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2021 has been a particularly bad year in Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar, but that’s another story). After decades of military dictatorship, the country finally started to see some freedom and representative government during the last decade. That upswing came to an abrupt end when the military claimed election fraud and took control of the government, establishing yet another military junta.

Protests started almost immediately and are still ongoing, but protests are often met with military violence and murder.

This left Burma’s people with a tragic choice: accept more violent military totalitarianism or fight back against and risk their lives. While there have certainly been setbacks, and many rebel fighters have been killed, they’ve had some limited successes, including the attempted defection of high-level junta officials.

But, with every success, the junta gets more brutal, killing unarmed civilians with military vehicles and even burning them alive to discourage people from fighting.

In past decades, the military junta stayed in power because people generally couldn’t fight back. With inferior homemade weapons and limited ammunition, plus what little guns and ammo that could be smuggled in, past generations could only conduct limited raids on the government and were unable make much of a difference.

But this is 2021 and technology has come a long way in the last ten years. Now, rebel fighters have much better options, including the FGC-9, a 9mm semi-automatic blowback carbine made with a mix of 3D-printed and simple metal parts.

For those unfamiliar, the FGC-9 (FGC stands for Fuck Gun Control) was invented by a man in Germany who went by the name JStark1809, with the help of people he befriended online. Their goal was to make a gun that anyone could build at home without any regulated components or even much skill.

They came up with ways to build everything from a fire control group to a rifled barrel, and all with parts that wouldn’t raise suspicions if you were to order them on the internet or even buy them locally.

Sadly, JStark, whose real name was Jacob, was found by German intelligence and law enforcement and his home was raided by German law enforcement. He was found dead two days later under mysterious circumstances.

While photographs from the rebellion are pretty rare, it’s well known that the FGC-9 is in common use among Burma’s resistance fighters, so these photos aren’t just anecdotal.

The Lesson of the FGC-9 in Burma

The most important thing we can take from this is that gun control is no longer a useful strategy for tyrants who want to remain in power. With a few files downloaded from the internet and only a few hundred dollars worth of tools and materials, just about anyone can build their own FGC-9 at home.

Because the most stressed components in the FGC-9 are made with metal parts, the gun can last for thousands of rounds. There are even guides online to make your own 9mm ammunition for it using unregulated components.

That people in one of the poorest countries on the planet can and do build them at home shows that gun control is effectively dead in 2021. Tyrants the world over will now have to think twice. They can’t stop the signal.

Another anti-gun argument that has flatlined is what I like to call “Shrodinger’s rifle.” Weapons like the AR-15 are simultaneously fearsome weapons of war that we must remove from the streets to protect the children, but are also wholly ineffective against military weapons like tanks and warplanes. Like Shrodinger’s cat, the forces of civilian disarmament claim semi-automatic weapons are two things at once.

Seeing rebel fighters successfully using these 9mm carbines against a military with tanks and warplanes shows that the latter part of the “Shrodinger’s rifle” argument is verifiably false. It also shows that a semi-automatic carbine is an effective way to protect innocent people from murderous tyrants.

 

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65 COMMENTS

  1. A government takeover of the government can’t happen here. It’s in the constitution. Also, we have the ability to issue harshly worded notes to our representatives, who will pass the notes on to the military.

    Besides, if the military ever did takeover the government, such takeover would only be the means to establish democracy, for our own benefit.

    • The cia and fbi would like to disagree. Democracy is when the federal agents all get a vote on killing just your dog and throwing you in the gulag or if they kill you and flashbang your baby. They get a vote and you can count on democracy rolling ahead as they see fit.

      • “They get a vote and you can count on democracy rolling ahead as they see fit.”

        Think you might need to read more slowly, and not let yourself get knee-jerk triggered.

    • It would be a kindness if you started your missives with some sort of disclaimer, so as not to shock the unknowing and inattentive into a state of gibbering frenzy and loathing, you know.

