On "News Coverage as a Weapon"

I would like to point everyone to the Belmont Club today. It had a most interesting piece on war casualties and victory. I will include an excerpt here. Go and read the whole thing.

Historian John Terraine notes that unit casualty rates during the Civil War were close to those experienced by the British Army on the Somme. The 1/Newfoundland Regiment lost 84 % of its men on that fatal July 1, 1916. But the 1st Texas Regiment lost 82.3% in Antietam and the 1st Minnesota lost 82% at Gettysburg. Nor were these exceptional. "In the course of the Civil War 115 regiments (63 Union and 52 Confederate) sustained losses of more than 50 percent in a single engagement". Losses during World War 2 were just as brutal. Although the average loss per individual mission was often under 5% for the pilots who flew in the British Bomber Command, the fact that they flew 30 missions per tour meant a crew had less than a 1 in 4 chance of completing it. Once you signed on, there was a 75% statistical chance you wouldn't survive. Nor were these estimates far from the truth. Almost sixty percent of Bomber Command, a total of 55,000 men, were killed. They had an easy time compared to German U-boat crewmen, who lost 630 men out of every thousand. Nations required a huge pool of manpower and high birthrates to sustain losses on this scale. Russia alone suffered twenty million deaths during World War 2. Even Yugoslavia, a country whose role in the conflict is hardly remembered as central, lost 1.6 million killed. Defeat in that conflict came to those whose armies were driven from the field, whose cities were reduced to rubble and whose manpower resources could no longer continue the struggle.

Viewed in this context, the American "defeat" in Iraq projected by the press must be understood as being something wholly different from anything that has gone before. The 800 odd US military deaths suffered since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom a year ago are less than the number who died in the Slapton Sands D-Day training exercise in 1944. The campaign in Iraq has hardly scratched American strength, which has in fact grown more potent in operational terms over the intervening period. Nor has it materially affected the US manpower pool or slowed the American economy, which is actually growing several times faster than France, which is not militarily engaged. The defeat being advertised by the press is a wholly new phenomenon: one which leaves the vanquished army untouched and the victor devastated; the economy of the vanquished burgeoning and that of the victor in destitution; the territory of the loser unoccupied and that of the winner garrisoned. It is an inversion of all the traditional metrics of victory and defeat. That the assertion is not instantly ludicrous is an indication of the arrival of a new and potentially revolutionary form of political wafare.

Why I do this

I already have a blog on Xanga. I don't have to do this one. But mypetjawa put it best, I think:

Like many bloggers I see this space as an extension of the alter-ego. My blog is a place where my mean-spiritedness can have a home.

Yes, that is exactly why I do this.

What to do with them?

What can we do with them?
How can we possibly bring justice to Nick Berg?
We can't.
It seems like we won't try, either.
The next time someone says that we got what we had coming to us from the Abu Garhib thing...
Maybe those people are on their side. The side of the terrorists. Some Iraqis were stripped and humiliated. The idiots who did it are getting the justice they deserve. Somehow, I just don't get how such things are eqitable to decapitating a man with a knife. Call me racist, but those towelheads deserve a bit more than that. They won't, as no human being, including myself, would, could do anything worse. Of course, we could always find some sub-human to do it. I mean, they did it to an innocent man. It obviously wouldn't be so bad. They took a movie for all to see.
At least the MP's had the balls (if not the brains) to show their faces.
For something a bit more coherent, go here.

Bush screwing China?

It seems that Bush's immigration policies (or lack thereof)could possibly be putting a hamper on China's plan to screw with us, should (they say "when") a war take place. China hoped that the influx of illegals-caused by the drug trade, messing up Mexico and driving people here-would cause us to tighten the border and mess up our relations with Mexico. They didn't count on us just letting them in like the border was the gate to Disneyland. Go to this site and get the full scoop.

What is with those Arabs...

What the bloody hell?!

If I hear of those bloody Arabs complaining about Abu Ghraib or whatever the hell that prison is one more time, I might just take an M-60 and gun down all those idiots! It's OK for you guys to pull all this ethnic-cleansing, but it is an outrage for your jihadis to have humiliating pictures taken of them? Or was it that it was a WOMAN that did it? Can't have those blights on humanity (females) disrespecting men, can we? Women like that get stoned in ArabLand.

"Religion of Peace"? Bull! Blacks in Sudan (and now Chad) are getting killed by Sudanese government troops and Muslim militia. But that's OK, as they are Infidels, and thus it is God's will that they all be killed. I'm glad that someone has the balls to kill those towel-heads...too bad our government can't. I think it's funny that a third-world country can field a fighting force so quickly at it's borders that is skilled enough to have a 60-1 kill ratio...maybe we should hire some of those guys and send them to Fallujah...

You might think this is racist...you might be right...I don't particularly like a group of people that is out to kill me and everyone else unlike them...so sue me. At least we're not in france (which still is not obeying me, by the way), where I probably would get sent to prison for voicing any views against Islam.

