Gee Whiz, Again

Let no guilty man escape
--U.S. Grant,
on the Whiskey Ring scandal of 1875,
in which he used the pardon to do just that

To conclude,
they are lying knaves
--Much Ado About Nothing, 
Shakespeare
_______________

[This is re-post of "Gee Whiz", orig. published 2 APR 2009. "Everything old is new again ..."]

The commonly-held assumption is that this war is at a final stage -- "Six years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the end of America's costly mission is in sight" (Iraq Improved but Problems Remain). But the Vietnam war had another phase after the U.S. bowed out of the fight.

The same will be true in Iraq, so we oughtn't to pull a "gee whiz, who'd a thunk it" when it happens.

In the final stage of the war, America's challenge will be to prevent ethnic and sectarian competition from exploding into violence on the scale that plunged the nation to the brink of all-out civil war two years ago.

If the U.S. really wanted to prevent ethnic and sectarian violence, we would not have invaded six years ago. Saddam had that problem under control. Oh U.S., you are so disingenuous.

The concept that the U.S. will honor the existing non-congressionally approved Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) -- "U.S. combat troops are due to leave by September 2010, with all American soldiers gone by the end of the following year" -- is a dream at best; a lie, at worst.

The U.S. has no intention of disengaging. If we did our troops would be assing up and returning to their peacetime permanent stations. The troops remain on station because the Joint Chiefs want them to remain on station.

As Ranger's momma used to say: Mark my words!

Paeans to the Peons

Ranger Question of the Day:
When did the position of Secretary of State
become an equal opportunity billet?

If it's a car you lack
I'd surely buy you a Cadillac
Whatever you need,
anytime of the day or night
--Thank You For Being a Friend,
Andrew Gold
_______________

The U.S. Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is a gravy train for everybody involved, except the U.S. taxpayers. Yet we carry on like the inhabitants of Jonathan Lethem's dystopia, Chronic City, where Times readers can opt for a “war-free” edition. It's not that bad, is it?

Well, the Department of Defense has informed us that U.S. aid to Yemen is being doubled in an effort to counter terrorism there. Never mind that the Yemeni government controls only the capitol, and its power diminishes with every step one takes into the countryside. Sound familiar? It is Afghanistan, redux.

What are we buying with this expenditure? Friendship, or another ally we don't need? The best friends money can buy? U.S. carriers offshore add meaningless air power to cement meaningless relationships. This is not about terrorism; it is about money.

The actions of both Yemen and our policymakers are so predictable that they are painful.

The TSA/Homeland Security are adding full-body scanners in response to the Christmas '09 crotch bomber. The cost has not been fully disclosed, but what is the purpose of the expenditure?

There has been absolutely NO attempt by anybody to infiltrate a bomb onto a U.S. domestic air carrier since 9.11.01. Nonetheless, the U.S. will emplace a system to address a problem that does not exist, the non-problem of on-board quasi-bombs originating in foreign airports. The age, ethnicity and country of origin of the hopeful perpetrators is predictable.

We choose to live in the "enervating gray fog [which] has descended on the financial district and remained there for years, hovering mysteriously" over Chronic City.

We're safe here, right?

Fire and Brimstone

He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell,
but he can most easily do it
--Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,
Jonathan Edwards

You tell 'em I'm coming!
And Hell's coming with me, you hear!
--Tombstone (1993)
_________________

Our troops are embroiled in two solidly Islamic countries, but our leaders struggle to maintain the fiction that this is not a war against Islam, but rather, Islamic extremism (as opposed to, the liberal Islamic faction?) and al-Qaeda.

Yet the new weapon of hope delivered by our secular nation is the Hellfire missile, a sobriquet which implies the U.S. is unleashing the fires of hell upon those who oppose us. These missiles are used against anyone bold enough to oppose the U.S.-imposed Afghan national government, a target list which includes Taliban, nationalists, and local anti-government insurgents.

For a government preaching tolerance, the religiosity implied by the Hellfire is as unfortunate -- and as transparent -- a label as Mr. Bush's analogizing of the U.S. invasions to The Crusades. Praise the lord, and pass the ammunition.

