@starfistatgmaildotcom: "<quote>
I have.  It's an interesting story, but as an analogy of wars on our
planet, it is woefully absurd.  For one thing, we can understand each
other just fine.  Our wars are not accidental or based on
communication barriors.  And as the current political climate is
showing, we certainly don't have the stomach for drawn out conflict
like the one portrayed in The Forever War.
Lance Corporal "Hammer" Schultz
Promote someone else."
    @starfistatgmaildotcom: "<quote>
You're talking ancient history.  Vietnam wasn't about
miscommunication, Korea wasn't about miscommunication, and neither was
the cold war.
The idea that nations war because they don't "understand" each other
is naive nonsense. 
Lance Corporal "Hammer" Schultz
Promote someone else."
    @starfistatgmaildotcom: "<quote>
Take recent conflicts (WWII and on) and show me how an inability to
communicate had anything to do with them.
Lance Corporal "Hammer" Schultz
Promote someone else."
    @jax: "<quote>
Indeed. It was believed initially that the invention of the telephone would
end all wars. Naive optimists said, "now leaders can instantly talk to each
other and solve misunderstandings, they won't ever reach the stage of going
to war". Mind you, television was going to bring top quality education to
all ("the best teachers can broadcast to every student in the country!",
they said) and right now there's the same Utopianism going on around
Wikipedia, despite the overwhelming evidence that bringing everybody
together to work together just causes wars, which are at least just verbal
on the Internets.
People have wars because they've concluded that they can get more by using
force (whether that be acquisition, neutralising a rival, or plain
self-preservation) than they can get by peaceful means. Both sides normally
know exactly what they want out of the war. The idea that wars are
misunderstandings is a very bizarre flavour of reality denial.
Ian
<url>
science fiction comics with shagging in"
    @idontgotnone: "the misunderstandings come about because both sides cannot communicate long
enough to reach a compromise acceptable to both, no matter the "reasoning"
for the conflict.
news:45b8dc78$0$2432$<email_address>
<quote>
would
each
going
normally"
    @jax: "<quote>
No. An obvious example is World War II, which was waged in order to
eradicate two significant threats (Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan). No
negotiated compromise would have produced as good a result as the war did,
from the POV of the allied powers.
Compromise is a flawed ideal. It's the old cake-sharing problem. If Child A
thinks they should share the cake equally, and Child B thinks he should have
it all, the compromise is to give Child B three quarters of it, which isn't
much of a result for the more reasonable Child A.
Wars are usually waged for practical reasons; even though of course the
reasoning of either or both sides may be flawed. There's no reason at all to
presume that compromise is better than a win. Compromise in WWII would have
lead at best to an isolated Britain and a Nazi Continental Europe, which
wouldn't have been much good for anybody.
Ian
<url>
science fiction comics with shagging in"
    @starfistatgmaildotcom: "<quote>
Again, naive nonsense.  Often a war is fought when one party wishes to
dominate another (reasons vary), and the other side does not wish to
be dominated.  There is no "misunderstanding" to be resolved when a
tyrant will not rest until you are subjugated.
Lance Corporal "Hammer" Schultz
Promote someone else."
    @pub: "***
<quote>
So today we have an isolated Britain and her colonial puppies [USA, Canada and Australia]
invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
They may have defeated Hitler, but his fascist front won the war.  Witness "The Decider"
Bush in USA and Howard in Australia in particular.
Said American [Indian] Chieftain Acuera in reply to the invader de Soto's demand for submission 
to the king and the church so as to 'enjoy the benefits of 'civilization' and service:
"I have long since learned who you [European Christians] are,
through others of you who came years ago to my land; 
and I already know very well what your customs and 
behavior are like.  To me you are professional 
vagabonds who wander from place to place, 
gaining your livelihood by robbing, sacking and 
murdering people who have given you no offense.
 ... Accordingly, I and all of my people have vowed 
to die a hundred deaths to maintain the freedom 
of our land.  This is our answer, both 
for the present and forevermore."
  "Florida of the Inca" (1591) 
    by El Inca [aka Garcilaso de la Vega]
  - First American Author to be published."
    @jax: "<quote>
Maybe, but again neither the Afghanistan nor Iraq wars were caused by
misunderstanding or miscommunication, which was the point I was addressing.
Also worth mentioning that none of the above govmunts are fascist in any
recognisable way. Bush's administration is machiavellian
conservative/religious and Blair's is a strange mish-mash of the worst of
the left, right and religious. The greatest internal threat to western
freedom and democracy currently is the Left, not the Right, with their
messianic apocalyptic marxist creed of Greenism, lifestyle tyranny and
"thoughtcrime" which here in Britain at least has pretty much won- in the
USA, there's the other major threat from christian fundamentalism. They're
similar in both being representing extreme forms of conservatism- of the
Left and of the Right respectively. Neither is recognisably fascist though.
Ian"
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