On Women In Combat Part 5 – Panetta Sends Girls Off To The Front Line

Defense Secretary Leon “I Will Get Your Daughter Killed Gloriously” Panetta just opened direct front line combat MOSes to women.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has lifted the military’s ban on women serving in combat, a move that will allow women into hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando units, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

I’ve already done most of this in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Over at HotAir, they have a writer, Sentry, who echoes all of my criticisms of this stupid move by Panetta and the PC idiots in the Pentagon.   And the writer is a PT stud female Marine.

I’m a female veteran. I deployed to Anbar Province, Iraq. When I was active duty, I was 5’6, 130 pounds, and scored nearly perfect on my PFTs. I naturally have a lot more upper body strength than the average woman: not only can I do pull-ups, I can meet the male standard. I would love to have been in the infantry. And I still think it will be an unmitigated disaster to incorporate women into combat roles. I am not interested in risking men’s lives so I can live my selfish dream.

We’re not just talking about watering down the standards to include the politically correct number of women into the unit. This isn’t an issue of “if a woman can meet the male standard, she should be able to go into combat.” The number of women that can meet the male standard will be miniscule–I’d have a decent shot according to my PFTs, but dragging a 190-pound man in full gear for 100 yards would DESTROY me–and that miniscule number that can physically make the grade AND has the desire to go into combat will be facing an impossible situation that will ruin the combat effectiveness of the unit. First, the close quarters of combat units make for a complete lack of privacy and EVERYTHING is exposed, to include intimate details of bodily functions. Second, until we succeed in completely reprogramming every man in the military to treat women just like men, those men are going to protect a woman at the expense of the mission. Third, women have physical limitations that no amount of training or conditioning can overcome. Fourth, until the media in this country is ready to treat a captured/raped/tortured/mutilated female soldier just like a man, women will be targeted by the enemy without fail and without mercy.

Sound familiar – like anything in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4?

Everyone wants to point to the IDF as a model for gender integration in the military. No, the IDF does not put women on the front lines. They ran into the same wall the US is about to smack into: very few women can meet the standards required to serve there. The few integrated units in the IDF suffered three times the casualties of the all-male units because the Israeli men, just like almost every other group of men on the planet, try to protect the women even at the expense of the mission. Political correctness doesn’t trump thousands of years of evolution and societal norms. Do we really WANT to deprogram that instinct from men?

The answer, Sentry, is yes.  They want to deprogram that instinct, because to a stupid, petty, foolish human with female attributes who lives in political worlds of cocktail parties and in the ivory towers and ivy halls of academia, chivalry and chauvanism are the same.  Any acknowledgement that women and men are different not just biologically but physiologically and simply by nature; would mean that such things can be judged.

Remember “How Modern Liberals Think”?

The leftist philosophy opposes the objective judgement that women simply are inferior to men in their capacity for war.

Though I’ve said it before, it bears repeating that doesn’t mean there’s any judgement of a woman’s character or civic virtue due to physical, physiological, or other limitations.

Doesn’t mean you don’t have the character or virtue to stand up for your nation.  Does mean you’re going to be a liability if you want to go to BUDS.

The leftist philosophy has an ulterior motive, though.  It also supports the idea that an “empowered” woman will, to be very blunt here, put out to an inferior man.  A sniveling, cowardly toad academic, or a womanizing rapist politician who has his state police procure conquests for him – these are the kind of “men” whose actual character is no longer called into question when their behavior is viewed as normal, and when men and women are to be treated as “equals”.  They subjugate women by destroying the privilege that women used to enjoy as part of their nature; all while decrying it as “chauvanism”, “antiquated”, “anti-feminist”, or other such nonsense, and claiming that those who would put women on a pedestal are in fact engaging in a “war on women”.  (Contrast GirlWritesWhat’s comments about bonobos.)

A woman may well find that society (depending on region) has stigmatized her virtues as a provider and protector of life, traditions and values that she sticks to in order to give better chances for success at providing and protecting life.  Why is “women’s rights” synonymous with destruction of infants today, rather than protection of infants, children, and all life?  Why is “women’s rights” about a woman being denigrated to the point that she is just a few “parts”?  Is she a mother or a “breeder”?  What is really being supported with these ideas?

One could dissect the destructive nature of leftist philosophy that denigrates women – and also denigrates men’s roles – but that’s a broader (no pun intended) topic than could be looked at in any single blog post.

If you want a very intelligent analysis of modern feminism and the leftist philosophy that denigrates both women and men, consider Girl Writes What (you could start with this most recent video and go from there if you’re not familiar with her very intelligent critique of the modern feminist movement).  You’ll note her own analysis has changed as she went on, but it’s all a series of very fascinating opinions and reasoning.  Her look at it is from a fairly utilitarianist point of view (at least as it seems to me).

I’ll finish this section with this quote from Thomas Sowell:

“For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.“

Many things are done for a reason, and throwing women into combat because it feels good to some limousine liberals who will never see the two-way range is a violent idiocy, stupidly rejecting billions of years worth of human lives that said no.

