Warrior Mythology II

For we must consider that we shall be
as a city upon a hill
--John Winthrop sermon (1630)

When a good time turns around
You must whip it
You will never live it down
Unless you whip it
--Whip It, Devo
_______________

The ever-febrile mind of Kathleen Parker attempts its own mythologizing in today's WaPo:

"A new American archetype, Obama is the anti-macho man, a new-age intellectual who defeated the old-guard warrior [Bush]" (The World Is a Fire Hydrant).

Forgive us while we stand stupefied before the AWOL National Guard warrior king in all his majesty.

So where does warrior idolatry leave us as a peace-loving nation? Our Generals and political leaders have adopted the trappings and mythic evocations of the warrior, and many have interpreted their work as implementing the will of God (Winthrop's City on the Hill). The service publications are now rife with references to the Soldier as a whole man, whose spiritual being is ranked equally as important as his training preparation.

But the same concept of the will of God can be said to animate the Islamic jihadists, Allāhu Akbar. Both sides feel they possess truth, love and divine guidance. This hard-wired conviction of propriety and righteousness all 'round is a formula for nothing but continual death and destruction.

Are we, a scientifically-advanced superpower, so oblivious that we cannot see the implications of our beliefs? In the realm of religion, the march of modernity seems to have has bypassed us. Warriors destroy and kill for the benefit of their society. They die for us, in killing them. However, in our PWOT © the formula has been corrupted.

We are supposedly fighting terrorism, a tool which is being wielded by crazed radical Islamists. Our warriors fight, kill, and sacrifice for us, against the adversary. In reality, however, our warriors have helped establish states that are firmly ensconced as being "Other". This is an inversion of the classic reason to war.

Our military actions and foreign policy have enabled the creation of religious Islamic nations states firmly embedded in the mindset which gave rise to the terrorist threat. Our warriors have rewarded them for their fight. Our fight takes the form of a concession.

The Post-WW II reality was that the Germans and Japanese were democratized and demilitarized because we forced a constitution that strictly dictated the allowable activities of those states. In contrast, the constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan are not similarly constructed documents. This is a perversion of the utility of the warrior who now simply fights to fight, without gaining benefit for his nation. The benefits of the PWOT © have accrued to the Other.

We are not fighting for our own liberties, but rather for those of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our liberties are secure and separate from the PWOT ©, and only stand to be eroded in this fight.

Why does the U.S. not see the futility of its current warring actions? As Aristotle said in his Metaphysics,

"Perhaps, too, as difficulties are of two kinds, the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in us. For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all."

We do not want to know the truth, for if we did, we would be compelled to alter our course. Being the somewhat scientifically advanced culture we are, we can use our knowledge in the service of warping the facts to justify a non-functional path. We invent theories which allow us to deny or refashion the truths to buoy up nonsensical choices. With the truth obscured, we need not change our behaviors.

Where did we take such a wrong turn, while hiding behind the warrior's shield?

Warrior Mythology

--Jianping Fan (China)

We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions - of the world!
--We Are the Champions, Queen
_________________

Warrior Mythology, Pt I:


While "warriorhood" is all the rage among the services, the Congress and the public in general, War is conspicuously absent in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) environment.

Surely a definition of warrior is, "One experienced in war," yet our campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq (after the initial invasion) have been Low Intensity Conflict [LIC] characterized by Counterinsurgency [COIN] operations. LIC and COIN are not warfare, and inconvenient is the fact that there has been no declaration of war. Dahr Jamail points out that we cannot even legally declare war (Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die.) We can no longer recognize what war looks like, let alone what constitutes a warrior.

Why the appeal of the warrior image, especially among Christians who claim to be peace loving? That peaceful countries breed warrior societies should discomfort us.

In the 19th century we forced the Native American tribes to abandon their warrior lifestyles. In WW II we fought the consummate warrior castes of the Bushido and Samurai, and the ultimate 20th century warrior, the Nazi SS. Our national policy destroyed three warrior nations by being Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen. We had might and right, and words like warrior were unnecessary.

The warrior is actually a religious construct, rather than a political or military one. He is one of philosopher Mircea Eliade's hierophanies -- an emergence of the sacred (God-hero) into the profane. Often segregated, the warrior was beyond the average citizen in terms of his stoicism, for which he was later rewarded. All warrior people disavowed death, and the warrior would receive a reward in the afterlife for his defense of us against them.

The animation behind the warrior was whipped up by a potent brew of ethnocentrism, xenophobia and afterlife rewards. Joseph Campbell (Myths to Live By) writes, "It is a basic idea of practically every war mythology that the enemy is a monster and that in killing him one is protecting the only truly valuable order of human life on earth, which is that, of course, of one's own people."

In 2009, things aren't that different. We are caught fighting long wars against those deemed "evil," a role previously filled by Communists or any legion of Others.