Cash for Clunkers

That which is hateful to you do not do to others.
All the rest is commentary
--Hillel

Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy
--The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

There's a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving
--Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin

I got no car and it's breaking my heart
But I've found a driver and that's a start
--Drive My Car, The Beatles
________________

[This entry was prompted by the 10' entrance poster to the "Desert Wars" exhibit at the National Infantry Museum, entitled "Sole Superpower." It features an infantryman with weapon lunging forward in a style reminiscent of the Bolshevik agitptrop.]

The reality of the American experience has become bizarre and incomprehensible. We break the sound barrier with our combat aircraft daily, but we cannot reach the speed of thought.

This week's Good News about the Afghan elections is supposed to warm our little democratic hearts, but it fails to excite Ranger. We are told the elections are a success, but the war is a clunker. Unfortunately, we can't get a voucher and dump that war into the junkyard of history.

Instead, we show every sign that we'll dump more assets into that money pit. How much money does a country expend to build a failed state before one's country becomes a failed state itself? Nothing we do in Afghanistan will alter the fact that the entire country is a clunker that runs only because we, the U.S. taxpayers along with our leaders, are suckers being sucked dry by Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here is the homeland, indigent deaths and pauper burials are on the rise both here and abroad (UK Destitute Burials). This means people can't even afford to die in America, yet we have money to execute foreign wars. In addition, Social Security recipients will not receive a Cost of Living Adjustment for the next two years.

Will congressmen forgo their COLA? What about the President? (Do our Social Security recipients vacation at Martha's Vineyard?)

So, we do not have the money to pay COLA to our entitled, hard-working and deserving retired and disabled citizens, but we are led to believe that money will be available to reform our health care system. If there is no money for COLA, how do we have money to fight endless wars, and where will the health care money arise?

No nation, family, individual, state or local government can exist or prosper with misaligned goals based on faulty economic realities. America is slowly self-destructing before our eyes and with our complicity. We see but do not comprehend. Being a sole superpower should not be a suicidal role, yet that is how it is playing out.

You reap what you sow. It was a nice ride while it lasted.

Choose Your Fights

Your conscience awakes
And you see your mistakes
And you wish someone
Would buy your confessions
--Part of the Plan, Dan Fogelberg

For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent
--Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop,
William Butler Yeats
________________

Everyone accepts that al Qaeda is a terrorist organization with significant Taliban linkages, but let's debunk some presumptions underlying out current wars in Iraq and AFPAK .

As a terrorist organization, al Qaeda would be compartmentalized and would not have shared intelligence with the Taliban on the WTC attacks. Even al Qaeda military operatives would not have had access to the operational plan.

So, if the Taliban was not complicit in those attacks, how have they become an implacable enemy of the U.S.? It is unreasonable to equate the destruction of the Taliban with the the security of der homeland.

It is equally faulty to advocate their destruction as the seminal event in the creation of a to-be democratic Afghanistan. Since there will never be a democratic Afghanistan, why bother with the destruction of the Taliban?

The conventional wisdom is that both wars will meet a salubrious termination when the respective armies and police forces are recruited, equipped and trained up. However, using our last great counterinsurgency op, Vietnam, as template, this hoped-for ending doesn't necessarily come true.

In Honduras, we have a U.S.-equipped, trained and funded army which has led a successful coup (or whatever one wishes to call it.) Because this is what Armies and militarized police forces do in Third World countries (on the backs of U.S. taxpayers.)

In short, militarizing failed states is not the solution, but rather, the problem. It is like handing out free guns during the L.A. riots. Why is this so hard to grasp? Perhaps it is not, but the lure of the almighty dollar trumps reality.

Neither al Qaeda, Iran nor North Korea are strategic threats to the U.S., so why are we portraying them as such? In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has created police forces that will vie with those of any dictator. And in fact, whoever wields their power will be a dictator, despite any showcase elections to the contrary.

We broke Iraq, and cannot impose wholeness. The country will heal in the same way North and South Vietnam did -- after we exit the scene.

Blowing Leaves

Same old song,
just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground,
though we refuse to see
--Dust in the Wind, Kansas

--You don't think it's kinda weird and fascist?
--Possibly, but you don't want to be unemployed.
--Oh well, all right, let's all sell our souls
and work for Satan because it's more convenient that way.
--American Beauty (1999)
_______________

Driving the swank neighborhoods in California led Ranger to the perfect metaphor for the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©): Witness, the leaf blower.

Yup, the PWOT -- like the leaf blower -- is powered by gas mixed with oil, and is carried on the backs of our Mexicans, er, troops.

