Category Archives: Military & War

“The End of the American Century”

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The War in 2020 is a terrific read. I’ll bet I’ve read it every 4 or 5 years since it was published in 1991. Wikipedia classifies the novel as “military-adventure.”

“The novel begins in the year 2005, when the South African Defense Force, equipped and trained by Japan, seizes mineral-rich areas of Shaba Province in Zaire. The United States sends the XVIII Airborne Corps along with associated air and naval assets to repel the aggression. The American expeditionary force is defeated due to a combination of technological inferiority (the South Africans’ Japanese equipment has such innovations as onboard battle lasers,) lax security (a squadron of USAF B-2 Spirit bombers is destroyed on the ground by South Africans and local guerillas) and poor intelligence.

The American collapse is so swift that the XVIII Airborne Corps attempts to surrender. When the surrender offer is ignored, the American President orders a nuclear strike on Pretoria, forcing a cease-fire and a South African withdrawal from Zaire. The political cost paid by the United States is very high; post-war epidemics, and economic and political conflict with Japan reduces American power and influence. These events are summarized by a newspaper headline that reads: “THE END OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY”.

Author Ralph Peters tells a great story. If you’re digging Afghanistan and Iraq, you’ll love The War in 2020.

Scott Adams on draft dodging

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“If a person is relatively certain that going to war will end his ability to enjoy the rest of his life, one way or another, and the war does not present a plausible threat to the homeland, is such a person unpatriotic for dodging the draft to save himself?

The obvious answer is yes, he is unpatriotic. If your country calls on you, you need to go. End of story.

On the other hand, what is the point of a being patriotic to a country that intends to kill you for its own marginal benefit? Such a country would be your natural enemy, not your friend, so any question of patriotism would be nonsense in this particular situation.”

Like most of Mr. Adam’s posts, this one is well written and thought provoking. You need to read the full post before answering the (for the time being) hypothetical question.

A less-hypothetical quesion: Are you willing to sacrifice your son or daughter because George W. Bush wanted to prove something to his daddy?

Bring back the draft

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Viet Nam wasn’t going well. We needed more “boots on the ground,” so they re-instituted the draft on December 1, 1969 with a lottery. Low number, you’re on your way to Viet Nam. High number, you’re okay. My number was 213 (out of 365). The draft was frozen at 195 in December of 1970. I dropped out of law school the next day.

In 1968, we had 536,100 troops in Viet Nam (compared to our 140,000 in Iraq). If we had the draft today, the war in Iraq would be over by the Fourth of July.

Scott Adams: Money or Bombs

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“I don’t know how many nukes the United States has pointed toward China, but one would be too many. China isn’t going to attack its biggest customer. And in the unlikely event that some other country attacks China, we’d offer military assistance in a heartbeat. There’s too much money at stake on both sides.”

Scott Adams presents his “Money or Bombs” theory

“Hillary’s Last Stand”

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Writing in the March 20th issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi explores “The tragic self-martyrdom of a groundbreaking politician.”

“The Clintons always represented the notion that the old Democratic Party of unions and LBJ liberals was a thing of the past and that the way forward involved making nice with big business and the military. Her husband passed NAFTA, deregulated Wall Street, rammed through welfare “reform,” bombed Kosovo, chided Sister Soulja, opened the Lincoln bedroom to any foreign nation with spare cash and won two elections.

Winning convinced both of them that they were saviors of everything right and decent in the world. They’d discovered the winning formula, and we were welcome to kiss their asses for finding it. And so what if the formula involved selling out the unions on a series of draconian and insane trade deals, or cozying up to one of the most regressive employers in the world in Wal-Mart, or hiring an evil lobbyist stooge like Mark Penn to be your chief campaign strategist, or voting to give George Bush the authority to launch an illegal invasion of Iraq?”

Matt Taibbi is far and away my favorite political reporter (right after Kay Henderson!) and I buy a copy of Rolling Stone just for his pieces.

His latest leaves the reader with the impression that Hillary is kaput. I’m not so sure. He calls her “one of the most awesomely complex and fascinating public figures in the history of our country.”  But not in a good way.

