Text 5398, 152 rader
Skriven 2004-11-26 23:17:00 av FRANK SCHEIDT (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av BJöRN FORSSTRöM
Ärende: Breaking News!
======================
-=> Quoting Björn Forsström to Frank Scheidt <=-

 BF>> OK. And this means that you must be over 80 yo. and times must have
 BF>> changed since then.
 
 FS> True enough, but people are still people and combat soldiers tend to be
 FS> wary of the enemy ...

 BF> As long as it doesn't tend to be a paranoia.
 
 BF>> They must have much moore sophisticated weapons by now. And why is is so
 BF>> hard to say that this soldier *might* have done a mistake?
 
 FS> "Might"?  That applies to *every* action I haven't been involved in
 FS> personally, hence it's *understood* ...

 BF> You lost me here.

Actually I've lost *myself* there ...
 
 FS>> I don't know who the "Muppet Chef" is,
 
 BF>> Then you have missed something.
 
 FS> I have no feeling of loss ...

 BF> Ask your children or grandchildren.
 
OK ...

 FS> OK, I'll generalize.  There are a series of jokes, each of which calls for
 FS> the person in the joke to be unbelievably stupid.  No one is really
 FS> offended by them because no one could *possibly* be that dumb.  The latest
 FS> reincarnation of this type of joke involved Poles, and are commonly called
 FS> "Polish Jokes".  Prior to WWII they were "Moron" jokes.  At one time they
 FS> were Swedes. The ethnic description of the "victim" in the joke is of no
 FS> importance.  It wouldn't surprise me if such a series of jokes isn't
 FS> making the rounds somewhere called "American" jokes.  Is this clear now?

 BF> Sure.
 
 FS> In fact I'll give you a typical example:  "How many Poles does it
 FS> take to change a light bulb?" ... "Three -- one to hold the bulb,
 FS> the other two to turn the ladder."  ... [sigh] ... dumb joke but
 FS> funny the first time you hear it ...

 BF> That's what we say about the Norwegians.
 BF> And they are at least 10 to move that ladder.......

And the Norwegians doubtless have a series of "Swedish" jokes ... 
heh heh heh ... "How many Swedes does it take to paint a school 
bus?"  "26 -- one to hold the paint brush and 25 to move the bus 
up-and-down" ...
 
 FS> Haven't *you* ever done something then, later, thought to yourself that
 FS> you shouldn't have done that?

 BF> Sure. And then I have to pay the prize for it.
 
 BF>> What do you call him "Enlisted Swine"?
 
 FS> Another play on words:  I was an Enlisted Man during WWII.
 FS> Officers, in general, had contempt for EM, hence we jokingly said they'd
 FS> refer to us as "Enlisted Swine" ...

 BF> See how easy it is to missunderstand when not knowing.

True ... I should take into account that you really *are* from 
and/or *in* Sweden.  I've been dealing with FidoNet for over a 
couple of decades and have run into all sorts of people 
pretending to be one thing.  However they always trip themselves 
up eventually.

 BF> I could have called you a real bastard for calling your troops
 BF> Enlisted Swein but
 BF> instead I asked and now it isn't a problem.
 
I've been called worse ...

 FS> I've never *claimed* to really *know*.  However I have an opinion based on
 FS> what I saw and heard on that tape as well as what others have said on the
 FS> TV news -- people who were able to study the tape carefully.  The Marine
 FS> had good reason to believe his life was in danger.  He had only a
 FS> split-second to make a decision.

 BF> And I based my opinion of what I saw.

Apparently the TV *you* saw didn't show as much as I saw -- and 
heard.
 
 FS> I keep an open mind on *everything* ... even on the fact that you might
 FS> not be from Sweden at all ... 

 BF> With my name I'm more likely to come from Sweden then Scheidt is to
 BF> come from USA. Sounds like German to me.

Good guess, in that my parents were both born in Germany.  OTOH 
there really *is* no such thing as an "American" name since this 
is largely a nation of immigrants ... even the Indians 
(aborigines) migrated from Asia thousands of years ago.

BTW, I had a friend in college many years ago named Yalti 
Einarson (I'm no-longer sure of the spelling) who came from 
Iceland.  He told me if I ever went to Reykjavik, Iceland, 
to phone his father who could contact him.  I asked if his 
father spoke good English.  He said his father didn't know 
*any* English ... so if I *had* gone there it would have 
been an interesting conversation since *I* don't know any Danish
... heh heh heh ...

 FS> It's not the same situation as WRT the Vietnam war.  In *that* war we had
 FS> no real national interest.  In subduing Saddam Hussein we have
 FS> considerable interest.

 BF> I don't see the difference.

There's a great deal of difference.  The Vietnam War proved to be 
basically a *civil* war with north fighting south.  We had no 
business there.  Saddam Hussein was financing terrorists in 
Palestine and there's no reason to believe he wasn't financing 
*other* terrorists as well.  And, of course, there was the 
intelligence information, which was proved false, which indicated 
he had weapons of mass-destruction ...

 BF> Even Bush have said that bin Laden had nothing to do with Iraq.
 
True, but this is a "war" on *terrorists*, not just on bin Laden.

 FS>> Huh?  How did the Holocaust come into this?  The Holocaust involved some
 FS>> 11 *million* dead.  We were talking about one, single insurgent killed in
 FS>> combat.

 BF> It wasn't ment like that.
 BF> I merly pointed out that you only believe in what you want to believe
 BF> and the new-nazis doesn't believe that the Holocaust ever took place
 BF> even though there are evidence that it did.

Actually I *don't* believe only what I want to believe.  There 
are a *lot* of things I believe which I wish I *didn't* believe.  
For example, if that Marine really *did* commit a war crime I'd 
want him punished appropriately.  However from what I read and 
saw and *heard* on that tape he did the proper thing.  The 
investigation will determine if he did or not.

BTW, your "new-Nazis" are called "neo-Nazis" ... "neo", of 
course, *means* "new" ...

... Dammit, Jim.  Either Spock goes or *I* go ... ... <zzzzzip>

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