Media Matters in Vietnam

"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media for they will steal your honor." - Bobby McBride, Crew Chief, 128th Assault Helicopter Company, RVN 1969-1970

...you're a big time media type guy and all........i was hoping you could thank the media for completely giving up and abandoning everybody who is in and those of us who are going to the suckage......makes us feel like we have a real purpose and all.....just thought they'ld be more inclined to listen to you and all...

This was a response I wrote to this subject.

Dishonor is based upon what your honor code really is. If your honor code sanctions the media, then dishonor obviously ain't gonna cut it.

The Marines know exactly why they should fear the media. They knew it in Fallujah. They knew it in Haditha. And they know it every freaking time they see CNN cameras draw IEDs and jihadist attacks on themselves, footage bought by Marine lives, used against the mission the Marines are fighting for.

To protect the American people, one of the core rules of honor amongst the Marine Corps. To uphold the traditions of the Corps, to honor the memories of the fallen and those who have gone before. To maintain the tradition of duty and loyalty that the Marines of WWII bought with their sweat and blood. All that, cannot be taken from you by the enemy, not even in death. But the media, they can take your honor away from you, because they can prevent you from honoring the loss of your brothers in arms. They can prevent you from fullfilling your mission to protect the American people. They can prevent you from maintaining the honor of the Corps by broadcasting fake atrocities that they claim the US Marines committed. An illusion that cannot be destroyed by the firepower of a Marine fireteam.

Honor is a hard subject to pin down. Because different cultures have different honor codes, different people have different variations on how they maintain their honor code.

The military was helpless against the media in Vietnam. You fear what you are unable to fight. No matter the courage, no matter the valor or bravery or how their comrades beat unbeatable odds in Vietnam, the media stole all of that. All of the honor, all of the successes, all of the sacrifice. Gone. As if it never was, yet the bodies are still dead aren't they.

Leyte Gulf. Wake Island. Saipan. People died there. But they are remembered for their honor and for doing their duty, remembered with pride and gratitude. What are the Vietnam generation and veterans remembered for? Are they honored in the same fashion as WWII veterans? By some yes. But mostly America remembers Vietnam as an embarassment, as an American defeat, when we were humbled.

Such a sad state of affairs. It wasn't the enemy killing our troops that took their honor from them. Dead is dead. But there's a difference between how people remember your death based upon what the media reported and between how the media caused you to lose. It is a breaking of a promise. You are there to protect the media back home, they should be there to protect you and help you in your mission. Your duty requires you to protect the media, but your honor degrades inch by inch every time you buy a journalist's life with one of yours, and the journalist provides help to the enemy in turn to kill your buddies. You cannot ignore your duty and at the same time maintain your honor. And yet you cannot do your duty either while the media is there feeding upon your protection.

For this war, imbed journalists aren't too bad. But their editors, they leech out whatever worth there really is. At the end, the media still takes your honor, regardless. Didn't blackfive start this blog because he sought to honor the memory of his friend, who died while defending a journalist? What do you really call someone that you have to protect, yet by protecting that person, that person will help the barbarians destroy all that you value and love? Journalist seems a bit inaccurate.

I can easily understand why the Vietnam veterans said that quote.

Dr. Sanity's Christmas cartoon

Check it out, for some laughs.

Some interesting moments from Planescape Torment

Sorcerer's Palace has up a few screenshots of the dialogue in this crpg. Titled Funny NPC Dialogue by Frog. These things aren't really spoilers, because they don't have anything to do with the main plot line.

While replaying this game, I had come to realize that its ability to create a rich atmosphere was so complete and well envisioned that I even had sympathy for the undead. One of the storylines of the game plotline. In most rpgs or the Baldur's Gate series, undead are there for you to kill and there to get in your way. They aren't people. This is a more serious topic than the very funny dialogue shown in the screen shots here about Annah's dress and here about Candy Love.

However, it just adds to the richness of the atmosphere. Humans tend to have this mechanism by which we demonize and dehumanize certain groups of people as objects and sub-human, therefore we don't feel empathy or compassion if they should die. How the Arabs inculcate this in their children, concerning Jews, is a good example. But video game violence is similar in principle, if not effect. When you are just slaughtering a bunch of pixels, that is all they are to you, some game characters. If you start seeing the characters on screen as people, then your societal conditioning and human instincts kick in. In life, this is done by face to face meetings, to put a face on the occupation or friends killed on 9/11. In games, that doesn't work too well even with precise graphics. In games, words and storylines, the character development used in novels, must be used in order to convey this idea of humanity to the reader and player. When you read words about a person, you are thinking of him as a person, even though he is a fictional character in a fictional world. The game world is the same way, yet so many games try to convey human emotions through graphics. Which is the wrong way to go I believe. The right way is how Planescape Torment did it. Check out the screenshots in the title link, for examples.

PS

I found this review talking about Planescape Torment, with spoiler warnings. It also had a comment section right after it, which did have spoilers. Mostly, though, they were talking about the Sensate portion of the game, not covered in the screenshots.

I thought it was pretty nostalgic. But I wouldn't recommend people who have not played Planescape Torment to read this. One of the commenters made the point that Planescape Torment like a novel, grabbed you emotionally so that at the end, you didn't want it to end, or you wanted the story to go on. I felt the same. But alas, to all things there is an end, all that live must die. In an ironic sort of way, playing the game and learning to love the characters and moments in it, prepared for me the shock at the end. Both emotionally and intellectually.

I don't recommend reading the Torment review if you have not finished the Torment game. So I'll just write some more concerning why Torment is excellent bar none.

The Sensorium experience is pretty good. I had forgotten it until now. But it was quite emotional, both for the game character and for me who was playing as the game character. Phileosophos used to play, or maybe still plays, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. And he mentioned that Crpgs lacked something that AD and D paper, dice, and face to face gaming had. I didn't quite get what he was talking about, but I think with Torment I do. In computer rpgs like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, the story is about the game mechanics and the spells and the fighting action. In Torment, it is about individual creativity, choices, expression, and character development. So it is indeed more like a novel than a game. For example. When you play Baldur's Gate II, your sister's story is weaker than your protagonist's story. And your protagonist's story is only told through dreams, not character dialogue. Little Give and take, conversations, discussions. When reading blogs, one of the best things about it is the discussions, the learning. When reading novels, the best thing about it is learning about the characters and seeing them develop and become wiser. In a game like BGII, I found that the best thing was leveling my characters up so they could beat every monster in the game. Or using arcane spell contingencies for my mage, in order to destroy my enemies using creative spell strategies. But it was not about the character interactions between the main character who was a Bhaal Spawn. The dialogue continued to mention that he was the Bhaal Spawn, but there was no surprise about this. What did it mean, how did it affect your soul? None of this was discussed in BGII. So unlike Torment. In fact, one of the best mods for BGII is the Imoen Romance mod. Which adds in quite a lot of backstory and character to Imoen, the sister of the protagonist.

At the end, Chris Avellone made a point that I came to recognize after I had played his game and never even read any interview with the guy.

Read this interview.

I'd say game stories can be a little formulaic at times and a little unpolished, but then I would point up at the sky and say, "Holy s***, look at that!" And when they do, I would punch them in the gut, and while they were gasping for breath, I would lean down and go, "You are wrong. There are several games with compelling stories, stories that achieve greater strength because it's a story you can interact with. Thus, the experience is even more personal than reading a novel, where you are basically watching the characters go about their adventures without any participation from you except flicking your eyes across the page." At this point, the person would be about to get up, so I would kick them in the shins and then run.

Interesting. And the same point I made. Which was, the computer experience allowed you to get a more interactive experience, higher than a novel's. A novel can grip you with emotional ties to the characters, so that you NEED to read the sequel. Well, a game can do the same, except better. Because you are the main character, are you not in this Role Playing Game? It brings the term role playing, to its logical and designed conclusion.

The interview link, is not just with Chris. It has other very very nice video game designers and CEOs. Like KOTOR II with Chris Avellone, like Dreamfall and the Longest Journey. Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear series. Strongly recommended for game afficionados.

Some highlights to whet the thirst.

Q:What specifically about games makes them interesting to you as a storytelling medium? That is, why are you writing stories for games instead of for movies or books?

Chris Avellone: Because video game developers will actually give you a chance. The ability to get your foot in the door as far as story in video games is a lot higher than movies or games, since it's actually harder to find a decent writer who wants to work in video games--a lot harder than finding programmers and artists, in my opinion, since being a writer seems to require an odd aesthetic sense that doesn't always translate well into developing games. It requires heavy attention to details, math, logic trees, and a whole mess of other elements.

I find writing for games interesting because I think games are the next untapped ground for storytelling. It's an interactive entertainment experience, so instead of passively watching a movie or reading a novel, you are actually interacting with the story, which I think is the next stage of entertainment evolution. There's been a trend of games becoming more like movies and delivering a cinematic experience and drama, and I think that trend will continue. When working on Knights of the Old Republic II, I felt as if we were scripting a movie more than a game at points, and the sheer amount of cinematic direction we (and LucasArts) had for our cutscenes, blocking out character movements and scenery, and then directing the voice actors was staggering.

