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Originally posted by swissmiss04
Well guys it's not looking good...driving back from home the other day I saw a truck and on it were two tanks painted a sickeningly familiar "sand" color. I nearly cried when I saw that. Why else would they order tanks painted to blend in to the desert sands?
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Many US military vehicles nowadays are painted in desert colors; in days of old the camouflage
de rigeur was 'Woodland', designed for the forests of Central Europe.
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And here's an interesting tidbit for ya, all of you who are discussing media and censorship and what not. I'm fluent in Arabic (little known fact) and I listened to what one of the Iraqi officials were saying (in Arabic) on CNN and it was NOT the same as what the translator said. AT ALL. Basically what dude said was fairly, well...non aggressive, but the translator 'made him say' something completely different, and, well, aggressive. Does that scare anyone else????? My theory is that CNN is just being Bush's puppet and trying to scare us "ignorants" into thinking that this war is a great idea. I too pray for all of our soldiers, AND those serving from other countries. It's a job I'd be hard pressed to take. God bless them all!
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I'd hafta digress on that... out of all the networks, CNN, while it has a liberal slant on things, is somewhat objective in their news coverage. I would have agreed with ya if it was Fox News, which is staunchly conservative.
Translation is one thing, interpretation is quite another. Considering how Arabic can be a very subtle language to interpret (I speak fluent Spanish, but not Arabic) and if the translator is not skilled in the nuances of a foreign language could lead to misinterpretation.
Case in point: during the closing days of WW II the Japanese issued a statement that was misinterpreted by the Americans. It hinged on the use of one Japanese word, 'mokusatsu' (literally, 'killing with silence'). Needless to say, the Americans took it as meaning the Japanese weren't even going to consider unconditional surrender, and this accelerated the decision to using the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Here's an excellent definition on how it's used: (source:
http://www.apmforum.com/columns/boye36.htm)
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Mokusatsu refers to the idea of "killing" the other party's case or proposition by letting it die in the vacuum of silence.
Americans and other aggressive types are especially susceptible to being tripped up by time gaps because they have been conditioned to abhor vacuums - to jump into any gap in a conditioned reflex to keep the dialogue from lagging or stopping.
Too often the foreign side presumes that the Japanese do not understand the points that were made, or that they have not yet accepted the reasoning of the foreign side and need more convincing.
This presumption regularly leads to hurried repetitions and frequently to on-the-spot revisions or compromises that favor the Japanese.
The proper defense for a mokusatsu ploy is simple. Just do as the Japanese do - rest and think, make use of the break to refer to notes, hold private discussions with your own colleagues, and so on. It also pays to introduce your own time gaps, and have control of the ball.
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My prayers to our servicemen and women about to go into battle.