The Big Lie

 Why this feeling? Why this glow?
Why the thrill when you say Hello?
It's a strange and tender magic you do
Mister Wonderful, that's you 
--Mr. Wonderful, Peggy Lee 

'Cause it makes me that much stronger 
 Makes me work a little bit harder
Makes me that much wiser
So thanks for making me a fighter 
--Fighter, Christina Aguilera

--Lieutenant, why are you doing this?
 --Do you ask the men the same question? 
--As a matter of fact: yes, I do ask them.
--And what do they say?
 --"Cause I get to blow shit up." 
--Well, there you go
--G. I Jane (1997)
_____________________

Ranger would rather sandpaper his ass and soak in Epsom salts rather than entertain the decision that will open combat MOS's to female soldiers.

The Global War on Terror, The Long War, gun control and the decision to allow women into the combat arms all share a lowest common denominator of being based upon a lie posing as a valid hypothesis.  The lie justifying women in the combat arms is that they will be required to meet the same standards as do male service members; they will not, and it is this inequality which fuels Rangers opposition to their admittance.

Beginning with what seems a superficial difference between gender standards, but a difference nonetheless, consider haircuts.  The high and tight is required of male recruits to maintain standards of cleanliness, neatness and uniformity of appearance; it keeps lice and other vermin from setting up scalp residence, is necessary for getting a good seal on the protective mask and it makes treating head wounds easier (these comments are aimed at the Army, as the other services have their own criteria.)  Women may wear their hair longer than men.

So we say we have one standard, but this most basic difference in regulations shows the difference, the accommodation.  If short hair is correct for men, why not for women? Clearly standards will be different, but is this desirable in the most dire of military operations when less exceptions and more codification equals more simplicity and focus on the operation?

Surely gender integration into the combat arms can be done but as with our criticisms of the endeavors in the opening paragraph, we always discuss the "hows" versus the "why's".  Why do we accept that pushing the boundary is a good and necessary thing?  Nuclear bombs might be a more elegant -- less bloody -- way of killing than all the others, but is killing an art form we wish to maximize, sanitize and perfect to the point of utter dehumanization?

William Saletan at Slate -- who routinely warps the facts to forward his social agenda -- wrote in the falsely titled, "Putting women in combat isn’t a dangerous 'experiment' anymore. It’s a success":

Members of the House of Representatives now serve with Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, who lost her legs as a helicopter pilot in Iraq. They also know Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, another Iraq veteran. And many lawmakers have visited war zones. “I’ve seen firsthand service men and women working together in a range of dangerous operations to achieve our military objectives,” says Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire. “Today’s announcement reflects the increasing role that female service members play in securing our country.” McCain agrees: “American women are already serving in harm’s way today all over the world and in every branch of our armed forces. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice."

But "men and women working together" and being in harm's way does not constitute fighting in an Infantry unit; that, no woman has (openly) done.  Think of any battle in which the United States has participated -- Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Bataan, Iwo Jima, The Bulge, Khe Sanh, ad infinitum.  Can anyone say how adding women to these battles would have enhanced them?  Over 100 women have died in the last decade's War on Terror, but these have come predominantly from roadside IEDs or artillery attacks, not as a consequence of their participation in a planned combat operation.

This is a dire statement, but the U.S. will pay in blood for this ill-advised transformation of the combat arms, for one day the U.S. will fight a real theatre level war again with a forward line of troops (FLOT) and a forward edge of the battle area (FEBA), rather than fighting largely irregular non-state insurgents.  A war of maneuver is much different than an "inside/outside of the wire" paradigm.

A real war is a nightmare, and it is Ranger's experience that keeping women out of nightmares is a good thing.

Next: The emotional challenge of placing women in combat MOS's

Son's of Liberty

Cause when you're talking to that many people
At one time
You're bound to be lying to someone
At some time
--I Can Explain Everything,
T Bone Burnett
_________________

Americans do not want to face the fact that their everyday soldiers, the sons and daughters of liberty and justice for all, were involved in torture at every level of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

Talk of torture centers on a few egregious cases of Central Intelligence Agency abuse, and we are content to spin around these tales from the crypt. But much killing and abuse resulted from torture conducted on detainees while in U.S. custody. And, with President Obama's imprimatur, we still do not question the endless incarceration of untold numbers of prisoners held without any judicial oversight.