As I read Chris's responses, the designer and writer of the Planescape Torment story and game, I tend to realize that his forte and strength is his writing ability. The other designers do not come up to his level in sheer expression and creativity. You have writers that write with a similar level of drama, S.M. Stirling, Eric Flint, or David Weber. But they are not programmers and video game designers at the same time, either. It seems the more skills you bundle up into a person, the more creative that person gets if given a chance.

Ragnar Tørnquist: Technology needn't get in the way of storytelling unless we focus too much on showing off our cool new shaders and particle effects and not enough on establishing an emotional connection with the player. Technology can definitely facilitate for better storytelling. The best visual stories are just that--visual. There's that whole "show, don't tell" rule which has often fallen by the wayside because of technology; The Longest Journey, which I wrote, was definitely an example of that. Mostly everything had to be communicated through dialogues. The more we can show, and thus allow players to figure out for themselves, the better. And nowhere is that more apparent than with human characters. Things like facial expressions and body language enable us to communicate the story in a massively different fashion, making it much more immediate and personal than what's been possible before.

It needs to be more than a gimmick, however. We need technology that fuels the narrative and the gameplay, and not the other way around. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it. We're still at a gee-whiz stage where every new technological innovation is tossed in there, because gamers will love it. And they do! Hell, I love big explosions as much as the next guy. But we have to look at the technology as a tool, as a means to an end, and not an end in itself.

The Dialectic - Discourse on Human Beings

I view it as the pendulum system, a simple system. However, its behavior becomes dynamic when you vary the level of initial force, speed, and height. So if Hegel is refering to opposites and how they interact, then it seems to me, it is simply the truism that if you apply the right force in the right direction, you can make a pendulum not only swing to the right, but so far right you hit the left of the pendulum. Therefore one opposite simply becomes the opposite of itself, or the opposite of the opposite of itself.

VDH called it back biting or was it bite back effect. Where you say and act in one way, when in fact the opposite is true and everyone knows it. Venezuella and gestapo police Fox talking about America and our Berlin walls for example.

So what are they trying to do, are they trying to make America into mirror images of themselves? Or are they trying to make themselves into mirror images of America? Rather, it seems the dialectic process of dialogue becomes simply a method to achieve a goal, that goal independent of spectrums or labels.

The dynamic, that being dictators being the underdogs and America being the top dog, is the meta concept that these dictators using dialogue and the State Depos using dialogue, are trying to overturn. If they apply enough force, then they can overthrow the top dog and make themselves into the leaders and power players. The Shah was said to be more brutal and anti-freedom, compared to the pro-freedom Mullahs. Well. That dialectic came out all right, I think. They succeded in the goal that the dialectic sought.

Another practical application of the oratory dialectic, rather than the philosophical theory, is that of Israel. The meta concept is that Israel and Palestine keeps fighting and that they need to stop. The dialectic for the Palis is that Israelis are the terroists and when Israelis kill, more terroists are born. They want the US to stop supporting Israel.

Well, an opposite dialectic that you could use to counter the dynamic paraxism of the Palis is this. Demand that Israel committ themselves to Total War, a war to the knife and finish, or the US will cut off all military, financial, and diplomatic aid to the state of Israel and begin funding the Palestinian territories with US weapons and money. It's like Amanie saying he wants nuclear power, it is a smoke screen, a bite back effect. By saying the opposite of what he wants, he thinks he can affect a realistic change towards what he really wants. All these dictators talk about the anti-freedom and weakness of the US, in the attempt to say the opposite of the real in order to change the reality. After all, they don't criticize us because they really want us to be more free or what not. They criticize us because they want us to be less free and powerful. How do they do this by saying we should be more free and/or powerful? Well, about the same we help the Israelis by threatening to support Palestinian terroists against them and cutting off the aid. It creates an effect. This effect destabilizes the meta concept, and when the meta-concept is destabilized, then the reality changes. These tools always have more than one use, dual use, or manifold uses.

There are ideas and then there are ideas over the ideas. The ideas over the ideas, are the meta-concept. It connects the ideas and rhetoric of a philosophy, into a coherent and consistent whole. So if you listen to the Arabs speak to the West and then listen to them speaking to their jihad folks, you hear different ideas, styles of oration, and rhetoric. It does not mean it is a different philosophy, but the same meta-concept simply expressed through various tentacles of thought and words.

The reason why the US doesn't say to Israel what Israel needs to hear, is because the US doesn't understand how to manipulate paradox into crafting reality. The most glib and bureacratic of our government, knows only how to speak in tongues for their own self-aggrandizement and power. When they encounter an ideology that doesn't believe in personal power so much as a doomsday Final Judgement with a Final Reward in Heaven, their doublespeak is infinitely easier to counter than the jihad's doublespeak.

The dialectic is used by many people for many different reasons, regardless of what they call it. In point of fact, the dialectic is no longer even the dialectic, because it isn't a bunch of words written by a philosopher. But the actual mechanical and physical blueprint that human beings have crafted and built. It is what it is because humans are what we are. The principles by which the dialectic work are the same as the principles that humans obey.

Realpolitek from Bush Senior

Hattip to Anon, well one anon, at Neo's comment site for this link.


The realists have it all wrong. This policy was tried for decades on end and it resulted in scenarios where the only prominent opposition to a secular dictator came in the form of even worse religiously fanatical masses. Look for a moment at Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and likeminded Salafists are the main resistance to Mubarak's rule. Look at the Jordanian kingship, where its people tended to sympathize with Abu al Zarqawi before he started blowing them up. Look at Kuwait - a nation that was liberated by the United States and subsequently ethnically cleansed all Palestinian nomads - where its people polled the highest anti-American sentiment in the region. Look at the Saudi royal family, which brainwash and indoctrinate their youth in systematic fashion in order to get them hating our liberalism just a little bit more than they hate their lack of significance.

Not only must we not talk to our enemies - just ask Sharansky how much he and his fellow dungeon dissidents preferred Reagan's unapologetic and open moralism to Nixon's detente - but we must become increasingly suspicious of our once-cherished Arab allies. Dwight Eisenhower once remarked that if one could not solve a problem, he would be wise to enlarge it. The solution to our current quandary in the Mideast is not a reversal and return to the old order, but to rile up a few more hornet nests. We are engaged in an audacious counterinsurgency across hostile Sunni municipalities with hundreds of thousands of indigenous Iraqi allies at our side. If we were to accept any of the ridiculous Vietnam comparisons, at least let us acknowledge that we have not only toppled the adversarial government (which was not done then), but we have also, wisely, skipped the half-decade as loner and have moved on to contemporary Vietnamization.

Keeping the historical analogies alive, if this is in fact the decades-long struggle we are told it is, and victory, as only a determined few define it, rests not only with the capture of specific terrorists or with the continued prevention of domestic attack, but with the transformation of an undemocratic, self-righteously puritanical, and intolerantly hierarchical part of the planet, then let us not embrace a new detente. George Bush Sr., the stone-cold pragmatist, should creep out anyone who champions the promotion of human freedom. Like his associates, the so-called "wise men" from Powell to Baker, Bush the elder served the United States with credit and as he saw fit, in service and in government. But as he saw fit - as Baker, Gates, and that gang see fit - is wrong.

We must never forget their keeping Hussein in power, or their reinstalling of the Kuwaiti thugocracy, or their assurances to the Iraqi people they would receive American assistance in the event of an uprising - and then their ensuing butchery when the aid they believed we would provide never showed up. We must never forget their golfing with loon tyrants and crass despots for the sake of dictatorial constancy. We should not forget Scowcroft apologizing for Wahhabism, or his lunching with the slaughterers of Tiananmen to "avoid isolating China." We must never forget their nonchalance as the Berlin Wall fell, or their attempts to preserve the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and continued existence of the Soviet Union. We should not overlook their aversion to change - democratic change, above all.

Response to Neo's Thanksgiving Podcast

In your podcast, Neo, you said that it was about values that makes Americans not fire on women and children. But the thing is, Neo, that American value is called honor. So to what extent will those with honor behave honorably against those without honor?

I think you miss out on the distinction that not firing on women and children at all is a popular culture trait, not an American value system. Values come from our ancestors, our ancestors didn't worry about killing women and children in Japan.

Civilians who are not in the fight, should be saved and America has saved them. But how do you save people who want to die and who think that you won't kill them so they try and get themselves killed by you?

Not quite, Neo, not quite the abomination as you see it. There is no conflict of honor. Women fight, they are soldiers, and they die. We already did it in Iraq. Our soldiers have shot women and children, armed and unarmed. Our soldiers have also shot women in Somalia when they picked up weapons. The question is, are you going to stop this once and for all, or are you going to allow it to continue? The more you behave as if you are wounded by these actions, the more of these actions the enemy will force you into. It's a jungle. If you show weakness in one leg, the predator will try to make you use that leg more and more until it breaks down.

By the way. Who are you going to blow up when the terroists detonate an IED in a crowd of children? Yes, if you see some leader, you can kill him. But what happens when you don't know who ordered the human shielding? Ziggy's idea is applicable to Israel, but not to us. To apply Ziggy's idea, you would have to blow up Tehran and Syria. But that isn't just one bomb and it'll go away.