–

On the radio today, I heard this line of weapons-grade stupid trumpeted by some dumb plane driver:

WASHINGTON — The nation’s first female combat pilot yesterday defended the Pentagon’s decision to allow women on the front lines of war, dismissing an argument that the genders shouldn’t be blended into the same battle environment.

“So that’s like saying Pee Wee Herman is OK to be in combat but Serena and Venus Williams are not going to meet the standard,” Air Force Col. Martha McSally said on “Fox News Sunday.”

I know not all Air Force pilots are imbeciles, but this one is.  If they were all three to try out, Paul Reubens has to meet the same standard as all of the current men.  If standards at boot camp are held, he doesn’t go.  If he fails an indoc for a unit, he doesn’t go.  Serena and Venus maybe could meet one physical standard, but they’re exceptions that prove the rule.  Also, tennis is not combat.  Tennis does not last for 10 months in cramped, nasty conditions with poor sanitary facilities and if you lose at tennis, you don’t end up in the hands of jihadis who will behead you after mutilating your body.\

But there’s another dimension to this – how simply out-of-touch the comparison is.

Guess what, Colonel?  Paul Reubens is 5’10″.  He ain’t exactly a small guy.  He’s also 60, and more an example of how she confused Reubens’ character name with him actually being small, as well as naming someone who was popular decades ago.  Why not compare Billy Barty to Allison Hayes?

Or someone more modern like Verne Troyer and Carmen Electra?

Or how about a more apt comparison of wannabe badass couch-jumper Tom Cruise to the much more badass Claudia Black?

Tom Cruise wasn’t tall enough to get into the picture even when he wore elevator shoes, so you’ll just have to pretend you can see him.

The Air Force Colonel doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  She is not a subject matter expert on groundpounders any more than a “leg” is going to know about Immelmans or the Thach Weave.  Air Force pilots do not endure the same conditions that infantry or any other land or sea combat unit does.

Note that SERE, arguably some of the most difficult training for pilots, already had the standard lowered.

As a last note, for some unfathomable reason, unplanned pregnancies are very high in the military.  What’s usually ignored (outside of those who deal with women in the military) is that it’s a free pass out of a deployment.  A young woman who’s already given special treatment in the military environment (anyone who says they aren’t doesn’t have a clue) has an easy out.  On top of this, there are financial incentives as well as personal incentives.  The military, in effect, has enabled the use of the female agency against it.  A female servicemember can’t be hit with malingering because they created a medical condition that prevents deployment.

Retired General McChrystal and the Draft

Former Texas State Representative and Luby’s Massacre survivor Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp said these words that are allow instant understanding of almost every political figure:

How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.

Generals are ultimately politicians, and retired General McChrystal gave his opinion the other day on how citizens shouldn’t own effective guns.  It’s also worth noting he’s lived on military bases where everyone is disarmed except for the military police.  His interactions as a younger officer are often dealing with discipline problems among troops.  I have little doubt this has colored many of his views about what people should be allowed to do and what they shouldn’t be allowed to do.

Now yesterday, he says this:

I personally believe that national service is important for the nation, and that’s having all young people serve a term of national service. Certainly not all military. But I believe those things do have two effects. One, those things that bind people to their nation are important, and another thing is that we’re also a nation that doesn’t get to know each other too well. Someone from one part of an inner city never meets another person from an upper class neighborhood. We need some things that pull people together in shared experience. We need to be ten years after the fact when they are meeting somewhere, ‘Where did you serve?’ begins a connection that allows them to move on because we are getting too fragmented in my view.

No.

We don’t need a peacetime draft.  During wartime, if it’s necessary, it’s one of the burdens placed upon members of a society.  During peacetime, it’s an expansion of standing armies that we don’t need.

McChrystal is pushing for a draft (or alternate service) as some kind of a “shared experience” and cultural social program.  He wants to bring people together by herding them into military camps so they can have “experiences”.

The reason for the slow, ongoing Balkanization of the US is that there are politicians who benefit from the Curley Effect (Democrats) and encourage it.  The reason someone from one part of an inner city never meets another person from an upper class neighborhood is because the limousine liberal has made the inner city dude his pet cause – someone he taxes the suburban joe to subsidize – while all the while hating both; and driving wedges between Americans.  Look at the tax fight for the last few months wherein Democrats fought the government to a standstill so they could begin to liquidate the Kulaks.

There isn’t a lack of connection because of lack of military service – there’s a lack of connection because social engineer politicians have developed their constiutencies that way.  Instituting another social engineering program – that of a peacetime draft for “service” is just as bad.

The reason we honor military men and women is because they provide the peace that we enjoy.  They fight so we don’t have to – that’s why they’re given respect.  I fought so others wouldn’t have to.  It’s a volunteer military for a reason.