      I must inform you that I am nonplussed and disgruntled over your statement. Consider this to be an official, initial harshly-worded note of disapproval. If you do not promptly apologize, I shall be compelled to write another, more harshly-worded note signifying how angry I am with you.

      • “Consider this to be an official, pinitial harshly-worded note of disapproval. ”

        LOL !!

        OTH, if one must explain the joke…

      • “*laughs in Taliban*”

        Glad you were entertained by the submission. Happy to make people smile (or handover another snicker).

  2. Just a few decades the IRA was putting together grenade launchers out of pipe and old soup cans. And that was in a time when you couldn’t just buy the kind of machine tools you can pick up for a song at the local Harbor Freight for cheap. Hell, the kind of 3D printers that are used to make the bulk of the components of these FGC-9 is still a relatively juvenile technology. And yet it’s already nearing the point where they can produce a firearm that’s comparable in quality to a commercially produced gun. At least on the lower end of the scale.

    Gun control will die. If not in law, but in the ability to physically prevent people to make their own weapons. It’s just a matter of time.

  3. I’m sure this is exactly what Jstark had in mind.

    Small arms play an important role in defying government rule, regardless of the governments superior armament. Its incredibly difficult to forcibly govern a armed populace that’s sick of its bullshit.

  4. Tanks and warplanes require both large amounts of fuel and parts for maintenance and repair. Without a secure line of logistics, they quickly break down or are otherwise rendered unusable. You don’t have to blow up a tank that can’t move, or shoot down a plane that can’t take off.

    And in a civil war, the enemy is always within striking distance of your own infrastructure, making a secure line of logistics almost impossible to establish.

  5. FGC9, I kinda want one…😅
    Assuming it’s sturdy enough not to blow up in your hands, a short, portable, inexpensive PCC sounds like a heck of a lot of fun!

  6. I wish them success in this long and bloody struggle.

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

      • We ARE, on the other hand, a pretty good example of the possibilities inherent in the idea of ‘freedom,’ if we could just get it right, and also of what NOT to do in order to attain that goal. Others have tried to learn from us, but not a one has managed to do a better job at it yet.

  7. Cool…you can’t stop the signal. Like the ubiquitous Burmese pythons in Floriduh. I don’t have a”side” in Myanmar. The “freedom fighters” are poorly defined.

    • Don’t have a side . . . that’s good. I recall headlines in years past, in which “journalists” threw themselves at Aung Suu Kyi’s feet, in admiration. I knew then that it was bullshit – it was so over dramatized to the point of sickeningly sweet. Suu Kyi helped to promote the progressive agenda. I can’t support her.

      On the other hand, the military is as bad or worse.

      Both sides are brutal, arbitrary, capricious, with little care or respect for the common man and woman who are just trying to get by in life.

  8. If not for the 2 Amendment, we would have had a dozen presidents for life, in the history of the United States already. The Second Amendment is the only thing that allows us to keep a republican form of government. Prove me wrong if you can.

    • We aren’t a republic when the executive can make laws contrary to the Constitution and when unelected judges can decide something is legal or illegal without regard to the Constitution. When there is no law of the land, there is no single nation. We are multiple nations pretending to have sovereignty until the federal government decides they don’t like it when we break the laws they make. The republic is dead. Prove yourself whatever.

  9. I had a prof back in college who had been a pro-democracy protestor in Myanmar. Awesome lady. Still had scars on her forearms where the security forces had burned her with cigarettes during her interrogations.

    • You seriously still believe that? The dude had pre-existing health issues. He openly talked about it, and one of the biggest reasons he was able to thumb his nose at gun control was because he always knew he would likely die young and that it could happen at any moment.

  11. This is why despots with their eyes on the future are working toward a Chi-com/Khmer Rouge mixed model.

    Chi-com control will be for the “good citizens” while the rest will be exiled to mismanaged, Luddite, agricultural hellholes that even Ted Kazinski would describe as too third-world.

