posted
Woah wait. Why would they be now unemployed just because the war is over?
They'll get the same pay that troops at home, troops overseas that aren't in Iraq and other US Armed forces members gets, they just wouldn't get the massive resigning bonuses for new reuppings that they used to get.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Woah wait. Why would they be now unemployed just because the war is over?
Lyrhawn, I was asking, not suggesting. I am worried about contracts not being renewed. Could that happen -- e.g., someone signed up for three years, was required to stay a fourth, and now is not offered a renewal? How does this work? (I honestly do not know the practicals of it.)
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Edited to add: GoArmy.com suggests service on active duty can range from two to six years. Once that time initially enlisted for is up, is there any regulation prohibiting the armed forces from declining to re-enlist that person past that original commitment? Given how long the current situation has gone on, as well as the enforced holdovers that have been in place, there must be many for whom there time of enlistment is nearly or already completed. So, can they be "let go" afterward without legal repercussions?
If yes, how likely is it that they will be "let go" (whatever the proper phrasing is, I'd be happy to edit tomorrow) if the federal government goes very short of funds in a recession?
quote: For an Active Duty Soldier, your length of service can range from two to six years. Typical deployments are 12 months in length, and after six months, Soldiers are usually eligible for a two-week Rest & Relaxation (R&R) leave. The exact length of deployment depends on each unit’s specific mission.
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: BlackBlade: I've been reading up on the controversy. I think that it is more fair to say that it is "That's not the conventional wisdom on the subject, and I've never heard of these sources. Plus, we have plenty of *conflicting* sources"
I think we can both agree that this is far from a generally accepted reading of history and that there is plenty of room for disagreement.
Blayne's said a lot of questionable things, but I for one would be very wary of simply declaring by fiat that this is a fact. Or that one should simply "read your history books again" to be convinced of something like this.
It certainly was not in mine and mine are hardly glowing portrayals of the CCP.
See that's the thing, often the oppositions remarks are along the lines of, "Well we could not locate that particular person on the day we just happened to be in the area, but we did find a random person who says they were there and they said something different!"
It took them 8 years to gather material for the book, sort through what looked like good information, and print. I agree the book makes several radical assertions, but I think some of it's critics operate on the premise that Mao couldn't have been, "as bad as he is portrayed in that book." Or that Jung Chang is letting her emotion muddle reason and historical truth.
As for me telling Blayne to read his history books. I can be wrong about Chiang Kai Shek's son or even Chiang Kai Shek's tacit agreement to allow the Red's to leave. But he was definitely wrong that Chiang's own men disliked him, arrested him, and turned him over to the communists.
That is an idea straight out of the CCP's handbook. That, along with Mao turning into a fish and swimming across the Yang Tze river."
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They get out when they get out. They have on the job experience. It would only create a crisis if people were prejudiced against hiring them when they come back -- which was exactly the scenario all the war protesters said they regretted about Vietnam and hoped not to have happen.
But EEOC guidelines for Veterans preference in hiring is already in place, so hopefully it will not be an issue.
Hopefully a certain proportion of them will use their G.I. Bill and go to school.
No one is coming back to anything cushy, but I'm not worried about it causing a massive crisis.
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CT - They'll stay in the service for the remainder of their enlistment. If it's a 2 year enlistment, they're in for 2, etc. Near as I can tell the budget for the defense department actually calls for an increase in active duty troops, so, if they want to reenlist, even if Iraq is no longer a conflict for us, they'll likely be able to reenlist so long as they want to. None of them will be kicked out of the army because Iraq is over. Also remember that a large chunk of the troops over there are National Guardsmen, and thus already have jobs at home. It's the law that they can't be fired if they are called into service, so, they already have jobs. Even so, like Pooka said, when they come back they'll have their GI Bill, so hopefully they'll go to school when they get home. Military service these days generally aids one in getting a job, I can't think of an area where it's a hindrance.
I didn't think you were suggesting it CT, I was just wondering what made you consider that.
And I wouldn't worry about a lack of funding. With the current lovefest for the military in the US right now, it'd be political suicide to vote to cut funding for the Armed Forces. They'd cut funding to a lot of things before they cut that. Besides, pay raises are in the pipeline too, though it's hard to say how anything will look since Bush's budget was almost summarily dismissed by the Democrats.