Leaf blowers are actually quite useless and noisy offenses. The blowers just move the leaves around. They violate a principle rule of effort: they mistake movement for progress. One uses the contraption to move leaves onto another's property, after which time the honor is reversed.

It is a Long Process, and the leaves never disappear, they simply move around the neighborhood (nj.com has a video of a yard guy in fatigues and combat boots futilely blowing the leaves into the West wind, for a camo-perfect view of the process.)

Leaf blowing -- the perfect cognate to the PWOT.

Milgram Excuse

There ain’t no substitute for the truth
Either it is or isn’t
You see the truth it needs no proof
Either it is or it isn’t
--The Truth, India Arie

Stupidity is an often fatal disease
--R. A. Heinlein

It may be we are meant to mark
with our riot and our rest
God's scorn for all men governing.
It may be beer is best
--The New Unhappy Lords,
G.K. Chesterton

_________________

Yesterday's Washington Post reported the 2002 military memo to the Pentagon advising against the use of "torture" because it doesn't work.

The military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency advice to the Pentagon was,

"the application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) [JPRA term] has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information (In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture)."

It doesn't get any clearer than that. "Eyes Wide Shut" comments on the Bush administration's dismissal of military dissent against "enhanced interrogation techniques" [EIT], and "Interrogation Memos Detail Psychologists' Involvement" reveals the medical establishment' collusion. It amounts to a nice confirmation of the Milgram experiments, for all our high-falutin' protestations of being better than "them".

Techniques like extreme sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, dousing with cold water, sleeping on concrete and waterboarding were not employed because they "didn't cause organ failure," but because they don't leave marks on the body. Instead, they scar the psyche, a mark that America must also bear.

Watch for the Department of Defense to release at least 21 photographs by May 28, showing detainee abuse in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan other than Abu Ghraib. They are meting it out to us in assimilable parcels so that we may process our outrage before the next onslaught of offense.

One can be assured we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Gee Whiz

Let no guilty man escape
--U.S. Grant,
on the Whiskey Ring scandal of 1875,
in which he used the pardon to do just that

To conclude,
they are lying knaves
--Much Ado About Nothing, 
Shakespeare
_______________

The commonly-held assumption is that this war is at a final stage -- "Six years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the end of America's costly mission is in sight" (Iraq Improved but Problems Remain). But the Vietnam war had another phase after the U.S. bowed out of the fight.

The same will be true in Iraq, so we oughtn't to pull a "gee whiz, who'd a thunk it" when it happens.

In the final stage of the war, America's challenge will be to prevent ethnic and sectarian competition from exploding into violence on the scale that plunged the nation to the brink of all-out civil war two years ago.

If the U.S. really wanted to prevent ethnic and sectarian violence, we would not have invaded six years ago. Saddam had that problem under control. Oh U.S., you are so disingenuous.

The concept that the U.S. will honor the existing non-congressionally approved Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) -- "U.S. combat troops are due to leave by September 2010, with all American soldiers gone by the end of the following year" -- is a dream at best; a lie, at worst.

The U.S. has no intention of disengaging. If we did our troops would be assing up and returning to their peacetime permanent stations. The troops remain on station because the Joint Chiefs want them to remain on station.

As Ranger's momma used to say: Mark my words!

Fired Up, Ready to Go

--Meaningfulness, Parvez Taj

If everyone is thinking alike,
someone isn't thinking,
--General George Patton, Jr.

You don't need to think. You need to drive.
You need speed. You need to fire it up.
--Talladega Nights (2006)
______________

H & I is not a street corner in D.C. -- it is the use of artillery called "harassing and interdicting fire". U.S. forces have used this technique since Christ was a corporal.

Simply stated, artillery fire is put out onto likely enemy avenues of approach and likely assembly areas on an intermittent and unpredictable manner. Now it seems in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) the U.S. has taken this concept to another level.

In the Vietnam war, H & I was a daily occurrence and was based upon the assumption that anything moving at night was hostile, and therefore should be served up a healthy dose of U.S. firepower. If the Commies didn't understand the joys of democracy, at least they would enjoy our death-dealing firepower.

The only problem was, everything that moved at night wasn't Vietcong or North Vietnamese. Sometimes, the citizens of a country want to move about in their own country. Call it, the audacity of hope.

