Category: War

Memorial Day thought: Will coronaplague bring us years of peace?

by philg

My Dutch friend, quoted in an earlier post:

What was his take on the continued lockdown in the U.S.? “All of the rights that Americans fought and died in multiple wars to defend, they gave up in one governor’s press conference.”

Even if it turned out that we did not need or value the freedoms that Americans previously died for, today is our day to reflect on their sacrifice.

Maybe there won’t be too many more sacrifices among soldiers worldwide for the next few years. Do countries that have shut down their societies, schools, and economies have the will or the wealth to go to war? What would they fight for? To conquer a territory that is also shut down and packed with inhabitants who are entirely dependent on government welfare?

Readers: What do you think? Time to short the merchants of death because governments won’t be buying weapons and going to war any time soon?

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What’s happening on the Turkey/Syria border?

by philg

Just a few months ago, Americans couldn’t live without news about Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds, e.g., “Kurds say Turkey is violating hours-old ‘ceasefire’ in northern Syria” (CNN, October 18, 2019)

Our media is now silent on this topic. Did whatever the problem was resolve itself? Or Americans stopped caring? Or what?

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War and military glory invade Washington’s Mall

by philg

We went down to Washington, D.C. for Women’s March Weekend.

On Sunday, a park ranger showing us the World War II Memorial explained that the Mall was originally intended to be dedicated to peace. “Then the Vietnam Veterans demanded a memorial [1982] and who can say ‘no’ to a Vietnam Vet,” he opened. “After that, people said that the Korean War was literally called ‘The Forgotten War’ so they got a memorial too. Then people said ‘What about the Big One?’ so now we have this World War II memorial.”

“World War II was primarily prosecuted by American women?” asked an immigrant friend and companion for this outing. “Maybe Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton were here one midnight chiseling out the stone.”

Authentic picture of the crowd gathered for the Donald Trump inauguration:

View from the ground:

In front of the memorial to the man great enough to free all of the slaves in states over which he had no authority:

(Would this be like saying “I am donating all of the cars in Massachusetts, except for the one that I own and am driving, to charity”?)

Organic gender binarism at the Flower Child restaurant:

The D.C. area is so political that the Rockville, Maryland CVS carries a replica Bernie Sanders campaign bus:

Back to the War on the Mall theme… if we add up the reverential stories from Democrats and Republicans about our great military and the sacrifices that they’ve made for us (even those who simply worked a desk job while in uniform), the only logical conclusion is that these people are so great and so heroic that they should run everything.

Readers: If our military took over the Mall in the past 40 years, is it likely that they will also take over the government within the next 100?

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Homer thought 10 years was an endless war

by philg

I recently picked up a cartoon (“graphic novel”) version of the Iliad to read with the kids. It struck me that Homer was using 10 years as the time at which a war could reasonably be considered “endless”.

We will observe the 19th anniversary of our Afghanistan War in 2020 (Trump says he will get our military out in 2020 (NBC), but if he has authority as Commander in Chief, why didn’t he do this in January 2017?)

Our Iraq war is entering its 17th year? Wikipedia claims that it ended in 2011, but we had at least 5,200 troops in Iraq at the end of 2019 (Al Jazeera). Can we say that we’re no longer at war if we still have soldiers in the country who are fighting? And what about the recent drone strike against Iranians at the Baghdad airport? Is that a new war against Iran or a continuation of the old war against Iraq?

Supposedly the modern world proceeds at a faster pace than did the Ancient world, yet it takes us longer to prosecute a war than Homer thought was conceivable.

Separately, what is the story with the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani? A typical post from a Facebook friend who had no idea who this guy was a week ago:

This morning we need a fear emoji. Karen Palmer writes: “Every national security expert I follow on Twitter — Democrat, Republican, military, civilian, you name it — is thunderstruck by this move. No conversation with Congress and no advance warning. This isn’t like the Bin Laden assassination — Bin Laden was a fugitive running an independent terror operation. Suleimani is a bad, bad guy, but he’s an appointed government official of the highest rank. There are bound to be serious repercussions, and nobody who will actually have to manage them had any idea this was coming. We should be very concerned for the safety of all the diplomats and military personnel in the region.”

