As I sit in the sun pondering life, the universe and everything, I wonder where exactly our country is going. Or, where do the people want it to go? Or where does the leadership want it to go? In short, is there a coherent notion of what America should look like in 5 ears, 10 years, etc. You know, all that planning stuff that business schools talk about?
A "Balanced Budget" does not describe America. It simply describes a metric. America is not a balance sheet, it is a people. What is the American objective in terms of the human condition? Is there any notion of an "American Human Condition"?
Orin Hatch seems to feel that the middle class and poor should do more to reduce the nation's debt. I recently was at Montauk Point, NY, where many a vacation home probably cost more to build than a lifetime of middle class wages. Do these folks have the same perception of economic "pain" as the unemployed?
We are in the midst of a so called "jobless recovery". Numbers are recovering, but what about people? Perhaps we are now truly a society of "faceless masses"? Businesses have growing profits, and are finding that they can do so without providing more employment. Hundreds of thousands of families are without wages, but that's OK, because the Dow is on the rise. Numbers trump souls.
If numbers trump souls, has our nation become an entity without a soul?
I find it hard to avoid being cynical.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Captives of Our Bow and Spear
You can take an Afghan to Hell with kindness,
but never to heaven by force
--Afghan proverb
Tribe wars with tribe. Every man's hand
is against the other and all are against the stranger
... the state of continual tumult has produced
a habit of mind which holds life cheap
and embarks on war with careless levity
--Winston Churchill
______________________
Chief advocates viewing the Battle of Little Bighorn as another fight in the progression of events which began in 1492. This perspective helps in understanding the totality of the situation.
Using that viewpoint, let us extend lessons from LBH into current scenarios in Afghanistan dealing with Counterinsurgency, unconventional/guerrilla war (UW/GW) and terrorism. This may seem a stretch, but saddle up . . .
The hostiles in both scenarios did not have a problem in the world until the outer world forcibly imposed progress upon them. The Afghans have much experience repulsing the outsiders, be they Greek, Persian, British, Russian, Paki, Indian, Chinese, American or even present-day Iranians.
Minus external forces, the Native Americans and the Afghanis would do fine, thanks, without the education or whatever the interlopers wish to impose. Both nations (or more precisely, confederation of nations) would be happy to continue killing each other before it became necessary to reach out and kill The Other. The only thing better than killing each other would be to kill invaders.
Following are some ways LBH can be compared to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT):
[1] "Fighting Season" -- both the Indians and the Afghans could only fight when they could support themselves operationally. Where the Afghans gather support external to the group, the Indians had to follow the cycle of nature. Both groups were sidelined by deadly winter weather, but of course, they continued to train, plan, maintain equipment, etc.
[2] Militarily, both the Afghan and Indian War campaigns had the same goals. The hostiles were given a Hobson's choice: Submit to government control or pick up the lance. There is no discernible middle ground.
[3] The Afghan fighters have a force structure similar to that of the Indians, one based upon tribal loyalties and realities. The groups are usually as strong as their leaders. Both groups possess limited ability and opportunity to isolate the battlefield, but both have the luxury and will to prepare the field before they willingly engage government forces. Both are fighting for their survival as discrete entities; neither care to subsumed into their own loosely confederated nation nor into a construction fashioned by the invaders.
[4] Both must apply the concept of Mass and Economy of Force. The LBH demonstrated Mass as the prevailing principle, where most fights in Afghanistan demonstrate the principle of Economy of Force. The U.S. Army must gain and maintain contact with these adversaries, while it is the opposition's job to break contact until it is advantageous for them to turn and face the enemy. This was shown at LBH, Waygul and Wanat.
[5] Government forces used indigenous members to neutralize the indig. The government elevated the indig that they chose either to leadership positions or as judas goats.
At LBH they were called Scouts and in Afghanistan they are called the Afghan National Army.
[6] Intelligence is mitigated: In 1876 intel was negligible to nonexistent regarding the Indians' intentions. In Afghanistan there is so much intel that analysis is hampered. The reliability and validity in both cases is always in doubt.
