A depressing thread

[giblets]

I think this is a typo--it should read "100 tests and 5 are significant", not 50, right?

No, that's the number of outliers you expect at a 5% level, so in aggregate they are not significant. Whereas 50 would almost never happen by chance.

[Al B. Sure!]

I think this is a typo--it should read "100 tests and 5 are significant", not 50, right?

HC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

[Hauldren Collider]

Bah I got mixed up, sorry. You guys are right. I meant 5% are outliers

[kentonio]

That's not in the link you posted. Where does that passage come from?

The link is a link in that article. Sorry, I should have linked more directly but I was leaving work and in a rush at the time.

This isn't very much to go on, but the sort of analysis done here - where you take the same data and run different statistical tests on it - is much more likely than average to produce a false positive and/or overstate the statistical significance of the result.

So we should not take statistical research done at Yale seriously? I'm not being snippy incidentally, it's a serious question.

[Kuciwalker]

Jaguar can tell you all about how large portions of Yale's faculty are net negatives for society

In seriousness though, the answer is much more general: don't trust studies, and especially don't trust positive results from studies. If a whole bunch of studies show the same positive result, then you should start to think they might be on to something.

re: Yale in particular, there's no strong reason to believe its researchers in this field are particularly better than any other university's, and there is strong reason to believe they are politically motivated to aim for a particular result. Yale is a bastion of America's academic Left.

[molly bloom]

I know, google turns you on. Sorry, I won't be your google buddy cause I don't swing that way.

I have no idea what you mean. Google does not turn me on - neither does posting videos in the music thread. I'm not sure what your fascination with my sex life or sexuality is, but can I suggest you get your own ?

How does any of the **** that you posted contradict what I wrote?

You must be dumber than a box of hair, as the quaint American saying goes.

External strikes are the only way to carry out a counter-insurgency action.

List the 'external strikes' carried out by the British & Commonwealth forces in the Malayan Insurgency.

Our failure in Vietnam was due to lack of willingness to engage in attacks outside of South Vietnam

How much time do I have to show how stupid this assumption is ?

Let's begin with the fact that although the U.S. had been subsidizing the French war, nothing seemed to have been learned from the outcome of the Indo-Chinese War Of Independence- despite good money thrown after bad in that conflict, and the defeat of a modern equipped force including the French Foreign Legion, by a peasant army equipped with oxen, elephants and bicycles.

Then there was the French backing for Vietnamese Catholics, in preference to the mainly Buddhist population of the three states that went to make up modern Viet Nam. So much was learned by the Americans from this, that as their preferred ruler of the South we had a Roman Catholic who had never been an elected official, only a court chamberlain for Emperor Bao Dai, installed without the consultation of the South Vietnamese.

To compound this error, the man chosen was so inept in government that his regime was both kleptocratic and nepotistic, and overtly favoured Roman Catholic refugees from North Vietnam over South Vietnamese. Then there were the prison camps, the torture, the unlawful killings, the drug trafficking by officers of the A.R.V.N., and the brutal crackdown on Buddhists resulting in the banning of celebrations for Buddha's birthday (good move in a mainly Buddhist country) and assaults on Buddhist monks and the South's main pagoda. Great job.

The government of Diem was so unpopular that one American serviceman noted that whilst government stooges and officials were busily partying away the night in Saigon, even elements of the A.R.V.N. were defecting to the Viet Cong. The fact that parts of the army of the state you are supposedly supporting won't even fight in their own defence, let alone for the state, and would prefer to fight for the North, should perhaps tell you something. Or not....

attacks in Cambodia and Laos were severely restricted

Sure thing. American aid to the Laotian forces it wanted to control, (an army of 25 000 or so, if memory serves) amounted to 93 million dollars- out of a total aid budget of 300 million dollars.

The end result was a country 'neutrally' hostile at best to the United States, unsurprisingly since what might have been minor shuffling of pieces on a diplomatic chessboard had been converted into a civil war and the calling on the Soviets for support by one of the protagonists. But perhaps it was the Americans were simply confused; one Souvanna Phouma must look much like his half-brother, Souphanouvong. But only one of them was head of the Communist Pathet Lao, and guess which one the Americans tried to overthrow ?

Again, great job.

Attacks (including the illegal bombing campaign) in Cambodia were so 'restricted' that they turned an estimated one third of the population into refugees. How many of them thought kindly of the U.S. when bombs were being dropped on their villages do you imagine ?

Insurgencies survive by their ability to receive aid and build up their forces outside of the area in which their opponent is willing to attack them.

