A Static Display of Impotence

--Dollar Operation, Arend van Dam

How can I bear unaided the trouble of you,
and the burden, and the bickering!
--Deuteronomy 1:12

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy
that our country is now geared to an arms economy
which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis
of war hysteria and nurtured upon
an incessant propaganda of fear
--Gen. Douglas MacArthur

There can be economy
only where there is efficiency
--Benjamin Disraeli
___________________

The recent debt ceiling debate and budget cut proposals led Ranger to think about the Principles of War and how they were violated in the last several weeks.

Ticking off the list:

MASS: This fight could not place the combat power at the decisive place and time; it was an exercise in futility. The decisive battle should not be about caps and cuts but rather, how do we stem the economic assault on our defensive position? We are re-acting when we should be acting. The entire debt limit discussion was an admission of defeat.

OBJECTIVE: There was not a clearly-defined, decisive or attainable objective. Just as with the present U.S. Counterinsurgency (COIN) policy, the negotiation gave more credence to politics than to attainable objectives. The objective was not reached because it was obscured by smoke.

OFFENSIVE: Neither political party maintained or achieved the initiative.

SURPRISE: Both parties put all their assets forward, leaving them with nothing in reserve (which also affected their maneuver plan.)

ECONOMY OF FORCE: Ditto above regarding surprise. Additionally secondary efforts were ignored and never prioritized. Not discussed were balance of trade, loss of jobs, balance of dollars leaving our shores, loss of industry and weak economic white papers. Nope -- we just focused on borrowing more, slashing and burning more.

MANEUVER: Both sides were totally dug-in defending in zone with no demonstrable mobile warfare. Neither side possessed the combat power essential to overrun the opposing side. It was a static display of impotence.

UNITY OF COMMAND: One would assume the President would be the responsible commander, but this oversimplifies the situation. Obama should have stated his commander's guidance, but allowed the maneuver commanders to formulate their respective Operations orders. By placing himself on the battlefield he ignored the subordinate chain of command. In addition, his presence stiffened the opposition to an unacceptable intransigence.

SECURITY: There can be no unexpected advantages in this altercation because we had already lost our freedom of movement and would win or lose with the forces committed. This hardly describes the concept of security.

SIMPLICITY: Simplicity was violated because the principle of objective was ignored. The leaders preferred to ignore this principle to the detriment of the goals of the operation.

In a recent Time essay, "How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality," Fareed Zakaria bemoans the intransigence of today's conservatives, saying they have lost their touchstone of "reality" in exchange for reactive policies which ignore the truths on the ground. For instance, they failed to recognize that, "(t)axes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950":

"The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes."

So the can has been kicked down the road; Ranger hasn't any faith that the next group of mutton-heads will apply the simple and infallible Principles to their effort.

Everyone says they love the military, yet they cannot apply some simple procedures to their policy-making processes.

A Fine Kessel of Fish

--American Economy, Osama Hajjaj

It's a tragedy
It's a strategy
To prey on contrast
To not indulge fact
Divide, conquer, subcontract
--Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington D.C.,
Anti-Flag

Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing
Or find a new town
--Strange Days, The Doors

Everybody's talking
and no one says a word
Everybody's making love
and no one really cares
--Nobody Told Me, John Lennon
________________

In World War II, the German Army fought battles called kessels, or "cauldron battles" -- not the greatest fighting position.

Kessels were characterized by a loss of movement and maneuver after decisive commitment, Stalingrad being a prime example: The troops would fight to the last round, then fix bayonets for the final, glorious, assault. We all know how that worked out -- heckuva job, Heinie!

But lo, it looks like our Executive and Legislative branches in Washington are fighting their own cauldron battle after being bypassed and surrounded by economic forces that are whipping them and us just as badly as the Russians whipped the Nazis in 1943-45.

The Battle of the Cauldron 2011 will not solve any of our problems or add to our ability to maneuver back to a position within a secure battle line. Our leaders are aiming friendly fire at divergent elements within the kessel. The enemy is romping and stomping past them in columns of hordes, yet they prefer to direct their fire inwards, a stance so contrary to soldierly behavior as to defy the imagination.

The kessel that we call the budget cap talks is as irrelevant to the daily lives of Americans as is the memory of Stalingrad. It doesn't matter if we raised the debt cap; that is collateral to the primary issue. It doesn't matter if we tax the rich to the benefit of the lower classes or vice versa. The U.S. debt ceiling does not limit debt.

The budget cap does not address that which affects our daily lives, which is the diminution of our freedoms and our economic well-being. Leaving the debt ceiling in place does not get us out of the cauldron -- it just pushes the day of reckoning down the line. The debt has risen exponentially since the George Bush administration; it will still balloon, simply at a slower pace . . . to a time past the 2012 elections, when another "cast of characters is sent back to Sodom to do the people’s business." (The Debt Deal: Disaster Averted, Decline Straight Ahead).

The issues are so immense that we ignore them while entertaining ourselves with meaningless diversions. The U.S. is like the German Army of 1943 on the Russian Front: We are about to be forced on the strategic defensive, while our leaders prefer to fight battles that cannot be won or stem the tide.

Untruth or Consequences

Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment
to an insane world
--R. D. Laing

We are here to awaken from
our illusion of separateness
--Thich Nhat Hanh

Insanity is the only sane reaction
to an insane society
--Thomas Szasz
__________________

How to maintain sanity in a insane world? Can we maintain sanity only by accepting insanity as our daily ration of reality?

An example is the current brinksmanship over a few trillion dollars and the debt ceiling, as though our existence hinged upon this amount. We languish while a recent Brown University study estimates the final bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures at $3.7 to 4,4 trillion (and the fat lady is not gonna sing anytime soon.)

Buried in yesterday's Wall Street Journal was a comment that NATO will continue bombing Libya because Muammer Qadaffi has no legitimacy. Did Qadaffi ever have legitimacy in this or any other arena? If then, why not know?

Page Two explains that Afghan President Karzai quickly appointed another half-brother, Shah Wali, to replace the government post vacated by his now dead half-brother Ahmed Wali (Karzai Appoints Brother in Kandahar). It seems the endless supply of Wallys will secure the Karzai's control of the Kandahar region. Now that is democracy in action; thank you, America!

So, we are bombing the hell out of Libya because its leader lacks legitimacy, while concomitantly supporting the illegitimacy of one of the most corrupt governments on the face of the earth. In one scenario we kill to oppose illegitimacy; in another, we kill to support it.

Why do Americans grind their teeth over the debt cap while having no difficulty throwing away $trillions in foreign shit holes?

Where is the sanity? After taking my meds and settling into my Ikea Poang chair, the idea hit Ranger like a ton of bricks: "What's the big deal?" It was not exactly a Thich Nanh Hanh moment, but it was clarity nonetheless. So some drug-dealing, nepotistic person is getting one over on all of us taxpaying U.S. citizens paying for a hypocritical, insane war. What do I care, except that we are back to $trillions spent and a whole lot of people fucked up in the process, which in my book is a good approximation of national insanity.

Didn't we do a similar tango here in Florida in the 2000 Presidential lotto? In our version, Governor Jeb Bush handed the presidency to his brother George W. Bush. Again, what is the big deal? A lot of sound and fury, but the result is a foregone conclusion. How can we criticize the Karzai cabal (Kabul) when the U.S. uses the same playbook?

Even here amongst my esteemed fellows, we discuss strategy, logic and leadership as though they are present for duty in the National Command Authority. Perhaps those are not logical assumptions.

Insanity may be a coping strategy in America today.

[cross-posted @ RangerAgainstWar]