[7] Concealment: In the Indian Wars, there was no place for the Indians; in Afghanistan, the hostiles hide in plain sight and there is no place for U.S. forces to hide.
In conclusion, the best hope of prevailing in the Afghan leg of the PWOT would be to use a tactic that worked with the Indians: Give them tax-free cigarettes, legal gambling casinos and tell them they are free and autonomous. Facts be damned.
---------
All I can add to what jim has written is that when tribal cultures war with outsiders there are only two outcomes; the outsider is pushed back out (or destroyed) or the tribesman is assimilated and destroyed (with this conquest there is no "or"; in order to make the tribesman into the image of his conqueror his culture and entire way of life must be destroyed, and that almost always involves massive butchery among the natives.).
Anything else lends itself to the continual low-grade warfare endemic to tribal and especially nomadic tribal societies. The skills of a pastoralist or a horse-nomad lent themselves entirely too well to warfare; the tribes will nearly always want to retain their freedom to raid when they want, to battle for mastery when they choose.
The British took 100 years to acquire India, from Clive's victory at Plassey to the crushing of the Bengal Revolt of 1857. They then spent the next 100 years trying to remake the Indian peoples into a Western-style nation. By and large they succeeded. But it took a century, billions of pounds, and hundreds of thousands of lives; both in lives taken and lives spent in the service of that immense colonial enterprise.
If the United States is willing to pay that price, no one has yet informed the U.S. public.
but never to heaven by force
--Afghan proverb
Tribe wars with tribe. Every man's hand
is against the other and all are against the stranger
... the state of continual tumult has produced
a habit of mind which holds life cheap
and embarks on war with careless levity
--Winston Churchill
______________________
Chief advocates viewing the Battle of Little Bighorn as another fight in the progression of events which began in 1492. This perspective helps in understanding the totality of the situation.
Using that viewpoint, let us extend lessons from LBH into current scenarios in Afghanistan dealing with Counterinsurgency, unconventional/guerrilla war (UW/GW) and terrorism. This may seem a stretch, but saddle up . . .
The hostiles in both scenarios did not have a problem in the world until the outer world forcibly imposed progress upon them. The Afghans have much experience repulsing the outsiders, be they Greek, Persian, British, Russian, Paki, Indian, Chinese, American or even present-day Iranians.
Minus external forces, the Native Americans and the Afghanis would do fine, thanks, without the education or whatever the interlopers wish to impose. Both nations (or more precisely, confederation of nations) would be happy to continue killing each other before it became necessary to reach out and kill The Other. The only thing better than killing each other would be to kill invaders.Following are some ways LBH can be compared to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT):
[1] "Fighting Season" -- both the Indians and the Afghans could only fight when they could support themselves operationally. Where the Afghans gather support external to the group, the Indians had to follow the cycle of nature. Both groups were sidelined by deadly winter weather, but of course, they continued to train, plan, maintain equipment, etc.
[2] Militarily, both the Afghan and Indian War campaigns had the same goals. The hostiles were given a Hobson's choice: Submit to government control or pick up the lance. There is no discernible middle ground.[3] The Afghan fighters have a force structure similar to that of the Indians, one based upon tribal loyalties and realities. The groups are usually as strong as their leaders. Both groups possess limited ability and opportunity to isolate the battlefield, but both have the luxury and will to prepare the field before they willingly engage government forces. Both are fighting for their survival as discrete entities; neither care to subsumed into their own loosely confederated nation nor into a construction fashioned by the invaders.
[4] Both must apply the concept of Mass and Economy of Force. The LBH demonstrated Mass as the prevailing principle, where most fights in Afghanistan demonstrate the principle of Economy of Force. The U.S. Army must gain and maintain contact with these adversaries, while it is the opposition's job to break contact until it is advantageous for them to turn and face the enemy. This was shown at LBH, Waygul and Wanat.[5] Government forces used indigenous members to neutralize the indig. The government elevated the indig that they chose either to leadership positions or as judas goats.
At LBH they were called Scouts and in Afghanistan they are called the Afghan National Army.
