Masopher's Mind

The F-22, presidential helicopters, barefaced scared underprivileged boys killing everything in flowing robes, Nukes? This may soon be done away with by Robert Gates in the new Obama administration. This Republican is not acting at all like a Republican but exactly like a Defence Secretary. This man is so right on the money in some places that Masopher has to sit up and pay attention. The pentagons masturbatory budget is being grilled to George Foreman like perfection. All the fatty pork bits are being sizzled off and all the old conventional thinking is being seared off by the irresistible logic of reality. The F-22 was meant to fight Russian MIGs and avoid complex radar systems. What is needed is quick strike collateral free ability. America needs to stop sitting on its laurels of advanced technology and world war two/cold war thinking. It can’t responsibly call the enemy gooks and bugs bunny won’t be fighting “nutzies”.

There will be no mobilization of lesbian inspiring Rosie the riveters, no films starring future presidents, this war is different, this is a war fought on so many fronts and many of them intangible. People will only stand shoulder to shoulder to you so that they can get better access to your wallet. A photo-op is becoming more popular than an alliance, a soundbite more important than a manifesto. The internet, banking, propaganda, media, borders, innocent lives, inexperienced teens from the impoverished midwest and southern states will never be able to face threats in these theatres. America needs capable and aware kids but it also needs killers. America needs men that are doing their job not for country and mom’s apple pie but because seeing a hostile man with a gun and decapitating him for that reason completes them. The difference between America’s army and its special forces is that the eyes of a grunt darts towards conspicuous bulges while his mind screams that the person that he is looking at is a different person. The eyes of a spec ops man is one who’s eyes are drawn to a real threat or weapon the way a civilian man’s eyes are drawn to cleavage. His mind is only saying “point and shoot”, because there is plenty of time to savour the bullet entering the piece of would be meat while still looking for the next idiot toting a gun in his vicinity. The Army man has a college education, a pretty someone and a normal life always in the back of his mind, a spec-ops man has a silent prayer that things get worse. These are men who do not have nationalities or principles, they have orders and targets.

America also needs to maintain principles and it needs to face the realities of today. It will need to kill but it can not kill countries anymore, it cannot use nuclear power or superior numbers. Smart power, the mix of hard power and soft power has to be employed and deployed in a way that is global and yet very local. America must shake hands and sit down readily with moderates and peacemakers and at the same time it must put down quickly radicals and warmongers. Terrorism is not a people, terrorism is a mindset, an inability to live with differences, an inability to live with progress. Extending this inability to live upon them is crucial so that their neighbours can live in peace.