No- they survive partly as result of outside help, but also if what they are fighting for is popular- as mentioned, the Americans noted the support and where it came from:

the vast majority of Viet Cong troops are of local (South Vietnamese) origin... little evidence of major supplies from outside sources...

Perhaps you skipped that bit. Worth reiterating though.

Generally this is done by camping out in adjacent sympathetic countries, or where there is minimal rule of law, and by making it difficult to discern combatant from civilian.

How about by camping out in Saigon and the regional capitals of South Vietnam ? See, the difficulty is, it's hard to tell a Viet Cong from a South Vietnamese civilian, because they might in fact be the same person.

The strategic hamlet idea was a bust too; unlike in Malaya, where the British were dealing with a minority of the population often readily identifiable, the Americans and the South Vietnamese were not.

Not only did many South Vietnamese peasants resent being forcibly removed from what many looked at (unsurprisingly) as their ancestral homes, but those who did not relocate, or were not relocated, were (incorrectly) assumed to be Viet Cong or Viet Cong sympathizers. Again, great job on the whole hearts and minds thing there....

As for the lack of the rule of law- that's quite funny, really. Unintentionally I suspect.

Shooting without a trial ? Check.

Torture of political opponents ? Check.

Indefinite and arbitrary imprisonment ? Check.

Corruption of officials ? Check.

Not North Vietnam, but South Vietnam.

I said the Malaya Emergency was easily winnable because the terrorists couldn't get aid from neighboring countries

I'll refresh your memory:

Observe the Malayan Emergency, where British, Australian, New Zealand, and CAF troops were successful in putting down a Communist insurgency due to a lack of ability for that insurgency to resupply, rearm, and regroup in neighboring countries.

I realize that both Malaya and South Vietnam were in South East Asia, but beyond that and the fact that there were insurgencies in both, trying to assume from the experiences of the former that the way to deal with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese is the same is - how would your little chum put it ?- retarded.

Two very different societies, two very different groups of insurgents, one without major popular support in the country it is fighting in (what on earth makes you think that Muslim Malays were going to support the Chinese insurgents the way many South Vietnamese supported the North and the Viet Cong ? Ignorance ?) and the other fighting for independence and statehood.

Even the South Vietnamese were irritated by the Americans who kept talking about 'nation-building'; it had to be pointed out to them that the Vietnamese had had experience of being a nation since the 10th Century.

[molly bloom]

Hi, I'm molly and I know something about this topic!

Evidently more about the Malayan Insurgency than you or your little chum. But don't feel bad.

Excuse me while I pontificate about my IMMENSE KNOWLEDGE about this subject.

Sorry, although a Roman Catholic by baptism I don't do the pontificating.

Oh, you wanted something relevant to the actual discussion at hand?

I gave names, places, dates, locations... your pal gave broad sweeping judgments. Oddly enough they sounded a lot like some of the vague waffle generated by American fact finding missions to South Vietnam- they reported back what it was believed the President and the press and the Catholic supporters of Diem wanted to hear.

By all means, don't believe me, but do read the relevant chapter in Barbara Tuchman's 'The March Of Folly'. It's quite illuminating the lengths that elected officials and the military will go to to deceive themselves, if they desire a particular outcome badly enough.

Or you could try Peter Calvocoressi's book on modern history.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Politics-Since-Peter-Calvocoressi/dp/1405899387

Or Richard J. Barnet's 'Intervention and Revolution'.

Or this by Chomsky and Herman:

The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism

Or this, edited by Melvyn Leffler:

Origins of the Cold War: An International History

Or maybe this:

International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond, edited by Antony Best.

How about 'Military Intelligence Blunders' by Colonel John Hughes-Wilson ? Quite good on the Tet Offensive.

You could try Alexander Cockburn's 'Corruptions Of Empire' for contemporary accounts of the state of play on the domestic American front at the time of the war.

Or not- I don't really care. Your ignorance is your loss.

Google doesn't supply that.

Your'e absolutely right- it didn't supply a single thing.

Now your repetition is really getting quite dull- if you can find a site on Google that displays the information in my posts in the same or similar fashion, then go ahead and find it.

Or be a good little chap and get some other shtick, 'cos your current act is staler than week old kreplach left out in the yard.

[molly bloom]

No, my theory is that he googles the topic and posts a summary of what he reads,

Your 'theory' (a rather grandiose term for what is at best an unsupported opinion) is sh!t. Hope that's not too much of a SAT term
for you. But I find that when the apt word beckons, you go with the flow.

He just thinks it makes everyone look at him and think "oh, how worldly and smart you are!"

