Good News Day

--Died for Nothing,
 Andy Singer
 

I heard the news today, oh, boy,
The English army had just won the war 
--A Day in the Life, The Beatles 

Come on, baby
Jump up
Jump back
Well, now, I think you've got the knack 
--LocoMotion, Little Eva 

Here war is simple like a monument:
A telephone is speaking to a man;
Flags on a map assert that troops were sent;
A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan 
--Here War is Simple, W. H. Auden

______________________

The Big News a few days ago was that United States Delta troops had captured an ISIS chemical weapons expert who specialized in the manufacture and use of mustard gas, a "Chemical Ali" for our times.

Yet despite the Good News of Good Guys triumphing over Evil, here we are 14 years into the Middle East war project and not one millimeter closer to an endgame. The capture and killing of an individual is meaningless effort, signifying motion with no progress.

But Perhaps Good News is relative -- what is good for the talking heads and Hollywood filmmakers and contractors is not good for us taxpayers in the homeland.

As RangerAgainstWar has said from the inception of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©): there is nothing for the U.S. to win, and all is effort with no benefit. Our soldiers are not fighting for our freedom (though they may be fighting for the freedom of the war profiteers to profit.)

Iraq and Iran will never be bastions of liberal democracy; meanwhile, freedoms in the U.S. wane daily. So what is the soldier's mission? 

We were sold The Surge and The (fill-in-the-blank) Spring as worthy soldierly goals. Yet historically, surges and springs come to no good end. Stalingrad, Kursk, the German efforts at The Bulge, the Prague Spring. Sounds good, but they had no staying power.

The Surge was a media event, the Sunni Awakening and the Sons of Iraq being bribed to pretend to fight for U.S. goals when in reality it was Sunni fighters consolidating and reorganizing for their next effort . . . with the help of U.S. weapons and training. Add a spoonful of sugar and the result?

That's right -- ISIS. And the conclusion: all of the troops killed, wounded and mentally unbalanced by these wars were used for no good thing. What do they see when they look into the mirror now?

For a war to be just, the sum of the good must exceed the evil, suffering and death required to achieve it. What good has been achieved since the U.S. invasion in 2002?

Ronald Reagan's question holds: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" 14 years ago?

The War on Terror isn't tough on terrorism, it's tough on the everyday working American. We are spending our treasure on no Good Thing.

On and On

 Some will win, some will lose,
some are born to sing the blues
While the movie never ends,
it goes on and on and on and on 
--Don't Stop Believin', 
Journey 

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again 
--Coming Around Again,
Carly Simon

If they can get you asking the wrong questions,
they don’t have to worry about answers 
--Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
________________

What a delicate madness.

For the folks who now think arming the Sunnis in some pastiche of "elite Iraqi units" might be a good idea (as does NYT editorial board), RAW would kindly point you in the direction of  Mr. Saddam Hussein (1937-2006), he of blessed memory, who led what passed for an "elite bunch of Sunnis" back in the day.

This is not to knock The Times editorial board, as that would be a sucker punch, and we do not do ad hominem's at Ranger, anyway. No, this is simply to recognize the idiocy and irrationality of the much too many who believe this would be a good idea.

Welcome to the Mobius strip world. Whatever you just saw go by will be coming around again, if you just stay wired for a little bit. And this endless loop will not present a good thing, but something made to sow discord and distress in the viewer.

For those who check into the evening news broadcasts, they will see a revolving cast of characters who gain and lose favor with an appalling speed. An eternal return, that is, until you get bored, begin asking the right questions, and decide to check out of the net:

 "The best chance of quickly responding to the Islamic State would be to get weapons and training directly into the hands of Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar.  ... Given the urgent threat, the Americans should consider working more directly with the Sunni tribes if Baghdad continues to refuse."

"Now, under the new threat of ISIS, the politically dysfunctional state is under more strain, and may be in greater danger than ever of splitting apart into Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni sectors. That would make defeating Islamic State forces even harder."

"That would make defeating Islamic State forces even harder."  Are we "tarded", as the film Idiocracy might say? To quote the late Freddie Prinze's character Chico, "Ees not my job, man!" It is not the United State's job to reinforce the created state of Iraq, after so foolishly deposing its leader. 

Iraq might split into three (or multiple) regions? Welcome to 2003. Anyway, as we say in the South, "That dog won't hunt for you," so let it split, baby.

We have our own country to maintain, and this extends beyond the interests of the military and its contractors.

We should let the war gravy train dry up.

