Republicans and motivations - War and Victory

Ymars: re: “Republicans have often times desired, like mama, to limit the violence.”

Actually, I don’t think limiting violence is possible. I was only pointing out that the ability to stop is an individual ability and responsibility, rendering the “victim” mentality inherent in the hunt for the “root cause” a red herring… and a damned dangerous one at that.

The reason I don’t think limiting violence is possible is because too many people simply will not take responsibility for their own actions. They’re always going to point a finger of blame to a “root cause”. With willing accomplices in the MSM who took Psych 101 in college ever on the lookout for “victims”, they are too often allowed to get away with shirking their personal responsibility for their actions.

Mama replies to to a comment of mine about conservatives/Republicans wanting to limit violence. Here's the clarfification to what I mean. The title link goes to bookworm's comments section where it happened. Grim's post should clarify things a bit on what I was thinking when I wrote what I wrote.

Here's what I wrote in reply to her.

I don't mean it in the sense of direct limitations. Grim speaks better about what I mean than I can. Many Republicans I see, hear, speak to, and converse with act like Grim. They seem to have the same desires, motivations, and justifications as Grim does, here in this thing he wrote on bf.

I also didn't write what I wrote, because I was thinking of what you, mama, said about root causes.

update some links talking about the same subject, but from the other side.

Some bakground info on Lebanon.

Prisoners of War - Does Torture work?

Yes, torture works. There are various classifications and technique levels, but the communist re-education and brainwashing camps were probably the highest of the high.

It is obvious that the Code of Conduct, in its current form, is not enough to protect U.S. prisoners of war from an enemy who has become more sophisticated in its abilities to exploit prisoners. After prisoners have resisted "to the utmost" of his or her ability, then what do they do? The Code does not answer that question.

Don't get taken alive. Make them kill you. That should be a soldier's prime duty, to never be taken alive as a prisoner by any enemy of the United States.

We all know what's going to happen, we've known it for decades. People just are too weak and dumb to do much of anything to change policy.

The President should also find anyone involved in the capture and torture of our enemies, and execute them through short impalement on wooden stakes. That is of course, if he is truly serious about protecting our soldiers and doing everything he can to fight terrorism.

Update
This is a link you should read, because it has a nice background info on Islamic Jihad and their culture. I've known about the sexual frustration of the Islamic world a few months ago when I read a couple of articles describing what goes on in the back doors when Islamic men don't think anyone is looking into their houses.

Fundamental truths - Deductive Logic

The reason why I don't use inductive logic (at least in this thread) is because inductive logic relies upon examples and historical precedents, that can be and often are argued for years on end without progress.

The solution I presented is to use deductive logic, rather than to rely on your inductive logic and get into useless arguments.

Of course you don't accept the fundamental truths of the situation. If you did, your experimental data would reflect the methodology of your judgement.

The best I can do in any debate is to offer what I have for my position, contrast it with my opponent's position, you, and have the reader decide for himself. Not everyone will be convinced by me, and not everyone will be convinced by you. But it all depends upon whether they come about their judgements and beliefs through deductive logic, which is the arguing of fundamental truths, or through experimental results, which is a scientific method of analyzing humans and politics through the news and events independent of the fundamentals.

The best way I can explain fundamental truths to you or Bookworm, is to mention Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Now, that principle is a fundamental truth. It is true because it applies to everything. A fundamental truth is FALSE if it does not apply to everything. So if I say a fundamental truth of Bookworm is that she is bloodthirsty (as many anti-neocons accused neo neocon of) then the proof in the pudding is that Bookworm often disagrees with me when I take a position that is real bloodthirsty.

Inductive logic is to go around looking at this situation, event, person, and action and trying to see how it acts and what not. Then when you have the data, you derive your conclusions from that. Deductive logic starts with the conclusion first, then with the data. Science never starts with the conclusion first and then tries to get the data, bad science results. However, to derive truth does not require science, there are other methods and techniques.

Bookworm mentioned in a later post that she has fundamental beliefs, about the truth, that informs her judgement. Bookworm has included human behavior and beliefs with deductive and inductive logic, one step further than I have taken in this thread.

A simple test of Bookworm's inductive logic skills would be to see whether she can gather enough information and make a hypothesis that is backed up by the data she has collected. For example, with the drug test on tour de France, she has the data, and she has two mutually exclusive hypotheses. Instead of choosing one and trying to disprove it, she can, by using inductive logic, collect data and information in order to see which hypothesis is better supported by the evidence and the reasoning. Logically, only one option is true in a mutually exclusive situation. So one option is most of the time better supported by the data, Bookworm just has to find out which is which by digging up information she currently may not have.

Now an example of testing deductive logic, works the other way around. For example, I would say "If Bush is a liar, then what else would be true based upon that a priori?" From then on, I would construct a logical series of events and scenarios that MUST BE TRUE if the a priori belief, Bush is a liar, is true. Using this logic gate operation and code, I can create sub-logic routines that can be tested for truth or falseness. A couple of the subroutines says, then, if Bush is a liar, then he would have a propaganda apparatus. If Bush is a liar, he would have better popular support, ala Roosevelt and the other liars in the past who were very good at manipulating public opinion with deception. If Bush is a liar, then he would have excellent rhetorical abilities and his plans would contain extremely complex and deceptive details.

After I analyzed the subroutines, I came up with negatives on all of them. Deductive logic cannot and should not be used by idiots. Sherlock Homes, detectives, these people operate the way they do because of a reason, and also because they have ability. A guy who lacks the knowledge and the mental fortitude to make calculations, is unable to build and test logic gates. Neither can he debug them. Sure, maybe he could do it on paper, but in reality? With human beings as the logic gates? *shakes head*

The reason why deductive logic is so useful to human affairs, is because of how we think and how we believe. Everyone, you included bookworm, has something they believe in. So how can you make a scientific analysis of the thesis, if you already believe in one over the other? How is objectivity possible? It is not. People with prejudices, previous bad judgements, and so forth, cannot correct them if they cannot see why they were wrong. And without an inbuilt ability at introspective deductive logic, they are unable to see where they went wrong. If this, then that, if that then this, if this then not that, if not that, then not this. What kind of mental training, education, natural intellect, and good judgement is required for someone, like you bookworm, to analyze your own personal preconceptions and prejudices and verify whether they are correct or incorrect? Every human believes something. If we were all computers, then inductive logic would be all we would need in order to determine the truth or falseness of A or B. But we are not computers, we cannot analyse something without inbuilt bias. Therefore by taking into account our internal biases, we can build and debug logic gates based upon what should be true. If this, then that should be true. If not this, then that should not be true.

In Conclusion, I do not believe Clint understands deductive logic as a practical application while I think Bookworm does. It is a requirement for a person to change his mind. I cannot change Clint's mind. I can only show by contrast how his thinking compares to mine. The reason why I won't argue with you clint about the history of the Jews or tell you what I believe the Jews did or did not do to justify their state's existence, is because I am far more interested in your fundamental logic and your a priori assumptions. With that information, I can build a logic gate. With that information, I need not go looking for historical contexts trying to "disprove" your position.

It's a time saver. If Logic Gate 5 out of 5 X 10 to the 90 power logic gates is not true, then you discard the other 5 X10 to the 90th power logic conclusions. When debating, people draw up a list of 'evidence' and 'stuff' that can go down to the floor. Or at least take a supercomputer days to run through. It'll never end, one side can always bring something else to the picture and say "here, this counters your A." Which is returned by "this counters your counter to A" and on it goes until infinity.

Bookworm knows what I'm talking about because she's a lawyer, one of their purposes being to make a legal list and make sure it contains everything advantageous to proposition A. Reasonable doubt, is there for a reason. Rest your case sometime. But there is always some new evidence that can be found sooner or later.

I rest my case on the basis that Clint doesn't accept the fundamental nature of a democracy as being in favor of peace and the fundamental nature of terroists as requiring force to sustain their justification for existence. That is all that I need to know, and all that you need to know as well, fellow reader.

Pallywood - A video of proper propaganda

This is a nice 18 minute video documenting the fabrication and media manipulation techniques of the Palestinians and their terroist enablers.



Saw it first on mypetjawa.

Bush begging Congress for tribunals

You people ever hear of a fait accompli? It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus without Congressional approval. What Lincoln did was present Congress with something he has already accomplished, and then Congress approved it. Constitutional, and effective. Bush's policy? Diastrous and beneficial to the enemies of the United States.

Ralph Peters - So close yet so far away

Bush doesn't have a neutron bomb. He does have FAEs however, which are still quite good. A better option than nuclear weapons, other than high altitude EMP bursts.

