Are combat pilots from free societies better than those from commie dictatorships?

Are you serious about this? Would you say that you’re above average interested in psychology?

No, only that i think i have that mentioned creative mind and when the moment of creation becomes, It doesent call for out going circumstances. I have left school, waken in middle of the nigth….personal experience 😀 😀

As I said, individuals who have certain intellectual features don’t necessarily have to display them (or show them off) when they’re working in an environment which has little or nothing to do with those things. Many people may think it’s best to keep their profession and their spare time interests apart.

Yeas but beeing creative, able to actually create something that one migth call art isent thing that you can set aside during the work, its a feeling constantly present and quite dominating one. You canot stop your attack as you have sompulary need to begun writing….Creative minds are usually more unpredictable and thats what i think they try to rule out.

I see. But why do they care so much about artistic abilities? I can’t see any reason why such things should be suppressed or kept out. I think that freedom of mind makes it easier to relax, which again enables most people to be more effective when working. Strong opposition against the current political and/or social system is something different, but I for one have never faced any tests or questions about political preferences, only social studies

In finland, they ask ones political orientations as well as other orientations by clewerly hidden questions. There are some more direct ones asking directly about military defence of finland and wheter the candinate feels about it and is he/she ready to serve extra time as to be trained as NCO.

And the the legendary, have you ever wanted to open a flower shop or does the cirlce squeze around your head :rolleyes: 🙂

Most people who have passed through the same type of selection and who are working with the same tasks in the same environment usually share a number of qualities which their profession requires. In a professional environment you often get to experience only a limited number of their sides, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have other personal traits. I can’t remember having seen too many people acting out in full bloom while on the job, simply because there is no need. When working, many people wish to present themselves as they wish for others to perceive them in the given context

Well I tend to watch how people could be categorised into some box or jar…maybe its a charectaristic to me only, but i do that sometimes, I did it in the army days….and It was suprisingly how lot easyer it was compared to other cirlces where I have tryed to do the same…..

I’m glad to see that your written English is starting to improve, although I’ve never had any serious problems understanding the content of your posts.

well it should not. No one learns language overnigth or improve it on internet discussion…better say, i have a good day now, and a bad day yesterday 😉

Well there is offcourse exception to all rules and yeas to this one as well. And im not saying that the ones that serve in military are bad personalityes, only that they aren’t representing the artistic and intellectual core of the sosiety as well as they could. I dont know exactly what test the norwegian army does, but in here the test clearly check out peolpe that have some artistic skills or are propaple to guestion authorityes and perhaps the motives of some possiple conflict.
And I think thats very good, becouse I wont like to work whit officers that migth do some weird stuff while on battle field, start making decissions too much out of their own head, and not from overal strategical principles. Its not meaning the innovatively, which is different what I think than beeing able to see behind the goverment offical propaganda ….wheter there is one or not 😉

Look, some of your previous statements show that you tend to paint a relatively large and complex group of individuals with a single colour. It’s like you’re trying to say that all these people form a homogenous mass with no distinct features – that they’re all just a group of humble “meat and potato guys” or something. I can’t see why you’re having such trouble realising that you’re virtually looking down on each and every one of these people as a bunch of mediocre individuals who hardly possess anything worthy of your respect and admiration.

discussion of this matter needs some sort of generalization, whitout some, we cannot discuss it perfectly. There are exception and You and I know it, but tracking them down would only blurr the issue and tie it to unnesseryly off topic. We need to look the big mass that can be found, when studying large ammount of people, otherwise we can just call it out.
Expecially in this case, when militaryes do some serious psychological testing in order to get the rigth personalityes to work as officers. And that gives even clearlyer borders and fences to the group of people that work as officers and that’s pretty eaysy to spot by simple individual mind interacting whit this group of people. I dont know from you, But atleast to me it was quite clear. So in order to discuss the topic, what make some military mens better by determing the sosiety where they work and live, You cannot discuss the situation by looking only individuals and deliberatly track down the statistical errors that always find their way in to the flock.

Like i said humans are all the same in different ways and manners.

