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.