V-T Day

Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us,
we are permanently the United States of Amnesia.
We learn nothing because we remember nothing
--"The State of the Union," Gore Vidal

If you can accept losing,
you can't win
--Vince Lombardi

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategists
only seeks battle after the victory has been won,
whereas he who is destined to defeat
first fights and afterwards looks for victory
--Sun Tzu

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
--Sonnet 116, Shakespeare
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Shakespeare was talking of love, but his description fits democracy or any true and unwavering system just as well.

After the cessation of hostilities over 60 years ago, the U.S. put V's in front of the names of the belligerents they had been fighting, and meant it. Hence V-E Day and V-J Day. Since then however, the "V" had deserted our lexicon.

The reason V is gone is that we consistently fight elective wars that we can afford to lose. Wars should not be begun frivolously or blithely as we have seen in this conjured up Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). Iraq is not our enemy, therefore military success in Iraq is both elusive and meaningless.

Our military hijinks in Iraq are addressing the threat of al-Qaeda to Iraq. However, any threat posed to America is from a stateless group of terrorist operatives loosely gathered under the umbrella "al-Qaeda," mainly identifiable by their capability of bringing operations to our shores.

The effectiveness of this group of actors has never been clearly defined nor enumerated by our government. As such, Ranger denies and doubts the veracity of a threat necessitating a GWOT.

Our self-annointed War President Bush says the U.S. will be victorious in this proclaimed defining conflict of the 21st century. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is comforted by the long war and a U.S. troop presence of 100 years. This means that we will remain until democracy has taken hold, or they run out of oil.

They predict victory in the PWOT, but do not bother to describe or list what benchmarks would constitute victory, or what victory will entail. We see that the tactics include aggressive invasions, torture, unjust imprisonments of suspected terrorists, abridgment of U.S. citizen's civil liberties, tax cuts for the wealthy and military service for the poor. But they stop there, at the operations end of it.

However, military victory is only half of victory. In order to understand victory, one must examine what defeat would look like. What do you win, and what do you lose? Also, what do you lose when you win? Can we afford to win, and is winning essential for the people of America?

Wars are not about feeling good about yourself; if that is your goal, watch Oprah and vote for Obama. Wars are about addressing strategic interests that must be sustained.

Remember V-E and V-J Day? If a war is essential then a declaration of war is a definition of that interest, with the will of the electorate sustaining the effort. Minus the will of the people, all war efforts are unsustainable.

After V-E and V-J Day the U.S. engaged the former enemy states of the Nazi and Japanese alliances with a political program that expressed the will of America. We as a nation agreed on the vanquished becoming democratic states.

Our efforts were so successful that today those countries continue to resist tyranny or the overthrow of due process. The rule of law prevails in their approach to their own experiences with terrorism.

Democratic ideology is not selective. It is a constant that does not flicker in adverse times. The terrorists in these countries have been dealt with judicially. For example, in Germany, the jailed members of the Red Army Faction have since been released and reintegrated into their society.

So what would a victory in the PWOT look like? Would the world become a large secret prison in which terror suspects languish without trial, or is an equable accommodation for all parties to be reached? That, after all, is what ensued after V-E and V-J Day.

The vision for a post-PWOT world is lacking. Our leadership must define an endgame that clearly expresses our goals and aspirations. Launching cruise missiles is neither the answer nor the tactic to achieve victory.

Sometimes victory lies in the middle ground, and the middle ground is the domain of politicians and statesman. The road to victory will not be measured by military yardsticks.

Why is there no meaningful dialog in our society or from our leaders on this topic?

Helter Skelter

Sgt. Archibald Cutter: You're mad!

Guru: Mad? Mad. Hannibal was mad, Caesar was mad,
and Napoleon surely was the maddest of the lot.
Ever since time began, they've called mad
all the great soldiers in this world. Mad?
We shall see what wisdom lies within my madness.
For this is but the spring that precedes the flood.
From here we roll on. From village to town.
From town to mighty city. Ever mounting, ever widening,
until at last my wave engulfs all India!
--Gunga Din (1939)

__________

Ranger has read and commented on Pat Tillman, Roberts Ridge, SSG Nein and Cpl. Sanford. My information was gleaned from open source material (After Action Reports available online.)

All of these actions share common threads:

[1] All were based on or resulted in hasty and ill-advised action. Only Nein's action indicated correct troop leading procedure prior to the action. Tillman's unit, the reaction forces at Roberts Ridge and Cpl. Sanford's unit were rushed for time and ignored basics of combat. These include leader's recon, establishing security elements and utilization of preplanned fires. None had an evident appropriate fall back contingency plan.

[2] All of these actions showed the heroism and dedication of our soldiers, even without proper staff planning and coordination.

[3] All of these actions show the lie that is evident in our Phony War on Terror (PWOT© ) in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yeah, we have a great new COIN program with a minty four-star guru, but units will be required at an instant's notice to divert and back up any Iraqi unit that is in a tight. Why?

The why is that the military is desperate to win, and to the military mind, killing people is the same as winning. Screw their hearts and minds -- blow their shit away!

What you have is a magnificently-equipped U.S Army running around willy-nilly looking for targets of opportunity. These hapless searches take place in the latest, most expensive blast-resistant vehicles money can buy. And of course, none of this expensive gear will produce a victory.

Using Cpl. Sanford's action as example, the Iraqi police are in a bad firefight to clear a house and call for help. If they are policemen, they should have backed out, contained the area and halted all movement in and out. The Iraqi Army should have been called for support, and anti-tank weapons could have been deployed to destroy them in place.

Since U.S. intelligence is so faulty the chain of command obviously prefers to throw assaults against houses full of insurgents and cross their fingers and hope for the best. When the best doesn't happen, cover it up with the heroism of the soldiers. Works every time.

These assaults are ill-advised, helter-skelter skirmishes, and overly costly to the tasked units. It is doubtful that the fighting, violence, death and destruction of any of these actions addressed the threat of al-Qaeda.

While the Chechen fighters at Roberts Ridge were hardcore al Qaeda assets, were they a strategic threat to America? Those jihadists wearing shower shoes in sub-zero temperatures were land-bound and fighting to expel the U.S. Army, as are most military assets that face U.S. troops.

Even if they were all al Qaeda linked, they are military arm and have no relationship to the sophistication of the western savvy 9-11 operatives. The threat of al-Qaeda is their infiltration-capable operatives. Their military arm cannot project any offensive action outside their sphere of influence. They may have the intent, but lack the capability. Which leads to the questions for us:

• What are we fighting for?
• What are we fighting against?
• What can we win?
• When will we know if we've won?
• If we win, can we afford the cost?

Victory and War on Terror will never be uttered in the same sentence, save by fools like GWB & Co.