The Structuralists would see the warrior as a cultural myth signifying the fitness or robustness of a people. For the religionists, the genesis of monotheism is the progenitor of the warrior ethos. God favored the Jews or the Christians, and survival became tied to cooperation between this God and his people.

Forgetting the biblical proscriptions to not kill and turn the other cheek, since the Jews, Christians and Islamists differ little in their core beliefs it is the gravest futility for them to fight behind the banner of religion. Today's warriors are living a prehistoric myth translated through our major religions.

While Christianity is based upon the teachings of Jesus, after Constantine the entire history of the church is one of the sword and the warrior. Christianity, like Islam, was firmly established by warriors favored by God. This is a problem, as a single God cannot favor both sides in a struggle for cultural hegemony.


Tomorrow: Onward Christian Warriors

Catch Me if You Can

Making love to his ego,
Ziggy sucked up into his mind
--Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie

machismo is not foreign policy
--Obama the Gambler, Fareed Zakaria
________________

The "next great First Amendment battle" will involve muzzling free speech in the case of a man accused of compiling and selling films of dog fights, in violation of a 1999 federal law that bans trafficking in “depictions of animal cruelty.”

Though video maker Robert J. Stevens had nothing to do with the dogfights themselves, his films earned him a 37-month sentence (Free Speech Battle Arises From Dog Fighting Videos), 14 months longer than that of football player Michael Vick who actually participated in the dog fighting, which is illegal in the U.S. (Mr. Vick first denied, then admitted to personally killing a half-dozen wounded losers.)

Two of the films show pit bulls in dogfighting events, and the third, 'Catch Dogs and Country Living,' "shows pit bulls being trained to attack hogs and then hunting wild boar. The encounters are gory and brutal. Mr. Stevens participated in the hunting and filmed parts of the third video, which bears some resemblance to nature documentaries," according to the NYT.

"The law has an odd history. It was enacted in large part to address what a House report called 'a very specific sexual fetish.' There are people, it seems, who enjoy watching videos of small animals being crushed."

When Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, he instructed justice to limit prosecutions to “wanton cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex.” He was concerned about First Amendment intrusions, and the "crush" videos are certainly disturbing, analogous as they are to pornographic snuff films.

But these are not crush films. "The law applies to audio and video recordings of 'conduct in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed.' It does not matter whether the conduct was legal when and where it occurred so long as it would have been illegal where the recording was sold." Catch dog hunting, though sometimes brutal, is legal in much of the U.S.

The Times notes that the government has unsuccessfully tried to ban "depictions of violence against people, notably in videogames. But those laws are routinely struck down, and the Supreme Court has never ruled that speech about nonsexual violence is beyond the protection of the First Amendment."

This case illustrates one of the hypocrisies of our legal system: Bad things can happen, but as long as we don't see it on film, in the wrong municipality, all is copacetic. Bad policy on a personal level, but irreconcilable on a legal one.

Gun shops and the Hunting Channel routinely show bloody depictions of animals being gunned down, often suffering terribly before death, by brave white hunters. These videos are often produced by weapons manufacturers, as a come-on to purchase their products.

Why are these productions legal, while Mr. Stevens's is not?

Why not extend the description of gruesome film depictions of the "intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed" to the brutality depicted in the war pornography of Saddam Hussein's hanging, or that of the bullet-riddled and bloodied bodies of his sons Qusay and Uday, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi featured in news magazines like Time and Newsweek?

While not exactly Oscar material, current You Tubes like al Zarqawi is Eliminated -- which panders to the Limbaugh crowd -- show our hypocrisy in action. We like to watch violence. Boxing is an Olympic sport.

Why do we pretend to care about criminal behavior in relation to animal cruelty when our behavior to our fellow humans is anything but kind?

_________________

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Small Change

U.S. Army Spc. Nathaniel Small, 29, from Rockland, Maine, of 4th Battalion, 25th Field Artillery Regiment, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., smokes before a joint patrol with Afghan soldiers in the Jalrez Valley in Afghanistan's Wardak Province on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009

(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

_______________

A little CI comment gleaned from one small AP photo:

How can an artilleryman without his artillery piece be of any consequence in a Counterinsurgency environment? These individuals are not trained for COIN, nor do they understand it.

The number of new soldiers being assigned to Afghanistan is meaningless if those soldiers are not trained for in-theatre considerations. Numbers do not always yield the result one expects.

If it's a true COIN war, let's stick with Special Operations Forces. Saying these actions are COIN is a fiction, however, which is why artillerymen are being employed.

The Army lacks the assets to achieve its elusive goals.

