Masopher's Mind

After the second world war, when Europe collapsed in the most dramatic fashion since the fall of Rome: When Russian and American tanks roamed freely along Austrian, German, French and English roads, something unique happened. More so than Hitler’s horrific rise, it dawned on Russian and American leaders one thought even more monsterous: The world was theirs to take.

For Americans it may have been a desire to spread the plum candy liberal democracy of being able to spin a wheel and get money, for Russians it may have been a hard working sombre but highly educated man wiping his brow after a day working in “the peoples” field but in both of these imaginations they totally disregarded the core concept of free will and self determination.

After decimating the Japanese empire with nuclear weapons, there really were no alternative ideologies left to give pause to the onslaught of liberal capitalism and communism, except for each other, and so; with German scientists at their command, America and the Soviet Union began to mutually threaten the world with Armageddon.

Once they reached the stage of MAD (mutual assured destruction) other weapons were soon employed the most potent of all being….the simple lie.

When a child discovers the art of misrepresenting the facts it is a glorious event. The child lies just to see what its all about. It lies because lying is possible. It lies for attention, it lies so it doesn’t look bad, it lies to avoid stress the child lies because its parents lie. Mom and dad lie to them about beings that give them stuff for being good in case of the fat red man, free as in the case of the bunny or in exchange for something, like the tooth fairy. One can see why lies were appealing to thinkers in Moscow and Washington DC.

The lie has always existed in state affairs. Propagation of truth is always mixed judiciously with exaggerations and opinions as the propagator sees it and would like to be seen. Weilded correctly, the truth is a devastating weapon. My former professor, a military IO (information operations) man, once said that the best weapon is the truth. I agree, but unfortunately the truth is an expensive weapon in a society of morally corrupt individuals and even though one drop of truth has the potency of 100 Hiroshimas, a thousand lies are just as effective and easier to make.

France, a badly broken and belittled belligerent in the bellicose of the early 20th century was first to jump onto this fact. Perhaps fostered in the courts of Louis and Napoleon, the DeGaullists, desperate to denounce the dualism in the world spread rumours (perhaps via their cousins in Britain and Moscow) which helped to ratchet up the rhetoric and tensions between the two super powers. Once they obtained their own nuclear deterrents (and began proliferating technology to Syria, Saddam’s Iraq and Libya) they perhaps began to feel slighly more at ease. At ease, because they too can now trigger the deaths of millions.

The lies, cloaked truths, creation and spread of secrets was perhaps the most devastating weapon used in the cold war. Devastating because unlike the weapons of science, the weapons of the “humanities” were used indiscriminately.

20 years after the fall of the iron curtain, we live with a nuclear legacy that continues to endanger the lives of billions of people who don’t give a shit about the choice between capitalists raping us or communists enslaving us. In truth we probably want neither, nor do any of us care for nuclear weapons. Now all 6 billion of us have to deal with a few thousand Islamists grabbing those same weapons and exterminating us in their war against a few hundred imperialists.

American President, Barrack Obama has admirably made great steps on the trudge back to “Global zero”.  It will take 30 years just to get rid of half of the current capability. We will have to deal with cold war nukes for a long time to come but the lies that were also created and continue to be created will last even longer.

Picture this. You’ve just finished a massive fight for your life. You are bruised battered bloody and even though your enemy lies dead, you realize that you’ve lost as well. The doctor says we have to amputate, all that will be left is your head. But now you face not one but two new enemies, and even though one says he’s a friend and even helps you out, he’s hitting on your wife. That’s what happened to the UK.
Everything that the Victorians worked for was lost after the great wars and instead of fights among siblings, dividing up the globe based on horse races across continents, the world was being cut up between mushy headed intellectuals and callous hearted businessmen. Here is one way of seeing World War II: The UK was essentially invaded by the USA and conscripted into continuing the fight against German conquested Europe, while the Communists battered from the other side.

The British were never the same again. Forced to import ignorant bodies from it’s colonies then losing control of the sources of it’s riches, England’s intellectual and material wealth dwindled. Thanks to the cold war and momentum from colonial “agreements” Britain was kept running long enough to cut some sweet deals with some Arabs who wanted some planes.

But as the cold war wound down and the iron curtain parted to reveal a failed social and economic experiment, the UK hoped to retire gracefully to be known as that quaint but “cool” country with a millenium dome and a financial district.

Then 9/11 happened and the shit that was beginning to sediment at the bottom got all stirred up again, leaving a very bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

I was at a lecture where the main point emerged that the UK slid into the Iraq war (not kicking and screaming but with a stiff English upper lip) politely following what it accepted as the global hegemon.

The USA certainly gives the impression that there’s a John Rambo in every yellow cab who can take out whole army divisions single handedly. And if one of the Rambos got a booboo well there was always nuclear Armageddon as an option. Being able to speak English was a disadvantage for the…er…English as they swallowed the American tales hook line and sinker.