Creative, Neo, is defined by me as taking the enemy's tactics and improving them. As such, you cannot be creative if you do not improve upon the enemy's tactics. Leaving aside the specifics of how to improve the enemy's tactics of death, as you've already heard some of my ideas on that subject, let's go to the other subject. How do you convince the terroists NOT to use human shields? How. You are the psychologist, you tell me how. You have the full power of the US nation at your disposal, tell me how you would creatively convince the terroists and their supporters not to use human shields or to blow up children.

I'm going with Grim's gambit. On the Virtues of killing Children. Which at its base, says you stop people from using a tactic by making that tactic unproductive. Ziggy hits upon this with his idea of making the terror masters pay. You have a similar line of thought with your assertion on creative tactics. There's two ways to me, that convinces the enemy. You either do it bottom up or top down. Bottom up means killing the human shields. Which I covered here. Link Top down, convincing the leaders, which is actually harder than convincing the followers. Because leaders of terroist orgainzations don't flinch. Fanaticism empowers them.

When you make your opponent understand that these shields aren't going to do anything to us, you break through the barrier and the limitation. You said on the podcast, that this is a win-win scenario to the terroists. While true in the sense that this is what the terroist propagandists want to achieve, it is not true in the sense that it is absolute and uniform. No plan survives contact with the enemy, why should the terroist human shield plans be exempt from this truism?

They put the barrier down and try to trap us. If we go one way, we get quashed or the other way and we get drowned. They want to trap us within this dilemma, so that we can't move around and our mobility is cut. When our mobility is cut, they loose the jackals to tear our flesh off.

But if you ignore the presence of human shields, and you ignore the media attention, and you KEEP doing it as the media pressure increases and increases, what you will be doing is breaking through your own limitations..

You've heard doctors say to soldiers that they won't recover from these wounds and so forth. And yet they did it. How? Will? God? Miracle? Doctors were being stupid?

As I see it. There are popular conceptions, the perceptions people have, which are not really limitations set by God or nature. These conceptions are limitations set by PEOPLE. It is the popular culture and conception that America will bow down to media pressure, that creates that very limitation. It is a barrier, and if you just break through this barrier over and over, then soon it will be as air to you.

The terroists can't use your weaknesses against you, if you no longer have those weaknesses. Yes, you can go "around" the human shields with technology, but that is simply a recognition that you are weak, that you NEED a crutch. You NEED technology because your heart is unable to do it without technology. It is true to terroists and it is true to me. Anyone that needs a weapon to be lethal, is no warrior.

Technology has not convinced terroists that terrorism is a bad idea. Technology also didn't convince the Nazis and Japanse militarists that their day and age was over.

The popular culture now a days say that it is wrong to prevent terroists from using human shields, it says that we are helpless and should do nothing except talk or walk around the wall. I say go through the wall. Sooner or later people will stop putting walls in front of you after you break them with no visible effort.

The only thing that is being compromised is the popular misconception that Americans never get our hands dirty and never should. The only way to uphold American values is to transcend popular culture and the perception of Americans in popular society as the bomb first nation that doesn't want to get our hands dirty.

Also, Ziggy's idea of bombing has a problem. Not philosophically or technically, but if you look back at Japan, we did not bomb the Imperial Palace for a reason. How do you decide whether this will actually work, because what if you can't find the right targets? And if you are willing to blow up the politicians as well as anyone in that building, then what is the moral difference between killing human shields and not killing them compared to this. Is it cleaner because human beings are not themselves at the scene pulling the trigger? I think not.

To your point about breaking us. It takes more than the deaths of WWII all together, to break America.

And of course, they'll just use human shields to protect the politicians. Babies, cameras on the babies. If you don't have the will, Neo. No bombs, no technology, and no gimmick will ever give you victory over an enemy. Because the enemy is seeking to overthrow your plans as well, the enemy wants to win. Only by proving that you want to win it MORE than the enemy, will he ever even consider the idea of giving up.

The enemy knows that internal angst you feel. This pull and draw between this on the one hand, and the other thing on the other hand. Whatever, it is irregardless of the topics. Any two topics can create a dichotomy. And while this is useful in a free society as for debate, it is not useful in war. Which is why the military isn't run by committe and votes, you know. The peace mentality is very different from the war mentality, Neo. That is why destroying human shields and making them useless to the enemy does not conflict with American values.

War in the end, isn't really about technology or morality or tactics or strategy. If it was, we wouldn't be in one. Because our tactics, strategy, logistics, technology, and morality are all superior to our enemies. It's about humans. A psychologist's paradise. It is all about humans. What humans want, what they are willing to kill or die for, what they believe in, and so forth.

There is only so much thinking you can do for a person, until you need to actually do something about that person. A person will not change his mind, after all, because you talked to them or you killed them or you won one battle out of one war. If it is hard for a person to change his mind in peacetime, how hard do you think it is to change the mind of an enemy in war? Especially this enemy. One who indoctrinates their children in jihad, to kill and die for a myth that isn't even real.

If something is hard, then I think it means more effort must be harnessed in order to apply force and pressure to that problem. If somebody just gave up cause their job was hard, how the heck would human civilization get off the stone age pattern?

It is hard for people who value human life to destroy human life. But if you don't get past this problem, on a human not technological level, then not only will the terroists kill more people, but they will force you to kill more people in defending yourself. Because it isn't just going to end with one human shield or two, Neo. They will actively, and they already have, STAGE atrocities in which they kill their OWN people in order to hurt YOU. This is the logical conclusion of not killing their human shields and children, not breaking the barrier when you had a chance. There is only a slim margin where you have the "choice" to kill or not to do so. The terroists are in the process of taking even this limited choice away from you. (nukes) I've heard on the podcast that the time is going to be up for the terroists. But time is running out for you guys as well, I believe.

The Marines hold fireside cheats, by real fires, to debrief their soldiers. Because that is how you combat PTSD, by talking it out with the people you fought along with. All the fear, rage, anger, frustration, and emotions when put into words, have a therapeutic effect. But only if soldiers talk with each other. It doesn't work with therapists or outsiders.

It is true that if soldiers are ordered to kill civilians or women and children, that this will damage their souls. But that is the price of duty, Neo. Some people give their lives for their country, others give their souls. It is why death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than mountains. However, it is also true that soldiers will obey, because they are trained to obey, and it is also true that they will not suffer from combat shock as much as the Vietnam era generation. Because we have improved our medical and counseling process. Which the media does not report because the media is deaf and dumb.

I enjoyed the podcast, especially when ziggy said in a sedate and almost comatose tone that "he was ready to go". There is something quite funny about how you open up your podcast, Neo. I would say old school, except podcasting is anything but old school.

Comanche Warriors and Honor

Was watching a very good history channel program on the Comanches. A tribe of native americans in Texas. Bred on war, on the fight, the spirit of freedom and openess, as well as the fierce determination to defend their territory. They were the uncontested champions of war, no other tribe could challenge their dominance. Not the Apaches to the west, nor the tribe to the North and East.

I won't bother describing the exact details the program showed, I will just list the facts and plot line, and then give my impressions.

You know how it started. Comanches saw mustang herds left over by Spanish conquistadors (amazingly enough) and used horse power to train themselves as expert hunters, raiders, warriors, herders, etc. They eventually met the white man settlers that were coming into Texas. And from that, history was made for better or worse.

The Comanches were a war like people. They prided themselves on their ability to fight, to be warriors, to protect and to provide. Protecting their "band", meant defeating anyone that challenged them on their land. So when the white boys came to Texas, they saw that as a challenge, and therefore they treated them as any other tribe of native Americans would be treated.

They raided some farmsteads and single family holds, and captured the family of one settler after killing the men via a fake parley for trade. One girl captured was named Cynthia, and the Comanches took these womenfolk and children captive because they knew how high a price the white man would pay for them. What does that remind you of, need I ask?

But irregardless, Texas was annexed by the US and settlers poured into it. One leader of one band, a band being composed of a comanche group lead by an independent chief with no allegiance to any other comanche group, sought peace deals with the US military commander in Texas.

They brought along one captive to trade in for favorable terms, hoping to use the additional captives for better deals by holding them back. The Colonel in charge demanded that all white captives be released. After talking to the girl that they brought with them, and after she had been released, they had heard from her and seen in her the brutality with which she was treated. She was a slave after all. Slaves were treated no better than horses, in fact worse than horses, because horses were respected. She was only a menial worker that knew not the language or the customs, did not know how to fight, and therefore was not a warrior. So the Indian women punished her when the girl would not obey commands. She is a captive, they gave her no reason to work hard. They burned off her nose, as punishment. The Comanche men treated her as an object to be raped for their pleasure. She was not a warrior, not a Comanche. Humans don't tend to treat foreigners as human unless they have a good reason. You've seen this in the Nazi and Arab treatment of Jews, but they could not have done what they did, if the basic trait wasn't in humanity to begin with. She didn't speak the language of the Comanches, she wasn't a man and therefore in a warrior bred society had second place, and she also was a captive and not part of the band, therefore having slave status below second place status. The Comanches thought it was just natural punishment for anyone that encroached upon their lands. The white men thought otherwise.

