our power crazed military officers

[donsu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1674184,00.html

Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons


-snip-

But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the world. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters advised on "future warfare" at the Army War College - prophesying in 1997 a coming "age of constant conflict". Thomas Barnett at the Naval War College assisted Vice-Admiral Cebrowski in developing "network-centric warfare". General John Jumper of the air force predicted a planet easily mastered from air and space. American forces would win everywhere because they enjoyed what was unashamedly called the "God's-eye" view of satellites and GPS: the "global information grid". This hegemony would be welcomed as the cutting edge of human progress. Or at worst, the military geeks candidly explained, US power would simply terrify others into submitting to the stars and stripes.

Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance - a key strategic document published in 1996 - aimed to understand how to destroy the "will to resist before, during and after battle". For Harlan Ullman of the National Defence University, its main author, the perfect example was the atom bomb at Hiroshima. But with or without such a weapon, one could create an illusion of unending strength and ruthlessness. Or one could deprive an enemy of the ability to communicate, observe and interact - a macro version of the sensory deprivation used on individuals - so as to create a "feeling of impotence". And one must always inflict brutal reprisals against those who resist. An alternative was the "decay and default" model, whereby a nation's will to resist collapsed through the "imposition of social breakdown".

-snip-

The problem for the US today is that Leviathan has shot his wad. Iraq revealed the hubris of the imperial geostrategy. One small nation can tie down a superpower. Air and space supremacy do not give command on the ground. People can't be terrorised into identification with America. The US has proved able to destroy massively - but not create, or even control. Afghanistan and Iraq lie in ruins, yet the occupiers cower behind concrete mountains.

The spin machine is on full tilt to represent Iraq as a success. Peters, in New Glory: Expanding America's Supremacy, asserts: "Our country is a force for good without precedent"; and Barnett, in Blueprint, says: "The US military is a force for global good that ... has no equal." Both offer ambitious plans for how the US is going to remake the third world in its image. There is a violent hysteria to the boasts. The narcissism of a decade earlier has given way to an extrovert rage at those who have resisted America's will since 2001. Both urge utter ruthlessness in crushing resistance. In November 2004, Peters told Fox News that in Falluja "the best outcome, frankly, is if they're all killed".
-snip-
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america is hiring the wrong kind of man to be officers. the wrong kind think america should rule the world with force.

the right kind of military officer thinks force should be a last resort and used sparingly.

[Kolesar]

1. That commentary covers a lot of ground

It was lamentable that we sponsored the looting of the museums.

[neweurope]

2. *coughs*

"the wrong kind think america should rule the world with force. - the right kind of military officer thinks force should be a last resort and used sparingly."

I'm sure you didn't mean this the way it came out? Force should only be used as a last resort.. in the fight for America to rule the world? Because I do not think the USA should rule anywhere but at home :)

But thanks for the link - good reading :)

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. What are you, some kind of freedom hating commie?

:evilgrin:

[neweurope]

5. Must be so...

:evilgrin:


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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

6. Well done comrade. I will now show you the secret handshake.......

[neweurope]

7. *feels very proud*

I'll try not to fail you!

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[The Magistrate]

3. The Third Paragraph You Cite, Ma'am

Expresses the most important and damning point against the current Imperial venture.

It is an old axiom among those trading in menace that "The utterance of a threat is always more effective than its execution." This is because what people fear in the abstract is always larger, since they themseoves contribute to its form, than any specific thing actually done, which must necessarily fall short of all that can be feared.

The greatest asset a military power can have is an aura of omnipotence. This was a thing enjoyed by the U.S. since at least the Gulf fighting in '91. The careful exercise of U.S. power in Yugoslavia preserved and burnished this aura, and did so because it was conducted very carefully and with an eye towards what the real strengths of the U.S. military implement are.

The actions in Iraq by the present regime have thrown this asset away, and for nothing. Rather than demonstrate the irresistible power of United States military forces, they have quite clearly shown their limits, and so turned our armed forces into the "paper tiger" of Maoist sloganeering. Strategic consequences will be paid for this over succeeding decades, however the present situation is resolved.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"