This is something from T.A.I.R. (See the link over there->).
I didn't write it, so pardon the language:

OK, We Lied...
There IS actually something more that needs to be said.

How can we resist when LC Evil Otto presents us with one of his personal and inimitable Fiskings? No, don't bother, we can't.

So here it is, LC Evil Otto goes medieval on Rrraalphhh... Take it away, Otto:

(Hit the "Give us more, O Caesar!..." for the rest. You know the drill)

Give us more, O Caesar! »




Hey there, kiddies, it's Ted Rall time! Do you all have your barf bags? You're gonna need 'em!

AN ARMY OF SCUM

With a name like that, it's got to be good.

By Ted Rall

Voted 2004's Leftist Fuckwits Illustrated's MOST LIKELY TO BE MYSTERIOUSLY RUN OVER BY AN ABRAMS TANK.

Or, We're Looking For a Few Good Homosexual Rapists

I think you made a mistake, Ted, and posted your personal ad instead of your column.

NEW YORK--Now it's official: American troops occupying Iraq have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS.

You can tell by the way they wear black uniforms with skulls, slaughter Jews, and repeatedly invade Poland. Nope, no difference there...

Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys. Like the blackshirts who terrorized Europe, America's victims

Those, poor, poor "victims," whose only crime is shooting at American soldiers, bombing them, and occasionally dragging the mutilated bodies of Haliburton "mercenaries" through the streets.

disappear into hellish prisons ruled by sadists and murderers. The U.S. military is short just one item to achieve moral parity with the Nazis: gas chambers.

And when they're built, Ted, you'll be the first one in. There are quite a few people who'll see to that. (Whistling quietly)

"Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees" by soldiers, freelance mercenaries and professional torturers under the command of CIA intelligence officers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, according to an internal government report.

"Take my word for it! What, you want actualy evidence? I'm Ted Rall!!! Would I lie?"

The detainees, about 60 percent of them assumed to be innocent by the Americans themselves

Because the military has nothing better to do than to arrest random Iraqis and imprison them for long peoriods of time. The military just loves babysitting.

were routinely beaten, sodomized "with a chemical light or broomstick," urinated upon, tied to electrified wires and threatened with death, stripped and forced to perform homosexual sex acts on each other and U.S. troops.

...But enough of Ted's fantasies.

Don't be fooled by military apologists who insist that these American SS are nothing more than a few bad apples. Seymour

Butts.

Hersh,

Oh.

who has read the army's internal report, quotes Major General Antonio Taguba as saying that U.S.-committed atrocities are "systemic, endemic throughout the command structure...[The soldier-torturers] were being told what to do and told it was OK."

So let me get this straight; Ted hasn't actually read the reports himself. He's just taking someone else's word for it.

True, most soldiers probably don't condone torture.

OH, THANK YOU TED!!! Thank you sooooo much for your heartfelt, half-assed little disclaimer. Y'know, I've heard that most left-wing political cartoonists probably don't like being ass-raped by gorillas, but...

But all soldiers have been tarnished by it.

And here we have the "but." There's always one, isn't there? Yes, Ted Rall, that famous, patriotic supporter of our troops is going to tell us what tarnishes them. Ted Rall, who called for the deaths of American troops, is worried now about their reputations.

George W. Bush's new gulag archipelago,

Y'know, the irony of a leftist fuckwit like Rall whining about gulags is enough to make me vomit everything I've eaten for the last twelve years.

a string of concentration camps,

...Where prisoners are housed, fed well, and given access to their religion. Yes, real concentration camps. Just like the Jews suffered.

military and INS prisons that span the globe from North Carolina to Iraq to Afghanistan

Wait. We've built prison camps where the actual war is being fought?!?!? Are we INSANE? What's next; are we going to imprison the people fighting against us?

to Guantánamo Bay to New York City, has been designed to give torturers the veil of secrecy they require to carry out their hideous acts as well as the tacit understanding that they won't be held accountable. The Red Cross, defense lawyers and relatives of the victims, few of whom are charged with a crime,

Few of the Red Cross, defense lawyers, and family members are charged with a crime?

are denied access to the detainees or even the simple confirmation that they're being held by our government.

And I'm, like, all broken up over that. Really. Those poor, poor terrorists. Oh, sure, when they have a war, it's always the terrorists who suffer.

Some soldiers, like Sergeant Ivan Frederick II, "questioned some of the things I saw,"

...Like the UFO crash in Bagdhad. Which the Bush administration covered up.

such as "leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants,

OK, now I've got to admit, that is pretty horrible. Who would want to see these ugly, bearded fucks in frilly panties?
The Bush administration has much to answer for if they're inflicting that sight on our soldiers.

handcuffing them to the door." But when he discussed these abuses with his superiors, he says they brushed him off: "This is how military intelligence wants it done."

