Earthlings

History, n.: An account, mostly false, of events,
mostly unimportant,
which are brought about by rulers,
mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools
--Ambrose Bierce

We have guided missiles and misguided men
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Morris was acutely conscious of the truth
of the proposition that the wider the circle
of knowledge the greater
the circumference of ignorance
--Riddle of the Third Mile, Colin Dexter
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A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 36% of American voters say the U.S. should take military action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. But if economic sanctions fail to deter Iran, 50% would support military action (The Week, 12/9/11).

Nuclear weapons is not a hot topic during election years. The topic is on our mind after reading Jared Diamond (The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed). Diamond suggests that man's evolution has reached a critical juncture since we now have the capability to put a severe crimp in any further evolutionary initiatives.

Since Ranger grew up with the bomb, the topic has always intrigued him. In school, he and his classmates hid under flimsy desks in the name of "Civil Defense". There were NIKE sites right down the street! High school students were required to read "A Canticle for Liebowitz" and "On the Beach".

When he became a soldier, he and his fellows trained and believed that they could fight, survive and triumph on a tactical battlefield. The Army had a program called ROAD (pron. Row-ad) that divided the Infantry Division into Pentomic groupings of mobile forces to fight a nuclear-based ground war.

On the strategic level the national policy from around 1953 to the present has been MAD (=Mutually Assured Destruction), a comforting thought to some. In Infantry Officers Advanced Course there were major blocks of instruction on CBR -- Chemical, Biological and Radiological Operations, which qualified graduates to operated effectively in these modes. In CBR operations in 1974, a 35% civilian collateral damage rate was acceptable.

This is Ranger's Army, that which would destroy Europe to keep the Communists from invading (making the concept of destroying a village to save it in Vietnam a sort of child's play, in comparison.) Fast-forward to 2011 and the U.S. has assumed a state of hysteria over the possibility of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon. Hysteria is not a solid basis on which to launch a war.

Do the folks favoring military action against Iran stop to think before they talk? Do they factor in the fact that the U.S. has fought two wars since 2002 and the country is in a world of hurt; how would we fund such a war?

Undoubtedly, the U.S. has the nuclear arsenal to kill everybody on earth many times over, yet strangely we oppose Iran's attempt to develop a nuclear weapon. As the originator and main proponent of MAD, the U.S. position seems a strange one. Even if Iran had nuclear weapons, how would that upset the apple cart? Welcome to the world of nuclear weapons-owning nations -- here is how to behave.

If nuclear proliferation is the problem, then why doesn't our government make real efforts to reduce the worldwide inventory of these devices? Even a 50% reduction worldwide is not an answer to the problem.

Instead, we focus our futile angst against Iran.

--by Jim

Sneak Attack

The boss told me I'd get paid weakly
and that's exactly how I'm paid
--Another Day, Another Dollar,
Porter Wagoner
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What is the furor over Iran's reported attempts to build a nuclear weapon and calls to preemptively strike Iran's production facilities?

Many are with the New York Post which declares with alacrity, "a short, concentrated [U.S] arial and naval bombardment" would make short-order of the situation. Some believe the preemptive strike should be farmed out to Israel (in the spirit of off-shoring, which has worked so very well for us in the economic sphere.) The Iranian weapons are being presented as terrorist nuclear weapons when there is no proof backing up the allegation.

Ranger's Question of the Day: How does a U.S. or allied preemptive strike differ from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? That attack was opportunistic and elective, but at least Japan declared war, something that the U.S. has relegated to the quaint file. Can the U.S. in good faith lay wreaths at the USS Arizona monument while executing non-declared preemptive wars?

In response to the U.S. allegation, Iran's President Ahmadinejad recently stated that the U.S. possesses 20,000 high-yield nuclear weapons, leading to the question, would anyone in Iran be foolish enough to employ a nuclear weapon for any offensive purpose?

It is difficult to understand the U.S. concern in that theatre. The U.S. is the wild card causing disruption and destabilization, and even our own purported allies have stated they would ally with others, given the opportunity. Yet we are willing to create another major state type war over what? Isn't there enough disruption here in The Homeland ™ to garner our attention? (The thought of Cain, Bachmann or Romney running our nation should be cause enough for massive alarm.)

Where is the America that used to consider the welfare of Americans as Job 1? A war with Iran would be as disastrous and pointless as have been our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya. What "make benefit" has been gained by any of it, aside from the sordid improved job opportunities for physical therapists, prosthetic manufacturers, and any of the other profiteers of war?

How often will the U.S. ignore concepts like "wars of aggression", instead executing discretionary preemptive wars sold as cakewalks, which are anything but.