A Movable Feast

That's all war does
is produce unintended consequences
--Dexter Filkins, on Fresh Air (25 Sept 14)

The discontent generated in backward countries
by their contact with Western civilization
is not primarily resentment against exploitation 
by domineering foreigners.
It is rather the result of a crumbling or weakening
of tribal solidarity and communal life
--The True Believer, Eric Hoffer

You get nothing! You lose!
Good day, sir!
--Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

_____________________

The Nusra Front "and other Syrian Rebels", Khorasan Group (sounds like an investment firm) and all the usual suspects darting in and out of the picture, donning or shedding uniforms and flags as the moment dictates -- it's a roller derby of viciousness, a hillbilly hootenanny, Eastern-style. Come aboard, one and all.

The U.S. press says the opposition to these "madmen" are "moderates", but moderates do not fight, nor do they win, civil wars. Winners are always extremist, de facto. Good guys do not win nasty wars.

So where will the defeated fighters end up? If ISIS is defeated -- which does not seem imminent -- their fighters will disperse and continue in the guise of terrorists or Low Intensity Conflict players. They are a Mobius strip of violence, the Wankel rotary engine of mayhem.

How or will the defeated fighters reintegrate into any society? Will they be thrown into Gitmo Gulags? Will they have their Masada? Unlikely, for as Mr. Filkins said in today's NPR interview, those chimerical rebel fighters the U.S. is supposedly supporting are incapable of -- anything, really. His book title says it all: The Forever War.

Moreover, as Filkins says, the Islamic State is not a direct threat to the U.S. or Europe. Oh, they might roll over Jordan, and/or Saudi Arabia or Lebanon, but not the West. The unbridled enthusiasm shared by the M.E. fighters is not ours; the U.S. has naught to gain by further intervention; they never did.

In a little ditty sent by RAW's South FLA associate and self-proclaimed bard Rick Spisak, he writes:

And in another five or ten years we'll attack our current "temporary" allies. Those we're currently arming and training as we depose this week's hated tyrants of convenience. 

Saddam, he's our guy, the Shah of Iran, he's our guy, Khadafy, he's ours, too. Assad, he's our guy, Maliki, he's our guy, Diem, he's our guy, Mubarak, he's our guy, and the bodies stack higher and higher. 

Whatever motivates the U.S. is surely not the same thing motivating the players in the Middle East.

Isil Metrics

--Obama Strategy, Cardow (CAN) 

A glimmer of civilization in the
barbaric slaughterhouse we know as humanity 
--The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

A man may die, nations may rise and fall,
but an idea lives on.
Ideas have endurance without death
--John F. Kennedy

--What's that?
--It's a copy of the Qu'ran, fourteeth century
--Are you a Muslim?
--No, I'm in television 
--V for Vendetta (2005)
_______________________

In assessing the risk posed by the Islamic State (IS), the actors must be defined. History, rather than hysteria, provides the template.

IS can be seen as a terrorist group which is transitioning from criminality to organization, to the adoption of terror tactics; this is where most groups end their journey. The heinousness of their actions ends up alienating those whom they would seek to integrate into their movement. It remains to be seen whether terrorist groups originating in the Middle East will buck this tradition. After all East is East, and West is West.

The classic Euroterror groups of the 1970's and '80's never transitioned to warfare in the spectrum of conflict because they lacked the active and passive support of groups like IS to make it to the next level. Terror groups must kidnap for ransom, murder and collect new members to finance and keep the group viable. These activities allow the group to gain an identity while also fomenting a governmental overreaction, further cementing their facticity.

IS is not only participating in these foundational terrorist behaviors, it has captured large swaths of territory against minimal opposition. In most previous terror episodes, the home country (the site of the activity) is on-board with any counter-offense. This is not the case in the zones which IS is now controlling.

The only viable opposition comes again in the form of targeted aerial bombardment from the U.S. This is token violence which primarily serves to animate future recruits to the ISIL cause. The narrative is clear: the Big, Bad Wolf is bullying us again, but we in IS have cause and conviction. Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Tra la la la la.

IS says, we will blame them for creating us ... and there is some truth, there. Not that brutality is ever justified, but the U.S. is a great scapegoat. They just need to show a bloodied baby in  swaddling cloth (possibly injured by their own); the U.S. stands with hands tied behind back by its Rules of Engagement.

It is not even a scratch: IS gains a millimeter of ground with each photo depicting blighted Arab people. Meanwhile, the U.S. stands riven, and continues to toss a few token military personnel into the fray to appear to do SOMETHING, because as Shrill Hill (Hillary Clinton) taunts, "doing nothing is not a plan".