I think what Sala and Ralph here are doing is like a mirror dance. They both want the same thing, meaning in the end, victory one way or another. But Ralph sees the road to victory as going through the swamp, Salamander believes the road to victory is through the bridge. Ralph says that the bridge is trapped and will collapse, sealing our doom. Salamander says that the swamp will bog us down and make us retreat because our logistics will be cut.

In the mirror, to an outside observer, Salamander looks like Raph, but the details are different.

I'm not a graduate of West Point, I have no formal military training one way or the other. So I have to rely on out of the box knowledge and wisdom. Meaning, I have to go digging in the histories for pieces of information, that I then use to decide whether a military course of action is correct or not. There is no tried and true formula for me, other than real life examples.

I know some of the military philosophy and principles. Tactics, strategy, logistics. Instead of having to try out experimental and theoretical plans, and asking myself if I am doing the right thing, I can look at historical examples to see what they did, and attempt to mimic the successes and avoid the disasters.

So that's a quick and dirt solution to the timeless question "What if you are wrong" and "How do you know that you are doing the right thing".

When I think about retreating to Kurdistan and the Shia regions, I know what Ralph is thinking, his military principle. He believes that if he fights a longer war by retreating rather than occupying and holding territory, he can break the morale of the enemy completely. Unfortunately, it is too late for that. You could have done guerrila operations with local support in 2003, but not now. Not when we have already shed blood to build up local trust as an occupation force. You can't just scrap everything and unleash a Lebanon style civil war now, you'd lose more than you'd gain. You'd also lose something else, and that is control.

The human psychology, for me, goes like this. If you had delayed the war in 2003, and pushed forces across to Basrah and air dropped the 101st into Kurdistan, in order to train up the local forces and assault towns using an Afghanistan style insurgency, then that would have caused the residents of Baghdad to blame Saddam and his goons for failure. However, we are now the occupying power, we are the power that protects their government, and everyone in Iraq knows this. If we retreat, it will be a loss of face, it will be a loss of respect and trust, because we have already occupied Iraq. You could have retreated had you not occupied Baghdad, but we did, due to military decisions made by those conversant in Cold War armor pushes. Bush didn't have the knowledge or confidence to overrule the military, so he didn't do it. So here we are.

Remember Sherman's letter to Atlanta?

Link

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may.

To tolerate a division now, to tolerate a Lebanon civil war and strife is... not going to give you ultimate victory. Ralph doesn't think like this, because Ralph believes things can be accomplished if you had 300,000 troops. Even with 300,000 troops, that's not how you win an insurgency. If Ralph thinks he is going to fight conventional militias like Al Sadr, crush them, and parade through the streets, he has to consider the fact that the first thing that would happen is that Al Sadr would take control of towns and execute everyone who was loyal and helpful to Americans, his enemy.

What's the use in retaking a town by crushing AL Sadr's force when he already killed everyone who we were supposed to protect? Ralph seems to be a guy that believes in the bigger hammer approach. I favor more subtlety, like a submariner. Stealth, subversion, things of that nature.

Does it take a military genius to win with an overwhelming amount of force? No, it takes a military genius to take 50,000 troops and make it as if it is 300,000. How? By outsmarting the enemy, rather than overpowering him. Sun Tzu did say that the acme of battle jutsu was to defeat the enemy without fighting him at all, by breaking his moral.

Roach over at Blackfive also recommended a similar course of action. Sit back and let the Shia do the brutal purging, while we sit with clean hands.

It is a weird form of mirror dance. Ostensibly Roach and Ralph's goals are an American victory, but their thought processes are unlike my own. And perhaps unlike yours as well. The confusion comes from all close it is, so close that you want to believe you agree, yet the differences in the details are too important to overlook.

Public Executions - Why Do It?

Roach has a list of tactics that I believe have a correct basis in human psychology and behavior. Of course I would think so, I favor most of them. There were several other good comments in the title link, don't miss out.

Comment below written by: Roach

Bruce, thanks for your remarks. I too am trying my best to make sense of complicated events with limited information. It is undoubtedly difficult and the administration deserves some benefit of the doubt. That said, they specifically overruled the military's original proposals to use 300,000 plus troops, in part, to show off Rumsfeld's "transformation" concept.

I don't have time to go point by point, but I wrote in December 2005, the following practical suggestions:

Recognition that security is the first priority. The real key to hearts and minds are not new textbooks, elections, and the occasional PR event, but delivering the goods that governments everywhere must deliver. Insufficient troops have been the cause of this festering problem, and a short-term plan should include the difficult decision to increase US force levels to 200,000 or more.
A political plan that empowers a single, powerful executive. Only such an empowered authority can cut the Gordian Knot of regional, sectarian, and tribal resistance to an effective central government.

A commitment to suppressing sources of extremism and disorder from sheiks, imams, and the press. "Freedom" does not and should not be misunderstood to include the freedom to support anarchy and terrorist resistance.

A deemphasis on the present strategy large-scale sweeps--Operation Matador, Operation Dawn--and more integration of US forces at the small unit level with Iraqi forces.

A plan for constructing and manning robust barrier on all of the relevant border crossing points.

A plan for massive investments in language training for US forces. Language barriers continue to hinder integration with Iraqi forces and US gathering of intelligence in Iraq and for the war on terror.

A plan for collective punishment of sources of support for the resistance: towns, mosques, etc. This should include curfews, removal of electricity, denial of local self-government, forced dispersal of populations, etc.

Swift, public executions of captured insurgents. There is presently little downside for these terrorists, who are often motivated by threats and bribes. A swift, certain death penalty would give them a major incentive not to.

Amnesty and rewards for insurgents who switch sides. The classic carrot and stick program, which worked very well in the latter part of the Vietnam War under the rubric of the Chieu Hoi program.

A plan for instituting identity card requirements nationwide under penalty of summary arrest. As it is, insurgents can hide because they can move about relatively unchecked and unaccounted for. Any identity card system should be used to gather evidence--fingerprints and photographs--to arrest those connected to IED and other attacks.

A plan for protecting and rewarding people and areas loyal to the government, e.g., "fortified hamlets," and colocation of Iraqi forces, their families, and US troops.

Increased US reliance on helicopters and decreased reliance on the roads. Helicopter assault has proven to be the main way to leverage the mobility and capabilities of first world militaries entangled with insurgencies, e.g., Vietnam, Algeria.

I'd revise these today to say that we should consider (a) cutting losses because of our failure to implement some of these earlier and the lack of political possibility to do so now and (b) because the Shia seem more organized and capable of engaging the Sunnis with the kind of brutality we should disassociate ourselves from. A passing of the baton and isolation of US troops in a few bases to act against Iran and Syria without much involvement in the counter-insurgency would accomplish that goal.

Posted by: Roach | Jul 27, 2006 1:42:44 PM

Comment below written by: Bram

I believe that one of John Podhoretz's points was that we have been winning battles in Iraq without making it obvious to the enemy that they lost.

The analogy would be an old UFC match in which Royce Gracie or Ken Shamrock achieves a very fast submission victory and advances in the tournament. Nobody is really hurt or even tired. Psychologically the loser may think he could have won and would be willing to go again immediately with slightly different tactics. I saw Kimo get up and try to fight Shamrock again seconds after being submitted in one fight. He lost the fight but was not beat down.

It is a great way to win a UFC tournament but not a war. After WWII, the Germans and Japanese new they were beat. The military and civilian casualties, property destruction and economic hardships affected every family. They were beat down in a terrible way and accepted occupation with little resistance (other than some acts by the Hitler youth). In Iraq, we won so fast and so cleanly that many of the Islamic fascists don’t feel that they’ve been beat.

Why not fight the Americans and Brits? If you aren’t killed in the firefight, there will probably be no consequences. They probably won’t hunt you down or destroy your property or harm your family, so why not?

I’m not suggesting that we start dropping Moab’s on population centers, but it is a factor that should be taken into consideration and examined by our leadership. How do we conduct a war in a way that gives us a psychological victory?

Posted by: Bram | Jul 27, 2006 12:19:58 PM
Segues nicely into Bookworm's comment section here.

Another good resource is Sherman's letter in reply to Atlanta. Sherman expressed the rationality behind total war quite well there. You've heard people quote him as "War is Hell" but what is behind that is a lot more intellectual and philosophical than it appears.

update
Lest it be thought that I agreed with certain portions of Roach's argument that I in fact disagree, here's a clarification. I think while Roach's end result goals are similar to me, in that his tactics are designed to facilitate the same results as tactics I approve of, the reason why Roach comes up with these tactics differ from my own reasoning. For example, I don't favor letting innocent people be hung out to dry, Iraqi or American, just because someone was too lazy to do the work of protecting them.