When the USA started stringing together a record of publicized defeats when facing backward insurgencies in South east Asia, Somalia and Central America and some how allowed Saudi citizens to fly passenger jets into their skyscrapers, the French and the rest of the world threw their hands up with a universal “I knew it” “let’s get back to surrendering to every streetpainter who can muster a few thugs”. Fighting futuristic wars and being capable of apocalypse is all well and good but good old fighting is too hard for an empire in love with it’s own propoganda. The UK really wanted to stay relevant and in the good graces of the nudificent emperor. So they followed along.
The second Iraq war was a wake up call for the UK: The US doesn’t know how to fight; it has awesome flashing lights and buff guys with cigarettes but those are movie effects and actors. The UK is now fleeing, as carefully as it can to it’s real friends, the ones it used to fight with for many centuries.

The relationship with it’s former rescuer/occupier has grown tense, Washington refuses to say the magic words (special relationship) and it’s adventures have been politically hurtful to the UK and it’s leaders. The advantages dwindle as well as BAE is not spared from prosecution nor is BP protected from Argentina.

British foreign policy is therefore: Protect itself from Russia via NATO; regain and retain independence from the American arsenal; strengthen ties with Europe to the point of formal joint force operations and get to the stage where the military can act efficiently in local, regional and foreign theatres.

With even Eurosceptics resigned to the seemingly inevitability of a strengthened Lisbon treaty, the UK will have to get used to its new body and ensure that it keeps it’s head in future conflicts.

Petraeus is the general who can do no wrong. Pulling off a decent semi-victory in Iraq (bringing a lull to the sunni uprising, blocking al Qaeda until the Iraqis “awakened” and now kicking ass in Afghanistan while the Pakistanis handle the leaders camping out in Waziristan and shopping in Karachi.  Arguably, all he does is pay off fence sitters, create a kerfuffel in fight-able areas and waits for the locals to do the right thing.  Perfect counterinsurgency. The brains of the beltway and European military minds pay reverence to this man for his results oriented techniques. He gets the job done. Success is the only real quality a hero needs and Petraeus does that. He also has a good PR machine and that doesn’t hurt one bit either.

Here is a status report on the progress so far in this large military push.

WASHINGTON: With U.S. forces entering the second week of a 12- to 18-month campaign in Afghanistan, the general in charge of U.S. forces in the region acknowledged yesterday that the way ahead will be tough.

“I have repeatedly said that these types of efforts are hard, and they’re hard all the time,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Likening operations in Afghanistan to the surge in Iraq, the general pointed out that when U.S. forces go on the offensive to take away Taliban safe havens, they will see definite resistance.

Petraeus said the past year has been spent putting things in place for a “comprehensive civil military campaign,” putting in the best leaders, helping to develop concepts, giving counterinsurgency guidance and starting to filter an additional 30,000 forces into the country.

“So the inputs we think now are about right, and now we’re starting to see the first of the output, and the Marja operation is the initial salvo, the initial operation in that overall campaign,” he said.

Early results have included taking down high-value targets, such as Taliban shadow governors, Petraeus said.

“We are there for a very, very important reason and we can’t forget that,” Petraeus emphasized. “We are in Afghanistan to ensure that it cannot once again be a sanctuary for the kind of attacks that were carried out on 9/11, which were planned initially in Kandahar, first training done in eastern Afghanistan before the attackers moved to Hamburg and then on to U.S. flight schools.”

When asked if al-Qaida still poses a threat to the United States, Petraeus pointed out that the terrorist organization is a “flexible, adaptable” enemy whose threat, although diminished within the 20 countries making up the Central Command area, is one that requires constant vigilance.

“It is a network, and it takes a network to keep the pressure on a network, and that is, indeed, what we are endeavoring to do,” Petraeus said.

Although he wouldn’t get into the details on the intelligence operations surrounding the recent capture of Afghanistan’s No. 2 Taliban commander, Abdul Baradar, Petraeus said Pakistan leaders have done “very impressive” work over the past several months leading up to this event.

“They saw this as the most pressing existential threat to their country, and they supported the Pakistan army and frontier corps as it went into Swat in the Malikan division of the northwest frontier province, and then expanded this operation in to the federally administered tribal areas,” Petraeus said. “They know they can’t just clear and leave. They have to clear, hold, build and, over time, transition to the local security forces. That’s indeed, what they are endeavoring to do. They are carrying out this fight.”

On the topic of potentially revising the law that prohibits homosexuals from serving openly in the military, Petraeus said he’s sure there’s a very sound and good process at work on that issue.

During Feb. 2 testimony before the Senate, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced the creation of a review to be headed by Gen. Carter F. Ham and the Defense Department’s general counsel, Jeh C. Johnson.

“It will provide a rigorous analysis of the views of the force on the possible change,” Petraeus said. “It will suggest the policies that could be used to implement a change, if it does come to that, so that it could be as uneventful as it was, say, in the U.K. or the Israeli militaries or, indeed, in our own CIA and FBI.”

The general said that he’ll be ready to provide his input on the topic when he testifies before Congress with other combatant commanders in a few weeks.

“I think that it’s very important that these issues be handled and discussed and addressed by this review that will be so important in forming decisions as we move forward,” Petraeus said. “I think it is hugely important that we have the answers from the questions that they’ll be asking in a very methodical way – something we’ve not done before because of the emotion and the sensitivity of this issue.”