An Untenable Situation

Americans love to drill holes
in other people's countries
--Syriana (2005)

--Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
--Whadda you got?
--The Wild One (1955)

 --Why do we do this?
--You've gotta do something.
Don't you?  
--Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
 ____________________

In Clausewitzian thought, war is considered an extension of the political process. War is deadly politics.

Here we are in 2016 and this 19^th century thinking is still taught in our military schools and guides our geopolitical behavior. But post-Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), Arab Spring and the lot of it, the dichotomy no longer seems so relevant.

Using Syria as an example: There is no political goal that can be applied to the military endeavor, and vice versa. The military effort will not sustain a politically successful conclusion for any of the players. Politics and military violence are not mutually supportive, nor is one an extension of the other.

For the United States there is no political solution that will be won by force of arms. There is also no military treatment that will effect a political decision. If we accept this, then the solution to the Syrian Civil War is outside of the rules of war and of politics.

If the U.S. uses military power we can destroy the current iteration of the Islamic State (IS), but that will not end the civil war. Neither Iran, Iraq, the U.S. nor the Russians will allow such a thing. Additionally, IS will be re-born under another sobriquet.

The political entente cannot be achieved because none of the players – including the U.S. – can impose its political will short of a decisive war. The problem is that the U.S. Department of State (DoS) cannot achieve a political consensus, and the CIA cannot achieve a military success.

Possibly, I have this reversed, and the DoS cannot achieve a military victory and the CIA does not have a political solution of any value. The CIA and the DoS have contradictory goals, and their efforts are cancelling one another out. Why did the U.S. support rebels when this war started? Lose/lose is a far piece from win/win.

Neither politics nor military action have produced any results in Libya, Syria or Iraq. Iran remains the wild card sitting in the catbird’s seat. Saudi Arabia is also outside of the military – political sphere of influence.

So, why did the U.S. get enmeshed in the Syrian Civil War to begin with? What will the U.S. gain by throwing its lot in with the rebels – any of them?

He Knew From Syria

Today's entry is in the "Oldies but Goldies" category, re-titled,

"Not that he's a Cassandra ..."

Ranger nailed this one two years ago to the day:

________________________

 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Ranger's Rule of Order

  Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the children of God 
--Matthew 5:9 

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ,
think it possible that you may be mistaken
--Oliver Cromwell
 ______________________

The run-up to the bombing of Syria has been full of the usual bloviation justifying the use of violence as the American Way of problem-solving. But if and when we bomb Syria it will not be war, because the United States has lost the ability and skills to fight  a real war with all attendant features.

If we contravene the efforts of the world community to stave off our brinkmanship -- if we drop bombs on Syria -- this will be violence without purpose. Do not mistake the application of violence as war; it is not war. It is simply a flash and bang simulacrum of war.

Ranger's Rule of Order #1:

Adding violence to an already violent situation will not ensure a peaceful outcome.

Corrolary: The result will be de facto a continuation of the violence. For civilians, this act is akin to adding salt to an overly salty soup; potatoes would be a more sensible addition if the goal is to ratchet down the saltiness.

Dropping bombs is not peacekeeping.

In war, violence is added to achieve goals, but in peacekeeping violence is SUBTRACTED to reach the goal. At least, that's how it should be.

Even for a Ranger who prides himself in his simplicity, this is embarrassingly simple to have to state.

[cross-posted @ MilPub.]

Too Big to Succeed

__________________________

In my short life, the United States has been continuously enmeshed in wars, big and small.  The purpose, besides funding the military complex, is unclear.

Are we for Balkanization, or for the preservation of national state's status quo? Are we against secret or entangling alliances?  Have we learned the lessons of World Wars I and II?

Why did the U.S. enter the world stage in WWI? This is salient to what is spooling out in what we are calling the Syrian Civil War. The situation is similar to that of the Balkans in August, 1914 when the Western world tore itself apart over an insignificant assassination in Sarajevo. (Interestingly, a U.S. combat unit presence remains in Kosovo under the aegis, "peacekeeping".)

