Picky Picky
Red rover, red rover, send
air strikes right over
--British Bulldog, game
But you're not talking to a soldier now,
you're talking to an expedition. I'm an expedition!
--Gunga Din (1939)
What we have here? A bunch of fig-eaters wearing towels
on their heads,trying to find reverse in a Soviet tank.
This is not a worthy adversary.
--The Big Lebowski (1998)
______________
air strikes right over
--British Bulldog, game
But you're not talking to a soldier now,
you're talking to an expedition. I'm an expedition!
--Gunga Din (1939)
What we have here? A bunch of fig-eaters wearing towels
on their heads,trying to find reverse in a Soviet tank.
This is not a worthy adversary.
--The Big Lebowski (1998)
______________
Continuing Air Force week comes this from an article on the ROVER program (Litening-AT targeting pods) in "Lifting the Fog of War" in Citizen Airman, April 2008:
This is a statement of the actuality of the GWOT [Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)] which is never officially acknowledged: the PWOT has evolved into counter-insurgency.
The U.S. military is being used to subject and force the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan to bend to our will. If they do not do so, then send in the A-10's.
The wild blue yonder meets Gunga Din.
As the Global War on Terror evolved into counter-insurgency operations, the importance of hyper-precise airstrikes and minimizing collateral damage demonstrated the need for a tool like ROVER to aid in the decisions to release weapons from aircraft, Colonel Arthur said.
This is a statement of the actuality of the GWOT [Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)] which is never officially acknowledged: the PWOT has evolved into counter-insurgency.
The U.S. military is being used to subject and force the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan to bend to our will. If they do not do so, then send in the A-10's.
The wild blue yonder meets Gunga Din.
Labels: gwot, gwot as counterinsurgency, phony war on terror, PWOT, rover program
posted by rangeragainstwar at 4:25 PM
2 Comments:
And of course dropping bombs has proven just sooo useful in counter-insurgency operations over the past fifty years...
Err, or not. I haven't heard of any insurgency ever stopped by dropping bombs, whether we're talking the Khmer Rouge, the VC, the mujahdeen, the UPA, or crap, the Bohr War while I'm thinking about it. The only way to kill an insurgency is to kill the sea of civilians in which it hides, either via polluting it with so many secret agents that whenever three insurgents gather two are spies (this also requires a massive hearts-and-minds campaign to gain the support of the majority of the population, else the spies themselves have no sea of civilians to swim in), deportation to concentration camps, or extermination. Bombs can stop insurgencies from massing forces and attaining tactical victories, but you'll never exterminate an insurgency with bombs.
But that, of course, is a truth that our civilian leaders don't understand. Indeed, I'm starting to wonder whether some of our military leaders understand it... surely they, too, have examined the same historical record as I. Surely they cannot all be blind?
badtux,
and the war goes on.....and on..... jim
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