Roach would willingly and perhaps eagerly sacrifice the Iraqis if it was convenient for him to do so. Meaning, he'd stand back and let the Shia slaughter the Sunnis, and call it a day's work well down.

I'd revise these today to say that we should consider (a) cutting losses because of our failure to implement some of these earlier and the lack of political possibility to do so now and (b) because the Shia seem more organized and capable of engaging the Sunnis with the kind of brutality we should disassociate ourselves from. A passing of the baton and isolation of US troops in a few bases to act against Iran and Syria without much involvement in the counter-insurgency would accomplish that goal.

His writing here shows a rather significant amount of callousness and lack of compassion. While that is sometimes necessary in a war, it should not be taken too far. Another reason why Roach's reasoning differs from my own classical liberal positions, is that Roach wants to collectively punish towns. It is clear to people in the know that you will never equal the intimidation ability of terroists who kill, murder, slaughter, assassinate, and blow up anyone and anything that gets in their path. Cutting off the electricity as a punishment is no comparison to 30 days of torture that kidnapped hostages endure. Since it is no comparison, you should help the Iraqis rather than punish them. You help them by pocking up the terroists and hacking off their limbs, to display in a public square, of course.

So if you look carefully at Roach's reasoning, not just the end result of his positions (which are, granted, similar if not exactly the same as mine), you will see that Roach's reasoning is different from the classical liberal philosophy to free the oppressed, to help the downtrodden, and to secure the rights of humanity.

I'm sure protecting Iraqis is a concern of his, if only as a way to get more popular support and intel. But I do not believe it is very high on his personal priorities. This is a gulf that I cannot transverse. I want to say I agree, but I also have the wisdom to understand that you should not assume that someone is on the same page as you, just because they support the same policies as you.

After all Pat Buchanan is an isolationist, which combines him with Democrat isolationists, but he comes at it from a very different direction. Different polarities, equal charge.

Blast to the Past - The UN and Arafat

Zhombre posted a link explaining a cartoon, specifically this one.

The Michelle Malkin link had a very old cartoon, and the title link goes back to the past to explain it.

Alternative History

(comment to one guy at bookworm's link)

I guess if you cut it short, my point can be summed up in a single line.

Db doesn't know how people can be executed or tortured, therefore he comes to the wrong conclusions when attempting to discern from media sources what happened.

There's the thesis, but the justification sentences are rather too numerous to count.

Suffice it to say that Israel and America are using only perhaps 5% of their overall genkai. For America, it's somewhere around 5% to 15%. For Israel's it's a bit higher, 10% to 20%.

For those who are curious, here's a scenario that I believe utilizes close to 50%-100% of America's capabilities (ideal). I'll try and do a good job writing it as if it was just dry news accounts, since I've never actually done a complete scenario work up even though I've described specific actions and methods here and there.

January 1, 2003 9:35 A.M

UNITED NATIONS RAIDED BY AMERICAN FBI AND MILITARY UNITS

Just a month before Secretary of State Colin Powell was scheduled to make an appearance at the UN to give the Bush Administration's WMD concerns about Iraq, American military and FBI units stormed the UN building in a mid-night raid. Anonymous sources inside the Bush Administration have said that CIA intelligence lead us to believe that Iraq was conducting espionage operations using their UN seat at New York. Hundreds of foreign nations have raised objections on air that this is a violation of international diplomatic protocols, they have demanded that they be allowed to communicate with their ambassadors, who at last report are all under American house arrest. The government claims that this is for the protection of the United Nations diplomats, and have said that the guilty parties will be found and the innocent set free.

We know that they have definitely searched the offices of the Iraqi UN representative, as well as Kofi Annan the Secretary General and his appointed officials. We are expecting a press announcement from the White House at 10 a.m. Stay tuned for further details as we bring the news live to you.

January 2, 2003
NATIONS HELD HOSTAGE

Tensions have risen as the international community solidified against the illegal and undiplomatic usurpations of authority by the Bush Administration and the American government. Congress has convened for emergency sessions and have demanded that President Bush explain himself, President Bush has so far refused to reply to Congressional oversight.

The White House press release yesterday alleged that foreign governments had been conducting illegal and harmful to the national security, espionage operations against the continental United States of America. France's President has said that "American cowboys, they are too dangerous to world peace". Germany's Prime Minister, Schroeder, says that he stands with France and Europe, against the folly of Prime Minister Blair and Bush.

January 5, 2003

UNITED NATIONS DISMANTLED

As Democrat Congressional efforts to initiate impeachment proceedings against an uncooperative Bush Administration procede, the White House has released this statement via internet video blogging technology rather than through the White House press corps. The hits on the link appear to be approaching a million just 2 hours after it had been released to instapundit and moveon.org via White House telephone call and email.

"President Bush wishes to assure the American people that their interests, not the interests of our enemies, are being served and protected by his Presidency. We have held information back from the American people since the beginning of our raid into the office space of foreign enemies in the United Nations. Let us state unequivocally, that diplomatic immunity is not for the benefit of those who would plan the killing and torture of innocent people. We will now tell the American people what this was all for, and why we did it. Recent classified intelligence from the CIA, have informed us of a conspiracy in the United States, lead by Saddam Hussein, to ambush and destroy entire United States Army divisions in Kuwaitt. The military is loyal to the Constitution and the President, and by God the President will stand by the military and make sure it is not destroyed at the whims of a tyrant.

In summary, we had planned to go the diplomatic route of persuasion, in order to convince our allies to draft a Resolution that would hold Iraq accountable so that thousands of American lives would not have to be sent into Iraq to destroy and be destroyed. The documents and information we have obtained from the United Nations building, is proof positive of a conspiracy. A conspiracy created by the Oil For Food program that Saddam had subverted, and is even now bribing and corrupting UN officials as well as high ranking representatives of the French, Russian, and Chinese governments. If we had not conducted the raid into the United Nations building, we would have been in stalemate over drafting a Resolution for countless months. Months that Saddam would use to ambush our soldiers, kidnap them, hold them for ransom, as well as to torture to his satisfaction. President Bush has given explicit orders that he will not allow a repeat of the treatment of American POWs during Gulf War 1 to be repeated.

As of this moment, President Bush has signed executive orders to release all diplomats, officials, and representatives of the UN and its founding nations. He has also signed an executive order for the ambassador to the United Nations to be recalled, and henceforth that all military units under the command of the President of the United States of America, will treat UN bureacrats as enemies of the state. Starting 5 days from now. The UN has 5 days to evacuate their property, before the property will return to the hold of the city of New York. President Bush urges his fellow allies and enemies alike, to comprehend that he will not allow foreign sabotage of American interests on American soil.

President Bush apologies to the world community at large, for acting to preserve American sovereignty without consulting with their respective representatives. President Bush offers as an olive branch, copies of classifid information and the recent data procured from the UN building, in order that those foreign governments can better purge themselves of the saboteurs in the pay of Saddam Hussein. President Bush offers Jacques Chirac his condolences, for the personal betrayal of Saddam Hussein, who he knows was a personal friend of PM Chirac.

The representative(s) from Saddam Hussein, will be tried and executed in a military tribunal, for sabotage originating from a nation at war with the United States.

May God Bless America, and see us through these trying times"

January 10, 2003 11:30 pm

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

In 30 minutes, the 5 hour ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to disarm and leave the country of Iraq, will expire. An American force of 85,000 troops stand at the ready to invade Iraq from Kuwaitt, should Saddam Hussein fail to comply with the terms of President Bush's ultimatum.

March 15, 2003 7:49 P.M.

IRAQI QUAGMIRE

Two months after President Bush's ultimatum, and American forces still have not advanced past Kirkuk and Basrah. Constant daily footage from Iraqi public relations have created doubt that America has the ability to invade Iraq. Democrat critics of the Bush Administration, heavily complain that Bush is outsourcing the invasion of Iraq to local tribes. They warn that Saddam Hussein will escape just like Osama Bin Laden, if Bush continues to outsource the security interests of the United States.

The 101st Airborne Division air dropped into Kurdish controlled areas, have reported success galvanating local support into a combined military push past the city of Kirkuk, into Mosul. They have said that local training of Kurdish peshmerga guerrila fighters have proceded according to schedule.

The 1st ID and the 1st Marine Division have reported success at taking and holding a foothold in Southern Basrah. No bombs have been reported being dropped on Baghdad, our correspondents at the Palestine Hotel are reporting no significant United States attacks.

