A Pocketful of Mumbles

 I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles,
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest 
--The Boxer, 
Simon and Garfunkel

 See, in my line of work you
got to keep repeating things over and over
and over again for the truth to sink in,
to kind of catapult the propaganda
--President George W. Bush

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war 
--Question, 
The Moody Blues   
_________________________

The OCT 2015 -  JAN 2016 Army Echoes, the quarterly newsletter sent to over a million retired soldiers and families, has set for itself the modest proposal of keeping its readers in thrall to Them Terrorists, 24/7 ("Sustaining Antiterrorism awareness -- always ready, always alert," p.5.) Just in case you fail to subject yourself to the ample media sources which should have already brought you to this paralyzed state.

Ranger will deconstruct the money graph, to wit:

"Terrorists can attack anywhere, anytime – the threat is real. Over the recent months the continued threats on social media from the Islamic State of Iraq and The Levant (ISIL; also commonly referred to as ISIS) and their influence on domestic extremists demonstrates the lengths that terrorist groups take to threaten our nation and our military communities. ISIL has also expanded their tactics to include cyber-attacks and attempts to exploit private and sensitive information of our military personnel and their families. These risks pertain directly to Retired Soldiers, just as they do the entire Army community."

A sophomore creative writing undergrad would recognize the weakness presented here as fact, courtesy the United States Army. The breakdown begins with opening statement: "Terrorists can attack anywhere, anytime."

Is that true? Can you think of somewhere they could not? How about a nuclear (surety) weapons storage area, the protection of which is the job of the Army, after all. So, no -- not anywhere; check one.

Next: "(T)he continued threats on social media from the Islamic State of Iraq and The Levant (ISIL; also commonly referred to as ISIS) . . . demonstrates the lengths that terrorist groups take to threaten our nation and our military communities." OK -- "social media threats" -- certainly is not a nice thing to do. We call such people "trolls", and what they do is BULLYING. When they act on their threats, they become criminals. 

Bullying certainly has its own corrosive quality, but do WE need to be "always ready, always alert"? Maybe we could just farm out that set of feelings over to the people paid to monitor such transmissions on a daily basis. That IS what they are paid for, after all, and it would cut down on our psychotherapy bills and Unisom consumption, something that would be good for an overworked, over-stressed population, no? 

Aren't Terrorists a Level One threat? If they are out "to exploit private and sensitive information of our military personnel and their families," and "(T)hese risks pertain directly to Retired Soldiers, just as they do the entire Army community," tell us what these tactics entail so that we might be proactive about it. Instead we are fed a vague miasma of fear, riding on the tails of the aura created around terror groups.

Further: the piece is predicated on a falsehood: ISIL is not a terror organization. IS has a military chain of command, their members wear uniforms, carry weapons and attack military targets. They do not conform to the international laws of war.

The last fact does not render them terrorists, but rather War Criminals. Possibly they could be convicted under "crimes against humanity", but the evidence favors war criminal prosecution. A paragraph full of lies and half-truths, courtesy your U.S. Army.

You can sleep well, tonight, despite the fact that rough men stand ready to scare you witless.

[Cross-posted @ milpub.]

The Boering Wars

--Goal in Afghanistan
Paresh Nath (UAE)

For the first time in our history, ideology and theology
hold a monopoly of power in Washington
--Bill Moyers
________________

[Ranger feels that the "Long Wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve a more inventive name, befitting future discussions; something like Wars of the Roses, which is evocative.

A new name for the Phony Wars on Terror (PWOT ©) could be The Boering Wars, a sort-of homonym with a hat tip to the colonial + wanna-be commando nature of the project. Other titles are welcome.]

In the May-Aug Army Echoes, the bulletin for retired soldiers, Chief of Staff [C/S] General George Casey, Jr. writes:

"This edition of Army Echoes coincides with our Army's Birthday. In mid-June, we turn 235 years old. And we remain the best at what we do -- despite the stress and strain of fighting the longest war in the history of the All-volunteer Force [AVF]."

Is this really a war? Is this really the Army's 235th year?

The old Army died and was buried in 1972. It had learned not to get into long and endless wars. Maybe because that was because the old Army had Chiefs of Staff that wore valor awards topped by Combat Infantry Badges.

The new Army is 38 years old. The New Army is the AVF that is totally out of sync with the history of the old, once-proud, Army.

General Casey continues, "[The Army in 2001] was too small to do what the nation had asked us to do." He describes it as an Army "designed to fight large, armored battles on the plains of Europe or in the deserts of Saudi Arabia." The Army was NOT "too small".

If it was too small to fight a miniscule Terrorism threat, then how can we believe it could stop the Russians or Chinese? The Army did what it was asked -- the problem is that it attempted to do what we didn't ask.

We asked it to invade countries and protect us from terrorism. We did not ask the Army to be a nation-building fanatic. The Army does combat well, but Counterinsurgency, not so much.

He says, "We are engaged in a long-term ideological conflict, and -- while we know that we will prevail militarily -- we recognize that any successful strategy requires long-term commitment, patience and national will."

Again, NO. The Army is not engaged in an ideological conflict. That the adversary (defined as Terrorism) is clearly ideological doesn't make our reaction ideological. Ideological wars are difficult to define and to win.

The Army C/S classifies the U.S. operations as ideological, but fails to define what a successful strategy would entail. Probably, a solid National Will, which has instead nixed these phony wars since 2006. The military is fighting a war that is separate and distinct from the national will, a war supported completely solely by the political and military elite.

General Casey's messages are always poorly-supported propaganda.

It is amazing that old soldiers fail to see this fact.