The military commander when he heard this, was quite incensed. He demanded that all captives be released and that the Comanches move away from central Texas. The tribal leader could not agree because he did not represent all Comanche Tribes. He also didn't want to agree to the release of all white captives, because he wanted a better deal. He did not know that the military officer was getting enraged to the point that if you did not give into his demands, he would escalate matters. And he did, the colonel demanded that they release the captives or they would be arrested. The Comanches saw this as an insult and said that they would fight before being captured. The interpreter gave the ultimatum or second clarficiation to the ultimatum and then ran for the door, because he saw what was going to happen .What was going to happen was that the US soldiers would start shooting at the comanches and the comanches would start hacking at the white men.

This is what is known as blood feud. And it began probably the first time the comanches attacked a settler. As it progressed through and past the American Civil War, people forgot who started it all, and they didn't really care. All the federal troops cared about was ending the war, making the comanches surrender, unconditionally preferably. All the comanches cared after the Ami Civ War was to live free and as warriors. Kind of hard to live free and as warriors when the Americans are killing the comanches left and right.

Yes, comanche leaders did try to make peace deals, and they also went to Washington DC. One of their prime intellectual leaders, the ones interested in the survival and welfare of their people, said that "these people have so much, what would it hurt them to give up some land". That was the wrong question, and the comanches (and the Americans as well) did not understand.

It was always about honor. Blood and honor. Do you understand this concept? To understand this concept is to understand why the blood feud between Americans and native Americans started. To understand this concept is to also understand why they continued to fight.

The tribal custom of native American scalpings, taking hostages for ransom, attacking settlers on farmsteads, raiding white settlements for captives and slaves. These things are not honorable by American standards, especially by American FRONTIERSman standards. Chivalry was alive and big back then. You wanted to fight, that's okay, but leave the women and children alone. The comanches not only violated this principle but they kept on doing it because they just didn't get it, and the language/cultural barrier prevented any further understanding. There weren't people like me back then that understood cultures. You think the native americans living on buffalo hide and hunting could understand what the white man frontiersman was like, or vice a versa? Those two groups were too busy surviving and trying to make a living, to committ any serious energy to intellectual studies. A benefit, I say, of civilization for me, but not for them.

It wasn't the comanches alone either. But every native american tribe from sea to shining sea. They were not civilized, and yet they were not Noble Savages either.

This is the stuff from which tragedies are made from. But history is irrevocable and almost inevitable. Meaning, even if disease had not weakened the comanches, the simple economic facts of life would have done them in. If not in this century, then the next or the next one after that. The settlers had huge immigrant populations to draw from, advanced technology which got more and more advanced as time went on. The comanches way of life was being steadily and quickly outpaced. Their buffalo herds were being decimated and annihilated by hunters and trappers using Sharpes .50 caliber rifles on Scottish bypod sticks.

I say tragedy, not in general, but in the specific. You know that girl Cynthia I mentioned above? Well, she was not repatriated. So when a US Texas Ranger company/battalion (Texas Rangers founded to protect against comanche warrior raids) found a comanche camp and annihilated it to the last man and child, they spared this blond woman. She had been held captive for 25 years, starting from childhood. She was Cynthia Parker, of the Parker clan.

She had a son, named Qana, as well as a comanche husband. The US Rangers took her and returned her to the Parker clan. But of course, Cynthia had made a life for herself amongst the Comanche. They were all that she had probably remembered and known. Her friends, people she saw as her family. To be thrust back into the alien hold of a vaguely remembered society, from which she felt separate and strange. No wonder she starved herself to death.

And her son? He lived. Qana renamed himself Qana Parker, and came to lead all of the Comanche bands and warriors. The son of a native american and a white female captive, leading the comanche against federal troops from the white nation. I don't think Qana ever forgave the white man for destroying his home and family.

Fate is strange and fickle. Stranger still is that these native american warriors, who prided themselves on their ability to fight and hunt and be warriors without peer, had to surrender or be annihilated in the end. And Qana Parker did surrender, after US cavalry leader found his camp, destroyed his food supplies and shot his horse herds. Qana fought a long war, a guerrila war, like his fellow comanches. Focusing on night raids, stealth, the silent and quick kill. They were only beaten by the same tactics. Remember this. The white man did not beat the comanches through superior firepower, but through the tactics of the comanches themselves, by having Apache scouts and other native american scouts who knew the lay of the land. Remember this, for it is important. To forget, is to suffer the pain of defeat.

I say fate is strange, because the commanches even though they surrendered the life of the warrior to life in a enclosed reservation and farm for a living (they would rather die than farm but even still, their leaders decided that living and farming was better. Remind you of the Japanese perhaps? Death before surrendering, then surrendering?), continued to fight on. A commanche company was at Utah beach on D-Day. They are in the American military forces, i.e. Iraq and Gulf War 1.

The warrior blood of the comanches were not exterminated, but incorporated within the greater United States union. And this is why America is strong, not because of a bunch of white men with bombs and superior guns destroying all opposition. Because nature decided that only the strong shall survive and be deserving of leadership. We may only obey nature's dictates, although we may fight to our last breath against it. The weak perish and the strong survive. Not all the time, but all the time for your people. And it is also why we are in Iraq. How do we exterminate terrorism? We learn from the terroists, and we get terroists to kill terroists. Or rather, Arabs allied with the US, to kill Arabs allied with our enemies.

When facing a dishonorable enemy, to defeat him, you must learn from him. To be inflexible, is to be dead in war.

We name our helicopters the Comanche, the Apache. Why? Because humanity is stronger as a team than as disparate individuals fighting over the crumbs of life. It took generations of warfare for the native americans to realize this. When we think of guerrila warfare, we tend to think that the US isn't good in, that we can't beat it, that it is superior. It is not superior. Not if you know of history in the macroscopic scale.

The Comanches and the Apaches, if they truly understood their enemies, would have realized this. The way of buffalo hunting and what not, was over. Times were changing, globalization, agriculture, technology. Either you flow with the times, or you shall be destroyed by the stream of progress. The Arabs are fighting this as well, you know. Progress.

The solution for the native americans was simple, if not easy to see or contemplate. Accept integration into American society, with the reservations. However, hold onto your warrior culture and freedom by joining the US military and fighting as a coherent force in America's wars. They had a chance in the Ami Civil War. To fight and bleed with the Union or the Confederacy. Americans respect honorable opponents, like Lee or Grant. In the long term, honorable opponents make for an honorable peace (Japan). They had to make themselves an asset to America. If they were ever going to get what they wanted, land or freedom or whatever, they had to have ALLIES in America, Texas, and various other places. They could talk all they want, but without American allies to smooth the way for them politically and culturally, they were not going to get anywhere in peace. The Arabs have learned this well, which is why they manipulate American divisions very adeptly. From CAIR to ACLU, the Arabs have many American allies in America. Something the native americans never realized in large numbers.

Even after countless atrocities by the comanche, the US still accepted their surrender. They appointed Qana Parker as the chief of all comanche bands. And it was him, that lead the comanches from a nomadic hunter life to a farming life on reservations.

Understand this. You may think you have one up on America. You may think you have the upper hand, with the many hostages you have taken and the many scalps you have carved from American heads. But understand this as you die, ever pathetic fools. American power is legion, because we are the compressed strength and history of many many peoples and cultures. Our nature is manifold, our strength therefore is diverse and unquantifiable. Our core pillars yet untapped. We have defeated the mightiest warriors and soldiers on this earth, and integrated their skills, their souls, their honor and valor, into our own. From Sun Tzu to the Prussian general Von Clausewitz. You will have to bring harsher methods than beheading to destroy us.

We do not exterminate our enemies or even our percieved enemies as Germany and the Arabs did and do with Jews. We integrate them into our fold, and make ourselves stronger for it. Resistance is futile, because only Honor and Blood matters in the End. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile.

Some more thoughts on the Draft

The Founding Fathers disliked a large standing army. That is what a draft is, people. That is what Rangel wants. A large standing army that isn't required to fight in America's defense. Does anyone really think that Rangel and Co are demanding the draft so we can ship 5 million Americans to fight North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria?

Give me a break. The politicians will never declare Total War unless we make them, or our enemies kill enough of them anyways.

If you have a large standing army and NO WARS for it to fight in, what do you think will happen when the Left subverts the military? If you want to trust the corrupt, power hungry, and totalitarian bent of the Left with a bigger army, then by all means, go ahead, but don't blame me when they take you away for sensitivity re-education.

I'm thinking in the hundred year span, the 500 year span, not this piddly little "next 30 years" Long War thing. That aint' long, people.

Would I support a full draft if we were at Total War? yes. But we're not at Total War. Until we are, no draft, no way.

***

#

I’m for military draft of illegal and legal immigrants as a way to short cut the citizen process and is also a sure fire way to teach English as well as skill sets needed for higher income jobs. In addition to America benefiting instead of just you know, social welfare sucking off the government teat. Anyways.

