For a WWII novel, why would a German 18-21-year-old man possibly be living in England or the US so that he speaks English and can be enlisted by the SOE?
There was a lot of German immigration to the U.S. in the 20th Century as well as the 19th and 18th, one of my sets of grandparents for example in the 1923 and 1934. The unemployment as high as 30% in the 1920’s, the hyperinflation that destroyed individuals’ savings and wage income as well as thousands of businesses, the farm kids that clearly couldn’t inherit what had been endlessly divided up into a farm too small to support a single family, a severe housing shortage particularly of apartments in cities where there was work, and the siren call of American movies, records, books, magazines, and letters from relatives who’d moved there. Your characters’ parents could have moved during the 1920’s and raised their very young son there so he’d speak American English without an accent and speak German without an accent from growing up with it at home (like my aunt and uncle.) He might well also speak or understand some French or other languages from border regions in Germany where his parents had grown up, multi-lingual being the norm rather than exceptional as it is here. Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles all had large German immigrant populations then so he could have grown up a cowboy in Texas, an oil rig driller in Santa Barbara, a meatcutter in Chicago, or a machinist in Milwaukee (at 21 he’d be a journeyman with 3–7 years of work experience by then in a single field.)If he was living in England, his father transferring there for a German employer at any time would be quite reasonable, i.e. Siemens electronics, Daimler-Benz, Bayer pharmaceuticals, BASF chemicals, Deutsche Bank, a German newspaper’s London Bureau, etc.It is likely his father would have served in World War I’s German military as well as his mother’s brothers, possibly grandfathers as well, so that would give some conflict perhaps although my grandfather’s brief service to the Kaiser didn’t make him a fan of the Nazi’s at all, leaving for good the year after Hitler took power.
Why was the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam not considered biological warfare?
Agent Orange was a chemical defoliant, never a biological agent — biological agents are defined as containing living organisms, or produced by them.The manufacturing specification called out two defoliants, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), that were considered nontoxic. Unfortunately, a highly toxic dioxin byproduct of manufacturing, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) was present at levels not initially detectable by routine chemical process monitoring.
Does MI6 really have double-O agents like James Bond 007? Do double-O agents as shown by Ian Fleming in his novels really exist?
James Bond occupies the high fantasy end of espionage fiction, and I believe that if you understand one thing about the difference between fiction and reality it is that the fiction conflates many different roles for its spies. Reality is highly compartmentalized. As a double-O agent, Bond is supposed to be a hitman. MI6 doesn't have hitmen. In the exceptional cases where the UK government wants someone killed, a Class 7 authorization must be obtained, agreed by a management board and various operations directors, which then signed by the Foreign Secretary and vetted by a judge. A typical Bond movie would bury the UK government under a mountain of secret paperwork.David Shayler, MI5 whistle-blower, claimed that mid-level MI6 officers were secretly prosecuted for a failed 1996 assassination of Colonel Gaddafi - apparently planned and executed without the required C7. In this case they would have used local fighter, apposed to the regime *the same groups who today are targeted by our drones*?Now I'll interject here that attacks on Islamic terrorist groups appear to now sideline this process. They're currently treated as pseudo-military targets and are not being killed by spooks but the armed forces, using drone-launched missiles.Most MI6 field officers are "runners". They operate overseas, in cover posts where they do a "day job" while they manage agents. Think about the term "agent", the agents are not the professional espionage types, they're the secretaries, telecoms engineers, stock brokers and janitors who are passing on secrets or providing assistance to the runners. In the real world of espionage, it isn't the intelligence officers who face danger, its the local people that they recruit, who, when found out have often suffered horrible fates.It has been claimed that MI6 calls upon the services of the "Increment" which is made up of officers who are mostly ex-SAS, or army intelligence corps personnel. These operators would handle jobs that require more from the sharper end of espionage - surveillance in hostile locations, or jobs for which no proper cover can be generated in time. While it might be possible that these operators handle "wet work", it really isn't very likely, not in the movie sense -- perched on a rooftop with a sniper rifle.
Do you think changing your name can change your life?