The U.S. populace is complicit in torture when it ignores any instance of its perpetration. If Congress were serious about stopping torture, they would make it a federal crime to even propose its use.

Ranger's outrage does not lie with the torture alone,but the fact that we tortured people that were not terrorists; we tortured out of meannesss and vindictiveness. We were neither discreet nor discriminating.

The U.S. government is living an edition of Soldier of Fortune magazine, only we are not the fortunate ones.

Ranger Rule: If it is bad when the enemy does it to our soldiers, then it is bad when we do it to them. D'oh.

Tortured Logic

There is no such thing as a difficult dog,
only an inexperienced owner
--No Bad Dogs, Barbara Woodhouse

I'll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade.
--Easter Parade, Irving Berlin
______________

Nothing piques Ranger more than listening to a non-combatant sissy like Dick Cheney say that torture was necessary to preserve America's safety in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

He's right, of course. We should torture people like Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perl, et. al. -- all the patriotic proponents of the feel-good elective wars. Heck, the CEO's of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and A.I.G. could even take their turn in the barrel. Their bitchassness has earned them entre to a healthy dose of enforced reality therapy to enlighten their syphilitic brains.

Americans just don't get it, but the rest of the world has a clue. The U.S. government is a greater threat to the security of the world than is any mindlessly violent terrorists. At least the terrorist's violence has operational limits.

The U.S. government has killed untold numbers in the PWOT. We also arm the world facilitating ongoing violence, and then act incredulous when hideous violence flares up outside of our venue. For instance, the government now pisses and moans because U.S. civilian weapons end up in Mexico.

Nobody articulates the fact that the corruption rampant in Mexico is the direct result of repression and power enabled by weapons and combat vehicles provided to the Mexican government courtesy the U.S. A. A few smuggled guns is not the brunt of the problem. The U.S. officially floods the government with kill-your-citizen weapons -- that is a problem.

Yet Americans swallow the propaganda as easily as we did the necessity of the "righteous and just" torture promoted by our vaunted leaders and financed with our tax dollars. The criminals that we elect to be our designated torture directors also do a crack job at arming anybody with just about anything, as long as it is cash on the barrel head.

Hell, shaky credit will do (we're used to risks), and if this is unavailable, we just give it to them. The U.S. is an Equal Opportunity weapons supplier. We call it foreign aid, but in reality, it is an arms dealer's wet dream.

But back to torture. It is more amusing to discuss than watching t.v., and it beats the hell out of listening to our leaders explaining how we have become accomplices in the WOT (World of Torture). As Ranger has previously stated, the torture advocates are nutless wonders lacking the courage to serve in the combat arms, but just brave enough to pimp out torture to sub-contractors. They are only giving orders, you see.

The most shameful part is that the U.S. military helped create and perpetrate this illegality. The convenient disregard of internationally accepted concepts of decency and prohibitions against torture effectively turned the U.S. forces into state-sponsored terrorists.

Terrorists kidnap torture and kill. When done under the aegis of state, we hypocritically call it COIN. The entire War on Terror could be shrunk into one of those hooah military novels, and we could charitably call it, "When Good People do Bad Things."

Which reminds us of Rabbi Kushner's book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, making us wonder why no house of God inveighs against this national policy. This Christian nation seems eerily silent on the moral aspects of the conduct of these wars.

It appears that the followers of Jesus, a man tortured before being killed, do not care to address the fact that the U.S. government has done the same thing as policy. It is all so biblical, as we have washed our hands of the mess.

In a giant step for mankind, we have decided to no longer call them enemy combatants, and the wars are no longer "wars" -- they are "Overseas Contingency Operations" (Global War on Terror is Given New Name.) There -- that feels better.

"GWOT" and "Long War" was so Old School.

Operation Red Wings Failure

Marti was a fightin' man
Whose story should be told
He was a son of circumstance
He couldn't quite control
--Marti's Last Stand,
Enter the Haggis
____________

The soon to be published book Sawtelo Sar: The Untold Story of Operation Red Wings and Whalers, by Ed Darack, will discuss the "disinformation and missed-information" surrounding Red Wings, the operation for which Michael P. Murphy received his Medal of Honor (Michael P. Murphy MOH).

While we are glad Mr. Darack has written his book, why is there disinformation attached to any U.S. combat operation in the glorious War on Terror? Of his statement I have no doubt, but why does it devolve to an embedded independent stock photographer and adventure writer who was never in the military to expose these facts?