IS is a terror organization which has accomplished all of the prerequisites to transition from criminal terror to established army. Terror organizations seldom engage in direct action against hard targets, nor do they jeopardize their senior operatives, rendering the application of traditional military actions spectacular failures. While the beheadings performed by IS are terror, the group has transitioned beyond being mere terrorists to a more conventional level. 

IS has fully transitioned, fighting armies like those of Syria and Iraq. Their defeat of Iraqi units indicate that counterinsurgency (COIN) and nation-building are not military fait accomplis. When a rag-tag army can defeat an army created by a world Superpower like the United States, it is clear that IS's recruitment, support and leadership are superior to those externally created.

Momentum and time is on their side, as IS is outpacing the U.S. ability to react, and the EU has failed to assume a role in countering them. It seems obvious that the only option is to let them run their course, or to encourage the EU to protect themselves while the villainy is playing out. The U.S. has an ocean and friendly borders on our side. Vigilence -- intelligence, police work / Interpol and the rule of law can do the rest, for us.

Some questions:

• What role is Qatar and Saudi Arabia playing?  The Egyptians? Are the latter Janus-faced peace-brokers, supporting IS violence sub rosa

• Is there cross-fertilization with Hamas?

• Was the ballyhooed Arab Spring the birthplace of IS?

• Why the official fiction that IS is a "Terror organization"? This creates a simplicity which does not exist. The story is, IS has crossed a line of horribleness beyond which even our good enemy -- al Qaeda -- would not cross.

• What will the U.S. do when IS shoots down a U.S. aircraft and executes the pilot?

• If the U.S. engages IS militarily, what does it do with the resultant prisoners? Do they receive Geneva Convention privileges as Prisoners of War? 

RAW guesses that fixating on IS is easier than dealing with our problems at home, which are far more complex than ideological blather.

Breaking Bad II

 

 So we beat on, boats against the current, 
borne back ceaselessly into the past   
--The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald 
______________________

{continuation of Breaking Bad}:
How and why does the fiction that the U.S. is fighting Terrorism continue? This "New American Century" does not demand a "New American Studies" or a "New American Society". What we face is nothing new. Our citizens were wearying of these senseless wars, but they have rallied following the recent Islamic State beheadings of Westerners, led by the pied pipers of the press to imagine they are viewing some new sort of maleficence.

Citizens of our country may think that relations between our religious sects are more pacific, but all that is gone is that The Crusades (and subsequent edicts) bled off their fervor. Islam, however, suffers from no such restrictions. It may be demode to state the fact that the U.S. finds itself in the middle of a millennial fight between religious groups, but there it is.

Let these Islamic nations drown in a sea of blood and sand, and let the U.S. cease its support of any nation not supporting liberal ideals. The U.S. cannot fight a war when it has no sure friends in the region to whom it may turn. 

Our efforts at war are hopelessly hamstrung. We went to "go get 'em", but we fight conventionally and they do not. We have not learned to fight guerrilla war, and perhaps never will, and we lack the stomach or legitimacy for a broader elimination of the threat. What is left if to staunch our national bleeding. 

The reality is, more terror attacks may occur, but by putting our full efforts into a protective posture we can hopefully stave them off. Every attack in the U.S. gave off signals: the Boston Marathon bombing and the base shootings by Nidal Hassan in Texas are examples. The Washington Navy Yard shooting, though not terrorist, was another example. The intelligence indicators are there, and there is where we should put our resources.

Using all government agencies to focus on the Homeland imparts legitimacy and more importantly, interior lines of defense. Our defense would become concentric and relevant to the reality of the threat. Intel would coordinate with State and Defense, and would become the outer defense. Homeland Security, FBI and Justice, along with local police and intel functions would be the inner defensive ring.

The goals now should be not having our servicemen serving as bullet magnets in some far-flung danger zone. The United States is the zone we should be protecting with all of our might.

Breaking Bad

 

 We may be witnesses to a Biblical prophecy
come true --
And there shall be destruction and darkness
come upon creation, 
and the beasts shall reign over the earth. 
THEM! (1954) 

 Comes a time when the blind man takes your hand 
Says, "Don't you see? 
--Comes a Time, Grateful Dead

 When is someone going to get 18th century
on Islam's mediaeval ass? 
--Boris Johnson, Conservative (UK)
 ____________________

It is time for an inversion of U.S. policy, namely of the clarion call to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), "We must fight them there rather than here!" 