Now in Pakistan and Iraq, CIA Director Leon Panetta says drone missile strikes have been "successful at disrupting insurgents" (Drone Attacks Inside Pakistan Will Continue, CIA Chief Says.) He also said "U.S. aerial attacks against al-Qaeda and other extremist strongholds inside Pakistan would continue, despite concerns about a popular Pakistani backlash. "

Mr. Panetta, with little experience and seemingly less brains is disrupting insurgents, which translates, killing their hadji asses. For good measure, he throws in the "T" word just to keep us shivering in our boots: "Nothing has changed our efforts to go after terrorists, and nothing will change those efforts."

Just as with Mr. Bush, nothing can stop a policy, certainly not an intrinsic flaw. We are so enamored of the HOW of killing people that we fail to ask, WHY?

All extremists are not insurgents, all insurgents are not terrorists, all terrorists are not al-Qaeda. [Big green print, for St. Patrick's Day, and our Ranger readers -- this means key point, o.k.? Charlie Mike!]

What is the relevancy to the PWOT? Why are we killing insurgents who may or may not be a real threat to America? They may be anti-American, but possibly this is a reaction to our in-country policies (just imagine Predators flying over your next party.)

Historically insurgents have been communist, socialist, nationalist or religious, so it is meaningless to lump the players into such a nebulous pulp, which is a fiction. Whatever their affiliation, the extremists in Afghanistan and Iraq are not capable of projecting their hatred and violence to The Homeland ®. It is questionable that they are thinking that far into the future.

The focus in the PWOT should be the destruction of al-Qaeda and its leadership, which should be clear and distinct. This clarity is compromised by the Panetta types who do not grasp the problem, nor the concept of realistic threat analysis.

Capability --> intent --> why? This is the basis of all mission analysis and assignments, and this is exactly why the U.S. will destroy istelf fighting the PWOT. We lack the focus and unity of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda's actions are pinpoint and have a unity of action, where ours are willy-nilly and similar to the proverbial bull in the china shop.

Where is the progress in our vaunted war fighting abilities? We now have a non-military entity like the CIA killing people with million dollar missiles -- wouldn't an artillery round be much cheaper?

The U.S. answer to terrorism is as screwed as our response to the failing banks. Reality is not our focus, and one day the money will run out.

Both Sides, Now

You put a rifle in his hand;
You sent him far away,
You shouted, "Hip, hooray!"
But look at him today!
--Remember My Forgotten Man (1933)

_________________

Isn't it strange that in 1979 the U.S. cheered for and sponsored the Taliban and the seminal al-Qaeda in the Russian-Afghanistan War?

Strange that the Soviet Union and the U.S. had roughly the same agenda, which was and is secularism and the parity of women, and the suppression of Islamic radicalism, yet we saw fit to oppose them. Why did the U.S. oppose the Soviet invasion?

Why do the American people support the U.S.'s invasion and continued war in Afghanistan? Why do the Afghan people continue to fight U.S. aggression? Is it the same reason they fought the Soviets?

So 30 years ago U.S. policy was to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan, whose objectives were in sync with those of the U.S. today. The terrorist's objectives were also the same -- evict foreign powers. The same enemy that fought the Soviets fight us today, but back then we supported the Afghans with funds, training and materiel, and best of all, Stinger missiles and safe haven in Pakistan.

Now bogged down in the same war, the only question that arises is: Do idiots run the U.S.? Are the Departments of Defense, State and Central Intelligence Agency so myopic and uncreative as to do a complete flip-flop in 30 years? What is gained and what is lost by such vacillation?

Which brings us to the present situation in tribal regions of Pakistan. The threat destabilizing the region was created, aimed, cocked and armed by shortsighted U.S. policy. Do U.S. policymakers create these cock-ups on purpose just to have something to do, or are they just clueless?

There are a lot of questions here. The entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) seems one big question mark.

Rout Step Unit

--Christo Komarnitski (Albania)

You know I'll always be your slave
Till I'm dead and buried in my grave
--Bring it on Home, Sam Cooke

Well ain't your President good to you
Knocked 'em dead in Libya, Grenada too
Now he's taking his show a little further down the line
Well, 'tween me and his people,
you're gonna get along just fine
--Snake Oil, Steve Earle

There is a condition worse than blindness,
and that is seeing something that isn't there
--Thomas Hardy
______________

Though the term "WOT" may be OBE, the war in Afghanistan is about to be ramped up. What and who will gain?