In summary, I wouldn't worry. They'll get benefits when they get out, they won't be booted out before their enlistments are up, and most who want to reenlist will be able to.
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"That said, he ran an astonishingly poor campaign."
He ran an astonishingly wonderful campaign where bad luck was his demise. The proof is that at this point in time we are talking about him steping out of the running with McCain as the nominee. The person that the traditional Republicans hate the most.
Somewhat like McCain, his running went from 0 to 60 mph in a short time. Again, as Romney pointed out he got almost as many votes as McCain did and fell behind in deligates only because of winner take all states. Even then, he won a few less states than McCain and was second in most of the others. By contrast Huckster could only win the Southern states and was in third or fourth in most of the rest. Interesting enough, and the reason I think Huck was both a spoiler and anti-Mormonism contributed to Romney's defeat, just about the only states Romney didn't get second place was in the Southern States.
Remember, from the start the MSM was blowing Romney off as an also ran. He was predicted to be the first, if not one of the first, to drop out of the race. Instead, he has been (besides lopsided deligates) neck and neck with McCain who I think won by pure luck and an unfair primary system. I think the final straw was Hucks' religious attacks and identification in Iowa and his continued focus group pandering. You can never prove it absolutely, but I think had Huck not become the "Christian" candidate that Romney would be at least slightly ahead of McCain.
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BlackBlade: Actually, I was not discussing the Xian incident in my response. I think that would be covered under "Blayne has said many questionable things."
The problem is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The "Chiang Kai-Shek's son conspiracy" idea is entertaining and appealing on a primal level. However, like the "United States knew about, provoked, and let Pearl Harbour happen" or the "9/11 was a fake" conspiracies its just not plausible. It requires too many people at the time to know about the conspiracy, too many people to keep quiet, and an impartial academic community (outside China, in the US often to boot) to conspire to suppress the idea for unknown motives. It also ignores the fact that the KMT and the CCP were essentially at war and *did* find many opportunities to kill each other, conspiracies notwithstanding.
As for your specific points, first, the opposition did not find that random person that Jung used, but the real question is why Jung needed to use random evidence from some random person in the first place.
Second, you're also wrong that the opposition works on the assumption that "Mao couldn't have been as bad". If you note the section that I quoted
quote: Tsang said that in this case, as generally in the book, the authors had been "appallingly dishonest" in the use of sources they claimed to have accessed. "Mao was a monster," Tsang said. "(But) their distortion of history to make their case will in the end make it more difficult to reveal how horrible Mao and the Chinese Communist Party system were, and how much damage they really did to the Chinese people."
The determination has already been made is that Mao was bad, but the issue here is not whether Mao was bad, but whether we should distort Chiang Kai-Shek's motives and other sources just to propose a conspiracy to explain something that can be explained much simpler. Occam's razor and all that.
There is also a pattern of behaviour of playing fast and loose with random accusations. The accusation that Sun Yat-Sen's wife was a Soviet agent, that CCP spies successfully infiltrated the KMT leadership to such a degree that they not only were able to order KMT troops to their deaths but that they *provoked the war with the Japanese.*
This is serious conspiracy theory stuff and requires extraordinary evidence for just those claims, each one could be a book unto itself, not as a side-note in passing in a biography.
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I don't think his campaing can hold a candle, in the astonishment department, to Giuliani. It was more like Edwards - mostly bad timing, but also some quirks of his own.
The only person I'd say who's running a brilliant campaign is Ron Paul. He won't win, but he's exceeding expectations all over the place. As someone said when Edwards left, the primaries is all about exceeding expectations.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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It seems to me like he's simply the product of the confluence of a whole bunch of libertarian (of diverse stripes) leaning Internet junkies who decided to become activists. Any number of minor candidates could have had the same thing happen to them over the past several decades if the Internet had been around with the same influence it has now.
I fail to see what's brilliant about any of what he has done.
Now what would be incredibly interesting is how a Ross Perot-like candidate* would do in the new media environment.