"Over there" is a platitude that ignores the reality that the spectacular terror attacks carried out on 11 Sept 01 showed that they were already here, so the cry makes no sense. Doing one will not obviate the need of the other. 

Let the U.S. prepare in an honest and realistic fashion for the world in which it lives, and in which it has lived for many decades, albeit blithely and blindly. The time for hubris is over. Terrorists have struck London, Madrid, Tokyo, etc., so why not New York City or D.C.?

Fact: we should have fought them here (which is where they were), and we will need to continue to fight them here bringing all of the tools of our civil arsenal to bear -- that is, if "they" muster the ability for another attack on the Homeland.

It makes more sense to fight (=address) the low level threat of terrorism here at home rather than fighting the far threat "over there" as over there has proven to be a dismal ball of confusion, conflicting goals and unattainable policies. Success has been elusive, because it is not possible. 

After ten years, the Iraqi Shia government cannot be said to be preferable to any other leadership. Let the Iraqi state fall in defeat. The current government's homicidal policies towards its Sunni minority brands it a failure. Why would the U.S. support either them or the Kurds? Neither action is in the national interest of the U.S.

[Next: Breaking Bad, II]

Out on the OP - LP: Comfortably Numb

 

--Moderne Terrorisme 

THE ANSWER: HUMAN BEINGS RAISED TO SPEAK
AN INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGE SUCH AS ENGLISH
HAVE THE FOLLOWING IN
--cryptic ending to, "MS. Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie,
C. M. Kornbluth 

There's more to life than a little money, you know.
Don'tcha know that?
And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day.
Well. I just don't understand it 
--Fargo (1996) 

Property. The whole fucking thing's about property 
--The Thin Red Line (1998)
_______________________

Being an American today is an overwhelming and frightful reality.

However, tune into the 6 o'clock news and you will see a fusillade of "news" to the contrary: one heavy lead story of the "world out there" will be followed by a bevy of distractions showing you how your fellow Americans are bucking up when their food trucks explode or a tornado snatches the family dog, followed by the final "feel good" conclusion.

Then you are free to follow your usual evening of diversionary programming, numbing you off into sleep. 

We think we are a democracy, but the events of our daily and national lives are beyond our control. When was the last time you, as a citizen, influenced the actions of government through your vote? Here we are in a war on terror, living in a security state of the first order, yet this contradiction escapes us. Life is a text, Tweet or Facebook entry and we think all is good to go.

We are entertained by the story of returning Prisoner of War Bowe Berghdahl, and what kind of a nutcase is he, yet never ask why Qatar was instrumental in facilitating this prisoner swap.

We watch the "civil war" unfold in Iraq, yet never ask the hard questions:

1) What is the Saudi role in Iraq? Ditto Qatar. Since both support the rebels in Syria, does it not follow that they support the Sunni fighters in Iraq?

2) Is Saudi Arabia really a U.S. ally? Do U.S. and Saudi interests intersect? Did they ever?

3) Has Saudi Arabia (S.A.) split off from U.S. policy by supporting an invasion army in Iraq? If so, how does this differ from previous U.S. actions which sought to create buffer zones a la the Monroe Doctrine? U.S. foreign policy has followed its principles since 1945, making the whole world our buffer zone.

The new Sunni caliphate zone being established in Iraq by Sunni fighters of unknown provenance sure looks like the Saudis establishing a buffer zone from the Shia Iraqi state -- understandable, if not justifiable.

Further, the current incursion into Iraq is being peddled as a "civil war", yet for the previous decade the U.S. has denied that descriptor. So -- is this a civil war, or an invasion? Without reliable facts, how do we know the make-up of the anti-government fighters?

If they are foreign fighters, then it is incorrect to call them insurgents, as they are not Iraqis. So who are they?

And more questions:

4) To those who favor bombing Syrian government forces: by adding U.S. air power to the battlefield, we enable the Sunni groups to pull more fighters out of that front and transform to the Iraqi theatre -- how does this benefit Iraq or the U.S.?

5) Is the fight in Iraq really a Sunni - Shia event of a religious nature, or is it an oil - money event?

6) Are the Russians really the bad guys in the Ukraine, and in the Syrian scenario? Ditto Iran.

7) If S.A. can establish a buffer zone in Iraq, why can't Russia establish one in Ukraine? Why does S.A. get carte blanche, while Russia does not?

8) Doesn't the Russian - Syrian - Iranian nexus stand in direct opposition to Saudi and Qatar oil interests regarding pipeline projections to Europe?

9) Why does the U.S. need allies like S.A., Pakistan and all the rest of the jokers we call "NATO allies"?