People like Rangel don’t see the military as a way to better one self, which is why if you did have a draft, you would see people like Rangel in the politicial circles try to undermine and destroy the military when it tries to do good works. like JROTC in San Fran, like Annapolis with the women discipline problems. You think the Left is causing problems, wait until they get more power via government drafts and can decide who to ax and who to ship out.

If you read CDR Salamander, you already know the problems that can result from a volunteer force yet in peace time. The peace rot known to all those who seek to be prepared for war, is a very real and unavoidable thing.

The draft works in this brutal way. All those 4 year term guys who want to get out, they get shipped to some battlefield with no logistics, no training, and no competent leadership to do the dieing until some competent leadership and skills develop. It’s how they did it in WWII as well as the 2nd Punic Wars with citizen soldiers. Citizen soldiers by definition, do not spend 10 to 30 years perfecting the art of warfare and mayhem.

Citizen soldiers are no match for a professional force. Which is why they need combat experience, but the only way to get combat experience is to throw them into the breach and let them die until someone smart takes over due to the casualties.

Rangel thinks that with a draft, nobody will be sending the military anywhere because Rangel thinks the military is just there as a boondockle like social welfare. It has no “purpose” there, there you know, to Rangel.

However, it was this kind of peace rot thinking that got the WWII guys and the WWII dough boys creamed. Compare now with those times. Those times we had to have good leadership because the government thought that there would be no need for an army. So the soldiers weren’t prepared, it was the generals like Patton and Pershing that got things up and running so that the troops stood a chance.

WIth today’s increasingly political and media savy enemy, along with 24 hour micromanagement from top to bottom on the battlefield, the ability of a general to free form think is now severely curtailed. So you cannot depend upon the generals to win your wars for you anymore. Good example would be OIF 1. If you just do whatever the generals want you to do, you are going to get this country into trouble. Politicians must set political goals, they cannot just tell people that whatever they come up with is what they will go with. Where’s the goals, the generals don’t decide political policy, what is the Goal? Martial law in Iraq after OIF? What. Nevermind, different subject.

So, with advanced technology and media, we have to depend upon the individual soldiers instead of the generals and politicians now. (as if depending upon politicians ever got you anything in the first place) And to get the most bang for our buck, we need professional soldiers, who know how to use technology, who can interface with Iraqis and avoid atrocities and do the legal mumbo jumbo as the ACLU guns for them without the protection of either the President or the Generals.

I don’t trust the government bureacracy. They aren’t looking out for individuals. Bureacrats look out for the status quo, who they can kiss up to for favors and career options, and so forth. Putting the lives of Americans at home at the heels of those who aren’t interested in patriotism or duty, is a bad idea. And this won’t change if you are in the military or not. The military has the same bureacracy, the only difference is, the people IN the bureacracy are volunteers who volunteered for their own reasons. As thus, their reasons for being there allows them more competence and less corruption than DC. The health of a system is determined by the people that run that system. If you got good people running a bad system, good things will happen, i.e. Marine Corps in Fallujah or some other hell hole on this planet.

Uncle Jimbo at blackfive advocated that we should have a military draft, a peacecorps draft, and a Americorps draft. Interesting, but not exactly bullet proof as a plan.

Look. I’m a believer in desperate situations call for desperate actions. Iraq right now is desperate, therefore I can justify doing a lot of things there, that you wouldn’t normally do elsewhere. But here in America. Where are the suicide bombers? Where is the DESPERATION that is needed before we can convince people to fight? I don’t see it, I don’t see the need.

Comment by Ymarsakar | November 20, 2006
#

I’m a big believer in military necessity. I don’t believe in doing anything until I see a Need to do it. Getting a draft cause people “wish” to see more patriotism and will in America and “wish” to get a bigger army is ridiculous on its face. You don’t face a brutal and ruthless enemy in the first war of the 21st century with WISHES, you know.

Comment by Ymarsakar | November 20, 2006

The Mirror Dance

The government stinks—that’s the overwhelming impression that is undermining the public's support for the government and its institutions.
People are tired of criticizing and there's frustration about the government's ability to take serious measures to contain the conflict or improve performance.

Frankly speaking, the ordinary citizen lost faith in his government—worse than that would be the prospect of living with it for another four years and that sounds like a very bad idea if incompetence remains at the current level, or gets worse.

If that sounds like an American, then you are half-right. Click on the title-link to discovery the truth.

Israel is kind of dumb

Israel warned the Palis that they were going to get bombed, and instead of running away, they the Palis crowded around to human shield the Hamas guys. Then Israel pulled the plug on the strike and said they had to review. What's there to review, kill the human shields. If you want them to stop using these tactics, you MUST not allow these tactics to bear fruit for the enemy.

Grim basically handled the same topic. Once again, proving to the world, that Americans have both the honesty and intellectual fortitude to do everything from decadent peace to total war better than anyone else on this Earth. And it proves that political leaders, of whatever stripe, are spineless cowards interested in not victory, but face and appearance.

This isn't controversial to me, this is obvious.

You want to get stuck in the situation Israel is in? Then by all means, act like a retarded sissy towards your enemies. Apologize when their human shields are killed. Avoid killing their human shields. Encourage more human shielding by rewarding their immoral tactics. Encourage more hostage taking by freeing thousands of palestinians for one or two Israelis. Go ahead, be like Israel, but understand this. Israel's philosophy is backed up by two pillars. The United States logistics support and the Israeli military. Without those two pillars, Israeli political elitism would die a very sudden and painful death.

This is also what happens when you elect the Left, to your platform. Don't expect, well, anything really effective.

White Guilt

White guilt morally and culturally disarms the West. It makes the First World apologetic. And this, of course, only inflames the narcissism of the ineffectual. In the vacuum of power created by guilt, a world-wide class of guilt hustlers has emerged. America and the West must cease this three-decade-long indulgence in guilt, moral equivalency, and apologia. None of this redeems the West or uplifts the Third World.

In the place of this there should be only a profound commitment to fairness. Here, something like fanaticism is not out of place. After this, America and the West should unapologetically pursue their self-interest, let others take the lead in their own development, and allow the greatness of Western civilization to speak for itself.

Russian counter-insurgency

I found an interesting document from the rand think tank concerning Russia. Interesting strategic reading on counter-insurgency warfare by nations other than the US.

The lack of an urban training focus was not a mistake. Rather, it reflected
another conclusion military leaders had drawn from the first
war in Chechnya. The blood their troops had shed in Grozny convinced
Russian planners that the best approach to urban combat was
to avoid it altogether. Soldiers and officers should prepare to prevent
an urban fight, not to win it. Therefore, training for urban combat
was deemed a waste of time and money.

The Russians did it that way. American Marines did it the other way. Which do you think came out the better for it?

CHECHNYA BETWEEN THE TWO BATTLES FOR GROZNY:
FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT AND TACTICS
According to Russian sources, the Chechen resistance was no less
prepared in 1999 than it had been in 1994. According to one Russian
report, Chechen leaders established a network of training centers
employing some 100 foreign instructors as well as experienced
Chechen fighters. One such camp was run by Khattab, an Islamic
revolutionary originally from Saudi Arabia or Jordan (sources differ)
who had emerged as a key Chechen commander in the first war.

Well, learning from the Russians isn't just about copying their techniques or avoiding their failures. It is more like, understanding why the Russians failed and therefore understanding how we can succede.

The Russian press reported that Usama Bin Laden supported the
Chechen rebels by sending mercenaries from Afghanistan, Yemen,
and elsewhere to fight in Chechnya.18 Pakistani groups, including
Hizb-ul’-Mujeheddin and Kharakat-ul’-Mujeheddin, Al’ Badr,
Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Sepakhe Sakhaba Pakistan, the International
Islamic Front, and Usama Bin Laden’s Al’ Qaida also reportedly
trained and provided soldiers.19 According to press reports, the
Taliban in Afghanistan also sent men to fight alongside theC hechens. It is even possible that Iraq sent specialists to help
prepare defenses and build fortifications in Karabahi-Chabanmahi
(in the Buynaksk region of Dagestan).21

Isn't that interesting.

tance.24 At the time, a number of Russian and Western specialists
suggested that this approach, particularly the aerial attacks, emulated
NATO air operations over Serbia and Kosovo during Operation
Allied Force in 1999.25 Although several Russian military officers
made this argument, it is an unlikely explanation for Russian tactics.
True, the two actions shared a belief that air operations could coerce
enemy submission and limit the need for ground action. However,
this belief was not original to either NATO or the 1990s.26 In fact,
Russian artillery bombardments of Grozny looked far more like the
use of artillery in Russia’s World War II campaigns than like a NATO
air war. It is therefore more plausible that the Russians were not
modeling their operations on NATO’s, but rather employing an
approach from their own history.27

I don't have the time to read it all, but you might.

Angels in the Night

What can I say, it is beautiful.

Major Eric Egland

I was asked by Major Eric Egland to pass this excellent hope for victory, out amongst those I know. You may or may not have read it already on blackfive.com

But if you have not, then read it, because it gives hope for victory.

