Maundering

Now you turn your back on,
all the things that you used to preach.
Now it's let him live in freedom,
if he lives like me
--Which Way are You Goin',
Jim Croce
____________

Historically, combat is aimed at destroying an enemy's will to fight, thereby allowing you to successfully impose your will upon them.

By this paradigm there is a fundamental problem with the Iraqi and Afghanistan military projects: we will never destroy the will to fight of any country which we occupy unless we are willing to do a Ghengis Khan. Yet that objective is at cross purposes to the lie that we are there to democratize the population, a lie which restrains our military options.

Generals Lee and Meade did not engage at Gettysburg simply to kill each other's soldiers. The goal was to physically defeat and remove the opponent's ability to fight, and to destroy their will to fight.

The firebombings and bombings of London, Berlin, Dresden and tokyo in WWII and Hanoi in the Indochina Wars were primarily collateral efforts to remove the will to fight, while the maneuver armies were destroying their ability to fight.

We could destroy the Iraqi's and Afghani's will to fight by shutting down the power grid and denying food, water and electricity, but why would we do that? What is the justification, and what would we gain? We can not be both helping and fighting them -- these are incompatible projects.

Despite the rhetoric that everything changed after 9-11 and the new fly terminology (4 GW, systempunkt, asymetrical warfare) the objectives of warfare remain the same.

The U.S. military is proficient at seriously breaking things and killing people, but since 1947 the Department of Defense has yet to win a war in a meaningful manner. Grenada, Panama and Gulf War I can be viewed as training exercises with live ammo. No strategic victories there.

Forgetting Korea as it was a conventional war, the republic of Vietnam was clearly a conventional and UW loss that reverberates still through the Pentagon. The mistakes of RVN are also the mistakes of Mogadishu, Afghanistan and Iraq. That mistake is the inability to destroy the enemy's will to fight, or even to understand why they are fighting us.

In Mogadishu the adversary was a rag-tag collection of militia men loyal to a local warlord. The U.S. "Peacekeepers" conducted military operations that were pin pricks to the locals. Even after the fight that left possibly thousands of militia members dead, it was evident their will to fight had not been crushed. The Rangers quit the fight, not vice versa.

Mogadishu showed that killing a lot of "bad guys" was not a formula for success, but its lessons are often ignored.

Fast-forward to Iraq and Afghanistan, campaigns being marketed as a War on Terror, something new. In fact, they are tired old UW / GW campaigns reminiscent of Napoleon's campaign's in Spain, and OSS activities in Nazi-occupied territories of WWII. Malaya, the Philippines, Haiti and Nicaragua are also analogs.

Our own nation was won through the efforts of UW / GW fighters. Rogers Rangers, The Green Mountain Boys, Francis Marion, Light Horse Harry Lee, Morgan, Mosby, NB Forrest, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph are our heroes and we call them patriots. But when the shoe is on the other foot, we call the other side's fighters "terrorists." Truth be known, they are inheritors of a proud legacy of resistance.

These OIF and OAF are the centerpieces of the Phony War on Terror (©), but they are neither new nor revolutionary. They boil down to the following: Foreign armies of occupation attempting to impose their will and political agenda upon an unreceptive indigenous population.

Call them what you will in Iraq and Afghanistan, our strategic air command and our superior firepower can not remove their will to fight. In fact, the opposite is the case as our application of combat power only steels their will to resist.

The Battle of Roberts Ridge in Afghanistan is but one example. There, SOF assets engaged Chechens in shower sandals at high altitudes in freezing temperatures, but regardless of casualties claimed, U.S. combat power never occupied a battle area or denied hostiles from moving in the battle area.

In the Murphy MOH scenario (Operation Red Wing), hostiles engaged and destroyed U.S. SOF assets while remaining militarily viable. They were able to engage a U.S. Marine conventional battalion at task Force level, in effect, a reinforced battalion (battalion plus). Result: the U.S. targets evaded and escaped destruction by moving to a safe haven.

From the hostile's point of view, the U.S. is simply another foreign occupier in a long list, all of whom were ultimately defeated. The Marines can maraud and maneuver at will and the locals will sidestep, fight and evaporate until the Marines move on. Is this victory?

