US Army using Six Flags attraction to entice children

[XT]

@Diogenes the Cynic

That’s easy. Iraq. Almost 5000 lives thrown in the garbage.

In your opinion. However, Bush doesn’t see it that way obviously. HE thinks it’s worthwhile.

@Diogenes the Cynic

Tens of thousands maimed. Not one casualty justified.

Again, Bush doesn’t see it that way. ‘Justified’ is completely subjective…and debatable. It all hinges on one’s perspective.

@Diogenes the Cynic

These are personel who are not being asked to defend their country but who are being used to pick up roadside bombs and get in the way of a civil war only for the personal gain of their civilian leaders.

No. These are personnel who are being asked by their country, by the legitimate governing authority of the US, to do a nasty, dirty job. Again, it’s purely subjective that you disagree that they should be there. In your fury at what the administration has done you have demeaned the troops over there as cannon fodder…as worthless, low quality troops being thrown away in job lots. None of that is true however.

Look…if you want to say that the war is wrong, that Bush is an idiot for taking us there, etc etc, well, I’m all over that. I agree completely. But when you say that US troops are cannon fodder…well, I take exception to that because A) It’s insulting and B) It’s inaccurate. You pointing to the fact that Bush sent them to Iraq proves nothing…because Bush doesn’t see the reasons for us being in Iraq the same way you do…or I do. HE thinks it’s worthwhile. HE thinks the sacrifice is warrented. And HE is the authorized and elected president of the US…which means he along with Congress gets to decide when and how our troops are used. And that is exactly what happened…the Prez and Congress decided to send those troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

@Diogenes the Cynic

Bush is basically loaning the military to corporate interests because he and his cronies see those people and resources as nothing more than their own personal toys to be used, spent and discarded as they see fit.

It must be nice to see the world in comic book good/evil terms a la Der Trihs. The real world is much…messier. You have let yourself be captured by your own rhetoric…

-XT

[John_Mace]

@Diogenes the Cynic

It’s not relevant given the fact that he’s already set things up to continue after he leaves office. The interests he works for will still be getting what they want, and he’s at least trying to keep the occupation going indefinitely. He doesn’t have to remain in office in order to want “the next generation” to continue the occupation.

But you said that “all anyone has been talking about is the Bush Administration’s perception and treatment of the military”, emphasis added. There will be no Bush administration to have a perception nor will it be able to treat the military in any way whatsoever.

[XT]

@Hentor the Barbarian

xtisme, you suggest that others are arguing by fiat, whereas in actuality almost everyone else has pointed to something to support their argument. You’ve been given several cites, as well as anecdotes, to illustrate what the denotation and connotation of “cannon fodder” is. By constrast, you’ve done nothing but assert that your idiosyncratic definition is the correct one, regardless of the references and arugments presented by others.

Why no Hentor…that is your own skewed perception of things. From MY perspective all I’ve see for others pointing out how US troops are cannon fodder is a lot of handwaving about how they are cannon fodder because they are in Iraq. Sort of a circular argument there. Where as I have pointed out again and again exactly what the actual accepted definition of cannon fodder actually IS. That you don’t want to accept that is pretty militantly unsurprising from my perspective.

@Hentor the Barbarian

Do you have anything to put up? Anything to suggest you have a clue as to what you are talking about?

I’ve ‘put up’ already. Do YOU have anything besides further handwaving to offer? I haven’t seen a lot of, well, anything at all out of you yet on this subject. How about you show historically how the term cannon fodder applies to ‘I don’t like the war we are in so the troops are cannon fodder’? Because from MY historical reading the term cannon fodder was coined and applied not to when one doesn’t agree with how the troops are used or agree with the war they are in but instead reflects the quality, cost and training of the troops in question. Except by the faithful…like you, Hentor.

@Hentor the Barbarian

After re-reading what you just wrote, are you arguing for specific examples where cannons are being used by the various combatants in Iraq? Is the concrete definition of “cannon” fodder what is hanging you up? Because I for one will concede that there are no cannons being used in opposition to US forces in Iraq.