Sleep well.

[cross-posted @ milpub.]

Assymetrical Warfare

 There are only murderers in this room!
This is the life we chose, the life we lead.
And there is only one guarantee:
none of us will see heaven 
--Road to Perdition (2002)

 Going forth with weeping,
sowing for the Master,
Though the loss sustained
our spirit often grieves 
--Bringing in the Sheaves, 
Knowles Shaw 

 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun
--Ecclesiastes 1:9
 __________________

The military pundits who bandy about terms like "asymmetrical warfare" and "4 G warfare" are entertaining but dead wrong.

The principles of war have not changed since the institutional study of war began, and the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) proves this.

The 14 June 2014 ISIS incursion into Iraq is yet more proof of "everything old is new again", and it shares a pedigree with many previous actions, including those of Quantrills' Raiders, Sherman's March to the Sea, Mao's China campaigns, the Viet Minh against the French, Castro in Cuba, and the National Liberation Front (NLF) fighting the U.S. and its Republic of Vietnam proxies.

A gloss:

--Quantrell was an irregular creating terror and killing for little of military value, sharing the behavior of al Qaeda prior to its push into Syria and Iraq.

--Sherman marched to the sea sans a logistical tail, living off the land while destroying Southern infrastructure, proving the inability of the Confederate States of America (CSA) to protect their deep territory. ISIS/ISIL are following this template, too.

--Mao transitioned from guerrilla and unconventional warfare to conventional, establishing the Red Chinese dynasty in the process. The NLF in Vietnam followed Mao's strategy, too.

The Sunnis are following a similar campaign. They are proving that power comes from the barrel of a rifle, but unlike the U.S., they know where and when to apply this power.

--The Viet Minh progressed through all stages of the spectrum of conflict, defeating the French in conventional warfare. Ditto Castro is Batista's Cuba.

All successful asymmetrical campaigns share similar strategies: they have popular support and interior lines of defense, and they enjoy a support base and safe haven outside of the battle zone. (Sherman is the exception in that he lacked popular support, though he did have an organized army.)

The U.S.'s combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has been therapeutic violence to placate America's need for vengeance, but vengeance is not a policy.

Vengeance is not a principle of war; it is a road to perdition.
_____________


Next: The beginnings of the PWOT and how we lost the war.

There Ain't No Good Guys

 --Middle East Countries, 
Arend Van Dam

 So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye.
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me and we just disagree 
--There Ain't No Good Guys, 
Dave Mason 

Isolation is much less dangerous than the dangers
of being dragged into wars that don't concern us
--Lord Salisbury

 --How old are you? 
--Twelve... more or less
 --Let the Right One In (2008)
______________________

The first thing a young military leader learns is that the choices in most situations do not follow a simple algorithm to a good outcome. This is especially true when the problems are multi-layered and entrenched, often in place long before you arrived on station. Like the hostilities in Iraq, for example, which are not "twelve (years old) ... more or less," but more like 600 years old.

The choices are rarely between good and bad, but rather, bad and worse. Leadership instruction omits this critical point.

Witness Iraq, Syria and the muddle that is United States foreign policy in Asia and the Middle East, or what passes for policy. One principle of leadership says great leaders outstrip the power curve and anticipate, so as to mitigate the negatives presented by a scenario.

Looking ahead, the U.S. in June 2014 has two choices:

1) It can bomb, reinforce and support the al Maliki Shia government, or

2) It can abstain from action, letting the situation develop locally.

If we choose #1, we are admitting the failure of nation-building, Counterinsurgency theory (COIN) and the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) Why, even COIN poster boy Gen. David Petraeus is saying, don't go back into that briar patch. “This cannot be the United States being the air force for Shia militias, or a Shia on Sunni Arab fight.” No, no.

Our policy is then revealed to be the sham it is in thought, spirit and action.

However, if we choose #2, we are admitting the intellectual deficiency from which the PWOT© emerged. This choice verifies that al Qaeda, et, al -- include the Taliban -- never were a major threat to the U.S. homeland as the nation had been led to believe; if it were, we would have chosen #1 instead.

It is futile to say the unspooling situation is the result of our elective invasions, erroneous assumptions and illogical command choices following the attacks of 9-11-01. Whatever choice the U.S. makes now is "bad" or "worse"; there are no good choices.

Do nothing, and the region is destabilized with ethnic combat the outcome. National entities will breakdown as the nations revert to being tribes with flags. The Iraq the U.S. built was not a nation-state, but merely a pale facsimile. The effort is like suturing a ruptured organ too tattered to hold, and reinforcing it will be another hoax committed upon the American taxpayer.