America is supposed to be a society without classes and castes.  In many places, it still is.  Ranchers who own 20,000 acre spreads still talk to their ranchhands, and while one’s the employer and the other the employee, that’s all there is.  They aren’t from different classes, just different income levels.  In cities where half the people or more live off handouts extracted from the other half at gunpoint by a sliver of a redistributor class, there is a divide – and it’s a divide that didn’t used to exist.

McChrystal is one of those who believes Americans to be a crowd that needs to be lorded over and controlled, supervised and taken care of.  The whole reason we have the class problems we do now is precisely because of social engineer progressive politicians like him.  Instituting one more policy will only exacerbate the harm as it brings people into the military who don’t want to be there.  Try telling the 47% that get handouts that they owe someone else something and are being drafted.  That’s going to lead to a schism within the military and a breakdown of good order and discipline all around.  People whose lives consist of “gimme gimme gimme” are not going to be exemplars of civic virtue and rectitude.

Leftists often lament the fact that the military is becoming more rural and Southern, but that was going on well before they started noticing it.  That all started happening because their own institutions and beliefs demonized the military.  Those in deep blue states often don’t have much interest in the military because it often stands counter to ideas they’ve been taught.

The idea of self-sacrifice by choice in order to preserve the liberties of their land is alien to people in a world where the government disarms them, won’t let them drink a 16 0z soda or have a cigarette.  Their liberties have been taken by their masters, they have nothing to stand up for.

(Also keep in mind that the people in those deep blue states are the kind that reward, promote, protect and have as educators the terrorists who planned to kill troops and their dates at an NCO dance at Ft. Dix.  So as a general rule, should it be surprising that someone who’s venerated by the left as an educational hero, and who dominates education and brainwashes the children for 12 years, might be an indicator of why there’s a divide?)

That whole cultural divide has been built with a lot of effort by devotees of Cloward and Piven and the Curley Effect.  If you want to change it, you don’t change a victim of 12 years of state-sponsored indoctrination and expect it to wear off in 2-3 months of training.  You get rid of the 12 years of indoctrination.

Now, if the retired general was advocating something like Starship Troopers, wherein completion of voluntary service risking one’s life was required to vote, I could see the logic to that.  He’s trying the reverse.  He’s trying to make everyone serve in order to instill virtue and understanding that cannot be instilled.  If he was saying “hey, if you aren’t willing to put your butt on the line and ‘some skin in the game’, then you don’t get a voice when it comes to government”, he’d find some sympathy for that – but he’s also find that 47% of handout voters would be vehemently against it because they’ve been trained by their political leaders to vote themselves largesse.  This is also why McChrystal’s draft will never pass, and why even if he wished it into existence, it would never work – he’d be drafting people with this mentality:

All you’ll do with someone of that mentality is waste the military’s time and add to the 10% of shitbirds already there who join up anyway.  Drafting them in peacetime will be a failure in every way.

Travis Haley’s Reflections on the Second Amendment

DC Police Strict On Gun Control When It’s A US Serviceman

From Legal Insurrection and Washington Times:

The District grabbed the guns belonging to 1st Lt. Augustine Kim and won’t give them back. Two years ago, the South Carolina Army national guardsman had been injured on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Now he’s fighting to restore his constitutional rights.

Before deploying overseas, the soldier drove his collection – which included an AR-15, a Beretta 9mm and several .45 caliber pistols – to his parents’ house in New Jersey for safe storage. Upon his return to the states and recovery, Lt. Kim wanted to bring his weapons back to his home in Charleston. On the way, he stopped at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington for a doctor’s appointment. That’s when his troubles started.

Lt. Kim became lost in the city and was pulled over. The cops asked Lt. Kim if they could search his vehicle. The lieutenant agreed because his guns were cased and stored in full compliance with federal firearm-transport laws.”I told them I had been under the impression that as long as the guns were locked in the back, with the ammunition separate, that I was allowed to transport them,” Lt. Kim told The Washington Times. “They said, ‘That may be true, however, since you stopped at Walter Reed, that makes you in violation of the registration laws.’ “

We’ll see if some animals are more equal than others.

Happy 237th USMC

Or alternately, some motivation:

Pinup Art by Andrew Bawidamann

Ft Hood Terrorist Attack, 3 Years On

Big hat tip to Jawa Report:

Via Jawa, from NYT:

What do you call it when a self-proclaimed “Soldier of Allah” shouting “Allahu Akhbar” opens fire on dozens of US citizens — killing and maiming as many innocents as he can?

You call it terrorism, if you’re sane.

And “workplace violence,” if you’re the Obama administration.

That’s right: Three years after Nidal Malik Hasan’s jihadist shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in which he murdered 13 people and wounded 29 more, the Defense Department still refuses to classify the attack as what it is: an act of terror.

Instead, it continues to label the shooting officially a case of “workplace violence.”

Let’s not forget Obama’s response to Fort Hood, and giving shout outs and thanking Interior Secretary Ken “Boot Stamping On A Human Face Forever” Salazar, and some anti-colonialist diatribe going on about “First Americans”.