• The response to this project has been overwhelming. Grass-roots American wisdom is amazing.
• Also, here is the article link again: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/930jbmte.asp
• Here is another thing you can do. Please forward the to other innovators and to your congressman and senators to encourage them to read and heed, and encourage those in your personal network to do the same.
• Also, please contact your favorite radio and television programs and encourage them to cover this grass-roots phenomenon.
• There is a window right now where we might actually get this heard, so we have to take viral, grass-roots action.
• Thank you!
• God Bless,
• Eric
• Maj. Eric Egland (Reserve)
• 530 205 5582

Hamiltonian Economic Freedom

But they neglected to mention his most meaning work – the turning of the tide away from a failed Keynsian economic model, and his proving quite plainly that a military draft was completely unnecessary.

As the United States went, so did much of the western world after the proof presented itself.

In every way, his life work was the advancement of human freedom. He noted that there indeed IS a strong relationship between capitalism and freedom, saying quite plainly that
If this seems facile to some, remember that in the world of academia, one still has to struggle with explaining the most basic things from square one to advocate ideas. Quite plainly that means having to incessantly fun a gauntlet of basic questions peppering every moment’s work shot out by advocates of obviously failed economic ideas such as advocates of Keynes, miscellaneous Marxists, and those generally distrustful of people doing what they want with their own lives.

Keynes believed that government intervention could avert depressions. Friedman, quite rightly, was a sceptic. One can easily see countless examples of government intervention not only not being able to avert or end depressions though intervention, but that intervention can cause them as we see with protectionism, and extend them, such as was the case with the Great Depression of the 1930’s in the United States.

He noted quite frequently that the relationship between freedom and capitalism was proving itself out on a steady course for the better for all of humanity. Over the course of the past 50 years, the number of people living under command political systems and command economies was dwindling as free economy spread. Regardless of the occasional aberration where a free economy was allowed to function in an environment where political freedom was limited, (such as was the case of Yugoslavia under Communism, and today with the likes of Burma, China, and shortly with Libya, Syria, and countless others) that an evolution toward political freedom took place, almost always without bloodshed.

Plenty more there to read, you know. And a great background info for those who have heard of the people talking about Keynsian economics and taxes, and just didn't care enough to do the research to find out how full of the crap the pro-taxation guys really are.

Moral Purity

Rich has something else up. I recommend Synova's comment at BF, here.

Comment below written by: Synova

America is the source of all bad stuff. If we didn't teach "ignorant foreign kids to kill, maim, murder" they would never figure out how.

/sarcasm

I honestly don't know what it is... and *great* comment, Rich... I don't know if it happened when we rejected the concept of Original Sin and started teaching that children were good and pure unless taught to be otherwise, and then started treating (or continued?) to treat other nations and peoples like children?

Or maybe it's multi-culturalism and it's roots which absolutely demand that we *never* criticise another culture, particularly one that we can view as primative or less developed? (An interesting paradox, to simutaneously qualify a culture as those things while refusing to "judge" that culture in any way.)

I mean seriously... was it STAR TREK? This generation growing up believing that the "Prime Directive" is anything other than immorality codified? Or maybe it was all the things in our culture that made the Prime Directive seem obvious, and fine, and good? The Prime Directive demanded no judgement, no valuing, no intervention... and we watched that and we thought it was *good*. It was *good* not to save people. It was *good* not to try, for fear of unintended consequences.

Posted by: Synova | Nov 16, 2006 12:30:57 PM

Perma link in the date stamp.

The entire Star Trek Prime Directive thing, is telling. Because I also wrote about this same subject, except I called it Moral Purity of the Left. That Puritan belief that keeping your hands clean must take precedence over actual pragmatic concerns and hard work.

However, this post reflects a thought I have been chewing on for some time: have we, as I suggest above, swept things under the rug that we should be keeping in mind as we act today? Have we become too warm and fuzzy in our assurance that we have already "progressed" beyond such barbarism, and therefore believe we have no need to dirty our hands with further consideration of it?

Other people seem to be concerned about the same subject as well.

What are my views on this? I wrote about this awhile ago, so you can get the goods here.

Anon is not so anon anymore

Some troll from Bookworm's roomt or most probably, spank and neoconned from Neo-Neocon decided to pay me a Public Service visit.

You can find his comments littered around here and there. But as I said to Tim, here is the goods on Anon.

Domain Name		(Unknown)
IP Address		128.164.32.# (The George Washington University)
ISP		The George Washington University
Location		Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : District of Columbia City : Washington Lat/Long : 38.9376, -77.0928 (Map)
Language		English (United States) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution : 1024 x 768 Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit		Nov 15 2006 9:40:14 am
Last Page View		Nov 15 2006 9:40:41 am
Visit Length		27 seconds
Page Views		2
Referring URL
Visit Entry Page		http://ymarsakar.blogspot.com/
Visit Exit Page		http://ymarsakar.blogspot.com/
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Nov 15 2006 9:40:14 am
Visit Number		4,712

That is not probably as embarassing as this. A log of his activities for November the 16 on this blog.

128.164.32.#

5:41:43 pm

1

0:00

128.164.32.#

2:53:13 pm

1

0:00

128.164.32.#

11:02:19 am

1

0:00

128.164.32.#

9:13:40 am

1

0:00

What do you got, Anon, a bot checking my blog to see if your comment appeared for you to jack off to it yet? Spanks' Washington DC Defense desk job must be getting boring or something.

Reasons Why You Are an Ignorant Fuck, Part 278 in a Continuing Series:

True, I don't have 200+ reasons why Anon is an ignorant pocker, but I do have say, 10 reasons why he is a troll and an idiot.

Zabrina on the Future of Iraq and US policy

I posted this comment there, which I will copy over here for my own reasons.

Who do you think is right? Do you think an American withdrawal will be a victory for Islam, or do you think an American withdrawal will not only conserve our reserves, preserve or halt the degradation in the quality of our armed forces just in time, and help to divide and demoralize the camp of Islam and Jihad?

It is too late to withdraw, you have to get it stuck in, cause they have already stuck it in us. You will never get any allies by behaving dishonorably and throwing all the Iraqis who supported the US, down the drain with the rest of their countryfolk. We will not deserve it.

I admit there is something persuasive (perhaps the comfort of wishful thinking) about this realpolitik argument, even though I doubt any such Demonstration Project will ever get through the thick skulls of many infidels, who have managed to ignore many previous global demonstration projects.

Demonstrate what? The Islamic Jihad will demonstrate that they ENJOY killing millions if not billions of their people. You think DEATH causes them any worry? ha.

I fear the ramifications for the future if we reneg yet again on our pledges to help the Iraqi people attain self-determination

I do not advocate the path of Honor because I fear the consequences, I advocate the path of Honor because it is honorable.

But if indeed we are in a war, how many American lives do we owe Iraq in general and our friends there specifically before the equation turns unfruitful for our own country? This is the crux of the problem, and perhaps unknowable.

As I see it, war isn't an equation. War is a quantum effect. You know of what I speak? Schrodinger's Cat. The observed reality, is what you made it to be by observing it, by committing an action that collapsed the wavefronts of possibility. Even if current mathematics do describe quantum wave front properties, few on blogs will know enough of it to discuss it in detail. I sure don't.

Is this a valid or a mistaken belief?

Valid more or less.

But is our war in Iraq to help make possible a free society going to succeed, and is it really draining a swamp or not?

It can be anything you want it to be. All of the above or none of the above.

(too bad we couldn't have had it earlier)

You get to go to war with the Democrat Party that you have, not the Democrat Party that you would wish for ; )

Are we doing it right? Are we doing it as intelligently as possible, as wholeheartedly as possible? Are we doing it for reasons that are true?

Some may say yes, some may say no. They are just opinions, chaff to the wind. What really matters is what will actually happen.

And Ralph Peters at U.S.A. Today writes a very defeatist editorial saying we have already lost in Iraq and says, as Fitzgerald advocates, that we should pull out.

CDR Salamander really pulled Peters' plug when he blogged about that one.

I, too, would like to see an Iraqi referendum on whether they want American troops in their country to stay or go. I think most Amercans would like to know the results of that election.

I support it as well.

Rich Casebolt

Comment over at blackfive that I thought was worth saving here.

Comment below written by: Rich Casebolt

Skyview ...

I honestly think you can peg the Republican loss to one statement alone: Cheney's assertion that a vote for the Democrats sends the message to the terrorists that America doesn't have the stomach for the fight. It's an overt and explicit insult to any American giving thoughtful consideration to who to vote for.

In the light of what the Democratic leaders have been saying since 2003 ... and the statements of several terrorist/totalitarian leaders ... Cheney's statement is also awfully close to the truth.

I don't think, however, that he insulted that many people. I think that the questions you list:

Voters swung blue this cycle because they were not reassured about some elemental questions regarding the war: Weren't we supposed to have won by now? How long is this going to last? What is it going to take to win?

were more of a factor, along with ... why Iraq?

These questions also make a statement ... regarding our judgment as citizens.

We seem to think that the justifcation for war must be based upon specific evidence of specific acts (documented in a manner reminiscent of CSI) ... and that our response must be limited to resolving those specific acts ... else we risk waging an unjustified war.