Zombiefied

In your head, in your head
They are fightin’!
With their tanks, and their bombs
And their bombs, and their guns
--Zombie, The Cranberries

War is far too horrible a thing
to drag out unnecessarily
--John McCain,
foreward, the Best and the Brightest

Ask not what America can do for you,
but what together we can do for the freedom of man
--John F. Kennedy
________________

It seems the war policies of America are being steered by constructed media images and political posturings. The dual rudders of the ship of state are fear and false patriotism.

We accept Afghanistan as the necessary and good war, and do not question the assumptions that incited the imbroglio. Since these assumptions are assumed to be sacrosanct, and have not been reevaluated, then the continuance of the war by a Democratic president boils down to the basic driver of U.S. political life: The POTUS does not want to appear weak, and especially not weak on terrorism.

However, weakness (or non-aggression) can be a virtue, a fact which escapes those in U.S. political life. Leaders who like to talk tough, but never were required to be tough. Leaders who never dragged a wounded soldier to cover, or crawled across a shit-covered street simply to remain in dead space to avoid being shot.

Leaders who never had frost bite or heat exhaustion, never drank water from a scum-filled bomb crater, never were crippled by bleeding blisters. Never missed a meal or slept in their web gear with a rifle cradled in their arms. Not one suffered what McCain called the human degradations of the battlefield.

But they sure can trash talk some terrorism. If they had any moral courage, they would admit their weakness as factual reality and end the phony wars on terror (PWOT's ©).

The present reality of America is a shadow dream.

________________

Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Pick up on one and leave the other behind
--Did you Ever have to Make up Your Mind?
Lovin Spoonfuls

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Like the Lovin' Spoonfuls said, it's not often easy or kind -- hey, we're up against friends. But this is the roller derby of life. Politics -- nasty business that.

Red Queen Metrics

--The Quagmire Game,
Parker, Florida Today

So the red queen is our baby.
Well, take a look at this, kid...
--Manchurian Cndidate (1962)
________________

Joe Wilson should have posed the interrogative, "Is Obama telling the truth?", and how does one discern the truth in our runaway fantasy "wars of necessity."

Foreign Policy published the Obama administration's draft metrics for Afghanistan and Pakistan in its, "Evaluating Progress in Afghanistan-Pakistan." Obama's New Strategy involves, 'metrics," which implies observable, measurable facts will quantify the reality, thereby facilitating policy adjustments. Whatever that means.

Rather than a quantification in the name of taming the beast, why not a complete reappraisal of the logic that gave birth to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)? The war is based on a corruption of logic and reality-based thinking. We are sold wars based upon emotionalism versus cold facts. You are a traitor is you don't hop aboard the war train.

While it is a fact that al Qaeda -- or loosely federated groups of Islamic terrorists -- is a threat to the U.S., at what level? How many operatives act out of AFPAK? Do they have the sophistication to export their activities to CONUS? Can somebody please give us these metrics? Terrorism against AFPAK, Israel or Europe is not the responsibility of the U.S. taxpayers, lawmakers or warfighters. Any threat from al Qaeda does not justify the U.S. war in AFPAK, nor does expanding these operations increase our security.

From Foreign Policy: "President Obama said 'going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable.'"

What follows is a bunch of gobbledegook.

Agreed Metrics: The supporting objectives of the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy form the framework for evaluating progress. The indicators within each of the objectives represent a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures, intended to capture objective and subjective assessments.

It is presumptive to presume that there is any progress in the region. The only realistic metric is the loss of U.S. life and resources in theatre. When indicators are analyzed using "subjective assessments," then we are playing wishful thinking games based upon what stooge is writing the reports.

The report writers have vested interests in presenting best possible spin. They are using a "common start point" of July 17, 2009, based on a previous ODNI assessment, but a complete mission analysis should be performed concerning the necessity of these wars. Why -- not, "How?" -- should be the key question.

As a check and balance on the interagency, a separate assessment will also be produced by a Red Team, led by the National Intelligence Council [NIC].

The NIC check is simply a preaching-to-the-choir exercise. For eight years this nation has been flushing lives and money down the toilet, and our intelligence agencies are down with that.

Objective 1. Disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks.

This objective is too broad and unquantifiable. U.S. policy cannot be so expansive, nor can we defend the world; nor should we want to. The U.S. goal should be to disrupt potential attacks against U.S. targets.

Development of an enduring, strategic partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan.

Why is this the center of U.S. foreign policy? Does the existence of al Qaeda dictate U.S. geopolitical actions? If so, we are being played like a fiddle. AFPAK is not the key issue facing the U.S., yet we pretend it is. Why?

Metrics:

1. Effectiveness of Pakistani civilian, intelligence and military in conducting counterinsurgency operations across the clear-hold-build phases to defeat insurgent groups
2. Level of militant-initiated violence
3. Extent of militant-controlled areas in Pakistan
4. Effectiveness of Pakistani border security efforts

Why is this a U.S. concern, and exactly what trust and confidence are we discussing? How does this further U.S. security objectives? If Pakistan does not have the trust and confidence of its citizenry, that is not a U.S. concern. The question is: Does the U.S. have the trusts and confidence of the American public?