And to J Boyle, I agree, better not generalise too much…if you dont know what you are doing

and that working in army is VERY absurd.

You could say the same about most professions…that are not yours.

There are dozens of people on this site that would say the same about:
clergymen
undertakers…(make your living off death..at least they don’t talk back)
police officers (hang out with criminals..plus you might have to hurt someone)
firemen (very necessary but who would volunteer to go in a burning building?)
politician (tell people what they want to hear so you can keep your job)
plumber (playing with toilets)
guy who runs the sewer plant…(enough said)
doctor (hanging oround sick people)

I hope you see the “crucial sarcasm and sense of irony that I use in my post”.
My point is, it’s better not to generalize too much…that leads to to bigotry.

Well me using my own language is just to demonstrate how offensive i find that native english speakers come and comment my language skills altough they know quite well that my motherlanguage is quite different than theirs. I don’t mock their finnish skills and those picking grammar mistakes are the ones that usually first run out of anything else to say.

Also, if you want ot be picky on language issues, your post contains several orthographic mistakes.

I never ever have been picking others about their language skills, Hell I’m the one that have to suffer from that. We all come form different parts of the world and suprize, suprize there are other languages than english and not all of us master it well. If the forum rules ecpect you to write only perfect english, then you can propaply kick half of us out…

Gollevainen,

Let me put some things straight:

The language on the board is ENGLISH.

Using your own language to answer someone who most likely doesn’t know it, I suppose with the intent to prove him dumb is not a very smart move, nor it it friendly. I could also reply to you in French or German, just to see if you understand it, but this wouldn’t be correct. So, if you’d like that posting to stay, please add the proper English translation.

Also, if you want ot be picky on language issues, your post contains several orthographic mistakes.

Thank you.

Frank
Moderator

basicly, that Finnish army (and i believe rest of the western world) use certain test to qualificate people that are called to advance in their military career. Those test are complex IQ/political believing test and effectvely outcludes all that could be determen as creative or artistic, as well as too eager to think independently and question the ongoing reality. I have made those test quite few times, I know how they work. Have you ever served in conscription army? Do you have experiences that would prove my point flawed? Or do you just argue whit me couse you dont like me and want to opposite me?
You see black and white doesent mean that If I agree whit you, Im somehow clewer and openminded and if i tend to disagree whit you Im somewhat balck and white? If so, You are as zepra as I am 😉

People are all the same in different way….And as I have sadly discovered, you “others” seems to lack the crucial sarcasm and sense of irony that I use in my post (and end up to flame figths whit people who cannot read the stuff between the lines) You’ll see, every single sain finnish young man serving or just finished serving in army, shares the wiev that healthy people DONT go to work in military, and that working in army is VERY absurd…(And this doesent even include the fact that all militaryes are basicly based on killing other people…)

So either you get or not, But if you havent got clue about military life and particularry finnish military life, Is it wise to argue whit someone who knows about it?? It would be same if I would say that I know your mother better than you do….

well I dont mean that they are 80 in iq, but that conscription army officers and drill instructors arent the people you expect to write/understand poetry, have complex sosiological obinions and are clever enough to rebel the staganatism of modern western civilication…They are normal people, average meat and potato guys, not stubid nor retarded, but not the intellectual creme of the sosiety…actually they cannot be, or otherwise they would understand how absord their proffesion is.

Finnish officer corps also require university level dgree, however, due some reform all long serving NCOs were promoted to leutenants…and You can tell the difference…

Well you having a different expereince? How is things done in your army?

I’ve known quite a few professional military men (and women). Many of them are exceptionally well read in history and politics.

They have interesting hobbies, families, like music and the arts…you know they’re real people. :rolleyes:

BTW: (with few exceptions) to be a commissioned officer in the US military you must have a university degree. To be a field grade offficer in the USAF you must have an advanced dregee. Of course, being a university graduate doesn’t automatically make one an “Intellectual” (however you define it) but it shows one has the ability to process inand apply vast sums of information and apply theories.

Maybe that says more about your country’s military than anything else…

Well you having a different expereince? How is things done in your army?

