…military victory is dead. And it was killed by a bunch of cheap stuff.
By ML Cavanaugh
RealClear Defense, September 15, 2016
We live in the cheap war era, where the attacker has the advantage and the violent veto is always possible. Political leaders can speak and say tough stuff, promise ruthless revenge – it doesn’t matter, ultimately, because if you can’t disarm the enemy, you can’t parade the tanks.
Phi Beta Iota: There is a major unstated assumption in this article, to wit, that those who seek military victory are in the right. This is not in fact the case. Since WWII, the USA has funded the reinstatement of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan; the entrenchment of 40 of the 42 dictators; regime change with over 200 interventions, only eleven of which had a modicum of Congressional support, and more. The insurgents are generally “in the right,” and are reacting to massive concentrations of wealth, atrocities against the larger public, government corruption, and more. The US military leadership has confused loyalty with integrity and betrayed the public trust in accepting illegal orders based on lies, while providing a thousand bases for the smuggling of gold, drugs, guns, and humans by the elite and their trusted servant, the rogue elements of CIA that are free to call on military “assets” under the guise of compartmented national security operations. We have ZERO integrity across all fronts. That is what needs to change.
See Especially:
KINDLE: Reflections on The People's Army, The Constitution, and Grand Strategy
The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% – ex CIA spy
Review: Killing Hope – US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
Graphic: Assassination Nation – 200 Years of Killing Hope
See Also:
Cf. Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq, New York, NY: TarcherPerigee, 2003; Charles Lewis, 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity, New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2014; James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, New York, NY: Mariner Books, 2015.
Cf. three classic works, (General) Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 2003; Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2006; and (Ambassador) Mark Palmer, Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