[6] Intelligence is mitigated: In 1876 intel was negligible to nonexistent regarding the Indians' intentions. In Afghanistan there is so much intel that analysis is hampered. The reliability and validity in both cases is always in doubt.[7] Concealment: In the Indian Wars, there was no place for the Indians; in Afghanistan, the hostiles hide in plain sight and there is no place for U.S. forces to hide.
In conclusion, the best hope of prevailing in the Afghan leg of the PWOT would be to use a tactic that worked with the Indians: Give them tax-free cigarettes, legal gambling casinos and tell them they are free and autonomous. Facts be damned.
---------
All I can add to what jim has written is that when tribal cultures war with outsiders there are only two outcomes; the outsider is pushed back out (or destroyed) or the tribesman is assimilated and destroyed (with this conquest there is no "or"; in order to make the tribesman into the image of his conqueror his culture and entire way of life must be destroyed, and that almost always involves massive butchery among the natives.).
Anything else lends itself to the continual low-grade warfare endemic to tribal and especially nomadic tribal societies. The skills of a pastoralist or a horse-nomad lent themselves entirely too well to warfare; the tribes will nearly always want to retain their freedom to raid when they want, to battle for mastery when they choose.
The British took 100 years to acquire India, from Clive's victory at Plassey to the crushing of the Bengal Revolt of 1857. They then spent the next 100 years trying to remake the Indian peoples into a Western-style nation. By and large they succeeded. But it took a century, billions of pounds, and hundreds of thousands of lives; both in lives taken and lives spent in the service of that immense colonial enterprise.
If the United States is willing to pay that price, no one has yet informed the U.S. public.
Monday, July 4, 2011
235
Funny sort of a feeling today.
I enjoyed a VERY lazy day - my bride gathered in the small ones and let me enjoy an entire afternoon out back in the hammock enjoying the lovely, sunny quiet, alternately dozing and re-reading Carroll's "Son of the Morning Star".
In the evening, our friends Christine and her two sons came by and we had a very pyrotechnical time blowing shit up, and then walked down to Astor playground to watch the entire neighborhood display.
Projectile and explosive fireworks are illegal in Oregon. But not in Washington, so with that deep and abiding respect for the law in all its majesty that forbids rich and poor alike to steal bread and fire off a "Dragon Fountain" in the public street every Oregonian who can drives across the river and loads up the truck with a couple of hundred dollars of overpriced Chinese pyro. The entire city of Portland does it, so there's little chance of being cited unless you REALLY push your luck. But I like to think that up here in North Portland we light up the night sky with a certain villainous panache beyond what the rest of the city achieves.
When I was thinking about the coming barrage this afternoon, though, all I could think of was how much like the rest of American life this evening suggested. I don't know of anyone who goes outside after dark in any particular patriotic fervor, or with the intent of honoring the ideals of the nation, whatever they have become. It is, rather, an expression of pure entertainment, a mild diversion, and that facilitated with cheap products imported from sweatshop-labor manufactories overseas.
My children delighted in the display, and I found a certain cynical amusement in my little daughter's rapture in the lovely night-lights constructed for pennies probably within a handful of miles of her birthplace and imported, as was she, all the way to the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia to entertain a people whose primary accomplishment now seems to be the invention of new ways to package financial folderol and make money out of legitimized confidence games.
But they did enjoy it, and at this point, perhaps that's enough.
I wish I could append some inspiring quote from our nation's founders, some precious reference to the hazard to which they put their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. But I'm afraid I can't. The contrast between the men and women who took that risk, and the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of our times shrinking in fear and fortifying our nation, already bristling with arms, against the terror of a handful of ragged fanatics in the global hustings while casually eliding the poverty and joblessness of their fellow citizens here in our own republic would be too bitter for me to taste.
Let me merely hope that you and yours had a happy and peaceful day, and extend my wishes for a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I enjoyed a VERY lazy day - my bride gathered in the small ones and let me enjoy an entire afternoon out back in the hammock enjoying the lovely, sunny quiet, alternately dozing and re-reading Carroll's "Son of the Morning Star".In the evening, our friends Christine and her two sons came by and we had a very pyrotechnical time blowing shit up, and then walked down to Astor playground to watch the entire neighborhood display.