Iraq is neither a U.S. friend nor an ally, because there IS no Iraq -- just a bunch of radicalized tribes. If we bomb in support of al Maliki's Iraq, then we are killing the same people that we have been supporting in Syria. Despite this obvious fact, we are fed the lie that U.S. policy supports "moderate" fighters there.

Uh, "moderates" don't usually carry out armed activities. In fact, all the fighters in Syria are extremists in thought and action. There are no "good guys" here, and it is a pathetic charade to say otherwise. If neither the Syrian opposition nor the Iraqi's are our friends, why support either?

Another deception being perpetrated by the press is that al Qaeda now has an army in Iraq which poses an existential threat to Europe and the U.S. Strangely, some Americans believe the lie, but the Europeans do not fall for this canard.

The U.S. wants its cake and to eat it, too. It wants to call Saudi's "friends", as well as the Iraqi's which we have created. But it is impossible to befriend two countries that are irreconcilable foes. The U.S. maintains the same fiction with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We pretend that these countries are our friends and allies, when in reality they do not share any of our strategic interests.

Ranger believes that the U.S. has been outplayed and out-classed by the Arab leaders like those of Saudi Arabia. We have been flanked, and they are rolling our lines. The man in the Arab street is not pro-American, nor will he be.

As we used to say, will the last man out please bring the flag home and turn out the lights. There is only one good we can see: the World's Largest Embassy, costing over a $ Billion and bigger than The Vatican, will make a great hotel for Iranian tourists visiting the sacred Shia sites in Iraq.

Why Is Fallujah Lost?

The sun shines
People forget
 Come and join the party
Dress to kill
Dress yourself to kill 
--Eminence Front, The Who

 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed 
--Amazing Grace, John Newton 

'fore they get ya chainsmoking;
pistol loaded
'fore they get ya chainsmoking;
You can go with this
You can go with that 
--Weapon of Choice,
Fatboy Slim
_____________________

Why was Fallujah won, than lost? It is a fallacy of conceit. Let us see it through the lens of the Geneva Convention (GC), that noble effort to instill rules of conduct into the act of war.

The GC's are not a quaint relic of bygone days but rather the most evolved effort to separate man from beast in perhaps his most brute undertaking. If we ignore them out of spite or expeditiousness, we have taken a decided atavistic turn. If we fail to comport ourselves according to basic standards, then we must ask why we fight in the first place, and we must surely not hide behind a notion of "helping the people." When what we say differs from what we do, the people understand this.

In the first Gulf War, soldiers gave themselves up willingly to the U.S. hoping that they would be accorded the general civilities which the U.S. Army has generally been known to bestow. This perception changed absolutely in our recent Gulf War expeditions, and that law's detour figures into the current response in Iraq.

The GC's require certain basic humanities be recognized. For example, soldiers -- more specifically, the chain of command -- must mark and identify graves and individual enemy dead whenever possible. This is both military and civilized behavior. However, in recent wars from Korea on, the United States has buried enemy dead with bulldozers and little concern for the GC constrictions concerning the dead. Ditto in Fallujah.

Additionally, we barricaded civilian hospitals and denied medical facilities to the insurgents, also a violation of the GC's. The Red Cross has always maintained a space separate from that of the combatants. Hospitals are not to be militarized, targeted  or denied to any wounded person. Once a fighter is severely wounded that person becomes protected, the same as if he were a non-combatant.

By way of background, when Ranger and his fellows were training as SF officers deploying to combat in the Republic of Vietnam, they received a one-hour block of instruction on the GC's, and a GC card to carry on our person, which basically amounted to squat. No one I knew received anything but eyewash training on the subject.

Why is the government of Iraq destroying one of its own cities? Why is the U.S. providing the money and weapons of mass destruction to facilitate these operations?

How is the Iraqi government's suppression of their citizens different from the Syrian government's treatment of their rebels? Why does the U.S. aid the rebels in Syria, yet kill them in Iraq? They are indistinguishable in a police line up. It is a paradox, a bit like a Zen Koan.

--Jim and Lisa

Is Truth and Justice the American Way?

