Spanish Civil War

In response to one of NNeo-con's post.

The communists and the fascists are natural allies. Not because of any particular love one has for the other, but because to survive against all odds they must unite their strength against their common foes. The enemy of fascism becomes also the enemy of communism.

THe Spanish Civil War is an example of what happens in any society or culture, without the aid of enlightened principles of governance. Europe may see itself as the beacon of social justice and civilization, but the truth is somewhat cruder.

In the case of the SCW, it seems to be that both sides were destroying the middle, the enemy, and partitioning what was left between them in a final free for all. Using whatever means available, or whatever persons available, to accomplish the task of partitioning the spoils.

We saw it in Poland, between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. We saw it between Nazi Germany and xenophobic and militarist Japan. We even saw it with Osama Bin Laden and Saddam.

There comes a point however, when not even the unified power of both radicals and status quo conservatives, can defeat their common foe. Dividing an alliance based upon hate, is rather easy, but it does require some strength of character. Of national character.

It is this aspect of the strategy in combating political and ideological extremism that Bush either doesn't know how to communicate or doesn't want to communicate.

The advantage of the alliance of hate, towards American, towards human dignity, is simply that they acquire a bunch of useful idiots in enemy territory. The disadvantage is that they need it, to break the alliance of human dignity and rights.

Our actions should be to separate our enemies from each other, to make their actions harm each other by necessity, and then to swoop in and take out the weakened party. As you can see, Europe believed it had its own grand strategy during the first half of the 20th century. It didn't go so well. Sure, they left the fascists and the communists fight it out, but they were supporting both the communists (ideologically and propaganda wise) as well as the fascists (political appeasement).

America crafted a national policy during the 20th century, which is simple in its elegance of form. Divide the enemy, and then conquer them. Divide dictators from terroists, then divide terroists from the Arab street, then divide the Arab street from our useful idiots. Divide the Emperor of Japan from his military, divide the island of Japan from other islands. Divide Germany from Japan. Divide Russia from Germany. France from Russia. Then initiate the coup de grace, obliterating each group in succession. First Germany, then Japan, then Russia in the Cold War.

This strategy is simple. That is not the curious aspect, the curious aspect is how many people in the world know nothing about it. And how many Europeans seem to think diplomacy and social justice brought about perpetual peace upon their continent, rather than the Grand Strategy of uncouth Americans.

Comment to "Follow the Leader"

Now, who in American wants to be a follower? Practically no one. Individualism was built into this country from the start, and the distaste for a leader in that sense is not limited to the left--it's very strong on the right, too. The idea of "leader" is too close to royalty on the one hand and to dictatorship on the other.

In the military sense, leadership has little to do with political hindsight foibles, phobia, or other conditions of human thought and behavior.

Human society is both a congruently social one, with teamwork emphasized, as well as a purely heirarchical structure in which individual accomplishments and Alpha Male positions exist and are valued.

If you look at Japan, you will clearly see quite a lot of emphasis on teamwork, but you will also see a lot of emphasis on personal duty, honor, and loyalty.

The military has had to deal with this human nature without the blinders that politicians and businessmen tend to have on. Because the military cannot afford inefficiency because of some political correct SOP.

Therefore, the military has had to recognize that while you need officers (leaders) you also need people to carry out the officer's orders and enforce them (NCOs) without the leaders having to look over the underling's shoulder all the time (lack of initiative).

Initiative is a good thing, pure automation would actually be the result of poor leadership.

As such, leadership in its maximum form is actually a way of imposing Order on Chaos, without stagnation, entropy, or decay.

You get the structured purposefullness of a cohesive unit of people working for a common goal, but you don't destroy the individual diversity, intiative, and ingenuity that composes this unit. As such, Americans have clearly followed other people in our history, simply based upon the fact that the leaders proved to be both worth the trust, and had the same goals as they did.

Here, you see the heirarchy. The boss is treated as more important than the employee, but without the employee, the boss can't really do anything.

