I just heard one of CNN’s numerous retired military folks commenting on the fighting at Basra-- and he said, “The last thing we want is for this to become another Stalingrad.”
What the heck? Even if you are able to digest this as a sort of context-free nuts & bolts analogy, it seems a little early to raise the spectre of a year-long quagmire… …but considering the source, I was pretty surprised to hear the guy invite folks to compare the current coalition forces with invading Nazis.
Wow.
Right up there with calling a successful bombing run “another Pearl Harbor.”
One of my professors, before the war began, used the phrase “Stalingrad on the Tigris.” A radio commentator recently used the phrase “Stalingrad on the Euphrates.” I agree with the thrust of the analogy being totally inappropriate, though… No battle of wills here, no desperate pouring of millions of infantry through the Tractor Factory and Barrikady works. I don’t think the Iraqis or the Coalition have the will to do even half of that, and the Iraqis don’t have the men or industry to support a cauldron like Stalingrad.
That’s a pretty unfair statement. The point of analogies is to draw similarities between dissimilar situations. From the context you’ve given, there’s no reason to conclude that such a comparison was intended or is warranted.
Shrub’s team initial naming of the war on terror a “Crusade.”
Hands down, all-time winner in this category.
What in Hades were they all smoking that day?
I’m just waiting for an announcer to call the situation “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”.
Kaf - I think that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all month.
When the walls fell!!
That had to be the worst ST:TNG episode I’ve ever seen. Am I alone?
hahaha!!
Have you ever seen Imaginary Friend, Code of Honor, The Loss, The Outcast, or Dark Page? Because Darmok was better than all of them. 
Dang it. MY “Darmok and Jalad” joke came in a much funnier context, and I didn’t get a single “ha”. Dagblast it all anyway.
Well, in any case it’s my favorite ep, so there… 
I dunno. In the military literature I’ve read, Stalingrad is very often used as the Classic Example of relatively modern forces in drawn-out, high-loss urban combat. If I were to venture a guess, the CNN commentator used the term in that context only, without considering the moral dimension at all. Studying old campaigns will sometimes do that to you. Would you have preferred it if he used Groznyj ?
I think that even if the commentator didn’t intend the Nazi analogy, it’s easily inferrable from what he said.
Personally I think the worst phrase I’ve heard used in this war is ‘hammer time.’
LMAO @ Darmok & Jalad - I find that one of the most interesting ST:TNG eps ever, if only for their misunderstanding of how language evolves.
I’ve wondered how a society with technology at lesat comparable to the Federation manages to function with a language like that. If you’re building a spaceship, you need a certain degree of precision. It’s hard to ask your buddy to hand you an 11mm crescent wrench when you can only say things “The curved sceptre that turned at Hantana.” (buddy gives you a 10mm) “At Hantana! HANTANA, you idiot, not Frendar!”
Anyhoo, among misplaced historical references, the worst I’ve ever seen was some TV station pushing its football coverage with a guy saying in a gruff voice: “Whoever said Sunday was a day of rest?”
Uh… God?
So when American commentators said that Afghanistan was the Soviets’ “Vietnam”, what we could legitimately infer was that the Soviets were trying to defend one half of the country from from the sort of brutal, dictatorial totalitarian regime that obtained in the USSR, China, North Korea, etc.?
I’m just waiting for:
“Saddam Hussein was found dressed up as a woman and fleeing for Syria.”
“Yes, Jim, you might say he met his Waterloo,”
Herman/
The key to Springfield is Main Street. The Romans knew it. The Carthaginians knew it. And now YOU know it."
/Herman
You need to post that over in this thread.
I liked the wounded soldier the other day who said (this is pretty close to a quote), “Getting shot at isn’t so bad, but getting shot sucked.”
Of course, I know what he meant, and I doubt that I’d be much more articulate if I’d been shot, doped up, and stuck in front of a bank of TV cameras, but still… that was funny.