May 15, 2003

AMERICAN REINFORCEMENTS FIGHTING IRAQI REINFORCEMENTS

President Bush has ordered another 20,000 troops be deployed to Iraq, in light of the lack of progress in the war front. In addition to the 185,000 troops already there, this will make the troop contingent of the United States up to 205,000. At least 100,000 additional troops have already been called for and deployed to Iraq, in order to reinforce two deadlocked fronts.

Saddam Hussein is reported to be in hiding, possibly near his home town of Tikrit. His Republican Guards and fedayeen constantly attack United States occupied towns. Hundreds of civilian casualties have occured, the United States ability to maintain mass casualty triage centers are being overloaded. They were never designed to handle the number of casualties being suffered daily. Current US fatalities are at 59.

July 7th, 2003

Pentagon press releases now claim that Syria and Iran are sending foreign fighters to aid the government of Saddam Hussein. The capital of Iraq, Baghdad, is being pincered by the Kurdish guerrilas backed by the 101st Airborne Division in the North, and in the south by the 1st ID and 1st Marine Divison. President Bush has launched air strikes against Syrian military bunkers and Iranian airfields in retaliation.

Saddam Hussein now only controls a territory about the size of a triangle.

The Pentagon has released a deck of cards holding 52 highly wanted Baath party members and Saddam Hussein loyalists. All American soldiers have been encouraged to seek these HVTs out and capture them, using whatever means are necessary.

July 15, 2003

American forces, with Shia militias and Kurdish militias, paraded through the streets of Baghdad today as happy Iraqis threw followers and welcomed the liberating army with cheers and cries of joy. Hundreds of Iraqis formed a line, in order to smash a statue of saddam with a sledgehammer, each taking their turns.

July 25, 2003

Martial law has been established in Baghdad. All other provinces are under local control, secured by Kurdish and Shia militia leaders. It is unclear to what extent the US Army is allowing local leaders to make policy decisions concerning occupied towns and provinces.

Looting and rioting have been dealt with in Baghdad. Hundreds are in jail, several have been shot dead.

September 29, 2003

Representatives from all the provinces of Iraq were invited and escorted to Baghdad. The square where the statue of Saddam was pulled down. Standing by a blazing bonfire in the middle of the night was President George W. Bush. The meeting was secret, and not televized. Footage was taken by Army reporters, and provided to instapundit and democraticunderground.

In President Bush's hands was a deck of cards holding the faces and biographical data of 52 Baathist leaders and Saddam loyalists. Bush asked every provincial leader to pull one card out. When that card was pulled out, and the face revealed in the firelight, the man or woman was brought in front of President Bush and executed by firing squad. The card went into the fire afterwards.

Some President Bush spared with a wave of his hands, citing security interest and lack of enough interrogation time. In the end, there was one card missing from President Bush's gift to the Iraqi leaders. It was Saddam Hussein. President Bush attempted to persuade the Iraqi leaders that for Saddam, death was too easy. Bush said that he had given the blood debt here and now, Iraq must now be built upon justice and law, not executions and destruction. President Bush appealed to the Iraqi leaders for a just and fair trial of Saddam Hussein.

With that, the video ended.

January, 2005

Fallujah has now been evacuated of all civilians. Mandatory orders of evacuation were given. The entire government of Fallujah had been found executed in masse on the bridge near Fallujah, along with the bodies of 4 American security contractors several months ago.

Several FAE munitions were dropped on the city of Fallujah, incinerating and annihilating all foreign jihadist and local insurgents within the city. THe city was completely leveled, as if a nuclear bomb had been used.

The Iraqi prime minister congratulated President Bush on winning his second term with his recent visit to the White House.

May, 2005

Iran threatened to use oil as a weapon, if the United States prevented their enriching of uranium. President Bush ordered a full naval and air blockade of Iran. At the same time, President Bush signed an executive order annexing a few border towns on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Iraq border, and giving it to the commanders of the Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Basrah militia leaders. President Bush had ordered the military invasion of Syria in 2004, in retaliation for Syrian complicity in the deaths of American servicemembers. Syria lost several border towns, but was able to sue for peace by giving over all foreign and Baathist fighters they knew of. This was 10 days after President Bush publicized his decision to invade.

Too funny - Steven Colbert

This is too funny a clip from CDR Salamander.

Highly recommended, even if you don't like Steven Colbert.




Hard link

Propaganda Videos - Collection of stuff

Fair warning, some of these videos are graphic and not work safe, or child safe, or heaven safe. The one that is safe, is the morale booster music video.

This was an old comment reply to a Neo Neocon post about the under-utilization of propaganda by the US in this war.

I got a little incoherent at the end, but I won't edit it now that it no longer matters.

This is Pat Dollard's teaser video. I see this as the solution to Neo's complaint that we aren't using propaganda enough. It's a great look into the US military and barracks life/interactions. As well as front line combat and those who act as the rubber when it meets the road.


I originally posted the video link as a way to contrast it with Yearly Kos's PR show. Go and look see for a contrast.
Here's a little manipulation and splicing, using youtube. For kicks and giggles that is.

Then there's this comment reply to the post Neo did on visual propaganda, the Norman portraits of WWII. Most of these replies are just my thoughts and analysis on the specific type of thematic propaganda Neo wrote about in the subject post.

Here's another video of how Jihadists bath in the blood of infants. Lots of blood, but it shows you the Islamic world in a very visceral fashion.

This would be a good propaganda video, had it been "leaked" to Fox News. Ya, I know, it's public domain, but they could have faked leaking it for god's sake. It was the incident where a Dragunov sniper rifle did not penetrate US body armor. This alone would have helped to silence critics that said the US did not have good body armor. No amount of Bush assurances about him doing what was needed in terms of supply, would have equaled this footage shown.

Here is the story from Michael Yon, about how the media propaganda apparatus runs. Read it for background info.

Okay, here's your break video, where you can restore your morale. If you watched all the videos in the links above, you'll need the break.


This is an example of how you can combine illusion and manipulation with physical reality discipline to create a spectacular product.







There is lots more if you follow the link above.

VDH has some things to say about the disadvantages Israel has in the propaganda war.

This is a text post of mine that describes propaganda, the new improved version.

This was a reference to Nazi propaganda that I picked up from reading VDH. Can't find a video, but maybe youtube has it. It's too bad Triumph of the Will is too big for YouTube.

This was a post I did after watching a History Channel on Nazi Occult activities. Just so I don't forget. I wrote about the correlations between Nazi ideology and Islamic JIhad. Belief is belief.

There was also this post I did, a short one about enemy propaganda. I focused on why Democrats refused to believe that the terroists were playing them as pawns.

Update
More Videos





If you are demoralized by the insurgents sniper video with the catchy music, try this Marine version below for a morale kick start.



Those things flying off aren't rocks, you know.


Another video by Jula below



This is a video of Blackwater contractors, former Spec Ops people, shooting at the Mahdi Army. Weird.



This is a longer Clip of Jula.



UPdate

Recently, Grim has put up some interesting stuff about hardening your heart to win a war. If you have watched this propaganda videos so far, you will know your suspectibility by how low or high your morale develops after seeing negative or positive events in the war.

This is funny man,

Ace of Spades - Commercials

I Hate Fox News
– Ace

Two words: Christie Lane.

Yes, they don't air that commercial anymore.

Now they've got something worse.

Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!
Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!
Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!
Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!
Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!

Freedom from Hemmorhoids? Freedom Hemmorhoid Cream.
Freedom from Hemmorhoids? Freedom Hemmorhoid Cream.
Freedom from Hemmorhoids? Freedom Hemmorhoid Cream.
Freedom from Hemmorhoids? Freedom Hemmorhoid Cream.
Freedom from Hemmorhoids? Freedom Hemmorhoid Cream.

I have a whole new appreciation for "One Day At A Time, Sweet Jesus..."

I don't know why, but I busted up laughing after the commercial texts. Simply because I remember that commercial, I could hear it in my head. Meaning, the commercial after Ace said they got something worse.

Curiously, it wasn't funny when I watched it, nor was it annoying. It was only funny when I realized that other people, like ace, found it aggravating. Funny as all get.

Axis Sally

I was looking around to see if there was a historical Berlin Bitch.I found an archived vari frank post comparing Axis Sally, who did time in jail for her propaganda aiding of the Axis powers, and Cindy Sheehan.

Of course, this all started with a game called Halo 3.