But you can't make equal the boss and the employee, because humans are not consensual folks, they don't operate as bees do.

The lack of leaders tend to result from the fact that to lead free men and women, you have to both show your respect for their dignity as well as prove that you are actually better than they are.

And that is quite hard to do, to convince men and women born in liberty, that someone is better than they are, that that person should be admired and respected and obeyed.

This brings me to the other point, which is Bush's lack of articulation.

Someone else made the point that everyone understands Bush's point. While that is true, the problem lies in the fact that Bush never goes up to the media and makes his point unless he absolutely has to. This is sort of like with polls, he doesn't use them unless he absolutely has to, sort of like on election night. Even then, he leaves that number crunching to Karl Rove.

Let me tell you people this, a President can't allow his public image to be "delegated" to underlings.

The American people can't be expected to follow the press secretary, Rumsfield, Conny, the White House press corps, or talking heads. They want to hear their President, and they want to know what he is doing, is planning to do, and thinks of us, the American people.

That is sort, of non-trivially hard to do when Bush ignores and subliminates, and absolutely avoids for the most part any media attention or giving speeches to the press.

The less he talks, Bush, the more time the media has to spin his words and make him say something that he actually didn't.

This makes the public distrust the media, true, but it also makes the public distrust Bush because we can't be sure of what he is thinking since he avoids the press.

He can't avoid the press without also shunning the American people.

His highest approval ratings where when America could see him face to face, talk about the issues that they were concerned about, and afterwards see that his words backed up his action.

Free men and women don't follow promises, they follow men and women of character.

People can be tired of others criticizing Bush for not being a great speech giver, but the fact is, that this deficiency and lack of communication is hurting the war effort both domestically and foreign wise.

Foreign affairs probably actually have a higher sense of confidence, because Bush has more direct dialogues with foreign people and our military in foreign countries, than Bush has with the American people on national television.

If anyone thinks that just traveling over the country is enough, doing face to face conversations, they will have to realize that the power of persuasion lies in national debates, not provincial ones.

Just compare Ronald Reagan, Churchill and Clinton's speeches/radio addresses to Bush's. You will see that Bush does the radio, but ignores anything else. The 21st century is not a "Radio century", enough people have televisions now. They had enough in Kennedy's time.

Bush supporters should not be hostile to articulate and meaningful national tv presentations just because Bush isn't good at having a dialogue with the American people, the lack of which is propounded upon by Bush's critics. It did not hurt Reagan nor does it hurt Arnold to have a charismatic national tv persona, and neither should anyone else who wants to support Bush believe that this lack on Bush's part is all that great an advantage in the long run.

Despair in War

One of those long comments I tend to write at neo-neocon's blog. It is a good brainstorming blog to read/write in.

Link

I differ with John Moulder on some things, resulting in a slightly different conclusion than the one he had written. I, myself, do see the dangers, setbacks, and reality in similar terms as John Moulder, but I consider the situation in its entirety, and thus because of that, my conclusion is not nearly as pessimistic as his is.

But first, a note to Neo-Neo. Thanks for the link on the Japanese suicide squadrons and their creation, the letters of those pilots were both enlightening, enjoyable, and very consistent with what I had seen in Japanese Anime.

And then I'm afraid there'll be an awful lot of sleepwalking and handwashing to be done.

I'm afraid there will also be a lot of dieing to do, as in, on the part of Americans.

Iran, North Korea, Syria, they ain't gonna go away like the Soviet Union with arms treaties, and stacking Pershing missiles on top of nuclear silos and stealth bombers.

As we see in Europe, the Islamics are not collapsing, by any standard of reason. In fact, it is the West collapsing, and notably it is the Western nations with nuclear capabilities that are collapsing in on itself.

Compare this with the fact that the Soviet Union disappeared because it collapsed in on itself, through a revolutionary grassroots movement. And what is Islamic suicide bombers but a revolutionary grassroots movement?

