COIN for Thought

--Obama's Countermeasures.
Rainer Hachfeld (Neues Deutschland)
 

My arms stay open all night, 
From sundown 'til the morning light. 
Hopin' you can find where you belong, 
I leave the lights on 
--My Arms Stay Open All Night, 
Tanya Tucker 

I'll give you jewelery and money, too 
That ain't all, that ain't all I'll do for you 
Oh, if you bring it to me 
--Bring it On Home To Me, 
Sam Cook

 Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, won't you come home
I've moaned the whole night long
I'll do the cookin', honey, I'll pay the rent
I know I done you wrong
--Bill Bailey, Hughie Cannon 

It's a fool's game, nothing but a fool's game 
Standing in the cold rain, feeling like a clown   
--It's A Heartache, Bonnie Tyler 
__________________

A passage from Thomas Keneally's book "Schindler's List" caught Ranger's attention recently for the analogy between the Nazi efforts in World War II and those of the United States in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©):

"Even among Sedlacek's own small cell, his Viennese anti-Nazi club, it was not imagined that the pursuit of the Jews had grown quite so systemic.  Not only was the story Schindler told him startling simply in moral terms: one was asked to believe that in the midst of a desperate battle, the National Socialists would devote thousands of men, the resources of precious railroads, an enormous cubic footage of cargo space, expensive techniques of engineering, a fatal margin of their research and development scientists, a substantial bureaucracy, whole arsenals of automatic weapons, whole magazines of ammunition, all to an extermination which had no military or economic meaning but merely a psychological one. ..."

Exchange the word "elimination" for "counterinsurgency effort" or "COIN", and Keneally's character could be describing the PWOT©, 2001-2012 and counting.  The entire War on Terror was and is devoid of military or economic meaning, yet we still embrace the concept as a valid one, still peddling the shtick that the U.S. is bringing our schizophrenically-viewed adversaries / allies on home to where they really want to be ... with us.

When the chimera of men in battle rattle winning hearts and minds supplants military and economic objectives, we are playing a fool's game.  Unrequited love is always a cruel thing.

NOTE: The youngest survivor on Oskar Schindler's list has died, Leon Leyson ("Little Leyson"). Mr. Schindler was able to save his parents from Nazi extermination, too, though not his siblings or any extended family (Youngest on Schindler's List.) The L.A. Times bio is worth a read.

Alav ha-shalom Mr. Leyson, and Mr. Schindler.