Children of Hitler

Meta-strategy of the Left - Recurrence of Thought

*Something I noticed when I was reading Bookworm's post about bloggers on the Left*

I think what Kos is saying is that he is going to wait until Israelis and Palestinians kill each other to the last man, woman, and child, then he is going to go there and declare victory for his side. It's not anything new after all. Two guys fight, fresh new guy comes in and claims the spoils after finishing the two fatigued fighters. Kos is like that, or at least he believes that it is justified to goad people into mutual annihilation.

After all, the Left likes cycles of violence. If the cycle of violence was broken, what would they exactly salve their guilt on any ways if there is no oppressed peeps to pity?

Of course Israelis want to get out of the fight. That's the problem, as Kos sees it. War will not end and utopia will not begin, if both sides don't get tired of fighting. This requires that Israelis suffer as much damage as Palestinians. This means both sides must be immolated in hate. It's pure annihilation style anarchy and nihilism. There's various degradations and modules depending on who on the Left you're talking about. Kos is more pure than most. As they say, the weapons runners get rich from selling weapons to both sides. Kos pushes the weapon of ideology, and the fury of false righteousness. Jews, Judaism, Jihad, Muslims, all must be incinerated in the fires of purity for the Left to create real, lasting, peace.

Does anyone really believe that Howard Dean would not use nuclear weapons to purify the Middle East, and claim that he has made perpetual peace on earth? Of course they would, the Democrats are the war party, in world history only a Democrat, Truman, used nuclear weapons on civilian and industrial cities of an enemy nation. Don't be fooled by Democrat propaganda about "peace" and whatever. Look deeper. Religious fanaticism isn't something the Islamic Jihad has a monopoly on.

In actual fact, it isn't ideology or even bloodthirstyness that causes people to committe attrocities against humanity. No, it is the inherent belief that what they are doing is righteous, that it will lead to a better world, this justifies in people's mind the destruction of life. The Democrats may have the "ideology" of something they call pacifism or whatever, chickenhawk little perhaps, but this is not the model you should use to predict their actions when they gain power.

It all comes down to the mental and spiritual health of the person, the individual. It seems that happens a lot these days.

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/07/on_limits.html

That link describes the real path to peace, without mutual destruction. All other paths lead to complete, utter, annihilation, of one or the other side in this war amongst humanity unleashed. The Democrats would love the excuse to fight. I say again, the Democrats would love the excuse to purge humanity of its weaknesses. I do not doubt this, because even after making this statement with only my memory to back it up, I can go find something to support it. Clintons' letter in 1969 for example.

From my work I came to believe that the draft system itself is illegitimate. No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war which, in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation.

The draft was justified in World War II because the life of the people collectively was at stake. Individuals had to fight, if the nation was to survive, for the lives of their countrymen and their way of life. Vietnam is no such case. Nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion, certain military action was justified but the draft was not, for the reasons stated above... - Clinton in a letter to ROTC

I ask, what is the best way to threaten the lives of the American people collectively, and therefore justify the destruction of an entire race and demographic? You would know the answer from Grim's intel brief if you read it. What is the best way to ensure that things immediately involve the peace and freedom of the nation? What happened right after Clinton left office? Do you see the meta-strategy of the Philosophy of the Left? It appears, again and again, if you know what patterns to look for.

If you’re going to be perpetually and shallowly mean, at least do it in an equal opportunity way.

Indeed, such is Wonkette that she is not particularly partisan, except on screen of course. You cannot be partisan with that level of perspective.

And if you actually have an advantage, you shouldn’t use it, so that you won’t run the risk of winning against the bad Army.

And what do you think the natural logical conclusion of this "tactic" is? Someone mentioned it before here or at neo's site. The natural logical conclusion is what Winston said. Don't fight now when you can win with little cost? Okay, you can fight latter when you have to sacrifice your wife and children. Is the Democrats on the Left suicidal then? Absolutely not. You mistake and underestimate the power of self-righteousness and religious zealotry when you believe such leads to a suicidal belief. Their logic is unshatterable concerning this point. You remember all those Hollywood movies where the cops catch the bad guy, but he can't shoot the bad guy cause he surrendered or whatever? Do you remember what actually happens to these bad guys that we know should be killed? The Hollywood mofos kill them. But the special part is how they kill them. They don't kill them via assassination and instantaneous fatality strikes with gun or blade. No, what they do is have the "hero" lower his weapon, turn his back, and show mercy. Then suddenly the bad guy has this instant hidden weapon in hand and is about to use it, but low and behold our hero is the master mofo cracker and shoots dead the sota. Really. Again, their logic is unshatterable on this score. Religious zealots never believe they will lose, how can they, ain't Allah on their side? Ain't the righteousness of the Rule of Law, and the Separation Between Church and State, on the side of the Democrats? Every side believes God is on their side, military psychology has already recognized this and taken measures to correct the bias.

This is not a philosophy from the world. The citizens of the world know too much cruelty and hopelessness to ever believe in the infallibility of their "heroes". No, this is a philosophy from the decadent core of America, something called Hollywood. Dumb, ignorant, fools are a dime a dozen. Dumb, ignorant, fools with bigazillions in money, however, are not so common.

Again, to be fair to the enemies of humanity, is to be cruel to the weak, whom has never been shown one iota of fairness from the strong of this world. Grim's intel brief highlights this. We are cheating by occupying Iraq and building democracy there. We are cheating in the hopes of altering the odds in our favor, so that we are not attacked at home. If we are not attacked at home, we will never be required to retaliate with nuclear or even massive conventional weapons like the MOAB or Air Fuel Bomb. There will be NO immediate threat to the freedom or safety of the nation, we will prevent it from getting to that stage. This means waging unpopular wars.

The Democrats would love an excuse to purify this world. I would prefer not to give them one. Oh, they aren't disinterested, they're waiting for the bodies to decompose. The field must be prepared for purification after all.

Am I overreacting? Is there a real problem here?

Well, after reading what I wrote, am I overreacting? You decide if there is a real problem here. I know what I believe, and what I've seen, and the psychological profile of people on Left, both Democrats like Clinton and the grassroots/netroots version.

If I’ve correctly identified a problem, will it at least have the beneficial consequence of harming Democrats in November, when the American public starts thinking about whether liberals or conservatives will best be able to protect American interests in a changing world?

As for local politics, that's a toss up between personal motivations. There's too many motivations for individuals that I can't predict who they will vote for. It is not even a Presidential election. I mostly study the polls about Iraq, not the US. And certainly not a state/federal election cycle. I leave that to politicians and those who work for them.

Uncle Jimbo - Black Five Argument with Geoff

This is an amusing and entertaining, although perhaps excitable, argument and overall operation conducted by Geoff of RadioLeft against Uncle Jimbo, formerly of the SpecialForces 18B, Master Sergeant.

My comment is at the bottom. But in addition to the argument, is the analysis of what is a real agent provocateur, what is a real disinformation campaign, and what is a real propaganda operation. Geoff said that he called Jimbo a chickenhawk because he was making stuff up to rile people up.

Read some of the interchanges for the fun.

Iran - Insurgency Strategies

These two links are some good background information for people who want to know how to take Iran down.

Afghanistan model

Mark Bowden on lessons learned, an interview

This interview is also highly recommended, because it describes everything that went wrong with Iraq. More or less.

Video of Dead Americans - A Jihadist's Joy

Now what I felt when I saw the video was not shock or rage or anything like that. It was calmness. The calm before the storm perhaps, but still. What I focused on was mostly the evidence that I saw. The blood splatters, the timeline, etc.

It looked to me like the blood on the ground was heavily coagulated. Meaning they were not beheaded or executed on that spot, otherwise bright arterial blood would be all over the concrete, not just pooled up in congealed spots the size of a head. Looked to me they dragged the corpses here to this spot, then beheaded them, then started taping.

The damage to the clothes looks like they were beaten by kicks and weapons or other things. One of the soldier's body was hacked apart with some kind of blade, a machete perhaps. The point is, they could not have been killed on that exact spot, not enough blood. A trained crime forensics expert could probably tell you more, but even I know that they could not have been executed while alive, then dragged to this spot, then videotaped. For one thing, it would make little sense to drag dead bodies around while the blood just "showed" an obvious trail, and it would make little sense not to video tape the beheading. Unless of course they were dead while they were beheaded, and the terroists did not want to give any connotation that these soldiers fought to the death.

So it is likely that the terroists had to kill these soldiers to kidnap them. Or maybe they resisted while enroute and were killed. Either way, it is logical. They msut have been briefed on what the terroists would do to captured Americans. They must have seen what the terroists did in Fallujah and other parts of Iraq to the Iraqis themselves. It is hard to believe that untrained civilians on Flight 93 would fight to the death to save themselves and others, but not trained soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq.