Oh. My. God. Do you mean to tell me, Ted, that the intelligence services are being mean? Those bastards. They should have offered the terrorists tea and crumpets and asked (politely) if they could maybe tell us about what they were planning and who their friends are. I mean, if they feel up to it and aren't too depressed because of the last episode of Iraqi Idol, in which Ahmed was voted off (and shot) even though he was CLEARLY the most talented.

As proven by the classic psychological experiments of the '50s, people put in a position of total power over another human being find it hard to resist abusing their charges.

Keep that in mind, Ted, if you ever go to prison. (cracking knuckles)

Prison guards mistreat inmates for a simple reason: they can. Wherever one controls another, sadism is inevitable.

There's an easy solution. Simply abolish all prisons. That'd work, right Ted? (I shouldn't say that; he'd probably agree with me.)

However, this tragic truism can be mitigated by creating mechanisms to ensure transparency behind bars. Granting prisoners access to attorneys, journalists

...Dog catchers, their crack dealers, Miss Mary Martin's pre-school class, the Pope, and Count Chocula.

and other members of the outside world, unannounced inspections by human rights agencies,

Who never, ever have an agenda or an axe to grind.

recognizing their rights under the Geneva Conventions

Which they violated by fighting out of uniform, which means that (according to the Geneva Convention) they don't HAVE any rights.

and rigorous prosecutions of criminal guards can never entirely eliminate abuse, but they're essential to prisons run by democratic societies.

If ony Ted were as furious at the, y'know, TERRORISTS as he is at the "criminal guards."

We know about Abu Ghraib only because the inbred psychos who forced nude Iraqi men to pile up in pyramids were dumb enough to snap photographs as mementos of their time liberating the nation from Saddam. It's like the Rodney King video: cops beat up blacks every day, but there usually isn't a camera around.

Other than on their squad cars, in the hands of pretty much every citizen, on cell phones, in convienience stores, and pretty much everywhere else.

Abu Ghraib, you can bet your bottom dollar,

... that tomorrow, they'll be sun! Oh, sorry, thought Ted was slipping into Annie mode there. I just wanted to sing along.

is merely the tip of the iceberg. Our military is structurally corrupt. Beginning in Afghanistan during the weeks after 9/11, civilian command yielded to the amoral gangster mentality of the arrogant intelligence officers of Army Special Forces and the CIA, who stand accused of massacring thousands of captured Taliban prisoners

"Accused?" By whom, Ted? You?

yet have never faced a real investigation. The new tone of lawlessness comes all the way from the White House, directed by a commander-in-chief who starts illegal wars without justification,

This, from Ted Rall, who doesn't even think the Afghanistan war was justified. Hello, Ted?!?!? 9-11? Ring a bell?

strips captured prisoners of their rights under the Geneva Convention and whose smirky fingers-crossed response to the prisoner abuse scandal--"I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated...Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people"--sends a wink and a nudge to our uniformed torturers. Keep it up, boys. Keep those broomsticks busy.

You're next, Ted.

Even our coalition partners are getting the message. British soldiers running a coalition gulag in Basra reported smashing the jaw and teeth of an Iraqi accused of stealing, then dumping the broken body of the accused thief off the back of a moving truck. "They did not know whether he survived," writes The New York Times.

You're right, Ted. they should have followed iraqi law and dealt with the thief in that way. A question, though: what should they have done with his hand after they chopped it off?

One more Iraqi, it seems, who won't be tossing roses at his liberators.

Yes, that's the reason we're over there: to receive the roses of thieves.

Here is some fun stuff I found at IMAO.
USMC Rules for Gunfighting
1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
2. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
3. Have a plan.
4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work.
5. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a "4."
7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating or reloading.
14. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
15. And above all ... don't drop your guard.

I broaden my definition of terrorist to include those that support terrorists in any way. This would make basically all "Palestinians" to be terrorists. What kind of pigs celebrate in the streets when a bunch of Israli women and children get killed by a terrorist suicide bomber? It would be natural that terrorists would. Mission successful, right? Well, who are? The PALESTINIANS!

I have decided that I will teach my children to shoot. All of them. Starting from a young age. And my wife, if she is not already so empowered. Myself comes first, as I should have ample time before I have to worry about those other peoples. I thought that I would get that opportunity in college, but as they don't like weapons, they would have it that some goblin would kill me in some dark alley than I could defend myself. Freakin' Justice hates guns, and look where that got him. Maybe he'll learn, but most likely he won't as those sort of things don't seem to faze the Barking Moonbat Brigade. If I had my way, I could at least carry large bladed weapons to school, if not guns. Those stupid people that would abuse such privilege will quickly die, as the security would be able to do the same if not more. If I had my way, and this is more realistic, I would teach all my friends, especially those more likely to need it. You know who I mean. There is nothing like the sheer power of holding something so awesome in your hands. Of course with that power comes responsibility, and that is what the training is for. And there is not many things as fun as shooting blackpowder, with the strong sulfrous smell in the air. All should have that opportunity.