On the one hand, Trump did this so it has to be bad. On the other hand, people say that this guy was our enemy (if we spend $1 trillion a year on a military, including veterans, why are any of our enemies still running around free?). On the third hand, almost everything that the U.S. has done militarily since World War II has backfired.

Readers: Was this a good or a bad idea?

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U.S. Air Force as an employee welfare enterprise

by philg

“Barrett Sworn In As Secretary Of The Air Force” (AVweb):

As Secretary of the Air Force, Barrett is responsible for Department of the Air Force affairs including “organizing, training, equipping and providing for the welfare of 685,000 active duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen and their families,” along with overseeing the Air Force’s $205 billion annual budget, directing strategy and policy development, risk management, weapons acquisition, technology investments and human resource management. “The Airmen who wear our nation’s uniform are our greatest asset and treasure,” she said in her remarks following the swearing-in. “We have no greater charge than to develop and care for them and their families.”

Just as on the Air Force base where our flight school operates, there is no message about defeating our enemies. It is all about the employees!

What about the previous Air Force Secretary? Here’s an interview with Heather Wilson:

Wilson said her responsibilities as SecAF were broader than those of any other executive position she held…she was obligated to the welfare of 685,000 Total Force Airmen and their families, and the oversight of a $138 billion annual budget.

(Separately, if Donald Trump is hostile to Americans who identify as “women”, as his opponents claim, why did he nominate two such individuals in succession to this job?)

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Poem for Combat Pilot Veterans

by philg

It is Veterans Day.

When I was in Ireland back in May/June, I learned that, despite being part of the UK at the time, Irish men were exempt from the World War I draft. Nonetheless, quite a few volunteered. The most dangerous job was surely that of pilot. William Butler Years wrote a poem about these volunteers: “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.” The first few lines…

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;

In our risk-averse age it is difficult to fathom how anyone would have volunteered to serve in combat in World War I, let alone volunteer to get into a machine that most pilots would today consider far too dangerous to take around the pattern.

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U.S. southern border versus Syrian northern border

by philg

Facebook is alive with outrage regarding Donald Trump’s scaling back of our military involvement what will soon be the 9th year of the Syrian Civil War.

The same people who demanded the abolition of ICE and the pulling back of armed U.S. forces patrolling the U.S. southern border are demanding that armed U.S. forces patrol the Syrian northern border. The people who advocate for a wave of migration from Central America into the U.S. are opposed to a wave of re-migration of Syrians currently in Turkey back across the northern border into their original home (map from the BBC, which says “Turkey launched the offensive in northern Syria a week ago to push back from its border members of a Syrian Kurdish militia called the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and create a ‘safe zone’ along the Syrian side of the border, where up to two million Syrian refugees can be resettled.”

Readers: Is Trump wrong? Should we spend the next 10-20 years patrolling the Syrian border and trying to keep our NATO ally Turkey (population 80 million) from doing what it deems prudent in its immediate neighborhood?

[If Elizabeth Warren prevails in 2020, will she solve both of these problems by relocating U.S. Border Patrol forces over to northern Syria?]

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Are American interests harmed when the Syrian government governs Syria?

by philg

My Facebook feed is now 99 percent hysteria regarding the U.S. policy shift in Syria. Trump has decided to scale back involvement in the Syrian civil war, now in its 8th year. My friends who identify as Democrats are demanding continued U.S. military action (none has demanded a 600-ship Navy yet, but I remain hopeful!). Note that none of these folks are actually in the military or young enough to join, so they take no personal risk by advocating that others fight.

From a recent New York Times article:

The Syrian government had been almost entirely absent from the northeast since it withdrew or was chased out by armed rebels. The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia that worked with the United States to fight the Islamic State, soon became the region’s overarching political force.