    • “exiled to mismanaged, Luddite, agricultural hellholes“

      FDR was ahead of the curve:

      “The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal that supplied manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to supply jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States. Largest enrollment at any one time was 300,000. Through the course of its nine years in operation, three million young men took part in the CCC, which provided them with shelter, clothing, and food, together with a wage of $30 (equivalent to $600 in 2020) per month ($25 of which had to be sent home to their families).“

      • FDR was also the president that rounded up American citizens at bayonet point and placed them in concentration camps based solely on their race.

        • I do believe that he had other people do that FOR him, seeing as how he was in a wheel chair and crippled from the waist down.

          Be that as it may, we can look back to 1942 from our secure revisionist perches of 2021 and gasp in horror at just how awful it was that the US incarcerated some Japanese and Japanese-Americans in a time of severe national crisis, when a real, no-fooling, annihilation-style Japanese land invasion of the continental US was feared at any time, and the US Navy was either under water at Pearl Harbor or spread out piecemeal in the Pacific (with a few bits and pieces in the Atlantic) while the Japanese navy was running unchecked from Diego Suarez to Long Beach.

          Americans who were alive during that era knew full well that people who looked just like Japanese-Americans had just accomplished sneak attacks on Pearl Harbor, Guam, the Philippines, Wake, and later Midway and Alaska; They also recognized that people who coincidentally looked just like Japanese-Americans were busily and joyfully ramming their bayonets into the guts of their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, as they had been doing to Chinese in China and to others throughout Asia since 1931 at least. Some hard feelings were to be expected. . .

          Frankly and candidly, the move to place Japanese-Americans into guarded camps away from population centres may have served to save their lives; Anti-Japanese sentiment was that strong in 1942 America.

          Things are not always as clear-cut in neat delineations of bright white and pitch black as they seem.

        • John. What happens when the benevolent .gov decides to put conservatives in camps for their own protection?

          FDR presided over one of the greatest civil rights travesty in the history of the US. And he’s a hero to the left.

        • Hindsight is, of course, 20/20. Or better.

          It’s hard to argue in favor of Executive Order 9066 in the light of today’s sensibilities, but in February 1942 it made perfect sense. If, in 2024, ravening hordes of overseas conservatives should threaten our shores with invasion, and indigenous conservatives posed a dire 5th Columnist threat, then President Harris could justifiably sign the order. Enforcing it could be difficult, of course.

  12. I think the 3d gunm story is a little stretched.
    ” Were breaking into the armory tonight Wovlerines, take all the emmynition you can carry.”
    What about the gunms?
    ” Forget the gunms, I can print some of them up at home.”

  13. Having small arms is all well and good when you are fighting back against evil tyranny. Note that small arms are not enough.

    When there is a nasty conflict, whoever is most ruthless almost always wins. Notice the example video snippet in this article which shows that someone (presumably government) burned a small number of people (presumably “rebels” or a “rebel” and his/her family) alive.

    You can easily imagine how the populace would quickly lose the will to fight when the military captures “rebels” and burns them alive.

    • That’s why “rebels/insurgents” practice kidnapping and assassinations of government personnel and leaders. Spreading the pain reminds them that it’s not a one way street.

    • ” You can easily imagine how the populace would quickly lose the will to fight when the military captures “rebels” and burns them alive. ”

      Don’t be so sure of that. These sort of atrocities can do just as much to increase the will to resist as well as take some fence-sitters off the fence and into the fray. In WW2 the nazis were pretty quick at reciprocity for resistance activities, including publicly executing townsfolk who were not involved. It didn’t do crap to keep the resistance down.

      • UpInArms,

        Regarding Nazis reprisals against uninvolved townsfolk, I will argue that it worked spectacularly well.