Does this mean I have to disenroll from my Master’s degree and start posting using really bad grammar

Pitääks teit lontoolaisii taas muistuttaa ettei ihmiset muualla maailmassa aina välttämättä pysty kirjottamaan kaikein hienointa englantia…Ja kato, SOC, eiks moderaattorina pitäis olla vähän vähemmän pilkkaamassa muita keskittyä vaikka pitämään parempaa huolta koko foorumista yleisesti?

What service experience do you have?

Corporal in finnish artillery. Was a aimer and occasionally a gunleader with 122mm D-30 howitser and 155mm 155K98 gun-howitsers

…maybe its different in cultures whit voluntary military but in here, I dont know single professional soldier that i would describe as intellectual….

Maybe that says more about your country’s military than anything else… :rolleyes:

I dont know single professional soldier that i would describe as intellectual

Does this mean I have to disenroll from my Master’s degree and start posting using really bad grammar?

The only thing a MiG-29 out of WVR range is… is a very fun AMRAAM target.

seems odd to answer to this sort of accient history, but if something have bothered you so much, I feel obligated to att least answer

I was talking purely from my experience…maybe its different in cultures whit voluntary military but in here, I dont know single professional soldier that i would describe as intellectual…it tells lot about people and his mind if he wants to work inside military…you need to have certain political wievs and attitude towards sosiety, ongoing political and ecomomical system…usually you need to agree whit them and be as much anti-rebel as one can be, mediocore surfer atop the big wave if so to say…infact they have quite good test in finnish army (that I remember to have been adapted from US) that parse out all too well fitted to independent thinking. Offcourse its not solid way of preventing ‘bad’ ingriets to enter the force….

and offcourse there are those obligatory one or two nutcase per battalion that are there for the killing the bloody commies(or capitalist, depending country) part of the job…the ‘salt’ of the dinner, and my battalion was too salty for my taste… 😉

In my personal wiev of humans, if you cannot rebel or you feel that the ongoign system as affordaple and ok, you are not one that can do independent thinking.

:confused: :confused: Why is this on GD 😀 😀

WRONG Again, if you know anything about Military planning and strategy, you’ll understand for NATO to use 160 planes against a nation with 79 planes and then increace the number between 200-300 planes, doesn’t look suspicious, but to increace by 840 planes, clearly shows that they (NATO) were lossing Hundreds of planes. Here some more reports you can “CROSS REFERANCE” : April 30 An F-117A of the 49th FW was damaged during strike mission by a nearby explosion of an SA-3 SAM, “…causing loss of part of the tail section, but the aircraft was able to return safely to Spangdahlem air base, Germany.” (source: Air Force Monthly, July 1999, p. 75)
This a aeronautics.ru has a link to an American report which you’l find interesting, I can give you dozens of Russian reports of multiple NATO planes shot down, but you Americans always use the excuse, “Thats a Russian report it’s bias, we wont believe it” http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/americanspectator002.htm heres an Agency France report: http://www.aeronautics.ru/natodownafp01.htm

Examine those Russian and Serb reports of aircraft shot down. Count up how many of those reports have the aircraft coming down inside Serb territory? All those hundreds of manned aircraft lost and not one piece of wreckage can be found apart from F-117A 82-806 and F-16CG 88-0550.

How are the aircraft losses being covered up? Have the production lines been secretly re-opened? You obviously live in a fantasy world. With your figures there would have been scores of aircrew taken prisoner of war or killed. Can you explain why no families have come forward asking where their sons or daughters are? Please don’t come back with any fantasy claims of next of kin being told that their loved ones were lost in accidents unrelated to Allied Force.

It has been nearly seven years since the start of the conflict and still not one piece of wreckage has been found to substantiate your claims of undisclosed losses. The magic pixies must have been hard at work to cover up all those losses from all those air forces that participated. Ask yourself how many of those governments are no longer in power and yet still none of those losses have come to light.