Jeez, Louise, another would be long distance telepath. Been watching too many televangelists ? Do you feel your hour of power is upon you ?

It ain't. You have so far shown no inclination or understanding of what I think, or why.

If he doesn't actually google it, that's EVEN WORSE

There's no 'if'. I don't.

because it means he's memorized a ton of worthless trivia

I'm terribly sorry if it seems worthless to you. Please explain how you come by your estimation, you who are the fount of all wisdom ?

You must have read an awfully large amount of stuff to know what I have remembered and to judge it worthless. Oh, and of course passed your degree in mindreading with flying colours....

[molly bloom]

I'm mocking you, because you deserve to be mocked.

I quite agree- two laughably rightwing individuals who pen the equivalent of girly mash notes to U.D.I. Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa-

'Oooh, the gold ! Oooh the high standard of living ! Oooh the wealth generation! Oooh, our moist gussets!'

I never thought that outside crank websites or self-published pamphlets I'd ever read the like again.

[Hauldren Collider]

Does molly EVER say anything relevant?

I love how he robotically responds to every criticism. And then does the Ben-style selective quotation.

Molly, sure, you know a bunch of random facts. But you're utterly incapable of forming them into an actual argument for anything. Moron.

[molly bloom]

Does molly EVER say anything relevant?

If you don't understand the references and inferences, just say so. It's a not a crime to be ignorant of relatively recent American history.

I love how he robotically responds to every criticism.

That is what is known as hyperbole. I don't, just to the ones I feel like responding to. In any case, if people have gone to the trouble of making them, surely it's only polite to offer a response.

And then does the Ben-style selective quotation.

Nope. Just the more obvious parts where reggie was so busy having a wargasm he couldn't see the bamboo for the jungle.

Molly, sure, you know a bunch of random facts

What's random about the information I've posted ? It's not like I've been submitting Amish quilt cover patterns or recipes from the time of Marie de Medici. O.k., it's stuff you and reggie didn't know about the various wars in South East Asia (or for that matter about southern African history) but again, don't fret.

We all have our blind spots.

But you're utterly incapable of forming them into an actual argument for anything.

Well as I've tried to make clear (perhaps I was too subtle, or trusted you to be intelligent enough to make the connections without pictures and a finger pointing out the relevant bits...) the insurgencies in South Vietnam and Malaya were two very different things.

Two areas with very different histories and very different societies. Two (main) sets of insurgents with very different agendas.

But dear reggie's approach is 'DROP MORE BOMBS! KILL MORE PEOPLE! DESTROY MORE JUNGLE ! '.

I had a spare ten minutes or so last night, so I had a quick look through Cassell's Dictionary of Modern American History, the Encyclopaedia of Modern Warfare and the Dictionary of Military Codewords.


In the course of the war an estimated 6 million tons of explosive were dropped by the U.S.- twice the total dropped in WWII.
How many more should they have dropped ?

526 000 sorties were flown over North Vietnam. Perhaps reggie could give us his estimation for how many more should have been flown, in order to achieve success.

By 1969 there 536 000 American troops in South Vietnam. All told 2 million saw service there.

The total cost is estimated at $ 106.8 billion.

By 1967, $ 2 billion was being spent PER MONTH on prosecuting the war.
This was at the same time as the continuation of 'The War On Poverty' and the building of 'The Great Society'.

6.5 million people fled South Vietnam. 450 000 civilians were killed.

Large areas of countryside were rendered uninhabitable or unsafe by landmines, napalm and defoliant and unexploded ordnance.

By the end of the war, troops from America, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the Philippines had served in South Vietnam. Thai mercenaries were used by the South, if memory serves.

Laos's internationally guaranteed neutrality was violated by the U.S., and Cambodia illegally bombed- 3630 B 52 sorties in 'Operation Menu'.
In search of a supposed North Vietnamese 'nerve centre' over 80 000 combined U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia. Although some arms caches were discovered, no 'nerve centre' was.

General Douglas Kinnard, in 'The War Managers' carried out a study of Army generals who had been in South Vietnam- wanting their responses to the body counts, so important to Mr. McNamara and General Westmoreland.

Typical responses:

'the immensity of the false reporting is a blot on the honour of the army' , 'fake' and 'totally worthless- often blatant lies'.

Targets were frequently selected at random in areas where nighttime firing had been authorized, and 90% of the air strikes in South Vietnam were classified as 'interdiction'- so not undertaken in support of a specific military operation or against a carefully chosen target, but perhaps just to keep busy.

Moron.

Oh my, how charming! Whenever I look at that word I shall think of you. Thanks for the memories.