The Incredibly Stupid One
pownetwork.org
pownetwork.org
I've driven through a stack of countries notorious for extortion by Police and Military - Congo, Nigeria, Honduras, Kenya, Guinea - just to name a few.
One of my tactics to avoid paying a cent is playing dumb. It's super easy when they don't speak English. I do my best to understand their (French/Spanish/Portuguese/Whatever), all the while remaining very polite and friendly. It's a real shame when I don't understand they want money, and virtually always they wave me through in disgust.
On a two year drive from Alaska to Argentina I paid one $5 bribe.
In three years around Africa through 35 countries I paid once in Ivory Coast, because I was too big for my boots and let on that I speak French.
Playing dumb has a lot of advantages.
For anyone interested, here's me dealing with a real-life extortion attempt in Nigeria [1]. This was in Nigeria, so it's all in English, but the script is identical in any corrupt country.
55 countries later through Latin America and Africa, and I've become fairly good at it :)
I made a couple of videos lately to teach other people how to do it:
In fact, I met some of the friendliest and most welcoming people I ever have all throughout Africa!
I won't spoil some of the great passages, but let me leave you with the conclusion:
> These sailors are the products of the neighborhoods, churches, schools and families working together to produce individuals blessed with a sense of humor and the gift of freedom who can overcome any kind of odds. These sailors are tremendously loyal and devoted to their units and their leaders in their own private and personal ways.
> As long as we have the Dougs of this world, our country will retain its freedoms.
Just wondering ...
The soldiers that fought the Vietnam war didn't merely retain freedoms, they established practical, though not Constitutional, freedom from conscription.
vietnam war domino theory, haven’t heared that in a while. So the US was defending their freedoms against communism ... and lost? So they lost their freedom and communism took over the world?
Watch Apocalypse Now and full metal jacket to see how freedoms were defended.
Less musical than I expected...
The story is so wild that... I always assumed it was a fictional trope, and didn't think to look for a real story behind it. Glad to be educated.
That might be somewhat difficult, given Canberra is entirely inland.
-It is counted as part of the ACT for senate representation.
-It is part of the seat of Fenner in the ACT for the house of reps.
-It is governed under the laws of the ACT.
It is still legally a separate territory. Great for a tricky trivia question.
> To call a man a fool is not necessarily an insult, for the authentic life has frequently been pictured under the metaphor of the fool.
> In figures such as Socrates, Christ, and the Idiot of Dostoyevsky we see that foolishness and wisdom are not always what they seem to be.
What Brent did was get concrete intelligence about exactly who was still alive and in prison, so that families could know their relatives were still alive and N. Vietnam could be publicly held to account for their survival at least.
My mental state also reacts to stress with unreasonable cheerfulness, at times. It has something to do with the joy of all the new problems and opportunities paired with an appreciation/confidence that I am not going to die imminently (he was put in a cell where they kept long-term prisoners), in the face of it...a type of relief. Having survived multiple events where my survival was in serious question, I am a consummate pessimist with an expectation that I can die at any time. Therein lies a freedom.
Skip if you can. Live. I get it.
Out of curiosity, what were these events?
I'm feeling a bit stupid myself, because I'm not following the implication here. Why would Hegdahl's accusation cause the VC to leave Stratton alive, or to check him for signs of torture, or to pay him any special attention at all? If Hegdahl hadn't ever mentioned him, why would they kill Stratton specifically?
I enjoyed the story, and appreciate the tongue-in-cheek delivery, but it may have been intended for an audience better acquainted with the geopolitics of the war than I am. Any help?
Doug openly accusing the N. Vietnamese of murdering Stratton meant the Stratton's value to come out of his imprisonment alive was greatly increased, as that made the N. Vietnamese look good and the Americans look more foolish.
Stratton, for various reasons, may also have thought the N. Vietnamese would kill/disappear him because he had signs of obvious torture, which would put lie to their claims of humane treatment.
The fact this happened "in Paris" indicates it happened during the Paris peace accords (which effectively ended most US involvement in the Vietnam war), so was a matter of concern to the top officials in the country.
Instead Hegdahl shined a big diplomatic spotlight on Stratton to try to get them to get them to acknowledge having him alive and deny having murdered him. After that, they'd want to make sure their denial of murder stays true.
Just steaming along casually bombarding civilians and livestock like normal.
There can be no conversation about the US war in Vietnam without recognizing the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by American forces.
The Vietnam War was a war, and wars cause civilian casualties. North Vietnam ran a very effective, organized campaign of terror against South Vietnam and its supporters. The South Vietnamese and American forces were each responsible for many deaths of innocents, through negligence and more isolated malevolence.
"A war is a war" is a particularly terrible argument given the war in discussion was the Vietnam War
That’s not whataboutism, that’s setting context for why were we’re bombing North Vietnam in the first place.
These things don’t happen in a vacuum.
Don't be a fool for the PR, they didn't purposely not wear uniforms, in the same way that the Taliban dont wear a uniform. In general these are not armed forces but irregulars, locals protecting their homeland. If the US was invaded do you think every gun owner is going to sign up and dress in military fatigues? Or are they going to fight back regardless of what they happen to be wearing?
If, on the other hand, one side systematically avoids identification of combatants and related personnel, that side is responsible for any civilian deaths (as well as not being entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions).
True.
> If, on the other hand, one side systematically avoids identification of combatants and related personnel, that side is responsible for any civilian deaths (as well as not being entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions).
Both claims are false. With regard to the second, such combatants are not entitled to protection as POWs under Geneva (III), but, as a consequence, they are protected as civilians under Geneva (IV). A key difference is the latter may be criminally charged for engaging in combat while the former may not, but there are still procedural and substantive protections.
My second claim was overbroad; I meant it in the common sense of talking about the third Geneva Convention relating to PoWs, but I concede that I didn't specify that, though I could argue that North Vietnam was effectively not bound by the Convention (thus excluding their nationals from protection).
You said the side not using insignia (which neither implies nor is implied by using human shields) becomes responsible for all civilian casualties in the conflict.
Certainly, a side violating the laws of war in any way bears full responsibility for the civilian casualties (and any other harms) actually resulting from that wrongful act and no other wrongful act by another party. But they don't become responsible for the impacts of acts due to other unrelated violations of the laws of war by another party, and to the extent that they are responsible impacts of related violations of the laws of war by another party, that responsibility is shared with the other party. Nor does the violation make them morally responsible for civilian casualties in the conflict that don't result from the violation, in the first place.
You would do well to remember that poor treatment of the opposing force went both ways in Vietnam. And that the US were the invading force.
https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massa...
No, the North Vietnamese were the invading force. They invaded South Vietnam, and after the Paris Peace Accords they invaded it again and conquered it.
Your statement is somewhat useless without context.
You know, very good reasons to bomb kids on bicycles.
As far as that there is nothing the Vietcong did that was out of the ordinary and that would warrant blowing up kids on bicycles for fun.