Projectile and explosive fireworks are illegal in Oregon. But not in Washington, so with that deep and abiding respect for the law in all its majesty that forbids rich and poor alike to steal bread and fire off a "Dragon Fountain" in the public street every Oregonian who can drives across the river and loads up the truck with a couple of hundred dollars of overpriced Chinese pyro. The entire city of Portland does it, so there's little chance of being cited unless you REALLY push your luck. But I like to think that up here in North Portland we light up the night sky with a certain villainous panache beyond what the rest of the city achieves.
When I was thinking about the coming barrage this afternoon, though, all I could think of was how much like the rest of American life this evening suggested. I don't know of anyone who goes outside after dark in any particular patriotic fervor, or with the intent of honoring the ideals of the nation, whatever they have become. It is, rather, an expression of pure entertainment, a mild diversion, and that facilitated with cheap products imported from sweatshop-labor manufactories overseas.My children delighted in the display, and I found a certain cynical amusement in my little daughter's rapture in the lovely night-lights constructed for pennies probably within a handful of miles of her birthplace and imported, as was she, all the way to the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia to entertain a people whose primary accomplishment now seems to be the invention of new ways to package financial folderol and make money out of legitimized confidence games.
But they did enjoy it, and at this point, perhaps that's enough.I wish I could append some inspiring quote from our nation's founders, some precious reference to the hazard to which they put their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. But I'm afraid I can't. The contrast between the men and women who took that risk, and the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of our times shrinking in fear and fortifying our nation, already bristling with arms, against the terror of a handful of ragged fanatics in the global hustings while casually eliding the poverty and joblessness of their fellow citizens here in our own republic would be too bitter for me to taste.
Let me merely hope that you and yours had a happy and peaceful day, and extend my wishes for a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Bad news for American Christians
I'm tired.
I'm old and tired.
In fact, I'm old, and tired of nonsense.
I usually regret going to church on the July 4th weekend because of the nonsense of historically ignorant Christians who think that America was founded on "Christians" and "Christian principles."
What they don't want to hear is actually was American founded on, and still pursues lo these many centuries later.
So, with a profound sense of exhaustion, I present a mathematical equation...perhaps, this will astound some, offend a lot, and bemuse those who wished this could be plastered on highway signs across the nation ala Harold Camping and his circus of doomsday cultists.
so...on to the bad news.
This...
does not equal this
So stop it.
Please.
I think it's inappropriate to say the pledge of Allegiance in Church, I think it's highly inappropriate to equate America with Christianity by the use of co-equivalency measure of "Freedom" being indicative of sameness. And it is outright self-deception to revise history in a manner that is blatantly dissembling with what really is our national history.
No matter how you try, no matter how much you revise, restate, or outright dissemble the United States of America was never founded as a Christian nation.period.end.of.discussion.
I'm old and tired.
In fact, I'm old, and tired of nonsense.
I usually regret going to church on the July 4th weekend because of the nonsense of historically ignorant Christians who think that America was founded on "Christians" and "Christian principles."
What they don't want to hear is actually was American founded on, and still pursues lo these many centuries later.
So, with a profound sense of exhaustion, I present a mathematical equation...perhaps, this will astound some, offend a lot, and bemuse those who wished this could be plastered on highway signs across the nation ala Harold Camping and his circus of doomsday cultists.
so...on to the bad news.
This...
does not equal this
So stop it.
Please.
I think it's inappropriate to say the pledge of Allegiance in Church, I think it's highly inappropriate to equate America with Christianity by the use of co-equivalency measure of "Freedom" being indicative of sameness. And it is outright self-deception to revise history in a manner that is blatantly dissembling with what really is our national history.
No matter how you try, no matter how much you revise, restate, or outright dissemble the United States of America was never founded as a Christian nation.period.end.of.discussion.
July 4, 2011
Check these dudes out. They are soooo yesterday. Anybody think they'd ever make it on "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars?" Didn't think so. Yet these are my heroes. A small collection of men (sorry, girls, it was men only: you weren't allowed to play with the big kids in those days) who literally changed the world. It's because of them that people are allowed to make fools of themselves in public and the rest of are allowed to kind of step up and say what we want to say. There is a good chance that this blog wouldn't exist, that the Internet wouldn't exist, were it not for these stuffy old white guys, the guys that various "enlightened" universities have deemed not relevant to their students' studies.