Included on the website promoting the book is a picture of Jason Kamiya, Commanding General of CJTF-76, so this operation was a Task Force, which generally translates as a combination of forces arrayed under a single commander to fulfill a specific mission. T.F.'s are usually of a short duration and are not habitual unit relationships.

As a small aside, the General is wearing an Expert Infantry Badge, so the task force was commanded by a MG without a Combat Infantry Badge.

"The objective of [Operation Red Wings] was to 'disrupt anti-coalition militia operations that could potentially affect the upcoming national elections,' Translation: the Marines along with local Afghan forces would interdict those responsible for the creation and employment of IEDs (improvised explosive devices, commonly referred to as 'roadside bombs'), mortar and rocket attacks, and ambushes that destabilized the remote Kunar Province."

To the best of my memory, T.F.'s are usually Battalion-sized efforts with attachments, i.e, artillery, aviation, armor or whatever is required to fulfill the mission. Therefore, a Battalion Commander should be the T.F. commander, and T.F.'s are usually named for the T.F. Commander.

One of the difficulties that should have been anticipated before the operation kicked off was that this was a CJTF, with inherent problems built-in. As example, the Iranian hostage fiasco during Desert One demonstrates the services still have problems working J-level operations. Bay of Pigs, Son Tay Raid, Grenada offer other examples.

Operations are difficult enough at the service level, and adding outside resources does not make things go more smoothly. When will the U.S. services learn this lesson?

The target for Murphy's SEAL team was a militia led by Ahmed Shah which was neither Taliban or al-Qaeda, though it probably had financial links to both. It was one of "approximately 22" distinct oppositional units operating in the region. Murphy's unit was ratted out by a goat herder.

Once again, U.S. military members are being used to suppress and/or kill non-Taliban, non-al-Qaeda personnel; how does this constitute a part of the War on Terror? Surely Ahmed Shah is a rough customer, but so what? How does this impact the welfare of the U.S.?

When there are 22 distinct anti-coalition militias (ACM) in the area, one must question the validity of elections in such a region. This indicates a civil war, which has nothing to do with the security of America. To throw American troops into the fray is like putting them in a bumper car in which they will be buffeted by any number of known and unknown hostiles. The cars may be different colors, but they all look alike.

The actions of these militias can not even be justified as terrorism as it is a classic guerrilla / unconventional warfare scenario. Why does the U.S. military kill people and conduct combat operations to prop up phony puppet governments that do not reflect the will of the people?

It is doubtful that Afghanistan will ever have a representative government even if the U.S. military were to kill every goat , chicken, dog and goat herder in the area. Some things are beyond the purview of combat power. Afghanistan was a failed state when the U.S. invaded; the production of choreographed elections does not alter that reality. Kabul will never be an Athenian democracy.

Battalion 2/3 decided to name its operations after hockey teams. Why do we believe that sports analogize to combat operations? The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is not a sporting event, and there will be no winners, though there are cheerleaders, but they never were in harm's way.

The fact that Shah was shot and chased out of the region in a subsequent operation (Whalers) is as meaningless as warm spit. He is simply regrouping in another location for another day, and his units will return as soon as the Marines pack their rucks and split the scene.

Shah and his inheritors will still be there when the Marines are old and telling their war stories in a VFW post.

MOH #4: Michael A. Monsoor

Michael A. Monsoor
4/05/81-9/29/06

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
_____________

The fourth and final medal of Honor thus far in current hostilities was awarded to Michael A. Monsoor, Master-At-Arms Second Class, US Navy, SEAL, action 29 September 2006.

As a member of a combined SEAL and Iraqi Army Sniper Overwatch Element, tasked with providing early warning and stand-off protection from a rooftop in an insurgent held sector of Ar Ramadi, Iraq, Petty Officer Monsoor distinguished himself by his exceptional bravery in the face of grave danger. In the early morning, insurgents prepared to execute a coordinated attack by reconnoitering the area around the element’s position. Element snipers thwarted the enemy’s initial attempt by eliminating two insurgents. The enemy continued to assault the element, engaging them with a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire. As enemy activity increased, Petty Officer Monsoor took position with his machine gun between two teammates on an outcropping of the roof.