What this tells me, is that unlike the end result of Vietnam, the end result of a failure in Iraq due to pullout will be 1 or 3 orders of magnitude greater in effect.

The dominoe theory to justify Vietnam wasn't justified, but the theory that communism is in itself defunct, was justified, and we saw that when the communists took over Vietnam. So, while the world saw the US defeated, they also saw that when the US gets defeated, the Four Horsemen reigns supreme.

Not so with Iraq. With Iraq, it is the centerpoint of our strategy. Crucial in a way, that Vietnam never was. If it fails, people will get the blame, and it won't be Bush. But it doesn't really matter who gets the blame, the damage would have been done.

If we are unable to acquire a mobile assault force, as either sepoys or proxy fighters, in the form of Iraqi or Afghanistani patriots and nationals, then there ain't nobody else that is going to fight for us in a high casualty environment.

Since we gave up on the Iraqis, the Iraqis who are much less casualty sensitive, will give up on us. And the only people we can then push into the fire would be U.S. troops, which would already be non-feasible given our sensitivity to casualties.

This war would turn into a defensive one, allowing the terroists to get in the first blow with whatever weapons they will want to acquire.

And without Iraq, the dictators, the Iranians, and etc will be giving Al-Qaeda everything they got.

And it won't be Spain, Britain, or France that'll get hit, it'll be a weakened, defensive, utterly sleeping America.

We'll be doing the dieing, not in the thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands.

It would be as if the government incited a nuclear holocaust with the Soviet Union. The damage would be irreversible.

Not only would this hurt America's honor, but it would truly leave us alone in the world, with neither allies nor friends. Our enemies cannot trust us, our friends do not dare trust us.

This would either turn America into "Fortress America" isolationist to the core, and leave this world forever in darkness, ignorance, and injustice. Or it would turn America into something truly frightening and unlimited in our limits. A non-benevolent America, someone that overreacts because they have no other choice and no one else to count upon.

This would mean we would win, but I am uncertain whether a victory born from suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties in order to make America "less" casualty sensitive, is such a great triumph.

This is of course, the consequences of failure. As to the nature of what is going on "now", however, that is something quite different.

John Moulder writes that America is now casualty sensitive and weak, with a few IEDs. But that isn't quite true. The nature of American casualty sensitivity is not disputed, what is disputed is how much propaganda the enemy itself is wielding against America. Given the preponderance of evidence that neither the military, the civilian administration, nor the Republican party are undermining enemy propaganda, domestic and foreign, that 40% of America still supports the war is amazingly good.

It pays to know who is weak, and who are consistent and strong. In a fight, you want anyone who tends to run away, to run away now.

It really isn't a few IEDs, car bombings, and whatever. It is a national, and a trans-national propaganda campaign. In Vietnam it worked, callusion between communists in Vietnam and communists in the US.

Politics make strange bedfellows. Progressives now ally themselves with Islamic terror. With Islamic terror, we can jail, execute, or otherwise terminate with extreme prejudice. With political progressives, that option doesn't seem feasible.

That makes their alliance very effective. We should expect setbacks given the strength of such an alliance.

To know thy enemy. And not face his strengths.

A few snipers, a few car-bombs, a few suicide terrorists wearing explosive vests, a few roadside bombs & a little patience, that’s all it takes to defeat the USA.

A person called Dan Rather, everyone at CBS, a few people at NBC, with a few CNN guys, and Reuters, the AP, France, Germany, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran is all it takes to cause Americans to question herself. OH ya, don't forget Pakistani tribes. UN bureacrats. New York elites. The ACLU. The Judicial system of the United States. Don't forget George Soros funneling money into pro-terroist propaganda machines and 527s.

All it takes is a little bit of the above to make America doubt herself. So no, it isn't a little bit of IEDs, snipers, and roadside bombs only. What is surprising is that America didn't cave in 2004, you know, before the Purple Finger meaty eaters?

It is a false perspective of the attack on America, and false perspectives destroy morale. False perspectives are the only things that destroy morale actually.