I couldn’t find the article online but will update this post if I do.

Open letter to Congress, the Pentagon and leaders of the free world

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Bottle_beach_letter_inside2We need your help. We need your help to stop George W. Bush from starting a war with Iran. George W. Bush no longer represents the will of the American people. 77% of Americans disapprove of Bush’s job performance and do NOT support attacking Iran. But it’s been a long time since Bush cared what the American people think.

You could say we have the kind of leadership we deserve and you’d be right. Even if you believe –as I do– that Bush and his cronies stole the 2000 election, we allowed the vote to be close enough for him to get away with it. We know we fucked up and a lot of us are trying to rectify our mistake.

But it now seems clear that George Bush plans to launch some sort of military strike against Iran before he leaves office. Dick Cheney has been conspicuously absent for months, working on this disastrous scheme.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, we –the American people– can’t stop our president because it’s been a long time since he cared what we thought.

But maybe you can buy us some time. We just need keep him in check until November. Assuming McCain doesn’t win. In that event, America –and Iran– are fucked.

Our congress probably doesn’t have the balls or the votes to stop this madness. Our generals and admirals –with a few exceptions– will put their careers ahead of their country. So it’s up to the rest of the world to stop Bush.

We just need a little time to clean up the mess that is the Bush administration.

PS: I’m hoping for some six-degrees thing here. J-Walk gives me a link.One of his readers emails it to a friend in Germany. She knows the woman that cleans the home of German Chancellor Angela Merkel…. and so forth. It could happen.

Doc’s “story none dare tell”

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Doc Searls says we need a new leadership narrative:

“…what’s “super” about U.S. superpower — a near-limitless ability to make high-technology war, backed by a fighting force of finite size with few allies — is an anachronism. I’m not sure the people of any Great Nation are ever ready to face the fact that the height of their military and economic powers has passed. Or that the leadership they most need to assert is no longer only a military and economic one.”

If we can no longer win every war we start and our economy isn’t Number One… is it possible for the U.S. to still be “super?” Let’s hope so.

This is a thoughtful and insightful post on America, leadership and journalism. Worth a read.

Scott Adams: War

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“One view of the near future is that terrorists will get nukes and set the atmosphere on fire, or global warming will kill us all, or bird flu will create a pandemic, or the world economy will melt down, or all of those disasters will happen at once. I suppose that’s possible. But I think it’s more likely we are entering a golden age.

My Golden Age prediction assumes technology will continue to surprise us, especially in the energy realm. The high cost of oil has generated a seemingly endless parade of energy technology research and subsequent breakthroughs.

Wars appear to be shrinking too. World Wars I and II will probably be the final wars between major powers. The biggest powers of today are more interested in being trading partners than foes. As nations become more connected, via economics and the Internet, the risk of war decreases. All war requires a certain degree of lying to the citizens, and the Internet will continue to make that harder.”

[Full post]

Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2008

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“Some people still think that there’s an “Islamo-fascist tyranny” somewhere that hates our freedoms and can organize Islam-dom into a coherent fascist state… There’s just no way. Al Qaeda and the Taliban aren’t true “fascists.” Fascists can at least make trains run on time. Even Communists were better-organized. The mujihadeen have no organized army and no industrial policy and they don’t know where to find any. Because God was supposed to handle all that for them. You’re supposed to die nobly in a crowd of unwitting strangers, and then God’s supposed to make that all better. That’s the big plan.”

“But when you blow up the china shop, God doesn’t reassemble the plates for you. Being faith-based doesn’t trump reality.”

“Now the Americans have clearly lost the thread… the Americans are really just horribly out of it, they’re like some giant fundie Brazil, nobody takes their pronunciamentos seriously or believes a word they say… Whereas the world is much more seriously global now. China and India are real players, they’re part of the show and they matter.

“Serious-minded people everywhere do know they have to deal with the resource crisis and the climate crisis. Because the world-machine’s backfiring and puffing smoke. Joe and Jane Sixpack are looking at four-dollar milk and five-dollar gas. It’s hurting and it’s scary and there’s no way out of it but through it.”

From Bruce Sterling’s State of the World, 2008