We know the War on terror is a phony construct, and President Obama is wise to scrap it, yet the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are very real. Since we agree they are not "Wars on Terror," then what is their purpose?

Supposedly, they are COIN or nation-building efforts, but after seven years, those are obviously losers. So why continue the effort?

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan follow the same concepts as the financial bailouts: the U.S. throws money and lives (theirs and ours) down a bottomless pit with no chance of a successful outcome. Seen in this light, the rebel leaders in Afghanistan are the realists and the U.S. is operating squarely in the Twilight Zone. You see, the Afghans are defending their way of life, and that's always a winner.

For some reason, America has embraced the concept that the Federal government should be in the toxic asset relief business, and that is what Afghanistan is -- a toxic national asset. U.S. leadership says "economic and military reality be damned," and continues the march as if they are actually counting cadence.

The U.S. has become a rout-step unit, incapable of a national cadence. Our national policy reminds Ranger of the saying, "It's like putting frogs in a bucket," or maybe it is like controlling a Wal-Mart crowd during an after-holiday sale. Neither the frogs nor the crowd are containable, yet that is the crux of our policies.

The problem with COIN is that our policies fail to embody the reality of America, which is that of a country not endlessly flush. Our leaders too often live in bubbles of affluence, enjoying nice perks, and thinking that all of America is like that. Even Green Daddy Gore couldn't cite the cost of a gallon of milk when called upon to do so by a reporter.

The U.S. should not be projecting this image of a flagrant excess which cannot even be sustained homeside. What a fraud to perpetrate upon poor peoples elsewhere.

Our leaders live a top-drawer lifestyle which the rest of America struggles. This is the reality, yet what happens? We continue to up-armor the fight in Afghanistan, because it is a beautiful smokescreen that hides the even uglier realities from our glaucomic eyes.

The basis of COIN is that we are selling hope, growth, freedom and improved lifestyles to a foreign population. Meanwhile, those selfsame things are wilting on the vine in our own backyards.

Dangerous Liaisons

Which way did he go?
Which way did he go?
--Deputy Dawg
______________

In a rush to judgment, the U.S. military is putting on the heat in an effort to bring charges against 5,000 "dangerous" detainees before the new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) goes into effect (U.S. Builds Cases on Dangerous Detainees.) If they have not been charged by that time, they will probably be released by the Iraqi government in a process that resembles that once followed in the U.S.

What is their charge? Is it resisting an invasion of their homeland? Taking up arms against foreign aggressors? The U.S. has released a record 17,500 detainees this year, nearly double the number released last year. The 5,000 are described as "dangerous detainees," but no description was given as to what constitutes "dangerous".

17,500 added to the 15,800 detainees remaining elsewhere in American custody equals 33,300 Iraqis held in U.S. prisons without being charged or adjudicated guilty by a court of law. Is this how the U.S. spells DEMOCRACY?

Imprisoning people sans charges is what Saddam Hussein used to do. How does U.S. policy differ? "Our focus is to go back and get detention orders on these 5,000," said Brig. Gen. David Quantock, commander of detainee operations in Iraq. What is a "detention order"? It sounds like something used to keep one 30 minutes after school for bad behavior.

Ranger always thought that one could only be detained while awaiting trial or any legal or administrative actions. Imprisonment in Western civilization mandates a court trial. There is no "preventive arrest" concept.

One cannot presume a conviction, thereby vindicating a vague detention. Why has this imperative been suspended in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)?

"Most files contain the necessary statements and other evidence to convict, said Marine Maj. Neal Fisher, a military spokesman in Iraq, but Iraqi judges may release some prisoners for lack of evidence.

"'We're realistic,' Fisher said."

Well, if there is evidence to convict, why no conviction? Just because you say you're realistic does not make it so.

How many of these detainees would still go imprisoned without charges if there were no SOFA?

Back in th U.S.A.

Soon we will be done
Trouble of the world
How soon we will be done
--Trouble of the World,
Mahalia Jackson

Poor souls that live within the past
where sorrow plays all parts,
for a living death is all that's left
for men with broken hearts
--Men With Broken Hearts,
Hank Williams, Jr.
_______________

What happens to seriously wounded soldiers after the Department of Defense (DoD) dumps them on the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) doorstep, like so many newly-orphaned Nebraskan children?