As in the Balkans of 1914, there is a similar fault line in Syria which could rupture into a regional war. One little spark (like the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi) can set off the tinderbox of the one reality: this is a highly factionalized region, now as then

Did U.S. leaders fail to recognize this before destabilizing the region by invading Iraq? What has happened to realpolitik? For what reason did the U.S. rush in then, and why would they do so now?

Does it matter if their governments are democratic, autocratic, theocratic, Sunni, Shi'ia or any combination thereof? If so, to whom? Of what strategic concern is this to the U.S. government? What progress has been made since the wars in the Crimea and the Balkans?

WWI and II solved nothing; there were no victors, only losers. What did the U.S. gain from either war that we didn't have  or wouldn't have if we had stayed strictly neutral?

Why has the irrational response of war become a rational choice in our current condition? What democratic nation can prosper by maintaining a war footing for 100+ years?

Ranger's Rule of Order

  Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the children of God 
--Matthew 5:9 

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ,
think it possible that you may be mistaken
--Oliver Cromwell
 ______________________

The run-up to the bombing of Syria has been full of the usual bloviation justifying the use of violence as the American Way of problem-solving. But if and when we bomb Syria it will not be war, because the United States has lost the ability and skills to fight  a real war with all attendant features.

If we contravene the efforts of the world community to stave off our brinksmanship -- if we drop bombs on Syria -- this will be violence without purpose. Do not mistake the application of violence as war; it is not war. It is simply a flash and bang simulacrum of war.

Ranger's Rule of Order #1: Adding violence to an already violent situation will not ensure a peaceful outcome. Corrolary: The result will be de facto a continuation of the violence. For civilians, this act is akin to adding salt to an overly salty soup; potatoes would be a more sensible addition if the goal is to ratchet down the saltiness.

Dropping bombs is not peacekeeeping.

In war, violence is added to achieve goals, but in peacekeeping violence is SUBTRACTED to reach the goal. Even for a Ranger who prides himself in his simplicity, this is embarrassingly simple to have to state.

Agitprop and The Underdogs

In our opinion and from our experience,  
there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen  
that realistically threatens the United States of America  
--John Kerry's 1971 Testimony to Congress on Vietnam  
______________________

Aside from being a great name for a punk rock band, the title describes how we live our public lives (when we're not debating whether Miley's twerking is a valid dance move, or whether Mr. Castro swinging in his jail cell will go to hell.) 

So it is heartening that some people are considering what might have previously been thought an imperative to show U.S. military force in Syria. You Tube clips, no matter how well-staged or how they make John Kerry cry, are not sufficient evidence to launch rockets, just as Colin Powell's pathetic easel drawing of mobile chemistry labs should not have propelled the U.S. into the quagmire that is Iraq.

Just what is a rebel, and insurrectionist, a freedom-fighter, a nationalist, a religious zealot and a hoodlum? Perhaps one man's freedom-fighter is the other man's hoodlum. This more measured approach contrasts with the opposite and more typical approach as seen in a recent encomium on Palestinian "stone-throwers" run by the New York Times (In a West Bank Culture of Conflict, Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand.) 

Of course, the agenda was to downplay the harm done, and to liken the many generations of stone-throwers to righteous heroes fighting for the good of the people. (Only one mention was made of the deadly nature of the "boys'" game when the writer meets a woman whose husband and son were killed by stone throwers.) No one mentions that stone throwing is terrorism and can be deadly, and becomes acceptable due to brainwashing and a culture of living on public assistance, and because we love the "David and Goliath" story.

Would that same writer would be willing to write an homage to our own homegrown stone throwers ... in Watts, Division Street, Hough Street, Overtown, et. al., and risk being shown for the patronizing person she is? Unlikely, because we don't cotton to such behavior at home ... people get injured and killed, and businesses get destroyed. It is more akin to mayhem than iconography when it happens stateside. Reginald Denny, the trucker who sustained brain damage from bricks and kicks to the head in the 1992 L.A. riots, symbolizes our take on rioters, which is something shy of admiration.

How incredibly condescending to suggest that generations of stone-throwers are admirable, just as it would be to suggest the L.A. rioters could do naught else in such a racially-biased climate. People can always do better, and often do. To provide a pretty cover for violence -- or to join in on the side of another nation's rioters while not loving ours -- does not bode well for a democracy.