Recognize this girl?Her name is Chloe Bennet. She’s a semi-famous American actress who’s gotten pretty big roles in the last few years. You might have seen her in shows like “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Nashville.”But when Chloe first began trying to become an actress in 2010, she wasn’t booking flashy TV shows.In fact, soon after moving to the bright lights of Los Angeles, Chloe found herself struggling to find work. She went to what felt like hundreds of auditions across the city, standing in long lines with other girls just like her, hoping for her big break.But no one seemed to be willing to hire her. The casting studios would look her up and down when she walked into the room, listen to her audition, and politely thank her for her time.And she would never hear from them again.For months this happened. By the end of the second year, struggling to pay rent and running out of options, Chloe began to wonder what she was doing wrong.Finally, she began to suspect it was because of her last name. The last name she was born with.Wang.Chloe Wang with her father as a childChloe is biracial. Her father is Chinese, and her mother is White.Therefore, when Chloe Wang walked into casting studios, Hollywood heard her name and immediately pegged her as Asian. Meaning she was a “type,” and not a type meant for leading roles. Or, really, much of any roles at all.So Chloe Wang decided to whiten herself. She changed her last name to Bennet.And with her very American, very white-sounding name, she walked into her next audition passing as a white woman.And guess what? Chloe got the part. A part in a TV show that ended up being hugely successful, and catapulted her into the booming acting career she enjoys today.Chloe Bennet on Jimmy Kimmel Live!Although Chloe did change her last name, she fully embraces her Asian heritage, and has actually used her platform to bring attention to race issues in Hollywood.The question remains, however, if actors of color will continue to feel pressure to whiten themselves as we move into the future.I guess we’ll have to find out.Image Source 1Image Source 2Image Source 3
If Keynesian Economics Failed in the US why are Stockholm Economics working so well in Norway?
The reason anything SEEMS to be working well in Norway is that they have a very small population and very large oil production. If the US per capita production of oil were anywhere near that level, even the Obama administration would look like they were "working well." Norway also doesn't have to spend money on defense. During WWII they just surrendered.
Who is your favorite historical figure and why?
My personal favourite is Hannibal Barca. He was, quite possibly, the single greatest military commander of all time. His tactics and strategies are still taught in military academies to this day. He accomplished a feat (crossing the alps in the dead of winter) many thought impossible, he assembled an army cobbled together from several different nations, with people who spoke different languages, used different tactics and strategies, and formed them into an extremely fearsome fighting force. Conversely, the Romans had the first professional military in the world (ie. soldiers whose entire job was to be soldier, rather than having other jobs), formed from a single nationality, speaking a single language, and trained in the same tactics. And Hannibal butchered them, time and time again.Most famously, he absolutely routed the Romans in the Battle of Cannae, wherein he defeated a force of 80-90,000 Romans with ~half that number, and slaughtered them, killing roughly 60,000 men, while only losing about 1/10th that number. To put that into perspective, the Romans lost more men in a single day, than America lost during the entire Vietnam War. Hannibal was incredible not simply for his tactical genius, but the fact that he did so from the thick of combat. Hannibal is said to have slept where his men slept, ate what they ate, and fought where they fought. To be able to do everything Hannibal did from an ordinary command position, well away from the actual fighting, would be incredible. To be able to do so while fighting, isn't just incredible. It's fucking legendary.
Who is “M” in the James Bonds novels based on? Who is James Bond based on?
Bear in mind that Fleming was quite familiar with the structure and personnel of the British Intelligence establishment in the Second World War due to his service as a Commander in the British Naval Intelligence Division. In that capacity he was involved with all sorts of spooky stuff like commandos and anti-Axis intelligence ops in Spain and some poorly documented anti-Soviet stuff in the immediate postwar period. His op against Franco was called “Operation Goldeneye.”In that time, the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, was under the direction of a steady-Eddy kind of character named Stewart Menzies (pronounced “Min-giss”), who became that agency’s third director in 1939. The first director, Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming, had made it a practice to sign all his official correspondence with the large initial “C” in bright green ink, and by tradition the MI6 director has been known as C ever since. I believe I read that they continue the use of the green ink as well. Anyway Fleming knew all that and it’s been speculated that he adopted the M conceit as a nod to both Menzies and the actual traditions of the agency.There is rampant speculation as to who was the primary inspiration for Bond himself, and there’s a good discussion of that in Fleming’s Wikipedia entry. That said, from the moment that, as a boy, I saw his author photo on the back cover of the Goldfinger paperback (Fleming, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, toying with a silenced semiautomatic pistol) I’ve never had any doubt that the primary basis for the character was Fleming himself. They held the same rank, used the same soap, smoked the same cigarettes, enjoyed the same cars and hotels, it’s pretty clear.