Imagine how many individuals and groups would love to drop Clinton in it? Clinton is on record as saying there was no allied combat casualties during the conflict. All those manned combat aircraft lost and still no family has come forward asking for the whereabouts of their loved ones?

There was no body repatriation via the ICRC (Red Cross). The only prisoners of war exchanged was the US Army soldiers captured from Macedonia/Yugoslav border. On the Serb side there was two Yugoslav soldiers repatriated after capture by KLA in Kosovo.

Over to you. No doubt you’ll come back with all the conspiracy non-sense

You did use the word “Commie”

I also did use the word CURRENT.

You are assuming that everyone in the Western democracies spends a lot of time engaged in intellectual activity or seriously debating politics.

I am not assuming anything. People spend their time engaging in activties that interest them. If it is intellecutal activity or debating politics for some people, then that is their choice. I believe this is true for citizens of Western democracies and Eastern democracies. At least they have the right to engage in activities of their choice when it does not impinge on the rights of others to live their normal life, without interference from their governments.

A lot of people in the West do merely parrot the government’s line or the line of whatever party they follow. This is because they do not care about government. Most people only care about their own personal lives. They do not care about the big picture.

It is all about personal choice. I am referring to democracies as a whole. They have the right to seek information that goes contrary to the governments line and they can seek so if they want to and express their protest if they are not pleased with this line. No man is perfect. We all have our flaws. We are not talking politics here, but direct interference by the rulers in an individuals life right from infancy with the goal of neutralizing his/her individuality.

And when they have an opinion on something, it’s usually based on an extremely poor understanding of issues. Often people will vote on something simply because their parents/friends did or because they don’t like the look of the politician.

It all again boils down to individuality. What you are expressing is conjecture.

My Soviet Union example is valid because it was a totalitarian society. But just because you cannot speak your mind openly in regards to politics does not mean you cannot excel in scientific matters or sporting matters.

I am not talking politics here. The rulers choose who should become scientists and athletes, not the individuals themselves. If the individual has outstanding talent in athletics and science, but expresses disageement with govt policy openly in a totalitarian regime, would he/she ever be allowed to go the path they wish to go? Most probably they would be ostracized from society or sent into forced labor or prison camps. And this has happened to countless individuals and it can easily be checked upon if you have the time to google. The individual has no rights. He/she is completely dependent on the govt even to make basic choices that define their life. Even if they wanted to choose their own paths, the govt could make them go in a different way. Would that happen in a democratic society.

However fighter pilots do not have anything to do with the type of government as stated in all the above responses (training, equipment etc).

Again we are not talking politics as we understand it in democracies. We are talking about a WAY OF LIFE where the individual is not free to choose his/her path. They are chosen for him/her. Fighter pilots are people before they are fighter pilots. They have to be ones who confirm rabidly with the regime because the regime is by nature paranoid and fears change, so they are essentially totalitarian personalities and history has shown us that totalitarian personalities are not flexible and not receptive to ideas that go contrary to their ways of thinking, so there is reason to doubt their efficacy.

Check out the post from Crobato in accidents in PLAAF which provides some insight into what he calls “peasant” psychology. So here we have concrete proof of what totalitarian regimes can do to their citizens, many of them combat pilots. Most importantly, this one example might just be the tip of the iceberg.

You can chose to be very politically active in any regime. If you are in a democracy you vote or stand for election. In a Communist regime you become a member of the Communist party. In a military dictatorship you join the army officer corp. And in a theocracy you become a cleric.

That is exactly it, one has to choose the above paths to be anything in such a society even if one does not want to. What happens when one chooses to be politically active against the regime instead of being active in it, then it is usually prison without trial or the firing squad.

I will come back to the rest of the topics raised in another post some time later.

Regards

where did i said military doctorine? I merely referred to Atheletes, Scientist and engineers. East communist produce far more and far more capable than Free West by wide margin.

They travelled from East to West because World monetary Unit was not Rouble where Governments can generously finance development of luxuries of lives and support standard of living. It does not mean that these people were retarded individuals or there brains were less developed than the people born in free West as u seem to imply.

