sure they're get a sample of DNA.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:37:46 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote:

Using that definition, I don't think your assassins make the
grade--unless you think those women sitting at busstops or loading their
packages in the car just HAD to be shot by those miscreants I described
earlier.

Saddam was involved in assassinating politicians who had bodyguards,
a task rather more difficult than the scenario you suggest.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

On 16 Dec 2003 20:04:59 GMT, Ron wrote:
Why do you presume that assassination requires some courage?

Because the assassin is deliberately doing an action that he knows
is likely to increase the probability of his death or serious
injury.

By that same logic however, murderers, rapists, thieves, bank robbers, and drug
abusers are all courageous.

Perhaps a better word would be "more than averagely predisposed
towards risk-taking behavior". I'm not sure that's true about drug
addicts, mind, since they aren't entirely rational.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

I'm not suggesting Israel is blameless, merely that they have made
reasonable efforts to change the situation and the Palestinians have not.
And incidentally, calling people idiots does not constitute an debate and in
fact demonstrates the weakness of your argument.
Jarg



"Gene Storey" wrote in message
news:jBNDb.2104$6l1.305@okepread03...
Are you serious? Israel was founded under terrorism. Their biggest
founding
terrorist (Irgun murderers) became Prime Minister: Menachem Begin.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/begin.html

Jesus H. Christ! This thread is full of ****ing idiots!

"Jarg" wrote
But to suggest that both sides are equally to blame does Israel an
injustice.

Jarg

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 00:22:35 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote:

"phil hunt" wrote in message
...

I've no idea whether I am or not. I've never claimed to be
courageous, BTW, and in any case it is irrelevant to the quewstion
of whether Saddam or Rumsfeld is more courageous.

I just find it comical when folks start besmirching someone else's
courage,

I haven't besmirched *anyone's* courage, merely asked about it.

Then forgive me, because the way it sounded from your post it was a case of
"Saddam demonstrated courage by being an assassin (or more accurately,
assassin-wanna-be--IIRC he screwed up his attempts, at least until he got to
the position from which he could merely order the murder of those he
disliked), and just what in heck has Rumsfeld ever done that required
bravery?"

I'm not saying he hasn't done anything, merely asking.

when their own demonstrations have not exhibited anything superlative to
the
individual they are commenting about.

Thgat's like saying only tall people have a right to comment on the
height of others.

No, that is like saying that commenting upon another's alleged demonstrated
lack of courage verges on hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is when one pretends to have higher moral values than one
actuall y has; I don't recall stating anywhere that I have high
moral values, consequently I am not a hypocrite.

I always hate this kind of dick-measuring

It's not dick-measuring; look, some people might have a big ego
thing about others considering them courageous, but I don't. It's
just another property about people that some have more than others.

It's dick measuring. From your statement it was apparent you wanted to cast
doubt on Rumsfeld's personal bravery versus that of Saddam

Only if he hasn't done anything that requires bravery. My
understanding of Saddam's life is that he has in the past done
things that do require bravery (of course, people in their 60s are
likely to be less brave than they were in their 20s). Has Rumsfled
done anything that requires as much bravery as some of the things
Saddam has done?

--had you really
been interested in finding out what Rummy has done during his life a simple
google search would have answered that question quite easily. You got an
answer anyway, and then you tried to pursue it with that ridiculous "was it
anywhere near a war zone" crap,

Please don't confuse my comments with other posters'.

and with that you opened yourself to the
stinging question of just what the hell you have done that exceeds his
already demonstrated willingness to accept more risk than the majority us
have on behalf of his nation. You flunked that one,

I don't consider it "stinging" nor do I consider i have "flunked"
it; if you wish to consider things that way, that's your
priviledge, but I was merely giving an honest answer.


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).