There is a rather big difference between my perspective and someone that has almost given up. I recognize the seriousness of the situation, but I do not recognize the futility of it.

A warrior does not give up. The warrior philosophy is not a light burden. Duty, honor, loyalty, those are not things believed in lightly or taken as jokes by me.

I take my duty to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic, quite seriously. I honor the truth, and I honor the loyalty the Iraqis have shown us as they fight and die for their beliefs.

America cannot get any stronger without being tested in the furnace of war. And war means despair, war means weakness, war means people will break, psychologically and physically. Losing a part of themselves, whether that is a part of their soul or a part of their leg.

Most Americans have not been prepared to face psychological propaganda and intimidation, most Americans have not been prepared through their lives to deal with death, suffering, and ruthlessness.

Americans go about their daily lives, dealing with mundane issues. Finances, college, jobs. We leave war to the warriors and the politicians.

What has gone wrong in the dawning of the 21st century is simple. We may want to leave war to specialists, but our enemies want to bring war to us, the civilians, personally.

This requires the public to toughen up. And you will only toughen up a public, by straining it to the breaking point.

The public, like people and military units recruited from Iraq, needs tempering and testing. Sometimes they will break, and that is sad, but far better for them to break now, when the stakes are low, than for them to break when we really require strength for survival.

This isn't a survival issue for me and you, I remind everyone. It is a survival issue only for Iraqis, Afghanistanis, terroists, and our military troops in the theater.

And we do see what happens to the Iraqis when their survival is at stake. They turn from a bunch of idiots who ran off just about 2 years ago, to a bunch of combat hardened veterans. To get stronger in war, you'll take casualties in war.

It is a fact I know, and have accepted. But there is no despair, because if that is how the world works, that is how it works. Orders are orders, you follow them as best you can.

Our military has been hardened for just this conflict. American civilians have not. Therefore it is neither surprising to me, nor depressing, that America is losing public support. The terroists are using their strong point, to attack our weak point. They do not attack the Marine Corps, and what attacks they do committ have no effect, simply because to defeat a Marine Corps unit you must destroy that unit down to the last man.

But a civilian is even worse than a green, unexperienced, soldier. In that a civilian doesn't expect to suffer casualties, he doesn't expect the enemy to target him, he does not expect it and he is not prepared to face the consequences.

But Americans are flexible, and they are courageous. When it counts. As it did in Flight 93, and as it does in Iraq. And of course, Bush won't be in office forever. What we need is a President that will finish a war, a Harry S. Truman. Bush was the President that began this war, and began it well. But he will not be remembered for finishing, oh no, and that is why he cannot help us finish it. Accept that fact, but don't despair of it.

I find it a curious fact that it is in fact the Mil Bloggers, soldiers blogging on the internet, that is probably keeping the public support at around 40% for the war. Or maybe even 50%.

The morale of our troops is good, no one need worry about their morale, it is American morale everyone worries about. For good reason. A soldier who thinks he can't do anything about public opinion, and worries that he might be fighting for his fellow citizens, and his fellow citizens doesn't support him in the doing... will have lower morale. But soldiers are trained to fight under low morale.

Civilians are not. We need encouragement from the soldiers and our leaders, and we do get that if not from our leaders, then someone else. And it does help. Far more than the soldiers probably realize.

If America fails, it will not be because I believed America lacks strength, values, and honor. If America fails, either in the short term or the long term, it will simply be because our enemies were better than us.

A superpower that losses the war, and the battle, deserves not the responsibility nor the power bestowed upon them. That would be our fate.

The dawn of the 21st century will determine if the United States is worthy of being the world's lone superpower.

That may be depressing, but I tend to look at it as an opportunity, to grow. To reach our limits, and to exceed them, for it is not part of the American cultural fabric to believe in something we cannot do.

Just as it is not in the Japanese culture to believe that a person need not do their duty.

Just as it is not in the French culture, to believe in peace through superior firepower.