Same in Iraq, where U.S. forces may destroy and occupy Fallujah, but when we leave, the local fighters return. When the time is convenient, even the new Army of Iraq will turn on its U.S. sponsors. We are fighting by WWI rules, though no longer in the trenches. It is a war of attrition that does not favor the U.S.

We talk of COIN but fight battles of attrition which are meaningless expenditures of American lives. The hostile fighters know that U.S. forces are operating at the end of their tethers. They lack the assets and ability to fight protracted engagements. In addition, U.S. forces lack clear military objectives.

We have freedom of maneuver yet it leads to no quantifiable objective. Our freedom of movement gives the illusion we are winning when in fact it we are running through a meat grinder chewing up convoys and troops, a fact which enhances the enemy's will to fight and diminishes ours.

Ranger can not think of any instance of an invading army destroying a resistance movement's will to fight. The vaunted Nazi military could not eliminate the partisans in France, Russia and Yugoslavia, and the Brits never achieved dominance in Northern Ireland. The resistance perdured. Time is on their side.

We object to U.S. military operations that are not aimed at threats to the U.S.

Threats facing the U.S. include gas, food and housing prices, disappearing jobs, runaway budgets, falling student academic achievement and a depressed economy. These are real threats to the security of America.

--Jim

Dirty Deeds

And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
--Excitable Boy, Warren Zevon

We can't let you go. You're dangerous to us.
Don't fight it, Miles, it's no use.
Sooner or later, you'll have to go to sleep
--Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create
And time for all the works of days and hands
--The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

The world needs a wake up call, gentlemen...
we're gonna phone it in
--They Live (1988)
____________

"They Live" was a classic zombie movie about keeping people blinded to reality. It should be remembered for the vapid enthusiasm of the television commentator:

"The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits." Sound familiar? All of this, if you just keep the reality glasses off. Right-o.

Here's your pop culture fix, with a national security slant. Don't say Ranger doesn't try and raise the discourse level above that of the madding crowd.

Dexter is a new, slick series on commercial t.v. about the titular Dexter, who has the asocial affliction of being a serial killer. It is o.k. though, because he only kills other killers. He is an avenging serial killer. In these vigilant days, it is a simple and attractive premise.

Instead of buggering up the judicial system with his likes, he is employed as a Darwinially well-adapted fixture of society. Extending the fitness theory to the biological level, Dexter is a macrophage, an organismal garbage man. And of course, per Hollywood, Dexter is preternaturally good-looking, young, intelligent and engaging.

As childhood background, Dexter ends up in the care of a police detective who recognizes Dexter's proclivities and channels them into his current constructive homicidal behaviors, i.e., scouring the streets of killers. The youth is trained early on in the art of the kill.

Now, Dexter too works in the employ of the police as a crime scene blood-spatter expert, giving him the inside track on tips to facilitate his righteous serial killing. There is a not-so-subtle subtext that sometimes, the good guys (=police) must do some bad things to effect justice.

Torture under the aegis of government, anyone? John Yoo as script consultant?

However, one disconcerting aspect of Dexter's clearing of the dead-enders is that he takes glee in their destruction. Dexter stalks and kills in the name of justice, but he tortures them before their demise as a sociopath is wont to do. Reveling in murder and mayhem outside of the boardroom generally is not kosher. Typically, he dismembers the victim's bodies, disposing of the remainders in a shrink-wrapping.

Dexter's psychopathology is justified by the vendetta-like nature of his kills. Though attractive, Dexter is a sociopath, despite his self-deluded and convenient justifications. The program is symptomatic of a shifting morality in the U.S. viewing audience, and it occupies a key Sunday night viewing slot.

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) infects the media yet again. In effect, Dexter is following VP Cheney's injunction that to defeat terrorism, it is necessary to walk on the Dark Side (Don't do it, Luke.) The U.S. has now walked that dark side, so as embodied by this series, it is not a stretch to believe that good is the result of evil.

If the evil is directed at achieving their perverted interpretation of good, then evil has become a good. It is Neitzche's mad and arrogant transvaluation of values come home to roost. But the ubermensch doesn't much care.

For the simple mind inclined to see every battle as a Manichaean struggle, it is simplicity itself for good to employ evil to its own end. Ho, ho Silver and happy trails, to you. In this show, Dexter-cum-Cheney is a hero because he has fashioned a higher good out of dirty doings.