It's not rage that grips me, because I did not know these soldiers, I do not even know what is being said on the video tape. I do not know the terroists who did it, therefore I cannot take action against them. I do not know the thinking process of the terroists nor was I forced to watch helpless Americans being trotted out for propaganda. My hopes were not dashed, because I did not have any hope that these Americans were still alive. When there is life, therei s hope. But when they are dead, there is no hope.

And that is why their propaganda does not demoralize. That and the fact that I usually convert hot rage to cold anger. I've detailed the difference between them before. Rage forces you to think and do things its way. Cold rage uses the power of anger to your own purposes. It allows you the clear thinking clarity of calmness, yet the indomitable spirit and willpower confered by rage and anger.

The best of both worlds. Angry people are predictable, but the more scary people are those who have control over their anger, rather than their anger controlling them. I would feel no need to make the terroists suffer as Americans have suffered, I would just kill them, neat and clean, fast and efficiently. There would be no time for talk, no time for mercy, no time for regret or joy. The terroists kill inefficiently, because they enjoy it. In the time that it takes a terroist to kill 2 people via torture, I can get all 20 of them.

Rusty has a point that this helps civilians remember 9/11. But I don't think I need that help. My determination is not shattered by demoralizing defeats, because I keep my morale in a state of tranquility, serenity, and equilibrium.

Old Man's War - Tor Ebook Selection

The Idea of Limits

This idea of limits is a foreign concept, i first encountered it through the culture of Japan.

One of the words they use is genkai. Kai meaing to release. I suppose it means to release or surpass one's limits. So when they say they have reached your genkai, it means you can no longer surpass your limitations anymore. You are forever stuck on this plateau of power and will never get anymore powerful.

Japan probably has more words, but I don't know them, I just study the philosophical concept.

A friend of mine said yesterday that he believes Israel and the United States have reached the limits of their power. He believes the battle is joined, is highly asymmetric, and has ground American and Israeli forces to a halt. He wasn't gloating, but was hypothesizing.

He might be wrong. Having power assumes a monopoly of violence. As we restrain our power to appeal to our allies and win friends on the ground, Islamicists do everything they can to monopolize violence through random acts of terror. They're quite unrestrained in that pursuit, and on that level, we are neck-and-neck with them for control on the ground. The battle for the monopoly of violence is symmetrical in this war because we restrain ourselves from unleashing our full fury. My friend assumes that we will restrain ourselves indefinitely, and so we have reached the limit of our power.

My friend will be right -- that the Israelis and Americans have hit their wall -- only if we continue self-restraint. We've made war with our seat belts on. There's no guarantee that things can't get to a point where further self-restraint makes no sense.

These descriptions of walls and stuff don't accurately portray the philosophical concept of limits well. FOr one thing, you can go around a wall or under a wall or over a wall or even through a wall. Breaking one's limits is only accomplished through willpower. In this case, it is the US ushering enough willpower to drop the facade of "peace" and "compassion".

I think they first developed this concept because of the spirituality of martial arts. In martial arts we know that there are levels of expertise and knowledge. We also know that the higher one goes in rank, the proportional wisdom of that person grows as well because in dojos a higher ranked person has more responsibility and duties.

So someone's "limits" in martial arts was not just a level of skill like a certificate, it was actually a thing of character and determination. In concrete terms. Some people can't become any more powerful in a martial arts, either because of injury, lack of talent, lack of motivation, lack of time, etc. These are the limitations that prevent the potential of a person from being fully expressed. The potential power of the United States of America is beyond reckoning. Yet this potential is not released for the sole fact that it is "Sealed", fuujin or otherwords. Kai, to release this seal, requires the exercise of willpower and determination.

Part of me wants to see our self-restraint maintained; we have the keys to Hell's door, a Pandora's Box that is best kept shut. Another part of me wants to see our civilization's enemies mercilessly vanquished. We can't have it both ways forever.

Indeed we do hold the keys. Do we release hell on Earth as Sherman did, kai? Or do we keep it sealed, fuujin? It's always interesting, but the Japanese anime always show the characters unleashing their genkai when they are to the point of utter defeat. It really does take seeing death and ultimate defeat in one's face, that truly allows you to take off the limitations on your own power. For America, it is because she fears her power, her Pandora's box. It was released back in the past, and nations and people were ground into fine nothingness. America was also afraid during the Cold War. America is even now, afraid that if we release the destructive forces of the Heavens, we will no longer be able to seal it back.

The enemies of America do not seem to believe that America is weak not because we are so in reality, but because it is a byproduct of sealing our power down several several orders of magnitude. If they miscalculate, they will pay the price.

Realclearpolitics Article - Iranian war

Real Clear Politic's article, The War Comes to Us has a lot of good points, but there are some things I don't agree with.

Worse, the Palestinian Authority is the one area where we have tolerated the creation of a new Islamist terrorist regime, on the grounds that it is "democratically elected." As I explained in "The Weapon of Democracy," in TIA's last print issue, this is how the US has been disarmed by the dangerously vague concept of "democracy": if we claim that we are fighting for liberty, and then we equate liberty with "democracy"--then how can we condemn a "democratically elected" terrorist regime?

The strategy is simple, because it is a war strategy, not a political strategy of "liberation. When you give people a stake in their lives, an ability to decide how they should live, the terroists will attack the people. This gives America more credibility and the terroists less. This makes asymmetrical warfare more symmetrical, giving America back our usual advantages.

When Hamas was elected the government, the US could not use that as a pretext to stop "funding" the PLO. Israel had been sending millions of whatever to the PLO, literally funding the terroists that have been killing Israelis. When Hamas was elected, the war became one between states, not terroists vs occupation forces.

Democracy is a disease, and Hamas has been infected.

But Israel has a history of becoming bolder when it is under attack. The only alternative, for a small nation in such a hostile neighborhood, is suicide--and the Israelis are far from being so broken as to accept such a suicide. Hence, there are signs that the recent Hamas and Hezbollah attacks are discrediting the policy of "disengagement," Israel's strategy of retreat and surrender. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the main political front man for "disengagement," has gone so far as to declare the Hezbollah attack an "act of war." Yossi Klein Halevi draws the obvious conclusion:

Israe's strategy was not 'surrender and retreat'. Ridiculous. Militaristically, it is in fact a small force of Israelis finding a defensible location and fortifying up, waiting for an enemy attack. When the enemy attacks, the Israelis use that as an excuse to go full war mode.

The Israelis drew a line in the sand, and when Hizbollah crossed it on the command of Iran, Israel used that as the pretext to start a war. A war is very different from surrender and retreat, btw.

Iran is risking everything on this new strategy, and the only hope they have of success is the expectation that, as they bring the war closer and closer to America, we won't fight back.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

I believe this is a pretty good analysis to read with RCpolitics.

Japan Prelude

I'm bundling the 4 posts I did on Japan and Japanese related topics, as a prelude to another post I'm going to do on moral dilemmas.

Spies and Soldiers

The story of how the Japanese targets were selected to be destroyed via nuclear fire.

How Japan Surrendered

A spurr of the moment post I did on Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan.

Now there's justice

In the time of Valerie Plame's fake outing and various rogue judges doing things unsafe for the public good, we have a pristine example of how justice should be dispensed. GIving people what they deserve, no more and no less.

The Cut and Run States - American Map

Democratiya Interview - Putting Cruelty First

Title is very weird and exotic, but the substance is even more so in a way.

The wack thing is that I actually had a html link on my fav list, but I had forgotten about this. I don't even remember if I had blogged about this before, but the material is top notch if you read the interview.

Specifically, this part.

Alan Johnson: You have called the inter-agency process—the co-ordinated efforts of the White House, State Department, Department of Defence, and CIA—'the great albatross of our lives'. In your opinion 'Many of our problems afterwards in Iraq are a consequence of … squabbling within the U.S. administration'. You said to one journalist that '[t]he enemies of a democratic Iraq lie within the State Department and the CIA, who have consistently thwarted the president's genuine attempt … to do something very dramatic in this country. Fortunately they have not totally succeeded.' What was the basis of these inter-agency disputes and what were their consequences?

Kanan Makiya: The little story of the Future of Iraq project unfolded against the backdrop of a much larger problem in the preparations for war. There was tension—I would even call it warfare—between the different branches of the US government. This has still has not been written about properly. Deep internal American conflicts hobbled the whole enterprise from the outset. Matters reached the level of hatred between and among Americans. Iraqis were portioned off by different agencies. Some were close to the Department of Defense, some to the CIA, some to State, and so on. The warfare at the heart of the Bush administration was shaping the agenda rather than any positive plan.



