Commander-in-Chief Pop Quiz

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ElfDude
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Commander-in-Chief Pop Quiz

Post by ElfDude »

Just for fun, let's have a little historical pop quiz called the Commander-in-Chief Test. I don't claim authorship, but it made me think (and smile) so I thought I'd share it. Every detail in every question is historically accurate. And it's against the rules to consult your high school history book or call up Oliver Stone or other such experts. Ready?


First question: You're George Washington in 1776. You've lost every battle. The revolution seems a bust. Your spies tell you that the British officers are wintering in Trenton. You think that means that the Germans are going to get falling-down drunk on Christmas Eve and sleep it off the next morning. However, they are the world's best soldiers and they'll beat you if they're awake, sober or not. Also the Delaware River is full of ice, and your guys have no food or shoes. Many New Jerseyites are Tories who might rat you out. Do you roll the dice to change the course of the war, figuring the Germans don't like fighting on Christmas, or do you wait for springtime rather than risk what little is left of the Continental Army?

I know that most of us don't know of the story, and probably don't know what George Washington decided to do, but when the question is posed this way... and we know what he did...

Oh, by the way... the answer to none of these questions is "Call the United Nations."


Second Question: You're Abe Lincoln in 1863, General Lee has crossed into the North, but no one knows where he's going. The Union Army has been beaten in most every battle so far, and if you lose on your own ground, the Union is likely lost to the South. Do you keep the Army away from Lee until he gets tired and heads back South, or do you send General Meade out looking for Lee even if they find that rascal in some cross-roads town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg? What do you do? What would Senator Kerry have done?


Third Question: You are the duty officer in Honolulu, December 7, 1941. Two soldiers manning the newly invented radar call to report a lot of blips on the screen. Headquarters had already advised you to expect a flight of American bombers from California that morning. So do you sound the alarm to the fleet? Do you scramble the fighter planes and hope Rear Admiral Kimmel and General Short don't yell at you if you're wrong, or tell the radar guys their shift is ending anyway and not to worry about it? If you're John Kerry manning the radar, what do you do?


Fourth Question: You are Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939. You've received a letter from the famous quirky physicist Albert Einstein recommending building an atomic bomb in order to beat the Nazis to the punch. Not really knowing what an atomic bomb is and not yet at war, do you ask Congress to study the matter and ask your intelligence operation to confirm if the Nazis are building one of these weapons themselves, or do you order secret development with money skimmed from other projects and hidden through phony congressional appropriations? Do you do the Manhattan Project? What do you do if you are John Kerry? Remember now, you can't call the UN. At this point, it's the defunct League of Nations anyway.


Fifth Question: You are Admiral Nimitz in 1942. Navy intelligence intercepted coded messages they reveal Japanese plans to steal the American island of Midway, but they also tell you Japanese could be planning attacks elsewhere. You know that banking on Midway would leave the door open elsewhere. Do you risk your aircraft carriers that escaped the Pearl Harbor attack perhaps leaving no U.S. Fleet in the Pacific, or do you try catching the Imperial Fleet with the kimono open and reverse the course of the war at Midway? What do you do if you're John Kerry? Remember now, you can't call the United Nations. Nor can you call the French.


Sixth Question: You are Dwight Eisenhower in June of 1944. Your weatherman tells you he sees a break in the bad weather and a narrow window for your landing forces to get on the beaches of Normandy. You hope, but you can't confirm that allied disinformation has convinced Hitler the real invasion will be north. Do you risk a quarter million troops and the possibility of a stalemate in Europe, or do you say, "Let's go," rather than wait another month or two for D Day? Remember, you can't call the United Nations. What do you do if you're John Kerry? Remember, there's no turning back.


Seventh Question: You're also Eisenhower in December 1944. Intelligence says the Germans are on the run. They're low on gasoline and ammo. The men deserve a break, and many officers want to leave for Christmas in Paris. How can the Germans possibly break through that dense forest? and knowing what we know from test question one, the Germans don't like to fight on Christmas. Do you ignore the intelligence and figure that Hitler will try to catch you with your pants down and inflict on the American Army its worst-ever disaster? What do you do faced with the Battle of the Bulge if you are John Kerry? Remember, you can't call the United Nations.


Eighth Question: You are Harry Truman in August of 1945. FDR's atomic bomb recommended by Einstein is tested successfully, and you have two more of bombs ready to use. The scientists who build the bomb are opposing its use. Intelligence reports suggest the Japanese are starving and on their last legs ready to talk turkey. American bombers are already turning many Japanese cities into cinders. Do you secretly advise the Japanese they can surrender now before you drop the bomb, or do you drop the bomb and ask questions later? What do you do if you're John Kerry?


Ninth Question: You are JFK (the original JFK) in the fall of 1962. The intelligence community gives you aerial photos they believe show Soviet missile installations built in Cuba, but they do not know how close they are to being operational, whether they're armed with nuclear warhead or whether the crews and workers are Soviets. Do you go on TV and threaten mass evacuation, set up a naval quarantine risking World War III, or do you work behind the scenes at the UN, get more information and try to convince the Soviets they've done the wrong thing? (We know what John Kerry would do. It's not what the real JFK did.)


And at last, here's the tenth question from the commander-in-chief pop quiz, and this is made to order for all of you out there who think that the weapons of mass destruction question was a lie and this was all fabricated for Bush to go to war to get oil for himself and Cheney and Halliburton. Again, the historical points in this question 100% accurate.