If Syrian government forces can reach the Turkish border to the north and the Iraqi border to the east, it would be a major breakthrough in Mr. Assad’s quest to re-establish his control over the whole country.

In other words, while complaining that some Russians may have purchased a Facebook ad falsely asserting that Hillary Clinton was an elderly tax-and-spend Democrat, we have been supporting a group trying to carve off part of another country and run it for themselves.

(I recognize that Bashar al-Assad may have shortcomings as a leader, but he has a challenging task and it is unclear that the Syrian government is worse than a bunch of other governments worldwide. If it is legitimate for us to help an armed rebellion against Assad, shouldn’t we also be helping armed rebellions all around the world?)

Readers: Plainly it would be better if Syrians were more like the Costa Ricans and the Syrian government were more like the Costa Rican government. But, given that Syrians are not like the Costa Ricans, does it make sense to be continuously outraged that the Syrian government is not like the Costa Rican government? What are we buying with the money and American lives spent over the last eight years in Syria?

Is it enough to say “Because terrorism”? Why is it obvious that some government other than Assad’s would do a better job of discouraging Muslims in Syria from waging jihad? None of the September 11 jihadis were from Syria and, in fact, all came from countries whose governments we have supported.

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Drone attack on Saudi Arabia proves we shouldn’t build big expensive Navy ships?

by philg

Back in March, I wrote “Robot kamikaze submarines shaped like blue whales render navy ships useless?” and asked “Does it make sense to spend $billions on these Navy ships that could be attacked by robots?”

A reader responded “Forget about submarines, anti-ship missiles probably make every surface ship a sitting duck in a war.”

Does the recent drone attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities (Guardian) prove this reader’s point?

They had the latest and greatest air defense systems says “Did U.S. Missile Defenses Fail During Saudi Oil Attack?”:

The attack revealed the limits of Saudi Arabia’s seemingly sophisticated air-defense system. Riyadh in recent years has spent billions of dollars building up six battalions of U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles and associated radars. The Patriots didn’t stop the recent attack.

A ship doesn’t have a better air defense system than what the Saudis had, does it? If not, why would we want to spend $10+ billion on a Navy ship when it can be wiped out by a relatively weak adversary, such as the Houthi rebels that are blamed for this attack on the Saudis?

(Also, why should the U.S. fight with Iran over this? Saudi Arabia is not a member of NATO, right? China is not going to deploy its military on one side or the other of this fight. If it doesn’t make sense for China to weigh in, why does it make sense for us?)

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Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner

by philg

The NYT took a rare breather from its study of Donald Trump and calculated that U.S. taxpayers spend $13 million per prisoner per year at Guantánamo Bay (story):

The 40 prisoners, all men, get halal food, access to satellite news and sports channels, workout equipment and PlayStations. Those who behave — and that has been the majority for years — get communal meals and can pray in groups, and some can attend art and horticulture classes.

The prison’s uniformed staff members also include a Coast Guard unit that patrols the waters below the cliff top prison zone; Navy doctors, nurses, psychological technicians and corpsmen; a unit of Air Force engineers; lawyers, chaplains, librarians, chaperones and military journalists. Each has layers of commanders who oversee their work and manage their lives at Guantánamo.

In 2018, Congress approved spending $115 million on a dormitory-style barracks complex to replace trailer housing for 848 troops. But no contract has been awarded, construction has not yet begun and Navy spokesmen could not provide the target completion date.

So there are at least 848 troops to guard 40 prisoners?

Readers: What’s a good comparison for this $13 million/year cost? A high-end hotel in Havana is about $150/night or $54,750 per year. Add another $45k for room service and each prisoner is costing the equivalent of 130 hotel rooms with food.

[Separately, how can the NYT know that the 40 prisoners are “all men” unless the reporters have recently queried each one regarding his/her/zir/their current gender ID. Is the NYT making cisgender-normative assumptions?]

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