The change in the United States government's position that brought about such tensions within the administration goes back to September 11 - a transforming moment in American political culture. From that day a small minority of influential people in the United States government emerged who said that the way forward was democratic change in the region, starting with Iraq. They argued that US foreign policy towards the Middle East had rested for 50 years on support of autocratic regimes (like Saudi Arabia, like Saddam in the 1980s, like Mubarak's Egypt) in the interests of securing oil supplies, or whatever it might be. This policy had led to a level of anger at the United States inside the Arab world that provided fertile breeding ground for organisations like Al-Qaeda.



So, at the strategic level, what needed to happen was a dramatic change in US policy. The US should reach out to peoples not governments, to focus on democratisation as opposed to stability, and so on. That school of thought emerged in the Pentagon, led by people like Paul Wolfowitz. It ran headlong against the State Department's traditional accommodationist policies. The conflict was between those agencies that were wedded to the policies of the past and those breaking new ground. The former were often in the State Department - people who knew that part of the world in a very particular way. They had been Ambassadors, they had hobnobbed with the Saudi ruling families, and they had developed certain preconceptions about how the Arab world worked. By contrast those who were pushing for a dramatically new policy, like Paul Wolfowitz, were not shackled by such a past, nor burdened by the weight of those prejudices. But they did not necessarily know the Middle East as well. They were not Arab linguists, and these people tended to reside in the Pentagon and in parts of the White House.



In this struggle the CIA was close to the State Department. The Pentagon was close to the White House (though the White House had no single view). The struggle could have been a healthy one resulting in a plan of action for post-2003 had there been sufficient control of these divisions from the top. There wasn't. Bush just laid down a policy and was not a man for the details. And the National Security Council did not opt clearly for this or that way forward. Instead they set up something called the 'inter-agency process'. This involved representatives from the different warring agencies who would sit down and compromise over every single decision. The result was not that there were no plans, as people say, but that there were too many plans that were no longer coherent because they were picked apart in this inter-agency process until they were a little bit of this and a little bit of that. For instance, the Pentagon was for a provisional Iraqi transitional authority rooted in and stemming from the Iraqi opposition. The State Department was dead set against that. And its intense dislike of the Iraqi opposition drove them to support what I think was the worst possible strategic formula for the transition: an American military occupation of Iraq with all that that entailed in terms of responsibilities for the minutest of details in the post war period.

Alan Johnson: You have complained bitterly about 'this distinction that was created between the inauthentic externals and the authentic internals'. Did the State Department think the exiles had no base and could not be trusted?

Kanan Makiya: The State Department didn't think the Iraqi opposition was up to it. It wanted Iraqis who were from 'the inside'. We were very suspicious about that formulation because at the outset it was clear they did not mean the broad mass of Iraqis. They meant the former elements of the regime. They invented this great big artificial wall between the exiles on the 'outside' and the Iraqis on the 'inside'. The exiles were portrayed as Rolex-wearing opportunists or dreamers (or, worse, even Kurds) who didn't know their own country. Ironically the State Department, which was against the war in the first place, ended up being for the most dramatic form of transformation: military occupation. But having agreed military occupation as the way forward, which agency was going to supervise the plan of occupation? It turned out to be the Defence Department, which… favoured a transitional provisional government! So it ends up a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and I think we ended up with the worst of all worlds as a consequence.

I don't want to post it all, but it is so good I am having trouble resisting. The dude has explanations that mirror like almost all of my post-war criticisms and analysis. He talks about mixed plans and how Bush is a delegator, which he obviously is. Bush doesn't micromanage anything, which means Bush really doesn't have a true understanding of things, he lets his underlings handle details. This has some problems, like with FEMA and etc.

Kanan also talks about how Iraqis did not participate in their liberation, which is a point I made in relation to Afghanistan. The weird thing is this, I don't even remember reading this interview but I must have, yet I made all my own conclusions without using this guy as a source. So it is very weird.


But there should have been thousands of those Iraqis trained in the months running up to the war to go in with every American unit so that the necessary bridges of trust and understanding could be built.

Read the link to the interview with the A-Team in Afghanistan, this is exactly what the SF did in Afghanistan that the regular army did not do in Iraq. I had attributed it just to the Army doing things the "Army Way", as opposed to the right and wrong way. But it also seems like this "inter-agency" shit had something to do with the Pentagon high command plans as well.

Kanan's point about the American agencies fighting amongst ourselves is also a good rebuttal to those who said "Oh, the State had all the plans for Iraq, it is the fault of the Pentagon for not listening". Oh BS, State don't got their strack together, otherwise Americans wouldn't have to cook up their own Save the Children campaigns to help the Iraqis. I'm not suggesting that Americans wouldn't still give, but State has zero role in reconstruction, just about.

Here's a link on the jihad terroist map.

This is part 1 of the interview, I know it is out of the order but I had to expend some effort to find it.

New Improved Explanation of Propaganda

Hey Retief, you should take a (re)medial course on Propaganda 101. When you finish, you should realize that the best way to make people happy, is force them to expect that their lives will be in the crapper.

Realistically, it is not that the media reports always on the bad, it is that the net result of the media's reporting is an extremely negative, suicidal, and depressive condition in the people that watch it. Most people aren't psychologists and don't know much about how a human being can be manipulated through their minds. But they know what they feel, and what they feel is quite depressing when watching the media.

One of the best media manipulations I've ever seen was the Tet Offensive, the victory that broke the camel's back. Another one was just after Baghdad fell, when the media showed cheering and happy Iraqis, to an extent that even Chris Matthews got on stage and said he was wrong about the war. This didn't last, it never was designed to. The media in proping up American morale artificially based upon just what their cameras showed, set up the public for the fatality strike of the terroists.

The media believed in their own propaganda, that is why it is effective at times and incompetent at others (Dan Rather). There's nothing like zealous belief to empower a propaganda campaign.

The media does a good job making the war into one long slog with no end. Every day you hear that some Americans died, and then they tell you all the days that Americans had not yet, yet this record was broken on this day, 5 days after no attacks had been launched. It's a nice little trick to make things endless. It's like tunnel vision, you can't see out of the corners of your eyes.

The media gives you no hope, their job is to crush it. ANd the best way to crush hope is to give people some false hope and then grab them by the balls. Pretty effective. The best way to increase people's morale is to artificially depress their spirits, hopes, and expectations, then report that things were better than we expected. This happened during Iraq's first elections, that was why people were so happy and relieved. They expected worse. Another example of why good propagandists don't believe in their own propaganda, it tends to have bad consequences. The media inadvertently helped the war effort, because they actually believed the first election would be a disaster, it wasn't.

Highs and lows of morale are to be expected in war. There is nothing like the agony of defeat contrasted with the absolute joy of victory. What the media does is to average it out, by averaging out the highs and lows, the person who sees the propaganda does not realize when there are defeats and when there are victories because the same thing he feels when a victory occurs is the same thing he feels when a defeat occurs. This has the effect of fatiguing a man and a woman's morale, their spirit to fight. Military discipline is designed to counter-act negative morale, but civilians do not have this support line.

With some expert tweaking, you can make the baseline tip slightly towards the negative, rather than the positive. So that the perpetual feeling of the reader is in a state of low level depression. If you maintain that long enough, they will suicide. Sort of like keeping someone from sleeping for a week, they will suicide or act otherwise psychotic.

So in conclusion, the media doesn't tell you the whole story because telling the whole story would make people depressed when there is a defeat, and joyous when there is a victory. THis is the natural state of human psychology, it is healthy. The media doesn't tell all the facts because by manipulating propaganda techniques, they can keep the subject population under constant levels of indirect stress that is unnoticeable until a long time has passed.

The military gives us the real goods. So when people die, we feel the agony, but when we take back the weapon that the killers looted off our people, we also feel vindication and joy. This is the natural psychological mentality of a person, highs and lows, joys and sadness. The media very intelligently reports the bad news in such a way that our spirits are depressed, but not depressed low enough that any good news would increase it. Then they forget to tell you the good news, the "victory" portion. SO in effect, you are poisoned and never given the counter-agent. The acid starts to pool and increase, and eventually you die and stop fighting it.

One of the unique techniques to poison someone is through low level doses applied over time, so that someone doesn't notice it right away, attributing it to something harmless. Psychological and propaganda operations are an art as much as a science. It has a deadly elegance to it. Too bad Bush won't use it on his enemies, I'd love to see Bush twist Chirac around his superpower finger. Democrats too.

A lot of the Left believes Bush (Rove) is a master propagandist. They don't know what a "propagandist" is in the first place.