Here is the same scenario as the case of Jason Dunham, except here it is played out with SEAL personnel, highly trained experts in UW/GW. Again, U.S. types were put in positions that required extreme measures for the team to survive.

The first question is: Why did this element not have indirect fire support on call?

Second: Why is a sniper section of high value assets stuck out in an area without mutual support or interlocking fires of adjacent units? This is not Cowboys and Indians. No enemy should be allowed to get within grenade distance of a sniper enclave without friendlies putting protective direct fire on approaching hostiles.

Third: What is the escape and evasion plan? How would such a sniper element be exfiltrated if everything went wrong -- which is exactly what happened?

Four: Why would an SOF asset be used in areas that had hostile avenues of approach that were not covered by obstacles and fire?

Monsoor's scenario is yet another example of putting troops into harm's way without proper planning considerations evaluating enemy activity, avenues of approach and likely courses of action. These failures led to a situation which forced Monsoor to take action that would have been avoided through careful planning and mission preparation.

These are ugly truths, and Ranger held off making these observations for some time, hoping someone else would pick up the bloody mess. It is a crime when brave men lose their lives via poor planning.

Calling their actions heroic and giving their parents the son's posthumous medal does not ameliorate the manifold failures which went into causing these men's deaths. Their heroism is the result of that poor planning.

It is not that the Soldiers' and Marines' actions were above and beyond the call of duty, so much as the command put them into positions that required above and beyond performance.

When Crime Pays

Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!
One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky.
Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard?
What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?
--Macbeth, Act V, scene i

Beware of pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
Ah, be careful what you say
Or you'll give yourself away
--Secret Agent Man, Johnny Rivers

The good life was so elusive
Handouts, they got me down
I had to regain my confidence
So I got into camouflage
--I Love a Man in a Uniform, Gang of Four

The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.
Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us.
But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear
--Heinrich Himmler
____________

Central Intelligence Agency director General Michael Hayden announced Wednesday that he was retiring from the Air Force this Summer (CIA Director Announces He'll Retire from Air Force.) He will continue at his CIA post as a civilian.

His picture is inspiring -- he is clean, fresh, manicured, and in his pretty blue uniform. Try as Ranger may, the image of Nazi SS Leader Heinrich Himmler flashes before his eyes. Both Hayden and Himmler were mild-looking men hiding grotesque criminal acts behind a tidy uniformed veneer. Patriots, they were.

Pretty uniforms and phony patriotism were the hallmarks of Nazi Germany, and now America is falling for this same seductive formula for instant success and surface sterilization.

But even the tidy uniform won't help Hayden brush off some actions. As director of the National Security Administration post 9-11 he allowed that agency, which is a Department of Defense asset, to be turned against the American citizens. While there, he allowed warrantless electronic surveillance of the communications of U.S. citizens.

For this egregious violation of our collective civil rights, this criminal was awarded a 4th star on his shiny uniform. And thus, any question of mafeasance endeth.

While choirboy director at the CIA, he oversaw implementation and consequent cover-up of secret prisons, extraordinary rendition (=kidnappings) and prisoner murders under interrogations by CIA operatives or their contract employees.

The party line is that the CIA doesn't torture or even waterboard, but keeping prisoners without trials for unlimited detention in solitary confinement is a definition of torture. These CIA criminal actions are probably the tip of the iceberg, as we the trusty taxpayers only get the facts when they are forced out of the administration.

So how does Hayden pay? He doesn't. We the taxpayers are about to pay $204,000 year for his military pension, while he continues to earn $172,000 for his fine work as a CIA salariman extraordinaire.

Who says crime doesn't pay? Especially when it is draped in a flag and pretty blue uniform.

God the Father, God the Son

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
--America the Beautiful (1893)

And we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
cause if you really want to hear our views
You haven't done nothin'!
--You Haven't Done Nothin', Stevie Wonder

But these rose colored glasses, that I'm looking through
Show only the beauty, cause they hide all the truth

--Rose-Colored Glasses, John Conlee

Mister Herbert Hoover
Says that now's the time to buy
So let's have another cup o' coffee
And let's have another piece o' pie!
--"Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee", Irving Berlin

_____________

Completing the Trinity we go outside the Bush Clan: Michael Chertoff looks like the Holy Ghost, but there are just so many contenders in this administration. We welcome your vote.