* I don't mean actually like Ross Perot who is a weird little dude, but I mean someone with a decent amount of personal wealth, a good business track record, and a libertarian-lite platform.
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"I don't think his campaing can hold a candle, in the astonishment department, to Giuliani."
*blink* *blink* you mean can't get past 3rd or 4th place in any state and couldn't get 2nd in the one he had hoped to get? I suppose if you mean, and you could, the astonishingly bad performance of his campaigning.
Oh, and I think the South is slowly going down into irrelavancy even in the Republican party. Although, that is more of a prediction than having any real evidence. I guess the evidence is in who has been picked this year on both sides of the political divide. The East and the West are rising.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I think Ron Paul's performance is strongly linked to the unpopularity of the war even among republicans.
He is the only republican candidate to have taken a strong stand against the war and I know quite a few people who are supporting him because of their opposition to the war despite skepticism about his libertarian views. When you add those people to the growing libertarian wing of the republican party, Ron Paul's showing in the primaries is not at all surprising.
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quote:I suppose if you mean, and you could, the astonishingly bad performance of his campaigning.
I'm quite confident that's what she meant. Giuliani was dubbed the front runner early on by the media so it is very astonishing that he has done so poorly.
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If it wasn't for the south (and the mountain west to a much lesser extent, since they have few electoral votes), the republicans wouldn't have a leg to stand on in the general election.
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posted
I think Romney ran a good campaign, not a great one. I hope he'll run again in 2012.
He made mistakes: pandering to social (rather than economic) conservatives, starting his push too early, alienating too many opponents.
He also had some bad luck (although you could also say some lack of foresight), with Huckabee getting as much free publicity as he did, Charlie Crist endorsing McCain at the last moment, and a McCain ad campaign in NH that hit just the right notes. Perhaps the worst luck was Giuliani fading so fast; Mitt's early campaign was obviously targeted at competing against Guiliani. When Guiliani faded and McCain surged, I think Romney lost a lot of momentum in reacting to the change.
In the end, I think the thing that sunk him the most was the prominence of Southern states (particularly SC and FL) in this year's primary calendar. I think if equivalently sized and contested (in the general election) states replaced FL and SC, (say OH or PA replaced FL and CO replaced SC) that Super Tuesday would have had a different flavor, and the race would either be still up in the air, or McCain would have been giving his concession.
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If it wasn't for the south (and the mountain west to a much lesser extent, since they have few electoral votes), the republicans wouldn't have a leg to stand on in the general election.
Unless, of course, by changing message they were able to sacrifice the South for gains elsewhere. I tend to agree, to some extent, with Occ. The issues that made the South the bedrock of Republicanism in the 80s and 90s are losing national relevance. I'm not sure whither the GOP, but I do think that focusing on the strong military and pro-life planks is a sure path to political irrelevance in twenty years.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Before Reagan, the solid south used to mean democrat. But I guess so was Utah at the first.
Here's a wiki link (I think I posted it in the Primary news thread, too) showing the dynamics of which states went R/D in each election. It shows the South solidly R as early as '68 and not solidly democrat since about '48.
I think the switch had a lot to do with civil rights and that it's been maintained primarily due to abortion <edit>as an issue</edit>.
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Ah, maybe it was before Johnson. That does make sense. You'd think I'd remember... I was 10 and we talked about Reagan in class and I said "the guy has run 3 times, I don't see why he'd be elected now.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Would anyone care to speculate on McCain's running mate/strategy in selecting a running mate?
I still have misgivings that perhaps McCain and Huck have a deal struck. But assuming McCain doesn't owe anything to Huckabee (or Charlie Crist), who/what characteristics should he look for in a running mate?
Should he play regional politics, picking someone to shore up his support in the South or Mid-west? Should he play identity politics, picking someone to balance his oldness/maleness/whiteness? Should he pick a conservative to shore up his base or a (relative) liberal to appeal to Dems/Independents? Should he choose an executive to shore up his lack of managerial experience?
