Police Action

--Royal Marines in Helmand Province,
Andrew Miller 

Whenever I'm weary
From the battles that rage in my head
You make sense of madness
When my sanity hangs by a thread
--Now and Forever,
Richard Marx

Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
--Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime,
The Korgis  

___________________

The Department of Defense (DoD) Dictionary of Military and associated terms does not have a definition for "Police Action". Per our previous post, this is a significant omission.

This military non-thing nonetheless has various iterations. If you check online, you will find "kinetic police actions", "preemptive police actions", "unilateral police actions", etc.

The online Legal Dictionary of the Free Dictionary provides a very nice and lengthy disquisition on war and its "sort of war" variations. Wikipedia says "police action" is a euphemism for military action, sans a formal declaration of war.

Neither answers the question -- "What is a military police action?" -- though they are two of a scant number of entries that even attempt to do so.

The United Nations authorizes police actions under Article 42 (Global Actions) and Article 53 (Regional Actions.)

Early in the Korean War, President Harry Truman referred to that war as a "police action", perhaps one of the first institutional uses of the term. Korea, Vietnam and Grenada were all considered police actions.

Furthermore, is "peacekeeping" a police action? Since "police action" has been so cruelly intertwined with violent actions, perhaps we need a kinder and gentler term for the peacekeeping variety of such actions.

Ranger contends that words used incorrectly -- either intentionally obfuscated or vague simply due to lack of clarity in thought or action -- cause confusion in our political, military and personal lives. "Police action" is just such a word.

Let us take Korea as example. In that war, the United States used every weapon its defensive arsenal, except nuclear weapons. Does that sound like police work? The same occurred in Vietnam.

Admittedly, "Police Action Against Terrorism" doesn't quite have the ring, so we call that one a "war". Phony War, but war nonetheless. And of course, if it IS a war, why do we not declare it as such?

Ironically, the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) should rightly BE a police action, but it is hard to get people excited about such things these days. 

Perhaps what we need are some new acronyms -- the military can never have enough, can it? (WETSU, so to speak.)

If it is military action with no war, let's call it MOOTW: "Military Operations Other Than War". Phonetically it could be pronounced, "Mootwu"... kind of cute, like a Pikachu, and yet belying its moot-ness at the same time (kind of like a Pikachu).

Our words have become weaselly things, woody or tinny, alternately overwrought with emotion and obfuscation, so much so that it has become impossible to understand a Department of State, DoD or White House briefing.

If those first degree informational sessions are so confused, how poorer must be the information trickled down to the rest of us via our increasingly enfeebled and excitable media.

Why not define words clearly, and use them as defined?

In the Name of the Rose

I say father, and you say pater,
I saw mother and you say mater 
--Let's Call the Whole Thing Off,
George Gershwin

A rose by any other name  
would smell as sweet 
 --Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

 Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose 
--Sacred  Emily, Gertrude Stein 
 ______________________

Terrorism is like a tiger that changes it's stripes, and everyone is grasping for its tail, but he eludes capture. Like a game of musical chairs, each government agency must find a chair at the money feeding trough, and so must make a case that terrorism is something they can best confront.

Although terrorism is an observable fact, the way we interpret the facts leads to different theories regarding how to confront it.

Simply put: Terrorism is a CASH COW.

Many agencies share the task of defining and confronting terrorism, and so each must define it slightly differently in order to justify their viability qua agency. When the failed War on Terror began, the FBI had proponency under their counterintelligence functions. Terrorism was a legal concern under United States code and practices. Terrorists are civilians, and criminal law covers their actions.

Then there is the CIA, a civilian intelligence agency which has a paramilitary branch. Therefore, it is to their benefit to mold the subject into a military plus civilian concern.

Next is the Department of State, which can trump the CIA because they can get the Department of Defense  (DoD) to do their bidding. The DoD speaks of bringing freedom and liberty to countries, while breaking and destroying the same countries. But the DoD also has some intelligence agencies at the strategic level, so why not employ them for terrorism counteraction?

It behooves certain agencies to define the symbolic violence of terrorism as "warfare" for funding purposes. But the criminals acts of 9-11-01 were different in scope and nature than the activities of ISIS, which are warfare. Further, as ISIS does not abide by the accepted rules of war this confounds the issue, making them look like terrorists.

This inter-agency one-upmanship creates a dynamic tension which seldom facilitates good long-term results.

The problem facing us is to define terrorism and decide the correct approach to confronting it. Each agency is disingenuousness in the name of defending their corner of the pie.

The DoD has the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) and use them they must, even when there is no foreign government to target in their collection cycle. In such a pickle, they can also turn their alphabet monitoring apparatuses on U.S. citizens and sell that function as a security concern. DoD will target anything in their need to find a niche in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

The CIA doesn't even bother with such cover stories to mask their dirty work, and the Homeland Security Agency (HSA) is rife with political appointees coordinating with courts composed of political appointees.

So, the DoD, Department of State, HSA, CIA, Special Operation, the President, the Attorney General and the Pope all have conflicting theories on what the term "terrorism" actually means. 