A Sunday sermon for our readers, entitled, the Miracle Worker:

George W. Bush has often said that freedom is a gift from God to man. In this fairy tale of his making, God is the manufacturer of a democracy, which all men will accept and revel in. Mr. Bush knows this because he, like Moses, has spoken to God.

In effect, God and His Kingdom have become a democratic ideal that has become a tool in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). It is a childlike fantasy from a weak individual who envisions himself as a Prophet (Profit?) President.

However, the historical God has not been friendly to the concepts of either democracy or freedom. Certainly, such a high muckety-muck who ordains what his minions shall and shall not do, and what days they must take off, would never give either of those possessions, for that would be to loose anarchy upon the world. He is more like the celestial High Police Commissioner than a proto-Bertrand Russel.

Freedom and democracy have always been wrested from the hands of unwilling leaders, both church and secular. The very concept of God is not a democratic principle, as it demands obeisance to a power hierarchy. If He or She exists, god is omnipotent, omnipresent and immutable, and His actions are not subject to polls or purple thumbs.

Freedom is a hard-won possession in a social construct, and one usually independent of God. God is a limiting concept on human freedom, because if you buy into it, the only freedom you have is what is dispensed to you from on high. He circumscribes your actions, sanctifying or damning them. He does not unleash you from controls, because in that system, you are as a child, and children would do themselves great harm without rules.

Freedom is not free--this is true, because Ranger saw it on a bumper sticker. But if it is not free in America, then why is it a gift to Iraq and Afghanistan? One of the basic tenets of American capitalism is that there are no free lunches. If it is worth having, then it is worth working for. We all possess the ability to actualize our dreams by the sweat of our brow.

So how has George Bush effected the transubstantiation of "freedom" into a god-given "gift"? Any how did he become the FTD man who would deliver this bundle of joy to the ungrateful recipients?

This gift supposedly has devolved from a God that oversaw the decline of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Dark Ages, and intentionally fought the introduction of reason into the political discourse. The same God that now prompts President Bush and his lackeys to deny the validity of the scientific principle of evolution. That God gave man freedom?

You can not give freedom to a people. Freedom cannot be dropped like a cluster bomb. It doesn't arrive signed, sealed, delivered from a drone. One does not peel back the lid from a repressive regime and find freedom lying in the bottom of the tin.

The Pope continually favored the kings of old and defended their divinely ordained right to rule. God, through the church, has supported manifold undemocratic institutions, and to this day remains non-democratic. The Pope retains his "infallible nature," a concept arising from anything but an impulse to freedom. It is dictatorial, sexist and arrogant.

None of the other religions are any better. The early religious sects which migrated to the U.S. did so to escape religious repression, then proceeded to set up repressive societies disallowing religious freedoms to others. The Salem witch trials were democratic versions of The Inquisition.

The first thing the Spaniards did in the New World after stealing all that wasn't nailed down and selecting slaves was to impose their God upon the native population. They were free to do that, so hegemony confers freedom, but only upon those in the power position. The "freedom" they might confer is dilute, by virtue of their ability to dispense it.

Manifest Destiny and the City on the Hill and all the rest of the God-given propaganda sanctioned our imperial expansion and theft of Mexican and Native American lands. We gladly imposed our God upon those heathens, and though through conversion they too could gain God's favor, they were latecomers to the table.

As a result, they could only gain secondary democracy and freedom, which is to say not really freedom at all. They could get God, yes; democracy, no. At least not until the next life. You snooze, you lose.

Somehow Americans have come to accept Mr. Bush's fantasy of the feasibility of forcefully exported freedom and democracy. Moreover, they call it a virtue. But if this freedom is free, why are the American taxpayers footing a $3 trillion debt for this divine intervention?

Why do Americans accept such fantastical leadership? It would be acceptable if Bush were multiplying the loaves and fishes while the American public struggles to meet their exponentially rising grocery bills.

George Bush doesn't believe in evolution, but his God seems to have evolved from a tyrant to a benevolent custodian of free peoples inhabiting democracies.

This is not so much evolution, but a collective delusion; the result of living in a closed system called Fantasyland, under the dogma of your choice.

--Jim and Lisa

Coward of the County

So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides
that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is
always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear.
But let us never fear to negotiate
--John F. Kennedy

Somebody once wrote:
"Hell is the impossibility of reason."
That's what this place feels like. Hell.
--Platoon (1986)
______________

Cops and robbers, Cowboys and Indians. If she didn't get to play in the schoolyard, she is making up for lost time now. Everyone gets to play in Georgie Bush's playhouse:

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward yesterday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers (Rice frames al-Sadr as Coward.)"

