"The enemy [always/also] has a vote."

[Jonathan Lighter]

According to GB, it even appears in the 2005 _Firefighter's Handbook on
Wildland Firefighting_, where wildfire is "the enemy."

JL

On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      "The enemy [always/also] has a vote."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Mot on YBQ or DMP, this  military maxim observes that the enemy's decisions
> and actions can (and will) throw various-sized monkey-wrenches into the
> best-laid strategic and tactical plans
>
> Clausewitz , among other, also realized this, but he wasn't quite as adept
> with a quip.
>
> The earliest GB snippet is very early, but ref. to the "War Production
> Board" places it in the right time frame:
>
> 1943 _Army Ordnance_ XXIV 511: The enemy has a vote on where, when, and how
> we fight.
>
> After that, nothing till this:
>
> 2002 [U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations] _Afghanistan: Building
> Stability, Avoiding Chaos_ (Washington, D.C.: USGPO) 50 [GB: not
> verified]:=
>  In
> Afghanistan's case this is a long run. The enemy has a vote on when victory
> is decisive. We are not fighting a nation state; in this case, the enemy is
> a terrorist organization =97 who decides on surrender? Who decides they are
> defeated?
>
> Since then, 429,000 raw Google hits.
>
> JL
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org