The father figure in Dexter is GHWB, former CIA director clearly versed in dark side etiquette. As on the show, he has taught his son how to sublimate his murderous impulses into acceptable channels. Terrorists and accused terrorists are bad, so you can torture, kidnap and kill them with impunity; in fact, with societal approval. Or at least, implicit approval. This is the era of don't ask, don't tell. Just don't get caught, for that is the cardinal sin.

Like Dexter, George W. Bush presents as a hale, well-met fellow, but underneath he is an unprincipled killer. Unlike Dexter, he tortures nations vs. individuals, per se.

The remaining characters also analogize nicely to the current paradigm. Dexter's sister is a fledgling homicide detective with an inkling of Dexter's after-hours romps. Her character equates to Condoleeza Rice: she is striving, hungry for acceptance and success, and will do anything legal to climb the career scaffold. But in her silence, she is the unwitting tool of Dexter in his murderous pursuits.

Dexter's girlfriend and her children reflect the U.S. population at large. She struggles to hold her family together as a single mother. Dexter hides his unsavory reality from her by presenting himself as a loving and caring individual. She buys into his persona as America has bought into Mr. Bush's version of reality.

Dexter and GBW are heartless, unfeeling murderers walking amongst us while pretending to be normal functioning beings. It is a vision of America straight out of a George Romero nightmare. We the viewers and we the voters have bought into the illusion of goodness.

How much longer will Americans play the dupe?

Mad Cow

The Shanghai ran off and the cattle all died
The last piece of bacon that morning was fried
--Sweet Betsy from Pike
____________

Ranger Question of the Day:
If a cruise missile explodes in an uninhabited forest,
does it make a sound?
___________

U.S. policy has come a long way baby since Shock-and-Awe debuted on the world's stage. Now we have the ripple effect:

"American naval forces fired missiles [note: more than one] into southern Somalia on Monday, aiming at what the Defense Department called terrorist targets.

"Residents reached by telephone said that three civilians were wounded, and that the only other casualties were three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly destroyed house."

What a swell day for democracy -- three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly-destroyed house. You could go home and call it a good day with such a haul. At least the chickens appeared to escape unscathed, but the cows and donkey surely paid for their collusion with a terrorist.

The desperation of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is palpable. Imagine dropping million-dollar+ Tomahawk cruise missiles, fired from billion- dollar+ nuclear submarines ostensibly to kill one "known al Qaeda terrorist."

"The missile strike was aimed at Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan born in 1979 who is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning in the nearly simultaneous attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and on an Israeli airliner taking off from there, said three American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the strike."

Who spoke? The U.S. launches missile strikes and our officials are not authorized to speak publicly on those strikes? In other words, bomb them to hell, but don't talk about it officially. It's great to see my tax dollars at work spreading indiscriminate democracy in yet another nation that doesn't want it.

Not a good day for surgical strikes: An unnamed U.S. military official said "the missiles were believed to have hit their targets. Witnesses on the ground, though, described the attack differently."

"The attack on Monday was not the first time that American forces had fired missiles into Somalia or used airstrikes in pursuit of what the Pentagon has called terrorist operatives. They did so at least three times last year."

Aside from the profligate and unjustified expense is the question of legitimacy. Does the U.S. have the right to bomb an Arab neighborhood because a "known operative" may (or may not) be present? Further, that "known operative" stands accused, but not convicted, of a crime.

But of course, a cruise missile makes a hell of a judge and jury. After speaking, it nullifies all appeals. A perfect tool for Bushville. Unfortunately, the world has moved past Judge Roy Bean's form of justice.

It is an embarrassment to this Ranger that this is the best response the U.S. can orchestrate to neutralize, capture and bring to justice a small-time punk like Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. If and when he is killed, how will the world become a safer place?

Lobbing cruise missiles into Arab neighborhoods is a great al-Qaeda recruitment tool.

Gambler's Fallacy

"Al Qaida has been defeated completely.
They're shifting their operations outside of Iraq.
They will not have a safe home here anymore."
--Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, Chicago Tribune (11/18/07)

Money, its a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
--Money, Pink Floyd

Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends
--William Butler Yeats
_________

Delightful. Let's see -- our actions create a reaction, in the form of the organization of a terrorist entity which didn't exist prior to our presence (= al Qaida in Mesopotamia), then we move 'em out onto the world stage, which is where we sit. Now there is something to warm the cockles of your heart.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke recently of the latest plans to lob money and weapons at Afghanistan to "counter a growing threat from al Qaida fighters" (More Recruits, U.S. Arms Planned for Afghan Military). So it's really like a game of badminton; a really costly, hopeless game of badminton.