Here are some possibilities off the top of my head:
Elizabeth Dole Michael Bloomberg Mike Huckabee Fred Thompson Charlie Crist Joe Lieberman Kay Bailey Hutchinson Condeleezza (two "e"s, two "z"s) Rice
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posted
Some are suggesting that Ron Paul is building up a strong Republican backed war chest, but is not spending much. He will switch all that $ over to the Libertarian Party to give them a fair shot as a 3rd party, also pulling in a lot of conservatives from a McCain Dem-light Republican party.
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posted
I'd think Thompson would be the smartest pick for McCain. Huck's loathed by the Republican establishment almost as much as McCain himself is; Dole's a lightweight, Kay's old, Bloomberg brings zero to the ticket except for cash, Lieberman is actually a Democrat, Condi' not running.
Crist, I think, is another possibility.
quote:Remember, from the start the MSM was blowing Romney off as an also ran. He was predicted to be the first, if not one of the first, to drop out of the race
Who was this? The Post's Line, I recall, had he and Giuliani fighting for frontrunner status most of last fall.
Romney could have picked up most of McCain's backers back when McCain was floundering last year if he had run as the Romney of 1994-2005. Instead, he kept fighting Huck (who did, to be fair, come out of nowhere) for the evangelical vote, which was a losing battle to begin with.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Some are suggesting that Ron Paul is building up a strong Republican backed war chest, but is not spending much. He will switch all that $ over to the Libertarian Party to give them a fair shot as a 3rd party, also pulling in a lot of conservatives from a McCain Dem-light Republican party.
I hope to God that if he does run as a third party candidate, he doesn't do it with the LP. <shudder>
He should declare himself the candidate of the Constitutionalist Party. As a matter of fact, I think it'd be a good idea for the Ron Paul supporters to create a party based on the kind of platform Ron Paul is running on one way or the other.
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posted
People have been talking about a Ron Paul 3rd party run from the get-go. Or, at least from the You Tube debates, and he said at that time he wasn't.
Kay Bailey Hutchison is only 4 years older than Hillary, but I agree that she looks more like a grandmother. P.S. Not everyone thinks that is bad, it's better than trying to look young and not pulling it off.
posted
I think Hutchinson would be a decent choice for McCain. I'd worry about it looking like the AARP ticket, but, she's qualified and has good bonafides. Rice won't do it. Bloomberg IS what everyone is accusing McCain of being; a liberal. He'd drag the ticket. I'd worry about Lieberman too, regardless, he's on the other side of the aisle. Rice won't accept the nomination, and I think Fred Thompson would look like McCain's Dick Cheney, even though McCain would actually be the Cheney in the ticket. But that might not be horrible.
Thompson's problem is that he's flatout boring. He's a horrible campaigner. But McCain needs an attack dog so he doesn't have to do the smearing himself, and I think Thompson would be good at that. He's certainly not good at any positive public speaking. He just drones on boringly. McCain/Thompson is an undynamic ticket. I think the contrast would make Obama look like superman in comparison in terms of vitality and energy.
Huckabee is still a candidate to consider, but I think for all the help he does to gain Conservatives, he turns off moderates and independents, and I don't think he can do the attack dog thing either.
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posted
We don't know exactly how it will shake out, but Romney did cede a truckload of delegates to McCain by suspending rather than withdrawing. I think the conservatives are still too much in an uproar for Romney to have endorsed McCain outright, but eventually the talk radio will go back to picking on the democrats.
My prediction is that Romney will wind up VP, whether or not that is actually in anyone's head right now.
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quote:It seems to me like he's simply the product of the confluence of a whole bunch of libertarian (of diverse stripes) leaning Internet junkies who decided to become activists. Any number of minor candidates could have had the same thing happen to them over the past several decades if the Internet had been around with the same influence it has now.
One pretty smart guy had this to say about it.
quote:Ron Paul's primary significance is that he's a crystallization trigger for the only element of traditional internet culture that leans republican: Libertarian-leaning technophiles. Where the Free Republic/RedState crew are barely coherent (in every sense of the word) under the best of circumstances, the libertarians are much more intelligent. However, Ron Paul can't win (and most of his supporters will admit it), and they're more likely to vote for Democrats in actual elections right now than anyone else. Politically Democrats aren't a danger to anything but the second amendment and will not be in a position to do anything to it for a generation at least. Slightly more likely they'll get on board for censorship of games and porn for political pandering purposes, but for me at least those are lower on the priority list.
quote:Originally posted by pooka: My prediction is that Romney will wind up VP, whether or not that is actually in anyone's head right now.