U.S. actions will not alter the dynamics of AFPAK realities. To believe otherwise is an illusion. Our cultural realities do not dovetail.

"Demonstrable action by government against corruption, resulting in increased trust and confidence of the Pakistani public" -- If Pakistan has not achieved these metrics to date, why does the U.S. think it can change their internal dynamics?

1. Effectiveness of security, governance, and development assistance
2. Support from allies, international organizations, and other key players, including China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and UAE

We reckon that our New Policy doesn't much care about India, the subcontinent.
"Coordination of international efforts by the U.N." -- How will the U.S. achieve this coordination if they have not done so to date?

"Pakistani policies and resources committed to maintaining international support" -- Isn't this a Pakistani responsibility? When was the U.S. President designated coordinator of AFPAK nations?

"Objective 3a. Defeat the extremist insurgency" -- we have become extreme in our rhetoric: Aren't all insurgencies extremist?

Get this administration a copywriter, lest they become confused with the Bush debacle.

Good News

Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news of great joy
--Luke 2:10-11

Eighty percent of the people who call themselves Democrats
don't have a clue as to political reality.
Put a little fear here and there
and you can get people to vote any way you want
--James Carville

A Working person voting for a Republican is like
a chicken voting for Colonel Saunders
--Bumper Sticker

Gee, the old place hasn't changed much.
I wonder if McKinley's still president?
--Good News (1947)
________________

Remember when James Carville said, "It's the economy, stupid"? Then, as now.

Carville also said, "If you are on Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, a baby-boomer, unemployed, a minority, parent with school-aged children, a college student, without medical insurance, balancing your personal budget, not a CEO, purchasing gasoline, wanting clean air and water, a 401-K owner or earn less than $200,000 per year, then voting for George Bush is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." Replace "a Republican" for Mr. Bush and you get the gist.

FSU's local public radio, Morning Edition, yesterday reported cheerily that the economy was improving in the state: The unemployment rate had dropped a whole 10th of a percentage point, from 10.8 to 10.7%. However, that is still a percentage point higher than the national rate of 9.7%.

Last month, Florida lost only about 21,000 jobs. Now that's progress you can believe in. Woo-hoo. Only, as NYT columnist Bob Herbert reminds us, this isn't the whole story (No Recovery in Sight; A World of Hurt.) The unemployment rate fails to figure in those off the unemployment rolls but not yet employed, those underemployed and those who have given up. If these figures were included, the actual number of unemployed would be at least 16-17%.

A recent economic survey based upon spring data shows "the recession has plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million" (Millions More Thrust Into Poverty.)

Over 13% of your fellows live below the federal poverty line. For children, the statistics are more grim: according to a meta study by the National Urban League, almost one in every five children live in poverty.

One of every 140 homes in Florida is in foreclosure. The Good News leads one to ponder the unrealistic nature of U.S. government policies across the board. Do our leaders believe that unemployed people living in foreclosed upon homes are actually concerned about al Qaeda?

When one is living in a tent city, the fact that the Sonitrol is not working is of little concern. It's the economy, the mismanagement of which may yet bring about our worldwide leveling -- not necessarily a bad thing, though a very painful one.

Nation building is just not the important.

Mulling Over

She said, my! my! my!
Don't tell lies!
Keep fidelity in your head!
My! my! my! don't tell lies!
--Spider & the Fly, The Rolling Stones

And now, here to tell you everything
about anything is Mr. Know-It-All.
--The Bullwinkle Show
________________

Ranger recently received a response from a smart and savvy reader to the effect that he had changed his thinking regarding the Center for a New American Security [CNAS] -- the "go-to site for counterinsurgency thinking" -- and some of the lackies associated with this center as a result of dialog here at RAW.

We are glad for the impassioned debate which ensued, but want to be clear that we are not here to indoctrinate anyone. Truth has a squishy quality, and Ranger rarely does anything but nibble around the edges. Too big a bite can be fatal, unless one has reached immunity, and Ranger had only received a flu shot.

Our goal is simply to present alternate perspectives, and the reader can pick up the ball on the bounce. Ranger apologizes if he appears dogmatic at times, but he does believe that we must all think for ourselves, and it is only via reasoned dialog that we can arrive at truths. That is what happened in this case.

Sadly, this skill set often goes lacking in our education and our lives. Let's take COIN for example.

CNAS member Andrew Exum's blog, Abu Muquwama, is one of the latest hotties in the COIN online pantheon. But through Ranger's cataractic eyes, it seems that to them this COIN stuff is just a big joke, a maypole around which to party down.

