Scale Model

--The Treachery of Images
(This is Not a Pipe),
Rene Magritte

The territory never gets in at all. ...
Always, the process of representation
will filter it out so that the mental world
is only maps of maps, ad infinitum
--Form, Substance, Difference,
Gregory Bateson

[T]he Cartographers Guild drew
a Map of the Empire whose size
was that of the Empire
--Exactitude in Science,
Jorge Luis Borges

The map is not the Territory
--Alfred Korzybski
__________

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have moved beyond wars of liberation -- they are Wars of Identity.

The inhabitants of those nations are fighting to maintain their identities, and we are fighting because war has become, as Glenn Greenwald recently noted, our national identity. When non-veterans like Obama call our armed services a "warrior elite", then it is obvious we have re-defined our national ideals.

The U.S. cannot win these wars as we lack the scale to deal with them. Using military maps as metaphor, Ranger will explain his concept.

Higher headquarters, Department of the Army, Theatre, etc., use scales larger than 1:250,000 on a daily basis. Corps and Division use 1:100,000 and 1:50,000. The larger the scale, the smaller the detail, the less exact the rendering of any meaningful reality.

Maps of this scale are deceptive as they can show nothing of significance beyond gross features which are beyond the comprehension of the planners. On the news, it is common to see maps of the region which imply that we civilized, mechanical western men can impose our will on those borders, by means of animations showing movement and occupation.

That is the illusion of maps, which reflect terrain features but can never express the reality of the situation on the ground. Maps are one-dimensional, hopelessly limited representations of gross outer spaces. Maps at this level are optimistic briefing points which are easily digested. They can handily represent any illusion.

The reality devolves down to the Battalion, Company, Platoon and Section, which are operationally bound to 1:25,000 scale maps for daily use. Even though these maps show features more clearly, they still do not reflect reality.

Take any fight in Iraq or Afghanistan and look at the reality versus the map. U.S. units never move without maps distributed down to Platoon, and often, section. Now we probably have GPS in every vehicle and at Platoon level, and what good has that done?

It doesn't matter what the HQ level or the map scale. The U.S. faces implacable adversaries that have no need for maps since they use local guides, have indigenous intelligence assets and are intimately knowledgeable about their Areas of Operation. Add to this their belief that they are fighting for their identity and have no place to go except their tribal homelands and it adds up to an unpleasant reality from which maps, no matter how precisely rendered, can save us.

The Afghanis and Iraqis need no maps; they will steal and extort weapons and remain willing to delay, disorganize and deceive the foreign invaders in perpetuum. That they can do this for generations is not something that can be depicted on any map in any Army HQ.

It is all a matter of scale. The President can look at his One Over the World scale map and feel perfectly in control; meanwhile, an infantryman stows his 1:25,000 and prepares for another night of touch and go.

Wars are always a 1:1 scale.

Both Sides Now

War child, victim of political pride.
Plant the seed, territorial greed.
Mind the war child,
We should mind the war child.
--War Child, The Cranberries
___________

Ranger's Definition of Terror:
The use of violence by any group for any purpose
___________

President's Day Song:
All: We are the mediocre presidents.
You won't find our faces on dollars or on cents!
There's Taylor, there's Tyler, There's Fillmore and there's Hayes.
There's William Henry Harrison,
Harrison: I died in thirty days!
All: We... are... the... Adequate, forgettable,
Occasionally regrettable
Caretaker presidents of the U-S-A!
--The Simpsons
___________

The WaPo human interest piece ("The Man on Both Sides of Air War Debate") would have us know that Marc Garlasco, crack Pentagon MI analyst, understands what it feels like to be on both sides of a bomb strike.

A highly informed expert on directing airstrikes in Afghanistan and Iraq, Garlasco "really felt violated" when the Pentagon -- where he was working at the time -- was hit in 2002. But he did not support the war with Iraq, and left his Defense Intelligence gig to join Human Rights Watch in 2003 following the failed bombing attempt on Ali Hassan Majeed, known as Chemical Ali, which he helped engineer.

Standing at the edge of the crater two weeks later where 17 civilians were instead killed, Garlasco saw "this bunny-rabbit toy covered in dust nearby, and it tore me in two," Garlasco said. "I had been a part of it, so it was a lot harder than I thought it would be." I'd wager it was a lot harder yet on the people whose lives he helped destroy.

"It really dawned on me that these aren't just nameless, faceless targets. This is a place where people are going to feel ramifications for a long time."

The piece notes Garlasco is "that rare breed of human rights activist who is also a member of the National Rifle Association. " Why must it be that someone who values his Second Amendment rights would also be incautious in the employment of those weapons? Owning a gun does not de facto make a person aggressive. These divisions rend the world, and I'd venture that not Iraq and Afghanistan alone will feel the ramifications for a long time.

"A senior Army interrogator who worked closely with Garlasco said he was intimidated by how much Garlasco knew about Iraq, finding it almost scary how he could lay out a map of Baghdad and describe every building in detail, even though he had never been there."

It is a given that U.S. intelligence can describe every building in detail in Baghdad, but that surely is a meaningless fact. Bombing is useless without good intelligence, and maps of buildings don't qualify as good intelligence. That is akin to having an OnStar guidance system in your Humvee. Good intelligence is gathering, evaluating and disseminating credible information, such as that which might keep you out of stupid phony war.

After all, it is the hearts and minds that matter, or so say the COIN experts. And nobody in the U.S. command structure has a clear view of that terrain.