If that is what you got out of reading what I wrote Hentor, my suggestion is to shoot your grade school teacher…or at least sue him or her…because they didn’t teach you the finer points of that reading thingy. Just to clear your confusion…my point has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that cannons are actually used or not used on the troops. Does that help? Methinks not but hope springs eternal…

ado

-XT

[XT]

Just for drill, looked up the term on Wiki . I was wrong…the term wasn’t coined during the Napoleonic Wars but a bit earlier. Still, my definition was pretty close to how Wiki sees it:

Cannon fodder is an informal term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to deliberately fight against hopeless odds (with the foreknowledge that they will suffer extremely high casualties) in an effort to achieve a strategic goal. An example is the trench warfare in World War I. The term may also be used (somewhat pejoratively) to differentiate infantry from other forces (such as artillery, air force or the navy).

Origins of the term

The concept of regarding soldiers as nothing more than “food” to be consumed by battle was known at least as far back as the 16th century. For example, in William Shakespeare’s play “Henry IV, Part 1” there is a scene where Prince Henry ridicules John Falstaff’s pitiful group of soldiers. Falstaff replies to Prince Henry with cynical references to gunpowder and tossing bodies into mass grave pits, saying that his men are “good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they’ll fill a pit as well as better [men]…”

The supposedly first attested use of expression “cannon fodder” belongs to a French writer, François-René de Chateaubriand. In his anti-napoleonic pamphlet “De Buonaparte et des Bourbons”, published in 1814, he criticized the cynical attitude towards recruits, that prevailed in the end of Napoleon’s reign: “On en était venu à ce point de mépris pour la vie des hommes et pour la France, d’appeler les conscrits la matière première et la chair à canon” — “the contempt for the lives of men and for France herself has come to the point of calling the conscripts ‘the raw material’ and ‘the cannon fodder’.”[1]

Human wave attacks

Main article: Human wave attack

Cannon fodder infantrymen are the core participants in human wave attacks, where massive waves of poorly armed, poorly trained, and ill equipped[citation needed] soldiers are sent in a charging attack designed to overwhelm defenders with sheer offensive human mass (as opposed to superior strategy, movement, or technology).

These attacks are popular among militaries which possess very large numbers of conscript soldiers, but lack the means or funding to train or arm them to the same standard as their enemy.

With the advent of military weapons technology specifically designed to annihilate massed infantry attacks (such as air and artillery-borne cluster munitions), the technique has largely been abandoned (at least doctrinally) by modern armies. Unusually long periods of peace following the development of nuclear weapons and consequently increased funds have also enabled most large Third World nations to develop their combined arms training and technology to a point where more contemporary military strategies have been implemented; thus, the tactic of human wave attacks has become obsolete, being no longer economically feasible or necessary.

Other uses

In popular culture, the term has become an example of a stock character. For example, in works of fiction, particularly science fiction, cannon fodder is a (sometimes collective) term used for unnamed or otherwise unimportant characters whose sole purpose in the story is to die in battle or other types of conflict to add to the bodycount in order to give the appearance of grandiose battles (see also “Stormtrooper Syndrome”, redshirt).

In more recent times it has taken on the meaning of individuals who toil and work with little regard to work load, stress, and hours without any credit so that others may reap the rewards of their labor.

In video games, cannon fodder is a term for small, easily destroyable enemies, like those found within scrolling shooters. In fact, there was a game with the title Cannon Fodder produced in 1993 by Sensible Software. The video game made light of the expression by portraying the deaths of the animated soldiers in the game humorously, and allowing the player to quickly replace lost soldiers with new ones, while satirizing modern warfare.

So…can we put this to bed now? It’s an insult…and it’s inaccurate to describe either US Forces in general or how they are used. Calling US troops cannon fodder is just hyperbolic bullshit.

So, how about that OP?

-XT

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

xtisme, it seems you’ve been reading selectively both from this thread and from your site. That cite has already been presented by WhyNot, as evidence against your point of view. It does not support your position in the least.