Ignore all the fancy words and circumambulations: The first thing one sees on the marquis of the site is a plastic Playskool-type figurine with a stylized AK-47. From the get-go, one is welcomed in on the little joke: We will be playing here with big guns and other cool stuff. Oh, and drinking Bushmills every opportunity we get, because this is like, a boy's club for the homies.

We at Ranger may enlist Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale in a highly ironic way, but we are not an institute trying to get the ear of President Obama or pretending that COIN is anything near a joke.

Contrast Abu Muquwama with the site of Colonel Pat Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis. Lang is serious and totally adult and professional in his presentation. While both Lang and AM present cogent arguments supporting COIN, each strikes a different tenor. But where do policy makers go to find a dissenting, authoritative and loyal opposition to the use of COIN? Answer: Nowhere.

A successful democracy is based upon balancing the extremes to reach a central, viable course of action. This moderate view is missing in the U.S., whether on the economic, medical reform or COIN /LIC/ small wars front. Should COIN considerations outweigh domestic realities? Being from the Johnson City area in a state like Tennessee, surely Andrew Exum is aware of the dire straits in which many of his fellows live. Where is the trade-off?

The problem is that soldiers, or should we say, former soldiers, or should we say retired soldiers, to include young and old, are acting like high school cheerleaders for phony wars that are leading the nation to destruction. Editorializing in our top newspapers now poses as reportage.

Are the children of America less worthy than the Islamic offspring of Afghan and Iraq? As reader FDChief noted in a comment to the post, Rube Golberg's COIN, "If we want to rule a chaotic, tribal, drug-riddled, Late Iron Age shithole there's always Detroit."

________________

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Disneyland

--American Soldier, Peray (Thailand)

Across the field you see the sky ripped open
See the rain through a gaping wound
Pounding on the women and children
Who run into the arms of America
--Bullet the Blue Sky, U2

We see things not as they are,
but as we are
--Anais Nin
_________________

Ranger muses on the nature of reality, whatever that is. Perhaps the questions should be, what is relevant versus irrelevant.

Veterans often said that the war in Vietnam was unreal: it's nowhere, man -- get me back to the world. Ranger said it was Disneyland for soldiers, and 3-tour VN vet and associate Frank Callahan, SFC (Army ASA), always called it "Oz." (Frank later committed suicide.)

To pampered Americans, that VN was unreal passes for truth. But Vietnam, like every other backwater nation we intrude upon, was very real. We cannot accept a reality different from yet equally as valid as our own perceptions. The reality of the world out there is impoverished.

Vietnam was very real, but we are too cocooned to see that world. We think voting is real, and it is meaningless. The people we are fighting are ruled by despots (we support), so their choices are meaningless.

The act of voting is meaningless when you are a peasant. When one is a peasant, it does not matter who is ruling the country. The reality of the poverty of half of our planet cannot be solved by bombing them and forcing them to vote.

We are a nation of warriors that are actually pampered mama's boys. Ranger was no different. We lack substance because we lack a basic level of humanity or compassion. If you doubt this, sit anywhere you choose and listen to the ambient conversations.

If it is correct that we do not understand the reality outside of our Desperate Housewives bubble, then Low Intensity Conflict [LIC], Cointerinsurgency [CI] and Counterterrorism [CT] will never be successful. They lack a viable substrate of understanding. We live in a Twilight Zone.

Ranger solicits input from younger soldiers: How do you view the world after your deployments, and what role do you see for the military in solving the problems you see?

Ayahuasca, So You Don't Have To

M.C. Escher

For thogh we slepe or wake, or rome, or ryde,
Ay fleeth the tyme; it nil no [will no] man abyde
--Chaucer, The Clerk's Tale

What I am looking for is not out there,
it is in me
--Helen Keller

They have eyes but cannot see
--Psalms 115:5

Contented with little,
yet wishing for more
--Charles Lamb

And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free
--John 8:32
________________

The truth won't set you free; it is what it is. But recognizing it, will.

It was reported this morning that some people died at a group therapy session in Berlin after ingesting unknown substances (Two People Die in Poisoning at German Therapy Group.) Which brings me to a provide both a PSA and our Sunday homily: Know what you know.

First, you should know Lisa is not a druggie. But she's not a Carrie Nation, either. Her mother participated in one of the early psychotherapeutic studies involving LSD with Dr. Wolf in the early 1960's, so when two friends within the span of a month suggested she might try the hallucinogen Ayahuasca, it was compelling. It is not a suggestion one receives every day. Other than going stark raving mad like an outcast from the set of Reefer Madness, there seemed no harm.

One friend had ordered some online from Denmark, but had no idea how to mix it; the other offered a group setting under the observation of a local therapist, which seemed preferable.