I'll be very surprised if that happens. I doesn't make any political sense to me. But hey, stranger things have probably happened.
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posted
Well, it depends on if the economy continues to worry people, because I think Romney will provide some reassurance there, he will want someone younger, and Romney has proven himself a pretty ruthless attack dog, or at least people have said. I never saw one of his ads, though.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I guess I can see how Romney would balance the ticket as far as foreign vs. domestic focus. He is younger, but not that young. However, I think the last point about his ability to attack is a bit weak; he definitely had some negative ads (I saw several in NH markets), but in debates he was no pit-bull, which is what McCain really needs, as far as that goes.
I guess to me the most interesting option (and this goes to the Ron Paul subthread) is actually choosing someone (ala Bloomberg/Lieberman) who is to his left. I think the primary political divide is tending away from morality issues, and toward a centrist big government ideology vs. a federalist small government ideology. Maybe not, but that's what I think, and I think if McCain ran with another centrist big government type from the other side of the aisle he'd be recognizing the political terrain of the next 50 years.
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quote:Originally posted by MattB: Romney's as qualified and probably competent a potential president as there was in the field this year, comparable to McCain and Clinton on that score, I think.
Bull. I lived in MA, and I wish I could have seen his face when he realized he had to quit. The man is arrogant, rude, and lies all the time. He lied to his supporters and opponents alike, and ran MA into the ground.
His record in MA was worse than Dukakis's was, to be honest.
Zhang and another general Yang Hucheng kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and imprisoned the head of the Kuomintang government until he agreed to form a united front with the communists against the Japanese invasion.
Chiang Kai-shek, Half Month in Xian Fenby, Jonathian, Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation he Lost Mao: A Life by Philip Short.
Also Chiang was forced to let the Chinese Red Army retreat on many occasions because he's an incompetent Generalissimo and had his armies smashed every single time until he listened to his German advisors and used more methodical tacts and finally commited his German trained field divisions to crushing the Jiangsi Soviet Republic.
The history of the Chinese civil war is of appalling lack of tactical or strategic sense by the Nationalists, to tke the civil war between 1945-1949 for example the Nationalists had nominally 5 million soliders to the Red Armies 500,000 and yet miraculasely by 1949 this was reversed.
It is impossible to deny that the Red Army had much better moral and leadership compared to the nationalistsand this is what helped them win.
Read Mao: A Life for a in detail look of the actually campaign regiment movement by regiment movement.
quote: he [Chiang] immediately turned his attention on rooting out the remaining pockets of Communist activity in a series of encirclement campaigns. The first and second campaigns failed and the third was aborted due to the Mukden Incident. The fourth campaign (1932-1933) achieved some early successes, but Chiang’s armies were badly mauled when they tried to penetrate into the heart of Mao’s Soviet Chinese Republic. During these campaigns, the Nationalist columns struck swiftly into Communist areas, but were easily engulfed by the vast countryside and were not able to consolidate their foothold.
Finally, in late 1933, Chiang launched a fifth campaign that involved the systematic encirclement of the Jiangxi Soviet region with fortified blockhouses. Unlike in previous campaigns in which they penetrated deeply in a single strike, this time the Nationalist troops patiently built blockhouses, each separated by five or so miles, to surround the Communist areas and cut off their supplies and food source. Villages in the region were organized into units known as baojia, as a security measure to prevent Communists from obtaining supplies and intelligence from the locals. Once the front line had been secured, a new ring of blockhouses were built to close in on the Communist base areas. This strategy was very successful, and by the fall of 1934, the Communists faced the possibility of total annihilation. It seemed that the time was now ripe to finish off the Communists, and then turn against the remaining warlords.