Due to better medical technology, veterans are surviving more serious injuries. "In 2007, the Dole-Shalala Commission said there were 3,000 service members so severely injured that they required full-time clinical- and care-management services" (Veterans Families Seek Aid for Caregiver Role.)

While the DVA provides home health care for 100% disabled veterans, the health care contractors on the government-provided lists can be "awful" according to Tracy Keil, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Matt Keil, was rendered a quadriplegic after being shot in the neck while on patrol in Ramadi. Mrs. Keil quit her $58,000 accounting job to care full-time for her husband. Like many others who have shifted into full-time health care providers for family members, Keil is asking for government remuneration for her services.

It is not that nobody in the chain of command or the DVA cares or that they are callous, but rather the system is just overwhelmed. Vets are just another problem needing to be solved, in a world of problems. The vets most in need are the ones least able to argue for their own care needs.

They are helpless in a world of phony yellow ribbons and little flag lapel pins. Many are not fortunate enough to have family members to whom they may return, and who may or may not be able to take over their care needs.

When Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake said Bob Dole's mother "quit everything she was doing and came to take care of him at the hospital, no questions asked. That’s not the case anymore" -- just so. The care of these severely disabled vets is a governmental, not a family, responsibility.

These vets walk a tightrope of despair as do their families, while we as a nation continue to revel in the distractions of the moment. The issue is money, and if the DVA would compensate contractor care, then they should compensate family members who become de facto caregivers in their stead.

"In the last session of Congress, families and veterans groups persuaded lawmakers to introduce legislation that, among other things, would allow families of soldiers with traumatic brain injury (TBI) to be paid for their caretaking after training and certification by the VA." The VA, however, opposes the legislation it claims due to liability issues.

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), thinks the families of veterans "are kind of being taken advantage of” because the government knows they will do the work anyway.

DVA respite care (24-hour institutional care) costs $857 a day, or about $25,700 a month. This is $308,400 per patient per year. If 3,000 wounded veterans need full-time care, the total is $925,200,000. $925 million -- almost one billion dollars for the annual care of 3,000 profoundly wounded service members.

These men will live on for many years. That is a guaranteed yearly tab -- where is that cost factored in to the expense of having national warriors?

Who is talking about this "collateral" cost of war? When is the last time anyone out there visited a DVA long-term care facility and actually talked to a vet? How many politicians talk to vets any time other than when they are posturing for votes?

This country has a moral, legal and financial responsibility to wounded veterans. The tab's coming due.

Foster States

We are running out of money,
so we must begin to think
--British Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (attributed)
_______________

The goal of all COIN operations is to set up a friendly government in any given scenario. This means the populace must submit to the government and actively support the regime.

External governments cannot be arbitrarily superimposed upon local societies. If they are, then they are reincarnations of the Nazi/Communist puppet regimes, whether Vichy France or the satellite states of the former Soviet Union.

The basic question is : Does the U.S. really want to foster client states? Both Afghanistan and Iraq were based upon the acceptance of this premise. No one seemed to consider the reality that even if successful, neither state would serve as a useful ally. So why the effort? Why the cost in both men and materiel? Why the cost in loss of prestige?

What is the mission of military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan? This is a different matter from diplomatic and State considerations. In that same vein, what is the mission of the Department of State (DoS)? Do the two dovetail and interlock?

The U.S. military machine is designed to fight wars, not insurgencies. This is not a news flash, yet U.S. combat power is being used as. . . What? Please tell Ranger what the mission is this week.

The following are inefficient and inappropriate practices in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©):

1. Utilizing tanks in urban settings. Tanks kill tanks and are not designed as street fighters.

2. The Infantry/Combat Arms are being utilized to secure roadways. This means the combat power of the Army is being utilized to protect the supply functions. This means the Infantry is supporting the support and is therefore not available to counter combat threats.

3. Utilizing million dollar missiles to kill individual targets that should be eliminated by Infantry.

4. Allowing the military to dictate policy that should be a DoS function. In effect, the tail is wagging the dog

5. Believing that physically controlling ground will produce victory.

6. Preaching hearts and minds, yet continually killing, wounding and imprisoning locals, often without trial. Dropping missiles out of the sky is not a hearts and minds tactic.