Mine is a little story of a short, perfect trip led by curandero Raul of the Peruvian jungles. I will not do it again, as it is not necessary. The denizens assure me it is always different, but there is nothing more I need from this.

The stuff itself tasted vile -- like a cross between Haley's M.O. and Elmer's white school paste, with some small bits of wood thrown in. Having never tripped before, I had no preconceptions. Nothing happened for what seemed the longest time, and I began to think I'd been had, the wood bits thrown in much like the Army chef who crushed two eggshells and added it to the powdered eggs so the recruits could feel like they were eating something fresh. But then, my cells began their decay.

Not a pretty sight, as the flakes were seen hopping off my legs, and I was treated to a quasi microscopic view of cellular decay. Crepey and greenish, it disgusted me. My best efforts at slathering on skin creams were foiled. I smiled, as the trip had begun.

. . . Read more at Big Brass Blog

Please Feed the Monkeys

__________________

It's that time of year where we kindly solicit your vote to be recognized as one of Florida's best progressive bloggers.

Please vote Ranger Against War as the Best Writers in the Florida Democratic Party's Netroots Coalition Award. It takes but a moment:

You are required to vote for choices #1, 2, and 21 then you can skip down to question #10, the category in which RangerAgainstWar in nominated. [We can't help you in categories 1,2, and 21, but we can definitely campaign for #10. You know the drill: Definitely vote RAW on question 10, then scroll to the bottom and click "finished". Done.

Will work for votes. If we win, it'll light a fire under our patooties to keep up the good fight.

Ranger is a friendly but impassioned blog which solicits input from readers for direction and ideas. We are not dogmatic, and are always willing to learn. That is our ideology, our raison d'etre: We'll tell you what we know, you tell us what you know, and we can come to an accord.

If cultured civic debate is becoming a lost art, maybe we can resurrect it here. It's not all about ego, and it'd be very lonely if we were only voices in the wilderness.

Thanks in advance for your time and your readership.

________________

N.B.: As reader Publius points out, the survey will be invalid unless you tick off a choice for #1, 2 and 21, in addition to Ranger's category -- BEST WRITER -- question #10.

So you are only required to vote for #1, 2, 10 and 21. We want yer vote (no one else paid us to shill for them.) In this case, it IS all about us, ahem.

Rube Goldberg's COIN

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent
a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves
--Eric Hoffer

[Clear guidance] and unity
is not only logical but indeed indispensable
in a successful military organization,
but in a democracy debate is the breath of life
--President Eisenhower

"To the Taliban, winning is, in fact, not losing,"
he said.
"They feel that over time, they will ultimately outlast
the international community's attempt to
stabilize Afghanistan. It's really a game of will to them."
--Taliban Surprising U.S. Forces

__________________

The September/October Columbia Journalism Review's cover story -- "Too Close for Comfort?" -- questions the impartiality of reporter Tom Ricks' recent coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggesting Ricks has become a cheerleader for wars he once roundly criticized. And Ricks is not the only former critic-turned-supporter.

Ricks is the author of 2006's Fiasco, which savaged George Bush's war efforts as being ill-conceived and poorly executed with neither clearly stated plans nor goals. However, since 2007 Ricks has affiliated himself with the Washington D.C. think tank Center for a New American Security where he has an office, and he is now a champion of current U.S. counterinsurgency [COIN] efforts.

Ricks attributes what he is now lauding as the successes in Iraq and AFPAK to "dissidents" like General Petraeus, but a dissident never did wear 4 Stars on his uniform. A 4 Star is a playa.

Ranger wonders why he doesn't cash-in on COIN, cheerleading for phony wars and faulty COIN doctrine. The fetti must be good.

Tom Ricks is too good of a journalist not to know the basic flaws with COIN policy, some of which have been delineated by former COIN advocate Col. Gian P. Gentile, a man now on Rick's hit list. Some of the fallacies accepted as bedrock strengths are:

• ♥'s and Minds: It is erroneous to believe that either Afghan or Iraqi hearts and minds will be won by a foreign, Christian-based Western Army of Occupation. If any hearts and minds are won, they probably belong to the pimps and whores who are selling. What is the proof of hearts and minds won?

• Low Intensity Conflict [LIC] and Terrorism as existential threats to the welfare of the United States: While these are viewed as central to U.S. Defense Policy, there is no proof that we are, as the Review states, "[in] an age in which global terrorism and small-scale conflicts, rather than a cold-war enemy like the former Soviet Union, define the threats to the United States."
  

Defense policy should be based upon reality versus ambiguous, poorly understood and often overblown threats. Neither AFPAK nor Iraq will ever be key U.S. allies, nor do they contribute to the welfare of the U.S. -- they are money pits and albatrosses attached to our body politic. COIN sounds good, but how does the American taxpayer footing the bill benefit from LIC/CT in AFPAK and Iraq?