Ranger remembers 9-11 and the immediate aftermath. Both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney availed themselves of Cold War bunkers, holing up in "undisclosed locations" to protect themselves from airplane hijackers. Of course, both these sniveling jerks are heroes in Condoleeza Rice's book. That makes her one confused woman.

Now she calls al-Sadr a coward. Is this the State Department equivalent of putting panties on his head and sexually humiliating him? Is this a diplomatic initiative? New State Department etiquette?

Reuters reported yesterday, "China must stop cursing the Dalai Lama and talk: U.S." Right. Do as we say, not as we do. Works well with children -- why not apply to the rest of the world?

"Public vilification of the Dalai Lama will not help defuse the situation," [Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte] said of China's angry tide of statements since protests erupted across Tibet in March."

"Through outreach and genuine dialogue, China and the Dalai Lama. . . can begin to bridge differences, explore the meaning of genuine autonomy and address long-standing grievances," he said. "

Sounds like the Deputy needs to advise the Secretary.

The U.S. claims it wants to facilitate consensus in Iraq but words and actions indicate otherwise.

--by Jim and Lisa

Picky Picky

Red rover, red rover, send
air strikes right over
--British Bulldog, game

But you're not talking to a soldier now,
you're talking to an expedition. I'm an expedition!
--Gunga Din (1939)

What we have here? A bunch of fig-eaters wearing towels
on their heads,trying to find reverse in a Soviet tank.
This is not a worthy adversary.
--The Big Lebowski (1998)
______________

Continuing Air Force week comes this from an article on the ROVER program (Litening-AT targeting pods) in "Lifting the Fog of War" in Citizen Airman, April 2008:

As the Global War on Terror evolved into counter-insurgency operations, the importance of hyper-precise airstrikes and minimizing collateral damage demonstrated the need for a tool like ROVER to aid in the decisions to release weapons from aircraft, Colonel Arthur said.

This is a statement of the actuality of the GWOT [Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)] which is never officially acknowledged: the PWOT has evolved into counter-insurgency.

The U.S. military is being used to subject and force the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan to bend to our will. If they do not do so, then send in the A-10's.

The wild blue yonder meets Gunga Din.

Back to Black

We have ceased to be a nation under law
but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights,
like a dead trumpet vine,
clings to our pseudo-Roman columns
--Gore Vidal
_______________

Religious holidays always hearken Ranger back to his formative years. Since realizing that God does not talk to me on a regular or even intermittent basis, Ranger has long-rejected George W. Bush's position that God's will favors the U.S. policy of indiscriminate forced democratization throughout the oil-rich areas of the globe.

That is the crux of his unease with those who would claim a mandate to impose their convictions anywhere. Proselytizing is the realm of the church, not the government. Ranger prefers to keep all discussions on matters of national policy on the temporal plane, and hopes the future president du jour does the same, reflecting the will of the people versus that of the divine father.

The minister-architects of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) would have us believe that a non-democratic country is de facto evil, in the words of the Good Book. If evil, then terrorist, with the only solution being a righteous smelting until the good is rendered out, ergo, pure democracy. The simplicity is almost elegant: "evil" is good which has been corrupted. Knock off the wayward add-ons, and you are back to good (=democracy).

When democracy triumphs terrorism is defeated and ceases to exist. Wham-bam-thank you, ma'am. However, it is possible that life goes the other way. That the tendency is to rumble, and hate and distrust (hard to imagine, eh?) That in fact, democracy is the unusual impulse, the one which is added on. That instead of being pure, it is the alloy.

Terrorism is an outgrowth of democracy. There were no terrorists in Nazi Germany, but there were in the Federal Republic of Germany. Same for Italy of WWII vs. the democratic Italy of the 70's and 80's. There is no terrorism in China, nor was there in the Soviet Union. The only terrorism in Iran and Cuba is/was sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency. There is no terrorism in North Korea.

The GWOT is not and can not be a war to oppose totalitarian authority. The U.S. military and economic machines do not possess the resources nor the resolve to achieve this goal. That is, unless China will lend us the money to combat the Chinese totalitarian state. So what are we fighting for?

