Hatrack River Forum: I'm barely getting to read red prophet

This is topic I'm barely getting to read red prophet in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by ShadowPuppet (Member # 8239) on :

so my school library just recently purchased all of the alvin maker series to date

I was thrilled as I'm too poor to buy them myself

so I'm not too far into it yet but I noticed something interesting

something I already knew but just noticed...if that makes sense

when general bonaparte is meeting with the other french gentlemen they mention the fighting style of the americans

I'm not going to quote word for word

but they talked about how you could be in a farmer's house one minute and not find any soldiers

but then leave the house and find yourself being shot at from the trees not knowing if it was the same farmer or not

they mentioned how they couldn't tell their opposition from the everyday people

sound familier?

I found a striking similarity between the americans style of fighting then (based on fact, during the revolutionary war that is how america fought but you probably already knew that)

and what we're seeing by the iraqi militants now

sure americans never resulted to bombing anything and everything that might remotely harm their enemies

but then again if we would have had the explosive technology would we have sent suicide bombers in the name of freedom and democracy?

I'm not really making any certain point about this

not taking sides
just found an interesting connection to current events

thought I'd share

so please tell me what you think

P.S. this probably belongs in the other forum but I already typed it so the powers that govern us may move it if they want

Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :

Well it's true. It's called guerilla warfare.

Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :

That was also a major problem in Vietnam. It's not like its an uncommon thing.

Posted by Soara (Member # 6729) on :

red prophet is scary. [Angst]

Posted by The New Revolution (Member # 8283) on :

Here is how it works: big countries(american now/vietnam era, britain/france during revolution) have more people, more tech, therefore need more dicipline and fight conventionally. This style is uneffective against fluid, changing adaptable guerilla strategy that is used by small, poor countries who cannot win by force. We see this in Iraq and we saw it in vietnam. We saw it when Ender became a commander and when the buggers beat the entire human fleet with COLONIZING SHIPS, so i think osc and many others also understand this concept, if not our military leader, although we are doing much better in Iraq than we did in Vietnam.

Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :

Exactly. When you've got a small, poorly trained and poorly equipped fighting force, you just can't afford to fight a conventional military opponent on his own terms. You have to be craftier than that, or he'll steamroll over you in no time. It's been going on all throughout history; the Iraqi insurgents did not invent guerrilla warfare. They're simply using the only strategy available to them that even has the hope of potential success, just like underpowered militants have done for centuries.

Posted by TheSeeingHand (Member # 8349) on :

"red prophet is scary. [Angst]

"

You can say that again. That's why I LOVE that one.

Shadowpuppet- As I read that part I was thinking the exact same thing. Weird.