In October 1934, the Communists took advantage of gaps in the ring of blockhouses (manned by the troops of a warlord ally of Chiang Kai-shek's, rather than the Nationalists themselves) to escape Jiangxi. The warlord armies were reluctant to challenge Communist forces for fear of wasting their own men, and did not pursue the Communists with much fervor. In addition, the main Nationalist forces were preoccupied with annihilating Zhang Guotao's army, which was much larger than Mao's. The massive military retreat of Communist forces lasted a year and covered 6000 km, and was touted as the Long March.
These actions hardly seem the actions of a man scared of losing his son, Stalin was apathetical to the CPC's plight, while sending aid in the form of advisers the Soviet Union was reluctant extremely so of ever giving the CPC aid and constantly gave counter productive strategies unsuitable for China's situation, Stalin prefered KMT China as a buffer zone and didn't think the CPC stood a chance of winning only giving marginal aid once they had already largely defeated the American weapon equipped armies of Chiang-Kai-Shek between 1945 and 1949 and even then, the Japanese were of far greater help with abandoned weapons caches then the Soviets ever were until they normalized relations in 1949/1950 when Mao visited the Soviet Union.
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"Bull. I lived in MA, and I wish I could have seen his face when he realized he had to quit. The man is arrogant, rude, and lies all the time. He lied to his supporters and opponents alike, and ran MA into the ground.
His record in MA was worse than Dukakis's was, to be honest."
posted
Blayne: You should read the sources you are citing, they don't agree with you.
This history where you believe the Chinese communists were a tenacious bunch who managed somehow to repulse the KMT over and over again, while KMT were a bunch of blundering fools does not exist in this reality.
You might also consider researching how the communists managed to convince the Chinese populace that their tiny army had somehow done all the fighting when Japan invaded, while the KMT sat around twiddling their thumbs. I'll give you a hint to start you off, communists in China were not constrained to be truthful in what they said.
And you keep saying the KMT immediately turned on CCP forces after the Japanese were stopped. The CCP turned on KMT forces WHILE they were supposed to be fighting the Japanese.
Also you might want to consider why warlord Zhang would be willing to risk his life, and agreed to be a political prisoner the rest of his days, in exchange for the communists being left alone by Chiang. I'd like to believe he did it because he believed that without communist support they couldn't stop the Japanese, and yet he allowed Stalin, Mao, Peng De Huai, Zhou En Lai, and co to have a say in what happened to Chiang. What could the communists possibly offer Zhang, being as weak as they were then? After answering that, consider why it is that once Zhang got out of prison he had NO desire to go back to China and to the applause and accolades that would have surely awaited him. For some reason he was willing to risk his skin for the survival of the communists and China, yet later in his life he does not want see the communist party leaders. Hmmm.....
But I will concede one thing, a verb you have yet been willing to try in all our discussion. You are right that I was wrong about Chiang being lured to a good faith meeting with Mao.
In reality he was lured to a meeting to discuss what ought to be done about Japan and the communists, he was kidnapped and then Mao and co were invited to come down and discuss with Zhang what ought to be done.
Stalin was not supportive of the CCP as much as the KMT because he did not think the CCP was anything but rabble rousers with no base. But he still kept them from being eradicated, always giving them just enough help to not die. It was only when Mao ruthlessly rose enough to emerge as the clear leader of the CCP, and started winning the ideological battle against Chiang that Stalin changed his mind.
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The November turnout is going to be yuuge, for so many different reasons. ___
On another note, has anybody noticed how the stars have kept their yaps shut? I wonder if someone issued a gag order. It's as if, they said, "All right, I know all of you celebrities are for Obama, but you can't say it in public, 'cause we have to talk as if the ground swell of support is coming from a working-class white woman in South Dakota, so Clooney, Damon, Affleck, Jackson, Sharpton, keep your pie-holes closed, and I don't want to hear anyone talk about the moveon.org announcement. All you guys came out loudly against Bush and for Kerry, and you lost us the whole middle of the country."
posted
The Communists fought an extensive geurilla war against the Japanese making about 2-3 attempts of open battle with them, however it must be understood that the Japanese didnt have it a priority to attack in their direction, the geurilla campaign was instrumental in expanding their base of support inside Japanese occupied lands. Also, the CPC has recently changed their view syaing that the two parties were equally important in resisting the Japanese in a woeing effort with the KMT party.