The rational justification for this war, however, is far, far simpler than that ... even simpler than WMD ... but the American people are uncomfortable with accepting that justification -- for "we the people" have also been conditioned over the last 50 years or so to make the prevention of American mistakes our highest priority ...

... even over the prevention of enemy intent.

OTOH, the specifics-based justification above is what was the driving force behind Desert Storm ... and the limits associated with those specifics is what left Saddam in power afterwards.

Desert Storm ... which can now be shown to have ended prematurely, due to media and diplomatic pressure against our government ... also reinforced the conventional wisdom that only wars that can be quickly and "neatly" won are worth fighting.

That leaves the American people looking for two choices ... win quickly ... or just leave; after all, it probably wasn't that big of a threat to us, anyway.

However, what if the right choice ... is another choice altogether?

What if we can't win quickly ... or we can, but it means the deaths of millions in all-out, indiscriminate, nation-on-nation warfare ...

... yet the threat, while limited in its reach today, can leverage technology and freedom-of-movement to expand its reach to the point it severely disrupts civilization itself -- with the plausible potential of growing into an existential threat against our civilization?

Do we have the wisdom to discern the course that resolves what I have described in the last two paragraphs ... without unleashing a full-blown World War?

WWII-style sacrifice is not what is needed now; in fact, it would be counterproductive to the war effort.

The answer lies in the application of two items:

One, precision-guided ruthlessness ... where the difference between actions that lead us to watch your back, and actions that lead us to end your life, is very narrow and sharp. The Administration has not made this difference sharp enough ... to its discredit.

Two ... RESOLVE.

We need to quit asking "how long" ... accept the truth about the "how" ... and accurately discern the "why", by spending less time in self-flagellation and more time examining the need to flog this clearly-evident enemy.

Or, we will lose, not just this war, but some ... perhaps, a lot ... of our ability to live free and pursue happiness.

How "American" is that?

Tim Larkin Self-Defense

A copy of a newsletter, which I think is important because it segues into the Terror War topic. The overall theme was covered by Blackfive, specifically, Grim at BF. Read this message, however, first.

"What Is The Ultimate Motivation In A Life-Or-Death Fight?"

******************************************************

"We must be eager to kill, to inflict on the enemy --
the hated enemy -- wounds, death, and destruction. If
we die killing, well and good, but if we fight hard
enough, viciously enough, we will kill and live. Live
to return home to our family and our girl as
conquering heroes -- men of Mars"

   --   General George Patton

******************************************************

By this time you probably detect a theme in my
newsletters about the focus you need when faced by a
real life-or-death confrontation.

It's simply this: when faced with a life-or-death
violent confrontation where using violence is your
only option:

1.  Don't hesitate.
2.  Find your target and strike your target.
3.  Keep striking targets until you have destroyed
      the other guy.

Many clients come to me from other 'self-defense'
training where they are forced to deal with simulated
attacks. I'll pass on the quality of that training
approach and instead focus on the 'motivation' these
systems use to keep the client from freezing under
attack.

These 'motivators' revolve around fighting for your
life, fighting to go home to loved ones, fighting to
protect loved ones, or some variation of those themes.

But if you take a good look at those reasons they all
fall short for one critical reason: They are NOT what
truly gets the job done to focus yourself like a laser
in order to destroy the other guy. At best, they are
byproducts of the "ultimate motivation".

So what IS the ultimate motivation in a life-and-
death struggle?

-----------------------------------------------

AN ABSOLUTE FOCUS ON INFLICTIING AS MUCH DAMAGE
         AS POSSIBLE TO THE OTHER GUY!

-----------------------------------------------

Pretty simple.

What allows you to go home to your loved ones, to
protect them or yourself during a violent attack is --
hurting the other guy.

Imagine this scenario:  A mugger puts a knife to your
throat.

Now, two totally different responses...

The person motivated to 'protect' himself/herself
grabs the wrist and tries to wrest control of the
knife.

The person motivated to hurt his/her other guy shifts
their torso, penetrates forward and delivers a closed
fist punch to the other guy's Adam's apple.

Two totally different responses, with totally
different results...

The former runs the risk of losing control of the
knife and getting seriously injured or killed.

The latter, by focusing on hurting the other guy,
neutralizes the knife by punching the Adam's apple and
starts to shut down the other guy's Central Nervous
System.

The byproduct of the latter action is he/she gets to
go home, protect the vulnerable loved one with them,
or whatever other motivation they thought was the
reason they hurt the other guy in the first place.

The General Patton quote is pretty rough, but the
context was motivating his troops for war... literally
the same as what you're facing in a true life-or-
death struggle. He wanted each and every one of them
to come home, and he knew the best chance they had was
if they focused on inflicting as much damage as
possible to their enemy.

You'll notice... he didn't urge them to think of
their loved ones as a motivation to fight.

He told them that if they fought to inflict as much
damage as possible on the enemy, they'd return home to
them.

Take a second to re-read that quote. I think you'll
probably see it in a much different content.

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
www.targetfocustraining.com

Now, we get to Grim's piece concerning the terror war, and you will see commonalities and similarities concerning how to win a fight, whether war or something else. Grim talks about the virtues of killing children, so you might want to take a look if you missed out on the action.

A few other posts concerning strategy can be found here, for background reading.

Here's a neat link on Arab culture explained. One of those gems you find by accident mostly.

If you know me and my positions, you already know what conclusion I have drawn. So I won't bother re-iterating unnecessary things. Well, not now, at least.

Rage against the Light for the Media is the darkness

Hattip to LGF.

Hattip to Junkyard Blogs

Two very good posts about the media phenomenon on the Left, were very informative and entertaining, so I'll post them here. If only for reference sakes.

Patterico has up an example of how the media uses psychological warfare and propaganda against the American people.

On Friday, the L.A. Times had an article about the video titled Video, arrest report at odds. The deck headline reads: “An LAPD officer says he punched William Cardenas twice. A tape that aired on YouTube shows at least six blows.” The article begins:

The LAPD officers under investigation for allegedly using excessive force while arresting a suspect in Hollywood this summer appeared to have downplayed in their arrest report how many times they hit the man.

The report, obtained by The Times on Friday, says that Officer Patrick Farrell punched William Cardenas twice because he resisted arrest. The video of the Aug. 11 arrest shows Farrell striking him at least six times in the face.

First of all, no, it doesn’t. It shows Farrell striking him five times in the face.

I have watched it literally dozens of times now, and to me, it looks like the officer punches the suspect only five times.

The first time you try to count, it looks like six. There is an initial group of punches where the officer’s fist comes down four times. With two subsequent single punches, that appears to make six.

But look at that first group of “four” punches again. Yes, the officer’s arm comes down four times in rapid succession. But pay close attention to the officer’s right hand when his fist comes down for the fourth time. The hand doesn’t hit the suspect’s face; rather, it grabs the suspect’s wrist.

From my repeated viewings of the video, it appears that there are only three punches in the initial set — which, added to the two that come later, make a total of five.

So I can’t agree with the L.A. Times that it’s a hugely damning detail that the officer who wrote the report — who is, by the way, not the same officer who administered the blows — got the number of punches wrong. After all, the folks at the L.A. Times also got the number of punches wrong, and they had the benefit of having the video available to watch as many times as they liked. To reinforce the point, let’s go to the first question I asked above. Did you all answer “five”? Any of you who didn’t — you’re all liars. After all, it’s on video.

This video from hot air also puts the talking points of the Left and our enemies into context, although I repeat myself.

There is also this bit from protein wisdom concerning oversight over the Old, Old Gray Lady. Must read for those New York Times aficionados. Did I spell that right? I think I did. (Just checked, and yes it is right, so intuitive spelling wins again for me. Did the same thing with the word "preclusion" over at neo. Spell it first then check!)

Cindy Sheehan 1000 years

Some things are not of this world.

Cindy said [she] not only wants to see George Bush impeached but she wants to see him tried for Crimes Against Humanity. She states is so determined to see this done she says she will live for 1000 years. She went further by saying that even if she were involved in a fiery plane crash she would walk out alive just to see this done.

Kristinn yelled out to her as she was leaving the stage that the Iraqis have a memorial to the victims of terrorism saying “Freedom Isn’t Free.” Cindy got back on the stage to say of course freedom is free, if it wasn’t it would be called expensivedom.

Psychopaths

Saw this from Sally at Neo's site.
Something that actually made sense concerning Columbine, and it only took about a few minutes to read.

It begins to explain Harris' unbelievably callous behavior: his ability to shoot his classmates, then stop to taunt them while they writhed in pain, then finish them off. Because psychopaths are guided by such a different thought process than non-psychopathic humans, we tend to find their behavior inexplicable. But they're actually much easier to predict than the rest of us once you understand them. Psychopaths follow much stricter behavior patterns than the rest of us because they are unfettered by conscience, living solely for their own aggrandizement. (The difference is so striking that Fuselier trains hostage negotiators to identify psychopaths during a standoff, and immediately reverse tactics if they think they're facing one. It's like flipping a switch between two alternate brain-mechanisms.)