"The Pentagon is also working to speed the flow of weaponry and armor to the Afghan forces, who suffer most of their casualties -- up to 90 percent, according to Afghan army officials -- in roadside bombings. The weapons include 5,000 U.S. M-16 rifles, due to arrive this month, with another 10,000 each month after that, for a total of 60,000, said Army Maj. Gen. Robert W. Cone, head of the training command."

Yes, the 60,000 U.S. M-16's should counter the IED threat causing 90% of the Afghan casualties nicely. A fairly typical U.S. solution--arm them to the teeth and pretend they are our friends. And friends who are happy to take a pretty payout, too. Consider the following:

"In an appearance with Gates, President Hamid Karzai also made a broad public appeal for increased assistance. "If you are asking me whether we need more, I will never say no. I will keep asking for more," he said at a packed news conference at his presidential palace in Kabul."

Now, that's a friend with a certain chutzpah, who has correctly identified his Daddy Warbucks. And get this: Afghanistan is a third-world, mud-hut sort of a place, yet Mr. Karzai is holding forth from his palace, a palace probably funded by U.S. tax dollars. Ain't democracy grand?

To the troglodyte called Ranger, the VN experience remains instructive. When the NVA conquered the South, where did all those millions of M-16 rifles and untold numbers of pistols and grenades, at least 90,000 M60 machine guns, M-60 tanks and heavy artillery go?

Two places:

• The new Vietnam sold them on the world surplus market and they ended up in PFLP, IRA, PLO, Black September and FARC arms rooms. They did not magically disappear, but were merely shifted around the troubled world and were instrumental in the growth of violence and terrorism worldwide. Just as we provided for Vietnam, we are doing the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• In the late 70's and 80's the Japs were kicking Detroit's auto-making ass. The steel was provided by U.S.-made heavy armaments left behind and abandoned by the VN army. The Japs bought the steel surplus and melted them down to provide Toyotas and Hondas to the ever-gullible U.S. taxpayer.

Again from the article, "In a visit to the eastern province of Khost. . .Gates met with U.S. commanders who described a dramatic drop in attacks as U.S. forces partnered with the local government and boosted aid. Before an attack Monday night, 'we went seven months without an attack on a district center,' said Lt. Col. Scott Custer."

Lt. Custer's statement signifies nothing, though it is parroted by many to indicate progress. Correlation does not indicate causation. It is the logical fallacy of cum hoc, ergo propter hoc. The U.S. has not been a target of a significant terrorist attack since 9-11, but we are still wasting billions on a gambler's fallacy.

Since this LTC's name is "Custer," he should know that seven months of quiet can be nothing but a prelude to a significant event. Everything regresses toward the mean.

Finally, in a terribly patronizing moment in his recent visit, Gates, upon espying one Afghan private who was particularly skilled at shooting, said "If I'm in a foxhole, I want you next to me," to Pvt. Hussein, 18, from Nardak.

Gates has never been a foxhole, nor has he ever dug one. If Gates wants Pvt. Hussein next to him, then he should just kiss him on the ear. Pvt. Hussein would surely follow him home.

"Repeatedly during the trip, Gates voiced frustration that other countries are not fulfilling their financial and military commitments to Afghanistan. He also bristled at NATO's failure, so far, to supply an additional 3,500 trainers for the Afghan police and two more infantry battalions, and said he planned to raise the matter at a NATO meeting in Scotland this month."

When did the Afghanistan debacle become NATO's concern? Did the administration request NATO support and compliance before unilaterally invading? The U.S. position is, as always, arrogant and unilateral. NATO is well-advised to avoid that quagmire which foolhardy U.S. leaders so precipitously and stupidly embraced.

If America has a yen to nation-build, let's start in New Orleans. Their need has primacy over Kabul or Baghdad. When did U.S. taxpayers sign on as caretakers for Iraq and Afghanistan?

Ranger is disgusted by the waste, fraud and destruction that are the hallmarks of these phony wars. Let's get our focus back on the realities and welfare of America.