7. The belief that killing people will create a peaceful state.

--Jim

Tactics 101

How I love my liberty
There are no strings on me
--I've Got No Strings,
Washington and Harline

All for a little bit of money. There’s more to life
than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that?
And here you are. And it’s a beautiful day
--Fargo (1996)
________________

Ranger is disdainful and indignant over both the offensive and defensive tactics used in this Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). We thought it would be instructive to offer some basics in tactics and will focus on defensive tactics to compliment "Dak To" and "Designated Loser".

When you expect a Big Mac Attack, you must defend properly or you will be consumed. The indignation arises from the fact that the Army is fighting this war as amateurs when in fact our history provides a template of how we should fight.

Preparing for all fighting is similar to frying hamburger. There are clear steps which must be achieved on the way to producing the finished product, whether the workspace is McDonald's, GM or the battlefield. A successful battlefield product is not having soldiers killed needlessly.

The following comments will be pertinent to any hill being defended in the PWOT, from Platoon to Brigade level. Since our focus has been isolated outposts, most of the fights will be Platoon and Company level.

Planning considerations:

• What is the mission, and contingency planning
• What is the friendly and enemy situation?
• Is there fire support
• Is there logistical support?

Regarding mission: since you are sitting on a hilltop (or any other terrain in the COIN environment), the defensive position will be planned (not hasty), will not be in-depth, should provide 360-degree security, and survivability in the position is predicated on fire support, via either air or artillery.

Since these positions are isolated, they must be task-organized and heavily weighted. That is, they should have a heavy augmentation of crew-served and M-203 weapons. Their medical support on-site should be augmented. A forward observer (F.O.) should be assigned to coordinate all defensive indirect fire. This allows the ground commander to devote his attention to directing the ground battle.

The F.O. and unit commander generally co-locate to insure contiuity of effort. Both are combat officers, so there is redundancy if that becomes necessary. Unit mortar F.O.'s may also be present, and air assets would be an integral part of this fire planning.

The fire support assets available at Platoon and Company level should be overwhelming to any attacking enemy formation. the history of the U.S. involvement in Korea indicates this necessity. LZ X-Ray in Vietnam demonstrated the indispensibility of artillery for the survival of isolated units. This is true regardless of whether the unit remains one night in that location or one year. Defensive fighting positions must be hardened and have overhead cover to defend the troops from friendly and enemy indirect fire.

Contingency planning must address worst-case scenarios and be prepared to relieve pressure on defending units, which can be achieved in a number of ways. It also must be determined if there are any friendly units in the area which can be called upon to relieve pressure if required. Logistically, can the position be provided with proper support, either via air or ground.

By this point in COIN operations in Afghanistan the capabilities and intents of local anti-coalition forces should be clearly understood and delineated. The recent attack at Wanat was not a jack-in-the-box event. It was a pre-planned attack which demonstrates proficiency of enemy tactics.

These basic planning considerations seem absent from the operations we read about in the daily news. There is simply no way 200 Taliban can overrun a weighted U.S. Platoon with proper fire support and fighting from prepared positions.

So when you read, "Nine Soldiers Killed and Fifteen Wounded," what is clear is that something is amiss. even before reading the after action report. Doubly true when dealing with elite units.

These battles indicate proper troop planning procedures are not being implemented.

Paying the Piper

The Aragon was a cock-up, the Yank said.
No artillery, no plans, no timing, no leaders,
everybody running around like rabbits
--from Moment of War, Laurie Lee (1991)

To compare terrorism with an all-encompassing
ideology like communism and fascism is evidence
of profound confusion
--Sen Joseph Biden [D-DE]
(from "Republicans and our Enemies")

Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
--Changes, David Bowie
_____________

The true-blue cheerleaders of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) are right about one thing: they do want to destroy our way of life. Except the "they" are members of the National Command Authority to include partisan lawyers justifying the Dr. Jekyll nature of U.S. policy.

Two of the worst of the worst, David Addington and "puling scrivner Yoo" (as beautifully embodied by fellow blogger FDChief here) recently testified before Congress to little fanfare. Two men who should raise the righteous ire of any self-respecting Democratic member of Congress, raised nary a whimper.

