RANGER AGAINST WAR: Goat Ropin' <

Monday, December 21, 2009

Goat Ropin'


What the fuck is there for us in Afghanistan
except goats and the men who love them?

--Gordon, at
Alternate Brain

Mares eat oats and does eat oats,

and little lambs eat ivy;

a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?

--Mairzy Dotes
, Drake/Hoffman/Livingston
______________

The new bill of goods being sold to the U.S. taxpaying bots is the Strategy Change in this, the United States of the Phony War on Terror (USPWOT ©).

Yes, we know it's morphed from a GWOT, TWOT or a WOT. However, the strategies underpinning the continued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to be based upon GWOT strategic thinking, or what passes for strategic thinking (see seydlitz89's deconstruction of Gian Gentile's position paper on this matter at MilPub)
, so the outcome will not be different.

The reasoning supporting the PWOT © is faulty and violates the Principles of War. The new strategy, like the old, is doomed to military, political and economic failure because it ignores the basic principles.
Simply: Any military or political endeavor that expends precious U.S. assets must pay off with a quantifiable dividend for our nation (not theirs). One does not fight for emotional, feel-good slogans.

Warfare is based upon rules and reality. The reality is survival, dominance, and the subjection of rivals. Even the Bible supports this approach.
Fighting has a social and military aspect. Military operations affect social development, so what are we doing in Afghanistan? We don't want to steal their women, and it's not for the goats.

The principles of war evolved from primitive intelligence and are as applicable today as they were at the time of their development. Forget 4GW and asymmetrical warfare and all the other cute new terms.
War has always been asymmetrical and the principles remain the same, whether one's goal is to steal women, goats, horses or countries. Wars are not fought to destroy countries, but rather to convert assets to your benefit.

Two of the main principles the U.S. is violating -- whether one views the wars as counterinsurgency or conventional warfare -- are failing to define the MISSION and OBJECTIVE. What are the benefits
to us in our current theatres? Furthermore, what is the validity and purpose of our worldwide troop deployments?

It is clear that NATO is OBE, and that the European Union has no viable external enemies which threaten them on any level. It is laughable to claim the Taliban as a threat to NATO; ditto, Iran.


The U.S. is not the world's savior. Let's accept this comedown from our messiah complex, and allow other nations the luxury of expending their own money to protect their interests,
a job not in the prospectus of the U.S. taxpayer.

Let Europe, Japan and Korea carry their own weight by expending their resources and getting out from under the U.S. funding/troop umbrella. While this approach may have been valid in 1950, it is no longer realistic or palatable in 2009.


It is hypocritical to ask Russia, North Korea and Iran to pull in their horns when we are unwilling to do the same.

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12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

We don't need no stinkin' goats!

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/oil.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8407274.stm

Monday, December 21, 2009 at 1:06:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks A for the link, later Rader Satellite showed minerals/oil also. The part I love in all of this, it was plan to end Russia hold on NG to Europe, of course then they would owe the US. Then China came into play and is building a pipe line above A and their doing it the old fashion way paying for it with $, jobs, and an all weather road through the region this will allow food to move in this area also. I guess they forgot about Gunboat Diplomacy after Boxer War.
jo6pac
Thanks Jim

Monday, December 21, 2009 at 7:15:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just when you think it can't get any worse it always does. Here Ranger is more Tech that will truely fail but lines the pockets of the chosen ones doing doing gods work is what the head of gs said lately.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCH7kfwvmw6M&pos=9

jo6pac

Monday, December 21, 2009 at 7:46:00 PM EST  
Blogger Ghost Dansing said...

we didn't listen to Eisenhower. we are what he warned we might become.... suzy snowflake

Monday, December 21, 2009 at 8:50:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@ Ghost Dansing The Military Industrial Complex Speech. Especially Para. IV & V
seems very relevant to our story so far.

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 1:13:00 PM EST  
Blogger Gordon said...

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well, Lisa. Yes, we are friends. I'm not so much a left-winger as I am an anti-right-winger. I cannot speak for anyone besides myself on that.

My 'goat' line has gotten around pretty good! I actually swiped it from a local rug merchant's TV commercials - "Our rugs come from a land where men are fond of their sheep and goats".