        Consider France for instance. The French populace outnumbered the German Army stationed in France something like 200 to 1. Even with nothing more than rudimentary melee weapons and Molotov cocktails, the French populace could have easily overtaken the German Army stationed in France. And yet that never happened and the French “resistance” was totally an non-factor in the operations and outcome of the war.

        Why do you think the French populace stayed so quiet when they could have overtaken the Germans? Because the French populace was not ruthless and the German Army was ruthless.

        • Half of the French populace was fascist/pro-fascist before the war anyway. They certainly didnt want to fight the Boche!

    • Fed.gov has already done this- burned “rebels” alive in Waco during the Clinton/Reno regime.

  15. Same usefulness as the old WWII Liberator, but with modern tech. Pick a stray or 2, shwack ’em, strip them of everything useful, and disappear back into the jungle. Gone in 60 seconds.

    • gunnygene,

      Disclaimer: I am not trying to be difficult.

      I have heard other people suggest the same strategy. And that brings two thoughts to my mind:

      1) That strategy is too slow–it will take decades to reduce your enemy’s forces to the point that you can finally win the war.

      2) Your enemy will wise-up quickly and will no longer move around alone or in pairs. Instead, they will move around in small teams at a minimum or move around in vehicles which are immune to small arms fire.

      If you don’t believe me, look at the U.S. military actions in Afghanistan. The “enemy” over there basically did what you suggested. And it took almost 20 years for the U.S. to finally pull out.

  16. You don’t need to go toe to toe with Joe Biden’s FBI goons much less F-15 fighters and nuclear weapons. All you have to do is engage all of the empty scrotums that voted and rioted for Biden. When your oppressors openly advocate liquidating surplus population to combat global warming, you are not morally obligated to allow despots, their goons, or their Brown shirts a fair fight.

    • Well and commies aren’t people so… There’s a reason deer hunting isn’t called deer murdering. It’s because deer aren’t people.

  17. Something that gets forgotten when claiming a lightly armed populace can’t stand up against a modern military. All those tanks, aircraft and heavy vehicles are thirsty beasts. You don’t go toe to toe with an Abrams tank. You take out the fuel convoy following it. And, if is a civil war as would be if things get bad enough here, you become a threat to the homes and families of the soldiers fighting you. I was trained long ago by the Army in just such tactics. Why do you think as soon as the US started pulling out od Viet Nam or Afghanistan, those governments and their armies folded like a empty suit?

    • So long as all those tanks, aircraft, and heavy vehicles aren’t drones controlled by AI, they are being driven by the populace. So, you don’t go toe to toe with a tank, you enlist and learn to drive it, and then shoot other tanks and heavy vehicles.

  18. “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

    —- President Harry S. Truman in a Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950 ”

    The lesson learned take away here for us in the U.S., in context with that fight against a tyrannical government in Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) is …

    Don’t let Gun-Control silence the exercise of your Second Amendment right to ownership and possession of firearms thus your right to self and home defense and defense against a tyrannical government.

    In every country on earth today where the populace has been completely or partially disarmed, including the often cited European Union countries where in reference its often said “they have gun control and it works…”, the people live under some level or form of government tyranny, or subdued disguised institutionalization government tyranny, ranging from the ‘government’ deciding what ‘rights’ the people have to standing military armies which also have a mission to be used against the people to maintain “order” to ‘ruling’ class domination of government to educating/training the people starting at early age to serve the state.

    In these states of tyranny the people have been forced to trade ‘freedom liberty’ for the illusion of ‘liberty security’ disguised as a ‘democracy’ not because the people wanted to give up ‘freedom liberty’ but rather some imposed their will on the people by use of methods of tyranny through the governments. The people in these states are not ‘free’ but rather, like a mistress, they are ‘kept’ to eventually serve the state in some manner.

    Gun control today is exploiting the oldest tool of a “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

    —- President Harry S. Truman in a Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950 ”

    The lesson learned take away here for us in the U.S., in context with that fight against a tyrannical government in Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) is …

    Don’t let Gun-Control silence the exercise of your Second Amendment right to ownership and possession of firearms thus your right to self and home defense and defense against a tyrannical government.