Ah, but these dead white guys are all so relevant. They produced this crazy, weird, remarkable document and they threw in the face of the reigning superpower in the world. In yo' face, England. They signed it and they didn't hide. They signed off with their true names and were prepared to bear the consequences. Then came a war, a minor war by our standards today, but a major war nevertheless. These guys and the colonials who believed in them actually threw the King of England out. You're out of here, George. And it stuck.
The declaration was actually signed on July 2d, but we ended up with a date two days later for our birth date as a nation. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that we as Americans actually got off on the right foot. And for a whole lot of years, this bold action by these boring old dudes inspired millions of people around the world.
But we don't do it any more. We inspire nobody. We are not inspired, we are old and tired. There is no revolutionary spirit left in our nation. Look at the Declaration, at how brief and how bold it is. We now live in an era where laws passed by our legislature often contain thousands of words and need to be parsed by hundreds of lawyers and judges. Look again at the Declaration. You can read it in almost no time. Same with the Constitution, which rolled out thirteen years later.
This is my first post in quite a while. In fact, I noted that my old friend the Ranger suggested that some of us be drummed from the rolls. Maybe Ranger's right. I observed on FDChief's last post that Andy, one of my favorite contributors, noted that he's not doing much any more, either. This is a difficult time for all of us. I've not been blogging recently mainly because I've had little to say. Everybody who's been reading me for the past six or seven years knows where I stand. Ranger is different. He is a firebrand and I admire him greatly for that. He is Sam Adams or Patrick Henry. Me, I don't know who I am. Mr. Jefferson is a cousin, but I would never presume to put myself in that league. One of the back benchers, probably. But I would have signed it.
An good friend just up and died on me last week. Don Barlow, USMA class of 1957, retired as a colonel and was my neighbor and good friend. Fortunately, he went fast. He did world wide travel with his wife and had just gotten back from a trip to Vietnam. I asked him, "Don, didn't you get enough of that place?" He said, "well, did it for the wife, and I was kind of curious as to how the place turned out." He didn't like it, but he also didn't think it would have been any better under our guys. Don didn't really think that all of our frantic running around the world, our huge military commitments and all of that amounted to much at all. And there's our revolutionary message for the day. Those boring old dudes knew that the nation they'd birthed would be a great nation. They knew geography and they knew what would happen on this continent. Hard to imagine that they would view the events of the past 50 years with anything other than scorn.
So I made a toast to Don, "here's to us, and those like us, damned few left." And I make the same toast to my fellow bloggers and to our faithful commenters. You're a fine bunch of folks. I appreciate all of you. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Radio Listening Silence
Just checking in.
Things seem pretty quiet around here. Nothing new for a couple of weeks? I know that it's the height of summer and we're all lazing about waiting for the fireworks to start...but there have got to be a couple of potential posts out there waiting to be written.
Any of the bar staff got a chip on their shoulder they need to talk about? Summertime blues? Odds and sods? Crazy ideas? Out-there military notions for 21st Century war? (I was thinking about this just the other day when I heard something out of D.C. about DoD budget cuts...why do we still have an entire airborne division? What is the likelihood of ever seeing a Normandy-style division-size combat jump, given the proliferation of handheld SAMs and the dearth of Wehrmacht-style conventional militaries that would force a division-size vertical envelopment? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an airborne brigade in an airlanding division? At the very least, it would allow the cost savings of removing the airborne status of divisional assets like the 82nd DISCOM and XVIII Corps elements that currently need to be airborne-qualified, not to mention the airdrop capability of the USAF MAC needed to drop an entire division. I'm not saying "Let's turn the entire 82nd into a leg infantry division"...but I'm saying "Have we put any thought into whether or not we still NEED a fully-airborne-qualified division and the additional costs"? Small beans, Defense-budget-speaking, but still, every grain of rice...)
Just so it's not anything about the damn debt ceiling nonsense. That entire business is so emblematic of the third-grade-recess level that our national politics has become as to make any sane citizen physically ill.