Terrorism can only exist in a free and open society. If the U.S. wants to defeat terrorism, then adopting the tactics of dictators is the key to success.

Is this really a war that the U.S. can afford to fight, or one that we should want to win?

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.

Not Exactly God and Country. . .

One of the myths of the Vietnam War was that the montagnards fought with the U.S. Special Forces because they loved the Green Berets and the love was reciprocal. The montagnards were primitive, but they weren't stupid. The French played the very same game, then left the "yards" holding the bag.

The montagnards fought not for love of the SF or the Republic of Vietnam. They fought because the SF provided training at the battalion level with corresponding weaponry. They were in effect planning for their eventual battle to free themselves from Vietnamese control, both North and South. This freedom movement was called FULRO and was actively and passively aided by SF actions.

Fast-forward 36 years to a military and a press which fails to grasp that military gains are meaningless unless the Iraqis form a true national consensus. Such a hoped-for consensus was the entire rationale behind the Surge. Our military was to cut slack so that the Iraqis could consolidate politically.

Barring that cohesion, our military can gain ground 'til the cows come home, but that won't effect a stable, effective legitimate government in Iraq. We are told that U.S. forces are fighting them left and right -- against both Sunni and Shiite extremists -- and are "making strides," but what is the nature of these strides? "Waging successful battles" is not a yardstick of success.

Credited with the reduction in Iraqi violence over the past six months were "an influx of thousands of U.S. troops, and the formation of mostly Sunni groups of paid volunteers who agreed to battle al-Qaida for the United States military." "Paid volunteers" is code for mercenaries.

So our newest battlefield asset is not a technological one, but a conventional one. These Sunni mercenaries are a centerpiece of our current COIN operations. The Sunnis effectively have been co-opted as a U.S.-controlled militia.

However, this militia, like the that of the montagnards before them, has no loyalty to or concept of a national government. The Sunni volunteers are there to get training, arms, body armor, commo gear and vehicles. This puts them outside the control of the Iraqi government, and the U.S. gladly obliges.

That the Sunnis are fighting "for the U.S. military" is not a hopeful sign for Iraqi national consensus, nor does it indicate any loyalty to the government of Iraq. They are actually fighting for themselves and their own unique tribal objectives.

The Sunnis are fighting al-Qaida in Mesopotamia simply because it is in their interests to do so. It is not because they have come around to the side of the U.S., nor because they are wedded to the concept of a united Iraq, contrary to the proclamations of George W. Bush.. Euphemistically, we would call this pragmatic behavior.

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.

Organ Grinder

“It’s not in the strategic interest of the United States”
to have a long-term military presence in Iraq
--Jim Webb (D-VA), quoted in the NYT

Everybody's got something to hide,
'cept for me and my monkey.
--Everybody's Got Something to Hide, John Lennon

It is better to look good than to feel good,
you know what I am saying?
--Fernando (Billy Crystal), Saturday Night Live

Would you like to touch my monkey?
Liebe meinen Affen-monkey!
--Dieter (Sprockets), SNL
________

More minute deconstruction of reports from the MSM on the arming of the "projected members of the Iraq army." For those in the know, the loose and downright nonfactual reporting irks.

In "New Arms for a New Iraqi Army," the L.A. Times reports,

"Over the next year or two, the 190,000 projected members of the Iraqi army will be issued M-16s or related weapons, to the consternation of some military aficionados and pundits, with some saying the U.S. is tempting fate by offering the world's premier assault rifle to a country with an unstable government and a healthy black market."

What makes the M-16 the premier assault rifle? Aren't the SIG's, the Galil, the FN's of equal or superior design? Just because the U.S. uses it does it make it the best.

"The AK [has] . . . a large round and big kick. . ." How can anyone except a big wimp say that the AK has a big kick?

"Already, about 10,000 of the Colt-manufactured assault rifles have been distributed to Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad and other parts of the country. The Iraqi Defense Ministry has ordered about 41,000 of the weapons, which sell for about $800 apiece, and the U.S. Army has authorized the sale of 80,000 others, plus 50,000 of the related M-4."

When did the U.S. Army become the agency to authorize foreign arms sales? Wasn't this a State Department function? So much for civilian leadership.