    In every country on earth today where the populace has been completely or partially disarmed, including the often cited European Union countries where in reference its often said “they have gun control and it works…”, the people live under some level or form of government tyranny, or subdued disguised institutionalization government tyranny, ranging from the ‘government’ deciding what ‘rights’ the people have to standing military armies which also have a mission to be used against the people to maintain “order” to ‘ruling’ class domination of government to educating/training the people starting at early age to serve the state.

    In these states of tyranny the people have been forced to trade ‘freedom liberty’ for the illusion of ‘liberty security’ disguised as a ‘democracy’ not because the people wanted to give up ‘freedom liberty’ but rather some imposed their will on the people by use of methods of tyranny through the governments. The people in these states are not ‘free’ but rather, like a mistress, they are ‘kept’ to eventually serve the state in some manner.

    Gun control today is exploiting the oldest tool of a “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

    —- President Harry S. Truman in a Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950 ”

    The lesson learned take away here for us in the U.S., in context with that fight against a tyrannical government in Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) is …

    Don’t let gun-control silence the exercise of your Second Amendment right to ownership and possession of firearms thus your right to self and home defense and defense against a tyrannical government.

    In every country on earth today, except the United States, where the populace has been completely or partially disarmed, including the often cited European Union countries where in reference its often said “they have gun control and it works…”, the people live under some level or form of government tyranny, ranging from the ‘government’ deciding what ‘rights’ the people have to subdued disguised institutionalization government tyranny to standing military armies which also have a mission to be used against the people to maintain “order” to ‘ruling’ class domination of government to educating/training the people starting at early age to serve the state.

    In these states of tyranny the people have been forced to trade ‘freedom liberty’ for the illusion of ‘liberty security’ disguised as a ‘democracy’ not because the people wanted to give up ‘freedom liberty’ but rather some imposed their will on the people by use of methods of tyranny through the governments. Whole generations will grow up in these states of tyranny, and over time the older portions of the populations will give way to the younger generations who will never know the difference and thus another tool of tyranny imposed. The people in these states are not ‘free’ but rather, more like a subjugated mistress, they are ‘kept’ to eventually serve the state in some manner even if its paying taxes and working to keep the economy going and in exchange they can exercise the rights the government decides they have rather than exercising the rights they inherently naturally have.

    Gun control today is exploiting the oldest tool from the playbook of a tyrannical government, that tool is fear. If you can create enough fear in a populace you can get the majority of the populace to accept ‘liberty security’ in lieu of ‘freedom liberty’, more fear created and the majority of the people are completely subjugated and living in fear. Every tyranny that has ever existed in the history of man kind began one of two ways, with imposing power or imposing fear. Today gun-control is using all the methods at its disposal to impose its will through a government that at times already borders on tyrannical with the threat of disarming the populace with military force power and by political power.

    • sorry for the repeated items in the above. I posted without realizing a software my wife uses to publish her articles was still running in the background. It does weird things like this in this type of comments section in the browser when I hit the ‘Post Comment’ button.

        • Sauq MaDiq – the origination of which is “suq madiq” which is an Arabic originated name that has a vulgar meaning denoting men’s private parts. So this is just you being an illiterate dick.

      • I stop here infrequently to read the articles. Never commented before until I came across this article and the comments.

        I find it interesting that you so suitably outlined the EU. I lived for a few years in Germany for work, I traveled all over the EU during that time. I wasn’t permitted to bring my firearms with me but there were in some areas events where firearms could be used such as hunting and sometimes on firing ranges so it wasn’t like I was not able to use a gun sometimes when I rented or borrowed to participate in these things. I returned to the good ‘ole U.S.A. earlier this year and the first thing I did was retrieve all my firearms from storage with a relative and arm up. My experience in Germany and the EU had shown me that even in gun-control areas a disarmed population are sitting ducks for violent crime.

