Lessons in MOUT

[PawPaw]

Sappers are an old and honorable military occupation.

Hence the phrase; Hoist on his own petard.

[Goods2010]

Don't send troops into a building to clear building. That is what a good gasoline fire is for.

This is going into the personal favorite quote book...

So, when you blow up the mosques, and the schools, and the bad guys take out the power plants, and the water and sewer lines were already broken, you've left the locals sitting on a pile of rubble and literal shit as punishment for the crime of being invaded. We have a term for kids who grow up in that kind of environment: "suicide bomber."

If nothing else, it makes for a good object lesson on the dangers of;

A) Getting invaded by another country, and
B) Letting your country be governed by people crazy/dangerous enough that invading you begins to look like justifiable self defense to other countries.

Can't remember if its just a story or a true event.... Didn't Kublai Khan demand a city to surrender and the prefect said no. Second time it happened the citizens delivered a beaten and hogtied prefect to the feet of the Khan?

[Windy Wilson]

Don't want your place popped and burned to the ground? Kill the dude up to no good from your belltower and hang his corpse on the lamppost outside with a sincere apology for any inconvenience his usage of your place of worship/learning may have caused in any language you prefer.

It worked in March and April 1945 in Germany. Villages that gave up quietly were unharmed, any shooting back and not one scorched brick would remain on top of another.

[MiddleAgedKen]

Don't want your place popped and burned to the ground? Kill the dude up to no good from your belltower and hang his corpse on the lamppost outside with a sincere apology for any inconvenience his usage of your place of worship/learning may have caused in any language you prefer.

It worked in March and April 1945 in Germany. Villages that gave up quietly were unharmed, any shooting back and not one scorched brick would remain on top of another.

Which side of the Elbe?

[Windy Wilson]

West. East of the Elbe the Red Army believed in collective punishment regardless of how much white the village wore.

[slowpoke]

This is why we should be leaving ISIS the fuck alone. Let them do the things we can't, and once they have enough that losing it will hurt, THEN "prune" them.

So simple, and yet so difficult. That tends to be the way it goes with solving peoblems.