After three-day qualifying trials, "they graduate to live-fire tactical training, learning how to enter a house, identify a target and shoot to kill." Wonderful. If the function of an army is to enter houses, then let's give the Iraqis sawed-off 12 gauge shotguns with buckshot. Entering houses and killing people does not sound like the mission of an army.

"Iraqi defense officials were especially eager for the U.S. rifle to modernize their forces, Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed Askari said. "'These weapons possess high quality and the most recent specifications that will help us in upgrading the work of our ministry,' Askari said."

We wonder if his ministry is similar to that preached by George W. Bush. Why do they need to modernize -- they are never going to fight a real war? The Iraqi army is simply a blunt tool to suppress their population.

"'The M-16 is a sign of the Iraqi army being a modern army,' said Brig. Gen. Robin Swan, who is in charge of the U.S.-led forces' Iraqi training command." Unless we are going by Mr. Blackwell's guidelines, this is not a catwalk, and the clothes don't make the man.

"Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, sees the switch as a purely strategic step necessitated by the U.S. military's realization that it is going to have a long association with the Iraqi army."

And how is this association safeguarding America from the threat of terrorism? The Iraqi Army is a hole in the desert where America throws away its cash reserves.

"But, no matter what its strategic or tactical merits, the Iraqi army's adoption of the M-16 is indisputably symbolic," yet again proving the old Army maxim, "Do anything, even if it's wrong." As always, today's military leadership mistakes motion for progress.

One leaves such a piece asking, "What is the U.S. trying to achieve in Iraq?" Whatever it is, it cannot be achieved by arming the country to the teeth.

As NYT columnist Bob Herbert said recently, "What matters more than the precision of these estimates [quibbling between $2 and 3+ trillion] is the undeniable fact that the costs associated with the Iraq war are huge and carry with them enormous societal consequences (Now and Forever.)"

President Bush is imposing his policy of bravado and swagger upon the festering failure that is Iraq. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Remember the photos of Saddam's pathetic "elite" Republican Guard? They had nice red boots and caps and shiny uniforms, but they couldn't march in cadence.

The visual of the organ grinder's monkey from our childhood also comes to mind. He had lovely epaulets on his shoulders, but he couldn't do much more than dance to the organ and take your coins. Clever monkey.

Americans are not very patient, and want their gratification now. As long as they can still fill their tank to go shop at Walmart, or Neiman Marcus, they seem to remain blissfully unaware that their country will soon have to pay the piper.

The ability to project compassion on the behalf of others seems to elude many. We are talking here of compassion for your own countrymen. Americans seem like the missionaries who are so fond of crusading abroad, while their own needy languish in their backyards. Just not as attractive a mission, I suppose.

But Iraq and Afghanistan are exorbitantly expensive missions, and you can only run up a tab so long before the check comes due.

--Jim and Lisa

Wasted Days, and Wasted Nights

On and on, on and on, on and on

--On and On, Steven Bishop

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
--Don't Stop, Believin', Journey

In the 1870's Amir Sher Ali Khan recreated the Afghan army
that disintegrated during the second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80).
In the 1880's Amir Abdur Rahman had to reestablish the army
to unify the fragmented country. The army was remodeled
under King Amanullah following the third Anglo-Afghan War (1919),
but it met a fatal blow during the civil war of 1929.
A new military establishment was created by Nadeshah
after his accession in 1929.
The Soviet-sponsored reorganization and modernization of the Afghan
army began in the 1960s and continued through the Moscow-backed
communist rule.
It was totally disintegrated during the civil war of 1992-2001.
Parameters, Autumn 2002 (footnote), Ali A. Jalali

____________

Sounds like an uphill battle.

Assuming we accept the official figures of Iraqi and American deaths (depending upon whose figures you choose), the number of deaths in Iraq was down last month, depending upon which months in which year you chose to compare the figure to.

The question is: How does a decrease in the violence in Iraq benefit the security of the American taxpayer?

The U.S. Army is funded and tasked to defend the U.S. The U.S. Army was not organized or paid for to become the Baghdad security force.

Bottom line: How does America benefit by a drop in violence in Iraq, a statistic which is an irrelevant fact, albeit an expensive one, bought and paid for to the tune of $500,000 a minute?

At one point in time, the existence of the Vietnamese Army was the sole focus of U.S. policy. When the Vietnamese Army collapsed, no North Vietnamese soldiers invaded California.

If Iraq imploded today, the U.S. would not be in any greater danger from terrorism than it was yesterday.