Tenth Question: You are President Bush in early 2003, just months after September 11 and anthrax. The Clinton administration had incited Osama bin Laden citing ties to Saddam Hussein and had bombed a suspected bioweapons in Sudan with ties to Iraq. (It turned out to be an aspirin factory, but you don't know that.) Intelligence suggests that terrorists met with others in Prague. UN weapons inspectors are being frustrated in Iraq. British intelligence says Saddam was trying to buy uranium in Africa. Saddam invaded Kuwait a decade before. He had repeatedly used chemical weapons on his own people. One of the perpetrators of first World Trade Center bombing had taken refuge in Baghdad. Families of Palestinian suicide bombers were being paid by Iraq. The CIA Director originally appointed by Clinton tells you it's "a slam-dunk" that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. The French are opposed to war with Iraq, saying their intelligence service believe Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction. Russian President Putin opposed to war with Iraq tells you Russian intelligence believes Iraq has plans for terror assaults in the US. Most of the CIA contacts in Iraq are murdered. Do you wait to get more spies in the country to confirm the other intelligence, or do you go to Congress for a resolution supporting the use of force and then use the force and then use the force? What would you do? What would John Kerry do?


Just for fun, let's throw in a futuristic and purely speculative question.

Special Bonus Essay Question: President (plug in the name of your choice here) in February 2005. The CIA and South Korean and Japanese intelligence agree that radio traffic and satellite photos of North Korea, where no one has human spy assets, is facing a famine, and that it has massed troops to invade South Korea in a few days, after smuggling a nuclear bomb into a major Japanese city to blackmail Japan and the U.S. Into giving them, North Korea, a free hand. What do you do? Remember, you can't call the UN. Well, you could call the UN In this case. What do you do? You can't call Michael Moore.
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Sir Myghin
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Post by Sir Myghin »

i read these and ponder, what would brian boitano do
Last edited by Sir Myghin on Fri Oct 08, 2004 9:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ElfDude »

What would Brian Boitano do?
If he were here today,
I'm sure he'd kick an @$$ or two.
That's what Brian Boitano'd do.
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Sir Myghin
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Post by Sir Myghin »

rock on eflman!
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Post by Slaine mac Roth »

Sir Myghin wrote:i read these and ponder, what would brian boitano do
Who?? :?
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Post by schuette »

I dont know American histoey that well i need to admit...
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Post by awip2062 »

Ummm....is the right answer pray?
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Post by ElfDude »

awip2062 wrote:Ummm....is the right answer pray?
It's great to see you back again, Dawn. :)
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Post by awip2062 »

:oops: Thanks, Elfie. Nice to be back hame. I missed By-Tor, and I REALLY missed my kids.
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Post by ElfDude »

awip2062 wrote::oops: Thanks, Elfie. Nice to be back hame. I missed By-Tor, and I REALLY missed my kids.
There's no place like hame...
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Post by awip2062 »

No kidding! And when you arrive in town and find one of your kids walking toward home from where she had been doggie sitting and you stop and she sits on yer lap and you two hug the whole way home and then when you arrive in the driveway and the other kids come running out of the house, even though it is after ten at night, and one turns cartwheels and they latch onto you and don't want to let go, and the youngest one tells you about a "surprise" welcome home party that she planned for the next day and the house has a banner up inside and ballons all over and there are welcome home notes and small Snickers bars hiding about the house and everyone wants your attention all at once.....

:-D

Yeah, it is a grand place to be.
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Post by ElfDude »

You are such a good mom. Bad mom's don't get receptions like that. :)
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Post by awip2062 »

It sure was a nice encouragement that I am doing something right.
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Post by *Lifesonite »

Well, when a President stands up and counts 30 Macedonian soldiers as equal a member of his coalition as 2,800 Poland soldiers... The only people that made a significant contribution were the British with an armored division. Poland did 2,800 and Italy 2,300, and the rest much lower, it doesn't say much for our standing among nations.

That's all politics. Kerry would have done the same thing, as Bush has been saying, Kerry voted for the war based off of the same intelligence that Bush did.

Kerry is merely saying that we should have gotten a more unified front against Iraq, which is easy for him to do in his position. It's a Presidential race and Kerry is, quite clearly, pointing out the flaws in Bush's plans. What do you expect him to say? That Bush did a bang-up job and I wouldn't have done anything differently? Bush's entire platform is built off of this, and rightly so. It's almost the only thing that Bush seems inclined to talk about, so they talk about it. If you were Senator John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Race, what would you do?

It's all politics, in all fairness, what would Bush have done in those situations? They're both taking their best positions, lets go bi-partisan.

If Kerry was manning the radar in Honululu we all would have been doomed. To put it simply, he has not been trained on such a device :P
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Post by ElfDude »

The nations Kerry claims he would have gotten into the coalition would never have joined. They were taking bribes from Saddam Hussein. Just because Kerry is a French-looking liberal wouldn't have changed that. The Duelfer report completely repudiates the strategy (or strategery if you're George W.) that Kerry has been saying he would have followed.

Know how many allies we had with us in WW2? Seven. When we first went into Iraq we had nineteen NATO nations with us (the ones who weren't on the take from Hussein). To call it unilateral action is insulting, not only to our allies, but to anyone who knows how to count (I know, you didn't use the word unilateral but an awful lot of people have been).

But to be honest, I don't understand why anyone cares who signed on and who didn't. We don't need our actions to defend ourselves to pass a "global test" (as Kerry puts it). So now we know who we can trust and who we can't. That's useful information.

As far as the number of troops sent in by our friends, what do we expect? We're a world superpower. They aren't.
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