On Bayonets and Horses

One of the highlights of last night’s presidential debate was Obama, who can’t pronounce corpsman, smugly insulting Romney about what the military uses and doesn’t use.  The highlight of the highlight, was of course, horses and bayonets.

We don’t use horses, either, according to Obama.

This is where Obama’s stupid really meshes with other types of stupid.  The saying is that you always fight the last war.  For those unfamiliar with the saying, what it shows is that your military acquires experience based on one war, and then tries to reapply it.  Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.  Civil War and Napoleonic tactics weren’t up to the task of The Great War, WWI tactics and strategies and tools weren’t up to use in WWII, WWII tactics had to change for Korea, Korean ideas didn’t work in Vietnam, Vietnam didn’t work in Gulf War I, Gulf War I didn’t work in Afghanistan, Afghanistan didn’t work the same in Iraq, and Iraq’s successes don’t translate back to Afghanistan so well.  Generals had years to train on what they just fought, though, with up-and-coming officers and NCOs who set the culture of the military being those who fought the last war, so they apply that expertise and often forget the past.

Obama’s spiel about aircraft carriers was not only insulting to Romney, but it ignores that there are ways to make carriers go away.  A couple ASBMs and suddenly the carrier is a white elephant.  And with Obama’s pledge to slow development of future weapons systems and missile defense, we know we won’t have a defense against ASBMs.  The technology he wants to rely on he also wants to keep undeveloped.  You can’t have it both ways, Mr. President.   And you certainly can’t lecture us on technology you’re halting as the solution.  A large navy is very important to power projection.  Numbers of ships are important.

This dovetails into the recent news story about Congress putting money away for tanks the military says it doesn’t need.

Congress doesn’t want to kill any jobs in their districts and argue that tank production is “necessary to protect the industrial base.”

Not so necessary on the battlefield though, since the last real tank battle occurred in the First Gulf War. Since then tanks have largely been used for anti-personnel purposes, or for making new doors in structures to aid the movement of ground troops. Nevertheless, the U.S. hasn’t halted production since before World War II.

Congressmen not wanting to kill jobs and “protecting the industrial base” is stimulus and earmark pork nonsense.  They’re speaking Keynesian gibberish and want to keep govt. money flowing into their districts and that’s the best they can come up with.  Maintaining tooling and factories for production certainly isn’t a bad idea, but that has to be balanced with what the country should and should not be spending.

On the other hand, the argument that “the last real tank battle was 20 years ago” is precisely the “last war” mentality.  The “last war” is now Iraq and Afghanistan.  Suddenly, smart men with no wisdom declare we will never again need tanks because we didn’t need them this week.  There’s some semi-famous quote saying how military men are like children and how they’ll drop blankets when it’s warm and rain gear when the sky is clear because they can’t think for tommorow; and there are plenty of proverbs about prudent men vs foolish men.  Exactly opposite the article, we should be keeping up tank production and refurbishment exactly because they’re valuable military tools.  That they provide jobs in some congressman’s district is entirely irrelevant to the inherent military usefulness of a tank.

While it doesn’t float and is ultimately crewed by DATs, it’s a very useful tool.

Obama’s ignorance of the military isn’t just that we still use horses and bayonets, it’s that he doesn’t understand why we use them, nor does he understand that technology (that he’s trying to stop, no less) is not magic.

Update: HotAir has an excellent piece on how horses, bayonets, and most importantly ships still matter.  Ships are power projection, and that piece goes into much greater detail.  It’s worth the read.

“Full Spectrum Operations In the Homeland” and Ignorant Red Teaming; Revisiting the 29 Palms Survey

When military units do exercises, somebody has to be the good guy, somebody has to be the bad guy.  The bad guys are the opposition force, or OPFOR.  A Red Cell functions much the same, acting as a dedicated enemy element for purposes of exercises.  Going up from the tactical level to the strategic,  you have Red Teams.  Basically, people who come up with scenarios for enemy forces.

Unfortunately, sometimes you have ignorant leftist political ignoramuses put in a position to do some of that Red Team work.

I’m not sure there is a strategic facepalm yet.

Sipsey Street Irregulars has a long, very informative piece here, about the scenario some idiots came up with, proving once again that military intelligence is quite often an oxymoron.  Here’s the crux of the scenario, from some idiots (Retired Col. Kevin Benson and Associate Professor Jennifer Weber) at the Small Wars Journal:

The Scenario (2016)

The Great Recession of the early twenty-first century lasts far longer than anyone anticipated. After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief. The United States economy has flatlined, much like Japan’s in the 1990s, for the better part of a decade. By 2016, the economy shows signs of reawakening, but the middle and lower-middle classes have yet to experience much in the way of job growth or pay raises. Unemployment continues to hover perilously close to double digits, small businesses cannot meet bankers’ terms to borrow money, and taxes on the middle class remain relatively high. A high-profile and vocal minority has directed the public’s fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants. After almost ten years of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by right-wing demagogues, nearly one in five Americans reports being vehemently opposed to immigration, legal or illegal, and even U.S.-born nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites.