What is changing our lives and destroying our freedoms are the actions and inactions of our elected leaders. Our lives are being diminished by federal operating deficits in excess of $500 billion per year, the punishing costs of elective phony wars, the skyrocketing price of oil and gas and all that devolves from that and the price of everything rises due to the devaluation of the dollar, the inevitable result of a broken consumer economy. One figure guaranteed not to rise anytime soon is the average paycheck or subsidy allowance.

The threat to the U.S. is not posed by terrorists. The threat is posed by willful ignorance by all players of the ugly issues facing our boy-in-the-bubble societal mindset, or as Steve Pearlstein in WaPo called it, our "mirage economy." Forget Iraq and Afghanistan -- who will pay the piper when the jig is up?

Those regions will both survive without our beneficence. They function as costly distraction, much as the pathologized member of a triangulation functions in a family system. The war hawks can project and focus the ire of a population on The Other for a time, but eventually, when the floor drops out from beneath them the citizens will notice.

Most still accept the long war paradigm vis-a-vis current conflicts, but an even bigger problem is that our national planners are anticipating future wars of the same nature. Even usually lucid Senators Joseph Biden and Richard Lugar of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee say we need "a new national security act," that gives the U.S. a diplomatic and civil administrative strike force capacity, ready to move into "Iraq-type conflicts as the military is to cope with hostile forces" (Foreign Policy's Best Hope.)

The U.S. must focus on the welfare and survivability of our nation before spending irreplaceable deficit dollars on pipe dreams.

Viewed another way, don't invasions and forced regime changes mean we hate them and want to take away their freedoms and change their way of life? U.S. policy does to them what Bush says they want to do to us. "I know you are, but what am I?" Does this make adult sense?

Such a sham; such a shame. Our combat might enable elections in theatre, but without any meaningful democratic features. Theirs is a government of flunkies, minus country or national consensus or identity. Maybe that is why our confederacy of dunces declare all is going well -- it is a case of narcissistic identification.

Our armies are fomenting hatred and embitterment that cannot be quelled with palletized greenbacks or ballot box props.

Blink

Who turns the wheel
And who throws the dice
On the day after tomorrow?
--Day After Tomorrow,
Tom Waits
____________

Oil escalates in price $10.75 a barrel in a single day earlier this month and nobody blinks. The head of Russia's Gazprom says look for $250 barrel soon. Corn tops $7.00 a bushel for the first time and this becomes a significant news item. So, we have come to expect petroleum prices to increase daily, but the price of corn surprises us?

All of our commodities are on an escalator ride, and we are getting a real world lesson on the web of life. The price of corn (feed) rises, then meat and dairy rises. Ditto petroleum. The price paid is not only direct but indirect. Bill McKibbon writes in today's WaPo about "the [clear] trend toward scarcity" and the rolling back of our frontier mentality (End of the Open Road.)

We spoke with a waitress this weekend in a Georgia restaurant from Cocoa Beach, Florida, where she and her husband owned a home and their family lived well on his income as a trucker. He recently lost the trucking job due to escalating costs and is now unemployed. They sold the house and she is currently the sole breadwinner. "You'll see me here from 10 til 8 most days."

Analysts are predicting $4.50 at the gas pumps before Summer's end, but it will be there before corn rises again. What Americans won't verbalize is their fears for tomorrow. We are not afraid of terrorism, we are afraid for our wallets, and the McCain/Obama roadshow is not playing that song.

It is a nice game of transference to focus on the wars abroad versus the battles at home. Terrorism is so antiseptic, in a way. Oh, unless you're over there in uniform trying to ferret THEM out.

One can natter on endlessly about matters which do not actually lacerate the skin or the soul. That is an intellectual exercise, twice removed. One can shake one's head ruefully and not feel a pinch. But what is not being said is that the other shoe has not dropped, and that we all know that oil prices are not going to stabilize.

Ranger predicts $8.00 gas within the next two years, if not sooner. These are the fears too dark to speak. It is easier to ignore and just hope it is a bad dream that will go away before it bites our nuts.

Through habituation and accommodation, the average consumer adjusts to these daily assaults. The WaPo ran an article yesterday on the concept of transaction utility. Many are going without basics, let alone iPods. When sheer existence is threatened, will anyone advocate for those so pressed?

The only bad dream that will go away is George W. Bush, but we will not get out of our nightmare anytime soon.

The reality is not a bad dream that can be left behind upon awakening from our collective Ambien-induced slumber.

--Jim and Lisa