Posted by: Ymarsakar | Jul 10, 2006 10:07:33 AM

Caring Democrats

Ace's very complete and thorough explanation of the Left's identity politics.

9/11 Conspiracy Video

This is one of those reasons why I say that if you go far enough to the Left, you'll hit the far right. The person that made that movie gave the glory and credit to Jesus Christ. He surely doesn't seem like an atheist. Yet... in all other manners, his political motivations might as well be the same as the Left's.

The Hurricane of Disbelief

I don’t like anything that makes me feel out of control (except chocolate, of course).

Seriously, what is up with women and chocolate. Neo NeoCon also wrote a post about adoring chocolate. If food is the path to a man's heart, then I suppose chocolate is the path to a woman's heart. Or some women.

The book’s author has, as his main goal, decriminalizing marijuana. I can’t say that I disagree with him. I think marijuana ought to be treated in the same way as alcohol and cigarettes — it should be a controlled, not an illegal substance, because I really don’t see it as different from those other substances.

Also, because I’m something of a libertarian, I believe that people ought to be allowed to make stupid choices about what they put into their bodies.

Now, I don't like saying I agree with anybody. Not in the metaphorical sense, in the literal sense. I don't like to write or say the words "I agree", it seriously reminds me of an echo chamber. And those always freaked me out when I was young, that and the house of mirrors too.

So in light of this, I have to say that Book's thinking in these quoted lines mysteriously match my own in very consistent lines. (except the chocolate)

I don't like to lose control of my body. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I always try to keep a moderate situational awareness of my surroundings and my actions. It's not easy to do, since you can't get it unless you train yourself for it, which takes time and skill. I don't like being out of control. Whether this is because of an innate discipline or because I don't like people surprising me, is not known to me. I think one of the most elegant examples of my thinking is when a friend in High School asked me what I would do if I found a beautiful woman lying in my bed naked. I postulated that this was an assassination plan, so I would not get near her. He postulated that he would go get her and partake of the flesh. I didn't tell him about the assassination idea, of course, because I was afraid I would be laughed at.

I was always more intelligent than the average person I knew. I was quite dissatisfied with that, intelligence is inborn, an aristocratic trait, and I always hated having something I didn't earn myself. So I suppose I concentrated on trying to acquire wisdom, which is earned, while intelligence is a born trait. You can't get rid of intelligence, other than to refuse to utilize it.

I think the example of the Jewish kid in France, who got lured by a sexy looking young Muslim women to a spot where her "friends" kidnapped the Jewish kid and then tortured/killed him is a good example that my efforts were not in vain. And that indeed, I had acquired an earned difference between me and others I knew.

My conclusions agree with Book in this case, almost perfectly. The moral dilemma between wanting to prevent people from doing drugs while at the same time respecting their free will, is solved by freedom of information. After all, it is the same principle as the First Ammendment. People govern themselves best and make the best choices, when they are given the most accurate and valid data. When people are lied to and they believe those lies, then they make the wrong choices. (Palestinians)

I've never tried drugs, cigarretes, nor have I ever indulged in a drinking contest. Reason's simple. I'm a survival orientated person, with competition as a focus. Whenever I think about doping up, doing drugs (legal or illegal), and drinking myself to a stuppor, I always think this thought. "Wow, do you know how easy it would be for me to kill someone who was drunk or on drugs?" That stops thoughts of doing drugs pretty well.

Maybe it was watching too much Hollywood violence, but I learned how to recognize death and avoid him. I've had my brushes with death, and cases where I believed that I was going to die. Control and Discipline helped me, and they help me still. I pity those without control over their emotions and bodies. They are wasting their human potential, allowing their genetic inborn traits to take the lead. Humans do not become fully manifest until we learn how to control our environment with our will, much as animals do not become self-aware until they learn how to control their environment with tools.

It is almost like a second stage of evolution, but still, only a few people have even come close to touching it. Religion matters, not because I'm a Christian, but because there are more religions than the ones from Christianity.

It is funny. If people didn't know me well or my beliefs well, they might believe me to be a Total Puritan and teetotaler in how I live my life. But compared to real Puritans on the Left, I am not afraid to wash my hands in blood. It's good to have a state of balance, to be neither too afraid of impurity nor too intolerant of differences. Some people just don't understand that moral purity comes from centering oneself amidst the sea of desires. The wind blows in whichever direction desire, desires, but only the bedrock of your roots, centered in yourself, can withstand the hurricane of disbelief.

Faun and Games - Roach vs Ymarsakar

An argument I had over at blackfive about lawyers and soldiers and spies, and you know who. I only posted the end notes, you should scroll up and read how it all began to get the context, just click on the title link.

Comment below written by: Roach

It's funny that the ultimate philosophical exercise, explaining yourself, defining your terms, and defending your position, you dismiss as having to teach for free and that this is an insult that you won't put up with.

Well, I hate to tell you, but I know what the words you have used means. I learned from people wiser than me and much wiser than you. I just question whether you have any real idea what you're talking about, and I do so because you've used them in a way that is either meaningless or extreme, i.e., the suggestion that "metaphysics" has much to do with basic philosophical differences in politis when you repeat the stale notion that the extremes sometimes meet. Or that there is some "true epistemological and metaphysical differences between two separate subjects" of the Pendleton case and the Green incident. Maybe they're just factually different and distinguishable. Metaphysics and my "theory of knowledge" has nothing to do with either. And if they do your riddles have hardly made your position clear, because I doubt it is clear to you, and even if it is your communication skills are unworthy of any half-intelligent person. And, frankly, if you had any street cred in this or related subjects it wouldn't be too hard to pipe up and say, I studied philosophy at ___ college with __ professor and wrote a thesis on ______. But I noticed on your blogger profile your age is "17" so maybe that explains how you don't really know how to use your new toy.

Mockery is often the best way to deal with a poser. Do you think Socrates is really confused in the exchange below when he mocks another poser much like yourself?

Soc: Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.

Euth: Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.

Soc: Alas! my companion, and will you leave me in despair? I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment. I would have told him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life.

Comment below written by: Ymarsakar

Do you know what a disinformation campaign is? A disinformation capaign is where we, the good guys, give out misleading and false information to the OPFOR, you, with the intention of making you look like a fool and also making sure you can't tell truth from unreality. My age is older than 17, because I deliberately misstated my date of birth that the profile page uses to calculate my age.

"But I noticed on your blogger profile your age is "17" so maybe that explains how you don't really know how to use your new toy."

And guess what, you fell for it. Reading things in a book and parsing theoretical words, don't make you qualified to make real world applications.

I can't believe people like you fall for the oldest trick in the book. Devious? Deviousness is a genetic trait, it can't be learned from books.

You are special roach, I treat people with the respect they show me, not the other way around. I don't expect people to treat me with the respect I show them.

You expect me to give you information by my free will, just because you demand it of me? You are not a lawyer (maybe you are, who knows) and I'm not testifying (and this is definitely true), therefore I'd have to be pretty unserious to provide information to my opponent that he doesn't have a need to know.

This age trait incident is a good example of who can read the other guy better. Basic analysis really.

Now, if I was roach, I'd be thinking "now what if Ymar realized that I would be looking at his age profile and changed it since he knew I would use it against him ahead of time". Or as the classic game goes, He should have known that I knew, that he knew, or would have known.

It's not nearly as complex as he knew I knew, what he knew, when he knew it when I knew it. What does this have to do with epistemology? The Theory of Knowledge helps a lot in determining how to go about knowing whether what you "know" is true knowledge or not. Roach thought he knew my age, but he neglected his epistemology. You will notice he says epistemology has nothing to do with how to form a good argument, namely my argument, but he's quite wrong.

The UN scores another one for the guys at Loot, Rape, and Pillage

Great job with the weapons confiscation

On June 26, the United Nations convened a major conference on gun control. Before demanding further control, the delegates ought to insist that the United Nations halt the use of torture, arson, and murder in the carrying-out of existing U.N. gun control programs.

With United Nations support, the governments of Kenya and Uganda are attempting to confiscate all arms from the pastoral tribes of the Kenya-Uganda borderlands. The “forcible disarmament” campaign has displaced tens and tens of thousands of people, turning them into starving refugees.

The United Nations and some NGOs relentlessly promote the theme that gun ownership is contrary to human rights. [1] Yet the UN and the NGOs are too often silent about the extreme human rights violations which are currently being perpetrated as a result of the UN gun control campaign.

United Nations gun control is the cause of a massive humanitarian crisis in East Africa. Any new United Nations Programme of Action on small arms should include concrete measures to ensure that U.N. gun control does not lead directly to rape, pillage, murder, and de facto ethnic cleansing.