In May 2016 an extremist militia motivated by the goals of the “tea party” movement takes over the government of Darlington, South Carolina, occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council, and placing the mayor under house arrest. Activists remove the chief of police and either disarm local police and county sheriff departments or discourage them from interfering. In truth, this is hardly necessary. Many law enforcement officials already are sympathetic to the tea party’s agenda, know many of the people involved, and have made clear they will not challenge the takeover. The militia members are organized and have a relatively well thought-out plan of action.

With Darlington under their control, militia members quickly move beyond the city limits to establish “check points” – in reality, something more like choke points — on major transportation lines. Traffic on I-95, the East Coast’s main north-south artery; I-20; and commercial and passenger rail lines are stopped and searched, allegedly for “illegal aliens.” Citizens who complain are immediately detained. Activists also collect “tolls” from drivers, ostensibly to maintain public schools and various city and county programs, but evidence suggests the money is actually going toward quickly increasing stores of heavy weapons and ammunition. They also take over the town web site and use social media sites to get their message out unrestricted.

When the leaders of the group hold a press conference to announce their goals, they invoke the Declaration of Independence and argue that the current form of the federal government is not deriving its “just powers from the consent of the governed” but is actually “destructive to these ends.” Therefore, they say, the people can alter or abolish the existing government and replace it with another that, in the words of the Declaration, “shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” While mainstream politicians and citizens react with alarm, the “tea party” insurrectionists in South Carolina enjoy a groundswell of support from other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups. At the press conference the masked militia members’ uniforms sport a unit seal with a man wearing a tricorn hat and carrying a musket over the motto “Today’s Minutemen.” When a reporter asked the leaders who are the “red coats” the spokesman answered, “I don’t know who the redcoats are…it could be federal troops.” Experts warn that while these groups heretofore have been considered weak and marginal, the rapid coalescence among them poses a genuine national threat.

The mayor of Darlington calls the governor and his congressman. He cannot act to counter the efforts of the local tea party because he is confined to his home and under guard. The governor, who ran on a platform that professed sympathy with tea party goals, is reluctant to confront the militia directly. He refuses to call out the National Guard. He has the State Police monitor the roadblocks and checkpoints on the interstate and state roads but does not order the authorities to take further action. In public the governor calls for calm and proposes talks with the local tea party to resolve issues. Privately, he sends word through aides asking the federal government to act to restore order. Due to his previous stance and the appearance of being “pro” tea party goals the governor has little political room to maneuver.

Yup.  That’s what they came up with.  Tea Party are terrorists.  Anyone quoting the Constitution must be destroyed, because the regime and order must reign, and the Constitution is just a piece of paper.  When they quote it, it’s because they’re terrorists.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

Via the People’s Cube.

Mike at Sipsey Street notes that the comments are almost all in stark contrast to the article.  The responses, from the kind of intelligent thinkers who read things like the Small Wars Journal, are by a great majority articulate, eloquent, and offended.

One of the sharpest is this one, by “Obvious Moniker” that criticizes the failed methodology of the scenario.  He starts off by pointing out that not only is it as offensive to Constitutionalist Tea Party folks as it seems, it also fails from the start as a utility to develop strategies.

by Obvious Moniker| August 5, 2012 – 11:48am

I’ll admit to being one of the many offended by the choice of parameters; however, for the sake of discussion, I’ll try to minimize repeating what previous commenters have said.

First, it has been claimed that any group could be substituted for the Tea Party types in the scenario.  While this claim is undoubtably true on its face, from the detail in the scenario given and the current political climate, I cannot help but wonder if said claim has not been made disengenuously.  Several other commenters have wondered how many axes are being ground with the setup used, and I must echo that feeling.

Having been stationed at a 3-star level staff command for 5 years, there’s a reason why our J5/J7 guys had all the local powers in each scenario represented by Pineland, Treeland, et.al.   That methodology avoids accusations that the setup may be politically tainted or skewed along ideological lines that would otherwise be unnecessarily detract from the training and potentially make sharing said scenario with our allies unwise.

One untrained in military planning might get the impression from the universal application of said naming obfuscation by such a wide variety of planners whose scenarios truly did not depend on taking place in a location that such a principle was something those planners were taught in their training.  In that light, I hope you can understand my skepticism of your claim to being unbiased, as it seems so woefully poor form as to stretch credibility with such denials.  (ST: Much more to this comment, worth reading through them at the link.)

For those who don’t follow the Moniker’s jive, he’s saying you train for scenarios, not for specific enemies.  You can’t share your playbook if you have one place you’re planning on fighting; and you can’t reapply the scenario when it’s too specific.  If you get it in your head that you’re going to fight X and you end up fighting Y, then you’ve set yourself up for failure.

Another:

by Antylyzyk| August 6, 2012 – 7:44am

This is a chilling article—it has shocked me to the core.