After 14 years of war we still cannot define the problem because it remains theoretical.

Words as Saltambiques

 

Let me hear you say
The words I want to hear
Darling when you're near 
--Words of Love,
Buddy Holly 

Now what I want is Facts. ...
In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir;
nothing but facts! 
--Hard Times, Charles Dickens 

I've believed as many as six
 impossible things before breakfast 
--Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol
_________________

Outside of last weekend's local gun show stood an animated crowd of young Republicans swinging placards declaring of our Teabagger-friendly Congressman Steve Southerland, "He'll protect your 2nd Amendment rights!"

Ranger thought, "What's a right if it has to be protected?" Of course, no one has a "right" to own a gun -- our rights are delegated to us, and protected by the proper authorities. This implies they may be yanked from us just as easily.

Ditto all rights: just because we have a voice box does not guarantee us the right to use it in any manner we see fit, or in any circumstance. Our "rights" are curtailed once they enter the public sphere, and protections must be issued and guarded in order to allow our expectation of continuity in our lives. So perhaps the word "rights" is not the best one for these privileges accorded by our guiding societal agreements.

An enumerated right might be an offense, in another context. Words are symbols, and may only approximate the actuality (presuming an actuality exists.) As Alfred Korzybski wrote, "the map is not the territory." This is not to say that the deconstructionists are correct when they strip the possibility of fixed meaning from words. It is simply that absolute definitions are really only valid within an agreed upon construct.

In context then, terms like "situational ethics" are revealed as the excuse and cloaking mechanism which they are. Situational ethics imply no ethics at all, or no fixed ethics, which throws the reference point for knowledge (in this case, "ethics") into question.

Words can be used to communicate or to obfuscate. They can be constructive or destructive. The goal of communication is not necessarily positive. Words in the service of communications have become more emotive, as it is easier to sway people with emotion.

Some words are forbidden, and euphemisms can become mandatory. Entire swathes of our population engage in a private lexicon understood only by acolytes. However, as in the classic "All in the Family" episode in which husband Archie forbade Edith from using the term "cling peaches", a way around the matter was found, and a careful and discreet listener can divine the meaning behind the rhetoric.

Today, when words are generated at such a rapid pace, and replicated through the push of a button into myriad other platforms, words often fail to clarify, instead taking up their role as saboteurs of meaning. By blurring hard definitions, words wear a cloak of impenetrability. This confusion over simple meanings causes the listener to block attempts to hear and decode what the saboteurs are producing in their sound bytes, or simply to question when those sound bytes do not seem to be consistent with observed reality, or even what was said prior.

For example, the word "invasion" has gone from being a word describing an offensive act to an ostensibly protective concept with the addition of "preemptive". Invasions become prophylaxis to a future invasion. The aggressor (= "preemptive invader") becomes a gatekeeper.

In this context, the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq becomes a positive and protective gesture, like Congressman Southerland's protection of my rights. However, in Russia's current actions in the restive nation on its border (the Crimea in Ukraine), invasion is once again configured as an untoward and aggressive action. How does an individual make sense of one word with so many intonations and connotations?

Contributing to the problem is the panoply of issues which occupy a life, and the concomitant number of platforms on which we receive our news, gobbling up any free time which might be used in contemplation. Not only have facts blurred into opinions, but the opinion generators have gained their own followings, such is the need for material to fill up the cable airspace, and comedians who can keep our attention better than the dry newscasters are often our main sources of data. But while comedians may hold our attention, they cannot do the deep thinking for us, something required of an informed electorate.

Words can also be the basis of disinformation when used by propagandists, and are used to confuse and confound, eliciting a desired effect that may be unreasonable, emotional or inappropriate. Sometimes, the propagandists look like good guys, such as those in our National Security Agency.

But back to the gun show.

How can a  congressman protect my rights from anything? If they are rights, as conferred by foundational documents which have created and guide my government, then he is only charged with getting out of the way. Congress critters should disabuse themselves of the notion that they are doing anything besides functioning as obedient public servants.


--Jim and Lisa

Comes a Time

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors' 
--Mending Wall, Robert Frost

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere.
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. 
--The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats 

Comes a time
when you're driftin'
Comes a time
when you settle down 
--Comes a Time, Neil Young

 Can I look at myself without a word,
without an image,
 without pride?-- 
J. Krishnamurti
 _________________________

There comes a time when we need to stand up responsibly in our own personal lives, and as citizens and neighbors.Or not.

This responsibility is what makes us human; it makes us good citizens. Oh, right, those amorialists among us would dismiss this call to responsibility and call goodness as naive, conservative, or some other vile thing, because "good" is something different to everyone, right? Can't impose goodness; there's no postage stamp celebrating it. But if we are going to be real, let us guess at what being a good citizen is.

We can start with simple goodness: He does not blast his music into his neighbor's yard, and especially not into the evening hours. He restrains his animals, and honors property lines. He basically is not a blight upon the neighborhood, blight being imposing his predilections upon others in his immediate proximity. Goodness beyond that would be opening oneself to one's neighbor as such; this is not required, however. Simple cessation of offense is neighborly.