Who is implying anything about the “free west” or “free east.” It seems to me that you are implying imaginary things to suit your purpose. Do not try to imply things in my post that are not there. I am talking about the CURRENT state (2006) of affairs where indoctrination of ideology in a “certain” communist regime is causing repression of freedom not in tune with current realities. People are not cattle, they are human beings and they should be allowed to live their own life without interference from their rulers, and people who grow up mentally conditioned by this “certain” country could make flawed combat pilots.

I do not think it is worth the effort replying to your posts unless there is substance in it. Please do not misunderstand me.

Regards

It seems that my reply to this particular post was removed, for reasons that seem unfathomable to me. Let me put it this way.

As wonderfully cloaked as the above is, it is sadly outdated and cliched to boot.

One must face the realities of today and the reality is that free nations and democracies grow not only materially but their people grow intellectually too, which is sadly lacking in commie dictatorships. Any mentally conditioned zombie can be an average businessman, but to be forced to lose ones individuality because of the State is to my mind extreme. In these circumstances people are indoctrinated to not think for self, the State does their thinking. Even now citizens of a certain country cannot google freely because their government fears the wrong information might fall into their hands and give them ideas. Am I wrong in thinking that combat pilots from this mould cannot adapt to changing situations, formulate new tactics as the environment changes. From birth they have been conditioned to not think free thoughts, free speech is anathema to them, then how can they fight an enemy who from birth has had the opportunity to think for self, grow intellectually, and given the freedom to explore and think for themselves. How can one expect a caged falcon to be the equivalent of a falcon that is flying free.

I would like to give an example. The worlds largest democracy is growing at above 8% annually and this growth is transforming the country, poverty is declining at an extremely rapid rate, the standard of living is rising, all this without compromising on fundamental human rights. It now has the largest number of billionaires in Asia, which is ample testimony to what is possible for an individual to achieve without the State stifling his/her individuality, that too within a decade following the economic reforms. The air force has great aircraft that have the best of east, west, and indigenous equipment incorporated in them with new ones in the pipeline.

One must not forget that commie dictatorships do have poor people and rampant poverty, but here the poor are displaced, hidden, or purged to keep up the great commie image.

Migs and Sukhois are among the best of the best. Pardon my saying so, but I was under the impression that these are made by Russia, a progressive democratic country where people actually elect their president and have a parliament called Duma. Please check up on your current affairs. You must also check up the nonaligned movement when you do check your history.

Mentally-conditioned men can only do so much howsoever hard they are trained. One cannot undo a way of life stamped into a person from birth onwards where others do the thinking for him and expect him to become an innovative and adaptable person in an air combat situation that requires split-second decision making ability which comes naturally to a free thinking person.

Regards

I am quoting what I have said previously so as not to repeat myself.

A lot of people have been repeating cliches that are just that…..not true in current reality. Current reality is that democracy is the engine for social and economic progress and it is happening at a very rapid pace in the largest democracy. There is an upward spiral in every sector. As the economy booms, the social sector is rapidly changing for the better. Prosperity is heralding change and every year remarkable positive change is happening. The education sector is producing students who can compete with the best in the world. To give an example; fortune 500 companies are recruiting talent to manage their businesses from here for their global offices and at salaries that are competitive on the global scale. This speaks volumes for the education sector and how it is appreciated the world over.

Repeating cliches that do not face up to current reality is of course sad to see, but not surprising when it comes from certain quarters who aim to divert attention from the main topic.

Regards

Please read above.

We are not discussing military doctrine here, but about the quality of manpower specifically military aviation when oppressive regimes stifle the creativity and humanity of their people.

where did i said military doctorine? I merely referred to Atheletes, Scientist and engineers. East communist produce far more and far more capable than Free West by wide margin.

You are quoting history twisted to suit your fancy. I believe you answer the questions you raise. Why did they go to Israel or other countries from the east communist block?
Regards

They travelled from East to West because World monetary Unit was not Rouble where Governments can generously finance development of luxuries of lives and support standard of living. It does not mean that these people were retarded individuals or there brains were less developed than the people born in free West as u seem to imply.