   Americans want their fascism soft-boiled.
Americans want gradualism.
They don't want a coup in the middle of the night.
They want to watch the leaves fall off
the tree of freedom one branch at a time 
--Media Fascism, Jon Rappoport

Even though the sewer pipelines
reach far into our houses with their tentacles,
they are carefully hidden from view
and we are happily ignorant of the invisible
Venice of shit underlying our
bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments 
--The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 
Milan Kundera 

Are people bad code? 
--Person of Interest
____________________

Coming up behind a vehicle sporting Florida's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" license plate made Ranger queasy.  Florida's Governor Rick Scott has refused Medicaid funds for our state, so reviling is he of the poor urchins who have the bad luck to be poor in America ... but we have plates benefiting our foreign excursions. 

Apparently a license plate saying, "We support all citizens because we are a democracy" with vanity plate funds going into some general social coffers wouldn't be too cool.

Americans must be insane to accept and correlate aggressive, elective military invasions with the concept of freedom.  Wouldn't the more correct description of the escapade be, "Operation Iraqi Humiliation", or perhaps "Operation Iraqi Castration", or perhaps, "Domination?  Perhaps, "Operation 'He Tried to Kill My Dad!'"

The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had nothing to do with freedom, and yet we swallowed the lie hook, line and sinker.  The path to un-democracy is marked with religious impositions befitting an Augustinian City on the Hill: We may attack evil, because we are chaste.  Myth is more ennobling than reality; As Capt. Jean-Luc Picard says, "Make it so".

When did the United States begin replacing reality with myth?  Surely the original Revolution was an act of suspension of disbelief: "Taxation without representation" was false, and the rebels would surely have been hung as the brigands they were if not successful.  But victors write the history.

Have we ever told the truth? Perhaps, but the litany of untruth is long: The Philippines at the turn of the 20th century, The Banana Wars, The Dominican Republic or Cuba (1960)?  Was Grenada a practice run for Panama?  Was Panama a practice run for Iraq and Afghanistan?  Will those two wars be practice runs for Iran?

What about our domestic actions?  The government's violent response to violations at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, shares similarities with the Iraqi operation.  The Branch Davidians may have been breaking the law by manufacturing firearms without a federal license. They may have been producing automatic versions of the M-16. But were their violations commensurate with the Waco Massacre, destroying their compound and killing 76 men, women and children?

An example of our extreme hypocrisy occurred recently when the U.S. blithely condemned Israel for its "disproportionate response" in its recent "Pillar of Defense" offense which killed 105 people, including many targeted terrorists, in an incursion to address years of bombings on their country; severe disproportionality is the name of our game.  We know that heavy-duty disproportional is the only way to fight and win, and we smugly engage in it because we have deemed ourselves "good", and the bombees "evil".

Bring out the big guns is the American way, and we do not even seem disturbed when the guns are turned against our own citizens, forgetting in those moments that we are supposed to be a democracy, which accords all citizens equal rights, regardless of how loony or destructive they may seem.

Because OUR destructiveness (murder) is in the name of good, and destruction behind the aegis of the U.S. government may not be questioned, lest one become a target themselves of suspicion.  You are with us, or agin' us.  Again, the American Way -- my country, right or wrong.  Only, in a converging world, such isolationism does not serve us well.

The Davidian comparison holds, because collateral damage is necessary when people are being held captive by bad guys.  You must break a few eggs to make an omelet. Only ... the Branch Davidians and the Iraqis did not choose to be "saved" by outside forces.  The deaths in Waco and Iraq were not  justifiable or proportional; they benefited no one and nothing.

The point here is, our aggression and will to destroy starts here at home; it starts in the heart and mind of every one of us.  When our government kills our citizens in violation of well-established rules of conduct, illegal invasions are a stone's throw.

And we wonder how we can say "Iraqi Freedom" without a hiccup.

General Betrayus

--We think he looks like Alfafa, 
though "Spanky" would be a better nickname

Tell me how this ends?
--David Petraeus

The power of example is very important
to people under stress
--General Sir John Hackett
_________________

[We at RangerAgainstWar find the scuttlebutt surrounding the General Petraeus incident interesting and provocative on many levels, and so will examine its implications over the next week.]

Today: Officers, not Gentlemen

Once upon a time there was a military academy called West Point, which held as its highest imperative their Honor Code, a road map for behavior suiting an officer and a gentleman, a man who would reflect the highest moral values of a brave new nation.

Many years later, after the United States failed to win its first two military actions in as many decades (Korea and Vietnam), there came a graduate who would endeavor to restore shine to his nation's military by being a part of  grand plan -- the redefinition of warfare, late-20th century-style.  This cadet, David Petraeus, would write his thesis explaining the new way of war for the United States (the Counterinsurgency) and he would go on to pen the titular FM 3-24 -- COIN -- which promised a new and winning outcome to foreign wars by applying the moral values of America to win far-flung hearts and minds of people less moral than we.