The recent more considered reaction to events in Syria is a welcome change from the U.S.'s usual rush to join in the fight on behalf of the perceived "underdog". Since we are not there, our perception can only be shaped by the agitprop we receive.

War Begets War

 --Miley, what America does best

"Therefore, my Harry, 
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds 
With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days." 
--Henry IV, Part II, Shakespeare

 I don't want you to be no slave
I don't want you to work all day
But I want you to be true
And I just wanna make love to you 
--I Just Wanna Make Love to You, Etta James

Just lemme put the tip in
--Richard Pryor

________________________

We at RangerAgainstWar often employ lyrics and quotations to make our point.  Here are a few for you.

Shakespeare needs no help from RAW (h/t to Chris), but the late Richard Pryor had a brilliant sketch about a lover imploring his resistant partner to "just allow the tip" in. We all know of course that if you do that, you get the shaft. Shouts all 'bout for just sending in war heads to Syria -- "just the tip".  Right-o.

And then there's Etta James telling her lover that she just wants to cook him bread and wash his clothes, if he will just be true to her. Substitute, "I just wanna make war on you," and you have the United States' 21st century version. End of lesson.

But we will ramble on, as it's fun to tell the truth.

The New York Times yesterday ran an Op-Ed arguing for bombing Syria on "moral grounds" (Bomb Syria, Even if It Is Illegal.") We wonder if author Ian Hurd has ever faced having the prospect of having a mega ton dropped on him, and if he did, would would he think it very moral? We suspect that even if he were one bad dude, he wouldn't cotton to the idea. It's all about walking in the other guy's shoes, Ian, something that requires you understand a little about him.

Let's be clear about the U.S. position: We are so morally outraged at the use of chemical weapons to kill people that we have to kill some other people by bombing them ... not exactly Logic 101. Nor is it a consistent position, which claiming for "morality would seem to require.

If we go into Syria for "humanitarian" reasons, why didn't we go into Africa where millions of innocents were being slaughtered? Darfur has been experiencing ongoing genocide for over a decade, but no one advocates  bombing Sudan? Ranger just read an excellent book of reportage on the Rwanda genocides (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.) Brutality beyond the pale, yet which failed to enlist one American bomb -- not ONE.

But let us shelve all this high-falutin talk of morality, and talk common sense. What sense is there in supporting al-Qaeda rebels whom the Syrians hate who hate the U.S. and who are at war with the U.S. in Afghanistan -- Hello? Politicos have offered plenty of stupid and immoral reasons for bombing and killing since the war in Vietnam, but we don't often hear arguments for peace and focusing on prosperity.

Make no mistake: Bombing Syria with cruise missiles and stand-off weapons has no relevance to the welfare of our nation. Not one million+ dollar missile will help to repair even the smallest section of sidewalk in Detroit, nor will our water quality, public education and general welfare will not be improved one iota.

Ranger had an up-close and personal experience with aerial bombardment during the Vietnam War -- an action which was sold as pulling a rabbit out of a hat in terms of its ability to settle an internecine dispute cleanly. Aerial bombardment has never stopped a nation from fighting, when a fight is what it wants. Air power can simply deliver death and destruction, it cannot resolve conflicts. The Germans, Russians, Japs and Brits soldiered on in the face of overwhelming air power.arrayed against them.

Bombing does not shake a nation's resolve, and may even steel it. It will surely gain you no friends. And what if the Syrian loyal forces fall as a result of our actions? Do we imagine they will be treated humanely and in accordance with the rules of land warfare? Are we willing to accept their annihilation as the price of our supposed "morality"?

We have a war machine out of control, and it is so under civilian guidance. This was not the Founding Father's intent, who sought civilian oversight to rein in the military. When you as a citizen risk life and limb, you think twice ... of course the problem today is, only 1% of the population bears the service burden for the hawkish wonks.

So, we will unleash our Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) because we don't like someone else using their WMDs all under the rubric of, "We'll never forget 9-11-01", or somesuch. Dr. Strangelove's got nothing on us. Like comic Ron White says, you can't fix "stupid". If you believe bombing Syria "just a little" is an important "slap on the wrist", that's stupid.

The highest moral imperative it seems is, feed the military-industrial complex ... it's a hungry beast.