What happened in 1946 is not easily said as who turning on who, both sides skirmished with each other but it is undeniable that it is the Communists who attempted the most to accomodate the Nationalists in the hopes of a coaltiion government as victory wasn't assured then.
Blackblade you see patterns and conspiracy where none exist, Zhang never returned because he was overrall neutral in the political dispute beween the KMT and CPC, and never returned to either Taiwan OR Mainland China, remeber he was only released in 19 friggin 90 he longest served polotical prisoner, at that age what? 95? 99? You generally wish to live a quiet life away from politics.
Also remember he was the warlord of Manchuria before the Japanese invaded and was angry at Chaing's refusal to do anything about, Chiang was focusing all of his efforts on crushing the Communists not doing anything about the "cancer of the skin"
Not one of my sources comes form the CPC but from western and primarily British sources, Mao A Life by Philip Short, and Political Leaders of the 20th Century Mao Tse-tung by Stuart Schram, the reason why Zhang risked his life and career is because he is a patriot who believed that China is being invaded and eveyr political group and person should fight the Japanese.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: The Communists fought an extensive geurilla war against the Japanese making about 2-3 attempts of open battle with them, however it must be understood that the Japanese didnt have it a priority to attack in their direction, the geurilla campaign was instrumental in expanding their base of support inside Japanese occupied lands. Also, the CPC has recently changed their view syaing that the two parties were equally important in resisting the Japanese in a woeing effort with the KMT party.
What happened in 1946 is not easily said as who turning on who, both sides skirmished with each other but it is undeniable that it is the Communists who attempted the most to accomodate the Nationalists in the hopes of a coaltiion government as victory wasn't assured then.
Blackblade you see patterns and conspiracy where none exist, Zhang never returned because he was overrall neutral in the political dispute beween the KMT and CPC, and never returned to either Taiwan OR Mainland China, remeber he was only released in 19 friggin 90 he longest served polotical prisoner, at that age what? 95? 99? You generally wish to live a quiet life away from politics.
Also remember he was the warlord of Manchuria before the Japanese invaded and was angry at Chaing's refusal to do anything about, Chiang was focusing all of his efforts on crushing the Communists not doing anything about the "cancer of the skin"
Not one of my sources comes form the CPC but from western and primarily British sources, Mao A Life by Philip Short, and Political Leaders of the 20th Century Mao Tse-tung by Stuart Schram, the reason why Zhang risked his life and career is because he is a patriot who believed that China is being invaded and eveyr political group and person should fight the Japanese.
You explanation does not say why he would not want to return home. A politically neutral Chinese person is STILL Chinese. Even Zhou En Lai had the guts to admit that the communist treatment of Zhang was "regrettable." Or perhaps he saw the results of his actions and realized that Chiang was right about the cancer within being important. Of course the CCP wanted a coalition government, they were a tiny insect with no power, it would be in their best interests to get the heat off and build their ranks.
I'm sure Zhang was genuinely convinced that Japan was the more important threat to himself and the country. But he was wrong, Chiang could have easily wiped out the communists during the long march, and once he was cooerced into completely leaving them alone his forces had to deal with inept communists who did not know how to wage war, just fight skirmishes. Mao knew exactly what he was doing when he allowed the KMT to do most of the fighting and dying while simultaneously sabotaging them. Once the Japanese were gone the peasants were ripe for his message of change, and they blindly followed him into the worst years of Chinese history.
But I am not really interested in having this discussion anymore because you have no interest in actually working out the truth. You'd rather just keep saying what you think is right and say I am wrong. There are glaring inaccuracies in many of your statements both in this thread and others, and until you grow up alittle you just won't admit to it.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
You have no wish to see the truth I have several well documented sources that say otherwise.
- Chiang did not "let" the Communists get away during the long march, if that was the case then why bother with the encirclement campaigns? To say that Stalin forced him to elt them go and go only by Jung as evidence of this is retarded given the huge critisisms her book faces inregards to professional integrity.