        In all areas I discovered that criminals carried guns while the people overall could not and I saw a very deceptive reporting for gun violence crime with most incidents not being officially investigated.

        A favorite method of gun violence during a crime in the EU is brandishing in threat and pistol whipping. The brandishing is usually officially categorized as threat and very rarely is the gun involvement mentioned. The pistol whipping is usually officially categorized as assault and very rarely is the gun involvement mentioned. These are officially reported in their statistics as threat or assault. Gun violence crime is mostly only categorized as a gun violence crime when someone is actually injured or killed by a criminal shooting them. While there I heard of many cases where criminals shot at people but didn’t injure or kill them, in some areas I visited it was an almost daily occurrence and more a norm than an exception. One radio station reported on the trend of gun violence crime and pointed this out and how the government version was not true, they were shut down by the government within an hour of their report then when thy came back on the air they retracted their previous report as inaccurate and incorrect.

        The EU as a whole is rife with gun violence crime even though they have gun-control, and violent crime without guns is all over the place in the form of assaults, rapes, knifing. In 2020 a combined total of over three million rapes happened across the EU, Germany had more than any other EU country. One day myself and a few co-workers witnessed two assaults on the street by the same person who assaulted two different people by pistol whipping within several seconds of each other. The police would not even take our statement and did not even bother to go after the criminal who was standing across the street watching because they were not armed and were afraid the criminal might be armed with a gun. Violent street robberies with guns are a common daily occurrence in the EU. In most areas of the EU a street robbery with a gun is investigated as an assault unless the gun is actually fired and the victim shot.

        I also found my co-workers and others expressing dissatisfaction with what you outline here with your comment about

        “the people live under some level or form of government tyranny, or subdued disguised institutionalization government tyranny, ranging from the ‘government’ deciding what ‘rights’ the people have to standing military armies which also have a mission to be used against the people to maintain “order” to ‘ruling’ class domination of government to educating/training the people starting at early age to serve the state. ”

        At least some of the people realize they are living under a tyranny level of government and want to be free of it and I found a lot that wanted to be armed for self-defense.

        • someone contacted me and request I post their comment above not being able to post it on their own.

          I’d like to know of anyone else with similar experiences in the EU.

        • Thanks for posting my comment, Booger. I thought it would take a few days to get my computer issues straightened out, but my brother recommended a reinstall of the browser and now its fixed. Thanks for your help.

  19. Pure Right Wing fantasy. A few 9mm carbines are no match for jet fighter planes, artillery and tanks. For a revolution to succeed the Myanmar people would need support from another government and the only one connected by land which is big enough and powerful enough would be India which will not risk war with China that supports the Myanmar Government. Also India is not willing to spend the millions it would take to support such a war.

    Nations only spend that kid of money when it is in their best interest to do so such as when Russia and China wanted the U.S. the hell out of S.E. Asia and spent millions to support Ho Chi Minh who beat and humiliated the most powerful army on earth, the post WWII Jack Booted genocidal Storm Troopers of Capitalvania who slaughtered 3 million Vietnamese citizens but failed to discourage the Vietnamese people (both South and North’s) will to win at all costs. Admittedly if it had not bin for the greatest statesmen and leader of the 20th Century, Ho Chi Minh, they still might have lost.

    As far as gruella warfare surveillance systems in Myanmar (although not as extensive as what is found in Capitalvania U.S.A against its troglodyte worker slaves) makes it very difficult to sustain a gruella war without the insurgence being crushed by overwhelming firepower of the Myanmar Government.

    I might add Syria with funding from the Russians crushed its revolution despite aid given to the rebel’s from the U.S. and other Arab countries proving once again a bunch of ill trained yahoos with AK 47’s were no match for Russian Jets fighter planes, poison gas and overwhelming artillery support.