The Army has been perfecting its counter-insurgency for decades in foreign lands. Terrorism has now become the function of the Department of Homeland Security—only Europeans had this type of machinery, we have always relied on being a people numerous and armed. Our police forces have become para-military forces in a perpetual War on Drugs. Recently, General Ralph E Eberhart expressed the view “that Posse Comitatus will constantly be under review as we mature this command, as we do our exercises, as we interact with FEMA, F.B.I., and those lead federal agencies out there”. Now Col Benson and Ms Weber posture the “Tea Party”, a movement that has never advocated violence, as the culprits in a future insurrection? Connecting the dots leads to a coordinated intelligence, police, and military system directed at controlling American citizens.

It is little wonder our Founding Fathers feared a standing Army. If this is the line of thinking that is emanating from Leavenworth and our generals, then the inevitable result will be the dissolution of the Republic and the establishment of a military dictatorship.

Another:

by RobJohnson| August 7, 2012 – 1:57am

Interesting choice of descriptors by the authors of this article. The Tea Party has proven to be one of the most peaceful and civilized of any political party in the country, proclaiming only a desire to unify the country around the Constitution and the rule of law. Why did they authors choose an actual, existing party to use in their “Wargames” article? Have they been to a Tea Party meeting? Where most of the members are middle class, middle aged working people? Did they really wish to spit in the face of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of their fellow citizens? Their neighbors, friends, countrymen? Are they that full of hatred, ready to slap the face of fellow Americans they disagree politically with? Is this how Goebbels and Saddams and Stalins are created? What breath taking arrogance on the part of the authors. Have they been sitting too long behind their desks? If the “Tea Party”, made up of their fellow citizens, deserve to be mass murdered by American troops, what does that say about the authors state of mind? Are they so naive of history? Are they so ignorant and arrogant they think such an event will be a fun little bloody cake walk? Do they look forward to hearing about the hundreds, perhaps thousands killed in the streets, in front of their own homes? Why the Tea Party? Why not about a Marxist stealth coup by a Manchurian candidate president and the military coup to retake the republic? They are so sure of their own rightness? What if the US Army crushes the revolt in the little town but then finds out that it faces not one town but 150,000 across the country? What will they do when they, like the Redcoats marching for Lexington, find themselves surrounded on all sides, their supplies cut off, water cut off, electricity cut off, sabotage every where, even by their own troops and officers, who refuse to fire on their own people, even as many Chinese soldiers did during Tianamen Square? The average rural, heavily wooded county in America has tens of thousands of hunters of all ages. Hunters. Men with scoped rifles, camo gear, who know how to disappear into the forests and hunt things down. Imagine that multiplied across the entire United States. An irregular guerrilla force of millions of snipers. Millions. Blood would run in rivers. Is this what these Armchair Army officers want? Is this how they spend tax payer money? To sit at their computers and type out hate screeds against peaceful citizens? Despicable. Sickening. Twisted.

Another:

by MAJ_John_Pitcairn| August 5, 2012 – 6:04pm

A solid plan for unrivaled Success! However, if the rebels are to be suppressed sufficiently, I have it on good word that to their powder and rifle stores at Lexington and Concord you must go. Rest assured! Vigorous measures at present would soon put an end to this paltry rebellion. The deluded subjects are made to believe that they are invincible. When this glorious Fifth Army is ordered to act against them, they will soon be convinced that they are very insignificant indeed when opposed to regular troops. Once these rebels have been dealt a smart blow, they will fall to their knees and submit. Once disarmament is complete, effective resistance to the Crown will cease and policies of reestablishing order will proceed. God save his excellency King George.

Another:

by nfzgrld| August 5, 2012 – 5:17pm

This article is based almost entirely on false premises. The idea that the tea party would do what is described in the way and for the reasons described is laughable. If the American people act on behalf of their own constitutionally protected freedom then they are within their right. For the military to act in opposition to any effort to protect, defend or restore the veracity and force of the constitution would be, by definition, treason.

In addition, the idea that The Klu Klus Klan and other racist and Democratic party developed organizations would side with the tea party, or that the tea party would even associate with them, indicates either a complete lack of understanding of who and what the tea party is, or is purposeful disinformation disseminated in an effort to further deflect the left’s own goal to the right. Progressives, Marxists, fascists, and other government centered and racist organizations and ideologies are all LEFT. This is America, not Europe. Left and right mean something different here. Left is govt, right is freedom. The more you have of one, the less you will have of the other.

This is OUR country. It is OUR constitution. The govt, including the military, works for US. Aside from the LIMITED powers given the federal government in article one section eight of the constitution, We The People, and the States, have and are the authority. The authors of this article are fomenting an environment of discord and distrust between the people and our military. That needs to stop right now, because WE are the military. I don’t think it’s going to work the way they think it will.