The security of the U.S. is a different creature than the security of these far-flung nations. Threats to Karzai and the Iraqi leaders are not threats to the U.S. These people are not allies -- they are U.S. inventions.

LIC and CT are not threats, though they are interpreted as such by a military and political class desperate to justify their existence and place at the public money trough. Terrorism is the threat.

• General Petraeus and followers emphasize "protecting the local population, rather than going after the insurgents," but what do you do when the insurgents are the population?

COIN has U.S. soldiers fighting and dying for foreign governments when there is no logical imperative for their sacrifice. COIN is an emotional construct, like "hope".

• In addition, no one explains how the insurgents in AFPAK and Iraq are a threat to the welfare of the U.S. An insurgent threat to these nations is not necessarily a threat to America. Insurgents are not always terrorists, and vice versa.

• Why does the U.S. have a right or obligation to impose its will upon failed or failing states.

U.S forces are placed in a position of fighting for foreign governments when there is no logical imperative for their sacrifice. We win neither hearts and minds nor allies, and only an idiot would believe these countries would come to the aid of the U.S. in a pinch. When our dollars die, so too will their love and devotion. Allies are not pimps, nor are pimps allies.

The weakness of COIN is that it is a top-down imposition, while the insurgents are building a bottom-up approach to opposing a foreign-controlled puppet regime. COIN cannot succeed in impoverished environments where concepts of democracy are not explainable to a tribal existence-level society.

Democracy demands an educated middle class, something which has fled Iraq and is in short supply in Afghanistan. Democracy cannot be intubated. Just because COIN makes for pretty words in a manual does not make it realistic or achievable.

Bottom line: It matters not who controls Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan -- the only thing that matters is that they not export terrorism, and COIN will not ensure that. The threat not CT, LIC or any other acronym -- the threat is terrorism.

The entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT©) is based upon a hyperbolic global threat. The real threat is failed nations and power vacuums thus created, and U.S. policy in isolation cannot solve the problem via fancy manuals and COIN policy.

The problem must be confronted via multi-national United Nations action. COIN is simply an extension of U.S. exceptionalism and unilateralism, and as such is DOA.

Regular Programming

Dear Readers:

Been on the road the past several days,

but Ranger will return in fighting form in the next day.

Thanks for staying tuned.

The Chino

Income inequality is where the capitalist system
is most vulnerable.
You can't have the capitalist system if
an increasing number of people think it is unjust
--Alan Greenspan

Women have very little idea
of how much men hate them
--Germaine Greer

An imbalance between rich and poor is the
oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics
--Plutarch
__________________

Our friends at MilPub have been debating the state of the nation's economy over the past week, a discussion which brings us to, The Chino.

According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, as reported on the National Organization for Women's website, "For full-time, year-round workers, women are paid on average only 78 percent of what men are paid; for women of color, the gap is significantly wider. These wage gaps stubbornly remain despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, and a variety of legislation prohibiting employment discrimination."

Banana Republic ran this 8" ad in yesterday's New York Times, selling this timeless classic for $49.50 for men, $59.50 for women. Now, considering women are generally smaller than men, their clothes generally not built as ruggedly and they are paid less, why would their version of the classic sell for 20% more than that of their brethren?

The ad implicates a society in which inequality is the norm, even in fashion matters.

Just sayin'. . .

Pretty Realistic

Ranger Definition of the Day:
COIN -- The tunnel at the end of the light
________________

The News Hour with Jim Lehrer recently hosted the two Andrews -- Bacevich and Exum (nee, Abu Muquwama) -- to speak on the war in Afghanistan. Two former army officers, both smart men with different views (interview @ OnlineNewsHour, "Grim Military Report Stirs Questions on Afghan Strategy.")

Exum is now a consultant who gets paid government dollars, and naturally is in favor of the war. Bacevich doesn't have a horse in the race, so his evaluation is not based upon his wallet. One wonders if Exum is now a paid Department of Defense stooge, or if he really believes his line. If he is so dedicated to the cause, why isn't he still carrying a rifle and serving on Active Duty?
Here is what Ranger would have said if he were part of the interview:

• Building institutions in Afghanistan is not a gurantee that U.S. objectives will be achieved

• U.S. objectives are not the same as Afghan goals

• Corruption and drugs are the institution called "Afghanistan". A separate Afghanistan cannot be built exclusive of this fact

• U.S. policymakers cannot describe the cause or the effect of their policies

• How will building up key institutions change anything in Afghanistan?

• Building institutions must be accomplished by the Afghans. Democracy cannot and will not be forced upon a country

Exum says, "What we're trying to do is build up certain key institutions in Afghanistan that we believe will make that country inhospitable towards transnational terror groups." He "believes", but beliefs are unverifiable, subjective and often faulty. We do not share in his beliefs.