Me? Famous? Infamous is more like it!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 2:15:00 PM EST  
Blogger Lisa said...

Gordon,

'Twas a brilliant line! You and I are on the same page far as being anti-Right-winger. I just want what's best for my country, and the Right's drivel is killing it.

I'm with Lennon: "Just Gimme Some Truth."

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 2:22:00 PM EST  
Blogger The Minstrel Boy said...

i'm sure there is a reason lurking somewhere. even if that reason is plain old arrogance and stupidity.

there are still folks (some of them serving military) who will, after i've run down history's listings of folks who marched in with bugles, flags, and all kind of pomp and arrogance, only to find themselves very lucky to escape with their asses. as soon as i'm done they say something along the lines of

"well they haven't seen the likes of us..."

hoooly sayntid muthera swate swetting jayzus.

when alexander went into his afghan campaign he knew full well that cyrus the great had tried to go through afghanistan in order to open trade with india and was stopped cold near today's baghram.

by the time alexander had reached kandahar (which was a local dialect rendering of "alexandria") his tactics had degenerated into sheer slaughter of every living thing his army could come across.

as a final measure he began to settle the area with captured women and his veterans. his plan was to have the macedonians and other greeks marry, settle in towns and bring the blessings of greek civilization to the poor benighted wogs.

several generations later the afghan situation was still revolving around tribes and warlords. ain't much been changed since.

every would be conqueror of the afghans says "i'm not like alexander..cyrus...gordon...gengis...babur..."

and they all get their hats handed to them.

it might have been blind arrogance and stupidity that led us into this shitstorm. it might be something to do with the pipeline from the oil fields of the 'stans that halliburton was trying, with bribes and other clean negotiations, to work out when cheney was their CEO.

thing is, we'll never fucking know the why. there has never been a good explanation of any of the reasons or goals.

it's not like i would expect a dim bulb like bush to go before the nation and say "we're going to war here because i'm an arrogant cocksucker who is too fucking stupid to know any better."

that would never do would it?

(in the "follow the money" files though, when cheney was CEO halliburton general stock was trading at a very stable and solid $45 a share. in the time he held office shares remained at that stable and reasonably fair price, but with eight splits. you don't have to be a rocket scientist mathematics whiz or even a trained economist to know that you can't get results like that without you got yourself a fucking plan)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 7:53:00 PM EST  
Blogger Ghost Dansing said...

the killers ask, are we human, or are we dancer?

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 9:31:00 PM EST  
Blogger Lisa said...

G.D.,

You have an uncanny way of posting tunes which at times apply to me at that moment on a personal level, beyond the post. You have done so tonight with the excellent, Human.

Thanks.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 11:29:00 PM EST  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

MB,
And all,
The more we understand of history then the more baffling does AFGH become.
I understand the Marshall Plan and WW2 etc.. but can't grasp either Iraq or Afgh as being essential to US interests.
The Marshall Plan bought us the best allies that money could buy and gave us overseas markets to fuel our economy. There will be no such benefits from our present policies.
This is where I personally get disturbed. Screw both of those countries and both of the wars -when The US taxpayers and voters/citizens can't influence or guide policy then all is lost and foreign adventures can't /won't alter that fact.We have become Humpty-Dumpty and don't even realize or acknowledge this fact.
Our system has got to be governed from the center and it isn't. The Repubs think the center is out there on the right and our new POTUS thinks it's somewhere left of center. Both Obama and Bush try to lie to us and conceal the true locus of center. Campaigns and voting are supposed to insure center rule and that's not happening, all we are getting is vascillasting confusion fron all directions. We have lost our center and the PWOT cannot hide this from us, if we bother to look.
My take is that we all, especially myself tend to focus on the little shit and tend to let the big turds slide thru our lives.
jim

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 10:39:00 AM EST  
Blogger Lisa said...

Ranger says:

"My take is that we all, especially myself tend to focus on the little shit and tend to let the big turds slide thru our lives"

That is an amazing understanding, esp. coming from you, IMHO :) Good luck with your continued flight pattern here.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 1:52:00 PM EST  

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