Another:

by Carlos Perera| August 5, 2012 – 2:11pm

I must join the many other commenters who have taken exception to this article’s depiction of the Tea Party as a sort of neo-Klan, a band of lilly-white racists who can barely wait to wrap their ax handles around the heads of people of color. I myself–and, yes, I post under my real name–am a Hispanic Tea Partier, one of many in my area (Jacksonville, Florida). I have _never_ been made to feel unwelcome at any Tea Party event, nor have I ever heard the use of racist/xenophobic invective or seen any literature of that ilk at any Tea Party meeting or demonstration (except in signs wielded by outside _agents provocateurs_ trying to discredit the organization: they are quickly surrounded by Tea Partiers holding signs saying, “not with us). Do many Tea Partiers object to the near non-enforcement of U. S. immigration laws? Yes–I do!–but we simply ask that the federal government enforce those laws (as it is Constitutionally obligated to do), and seek electoral, not insurrectional, solutions to the problem on non-enforcement.

As other have already noted, Tea Party demonstrations are models of civil, orderly behavior. Not only do we not indulge in violence–though on some occasions counter-demonstrators have physically attacked Tea Partiers–we usually leave the public areas we use cleaner than before we arrived. Compare and contrast with left-wing groups’ violence, vandalism, and utter disregard for the public order when they demonstrate: think OWS!

In using the Tea Party as the fictional bad guys of their scenario, the authors of this article have truly–and unjustifiably–derogated a model group of citizen-activists, using their Constitutionally protected right of free assembly, by innuendo. Isn’t there a Commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor?

I’d add some more commentary, but these folks have pretty much nailed it.

It’s worth it to revisit the history of the infamous 29 Palms Survey of 1994.

Firing on U.S. Citizens?

While all of the questions in this survey should have stimulated concern, the survey’s final question has generated an enormous amount of attention:

The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over to the local authorities. At the end of this period, a number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government.

The survey results: 42.3 percent strongly disagreed with this statement; 19.3 percent disagreed; 18.6 percent agreed; 7.6 percent strongly agreed; and 12.0 percent had no opinion. In one of the footnotes appearing in his thesis, Cunningham quotes comments placed by some of the Marines next to their answers to this question: “What about the damn Second Amendment? … I feel this is a first in communism! … Read the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen.” “I would not even consider it. The reason we have guns is so that the people can overthrow the gov’t when or if the people think the gov’t is too powerful.” “Freedom to bear arms is our Second Amendment. If you take our Amendments away then you can take this job and stick it where the sun don’t shine! … It is a right to own firearms for defense (2nd Amendment); I would fight for that right!”

Based on the disagreement expressed by 61 percent of the Marines, Cunningham concluded that “a complete unit breakdown would occur in a unit tasked to execute this mission.”

Why The Pentagon Should Be Suspicious of Palantir

Via FOX News, this very FOX-like piece of news:

Congress questions Army role in denying life-saving software to troops

By Justin Fishel Published July 26, 2012
Congress is set to launch an investigation into a brewing Army scandal over the difficulty some units have had in securing a software system designed to predict the location of roadside bombs — the No. 1 killer of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though the software, called Palantir, is already being used by some troops in Afghanistan, more units have been requesting it and some of those requests remain unfulfilled. The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division sent a request in May citing an “urgent need” for the intelligence-gathering system and has yet to receive it.

What’s more alarming, said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is that the Army stands accused of destroying internal reports that favor Palantir over its own system.

“The problem is (the Army) fell in love with their own software,” Hunter told Fox News.

Sounds like a great thing, huh?  Sounds like the stupid brass is endangering our troops by not buying this new software.  Heck, this whole story practically reads like an ad for Palantir.

Meanwhile, the Army says it’s working to integrate Palantir into more of its computer systems. But when asked about reports that it destroyed favorable reviews of Palantir, the Army responded with a written statement offering no explanation other than to say the matter is under investigation. That investigation is being conducted by an undisclosed three-star general, not the Army’s inspector general which typically handles internal investigations.

Well, what is Palantir?

It’s basically an extension of the all-seeing eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings, used by his minion Saruman.  Y’know, allegorical Satan and his henchman?

Businessweek did a story on Palantir a while back.  It’s basically a gigantic snooping system to spy on everything and everyone at all times by cross-checking every bit of data in existence that can somehow be checked.

An organization like the CIA or FBI can have thousands of different databases, each with its own quirks: financial records, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, human intelligence reports from all over the world. Gluing all that into a coherent whole can take years. Even if that system comes together, it will struggle to handle different types of data—sales records on a spreadsheet, say, plus video surveillance images. What Palantir (pronounced Pal-an-TEER) does, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner (IT), is “make it really easy to mine these big data sets.” The company’s software pulls off one of the great computer science feats of the era: It combs through all available databases, identifying related pieces of information, and puts everything together in one place.

Depending where you fall on the spectrum between civil liberties absolutism and homeland security lockdown, Palantir’s technology is either creepy or heroic. Judging by the company’s growth, opinion in Washington and elsewhere has veered toward the latter….

When that story came out, it was noted by a few folks, including Sipsey Street, but the interesting part comes later in the story:

Thiel, Lonsdale, and a couple of former colleagues officially incorporated Palantir in 2004. Thiel originally wanted to hire a chief executive officer from Washington who could navigate the Byzantine halls of the military-industrial complex. His co-founders resisted and eventually asked Alex Karp, an American money manager living in Europe who had been helping raise money for Clarium, to join as temporary CEO.