    This is war in the 21st Century and the people always lose or win according to the rules and money of big government.

    • What a fool! It takes a person about 5 minutes to learn to shoot a 9mm carbine well enough to kill the fighter pilot it took 2 years to train. How much good is that vaunted fighter jet with no pilot, particularly when the maintenance crew is leaking fluids. But sure, just give up, that always works!

      • To Larry Jed Clampet of the Ozarks

        You flunked history classes Jedidiah. During the Vietnam War there were 3 million NVA and another 1 million Viet Cong versus at its height only 1/2 million U.S. troops. What do you think kept 4 million Vietnamese from annihilating 1/2 million U.S. troops. I will give you a hint Jedidiah, it was air power.

        And if you have ever tried to assault an air base with a bunch of yahoo guerillas ,not a well trained and equipped army, think again, its been tried unsuccessfully many times in the past. Its the most well guarded part of an occupying army’s defenses.

        Now who is the fool, Hill Jack.

        • Without resort to annihilating weaponry, those little goodies possessed by modern nation-states that can obliterate people and infrastructure on a wide scale with little fuss, muss, or bother, leaving no ‘river in which to swim’ for the insurgent fish, and no insurgent fish, or their friends and relations fish, there’s little chance of inevitable victory for an invading power in a distant, more primitive one, so long as the insurgents or defenders are willing to be patient enough to give time to the invading power to get tired of spending its young people and treasure on ‘victory.’

          Furthermore, anybody who actually believes that air power, ie. conventional bombing, can end a war is a deluded fool. It didn’t work in Japan (even two nuclear weapons didn’t work, as there weren’t enough of them to do the little ‘annihilation’ trick mentioned above); It didn’t work in Germany. It didn’t work at ALL in Vietnam. It didn’t work in Iraq. It didn’t work in Afghanistan. It’s not working in Syria. It has never worked.

          Some people are just slow. Learners.

      • To John in Ak

        quote————Some people are just slow. Learners.————quote

        Yes you were describing yourself as you are the slow learner.

        You changed the original subject. I was speaking of an uprising against their own government with guerilla fighters not an all out war between two Nations. You forgot to mention that the U.S. lost the Vietnam war even though it had command of the air. And yes I agree Air power alone does not win an all out war between two nations that has been proven many times.

        But is air power going to lose out to an insurgency. Wrong. Look at Syria for a recent example of an uprising against the government and the use of Russian Air power against them along with poison gas and artillery and tanks. It was a no contest from the beginning.

        Try again slow learner.

  20. “Arithmetic On The Frontier” – Rudyard Kipling

    A great and glorious thing it is
    To learn, for seven years or so,
    The Lord knows what of that and this,
    Ere reckoned fit to face the foe –
    The flying bullet down the Pass,
    That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”

    Three hundred pounds per annum spent
    On making brain and body meeter
    For all the murderous intent
    Comprised in “villainous saltpetre”.
    And after?- Ask the Yusufzaies
    What comes of all our ‘ologies.

    A scrimmage in a Border Station-
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.
    The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
    Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

    No proposition Euclid wrote
    No formulae the text-books know,
    Will turn the bullet from your coat,
    Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow.
    Strike hard who cares – shoot straight who can
    The odds are on the cheaper man.

    One sword-knot stolen from the camp
    Will pay for all the school expenses
    Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
    Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
    But, being blessed with perfect sight,
    Picks off our messmates left and right.

    With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem.
    The troopships bring us one by one,
    At vast expense of time and steam,
    To slay Afridis where they run.
    The “captives of our bow and spear”
    Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.

    • To John in AK

      It was a quote from the dead hand of the past. If Kipling were alive today he would not have constructed such a poem in the face of modern electronic surveillance used by big governments or with the evidence of China enslaving and annihilating their insurgence by the Uyghurs. To name just a few of many modern day examples. Modern day Big Government owns your ass and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

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