In its moral high dudgeon, the United States tromped off to find its success in the woman-demeaning Middle East, hoping to teach them to not stone women for adultery, for instance.  The now-General Petraeus staked his claim on the success of his doctrine and sought to redeem his country's esteem, but all the Brasso at his disposal could not remove the tarnish he himself would re-apply.

True, he did not (literally) stone a woman, but his adulterous behavior is not consonant with the morals he and his fellows would purport to be exporting. He recognized this (as a CIA report threatened to go public), and correctly removed himself from public office.  It is unknown if the affair began while he was still ISAF Commander; if so Petraeus was derelict and guilty of battlefield cowardice by espousing one set of values with his words and defiling them by his actions. If so, he may be subject to military charges.  Knowing, however, there are different spanks for different ranks.

How can a hypocrite win anyone's heart or mind?  Is it a greater good to export adultery or to disapprove of its punishment?  Should not the man tasked with imposing our belief system upon a foreign land not at least implement the best of that heritage in his personal conduct? Is it any wonder the U.S. is seen as morally bankrupt hypocrites?  Maybe there is a corroding worm that lives within our vaunted freedoms.  Maybe man is destined everywhere to corrupt the good he would do.  How did an honor code become so fuzzy?

If we have no fixed moral compass, how can we expect FM 3-24 with its "panoply" of pretty words to export the thing we cannot manage ourselves?  Stoning a woman for adultery is one step beyond adultery only because we value each human life.  However, seen from a more traditional perspective, all transgressions that threaten to unseat the authority of one's culture and jurisprudence are equally offensive.  Our Ten Commandments are not listed in hierarchical order; killing and adultery are both theological crimes.

Further, on the nuts and bolts level, how was Gen. Petraeus's dalliance financed?  Did our tax dollars finance his "bad decision"?

Counterinsurgency and morality should be complimentary concepts. Why could a major COIN war not produce a Four Star 0-10 that could decisively affect the outcome of the effort? [Generals McKiernan and McChrystal were previously both relieved of duty.] Will it be the moral, tactical or strategic deficiencies which will prove the greatest detractor from U.S. COIN policy? Why is the U.S. Army incapable of producing 0-10's capable of theatre Army command?

General Petraeus has now reached the tail end of his teleological inquiry.

Worst Case Planning

"Relax," said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive,
You can check out anytime you like... 
but you can never leave" 
--Hotel California, The Eagles 

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends 
--The Municipal Gallery Revisited, 
W. B. Yeats 

______________________

The recent murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other diplomats along with the release of Mark Bissonnette's book No Easy Day prompt further thoughts:

The Special Forces Son Tay raid was an Act of War into a hostile nation to retrieve United States Prisoners of War.   It was a high-risk operation, just as was the SEAL team assassination party's incursion in Abbottabad, Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden.  The difference is, Pakistan is an ostensible ally, and allies do not invade other allies; the idea is, a nation runs hostile operations in hostile countries.

If Son Tay had failed, the U.S. could accept that fact and the resultant loss of friendly lives, but what would a botched job have done to America in the case of the OBL raid? Could we have accepted a Black Hawk Down scenario, in which U.S. dead would be dragged through the streets of a friendly nation in hideous glee?

Would the U.S. have fought any Pakistani troops sent to establish Pakistan's control of their sovereign territory?  Did anyone wargame these questions?  Were the risks worth the payoff?  Was the killing of OBL worth taking these risks?

Since the inception of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) the military logic of operations has consistently been composed of pie-in-the-sky planning and ignoring worst-case scenarios.  

What strategic value attended this operation?  If the intel was as good as Bissonnette's book suggests, why not just JDAM the target area?  If indeed killing was the object, why not simply put a precision target on the compound?

Maybe the fix was in, and the Pakistanis had been read into the scenario and had agreed to avoid and contact with U.S. troops, but this seems unlikely. If this were true, then they are a duplicitous bunch of opportunists sans straight-talk or straight-dealing. Whatever the situation, the operation lacked any semblance of military logic.

These thoughts pose further questions, "What is 'hostile'?"  Are Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan allies or even friendly, or are the hostile to the U.S.?  How does the U.S. treat enemies, and how, friends?  Can we even distinguish the difference these days?

It is hardly credible that Iraq and Afghanistan are friendly to the U.S.  It is readily believable that they will suck every dollar that we will throw their way, but they will never love or befriend us, and to believe so is delusional.

[cross-posted @ milpub]