Posted on 05/24/2007 9:35:47 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
Let's analyze these statistics, shall we?
If we run the numbers, the average privateer captured 2.5 prizes and 58 prisoners during the course of the war and averaged 5.6 guns.
The average US Naval vessel carried 24 guns and captured 11 ships and 260 prisoners.
In other words, Naval vessels were four times as well armed and four times as successful.
The most interesting statistics, though, are the ones that are missing: how many of the privateers' prisoners were combat effectives fighting the United States and how many were fishermen in the Irish Sea? How many vessels captured by privateers were small merchant ships and how many were military vessels?
It's interesting that the one privateer your sources advance as an actual military factor in the War of 1812 is the French pirate Jean Lafitte - who sent about 40 or so of his men to fight at New Orleans.
They were such a decisive factor in the battle, by the way, that Andrew Jackson never even knew they existed until after the battle was over.
LOL!
Your analytical skills are only matched by your impeccable manners.
Liar liar pants on fire...
Without those 1300 captures by the Privateers, the US Navy could never have survived. Plain and simple.
If you can use two tools are the same time, even though one may not be as special purpose as the other, you use them. To not do so is less efficient over all.
By using ONLY our professional military, we are artificially hobbling ourselves.
Great interview, I will pass it along.
And you are sitting here making excuses for Rudy while trying to disparage Ron with your lies and misrepresentations...
http://www.usmm.org/revolution.html
Looks like those Privateers were pretty damn effective after all...
No, I am asking the most important question: how many military effectives and military ships did the privateers capture?
If one is claiming that they were the decisive factor in a war, then we need to look at how many combat effectives they nutralized and how many combat vessels they captured.
Liar liar pants on fire...
I abase myself in awe before your maturity.
Without those 1300 captures by the Privateers, the US Navy could never have survived. Plain and simple.
The US Navy's existance and survival had absolutely nothing to do with the privateers. I ask again: how many US Naval ships were rescued in battle by privateers? How many Royal navy ships of the line were captured by privateers? How many uniformed British soldiers and sailors were captured by privateers?
The answer, which you understandably refuse to supply: precious few - too few to make any military difference.
If you can use two tools are the same time, even though one may not be as special purpose as the other, you use them. To not do so is less efficient over all.
Absolutely. Of course, privateers were useful in capturing lots of goods that Americans wanted and couldn't get due to the blockade, which was good for morale.
By using ONLY our professional military, we are artificially hobbling ourselves.
You cannot honestly be unaware of the large numbers of private contractors working for and alongside our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, can you?
Of course, this is not what Ron Paul is proposing: he is saying that we should deal with terror solely by issuing outmoded letters of marque and reprisal to private parties and not using our military unless foreign invaders actually reach American soil.
If your Navy is capturing 25 ships and your Privateers are capturing another 25, then those are 25 more enemies your Navy doesn't have to worry about at ZERO additional cost. This can be the margin of victory quit easily. The difference in efficiency looks like around 30% in the Navy's favor, but the cumulative effect gave us the victory.
Without which, our professional Navy would have been thoroughly SCREWED.
Private security contractors are one thing, Mercs under M&R would be even more effective...
Yet another lie...
http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2002/pr100402.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul57.html
The question remains: are those 25 captured by privateers fishing boats in the Irish Sea or are they warships threatening the US coast?
Apples to oranges.
The difference in efficiency looks like around 30% in the Navy's favor
Actually 300%.
Without even making the necessary distinction between the quality of their respective targets.
For a statement to be "another lie" it would have to be preceded by a previous lie.
However, everything I have said has been true.
Ron Paul's sponsoring of the bill for the Declaration Of War is not a guarantee he would sign it, at all.
You see, Ron Paul isn't very intelligent, and so he believes that the Constitutional right of Congress to declare wars if it so chooses strips Congress of the right to delegate warmaking decisions to the Executive if it so chooses.
Of course, the Constitution says nothing of the kind.
So Ron Paul's Declaration was not a serious undertaking, but an attempt to impose his bizarre interpretation of the Constitution on the Congress and the Executive.
He knew it would fail - it was simply an exercise in self-aggrandizement for Ron Paul.
The fact is that Ron Paul spoke against intervention in Iraq before it came before Congress, voted against the Iraq War when it actually came to a vote authorizing the President to wage such a war, and he has been a vocal opponent of the War ever since.
Engaging in Ron Paul's semantic games doesn't change the fact that Ron Paul believes the solution to global terrorism is not military action, but letters of marque and reprisal.
The loss of the Endymion had absolutely no effect on the outcome of the War.
Your second link provides similar statistics that give us raw numbers - but no indication of the military effectiveness of privateers.
Again, using the war as a pretext to capture a fishing vessel in the North Atlantic and sell it at a profitable markup in Boston is pretty bold - but it has no hard military value.
Again, letters of marque and reprisal are completely useless. No one regards or honors them anywhere on the planet.
And of course, the question inevitably arises, when was the last time mercenaries accomplished an important global security mission?
I'm not saying they haven't - but nothing comes immediately to mind.
Feel free to keep talking, but don't expect a reply...
No, not really.
A PhD
What field is his PhD in? Can you tell me at which institution he studied for his PhD?
multi-term Congressmen whose survived even attempts by his own party to under-cut him with a more "liberal" candidate?
Are you arguing that being in Congress for more than one term makes someone intelligent?
Or are you arguing that being opposed in one's designated party's primary makes someone intelligent?
I've made no excuses for Giuliani - a man who would make a very poor nominee and be a disaster as President.
I merely responded to a poster who was making the bizarre and unsupportable statement that Giuliani imposed a "police state" on NYC.
This makes his foreign policy credentials unimpeachable. /sarc
This means he isn't exactly a know-nothing as was asserted.
His stance on foreign policy isn't what so many are trying so desperately to make it out to be...
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