He continues, "I think the assessment that we put forward was -- was pretty realistic." In Exum's Counterinsurgency fantasyland, there are gradations of realism. Is there a "pretty realistic" and a "really realistic"? Please define what pretty realistic means -- sounds like a description of historical fiction.

Ranger wonders why this critical Afghanistan report was written by soldiers and government tit suckers rather than the State Department. Shouldn't nation building be a State Department function, or is that even an institution of any relevance in our phony little world?

One must also wonder how a man of brilliance like Bacevich ended up as only an O-6. This speaks volumes about the modern action Army promotion selection process.

Bang Your Head

We’re lousy at recognizing when our normal
coping mechanisms aren’t working.
Our response is usually to do it five times more,
instead of thinking, maybe it’s time to try something new
--Vicious Stress Loop, Dr. Robert Sapolsky
_______________

Few would argue we have had a stressful eight years. Maybe as Dr. Sapolsky suggests, we are hardwired like hamsters running their wheels. Perseveration is the behaviorist's term for uncontrollable repetition; maybe the U.S. has turned into a nation of perseverationists.

Debate is broadening concerning the presumed imperative nature of the War in Afghanistan -- the once Good War gone bad.

President Obama will deploy 68,000 American troops there by year’s end, and calls Afghanistan"'a war of necessity' to prevent the Taliban from recreating for Al Qaeda the sanctuary that it had in the 1990s" (Crux of Afghan Debate: Will More Troops Curb Terror?).

Clearly the Taliban are radical Islamists that provide a safe haven for the Al Qaeda operatives. Clearly the 9-11 hijackers received military training in Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. What is lost in translation is: The skills learned in these camps had absolutely nothing to do with the success of the attacks carried out on 9-11.

The ability to shoot an AK-47 and throw hand grenades is moot. These operatives were sophisticated well beyond training camp standards. Their trade craft was gleaned in the West. In addition, Afghans are conspicuously missing as terrorists on the world scene. Simply: The problem is Al Qaeda, and not the Taliban.

The Times story continues, "[counterterrorism experts] point out, the CIA has killed more than a dozen top Qaeda leaders in the lawless Pakistani tribal areas, disrupting the terrorists’ ability to plot and carry out attacks against the United States and Europe." But how do we know the dead are actually Al Qaeda operatives, and not simply Taliban personnel? The two entities are not necessarily interchangeable.

"The administration’s “clear, hold, build” strategy is meant to win over Afghans. It is based on the counterinsurgency principle of protecting the population — or, in this case, at least Afghan population centers — to win confidence and support, before isolating remaining insurgents to be killed or captured. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have maintained that the United States cannot fight terrorists from afar."

U.S. policy is to isolate then kill or capture remaining insurgents, but we have never figured out what to do with those we capture, because we are short on clarifications -- because insurgents are not necessarily terrorists (though that is what the briefcase-toting, money-sucking experts would lead us to believe.)

It is absurd to be killing Afghani insurgents because there might be a chance that their deaths might save an American life. Why are Afghani lives less valuable than American lives?

Terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says, "the success of strikes from Predators in killing Qaeda suspects in Pakistan depended on accurate information on terrorists’ whereabouts from Pakistani intelligence. In Afghanistan, without such sources, 'we’d be flying blind'."

Basing Predator targeting on Paki intelligence is a joke -- why would U.S. officials believe anything they tell us? This is reminiscent of the old War on Drugs tactic where a little dealer is sacrificed and the DEA agents claim strategic success. If intel is not A-1 and confirmed by U.S. sources, we are fooling ourselves with phony successes in a phony war.

Speaking for many advocates of an interminable war, Hoffman continues his fantastical thinking with, "Disengagement from Afghanistan could destabilize Pakistan and 'guarantee' a future attack on the United States from the region." This is reminiscent of a Domino Theory war in which Ranger served.

The entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is based upon unverifiable beliefs and faulty assumptions regarding the nature of the threat. Al Qaeda is a threat, but not one which will be resolved via extensive military action.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal opined, "The simplistic case for NATO's mission in Afghanistan is that it's the country that harbored al Qaeda when the plans for 9/11 were hatched. ... But Afghanistan matters not because that's where 9/11 was conceived. It matters because that's where it was imagined (The Afghan Stakes)." Now there's a reason to attack a nation -- because someone had a thought to do something bad.

The question really is, "Who had that thought?" The answer, probably an Al Qaeda member. That requires finding the persons who had that thought, an operation better done with a fillet knife than a sledgehammer.

Unfortunately, as Andrew Bacevich said, "despite the Obama administration’s assertions that it has a new approach, 'the truth is they want to try harder to do what we’ve been doing for the last eight years.'" Perseverationsists are us.