Beyond this, we need define to ourselves what being a good citizen means. Being a citizen is not an optional designation (for those who choose not to become expatriots); you are a citizen, now, how to make that "good"? Obviously one abides by the basic dictates of citizenship -- recognizing that you do have a responsibility for taking part in the upkeep of your nation. If you do not do that in a hands-on manner, at least you pay taxes, which fund others to do the work. No one likes crumbling bridges or decaying water lines.

What motivated Ranger to write this essay? It is time for him to stand before the mirror and acknowledge some painful insights. This is something he believes we should all do if we believe in the core values that constitute America. Yes ... the scolds among us will mock the very idea.  "Core values", they smirk? Like slavery and women's subjugation? No, we have moved past that, and we have legislated our way out, to the degree that equality can be legislated.

The problem these days is that the things that make us free men are as identifiable as a river crossing covered by a division-level smoke generating company. Our lives are lived over river crossings smoked to conceal both our behavior and that of the enemy. The enemy, as construed by your media, is you, and reality, in no special order.

We live this adversarial relationship every day we read the papers and engage in the rodeo du jour. Oh, today President Obama is a "Bad Man" for his cronyism;, or his "weird penchant for discussing ultra-serious topics, ranging from rape to Benghazi, on late-night comedy shows"; flip that idea for next week's "news". But we citizens are not the enemy -- we are supposed to be the friendlies. Freedom thrives only when leaders and people are observable and accountable. We supposedly took politics out of Boss Tweed's smoke-filled back rooms for a reason, but we are back to secrecy for national security's sake. Unfortunately, we do noty realize that accountability can be had without jeopardizing the safety of the entity you are ostensible protecting.

On the national level, responsibility is not defined by voting for narrow, niche interests, yet more than ever that is the thing that seems to motivate us up off the couch. Who addresses the core issue, either citizen or candidate? We cannot have better candidates until we become better citizens. How to do this?

One must look into the mirror and ask, "Do I have the strength, wisdom, courage and conviction to tell the truth?" One may do this in one's private realm, and also the public. Rhetorical questions may be helpful: "Would I, given the absolute knowledge that an agency were operating in a manner detrimental to our general well-being, disclose classified materials? Could I stand up to the government steamroller?"

Think of the probably thousands of people run over by government tanks in China's Tienanman Square in 1989. It is another aspect of the question: must truth-telling be a sacrificial act? Given a society or a relationship which encourages the health of the system over secret one-sided gain, the answer would be "no". Given a culture which rewards robust competition, that more wholesome friendly participation is not the norm.

Oh, but we have the problem again of the words: "wholesome" and "friendly". The conservatives are happy to define and own the words as a part of their platform, but they do so in a constricted fashion; the liberal's response is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. "Who dares to define 'wholesome'?", they would attack, in a very sophisticated manner, making the one who wishes to use that as a yardstick for functional behavior seem like a hayseed for even trying. Words denoting health and harmony have sadly become by needs, the realm of the religious, the naive, the Conservative cadging for votes among the marks.

But ideas like "responsible", "wholesome" and "friendly" should be part of a functional democracy; if we have let them go in the name of liberality, we are flailing for a reason. You know what the words mean, and the educated among us more or less hew to them (as serves their purposes), but they do not let on to the others that they form a part of the fabric which is the secret underpinning to success.

Sadly the majority of the well-off who understand these terms just smile at the degradation of The Others and call it freedom, but it is their own freedom to make a profit off of the groundling's lunacy. But in the mobius strip that is modernity, we are labeled "loons" for criticizing any behavior as "aberrant", and not wanting to appear retrograde, we shut up.

We treat whistle-blowers like espionage agents, ground like cockroaches in a TexMex bar. If we were real, we would say that Secret Federal Courts and secret military tribunals are more in the evolutionary line of Nazi courts than they are in the liberal tradition of Western law. Who will stand against this, and what do we label such people?

What sort of a Democrat are you?

Democracy Subverted

I been learnin' 'bout books
I been talkin' to playwriters
I been workin' on words, phrases
--Running Back to Saskatoon,
The Guess Who
_______________

This contest is called, "Word Games".

The idea: Choose an American value, then state how U.S. national policy contradicts our core myths and beliefs.

To get you started:

Rationalism -- Emotionalism

Age of Reason -- Age of polarity

Democracy -- Rendition

Freedom -- Assassination

Humanism --- Vested interests

Dignity of Man -- kidnapping

God-fearing -- Torture

Self determinism -- Regime destruction (h/t Peter Van Buren)

Bill of Rights -- Warrantless wiretaps

Justice -- Secret courts

Freedom of Speech -- State secrets

Transparent government -- Secret committees

Fiscal Responsibility -- Classified budgets

Social awareness -- Poverty

Representative government -- Dictator support

Social safety network -- Foreign aid

You get the idea. Now it's your turn.