- The Communists DO know how to fight otherwise the encirclement campaigns would not have taken 5-6 tries before finally succeding. They fought a prolonged geurilla campaign versus the Japanese, the desire to preserve their core forces in what would eventually become an enevitable civil war is not wrong simply smart, considering who won the war in the end I think it was justified. Also The KMT also attempted the save holding and delaying actions expecting that the allies would win anyways so why bother fighting more then the minimum required?
- The CPC while initially weak through the 20-30's was not by no means an "insect" in 1945, they had roughly 500,000 active troops and a large and great deal of populare support as the KMT was seen to have been notoriously corrupt, incapable, and put pro-japanese collaborators in charge of former Japanese occupied lands FACT.
- The United states gave billions of dollars in aid, billions more in arms, and even airlifted entire divisions to Manchuria so that Chiang could secure the cities in Manchuria relying on "bullies" and anti-red militias to keep the countryside in line, making a deal with the Soviets to stay longer before leaving. The deal went something like this: stay longer and pillage Manchuria of 2 billion dollars of heavy industry so we can secure the cities before the Reds do.
How can you think of Chiang as anything less then a sell out?
When Chiang never controlled the land there except by proxy? The warlords didnt want to waste their strength and why should they?
-Also your fabrication of the years that followed, GPCR and GLF as somehow being the "worst years" is interesting considering that once Unified China became a great regional power again, successfully stood up to western imperialism in Korea, achived double digit grouth and most importantly of all overall stability. The achievements of the Chinese nation Post Liberation are undeniable, mistakes were made, many died but there is no doubt that China of 1960 was better then China of 1937/45, and that the China of 2007 is greater, more powerful and wealthier then ever before and growing moreso still.
Blackblade you see conspiracies where none exist, so far you have yet to show a single source for anything that the scholarly community has deemed credible, if you find confirmed sources that does not rely on or use Jung Chang, or the Epoch Times then I'll listen, but until then your no better then a conspiracy theorist.
Also how did the Communists treat Zhang? Was never treated in anyway as beyond a few meetings with them, it was the KMT who arrested him not the CPC, he was held as a political prisoner for decade after decade by Chaing Kai Shek not Mao or Zhou.
With your above comments you are doing nothing more then alleging this and alelging that claiming richteous enitlement to what conveniently for you dead man may have thought, all we have are his official comments, which is neutrality in the matter of the CPC and KMT post 1949, going to China would have put the political spotlight for him and a media life that simply for a man pushing his first century he could live without, Occam's Razor favours me, the simplest solution is that he is an old tired man who simply wants ot live quietly without all these darned kids fighting witheachother for his approval.
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quote:You have no wish to see the truth I have several well documented sources that say otherwise.
YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Its unfortunate for a debate to devolve to semantics but it seems enevitable once people start attacking the person rather then the evidence. He could have not responded.
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posted
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that you would pull the "I frustrated you out of bothering to respond to me, therefore I win the internets" card.
But what really sells it is 'he could not have responded' which is pretty lol
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I'm not a big fan of stepping into the middle of the firefight so I'm explicitly not going to answer any of points following mine directly.
Instead, I'm going to make one general point. It is *entirely* possible that *both* Mao and Chiang were to put it in the colloquial tongue, "tools."
In fact, given the chaos of the fall of the Qing, the collapse of the early republican government, the viciousness of the Warlord Era, the cynical and immoral exploitation of China by foreign powers, and the fact that people in Beijing only seem to like awful spicy food : I submit that it is even entirely possible that the *only* kind of person that could have emerged in power is a back-stabbing Machiavellian SOB.
But here's the thing, just because Mao turned out to be a ruthless, socially unforsightful, and brutal leader with pretensions of godhood does not in fact mean that Chiang was by default some benevolent future leader thwarted by those "dang Reds."
Similarly, just because Chiang was one corrupt, incompetent tyrannical dictator that held purges like they were going out of fashion and made some African dictators look like the paragon of virtue does not in fact make Mao a saintly gift to China from the heavens.
Instead, Blayne your hopeless fanboy worship of Communist China, has warped the facts and likely compelled BlackBlade to (unconsciously or consciously) take a much harder line simply in opposition to your views, as if to establish the truth almost by averaging out your views, making the discussion pretty much unsalvageable.
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