None of his victims means anything to the psychopath. He recognizes other people only as means to obtain what he desires. Not only does he feel no guilt for destroying their lives, he doesn't grasp what they feel. The truly hard-core psychopath doesn't quite comprehend emotions like love or hate or fear, because he has never experienced them directly.

"Because of their inability to appreciate the feelings of others, some psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling," Hare writes. "For example, they can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner."

The diagnosis transformed their understanding of the partnership. Despite earlier reports about Harris and Klebold being equal partners, the psychiatrists now believe firmly that Harris was the mastermind and driving force. The partnership did enable Harris to stray from typical psychopathic behavior in one way. He restrained himself. Usually psychopathic killers crave the stimulation of violence. That is why they are often serial killers—murdering regularly to feed their addiction. But Harris managed to stay (mostly) out of trouble for the year that he and Klebold planned the attack. Ochberg theorizes that the two killers complemented each other. Cool, calculating Harris calmed down Klebold when he got hot-tempered. At the same time, Klebold's fits of rage served as the stimulation Harris needed.

The Strategy for Iraq and Japan

Cross posting some comments from Neo's comment page. Not because I have a big head full of pride, but because I wish to preserve my thoughts for the future. Saves time for me when thinking about the future of Iraq and the strategy for victory.

Y: The problem is the same with Imperial Japan. How do you convince a bunch of freaking fanatics, that dieing for their belief system is not the way to go. First point, the Japanese weren't killing and dying for a belief system. They saw themselves as dying for their nation, and for their emporer. The willingness to die for ideology and the willingness to die for one's nation are two different things, and they provide two different means of defeat. Iran, Syria, Al Sadr, Sunni Baathists, Al Qaeda. ... When they decide what to do or whom to kill, they calculate their own chances of survival into it, if not personal survival, then the survival of their ideology. So even though individual Japanese really didn't care to surrender, the Japanese nation WOULD surrender. Because they weren't fighting so they could die, they were fighting so that Japan could survive ... Actually, AFTER the atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about half the decision makers in Japan tried to force the nation to fight to extinction. That was very much within their ideology. They lost the argument, Japan surrendered, and most of that half committed suicide. The key difference between the insurgents in Iraq and the WWII Japanese is that the Japanese fought for the state, and the emporer as the embodiment of the state. When the state itself, in the form of the emporer, surrendered, the Japanese accepted defeat and (upon orders from the emporer) wholeheartedly assisted the Allied occupiers. On the other hand, the insurgents are invested in a transnational ideology. There is no one who can surrender for them, no one who holds that kind of sway over the insurgents. Therefore, defeating them will take a different strategy than defeating the WWII Japanese and will more likely resemble the British fight with the IRA. a guy in pajamas | Homepage | 11.12.06 - 1:13 am | #

Ymar, I can see another ME beneficiary of US success in Iraq: Independent Kurdistan. They have exactly the type of culture you adore, that is warrior culture. And they have struggled for survival for centures with very formidable enemies, as Osman Empire, Persian Empire, modern Turkey and Suddam's Iraq. There are 30 mln of them, and in key strategic region, with terrain ideally fit for guerilla warfare; that is why they escaped annihilation. I also agree that Iraq is different from Palestine or Iran, as election shown: death cultists is a minority here. I do not advocate using proxies, only "Iraqization" of battle, and I object to imposing EU-style "humanitarian" norms on Iraqi authorities. If they see appropriate to hang terrorists in public, let them do it. Sergey | 11.12.06 - 4:48 am | #

I'm for the Kurds as well, I didn't mention them because my position already favors them heavily. I object to the EU as well, but I wouldn't try to come up with a compromise with people who don't like torture by saying other people can do it for us. I am not convinced it would work to convince people, that would otherwise be pro EU style, and I am also not convinced it would be done well by others. America does everything well, that is why depending upon UN peacekeepers are such a disaster. First point, the Japanese weren't killing and dying for a belief system. They saw themselves as dying for their nation, and for their emporer. One and the same. Their Emperor was their belief system, it was the fundamental premise of their Bushido code, loyalty to the feudal lord. The willingness to die for ideology and the willingness to die for one's nation are two different things, One's nation can be one's ideology, talk to most US Marines and hear them talk about how much they believe in America and their fellow brothers in arms. Are they not willing to die in defense of America? Are they not willing to kill for America? There are some differences, but it doesn't affect the strategy for defeating the enemy that much. People willing to risk death and people willing to kill, are dealt with in the same fashion, regardless of who they are or what they are fighting for. You seem to be saying Islamic Radicalism is so extreme and so vital that it is different from any other apathetic belief system held by the West. I disagree. and they provide two different means of defeat. Since that is the heart of your disagreement, I'll concentrate on that. The key difference between the insurgents in Iraq and the WWII Japanese is that the Japanese fought for the state, and the emporer as the embodiment of the state. That is a true difference, however it is not relevant to the strategy. You are still crafting and designing your attacks to demoralize and cripple the center of gravity, of the enemy. To defeat their will to fight. When you say that you cannot use the same strategy with Japan, towards terroists. Why not? Why should I not try and demoralize the terroists as the Emperor was demoralized? Why should I not try and break the will to fight of the enemy as Japan's will to fight was broken? Why should I not use nuclear weapons to inflict psychological damage upon the enemy out of all proportion to that which can be accomplished via conventional methods? The basic strategy is the same. If you are refering to the tactical differences. Meaning, we avoided bombing the Palace in Tokyo, should we avoid bombing mosques as well? No, in that frame of reference, the tactics should be different. But the strategy should remain the same. The goals, the things you are trying to accomplish, and the way you are going to do it, is strategy. Tactics is what happens when the plan actually starts meeting the frict Ymarsakar | Homepage | 11.12.06 - 2:53 pm | #

friction of war. You could adapt the tactics all you want, like Bush has done (although not so much concerning mosques), but without the correct strategy, you aren't even going to get anywhere. The same applies for logistics. If you have the right tactics and the right strategy, but without the right logistics, you are going to lose. There is no one who can surrender for them, no one who holds that kind of sway over the insurgents. Was the strategy to get Emperor Hirohito to surrender? Perhaps. Is the strategy in Iraq to get Sunni Baathists and insurgents to surrender? Most likely. So what exactly are you talking about there being two strategies? How would your tactics be changed if you know that an enemy does not have a controlling force that once demoralized, will surrender the force? Simply adjust the tactics in order to target the center of gravity of the terroists. If the center of gravity isn't in their leaders, then where is it? Everything has a center of gravity, just find it. That doesn't really mean there are two different strategies. Ymarsakar | Homepage | 11.12.06 - 2:54 pm | #

As I see it, the Islamic Jihad believes in a heavenly power, called Allah, that is on their side. The leaders of the Islamic JIhad, both Iranian and Saudi Arabian branches, believe in this mythology, this core premise. The Japanese people, also, believed in a Divine Power that was on their side, called the Emperor. All victory is accrued and credited to the Emperor, because the Emperor protects Japan from all enemies. Who protects the Middle East Muslims from the Great Satan? Allah does. So. the objective is the same. Make them stop believing in their divine figure. How you actually go about it in war time, is a tactical concern, but all tactics are dictated by the overall strategy. There can be no other way to run a war. We got Japan to stop believing in the infallibility of the Emperor, by getting the Emperor. And we will get Muslims to stop believing in the divinity of Allah and the great power of Allah, by demonstrating that Allah has no power, no mercy, and no compassion towards Americans nor Muslims. You do so via tactics. Find some way to get people to stop believing in Allah the great protector. What's the thing that really demoralizes Christians? It is when they see their God, do nothing while all kinds of evil (like abortion to them) gets done and God does nothing. Ah. So, if we can demonstrate that the Middle East is powerless to stop the Great Satan (evil) from doing whatever we want, we convert the Muslims to our cause. Disillusioned Muslims, Muslims who are still practicers of Islam, but they will not believe, and without that belief, they are harmless. Belief is what powers jihad and fanaticism, without that belief, without that will to fight in the absolute surety that God is on their side, well, let's just say that it is going to put a huge nail in their plans of world domination. Most Muslims do not believe in Allah enough to blow themselves up for heaven in the jihad or whatever. However, when Muslims see how pathetically weak America the Great Satan acts, while America gets Israel to do the dirty work of whatever, what do you think Muslims would believe of America? That Allah is on America's side, the pathetic weak America, or Allah is on the side of the Palestinians and Arabs? God is on the side with the most firepower, as I believe it has been said. It is not necessary to convert Muslims to Christians, when I say make them stop believing in Allah. It is only necessary to make our enemies believe that Allah is on America's side, and favors America, not the cause of the jihadists. Once you accomplish that, all else becomes moot. You see, the same strategy for Japan. Get the Emperor, that divine source of power and strength, on our side, and all else will come to fruition. It is a bit trickier with Islam because their God is not materially on this earth, but that never stopped American ingenuity. While Allah is not on this earth, his followers are, and therefore his followers can be influenced, ma Ymarsakar | Homepage | 11.12.06 - 3:05 pm | #

While Allah is not on this earth, his followers are, and therefore his followers can be influenced, manipulated, and convinced to stop fighting.x Ymarsakar | Homepage | 11.12.06 - 3:08 pm | #