Again,

Cannon fodder is an informal term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to deliberately fight against hopeless odds (with the foreknowledge that they will suffer extremely high casualties) in an effort to achieve a strategic goal. An example is the trench warfare in World War I. The term may also be used (somewhat pejoratively) to differentiate infantry from other forces (such as artillery, air force or the navy).

The only pejorative noted here is that it may also be used in terms of other branches using the term to smack talk the infantry.

All anyone here has been saying is that the troops in Iraq are “regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire.” I would differ in the application only in that I don’t believe that their deaths are at all serving any “strategic goal.”

Shall I now make suggestions about your intelligence, ability to read for comprehension, or grade school preparation? I don’t think so, because then I’d just look hysterical.

[XT]

If that Wiki cite was used to ‘prove’ that US troops are cannon fodder (you are right, I missed it) all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. Some ignorance truly can not be fought. I would say this discussion is at an impasse at this point. I have nothing further to add so I think I’ll drop out as I originally intended.

Feel free to join hands and sing kumbaya without further interruption…

-XT

[WhyNot]

@xtisme

If that Wiki cite was used to ‘prove’ that US troops are cannon fodder (you are right, I missed it)

No, that cite was used to illustrate that the common use of “cannon fodder” is not an insult directed at the troops, but, if anything, an insult at the commanders who use their soldiers as if they’re expendable.

Is Bush using his soldiers as if they’re expendable? Is Bush using his troops as cannon fodder? I leave that to you to argue out. My entire point was that “cannon fodder” is *not *commonly used as an insult to the soldiers it’s describing, unlike what a few people in this thread would have us believe.

[Lust4Life]

You always need an army,you cant say oh yes we’re going to have a war in X no. of years time so we wont recruit until then so recruiting is a permamently ongoing requirment.
People inducted today will not be effective soldiers until they have passed not just basic training but continuation training and even then they wont be real soldiers until they’ve got some experience under their belt.
As to just or unjust war that is not up to the military to decide,they cant turn around at any level and say that we’re not going to fight this one because its ethically unsound.
That way lies mutiny and military coups.
The elected representatives make the decision and the military do their job.

As to the concept of (un)just wars one mans just is another mans unjust.
PersonallyI think that this war is wrong and that we were deceived into entering it but if we pulled out tomorrow there would be a massacre.
As to kids being deluded by this recruitment initiative I dont think so.

Kids are playing extremely violent V.G.s all the time and dont believe it to be real plus they’ve seen plenty of war movies/DVDs etc which nowadays tend to focus on the futility of war etc.etc. rather then glamourising it.
Apart from that there is one hell of a lot of T.V news and newspaper coverage of the war.
You’d have to be blind,deaf and dumb not to have some inkling of what is going on even if you are not particulary interested in the subject.

My take on cannon fodder is large numbers of infantry in the attack used in a mass the survivors on reaching the objective then attempt to carry out the mission,though well trained WWI Brit and French infantry on the Western front could be construed as such.
WW2 Russian forces definitely were cannon fodder,weaponless infantry with linked arms moving forward with military police behind them to shoot anyone trying to fall out,whos main purpose seemed to be to get the Germans to use up their ammo .
They were to pick up arms from those troops who had been killed preceding them.

Stalin told Churchill that the Red Army treated minefields the same as machineguns and simply marched through them hoping that there were enough men left alive at the other end.

So describing the relatively dispersed and mobile forces in Iraq as CF is completely inaccurate.
Also they are not being used as bullet sponges,one because there are not enough of them and two every soldiers death is a vote loser,even the most callous politicians on earth care about being reelected.

[Uzi]

@Burton

It’s still misleading and glamorizing what’s either drudgery or horror.

Bah, I saw an add on TV many years ago about Chartered Accountants. It made it seem that there is nothing but non-stop action being a CA and the world is your oyster if you become one. To me, being a CA would be the definition of drudgery and horror based upon what I’ve seen most of them doing on a daily basis. To each their own, I guess.