But otherwise? How about some new ideas, folks?
Things seem pretty quiet around here. Nothing new for a couple of weeks? I know that it's the height of summer and we're all lazing about waiting for the fireworks to start...but there have got to be a couple of potential posts out there waiting to be written.
Any of the bar staff got a chip on their shoulder they need to talk about? Summertime blues? Odds and sods? Crazy ideas? Out-there military notions for 21st Century war? (I was thinking about this just the other day when I heard something out of D.C. about DoD budget cuts...why do we still have an entire airborne division? What is the likelihood of ever seeing a Normandy-style division-size combat jump, given the proliferation of handheld SAMs and the dearth of Wehrmacht-style conventional militaries that would force a division-size vertical envelopment? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an airborne brigade in an airlanding division? At the very least, it would allow the cost savings of removing the airborne status of divisional assets like the 82nd DISCOM and XVIII Corps elements that currently need to be airborne-qualified, not to mention the airdrop capability of the USAF MAC needed to drop an entire division. I'm not saying "Let's turn the entire 82nd into a leg infantry division"...but I'm saying "Have we put any thought into whether or not we still NEED a fully-airborne-qualified division and the additional costs"? Small beans, Defense-budget-speaking, but still, every grain of rice...)
Just so it's not anything about the damn debt ceiling nonsense. That entire business is so emblematic of the third-grade-recess level that our national politics has become as to make any sane citizen physically ill.But otherwise? How about some new ideas, folks?
Monday, June 20, 2011
NATO Nonsense
--Free Ride, Paresh Nath (UAE)
Make yourself a mule,
and someone will ride you
--Carl Sandberg
__________________
U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused NATO of "collective military irrelevance" in a recent speech in Brussels, a long-time stance of RangerAgainstWar.
NATO has been superannuated since the fall of the Soviet Union, and was irrelevant in the 1970's and 80's -- it has always been a legerdemain foisted upon the American taxpayer.
From The Week's "Putting NATO in its Place":
"(fr. Madrid's El Mundo): The European countries (who else would be in Nato?) have slashed their defense budgets, with the result that, while the U.S. used to count for half of Nato's funding, it now makes up 75%. ... Only 4 of Nato's other 27 members spend 2% of their GDP on defense, as required by the treaty." [Pablo Pardo's report can be read @ "The UN, NATO and Nuclear Weapons".]
George Will recently wrote that the Libya imbroglio "is igniting a reassessment of NATO, a Potemkin alliance whose primary use these days is perverse: It provides a patina of multilateralism to U.S. military interventions on which Europe is essentially a free rider" (Libya and the Potemkin Alliance). Will suggests that some legislators are awakening to their job, in the face of Obama's disingenuous assertion that the U.S.'s involvement in Libya does not constitute a war. Fellow WaPo columnist Eugene Robinson asked poignantly in "Obama's Novel Definition of "Hostilities":
"The advent of robotic drone aircraft makes it easier to wage war without suffering casualties. But without risk, can military action even be called war? Or is it really just slaughter?"
This is a question that demands an answer.
There is no discernable military threat to the European conglomerate, so WHY is there still a NATO structure sans a threat? From Saudi Arabia's Arab News ("End of NATO?"):
"What will it take for the West to face the reality that the Cold War is over and the NATO is long past its sell-by date? It might have had its uses and played its role in checking communism. But it’s time to give it a decent burial. If the world needs an international peace keeping force to deal with trouble spots like Libya, it should exist under the UN command. "
In addition, NATO's activities should be clearly defined. For instance, it is spurious to label NATO's actions in Libya Peacekeeping (PKO) since PKO's are supposed to be neutral and humanitarian in nature. The Libyan venture is an undeclared war of aggression, plain and simple.
Now, after a NATO airstrike killed 9 civilians this weekend, Moammer Gaddafi now calls for Global Jihad against the U.S. and the West. Twenty years of grooming "the madman", down the drain. Faint traces of another fouled up "intervention" termed success waft by . . .
"Heckuva job, Brownie."
[cross-posted @RangerAgainstWar.]
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