The examples that you draw can be from any field of activity - whether it be the battleground, a sports field, a racing track or a hairdresser shop.
The only recommendation (and I use the term relatively loosely) is that it must be a reasonably well-known or documented event.
So, which was the greatest tactic ever employed to defeat an enemy (or obtain a desired result), and why?
Two words–
I can hear my mother saying “but there are starving children in India,” but I can’t seem to remember exactly what the conversation was about.
Well seeing this is in Great Debates, I’d have to say Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s Osirak Nuclear reactor. If they hadn’t, who knows what sort of sticky situation would’ve developed by now. It was a calculated risk on Israel’s part, they got a few diplomatic slaps on the wrist, but it came out to their advantage in the end.
All Democrats during the Lewinsky affair.
It’s all about a BJ. Just leave his personal life alone. This is just a right-wing conspiracy.
Military…
Lee at Chancellorsville.
Nancy’s treatment of all dissenters to her planet X/pending armageddon theories as ‘disinformation theorists’.
Israel has done a bunch of these besides Osirak.
They snuck special forces across the Egyptian border and poured quick-setting concrete into the barrels of Egyptian artillery before the Six Day War.
During the Six Day War, the first airstrikes avoided Egyptian radar by flying across the Red Sea at under 20 feet.
The Entebbe raid, in which Israeli commandos stormed an airport terminal in Entebbe, Uganda to rescue hostages. They landed in the dead of night without landing lights. The lead plane dropped flares for the second plane. They then stormed the airport terminal, which was guarded by Ugandan troops and freed the hostages. In order to maintain surprise, they put on black-face makeup and drove in a car identical to Idi Amin’s (a black Mercedes with presidential flags).
The Mossad’s killing of “The Engineer” – they found out his cell phone number and every time that he answered or made a call, they jammed it. When he took it in for servicing, they replaced it with one with a bomb in it. They called him up, verified his voice, and blew it up.
Even in failure, they have been spectacular. The Mossad attempted to kill a IIRC Hamas activist in Jordan by pouring poison in his ear while he was asleep. The agents were caught by the Jordanians, and the Mossad had to cough up an antidote for the poison to secure their release.
I’m sure I will think up more, but a good one was by John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison. He knew that a direct conflict with the administration would be a very bad thing. The administration simply was not going to let Justices of the Peace, who were commissioned from the prior administration, take office in the current administration.
Having absolutely no means to enforce a ruling, he trumped up a technicality that allowed the administration to have its way. However, he took the opportunity to unequivocally state that the court had the power to rule any way it saw fit, and firmly established the principal of judicial review. Therefore, when the administration did what it was going to do anyway (not let the Justices take office), it essentially affirmed the correctness of the decision.
I’ll nominate the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore, a ruling so inept in its legal standings that no one dared to admit being its author, yet supported with enough chutzpah to get passed as a ruling instead of laughed out of chambers.
Trojan Horse. I would have given it to Hannibal but the elephant-over-the-alps trick didn’t work out.
A book written by a biased author does not prove a conspiracy. Nice try though.
WMD
But all of the books written by Limbaugh/O’Reilly/hannity/Coulter/Tyrell/Aldrich/etall are right on the money.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Well, I have to grudgingly admit that this Administration and allies in Congress have come up with lots of pretty ingenius tactics. Here’s a list of a few of them:
(1) To invent the idea of “double taxation” to try to get people to believe that certain taxes that impact the rich much more than the poor are inherently unfair and must be eliminated.
(2) Sunset clauses in tax cut legislation so that they can get everything they wanted and still keep the cost figures down…And, then can come back later to get the “sunsetting” of the tax cuts repealed.
(3) The general use of obfuscation and clever labels to hide the reality of policies such as the “Clear Skies Initiative” and the “Healthy Forests Initiative”.
In general, this Administration has been masterful at talking moderately and governing extremely, hoping that the “liberal media” and the public will not hold them accountable. And, so far, I must say that it seems to be working well for them.
I’ve heard this a couple of times and it is just wrong. The Republicans have been talking about “double taxation” for years. It was their chief criticizm of Clinton’s 1998 Budget, and they have been harping on it since Reagan.
You obviously haven’t read or seen anything on the battle of Callae. I won’t explain it, since I’m sure I forgot the details, except to say: Hannibal’s men surrounded the Romans, who got their asses handed to them.
We had a family rule that you couldn’t throw water at someone holding a glass. My uncle would start water fights then grab his scotch glass… Come to think of it. He was the one that made the rule.
There are many. One great one was the fake invasion at Pas-de-Calais. The Allies used Patton as a decoy. They played sounds of tanks on manuvers, even though the “camp” was in England, knowing that German agents might try to get a peek. British intelligence fed the Germans a barrage of fake electronic intercepts. The British used a double agent to feed Hitler personal intelligence right up until June 6. Can’t fail to mention: rubber tanks. Much more, for a long time, on a grand scale, with many people in the know. Yet, it worked.
The ruse worked well enough to keep the Panzers pinned down. Otherwise, history might have been a lot bloodier for the Allies, if not completely different.
Civilization 1: Me vs. Comp.
(I’ll never forget this one)
Only having the game for three months, I was just beginning
to be able to kick its booty.
After a 5 vs. me two-hundred turn long war, I was about to
come back and crush all five opponents in a grand world-wide
invasion.
As I manuevered the sea transports in range so next turn they could
all move in an unload…
The computer crashed.
I had not saved in the past four hours or so…
The computer beat me that day…
One of the best tactics I had ever seen.