People who want to give up, should give up now, lest we require their assistance somewhere down the line and they are unable to give it.

But if you want to fight, you'd better steel yourself to fight to the end. Only from that, may determination spring. Leave yourself an escape route, some justification for why we will lose... and you might as well become part of the rout. Because humans are infinitely capable of self-rationalization, it is best not to think of any.

Vega, tell the people you work, that we're onto them.

San Francisco and military recruiting

What do yall think about verdict that san fran came up with banning the military from talking about recruitment in schools?
This is a response to a forum post.

Let me first say that I believe it is a brilliant move on the part of the progressives in furthering a Progressive Agenda.

The progress, is of course to move the entire country to a European model of culture, thought, selfishness, economic destitution, and civic lawlessness and vices. The underclass support this agenda because they recieve bribes in the form of government largesse, to them a short term gain is much greater than any long term harm. Personal gratification for most people, rank number 1, and considerations for the future is at the bottom of the list. The rich echelons support this agenda because it soothes their consciences concerning how filthy rich they are compared to everyone else, whom might as well live in the gutter in the opinion of these penthouse owners and private jet users. Since they cannot imagine living anyway other than the way they do, they assume everyone else must be in pure misery, and therefore this guilt gnaws at them. Not enough to make them become poor of course, because the fear of being poor overrides any guilt reflex, but enough to make them support a Progressive Agenda that gives them an outlet for this pain and angst.

So in light of that, banning the military from giving the citizens of San Fran a look at the real world, through real live career opportunities, is a big no no. Morally, it is also a big no no because the military, like religion for example, teaches things called "values" in Boot Camp and Naval Academies. Values such as honor, duty, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and all that good stuff. This conflicts with the progressive agenda in which enshrining short-term self-interests is supreme and so important. Because without the greed for instant gratification, they would lose the underclass entirely, and not have much power in the end even with wealth from the top.

So the Progressive Agenda, like any business or tyranny, has to get rid of the competition. Businesses in the US does it with laws, patents, and courts. Businesses in the thirld world does it through thugs, briberty, extortion, and harassment. And tyrannies do it through killing enough people until people disappear.

From this perspective, you can easily see how the progressives in San Fran benefits from this policy. Because you can't react easily to it. Do anything that is effective at beating at the progressives, and you also harm the other people living in San Fran who aren't in the progressive camp yet. So like a guerrila war, progressives (being the party not in power) wants the opposition, any opposition, to react harshly and over-the-top. This gives them a propaganda point that they may use to convince more people to side with them and their policies.

So when they did the gay marriage thing, they were counting on a big backlash, which helped them cement the loyalty of gay groups as a voting block. They knew the backlash would happen, and they also knew that if a backlash didn't happen, then they would lose their chance given how America was coming to gradually accept homosexuals as part of the social fabric.

If gays put their faith in that gradual acception, why would they contribute to a radical progressivist cause? Why, because the progressives offers them instant gratification, acceptance Today, not tomorrow.

So, in conclusion, a quite brilliant strategy. Because unlike religion, the military has even stronger moral support among the American people, and therefore the backlash would be much higher in possibility. Yet, the military is also prevented by the Constitution in interfering with domestic matters, and this is a good tool the progressives use to offset that extremely strong moral support among the population.

This allows the progressives to continue their work of reeducation the young generation of San Fran, without the interference of the military giving people another choice, a much better but also a much longer choice as well. They win either way, you see.

If you don't do anything, because you don't want to overreact, then they will win because the policy stays and the children become indoctrinated. If you do do something, then they can propagandize it to further their causes and make you look like someone trampling on civil liberties, the Constitution, or something else legalistic like that.

San Fran is nearing maximum entropy, and the state of human nature at maximum entropy is very interesting to watch.

Human facial motions

Steven Den Beste has an awesome link about smiles
and how to tell whether they are fake or not.

Take the test.

I got 16 out of 20. 9,10, 13, and 20 were the ones I got wrong.