It was an unlikely match. Before joining Palantir, Karp had spent years studying in Germany under Jürgen Habermas, the most prominent living representative of the Frankfurt School, the group of neo-Marxist philosophers and sociologists. After getting a PhD in philosophy from the University of Frankfurt—he also has a degree from Stanford Law School—Karp drifted from academia and dabbled in stocks. He proved so good at it that, with the backing of a handful of European billionaires, he set up a money management firm called the Caedmon Group. His intellect, and ability to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under a minute, commands an awed reverence around the Palantir offices, where he’s known as Dr. Karp.

And then it gets worse from there:

At 44, Karp has a thin, sinewy physique—the result of a strict 1,200-calorie-a-day diet—and an angular face that gives way to curly brown, mad-scientist hair. On a November visit at Palantir’s headquarters, he’s wearing purple pants and a blue and orange athletic shirt. As he does every day, he walked to work. “I never learned to drive because I was busy reading, doing things, and talking to people,” he says. “And I’m coordinated enough to bike, but the problem is that I will start dreaming about the business and run into a tree.”

During the era of social networks, online games, and Web coupons, Karp and his engineers have hit on a grander mission. “Our primary motivation,” Karp says, “is executing against the world’s most important problems in this country and allied countries.” That’s an unusual pitch in Silicon Valley, where companies tend to want as little to do with Washington as possible and many of the best engineers flaunt their counterculture leanings.

Palantir’s name refers to the “seeing stones” in Lord of the Rings that provide a window into other parts of Middle-earth. They’re magical tools created by elves that can serve both good and evil. Bad wizards use them to keep in touch with the overlord in Mordor; good wizards can peer into them to check up on the peaceful, innocent Hobbits of the Shire. As Karp explains with a straight face, his company’s grand, patriotic mission is to “protect the Shire.”

This is a problem.  This is statism in cute terms.  This is a neo-Marxist who believes in the supremacy of the state, immediately getting in tight with the state, in order to “execute against the world’s most important problems”.  Wanna bet his definition and yours as a free citizen disagree?

The analogy and their name is apt.  The palantir was used for evil.  A palantir outright used by a tyrant is easy to see as evil.  A palantir used for spying on hobbits “to check up on innocent Hobbits” invades their privacy and is just another apparatus of the tyrant.  So what happens if the hobbits don’t want to be spied on?

Or what about the nations of men, or elves, or dwarves, who aren’t keen on being relegated to pet hobbits of some ultra-powerful wizard?

For the analogy to work, it assumes that the citizen wants to be subject to being spied on at all times, as though their personal information should be collected and coallated by a massive government program, accessible to anyone who happens to have a link to Palantir’s network.  This also assumes that a neo-Marxist weirdo who acts like a Bond villain is a good person to be designing and presumably have access to all government data everywhere, that a neo-Marxist with a Ph.D fro a neo-Marxist school in a philosophy that basically says people are at their best when being controlled by the state, should be manipulating all the information of the state at all times.

Now, going back to the beginning, there’s a good reason why the Pentagon should be suspicious.  Palantir is marketed as an ultimate data-mining system to cross-check every database as an “infrastructure for analysis” – it doesn’t replace them all – it searches them all.

Then there’s this:

The secretive data-analysis startup, based in Palo Alto, Calif. and backed by early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, has suffered a number of blows to its public image of late. The most recent is the settlement of a lawsuit filed by rival i2 Group, based in McLean, Va., over accusations that Palantir employees fraudulently obtained i2 software and used it to design competing products.

Since Palantir touts itself as the product of fraud-detection technologies pioneered at PayPal, the payments startup Thiel cofounded, those charges present ironies, as i2’s lawyers eagerly pointed out in their initial complaint.

Separately, Palantir CEO Alex Karp issued a public statement apologizing for his company’s role in preparing a plan for Bank of America to strike back at Wikileaks, the Internet-based nonprofit group famed for obtaining and releasing sensitive documents into the public domain. The company also placed employee Matthew Steckman on leave after hackers released emails showing he was involved in preparing a similar plan for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to damage ThinkProgress, a pro-labor publication.

Isn’t that peculiar.  Are they playing to their audience of statists, or are they damaging rivals, or what exactly are they doing?  Wikileaks and ThinkProgress may both ultimately be bad entities, but that only compounds the untrustworthiness of Palantir.

Really interesting, this stuff.

Reading more about his mentor Habermas is also interesting, as he seems to be of a very Ozymandius-type utilitarianism that “we know what’s best”.   His critique of religion as a tool to get people to do “what they should do” is somewhat sinister, as are many of his Marxist roots.  It’s subtle, but it’s there.

This Week In June

In the Pacific, June 4-7, 1942:

In Western Europe, June 6, 1944:

For those not familiar with the music, enjoy being introduced to the historically-minded power metal of Sabaton.